Fight!
Fighting on tactic maps versus fighting on building maps. Is it the same, or different? Does being good in one, help in being good in another? Which one is more fun than the other? Etc, etc. I'd like to quote some opinions that I saw in minichat:
Well I have to say that most people that are very good in fighting maps, have also a good fighting in economy maps. In my opinion this "training" helps you quite a bit, even if the armies are "illiogical" because you have more swords,scouts and pikes combined than bowmen for example, but HEY the enemy has the same So if you win all these tactic games, you will also win fights in eco games where you have 50 bowmen and 40 swords (and the enemy has less/more/same than you)
First and the most obvious one - building phase. You might be a good fighter but without ability to produce army. But this is as obvious as the fact that I will never be the best KaM player around. So lets move on. The second thing, and much more important, is the difference between most fighting maps and building maps. Tactical maps focus on simply dumping some troops, equal for everyone, and after the initial army is beaten, nothing helps the defeated to recover. Building maps fights however, are based on the fact that 1. peacetime army isn't everything you will have in the entire game; 2. reinforcements of your enemy can be stopped from appearing if you destroy his economy, 3. you have multiple goals - both offensive and defensive; you can always choose if you want to respond to enemy attacks in one of those ways - either sending reinforcements to help the defender, or to attack somebody else from the enemy team instead. That's why I agree with Ben's critical comment about tactical maps:
In fighting maps, all you have to do is win the battle. That's it. In economy maps, it's very important where you fight and the result of the battle. You must hold certain positions on the map in order to assure the best outcome and to defend your territory. This doesn't hold true for fighting maps.
For me in kam fighting there are many "random factors" that make fighting maps not interesting for me
There are also some special maps which seem to be much more fun than usual tactical maps for me. Just see how much more popular are maps like Knights Frenzy, Conquest, or more recently Furious Warriors. I'd also add Stalemate Tournament, which I like very much, to the list - being easiest to understand of them all (maybe except Frenzy ), I think it will be really popular amongst randoms. All of these maps have fixed the problems of usual tactical maps somehow. There are waves of troops coming out from the barracks (or from other buildings), there are goals to defend/attack (Conquest and FW- buildings, Frenzy - the tower; Stalemate - the... ground? or maybe campiness? ) on which your and enemy's reinforcements amount depends on.
Here are my thoughts on the topic. Now, does anyone want to dive into this pointless discussion with me?