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    Age of Empires II Rip Franks

    Age of Empires II Rip Franks


    Rip Franks

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 03:21 AM PST

    11 Historical Custom Scenarios by Filthydelphia

    Posted: 29 Feb 2020 11:11 AM PST

    Amazing siege tower play from Villese in Hidden Cup 3 Qualifiers!

    Posted: 29 Feb 2020 01:45 PM PST

    The healing rain!

    Posted: 29 Feb 2020 12:17 PM PST

    Tool Age scouts have some interesting tricks up their sleeves

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 06:41 AM PST

    Go back to work hotkey not working?

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 06:03 AM PST

    I may be going crazy, but ever since the latest patch when I ungarrison some of my villagers from the towncenter after protecting them, they seem to move to the gather point instead of going back to their previous tasks.

    I remember when they used to move to their previous task instead of moving to the gather point after such a garrison move.

    Has this always been the case or am I imagining things? Have others found this annoying as well?

    submitted by /u/davidwie
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    How to beat a goth player?

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 07:33 AM PST

    1) Don't let them boom. Rush them!

    2) Repeat 1

    3) Realize that 1 is impossible since Update 35584

    submitted by /u/Gandalf196
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    How do you get the photon man?

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 07:26 AM PST

    In the clearest and most idiot proof way possible, how do I get the guy?

    submitted by /u/Nerdy_Incel_Gamer
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    Yaay no more losing points needlessly :D

    Posted: 29 Feb 2020 11:22 PM PST

    quick question from a new player

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 04:38 AM PST

    can onagers and mangonels shoot over walls?

    submitted by /u/BeaBehler
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    21st century challenge

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 05:39 AM PST

    Can somebody please explain me how can i unlock the 21st century challenge on DE??

    submitted by /u/INKR3DY
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    Has the on load crash gotten worse?

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 03:23 AM PST

    Had it twice in the recent 5 ranked matches.

    submitted by /u/Gladaed
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    2v2 ranked bugged

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 05:20 AM PST

    In 2v2, most of the time, the enemies are 2 total noobs. And my teammate is about the same elo as I. When I win I get +0 elo as a result. Someone else with the same problem?

    submitted by /u/GroteJager
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    So frustrating...

    Posted: 29 Feb 2020 01:20 PM PST

    Is crossplay between windows store and steam possible?

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 05:16 AM PST

    I bought DE yesterday through Microsoft store, but I can't seem to find any, and I mean ANY, online game activity. Is this because nobody plays DE through the windows store? And if so, shouldn't I still be able to play with people from the steam store? They did promise that cross-play would be possible.

    Note that unlocking the game on Steam does not automatically unlock the game in the Windows Store, though both Steam and the Microsoft Store versions will be able to enjoy cross-network play as soon as you own either version of the game.

    Or maybe I'm just doing something wrong? Honestly, I don't know why this shouldn't work, but right now I just feel like I wasted my money on a game where the main feature, at least in my opinion, isn't even available.

    Edit: Nevermind, apparently there is a button hidden away in the options tab, that allows crossplay, and nobody plays without it enabled. If you like me spent an enormous amount of time checking literally every other place than the options menu, all you have to do is click one button, ONE FUCKING BUTTON.

    Anyways, what you do is go to Options > Game and click the button that is blatantly labelled Enable Crossplay. Why this is not on by default puzzles me.

    submitted by /u/Ekaap
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    What's the argument for going for feudal play when walling up early and going for FC almost always results in better units and better economy?

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 12:05 AM PST

    Just played a game(around 1100 elo-golden pit) in which my opponent went for scouts, I was going to do the same thing (I was berbers and he was lithuanians btw) but unfortunately I fucked up my dark age, couldn't find my boar in time and for some reason my boar stopped following my vil after hitting it. so anyway after being late in the scout war, I decided that going for scouts this late would have no ponit so I just walled up and added farms and he couldn't do anything about it, I was really surprised how well it paid off. he tried to pressure by building a tower but my walling was so good that all he denied was 100 food left in my berries. I advanced to castle age a lot earlier and was able to field many knights and camels, and I added a second TC while pressuring and booming behind it. all the added farms paid off greatly, (the map was gold pit btw) my second TC was right near the gold too. I fielded a lot of knights and camels, I supported them with spears and monks, and despite my opponent having around the same amonut of knights and a monk I won the big fight and after that it was gg.

    So my point is, why should I bother with scouts in the first place? Your opponent can just wall up and you are left alone with your dick in your hand having wasted about 500 food into units that won't be able to compete in castle age. Tower pressure doesn't really pay off either because you can only build 1 tower and if you want to make more you need to put vils on stone which will further put your castle age time at a later time.

    Sorry for the wall of text but I'm really curious as to why I shouldn't just wall up and go for FC every time.

    submitted by /u/Recent-Ratio
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    Fix Alpine Lakes

    Posted: 29 Feb 2020 03:06 PM PST

    The map is an interesting one, as it forces you to adapt to scarce food resources, spread woodlines and not so easy to defend.

    I played once or twice and now I have to ban it everytime because villagers tasked to fish are always bugged. The fish are generated to be adjacent not only directly (one tile away on one axis), but diagonally too, which makes fishing possible only when sending villagers manually to the edge of the shore, but it doesn't quite work properly.

    Love to see the devs bringing diversity to the ranked map pool, but some playtesting should've been done beforehand.

    To fix this, either make the map generate only rectangle-shaped lakes so that fishermen have enough space or make fishing have 1 more "range" to avoid the bug altogether.

    submitted by /u/fanica98
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    Yodit Campaign Finale "Welcome Home" | Hard Playthrough

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 07:42 AM PST

    Cannon Galleons disappears after game starts in last burmese campaign (the old tiger)

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 12:09 AM PST

    Wrong Grid ?? How can i get the standard grid back???

    Posted: 01 Mar 2020 01:32 AM PST

    Wrong Grid ?? How can i get the standard grid back???

    Just see for yourself. I think my grid changed after i the cube mods. Now i can't revert it back to normal. Please help!

    I really don't like that grid is far to bright.

    https://preview.redd.it/ic8cfsy561k41.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=a9ddd4d83c14a95d57ea61779957af859b459167

    submitted by /u/AzizVS2
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    Get your meta on

    Posted: 29 Feb 2020 07:46 PM PST

    Concerning Feitorias - an analysis and a suggestion

    Posted: 29 Feb 2020 01:20 PM PST

    I have also posted this in the official game forums (link).

    DISCLAIMER: I do not take credit for coming up with all of the analysis or the suggested mechanics, much of what I write here is inspired from posts such as this one, this one, this one, and this one; SOTL's analysis which I greatly recommend you watch; and gameplay by TheViper (creator of the greatest Feitoria mastapieces) and others. I have decided to write this post because I could not help myself and in the hope it proves useful to try to pinpoint the Feitoria's place in the current game balance and in trying they are an entertaining and deep gameplay mechanic. I am more of a backseat or single-player oriented player so please be considerate and feel free to correct me if I misjudged some of my assertions on this post; this is another reason for which I wanted to open these ideas for a discussion on the community first before doing anything else.

    The analysis

    Feitorias are a unique building the Portuguese can access once they reach the Imperial Age that costs 20 population space, 250 stone and 250 gold and generates a fixed amount of each resource every second, regardless of the amount of resources left in the map. Fairly simple, right?

    Well, experience suggests it does not seem like it... the infamous Portuguese Feitorias prove to be nightmarish to balance: let's explore why this is the case.

    What is a Feitoria's purpose and utility? It is a long-term economic investment into gathering resources, arguably easily defensible when deep inside the player's base, which will gather in any stage of the game with any amount of resources left on the map.

    On a first glance, the most similar units and buildings to Feitorias seem to be villagers and fishing ships, as they are also intended to be a long term investment into gathering resources (altough villagers build and thus Feitorias cannot entirely replace them). However, there are some key differences: mainly speed of access, gathering rate, safety, and usefulness on each stage of the game.

    Being a very high HP building, that can be built deep inside the player's base, I would argue Feitorias are more defensible than villagers or fishing traps in many situations, expecially considering that fishing boats and villagers often collect resources on the edge of the player's base and closer to the enemy player's army. Besides, being a building means it has more HP and more time is needed to take it down - altough it is immobile and it represents a greater share of the player's economy than a single villager or fishing ship so losing it means losing a larger portion of resource production and population.

    However, the superior defensibility of Feitorias is clearly reflected by the fact that they produce substantially less resources than villagers for each population spent. In previous patches, it could be a difference as stark as a Feitoria providing resources at the rate 5 villagers would gather them, not nearly as much as 20 villagers would produce. If the resources generated by a Feitoria were too high, then the player would choose to turtle and defend in his base rather than push for map control for resources and be forced to take risks. For example, the Feitoria's stone generation was reduced to prevent a strategy involving a defensive bombard tower spam which encouraged turtling and was quite difficult to stop. In short, the Feitoria seems a less punishing investment than villagers or fishing ships in the long run so then its rewards are made to be lower in a population efficiency consideration.

    Another reason for this difference in production rate can be explained by the fact it takes less time to build a Feitoria, provided the player is in the Imperial Age and has the resources necessary to build it, than to recruit 20 villagers or fishing ships under normal game circumstances. Then, if the Feitoria's gathering rates were too high, the Portuguese would get an explosive advantage in resource generation speed against which no other civilisation would be able to compete by building many of them in quick succession. This is why on current balance the Feitoria's use is quite situational: it is only useful on 1vs.1 games, because trade is generally most effective for team games, and even then it is only useful in the extreme late game as its gathering rates per population prove no match to active villagers or fishing ships and population efficiency is prioritised.

    I would like to argue that Feitorias have a fatal, essential, flaw: fixed resource generation rates at the cost of population space, which makes their worth too dependent on a population efficiency comparison to villagers, and makes them typically have little depth as a game mechanic (excepting the potentially infinite resource generation). My point is that previous balance patches have just tweaked the amount of resources generated, and on the one hand if they prove viable compared to villager gathering rates this has resulted in making the Feitorias an excellent asset for turtling and dragging games out (which few people enjoy playing against), while on the other hand when the comparison is not favorable has made them fade into irrelevance (which I find a shame, as I really enjoyed the building's concept and flair and would love to see it in play). If this policy were to be continued in the future, despite the devs' best efforts I fear there would not be a radical change in this dynamic and even worse I fear Feitorias will normally be irrelevant and stay unused in most games.

    Considering that the objective of the game balance has been to push for a balanced, fair and entertaining game, and that as many members of the community I too identify an issue with the Feitoria's place in the game balance, I would like to argue that Feitorias could use a rework, and open some ideas I was thinking about to debate.

    A suggestion

    AOE2 Feitorias are inspired on historical Portuguese Feitorias which I understand were commercial buildings they used to trade resources through their empire (see this) Wikipedia page - I did not have time for a more thorough investigation). I would propose moving the in-game Feitorias a little bit in that direction, removing the fixed income generation at the cost of a fixed investment and replacing it with a more demanding and greedy long term resource investment approach.

    The first idea to introduce is that it will all be easier if the Portuguese are allowed to build just one Feitoria at any stage of the game (provided they are in the Imperial or even possibly the Castle Age). In the current game balance the player can build as many Feitorias as they see fit as long as they have the population space available, and this makes them harder to balance, as they can have a huge impact in a Portuguese player's economy (sometimes consisting of almost all of it). When the Portuguese are limited only to one, the impact of this building on the economy is smaller, clearer and more limited and thus can be specifically tailored in such a way that it is a fair mechanic but cannot spiral out of control easily. I like the simplicity of being just limited by resources and population space but I would not be against this restriction when it results on a more meaningful building. Besides, it could remove or reduce the building's population space cost which is an important reason to its normal lack of appearances on games.

    Feitorias, as has previously been stated, can currently be regarded as a safer and more defensible long term investment resource generator than villagers or fishing ships, mainly because of the fact they are a building and they generate resources despite the amount left on the map (shoo Malay, it's not time for you to ruin my point). Both of these properties, however, being a building and potentially infinite resource generation I regard as essential properties of the Feitoria and I would love to preserve them. Then, the challenge and the problem can be issued as follows: how to make it a balanced investment when considering its safety and defensiveness?

    I find people more knowledgeable in the game's mechanics than I am to talk about the game consisting of an intricate balance between greedy long term play for economy, army quality and upgrades and a aggressive short term play for resource control, map and space control and army numbers. This would indicate that Feitorias, being an inherently greedy long term economy investment, should work as a greedy play rather than a safe one. Thus, the second idea to introduce is the concept of a resource investment-dependent resource generation. Feitorias would stay being a building with its inherent advantages and disadvantages and keep the potentially infinite resource generation... at a real greedy more punishing short-term resource cost for the player when they desire to use it. This would in turn permit to reward the players more when their gambit is successful and move the limiting factor in the Feitoria's use from the notably not loved population space use to the, in my opinion better limiter, fact that the risk you lose the game has to be taken into account and considered first.

    Esentially, the building may provide a small or nonexistant influx of resources when no resources are being invested, but increase its production as the player dedicates more resources to the Feitoria's oputput. I have in mind mainly two ways in which this could be implemented:

    1) The Feitoria works as a bond, giving interest on a player's resource investment. The interest recieved by resource invested per type of resource can be regulated by game balance, as well as the maximum amount of investments which can be made (per Feitoria even, if it is decided more than one can be built). Furthermore, the size of investments or the possibility of requesting the investment (or part of it, perhaps with a penalty) to be refunded immediatly can be further regulated to balance the building. For example, if currently 250 stone is deposited in the Feitoria it will generate an extra 0.25 stone per second (obviously, numbers subject to proper testing and balancing). For an in-game interface, I imagine it similar to a market's interface, with buttons to add to the investment of each resouce and, of permitted, take away from the investment of each resource, plus some indicator of the current amount of resource investment of each type.

    2) The Feitoria permits to buy for a fixed amount of resources an influx of said resource over a fixed period of time which will eventually surpass the amount invested. For example, at the cost of 200 stone the player would recieve 240 stone at a fixed rate of 2.4 stone per second for the next 100 seconds. Obviously, numbers should be subject to testing and actual balancing, especially size of the investment to be made, resources to be gained, and the investment's return time. The Feitoria's interface could consist of four buttons to buy such trades for each resource, and to reduce the micro-intensiveness some extra buttons could be added to automatically purchase the trade for each specific resource when resources are available similarly to how farm reseeding works.

    For a more complete and concrete picture, let's consider the first approach, where at most only one Feitoria could be made. The initial cost of the Feitoria could stay at 250 stone and 250 gold and 10 population. Initial resource production could total resources per second equivalent to the rate 5 working post imp vils produce per second (for example, 2 farmers, 1.5 lumberjacks, 1 gold miner and 0.5 stone miners) – much less than what the same pop space in villagers would achieve. But investments could be added in chunks of what a post-imp villager would produce in 2.5 minutes of resource gathering, and for each of them the returns could be those same resources over 5 minutes (effectively adding half a villager to the economy). For balance purposes, the max amount of resources per second a Feitoria would be able to produce could be set to those equivalent to 8 farmers, 6 lumberjacks, 4 gold miners and two stone miners (20 post-imp villagers). Investments made could be requested back but at a penalty of losing 1/3 of the investment in chunks of the same size. In the end, this design for the Feitoria would allow the Portuguese an extra 10 pop space in economy similar to the Goth's 10 extra pop space in Imp, keep the potentially infinite resource generation and allow for a part of the player's economy to be easily defensible.

    If the devs were to allow for more Feitorias than one to be made, then everything could stay the same except the maximum resource output for each Feitoria could be capped at what 8, 9, 10, 11 or even 12 post-imp villagers would produce instead (if following the same distribution as before then 3.2 to 4.8 farmers, 2.4 to 3.6 lumberjacks, 1.6 to 2.4 gold miners and 0.8 to 1.2 stone miners), thus reducing their max population efficiency per each building. However, I see how this could be similar to the current state of the building and prefer something on the lines of what I first described for easier balance.

    I would like to argue that this change would make Feitorias a deep and meaningful game mechanic. When building a Feitoria, a player has to consider not only the fixed resource investment on the building itself, but the fact that to make it especially worth it he will have to do a greedy long-term gambit in investing even more resources for further resource generation. For example, if you were playing as the Portuguese you would have to choose between having the possibility of building a castle or a bombard tower now or possibly recieving a free one some time later into the game, and, considering stone is limited, you might not have that possibility of investing later on... Furthermore, these changes could make Feitorias viable both on 1vs.1 games as well as team games as stone generation could be particulary useful, or as wood and food or even gold are gathered in excess it could be used to provide an additional advantage. The main drawback I find for this approach is that it would require lots of work for a single game mechanic affecting a single civ and thus the devs will not find it worth their time.

    Finally, I would like to consider some other ideas for reworking Feitorias that I have come to know about. It has been suggested to rework the Feitoria's resource generation rate to make it dependent on market prices. I understand this could make the Feitoria shine where it should when there is low resource availability and it would connect it with its historical commercial self, but I do not find it as appealing as I feel it will not change its dynamic much from what the Feitoria's current dynamic is. However, I see its reasoning and it could be a lot less work-intensive for the developers to implement. It has also been suggested that Feitorias should be made to generate more resources as villagers are garrisoned inside of them. I find this one quite an interesting possibility, and one that would clearly provide the Feitorias with a meaningful purpose: it would guarantee the villagers more safety while gathering resources, would intuitively make sense, would be easier to balance as a boom would still be required and the amount generated per villager could be tweaked accordingly and the population space cost could be removed or at least reduced. I would find this approach to be especially good in combination with a limited number of Feitorias for ease of balance, as in such case it could be made to give the Portuguese a worthwile bonus that is not overpowered as resources on the map dwindle or safe places to gather them do. And while I feel that it would result in less depth for the game mechanic, it may also be easier to implement for the devs which is always something worth taking into account.

    If you have read this far, congratulations, and thank you! I hope you found it worth your while. What do you think of the current Feitoria balance? Would you change anything? Why? What do you think of the ideas proposed? Wololo... did I convert (convince) you? Feel free to comment below.

    Furthermore, if some ideas seem worth the try and there were a way to get the best ideas discussed here to the devs or to people who influence how the game's balance is each patch I would find it amazing to see it done.

    TL;DR: The Feitoria could be reworked onto a more short-term punishing but clearly worth it long-term investment by making it a resource investment-dependent resource generator while preserving what I regard as its essential features. Furthermore, when playing as the Portuguese (or any other civ if it is converted) you can be limited to having at most one Feitoria at each stage of the game; this would make it easier to balance. I propose these changes because I feel it would result in Feitorias being a deep, meaningful and original gameplay mechanic.

    submitted by /u/nicoagote
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    Are goths broken?

    Posted: 29 Feb 2020 07:13 PM PST

    I watched viper annihilate every1 on his stream spamming cheap militia in dark age. It seems to be preeeetty busted. Even if they get a lot of archers out, you just use your massive food eco to go feudal and add skirms.

    I tried it out in my personal 1v1s and had a lot of success with it. Even won the hideout game by adding in skirms after 25+ militia. I am 1300-1350 for reference.

    submitted by /u/mightymice
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