as long as 1: buildings have a significant amount of health, 2: building health increases linearly as it's being built, 3: buildings start building as soon as vil gets on top of it, and 4: building foundations block units, quickwalling will be viable (given reasonable ping ofc). The easiest way to stop quickwalling are either to make it not block units, or to make it so that the buildings gain health nonlinearly (quadratic? cubic?) so towards the end they rapidly gain health but at the beginning it's very slow.
@@timotheemaegli i don't think they should *remove* it, just that if you want to prevent similar shit from happening in another game you make, right, well, there's the analysis. Maybe someone does want to make a game that doesn't allow quickwalling, and that's valid.
@@pallingtontheshrike6374 both aoe3 and 4 doesn't have from what I know. on aoe3 building works the same except that the game doesn't use a tile system. this means that clogging the path with buildings is so much harder that it has to be done in a much more deliberate way. I've seen people build closed bases but never quickwalling/building to block units, even more considering that the game's pace is way faster (which means siege units quicker) and a lot more ranged units considering gunpowder being ubiquitous
@@AgeofNoob i spoke to him recently and he said he would come back if there was enough demand for him to do so but would only be focusing on the HD version of the game, not DE. From what i understand, he did a lot of work with forgotten empires on the HD version but then he either fell out with them or just wasn’t invited to work on DE which left a bitter taste
Excellent video (as always). I remember Slam Gates. Iirc, he would also use them to fix a weak wall tile from a distance by putting it perpendicular to the wall, thus keeping his vils safe from archers.
I mean quickwalling balances itself because of how attention intensive it is, in RTS games you attention is the most valuable resource, and quickwalling with multiple villagers and buildings requires 100% of your attention for valuable seconds
@@HowDoYouTurnThisOn_ best offense is best defense. if you manage to scatter your opponent's attention into quickwalling, harass his eco. the worst thing you can do in ranked aoe2 is to be reactive and hole yourself in defenses
quick walling is in a fine place atm. It's difficult enough in order to not be pulled off consistently, even Hera can't properly quickwall single vils. It makes for games to go beyond feudal age and allows for a variety of strat. Potentially you could slightly reduce general building HP or armor in Feudal age to make it a bit more costly.
One technical detail left out is that the network architecture changed drastically with DE. It was the first entry to the franchise that finally used client-server connections. Before DE, multiplayer games were hosted on one of the players' computer and it since homes have poorer infrastructure than servers hosted on datacenters, this was also a major source of lag. Also, the first entries didnt even support internet multiplayer at all, meaning in order to play online we had to use programs such as Hamachi that would create tunnels and emulate a LAN through the internet, wich added even more delays.
Nice video. Rocket league has something similar. After years when the game was already out, they found out when you touch the ball with all for wheels it resets your flip again. In todays pro play everyone is doing it nonstop.
Fun fact, flip resetting wasn't possible the first year of release. They added the mechanic later so that you would keep your flip on the Underpass map etc. when falling off the ramp or something like that.
I don't think it is the "grid system" that makes quick-walling so effective. It is more a question of the speed at which villagers can create an obstacle (if the player can click fast enough). First, I want to note that many games have buildings that are similar in size ratio (building:unit) as AoE2. Starcraft, Starcraft 2, and the other Age games (especially AoM, AoE3, and AoE4) all have similar building:unit size ratios. You will find that players in all games use buildings as "walls" or as part of "walls" (in SC and SC2, all "walls" are made out of buildings, as there are no formal "walls"). Also, of these games, only AoE2 has a "bulky grid." The other games all have a "fine grid." SC2 does not have much in the way of "quick walling" because (A) construction is much slower, so the building doesn't gain health so quickly, and (B) buildings are more expensive relative to their survivability. This means that even a relatively small group of enemy units can quickly destroy cheap buildings, and even the biggest, most expensive buildings can be destroyed by a moderately sized enemy army. The Age series (especially AoE2) make buildings much, much tankier until at least Age 3, even into Age 4. You basically need siege equipment to quickly destroy buildings in that game. AoE4 reduces quick walling by getting rid of the cheapest options. Walls are more restricted in how they can be placed, which makes quickwalling with cheap walls very difficult. Meanwhile, houses and mills and other "cheap" buildings are still quite expensive. In short, it is the cheap cost and high tankiness of buildings that really makes quickwalling effective, moreso than the grid system.
I think AoE IV removing Quick Walling is more like a side effect. What they want to remove (and I hard agree) is using buildings as walls, because it change the "build a base/city" completly 🤔
5:00 mentionning the ping as a reason for why the dev haven't thought of that. PVP was not mainstream at the time, even less so for the competitive kind. Barely existed even. The game as long past it's "as intented" use. The lag have nothing to do with why the dev haven't thought of quick wall. Because yes games were meant to be sold, then replace by the newer one. Not continously updated and played. So hard to predict behaviors based on a whole different relation game/consumer that didn't exist at the time yet. That was how things worked. From the scope of my memory of my childhood. A capsule of time but with the benefit of having a better understanding of the context.
Brilliant content as always Tiramis! Your videos are unique and always being a fresh flavor to the game we've been in love with for 25 years! Also, love your references to the GOAT in your videos! Without Vipey, the game wouldn't be what it is today... The off-meta 7/10 strategies he creates and the entertainment factor he brings in with his affable streaming is what keeps the game as interesting and fresh even after all these years!!! Continue the great work guys!
To be fair, the code / algorithm is exactly the same for any tile size. It's just more "expensive" to compute. Ping also wasn't high back in the days. It all depended on your connection type, how far , how many hops away your target is. Only the bandwidth was very low.
Really cheering you on @Tiramis The AOE 2 Community has many interesting narratives and stories to be told! The Rise of ZeroEmpires Casting Viper, Mr Yo, DauT, RiuT, Dogao...etc... Nili's Apartment Championship that brought the Titans face to face... Cheers from Brazil!
In warcraft 3 the buildings take double damage when not finished. A similar change could make it somewhat easier to counter and more natural for new players.
The first example looks like the dumbest thing ever. I know people probably love it! I’m just saying that for a regiment of cavalry to be trapped and killed because some worker threw a stake in the ground, is too ridiculous for me. Both thematically and mechanically.
Just found out about quickwalling. This is the strategy game equivalent of a quick thinking movie character putting a crap load of stuff in the way of his pursuers, knocking down clocks and carts and what have you, sometimes the objects falling on the guys chasing him. Trapping enemy units have to be the Age of Empires version of pulling a "just according to keikaku" move where cavalrists get baited into riding into a ditch or something lmao.
Just so you know, your game engine knowledge is lacking. This has nothing to do with the tile grid system. The only thing they would need to change to fix quickwalling is to allow unit passage over foundations UNTIL it's completely built, or maybe until it's some critical percentage (maybe 25%? maybe 50%) built. It's quite simple. But quickwalling is now a core strategy that many people won't want taken away. Personally, I'd like it fixed because I think it's cheesy, but an option would be the best way to satisfy all players.
there are quite a lot of example in essentially every game with longevity more examples from aoe2: deer pushing and boar lureing were not intended. and neither was split micro or stop micro. but now some of them are part of the official introductionary/tutorial system. and an example from another game: in RuneScape, the game works in "ticks" of 0.6 seconds. there are ways to manipulate this that 100% were not intended. but now they introduce bossfights where you have to use this tricks to beat them as intended. and tick manip in skilling is taken into accoubt in skilling updates. in general, good game devs accept those "exploits" if they increase the skill ceiling. if it takes more skill to get an advantage, that can be a good thing for the game and I actually disagree with your last point. for the casual campaign player, quick walling is irrelevant. the AI doesn't do it at that level and the player likely doesn't either. so, I don't think that part of the target demographic is actually affected at all. the ones that are affected are multiplayer players who might be better tactically than their ELO-peers but a bit slower on the clicks. but then it's just a matter of hitting the balance between macro and micro. I think it's a good thibg that some players are better at one thing and worse at the other.
You should watch aoe1: Rise of Rome tournament from Vietnam. In that game, the key for house is B then E, so that E-walling is a core skill. In aoe1, building foundations only need to be place, don't even require a villager to work on them to be unpassable. I think the use of E-walling in Rise of Rome predates it's counterpart in aoe2. Why wall with House and not with wall then? Because Vietnamese (and some extend the Chinese) play competitive with D3 rules, which you can find in Return of Rome dlc in aoe2. D3 mean fight at Bronze age (3rd age), no stonewall, no tower. The rule was set for the sake of the viewer to watch more skill expressive gameplay, rather than defensive thus slow, boring gameplay.
Great as always!! Last time I suggested you to make a video about the early aoe2 times and the Koreans, which Hera later did, so here goes my next suggestions (who probably no one would watch and you shouldn't do): - El Clasico of AoE2 --> Unless you can find a proper matchup that deserves such title, I would go for the memes and make it about MBL vs. Capoch 11 - The Slowest --> I would look for someone who is by far the slowest APM player to reach a specific elo and make a video about him
whoever argues about historical accuracy when it comes to quickwalling obviously never saw aztec champions. they realise they never had full plate armor or 2h swords forged of steel or iron?
1903: the Wright brothers invented the airplane, and changed the world. 2024: a random dude discovered Quick Wall system in Age of Empires, and changed the world.
One funny thing in AoE2 you could have 2 Human Player have the same player number So one can control military units, while the other can control resources
I think that rts games of the golden era really benefited from the right combination of programming and technical limitations. Aoe2 having such a clear difference in models for example really helped the game while the more detailed models of aoe3 often made me not sure what was happening.
I remember back in 2020-2021 slam fans were upset they were called "viper quickwalls" when was slam who was their father. so, they started spreading the word about this on reddit and servers
Quick walling to me, just adds to the idea that the game is less about strategy, and more about micro and build orders, the player who can boom the fastest, etc, etc. Not a lot of mental strategy/counter strategy I see in my 15yrs of playing. Just run of the mill hot-keys and fast execution. Should be more "action-top-down" rather than strategy. And don't tell me going fast castle, or cheesy castle drops are strategy. Eugh. Then again, scouting for those tactics has more to do with actions than it does "strategy" doesn't it? lol HOT TAKE:::: Overall, as awesome as it is, and having done it myself. It really brings the game further and further away from "strategy" and pushes more fast attention span/hotkey type meta game. Another game I really like Company of Heroes, does have a degree of micro, but it's the overall mind-games, prediction, flanking-maneuvers that wins games. As opposed to being faster at villager-upkeep, booming fastest, and fastest quick-walls and micro.
You know a more modern RTS could have a formalised equivalent for this, have your troops through up "Danger! Minefield" signs in an area. Never mind if there's really mines there, your enemy still needs demining gear of some sort
Shit like this is why I don't play age of empires online, I just want to build fortress with multiple layer defences and a balanced army, but no it micro this, micro that... Boo I say!
Funnily enough, I’d argue there’s some historical basis for quickwalling. Yes, in reality people can’t conjure a building in front of them to deter an enemy charge, but quickly thrown up field fortifications like ditches, screens, stakes, and palisades stretch back into prehistory
No offense, but there's a huge difference between quickly making a wall of stakes or quickly digging a hole, and magically summoning the base of an untraversable house or wall in front of you.
@@Tiramis_ actually, as by derpina's own post (in that thread I linked) it seems like co-evolution. Derpina used what TaToH was already doing to improve on it and that resulted in the 4 pali quickwall trap.
Then how do you handle units that were standing inside of the building prior to it reaching 5%? There is a reason foundations block units: simplicity. You can't start building anything on squares that are occupied by an unit or some other building or obstacle and viceversa, end of story. You want to remove quick walling in exchange of giving players noclip. What kind of wild idea is that? You think the devs didn't think of that? they chose the lesser of 2 evils, simple as that, either players can noclip or players get blocked by half built buildings, guess which one seems more intuitive and less error prone.
@@tiranito3715 obviously the building process would be blocked if an enemy unit would stand on the foundation. And honestly i would probably see that as a benefit. Can you name me any castle or settlement which was build directly in a war zone in the middle ages? If an enemy unit can block it undeterred than why should the building go up?
@@markusdegenhardt8678 Obviously? not so obviously... think of this from an implementation standpoint : how do you deal with race conditions caused by multiple network connections in multiplayer? you can't just throw a lock on every single operation the server performs, that would tank performance, and that's the reason they did things the way they did. AoE is a game with hundreds of units that need to simulate their logic on the clientside and the serverside and then reconciliate the state so that the game makes sense. If you make it so that your units can stand on buildings and block building progress, you are suddenly introducing extra complexity. Imagine this scenario in multiplayer: - Client A : starts building a wall - Server : Receives the message and gives it to all other clients - Client B : makes one of their units walk into the half built wall - Client A : on this player's screen, the build percent is for example 5%, and it keeps steadily rising, 6%, 7%, etc... and the enemy is not on the wall yet. - Server : Sends the message to all the clients with the updated unit positions. - Client A : the enemy unit is now on the wall, and the wall is at 20%. On the server side, the enemy unit was on the wall at 5%, while on the player A's client side the enemy entered when the wall was at 20%. There are 2 possible solutions here: 1) Roll back the percentage on client A's side, going back from 20% to 5% 2) Never have this happen in the first place by locking all operations with mutexes on the server side, slowing down the game tremendously and increasing the number of calculations but ensuring that no race conditions exist. I hope you can see the problem. As for enemies building castles in enemy territory in the middle of a war... 1) This is a videogame, not real life. 2) There are many examples of this happening in real life. Caesar's Siege of Alesia, The vikings built winter camps and fortifications in the middle of enemy territory during long standing conflicts just outside the walls of whatever castle they were attacking, during the crusades the christian armies built fortresses and castles to hold captured territories right in front of their enemies in between battles, etc etc... it may sound wacky to you because modern armies don't do this, but that's because it does not make sense in modern war. Back then it was the most logical strategy and a perfectly legitimate one, because the weapons and strategies that were valid at the time were completely different. Basically, 90% of sieges came with temporary structures and fortresses being built in front of the enemy's castle, I mean, why wouldn't they? You now have a vantage point in front of your enemies to resupply and cover yourself. Nowadays it makes no sense because we have airstrikes, guns, and fast transports to move supplies, but back then things took time and having a fortress to hold supplies during a war you pretty much made yourself an outpost which makes winning the war far easier. Also, what about trenches and bunkers during the WWs? many of those were built insitu in the middle of the warzone to extend your reach in enemy territory. Like, it isn't even that far fetched, we have recent historical examples of this taking place XD
I mean if the developers had expanded upon the other side of the games logistics, it would not have been as big of an issue, when villagers gather resources they need to deposit those resources in the relevant buildings, all they would have needed to do was require those resources be transported in the same way from those deposit sites to the construction sites before construction could begin, instead of being spent directly from your resource bars. But that would have slowed down the game, since they scrapped even needing gathering units to deposit resources in Age of empires 3, doesn't seem like they had any intention of going down that route.
I like how Age of Mythology handles building construction. Basically the building foundation still blocks units while under construction, but the building is MUCH weaker while being built. So much so that even a few units can stop practically any building from being built right in front of them. Quickwalling is 100% not effective at all in that game.
They made palisade wall cost 3 wood instead of 2 and make their build time longer specifically to combat this kind of action from players defending themselves from early rush? Despite quickwalling they are using houses and any other buildings in the game. Also wood is plentiful on most maps so they can afford to build temporary buildings, though not stone...
For the last thought, I stopped watching competitive games when a player (maybe Mbl, doesn`t matter) started to.. move insanely fas his knights back and fort to dodge arrows. A knight. In full armor on a horse switching full direction in a 5 meter distance again and again so the crossbowmen miss him. That just killed it for me, though still admiring their skills, but nah...Genghis Khan and Joan of Arc
I think it would be realistic to make building foundations walkable Unless it's build to 25% But it can be built only while no one stands on it And units would avoid standing on foundations, except if the only path if through building foundation
They could, but the villager builds and repairs faster than a single military unit damages. So even if the villager traps himself in open field, it's often more efficient to let it be there and send your troops elsewhere!
I tried out aoe1 the other day, it was very clunky and the grid was huge. To my eye it looks like the foundations are going down without the villagers even being there, but maybe I'm just not used to watching aoe footage? Or i think that was happening in the aoe1 games i was playing. Not sure.
pretty much every game has this sort of silly feature that becomes very important to the game over time: creep farming in dota2, boosts or run-boosts in counter strike. i dont see any reason why aoe shouldnt have it, as it is so unique and interesting, and i think its very uncool that they got rid of it after aoe2
2:03 Image de la maison: celle de AoE1 Taille de la maison: Celle de AoE1 Image du forum: Celle de AoE1 Taille du forum: Celle de AoE2 Ouais le forum de AoE1 ne fait clairement que 2 maisons de côté
What managed to make this technique viable even if it's been in the game the whole time? Faster internet speeds. Amazingly funny. Makes me wonder if there's 'old school' servers that have forced 400 ping.
The truth is, those mechanical abuse aren't big in comparison to game knowledge and strategy! I am planning a video on why speed doesn't really matter in aoe2 ;)
@@Tiramis_ Do you mean that you simply need to scout and see what the enemy is doing and build troops if he's drushing or getting scouts? that sort of stuff? Because that's the only other way to stay safe from a harassing attack when you aren't making troops and just teching up, make sure enemy is also teching up or else match his troops?
I don't get how patching this by making unfinished buildings not blocking passage is an unsolvable programming hurdle, rather than Microsoft not caring.
I strongly disagree with 4:32 AoE is abstracted to heck. For example, a villager dropping off stone into a mine building makes it instantly available for a villager on the other side of the map to build a castle. Or that you shove some crops and some gold-bearing ore into the eldritch machine called the "stable" and a short time later, a fully trained man at arms on an adult horse is ready for battle.
Wwwwooooaaaa, woa, woa woa, woa, wait a minute,, wait a minute, wait a MINUTE, HOLD UP!!!!!! Historically accurate???!!! Are you...high?!? Name _ONE_ thing about this game that's historically accurate. I dare you. Bloody hell
To me it kills the spirit of the game . Imagine trying to build a house IRL while your village is getting raided 😐 they should just let units walk through buildings under construction
What´s amazing is that this 25 years old game can have this new feature discovered this late, incorporate it and it DOENST break the game. It only enriches the gameplay for skilled players. Thats a good core gameplay design. Props to the original devteam.
I love your ability to find old clips. I imagine Tiramis has a big, well-organized catalog of clips to cover any game instance.
twitch clips of vipur and slam
@@ColinAoC ahah I wish I had such catalog! Most of the time spent on those videos is to find the right clips, or record them myself 11
He has a pretty voluminous jock-strap collection as well.
I think it's worth mentioning that rotating gates with the mouse wheel is a relatively new feature and palisade gates are also somewhat new.
7 ahhh! its the scroll wheel 11 :)
I never figured how they do it so fast and just stuck to my old 500 ping mass infantry strats
as long as 1: buildings have a significant amount of health, 2: building health increases linearly as it's being built, 3: buildings start building as soon as vil gets on top of it, and 4: building foundations block units, quickwalling will be viable (given reasonable ping ofc). The easiest way to stop quickwalling are either to make it not block units, or to make it so that the buildings gain health nonlinearly (quadratic? cubic?) so towards the end they rapidly gain health but at the beginning it's very slow.
why stop quickwalling though? It's awesome. And I respect when my opponent pulls it off.
@@timotheemaegli i don't think they should *remove* it, just that if you want to prevent similar shit from happening in another game you make, right, well, there's the analysis. Maybe someone does want to make a game that doesn't allow quickwalling, and that's valid.
@@pallingtontheshrike6374 both aoe3 and 4 doesn't have from what I know. on aoe3 building works the same except that the game doesn't use a tile system. this means that clogging the path with buildings is so much harder that it has to be done in a much more deliberate way. I've seen people build closed bases but never quickwalling/building to block units, even more considering that the game's pace is way faster (which means siege units quicker) and a lot more ranged units considering gunpowder being ubiquitous
Damn, hearing Resonance22's voice brings me back. Good times.
His breaking the meta series is still the best playlist of AoE2 videos ever uploaded
What ever happened to him?
@@phillipmcgarry he started playing some other games but probably just got busy with life
@@IndexInvestingWithCole Sad. Would love to see him cast in a big tournament!
@@AgeofNoob i spoke to him recently and he said he would come back if there was enough demand for him to do so but would only be focusing on the HD version of the game, not DE. From what i understand, he did a lot of work with forgotten empires on the HD version but then he either fell out with them or just wasn’t invited to work on DE which left a bitter taste
Excellent video (as always). I remember Slam Gates. Iirc, he would also use them to fix a weak wall tile from a distance by putting it perpendicular to the wall, thus keeping his vils safe from archers.
I mean quickwalling balances itself because of how attention intensive it is, in RTS games you attention is the most valuable resource, and quickwalling with multiple villagers and buildings requires 100% of your attention for valuable seconds
It also requires all of your enemy's attention so i dont think so
@@HowDoYouTurnThisOn_Enemy can easily countered by archers lol.
@@HowDoYouTurnThisOn_ best offense is best defense. if you manage to scatter your opponent's attention into quickwalling, harass his eco. the worst thing you can do in ranked aoe2 is to be reactive and hole yourself in defenses
quick walling is in a fine place atm. It's difficult enough in order to not be pulled off consistently, even Hera can't properly quickwall single vils.
It makes for games to go beyond feudal age and allows for a variety of strat.
Potentially you could slightly reduce general building HP or armor in Feudal age to make it a bit more costly.
@@4x13x17disagree. Up until 2K just playing defensively is the best strategy in AOE2, unless your map is really really bad.
One technical detail left out is that the network architecture changed drastically with DE. It was the first entry to the franchise that finally used client-server connections. Before DE, multiplayer games were hosted on one of the players' computer and it since homes have poorer infrastructure than servers hosted on datacenters, this was also a major source of lag. Also, the first entries didnt even support internet multiplayer at all, meaning in order to play online we had to use programs such as Hamachi that would create tunnels and emulate a LAN through the internet, wich added even more delays.
Thanks for the clarification! I must say I had no idea it was hosted locally back then 😄
Nice video. Rocket league has something similar. After years when the game was already out, they found out when you touch the ball with all for wheels it resets your flip again. In todays pro play everyone is doing it nonstop.
Fun fact, flip resetting wasn't possible the first year of release. They added the mechanic later so that you would keep your flip on the Underpass map etc. when falling off the ramp or something like that.
That is a great comparison, thank you
I don't think it is the "grid system" that makes quick-walling so effective. It is more a question of the speed at which villagers can create an obstacle (if the player can click fast enough).
First, I want to note that many games have buildings that are similar in size ratio (building:unit) as AoE2. Starcraft, Starcraft 2, and the other Age games (especially AoM, AoE3, and AoE4) all have similar building:unit size ratios. You will find that players in all games use buildings as "walls" or as part of "walls" (in SC and SC2, all "walls" are made out of buildings, as there are no formal "walls"). Also, of these games, only AoE2 has a "bulky grid." The other games all have a "fine grid."
SC2 does not have much in the way of "quick walling" because (A) construction is much slower, so the building doesn't gain health so quickly, and (B) buildings are more expensive relative to their survivability. This means that even a relatively small group of enemy units can quickly destroy cheap buildings, and even the biggest, most expensive buildings can be destroyed by a moderately sized enemy army.
The Age series (especially AoE2) make buildings much, much tankier until at least Age 3, even into Age 4. You basically need siege equipment to quickly destroy buildings in that game.
AoE4 reduces quick walling by getting rid of the cheapest options. Walls are more restricted in how they can be placed, which makes quickwalling with cheap walls very difficult. Meanwhile, houses and mills and other "cheap" buildings are still quite expensive.
In short, it is the cheap cost and high tankiness of buildings that really makes quickwalling effective, moreso than the grid system.
I think AoE IV removing Quick Walling is more like a side effect. What they want to remove (and I hard agree) is using buildings as walls, because it change the "build a base/city" completly 🤔
Another fantastic video, love the deep dive throwbacks :)
5:00 mentionning the ping as a reason for why the dev haven't thought of that. PVP was not mainstream at the time, even less so for the competitive kind. Barely existed even. The game as long past it's "as intented" use. The lag have nothing to do with why the dev haven't thought of quick wall.
Because yes games were meant to be sold, then replace by the newer one. Not continously updated and played.
So hard to predict behaviors based on a whole different relation game/consumer that didn't exist at the time yet.
That was how things worked. From the scope of my memory of my childhood. A capsule of time but with the benefit of having a better understanding of the context.
2:05 aoe1 builings looks way too cool
Thanks for the excellent video! Love the slam shoutout - I actually had no idea about his involvement.
Slam is a beast!
Raiding horsemen : Time to destroy your economy
Villager:WE NEED TO BUILD A WALL
but who's going to pay for it?
@ oh don’t worry……they WILL PAY
2:47 “it gets much sweatier” glorious phrase
Great video man, I love watching these old clips haha
Brilliant content as always Tiramis! Your videos are unique and always being a fresh flavor to the game we've been in love with for 25 years! Also, love your references to the GOAT in your videos! Without Vipey, the game wouldn't be what it is today... The off-meta 7/10 strategies he creates and the entertainment factor he brings in with his affable streaming is what keeps the game as interesting and fresh even after all these years!!! Continue the great work guys!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'll keep making as long as you keep watching :)
I don't know why I liked the comment but I liked 😅
To be fair, the code / algorithm is exactly the same for any tile size. It's just more "expensive" to compute. Ping also wasn't high back in the days. It all depended on your connection type, how far , how many hops away your target is. Only the bandwidth was very low.
That's actually a sick idea, and then you would introduce some kind of bluff!
Un trésor, ce Tiramis ! Continue comme ça ! ;)
Wow, un très bon vidéo ! une belle approche sur un si vieux jeu !
I really enjoyed this video, thank you!
Really cheering you on @Tiramis
The AOE 2 Community has many interesting narratives and stories to be told! The Rise of ZeroEmpires Casting Viper, Mr Yo, DauT, RiuT, Dogao...etc... Nili's Apartment Championship that brought the Titans face to face... Cheers from Brazil!
Thanks for the video, I really enjoyed it!
Thanks for watching :)
In warcraft 3 the buildings take double damage when not finished. A similar change could make it somewhat easier to counter and more natural for new players.
So cool to see Slam getting his dues, if he could commit as much time as the others do, he would be still in the top 10 for sure! SLAMJAM
I miss his streams!
SLAMJAM!
The first example looks like the dumbest thing ever. I know people probably love it!
I’m just saying that for a regiment of cavalry to be trapped and killed because some worker threw a stake in the ground, is too ridiculous for me. Both thematically and mechanically.
It's historically accurate. Construction sites are employee-only. Regulations!
Really enjoy your videos! Great work
Glad you like them!
another great vid, thanks dude!
Glad you enjoyed!
This game is super old and I used to try and do this. Ah, the nostalgia.
Slowly but surely, Tiramis is building what will become the enciclopedia or AOE history. Kudos !
Oh shit. This is that guy that keeps making really good aoe2 vids.
Just found out about quickwalling.
This is the strategy game equivalent of a quick thinking movie character putting a crap load of stuff in the way of his pursuers, knocking down clocks and carts and what have you, sometimes the objects falling on the guys chasing him.
Trapping enemy units have to be the Age of Empires version of pulling a "just according to keikaku" move where cavalrists get baited into riding into a ditch or something lmao.
so good as usual
damn that move at the beginning was f amazing
Nice work
Just so you know, your game engine knowledge is lacking. This has nothing to do with the tile grid system. The only thing they would need to change to fix quickwalling is to allow unit passage over foundations UNTIL it's completely built, or maybe until it's some critical percentage (maybe 25%? maybe 50%) built. It's quite simple. But quickwalling is now a core strategy that many people won't want taken away. Personally, I'd like it fixed because I think it's cheesy, but an option would be the best way to satisfy all players.
there are quite a lot of example in essentially every game with longevity
more examples from aoe2: deer pushing and boar lureing were not intended. and neither was split micro or stop micro. but now some of them are part of the official introductionary/tutorial system.
and an example from another game: in RuneScape, the game works in "ticks" of 0.6 seconds. there are ways to manipulate this that 100% were not intended. but now they introduce bossfights where you have to use this tricks to beat them as intended. and tick manip in skilling is taken into accoubt in skilling updates.
in general, good game devs accept those "exploits" if they increase the skill ceiling. if it takes more skill to get an advantage, that can be a good thing for the game
and I actually disagree with your last point. for the casual campaign player, quick walling is irrelevant. the AI doesn't do it at that level and the player likely doesn't either. so, I don't think that part of the target demographic is actually affected at all. the ones that are affected are multiplayer players who might be better tactically than their ELO-peers but a bit slower on the clicks. but then it's just a matter of hitting the balance between macro and micro. I think it's a good thibg that some players are better at one thing and worse at the other.
You should watch aoe1: Rise of Rome tournament from Vietnam. In that game, the key for house is B then E, so that E-walling is a core skill. In aoe1, building foundations only need to be place, don't even require a villager to work on them to be unpassable. I think the use of E-walling in Rise of Rome predates it's counterpart in aoe2. Why wall with House and not with wall then? Because Vietnamese (and some extend the Chinese) play competitive with D3 rules, which you can find in Return of Rome dlc in aoe2. D3 mean fight at Bronze age (3rd age), no stonewall, no tower. The rule was set for the sake of the viewer to watch more skill expressive gameplay, rather than defensive thus slow, boring gameplay.
Great as always!!
Last time I suggested you to make a video about the early aoe2 times and the Koreans, which Hera later did, so here goes my next suggestions (who probably no one would watch and you shouldn't do):
- El Clasico of AoE2 --> Unless you can find a proper matchup that deserves such title, I would go for the memes and make it about MBL vs. Capoch 11
- The Slowest --> I would look for someone who is by far the slowest APM player to reach a specific elo and make a video about him
Thank you! :) I might have something in mind that's similar to the second one 11
@@Tiramis_ Is it another Daut or Yo video 11?
Thanks man
whoever argues about historical accuracy when it comes to quickwalling obviously never saw aztec champions. they realise they never had full plate armor or 2h swords forged of steel or iron?
00:50 turn on subtitles 🙂
Thank you
great talk!
Blast form the past of 99' when I had a high end laptop, refresh rate with max units was all good but had nver played online besides LAN.
1903: the Wright brothers invented the airplane, and changed the world.
2024: a random dude discovered Quick Wall system in Age of Empires, and changed the world.
ahh, the good old quick walling
I believe AoE players have the same neurons activate when they succesfulky quickwall as HoI4 players when they put off a really big encirclement.
One funny thing in AoE2 you could have 2 Human Player have the same player number
So one can control military units, while the other can control resources
Tiramis hype!
I think that rts games of the golden era really benefited from the right combination of programming and technical limitations. Aoe2 having such a clear difference in models for example really helped the game while the more detailed models of aoe3 often made me not sure what was happening.
Interesting to see that slam was the one who came up with quickwalls, would have never guessed it 7:02
I remember back in 2020-2021 slam fans were upset they were called "viper quickwalls" when was slam who was their father. so, they started spreading the word about this on reddit and servers
Quickwall pog
Quick walling to me, just adds to the idea that the game is less about strategy, and more about micro and build orders, the player who can boom the fastest, etc, etc. Not a lot of mental strategy/counter strategy I see in my 15yrs of playing. Just run of the mill hot-keys and fast execution. Should be more "action-top-down" rather than strategy.
And don't tell me going fast castle, or cheesy castle drops are strategy. Eugh. Then again, scouting for those tactics has more to do with actions than it does "strategy" doesn't it? lol
HOT TAKE:::: Overall, as awesome as it is, and having done it myself. It really brings the game further and further away from "strategy" and pushes more fast attention span/hotkey type meta game. Another game I really like Company of Heroes, does have a degree of micro, but it's the overall mind-games, prediction, flanking-maneuvers that wins games. As opposed to being faster at villager-upkeep, booming fastest, and fastest quick-walls and micro.
To place 2 tiles quick should hold ctrl to not remove the build menu, so you can open build menu, hold ctrl, then place the 2 palisades
You know a more modern RTS could have a formalised equivalent for this, have your troops through up "Danger! Minefield" signs in an area. Never mind if there's really mines there, your enemy still needs demining gear of some sort
I hope people appretiate the absurd amount of time you put in this video
Shit like this is why I don't play age of empires online, I just want to build fortress with multiple layer defences and a balanced army, but no it micro this, micro that... Boo I say!
Funnily enough, I’d argue there’s some historical basis for quickwalling. Yes, in reality people can’t conjure a building in front of them to deter an enemy charge, but quickly thrown up field fortifications like ditches, screens, stakes, and palisades stretch back into prehistory
No offense, but there's a huge difference between quickly making a wall of stakes or quickly digging a hole, and magically summoning the base of an untraversable house or wall in front of you.
Small thing, Aoe1 houses are 2x2, TCs are 3x3
This!
My bad! My knowledge of aoe1 is very limited :D
I dont believe those pathing clips were real with the pathing in aoe2
To paraphrase RvB:
P1: "Argh, you f***ing quick walling b****!"
P2: "It's a legitimate strategy!"
I REALLY LOVE QW.
SO DO I.
Wasn't it Derpina, who did the vill quickwall trap first? (the 4 palisade walls) To be popularized by TaToh and only then to be adopted by TheViper.
I haven't heard about that, do you know more of the story? Would love to hear it
@@Tiramis_ actually, as by derpina's own post (in that thread I linked) it seems like co-evolution. Derpina used what TaToH was already doing to improve on it and that resulted in the 4 pali quickwall trap.
Nice
I would love a change to quick walling.
How about buildings only do block units if they are completed to at least 5% ?
Then how do you handle units that were standing inside of the building prior to it reaching 5%? There is a reason foundations block units: simplicity. You can't start building anything on squares that are occupied by an unit or some other building or obstacle and viceversa, end of story. You want to remove quick walling in exchange of giving players noclip. What kind of wild idea is that? You think the devs didn't think of that? they chose the lesser of 2 evils, simple as that, either players can noclip or players get blocked by half built buildings, guess which one seems more intuitive and less error prone.
@@tiranito3715 obviously the building process would be blocked if an enemy unit would stand on the foundation.
And honestly i would probably see that as a benefit. Can you name me any castle or settlement which was build directly in a war zone in the middle ages?
If an enemy unit can block it undeterred than why should the building go up?
@@markusdegenhardt8678 Obviously? not so obviously... think of this from an implementation standpoint : how do you deal with race conditions caused by multiple network connections in multiplayer? you can't just throw a lock on every single operation the server performs, that would tank performance, and that's the reason they did things the way they did. AoE is a game with hundreds of units that need to simulate their logic on the clientside and the serverside and then reconciliate the state so that the game makes sense. If you make it so that your units can stand on buildings and block building progress, you are suddenly introducing extra complexity.
Imagine this scenario in multiplayer:
- Client A : starts building a wall
- Server : Receives the message and gives it to all other clients
- Client B : makes one of their units walk into the half built wall
- Client A : on this player's screen, the build percent is for example 5%, and it keeps steadily rising, 6%, 7%, etc... and the enemy is not on the wall yet.
- Server : Sends the message to all the clients with the updated unit positions.
- Client A : the enemy unit is now on the wall, and the wall is at 20%.
On the server side, the enemy unit was on the wall at 5%, while on the player A's client side the enemy entered when the wall was at 20%.
There are 2 possible solutions here:
1) Roll back the percentage on client A's side, going back from 20% to 5%
2) Never have this happen in the first place by locking all operations with mutexes on the server side, slowing down the game tremendously and increasing the number of calculations but ensuring that no race conditions exist.
I hope you can see the problem.
As for enemies building castles in enemy territory in the middle of a war...
1) This is a videogame, not real life.
2) There are many examples of this happening in real life. Caesar's Siege of Alesia, The vikings built winter camps and fortifications in the middle of enemy territory during long standing conflicts just outside the walls of whatever castle they were attacking, during the crusades the christian armies built fortresses and castles to hold captured territories right in front of their enemies in between battles, etc etc... it may sound wacky to you because modern armies don't do this, but that's because it does not make sense in modern war. Back then it was the most logical strategy and a perfectly legitimate one, because the weapons and strategies that were valid at the time were completely different. Basically, 90% of sieges came with temporary structures and fortresses being built in front of the enemy's castle, I mean, why wouldn't they? You now have a vantage point in front of your enemies to resupply and cover yourself. Nowadays it makes no sense because we have airstrikes, guns, and fast transports to move supplies, but back then things took time and having a fortress to hold supplies during a war you pretty much made yourself an outpost which makes winning the war far easier.
Also, what about trenches and bunkers during the WWs? many of those were built insitu in the middle of the warzone to extend your reach in enemy territory. Like, it isn't even that far fetched, we have recent historical examples of this taking place XD
I mean if the developers had expanded upon the other side of the games logistics, it would not have been as big of an issue, when villagers gather resources they need to deposit those resources in the relevant buildings, all they would have needed to do was require those resources be transported in the same way from those deposit sites to the construction sites before construction could begin, instead of being spent directly from your resource bars.
But that would have slowed down the game, since they scrapped even needing gathering units to deposit resources in Age of empires 3, doesn't seem like they had any intention of going down that route.
I like how Age of Mythology handles building construction. Basically the building foundation still blocks units while under construction, but the building is MUCH weaker while being built. So much so that even a few units can stop practically any building from being built right in front of them. Quickwalling is 100% not effective at all in that game.
They made palisade wall cost 3 wood instead of 2 and make their build time longer specifically to combat this kind of action from players defending themselves from early rush? Despite quickwalling they are using houses and any other buildings in the game. Also wood is plentiful on most maps so they can afford to build temporary buildings, though not stone...
Buildings should only be allowed to block movement when they are complete (or over 50% complete or something like that)
For the last thought, I stopped watching competitive games when a player (maybe Mbl, doesn`t matter) started to.. move insanely fas his knights back and fort to dodge arrows. A knight. In full armor on a horse switching full direction in a 5 meter distance again and again so the crossbowmen miss him. That just killed it for me, though still admiring their skills, but nah...Genghis Khan and Joan of Arc
I think it would be realistic to make building foundations walkable
Unless it's build to 25%
But it can be built only while no one stands on it
And units would avoid standing on foundations, except if the only path if through building foundation
I can't believe that seeing this arena game at 0:15 I knew right away what game was it without reading the players' names....
It's technically not a glitch, but it is. It's little stuff like this that I wish they would have fixed. It's stupid 😅
why don’t they make it so new buildings don’t block initially, and they can’t be further built by villagers until someone gets off them
Great Video as always!
I do not play age of M or age 4 because they do not have the grid system
Oh its Tiramis . Hi :))
hellooo :)
Why isn't the melee trooper destroying the foundation?
They could, but the villager builds and repairs faster than a single military unit damages. So even if the villager traps himself in open field, it's often more efficient to let it be there and send your troops elsewhere!
I tried out aoe1 the other day, it was very clunky and the grid was huge.
To my eye it looks like the foundations are going down without the villagers even being there, but maybe I'm just not used to watching aoe footage? Or i think that was happening in the aoe1 games i was playing. Not sure.
1:30 sorry waaaat? a unit needs to take the shortest path? have you been playing AOE2 DE before?
11 even in the example the villager didn't want to take the shortest path
Could've prevented all this by using the bestagons....
thats the fortnite effect!
Competitive Aoe2 looks like fucking Fortnite because of this.
Buildings shouldnt be solid until they are 50% completed or something.
I couldn't agree more. I wanna see epic battles not quick walls
3:05
Ooooooof
03:00 - Bipah 11
pretty much every game has this sort of silly feature that becomes very important to the game over time: creep farming in dota2, boosts or run-boosts in counter strike. i dont see any reason why aoe shouldnt have it, as it is so unique and interesting, and i think its very uncool that they got rid of it after aoe2
2:03 Image de la maison: celle de AoE1
Taille de la maison: Celle de AoE1
Image du forum: Celle de AoE1
Taille du forum: Celle de AoE2
Ouais le forum de AoE1 ne fait clairement que 2 maisons de côté
Still used to voobly lag
What managed to make this technique viable even if it's been in the game the whole time? Faster internet speeds. Amazingly funny. Makes me wonder if there's 'old school' servers that have forced 400 ping.
AoE IV has quick walling, though it only works with walls and is less op as in AoE II.
This is why i avoid aoe2 pvp. Game revolves around this obnoxious unintended mechanical abuse which I don't wanna bother learning.
The truth is, those mechanical abuse aren't big in comparison to game knowledge and strategy! I am planning a video on why speed doesn't really matter in aoe2 ;)
@@Tiramis_ Do you mean that you simply need to scout and see what the enemy is doing and build troops if he's drushing or getting scouts? that sort of stuff? Because that's the only other way to stay safe from a harassing attack when you aren't making troops and just teching up, make sure enemy is also teching up or else match his troops?
I don't get how patching this by making unfinished buildings not blocking passage is an unsolvable programming hurdle, rather than Microsoft not caring.
I don't think you explained WHY quick-walling is so effective. Can't the units simply hack down the buildings?
I strongly disagree with 4:32 AoE is abstracted to heck. For example, a villager dropping off stone into a mine building makes it instantly available for a villager on the other side of the map to build a castle. Or that you shove some crops and some gold-bearing ore into the eldritch machine called the "stable" and a short time later, a fully trained man at arms on an adult horse is ready for battle.
Id rather idle my TC and eco to trap a scout because its a morale victory
100%
Wwwwooooaaaa, woa, woa woa, woa, wait a minute,, wait a minute, wait a MINUTE, HOLD UP!!!!!!
Historically accurate???!!! Are you...high?!? Name _ONE_ thing about this game that's historically accurate. I dare you.
Bloody hell
Maybe the spearmen? Everyone had spearmen.
@@lucascarroll4859 Another joke???
>history, if quickwalling was real.
Mongols? Vikings? Never heard of them!
To me it kills the spirit of the game . Imagine trying to build a house IRL while your village is getting raided 😐 they should just let units walk through buildings under construction
What´s amazing is that this 25 years old game can have this new feature discovered this late, incorporate it and it DOENST break the game. It only enriches the gameplay for skilled players. Thats a good core gameplay design. Props to the original devteam.