• Breaking News

    Wednesday, January 5, 2022

    Home Unlabelled Age of Empires II Civilization Match-up Discussion Round 13 Week 15: Italians vs Tatars

    Age of Empires II Civilization Match-up Discussion Round 13 Week 15: Italians vs Tatars

    January 05, 2022

    Age of Empires II Civilization Match-up Discussion Round 13 Week 15: Italians vs Tatars

    Civilization Match-up Discussion Round 13 Week 15: Italians vs Tatars

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 09:24 PM PST

    New year, new civ match up! (I know it's a new match up every week, but you get the idea ;D)

    ​

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

    ​

    Italians: Archer and Naval civilization

    • Advancing in Age costs -15%
    • Dock and University techs cost -33%
    • Fishing Ships cost -15%
    • Gunpowder units cost -20%
    • TEAM BONUS: Condottieri available at Barracks in Imperial Age
    • Unique Unit: Genoese Crossbowman (Anti-cavalry foot archer)
    • Unique Unit: Condottiero (Fast, expensive infantry with bonus damage vs gunpowder)
    • Castle Age Unique Tech: Pavise (Foot archers and condos gain +1/+1 armor)
    • Imperial Age Unique Tech: Silk Road (Trade units cost -50%)

    ​

    Tatars: Cavalry Archer civilization

    • Sheep and other herdables last +50% longer
    • Additional Town Centers spawn 2 sheep, starting in the Castle Age
    • Units deal and additional +25% bonus damage when fighting from higher elevation (for +50% total)
    • Thumb Ring, Parthian Tactics free
    • TEAM BONUS: Cavalry Archers gain +2 LoS
    • Unique Unit: Keshik (Medium cavalry that slowly generates gold when in combat)
    • Unique Unit: Flaming Camel (An absolute meme until you find yourself facing 50 war elephants)
    • Castle Age Unique Tech: Silk Armor (Scouts, Cav Archers, and Steppe Lancers gain +1/+1 armor)
    • Imperial Age Unique Tech: Timurid Siegecraft (Trebuchets gain +2 range; enables Flaming Camels at Castle)

    ​

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

    • Happy new year everyone! For 1v1 Arabia and other open maps, Tatars are certainly more popular than Italians. Tatars have a decent early game with their longer lasting herdables and potential high ground bonus, as well as possess a nice power spike with free Thumb Ring. From there, they possess a wide array of powerful cavalry options to close out a game. That said, it strikes me that, as I like to say, "everything Tatars do well is on a horse/camel". This could provide some opportunity for Genoese Crossbowmen to shine, if you can ever get there. Is it possible for Italians to hold out in this match up?
    • On closed maps, neither civ really has a top-tier boom play. That said, Tatars have strong scout openings on Arena, and Italians can do fast Monk plays on anything from Arena to Hideout to BF. Late game, Tatars don't get to use their mobility as much, but they still have a very cost-efficient army, as well access to the deadly Bombard Tower. Italians, meanwhile, boast cheap gunpowder, powerful Arbs, Genbows, and Monks. How do you see this one working out on closed maps?
    • In team games, this one is interesting. Although both civs are servicable as pockets, I would say each would prefer the flank position. Italians just do the whole archer thing quite well, and their slow-push in late game can be very scary. On the other hand, Tatars can hit some really strong timings in midgame, but they do miss Arbalests. At some point, that switch to cav archers needs to happen, which could leave them vulnerable. Which civ do you favor as a flank here?

    Thank you as always for participating! Next week we will continue our discussions with the Ethiopians vs Franks. Hope to see you there! :)

    ​

    Previous discussions: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

    submitted by /u/OrnLu528
    [link] [comments]

    If opponents were a civilization

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 04:50 AM PST

    Trash Slingers

    Posted: 05 Jan 2022 01:59 AM PST

    Since everyone keeps talking about my second favourite civ I thought I'd ask a question.

    A post a few days ago was talking about Slingers being too much of a niche unit. I mentioned in my reply about maybe Slingers being a trash unit instead of a gold unit.

    In most situations Slingers definitely play more of a supporting role rather than your main unit. Would Slingers being a trash unit be game breaking?

    Against normal civs I think it wouldn't be the biggest deal. But against one trick infantry civs it would be an issue.

    Meso civs would be forced into archers which would also play into the Incas hands.

    Could it be behind the castle age tech instead of the skirm tech?

    Would bring a bit of uniqueness back to Incas that still fits their plays type. A trash unit to counter every type of unit.

    Thinking of post Imp deathballs. Would just being able to spam Slingers without caring if they survive like Halb/Skirm spam be a big issue?

    Incas win rate at the moment hangs around the 50% mark until 40min+ mark when it drops considerably.

    When gold is aplenty in the mid game Incas can usually afford double gold units anyway and no-one is really concerned about slingers.

    So in the late game would having Trash Slingers break the balance. They would still have a slow army due to no horses but Champions wouldn't be the trash killers they are against other civs.

    Thoughts?

    Also: Team bonus should be switched to production buildings build 100% faster.

    submitted by /u/Catalpa_
    [link] [comments]

    Month 6: Byzantines (Analysis in Comments)

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 02:51 PM PST

    If I had a penny for everytime this happened...

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 11:40 AM PST

    Is it possible to play without objectives? Open world just build civilizations?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 06:10 PM PST

    I recently downloaded AOE 2 DE. Man, I remember I was super obsessed with this game back in the early 2000's I haven't played it since then. I'm going to play the campaigns and all that stuff, it's fun, but I was wondering if it is possible to just play without objectives. e.i. I just want to play building a civilization, max it out, evolved from the black ages until there's no more. Create my city and all that stuff. If is not possible that is alright, is there a similar game where you can do so?

    submitted by /u/One24th
    [link] [comments]

    How do you counter Goth spam as Persians?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 05:02 PM PST

    I play Persians and my cousin plays Goths and all he does is spam and I lose every time. I've tried spamming trash archers and elephants or paladins against him, but I always run out of wood before he runs out of resources.

    submitted by /u/Emotional_Royal_6834
    [link] [comments]

    Reupload of the mighty monk yeeting relic.

    Posted: 03 Jan 2022 09:37 PM PST

    I don't get it...How am I supposed to close that gab?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 09:44 AM PST

    Why boar luring vill stop in the middle and fight with the boar ?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 09:00 PM PST

    It's been frustrating they occasionally do that although I always point the vill to go back to TC.

    submitted by /u/justingreg
    [link] [comments]

    After losing my whole navy for an OP Fortified Tower, I made a promise to myself that I would destroy the whole red from Lake Poyang. Took almost two hours but I did it.

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 11:35 AM PST

    Hotkey differences between DE and HD

    Posted: 05 Jan 2022 04:31 AM PST

    I learned the game with HD edition. Because of that I am used to using HD hotkeys. Not so long ago, I started to play DE. (Because playing with friends, ranked system etc.) I cannot play with new hotkeys. I tried to find a DE mod which had HD hotkeys but I couldn't find anything. Does anyone know something to help me?

    submitted by /u/Slight_Key9208
    [link] [comments]

    [Liquipedia] Top 20 Most Visited Player Pages in 2021

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 03:20 AM PST

    Mom said it's my turn to suggest an Incas buff

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 01:52 PM PST

    New Team Bonus: Removes the minimum range from Skirmishers.

    The unique tech but now on a team bonus. The unique tech was, flankly, rather weak either way, as the "Hold still" command essentially does the same (certainly not performance wise, but it's not too far behind) as the UT.

    Slingers lose their minimum range - Mostly in theme with removing the Andean Sling and attaching it to something free, as the tech isn't coveted for very often, and even though it's a very cheap tech (200 Food 300 Gold), I feel like there's very little reason this can't just be universal. Slingers underperform against anything non-infantry, and against infantry, ideally you should never be within close range, so this shouldn't affect their performance too much, closer to a QoL change.

    New Unique Tech: Terrace Farms - 200 food, 200 wood- Each farm around TC increases TC work rate by 2% (Numbers can be adjusted)

    It's really hard to simulate the Incan terrace farms in a game like AoE2, as building around the high ground/hills is not a very useful bonus. I went with using the TC as a metaphorical representation of the mountains, as the Incan civilization were always around the mountainous areas. With 8 farms, the TC work rate can reach 16%, which is stronger than the Persians in the Castle Age, yet weaker in the Imperial Age.

    Of course, you don't only build TCs around farms, you sometimes build it close to gold or woods. In that case, even just 5 farms can give that TC 10% work rate, which, while not impressive, can be an okay eco bonus on maps like Arena, where, with the Incan cheaper castles, you can get the tech and boom.

    Another drawback of this tech is the that you don't get the bonus right away. It's required to put at least 60x5 wood into making the farms in order for the UT to have any worth at all. In that aspect, I do concede that perhaps the tech is too weak.

    The idea for this tech is to give Incas a more useful UT without buffing their combat in one area too much(Incas have always been known in AoE2 as one of the jack of all trades civ with good monks, SOs, Eagles, Arbas and a good unique unit), but also giving them a minor eco boost to set themselves apart from the Mayans or the Aztec (Aztec Eco is very aggressive and early-focused, Mayans have longer lasting eco, thereby becoming closer to a late game eco, this eco is better geared towards the mid game.)

    submitted by /u/CrayonsIsTaken
    [link] [comments]

    AoE 2 Eco Upgrades (Spirit of the Law)

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 03:24 AM PST

    Campaign Genocide Episode #22 Lepanto, Manzikert, Noryang Point, Kyoto

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 02:48 PM PST

    Campaign Genocide Episode #22 Lepanto, Manzikert, Noryang Point, Kyoto

    Straight off I will just admit, I had bad starts in Lepanto and Noryang, because I was lazy and sleep-deprived. If there were any mistakes in Manzikert, they were because I wanted to be over with that crap mission. Kyoto was the one I looked forward to and it delivered.

    Lepanto

    You basically don't need a ground army, those Onagers are for show... unless you want to attack ground Greek Village, which I didn't think of when playing. You just need a good spread of a combination of ships. Spanish have the best ECGs in the game, but their Galleons and Fast Fires have full upgrades as well, so it is nothing to scoff at. (Please don't build Demos in single-player missions for the love of god.)

    Essentially, all you need to do is not start building the Wonder, hence keeping it completely safe, while having full control of the pace of the mission. Build a nice armada of ships and once you have enough Cannon Galleons start attacking Turks, where you can preemptively sink all their ships.
    Since I did this before (and it denied me from earning the achievement, because at least at that time you had to win by Wonder to get it), I decided to add Greek Village to the hit list. It felt really wrong. It was the first time I felt dirty during this run.

    Gameplaywise it was easy to pull off. Land a transport that is left alone and drop a Castle. Produce a Treb and 5 Conqs. You are doing this once all Turkish Docks are done for, so you are really at the cakewalk part of the mission.

    Turks can be destroyed almost entirely by your navy, but you need a small force to destroy their two Siege Workshop and TCs. 2 Paladins and 2 BBCs were more than enough to take those down.

    https://preview.redd.it/xzto0odttq981.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=b9830ff6e30b840a5fb7e16960323e5cec212fd8

    https://preview.redd.it/co10wrettq981.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=0edb1ad3dbc9ce740c3101f944783583137b902e

    About the second screenshot, I walled in the coast and the lone villager obviously switched to the Wonder. It happened when I was in a very commanding position so there was no threat of Wonder destruction, so I left him alone.

    Manzikert

    Worst mission ever.
    You have no direct control over your eco with the only exception to the rule being Trade Carts. This is the only way this mission is even remotely difficult and by difficult, I mean time-consuming. You can just wait ages to get all the resources in the world.'

    You push into themes... kill their standing army... destroy some gates... send a unit to their TC. After Pisidia... you destroy Saracen towers... where you have to drag a goddamn Mangonel from Pisidia, because you have no Villagers.
    Then you are forced to Ram push against two high ground Castles. So stupid. By the way, just bait the Man at Arms in front of the Galatia gate with CAs, kill them and then send Rams alone against the Gate. About 8-10 should do it (or three waves of 4 Rams). Or unlike me, you can remember that Siege Tower actually exist.

    Then you get Imp against Byzantine Army who is stuck in goddamn Castle Age. Such challenge. I pushed with 2 Trebs and 20 Heavy CAs and once I destroyed all production except one Barracks and a TC which I cut off from the rest of the map, I started killing Villagers in the Byzantine themes (I switched to Neutral). That also reduced the price of Spies, which are necessary, because they keep rebuilding and switching back to Ally is annoying. I could see that despite lack of surrender all units that were not mine or Byzantine were dead, so I could finally finish this off.

    Sidenote. I lost my shit a bit when I was attacking Pisidia, because I tried to make a Gate sneak to speed this up, but they worked really weird for some reason. And there is a Mango. You can imagine how that went. I really hate Manzikert so much that I attempt stupid stuff like that.

    This mission is stupid and I will not be persuaded otherwise.

    Noryang Point

    For the sake of fun, I save the Wonder. Which is done by getting Fast Fire upgrade and the speed upgrade for ships, building some more Fast Fires as that happens, sending the standing force to the Wonder and then focusing on Japanese CGs. Then it's mostly just booming (which is quite comfortable, Korea is lush and plentiful in terms of resources). You also build two Castles. One North of your base against Raiders, one to the south where your Dock Area is to thwart landings before or once they happen. I also make 5 Cavaliers for their Siege and to clean up stragglers. Once the Raiders attack, those Cavaliers and the Treb are enough to clear the base. You can then get the Transport to Yi's base. I was lazy and upgraded Mangonel to Onager and cut my way through trees.

    Honestly, Turtles are largely for show. For our goal, Cannon Galleons are far more important... because they can siege fortifications. Once they clear the majority of Japanese buildings (You must leave on Dock up!), we can pick up the stranded Chinese, whose BBCs and Chu Ko Nus are more than enough to destroy the remaining units and buildings.

    Japanese don't have much of an economy besides Fishing Ships, so Spies are fairly cheap here. Once you take care of a few ships, you can drop their last Dock.

    Hehe

    Kyoto

    This was a piece of work. But I succeeded. And it was satisfying.

    Let's start from the beginning. I kill Nobunaga myself to protect him from dishonor and lose my 4 Samurai. Then I start taking control of Osaka with my landing force. Since I was allowed to run in the Osaka section with TC I can immediately start building up eco. I keep all my units alive and train 2 Monks to make sure it stays like that. I pick up those 4 BBCs and clear the rest of Osaka proper, kind of confused as to why they refuse to surrender. Later I found out they have Castle with 4 Samurai outside of the city, you will be able to see it in the graph.
    I quickly move to Hyogo with the starting force to take them out early. I methodically push into them, make some conversion, patch up lost HP with the
    Monks and eventually clear them all out, securing more resources.

    But Kyoto is actually a resourceful and challenging opponent. Largely because of their powerful and very aggressive navy and an attempt to win with Relics. After some failed attempts I finally manage to get a Dock with some Transports that doesn't get wrecked. I land to the Northwest of the map, relatively near the Monastery with all the Relics. I drop a Castle and a Monastery, because I am predictable like that, largely using my almost intact starting force. I build some more Monks and once I drop the Kyoto Monastery I steal their Relics. I have to keep one out of the Monastery, because I obviously don't want to win too early. Those Relics are a nice source of additional Gold though.
    I build about 20 Heavy CAs, because they can take care of business against all enemy ground units with relative ease. (It's handy to research Faith though, Kyoto has annoying amount of Monks).

    I have to slowly push through Kyoto's large base. I destroy the Castles in the center, which allows me to get to their eco and remaining Monasteries. But here I ran into a problem. Destroying their TC, also makes Kyoto surrender. So I have to perpetually keep their eco half dead-half alive and the TC mildly burning. I finally get enough gold to get Spies (Kyoto has an actual economy, unlike opposition in previous missions). I also switch the minimap to a setting with more contrast between my Cyan and Kyoto Green.

    So I have to clear the map, build a Castle next to the remaining Castle to kill any newly trained Samurai and then drop the TC

    https://preview.redd.it/f3n3ejkm0r981.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=bfff3a7690074c39e90855537768f1b00c36a2b7

    These two screenshots are actually from a failed moment. If you click on the image, you will be able to see a small green dot on the southeastern edge of the map. There was a freaking fire ship and I hate to reload.

    This is the Fire Ship Fail

    BUT HERE IS THE SUCCESS. If you click on this one, you will able to see that I have reached zero enemy pop once, but they trained a Samurai.

    Kyoto was painful, yet fun. But I have a nice graph, unlike in Hastings and that pleases me. It was a nice finale to Conquerors.

    MVPs
    Lepanto - ECGs
    Manzikert - .... guess I have to go with th starting force. Some of them lived through the mission.
    Noryang - It was kind of a team effort. But I guess it's ECGs because they made it possible to reach the genocide objective.
    Kyoto - The force that has left Osaka. I baby sat those BBCs through the entire mission. Japanese have the "fastest" Trebs thanks to Katapuruto, but I will take BBCs every day.

    I move on to York. I am afraid. I am very afraid. I somehow have to strand not just one enemy on a production building, while they can't produce anything, I have to do this twice. That being said, I like the mission a lot and I will have enough resources once I get going.

    Brittish Isles will be running with blood. And that blood will be seldom that of the Norse.

    submitted by /u/iSkehan
    [link] [comments]

    Ri na hEireann Uile (King of all Ireland) Registration closes in 4 days!

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 07:55 AM PST

    Ri na hEireann Uile (King of all Ireland) Registration closes in 4 days!

    ​

    https://preview.redd.it/b9aypfko0p981.png?width=3264&format=png&auto=webp&s=aed6f82af423f8389207cbd293a015191dd6e793

    An exciting new 1v1 tournament from AoEire, an Irish community of Age of Empires players. This is a custom maps tournament (empire wars, nomad, standard), with all of the maps being Irish themed (you DO NOT have be Irish to play!). The maps are based on locations such as Glendalough, Achill Island and Blarney Castle. There is currently a $150 prize pool. The tournament begins (Qualifiers if necessary) on 17/01/2022.

    Registration closes on the 08/01/2022.

    Details:

    To find out more information, including entire tournament booklet with all information available, please join the AoEire discord: https://discord.gg/kQznx35U7B

    To Register please use: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYzsPZTIQqbU421zFm-MIPMkeX10Fp99sXMrDyCLzThVeaPw/viewform

    Prize Pool $150, so far … donations welcome.

    Where to Watch:

    You can watch the entire tournament at: https://www.twitch.tv/aoeire

    Star Showmatch on maps: Chrazini and Bluegill were kind enough to play a BO7 showmatch on the maps, check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWdsXp8FcKM

    Detailed Discussion of Maps:

    You can watch an in-depth interview with the map creator at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcfFYOsCI-o

    Map Maker Our great and powerful map maker is TechChariot, who has put a huge amount of work into all of the custom map pools, including researching much of the history of the locations. I dare say he knows more about them at this stage than we do. So, thank you for making this happen.

    submitted by /u/StigBubblecard12
    [link] [comments]

    how to change or mod lobby browser and lobby skin or background?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 06:20 PM PST

    i just want to make it darker, maybe replace with an image, idk.

    submitted by /u/xThomas
    [link] [comments]

    Here it comes

    Posted: 03 Jan 2022 01:48 PM PST

    Age oF Empires 2 Quiz game is available (Android only)

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 04:47 AM PST

    Age oF Empires 2 Quiz game is available (Android only)

    Hello community and Happy New Year.

    The moment I was waiting for - has come.
    To cut it short - Age of Empires 2 Quiz is available for Android.

    https://preview.redd.it/7btbhp8i3o981.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06932b43979641cebe07b848e661797b06b2e517

    Please follow the link.

    A moment of saying thank you.I want to thank all of you, you helped me with internal tests, gave me some questions I have added (now there are whooping 501 questions), you gave me ideas I'd implement in feature releases. you are the warmiest community ever and I wish you HF when playing the quiz. GL.

    P.S.

    Trying to predict your questions - for iOS, working hard, despite the programmer catching corona on holiday, I hope to release it by the start of the coming week (it might take another week or more to become available in AppStore). The Android version was uploaded to Google Play on December 30, but it took this long to be approved by almighty Google.

    Yes, I still accept questions, suggestions, and feedback. You can send all of it to me here, or drop me an email at [ashot@ogoltsov.com](mailto:ashot@ogoltsov.com)

    submitted by /u/AoE2_Quiz
    [link] [comments]

    New player here just 100 hrs needs advice

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 09:19 AM PST

    I really liked byzantines and want to learn it , advices can be great if u guys can help , tell me the best army composition as wel

    submitted by /u/AadityaNandal
    [link] [comments]

    Anyway to make units and text bigger?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 06:28 PM PST

    I'm visually impaired and have just started playing aoe2 this is my first rts game and aoe game. I've played the tutorial and im really struggling to see things and my eyes are sore from trying to read the small text and see the units. Is there any mod or setting to help make things bigger. Its a shame cause I don't think I'll play this game if there's nothing to fix it and it seems quite fun.

    submitted by /u/Elegant_Mud_8492
    [link] [comments]

    And with one last mighty heave the brave monk saved the relic for his people.

    Posted: 03 Jan 2022 04:37 PM PST

    Curb your Loom

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 08:28 PM PST

    Gameranger question: What does this symbol next to "Jugrobos" username mean?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2022 11:07 AM PST
    Read more
    at

    No comments:

    Post a Comment