@@demonlordfluffles1275 White flag (with fleurs-de-lis) was the Bourbon monarchy's flag, thus used before the Revolution and after the deposition of Napoleon (both times). Actually the white flag became a thing due to the practice of flying the enemy's flag (or a facsimile of such, which would just be a plain white flag if you don't have time to embroider fifty fleurs-de-lis during a battle) to indicate that you wanted to negotiate with them (or at least, that's what I've heard, I can't confirm that).
The national flag of France has also been two fully white flags from 1814-1815 and 1815-1830 there was a semi modern looking french flags between the two which is why the end year is the same as the start year. The naval flag has also had two times where it was fully white the first time in 1789 and the second time from 1814 to 1830.
For clarity: the AI on the Ceylon map was never programmed to expand onto the middle island and play the map properly, even in the original. Ceylon is functionally a multiplayer-only map.
this is true. even in age of empires 2 the ai isn't capable of playing this kind of map(as the gentleman in the video suggests). that being said, at launch, aoe3de ai was really passive LOL
@@brijekavervix7340 no way! :o well, i couldn't find anything about that and i don't have the game. why on earth would the studio make that possible on aom while the aoe2 community organizes ai tournaments for exactly that type of ai?! this is a puzzle to me :(
@@Mygg_Jeager "whales" is how rich players are called. Because they usually spend an absurd amount of money in games and, consequently, keep developers afloat. Also, historically, hunting whales was rather profitable. Hence the joke.
Agreed! That said, any time I play, I wish I could make both Spain and England red without making all teams the same color lol. It fucks with me when either one isn't red...
@@Madrock7777 AOE3 was also realesed when i was a kid, but since my dad had AOE2 i played that first. Honestly i quite like both of them, but AOE2 is my favorite, but AOE3 is still quite fun to play.
I’m from ceylon and considering that both french and British tried to capture our island and only British succeeded, this might be a correct reenactment of what went down.
@@Mygg_Jeager whale in mobile games is the one that spend a lot of money to power up. anyone spend $10K+ are no longer qualified as whales, the whales today are the one that spend at least $200K to power up, and there is hundreds of ppl spend minimum this amount in a single title game only. It was ridiculous
Man being an early explorer of the new world must have been insane, you could get stuck on the beach whenever you walked whenever the world wanted to screw you over.
17:16 "focus entirely on food production" *produces wood* 17:20 "this factory here is gonna produce gold" 17:24 "so that we have a nice production of wood and food" either you're munching on wood and using gold as planks, or munching on gold and using wood as wood or maybe you're building ships out of meat, but one thing is certain, that little stroke was rather funny
@@IndigoGollum at least you have a Wii U. The newest gaming console I have is a Play Station 2. All the new games I play are on the computer but that's not a gaming console.
Best exploit I found on this game: pick the Dutch, use your envoy to find the AI base ASAP, send the three envoys shipment, use your four envoys to literally punch the AI villagers to death. The AI doesn't know how to respond and keeps trying to garrison while trying to balance resource collection. The result: the AI never even reaches the second age. This one time I was lucky enough to get a pet rhino as well (on the Borneo map) and soon the AI was unable to even make villagers anymore. This strategy works up until the extreme difficulty even...
Oddly enough this strat works in Rise of Nations as well, the Dutch start off with two armed merchants and instead of using them to collect rare resources you just send them into the enemy territory and they shoot villagers-effectively stopping collection
So I played the original Age of Empires 3, and one of my favorite things to exploit was a way in which I could beat anyone in the game that wasn't clued in on what I was doing. Basically I would play on the river map, where a river splits the map, and then rush a dock and use the card system to get some early attack ships, then I would patrol the enemy coast and whenever they would try to build a dock, I would destroy it, and as I got more ships, I would just set up a perimeter. Then after a while, I would transport some workers over to build some blockhouses(I was Russia, and their barracks, or blockhouses double as cannon towers) in the corner of the map and start spamming out Strelots, which I found were cheap enough and spammed out quick enough that it could outswarm any army given time.
The older version of AoE III had this river map, that split the map. It was quite easy to win the AI just by building a wall along the coast, so they couldn't land their units. Apparently they don't know what are cannons on theirs ships :D
You're thinking of Amazonia. Yep, even with expert AI, just park a few boats at the other side of the river, make sure the AI doesn't build any docks, and you can constantly hammer them with little resistance. After seeing AOE3 DE, I don't think the AI got any update whatsoever.
its also in the new version, its called amazonia. the new version is much better but just play vs people like in other games lol, this dude is playing vs bot, ofc its not so funny, also in GTA or something, nobody is playing vs bots, lol
@@durandol If life were only fair. In my home country it is naught but impossible to obtain Yorkshire Tea of any kind, let alone Yorkshire Tea Gold. A traves-tea in my humble opinion.
It's even worse on the Caribbean map since there is a bonus island that the ai literally can't find. It has a trade route and twice the treasures, but they will never sail there. Even after the claim all the other islands and kick you out, the can't find it.
Played a match against AI on this map yesterday (On easy because i'm new to the game, don't know if it affects anything), and none of the computer opponents managed to leave their island, allies and enemies, they only make some boats. So yeah, 4 or so years later and it still remains perfectly balanced.
I've once had this idea for a joke civ to be created, but since I have no idea how to make it, here it goes... Maybe someone that will read this can attempt to create it. Civ name: North Pole Leader: Santa Claus Villager: elf (can garrison certain unique buildings to increase some items production) Explorer: Santa Claus (rides a sleigh and attacks with a huge candy cane) UNITS Infantry: - nutcracker (kind of an elite musketeer) - cane elf (cheap meele infantry, attacks whacking enemies with his cane) - ninja elf (cheap ranged infantry, throws snowflake shurikens) Cavalry: - heavy reindeer (hussar-like cavalry, but with less attack and more hitpoints, an elf riding a reindeer and whacking enemies with a fireplace poker) - ranged rendeer (a shuriken-throwing elf riding a reindeer) - battle sleigh (a sleigh with a pair of nutcrackers firing from it, similar to a war wagon) Artillery: - snowman (elite grenadier, throws explosive snowballs) - christmas tree (a cannon-like unit with the tree laying horizontally as the cannon barrel and a pair of wheels, fires boubles, works simmilarly to a falconet) - siege sleigh (a sleigh with a short, big bore cannon that fires presents, works like a mortar) BUILDINGS Most of the basic stuff, but some unique ones: - toy factory (similar to a factory, but can be built at any time and produces any resource based on how many elfs are garriossoned inside, up to a maximum of 10) - christmas tree groove (like the Indian one) - fireplace (for some sort of bonus) No idea for naval units, or anything else...
I'd love to see you put out a video playing this game as the Dutch. With the right deck, you can have 10 banks and 2 factories and a few upgrades to go with them. You will eventually reach a point where you're generating thousands of gold per minute. Food and wood become a non-issue since you generate so much gold that you can just buy them through the market. It's quite hilarious!
Oh i'll definitely be picking this up, non-ironically it looks fucking great and i'm looking forward to one of the best AOE campaigns as well. I love AOE in general. I played all 3 of them as a wee one. I think it's amazing how different all 3 of the now Definite Edition games are. I have this year alone put hundreds of hours into AOE II and have 100% of the achievements in AOE I. I'm very close to completing AOE II too. However; AOE III was the game I played the most as a child and it's the most nostalgic for me; i've always enjoyed the deck building, the levelling up of the home city and the naval battles in particular were always very fun. The infinite resources removes the concept of "Trash" Units (Both a good and bad thing depending on perspective) and the age up rewards are so much more interesting. The natives offer a way to get buffs to your civ at all stages of the game, including techs that give you spawnables armies on your adventurer. The trading posts offer a way to control the map and get resources and exp. The fact the AI don't immediately resign is great too, it lets you do the builds you want to do. It also has the Dutch who has my favourite building; the bank! (Coincidentally, also the most difficult AI to fight too due to that economy advantage) There's just a lot of really fun things you can do in AOE III. Each civ actually feels really unique, the difference between European, Natives and Asian civs are quite fun. Don't even get me started on how each civ has their unique deck line and strengths. Back to the Dutch, you can get a bunch of cards to increase the limit and effectiveness of banks! Then to use that gold they can hire mercenaries which is a super fun unique concept. Oh! And that reminds me, there's a Salon / Bar you can build to hire pirates, raiders, etc, for pure gold too. -- This is actually the first time i'm seeing gameplay of the AOE III DE, the UI is definitely different. But I have to object to your complaints about the AI. Go play AOE II DE on any water map, they won't leave their island. Ever. Well, they try. They really, really do, but they struggle so much. Their navy also sucks ass. It's literally how they recommend beating the AI on the hardest difficulty. The AI is completely useless with water in general. This isn't new. You pick a map with a tiny island and extremely limited resources, put the AI on easy mode (let's be fair, the standard is for beginners) and you still nearly lost the middle, since the AI actually seemed somewhat proactive in invading regularly. "Everything is broken" sums up to being basically the AI performs poorly on standard difficulty on an island map. This isn't new tbh and i'd dare say you play so poorly yourself the AI would've wiped the floor with you with overwhelming early agression and economy if this was on any land map.
This guy gets it. Great game, this video triggered me. He would have been beaten by the moderate bot on a land map - actually didn't realise it was possible! Only issue at the moment is the crashes and missing ranked games. Otherwise, having a good time!
As someone who played a TON of AOE III when it first came out in (2005?), I can confirm that the AI would rather atrophy and die than embark a single settler
Reminds me of the good old days of British longbow spamming in AOE2, outranged every single unit and building in the game other than artillery. The AI sat there in confusion and spammed cavalry at you, utterly defenseless. *Perfection.*
What I love about this is the historically accurate French Navy. But everyone please note the AI on extreme is more much difficult. There are movement bugs in this game though that need to be fixed!
"RTS AI needs to cheat to be able to compete with players." Age of Empires 2 DE AI: "Cheats?! Look at these losers!" AoE2 playermade AI: "I can win against competent and advanced players and stomp on lesser AI at a regular basis"
fun fact, as spanish in water map, all you gotta do is, pick 2 cards one in the first age that gives 50% reduced time build for pickeman and crossbowman, the one in the third age that gives another 35%, a frigate card, pick the last 35% build boost time from the spanish church, now, recall the shipment from the metropoli waypoint behind the enemy base, spawn frigate, dock, spam a 100% instant army.
Hey spiff i have an idea for a video. It's from the 2005 game battle mages: sign of darkness. Basically there is a unit in the game called the vagabond mage who has a spell called summpn wolves. Well if you combine that with a mana potion it will make him spawn the wolves extremly quickly and therefor trapp the enemy in a horde of wolves. The only downside is that the vagabond mage is avaliable only in the last area of the game. I would love to see a video on this game. (Also in the first area is a mana node that has a phantom warriro if you distract the phantom warrior with a spirit or f11 it will perpetualy attack it while the mana node heals it so you can grind xp for your other units since the warrior will be focused on the spirit)
Despite the AI that seems to be a bit lost, this game really stood out to me at the time and when I see the new version, I have to admit that they did a good job on it. Age of Empires 3 as well as Age of Mythology are two games that I really enjoy in the Age of franchise. Even though I think they are all good. :)
This reminds me of when I was doing some skirmishes against the AI in Warcraft III many many years ago. I picked a map that, like this one, had both players start on small islands and to get anywhere, you had to use the neutral shipyard on your island to expand and creep the other islands on the map. After awhile of expanding I realized that the AI hadn't actually attacked me at all and I hadn't seen them. So after taking a few omore islands, I sent a force looking for their main base. What I found was a full army trying desperately to path into the water to get off their island, running up and down the coast as if the AI was just spam clicking a neighbouring island. And yes, they too had a neutral shipyard (Warcraft III got rid of the naval warfare aspects from Warcraft II where you could build your own shipyard). How a neutral shipyard works is you stand a unit next to it which allows you to click the shipyard and buy transports. The AI in WC III however, doesn't use neutral buildings so they just ended up mining and lumberjacking their island into a barren waste flooded with units that desperately wanted to leave. I know it's not quite a fair comparison for he Warcraft III AI because it just wasn't programmed to be able to handle context sensitive neutral buildings (and honestly making the AI have decision-making for every possible shop and mercenary camp would've been hell). Where this game has no excuse is comparing it to the predecessor Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. Here, naval warfare was a part of the game and maps commonly had islands so players would need to build transport ships (which they could build from their own buildings) in order to expand. From what I can recall, the AI was able to handle this as it has been a long time since I've played WC2, but I remember seeing island expansions. Warcraft II came out in 1995, two years before the original Age of Empires 1 was even released.
My goodness! You, the Spiffing Brit, acknowledging our national treasure, the baguette, as lovely? You might just have finally settled the eon long grudge...
9:48 would attacking random french peasants count as a war crime under other circumstances? Is that written anywhere in the... what’s it called? Geneva suggestions?
The Geneva Conventions cover the treatment of people, mostly prisoners of war, rather than actual warfare. Rules of engagement, like the naval bombardment of towns, are addressed in the Hague Conventions (upon which parts of the GC are based). Treaty 9, chapter 1, article 1 of the Hague Convention of 1907 expressly forbids the naval bombardment of undefended towns and buildings. Article 2 details extenuating circumstances under which such bombardment is permissible (military buildings, opportunity to surrender not taken, immediate action necessary for military reasons). We don't have enough information on the encounter to tell whether the Convention was breached or not. At any rate, the Hague Conventions (1899/1907) would only have been in place towards the end of the British imperial age. The Geneva ones only came into play post-WWII. Depending on when the encounter took place, the HC might not even have been an issue.
I must say Spiff, due to the excessive amount of watching your videos that I have done, I have increased my vocabulary to include the words "yeet" and "bork" in my daily doings. Keep up the good work in exploiting the world of games and if you keep using fantastical words, I will keep on spreading the gospel of the Spiff.
One of my favorite exploits for age of empires 3 against the AI is the wall the outer edge of every island. Since there isn't enough room to drop off units they don't even try. You basically make a invisible fort. Even on the hardest difficulty if you survive longer than about 45 mins they just amass a huge army that doesn't ever attack. AI was always trash in AOE III
i was surprised to see the ia in aoe3 does leave a significant amount of troops on your island/your base if they wanna invade you via the see But then in every island map the ia is bad anyway
Since you asked, I too am a fan of RTS games and the AoE series specifically. I have old school disc versions of AoE II, AoM Gold, and AoE III. Only one I never played was the first one, because when I bought it 100 years ago, my PC was already too advanced to play it (Curse you Windows XP!). AoE III was really good, but it doesn't come close to AoE II. Even before I played the DE version, I'd still occasionally go back to play the campaigns on my disc copy. And thanks to this video, I feel motivated to pick up some AoE III tonight, as it has been a while.
Spiff, I have played all the AoE games and love them all. For a quick game of victory I'll play 3, but 1 is actually my favorite. 2 is great, but I grew up on 1 so i get more enjoyment out of it.
It would be interesting if in a game like this, if you gather resources from a node slowly it will stay there, but if you gather too quickly the resource will start depleting. Gives an incentive to actually manage conservation of your resource nodes.
The 1 thing they added that I absolutely love, aside from the ability for 2 people to play as the same civ...it's the ability to choose infinite resources so you can just focus on military! Pew! Pew! Pew!
I honestly liked the 3rd quite a bit, though my friends will still only play AOE 2. Frankly, I find the expanded economy to be much more interesting than the most villager only model of AOE 2 and games like Starcraft. Sure it makes for exciting competition in the first 15-20 minutes, but after it's people scrambling for scarce resources having to micro dozens of villagers to stay alive. I much prefer microing my army, building proper counters and having large battles to the 1 unit cheese and counter that limited resources encourage. All that being said, I played the AOE 4 alpha/beta and had a ton of fun. It's definitely got its roots down imo, but the features are wonderful and well thought out. Can't wait to see it on this channel
This video seems a bit imbalanced. The AI functions normally for the most part. The map Spiff used is the kind that the AI does not handle well, because it requires more than a standard build order. In fairness, one could say that the devs should have programmed that into the AI (a fair point), but to say the AI is broken just because of this one map doesn't seem fair.
The AI breaks if it has to do landings, on the other hand, the harder AIs can do a decent rush with Japan or Sweden if they have land connection. Even now in March 2022 the AI halves in IQ on water maps, though the top 2 difficulties have learnt to settle new islands when they start depleting their treelines.
I knew he was gonna use a migration map (migration was what it was called in 2 anyways.). I always loved that map conceptually as a kid and hated that the AI just couldn't do anything with it. I think I saw the AI migrate to the mainland maybe twice in all my years of playing lol.
Thanks Spiff, this video finally gave me the encouragement I needed to become an illegal whale-hunter. I’d always avoided the profession, due to whales being such an endangered species and all but now that I know they’re an infinite resource, I don’t have to worry much about that anymore!
Not an exploit, but you can exploit it. This isn't a custom map made by the player, it's a default map in the game. The ai should be able to play on it, but as you saw it didn't even do basic things. So the ai is bugged and you as a player can exploit that bug.
Well yes, he is *exploiting* the way AI is broken. Exploits don't have to be infinite money or invincibility. You just take a broken game mechanic (in this case the AI) and make use of it in ways it was not intended to be used (in this case he show cased how much the Devs fucked up the AI for this game: the AI literally can't progress when situated on a small island).
@@danielbrugovsky6018 It's exactly the same in any version of AoE II. This isn't a 'new' issue in the slightest. AI simply don't work well on island maps.
I used to play AoE 2 and 3 all the timeeee. My favorite thing to do was start a single player, console spawn a monster truck by typing “tuck tuck tuck” into console, and completely obliterating everyone
It's not just the ocean maps either. The part of the AI which commands military units goes totally braindead even on land maps if you allow them to reach age 5. They just form a death ball on their town which can easily be lured away with cavalry while your siege units do their job. Paradoxically the idle units seem like they are poised to move out when their buddies rally up, but their buddies can't get anywhere near the place that they want to stand because the idles are swarming it. Oh don't forget their near total lack of regard for trading posts. They will only ever build them on native settlements and will only attack yours if a stray unit wanders near.
Those monitors extra range are even scarier than you think. You could probably hit the French base from your own base with them and you don't even need to have eyes on the target.
we all know and love age of empires 3... except for those annoying 20 yearolds who feel the need to constantly remind everybody that age of empires 2 exists, and that how it's always somehow better.
I love Age of Empires III and it's super nostalgic for me, holding memories of my dad and my childhood close to my heart, and I'm worried about what these game remakes are going to do to them. If this is another Warcraft 3: Reforged, I'm scared.
Spiff "A very unique strategy" XD, I absolutely love watching this, when I saw you break whale blubber I just thought, Moby Dick you lived a good life.
Spiff, I've been playing Age of Empires 2 and 3 and one of the best maps for torturing AI is Pirates! and the second one is Carribbean and the North America one? That's the one with the trade route in the middle of the map and there is a nice exploit in there.
Cheese the deck system just right and you can just roll around as the Ottomans with 15 Great Bombards protected by a mercenary army numbering in the hundreds. Sit back and relax as each volley from the Great Bombards decimate everything.
It's crazy that it sounds like you actually know what you are talking about even tho, to anyone with even a little knowledge of the game, it's clear that you don't. I wonder if it's the same for the other games you play.
imagine being a developer to a RTS game like AOE and waking up in the morning to see Spiff made a video on the game you just released. I would go back to bed
Spiff playing as redcoat Brits: Blue
AI playing as blue flag French: Red
[Visible confusion]
you mean white flag?
1815 when napoleon was kicked out the 2ed time the frinch used a plane white flag.
@@demonlordfluffles1275 White flag (with fleurs-de-lis) was the Bourbon monarchy's flag, thus used before the Revolution and after the deposition of Napoleon (both times). Actually the white flag became a thing due to the practice of flying the enemy's flag (or a facsimile of such, which would just be a plain white flag if you don't have time to embroider fifty fleurs-de-lis during a battle) to indicate that you wanted to negotiate with them (or at least, that's what I've heard, I can't confirm that).
@@nathaniellindner313 well, if i remember right it was used as a decloration of surrender in somewhere around year 100 ad.
The national flag of France has also been two fully white flags from 1814-1815 and 1815-1830 there was a semi modern looking french flags between the two which is why the end year is the same as the start year. The naval flag has also had two times where it was fully white the first time in 1789 and the second time from 1814 to 1830.
For clarity: the AI on the Ceylon map was never programmed to expand onto the middle island and play the map properly, even in the original. Ceylon is functionally a multiplayer-only map.
this is true. even in age of empires 2 the ai isn't capable of playing this kind of map(as the gentleman in the video suggests). that being said, at launch, aoe3de ai was really passive LOL
He also play on moderate difficulty which is extremely easy
The AI of AoM could play its version of this map lol
@@brijekavervix7340 no way! :o
well, i couldn't find anything about that and i don't have the game. why on earth would the studio make that possible on aom while the aoe2 community organizes ai tournaments for exactly that type of ai?! this is a puzzle to me :(
@@xibataxit they probably forgot to add it when they made AoE III and AoE II DE
"Whales are an infinite source of gold" Gaming companies agree with that assessment spiff.
I see what you did there. XD
As yes. That kind of purgatory known as gacha hell.
@@newbiegaming6090 I don't see what he did there. Please explain?
@@Mygg_Jeager "whales" is how rich players are called. Because they usually spend an absurd amount of money in games and, consequently, keep developers afloat. Also, historically, hunting whales was rather profitable. Hence the joke.
Whales huh 🤣😆
Tiny island, runs on whale oil, hates the French. Colonization!?
Most historically accurate Civ game ever
The math checks out...
@Jean-Louis Bourgeois
That was fairly non sequitur. You do get the joke is about a description of the English, right? Lol.
@@BeingFireRetardant Haiti. He appears to have thought you were referencing Haiti.
British in blue and french in red? What kind of crazy world is this!
Came here to post this. I'm extremely triggered tbqh 😞
I was about to say the same.
Agreed!
That said, any time I play, I wish I could make both Spain and England red without making all teams the same color lol. It fucks with me when either one isn't red...
In those scenarios I always imagine my doods to be British light cavalry/Artillery vs French Swiss/Irish regiments.
A perfectly balanced one
"this factory will focus entirely on food production."
Sets the factory to produce wood.
"So, one makes wood" *oh, he's got them right* ", and food" *facepalm*
Just to taunt the woodless AI.
Gotta feed the termites
@@tenchimuyo69 ahahaha
Welcome to the Soviet Union
The first release of AoE 3 was my childhood, I spent hours committing colonization war crimes.
I'm sorry you didn't grow up with AOE2
@@Madrock7777 I loved 3, thank you very much. I also played 1, cause my dad had it.
"It's not a war crime if it's done in an active war zone"
-Spiff
@@rainshadowband3161 isnt... isnt that the point of the name, war crimes? Like in all seriousness.
@@Madrock7777 AOE3 was also realesed when i was a kid, but since my dad had AOE2 i played that first. Honestly i quite like both of them, but AOE2 is my favorite, but AOE3 is still quite fun to play.
I’m from ceylon and considering that both french and British tried to capture our island and only British succeeded, this might be a correct reenactment of what went down.
Historical event
Portuguese also, and some words from portugal are still in use like janela
As a french viewer, my reaction about this entire video was approximately : "Oh Caum on ! Zis iss English propagande **angry red wine noises**
Hey red wine is Itallian not French
@@Batu1923 ee choud drinnk champagne zen
@@atocanboi409 I like scotch
@@Batu1923 listen fella pasta friend, i don't really know if red wine is italian or french, let's put that aside and fight together that tea heresy
@@Batu1923 Domt mean to ruin your day but Red Wine is from Armenia like 3000 B.C,
"whales are an infinite source of gold" Mobile game companies already discovered this.
I see what you did there.
Underrated comment 😂😂
I don't get it
Lol
@@Mygg_Jeager whale in mobile games is the one that spend a lot of money to power up. anyone spend $10K+ are no longer qualified as whales, the whales today are the one that spend at least $200K to power up, and there is hundreds of ppl spend minimum this amount in a single title game only. It was ridiculous
Man being an early explorer of the new world must have been insane, you could get stuck on the beach whenever you walked whenever the world wanted to screw you over.
why are you here?
Why wouldn't he be here?
WHY ARE YOU BACK
Hello there
@@poiblem4788 he's everywhere
"The age-old dispute of whether tea is superior to-"
"Wine? Champagne? Cassis even?"
"-baguette."
"Of course."
Why do we need a battle to settle this dispute? Just settle it with logic! Which one is going to give you god powers, tea or baguettes?
Baguette baked with tea leaves.
What have you done
[Confused Screaming]
Yes
They called me(him) a mad man
+ Dunked in Tea
17:16 "focus entirely on food production" *produces wood*
17:20 "this factory here is gonna produce gold"
17:24 "so that we have a nice production of wood and food"
either you're munching on wood and using gold as planks, or munching on gold and using wood as wood or maybe you're building ships out of meat, but one thing is certain, that little stroke was rather funny
Indian villagers love to munch that wood
The funny part is when he said it I just assumed that I was the one who had lost my mind.
Spiff is a termite
20:40 Actually, French houses cost 100 Wood. Your Manor Houses cost more because they make Settlers.
*FUN FACTS!*
The amount of time I've spent playing this game is the reason that there's no Skyrim 2
👁️👄👁️
Still waiting for the Skyrim port on pregnancy test.
@@angelemmanuelperezmuniz1474 All jokes aside I really want Skyrim or Oblivion on the Wii U. Because it's that or my NES.
@@IndigoGollum it’s on the switch they aren’t gonna get it on Wii U tho
@@IndigoGollum at least you have a Wii U. The newest gaming console I have is a Play Station 2. All the new games I play are on the computer but that's not a gaming console.
As an avid Sea map player for Aoe 3, this pains me to see how slow his navy develops. At least he won!
Wait, he actually responded??!? Woah thanks! P.s I bought this game and it alright
Spiff reads and replies to comments more than any other TH-camr I know. I pray for his sanity every day.
Best exploit I found on this game: pick the Dutch, use your envoy to find the AI base ASAP, send the three envoys shipment, use your four envoys to literally punch the AI villagers to death. The AI doesn't know how to respond and keeps trying to garrison while trying to balance resource collection. The result: the AI never even reaches the second age.
This one time I was lucky enough to get a pet rhino as well (on the Borneo map) and soon the AI was unable to even make villagers anymore. This strategy works up until the extreme difficulty even...
Oddly enough this strat works in Rise of Nations as well, the Dutch start off with two armed merchants and instead of using them to collect rare resources you just send them into the enemy territory and they shoot villagers-effectively stopping collection
French Explorer: (Gets stuck on the beach)
Captain Cook: "First time?"
So I played the original Age of Empires 3, and one of my favorite things to exploit was a way in which I could beat anyone in the game that wasn't clued in on what I was doing. Basically I would play on the river map, where a river splits the map, and then rush a dock and use the card system to get some early attack ships, then I would patrol the enemy coast and whenever they would try to build a dock, I would destroy it, and as I got more ships, I would just set up a perimeter. Then after a while, I would transport some workers over to build some blockhouses(I was Russia, and their barracks, or blockhouses double as cannon towers) in the corner of the map and start spamming out Strelots, which I found were cheap enough and spammed out quick enough that it could outswarm any army given time.
@BloxBall bit cheap though
Spiff: They made a smart decision not giving me the game
Devs: Kalm
Spiff: BUT THAT DIDNT STOP ME
Devs:Panic
The older version of AoE III had this river map, that split the map. It was quite easy to win the AI just by building a wall along the coast, so they couldn't land their units. Apparently they don't know what are cannons on theirs ships :D
You're thinking of Amazonia. Yep, even with expert AI, just park a few boats at the other side of the river, make sure the AI doesn't build any docks, and you can constantly hammer them with little resistance. After seeing AOE3 DE, I don't think the AI got any update whatsoever.
@@ethanbell1214 it was like Command and Conquer all over again.
its also in the new version, its called amazonia. the new version is much better but just play vs people like in other games lol, this dude is playing vs bot, ofc its not so funny, also in GTA or something, nobody is playing vs bots, lol
"I have built myself a naval deck"
*Proceeds to select the deck created by the developers and not by Spiff*
@@thespiffingbrit fare enough
@@thespiffingbrit wait, it can be modified? I swear I tried on the beginner deck for Ottomans and it wouldn't save my changes.
The AI don't do anything until 'Hard' difficulty. Don't do a video with standard difficulty AI. You'll sleep before it end.
6 seconds ago? Damnit Spiff, I didn't even get a chance to grab a cup of Tea.
I was happily drinking my tea, but then I realised that it was coffee
@@thespiffingbrit I wouldn't dare watch the rise of the Great British Empire and the kickstarting of its industrial age.
Most unfortunate. Might I suggest accelerating your tea grabbing abili-tea through the majestic power of Yorkshire Tea Gold?
@@durandol If life were only fair. In my home country it is naught but impossible to obtain Yorkshire Tea of any kind, let alone Yorkshire Tea Gold. A traves-tea in my humble opinion.
It's even worse on the Caribbean map since there is a bonus island that the ai literally can't find. It has a trade route and twice the treasures, but they will never sail there. Even after the claim all the other islands and kick you out, the can't find it.
Spiff: In this game there are some really op stuffs, so lets not do that and instead do some even more op stuff that no one knows about
the new revolution civs are pretty cheesy lol its great. too bad half of the playerbase is having performance issues tho
Played a match against AI on this map yesterday (On easy because i'm new to the game, don't know if it affects anything), and none of the computer opponents managed to leave their island, allies and enemies, they only make some boats. So yeah, 4 or so years later and it still remains perfectly balanced.
Me: *drinking tea while eating a baguette "I'm playing both sides so I always end up on top."
I've once had this idea for a joke civ to be created, but since I have no idea how to make it, here it goes... Maybe someone that will read this can attempt to create it.
Civ name: North Pole
Leader: Santa Claus
Villager: elf (can garrison certain unique buildings to increase some items production)
Explorer: Santa Claus (rides a sleigh and attacks with a huge candy cane)
UNITS
Infantry:
- nutcracker (kind of an elite musketeer)
- cane elf (cheap meele infantry, attacks whacking enemies with his cane)
- ninja elf (cheap ranged infantry, throws snowflake shurikens)
Cavalry:
- heavy reindeer (hussar-like cavalry, but with less attack and more hitpoints, an elf riding a reindeer and whacking enemies with a fireplace poker)
- ranged rendeer (a shuriken-throwing elf riding a reindeer)
- battle sleigh (a sleigh with a pair of nutcrackers firing from it, similar to a war wagon)
Artillery:
- snowman (elite grenadier, throws explosive snowballs)
- christmas tree (a cannon-like unit with the tree laying horizontally as the cannon barrel and a pair of wheels, fires boubles, works simmilarly to a falconet)
- siege sleigh (a sleigh with a short, big bore cannon that fires presents, works like a mortar)
BUILDINGS
Most of the basic stuff, but some unique ones:
- toy factory (similar to a factory, but can be built at any time and produces any resource based on how many elfs are garriossoned inside, up to a maximum of 10)
- christmas tree groove (like the Indian one)
- fireplace (for some sort of bonus)
No idea for naval units, or anything else...
Lol, this is actually a fun idea
@@LaddRusso91 thanks!
I'd love to see you put out a video playing this game as the Dutch. With the right deck, you can have 10 banks and 2 factories and a few upgrades to go with them. You will eventually reach a point where you're generating thousands of gold per minute. Food and wood become a non-issue since you generate so much gold that you can just buy them through the market. It's quite hilarious!
I remember in the past feeling so powerful when fighting seven hardest AI on Ceylon and actually winning lol.
Oh i'll definitely be picking this up, non-ironically it looks fucking great and i'm looking forward to one of the best AOE campaigns as well. I love AOE in general. I played all 3 of them as a wee one.
I think it's amazing how different all 3 of the now Definite Edition games are. I have this year alone put hundreds of hours into AOE II and have 100% of the achievements in AOE I. I'm very close to completing AOE II too.
However;
AOE III was the game I played the most as a child and it's the most nostalgic for me; i've always enjoyed the deck building, the levelling up of the home city and the naval battles in particular were always very fun. The infinite resources removes the concept of "Trash" Units (Both a good and bad thing depending on perspective) and the age up rewards are so much more interesting. The natives offer a way to get buffs to your civ at all stages of the game, including techs that give you spawnables armies on your adventurer. The trading posts offer a way to control the map and get resources and exp. The fact the AI don't immediately resign is great too, it lets you do the builds you want to do. It also has the Dutch who has my favourite building; the bank! (Coincidentally, also the most difficult AI to fight too due to that economy advantage)
There's just a lot of really fun things you can do in AOE III. Each civ actually feels really unique, the difference between European, Natives and Asian civs are quite fun. Don't even get me started on how each civ has their unique deck line and strengths. Back to the Dutch, you can get a bunch of cards to increase the limit and effectiveness of banks! Then to use that gold they can hire mercenaries which is a super fun unique concept. Oh! And that reminds me, there's a Salon / Bar you can build to hire pirates, raiders, etc, for pure gold too.
--
This is actually the first time i'm seeing gameplay of the AOE III DE, the UI is definitely different. But I have to object to your complaints about the AI. Go play AOE II DE on any water map, they won't leave their island. Ever. Well, they try. They really, really do, but they struggle so much. Their navy also sucks ass. It's literally how they recommend beating the AI on the hardest difficulty. The AI is completely useless with water in general. This isn't new. You pick a map with a tiny island and extremely limited resources, put the AI on easy mode (let's be fair, the standard is for beginners) and you still nearly lost the middle, since the AI actually seemed somewhat proactive in invading regularly.
"Everything is broken" sums up to being basically the AI performs poorly on standard difficulty on an island map. This isn't new tbh and i'd dare say you play so poorly yourself the AI would've wiped the floor with you with overwhelming early agression and economy if this was on any land map.
Thank you
*Hard cuts to AI pathfinding into a tree, and getting stuck on absolutely nothing*
Pick up the original version that's still on Steam. They made some horrible choices with regards with regards to the single-player experience.
This guy gets it. Great game, this video triggered me. He would have been beaten by the moderate bot on a land map - actually didn't realise it was possible! Only issue at the moment is the crashes and missing ranked games. Otherwise, having a good time!
As someone who played a TON of AOE III when it first came out in (2005?), I can confirm that the AI would rather atrophy and die than embark a single settler
Reminds me of the good old days of British longbow spamming in AOE2, outranged every single unit and building in the game other than artillery. The AI sat there in confusion and spammed cavalry at you, utterly defenseless.
*Perfection.*
What I love about this is the historically accurate French Navy. But everyone please note the AI on extreme is more much difficult. There are movement bugs in this game though that need to be fixed!
Spiffing: "COLONIZATION!"
French: "Where is zat boss mewsic coming from?"
I still play this game regularly...I go back to it at least once or twice a year...honestly this video made me play it again today
"RTS AI needs to cheat to be able to compete with players."
Age of Empires 2 DE AI: "Cheats?! Look at these losers!"
AoE2 playermade AI: "I can win against competent and advanced players and stomp on lesser AI at a regular basis"
SC2 AI: Hold my Grandmaster
fun fact, as spanish in water map, all you gotta do is, pick 2 cards one in the first age that gives 50% reduced time build for pickeman and crossbowman, the one in the third age that gives another 35%, a frigate card, pick the last 35% build boost time from the spanish church, now, recall the shipment from the metropoli waypoint behind the enemy base, spawn frigate, dock, spam a 100% instant army.
I'm German, I see the French getting destroyed. I press like
Same
How dare you >:O
That’s very good
I feel like you could replace "german" with almost any european country amd it would still be true
@@christofferthorsson7657 I feel like you could leave the word "European" out and it would still be true.
1:35 British history reference!
-Love you man keep the good content up👍
Game creators when spiff releases a new video: Aww shit, here we go again
Hey spiff i have an idea for a video. It's from the 2005 game battle mages: sign of darkness. Basically there is a unit in the game called the vagabond mage who has a spell called summpn wolves. Well if you combine that with a mana potion it will make him spawn the wolves extremly quickly and therefor trapp the enemy in a horde of wolves. The only downside is that the vagabond mage is avaliable only in the last area of the game. I would love to see a video on this game. (Also in the first area is a mana node that has a phantom warriro if you distract the phantom warrior with a spirit or f11 it will perpetualy attack it while the mana node heals it so you can grind xp for your other units since the warrior will be focused on the spirit)
Interestingly, I never cared for the Definitive Edition, until now. It looks awesome. The next Steam Sale it is.
Despite the AI that seems to be a bit lost, this game really stood out to me at the time and when I see the new version, I have to admit that they did a good job on it. Age of Empires 3 as well as Age of Mythology are two games that I really enjoy in the Age of franchise. Even though I think they are all good. :)
This reminds me of when I was doing some skirmishes against the AI in Warcraft III many many years ago. I picked a map that, like this one, had both players start on small islands and to get anywhere, you had to use the neutral shipyard on your island to expand and creep the other islands on the map. After awhile of expanding I realized that the AI hadn't actually attacked me at all and I hadn't seen them. So after taking a few omore islands, I sent a force looking for their main base. What I found was a full army trying desperately to path into the water to get off their island, running up and down the coast as if the AI was just spam clicking a neighbouring island. And yes, they too had a neutral shipyard (Warcraft III got rid of the naval warfare aspects from Warcraft II where you could build your own shipyard). How a neutral shipyard works is you stand a unit next to it which allows you to click the shipyard and buy transports. The AI in WC III however, doesn't use neutral buildings so they just ended up mining and lumberjacking their island into a barren waste flooded with units that desperately wanted to leave. I know it's not quite a fair comparison for he Warcraft III AI because it just wasn't programmed to be able to handle context sensitive neutral buildings (and honestly making the AI have decision-making for every possible shop and mercenary camp would've been hell).
Where this game has no excuse is comparing it to the predecessor Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. Here, naval warfare was a part of the game and maps commonly had islands so players would need to build transport ships (which they could build from their own buildings) in order to expand. From what I can recall, the AI was able to handle this as it has been a long time since I've played WC2, but I remember seeing island expansions. Warcraft II came out in 1995, two years before the original Age of Empires 1 was even released.
"Ceylon is definitely the most broken..."
As a Ceylonese myself, I agree 100% XD
lol
Honestly though, that map doesn't look like Ceylon at all.
@@chintoki ikr
Spiff: so How did those things end up in a museum
The british monarchy: ermmmmm...... so i heard you wanted to be sponsored by yorkshire tea
Napoleon: To war with the British
* See's Spiffing Britt as the commander of the army *
Napoleon: Retreat!!
It's too late... D:
Ah AOE III, brings back memories of college, I still remember getting both expansions.
My goodness! You, the Spiffing Brit, acknowledging our national treasure, the baguette, as lovely? You might just have finally settled the eon long grudge...
5:30 omg! David Attenborough reference! Instant thumbs up, 10/10, this video wins the internet for the day.
9:48 would attacking random french peasants count as a war crime under other circumstances?
Is that written anywhere in the... what’s it called? Geneva suggestions?
No mention of French peasants. You are all good
well its the brits vs french, the rules specifically say that is an exception to all rules.
Well it's called 'suggestions' for something...
The Geneva Conventions cover the treatment of people, mostly prisoners of war, rather than actual warfare. Rules of engagement, like the naval bombardment of towns, are addressed in the Hague Conventions (upon which parts of the GC are based). Treaty 9, chapter 1, article 1 of the Hague Convention of 1907 expressly forbids the naval bombardment of undefended towns and buildings. Article 2 details extenuating circumstances under which such bombardment is permissible (military buildings, opportunity to surrender not taken, immediate action necessary for military reasons). We don't have enough information on the encounter to tell whether the Convention was breached or not.
At any rate, the Hague Conventions (1899/1907) would only have been in place towards the end of the British imperial age. The Geneva ones only came into play post-WWII. Depending on when the encounter took place, the HC might not even have been an issue.
As someone who has played a fair amount of this game, his gameplay is... hard to watch.
It's so fucking bad... and he doesn't understand aoe3 at all. I would enjoy playing a match against him
Meanwhile I'm just wondering why this game has monitors several generations of technology before real life ironclads.
@@BB-uo1qy Saaaaaamee😂😂😂
It was pure cringe
@@satannstuff You can get ironclads aswell
Love this one.
I don't recall why I know you but I simply do
I must say Spiff, due to the excessive amount of watching your videos that I have done, I have increased my vocabulary to include the words "yeet" and "bork" in my daily doings. Keep up the good work in exploiting the world of games and if you keep using fantastical words, I will keep on spreading the gospel of the Spiff.
-spiff explaining the factories-
- Has stroke.
"This is food production" - is wood.
"Doing wood and food production" - is wood and gold
XD
One of my favorite exploits for age of empires 3 against the AI is the wall the outer edge of every island. Since there isn't enough room to drop off units they don't even try. You basically make a invisible fort.
Even on the hardest difficulty if you survive longer than about 45 mins they just amass a huge army that doesn't ever attack.
AI was always trash in AOE III
i just ordered a military grade gas mask to wear at school because it's allowed for some reason
Absolute chad move
Order a full biohazard suit next
Uhh what ? Lmao
Where in the world could I possibly get one if you don't mind my asking?... 😂
@@HOEZILLA Military surplus sites sell them.
Baguettes and tea are lovely? I'm french and this is so awesome to hear from you Spiff, thank you so much!
Looks like you're playing an island map. This has always been an issue while playing on islands. The AI only rarely attacks with their navy.
i was surprised to see the ia in aoe3 does leave a significant amount of troops on your island/your base if they wanna invade you via the see
But then in every island map the ia is bad anyway
@@ahouais5620 yeah they'll usually drop a bunch of troops off and they just hang out at the edge of your island lol
4:30 That's the entire French naval fleet just sunk.
*Admiral Nelson sips his Yorkshire Tea in approval*
9:25 a conflict between the French and the UK related to fishing, that would absolutely never happen today, no sir xD
Since you asked, I too am a fan of RTS games and the AoE series specifically. I have old school disc versions of AoE II, AoM Gold, and AoE III. Only one I never played was the first one, because when I bought it 100 years ago, my PC was already too advanced to play it (Curse you Windows XP!). AoE III was really good, but it doesn't come close to AoE II. Even before I played the DE version, I'd still occasionally go back to play the campaigns on my disc copy. And thanks to this video, I feel motivated to pick up some AoE III tonight, as it has been a while.
Takes the word “Serf” to a whole new level!
I didn't drink a lot of tea before I came across your channel. Now every time I sit down to watch one of your videos I gotta have a cup.
Spiff, I have played all the AoE games and love them all. For a quick game of victory I'll play 3, but 1 is actually my favorite. 2 is great, but I grew up on 1 so i get more enjoyment out of it.
It would be interesting if in a game like this, if you gather resources from a node slowly it will stay there, but if you gather too quickly the resource will start depleting. Gives an incentive to actually manage conservation of your resource nodes.
love your content and absolutely love your voice.
The 1 thing they added that I absolutely love, aside from the ability for 2 people to play as the same civ...it's the ability to choose infinite resources so you can just focus on military! Pew! Pew! Pew!
I honestly liked the 3rd quite a bit, though my friends will still only play AOE 2. Frankly, I find the expanded economy to be much more interesting than the most villager only model of AOE 2 and games like Starcraft. Sure it makes for exciting competition in the first 15-20 minutes, but after it's people scrambling for scarce resources having to micro dozens of villagers to stay alive. I much prefer microing my army, building proper counters and having large battles to the 1 unit cheese and counter that limited resources encourage.
All that being said, I played the AOE 4 alpha/beta and had a ton of fun. It's definitely got its roots down imo, but the features are wonderful and well thought out. Can't wait to see it on this channel
How have I never realised the hatchings on all the ‘stock’ photos say “SpiffCo”
...
well played sir well played
This video seems a bit imbalanced. The AI functions normally for the most part. The map Spiff used is the kind that the AI does not handle well, because it requires more than a standard build order. In fairness, one could say that the devs should have programmed that into the AI (a fair point), but to say the AI is broken just because of this one map doesn't seem fair.
The AI breaks if it has to do landings, on the other hand, the harder AIs can do a decent rush with Japan or Sweden if they have land connection. Even now in March 2022 the AI halves in IQ on water maps, though the top 2 difficulties have learnt to settle new islands when they start depleting their treelines.
I knew he was gonna use a migration map (migration was what it was called in 2 anyways.). I always loved that map conceptually as a kid and hated that the AI just couldn't do anything with it. I think I saw the AI migrate to the mainland maybe twice in all my years of playing lol.
Dude this game is my childhood! Endless hours of playing this game
Thanks Spiff, this video finally gave me the encouragement I needed to become an illegal whale-hunter. I’d always avoided the profession, due to whales being such an endangered species and all but now that I know they’re an infinite resource, I don’t have to worry much about that anymore!
Follow your dreams!
Inspiring words my friend
You’d fit in well with the Japanese then lol
@@reanukeeves392 Thanks so much for the kind words 😊🙏
Nice
17:18 "Producing 5 food per turn" ,When CIV kicks in :D
British "explorers" hunting tigers in south-east Asia. Historically accurate I'd say.
""Why don't you just fight back Ai??" This games realism is through the roof
Actually playing the game against a medium AI on a map that needs a very specific strategy is now considered an exploit ?
Maybe for views
Not an exploit, but you can exploit it. This isn't a custom map made by the player, it's a default map in the game. The ai should be able to play on it, but as you saw it didn't even do basic things. So the ai is bugged and you as a player can exploit that bug.
Well yes, he is *exploiting* the way AI is broken. Exploits don't have to be infinite money or invincibility. You just take a broken game mechanic (in this case the AI) and make use of it in ways it was not intended to be used (in this case he show cased how much the Devs fucked up the AI for this game: the AI literally can't progress when situated on a small island).
@@danielbrugovsky6018 It's exactly the same in any version of AoE II. This isn't a 'new' issue in the slightest. AI simply don't work well on island maps.
im not watching 4 hours of video just for this, but can you guys please tell me what are you talking about ???
I used to play AoE 2 and 3 all the timeeee. My favorite thing to do was start a single player, console spawn a monster truck by typing “tuck tuck tuck” into console, and completely obliterating everyone
I've played this game and though I'm part French myself you're Extremally hilarious
It's not just the ocean maps either. The part of the AI which commands military units goes totally braindead even on land maps if you allow them to reach age 5. They just form a death ball on their town which can easily be lured away with cavalry while your siege units do their job.
Paradoxically the idle units seem like they are poised to move out when their buddies rally up, but their buddies can't get anywhere near the place that they want to stand because the idles are swarming it.
Oh don't forget their near total lack of regard for trading posts. They will only ever build them on native settlements and will only attack yours if a stray unit wanders near.
Classic frenchmen, getting stuck in the ground like that. If you had tea this wouldn't be a problem...
Those monitors extra range are even scarier than you think.
You could probably hit the French base from your own base with them and you don't even need to have eyes on the target.
Played and play this classic game still to this day, got the original discs (yes, there were more than 1 disc) next to me.
hell aoe3 came in like 3 discs by itself with the warchiefs and asian dynasties addons on separate discs.
@@stevenburton4966 obviously the reason they called it Age of Empires 3... (that was an awful joke but I just had to make it)
Have literally not stopped playing this game for more than a few months since 2008. I love it.
When you realise everyone who commented haven’t watched the full video
When you realise spiff talks utter piss
And this is relevant cos
Spiffs first min 10 in i literally did the same track 😂
I don't often play RTS games. Are they in demand? Whenever I see some internet personality playing an RTS it's usually one from over a decade ago.
we all know and love age of empires 3... except for those annoying 20 yearolds who feel the need to constantly remind everybody that age of empires 2 exists, and that how it's always somehow better.
They're both banging games, it took me a while to get into the deck-building of 3 but I'm starting to enjoy it as much as 2, sometimes more
I love Age of Empires III and it's super nostalgic for me, holding memories of my dad and my childhood close to my heart, and I'm worried about what these game remakes are going to do to them. If this is another Warcraft 3: Reforged, I'm scared.
I played this game throughout my childhood can’t wait for AOE 4
Spiff "A very unique strategy" XD, I absolutely love watching this, when I saw you break whale blubber I just thought, Moby Dick you lived a good life.
Spiff, I've been playing Age of Empires 2 and 3 and one of the best maps for torturing AI is Pirates! and the second one is Carribbean and the North America one? That's the one with the trade route in the middle of the map and there is a nice exploit in there.
Cheese the deck system just right and you can just roll around as the Ottomans with 15 Great Bombards protected by a mercenary army numbering in the hundreds. Sit back and relax as each volley from the Great Bombards decimate everything.
I'm french, and I came here especially for the cyber bullying
Can’t believe how many subs you have! Been here since 2,000!
It's crazy that it sounds like you actually know what you are talking about even tho, to anyone with even a little knowledge of the game, it's clear that you don't.
I wonder if it's the same for the other games you play.
imagine being a developer to a RTS game like AOE and waking up in the morning to see Spiff made a video on the game you just released. I would go back to bed
"we're going to panel beat them into the ground so hard, they're never going to play Age of Empires 3 again" Just like real life.