I swear I use to do really well with mayans but now I just get my ass handed to me. Has the overall meta for other civs changed and just became harder to play mayans or what?

Ever since the update i've noticed attack move being kinda wierd, it sometimes work and sometimes doesn't.

This is incredibly frustrating as units just walk(in AGGRESSIVE stance) into enemies and suicide.

Is it just me?

I am very new to the game. I have only played singleplayer and I recently begun watching some videos about strategies for the best civs as I would like to get into online play. I am seeing civs such as Japan mentioned and I do not know how to unlock any of them. I can't find any way to unlock them online. I completed the 3 acts of the campaign and I didn't unlock anything. Can anyone help?

As above, the game just freezes on the last slide and I can hear the audio of the instructional video but not see it. The scenario then loads and I can play it no issues.

Anyone had a similar issue? I’ve disabled all my mods to no avail.

I am missing many HUD elements due to the update, and have tried verifying game cache. Is this an issue with anyone else? Also trying to avoid full re install.

Me specifically I have an i5-4440 CPU and I feel like AOE 2 DE runs fine on my computer FPS wise but in the future I would like to play in 4K but I feel like my computer is a bit old for that, so I was wondering: what difference does a STRONGER CPU make in a game like this, what would change if I upgraded to I5-4460 that a friend has, for example?

What is the most important PC component for playing Age Of Empires do you guys think? I want to play in 4K so I need a good graphics card right? Also I want good fps so I need a newer CPU?

They added Flaming Camels so people would play more of the under utilized Tatar civ and gather more game data on them. Of this I'm certain.

Is it just me or is the new on screen (minimap is fine) like the building colour and units, the new "green" colour is far to like yellow? not sure if im just not used to it but its pretty hard to tell in the heat of the moment if units are your ally or enemy

I've been fooling around with the Genie Editor for a while, but there's some little things I haven't wrapped my head around yet. First thing would be how to show unique non-castle units in the tech tree (moved around the Imperial camel), any idea how to move that to a different civ? Secondly, I managed to disable Stone Walls/Gates, but it doesn't show in the tech tree (like with Goths or Cumans). And lastly I'd want to play around with the Khmer farming bonus, but I can't seem to find it anywhere, anyone any ideas where that could be hidden?

Also, although not as important, would there be any way to modify certain aspects of the architecture styles, as in, having a civ with Asian Architecture, but Central Asian sails, only regarding that civ specifically?

I'd be thankful if anyone could answer some of these questions, even if that includes a different program, no issues with that ;)

Also first ever reddit post, so yay i guess

Just curious, any answers is greatly appreciated.

I've played well over 50 1v1 and 30 something team games and it's not as bad in team games. But 1v1 I usually get stomped on like 4-6 games in a row. And I mean stomped. And then I'll completely stomp 1 sometimes 2 people in a row and then get my ass handed to me 4 to 6 games in a row again.

Or is there a skill level limbo of not becoming a noob anymore but still definitely a noob lol?

Side note. I did win my first 8 or so back in January. Not sure if a lot more people started playing on ranked in d.e and that's another reason why?

I use the improved ui tech mod which shows you your civ's tech tree in the actual game ui, but now it doesn't work with the new update. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Sooooo...

Dark age Infantry discount was a mistake. The only change Goths needed was a Khmer Hunting Bonus.

BUT this new patch they are worse than ever.

Now you need to wait until imperial to get 35% discount. In every other age supplies is the same or better.

Also, Goths always had a bonus attack against buildings but removing arson makes their infantry worse than before until imperial (where they are the same as before).

​

LOOK ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS 2 THINGS FROM OG DE BALANCE!!!!

Give them a Khmer Hunting Bonus,

And Give them the last armor upgrade (otherwise remove supplies from ALL civilizations).

I bought the game (DE) when it came out but I had to refund it due to the high ram usage that made my game crash, now Im considering to buy it again

I have 8gb of ram, a gtx 760 and an i5-4460 according to the steam page my pc should run it

Someone had the same problem in November and now can play the game? Did they fix it?

I heard that now Wine is not working well with Steam. Can someone give me a link to a very easy to understand tutorial on how to use bootcamp to play aoe2 from Steam on my mac? I'm not really a gamer, so I don't know the lingo, but I just miss this game.

Thanks!!

Anyone have any advice for winning a game custom game, 2 player, 50 pop max game on hardest setting? I usually play on hard and can win no problem, but I've recently tried the hardest setting and find it brutal. The enemy always gets to the Tool Age in 3 minutes and the bronze age in under 10 (I play on normal speed lol) and then smokes me with a massive attack of Bronze Age Units.

Like am I missing something?? It feels as though the enemy has an unreasonable advantage and I was wondering if anyone else had any thoughts or advice lol on their winning strategies.

Arbs have 40 HP; Skirms have 35 HP. Both will be killed in 1 shot by the 50 melee damage Flaming Camels.

Can someone please load up AGE3 and look at their attack bonuses, speed, cost, training time, and armour classes please?

I'm specifically interested in attack bonuses and cost.

Not sure if its just me, but to actually save now I have to create a whole new file

Hey,

I made the "Improved Tech Tree UI" mod, and just FYI, my mod (and any other UI mod!) will currently break the UI.

Please disable these mods for now (you may need to restart the game after you do so!).

I'm working on getting my mod updated to work with the new patch. :)

Like this https://i.imgur.com/9iu84f7.jpg (Menu and resources. I was also missing almost all icons on the scout and had to guess where to click. It was a short game but I assume I have a lot of things missing I haven't found yet)

Anyone else's icons for the type of resources owned and required for upgrades missing after the update?

The red that would normally cover unavailable upgrades is also missing, among other small things.

Flaming camels tatars new UU HYPE

I would like to get back into this game but have no pc and would like to play it on my tv. What’s the cheapest route that I can go to run this game. Love me some mythology!

Hello, I just recently started playing Ranked in DE (I'm rating 1001, I think), and I just get put against much better players than me, is it just that Age of Empires is now so advanced that even at rating 1000 can just outmatch me in every way? I managed to win one game out of three, my first one was the win, the second one I got tower rushed which I have no idea how to deal with, then I kept away from ranked for a while tried to train a bit, learnt how to do a knight rush and went to play today, I managed to get to castle quickly made some knights and rushed my opponent, managed to kill some of his stone vills and was like "huh, I could actually win this, but behold, my opponent had just built his forward castle near my base, tried to get it down with rams, but he destroyed them with vills, got my knights there, killed the vills, but hey, pikemen appeared and killed my remaining rams and my knights, I panicked and didn't know what to do against the pikemen, so I made archers, but I was playing Spanish and they don't have crossbowman, so I tried skirmishers, but those were dealing no damage to pikemen and then he started doing plumed archers from the castle and even my skirmishers were doing no damage to them and I couldn't get my second gold (fyi it was a Gold Rush), he denied it from one side with the castle, the second side with pikemen and at that point I just resigned.

​

I know this post is just about complaining and "crying", but well I just want to let it out somewhere, I get so demoralized everytime I play against players, because I felt like at rating 1000 I should be able to compete, but apparently not.. Can't I just start with rating 500 or something? :D

If this also falls under the NDA, please just delete this post, i re-read the mail several times and thought that it forbids only specific communication about the game itself, not about starting dates and so on.

Data from my last 12 TGs played between 29th and 30th.

Team DC/Crash: 1

Enemy DC/Crash: 4

Actually played: 7

Of the 7 games I actually get to play, 3 of them had a huge discrepancy in terms of skill / ELO. Out of 12 games, only 4 were competitive. I won 9 out of 12 games, got +150 ELO... and to be fair, I actually only won 2 competitive games. My ELO differential should have been 0.

May sound pety or silly to make a post like this, but I have invested ~10 hours to play those 12 games. Due to isolation I have spare time, but on a regular week, that would be most of my free time for the whole week. DE would have lost a player.

Side note: most replays are broken. Tried to rewatch the 2 last games I actually played and both get interrupted halfway for some reason.

FYI: https://steamcommunity.com/games/813780/announcements/detail/2076663

Looks like the multiplayer servers will be down for maintenance tomorrow (Tuesday) at 1pm Pacific / 21:00 UTC for two hours

I play AOE 2 Definitive Edition quite a bit. I play solo vs AI on moderate or standard difficulty and I feel like every game just drags out to Imperial age unless I don't play aggresively and attack. Meanwhile the AI is playing with no agression at all?! Why is this? Can I fix it so that AI attacks more? Any mods? Or have I missed something?

I love the idea of walls and outposts/towers and I find them super satisfying so naturally I tend to play more defensively but I'd like to have my towers being used A BIT more, if you get me ;)

AOE DE has always played up its unranked lobby. I and my friends lobby not showing up when one of us creates it. In the last few days, it has gotten much worse. This morning only 4 unranked lobbies showed up and three of them had password locks.

This needs to be sorted it out. It's frustrating and ridiculous there are still lobby issues after nearly a year of release.

And yes I have checked my filters.

I have only finally got definitive - I already had HD, the original and the ps2 port so I didn’t think i needed it - and it is really good but i have been doing skirmishes and the treaty doesn’t stop people from building outside their square like the old ones. I was playing a match with a treaty and only built in my zone thinking thats all I could do before finding out u can expand (which drove me mad!)

Anyway is there a way to set it back the the original (probably not)

Could it be done or would it be to hard to balance? What are your ideas? Mechanical units still get repaired normally just no monastery and all units slowly regenerate health like heros or berserkers.

Tried to play with my friend in a 1v1 last night and had severe lag and rubberbanding issues. We live in the UAE and were using westindia server (~110ms ping). of the 5 games we tried to create, one was playable but even that disconnected us halfway through so had to reconnect again.

I have read previous posts about these issues without any solutions that have seemed to work. I wanted to check to see if people were still having this issue at the end of March 2020 and hopefully there is some workaround I'm not aware of?

Both my friend and I have high-end computers and fast internet connection. Both running latest windows and patch of the game.

Really appreciate some help. Love this game and really hoping to play it.

Often in intense team games I will be rushing setting up trade routes to focus on the action or booming and I will end up over producing trade carts and messing up my population/eco balance. They are included in the gold count but not the villager count on the resource bar. Tbh this is a pretty insignificant detail but it keeps annoying me.

I've been googling around how to fix this dumb issue but still no luck. I'm bought the game through MS Store and it auto signs in to Xbox Live. The in-game chat censor is absolutely ridiculous. Blocks regular words for inexplicable reasons. When in the heat of battle you haven't got time to be rewording and sending messages 3 times. From what people are saying on here if I sign out of Xbox Live it should fix the issue but it won't even let me run the game without being signed in...what am i doing wrong?

Is this also a problem on Steam? If not, I'm strongly considering just dropping the $20 and buying it again because MS are pissing me off.

Hey guys what happened to the Spanish intro jingle? When did it change to this boring? Where is my screaming Spanish?

hi guys! I started playing aoe2 just a few days ago and I suck at it. can you give me some advice? thank you in advance!

Is India a good enough civ to play late game? If so, what should be my strat and my unit combos considering how slow the elephants train..? Also, are zamburaks and sowars nullified that late in the game?

Taking Arabia for example. According to my (imprecise observation), Man@Arm into archers are preferred to archers in 1v1, but less so in team game. Is there such a difference? If so, What makes the difference?

Growing up one thing my father and I always bonded on was video games, mainly the PlayStations and PC games. I would sit for hours watching him play Age of Empires and Warcraft on the PC, while on any PlayStation we would play mainly sports from Madden to MLB to NBA Live and now 2K. What I need to find is a good PS4 co-op game. We have been playing 2K predominant for the past four years and it's gotten to the point where it's rinse and repeat do the same thing over and over. Yes it's fun but it's getting old so I'm looking for any type of game that has a co-op mode. He has played on Diablo and Skyrim a little bit by himself and also he enjoyed Gun many years back. But he is also one that isn't very skilled when it comes to doing multiple things at once he's a very basic player lol. So if you have any suggestions it would be great to hear, and again it doesn't really matter what genre I just need something different.

Just a reminder.

I began playing on voobly few days ago, and nearly around 1300 elo. I can’t find anyone playing with WK at my elo and its a bit frustrating to play without expansions. Is that the case at higher elo as well?

Ok, first post here, I'm not a new AoE2 player, I've been playing the game since I was 12, (I`m 26yo now), and I found that I totally suck at this game, I wanted to play with some friends online, and I get my ass handed to me, that is not a big problem, because I don't feel to bad about loosing a game as long as I'm having fun playing it, but I'm started to feel that I can't really defend myself or help my friends online, so I'm looking for advices, I started watching spirit of the law, great channel but I think it is more number oriented instead of the "AoE2 for Dummies guide" that I'm looking for.

I would like to learn how to play with any of this civ, which are my favourites, (in order) Celts, Italians, Spanish and Britons, any help is appreciated.

Regards from the beautiful land of Uruguay.

Hey guys. Recently jumped back into AoE3 with some friends due to being stuck at home. ( forgot how awesome the game is). I’m really struggling though. I usually only get about half the resources my friends do and by the time they are imperial age I’m just getting to fortress age. Anyone got some strategy tips? Or ideas what to focus on early game. I usually play as the Germans.

Just got DE, been an HD scrub for a long while. One of the things I’ve noticed is that players resign far too quickly. The first hint of pressure of 3 vil deaths and they drop out. Look at score and allies. If you have someone booming, stay in they may carry.

On the other hand, please don’t make us kill everyone of your Vils and buildings. It’s bad manners and stretch’s games longer then they should.

If they toxic though. Fat slob the shit out of your last vil.

https://imgur.com/mFzvwgC

Like some tech say it's the Swordsman Line and then there's some who said it's the Militia Line.

Hey guys I just recently started playing the new AoE 2 Definitive Edition. I saw where u could earn cool icons if u won a certain amount of games with a civ. So I won over 10 Ranked games with the Spanish and I still haven't won the 10 Wins Spanish Icon. Can someone please help me?

Hey guys I just started playing the new AoE 2 Definitive Edition, and I noticed the cool icons you can get from winning a certain amount of games with each civ. Well I've won more than 10 Ranked Games with the Spanish and I haven't received the icon yet. Can someone help me please?

Are there any mods that simulate plagues or the black death? Are there any units with that use these mechanics? I can imagine a WHOLE NEW EXPANSION with Plague Doctors, Human plague catapults, Leper Pilgrims, Flagellants. That or I've been spending too much time reading 40k lore....

So I’ve been using PS4 and just busy with my job.

The coronavirus is forcing wfh so I felt like playing age of empires and some other game’s from back in the day like mass effect.

I ordered this

Core i5 9400F Rtx 2060 Ssd 16gb ram

Can this play 4K games? I wanna keep it for 10 years

Thanks

I've been a huge fan of the music in the Age series, and one of the many, many reasons I was so excited for DE was to listen to the updated soundtrack. But honestly, it never really grabbed my attention in DE. Now I'm no music critic, and there's a solid chance I'm just being blinded by nostalgia here. But what do other people think? Is the music in DE any good? Is it better or worse than the original? Have you even noticed that it changed? For players that started with DE, what do you think of the music in general?

These times are estimates only looking at a couple of games. So, they might be a bit off. "Defend" time is of first unit out (which is reasonable for archer against men-at-arms, not so much for archer against scouts). Attack arrives is when in enemy base, in reasonable numbers (3 scouts or 3 men-at-arms or 6 archers). Obviously time of attack varies with distance to opponent.

Slightly different build order might shift by 25 seconds if skip loom or add or skip a vill in dark age.

Comparing times shows windows of opportunity for unit conflicts (how long you have to do damage before the enemy units are out to defend).

I think it would be interesting to plot military production times with resources committed. I suspect, looking at that type of plot, that men-at-arms would fare poorly against a douche (because of the early resources committed to a barracks).

Hopefully the times that I put in aren't too far off.

Due to the lockdown ive finally got to play DE and play rank for the first time and it makes me miss HD matchmaking so much. I was never any good at this game i can play a couple civs well, know a couple build orders, my marco is good micro not so much, and i peaked at 1800 on HD and usually floated low 1700 high 1600 but atleast in HD i knew what kind of player I would be against when i could see their elo. I knew if i was facing a 1600-1800 player id would atleast be competitive and fun but ive just started playing rank in DE and im on like a 7 lost streak against players i know for a fact are much better than me. I thought that after losing that much elo id atleast finally be able to play against players my skill level but nope still paired agaisnt people that stomp me. I have no problem playing against better players but when every game im on the back foot or locked in my base its super unenjoyable to play. Im even watching the replays to try and improve myself but im also watching their side and their macro and mirco is much better than mines. Its like majrity of games im paired against someone who is way better than me and when im not im paired against players way worst than me ive played like maybe 25 ranked games and in those 25 maybe 3-4 of them were competitive games against people i felt were my skill level. Worst part is i cant even play 2v2s with my friends like in HD. Que times in 1v1s are like 1-2mins but when we que as a duo average que time goes up to like 10mins we had one where it took like 16mins to find a game. Sorry I just had to find a place to rant its super frustrating because age is one of my favorite games, i spent so many hours on HD and for the most part ive loved what they have done with DE but the matchmaking is so awful.

I purchased the soundtrack on Steam and found that after extracting the tracks they had no metadata. Alright. So I put in the official metadata from the store page and found that their track listing is incorrect (Graysky plays before Cave) and the songs don't play in the same order as they do in the game. Okay, I cak fix that too I guess. But on top of that the track Stephen was missing. That I can't fix. I also can't review the soundtrack as I 0 minutes game time in AOE DE since I own it on the Microsoft store. I'm not sure if this problem persists on Amazon or other places as well but I would watch out before a soundtrack purchase in case this is ever fixed.

If I download parallels onto my mac to play DE I’ve been told my mac would slow down. Any truth to this and if yes is there any way to get around this?

If I’m trying to go for a quick FC into 3tc with Khmer on hideout, should I go up with 24 pop or 26? I’ve tested both and I can do both well, but I feel the 26 pop has way better eco. So is the time saved going up 2 vills earlier worth a bit of eco?

Hi there, is there anyone who plays left handed, and if so, what key binds do you use?

Thanks

As I'm getting back into playing DE, the game has changed a lot since 1999. I'd like to get my hands on the old book. I know some of the strats I remember from back then don't apply anymore.

[AoE 2:DE]

Do you need to play the game on specific settings in order to trigger the achievements? I'm playing on Random Map, Arabia, Size: 4 players and AI difficulty Moderate-Hard. Few of the achievements won't trigger for me.

For the last 7-8 games, the Relic collection achievement is sitting at 92/100 even though I've collected more than 10 relics in the last few matches.

Same with the 'Destroy things with mangonels'

Which is the best civ for each map in ranked mappool for both 1v1s and team games. I'm taking about 1200-1300 Elo on de.

The AoW booming challenge has been bugged since jan 23 (https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/art-of-war-challenges-are-bugged/67728) with no fix in the updated game yet, in that it *needs* a castle for imperial age, which afaik makes gold impossible. I've looked up videos of people getting gold and they're all barely making it using wood buildings. I think it *may* be impossible to get gold at the moment.

How has this not been fixed yet?

Would they still even get used? I mean, maybe people would use them to block pathing or something, but even that is more of a detriment to your time/focus/army pathing than anything.

I really want to like Siege Towers and I love it when viper uses them to put Gbeto inside enemy towns or something trolly like that, but are so freaking expensive and painful to use they serve no purpose.

I think DE should reduce the wood cost of Siege Towers, at the very least. Considering how niche they are, they are hilariously expensive wood-wise.

At the very least, let's give Tatars a 100 wood discount on Siege Towers as part of the April 1 balance update patch.

What is considered a good time and resource count to get to Feudal Age with 21 pop?

I'm a noob. Getting F's on the first build order scenario (scouts).

I'm hitting Feudal Age 9:54 with 240 wood 176 food.

I have trouble finding the second boar quickly so I lose some efficiency on that. Villagers working most of the time. What am I probably doing wrong? Tips?

I found 4v4 elo is typically higher, but how much is the margin?

Now I’m (increasing from 1400) 1850 in 4v4 (play about 126games). I didnt play 1v1 two month ago so it stays at 1100. Is that a true gap?

I can open fine with most civs... but am scared of playing random in case i get chinese. Any tips for a chinese fc build order? Or general tips like "do x until 15 supply, then go a normal build"

Just a quick question, since the game is so cheap and has an online mode and no in-game purchases. What would motivate the team to work "faster"? Who do I send money to??

Every week with bugs is another week of people leaving the game, getting mad, trying other RTS or simply moving to a MOBA/FPS. Age 2 playerbase is not that huge already, at my rank I struggle to find games in south america, (around 10 to 15 min) and usually get paired against opponents way worse than me, and im not even in top 300 yet.

​

For devs:

I changed starcarft for age2 because its less APM and more strategy (or maybe equal strategy, but no need to spam keyboard 300 hotkeys per minute), but this state of the game is really sad. I know there are over 35k online on Steam + unknown how many online from microsoft ID and if you search the complains here have 30~150 upvotes, so is a really tiny part of the playerbase that talks about the game or even bother complaining, but we are the most die hard fans I assure you devs we are, we care so much we spend precious time writing about it. please consider this and do something, Im really in love with AOE2DE, but the worries will make me go back to SC2 soon. Please keep me in your game, I would like that very much. Thank you.

I tired to google, I swear I tried, but could only find APM counters for older versions. Would also appreciate it if the AOE2HD build order tutorials have been moved to DE and someone could link me, though I didn't google this one :x

Found this suggestion in a comment on Viper's latest video. Basically, Press a button on your starting TC and the AI just plays the game for you. From a coding perspective, I don't think it'll be too difficult to add in.

For those that don't get the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q879j3ydfw8

If I’m going for Khmer fc and I reach Fuedal with 800 food already is there any point in making the 2 vills before castle or should I just click up Right away

Maybe watch a few games and tell me what I am doing so wrong?

hi guys

so as you know trump just signed yang bucks into law so im gonna get 12 grand from the irs next month and i want to use it to host another big-money age of empires two: Definitive Edition experts tournament

i introduce to you: the auto scouting cup, featuring the top 16 players in the world

so first off the most important part, the prize pool, the $12k will be split like this

TheViper: $4k

2nd place: $3k

3rd/4th place: $2k each

quarterfinalist failures: $250 each

overlay guy: exposure

sound good so far? you ain’t seen nothin yet kiddo

​

so next off

match rules:

· players must start auto scouting within 10 seconds of every game start and never disable it or else their opponent gets three cobra cars starting in feudal age

· all matches are best of 5

· laming is allowed provided it is done by men-at-arms with +2 armor

· standard victory, 90 minute treaty

· loser of each match takes a shot, two sips if Tom Brady throws a touchdown pass, finish your drink if you win the grand final

​

civ draft rules:

· all civs classified as a “cavalry civilization,” “infantry civilization,” or “archer civilization” are globally banned, any combination thereof is ok except mongols

· starting with the lower seed, players alternate picking civs for their opponent’s pool until all civs are depleted

· each player is randomly assigned 5 civs from their pool based on various hash operations applied to a $3 powerball quick pick

· if the quick pick hits the jackpot players forfeit all winnings as the Tournament Administrator fucks off to the caymans with a prostitute

​

map draft rules:

· one global ban per United States Executive Cabinet member in the twitch chat (must be subscribed to t90official to count)

· players each roll 1d20 on their facecam to pick their home map via modulus operation

· taller player picks first

​

map pool:

· green arabia

· forest nothing

· forest nothing 7x7

· forest prison with relics

· ancient TD

· snakepit

· william wallace scenario 2

· regicide fortress

· green arabia

​

map structure per match:

· game 1: arabia

· game 2: also arabia, but with the 10x civ bonus mod

· game 3: higher seed home map

· game 4: lower seed away map

· game 5: Twitch Plays AoE2:DE

​

all games will be played on the eastus3 server (it’s the alienware desktop i left in my mom’s basement in indiana, don’t worry she has comcast so it’ll be really fast)

​

be sure to tune in on facebook live memorial day weekend

An amazing tournament that provided countless hours and incredible entertainment at a time when the world needed it. My hats off to all of the organizers, casters, players and spectators who made this tournament such an unforgettable experience.

Now in the aftermath, I wanted to take the time to express who I felt the biggest winners and losers from the tournament were.

​

The Winners of Hidden Cup 3

Viper

A truly dominant performance. There is no doubt been a rise in skill from all other pro players recently which makes the tournaments far more interesting to watch. However, the crown of Age of Empires still rests firmly on the Viper’s head. His strategy, skill and execution was incredible and the 4-0 result in the Grand Final was a poignant reminder that while the Age of Empires 2 ladder is more competitive than ever, The Viper remains firmly on top.

His post tournament interview gave us what we have come to expect from the Viper. Gracious in victory, appreciative for the work put in by the tournament organisers and some cheeky humour. The top player of Age of Empires 2 having such a likeable personality is great for the growth of the game and while I might occasionally wish someone could dethrone him, ultimately I’m pleased to see him get the victory and continue being a great ambassador for the community.

Hera

Although he took a bad beating in the Grand Final, no one denies that Hera is a deadly force to be reckoned with. His strong showing in yet another tournament gives him the greatest weight to make the claim that currently, he is the world #2.

His Q & A stream after the tournament shows that he has developed a strong and loyal following. This is unsurprising because perhaps more than any other pro player, Hera has used the release of DE to establish a strong online presence. Whether his fans are drawn to him by his undeniable skill or his friendly personality while streaming, whatever way you look at it, with his result in HC3, Hera’s profile continues to rise.

T90

Thousands of new twitch subs, countless donations and a shattering of previous view records, Hidden Cup 3 was a huge success for T90. In order to put on such an event, you need to have skills in lots of different areas and HC3 confirmed that T90 was a master at all of them.

The audience loves him for his seemingly effortless ability to balance expert analysis of the games with humour and memes with his chat and co-casters. On top of that, T90 treats this seriously, like a business and this is exactly the kind of professionalism that the community needs to make Age of Empires 2 a genuine E-sport. Of course, on a personal level he has made himself wildly successful but when he has done so much for the community, especially bringing new people into the game, his success is greatly deserved.

Co operation within the Age2 Community

One of the nicest parts of NAC3 was the cooperative spirit on display. Lots of different casters, sharing of donations and of course, it’s where HC3 was announced. It was nice to see this cooperative energy continue on into HC3 with an open streaming policy and co-casting by other prominent members of the community like ZeroEmpires, Nili and Age2 benefactor Matt Salsa (who was a great caster btw!).

As the game gets larger, there will be an increase in the number of individuals who are trying to make a full time living from the game. Hopefully we continue to see co operation, rather than competition, as the predominant force guiding future events.

The Behind the Scenes Team

It is hard to imagine all of the work that goes into an event like this. We get hints of the number of hours people have put in but still, it is difficult for an audience member to truly appreciate how much work they must put in.

Without a doubt, Robo, Overlay guy, DuxtheSaviour and the entire Capture Age team did a magnificent job.

Team Secret

Before the tournament, there were definitely questions over how the clan would perform in this 1v1 setting. Hidden Cup 1 and 2 were not great for Tatoh and DauT narrowly missed out on a guaranteed spot in Hidden Cup 3. With Jordan_23 missing and both Slam and Nili failing to qualify, Tatoh and DauT were definitely keen to post strong performances for their clan.

Evidently, they did a lot of preparation for the tournament and came ready to play. They did not disappoint. Tatoh’s skills were on full display, besting both Vivi and Lierrey before ultimately falling before Hera in the Semi Finals. Aside from the Viper, Hera actually said DauT was his toughest opponent, only narrowly beating him 3-2 in the Quarter Finals and calling him an absolute beast. Team Secret definitely emerged from the tournament as the only clan that boated strong results across multiple players.

Qualifications

There have been ongoing discussions about who can participate in tournaments, how to encourage new players to break into the top tiers and whether or not it is boring to see the same names compete again and again. Arguably, the qualification stage of Hidden Cup 3 was one of the biggest successes of the entire tournament.

Not only did it give audiences many more hours of high stakes, high strategy gameplay but it also opened the field for lesser known players to take a shot at the big time. Ultimately, the final 16 spots were largely filled by well known names but this is not the point. In order for the Age2 community to stay healthy and growing, it needs to encourage new players to work and improve. Open qualifications do this and reminds us all of the depth of talent that exists beyond the top 20.

It was also great to get casting from players like Daniel and Project Belgium. Though casting is a particular skill that players don’t necessarily excel at, hearing the opinions of pro players is so valuable for an audience wanting to see the game through their eyes. MbL’s super hyped casting remains the tournament highlight for me. I’ve never laughed so much during an Age of Empires stream!!!

Honourable Mentions

Dogao – Amazing performance, he went further than any other player from the qualification stage. Though many may have been surprised to see his name in the reveal, a strong result like this guarantees they won’t be surprised next time.

Dave – The synergy between Dave and T90 is always fantastic and HC3 was no exception. While it is great to have alternate casters, it’s good to know that when it comes to the big matches, T90 still looks to his long time friend, Dave.

Quarter Finals – Without a doubt, the most exciting 4 matches of the entire tournament. To get them all in a row was incredible. The strategy and skill from the players was only matched by the hype of the audience. Wouldn’t be surprising if the days of the quarter finals went down in Age2 history as the most exciting day ever.

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The Losers of Hidden Cup 3

Civilization Variety

T90 felt it was important to encourage the players to train for the tournament so that the audience could enjoy matches with maximum skill on display. He felt that too much civ banning and drafting would discourage the players from practising and without a doubt, he is correct. The quality of games cannot be denied and the players all looked thoroughly prepared.

However, seeing pro’s play at their top form isn’t the only thing that makes a match exciting. The audience wants to see different strategies and different matchups. They want to see pro’s play the same civilisations they play in the ranked ladder and see how they compare with each other.

By the end of the tournament, it had become too predictable. 90% of the matches were played with the same 7 civilizations and too many games were played as mirrors. This is not an easy problem to solve without creating new problems but for future tournaments, the community may have to get creative in order to keep games from becoming stale.

Maps with Fixed Resources

While most people have grudgingly accepted that the game needs to evolve beyond endless Arabia wars, there is always the danger of over-correcting and forgetting why Arabia was the most popular map for so many years. It’s because every map is different and the players have to scout and adapt based on where the resources generate.

No one can deny that maps like Cup are highly entertaining. The ability to use demolition ships on groups of 15 archers will always be a crowd pleaser but the map is always the same. Slopes, El Dorado, Bay etc all have the same problem and give the game a boxed in sort of feeling. They are great for occasional variety but if the map pool becomes over saturated with these types of maps, it can start to become predictable. Arabia is the bread and butter for a reason and we best not stray too far from it.

Just my thoughts, happy to hear yours. All in all, amazing tournament. Well done to everyone involved!