WARNING: Did some testing with this exact same setup and this no longer seems to apply with DE pathing. Stand ground seems to work a lot like aggressive when patrolling on DE except your units will mill about randomly before attacking more. Even if you use no attack stance first I don't seem to be able to surround many units and it just seems patrolling with aggressive is more consistent. This video needs a DE update and I wouldn't use this without practicing it yourself to know what you're doing.
I noticed SotL has done an update for it. He now suggests doing Attack Move most of the time, even though you might sometimes get melee unit stuttering. But that he thinks is just better if you're not as strong of a micro-er. You might forget your guys are on patrol and run all the way back - maybe splitting your army in half or something (half get procced to attack & the other half done recognise enemies nearby).
Youre an awesome caster. First time visiting the channel. Whenever I'm watching T90, I'm excited when youre co casting because I know you're gonna be watching the small details I care about
What about formations? I heard that when engaging with cavalry its good to put ur units on flank formation to surround enemies, or also, in general, use staggered instead of line formations to easily surround a large grp of xbows with ur knights for example.
The 4:43 enemy patrol test is wrong. You approach AI when it switches to run back. This way only half of enemies got aggroed right away while the rest of the army continued their patrol. This has a tremendous effect since it split enemy attack in half for a few seconds, letting you take advantage of the square law. If you could review this, it would be great. No player is going to patrol away from your units. Always into.
Depends on whether they're actively watching that group or just leaving it patrol because it's better than standing around. You can definitely catch them patrolling away at times. But it would be good to see what happens if they're paying attention and patrol into.
Hmm... I've never seen that. Especially since people usually used patrol as attack-move command. You also have to catch them the moment they're turning around or you need to have fast enough units to catch them afterwards. And if you attacked them from a side, which seems to be another common option, I guess it would turn out differently as well. So many questions requiring a test. :D
I mean, people do sometimes leave units on patrol rather than standing around if they're focused elsewhere and you can catch them going the other way. But you're right, your units would need to be fast to catch a group patrolling away *and* their units would need to be fast to split away into two easily defeated groups like they do here :p So yeah, the test isn't very representative in that sense...
Great video! Keep going! The community is growing bigger and bigger (also definitive edition will blow a fresh wind bringing a lot of new people in the game) and with your efforts you could grow into a major informative channel on AoE. Definetly keep going!
Pretty damn convincing. I will certainly be trying to do this (for a long time before I actually become any good at it, like every other part of this game).
I think there should be a stance where units fight in formation. It might not be very useful for competitive player but at least it makes up for good scenic battles. It always bugged me that the formations would all get messed up when ordering an attack. Also, box formation Kamayuks....
Really great strategy. im very interested to hear of anything else you may have. Thankyou sir. Id like to see this strategy applied to cataphracts and units with trample damage. Or halberdiers with proximity damage.
back in starcraft 1 noone uses attack move, even though there is one, and instead everyone uses patrolling into the enemy with a bit of microing, and it looks similar to what is happening here, except in SC units don't go through each other so just patrolling into enemy is the best one.
These are really nice strategies. But, do enemy units have disciplined formations as you showed? Nonetheless, I'm going to follow your first strategy immediately as it's most remarkable to me.
Great tip Dave! But quick question: When will you be coming out with merch that me and my mom can buy?? Looking forward to more videos and dank memes to come with it. hmu if you need anything
Hi Dave, can you do another test for enemies that are running away or doing hit-and-run? Basically, I see that my units, whether Eagles or Knights bump into each other repeatedly when chasing fleeing villagers or Archers. This consistently results in fewer hits and hence escape in case of a villager or taking more damage than ideal in case of kiting archers. Staggered formation will be counter-productive because the units will take ages to completely go through a single-wall hole. Thanks.
With the attack move option that is coming with AoE2 Definitive edition you will have more direct control of how you units engage the enemy and not be so reliant on the stances. Just maneuvre them properly direct them at the right angle and tell them to engage all nearby enemies.
Some of the better players suggest using the staggered formation on a melee engage. Does it change your results when compared to the line formation? Also, the way patrolling units ignore each others' collision boxes gave me an idea: what if you set the units on no attack stance at first, and patrol in such a way that they start to turn around and stack on top of each other exactly inside the enemy troops? Does it mean that they do multiple the amount of damage per attack surface? I'll try this out.
Staggered is great depending on how your enemy is deployed. If they have a bunch of archers and you are charging in with infantry or cavalry, staggered spreads your units out early so they spend less time running around the enemy formation and more time attacking. When in doubt, go staggered into fights since it's usually very consistent. No attack stance can be useful if you are patrolling towards an enemy over farms or near buildings your units might attack, but it's not so good in a fight like the one in this video since most of the advantage I'm gaining is through the first couple units I kill upon entry.
15:20 "Stand ground patrol, switch into aggressive stance, definitely is the most consistent and best option for taking - *Thinks "any fight", says:* Infantry engagements" xD
It's only better if the enemy is running from you. You get more contact with the enemy so you deal more damage, but you would also take more damage if they fight back. When your units are tight some of them stack on top of each other and you get higher chance for 2v1s in your favor within the fight. I feel confident I am right, but haven't tested it. You should test it, just in case.
How about trying this with the staggered formation? Units are more spread out, more surface area to take the fights, less grouping of units next to each other which lessens idle time. I always use staggered formation for melee battles, and it's worked great for me so far.
465marko opposite of ranged; when a unit has like a sword or a spear and has to come very close to the enemy to attack, not exactly 0 range cause units like the steppe lancer have 1 range but are still melee
the top players were using this since back in early 2000s, its been around for ages with many different optimizations. Wouldn't surprise me if he was an old custom scenario player!
Apart from using a mixed unit composition and avoiding bad engagements, what are some ways to respond when an opponent uses the tactics discussed in this video against you?
awesome vid. my standard was to patrol aggro on staggered formation. Does staggered form make any difference? Its defs better than the standard line formation patrol
Yup, it does. Just tested with the same scenario as here. You also have attack move, but it's really janky. Units broke off and chased more often even when on stand ground and it came out more even. And despite that, in one attack move + stand ground scenario they were so intent on getting to the location that I lost the fight. I would stick with stand ground + patrol.
Great information. Can you update for DE and with archer battles? I am getting back into CS type maps and this information is very useful and helpful. Thank you
Does this work when you have knights vs spearman? and when you have spearman and the enemy has knights? i had like 5 spearman and my enemy had like 8 knighs and he killed me i couldn't understand why.. he had upgrades and was frank so xD but then i won, i was japanese and i knew japanese win to castle units so i made spearman and japanese castle units to counter everything he had xd
These are the sorts of things that make the difference when you can't improve your natural skill any further. Would love to see a playlist with all these special tricks.
This game is so ridiculously deep. I've been playing for 20 years and still learning stuff
@bruceownsu wat
@bruceownsu no one cares you
@bruceownsu your english is pathetic enough to discredit any equally pathetic argument you tried to make, sorry.
bruceownsu what’s your point...?
bruce is gay
Hi Dave, do these tricks apply to farms? Asking for a friend.
Hopefully they add formation hotkeys for farms in the next update
There's no how-to video that's gonna help with your farms....sorry
Fun fact, patrolling farms gives infinite food. No joke.
Sorry but my farms will always be better than you anyway.
T90 Farms are magical they produce salmon
Spirit of the Dave?
Hey guys spirit of the law here. I wish he would remove that montage
@@Phlegethon hi bro how old are you? I want to know what community aoe has
Dave90Unofficial
@@ClubMiata how old are you ?
*only guitar*
When you thought you knew pretty much all there is to know, Dave cames to slap you across the face
And it hurts even more because he switches to aggresive half way through the slap
@@465marko hahahahahahahaha nice one
Watch your feet kids, Dave is dropping some knowledge
not a second too long and packed with great tips and facts! thanks man
that's what my girlfriend said!!
Just kidding (... obviously I don't have a girlfriend).
465marko you ruined it by explaining😂😂😂
This feels like such a helpful dive into AoE2 tips/tricks, thank you Dave.
WARNING: Did some testing with this exact same setup and this no longer seems to apply with DE pathing. Stand ground seems to work a lot like aggressive when patrolling on DE except your units will mill about randomly before attacking more. Even if you use no attack stance first I don't seem to be able to surround many units and it just seems patrolling with aggressive is more consistent. This video needs a DE update and I wouldn't use this without practicing it yourself to know what you're doing.
I noticed SotL has done an update for it. He now suggests doing Attack Move most of the time, even though you might sometimes get melee unit stuttering. But that he thinks is just better if you're not as strong of a micro-er. You might forget your guys are on patrol and run all the way back - maybe splitting your army in half or something (half get procced to attack & the other half done recognise enemies nearby).
Really good stuff never really gave a thought about all the attack commands until now
It's quite similar to the oblique order adopted by the Greeks. A column hitting a flank.
Youre an awesome caster. First time visiting the channel. Whenever I'm watching T90, I'm excited when youre co casting because I know you're gonna be watching the small details I care about
same. dave ftw
I used to dream about deploying my units in such manner
But you made it real man!
Thanks a lot
The fun in aoe2 never dies
playing this game for 18 years, and still learning
What about formations? I heard that when engaging with cavalry its good to put ur units on flank formation to surround enemies, or also, in general, use staggered instead of line formations to easily surround a large grp of xbows with ur knights for example.
It's cool that these aren't just game tricks, but actual real life battle tactics, flying wedge has a similar purpose.
The 4:43 enemy patrol test is wrong. You approach AI when it switches to run back. This way only half of enemies got aggroed right away while the rest of the army continued their patrol. This has a tremendous effect since it split enemy attack in half for a few seconds, letting you take advantage of the square law. If you could review this, it would be great. No player is going to patrol away from your units. Always into.
That's so true. Thank you for commenting.
Depends on whether they're actively watching that group or just leaving it patrol because it's better than standing around. You can definitely catch them patrolling away at times. But it would be good to see what happens if they're paying attention and patrol into.
Hmm... I've never seen that. Especially since people usually used patrol as attack-move command. You also have to catch them the moment they're turning around or you need to have fast enough units to catch them afterwards. And if you attacked them from a side, which seems to be another common option, I guess it would turn out differently as well. So many questions requiring a test. :D
I mean, people do sometimes leave units on patrol rather than standing around if they're focused elsewhere and you can catch them going the other way. But you're right, your units would need to be fast to catch a group patrolling away *and* their units would need to be fast to split away into two easily defeated groups like they do here :p So yeah, the test isn't very representative in that sense...
Great video! Keep going! The community is growing bigger and bigger (also definitive edition will blow a fresh wind bringing a lot of new people in the game) and with your efforts you could grow into a major informative channel on AoE. Definetly keep going!
Pretty damn convincing. I will certainly be trying to do this (for a long time before I actually become any good at it, like every other part of this game).
Damn, I didn't knew that the angle changed something. Thanks a lot. I will implement this in my games.
Awesome vid, it's a great tip. More plz Dave
Powerful tactics, wish I knew this back when I still played the game :(
START PLAYING AGAIN
Yes.....play the 'Definitive edition' just released nov 2019. Its very good
Dave teaching us the ways of custom scenario, hallelujah!
Just wanted to say even with DE out, this is a great video! Love your stuff Dave.
I'm not sure you understand what consistent means, but your knowledge about the game is impressive
The god incarnate.
Lots of love Dave, keep being awesome.
This tip is so valuable, I was always wondering why I didn't win battles easily lol
This is actually super helpful
Dave laying down the letter of the law here.
yes
More like "laying down the SPIRIT of the law"
Very good and simple thank you blesses from Mongolia
I think there should be a stance where units fight in formation.
It might not be very useful for competitive player but at least it makes up for good scenic battles. It always bugged me that the formations would all get messed up when ordering an attack.
Also, box formation Kamayuks....
What about archers? Can you do a video showing how to play infantry vs archers, archers vs archers, and archers vs infantry?
I konw it's 5 years old, but thank you for this!
Really great strategy. im very interested to hear of anything else you may have. Thankyou sir. Id like to see this strategy applied to cataphracts and units with trample damage. Or halberdiers with proximity damage.
Positioning yourself to flank and to create numerical advantage. Got it
Wow. This was awesome. I never repaid any attention to this. Cant wait to implement this tonight 😎
how can i use this for my villagers on a wolf nothing map?
what type of sicko makes a wolf nothing map?!?! That's perverse...
Play as Magyars
Nice tip, thanks Dave
Thank you these tips and tricks apply to my whole life!
back in starcraft 1 noone uses attack move, even though there is one, and instead everyone uses patrolling into the enemy with a bit of microing, and it looks similar to what is happening here, except in SC units don't go through each other so just patrolling into enemy is the best one.
Never knew this - very informative!
Thanks
Very interesting. Can you do a part 2 on some of the strategies you mentioned?
This game is soo fucking crazy deep, been playing it since so many years and still couldn't learn even half of it lol
we need more of these cba and hero tricks , good job !
Thanks! Keep doing videos like these, they are great
This video is next lever
Ah google finally sent me to your channel via notification.
Gonna go practice the shit out of this now. I'm comming for you Viper!
Instructions unclear: Toploed my TC
plot twist, red has no armor and blue has full armor. he wanted to be the ultimate killer
So counterintuitive for me to put troops on non attack stance. Amazing
im amazed. now i dont have to type howdoiturnthison
Just do torpedo and you can win every fight
I see why they were using a chess board for the intro video for Age of Empires 2
THE BEST GAE EVER BUILT!
Omg so many years patrolling the wrong way, imma crash my friends with lesser units :D
These are really nice strategies. But, do enemy units have disciplined formations as you showed?
Nonetheless, I'm going to follow your first strategy immediately as it's most remarkable to me.
Great tip Dave! But quick question: When will you be coming out with merch that me and my mom can buy??
Looking forward to more videos and dank memes to come with it. hmu if you need anything
Thanks for the great informational video dave! Learned some new stuff :)
Wow! I did not have an idea you could get that big of an advantage just by timing commands.
3:00 Rommans tryed that under cannae, but in life it did not played out that perfectly :P
Very useful to fight britons eagles
i have been so blind for so long...thanks, Dave.
Hi Dave, can you do another test for enemies that are running away or doing hit-and-run? Basically, I see that my units, whether Eagles or Knights bump into each other repeatedly when chasing fleeing villagers or Archers. This consistently results in fewer hits and hence escape in case of a villager or taking more damage than ideal in case of kiting archers.
Staggered formation will be counter-productive because the units will take ages to completely go through a single-wall hole.
Thanks.
How do i win all fights with petards tho? :(
With the attack move option that is coming with AoE2 Definitive edition you will have more direct control of how you units engage the enemy and not be so reliant on the stances. Just maneuvre them properly direct them at the right angle and tell them to engage all nearby enemies.
You can already attack move in the HD expansions, it's similar in effectiveness to just patrol without stances (except the units don't walk back)
Some of the better players suggest using the staggered formation on a melee engage. Does it change your results when compared to the line formation?
Also, the way patrolling units ignore each others' collision boxes gave me an idea: what if you set the units on no attack stance at first, and patrol in such a way that they start to turn around and stack on top of each other exactly inside the enemy troops? Does it mean that they do multiple the amount of damage per attack surface?
I'll try this out.
Staggered is great depending on how your enemy is deployed. If they have a bunch of archers and you are charging in with infantry or cavalry, staggered spreads your units out early so they spend less time running around the enemy formation and more time attacking. When in doubt, go staggered into fights since it's usually very consistent. No attack stance can be useful if you are patrolling towards an enemy over farms or near buildings your units might attack, but it's not so good in a fight like the one in this video since most of the advantage I'm gaining is through the first couple units I kill upon entry.
So does anything change with the updated pathfinding and attack move in DE? Thanks for the great video!
15:20 "Stand ground patrol, switch into aggressive stance, definitely is the most consistent and best option for taking - *Thinks "any fight", says:* Infantry engagements" xD
Is there a difference between aggressive and defensive for this? (or for patrol in general?)
Damn man you put some high Sun Tzu shit up in AofE
Patrol with expanded formation (*the 3rd formation)?
10y ago I used this way to kick some asses on infantry only battles.
It's only better if the enemy is running from you. You get more contact with the enemy so you deal more damage, but you would also take more damage if they fight back. When your units are tight some of them stack on top of each other and you get higher chance for 2v1s in your favor within the fight. I feel confident I am right, but haven't tested it. You should test it, just in case.
How about trying this with the staggered formation? Units are more spread out, more surface area to take the fights, less grouping of units next to each other which lessens idle time. I always use staggered formation for melee battles, and it's worked great for me so far.
Same here
You're a legend Dave!
Thanks for the tips.
I've heard of people using the guard command for ranged units to acquire targets faster. Does anyone know if this works for melee?
I think guard is guard, they dont chase enemy
I'm still not 100% sure what melee means
465marko opposite of ranged; when a unit has like a sword or a spear and has to come very close to the enemy to attack, not exactly 0 range cause units like the steppe lancer have 1 range but are still melee
its amazes me how you found this out
i dont believe there is a handbook for that game xD
the top players were using this since back in early 2000s, its been around for ages with many different optimizations. Wouldn't surprise me if he was an old custom scenario player!
Hi Dave any video for range units? thanks
Does this info still hold up today in Definitive Edition with all of the recent patches? I’ve never heard this!
Apart from using a mixed unit composition and avoiding bad engagements, what are some ways to respond when an opponent uses the tactics discussed in this video against you?
The difference is really insane
awesome vid. my standard was to patrol aggro on staggered formation. Does staggered form make any difference? Its defs better than the standard line formation patrol
Hey, does the stand ground patrol method still apply for DE ?
Yup, it does. Just tested with the same scenario as here. You also have attack move, but it's really janky. Units broke off and chased more often even when on stand ground and it came out more even. And despite that, in one attack move + stand ground scenario they were so intent on getting to the location that I lost the fight. I would stick with stand ground + patrol.
Thanks Dave! 😁😁
It's also great for charging into enemy archers that are on the move.
Thanks forn the Video😊
Great information. Can you update for DE and with archer battles? I am getting back into CS type maps and this information is very useful and helpful. Thank you
Hello! Friend
I appreciate your efforts, many thanks for this trick.
Does this work when you have knights vs spearman? and when you have spearman and the enemy has knights? i had like 5 spearman and my enemy had like 8 knighs and he killed me i couldn't understand why.. he had upgrades and was frank so xD but then i won, i was japanese and i knew japanese win to castle units so i made spearman and japanese castle units to counter everything he had xd
I pretty much do a similar thing. run in and press stop. With my melee army being almost always in aggressive stance.
These are the sorts of things that make the difference when you can't improve your natural skill any further. Would love to see a playlist with all these special tricks.
Totally late, but do you know how Kingstone did micro trick with his knights in redbull to kill the enemy archers without getting silly pathfinding?
Hey Dave, do you stream on Twitch?
This this what AOE3 is missing .
Sad this doesn't work for me on CBA... Constant lag just doesn't let you patrol properly...
Awesome, thanks!
wow this is actually fing amazing :D
More tips please!
great video, man
Dave ???? What happened to vicious marauder ???
Last battle is not how enemy player patrols btw
How would flank formation work? By splitting at the last moment you squeeze the troops further out, effectively stacking them onto two spots.