Hey folks. I downloaded aoe2 DE after watching the Hera tournament. I used to play Age of Kings back then but nowhere near a competent level. Just the campaigns because I knew the hard AI used to cheat. I’m having a blast playing it now against the AI. I’ve improved since when I downloaded it like a week ago and played one match online and won. I felt like I beat the other guy by focusing on booming and wanted to go back to the drawing boards to hone my skills against the extreme AI. My question is how can I create a measured approach to improve my play against the AI? I feel like I can do serious damage to the AI, but I can’t close out a match. Around the 40 minute mark the AI throws everything at you and it becomes a slug fest where I can’t keep up. I’ve purposely stuck to the Byzantines who don’t have any eco bonuses with the hopes of becoming a well rounded player. I think my issue is I’m not entirely sure when I should be advancing to the feudal age. If I stay too long then the AI rushes with scouts. If I build 3 spearman the AI retreats and builds archers with skirmishers which are tough to deal with. Sometimes the AI glitches out and retreats then goes for a killing blow with knights + rams. If I survive that push then the final blow is Paladins + siege rams + axe throwman or hand canonneers. I don’t want to cheese the extreme AI. I wish to be able to play against it casually and still be confident enough to know I can win against it. Kind of the same feeling you get when you play a fighting game against the AI. They can pose a challenge but eventually you’re comfortable enough to know you will win. How do I get to that point? I heard extreme AI is equivalent to 1200 elo. Appreciate everyone’s pointers. tldr; how can I improve at the game in a way that allows me to comfortably play against and enjoy 1v1 with the extreme AI. I don’t want to cheese it, just be good enough to enjoy a match against it. I would prefer using a civ that doesn’t have any major econom

Well, the title says it all. This is my conspiracy theory: They released a product, that I imagine required considerable investment. The market for that product are Mac users. However, because they didn't make it crossplatform, many players were not interested in moving to the new product. Therefore, to move the current Mac users to the new AOE2 for Mac, they had to make sure Porting Kit/CrossOver would not work. As a result, not only did those who had always wanted to switch to AoE2 for Mac make the move, but all other Mac users who preferred not to were forced to switch as well. This will grow the number of players playing AOE2 for Mac, and make sure that a few more hundred people are in the ranked ladder/ lobbies. This is why AOE2 DE devs are silent. They know that what they did was not nice, so they chose radio silence. Porting Kit/CrossOver may eventually work again, but only after they decide to allow it again or until AOE2 for Mac have "enough" users.

I remember when Black Forest was considered a map only low-ELO players played, similar to Michi or Amazon Tunnel. Back in the Voobly days, and even during the HD era, high-ELO players would often mock Black Forest players and say they would never play that map for fun. Now, though, I see plenty of 1600+ players playing Black Forest every day, and the lobby browser is always full of BF games. Especially +1500 lobbies. What do you think caused this shift? How did Black Forest become accepted by higher-ELO players, and even by pro players who used to play almost exclusively Arabia? The OGs will remember these days.

We need a mill to make a market but apart from that, there is literally no reason to take berries. They are the slowest form of land food available. We don't even need to mill the berries at all when there are chickens as we can just mill them instead. It's better to send more villagers to wood and build more fishing ships instead of taking berries. In my scenario editor tests I was able to collect 2000 more resources by 30:00 min game time by casually taking the berries in castle age, as opposed to the meta of taking them with 4 vills in feudal age. Have I missed something here, or am I just stating the blindingly obvious?

Hi guys, just wanting to drop you the link to the macOS aoe2 discord team games server: https://discord.gg/gqbXxcmPB Hope this helps someone finding team games easier :) Macololooooo!

Feel free to change any of these. Some are definitely better than others haha Armenians - Longsword research time 40s -> 60s (Feudal age only) Aztecs - Atlatl affects Archers, cost 400f 350g -> 600f 400g, lose access to Arbalester Bengalis - Mahayana (Vills/Monks cost -10% Population Space) -> Gain 20 Max Population Cap (220 total). Cost unchanged. Berbers - Maghrebi Camels regen increased from 15 to 20. Cost unchanged. Bohemians - Free Mining Camp technologies changed to Mining Camp Technologies cost -50% Britons - New bonus: Infantry Unit technologies at the Barracks and Black Smith cost -25% and research 100% faster Bulgarians - Town Centers cost -50% stone -> Town Centers cost no stone Burgundians - New Ugrade for Flemish Militia in Imperial Age: Elite Flemish Militia. Gives Flemish Militia +10 HP, +2 Attack, +6 vs Cavalry Burmese - Howdah (+1/1) affects all Stable Units Byzantines - Gains access to Siege Engineers Celts - Bonus Infantry Move Speed and Furor Celtics Tech both affect Petards Chinese - Rocketry (+25% attack) now also affects Fire Lancers, lose access to Plate Mail Armor Cumans - Elite Kipchak also gives +1 range Dravidians - Urumi Swordsman cost 65f 20g -> 45f 15g, HP decreased by 15 (55/65 -> 40/50) Ethiopians - Civ Bonus changed from Pikemen Free to Spear-line upgrades cost -50% Franks - Bearded Axe +2 range baked into default throwing axemen. New castle age tech: Aachon Endowment: Creates 1 Relic at the Researched Castle (250w 50s) 45s Research time Georgians - Gain access to Warrior Priest Goths - Can research Fortified Walls to upgrade Palisades to Fortified Palisades (midway HP from palisade and stone walls) Gurjaras - Camel Scout damage from 2 -> 3 Hindustanis - Lose access to Siege Engineers Huns - Gain access to Steppe Lancer, but no elite. New civ bonus: Steppe Lancers cost -30 gold Inca - Bonus changed for Villagers to be affected by Blacksmith Infantry Armor upgrades at all ages (no attack). Italians - Silk Road changed to Team Trade U

Thumb Ring as a rule of thumb gives 100% Accuracy to Archer & Skirmisher-type units, and decreases the Reload Time of Archer-type units by 15% i.e. increases their damage output by 17.6% There are three exceptions to this rule. I think it would be beneficial for the balance of the game to standardize the effect of Thumb Ring for these three units. Not to mention reducing the complexity of having to remember these three exceptions. I'm going to list them in the order of overall importance Cavalry Archers Currently Cavalry Archers have a Reload Time of 2, with Thumb Ring reducing it by 10% (instead of the usual 15%) to 1.8. Cavalry Archers should have a base Reload Time of 2.12, with Thumb Ring reducing it by 15% to 1.802. The difference between the final result is negligible. This will however give a small nerf to Cavalry Archers right out of the gate For specific civs, this will make no difference to the Tatars, as they get Thumb Ring for free. It will be a small (and irreversible) nerf to Jurchen Cavalry Archers, as they will have a Reload Time of 1.696 (effectively 1.7) instead of the current 1.6 As a note, this is the case for only regular Cavalry Archers found in the Archery Range. This does not apply to unique units like Camel Archers, Mangudai, Kipchaks, or Xianbei Raiders. The unique units already benefit from Thumb Ring at the standard 15% reduction Korean War Wagons Same situation as Cavalry Archers. They have a Reload Time of 2.5 with Thumb Ring reducing it by 10% to 2.25. They should have a base Reload Time of 2.65 with Thumb Ring reducing it by 15% to 2.2525. The difference in the final result is again negligible. Non-Elite War Wagons were nerfed recently to have 2 base Pierce Armour instead of 3, as they're quite potent if played with a fast Castle Age strat, especially as the Koreans get the Blacksmith Archer Armour researches for free Chinese Chu Ko Nu Opposite situation compared to the other two. They have a base Reload Time of 3, with Thumb Ring

Time for another weekly round of questions!! Talk about everything from build orders to advanced strategies. Whatever your questions, the community is here to answer them.

I tried extracting campaign maps and editing them with a map editor, but some of them are missing. (India-related campaigns, Winners and Losers campaigns, etc.) Where can I find these maps?

It’s not very big and very situational but considering how Genitours benefit from (as far as I’m aware) every other bonus that effects Skirmishers, I think that they should also get the HP boost the the Mapuche ‘Infantry, Slingers and Skirmishers +5/10/15 hp’ bonus, which is still less bonus health than any civ that can get bloodlines. Slightly off topic but why do Genitours benefit from Magyars Recurve Bow? They might be Cav Archers but last I checked they don’t use bows .

Testing agent that anyone can use to make tournaments. All welcome to test this week-end please register and comeback on Friday to play and have fun. ⚔️ **Full Test — Season 1** 🏰 Register at: https://aoe2-agent-production.up.railway.app/#/t/FULLTEST 🆓 5 free placement games → auto-scheduled 🎮 Players self-report results — no scheduling needed 🏆 7-round Swiss → Top 8 playoff per division **Divisions:** 🪨 **Bronze**: 0–499 ELO · Free ⚔️ **Silver**: 500–799 ELO · Free 🛡️ **Gold**: 800–1099 ELO · Free 💎 **Diamond**: 1100–∞ ELO · Free 🌍 All time zones welcome · Games played on weekends Feedback is welcome. I'm building for you.

I just tried to get the masterpiece achievement (been achievement hunting) by getting 3 people to join and quickly resign. Three people helpfully obliged, but the game didn't give me the achievement. It was a hosted lobby where I was on team 1, they were on team 4 and it was only the 4 of us. Did I set up wrong or is it actually more difficult to unlock?

GAME INFORMATION These details are CRITICAL; DO NOT skip them or your issue may not be reviewed. GAME BUILD #: 179158 GAME PLATFORM: Steam OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 11 ISSUE EXPERIENCED DESCRIBE THE ISSUE IN DETAIL (below). LIMIT TO ONE BUG PER THREAD. I noticed that issue long time ago but I forget to report it earlier. It’s basically not a bug, but just a mistake in the Datas, where the Monorem, Birem, Trirem and Themistocles Warships got a projectile unit set so when attacking they shoot that projectile. Themistocles fires a projectile id 373 (war galley projectile) While the Monorem, Birem and Tirem fire a projectile id 540 (SGY projectile) And it’s even shooting with 0 Total projectiles / 0 Max total Projectiles on the monorem-birem-trirem, while Themistocles warship got 1 total projectiles and 1 max total projectiles. FREQUENCY OF ISSUE How often does the issue occur? CHOSE ONE; DELETE THE REST! 100% of the time / matches I play (ALWAYS) REPRODUCTION STEPS List CLEAR and DETAILED STEPS we can take to reproduce the issue ourselves… Be descriptive! Here’s the steps to reproduce the issue: Spawn one of the mentionned ship Spawn an ennemy palissade on shore Attack the palissade with the ship with game speed at lowest to see it easier. (or check simply data in AGE) EXPECTED RESULT What was SUPPOSED to happen if the bug you encountered were not present? Melee ship not firing any kind of projectile if not meant to do so. IMAGE ALWAYS attach a PICTURE (.jpg, .png, .gif) or VIDEO (.mp4, YouTube link) that highlights the problem. Easy enought to reproduce, very difficult to catch the correct frame on screen. GAME FILES (SAVE / RECORDING) Attach a SAVE GAME (.aoe2spgame) or GAME RECORDING (.aoe2record) of the match where you encountered the issue. Link it below if using an external file service. #N /A

Just testing unit matchups and stuff and I wanted to give upgrades like forging, but I can't find anything to do that You can set player to be in post-imp to give them everything but the side effect is it upgrades units so scouts get upgraded to hussar etc