r/aoe2

I've been trying to learn Arena and since pretty much 80-90% of matches are against this exact same strategy and I have lost to it every single time (at least unless I go for a very aggressive castle drop / similar rush myself) I watched and tried to implement all the tips from Hera's video.

I did the second layer of wall (and later on even a third), defend with mangonel and monks, then try and take a lead in eco then push it back.

Thing is they just make a second castle further forward and it's does so much damage. You lose all resources on the front of your base (potentially all gold and stone access if you're unlucky). Then you also lose that second layer of walls. I got ahead in eco but it didn't matter.

The monks were moderately useful, but still unless you get a tonne of monks, you are only really going to convert 5-10 units at best over the whole period you're defending. The siege did pretty much nothing, the castles out range the mangonels, and can shoot down the walls. So there is nothing to shoot at until their army breaks in, at which point the siege is totally exposed.

Basically, while I do love Hera's videos, I feel like a lot of what he's saying is not that useful because he's an extremely strong player, playing against other extremely strong players. The reality at lower elos is that defending against a forward castle drop is 10x harder than executing a forward castle drop (same deal as with the 1TC all in phosphoru stuff).

Does anybody have advice for me intermediate (1200-1300 elo) players on defending castle drops? Or an Arena do you just have to do that strat same as everyone else and that's all there is to it? I have tried defending against it 10-20 times at this point and I have never succeeded.

What are the reasons you have switched or why do you value AoE2 too? Or what do you like more in AoE2?

(Thinking mostly about multiplayer)

Still kind of trying to sus out their role, but one thing that is interesting to me is nobody has 'good' MXBs. By which I mean no civ that get's them, and there are quite a few, really has a buffed version.

The Danes and Saxons get the generic FU version, while the Varangians get FU +10 HP version, which is a very mild buff.

All the others are not FU.

Which got me thinking, nearly every other unit or regional substitute unit has a least one civ with a buffed or spicy version. Arbs, Halbs, Champs, Skirms, Knights, Camels, Eagles, Champis, basically every line has at least one civ with a significant buff or cost reduction.

Are the devs just trying to feel out hoe effective the unit is before seeing any 'MXB civs', or is the intent they'll always be a situational unit that no civ will specialize in?

I’ve been playing Romans almost exclusively lately and basically built my entire playstyle around ending games as early as possible.

My opening is usually a 20–22 pop Feudal into Men-at-Arms rush. I make the Militia while going up, get the MAA upgrade as soon as I hit Feudal and try to arrive at the opponent’s base with the pressure already rolling.
From there I go into very heavy Feudal.

Usually 2 Barracks, sometimes even 3 if my eco is flowing well, infantry upgrades and basically constant MAA production.

My #1 target is almost always gold.

I know archers are the obvious answer to MAA, so I try to make sure my opponent never gets a proper archer mass in the first place. If I can keep them off gold, suddenly their “counter” is 3–4 archers instead of 15.

And honestly, I’ll sometimes even dive the TC to kill those few archers if I think it means they won’t be able to rebuild the mass afterwards.

I also often send 1–3 villagers forward for a tower. Half the time I don’t even care that much if the tower goes up. People see the tower, pull villagers to deny it, and suddenly my MAA are killing villagers instead.

Best case, the opponent ends up completely boxed in: no gold, limited wood access and no room to expand.
If they stabilize, I usually try to keep the game aggressive rather than switching into a big eco game. Castle Age → Longswords + Rams and another huge all-in push is normally my next step.
Sometimes I Even kill tcs with my longswords.

And this is where I’m wondering what I should actually learn next.
Is this basically an all-in strategy that will eventually stop working at higher Elo?

Or can I turn this into a legitimate 1-TC aggressive playstyle?

For example, should my Castle Age follow-up become something like Longswords + Scorpions/Siege to deal with archer masses? Mangonels? Knights? Forward Siege Workshop?

I really don’t enjoy the classic “okay, pressure is over, now add 3 TCs and boom for 20 minutes” approach. I’d much rather learn how to keep converting early pressure into even more pressure.

The funniest part is my Elo journey.
I started around 1000 Elo and dropped all the way to ~200 because I basically never built armies. 😂 I always wanted to build the perfect economy, multiple TCs, get upgrades, boom… and then eventually got killed.

I slowly fought my way back to around 600 and at some point changed my entire mindset:

What if I just try to end the game as fast as possible instead?

Since then I climbed from roughly 600–700 to around 1200 Elo, mostly playing this Roman infantry pressure.
And I’ve never been flamed this much in AoE.
Today alone I played 6 games and got insulted after 4 of them. “Noob”, “learn to play”, “abuser”, “cheat code”, etc.
So for the higher-rated players here:

I am not sure if they are just frustrated or its only because of the Roman civ? Is it „op“ or is it just this elo that cant handle it.

How would you evolve this playstyle from 1200 onwards without turning it into a 3-TC boom. I guess scorpian with romans are good, but I always loose them and they cant kill tcs. Manganols are Hard to handle, but they are good against tcs and Archers.

I want to get into the competitive side of the game, after playing mostly against ai and diplomacy, but reading the list of bonuses and special things of every civ is overwhelming and kinda confusing.

I have some civs that I like, but I fear I want a civ that combines all of them and doesn't exist lol

I don't own any DLC that wasn't given out for free, and I don't have money for them (even on discount)

My top 3 civs (in terms of liking, not games played):

1. Vietnamese - for paper money

2. Japanese - for samurai

3. Goths - for unit spam

What I want/do with other civs:

- good archers and/or infantry,

- I tend to play passively (mostly because I'm not good enough to keep the economy running while I go for a raid) and if I go raiding I tend to keep sending villagers for wood - that's why I like paper money so much

- in terms of siege I mostly use trebs, but i like rams with halbs inside and try to use them whenever I can, so if there's something that will support it it's another plus

- I ignore gunpowder in every civ i play

- I tried going for knights or cav archers and they're both not my thing, so the stable can be ignored completely

I would like to hear propositions for civs to try out and maybe some tactics.

If I missed anything important I'll gladly add it in comments, here's my aoe insight page.

Thanks in advance <3

Just played this 2v2 team game for almost 2 hours where (I strongly believe) the opponents resigned when they ran out of trees for wood. (Although they probably had enough resources to spam for a while more)

https://www.aoe2insights.com/match/511349295/#overview

Anybody else's experiences with similar games?

How often does this happen? What are strategies to handle this if you feel like you're at a stalemate at some point - do you start prioritizing gold heavy units only and preserving wood or something? Would it be a stupid idea to try to cut opponents trees with onager raids or something?

On a sidenote, any feedback on gameplay is appreciated - I'm very slow tho so I can only focus on very few actions at a time.

Just started playing again for the first time in a year or two and I easily beat the hard AI twice, hardest once, all first try. I was rarely able to beat the hard AI before. And I beat the extreme AI on my 2nd try just now after a rematch (same map, civs, etc). The extreme win might be a fluke, especially since it was a rematch.

The one thing I could point to having changed is I just stopped stubborn habits and responded to change more easily - switching units when seeing what they're responding with, taking my focus out of a hot area and tending to everything else for a moment, etc. Not trying to be precious about where I build houses.

What is it with AI allies being hellbent on destroying walls, instead of focusing defenses and buildings ?

Jan Žižka #4 on Hard + Achievement

I was having a really hard time with this scenario and tried several different strategies. Eventually, I found one that made the scenario much more manageable and allowed me to finish it relatively quickly.

Since you are basically racing against the clock, I thought I'd write down the exact strategy I used in case someone comes across this scenario in the future looking for a solution.

1. The beginning

There is a lot of information thrown at you at the start, but immediately move ALL your army toward the Green enemy. Send two soldiers separately to collect the unprotected wagons with resources nearby.

Garrison the relics, put your villagers to work, and research the available blacksmith attack and armor upgrades. Advance to the Imperial Age as soon as possible.

Then push toward Green's base. Put your Hussite Wagons in front of your Archer/hc and simply eliminate everything in your path.

Don't worry too much about losing units. You will have plenty of resources later, so trading units for speed is worth it here.

Push through the city without worrying about destroying every building. Once you get close to the castle near the Wonder, send Jan Žižka to the gate leading to the Wonder.

As soon as you do this, that entire section of the city becomes yours.

2. Push North

Move your remaining army north of your MAIN base. By this point, you should already have completed the research for the Imperial Age.

Use your monks to heal whatever remains of your army. Start producing cheap units and build up numbers with Pikemen and Light Cavalry.

At the same time, produce Trebuchets and continue pushing north.

The Yellow enemy should be attacking you around this point. Use your castles efficiently to deal with their attacks. A lot of enemy cannons will be within range of your castles, so prioritize killing them as quickly as possible.

At this point, Red should start attacking your newly captured city with rams, Teutonic Knights and Cavaliers.

Ignore them completely.

Let Red destroy as much as he wants while you continue pushing toward his northern base, which should be almost completely undefended.

Clear the path with your army and use your Trebuchets or Bombard Cannons to focus directly on Red's castle.

Once the castle goes down, Red should surrender.

3. Finish Yellow

You can clean up the remaining Red units in your city if you want, but it isn't necessary.

Now move your entire army south. Your economy should be in a somewhat better position by this point.

Start producing Cavaliers and Hand Cannoneers, while continuing to use Trebuchets and Bombard Cannons.

Destroy the Yellow castle in the south. This is important because destroying this fortress allows additional reinforcements to arrive by ship at your main base.

Once the fortress is destroyed, use all the reinforcements together with your remaining army for the final assault on Yellow.

My time

I managed to finish the scenario in 35:29 in-game time, which should correspond to roughly 23 minutes and 40 seconds of real time at the standard game speed.

So, not exactly a true speedrun, but pretty close to one compared with a normal playthrough.

I've also seen people using Petards to finish the scenario in around 14 minutes of in-game time, so there is clearly room to make this strategy much faster.

Hopefully this helps anyone else struggling with this scenario on Hard + Achievement!