Age of Empires II Congratulations to the Winners of Two Pools 2

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• Congratulations to the Winners of Two Pools 2
• Medieval Monday: Ask Your Questions and Get Your Answers
• When I'm playing a campaign and my ally betrays me
• Gotta love a counter attack
• 1000-1500 elo "decisionmaking" in a nutshell
• When you're getting 2v1ed in feudal and ask for help but your pocket went for a fast castle
• Briton castle from AoE 2
• 100th 1v1 win!
• (Insert Text About Campaign)
• Meta
• A surprising beneficiary of the many hybrid maps in Two Pools
• Rare 3d model of the original Eagle Warrior from the strategy guide. I wish it was in colour!
• Post your wildest timelines and share the story of the game (I'll start in the comments)
• Britons: M@A Into Archers Build?
• Thoughts on making infantry more viable
• Death Match World Cup 4 - Main Event Bracket
• If you want a tougher challenge against the Extreme AI, try it in Empire Wars
• Hotkey for de-queuing / cancelling villager production ?
• why are there no more hidden picks no repeat tournaments?
• Scenario design and modding server for those interested
• How do I beat Goths on Arena as Mayans?
• Koreans Vs Turks Fast Imp on Arena
• I'd like someone to research how much inebriation actually affects play cause I was taking names last night.
• Goldrushing?
• Dude, is this a supra ?

Congratulations to the Winners of Two Pools 2 Posted: 25 Apr 2021 11:35 AM PDT Tempo Storm take the tournament 5-2 against Suomi. Well done to Hera and Lierryy submitted by /u/Magic__Man [link] [comments]

Medieval Monday: Ask Your Questions and Get Your Answers Posted: 26 Apr 2021 04:00 AM PDT 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! submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

When I'm playing a campaign and my ally betrays me Posted: 26 Apr 2021 03:01 AM PDT submitted by /u/Suomi964 [link] [comments]

Gotta love a counter attack Posted: 25 Apr 2021 08:47 PM PDT submitted by /u/Sparky_Boom_Boom_man [link] [comments]

1000-1500 elo "decisionmaking" in a nutshell Posted: 26 Apr 2021 03:08 AM PDT submitted by /u/StRodeNL [link] [comments]

When you're getting 2v1ed in feudal and ask for help but your pocket went for a fast castle Posted: 26 Apr 2021 06:29 AM PDT submitted by /u/618Delta [link] [comments]

Briton castle from AoE 2 Posted: 25 Apr 2021 04:07 PM PDT submitted by /u/Profaned_Crafting [link] [comments]

100th 1v1 win! Posted: 25 Apr 2021 02:07 PM PDT submitted by /u/M-Rapthor [link] [comments]

(Insert Text About Campaign) Posted: 25 Apr 2021 08:42 PM PDT submitted by /u/DepthLost6977 [link] [comments]

Meta Posted: 26 Apr 2021 06:08 AM PDT What was the meta like when you started playing? Back in 1999, we were pumping vills out of one TC. You got all the eco upgrades, but no blacksmith upgrades. 12 max on each resource, and you started getting them all very early. You would build two of every production buildings, and go for Champions and Unique units every game. It was just shocking returning to the game after watching the ECLs a couple years ago, how much has changed. Was just curious of everybody else's perspective. submitted by /u/TheBible1017 [link] [comments]

A surprising beneficiary of the many hybrid maps in Two Pools Posted: 25 Apr 2021 10:44 PM PDT I think the team that got the most advantage from the hybrid maps was actually Tempo. Most of the hybrid maps forced early 1v1 situations in pond warfare with great reward from winning it. Obviously the team with most individual skill would be favored here. The days when Hera and Liereyy didn't know how to play other maps than Arabia are already long gone. Against most players, they should be expected to win the control of a small pond with similar investment. The maps Tempo most struggled with were Arabia and Team Islands. Team coordination has a much bigger role on Arabia than on any other of the Two Pools maps. You can be damaged early on if you fail to track your opponent's army or get into a fight without support from your ally. We saw this both in the Finals and Semifinals from Tempo. In both cases they fell behind on Arabia early on. Team Islands too is very much map that can't really be described as two separate 1v1s, as it is so chaotic. Tempo lost both of the Team Islands games against Suomi. Would you people agree with my observation? submitted by /u/viiksitimali [link] [comments]

Rare 3d model of the original Eagle Warrior from the strategy guide. I wish it was in colour! Posted: 26 Apr 2021 02:50 AM PDT submitted by /u/UnluckyForSome [link] [comments]

Post your wildest timelines and share the story of the game (I'll start in the comments) Posted: 26 Apr 2021 07:44 AM PDT submitted by /u/_thickfreakness [link] [comments]

Britons: M@A Into Archers Build? Posted: 26 Apr 2021 04:43 AM PDT What's the correct modification to the standard M@A into Archers build with Britons taking their sheep bonus into account? I know 5 on sheep is standard for them; however is it best to try to go standard build from there and go up at 21 pop or should you use that extra villager from the original 6 on sheep on a different resource at that time? I've been placing that extra vill on wood from the start with the thought I can instantly drop two archery ranges in feudal plus blacksmith and get farms out, but I've noticed my 22 pop timing has suffered (around 10:20-10:25) as I end up not quite having enough food to click instantly and am scrambling to force drop to hit 500. For reference, I pretty much only play TG with my buddies from the flank, around 2.2k TG elo on arabia. I can push deer, but I usually decide not to as I don't have the APM and it negatively impacts my scouting of the enemy. I appreciate all the tips. submitted by /u/villersb [link] [comments]

Thoughts on making infantry more viable Posted: 26 Apr 2021 07:10 AM PDT This post will mainly deal with the militia-line, which is with the spear-line the only infantry unit most civilizations have access to. The spear-line is an essential counter to the very common cavalry units, so it is already frequent and powerful enough. Infantry unique units have different profiles, some do share some of the issues of the militia line and some such as eagles do not. Most also suffer from having to be created from castles, which makes them quite different from the "mass-produced" units coming out of barracks, archery ranges and stables. The overwhelming reason why the militia-line is weak and under-used is because it is slow. Mobility is very important in AoE2, and infantry is supposed to be a lot slower than cavalry. Making the militia-line a lot faster would make them more viable but it would ruin their identity. Making them eagle-like is not a solution. With DE, the devs made tracking free and introduced supplies. While supplies has its uses, such as fighting against eagle-spam and goth-spam, it is extremely situational. Use from dark age to imperial Let's look at the militia-line's current uses during the different game phases. Dark Age Militia is the only available military unit. It's very weak, but it's the only option for a drush. It can also be trained during dark age for an early feudal upgrade into MAA. Drush are viable but so is fast feudal, the unit appears well balanced. Early Feudal Age The possibility to train militia during dark age allows MAA rushes to strike early in feudal, doing damage when the opponent has not yet been able to train cavalry or ranged units. This is mostly seen with civilizations that have a specific bonus helping the strategy (aztecs, celts, japanese...) but it's viable. Late Feudal Age Scouts run circles around MAA; and more importantly archers and even skirms outrun and outrange them, being able to destroy them with little to no damage. Even with civs having strong infantry bonuses, it's almost never a good strategy to produce more MAA. The 60f/20g cost is problematic, because it makes them about as expensive as scouts and more expensive than archers (25w/45g): gold is scarce in late game but in feudal gold-mining is faster and cheaper than food-farming (with horse collar, 14w is needed to produce 60f). Costing as much or more while being weaker is where issues begin. MAA are also not worth it as a secondary unit next to archers or scouts to fight trash counter-units, as they actually die to skirms and are outrun by spears, especially as they require additional upgrades. Bloodlines and supplies do share the same cost (150f/100g), but while bloodlines gives an instant power spike by instantly making all scouts (and future cavalry units) much stronger; supplies has no immediate effect. The research takes resources and barrack time, delaying unit production and castle age, and upon completion requires many more minutes of unit production before starting to slowly pay off. It does not improve an existing MAA army in any way. The opportunity cost is massive. Castle Age Because MAA suck so much in late feudal, the ability to upgrade an existing mass into longswordsmen is mostly theoretical, unlike the archers to crossbow power spike. The upgrade to longswords is expensive (200f/65g) compared to the crossbow upgrade (125f/75g) and to the free availability of knights. The issues with MAA in late feudal apply to longswords in castle: they are terrible at raiding, are shredded by ranged buildings and units before they can close the gap, are outmaneuvered by cavalry (and lose to knights as they should), are food-heavy. Also, while they do good damage against siege units, they take a lot of damage from mangonels and scorpions and can't close the gap as easily as mounted units. Supplies' cost becomes easier to swallow in mid to late castle age, but it still offers no power spike, only a slow progressive advantage. Squires is available and quite cheap, allowing them to pick slightly better fights against archers, and are good against undefended buildings (especially with arson), but that doesn't prevent longswords from almost never being seen (except with Huns /s). They can be used as a counter to eagles if nothing better is available, but as they are much slower this is rarely the best option. Early Imperial Age The militia-line continues to suffer from all its usual weaknesses: shredded by ranged units, outmaneuvered by cavalry, poor raiding. The low gold cost starts to become a true advantage, and supplies is easily affordable with an imperial economy making the 45f/20g cost (for most civilizations) interesting. It is mostly viable in certain matchups where it's a good counter unit (for example with britons, champions counter rams and skirms). In most situations, hussars are preferable as a meatshield. The upgrade to two-handed swordsmen is rather cheap (300f/100g) for this stage of the game. But 2HS is also a weak upgrade over longswords, as hitpoints and armor are identical. The increase in attack is nice but it does nothing to address the shortcomings of the unit. The champion upgrade provides slightly more attack and melee armor, and more importantly more HP, but it takes a lot of time to research. Because most players won't have anything more than maybe men-at-arms at this stage of the game, the tech switch into the militia-line takes a lot of time making success rarer even if the game situation calls for it. Late Imperial Age When gold becomes scarce, champions perform great against pikes and skirms, and good against hussars. They also become quite scary as anti-building units. Siege is still useful, but less critical when a group of champions can melt a town center. However, they still suffer from terrible mobility and the cumulative cost of all upgrades means that a full tech-switch is often impractical when gold is already scarce. How could they be made more viable? It's ok that some units are more often useful than others. Range and mobility will always be very powerful traits. But tweaking game balance to have other options situationally good increases depth and variety. A few bullet points to summarize why the militia-line is so underwhelming: It dies badly to ranged units and buildings. This makes it ineffective in a push or as a meatshield. It can't pick fights because of poor mobility. If a superior cavalry or archer force comes accross infantry, it's going to be wiped out. It's ineffective at raiding because it can be walled out and is slow. It costs too much in feudal and castle age. Being so bad from late feudal to mid imperial means that progressive upgrades and power spikes are not viable, even for civs with outrageous bonuses (the japanese 33% faster infantry attack not being considered as overpowered tells a lot). Having to get infantry armor and melee attack creates a further barrier, so that opportunistic infantry units in limited numbers are not a good idea. It is less population efficient than everyone's favorite gold units, but let's be real that's not the issue. Here are a few ideas, some I like more than others. Taken in isolation, none is going to be a sufficient buff, but a few of those could end up making a significant difference. More pierce armor. This is perhaps the most important one. All the militia-line units currently have 1 pierce armor. There are many ways this could be done, but this buff is important to avoid ranged units being such an extreme counter as they are now, though it won't be enough by itself: the militia-line from malians automatically gets more pierce armor, with +1 in feudal, +2 in castle, and +3 in imperial. And while it's useful and malian champions are seen more often than most champions, it's hardly overpowered. In the same vein, Serjeants are often considered underwhelming despite having good pierce armor and the same speed as militia-line units. Considering that mere scouts have 2 base PA, the case could be made for MAA to have 2PA too. At the very least, longswords and higher tier units need 2 base PA. More base speed. The current speed is 0.9 (archers have 0.96, knights before husbandry 1.35). This buff idea doesn't mesh well with the unit's spirit, however even a small change to 0.93 or 0.95 would make it viable in more situations. Lower base cost. However, for militia and early MAA rush, the current cost is fine, so tweaking supplies seems preferable. Make squires available in feudal instead of castle age. As it costs only 100 food, it could sometimes be a realistic option. With squires, MAA don't die as hard against archers hit-and-run. The side effect of slightly faster spears against scout rush is unlikely to be oppressive. Reduce the cost of supplies from the current 150f/100g to 100f/100g or lower. Compared with the bloodlines power spike, supplies is really bad. Reduce the training time. The militia line is 21s, compared to 27s for crossbows (35s for archers) and 30s for knights, but more units are needed to be as useful on the battlefield. A 18s training time would mean less barracks are needed to sustain a given production output. The wood cost of production buildings is significant in feudal and early castle age. This could be an additional bonus from supplies instead of a default change. The reduced cost and increased production rate would have obvious synergy. Cheaper upgrade to longswords (150f/50g instead of 200f/65g) to make it more in line with the crossbow upgrade cost. This is a really tiny change but it can't hurt. Reduce the research time for upgrades. It's currently at 40s/45s/75s/100s. It could be something like 30s/40s/60s/90s instead. For comparison the archer line upgrade time is 35s/50s. Cavalier and Paladin take a lot of time (100s/170s), but the power spike is much bigger and knights don't need an upgrade to be trained. The HPs of the militia-line are a weird 40/45/60/60/70. 40/45/55/65/75 would make more sense, but the longsword doesn't need a nerf either... Still, it doesn't seem right that there is no survivability improvement from longsword to 2HS. Reduce the damage taken from mangonel shots. We all know how great mangonels are at flattening careless archers, but they are almost as good against infantry. Many unique infantry units would benefit from such a change too. Now, they don't really need a nerf, but I was surprised by how high the attack of longswords and 2HS actually is. With 9 and 12, they are very close to the knight and cavalier in this regard. This goes to show that for melee units viability, attack is not that essential. The jump from 12 to 13 from 2HS with champion is quite small in comparison. The high bonus damage against buildings is also scary on paper but rarely relevant. Obviously, buffs making infantry more viable for more civs could sometimes make it OP. No archer civs or cavalry civs has as big buffs to their favorite units as infantry civs do to infantry. Yet it's often not enough, which is telling us a lot. Even if a few of these buffs were implemented, many players who have already (rightfully) judged the milita-line to be awful wouldn't change opinion, but hopefully others would play around with them and the meta would evolve to include them in a wider range of situations and be more varied. What are your thoughts? Which changes would you want to see and which do you think should be avoided? submitted by /u/AlayanT [link] [comments]

Death Match World Cup 4 - Main Event Bracket Posted: 26 Apr 2021 06:30 AM PDT https://challonge.com/DMWC4 Check out aoezone to see when contestants are scheduling games submitted by /u/GreekianianBeats [link] [comments]

If you want a tougher challenge against the Extreme AI, try it in Empire Wars Posted: 26 Apr 2021 08:26 AM PDT it is harder to hit its eco early so games tend to last longer and reach the point where one has to take relics, neutral resources, etc. submitted by /u/EXTRAVAGANT_COMMENT [link] [comments]

Hotkey for de-queuing / cancelling villager production ? Posted: 26 Apr 2021 05:39 AM PDT Anyone know the hotkey for de-queuing / cancelling villager production. I know you can do it manually by holding ctrl key and clicking the villagers in the production queue in the TC, but this is time consuming- so hoping for a hotkey way to do this. This is handy for when you want to release some food to use for going up to next age/upgrades/military etc. Many thanks for your help 😊 submitted by /u/dingo00000 [link] [comments]

why are there no more hidden picks no repeat tournaments? Posted: 26 Apr 2021 04:04 AM PDT i dont mind to have a couple mirror matches and this also give the opportunity to counter strat. it really feel like the recent tournaments went like this. pick for my maps and hope i win arabia. i think the drafting system is simply inferior to the hidden pick system and in team games it is even worse because some games like team island are just gonna play out in favour of the better draft 9 out of 10 times submitted by /u/Yourpersonalpilot [link] [comments]

Scenario design and modding server for those interested Posted: 26 Apr 2021 12:01 AM PDT Hey all, Age of Empires Paradise is a discord server that focuses on scenario design and modding. Looking for help? Have extensive knowledge? Why not have a quick look and see if you want to join in on the discussion. The community is currently primarily AoE 2, but we are currently experimenting with expanding to other AoE games, so the more the merrier. https://discord.gg/rp4btnG submitted by /u/_MrMew [link] [comments]

How do I beat Goths on Arena as Mayans? Posted: 25 Apr 2021 11:03 PM PDT Ok so the usual thing against Goths is to put a lot of pressure in Feudal or early Castle because they don't get stonewalls. Failing that, switching to cavalry to attack the huskarls and champions to attack the pikes is usually a good bet. Mangonels behind a line of infantry or a wall are also an effective unit against Huskarls, albeit a fairly defensively oriented one. Problem is, I'm an archer civ and on Arena, they get free full stonewalls in dark age and I have no effective way to knock down those walls until I get rams. But by the time I can get rams to their base, they will probably already have Huskarls coming out of their castle. And meso civ means I can't use heavy cavalry as a soft counter to Huskarls. So is this problem solveable without just using "have much better macro and FC faster than they do?" like, assuming ELO is anywhere close to equal, and therefore so is fast castle time pretty close to equal (well, ignoring the Mayan 1 villager lead), how do I actually beat an equally competent goth player on arena as Mayans if they plan on doing what nearly every goth player does: Fast castle into Huskarl flood? submitted by /u/pds314 [link] [comments]

Koreans Vs Turks Fast Imp on Arena Posted: 26 Apr 2021 03:46 AM PDT What's the best way to defend against Turks fast imp on arena? Korean Knights are weak and I haven't yet been able to fend it off with this. Would a feudal tower rush be a better move? submitted by /u/Infinite-Piglet4049 [link] [comments]

I'd like someone to research how much inebriation actually affects play cause I was taking names last night. Posted: 26 Apr 2021 03:45 AM PDT Still drinking lol. submitted by /u/LonelyRabboni [link] [comments]

Goldrushing? Posted: 25 Apr 2021 06:11 PM PDT What is it? Just played a game and my opponent says half way through I was "goldrushing" and later resigned saying that I was "using my civ's edge to sell gold at the market", before calling me a noob, obviously. I didn't even have a market. Curious as to what he was talking about as never heard of it before. Civ was Mayans btw. submitted by /u/Heavy-Reception-639 [link] [comments]

Dude, is this a supra ? Posted: 26 Apr 2021 08:40 AM PDT submitted by /u/Top_Flamingo_1879 [link] [comments]

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