Hey! New player here. I just wanted advice on what my army shld be composed of. I usually take Teutons but I have a hard time beating the hard AI. So what is the army composition I shld be using?

I'm absolutely sick of dealing with it, but it's not malignant enough to waste a ban on. Simply, it's not a strategically deep or interesting game (wow, castle drop! Boom to late game! Wheeeeeeee) and I would rather not bother with online play until it's no longer there.

I have finally finished my website that allows you to craft civs -- no modding required! You can visit it at https://krakenmeister.com/civbuilder. There are also options for complete randomization, and to play a mini-game with friends where you take turns picking bonuses. I have added 100 new bonuses on top of vanilla ones, and plan to make more. If you have any ideas for bonuses/units/techs, please let me know and I will add them to the list!

Pictures

How the hell do I counter the Spanish Logistician? I play Spanish main myself but please don't reply Logistician rush back..... seems like it kills my ff every time

What is your proudest achievement in AOE 2?

I think for myself it has to be pulling off the no loom Bulgarian men at arm rush to perfection... no I take that back. My brother and I had a game against a spanish player and another player. My brother picked Portuguese so he could see what I saw. I then went for a fast forward TC drop while he proceeded to wall the opponent in. As soon as my brother hit Feudal the scouts came out on his end the tc was down and all Spanish villagers got cleaned up... a strategy that shouldnt of worked worked and we won the game. the best part was enjoying the moment with my brother afterwards.

I am also really proud of this community. I recently started casting games (odd strategies) and I often find myself technologically inept. Not just that; I dont know what the procedure is on sharing stuff on different sites, how to discord or how to find games... but I always have people in this community that help me. They tell me what to do, teach me how to discord, share games with me and so much more. I am just really proud of all the people who are willing to help not because they have to but because they want to... so if your reading this... Thank you for being part of this community!

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One of the few times I got lucky in the very early game, with this accidental Douche ;) .

While waiting for my TC to go up, I was thinking hard about what to do next: keep the vills garrisoned to shoot the opponent TC, or go build a mill elsewhere, build the house, etc, or maybe a combination of both. Not sure.

Anyway, 2 vills dead after 2 minutes was probably too much, for my opponent.

https://reddit-uploaded-video.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/t2_13d9wp%2Fthycc5ljvj271

- Card and XP system is too complex.

- Having only three resource types is too simplistic.

- Counter system is too complex.

- Counter system relying on tags not individual units and armour types is too simplistic.

- Regional aesthetics rather than all western European is too complex.

- Lack of dropoff buildings is too simplistic.

- Units having both range and melee is too complex.

- Artillery without minimum range is too simplistic.

- AOE3 has too many assets to remember, which is too casual thus simplistic.

- AOE3 relies too much on timing and decks, and too fast-paced, which is too competitive thus complex.

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Conclusion:

- AOE3 is too complex compared to AOE2 which is a letdown.

- AOE3 is too simplistic compared to AOE2 which is a letdown.

I’m bashing my head against the wall trying to beat the mountain siege (mission 2 from the le loi campaign) I break through to the east but by the time I get half the rebels there my base is wiped out and the castles are destroyed. Any tips would help. Thanks in advance.

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!

Not a huge deal by any means, but I think its kind of interesting and realistic that buildings on certain terrain types are a bit more fragile. I noticed that buildings on cracked terrain take 25% more bonus damage, are there any other terrains that do this?

When watching things like hidden cup, I always thought that buildings on the swamp terrain should be somewhat more vulnerable, so that there is an interesting trade off between controlling the water with buildings, but there being a bit of a risk involved. I also think this should apply to buildings on ice.

Perhaps its a silly thing to focus on, but since the mechanic is in the game, I think it would be interesting to expand upon, and become perhaps become another important part of map design for tournaments. It might be small, but it could be another interesting talking point for casters when covering the new maps for a competition.

Since I played a 4v4 AC yesterday, at around 2k6 TG Elo, where 5 out of 8 players made a big mistake in the first seconds, I thought I could share this info.

You have to build your starting TC at a pond. Best if the pond has extra res, or is not too far from them main wood. And you can ignore sheeps/rhinos etc just get the shore fish, build early extra mills at new ponds.

I thought this was quite obvious, but maybe it helps some players that dont play this map too often.

I've downloaded a few maps from the mod library that is accessible from the main menu. But when I want to play them in single- or multiplayer games, I can find them nowhere. Does anybody know how to play on those kinds of maps?

Hi. Do you have a burning curiosity about knowing what you need differently to improve fast? 6 more spots open this month!

Link

Did anybody else notice the huge amount of smurfs on team games this weekend? Played around 10 games and 9 of them were clear smurfs...

Just lost to a guy in 1v1 ranked at 1400 elo playing sweden who made 63 leather cannons and only like 20 caroleans. Realized far too late that cav archer was my only hope, was playing as japan and they just decimated my infantry, and naginatas too. There is nothing more demoralizing than watching 30 leather cannons roll into your base, and then backed up by black riders too. Its obviously not a great strategy and if I made the unit switch faster I could've won, I just never expected them to be so strong. Has this happened to anyone else?

Title. Or is it just me?

Outposts crushed by 6 native infrantry. No rss drop off (every other strategy game has some sort of drop off). Walling feels super dumbed down. No Min range on cannon. Hot keys are like ice cream left on pavement in 100° Texan summer...

Ships are always fun tho

I'm working on the US challenges and have made it up to Mississippi, so I've played quite a few games. Most of the time, the HC of the civ I play levels up just fine, but sometimes it doesn't. I've played (and finished) 3 games with the Dutch, but the HC is still level 1. Same thing happened with the French, 3 games didn't level them up, but they finally hit level 6 on my 4th game. When I view the postgame after each map, it always shows that my HC for the civ I played has leveled up; always to level 6 from level 1. So the Dutch has reached level 6 three times now, but it never sticks! Every time I start a new game, they've reset to level 1. The French were the same until they weren't.

What's going on here? Why aren't they leveling up like they should? Is this a bug? Is there a fix? Please help.

I’ve known about the advantage of hills, and recently learned that scouts become faster and have more attack in feudal than dark age. What are some other tricks that aren’t known “on paper”?

Alright been trying to figure out how to install several campaigns from AOK Heaven into DE manually because all the ones that are loaded up on the mod list are translated into chinese. Is there a way to install the original versions from AOK heaven onto DE manually? Thanks!

Just love how your "explorer" can straight up construct a Fortfication. Can he do it Age 2 or is it just Age 3?

I would like to propose an African civilisation.

As a capoeira practitioner i'm really intrigued with it's history. And i found the book "Fighting for honor". The writer deeply goes into the culture of the Angolan civilisations which passed on capoeira. So this martial art was developed, it was a way of fighting for the shepherds. To train their physical body, to train with a staff and to learn acrobatics fo evation. Eventually over the years this became standardized, and a whole military culture developed around the martial art. Back than it was called Engolo.

So the Engolo warriors were trained as children into the martial arts. And were mostly melee fighters with melee weapons. They were extremely flexible and extremely good at evading attacks.

So their power in society became huge, they became warrior priests who performed rituals for the regional lords. And a lord took control of the region and became king. Since then it became a ritual warriorcult that lead all formalities, parades and trainings.

Over time their civilisation became too agressive for the region and they left. Looking to expand. They became sort of the Huns of the Angolan, Namibian and Congolese lands. A warriorfolk that won all it's battles because no one was trained or could fight like them. Men and woman. With ethical codes and warrior codes of the warriorpriest.

The dance martial art capoeira was a ritual to bless the civilian or the warrior with blessings from the ancestors. The rituals were fights between warriors to become warrior priests, to finish their training. These were organised through tournaments and weddings. It was all based on the observation of the habbits of the Zebra. Even the techniques were based on the movement of the Zebra.

The engolo master had to take spiritual ritual initiations, and the final form was the physical form of martial art. One was kandeka boxing, supernatural ngolo kicks and acrobatics. They were trained in auxiliary fighting techniques and guerilla warfare.

One of the songs they sang was called "You don't have a door, maybe jump over". An expert was expected to graceflly dodge attacks and arrows. And hence it grew into a battlefield combat art. The Kunene fightes from the Angola savannah did not use shields. They did not use formations, to maximize an individual's combat skills. They used missile weapons and a volley of arrows. The skill of dodging an arrow was called "sanguar" and the wardance was called "sangamento". Their only defense was sanguar, to arrows and arms. So they developed a way to overcome the first phase of missile weapons to come to hand to hand combat. Later on they added archery, stick fighting, rock throwing, knokberrie (like atl-atl).

They were originally from around the Kunene river in Namibia around the 12th century. And moved more and more northwards. And they believed in Kalunga, the spiritual world of the ancestors. Kalunga is also the name of their god "The great bringer of order". To make connection with the other world, a warriorpriest was supposed to literally turn around, by walking on his hands.

I would suggest Unique Unit: Kunene warrior (a skirmisher with no minimum range, it has a special move to evade an attack from a foot unit and counterattack immediately). Very expensive unit, high hitpoints and high pierce armor, low melee armor. Bonus attack versus infantry, archers and gunpowder units (except conquistador). The Kunene warrior can hunt from huntables and gather food from herdables, at a faster rate than a villager.

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Civic bonusses:

Military foot units walk 18% faster.

Archers, skirmishers and villagers have +3 Pierce armor (starts in feudal age).

Can train herdables from Mills.

A Mill sustains 5 population.

Team bonus: Arson tech in barracks is free.

Civic tech1 Sangamento: Allows to build a Ceremony Grounds, where a group of Kunene warriors can garrison and can gain experience from a 'tournament' which will increase their attack. It costs food and gold to host a tournament. It will act like a tech, after several min the involved units will have +1 attack. And then it will be available again, and the units can ungarrison.

Civic tech2 Sanguar: Kunene warriors can regenerate their hitpoints.

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Lacks units:, hussars, cavaliers, heavy camels, hand cannoneers, arbalests, champion, eagle warrior, elephants, siege ram, siege onager, bombard cannon, bombard galleon, fast fire ship.

Lacks techs: last armor upgrade for infantry and archers. Blast furnace. Bloodlines. Crop rotations.

Lets say Monks could convert units and those units are affected by your bonuses. What is the most OP unit that you could make?

I'd have a Lithuanian Paladin with +4 attack converted to a Bulgarian player with 33% faster attack.

It's a Paladin that does 22 attack with a 1.425 RoF, which is equivalent to a 15.44 DPS.

This means in a 1v1 vs a generic Paladin it win with 63-76 hp left.

Which unit would you have?

Hey!

I used AoE2.net's API to analyse some of my own past games, and I've written it up on my substack here, while my code can be found here. I don't promise that the code will work for you, but you never know...

https://mattseymour.substack.com/p/how-i-play-age-of-empires-2

I am new to blogging and new to Rstats, so let me know if there is anything that's broken, or if there are any other analyses you're interested in.

This will help settle a debate.

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In the past weeks I've been playing the Berbers a ton, especially on nomad. Having a great tech tree, a strong cavalry bonus, a strong unique unit and faster moving villagers it's a civ that overlooked and has quickly become my new "main" civ.

Now on the previous civs I've played I always knew exactly what my bad matchups were.

I detest facing britons as Turks or Japanese, same deal with bulgarians facing mongols. It's not that these matchups are impossible to win, but they are harder.

However I don't feel the same way about Berbers. I feel they have an answer to everything. Hence why I ask some more experienced players here, what is your experience?

Here's a discord channel for new/returning players for Age of Empires (2 Definitive Edition). https://discord.gg/RVH7vxxW

For those looking to play casual matches / non competitive.

We'll also be playing Age of Empires IV upon release.

always looking to play games and I was wondering if people are interested in joing my discord to play games with me and my friends.

https://discord.gg/CWUC65wY

I started matchmaking after the team rm elo fix came. Because of the elo inflation I assume, the players at 1000 are extra garbage. Any time I get past 1150 elo, I get paired with the most useless teammates ever, and it's not just in my head because I'll have highest score and way better K/D than my enemies and allies and still lose.

I wish the ranked match system let you verse extreme AI for 1 game and then gave you a starting ELO different from the current default 1000. It's so fucking frustrating playing with these useless teammates and wasting everyone's time, and I know for a fact I'm way better than these fucking noobs I'm paired with almost every game. I'm no pro but I think I could at the very least be 1300-1400. My hidden unranked elo comprised mostly of BF games is ~2300.

I was playing as Indians vs Vikings and Japanese. Thanks to some great answers on my previous question, I was able to hold off the knight rush and boom. Then I started getting attacked by champions of both civs, backed by skirms/arbalests. Per the wiki, " Again, Hand Cannoneers easily deal with enemy infantry, so the player must use them.", so I went into HC with halbs in front. It didn't work, the champions cut through both, unless I committed 5+ HC per champ.

What am I doing wrong, I.e. is it a micro issue or should I mass larger numbers of HC? Research all armor upgrades (I didn't get ring archer)? Conversely, is the unit choice itself wrong?

Thanks a lot!

Can you move a relic once you place it in a monastery?

I've seen a few players use Flemish Revolution. Most recently in a 1 on 1. I ended up winning but, I am really amazed at just how overpowered this tech is.

I watched a spirit of the law video on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTNeGAvkqbQ and he explains that if you have 100 villagers, it's only 4.5 gold per unit. They (generally speaking) have the strengths of champions plus the strengths of halberdiers, together in the same unit.

The loss of economy is kind of a non-issue. If anything it works the opposite. It's a gain in economy. 100+ strong units for, something like 4.5 gold each, is like getting hundreds (thousands?) of free resources. When I saw my opponent use this in my last came, he rebuilt his villagers in only minutes.

I saw this stat that, the tech only has a 20% win rate. I honestly don't know how that can be the case. Perhaps the people who are using it think they can just pay to win, by buying this overpowered civ.

It kind of made me feel a bit sour about that match. I am honestly amazed that I won, but if I hadn't, I don't feel that it would have been a fair victory for my opponent. It would be one thing if these were like, 100 cheap weak units. But they are so strong that, in a lot of situations, there's not much answer for it.

Any ideas as to why? Or did they replace the sound?

Will they bring back 2's gameplay mechanics?

Compared to both Coustilliers in Burgundian civ and Serjeants in Sicilian civ

While Sicilian have good siege options and Serjeants, none of their bonuses favour either infantry or siege. The bonus damage resist is mainly a cavalry bonus since cavalry can't be overpowered by brute force, they need a proper counter unit.

For Sicilians, it is Cavalry all game, unless you research First Crusade and go for Serjeants - the transitions are awkward.

For Burgundians, they have +2 attack on Knights (basically Cavalier - Bloodlines) but Castle in early castle age is a big investment. In Imperial Age, when castles are much viable, Burgundians have access to Paladins immediately and much cheaply. Hence the Coustilliers which were seen here and there in Castle Age, become outdated and useless in Imperial Age.

While the charge attack of Elite Coustillier is good enough to one shot villagers, Burgundian Paladins have more HP, more attack, more pierce armor. The charge attack of Coustilliers doesn't work against buildings, which is an important strength of Heavy Cavalry in late game.

Since many were debating on what level is considered a noob, just wanted to collect your feedback and see where the line is according to most people’s standards. Thanks!

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Big Scoob Another Wholesome Gamer - YouTube

supper funny game I was told to cast this game and told he was a wholesome gamer....

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11

The one I googled has only original and hd dataset.

I tried changing preferred graphic processor to nvidia processor in both global and program settings in nvidia control panel changed openGL rendering GPU to GeForce GTX1650 Added aom and titans to graphic performance preference in windows graphics settings nothing worked Please help me thanks.

Are skirmishers affected by archery and blacksmith upgrades?

Is it worth it to research if your civ doesn't have masonry or architecture technology to go along with it?

So does that mean your units die if converted or enemy monks don't even affect your units at all and are rendered useless?

Which is your favorite/best civ for Paladins?

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Franks - +20% HP

Burgundians - Upgrade discount

Lithuanians - +1 attack per relic

Teutons - +1/+2 melee armor

Persians - bonus vs archers

Heyo ...

has anyone seen information in regards to schedule, seeding and tournament tree? I cant seem to find any information, neither on liquipedia nor on aoezone.

The first qualifier does start this weekend, does it not?

Hello everybody, these are the playable cultures I want added in AOE 4 as DLC. Would mention that due to the assymetry and complexity of each civilization we probably won't be getting more than 30 total. Should explain that at launch the game would have only 8 playable factions, with 4 being confirmed and the other 4 being speculation based on rumors and leaks. Personally, I think I have chosen a good roster though obviously there are some civilizations which haven't been listed for various reasons.

I.Base game

1.English (confirmed)

2.Delhi Sultanate (confirmed)

3.Mongols (confirmed)

4.Chinese (confirmed)

5.French (rumored)

6.Abbasid Saracens (rumored)

7.Kievan Rus (rumored)

8.Holy Roman Empire (rumored)

II.Europe

9.Norse

10.Celts

11.Byzantines

III.Asia

12.Japanese

13.Chola (south India)

14.Khmer

IV.Africa

15.Ethiopians

16.Malians

17.Congo

V.Americas

18.Incas

19.Mayans

20.Aztecs

VI.Bonus

21.Spanish

22.Italians

23.Koreans

24.Ottomans

Honorable mentions: Goths, Berbers, Portuguese, Bulgarians, Vietnamese and Tibetans.

​

https://reddit.com/link/nnhkm6/video/snhoht3ka0271/player

It seems that every time I run away from another scout, the enemy always manages to continuously land hits on my scout. And no, I don't use waypoints (which slow you down).

Yet I'll often chase the enemy scout all over the map, and somehow their scout will either outrun mine or it will remain at an unreachable distance, as shown here.

I suspect the answer is simple: lag (fucking Comcast constantly chokes my region). But I'm hoping there's some mechanic I'm not aware of. Is there a way to run with your scout so as to not get hit by a pursuing scout?

Prev spec poll: https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/n96c95/specs_poll_of_the_week_1_what_screen_size_do_you/

Pick the one closest to your resolution, some people use their laptop screens to play, which can be 1920 x 1200. The Surface laptop is 2256 x 1504, which is close to 2K.

View Poll

Most conversations about the original AOE2 lump in the conquerors expansion, but most of my childhood I played the original base game. I was thinking back on what was and wasn't in the game back then. For instance:

-No Halberdier. Spamming Paladin was a lot more effective because they could just chew through pikemen, and my personal favorite, War Elephants, went full god mode on the battlefield.

-No Hussar either. All of the trash unit upgrades stopped at the Castle Age.

-No queuing up farms. You had to time all of your farms to expire at the same time, or else you got stuck refreshing 40 farms over a 5 minute period. Same with fish traps, though they lasted longer. But you didn't have gill nets, so fishing was slow.

-Rams sucked. I think Bombard Tower damage was calculated as melee damage (like the mangonel and bombard cannon) so Rams went down to a few shots. They also couldn't have infantry in them either, so they were slow and vulnerable to calvary attacks.

-New lumbercamps, mills and mining camps did not auto assign villages. You would send ten villagers to a mining camp, forget about it, and find them 20 minutes later standing around like people waiting in the line at the DMV, it was infuriating.

What do you guys remember from OG Age of Kings?

What are the most efficient hotkeys for small hands? I have a lot of trouble reaching the numbers with my pinky on ctrl. In world of warcraft I know all my spells and can do my own bindings, but I am new to aoe2 and don't really know what is most important. There are a lot of hotkeys to download from the pro stage, but I can't seem to find any that are good for small hands. Any tips?

I am offering free coaching for interested players who are 1v1 1300 Elo or below. (My Elo :1500+)

Feel free to message me in my twitch chat. You can even share links to your recorded games and I can review them on stream.
https://www.twitch.tv/old_monk_aoe

How do fish traps work? Do they act like a one time fishing spot you can place anywhere? Also do you just click on the fish trap and ship will go back and forth between the dock on its own?

What about a civ whose TCs cost gold instead of stone, or had their stone cost replaced by an additional wood cost? I think it could make for some unique game play and flexibility without being OP. The only thing I worry about with it would be people stone walling more cause they could still boom behind so I suppose the civ would also not get access to stone walls.

My 7 year old has watched me play a few times after which she got really hooked to the point of only wanting to discuss strategies with me. It seems excessive to me and I am uncertain that she is old enough for the game (or even gaming). What is your experience?

How would you beat Vietnamese as Britons?

It feels like they win the rock paper scissor every time.

I just played a game against them and it goes like this

Viet Rattan archer beats Longbowmen, so switch to Skirmishers Bombard cannons beat skirmishers, from far away Viet Elephants/rams walk through skirmishers, break down buildings

If you switch to pikemen to deal with their elephants, the rattan archers beat them

If you switch to onagers to kill the rattan archer, the bombard cannons pick them off

is there something I am missing? Or there is no way to beat Vietnamese as Britons unless you can rush them before they've built up?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlH1FF7mPTc

if their is one thing you could change in AOE2 what would it be?

I think for myself their is nothing to change because I love the game as it is... Is that too cheesy?

Just how good are they? They have all blacksmith upgrades, but no 2HS. Can condottiero make up for this well?

So I've been watching Aoe2 tournaments in the last year. I've noticed that Briton players don't make longbows as often as say Mayans build plumes or Vietnamese build Rattans.

Does this mean Longbows aren't as good of a UU or does this mean Briton economy doesn't transition well to castles and Longbows?

1150 elo and I do well against other archers when I go archers. But Berbers, Franks, Persians, etc I feel like youre fighting badly uphill in 1v1. Knights are such a power unit and archers are like.. meh. If they manage to get into your base at any point its basically GG. So im building up an army of paper soldiers and trying to keep cavalry outta my base. I feel like 1v1 its easier just playing a cav civ. Thoughts? Advice?

I'm just going to throw out some thoughts I've had on different small civilization tweaks that I think would have a positive impact on the game. None of them really have enough substance to be thread on their own, so I'm just going to post them and see if they create any positive discussion.

Make War Elephants immune to conversion - This unit is already countered by halb, archers, cav archers outright. It has an insane cost investment. It has no rider on the back of the elephant. Just remove the one counter that prevents them from ever being made.

Sanctity should be reworked as an upgrade. It is almost always better to make more monks than it is to upgrade Sanctity. A player has to make at least five monks just for the number of hits taken from Knights/Scouts to make up for its cost.

Goths population increase should be to 225 not 210. The game was balanced around 75 population and so the Goths were supposed to get a buff to 85 population. If you keep that percentage and scale up to 200, then they would receive +25.

Supplies should apply to Infantry UU's I don't know if this is possible to do with the coding the way it is, but it would be a nice touch to help Infantry civilizations.

Lithuanians should get Hill Forts as a civilization bonus and have to research either their relic bonus or their trash unit speed. I wouldn't mind the douche possibilities, but it could only apply in castle age as an anti-mangonel perk.

Koreans should get their Onager range back. Yes I don't play team games.

Anyone got any detail on how much has changed since the original game? Are the Persians still available and their elephants? Now that 20 years later we have high speed internet and online game play, how is the online gameplay on this? Is it on a platform with say a few other players in the room on the same map ? I’m excited to play again

I'm "new" to AoE2 (played when I was smol, but I'm not counting that, I was truly useless at it), and I find myself lagging behind moderate HD AI in terms of getting to the castle age; consequently gimping my military and ability to get relics and the sort. I have plenty of villagers (I think). The thing is I always find that I'm getting stuck for longer than what I feel I should be in Feudal Age. A Usually, I have 20-30 farmers at this point, like 10-15 lumberjacks and like 5 on both gold and stone respectively. ny tips to stop this?

Do you think that some info on the new DLC would release on this event or not? I think the date matches with the summer release, but maybe its not big enough for this conference

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I'm a noob player, thanks to tips here I'm able to advance through ages around the same time as moderate/hard AI (DE) and have some basic understanding of strategy and build orders.

I'm playing vs 2 moderate/hard AI. This typically occurs in early castle age, once I've set up 3 towns and am focussing on forward military production against one of the AI. Everything goes smoothly, except sometimes the other AI finds a gap and enters my first town with waves of knights (probably 10-12 at a time). My pikes and palisades are not much of a resistance, and by time I produce and bring 2-3 monks to the site, they've done enough damage to unnerve me (and force a resignation).

Looking at the stats post-match, I've got more vills and a bigger army at this point, so objectively, there is a reasonable chance of bouncing back if I somehow stick through the attack. During the match, however, it seems hopeless. I would like to know how you deal with this situation, particularly because I eventually want to play multiplayer team games, and then resigning like this wouldn't be cool.

Thanks a lot!