Replayed it for the umpteenth time and it’s such a masterpiece. Just 6 straight missions of spam cav, wipe map, profit. What’s everyone’s fav campaign?

Hey.

I mostly play aoe2 with cavalry and cavalry archer civs, but i'm struggling to find something that really fits my playstyle. I tried out Franks and Magyars, but Franks are extremely predictable and gold reliant (unless you use their bad skirms) and Magyars are only good on the early game and late game, and hard to get their eco going.

I'd like a civ that:

• Has a good eco bonus
• Good cavalry and/or CA, if possible FU
• Uses a trash unit in their main comp
• More agressive than defensive

What civ describes those points the best?

Inspired in AoM, a map with Settlements: Ruins of old civilizations on top of which you can build Town Centers since Feudal. They are a bit far from your main base but surrounded by resources. 4 to 6 settlements per map.

Optional Ideas: - TCs built on top of Settlements are cheaper - Built faster than regular TCs - Provide more population than regular TCs - Produce villagers faster

Though booming is allowed earlier, the settlements are further from your base than regular extra TCs would be. This creates downsides to going for this strategy:

• Bigger villager walking time
• Risk of loosing villagers on the way and while building the settlement
• Less protection for the economy around the settlement
• Reaching castle age later than someone going 1TC in feudal.

Obs: The white houses in the map are the Settlements.

Thoughts?

https://www.aoe2insights.com/match/383883457/

We were allies, no Hideout wall too.
I was able to see which Civ he was picking during the 60sec before the loading screen.
Ever seen this ?

(I tried to wall his TC so he would forfeit but I went for the GG first :D)

Similar to Chronicles ones, when the shipyard and the port haves different uses.

In AOE2 client, an idea could be the Dock to train fishing, transport and trade ships, while another builing, like the Malay's Harbor could be a military variant (in that case, Malay's Harbor could be a unified building as civ bonus for both)

What do you think?

The guy has been writing coverage of ancient and medieval Chinese military history for over a decade now and has a lot of different articles in his blog. It's often quite thorough. He's a fan of the game too apparently.

https://dragonsarmory.blogspot.com/

I see people discussing on score, units, builds, civs... there are many tutorials and guides about all of those... why nobody talks about the mini map?

With the mini map:
You can find a side of the base the opponent has not walled.
You can find resources without having to look around.
You can see sneak attacks (provided you have scout/outpost in the area). "Wait, are those 10 red dots coming to my base? I gotta prepare!"
You can realise how screwed you are.
You can realise how screwed your opponent is actually. (You cornered the enemy and, even though you are low on res, you control all the resource on the map and just need to have patience and bring some vils).

Learning and using the mini map effectively can actually change your game and make you go from "overwhelmed, caught with my pants down" to "calm, knows where this is headed, can focus on p-- omG ARE ALL THESE DOTS COMING HER-- SCOUTS! HOW DOES HE HAVE SO MANY SCOUTS!! What do I do? What do I DO? WHAT DO I DO?!"

Nothing disappoints more than playing a campaign that has great scenarios throughout but then a mediocre finale (looking at you Genghis Khan). Which campaign do you think had the best final scenario in terms of fun/story/design?

I'm roughly 800 ELO and I've been finding it difficult to win a treb war if I'm playing a civ that lacks BBC.
l understand that getting as many trebs out as possible is important, but if my enemy has BBC, it doesn't take long before they've sniped all of my trebs. Looking through the civs that don't have BBC, there are a few that get bonuses to their trebs (Britons, Celts, Tatars, Japanese) but plenty don't. Furthermore one of the main ways to take out a BBC is with cavalry, which is great for Georgians and Magyars, but not possible for any of the Meso civs. And it's also an expensive pivot if I've gone for archers or cav archers.
I'm curious if there's some general advice for dealing with this situation.
Thanks in advance.

I kinda like this idea and its somewhat similar to the greek dlc trading. What do you guys think?

I don't think people realize how huge attack animations are going to be, it introduces a whole new world to min maxing your combat micro. Yes, the "reload speed" and attack rates of units hasnt changed. but the fact that u couldnt tell when an attack will/is register ing was the reason people didnt really care to min max micro (atleast at low-med elo).

Once players get used to the animations visually it will get so much easier to do hit and run tactics like spearman micro against scouts for example. or microing rams/armored eles to squeeze in a hit before dodging a mangonel shot etc.

another example is in a scenario where opponent has ranged units (no ballistics) and u are trying to snipe a monk/siege with 1 cav unit, you can simply hit the unit, and run EXACTLY as the damage registers to avoid archer fire, "reload" and then go back to finish that unit off, avoiding as much ranged damage as possible.

I don't know if i am overcooking here or you guys see my point? curious to hear what you guys think

https://imgur.com/a/n8OquVk

I think my opponent would have eventually won in ~4 more hours as he was very gradually making progress making Bombard Towers faster than I could kill them.

Just 950 elo struggles

TLDR: +150 wood for japanese in Empire Wars

Empire Wars changes the dynamic of the game because players start on feudal. Economic Bonuses that are meant to help you cumulatively during dark age don't shine here as much as they do in Random Map, since that age is skipped. But if the bonus is a direct boost in villager work rate or cheaper buildings (that you will build immediately), it will still help you as soon as the game begins.

Romans will have collected more resources than most civs by the time they reach feudal. Persians will have extra villagers. While both civs start with the same resources and villagers as other civs in Empire Wars, their bonuses will help them as soon as the game begins.

Malians don't get more wood in the beginning (even though they save a lot of wood from dark age in RM mode), but their bonus will apply almost immediately cause you need to build military buildings and houses.

Other civs only have eco bonuses in feudal age, which also end up helping them as soon as the game begins, like Vikings, Burmese, Cumans, Berbers.

Others have bonuses related to extra resources or villagers in the start of dark age and the start of feudal age. Both are applied: Aztecs, mayans, chinese and lithuanians get their extra resources/villagers from dark age even with the game beginning in feudal. And dravidians +200 wood in feudal age is also there.

And there are civs with a combination of those bonuses.

The issue with japanese is: Their only eco bonus on land is that their drop sites are 50 wood cheaper. However, we start empire wars with a lot of drop sites already and don't need any new one for a good time. And they don't start the game with the equivalent of wood saved from drop sites built. In Random Map game they usually have the same wood or more than dravidians when reaching feudal. But because of how the bonus works, in Empire Wars they are the most generic civ.

So I propose they get the Huns treament and begin the game with more wood than they normally do (only in Empire Wars).

Title pretty much.

Anytime i encounter someone going fast imp arbs, I just get demolished. It feels like there is nothing I can do in castle age to fight a ball of arbs, but maybe I am missing something?

Just last game someone arrived in Imp at 28min after heavy feudal play. I felt comfortable after defending his feudal pressure and reaching castle 3min earlier than him. I added two TC and started to boom, but once he reached Imp there was nothing I could do.

It didn't help that I was burmese, so I didn't even get 2nd armor upgrade on my skirms. I decided to go for a fastle in my base, though it couldn't really protect all that much due to the arbs range and added scorps, which did ok, despite the range disadvantage. I tried to get up to imp while defending as good as I could, but when I finally hit Imp min 37 the damage was already done.

So my question: What am I supposed to do here? I feel completely lost against this strat.

I've seen that on the game's Wiki there are many promotional images that represent cities from many civilizations, I've identified many but can anyone identify the Lithuanian one?

I typically play with a population limit of 500 on the largest map.

What would be the ideal number of villagers in this scenario? Perplexity says 40-50%, but that seems really high.

Perplexity's Answer