I'm pretty new to the game. To give an idea of where i'm at, I have ~15 hrs in the game so far, and am currently unable to beat the AI in any difficulty above standard. AOE2 is very compelling for me. Naturally, I want to learn how to play it at a reasonable level. Is there something I should do first? What is the best way for me to improve? More A.I. games? Jump online? Do tutorials? Watch pros? Or is it hopeless at this point to catch up with the people who've been playing this since 1999?

http://ift.tt/2jBC6KX

I know that eggys are op especially Isis but what is the best way to beat them with thor?

Does anybody else use the AOE2 soundtrack as background music for studying or doing other work? I've been listening to it for the last month or so while studying and doing their school work and it kind of makes it enjoyable

Hi, I watch some streams and often I see the streamer making a box over both villagers and military and the box somehow only selects the military, this is very useful when your camp is under attack or when I have 2 different military units and simply can't double click one soldier to select all of the same kind.

How do I do this?

Civs without Halberdiers: Aztecs, Berbers, Italians, Malians, Mongols, Saracens, Vikings

Civ without Pikemen: Turks

Aztecs have Eagles and archers and monks which don’t directly counter, but there are tools in the toolbox. They all cost gold. Their UT, Garland Wars, gives +4 attack to Pikes which helps. Like the Malians, I assume they lack Halbs for balance reasons.

Berbers have their own Camel Archers and FU Heavy Camels to go toe-to-toe with incoming camels, but it requires gold. At least their Pikes have Plate Mail Armor.

Italians have Genoese Crossbowman with an anti-cavalry bonus. Costs gold and requires a castle, obviously. They do not get Camels at all. Like Berbers, they get all the infantry armor. Massed Hand Cannons, but we’re talking late Imperial with gold at a premium.

Malians get an extra +1 armor for their infantry with each age advance. This is why I assume they don’t get Halbs. Heavy Camel is in their stable with every upgrade but Blast Furnace. Massed Hand Cannons but spendy.

Mongols can use their Mangudai and Cav Archers with kiting/micro to fight enemy camels. They have their own Heavy Camels but lack Plate Barding. Their Pikes at least get all the upgrades. Still, seems weak.

Saracens have all upgrades for Pikes and for their own Heavy Camels. In addition, their Camels and Mamelukes benefit from the UT for +30 HP making those pretty good trades against enemy camels. I imagine this was the balance thinking. Obligatory HCs reference with obligatory caveats.

Vikings don’t have Pikes, but their UT, Chieftains, gives all infantry bonus damage against cavalry (+2 woop dee doo against camels). Like the Aztecs and Malians, Viking Pikes have a bonus which helps offset the lack of Halbs. In this case, it’s an extra 10/15/20% HP as you age up, on top of every Blacksmith tech.

Finally, the Turks. Past Feudal, their Spear line is useless. You can use massed Janissaries/Hand Cannons, Heavy Camels, and their tanky Cav Archers, but they all cost gold. Out of those options, which is the best?

I raise this because if you’re playing a civ, especially Turks, that lacks Halbs, Camels can be a tough one to stop. They will eat up Light Cavalry/Hussar and break your heart versus Knights/Paladins as they plow through your Skirmishers.

In those cases, I found myself being more careful to keep farmers in range of castles and TCs. But I’d like to hear what really works.

I've been to two different computers stores. One to buy a Pc fit for AOE and another for a laptop for the same game. Each salesman said the game would be able to run on each computer. Each time I tried them it was compatible. I need help. All I want to do is browse Reddit and play AOE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jadxTFqyhRM

^ All of the original + Conquerors songs, so you can see the names.

I love most of them and like the rest, but my favorites are probably Shamburger and Tazer from the base game. Bovinian Derivative in Conquerors is an honorable mention. What are yours?

This is one of the best soundtracks of any game I've played. The game itself is greatly revered but the soundtrack itself deserves some veneration too.

Hey everybody,

I used to play this game all of the time when I was younger. I recently wanted to get back into it but every time I try to run the game (on the disc) it says "Age of Empires II has stopped working."

I am using Windows 7. Any tips for getting it to run?

How strong are Aztecs in the current meta? They seem rather weak in late game... Is their only viable strategy rushing? How competitive is the civ?

Is it possible to use multiple mods in the same time?

Whilst either playing the campaign or using the editor, the game stutters slightly every four seconds or so. Anyone else have this problem?

Also, don't want to Verify Integrity of Game Cache, since I might lose some personal voicefile modding (doubt it's the problem).

Sorry if it's a stupid question but I have the Forgotten, and African Kingdoms. When I look in my random maps I can't see the options available to me like the awesomely fun Socotra.

Hey everyone,

I have been away from this subreddit and I bet no one even realized I am gone anyway 11. I am here to ask your ideas on the current twitch ad policy.

Nowadays, I am watching KotD matches and practice matches for it. Congrats to memb, who put together such an awesome tournament. However, I rarely watch them live so usually I have to watch the recorded videos on twitch.

I realized that twitch has a weird ad system. When the twitch tab is not active, the ad starts but it does not automatically return to the game, which is awkward. I am not always giving it 100% attention so I sometimes just listen to it, unless there is a membrage 11, but twitch demands my full attention.

Moreover, twitch plays the same ads constantly. Nowadays it is either the stupid Phillips commercial with a lousy rape pun or EA battlefront ad. EA ad is somewhat short but I am really fed up with the Phillips ad. It is long, it is boring and it is unskippable. Right now, I swore to God I will never buy anything from Phillips. I know I cannot this promise for long but I'll make sure Phillips will actually lose money because of that ad.

I know that casters make a living out of this and they are definitely not the ones to blame. So, the big question is, how do we reach out to twitch to relax their ad policy?

I am not asking for fully skippable ads. Rather, being able to skip an ad after it plays one time a day seem enough for me. Phillips would be happy as well, as I would be watching its stupid ad once a day and watching first 5,10 or even 15 seconds of it once every hour or so.

The alternative for me is to drop twitch totally and go for videos published in youtube, but before that, I would like to try to fix twitch.

Thanks!

I made a list about which Civ I had the best of each basic unit types (I skipped Navy, Petards and Siege Towers out of lazyness). I didn't consider Team Bonus by the way (except for their own civ).

I thought it would be interesting to add a "Jury Prize" for civs which had unique perks, even if they are not the 2nd best. "Jury Prize" brings something unique, convenient and favors specific tactics. (for example, Mongols ended up with Jury Prize for Rams, Onagers and Scorpions because of the speed boost from Drill). On the other hand, "Best" is for raw stats and/or cheapness.

So here is my list :

Infantry :

Militia-line :

Best : Goths (dirty cheap from feudal) & Malay (even cheaper for post-imp). Even if they are not the best 1v1, their cheapness makes them perfect to fill militia-line standard purposes.

Jury Prize : Malians. Basically removes archers from the list of Militia counters. Less good than huskarls, but cost even less gold. Also excellent for rushes.

Spear-line :

Best : Japanese. I didn’t choose Byz’ because cost is not that much a factor for trash units IMHO Japanese Halb are very high quality ones !

Jury Prize : Slavs. Trash unit with splash damages. What else ? Yeah free tracking :-)

Eagles :

Best : Mayas. Tankyness is so sweet.

Jury Prize : Aztecs. Sorry Incas, but Aztecs are better in direct combat as well as raiding.

Archery :

Archer-line :

Best : Mayans. So cheap. So cheap. So cheap. Can even wreck buildings on top of this.

Jury Prize : Britons. Could have been the best, but a tiny bit more situational. Unique range advantage.

Skirm :

Best : Viet : No real challenge here given that cost is not that much a factor for trash units IMO.

Jury Prize: Byz : Because cost still matters a bit, especially in feudal Age and there is no tremendous Skirm advantages for other civs.

HC :

Best : Portuguese : Gold reduction + Ballisticness is huge.

Jury Prize : Turks. HP and creation speed matters, but instant availability at Imperial age is the reason for this jury prize.

Cav Archer :

Best : Huns. Even with missing armor, they’re still so much cost effective, and have the best for Cav archer rush.

Jury Prize : Magyars. FU, extra damage, extra range. That’s a whole Age of blacksmith upgrades on top of Huns’. Very pop efficient in Imp Age. They might even beat Huns’ cost efficiently… once you paid for all upgrades.

Cavalry :

Knights :

Best : Franks. This one is clear, but they have only convenience or minor advantages compared to standard FU Pal

Jury Prize : Berbers. Sure, they are arguably less good than FU Pals. But they have some perks that no other civ has. They are arguably the best during castle and early imp, and they don’t cost a ton of gold to upgrade. They are even probably able to fight FU Pal more or less cost efficiently…

Scouts :

Best : Magyars and Berbers and Turks. I know I said that cost wasn’t that important for trash units, but other scout bonus are rather minor (Burmese) or balanced by a missing upgrade (Malians and Mongols). So all that remains is discount. Magyars has the best discount for scout rush, Turks for early imp (and gold saving is sweet, especially for Turks), Berbers for Late game. I guess they’re more or less equal.

Jury Prize : Malians. Arguably, missing 15hp from hussars is a bit annoying for an unit supposed to act as a meat shield. Nevertheless, Malians Light Cav can 1v1 anybody’s Hussars. The selling point for me is that increased damages even makes it valuable against units with a bit if melee armor, which is not the case for hussars. Malian light cav can almost 2v1 FU Paladins, and almost 1v1 FU champ (who are supposed to counter trash !). So basically, Malian Light cav are much more versatile. Also a bit cheaper to get FU.

Camels :

Best : Indians. Almost as much damages as Malians’ and as much HP as Saracens’, plus they have armor and damages to buildings. Indian camels even make good tea. Nevertheless, they are expensive to upgrade…

Jury Prize : Berbers. They are as cheap as Indians are expensive. They can regenerate if you want, but that’s just icing on the discount cake.

Battle Elephants :

Best : Khmer. Elephant are slow, but Khmers', not that much. And they do incredible damages. No protection against monk could hurt though.

Jury Prize : Burmese. These ones work even better as arrow sponge, and they act as mini-rams against buildings. Burmese half-cost faith is also a huge bonus. Burmese elephants might be tactically better than Khmers’, even if they don’t have the same destructive potential.

Siege Workshop :

Rams :

Best : Celts. Incredible arrow sponges with improved damages, and faster production.

Jury Prize : Mongols. Because fast Rams is efficient and fun. They don’t have an edge until Imp, so I think celts are a bit better.

Onagers :

Best : Celts. Increased survivability with better damages and faster production.

Jury Prize : Mongols. Drill is so convenient. Require micro-management to be optimal.

Scorpions :

Best : Khmers. Deals more damages than celts’, and increased range is really handy.

Jury Prize : Mongols. Drill is so convenient, once more.

Bombard Cannons :

Best : Portuguese. FU + ballistic + lower gold cost is a very nice set. Probably the best against units.

Jury Prize : Turks. The higher range is noticeable. Free chemistry + HP + Faster production complete quite well the Turkish package.

Trebuchet :

Japanese : Increased firepower with incredible convenience. May even be used to counter mass siege.

Jury Prize : Britons. Wins you every Treb wars and is better at dealing against units than any other treb.

Monks :

Best : Aztecs. Hard to kill, even surviving onager shots and FU.

Jury Prize : Spanish. Because nobody expects Spanish inquisition.

So, what's your opinion ?

Picked the game up over the weekend and i've been having a lot of fun with it, I have been playing mainly the Ethiopians and Japanese but looking for other good land civs.

Any suggestions?

When the enemy walls your gold and you make a ram to free it up, you have to make the ram kill one palisade at a time. This is too painful, why can't the ram auto attack walls/palisades when put on aggressive mode like it does for other buildings?

Anyone else having issues pre-ordering the game? Wanted to get it to see if I got a beta invite. When I go to buy it, I click Get Game, then I put in my paypal, which goes fine. Then it asks me for my address and the country is locked to United States. No matter what address in the U.S I put it just fails the next part. Anyone having this issue? I'm from Canada so I'm assuming it's failing because my Paypal address doesn't match the one I put in during purchase. My Microsoft Account is set to Canada & the correct address so I'm not sure why it is even asking me for one.

Why is nobody playing the chinese? Their reduced cost for all tech seems pretty good...

I really want to play the game more casual and not like some korean nerd practicing for a starcraft tournament but i still want to master the most important shortcuts to become a little more competitive. What are the most important hotkeys to master?

Anyone has file to install AOE II mouse scheme for the default scheme on PC's plz :) Thank you so much for your sharing

Kinda looking for some validation on an idea here - some friends and I were playing some team games the other night and decided we want to adapt some classic maps with the new assets the expansions have provided. One of the ideas we wanted to include was implementing hostile “bandit” units, and have them attack villagers in the same manner that wolves/lions/Komodo dragons do. Would it be better/easier to reskin one of those units to look like a militia/spear unit, or would it be better to mod in a Gaia controllable militia that wouldn’t convert?

The possible contenders are: Persians, Franks, Huns, Spanish, Magyars, Indians, Slavs, Malians, Berbers, Burmese, Khmer

The possible contenders are:

Huns:- Smooth build due to no houses, faster stables, FU Paladin | Persians:- Best boom, Full Stable | Spanish:- Trade bonus, FU Paladins, Conqs | Franks:- Good scouts, best knights in game, nice food eco | Magyars:- Good scouts, FU Paladin, great CA, free attack upgs | Slavs:- Nice food eco, FU cavalier, good imperial age composition | Indians:- OP Imp camels, villager discount gives good boom | Berbers:- Discounted cavalry, camel archers in imp | Malians:- Good cavalry, great eco, Champskarls in imp | Burmese:- good eco, arambai, elephants in imp | Khmer:- can do FC eles (since they move fast), good uptime |

Map Link: http://ift.tt/2inMWI9

Map created by Dormin [STM:/GGDormin] [Number of players required: 8]

(Civs): If you want to be "geographically correct", then choose civs such as Celts, Tuetons, Britons, Etc. (Pop Cap): 500 (999 In editor, therefore it can go higher with expansion.) (W/L%): Mostly Land. (Stone): High (Fish): High (Wood): High (Gold): High (Trading encouraged) (Average Game Time): 1-3 Hours

Some people thought Karambits was a bit too strong in castle age, because they are so fast to be produced and so cheap. Regardless of how strong it is, I never saw people make scorpions to deal with it, which should be some of the hardest counter in the game. For example in this game, why scorpion is not produced despite having a siege workshop? Its also way cheaper than a mangonel, so if dealing with Karambit+mangonel, you should be able to make something like knights in front of the scorpion as well. Or am I wrong?

And don't you think it is great that the introduction of new units just helps bring out some underused units too? I like how the feudal eagles and the M@A meta now make people at least to consider making longswords versus meso-civs.

especially as Spain on treaty i keep encountering the problem where ill tell them to attack and they'll stand just outside their attack range and do nothing.

same with vills and buildings.

what do i do?

Imagine a game that mixes Mount & Blade, Arma and Age of Empires. From Age of Empires it would take the civilization evolution through the eras, from prehistoric to the near future; from Mount & Blade it would take the sword combat, army control, RPG stuff like relationship system and so on, and from Arma it could take the fire weapons sytem and other simulation stuff.

All in an huge and beautiful open world.

It would be amazing, don't you think?

For the past few days, whenever I finish a game (spec or play), I exit back into a broken room on voobly. Specifically, the room does not allow me to type or use any buttons (including the X to close the window), but I can still see the chat. Also, my mouse is interfacing with the window behind the game room. The only solution I've found is to close the window and go back in.

This all started after I installed the latest windows update...I suspect these two things are connected...any ideas other than reinstalling Voobly?

Hypothetically, how strong do you think a civ with the following characteristics would be:

• Average tech tree (units/BS upgrades/eco upgrades)
• Unique unit: Mounted villager. Functionally identical to a villager, but with the speed of a missionary. Has 'cavalry' armor class. Built from TC and castle for 75 food.
• Imp-age unique tech: Mounted villagers lose detrimental effects of 'cavalry' armor class, keep beneficial effects.
• Other bonuses, castle-age unique tech: average

I've seen some pretty cool alternate (maybe additional, not sure) civilization mods for the old AoM, and have been fruitlessly searching for their conversions to AoMEE. Anyone know of any civilization mods for AoMEE? Replacers are fine, but I would prefer Add-ons.

Turks with more hp, Spanish with faster attacking, Italians cheaper hcs, Portuguese hcs that are more accurate or the Indians(?) with +1 range? Probably not a definite winner here, they excellent at different things, so i guess its opinion-based.

I noticed that the enemy can build on my building foundations if his villagers start construction earlier. In that case, my buildings will be cancelled. Do I get refund of the building cost?

Hey all, so I recently upgraded my computer to a windows 10 machine, with a 1080P screen (so now I don't have to articifially enlarge the resolution anymore!). However, I can't capture my screen using the windows 10 game bar feature when I'm playing on Voobly AoC. I try to start a recording, but once I enter the game it auto-stops it. Does any body know how I can do it with windows game bar, or with a different screen recording device?

The reason I'm asking is because even though I'll probably stick with AoE2HD for now, I'd still like to be able to screen-record games on voobly.

Looking for some chill people to play some HD with! I’m in US Pacific time zone. HMU if you wanna play!

I barely ever see pro players use walls unless it is one piece blocking some path... should walls be used in some situations or are they that useless?

Hello everyone,

It occurred to me too much times, that playing Malians, I got myself f***ed up by Britons only spamming longbowmen.

At imperial age, how to counter this?
Champskarls doesn't work.
Light cavalry with farimba doesn't work.
Siege onagers doesn't work.
Elite skirmishers doesn't work.

What would you do?

Hello I am new to AOE3 , and my friends and me wanted to pick it up since it was on a steam sale. I decided to pick the Japanese because the wonder mechanics interested me. I'm asking what is the genrally strategy for playing the Japanese throughout the game and how should I edit my deck to fit that strategy

So me and my brother have started making a random map game every once in a while. I started to rush and i think im getting better at it, but, what are the best civs to rush (specially a feudal one, cause i still "suck" at dark age rush) and what units? I like to use man at arms to wreck some villagers, and when i hit castle i just spam scouts and wreck again more villagers.

What's the point of Monks converting enemy units? I know the wololo monk is the most iconic unit in AoE but it seems a bit silly how monks can change unit ownership... is there a reason for this mechanic to exist? Is it to balance very strong units?

wtffffff is this . I keep getting banned from medieval siege for 15 mins everytime i start a game for "Using AutoHotkeys program.".... I don't own this whatever program, and I'm banned cuz of something i dont have? Is the mod HD hotkeys that i have the reason? (So senseless to be a reason)

Why isn't the balance between civs updated? On the fanwiki it only shows balance changes with the introduction of DLCs / expansions but nothing beyond that. Judging from the talk on this reddit the civs aren't exactly super balanced either... Since the game is still being sold they could patch some buffs / nerfs in to make the civs more balanced? Just wondering.

I would like to display an instruction every time a player kills any king on the map. These kings are not all pre placed, therefore I can not use the "destroy object" condition.

Also "Accumulate attribute" in Trigger Studio does not allow specifying the king.

Mmmm, How?

Brits have better eco bonuses than Ethiopians (+33% sheep and -50% wood on TC is better than +300F/+300G overall IMO). Britons have the better archery as well, starting from castle age. (Brits have better micro potential due to range and can outrange mangonels in castle age). Britons cavalry is a tad better and their infantry is at par with Ethiopians. The only thing that brits lack over Ethiopians is maybe late-game siege, but 1v1 Arabia games seldom go that late anyway. Why do pro players like Ethiopians, but not Britons? Ethiopians is being picked in almost every series in KotD, but Britons not that frequently.

I just started playing online and im a bit of a noob. Im looking for some good combo's to test out online. I have mainly been using Musk/Rockets and Uhlan/WW. Open to suggestions preferably something that is easy to micro.

I've been watching done videos about proper development and ageing up. I really like the fast castle for some reason. I know a lot of people do a fast feudal to go Archer rush or scout rush...but what are some strategies of fast castle?

So I’ve been watching u/zeroempires recent videos on the regicide tournament and I’m wondering how he got the spectator display configured as he does. I’m pretty sure the commentators mentioned the tournament was on HD but I’m pretty sure there are no such mods on Steam to do this.

If I’m mistaken and they are playing on Voobly then the graphics looks like the overlay mod, based on the tech upgrades bar, but I don’t know how he is displaying so much info on the chart. It seems the chart is a mix between the economy and general display. While I know you can configure the mod by typing !overlaysettings in chat, I don’t know how to trigger displaying the current resources and all the other information in the same panel.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Video for reference.

Imagine how much better games could be, if by pressing a button you could talk to your allies! Obviously there would also need to be a mute option for each individual player. I know there's Skype and Discord, but an in-game microphone function would be so much easier to use. #aoe4suggestions?

I looking for an old real time strategy game. It is similar to Age of Empires but has the modern times. The desktop icon looks like this: http://ift.tt/2jtcDmV

ty for help :)

For me I think it was Vinch picking Goths and absolutely crushing India Stark in R2G4. India is one of the top civs in the tourney, and virtually nobody has used Goths, but that was one of the most brutal civ wins I've seen so far -- Castle India just has no real response against Perfusion Husks and Pikes. Great off-beat pick by Vinch, well used.

I just recently bought and downloaded the HD version of this game from Steam after not playing it for 15 or so years. It's as much fun or more fun than I remember. I've been really interested in multiplayer matches but every time I do one the ping is so high it's unplayable. Like 100+ on average, with few second lags every 10-20 seconds. Now I'm sure many people are just used to this and can play fine with it, but I feel like it slows me down massively and makes it hard for me to get stuff done in even twice the amount of time it takes just playing the computer on my own. Any tips I'm missing out on?

So I have the game downloaded in English after buying it from Steam and obviously the English works fine. I also wanted to try out the Korean version because I speak/read/understand a good deal of Korean, too. But whenever I go into either the options in-game or the properties on Steam, all I see are these white boxes next to the language:

http://ift.tt/2AGQ8WL

This actually seems to go for Japanese and Traditional Chinese, too.

Anyone know how to fix this?

How do i get my game to look like this? http://ift.tt/2nbZsvL

what is it? cant find it in hotkeys menu

I am not the greatest player, so please, no harsh comments for this question:

What is the best way to counter Malians as Persians? (mostly my question relates to [Post]Imperial Age). I realize hitting them earlier than they hit me is always an answer, but the most frustrating thing to me (and the reason for my question) is when they push with Elite Gbetos and Heavy Camels I can't seem to stop it. Malian Heavy Camels (with Farimba) plus Elite Gbetos seem to be a good combo vs. Persians. Paladins crush the Gbetos but not with a camel shield out front.

Every time I ask this question, I get told to use Hand Cannoneers against the Gbetos, but they sure don't seem to do too well when I try them. The Gbetos speed, plus MELEE at range, seems to cut through the short-ranged Persian Archers, Siege, and Hand Cannoneers rather quickly. I recently saw the post about the AoE2 Calculator (http://ift.tt/2jZMwrN), and it seems to validate this point a little bit if you compare Malian Elite Gbetos vs. Persian Hand Cannoneers. Both the kills in seconds and trade ratios seem to favor Elite Gbetos.

Anyway, if you think it might just be my tactics with my HC, I'd appreciate a link to a video of someone effectively countering Elite Gbetos with Hand Cannoneers.

Was just perusing the RM 1v1 ladder and found the statistics mildly interesting, how many there are in each category. I like how neatly it cuts in half with each 100 point jump. (approximately, but especially at the top)

Note that this is obviously only in reference to active players.

If you are above 1700, you are among the top 7500 players in the world.

If you are above 1800, you are among the top 3000 players in the world.

If you are above 1900, you are among the top 1500 players in the world.

If you are above 2000, you are among the top 600 players in the world, although in actuality most of those accounts have decayed to 2k from inactivity and then stopped there at the threshold. If you ignore all the accounts with a rating of exactly 2000 and assume most of those are inactive, then you're actually among the top 150 active players.

If you are above 2100, you are among the top 80 players in the world.

If you are above 2200, you are among the top 40 players in the world.

If you are above 2300, you are among the top 20 players in the world.

If you are above 2400, you are among the top 10 players in the world.

If you are above 2500, you're Liereyy. (at time of writing.)

Long story short I bbought the game again for the first time in like 10 years, love it, veryr addicting.

However, I lovve playing online but I always feel like I'm get wrecked. I try to rush to castle age with 30 villagers, but when it comes to building troops I feel they are always very very weak.

Do I constantly upgrade my woodcutting and food to increase the percentage of resources they gain or just rush to castle? i'm so confused.

when i build the blacksmith which upgrade should i be doing first to make an impact?

i enjoy plying khmer if that helps!

I'm a mac user but I'm going to put a bootcamp on my mac to play aoe2. I suppose I could go with win7, win10, or XP?

XP is not supported anymore but has gotten security patches.

It is now happening constantly and i dont know what to do anymore... Next thing ill try is to reinstal the game. My internet connection is perfect with 0% loss. Everything in the game going fine but then eveyrone drops and I win and I get elo but my friends are there left 3v2 or 4v3 or 2v1... anybody had this same problem ? Any ideas on how to solve it ?

Can i play with my mate if i have all Expensions & DLCs and he only the basic game? Does it mean he is only restricted from playing the newer nations or does it go beyond that?

Does anyone know whether you get those for free if you own the original versions on steam ( i guess not... ) ? Will gameplay change or only visuals? Currently thinking about picking up 2 + 3 again on steam but seems a bit of a waste when i have to buy the definite versions again? Would only make sense to get some practice meanwhile, i guess... last time i played those as a kid and i was pretty shit ( not knowing anything about tactics or micro other than what units counter others and i loved my walls... lol ).

Also why do people prefer AoE II over AoE III? Might be the wrong forum to ask this since you guys might be biased but i really want to know what that is all about... is the balance better in AoE II ??

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0SOhSgaHiI

So, i like ffa every now and again. Ffa nomad or pilgrims are the standards that i always fall back on.

But i like doing the odd 8 player socotra or whatever.

I recently did a 8 player feudal war. Everyone goths. Which resulted in a 5k to 8k kdr.

8 player pilgrims on tiny was hectic.

Anyways im interested if anyone had any odd 8 player ffa ideas to try out. Or have had any cool ideas that worked well

I am interested in the games between Viper and Liereyy. The way I am doing it is text searching "liereyy" in every page of Viper match records. Is there a better way to do this? Thanks.

I see a lot of people whose rating reads as~

1600*

What does that mean?

To be more specific: why are boars deemed so important that people let sheep rot in order to harvest the boar? I always exhaust all the mutton before starting on the pork, but a lot of people seem to lure a boar over and switch their shepherds onto it, while the meaty sheep carcasses are rotting away. Why is this? Is the collection rate better?

I don't know what's going on. I try to move many units at a time and they just take a small step, then stop, then take another small step, then stop again.

This causes my entire army to get wiped by mangonels, how do I fix?

There's a unit you can find in this game using Genie Editor (unit ID 536). it's a ship that, after a couple touchups, can convert enemy ships. It was made by the original devs but it seems they abandoned it in favour of the Fireship.

The water combat of this game is widely regarded as quite bad, even after the admirable efforts of the HD devs. Is reinstating the boarding/converting ship from the alpha is the solution?

My favorite has to be the brumese. Plus 1 to infantry per age advance, free lumber upgrases, and 50% off monastery techs, makes them very versitile and reliable on many maps. Least favorite Veitnamese, no eco bonus and meh archer bonus hinders their speciality plus no tech bonus for said archers. Reveal bonus is decen though.

Now, its a go-to strategy for most high-rated players, and im not a high-rated player myself, so clearly there is something i dont understand here. By drushing you are delaying your feudal time, and militias are kinda rubbish, i mean, they are not really any stronger than villagers with loom. You are not going to be able to pick of many villagers with such a weak unit, and if you are unable to do so, you delayed your feudal time, where you could be making man-at arms and/or archers. You know, units that can actually do serious eco-damage.

I guess going militia forces the opponent to loom up, and build a few house-walls and palisades, other than that idk. I guess for aztecs its viable simply because of cheer numbers though.

I'm talking about Hearttt. He has to have the most difficult path to the finals of any player. I figured he'd lose to TaToH in a close series but he won convincingly. Now he plays Daut in the round of 8 and in all likelyhood Liereyy in the semis and TheViper in the finals.

I feel bad for the guy, but if he manages to somehow pull off some magic and wins the tournament I'll print off a copy of my challonge bracket and eat it.

On stream if y'all want

Long story short I just bbought the game again for the first time in like 10 years. I'm addicted.

However I got one problem. I love playing online but every single match I always feel weak. My troops never do any damage, why is this? I do great at the beginning getting all my villagers set onto wood, gold and food etc but when it comes to building knights they seem to be so damn weak compared to the enemy.

What am I doing wrong? How many villagers should I be building.

Hello everyone, i say this game on offer on steam and the price is very nice, so i decided i may buy it original, after all these years of enjoying this great game to support the devs, but my question is are the online matchmaking services still functioning? And if so for how long will it be?

So I want to play AOE II on Voobly but it's been so long I don't even know which expansion I used to play.

I could get Age of Empires 2:The Age of Conquerors if that's viable or any other expansion too. My goal is to play multiplayer with my SO so I will be installing it on 2 PCs. Looking for the most stable and reliable version.

Thanks!

Guessing it involves 1TC, a really late feudal time and skipping a few vills in castle but not sure of specifics

Assuming standard resources and huntables, how do you do it?

Have they fixed hotkeys already so I can return to the game? Thank you!

I recently bought age of empires 2 hd with all the expansions from Amazon and also downloaded the Wololokingdoms mod and also the compatiblity patch. But when I try to run the Wololokingdoms file, it says "Steam api could not be initialized". Does that mean that I have to install the game via steam? And if so, how should I do that? Thank you for helping

Is it just me or do fishing ships gather food way slower? Even when using fishing traps...do get upgraded along with villagers when you upgrade their speed and gathering quantities?

I just discovered that http://ift.tt/2BpWiaK is a thing, and since it's apparently never been touched, edit rights are free/open right now. Apparently every subreddit has a /wiki page. Just learned this. But ours is empty and unlocked for free editing.

We get new players asking "how can I learn to play" pretty often, and several other FAQ. Let's build out a nice wiki for people and stick a nice fat link at the top of the sidebar above livestreams.

I modified it just now to add a few suggestions for what we can put there.

Take a look at the /r/fitness wiki for inspiration, although I don't think we need to go quite that far.

Thoughts?

Time for another weekly round of questions.

Talk about everything from build orders to advanced strategies.

Whatever your questions, the community is here to answer them.

So ask away!

I didn't play this game for 12 years or something. Got the HD version from steam and everytime i start it, it is way too small. Unplayable. Can someone help me, or give me a link or something?

Hi, I am a new aoe2 player who hope to get some advice un what multiplayer is concerned. Do you have any tips to get better? Any simple civ to start with? I played the game many years ago but basically forgot how to play it. Any king of help would be apriciated. Thanks.

Nothing else disconnects, my internet isn't flickering. Still shows perfect connection, other apps still have connection....but voobly disconnects. It's really frustrating because it's stopping me from playing on voobly at all. I don't know what's wrong.

Has this happened to anyone else? I am able to reconnect immediately, but it drops me from the game so it doesn't matter. Moreover it doesn't let you save/exit....it just auto-loses you the game.

Hi everyone, what are your thoughts about Hearttt vs TaToH (3-0) in KotD tournament? Is Hearttt the best suramerican player right now?

So this is a rather small thing but it's been a slight annoyance to me for such a long time that i should probably try find a solution for it and google hasn't helped me so far.

So my problem is: A lot of the times in the beginning when i send the 3 starting vills to build the 2 houses the foundation gets placed, they walk up to the foundation and then...do nothing. Obviously since it's the start of the game the foundations are usually not really blocked by anything (only on one side by the other house if at all- but that would still leave 3 sides open) yet it consistently happebs that i tell then to build houses, go manage the scout,sheep queue a villager in the tc and look around the map (for example in team games where everybody was placed) and come back to find that my villagers have just been standing there doing nothing which then usually results in a little bit of idle TC from the very start. (Either housed or if i notice it very late also sometimes delayed sheep gathering leads to not having enough food for a vill for a few seconds a little later in dark age). Is that a known bug or am i missing an intentional mechanic about building placement that would explain this?

Any well known reason and possible solution or do i just have to focus on them until i actually see them start building?

I have the 800 food but the button to advance to colonial age is not lit up or responsive. Any one else have the same issue?

I find stuff like this to be very useful for games where efficiency is everything. For example in Civ 5 the building "Medical lab" exists but in games it's never built because it has too little impact for how much production is spent on it at the time in the game it gets researched.

So is there anything like this? Perhaps only 1 type of ranged unit is worth building in a certain era, or priests are just not worth the population points they take (just examples I have no clue).

I'm very new but I'm downloading all the videos and saving all the guides I can for me read tomorrow on a along road trip. I love games like this where there is such a huge amount to learn and such a high skill cap.

Also, what's the most information dense video/video series you can recommend for AoE II?

And serious answers please! No "Only build workers, millitary don't help your economy LUL Jebaited!" please!

Surprised I couldn't find a guide on this. I just downloaded Barbarian which is supposedly a voobly 2k level AI, but I'm not sure what to do with the downloaded script files. Also apparently is only works for UP1.4 ? Does TheMax not update it anymore?

I sometimes worry that more and more people are leaving the game. The amount of inactive 2k voobly accounts is sad, and old pros that don't play anymore, and many people on HD that I used to see a lot that I don't see anymore.

But I could easily be imagining it. There's tons of pro streams with thousands of viewers daily, and 100+ lobbies each on both HD and voobly anytime I check.

But are there any hard numbers to be sure?

https://youtu.be/GWt3_ud-GD8?t=599 In this specific case.

Upstream

• NEW: updating to same string formatting method; slight refactor of binstr() (Link)

Issues

• PROPSED: Translation: Frängisch (Link)

Too few bugs for your taste? Build the project yourself for Linux, OS X or Windows and report your own findings to us.

Open Discussions

• Running on Windows fails: Not finding correct version of OpenGL (Link)

Upcoming

• Game simulation with Curves Logic
• Windows installer package
• Use libopus instead of opusenc binary
• Monk conversions
• Settings menu placeholder
• Re-write of the coordinate system
• Minimap
• New efficient renderer
• Nyan integration

what folder do i paste in? Seems i either pasted in wrong file or voobly didnt recognize the file

Hello all.

I tried to pitch 20 Burmese and Japanese Halberdiers against each other in the scenario editor and I have zero knowledge on triggers so I messed things up.

Does anyone know whether the Burmese +3 attack can beat the Japanese faster attacking speed?

Hey guys! So a while ago I came up with the idea for something like this after watching Jordan23 (world's top AoE2 player, recent events notwithstanding) struggle a bit with the new civs and bring out his cheat sheet. I had the same issue after picking up AoE2 after a decade as the number of civs has made it pretty hard to keep track of all the techs, bonuses, how each unit fares against each other, and so on.

So I started working on a small side project for this, an online tool that calculates unit stats and simulates the attack system of AoE2. Basically a more interactive version of AoCStats. I tried to take everything into account: tech effects, civ/team bonuses, hidden effects, multiple projectiles, etc.

Here's the link to try it out, let me know what you think! Hope some people will find it useful and it helps new players learn the game a bit easier. The source code is on github, so if you see something wrong you can submit an issue or (even better) a PR.

If there is one civ no one seems to be excited about to play them, it's gotta be the slavs. They may have FU infantry and FU cavalier/hussar, as well as cheaper siege, but is that really enough to warrant playing them over pretty much any other civ?

• the unique technology to buff monk's armor feels rather bad. It protects them from villagers/wolves, but that's kind of it. Also, no Heresy/Faith
• The Boyar is kind of like a Paladin, except it has less hp and ranged armor in favor of more melee armor. But when your cavalry is fighting melee units, it usually is fighting pikes/camels these days, against which the 6 melee armor does not help (but the lack of hp compared to a Paladin does). And the unit loses a lot of pierce resistance, which was the best thing about the night line. Now the unit only really counters the normal swordsman line, and can fight against enemy knights. Everything else is strong against the super expensive Boyar.
• No gunpowder units
• A small economic bonus that pretty much becomes irrelevant when you really would start profiting from it (castle age+), because farming speed seems to be capped, and before castle age, you tend to rely a lot more on other sources of food. Compared to other economic bonuses, it outright sucks.
• The other unique technology, Druzhina, performs way worse than anyone hearing it for the first time would expect. Why? Because the AoE is super small. So your unit pretty much only does trample damage, when it is swarmed with multiple enemies attacking it. Now, for elephants and even the byzantine Cataphract, this frequently occurs, as those units are tanky enough to get swarmed in the first place, at which point they profit from trampling. However, Slavs only have swordsmen and halbs. Helbardiers die way too fast to get swarmed and reliably make use of Druzhina, leaving only the swordsmen line. And even in the off-chance your opponent does not use a unit that kills your Champions fast (haha), they still perform underwhelming compared to real, straight up infantry bonuses, such as attacking faster or +3 or +4 damage. Oh, and Druzhina is 1200 food. Which is a TON of food, when the only units that profit from it are super food-heavy.
• The team bonus seems to be miniscule. It translates to "military buildings cost -25 wood", which is okay, but you won't profit from that much until you are having enough wood anyways to not worry about the extra 25 wood. I mean, it's okay, but it's not a game-changing mechanic. You might save 100-150 wood in castle age, and another 200 wood in imperial.

So, in essence, Slavs are a civ with pretty much no bonuses until castle age, where they get 15% cheaper siege. And that's it. No real economic lead over any other civ, no decisive military advantage in any area. That 15% cheaper siege seems to be the only reason to play Slavs, really.

Therefore, I would like to start a discussion about what could be done to tackle at least some of the problems mentioned above. Changes, buffs. I know that this week's civ discussion is about the Britons, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about other civs, right?

• What would you change to make the Boyar a viable unit? Decrease the cost? Increase pierce armor? Give it special armor against anti-cavalry bonus damage (similar to the cataphract)? Is the boyar in general just too similar to the cataphract and needs a new identity?
• Would you give the Slavs at least the bombard cannon to profit from 15% cheaper siege, as they don't even get bracer or archers in general, and the Onager line is their only real ranged threat?
• Is the economic bonus enough? Slavs do get all economic upgrades except for Stone Shaft Mining (which arguably is not useful anyways) and Guilds. Then again, Two-Man Saw and Crop Rotation aren't super strong compared to the other bonuses. How would you change the economic bonus to make it more valuable, both for early and late game?
• Do you feel like Druzhina is reasonably priced and strong enough as their only military bonus? Would you give the slavs another military bonus? Which unit line would you give a stat bonus, if you had to?

I want to buy it on Steam but i want to spend my $5 on a multiplayer game. Does aoe2 have an active multiplayer? Is it worth getting for someone that is interested mostly in playing multiplayer?

I always resign games when they last more than like 45 minutes because imperial battles are too stressful

And I play arena 11

Have been watching KotD and practice games before it started. I find it difficult to understand why Berbers are being considered an "OP" civ by many. They don't have ANY considerable eco bonus (faster vils slightly improves farming only and thats it), neither early military bonus. Castle age onwards they have good units. But haven't civs with dark and feudal age eco and military bonuses always been preferred as top in Arabia?

I see Camel archers in castle age being labelled OP but, it needs a damn 650 stone investment + blacksmith tecs + ballistics + bloodlines + Thumbring. By that logic, Spanish should be more powerful with Conqs requiring no upgrades to be effective. But they are not considered top tier at all for Arabia. There must be some reasoning by pro players, would love to hear it.

In Imperial age, there is no doubt camel archers are very very strong, but thats late imp and there is many other units that are very strong esp in TG (Mames, Mangudai, War Ele, Paladin) etc.

So many people online are confused by certain aoe2 terminology, I'm here to set the record straight and give you guys a complete list, so that if you see one of these words online you will know exactly what it means:

1. Drush = Dark Age Rush
2. Arush = Archer Rush
3. Scrush = Scout Rush
4. Krush (my favourite) = Knight Rush
5. Mrush = Monk Rush
6. Vrush = Villager Rush (AKA Supremacy)
7. Trush = Tower Rush
8. Wrush = Wall Rush (LUL)
9. Flush = Should be Frush to keep with the theme but this one is already pretty well known and means Feudal Age Rush

Those are all the Rushes I can think off with any degree of viability, if anyone can make a Skirmisher or Spearman rush work I will happily add them to the list (Skrush and Sprush respectively).

Hope this helps and good luck!

Is anyone remembering gold days in late and early 90s? So good games back then Age of Empires, Quake, Half Life, Red alert, Blood, Doom, Diablo, Starcraft, Abe. Some game died, some are still here for example Quake Champions is in beta currently, Doom was there last year. Dont know for any other games if they will continoue making them. Do you guys know if there are any legendary games coming back from 90s? Do you even like games as they are today?

I want to be able to watch them as unfortunately I haven't been able to catch them and not miss work. Is there anywhere that I can see only the videos. I'd try twitch streams past broadcasts, but they're not clearly marked and are mixed in with other content so I'd have to hunt for them. Does anyone know of anyone who has it all clearly marked so I can watch them? (Doesn't need to be separated into different videos, as I want to watch them all anyways)

Hi everyone..
I got the game recently and just finished the 2 campaigns... And looking to try multi-player.. Is there any resources to help me play better.. Campaign has been to my speed, but worried how I'll fare in MP.. How do I choose the best god for me ? Really appreciate any help