Hello Community.
I am particularly interested in some ottoman openings (first 5 minutes). What are the meta ones and why?
From the top of my head i could think of a few openings:
mosque > market + gather 50 coin + hunting dogs > house
mosque > 2x vill upgrade (gather 25 wood)> house
TP> Mosque> gather 50 wood > house
TP> House> get TP during ageup

Are those common? Which otto opening is currently the most common? And what are the upsides and downsides of the different openings?

Thanks for your ideas!

Gunpowder and siege civ

Heresy free

If a Mongol player builds 3 castles you lose

Garrisoned relics generate gold for the Teuton player

Villagers have +50 attack against knights and Teutonic knights

UU Hussite war wagon – heavy gunpowder cavalry archer that converts to and enemy colour upon creation

UT castle: Defenestration – 50% of your units die

imperial: Hussite wars – all your buildings lose 50% of their HP

Wonder: Tyn church

Team bonus Hussite war wagons +5 attack vs buildings

Ranked 1v1, get put on Arena. I decide to go Turks and do a fast Imp strat.

After hitting Imp I've got a couple bombard cannons tearing a castle down with some hand cannoneers in the mix. He asks me my elo. I say 700 something, which is the truth (I started playing this game in February). He says "sure bud."

After his base disappears he resigns and basically calls me a smurf.

It feels good when you're this new to have people think you are essentially cheating. Some days I'm not satisfied with my improvement, but times like this it makes me think I'm heading in the right direction. He was trying to be an asshole, but he actually gave me the encouragement I needed.

Hey y'all, I'm finally getting ready to make the switch from HD to DE (starting to get to a skill level where finding lobbies is getting tricky in my time zone). I've been playing a few matches against the AI to get set up with my hotkeys and get used to shift-queueing (wow what a great feature) and I've been finding that I can't hold CTRL and drag to add a few additional units to my selection; I have to CTRL+click them individually. This takes longer and throws me off, especially if I'm trying to add a few extra villagers to a quick task. Is there an option in the settings to turn this on? Or is this feature just disabled?

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?

I just had to step away from my laptop. I’ve been on break (teacher) and we’re at my in-laws for the week. Which means eyes are on the baby and I can finally crank out some 1v1 RM Arabias (always Berber)

I’m almost exactly a 900 on average and I’ve floated there whether I gain or lose ground. I just got my ass stoooooomped about 3 times in a row. I’m losing sight of when to research and my uptimes are slipping and my brain feels like mush. 1000 seems impossibly hard lately. People in the 900’s don’t play like pros but are definitely not slouches and I don’t have the brain power to compete, which is a bummer because it’s pretty much the only time I have for awhile to improve.

Any quick tips on how to excel with Berbers? (A new civs not off the table, I’m just used to them at this point) My typical game goes:

• scrush ~21 min CA

• camels against cavs / knights against all else

• late game get smacked (I know this is a Berber thing) basically I attack attack attack / boom but I don’t break them enough and by the time trebuchets roll around, Berbers get outmatched hard.

Hi everyone, my name is Shirley and I am a student who studying the previous aspects of gamers’ behaviors. I am especially interested in how the pandemic has affected this industry and how it shaped our spending habits and team dynamics.

The surveys are mostly consisted of multiple choices, and it should take you no longer than 5 minutes to complete. I do not ask for any identification info such as emails, it is completely anonymous.

Thank you for the great help, I really appreciate you time and effort. Stay safe out there！https://forms.gle/9AkKz1X9VZ5Hcfey7

The Chola empire was a trade empire in southern India that dominated large portions of the Indian ocean, interacting with many South Asian / South East Asian civilizations, as well as China. They were known for their military use of elephants and naval power. This concept should be decently historically logical (perhaps), but should also provide good gameplay:

Cholas / Tamil (Indian or new South Indian architecture set):

Elephant and Naval civ

Bonuses:

- Gold / Stone miners do not need drop off points (mining camps still buildable for upgrades)

Could have a slight negative collection rate modifier--like Khmer farmers--to ensure balance

- All mining camp, market, university, and town center techs available from a prior age have -67% cost and research time.

So wheelbarrow, for example, in feudal age will cost 175f/50w and research in 75 seconds like
normal, while in castle/imp age it will cost 58f/17w and research in 25s.

- Villagers and Battle Elephants attack 15% faster

Note on the villager attack: this is much, much worse than the Inca armor/attack bonus.
However, it will be active in dark age and useful whenever your villagers have to fight & can
help you save the odd villager from a boar / wolf before loom or from a feudal age scout after
loom. This may also encourage delaying loom until feudal to get the -67% cost/time discount!

- War galley / galleon upgrades are free

Team bonus:

- Galley line +1 range

Unique techs:

- Trade Empire (250f / 250 g): trade units +50% hp, +10 gold per trip for all trade routes >20 tiles long.

Benefits shorter trade routes more than long ones, above a minimum length of 20 tiles.

- Yanaipadai (900 f / 700 g ): Battle elephant blast radius doubled from 0.4 --> 0.8. Battle elephants gain +5 elephant armor (take -5 damage from scorpion, halb, etc.).

Unique Unit:

Villaligal (60w / 60g): A very slow, heavy archer with powerful melee armor and high attack. A Teutarcher, if you will.

Stats (elite, 1100f / 550g): HP = 45 (55). Attack = 6 (8). Range = 5 (6). Armor = 3/0 (6/0). Bonuses:
vs. infantry +1. Rate of fire = 2.5. Accuracy = 85% (90%) [note lack of thumb ring!]. Movement
speed = 0.75 (0.8).

Tech tree (missing techs shown):

Barracks: champion, arson. Archery Range: thumb ring, parthian, heavy CA. Stable: camel, steppe lancer, paladin. Siege-shop: BBC, siege ram. Monastery: redemption, sanctity, heresy. Blacksmith: plate mail armor, ring archer armor. University: [none missing]. Eco: [none missing]. Dock: heavy demolition ship. Castle: [none missing].

Summary:

Strengths: elephants, navy, trade, Unique Unit archer, defenses (with a decent tower rush, though much worse than the Inca / Korean trush).

Weaknesses: infantry, monks, cav archers.

Mediocre, average, or usable: standard archers, siege, cavalry, economy, late game trash.

{ Non-English tech / unit names from Wikipedia page on Chola military }

I feel like 2v2 got more popular in DE.

Are there ever any actual 2v2 tournaments, and would people watch?

I feel like the lack of 2v2-specific tournaments has not allowed them to get as popular as they deserve to be. They still have the team element without the "one unit gg" compositions we constantly see in 3v3s.

Alright guys, I started that before Hidden Cup and liked the discussion around it, so I think, I'll try to make that a regular thing.

Disclaimer: That stuff is rather supposed to be thought provoking than 100% true and I'll go for some clickbaitish headline now and then to get the discussion rolling. So, feel free to give your opinion and don't be too angry about me. ;)

Here we go: Sicilians are actually good. Hera put them in F-Tier? Well, I am not sure if they are good on the absolute top level but I just won a tournament game against a 1700 (while being rather 1600) with them and, uhm, I actually have a 100% win rate in ranked with them too (5 out of 5), so I am convinced they are absolutely fine for 98% of the player base. (Obviously, it might be that I overrate them a bit based on my experience)

The deal with Sicilians is that they have nothing to get ahead early, like early early, until minute 12-15. They will always be even or slower in getting army out.

BUT: Once you get to army compositions, you just win every fight with Sicilians. What you do with them is, that you mirror your opponent. And add counter-units.

• Opponent goes Archers? You go Archer-Skirm. You force him into Skirms. You win.

• Oppont goes Scouts? You go Scouts-Spears. You force him into Spears. You win.

Same with Xbow and Knights. Because their bonus damage reduction makes their unit not-counterable.

You just got to adjust the army composition a bit: Against Franks, focus on getting Pikemen out, then you start Knight production behind that. Against Ethiopians, probably go a bit more into Skirms than when you face Chinese or Malians, because Ethiopians

Also, Infantry and Meso civs are kinda dead against them, because they have nothing to counter Knight-spam. Try to go full Celt Pikemen against their Knights. You just get eaten. They're also a counter civ to Aztecs imo, even Monkrush can be countered by their Light Cav which won't die to Pikemen.

What they struggle with are strong, hard to kill units that don't rely on bonus damage and full gold compositions: Cataphracts, Konniks, Teutonic Knights will wreck them pretty much, Arambai and Conqs (but they MIGHT die to Skirm-Xbow), Bojars and Leitis should be good, everything that can beat Knights by pure strength basically. Portugese Xbow-Knight-Siege play should kill them too. Rattans also do fine, so should Britton Xbows, Warwagons and in general CA if you have time to mass them.

Sounds like a lot but I actually mentioned not more than ~13 of the 37 civs. Also, here it gets a bit tricky: All those units come into play once you're mid or late Castle Age. From that point onwards, the Sicilian eco actually starts to roll like crazy. With the extra food on the farms, you save a lot of wood during Castle Age and especially around late Castle/early Imp. With that, you can sustain a sick boom on 4-5 TCs and it's also much easier to spam some buildings and transition into mass army production. You also have the faster built TCs and Castles now to quickly secure areas. At this point, the Sicilians become some kind of more flexible Goths.

I think in general, the Knight play is stronger because they win against Xbows when massed, so when you go Xbow as Sicilians you could simply struggle with Knights, rather than the other way around, kinda standard AoE in that moment - that is also, why you rather want to have the mirror situation. Also, you'll miss out on your eco bonus when you skip/delay farm upgrades.

Absolutely worth mentioning, that they can be absolutely amazing on maps that tend to play out as full scout war as Acropolis or Land Nomad. Usually, you'll build some Spears to defend in those scenarios. But they get eaten by Sicilian Scouts. The opponent will never be able to defend cost efficiently, so either he can't attack you or he leaves his base unprotected. Honestly, it's almost broken. In that situation, I'll prefer Sicilians over literally any civ.

On pro level, I figure there might be too many time windows, where you can push in and solidify an advantage over the Sicilians: Early Feudal, then posibly early Castle Age if you manage to click up quicker, also when Siege and Monks get involved, before mass armies. But you need to push this strong and clean, otherwise you will be mirrored to death. On lower level, were people make more mistakes and are way worse in punishing time windows, they are actually a pretty amazing civ when played the right way: Because then, they will just win every fight.

Game night Saturday 9PM EST/6PM PST on Look Ahead America discord server! join the discord and have a few games with us! It will be a.... blast!

Does anyone know of any sites or any information regarding participating in an aoe3 DE tournament? My friends and I thought it would be fun to play in one. If not, maybe we can try to host one of people would be interested?

The new meta is passive income by buildings (japan, dutch, sweden) with their shrines, banks and torps?

I would like to improve my knowledge of India, besides what is already on eso-community strategy wall. Does someone have an idea of where I could find other (or more recent) BOs ?Also, I like to watch Aizamk playing Indians on Twitch but find difficult to replicate his strats. Are there other good India players out there who I could learn from ?

Thanks!

Recently there has been some talk about the historic development of our game due to a new interview with former lead designer Sandy Peterson. Another person who has worked at Ensemble from somewhere in the 2000's till the end of Halo Wars is Richard Geldreich. He had already tweeted a few times about his experience at Ensemble, which he characterized as the best game development experience he's had.

However, he's more critical than Sandy about other things. He recently wrote a thread calling out the former management for spending on the MMO, and in retrospect agrees with Microsoft shutting Ensemble down due to that. He also claims that the Age1 and Age2 code bases are among the cleanest he's come across, and also states that he's seen Age1's code "be taken over by a new team and turned into total shit over time". Let's hope that wasn't Forgotten Empires (Geldreich has made some contributions to AOE:DE).

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https://reddit.com/link/mgzrfr/video/7yhvmlbl4bq61/player

So right now, Frank is a top civ while Burgundy is a bottom civ. Both civ is famous for wine so a Berry bonus seems appropriate for both of them.

I propose Frank lose the "Berry Gather +% faster" in exchange of a "Berry contain %more food" and Burgundy gets the "Berry Gather +% faster".

Berry contain more food syngeries with Frank's free mill as it means you can delay your farms for a while. Burgundy needs an eco boost to utilize their age early upgrade bonus.

The end result will be Frank will be less dominant in dark and early feudal. Burgundy gets a useful eco bonus.

Tl;dr remove frank Berry gather bonus. Give Frank Berry contain more food. Give Burgundy Berry gather bonus.

So obviously revolutions got a much needed facelift when DE got released and since then theyve received slight tweaks here and there. I loved revolutions for the fun and the flare in OG but now i am genuinely interested in them for possibly strats.

I wanted to start a discussion on what strats you guys have discovered that work/synergise well and why you enjoy them in particular.

For starters I enjoy a whole bunch but two stand out for me. The Otto-Egypt vil mass plus jans and Nizams as well as Mexican outlaws.

hey I prefer co-op over pvp but it gets boring after awhile playing the same 4 v 4 extreme ai. so I was wondering are there any co-op maps or scenarios?

I made a feitoria nothing map where each player starts with 10 feitorias because eco is hard!

I just updated the map to 8 players and thought posting here might improve visibility:

Rio's feitoria nothing (8p)

Max pop is 200 but you start with (only) 10 feitorias and 4 villagers, so you have to build housing and delete feitorias to build an army (unless you're the huns, still have to delete feitorias).

Each base has 1 relic and 8 relics in the center (16 total) but other than that there are no resources on the map, so you better protect (most) of your feitorias.

I'm currently hosting a game and will try to spread it around. Tell T90

Our first week with the Sicilians!... oh boy... 11

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Hello and welcome back for another Age of Empires 2 civilization match up discussion! This is a series where we discuss the various advantages, disadvantages, and quirks found within the numerous match ups of the game. The goal is to collectively gain a deeper understanding of how two civilizations interact with each other in a variety of different settings. Feel free to ask questions, pose strategies, or provide insight on how the two civilizations in question interact with each other on any map type and game mode. This is not limited to 1v1 either. Feel free to discuss how the civilizations compare in team games as well! So long as you are talking about how the two civilizations interact, anything is fair game! Last week we discussed the Huns vs Malay, and next up is the Sicilians vs Slavs!

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Sicilians: Infantry civilization

• Castles and Town Centers built +100% faster
• Land military units (except siege) receive -50% bonus damage
• Farm upgrades provide +100% additional food
• Can build Donjon in Feudal Age
• TEAM BONUS: Transport Ships +5 carry capacity; +10 anti-ship armor
• Unique Unit: Serjeant (Heavy infantry that can build Donjon)
• Unique Building: Donjon (Powerful tower that can train Serjeants)
• Castle Age Unique Tech: First Crusade (Each TC (max. 5) spawns a one-time batch of 7 Serjeants)
• Imperial Age Unique Tech: Scutage (Each team member receives 15g per military unit they own)

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Slavs: Infantry and Siege civilization

• Farmers work +10% faster
• Supplies free
• Siege Workshop units cost -15%
• TEAM BONUS: Military buildings provide +5 pop space
• Unique Unit: Boyar (Heavily armored cavalry)
• Castle Age Unique Tech: Orthodoxy (Monks +3/+3 armor)
• Imperial Age Unique Tech: Druzhina (Infantry deal 5 trample damage)

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Below are some match up-specific talking points to get you all started. These are just to give people ideas, you do not need to address them specifically if you do not want to!

• Okay, let's see what we've got here. For 1v1 Arabia, Slavs are usually considered to be fairly strong, if not quite top-tier. Their excellent eco, infantry, cav, and siege are only hampered by their mediocre archers. Sicilians, meanwhile, are still a somewhat unknown quantity. They do pretty much everything decently, but do not excel in any one area. Their bonus damage reduction is quite handy though. What do you guys think?
• Similarly, on closed maps, Slavs are generally seen as a very powerful pick. They have a fantastic boom, as well as a deadly late game army of infantry and siege, or maybe even Boyars! Sicilians are pretty resilient and can spam lots of Donjons, but would appear to lack any real power unit. How do you see this one going?

Thanks as always for participating! Next week we will continue our discussions with the Magyars vs Vietnamese. Hope to see you there! :)

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Previous discussions: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Back when the game was released, a bug sent me to the Asia campaign and now it says I have a 32% progress there. Tbh, it bothers me a little (a lot). How can I delete that "progress"?

I have cleared each campaign twice on hard in the 2007 edition and just bought DE. However, I cant seem to edit my deck anymore, whichever card I took is said to be in the deck but when I start the next chapter it just reverts to default. Is this intended or "intended"

Is there a list for every civ that shows its good and bad matchups with a brief explanation why and what to do in that case?

Well, the title is pretty much the question. I'm practicing my drushs and most of the time I go to kill a villager, but for that almost all the time my Militias die in the process (at least 2 of them for sure).

So... this is the question: whats the better thing to do? Go for a villager kill or stay in the enemies base until they die (even if you don't kill anything).

For the first mission in a campaign, this might be the hardest one yet and I've been doing the campaigns in chronological order so done quite a few.

Is it better to ignore my allies and try to gun the towers? Do I help them and is it worth even trying to castle up in their towns? Was planning on going for town closest to me by the water which has a market for gold. Stone seems poorly accessible with one group easy to mine and the rest by blue's towers. I know some people like to seem to blow blue away but is that viable really? How would you start to even do that strategy?

Thanks for any tips and advice you can give.

Not a lot of games this week but they are all of fairly good quality so give them a look. The coming few weeks should heat up with Voobly League 2 1v1 Tournament starting(now referred to as Champions League) and also the 3v3 RTS League clan championship. There should also be a one day Odin Deathmatch tourney coming. Fun times. None of the streams below are mine.

Edit: messed up the title formatting and the end date should be 29th but just gonna leave it.

Shelty's Best of the Best Tournament
Mattrieuss v Joe - Round 3, Best of 5 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/962200135
Brickhead v Kimo - Losers Round 2, Best of 3 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/966374215?t=00h38m19s
Player v HuskSuppe - Losers Round 3, Best of 5 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/966571951
Naka's Feb Deathmatch Tournament
Quetz v Gang Losers Round 4 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/965198905?t=04h59m30s
Legend v Mito - Losers Round 4, Best of 5 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/967056787
Trust's EE hidden Cup Smurf tournament(Real players names revealed at end)
Milka v JohnArbiterT90 - Round 1, Best of 3 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/960122748?t=06h27m00s
Crymon v Fabster - Round 1, Best of 3 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/961638910
Fremen v Endless - Round 1, Best of 3 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/965257061
estim v Nezya - Round 1, Best of 3 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/965494259

If you want links to streams as they happen and other tournament info you can join my discord below or ask any questions in the messages.

https://discord.gg/YcdRSwy8Jz

me: GG

them: #### ###

To which my friend responds, "OK boomer".

Britons - Terran(Long Range Type)

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Byzantines - Terran(Defense, Strong Final Weapon Type)

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Celts - Terran(FirePower, Woad Raider's Guerrilla Type)

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Chinese - Zerg(Chu Ko Nu, Heavy Scorpio
Combination Type)

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Franks - Protoss(Paladin's Quality Type)

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Goths - Zerg(Infantry Wave Type)

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Japanese - Zerg(Infantry's Fast Attack Speed)

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Mongols - Protoss(Mangudai, Cavalry Archer, Hussar, Steppe Lancer's Quality Type)

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Persians - Zerg(Fast Development Type)

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Saracens - Protoss(Mamelukes, Camel, Galleon, Archer's Quality Type)

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Teutons - Protoss(Teutonic Knight's Quality Type)

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Turks - Terran(Long Range, FirePower, Guerrilla Type)

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Vikings - Protoss(Longboat's Quality Type)

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Aztecs - Zerg(Infantry Rush)

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Huns - Zerg(Cavalry Archer Wave Type)

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Koreans - Terran(Defense Type)

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Mayans - Terran(Bionic Type)

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Spanish - Terran(Worker's Good HP, FirePower, Guerrilla Type)

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Incas - Protoss(Kamayuk, Slinger's Quality Type)

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Indias - Protoss(Imperail Camel's Quality Type)

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Italians - Zerg(Fast Development, Gunpowder Wave Type)

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Magyars - Terran(Magyar Hussar's Guerrilla, Cavalry Archer's Long Range Type)

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Slavs - Protoss(Boyar's Quality Type)

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Berbers - Zerg(Cavalry Wave, Camel's Fast Regeneration Type)

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Ethiopians - Terran(Shotel Warrior's Guerrilla Type, FirePower)

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Malians - Protoss(Cavalry's High Attack Power Type)

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Portuguese - Protoss(Navy's Quality Type)

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Burmese - Terran(Arambai's Guerrilla Type)

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Khmer - Protoss(Elephant's High Attack Power Type)

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Malay - Zerg(Karambit Warrior Wave, Fast Development Type)

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Vietnamese - Terran(Bionic Type)

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Bulgarians - Protoss(Konnik's Quality Type)

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Cumans - Zerg(Kipchak Wave Type)

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Lithuanians - Protoss(Paladin, Leitis's High Attack Power, Spearman, Skirmishers High Armor Power Type)

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Tatars - Zerg(Pillage Type)

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Burgundians - Zerg(Knight Fast Upgrade Type)

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Sicilians - Zerg(Fast Multi Expansion Type)

More than half the games I try to play I get a variety of error messages, sometimes AoE even closes down completely. I just started playing again and remember this being an issue with release, how have they not fixed this yet? Do they plan to fix it?

We recently started playing team games with my mates mostly 2v2 or 3v3, (we're about 900 elo on 1v1 rm individually) and every time the map it's not Arabia or similar open map we get destroyed. In Arabia we win 70% of the times but with the pool changing we often get maps that we have no clue how to play. We don't wanna exclusively play Arabia so we would like to train a bit but playing against AI is not great as it doesn't play the meta for each map. Are there any team game tips for specific maps or a way to improve and train? Any suggestions welcome thanks!

The options are the most popular potential new civs from a post I recently made, but the sample size of comments was quite small, so here's a poll! You have 5 days to vote, so do it quickly!

View Poll

Hi guys, which civs do you think are best to counter Franks? Personally I really like Teutons as a counter civ. the extra melee armour goes a long way and Teutonic Knights, although slow, can put up a fight vs throwing axeman and paladin if they aren’t able to hit and run (obviously they aren’t the go to unit vs paladin ) they also have great siege and have HC that can take care of the throwing axes. A good handful of monks with the double healing range can also go a long way.

Last time I checked it was unplayable, crashing or out of sync within a few minutes every game. Considering if I could buy it.

As expected of Microsoft. Kill the old player population with a new broken version of the game. Same as Halo MCC. When the game stops making money they have to save on server maintenance costs. Such a pain when I have used 20 000 hours on these two games.

I playing as the Franks went for knights + elite skirms thinking that the skirms will counter the pikes and potential archers and knights counter eagles. That turned out to be a disaster. The thing is that my opponent can always go for archers if I switch into longswords; and knights and longswords would be too expensive. Axeman works too but I had zero on stone. Knights and scorps could also work but I feel like scorps get killed too easily by eagles (if they come from different directions and such). What are your thoughts?

Hi there. I've only been playing AoE2 for about a year and have been loving it, and I especially love watching tournaments. After watching HC4, I got the idea that maybe another cool tournament format could be a pro-am (professional-amateur) 2v2 tournament. I did a little searching and couldn't find that one had been done before, but of course I could have missed it. Below are my ideas for how one could maybe work, but I'm new and am more interested in seeing if anyone else thinks this would make for an entertaining tourney.

If you're not familiar with a pro-am, it's done in some sports like golf, where professional players are each teamed up with an amateur player in a 2v2 tourney. In AoE2, it would be the pro players we all know, but then each of them would be paired with a player who hasn't been in tournaments before and who doesn't have the elo of a pro. But I think they would still have a high elo, maybe 2000-2100 or something. I don't have the player selection all figured out, just spitballing.

My first thought for the match format would be best of 5: Match 1 = 2v2 Match 2 = amateur vs. amateur Match 3 = pro vs. pro Match 4 & 5 = 2v2 (if necessary)

That's as far as I've gotten. :D Maybe an AoE2 pro-am just wouldn't be that interesting and I would accept that, but I do think it could have some neat perks: first, it would be yet another way to see the pros play. Second, it would allow people in the community to feel more involved because some of them would participate. Third, it could be less pressure for the pros because they know they can only do so much with an amateur teammate so they wouldn't expect perfection. Fourth, it would allow us to see who may be the next great AoE2 players among the amateur competitors. And finally, it would just be different!

I'm very curious if anyone else thinks this would work and would be fun. Or maybe my proposed specifics miss the mark, but a pro-am could still work somehow. Or maybe it's just not a good idea. That's ok, but I would love to hear someone else's thoughts. Thanks for reading! Best wishes.

Big battles lag for me, but I wouldn't think they should be any more resource intensive on the DE than the 2005 game.

The following is a list of roughly symmetrical-to-non-DE bonuses that have not been utilized by any civilization. This should work as a guide for creating not-too-crazy civ bonuses for concept civs (Georgians, Poles, Tibetans, etc.) without being forced into something akin to Burgundians or Sicilians or Khmer farm bonus or Lithuanian relic bonus

• Stone Mining( Upgrades) Free
• Start with +X Wood (not copying persian bonus, that's +food and +wood)
• Start with +X Stone
• Castles +X Garrison space
• Archers +Attack (could be balanced by scaling poorly into imp, i.e. lithuanian xbow)
• Archers +Movement speed (could be balanced by scaling poorly into imp, i.e. malian arb)
• Archer-line Upgrades Free (could be balanced by scaling poorly into imp, i.e. malian arb)
• Skirm-line Upgrades Free (specifically worded to affect imp skirms given viet ally, but can be changed)
• Cavalier Upgrade Free (specifically worded to not fuck up balance if civ is given paladin- getting paladin free would be busted)
• Heavy Camel Free
• Cavalry Armor Upgrades Free (Would have to be balanced by scaling poorly to imp, would make a pretty op scrush)
• Infantry Armor Upgrades Free
• Archer Attack Upgrades Free (exc. Chemistry)
• Gunpowder Technologies Free (BBT/CG, prob balanced by no ECG)
• Cavalry +1/2/3 :: +1/2 Attack
• Cavalry +X PA (balanced by no paladin or no bloodlines- we are not doing the Indian model of missing plate barding here)
• Eagles are X% cheaper (thinking of some 4th meso civ that corresponds to malay, explanation below)
• Knights are X% cheaper (higher % than berbers to appeal to specification, easily balanced out by lackluster stable tree)
• Galleys +Range (could be balanced by scaling poorly to imp, ie celt galleon)
• Demos + blast radius (easily balanced by no heavy demo)
• Redemption Free (could be balanced by scaling poorly to imp, ie khmer monk)
• Bloodlines free in Castle Age (prob the most asymmetric I'm gonna get here, would create interesting tradeoff dynamic of weighing extended feudal)
• Husbandry Free (alternative to cuman bonus)
• Squires/Arson Free
• Regional UU-line Upgrades Free (eagles, SL, BE, etc- am debating this + eagle discount around a 4th "meso" civ (Mississippians?) that takes the early game thriving and late-game falloff to a harder extreme than aztecs and mayans, won't be a 0-effort shitpost dw)
• Barracks UU (only one applicable here is condos which don't have an elite upgrade)
• UT that gives archer UU in ranges (Sunka Wakan)
• UT that gives siege UU in workshops
• Better-scaling Halb-variant UU (Swiss Pikemen to your Magyar Huszars- not offering a skirm here because imp skirm)
• Various Monastery/University Upgrades Free (like not Heresy but there's a lot of untouched ground; this is about 12 suggestions wrapped under a single bullet point)
• Military Buildings (exc. castles) built faster
• Eco buildings (i.e. camps) provide housing space (contrast to slavs team bonus)
• Team Bonus: Tribute fees reduced at start
• Houses -X% cost (contrast to japanese eco building bonus and inca housing space bonus- easily balanced by losing out on some starting wood if need be)
• Team Bonus: Castles work slightly faster (less than Kasbah for obvious reasons, may be on a civ who relies heavily on UU similarly to how huns/britons/etc operate)
• Villagers can attack from range if fletching is researched and benefit from archer attack and armor upgrades (Is probably inherently balanced by pierce armor being higher in most units and villagers being on the slower side of units, though I see vils trading well against feudal archers with 2/3 armor, 4 range and 4 attack, so it can certainly be tweaked)
• UU- explicitly anti-siege foot archer
• UU- explicitly anti-gunpowder cavalry
• UU- explicitly anti-archer cavalry (castillian lancers vs genoese crossbowmen, taking bets)
• UT- remove gold cost from Camels (should be balanced by falling off HARD in imp to have camels basically just be faster halbs here, esp given the skirm soft-counter)
• Huntables contain X% more food
• Trees contain X% more wood (don't pick on FN)
• Mines contain X% more gold/stone (lower number than food/wood to be balanced, still stronger than mayan, maybe)
• Berries contain X% more food
• Fishing ships gather from traps X% Faster (stronger than Japanese to screw with SOTL?)
• Barracks Techs cheaper (yes I stole this from Burgundians but it's actually a relatively sane bonus)
• Archery Range Techs cheaper (read above)
• Buildings heal faster (could be balanced by no herbal medicine or just be insanely strong if people were to actually pay attention to their civ bonuses)
• Units can be regarrisoned in production buildings to heal (not much point but could be useful, esp feudal cav since they can't garrison in tc)
• Siege +X% Attack (something sane for the love of lord daut)
• economic buildings (except town centers) built x% faster
• Siege X% faster (once again, something sane please)

-

may or may not be updated, feel free to suggest your own in the comments!

-

"4th meso civ" with obligatory link to steppe lancers too:

HP: Mayans -> Vietnamese (-> Mongols)

Attack: Aztecs -> Khmer (-> ???)

Armor: Incas -> Burmese (-> Tatars)

Cost: ??? -> Malay (-> ???)

Speed: ??? -> Khmer again (-> Cumans)

Same as question. How do you create military? Select all buildings? What's the mindset I have to get into to create military?

I´ve got an Age of Empires 2 Windows 10 key. I don't know if they are regionally bound, but if so, I´m from Germany. If you want the key you can message me.

Note: It`s only for the Windows 10 Store. Not Steam.

in 1v1 if one chose random and the other full random is it possible for both of them to get the same civ ?

Is there graph?

I see myself waiting in the queue a lot.

Very troubling scenario.

1. The green Mongols micromanagement is driving me mad. They micro their horse archers too well. I cannot bother using elephants in this situation.
2. I cannot reach two of the green castles. My trebuchets are destroyed by the mangudai.
3. I am not holding out well. Green has so many siege weapons. My river castles gets destroyed by the trebuchets, and onagers. My walls are also crumbled by the rams. I also lost my galleys to onager shots.
4. Purple is not very helpful. Even if I manage to smash a green castle, they betray me, making my situation more dire.
5. My gold runs out fast.

When I get to imperial, they didn’t even give me time to build some trebuchets for my own, or get some important upgrades. They just started to attack me shortly, giving me so little time to act.

How do you clear this one? It’s maddening.

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I used to be in the 850-880 elo rating as a pretty casual player and I was really pleased with my win rate and how I was playing. Now I find myself losing almost every game I play and my elo has dropped to around 730ish. I can't tell if I should be frustrated about my own game play and strategy or if the average player has just gotten better and I am falling behind a little. Has anyone else felt the same way?

This video is from last year but still relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDbMYIV8ilQ The Deathmatch community mostly plays on EE/Steam and has a small but active online community dedicated to keeping the online deathmatch mode alive and healthy. If you are new to the game and finding the supremacy mode a little too harsh or finding it hard to learn your early build orders this community might be for you. They sometimes also have beginner tourneys to cut your teeth on and are a decent bunch of guys. Go join their discord and see what it's all about: https://discord.gg/xYRd2yABas (You can also find the link in the sidebar of this sub if you want to use that instead)

It was my first game in a while and I try to queue up waited 5 minutes left my computer came back later and I was in a queue for 55 minutes I never joined a game. What am I doing wrong?

Anyone know where I can watch queen's cup? Checked liltroubles stream but didn't see anything. Were the games casted or just played?

Probably 4 out of 5 games found somebody will drop or go afk. When I have two hours of free time one hour will be wasted on finding games with nobody dropping. I like to go for 4vs4 because I feel like having a noob teammate won't matter as much as in 3vs3 or 2vs2. 1v1 is just losing elo for me 90% of the time.

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.

My elo is 1300 and I only play Spain right now. I know Britain is known for being Spain's hardest matchup, yet it's so frustrating to never be able to beat them. I maybe win one out of every 10 games versus then, my win rate is pretty good against every other civ. (except OP Japan & Sweden) I'm asking for advice on what to do, any input is appreciated. My go to reference is Plop's Spain Guide which is awesome, but I have no luck with either an xbow semi or musk falcs naked ff, which it recommends. Britain early game seems kinda broken, borderline OP because of the villager edge. On the side, wouldn't a great balance change be to get rid of their 5 villy card so they only have the 4 vill shipment?

I’m playing against moderate AI, I improved my economy and macro (still got a lot to improve, but considering I watched 2 hours worth of videos I saw a massive improvement) but now I struggle with a. Pushing castles which are defended by many troops b. Fighting groups of various troops, even when I have counters for every one of them (I.e. they have Arambai, LSM and pikemen and skirms, I have mass skirms, Byzantine special unit (forgot the name) and some arbalests).

I struggle with some other things (I.e. reacting to getting attacked -> I just move my villagers to run away from it), reorganising villagers after garrison, but the one I mentioned is my biggest problem.

I managed to destroy two castles but my troops always died, it was pretty much stalemate and going no where for 15-20 mins (this was all that was happening, just rinse and repeat), and I was getting next to no where, so I just quit.

Any tips?

Hello r/aoe2

Let me preface this post by saying that I have never played any of the age of empires games. I have played age of mythology a little and would class myself a very average player.

Me and my brothers have been offered by a very wealthy patron $1000 each, multiplied by the amount of us that complete this challenge, if we can get to 1300+ elo in a month starting now and ending on April 30th. This would be huge if I manage to do this.

I'm making this post to ask for help and suggestions:

​

-On how to reach this goal efficiently

-On which channels to watch and study

-On strategies to use against people of different Elo brackets

​

+any other information you think would come in handy for me

I'm trying to create a structured plan to go about doing this. Should I revise all nuances of this game, should I just play 8 hours a day for a month straight and see if that makes me good enough, should I practise against computers or online games.

Help me out here r/aoe2, I could use the money lol

I download a voice line mod and won as the Haudenosaunee, telling me I'm level 5 home city. But when I exited the game, it says I'm still level 1 in the main menu. Do mods affect home city xp gain?

gosh darn online gameplay is a heck of a lot better than pvc. The community is hilarious

buttsoup and gnat, if you're out there, tip of the hat to you

As title say so, i'm having this weird issue where full screen and borderless fullscreen modes randomly make the game lag and stutter but setting it to windowed mode makes the game run lock on at a 75fps (i have 75hz monitor).

By random i mean: Sometimes the game runs fine, others and for no apparent reason the game stutters so long as the game is either in full screen or borderless full screen mode but switching to windowed mode takes the lag away.

I'm running the game on a system with a ryzen 2600x and a rx 580 on windows 10.

As a workaround i found a program called "Borderless gaming" which allows to have a game be set in windowed mode and them displayed as bordeless fullscreen, by this method i can achieve bordless full screen mode with no stutter whatsover.

Mind you i've experience something similar with age of empire: definitive edition 1 the first game in the series (i bought both on Steam) however this issue is only limited to these 2 games. The rest of the games i have installed, Doom eternal, Resident evil 2 Remake, Sekeiro and Dark souls remastered all run fine.

Any ideas?

I wanna play forest nothing 256 but I can't find the mod. can someone help

https://www.kaggle.com/slappdun/35000-age-of-empires-2-1v1-ranked-random-matches

I've been playing around with the aoe2.net API and obtained the data for about 35,000 ranked 1v1 random match games played in early March. Details on both the winner and loser as well as match metadata are included in each observation. Column names are straight forward and the times are stored in (epoch) format. It's all package in a csv ready for your perusal.

​

I hope to expand the data set to include more matches soon as well as make further edits to simplify the data's structure.

​

Thanks!

Yo guys. The question will be in [brackets], so if you don't wanna read my preface, you can just skip to that.

I'm sure that most of you grew up knowing of/played AOM in some capacity- I definitely did. I am also certain that you all knew about the online servers back then too. I remember back then when my famy finally got internet in the house, I was super stoked about AOM online. Seeing that there was custom game modes people made in those servers was absolutely awesome and so fun AND catered to all types of players. That type of content was perfect for me, as I played the game very casually and had smol brain when it came to speedy high APM gameplay lmao. When I found out that this game was available on steam years later (about 2017-18), I was excited to play those dope ass game modes again, but I got really sad when I found that none of that was there.

[So my question is where is all those custom game modes I knew and loved from back in the OG online servers? Where's the Rare Ulfsarks? The iHero? The SIMS game mode, even lmfao Perhaps it would've been difficult to transfer those files onto the steam version? Or maybe its not allowed for some reason since its through steam? I'm genuinely curious- i think its possible, since the editor mode is still available. Oh, and I also know NOTHING about AOM community and just found out about this r/ so please don't kill me lol

Thanks!