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    Age of Empires II Hidden Cup 3 Megathread

    March 19, 2020

    Age of Empires II Hidden Cup 3 Megathread

    Hidden Cup 3 Megathread

    Posted: 18 Mar 2020 03:04 PM PDT

    This thread will contain spoilers in the comment section & in the bracket, read onwards at your own risk! You have been warned!

    Thursday 19th - Sunday 22nd March starting every day at 14GMT (10am EST, 15 CET, 1am AEDT) tune in to T90Official's Twitch Stream to check out all of the Hidden Cup 3 action! The Round of 16 will be played over Thursday & Friday, the Quarterfinals on Saturday and Sunday will feature the Semifinals and the LIVE Grand Final.

    Hidden cup features 16 of the best players in the world, all playing under randomly assigned hidden identities, even they don't know who they are up against! They are disguised as AoE2 Hero units, and it is up to the viewers to predict who they think each Hero really is!

    The Bracket | Tournament Trailer | YouTube Playlist | Hero Showdown

    Map Overview by LidaKor | The Contenders Main event Overview by Tarsiz | Hidden Cup 3 Stats

    Streamed live with a brand new AoE2 DE overlay made by the CaptureAge team, be sure to check it out!

    The Prizepool

    Currently, the prizepool stands at $49,500, but for every twitch sub that T90 has at the end of Sundays stream, $1 is added to the prizepool, which will hopefully take us well over $50k!!

    The Players

    • ACCM

    • Antagonist

    • BacT

    • DauT

    • dogao

    • F1Re

    • Hera

    • Liereyy

    • MbL

    • Nicov

    • TaToH

    • TheMax

    • TheViper

    • Villese

    • Vivi

    • Yo

    The Heroes

    • Charlemagne

    • King Sancho

    • Joan The Maid

    • Bad Neighbor

    • Leif Erikson

    • Princess Yodit

    • Kotyan Khan

    • Sheriff of Nottingham

    • Saladin

    • Friar Tuck

    • Alaric The Goth

    • Vlad Dracula

    • Henry The Lion

    • William The Conqueror

    • Charles Martel

    • Emperor in a Barrel

    If you want a recap of the qualifiers, here is the qualifier bracket, and a overview by Tarsiz for Round 1 & Round 2

    Who will be victorious? Who do you think is playing as each hero? Discuss anything & everything in the comments!

    If you have any questions about anything let us know!

    submitted by /u/robo_boro
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    I ALSO HAVE ANOTHER BONOUS PANNEL JUST BOT AS GOOD

    Posted: 18 Mar 2020 11:59 PM PDT

    Your personal guide to (incorrectly) guessing all Hidden Cup 3 players

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 05:22 AM PDT

    With hidden cup 3 being almost upon us, here are some....

    Guaranteed tips to mislead!!!

    The Viper

    The Viper is the best player in the world, therefore any player who wins a string of matches in a row is ViperConfirmedTM. Especially if they save any exposed villagers with Disgusting Quickwalls, a 9th level spell only snakes can perform. If this player, once identified as Viper, loses a subsequent match, it will be because he was Just Trolling. And definitely not because he was actually TaTOH or Villese.

    Viper is known to be the best water player in the world (in addition to being the best land player), so he will pick water maps such as Islands, High Tide, where he can reliably grind out wins. He will then pick Koreans on Water and execute a Mastapiece, even though Hera is the player who recently did precisely that in the show matches not so long ago.

    Viper tends to play in a safe style in tournaments, never over extending. He goes for safe pickoffs to establish villager lead, and then hides behind the safety of his housewalls and quickwalls to prevent any comebacks.

    Hera

    Hera is the second best player in the world, and the reason for this is he Always Plays Meta. Water map? Italians. Slopes? Indians. Cross? Persians. Cup? Japanese. Expect Hera to pick Land Maps where he abuses his Mega APM, microing his starting scout to snipe villagers Weakened by Boar, which are never safe against Hera, even if they are right under the TC. Because Hera will Dive Under the TC and sidestep all arrows, surviving to live another day, and even win the Scout War.

    Hera is known for his heavy military commitments, excelling against OK Boomers with Full Feudal or Full Castle play. He ages up only once he has established a safe military lead. So if someone makes a surprising comeback vs a Castle Age player using nothing but All In Scouts, it's not Daut, it's Hera.

    Like Viper, Hera is a Disgusting Quickwaller, observed not just to wall opponents out but also to trap them with Palisade Gates. Although he has never been a committed Water player, Hera will still beat Water pros like TaTOH and Nicov on them, simply because he is the second best player in the world, appearing in the last 5 finals in recent tournaments.

    TaTOH

    Tatoh, while not top 2, is somewhere in the top 8. He is known for inventing Unusual Build Orders, such as his Back Dock into Fast Castle Italians. He also tries to Break the Meta with his civ picks. If anyone picks Saracens on a land map we have TaTOHConfirmedTM.

    Tatoh plays standard pro meta pretty well but tends to struggle in Messy Games. He loves Water maps because those are far more predictable. But he will do unexpected things on those maps like a Landing. And once he lands, he won't drop military, but it will be something silly like Stealing A Relic. T90 will get all excited seeing it, and then the actual game will be won or lost by some other unrelated reason.

    MBL

    MBL stands for Master Boar Lamer. He will pick Aztecs and then he will steal your boar early. If you try to block his eagle you will fail. He is a Boar Whisperer and will always bring the Boar home. Even if you force MBL to run in a circle for 10 minutes he will still Bring the Boar Home.

    MBL unlike TaTOH thrives in Messy Games, especially Balls to the Walls Post Imp. He is an excellent spammer in the late game and will win games past 1 hour. Other pros get tired but not MBL. MBL will also use Single Queue instead of Multiqueue and never turn on Auto Farm Reseed. Because he doesn't need those, he's MBL.

    However, MBL has a big weakness known as Houses. He will Always Get Housed. And recently he has been possessed by a Hoang Spirit. So expect him to pick Celts, man@a, go forward and then Hoang you in Castle Age with Pikemen + Mangonel all in. MBL will also pick Vikings on Cup because he believes longboats are overpowered. And who's to say he's not correct?

    Yo

    Yo is an old time player so old habits die hard. He still believes in using Stone Gates. Unlike the earlier four he tends to play very standard so it is hard to Identify the Yo. Therefore you have to identify him by identifying his opponent. If a player is somehow good enough to keep up with the likes of confirmed Viper, Hera, MBL, TaTOH sightings, he's probably Yo.

    Worth mentioning also that Yo always shoots the boar with his TC before finishing with vils.

    The style that Yo uses tries to anticipate it like a chess game, so he will build Counters to the Counters. Otherwise he likes to boom. He will usually get a villager lead but it's 50:50 if he can keep it.

    TheMax

    Max is one of the most dangerous of the top 8 in a match such as Hidden Cup. Because of his Unpredictable Finnish Openings. When you know you're playing Max you'll immediately Check the Corners for Forward Buildings. But when you don't know you're playing Max, you don't check - and therefore Scouts will stream into your base and ruin your Fully Walled Base.

    Despite those wacky openings, Max is an OK Boomer, so what he really wants to do is flood your base with Ten Thousand Knights. If you give him Untouched Eco you will get smashed by Paladins.

    On Hybrid maps Max will try strange things like Tower Your Fish. If someone picks Incas and goes Boxing he is Max. Finnish through and through, and even harder to guess, because another Finnish player, Villese, is in the tournament. But luckily, Rubenstock didn't qualify, or else we wouldnt know who executed a TC Drop.

    Lierrey

    Back in the heyday Lierrey was known for having the Best Micro In the World. He would regularly fight unwinnable fights and then win somehow. Like using 9 archers to defeat 15 skirmishers while micro-ing uphill. These days he isn't playing at his peak anymore, but perhaps his form will return in Hidden Cup 3?

    Lierrey is a gentleman so he will always RESIGGGGNNNN when he is defeated. He will not play out the match which is Obviously Potato. You will know such a position is reached whenever T90 announces he will Gift 5 Subs if there is a comeback. Lierrey will never reach such a position because he will Resigggnnnnnn beforehand.

    Lierrey is also a committed atheist, so he Never Takes Relics.

    Vivi

    AKA Fat Dragon, this one is a fan favorite, and probably easy to spot. Vivi loves Towers. Not only that, he will only send a Single Villager Forward. This Villager will drop to 1 HP after getting attacked by Woo-Woo-Woolfs. And after that she (it's always a she) will single handedly win the game.

    Because Vivi forwards with so little military commitment, expect him to have a much better eco than normal Scrub Trushers. You're looking at someone hiding behind Three TC Boom while towering All your Woodlines. The chaos is even harder to counter because of it. Not only do you have to clear the Mess from Your Base, you have to do it versus someone with a Ten Villager Lead.

    And then he will Stonewall his base, as well as your gold pile.

    Nicov

    The strongest player who had to sit through the extra step of Qualifiers, Nicov is a strong water player as well as an OK Boomer. However, at the last minute you will realize he Forgot His Eco Upgrades. Did someone only research Wheelbarrow once he has 140 villagers? Then you have NicovConfirmedTM.

    Nicov also likes to QuickWall, which is normal for a pro, but what is not so normal is he will QuickWall with Stone Gates. I guess he doesn't trust wooden piles. Nicov loves water maps. You can predict 3 Neutral Range Islands to be a part of his Map Selection.

    Nicov is known to have prepared very strongly for HC3, so he might excel in Hidden Cup 3 new maps such as Slopes and High Tide.

    DauT

    Also known as God, Daut is one of the last remaining Low APM Pros, he will never execute a quickwall (even if there's recent video evidence he can totally do so now), and all his castles will be Daut Castles. Note that these Daut Castles never appear when he is winning but will only appear when he's in lost positions. So maybe not all his castles but only some of them.

    Daut wins games by pure macro so therefore you can expect him to play Safe Maps like Hideout. He will go for civs that don't need enormous micro so it won't be Britons, but Something Like Celts or Khmer. He will try to bait his opponents into making too many of one unit and then surprising them with the counter.

    Other Players

    Villese is the Responsible Guy among the Finnish team so it's very hard to get a read on him, but he will Tower Your Fish because he's still a Finnish player.

    ACCM has been playing in good form recently, he even beat MBL in a showmatch but we don't know how this will hold up in the real Hidden Cup 3. Don't really know enough about his style.

    Antagonist / F1re / Dogao / BacT don't know much about their style.

    submitted by /u/whisperwalk
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    HC3 amazing bait and trap.

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 07:36 AM PDT

    Don't tell me you have never let that happen

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 12:51 AM PDT

    PSA: Hidden Cup 3 has just started (at twitch.tv/t90official)

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 07:06 AM PDT

    When fighting the Byzantines

    Posted: 18 Mar 2020 01:29 PM PDT

    Kudos to T90 for the incredible production quality of HC3 so far! It's seriously impressive.

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 08:32 AM PDT

    Long time YouTube follower, watching t90witch for the first time!!!

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 07:11 AM PDT

    BONOUS PANEL

    Posted: 18 Mar 2020 11:59 PM PDT

    My new hobby during breaks: Look what madness the matchmaker lets happen

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 04:57 AM PDT

    Playing the tutorials be like

    Posted: 18 Mar 2020 12:12 PM PDT

    When the AI notices that you built a dock

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 07:23 AM PDT

    Is it possible to get achievements from saved games?

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 04:07 AM PDT

    Just encounter a "crash enemy game" cheater

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 04:21 AM PDT

    TL;DR: played 2 3v3 games against a hacker. 2 of our players were crashed to desktop whenever we attacked him.

    I'm not sure this cheat is already documented or not but I will post it here anyway so more people (and maybe our devs) could be aware of it.

    I played a 3v3 ranked game some days ago and met with this cheater (let call him Noob, it's in his nickname). My friend flushed Noob and destroyed his TC then his game was promptly crashed to desktop (CTD) without any warning/error. At first we thought it was just a random bug with the game as it sometimes happened with us before. We decided to stay and played 2v3. I attacked Noob and lo and behold my game was CTD too.

    Now you could say it was a big coincidence it happened to both of us, we were suspicious but thought so too. So we queued for another game and met with the same team again. This time I flushed Noob first, and after killing 2 villagers my game was CTD right away. At this point we could already confirm he used some kind of hack to do it, so just to be sure my friend tried to attack him again, and he was, well you guess it, CTD.

    For more information, our 3rd player who didn't attack Noob was never CTD during these 2 games. All our games before and after these 2 games went fine without any problem. I have the replay and the guy account name if anyone wants to look further into it.

    It was not a big deal for us because we played just for fun. I just want to put this here so more people could be aware of it and know that your game might crash due to some hack, not a bug.

    submitted by /u/ldkv
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    Quick question

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 04:07 AM PDT

    Couldn't find the main thread anymore.

    On the real world map Britain, is there any way to spawn on the northern corner island?

    submitted by /u/Verificus
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    Does anyone else get shivers while playing?

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 01:12 AM PDT

    Like literally shivers not "oooo I'm having so much fun" but more like " fuck fuck place the barracks place the barracks ! stupid hand click!!" It feels like my body shuts down when the pressure gets high. My hands get sloppy and I feel like I'm moving in slow motion while everything is happening in 2x time. I was wondering if anyone else experiences something similar and if there is a good way to combat it?

    submitted by /u/binaryfireball
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    Your top 5 worst units in the game.

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 07:10 AM PDT

    Mine are:

    1. Cataphract, no bloodlines, worse against archers then paladins and their upgrades are so expensive they force you to go trash because you finished your gold.

    2. Teutonic knight, Too slow to force fights and has low pierce armor ... Pretty bad combination.

    3. Balista elephants / Elephant archers, gold units that are wrecked and outrun by trash.

    4. Kipchack, noodlebows deal no damage.

    5. Siege Tower.

    submitted by /u/babyjesuz
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    I can relate

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 09:26 AM PDT

    My opponent tried to sneak archers right where I already snuck a fwd siege workshop

    Posted: 18 Mar 2020 12:43 PM PDT

    According to the 412 participants of the prediction contest for HC3, Emperor in a Barrel is the most likely to advance to the semi finals

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 08:31 AM PDT

    Simple fix for game-crashing cheaters

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 08:13 AM PDT

    If you play long enough you will encounter this. Funny how the only crashes I've had occurred after the enemy suffered a huge defeat.

    This is terrible for the gaming experience, it corrupts the ELO system, and worst of all the status quo incentives this behavior. Someone with no morals has every reason to crash the game when things don't go their way.

    The simple fix is to penalize ELO based on the proportion of their games they have caused to crash. I propose this formula:

    ELO(adjusted) = ELO / (1 + p)

    Where p is the proportion of a player's games they have caused to crash.

    Applying this would create the right incentive to stop cheaters instantly. Although it may seem harsh to penalize unintentional disconnects, if you do not have confidence in your system perhaps avoid playing ranked games.

    Because the adjustment is proportional, players at higher ELO lose proportionately more points. This particularly prevents climbing the ladder by crashing the game. The penalty could be made more or less harsh by adding a weighting coefficient to p.

    If we believe if forgiveness, we could calculate p based on the X most recent games so that eventually the penalty could be removed from a player's ELO.

    I support this and am curious about others' opinions. It's simple enough to be implemented easily, provided Microsoft can get data on which player causes the disconnect.

    submitted by /u/sn987
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    Civ Picker v2

    Posted: 19 Mar 2020 08:05 AM PDT

    The one in the game is not too great. Here's a mockup of a more useful one:

    https://codepen.io/blastonguart/full/qBdKvoJ

    All stats are from in-game stuff, plus possible mistakes by me. Feel free to play around with and tweak.

    If anyone wants to supply tier or difficulty data, I'll add those.

    I may rewrite the spaghetti JS at some point, but I think this gets the idea across :)

    -- crossposted on aoe forums

    submitted by /u/LanthonyS
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    My favorite map to play in AOE2 is

    Posted: 18 Mar 2020 02:53 PM PDT
    Read more
    at

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