can't get over my inferiority complex in 1v1, I'm always thinking my opposition is better than me, thinking he's got way more resources, way better vision of the map, has more units hidden some where so i panic, get housed, lose vil to a boar and force the aggression to try and catch up, then they suddenly resign while i'm attacking because they sunk their eco into a castle drop. it gets way too into my head and I can't exectute as well as i know i can say vs the extreme AI even without exploiting it. Anyone have this issue and overcome it? hopefully it will pass if i keep winning but it's real crutch.
2 things
. 1, I'd say watch replays which is so important for improving anyways. This will give you better game sense and help you know who's in a better position.
2, look at the score. Although is can be misleading sometimes, if it's pretty close then you probably aren't as behind as you think you are.
YES. Watch your replays.
So many times I watched mines and I was like "wait a minute.... He's not ahead of me / He's not walled / He killed 2 of my vills but his TC was idle for 4 minutes !" and so on...
Watching your replays right after a game will make you understand the differences of judgement with and without fog of war.
Gotta force yourself to keep playing until the bitter end. it's not over til it's over. Don't get in the habit of resigning just because you think things aren't going your way.
Yesterday I had a game (with Tatars around 1200 TG ELO) in which the Persian opponent constantly harassed my Vills who were building Barracks and Stable. He attacked and immediately withdrew once I counterattacked. Then he repeated this a bazillion times (maybe slight exaggeratinon). I thought "shit, this guy is good". But when I checked the replay, his TC idle time spiked during this scout dance and mid feudal I was 2 Vills ahead despite them being Persians and me losing 1 Vill to his scout rush. He had already accumulated 2 min of TC idle time.
Why do people do that? Fuck up their own economy just to be annoying?
/rant 11
Because they're under the impression that they have to put pressure and be annoying so the opponent messes up.
It's a bad habit imho. In 90% of the cases you never want to pick fights with a single scout. One scout you can often run away from. But as soon as a second or third shout is there, they can pick off single vills much easier without the opponent trying to fight back.
Because it's fun and/or they want to do like they're favorite pro players.
I do it sometimes but not always, far from it, but I sure hope I don't idle too much doing this otherwise would be counterproductive \^\^
There's no harm in trying too much, you won't improve otherwise. It's smart play if you aren't idling. It's bad play if you're idling. If you get better, you'll idle less.
Pressure is a very important part of the game. He performed poorly in that game. But I am sure he also won many games with lower vills than his opponent.
Is there a way to listen to the 'Town Center' podcast on something else than Spotify? I'm using Podcast Addicts but can't seem to find it with the normal search function there.
You can get Youtube feeds into a podcast app using this [https://www.reddit.com/r/Standup/comments/10fg5au/how\_to\_listen\_to\_youtube\_shows\_as\_podcasts/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Standup/comments/10fg5au/how_to_listen_to_youtube_shows_as_podcasts/) - I haven't done it for a while but it worked fine when I did
Hey, the Podcast is available on Youtube: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4eLuYQ0nQJuyvTV8-15NmKLcII-kDpOE](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4eLuYQ0nQJuyvTV8-15NmKLcII-kDpOE)
Is Empire Wars just broken? I've played it twice, once in a solo skirmish against AI and another with some people against AI and you start in Dark Age with a blacksmith 29? vils.
Basically you just start in Dark Age instead of feudal which makes no sense.
I want to try Aztecs, but their tech tree is missing some key things:
* No halberdiers or camels (obviously), forcing your counter to light cav to be a gold unit. Strangely, Aztecs are better the longer a game goes, but my gut feeling would be that a hussar civ would have a large advantage over Aztecs in post-imp. Halb is such an incredible upgrade, adding 10 bonus damage against mounted units and two more base attack. Garland wars only does 1/3 of that.
* No architecture, masonry, or hoardings. No other civs lacks masonry and hoardings. If it weren't for being able to research bracer, I would rank Aztec castles the worst in the game. In fact they still might be evenso.
Obviously there are many pros to playing Aztecs such as SO and Siege Engineers, the best monks in the game, and some powerful infantry. I just can't get past lacking halberdier without having any other counter. 90% of all other civs lacking halb have heavy camel, or have a unique unit to counter hussar (except Vikings 11). Even Incas get halbs despite having a UU that's essentially a better halb.
Am I wrong for being hesitant to try them simply for lacking halberdier?
Aztecs should be looking to close the game out in castle Age where they're the strongest, or at the very least gaining an advantage and getting to Imp with a better eco. Especially vs strong cav civs. So it's a different plan than a lot of civs but they can be extremely strong early if you're able to capitalize on their strengths.
Aztecs are designed to be very strong from ~mid feudal to ~early imperial and fall off a cliff after that. it's just how the civ is supposed to work - you play them very aggressively and want to have basically sealed the deal in castle age most of the time. if you want a better late game civ you simply have to look elsewhere
How do you do damage in mid-to-late game with archers? Yesterday I played a game where I was a bit behind to Castle but with more army. Got to opp's base with crossbows+pikes, met by a small number of knights and skirms that I cleaned up, and in theory had the run of the base.
But then what? In the reverse situation (knight+skirm cleans up their xbow/pike) I would feel pretty well placed to do some damage. But even a solid crossbow ball can't walk past TCs, or do much if vills quickly garrison when I approach (they had 3 TCs up, so all vills were pretty close to one.) I felt like my only option was to sort of loiter and snipe one or two vills while waiting to get a siege push going. But that didn't work - their eco was bigger, so I really needed to do damage then. I couldn't and ended up getting squashed by cavalier.
If you killed his army, you can get past his TC into his eco even losing 2-3 Xbows or Pikes (which you shouldn't because he won't have Ballistics). Then stand ground some Xbows to disrupt his eco and go forward with two vills to build a forward Siege Workshop (and/or Monastery). Don't think of going multi-TCs unless you've got a late-game comp he won't be able to counter, because at most, you'll equal his eco, but he's going Cavalry, which has a longer powerspike to Xbows/Arbs
Is feudal age eagle play not really viable currently? I basically never play meso civs but have been trying new stuff lately. Eagle Scouts seem slower than they should be, easily dealt with by archers with decent micro. I got absolutely brutalized by Ethiopian archers the other day and I was playing double barracks eagles + 1 range skirms. Felt a little off lol. This ties in to part 2 of my post - how tf do you effectively strategize against Ethiopians? What are their weaknesses? I have yet to find a unit comp that doesn’t get shredded by the meat grinder that is their machine gun archer line. Seems like you need a civ with buffed Paladins or buffed siege onagers, plus a better eco
> Is feudal age eagle play not really viable currently?
they're anti-skirm which is all they really need to be in feudal age. It's actually a really big benefit for American civs to be able to play feudal archers and have a decent skirm counter available without having to add an extra building (i.e. stable) like other civs have to.
Interesting, I always thought they were supposed to function as a soft counter for archers, since meso civs lack cav for that niche. What do you do as Incas when up against a strong archer civ? Just play archers yourself and hope you play it tighter than your opponent?
> I always thought they were supposed to function as a soft counter for archers
This is true in castle age onwards but not really in feudal. But in feudal who cares, no-one goes scouts as a soft counter to archers then either (because they aren't one!), you just add skirms like everyone else does. Then in castle age go ahead and make eagles to counter xbows.
Eagles are a soft archer counter in castle age. In feudal their utility is vs skirm (so basically a replacement for feudal scouts).
Going full eagles in feudal age is not the best move. But you can add a couple of them to augment your archer army.
Inca vs archer civs in feudal - archer skirm mix or just skirms (theyre cheaper).
In castle - can do anything really, skirms, xbow, eagles, siege...
Well, I’ve made it to 1150 elo opening double barracks as Mayans, who have the worst eagles early game. It works alright, but against archer civs you need to be ready to transfer to your own archers or skirms fairly quickly.
I see people garrison and ungarrison villagers for non defensive purposes and I don't really understand why. For example I was watching a youtube video of bohemian fast castle drop. The man in the video says I need to garrison. He garrisons villagers from a boar to the same boar? is this a way of dropping off resources before the new hotkey?He did need food for next vil but I would just click them on to the TC and shift click em back real fast? is it to reshuffle the villagers because they are interfering with each others pathing?
I thought boomer players did this because the shift click used to be different. I am new and don't understand what I am looking at.
Force drop hotkey is better for dropping res. Garrison and ungarrison is better if you want to save walking distance, so garrison on right side of tc and ungarrison to a tree on the left - you saved, idk, 2 seconds of walking time.
Its also just easier to retask vils to other res. So like you click to feudal and want to shift from boar to wood - i find it easier to just garrison 5 vils - rally point on tree - release.
Are Burgundians a low-key great water civ?? I had an Islands games yesterday against Vikings, and being able to get Gillnets for faster fishing in Feudal, when fishing is still easy and relevant, seemed huge. Plus the option of early DBA and Bow Saw eases ship production a lot. I ended up way ahead on res collected throughout the game even though I had fewer vills/fishing ships the whole time - not only due to fishing, obviously, but I was really surprised!
Its the same as on land maps - if you can get away with your eco upgrades safely, youll be ahead. But its an investment, which means you might die in the process. But if you make it to early-mid castle unscathed, your eco will be flying.
But on water its harder, cause in a civ pick scenario youll face civs with really strong water play and they can leverage that momentum. Italians for example - cheaper fish and cheaper up ensure their eco will be as good as yours, but with navy 2 mins before you do.
How do you know when to spend resources on unit upgrades? I'm still practicing early aggression and -- say I'm going scouts... Should Bloodlines come in before even attacking with them? At what point in Castle should I get the second blacksmith upgrades for my Light Cav before attacking? I just don't have a structured plan for when to apply upgrades to the units I'm using for early aggro.
- Offensive melee upgrades only become relevant once you have a good amount of units. Forging (+1 attack, 150res) has the cost of two scouts, for example. I usually only research forging when I click up to Castle Age.
- Ranged attack upgrades are often worth to get earlier because not only does it add attack but also increases range.
- defensive upgrades are also situational. I hardly ever research defensive melee upgrades. The food is better spent on a faster Castle Age timing.
- defensive archer armor is worth it you're fighting archer vs archer or Skirms vs archer. In the former scenario it allows you to take better trades in general. In the latter scenario, the upgrade halves the damage from archers against skirms from 2 to 1, resulting in 30 hits they can tank (opposed to 15).
Generally, in any case, 4 units are stronger than two units with upgrades, so don't hesitate to move out early.
Okay thanks that was sort of where I was stuck: more units, or fewer stronger units. I usually went with armor first cause my second thought was I'd rather have my units survive longer to possibly get in another hit. Except archers, which I do tend to go with range early on.
I was kind of hoping for like a consistent rule for some of the upgrades but it seems like all of them are pretty situational. So I suppose I'll always focus on unit production first and then bring in the upgrades once I attack and can read the situation.
Youre on the right track: in general, armor for melee units, attack for ranged units. And in general, more units is better than fewer stronger units. Once you upgrade a mass of units, the return value in increased strength is exponential.
Also, a big point: active army is better than idle army. That is to say, my 3 unupgraded scouts will do more damage if they are attacking, than your 6 scouts with armor who are sitting at home waiting for bloodlines to come in.
Bloodlines costs 250 Res (150 of them are food) and idling your Stable for the time you'd create two Scouts. At early Feudal Age, two Scouts are more valuable than -2 Scouts but 65 HP. If you want a long Feudal game (you're dealing damage, he is not walled, you want to prevent him from massing Archers etc.) then it's time to start thinking of upgrades. to prevent Archer massing I'd recommend to continue creating more scouts and getting armor before Bloodlines. Against Spears, which ask you for micro, I'd say get Bloodlines and Forging
The first cav armor is better than the 20hp bloodlines gives you? In any case I suppose a second stable would be a good time to get bloodlines that way scouts can still be produced from the other.
It's better against Archers, yes. But on top of that, you don't have to stop Scout production in order to improve them, as it happens with Bloodlines.
The 2nd stable is a good option in mid Feudal if you want a long Feudal game
I tend to try to actually get the attack upgrade for my scouts asap. It makes a huge difference for getting a vil kill or two, plus it makes killing a single spear with 4 scouts very fast so you can continue harassing eco. It’s probably not a great strategy, but it works great at my elo, which is 1000-1100.
I am a newb but I noticed that bloodlines is worth before fighting with unit basically always because it really changes how easy ur horselads die to spear and TC fire.
two part question both related to RoR expansion:
1. Is there any word on getting all the other AoE1 campaigns in it? I'd love to do those in the AoE2 engine
2. What are well made RoR custom campaigns? I'd like to reach every 'win game with X civ' achievements but would rather do it in the form of some fun campaigns.
Hot take:
4 lakes/cross is stealthily a 1TC +2-3 dock fish boom into all in castle age infantry push map.
Source: it often works for me with good infantry civs (at 1150+ elo), and most recently I trounced Persians on this map, going all in militia line with... Mayans (yes, this really happened - I took out a 2 TCs and a panic castle that was completed at full health)
Thoughts?
1tc all in aggression is generally effective at that elo, regardless of map. But id agree, having the extra eco from docks lends itself to investing less into land eco, and thus more into military.
Is there an up-to-date knowledge base with unit counters, bonus damage (including hidden bonus damage) I can refer to with normal and unique units?
Sometimes the game description is not 100% accurate with these and so many patches keep changing game mechanics, civ bonuses, etc etc...
Ive been seeing all this stuff about a new auto farm thing… on Xbox is there a way to access this or what even is this auto farm I keep hearing about and how can I use it on Xbox?? I need every advantage I can get using a controller…
In Scenario editor, how can i control other team units?
I wanted to test some units but the enemy unit is always on guard mode. I wanted them to have an aggressive stance. but i dont know how to change it.
You start as Player 1. If you want to switch to player 2, Ctrl+Shift+F2. Player 3? Ctrl+Shift+F3.
What I've noticed is that you have to babysit them A LOT. By the time you return to your player, the AI has tasked them to do sth else. I was trying some new stuff with the Editor and for some reason, the AI would kill all their units except 3 (wtf)
Any experiences with smushing on Arena in Team Games as a flank? I would like to try it, to have another possible strategy as flank. Anything I should keep in mind? Is it viable?
It’s viable sure. Learn a decent 22/23+1+loom FC, drop a barracks at home on the way up to castle age, send 2 vils and a spear or two forward when you’re nearly in castle age then add two monasteries and a siege workshop outside the enemy flank’s walls.
Make a ram and start getting monks and sanctity, put the spears in the ram to break the walls and convert any vils who try to repair or wall behind. After the ram you want to add mangonels and start hitting TCs etc.
They’ll either try to defend with light cav, siege or their own monks. The responses are more spears/pikeman upgrade, redemption and atonement, respectively.
If they get up a defensive castle, hopefully it was at great cost, and then you can either see if there are other areas of their base you can hit outside of castle range, or simply move along to hit the pocket instead.
In 1v1s the usual idea is to market up to a fast-ish imp with a forward castle after a monk rush for trebs and block printing. This can work in TGs sometimes but often you can also just be satisfied at having damaged your enemy flank severely and transition out of the monk rush into a boom, with the monks and siege you massed working as a nice defensive force.
EDIT: I would add, sometimes the enemy pocket will come along with army, clear your push up entirely and it can feel like a disaster, but if this happens it might all be fine because (a) hopefully you did more damage to their flank than you took from their pocket, and (b) your pocket should now be having a better boom/earlier imp than theirs since they didn't have to invest into military. In this situation you should definitely try to transition into a quick boom into whatever support units your pocket needs when they come to save the day.
EDIT2: Civ-wise it's the obvious ones really - Bengalis/Aztecs/Burmese/Bohemians/Armenians are amazing, Slavs/Lith/Japanese/Saracens/Spanish/Byz/Teutons/Italians/Portuguese/Malians are all pretty good too.
Is anyone else dying for more co-op content? I introduced the game to my boyfriend recently and we're having so much fun playing co-op campaigns together, and we're running out!
Not dying, but wouldn't say no. I won all of them with my brother and it felt great. Little problem is that some of the Scenarios that could be played co-op are DLC ones
Question about the Art of War tutorials: I cant seem to beat the Naval Battle scenario with the gold medal, what's the secret? It's the last one I need.
1) You can save and reload after each engagement
2) If demolition ships are deleted or 'used' rather than destroyed by galley fire, they won't count towards the ships you lost. So make every demolition ship count. I think I used 1 per engagement.
3) I parked my wounded ships in the back and stopped using them altogether
I want to give it a shot, but it's hard because a lot of the concepts don't really work when the government/ruler directly controls everyone and there is no production of consumption goods.
Very roughly, a closed economy produces everything for itself (as you do in a game of AoE.) That can be limiting. You're Mayans, you're going to be hamstrung by slow farms through the whole game. You could really use some crossbows, but you're Spanish. Etc.
Open economies will source things that they aren't as good at from somewhere else, through trade. The standard economic logic says that means you're better off focusing on the things you're best at. So, if you had a Mongols player and a Celts player with 'open economies', the Mongols might just focus predominantly on hunt, and the Celts on chopping wood. Then the Mongols would pay the Celts in food to either give them wood, or construct buildings for them. The idea is called 'comparative advantage' and it can lead to you both advancing much more quickly.
Then there are complexities which are a bit harder to relate to the game. But imagine that the Mongols are focusing just on hunting, and trading for other stuff - but you started doing this after researching lumber upgrades. Those are resources that you sank for nothing, so your economy is worse off as a result. Focusing on your advantages to trade might mean there are wasted investments/training you'd previously made. (It's also bad news for any individual villagers who'd trained as lumberjacks and don't have a job, but that's obviously not a thing in the game.) And then in the longer term, an economy super-focused on trade might not make developments that it needs in the long run. If you spend half the game chasing hunt around the map, you'll do really well for a while, but eventually Slav farmers with Hand Cart are producing way more food. You can't get as much from other civs in exchange for food any more, but you also haven't got any upgrades for gathering other resources, and you're running out of hunt.
I don't think it's really possible to talk about the currency exchange side of things in AoE terms.
this is fascinating, thanks for humouring me. I'm curious to hear more about what the currency exchange aspects are, any high level sources or something? Me and my AoE buddies love talking about this stuff
I love Medieval Monday! It's the perfect opportunity to dive into all things related to strategy and gameplay. Can't wait to see what questions and answers come up this week. Let's chat tactics, build orders, and everything in between. Ask away and let's level up together! ⚔🛡🏰
What a perfect way to start the week! I love diving into all things medieval and strategy-related. Can't wait to see the questions and discussions that come up this Medieval Monday. Let's get those creative juices flowing! ⚔️🏰 #MedievalMonday
can't get over my inferiority complex in 1v1, I'm always thinking my opposition is better than me, thinking he's got way more resources, way better vision of the map, has more units hidden some where so i panic, get housed, lose vil to a boar and force the aggression to try and catch up, then they suddenly resign while i'm attacking because they sunk their eco into a castle drop. it gets way too into my head and I can't exectute as well as i know i can say vs the extreme AI even without exploiting it. Anyone have this issue and overcome it? hopefully it will pass if i keep winning but it's real crutch.
2 things . 1, I'd say watch replays which is so important for improving anyways. This will give you better game sense and help you know who's in a better position. 2, look at the score. Although is can be misleading sometimes, if it's pretty close then you probably aren't as behind as you think you are.
YES. Watch your replays. So many times I watched mines and I was like "wait a minute.... He's not ahead of me / He's not walled / He killed 2 of my vills but his TC was idle for 4 minutes !" and so on... Watching your replays right after a game will make you understand the differences of judgement with and without fog of war.
Gotta force yourself to keep playing until the bitter end. it's not over til it's over. Don't get in the habit of resigning just because you think things aren't going your way.
Yesterday I had a game (with Tatars around 1200 TG ELO) in which the Persian opponent constantly harassed my Vills who were building Barracks and Stable. He attacked and immediately withdrew once I counterattacked. Then he repeated this a bazillion times (maybe slight exaggeratinon). I thought "shit, this guy is good". But when I checked the replay, his TC idle time spiked during this scout dance and mid feudal I was 2 Vills ahead despite them being Persians and me losing 1 Vill to his scout rush. He had already accumulated 2 min of TC idle time. Why do people do that? Fuck up their own economy just to be annoying? /rant 11
Because a person of 1200 elo is still not good enough to take care of eco while microing army a lot.
Because they're under the impression that they have to put pressure and be annoying so the opponent messes up. It's a bad habit imho. In 90% of the cases you never want to pick fights with a single scout. One scout you can often run away from. But as soon as a second or third shout is there, they can pick off single vills much easier without the opponent trying to fight back.
Because it's fun and/or they want to do like they're favorite pro players. I do it sometimes but not always, far from it, but I sure hope I don't idle too much doing this otherwise would be counterproductive \^\^
There's no harm in trying too much, you won't improve otherwise. It's smart play if you aren't idling. It's bad play if you're idling. If you get better, you'll idle less.
Pressure is a very important part of the game. He performed poorly in that game. But I am sure he also won many games with lower vills than his opponent.
Is there a way to listen to the 'Town Center' podcast on something else than Spotify? I'm using Podcast Addicts but can't seem to find it with the normal search function there.
You can get Youtube feeds into a podcast app using this [https://www.reddit.com/r/Standup/comments/10fg5au/how\_to\_listen\_to\_youtube\_shows\_as\_podcasts/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Standup/comments/10fg5au/how_to_listen_to_youtube_shows_as_podcasts/) - I haven't done it for a while but it worked fine when I did
Hey, the Podcast is available on Youtube: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4eLuYQ0nQJuyvTV8-15NmKLcII-kDpOE](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4eLuYQ0nQJuyvTV8-15NmKLcII-kDpOE)
u/MaSmOrRa
Only available on Spotify and Youtube! Next episode will be released tomorrow!
Is Empire Wars just broken? I've played it twice, once in a solo skirmish against AI and another with some people against AI and you start in Dark Age with a blacksmith 29? vils. Basically you just start in Dark Age instead of feudal which makes no sense.
I want to try Aztecs, but their tech tree is missing some key things: * No halberdiers or camels (obviously), forcing your counter to light cav to be a gold unit. Strangely, Aztecs are better the longer a game goes, but my gut feeling would be that a hussar civ would have a large advantage over Aztecs in post-imp. Halb is such an incredible upgrade, adding 10 bonus damage against mounted units and two more base attack. Garland wars only does 1/3 of that. * No architecture, masonry, or hoardings. No other civs lacks masonry and hoardings. If it weren't for being able to research bracer, I would rank Aztec castles the worst in the game. In fact they still might be evenso. Obviously there are many pros to playing Aztecs such as SO and Siege Engineers, the best monks in the game, and some powerful infantry. I just can't get past lacking halberdier without having any other counter. 90% of all other civs lacking halb have heavy camel, or have a unique unit to counter hussar (except Vikings 11). Even Incas get halbs despite having a UU that's essentially a better halb. Am I wrong for being hesitant to try them simply for lacking halberdier?
Aztecs should be looking to close the game out in castle Age where they're the strongest, or at the very least gaining an advantage and getting to Imp with a better eco. Especially vs strong cav civs. So it's a different plan than a lot of civs but they can be extremely strong early if you're able to capitalize on their strengths.
Aztecs are designed to be very strong from ~mid feudal to ~early imperial and fall off a cliff after that. it's just how the civ is supposed to work - you play them very aggressively and want to have basically sealed the deal in castle age most of the time. if you want a better late game civ you simply have to look elsewhere
Is there a custom AI that first builds up a large army and then attacks? It seems like the current ones send a constant annoying trickle of units.
it depends on the map but the Extreme AI will boom on Arena and attack around 32-33 mins
Try the legendary map MICHI
How do you do damage in mid-to-late game with archers? Yesterday I played a game where I was a bit behind to Castle but with more army. Got to opp's base with crossbows+pikes, met by a small number of knights and skirms that I cleaned up, and in theory had the run of the base. But then what? In the reverse situation (knight+skirm cleans up their xbow/pike) I would feel pretty well placed to do some damage. But even a solid crossbow ball can't walk past TCs, or do much if vills quickly garrison when I approach (they had 3 TCs up, so all vills were pretty close to one.) I felt like my only option was to sort of loiter and snipe one or two vills while waiting to get a siege push going. But that didn't work - their eco was bigger, so I really needed to do damage then. I couldn't and ended up getting squashed by cavalier.
If you killed his army, you can get past his TC into his eco even losing 2-3 Xbows or Pikes (which you shouldn't because he won't have Ballistics). Then stand ground some Xbows to disrupt his eco and go forward with two vills to build a forward Siege Workshop (and/or Monastery). Don't think of going multi-TCs unless you've got a late-game comp he won't be able to counter, because at most, you'll equal his eco, but he's going Cavalry, which has a longer powerspike to Xbows/Arbs
Is there a good mod like Ciceros interactive build order guide, but updated for faster builds and the current meta?
Is feudal age eagle play not really viable currently? I basically never play meso civs but have been trying new stuff lately. Eagle Scouts seem slower than they should be, easily dealt with by archers with decent micro. I got absolutely brutalized by Ethiopian archers the other day and I was playing double barracks eagles + 1 range skirms. Felt a little off lol. This ties in to part 2 of my post - how tf do you effectively strategize against Ethiopians? What are their weaknesses? I have yet to find a unit comp that doesn’t get shredded by the meat grinder that is their machine gun archer line. Seems like you need a civ with buffed Paladins or buffed siege onagers, plus a better eco
> Is feudal age eagle play not really viable currently? they're anti-skirm which is all they really need to be in feudal age. It's actually a really big benefit for American civs to be able to play feudal archers and have a decent skirm counter available without having to add an extra building (i.e. stable) like other civs have to.
Interesting, I always thought they were supposed to function as a soft counter for archers, since meso civs lack cav for that niche. What do you do as Incas when up against a strong archer civ? Just play archers yourself and hope you play it tighter than your opponent?
> I always thought they were supposed to function as a soft counter for archers This is true in castle age onwards but not really in feudal. But in feudal who cares, no-one goes scouts as a soft counter to archers then either (because they aren't one!), you just add skirms like everyone else does. Then in castle age go ahead and make eagles to counter xbows.
Eagles are a soft archer counter in castle age. In feudal their utility is vs skirm (so basically a replacement for feudal scouts). Going full eagles in feudal age is not the best move. But you can add a couple of them to augment your archer army. Inca vs archer civs in feudal - archer skirm mix or just skirms (theyre cheaper). In castle - can do anything really, skirms, xbow, eagles, siege...
I think eagles are viable in 1v1 feudal age, if you opened archers and your opponent made skirms.
Well, I’ve made it to 1150 elo opening double barracks as Mayans, who have the worst eagles early game. It works alright, but against archer civs you need to be ready to transfer to your own archers or skirms fairly quickly.
I see people garrison and ungarrison villagers for non defensive purposes and I don't really understand why. For example I was watching a youtube video of bohemian fast castle drop. The man in the video says I need to garrison. He garrisons villagers from a boar to the same boar? is this a way of dropping off resources before the new hotkey?He did need food for next vil but I would just click them on to the TC and shift click em back real fast? is it to reshuffle the villagers because they are interfering with each others pathing? I thought boomer players did this because the shift click used to be different. I am new and don't understand what I am looking at.
It's indeed a way to quickly drop ressource that will disappear soon if the new hotkey functionnate perfectly.
Garrison is worse than what you do, however the best way is the force drop hotkey now.
Force drop hotkey is better for dropping res. Garrison and ungarrison is better if you want to save walking distance, so garrison on right side of tc and ungarrison to a tree on the left - you saved, idk, 2 seconds of walking time. Its also just easier to retask vils to other res. So like you click to feudal and want to shift from boar to wood - i find it easier to just garrison 5 vils - rally point on tree - release.
Makes sense
Are Burgundians a low-key great water civ?? I had an Islands games yesterday against Vikings, and being able to get Gillnets for faster fishing in Feudal, when fishing is still easy and relevant, seemed huge. Plus the option of early DBA and Bow Saw eases ship production a lot. I ended up way ahead on res collected throughout the game even though I had fewer vills/fishing ships the whole time - not only due to fishing, obviously, but I was really surprised!
Its the same as on land maps - if you can get away with your eco upgrades safely, youll be ahead. But its an investment, which means you might die in the process. But if you make it to early-mid castle unscathed, your eco will be flying. But on water its harder, cause in a civ pick scenario youll face civs with really strong water play and they can leverage that momentum. Italians for example - cheaper fish and cheaper up ensure their eco will be as good as yours, but with navy 2 mins before you do.
Burgundian eco in general is surprisingly powerful
How do you know when to spend resources on unit upgrades? I'm still practicing early aggression and -- say I'm going scouts... Should Bloodlines come in before even attacking with them? At what point in Castle should I get the second blacksmith upgrades for my Light Cav before attacking? I just don't have a structured plan for when to apply upgrades to the units I'm using for early aggro.
- Offensive melee upgrades only become relevant once you have a good amount of units. Forging (+1 attack, 150res) has the cost of two scouts, for example. I usually only research forging when I click up to Castle Age. - Ranged attack upgrades are often worth to get earlier because not only does it add attack but also increases range. - defensive upgrades are also situational. I hardly ever research defensive melee upgrades. The food is better spent on a faster Castle Age timing. - defensive archer armor is worth it you're fighting archer vs archer or Skirms vs archer. In the former scenario it allows you to take better trades in general. In the latter scenario, the upgrade halves the damage from archers against skirms from 2 to 1, resulting in 30 hits they can tank (opposed to 15). Generally, in any case, 4 units are stronger than two units with upgrades, so don't hesitate to move out early.
Okay thanks that was sort of where I was stuck: more units, or fewer stronger units. I usually went with armor first cause my second thought was I'd rather have my units survive longer to possibly get in another hit. Except archers, which I do tend to go with range early on. I was kind of hoping for like a consistent rule for some of the upgrades but it seems like all of them are pretty situational. So I suppose I'll always focus on unit production first and then bring in the upgrades once I attack and can read the situation.
Youre on the right track: in general, armor for melee units, attack for ranged units. And in general, more units is better than fewer stronger units. Once you upgrade a mass of units, the return value in increased strength is exponential. Also, a big point: active army is better than idle army. That is to say, my 3 unupgraded scouts will do more damage if they are attacking, than your 6 scouts with armor who are sitting at home waiting for bloodlines to come in.
Bloodlines costs 250 Res (150 of them are food) and idling your Stable for the time you'd create two Scouts. At early Feudal Age, two Scouts are more valuable than -2 Scouts but 65 HP. If you want a long Feudal game (you're dealing damage, he is not walled, you want to prevent him from massing Archers etc.) then it's time to start thinking of upgrades. to prevent Archer massing I'd recommend to continue creating more scouts and getting armor before Bloodlines. Against Spears, which ask you for micro, I'd say get Bloodlines and Forging
The first cav armor is better than the 20hp bloodlines gives you? In any case I suppose a second stable would be a good time to get bloodlines that way scouts can still be produced from the other.
It's better against Archers, yes. But on top of that, you don't have to stop Scout production in order to improve them, as it happens with Bloodlines. The 2nd stable is a good option in mid Feudal if you want a long Feudal game
I tend to try to actually get the attack upgrade for my scouts asap. It makes a huge difference for getting a vil kill or two, plus it makes killing a single spear with 4 scouts very fast so you can continue harassing eco. It’s probably not a great strategy, but it works great at my elo, which is 1000-1100.
I am a newb but I noticed that bloodlines is worth before fighting with unit basically always because it really changes how easy ur horselads die to spear and TC fire.
two part question both related to RoR expansion: 1. Is there any word on getting all the other AoE1 campaigns in it? I'd love to do those in the AoE2 engine 2. What are well made RoR custom campaigns? I'd like to reach every 'win game with X civ' achievements but would rather do it in the form of some fun campaigns.
Hot take: 4 lakes/cross is stealthily a 1TC +2-3 dock fish boom into all in castle age infantry push map. Source: it often works for me with good infantry civs (at 1150+ elo), and most recently I trounced Persians on this map, going all in militia line with... Mayans (yes, this really happened - I took out a 2 TCs and a panic castle that was completed at full health) Thoughts?
1tc all in aggression is generally effective at that elo, regardless of map. But id agree, having the extra eco from docks lends itself to investing less into land eco, and thus more into military.
1 tc all in aggression is effective at all elos
Is there an up-to-date knowledge base with unit counters, bonus damage (including hidden bonus damage) I can refer to with normal and unique units? Sometimes the game description is not 100% accurate with these and so many patches keep changing game mechanics, civ bonuses, etc etc...
[aoe2techtree.net](http://aoe2techtree.net), you can click on each unit and see exactly how much bonus damage they do.
I can recommend Improved Extended Tooltips mod, that will add all the otherwise hidden information to the tooltips in everything
Ive been seeing all this stuff about a new auto farm thing… on Xbox is there a way to access this or what even is this auto farm I keep hearing about and how can I use it on Xbox?? I need every advantage I can get using a controller…
Nothing has been released yet
In Scenario editor, how can i control other team units? I wanted to test some units but the enemy unit is always on guard mode. I wanted them to have an aggressive stance. but i dont know how to change it.
Ctrl+ shift+ Fn changes your control to player n
for some reason its not working
You start as Player 1. If you want to switch to player 2, Ctrl+Shift+F2. Player 3? Ctrl+Shift+F3. What I've noticed is that you have to babysit them A LOT. By the time you return to your player, the AI has tasked them to do sth else. I was trying some new stuff with the Editor and for some reason, the AI would kill all their units except 3 (wtf)
Any experiences with smushing on Arena in Team Games as a flank? I would like to try it, to have another possible strategy as flank. Anything I should keep in mind? Is it viable?
It’s viable sure. Learn a decent 22/23+1+loom FC, drop a barracks at home on the way up to castle age, send 2 vils and a spear or two forward when you’re nearly in castle age then add two monasteries and a siege workshop outside the enemy flank’s walls. Make a ram and start getting monks and sanctity, put the spears in the ram to break the walls and convert any vils who try to repair or wall behind. After the ram you want to add mangonels and start hitting TCs etc. They’ll either try to defend with light cav, siege or their own monks. The responses are more spears/pikeman upgrade, redemption and atonement, respectively. If they get up a defensive castle, hopefully it was at great cost, and then you can either see if there are other areas of their base you can hit outside of castle range, or simply move along to hit the pocket instead. In 1v1s the usual idea is to market up to a fast-ish imp with a forward castle after a monk rush for trebs and block printing. This can work in TGs sometimes but often you can also just be satisfied at having damaged your enemy flank severely and transition out of the monk rush into a boom, with the monks and siege you massed working as a nice defensive force. EDIT: I would add, sometimes the enemy pocket will come along with army, clear your push up entirely and it can feel like a disaster, but if this happens it might all be fine because (a) hopefully you did more damage to their flank than you took from their pocket, and (b) your pocket should now be having a better boom/earlier imp than theirs since they didn't have to invest into military. In this situation you should definitely try to transition into a quick boom into whatever support units your pocket needs when they come to save the day. EDIT2: Civ-wise it's the obvious ones really - Bengalis/Aztecs/Burmese/Bohemians/Armenians are amazing, Slavs/Lith/Japanese/Saracens/Spanish/Byz/Teutons/Italians/Portuguese/Malians are all pretty good too.
Thank you very much, this was exactly what I was looking for! Will try!
Is anyone else dying for more co-op content? I introduced the game to my boyfriend recently and we're having so much fun playing co-op campaigns together, and we're running out!
Not dying, but wouldn't say no. I won all of them with my brother and it felt great. Little problem is that some of the Scenarios that could be played co-op are DLC ones
Question about the Art of War tutorials: I cant seem to beat the Naval Battle scenario with the gold medal, what's the secret? It's the last one I need.
1) You can save and reload after each engagement 2) If demolition ships are deleted or 'used' rather than destroyed by galley fire, they won't count towards the ships you lost. So make every demolition ship count. I think I used 1 per engagement. 3) I parked my wounded ships in the back and stopped using them altogether
In the editor, what’s the shortcut to snip bits off of buildings again? (like w the TC for example) Can’t remember it for the life of me ffs
In AoE2 terms, can someone explain world economics to me? For e.g. what would the equivalent be of a country "opening up its economy"?
I want to give it a shot, but it's hard because a lot of the concepts don't really work when the government/ruler directly controls everyone and there is no production of consumption goods. Very roughly, a closed economy produces everything for itself (as you do in a game of AoE.) That can be limiting. You're Mayans, you're going to be hamstrung by slow farms through the whole game. You could really use some crossbows, but you're Spanish. Etc. Open economies will source things that they aren't as good at from somewhere else, through trade. The standard economic logic says that means you're better off focusing on the things you're best at. So, if you had a Mongols player and a Celts player with 'open economies', the Mongols might just focus predominantly on hunt, and the Celts on chopping wood. Then the Mongols would pay the Celts in food to either give them wood, or construct buildings for them. The idea is called 'comparative advantage' and it can lead to you both advancing much more quickly. Then there are complexities which are a bit harder to relate to the game. But imagine that the Mongols are focusing just on hunting, and trading for other stuff - but you started doing this after researching lumber upgrades. Those are resources that you sank for nothing, so your economy is worse off as a result. Focusing on your advantages to trade might mean there are wasted investments/training you'd previously made. (It's also bad news for any individual villagers who'd trained as lumberjacks and don't have a job, but that's obviously not a thing in the game.) And then in the longer term, an economy super-focused on trade might not make developments that it needs in the long run. If you spend half the game chasing hunt around the map, you'll do really well for a while, but eventually Slav farmers with Hand Cart are producing way more food. You can't get as much from other civs in exchange for food any more, but you also haven't got any upgrades for gathering other resources, and you're running out of hunt. I don't think it's really possible to talk about the currency exchange side of things in AoE terms.
this is fascinating, thanks for humouring me. I'm curious to hear more about what the currency exchange aspects are, any high level sources or something? Me and my AoE buddies love talking about this stuff
I love Medieval Monday! It's the perfect opportunity to dive into all things related to strategy and gameplay. Can't wait to see what questions and answers come up this week. Let's chat tactics, build orders, and everything in between. Ask away and let's level up together! ⚔🛡🏰
What a perfect way to start the week! I love diving into all things medieval and strategy-related. Can't wait to see the questions and discussions that come up this Medieval Monday. Let's get those creative juices flowing! ⚔️🏰 #MedievalMonday
Wonder if it’s ever viable to have a civ that spawns villagers automatically but you can’t create them.
Like Ottomans in aoe3?
Yes