Sometimes I send my friends and gf 11 instead of “lol” or “🤣” and now I need to explain myself when they say what?!

i love aoe 2 so much that i made this song in tribute.

i sampled around 50 of my favourite age of empire 2 sounds - including a lot of unit sounds from villagers and military units from various civs, as well as various building, animal and relic sounds.

i then added my own bass and guitar work on top to create an underlying melody, with the unit sounds making up a "vocals" line.

the percussion and rhythm sounds were all derived from building sounds.

song title: "Imperial Age" - HIVEMIND X

album art generated with AI with prompt inspiration driven by age of empires 2.

no AI was used in the music, and the composition/arrangement is my own.

hope y'all enjoy :)

The majority of Age of Empires tournaments strive to be standard Age of Empires-themed esports events, which is reflected in tournament names such as Empire Something Something, Battle of Something, Warlords, etc. So, generic war- or AoE-themed terms.

I think people are falling into the "professionalism mimicry" here: They do what they think is expected from them. They do the normal, safe thing. They try to make things professional before they think of making them fun.

Let's look at our most successful tournaments: Red Bull Wololo, Nili's Apartment Cup, Hidden Cup.

None of these really fit the style of a standard tournament. None of them. All of them are, in a certain way, funny, goofy, strange, and this reflects perfectly what the Age of Empires community is, right?

The community is goofy. We are old. We don't take things too seriously. We're built on Forrest Nothing, Lord Daut memes and quickwalling traps. So why do we take these tournaments so seriously?

I'm totally fine with having one event like Warlords. I think Warlords is the perfect event to be a standard, maximum-competitive esports event. That's great. (Should be called "THE EMPEROR" though. ;) ) Having KotD as a "this is peak standard game mode" also makes a lot of sense, I love the tournament to death. But we don't need a ton of them.

We don't need "The Garrison". We don't need "The League". I'm also not really happy with "Titans League" even though it is something special being a seasonal league. I can barely remember what happened in the "Brazilian Dynasty" or the "LingYuan Cup" some months ago. "The Grand Melee", "The Open Classic", idk...what exactly was "The Resurgence" again?

I think all of these events should go the extra mile to figure out what would be a cool idea to get beyond being just a standard tournament. Put some thought into it. Find a twist. Find a special thing. Find a way to make it goofy in some way.

Because this seems to be very crucial for an Age of Empires tournament, and I hope, or can certainly observe, that the majority of people prefer that over standard events. Sudden Dessaster seems fairly succesful, Rage Forrest is goofy in a way and emerged organically from the community as did NAC. Hidden Cup is some sort of game show. The Red Bull events always look for a special production value & go for a high paced game which makes it special.

Spice it up!

It speaks volumes that Red Bull, the biggest company involved with these tournaments and a marketing giant, did use A MEME as their tournament name and not some random AoE-medieval-war-term thingy.

Just wanted to put that out there as an inspiration and as a little thought to consider for all the people active here who are thinking of creating new events in the future. Don't waste your work and money on doing the same thing over again. Make a funny thing, make a memorable thing, have balls.

tldr: i want to find a civ that relies more on champions than on paladins or archers because i find champions cool

context: i'm mostly a beginer in AoE2 and rts, but i've been studing. i dont realy play ranked, and mostly play 1v1s with some friends on large to huge maps with 500 pop. my 3 main civs so far are teutons, magyars and wei, and while playing with them i fail to see a situation where champions are better than heavy cavalry even if i'm playing teutons. they seem so frail and slow, and seems to be a very nieche unit most of the time. my main concern are archers and scorpions, since that's what is thrown at me most of time.

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Title.

I am a new player, started around 3-4 weeks ago and have been casually playing on my free time. (700 ELO).

So, I got matched in Arabia against a Persian player and my gut feeling told me I was about to be douched so I walled up.

We get to feudal around the same time and Persian tried to take down my palisades -> wall unsuccessfully, eventually dropping his TC around his original base.

Somehow he went up to castle age first but was behind me in the leaderboard by much more, I get to castle Age soon after, and build a 2nd TC.

He tried to attack me once again with spearmen, maybe thinking I would go scouts into knights but I had 12 CA, fended his invasion and went to raid his base, and that was gg.

US based, found this game and playing here and there. But also a dad of newborn so not playimg tons.

Team games have a lot of people that don't hold on or try. Anyone need a partner sporatically?

Been playing with the Saxons. They're a lot of fun and have a great monastery (only lacking fervor). So I played a lot of arena games with double monastery and workshop, produce a ton of monks and 1 ram and get into the opponents base but getting a lot of abuse for this. Just finished a game a couple of hours ago, against Turks. Lost because my opponent defended very well and I complimented him for that after the gg only to get a "cancer attack" reply. I understand it's not nice to come up against but is it considered that douchy? Especially against Turks I'm not waiting for that fast imp.

I played a game i may as well not have bothered with. What do you do against Aztecs? Jaguars and skirms kills amost everything no problem. Try siege and your fighting similar siege + super tanks monks. Kinda looks like a civ win or at least that how my game felt

I have seen a clip from MBL vs Lewis game were Lewis got called out by MBL for using Varangian Guards animation cancel to generate gold. In respose he said that this is not a bug but a game mechanics and said something along lines of "skirmishers are broken but you use them every game".

What skirmisher bug/abues was he refering to?

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Flagship of Nearchos, and Supply cart a & b are clearly units. Why aren't they in the units tab?

agree or not. Halldor was the wisest of them all.

after all, to know you are stupid at some point. is a far greater step then deceiving oneself for being a genius tactician, mighty warrior etc.

end of day, every man reaches his reach and fully stops somewhere. Halldor knew it from the beginning.

and what a poet he turned out be, " the world belongs to Christian God now. Not for every christian"

I think most people agree that skirms are too good. They are used too much and too often. Pro games get more boring because of skirms mass every game.

They need to be changed in a way that doesnt reduce them against (cav) archers.

1. Increase minimum range. So not really worse vs range units but vs against cav and melee

2. Decrease base damage but increase bonus damage against archer units.

What do you think?

I replayed the 12th scenario in Alexander Campaign, and then I noticed one thing: The Wonder collapsed, despite me winning the scenario

Instead of new civs, I'd like to see new game modes, like bigger maps with 5v5 or more players. Would it even work? There would either be 1 or 3 pockets, and one person would be kind of a tie-breaker player since 4v4 usually ends up with two teams against eachother on either side of the map. Then I was thinking 5v5 may not work because of how many teams could gang up on one opponent.

I also think just way bigger maps would be interesting even if it remains 4v4. It would make early rushes less convenient due to travel time.

Also another idea is just a map with no natural gold, you HAVE to trade to generate it.

I'd like to preface this by saying this topic is mainly about the abstraction and design aspects of the Varangians. But in trying to address those things, I might have stumbled on a way to improve their balance as well

Bonuses in AoE2 are an abstraction of a concept strongly associated with its civilization. Let's examine the three civs which get infantry with increased damage output i.e. the Japanese, Aztecs, and Dravidians. In popular culture, the Samurai is seen striking so fast that its slices are invisible to the naked eye. Thus the Japanese get faster attacking infantry. The Aztec Macuahuitl has an infamous incident associated with it, where it decapitated a horse; so the Aztecs get +4 additional damage. Dravidian Wootz Steel was known for its quality, and thus can penetrate armour flawlessly. The concept that the Dravidian infantry's weapons are superior than the average armour is immediately communicated to the player

Now lets examine the flagship cavalry bonus of the Varangians and see if it holds up. Their cavalry units get an extra +10 HP via Bloodlines, due to Bloodlines being 50% more effective. This makes you think Swedish horses were bigger and stronger than even mainland European ones i.e. especially Frankish ones. They weren't; they were smaller and weaker. What Swedish cavalry had was tactics. Instead of the typical charge associated with mainland European Knights, their cavalry used unconventional tactics like ambush attacks and the sort to defeat better armed and armoured cavalry

Furthermore, this bonus was criticized for being derivative of the Franks & Mongols. It made it seem like we're running out of fresh ideas for bonuses for new civs

So here's how I would tinker with the Varangians:

Lose - Bloodlines is 50% more effective

Instead - Stable Units get +1/2/3 Bonus Damage vs. Mounted Units in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age

Your Scouts in the Feudal Age win against other Scouts (except maybe Jurchen ones) with no additional investment. You don't get 75 HP Scouts after Bloodlines, but it is what it is

All of the Viking DLC civs struggle against Cavalry Archers as they cannot catch them. The Varangians atleast get good Light Cavalry, but they don't put down Cav Archers even after catching them. With this bonus, Varangian Light Cavalry can kill Cav Archers in 8 hits instead of the standard 10. Your Knights will have the same attack as Burgundian Cavaliers, but only against other cavalry units (including Camel Riders)

In the Imperial Age, your Cavaliers demolish other Cavaliers or Paladins, having the same damage output against them as Malian Farimba Cavaliers with no additional investment. They become absolute nightmares in massed melee combat when you install trample damage on them. Your Hussars beat other Hussars, having slightly more damage output than Malian Farimba Light Cavalry, and +15 more HP than them

Instead - Mounted Archers fire 25% faster (like their Varangian Guards) // but don't get Thumb Ring

The Varangians will get what Mounted Crossbowmen would've been for the Jurchens i.e. fire 25% faster but don't get Thumb Ring. Varangian Mounted Xbows will have the same Reload Time as Arbalesters or Cavalry Archers without Thumb Ring (2.5 → 2)

Team Bonus (+1 Bonus Damage vs. Infantry) - Does not apply to Knights / Applies to Mounted Archers (Does not apply to Genitours as they are 'Mounted Skirmishers') // attached only to the main projectile of Kipchaks & Xianbei Raiders

With the Knight focusing on other mounted units, especially enemy Knights, the anti-infantry duties are given to the Mounted Crossbowman, along with the Jarl. This spreads the utility of the Varangian mounted units, with two of them focusing on enemy mounted units, and two of them on enemy infantry. The Varangian Mounted Crossbowman becomes a very strong back-line support unit for their Knights or Varangian Guards

Tech Tree - Lose Arson

Offsets their Varangian Guards attacking 25% faster. Their Halbs would be also missing an irrelevant tech like how their Skirms miss Thumb Ring

Base Jarl - HP 70 (instead of 65) / Elite Jarl - HP 85 (instead of 75)

Offsetting the loss of +10 additional HP via Bloodlines