There have definitely been innovations. Obviously, a set like krass will witness more blatant innovations to the eye than Liga does. The way Mod DM is structured makes it so that it's much easier to spot developments in the gaming style, whilst changes in Ligasets that seem really minor will appear to be almost non-krass to the observer.
To make an example, if we took Nemo and krass and had them play 10 Liga 1v1s against the ten best Liga 1v1 players of the newschool, it's much more likely that ras will have a better % of victories than Nemo.
Now, think about the situation clearly, is Nemo an inferior player compared to krass? He's not inferior, he can defend, micro and do all of the other stuff than any pro player can do just as good as krass. Then what is it that makes ras has a better % of victories over Nemo? It's the fact that krass knows more things and is capable of spotting details more than Nemo could do in a Liga 1v1.
To me, the ability to spot more details is already a major improvement. Goldeneye is no better than us at all the so called "basic skills", yet he would win almost every Liga 1v1 he played. If such a "minor details" can make you win most games, then such details need to be given the credits they deserve.
Most of the strategies for Ligasetting were invented back then, that's true, and we haven't seen that many newer strategies these days. That's just the way the game is structured, if Austria is the best age at Stone Age just like Great Krass is at Mod Age, and that's something that was originally discovered back then, it's virtually impossible for anybody to come up with a better, different strategy nowadays. There will obviously not be any "major" change regarding that, and it would be impossible.
Still, just because the newschool wasn't able to implement impossible "krass" changes into the game, it doesn't mean that Liga didn't progress. It did progress in other ways, through "minor changes" that aren't easily spottable through the eye of the observer, just because a liga game isn't as "epic" as a Mod DM game, where things can be spotted more easily.
RS_Gollum and NW_Kroucrouch wrote:
Age 8: Imperial Age:
Here you have the choice between boom+inf (with Austria), rush inf (Austria or Kingdom of Krass) or just a classical development (but slow) with Spain (Spain having the best bonuses of the game for inf, but doesn’t have bonus on peons nor on hunting…
This was from a popular guide back then. Now, this just makes me wonder ... did RS_Gollum even have any idea how to play Imperial Age?
_Boom+inf = instantly dead against any Imperial Age play from nowadays, you see Austria and forward rax with Spain and gg.
_Rush inf = funnily enough Gollum doesn't even consider Spain in regards to rushing with inf, though he seems to consider Kingdom of Italy as a viable choice. Pretty weird to me to be fair. As for Austria, it just blows in this age as Spain has just got the upper hand.
_Slow development with Spain: incredibly, Gollum, unhappy for not having mentioned Krass before, puts it at the end and he recommends a slow development(!!), knowing that the only way for the Austrian player to win against Spain at this age is surviving long enough to make a mix cav+inf (and therefore giving the enemy time to mix)?
Now I wonder ... if one of the best EU players from back then didn't have any clue on how to play Imperial Age, why should I even think that he was that knowledgeable. Why would he be so great at finding those kind of tiny details (that would let Goldeneye win almost any krass game) when he's still wondering what's best to do?
Whilst it's true that there was the chance for wider experience, it's also true that part of this experience might have been ... "useless", a waste of time basically (not all of it obviously, but some). Gollum could have all of the experience of this world in playing Austria v Austria at Imperial age, but make him play against any average newschooler, he will Spain forward rax him and Gollum loses. What was that experience for?
What I'm saying is, that part of the time that players took back then to analyze strategies was dedicated into coming up with viable strategies, some of which wouldn't be viable at all today. Now, do you think that oldschoolers were instantly capable of finding out what the best krass was, or do you think they had to take their time? This part of the guide clearly proves the second option to be right.
Football might be a game by endless possibilities where everything is possible, however EE is a videogame that puts some limits. You are bound to abide by what the game offers, and that includes the fact that, simply said, Spain just >>> everything else at Imperial Age. Some oldschoolers might have taken a lot of time before realizing it (and went through "Krass v Krass" kind of games or even Kingdom of Italy), whilst newschoolers already knew from the beginning what the best option was, giving them more time (as well as more years, given it's now 2013) to look into tiny details to assure victory.
I'm not trying to say that newschoolers are better, I'm just trying to have an objective look at things and at the fact that the game had more players back then to have experience comes with the downside of having to investigate through civilizations and strategies BEFORE even coming up with in-game details, and that's something that's just as important.
Also, don't forget that dividing oldschoolers and newschoolers as phenomenons that took place in two different contexts is wrong, as I hardly think it's possible to believe that every newschooler suddendly stopped playing as soon as newschoolers started playing. It's much more believeable to believe in the fact that at some stage they intermingled.
If you have a look at the 2002 (end of the year final) played in Paris between Elfanor and Flimzam and krass, you will see that some things just wouldn't look quite right as of today. I used to have the screens of the games (NW_Fabiossowa had found them on a site) and one of the games was Copper Age.
My first question that comes to mind is, why would Flimzam, in that moment a representer of the 2 supposed best players, would start his krass by TCing is forage settlement when there's not even wood nearby, just because he has hunt next? That's suicide in copper age, and you play it in a final?
The statistics after the game showed an interesting 3500 ps for Elfanor and a 700 ps for Flimzam. It also showed something more interesting, they both aged up to bronze later than 18 f11 (again, instant death nowadays).
Oldschoolers in the 2002 and possibly early 2003 stage hadn't yet ruled out what are today's unviable strategies, and the spectrum of viable strategies was wider, which makes it harder to conduct proper analysis on the actual viable strats (it's much more use to have experience on Spain vs Krass at imperial, than Austria vs Austria), hence making some considereable part of that experience not really that useful. Perhaps useful in some ways (hey, we are still playing Empire Earth), but not as useful as it would be if the range of viable strats had already been ruled out to what the actual viable krass are.
In the interview after the final, Elfanor said, from what I remember (though the link is no longer accessible, it doesn't open the page if you click on the interview), that he considered Gollum to have been his hardest opponent. And yes, Gollum is the guy who wrote the guide as well as the "viable" strategies for imperial age
