Hands down my favorite map. It’s takes a long time to learn all the civs, but mega random sometimes makes it so you have completely adjust your play style for certain civs.
I can't be alone in wishing Spirit of the Law would make a deep dive video into 'making maps.' Like the random map scripts, etc. (.rms files). It'd be super interesting. If any of the AoE content creators were to do it, I think he would do it best.
As someone who likes to think I know most of what there is to this game this video was both new to me and very interesting. I'm amazed at how you keep putting out such interesting content about good old AoE2.
You should check out Unknown in AoE3 if you like mega random. Veteran players may remember the rather lackluster version from the original, but fear not! For DE it’s been totally redone, with a large variety of map layouts, biomes, and bonus starting units.
Unknown is my favorite map type in AoE3 for this reason. Not just can the terrain be anything, but you can start with wild transformative units or abilities that can radically alter your early game strategies. It rewards thinking on your feet more than having a set plan you never deviate from, which is how I prefer to play games.
Tbh in the middle ages, swastikas had nothing to do with nazis but was pretty common as a religious sign among many cultures. But yeah it's still weird
@@HermesGO3 The swastika is a religious symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, which is worshiped by almost 2 billion people. It's an incredibly normal and very popular symbol. Anybody who thinks the swastika is "offensive" is just imposing their Eurocentric view onto the rest of the world.
There is something so on-brand about the music track you open all of your videos with. Please never stop using it, at this point it's like synonymous with the excitement of a new SOTL upload.
MegaRandom is one of the best features I enjoy over the base Age of Empires II title its expansion(s?). Although I haven't tried it, I am excited to someday experience the newer difficulty of the computer-controlled players in the new AoE II revise.
Your video didn't explain why i have 2 battering rams as starting scout, 14 cows around the base, 6 villagers, a monastery in a hamburger map. The mega random map is truly fascinating
I would like to see Mega Random sometimes roll for the map to be already explored. I like MR but it feels like some of the maps could be played to their potential more if you could roll for explored sometimes
@@garetwebster5002 it doesn't if you load black forest in a local game or singleplayer game it won't be explored unless you change the game settings, only the ranked version sets the map as explored.
I would love a lot more crazy starting possibilities added to megarandom. Imagine starting with a random UU for scouts, or multiple randomly placed towers or outposts around the map.
I am not sure if technically possible, but I would enjoy a megarandom tournament in which the specific generation of all maps played (e.g., 7 in a Bo7) is shown to the players 30 min in advance so they can prepare the draft, but still forces creativity
It should be relatively simple, even a case of rolling the seed into a megarandom map generator and saving the result into a separate playlist. The host would take everything that happened between clicking start and the map loading, save it and repeat until they had the 7 maps.
I will never forget that 4v4 random map, where we were on placed on a circle of small patches of land, loosely connected with a narrow land bridge and ALMOST ZERO WOOD. But boy, the gold was everywhere. It was all-in gold mining and selling, plus a total unit slaughter, since everything was so available :D
hey SOTL, random guy here. im really interested in learning more about how the AI reacts to water in maps. in some cases they go full navy, which makes sense, but in other maps, in spite of large amounts of water, they never even build a dock. is there some sort of pre-requisite in their coding that tells them when they can go navy, or is their ai playstyle already chosen for them at the start of the match?
@@AndrewMeyer yea it sometimes ruins a good generated map because you think youll get a fun match out of it only to see even hard ai just sitting around
I once had a generation in a ranked game where each player had 7 tiles of gold, some stone and that's it. A few relics were places on islands outside but this made the Britons vs. Goths game very interesting.
HyperRandom is my favorite map by a big margin. You never know what the game is going to be like and you have to adapt on the fly to what is avalible to you.
10:05 - played my first community game in Rocco's twitch a few months back. Didn't realise the pigs were 30 food... had to push all of my deer with the ram. It's actually good fun with that hit-box it's so much more reliable!
Diving into random map scripts in the original CD version of AoE II was 12-year-old me's first introduction to the concept of writing stuff to get a computer to do things, and the first step on a path to making a living as a professional computer programmer. Who says games aren't educational? 😁
Would be interesting if they made a map where they randomly role for every single square of the map for something to appear. (It would probably be nigh unplayable and take an absurdly long time to load, but it would be a unique experience to say the least)
I'd love to see this for the AoE4 megarandom because based on this video I think it might be a lot more random than AoE2's (unusual starting units not included, though)
I only play MegaRandom since I'm only against AI players. Even on hard and up, I don't even bother to scout them since I already know their army compositions. That's why I play MegaRandom to try new strats.
@@I_enjoy_some_thingsaoe3's megarandom (which is called unknown) is similar to aoe2's megarandom. Aoe4's megarandom is broken since it will likely to generate an asymmetrical terrain between players; thus imbalancing the resource distribution between them.
I am the opposite!!! I thought MegaRandom to be much less random than you make it look like through this video! You made me eager to play MegaRandom again!
2:25 yes sir! It did start off like you said, it is worse for me because the kick off sounds EXACTLY like what Heroes od might and magic 5 random map generator does 😂v
SotL, I recently played a game as Burgundians versus a Gurjaras opponent, and during an engagement between roughly equal numbers of Coustilliers and Camels in Castle Age, the Coustilliers surprisingly won and were able to finish out the game. I'm just wondering, partially from a game balance standpoint, partially cus I need to know as a Burgundian player, but what is the matchup between Coustilliers and Gurjaras camels? I was expecting to lose that fight wholesale, and if Gurjaras camels can't counter Coustilliers, what can?
It would be interesting to see a randomizer that plays into what all the players are playing as. So if you have the Mongols, you would have a ton of hunting food and if you were the Britons, you would have a ton of sheep. Allies too would play into it. Might make a map more interesting.
Personally I wish there was an option in the lobby / with map selection where you can check some of these. Like starting with an extra scout, or with none at all. Or if you want to go big then starting with move TCs or pre-built farms.
I once played a MegaRandom (or Unknown, don't really remember) map in which I started with no gold nor stone mines (and no relics) around my base, just trees. The other two civs of my team had some of the first two, while the enemy team started with loads of the three. It was hard...
Every time I've played mega random I expect 3 TC's or a giant mountain with no room to farm or something like that. Instead it's like "oh we took 1 boar away but gave you 2 more sheep"
Tbh I feel like it might in the long run be the most noob-friendly as it ultimately forces you to experiment and adapt to the map generation, which I'd say is kind of more in-line with history than the usual map generations tend to actually be.
What's interesting to me is that despite having MR favorited and having played likely hundreds of games on it, I've _still_ not seen some of the gens shown here.
I have played mega random so much that only hyper random can tickle that itch for 47 food start chaos. But if there was one tiny little thing I would change about mega rando, I would have fish hold 25% more res. The reduction of fish makes sense for safety, but they are so far and few between that any fish centric civs lose out any edge they may have got
Wait! Hold on!! Are you telling me I can never have an 8-handed swordsman or a myth unit spawning when I choose MEGA-random? That sounds pretty bog-standard random to me 🤣🤣
Boring trivia: A good pseudo-random number generator can best be described as "random _enough_ ". _True_ randomness is generally overkill outside of cryptographic applications, and especially for video games there is the always popular seed method of map generation that only works with a pseudo RNG.
Hello Spirit. Do you familiar or know Zetnus Hyperrandom, and have you played it before? If so, a similar video with comparing these maps would be captivating. If not, I'd suggest you to try it out. It's a crazy map. Thank you for the video.
MegaRandom is really not random enough! Sure, some intricacies are always different, but in general, the map is not random enough! There should be more variety in villager number, extra resources, buildings upon start, different units as scouts etc.
I actually freaking *despise* the 2 scout start on MegaRandom team games. If the enemy team has any kind of coordination, they'll quickly organize some kind of Dark Age pseudo scout rush, meanwhile my teammates will be playing farming sim while their scouts are off autoscouting the corners of the map.
I have not played MR in Definitive Edition. It is so different from its namesake from AoK Heaven from years back. Anyone else here play that wildly fun version ?
i always play mega-random. This video makes me so happy, but spirit of the law you ain´t get even half of what it is the actual idea behind choosing this particular map. It´s that the fun is UNLIMITED, not random.
It doesnt create truly random maps but it does create random playable maps. If it was truly random there would be lots of unfair map generations or even just completely broken ones (surrounding your starting town with water). It's the good kind of random.
This is certainly the best option, I can easily imagine several ways a truly random map would break the game. I've experienced map generation in the Civilization series that required embarkation research to expand beyond one city, as well as having several players share the same landmass while one player had a large continent entirely to themselves.
Now I'm lowkey interested in seeing a tournament where players can pick from the 45 megarandom templates
But do you let them choose the season? cause i like how that changes the map all together
@@CaiRobinsonone player chooses the template, the other chooses the season.
@@DakakeisalieAnd add the caveat that neither player knows what the other person picked before they lock in their choices.
CHAOS, _CONTROLLED!_
*-*fucking teleports*-*
That sounds amazing. And then if they won the previous game then they get their choice of season or map
I will forever feel nostalgic on the MegaRandom mod used on Voobly something like 6 / 7 years ago. It was unbelievably unfair, but boy it was fun
Just get the Zetnus Hyperrandom mod and you can relive that experience. :)
Random Everything EXTREME? The map where you could spawn with 3 heroes and 100 bombard towers 11
@@ArawnOfAnnwn thanks!! Will try it inmediately
@@HaBBiSiFy exactly. And separated from your enemy by 2 lakes, 1 desert, 1 black forest maze, and 48 cliffs for some reason :)
The best mega random I ever had was one with hundreds of relics on the map
Are you sure that wasn't Hyperrandom?
Lithuanian mains would have a wet dream over that one.
I got a gen like that once as lithuanians versus aztecs, we both had fun
I've seen a few like that. The amount of relics it generates is insane!
>Pick Burgundians
>No longer need to build Farms
Hands down my favorite map. It’s takes a long time to learn all the civs, but mega random sometimes makes it so you have completely adjust your play style for certain civs.
As always, 'tis a real boon to stumble upon one of Spirit of the Law's videos fresh of the factory floor!
His videos aren't some cheap factory produced junk. This is some artisnally crafted stuff
I can't be alone in wishing Spirit of the Law would make a deep dive video into 'making maps.' Like the random map scripts, etc. (.rms files).
It'd be super interesting. If any of the AoE content creators were to do it, I think he would do it best.
Completely agree.
As someone who likes to think I know most of what there is to this game this video was both new to me and very interesting. I'm amazed at how you keep putting out such interesting content about good old AoE2.
You should check out Unknown in AoE3 if you like mega random. Veteran players may remember the rather lackluster version from the original, but fear not! For DE it’s been totally redone, with a large variety of map layouts, biomes, and bonus starting units.
Unknown is my favorite map type in AoE3 for this reason. Not just can the terrain be anything, but you can start with wild transformative units or abilities that can radically alter your early game strategies. It rewards thinking on your feet more than having a set plan you never deviate from, which is how I prefer to play games.
AOE3 doesnt exist
Then you've been missing out on a good game, because unlike the 8492nd squadron AoE3 is quite real and quite good.@@daarom3472
@@daarom3472 It's good fun, but definitely a different beast to AoE2
Aoe 3 my beloved
So glad you made this! My 2 friends and I play mega random regicide and its super under appreciated!!
Great video, good plug for the hyper random map
Completely unrelated to the video but im using your name and avatar as the villain of my next DnD one-shot. Love your content.
Messing with resources is something I've seen in HD's MegaRandom.
With one map having very little minable gold but lots and lots of scattered relics
we literally had a full blown swastika for a map once, legit. was kinda shocked.
Tbh in the middle ages, swastikas had nothing to do with nazis but was pretty common as a religious sign among many cultures.
But yeah it's still weird
@@HermesGO3 The swastika is a religious symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, which is worshiped by almost 2 billion people. It's an incredibly normal and very popular symbol. Anybody who thinks the swastika is "offensive" is just imposing their Eurocentric view onto the rest of the world.
I love that map
There is something so on-brand about the music track you open all of your videos with. Please never stop using it, at this point it's like synonymous with the excitement of a new SOTL upload.
MegaRandom is one of the best features I enjoy over the base Age of Empires II title its expansion(s?).
Although I haven't tried it, I am excited to someday experience the newer difficulty of the computer-controlled players in the new AoE II revise.
Your video didn't explain why i have 2 battering rams as starting scout, 14 cows around the base, 6 villagers, a monastery in a hamburger map. The mega random map is truly fascinating
This is so interesting, i sometimes got some extra cav sometimes starting out and now i know why!
Well deserved shout out for Zetnus 😍
I would like to see Mega Random sometimes roll for the map to be already explored. I like MR but it feels like some of the maps could be played to their potential more if you could roll for explored sometimes
that is a game setting not a map setting, so it isn't possible for maps to have a chance to be explored
@@sevenpolar3483 Why does black forest always start explored then?
@@garetwebster5002 it doesn't if you load black forest in a local game or singleplayer game it won't be explored unless you change the game settings, only the ranked version sets the map as explored.
@@sevenpolar3483 Which means they could do the same with megarandom.....
@@garetwebster5002 if you wanted every Mega Random map explored, but that isn't what the person I replied to said.
I would love a lot more crazy starting possibilities added to megarandom. Imagine starting with a random UU for scouts, or multiple randomly placed towers or outposts around the map.
I am not sure if technically possible, but I would enjoy a megarandom tournament in which the specific generation of all maps played (e.g., 7 in a Bo7) is shown to the players 30 min in advance so they can prepare the draft, but still forces creativity
It should be relatively simple, even a case of rolling the seed into a megarandom map generator and saving the result into a separate playlist. The host would take everything that happened between clicking start and the map loading, save it and repeat until they had the 7 maps.
Having a bit of programmaing knowledge in video games, this video has given me newfound respect for MegaRandom
I will never forget that 4v4 random map, where we were on placed on a circle of small patches of land, loosely connected with a narrow land bridge and ALMOST ZERO WOOD. But boy, the gold was everywhere. It was all-in gold mining and selling, plus a total unit slaughter, since everything was so available :D
My buddies and I have only recently started doing Mega Random + full random civs. Nice to know how it actually generates the map.
hey SOTL, random guy here. im really interested in learning more about how the AI reacts to water in maps. in some cases they go full navy, which makes sense, but in other maps, in spite of large amounts of water, they never even build a dock. is there some sort of pre-requisite in their coding that tells them when they can go navy, or is their ai playstyle already chosen for them at the start of the match?
Im the random guy here!
@@ImRandomDude no, youre the random dude
Sometimes they go full navy even when the only water available is a small pond near their base. Makes for some unusually easy games.
@@AndrewMeyer yea it sometimes ruins a good generated map because you think youll get a fun match out of it only to see even hard ai just sitting around
Zetnus' work is legendary
I like how the climate affects the maps. It's pretty smart
I like the double scout start.
I once had a generation in a ranked game where each player had 7 tiles of gold, some stone and that's it. A few relics were places on islands outside but this made the Britons vs. Goths game very interesting.
This was very intresting, I never imagined it worked like that :o
HyperRandom is my favorite map by a big margin. You never know what the game is going to be like and you have to adapt on the fly to what is avalible to you.
Megarandom = gigabased
this 1000x
More like gigabiased towards certain types of playstyles 😅
Megabased
I also realized that the megarandom must have changed over time - it became a bit more random lately than previously tbh.
SOTL: best way to kickoff a weekend!!
10:05 - played my first community game in Rocco's twitch a few months back. Didn't realise the pigs were 30 food... had to push all of my deer with the ram. It's actually good fun with that hit-box it's so much more reliable!
Diving into random map scripts in the original CD version of AoE II was 12-year-old me's first introduction to the concept of writing stuff to get a computer to do things, and the first step on a path to making a living as a professional computer programmer. Who says games aren't educational? 😁
Makes me wonder what is the absolute rarest map type you can get? It has to be something on Megarandom.
Would be interesting if they made a map where they randomly role for every single square of the map for something to appear. (It would probably be nigh unplayable and take an absurdly long time to load, but it would be a unique experience to say the least)
Can't wait to get that mod
It's like a mega pint, but you don't know what you're drinking. 🙃
I'd love to see this for the AoE4 megarandom because based on this video I think it might be a lot more random than AoE2's (unusual starting units not included, though)
I only play MegaRandom since I'm only against AI players. Even on hard and up, I don't even bother to scout them since I already know their army compositions. That's why I play MegaRandom to try new strats.
Try Zetnus' HyperRandom. Even crazier than Megarandom haha
*edit, I see Spirit talks about it at the end of the video 111
@@I_enjoy_some_thingsaoe3's megarandom (which is called unknown) is similar to aoe2's megarandom. Aoe4's megarandom is broken since it will likely to generate an asymmetrical terrain between players; thus imbalancing the resource distribution between them.
I am the opposite!!! I thought MegaRandom to be much less random than you make it look like through this video! You made me eager to play MegaRandom again!
2:25 yes sir! It did start off like you said, it is worse for me because the kick off sounds EXACTLY like what Heroes od might and magic 5 random map generator does 😂v
SotL, I recently played a game as Burgundians versus a Gurjaras opponent, and during an engagement between roughly equal numbers of Coustilliers and Camels in Castle Age, the Coustilliers surprisingly won and were able to finish out the game.
I'm just wondering, partially from a game balance standpoint, partially cus I need to know as a Burgundian player, but what is the matchup between Coustilliers and Gurjaras camels? I was expecting to lose that fight wholesale, and if Gurjaras camels can't counter Coustilliers, what can?
How RANDOM was MegaRandom ACTUALLY? And in this video we will cover these competitive formats (rip voobly lol).
answering the questions i didnt even know i had.
nice video, but what about the guitar intro?
It would be interesting to see a randomizer that plays into what all the players are playing as. So if you have the Mongols, you would have a ton of hunting food and if you were the Britons, you would have a ton of sheep. Allies too would play into it. Might make a map more interesting.
Doesn't the "random unit" that becomes the scout get the autoscout? I thought I recall infantry getting it once and going "huh" but who knows.
Now I want to see a Masters of MegaRandom tournament with Civs chosen randomly.
amazing video
I wish you explained the formulas megarandom uses to set the number of relics. I always thought that was one of the most interesting features.
Ah MegaRandom. The place of nightmares and infinite possibilities.
*And the moments which the devs created a map MONSTER.*
hyperrandom is also a fun watch, as it doesn't have many barriers to make sure generation is less unbalanced/crazy, its just... random
Personally I wish there was an option in the lobby / with map selection where you can check some of these.
Like starting with an extra scout, or with none at all. Or if you want to go big then starting with move TCs or pre-built farms.
I once played a MegaRandom (or Unknown, don't really remember) map in which I started with no gold nor stone mines (and no relics) around my base, just trees. The other two civs of my team had some of the first two, while the enemy team started with loads of the three. It was hard...
Every time I've played mega random I expect 3 TC's or a giant mountain with no room to farm or something like that.
Instead it's like "oh we took 1 boar away but gave you 2 more sheep"
Tbh I feel like it might in the long run be the most noob-friendly as it ultimately forces you to experiment and adapt to the map generation, which I'd say is kind of more in-line with history than the usual map generations tend to actually be.
I tried Hyperrandom once. My scout was replaced with a siege onager.
WE NEED A FUN HyperRandom TOURNAMENT!!! =O
What's interesting to me is that despite having MR favorited and having played likely hundreds of games on it, I've _still_ not seen some of the gens shown here.
I think Zetnus made a crazy megarandom mod that made way random maps, but fair starts. Those were crazy
Edit: hah, wrotr comment before ending
I have played mega random so much that only hyper random can tickle that itch for 47 food start chaos. But if there was one tiny little thing I would change about mega rando, I would have fish hold 25% more res. The reduction of fish makes sense for safety, but they are so far and few between that any fish centric civs lose out any edge they may have got
The random maps is pretty much what makes AOE stands out from other RTS
yea this is not possible in starcraft
have you made a video about the optimal boom? 3tc plus 4th later vs 4 tc immediatly?
0:30: I didn't know there fans and tractors hidden in the MegaRandom map. I should look better, next time.
(put the subtitles on)
what is the name of the song at 6:45
Yeah Zetnus mods are so high quality...i have lots of his mods form missed events...I always play with hyper random maps mod..
Wait! Hold on!!
Are you telling me I can never have an 8-handed swordsman or a myth unit spawning when I choose MEGA-random? That sounds pretty bog-standard random to me 🤣🤣
Can't believe that the realistical description of how it works fits 76% with my theory🎉😮
I love to play good ole game of AoE2 on the MegaDeterministic map.
Boring trivia: A good pseudo-random number generator can best be described as "random _enough_ ". _True_ randomness is generally overkill outside of cryptographic applications, and especially for video games there is the always popular seed method of map generation that only works with a pseudo RNG.
Did AoE2 ever switch to u32 map seeds btw? Or are there still fewer Megarandom maps than Scrabble words?
Oh nice they actually did. That's hype
Hey, SOL, here's a question for you: how do villagers act on the back 1/4 of the TC?
megarandom is my favorite map template.
we need UltraRandom
In all PvP Megarandoms i have played, the team who figures out the map first always wins.
Clearly they DID mean “VLDL”, but the question then is; “WHICH Viva La Dirt League man?”
so my question is, has mega random always been this way? Because i remember in HD megarandom being much more random.. or is that just me?
It would be cool to see them implement an actual random version of maga random. Super mega random?
Hello Spirit. Do you familiar or know Zetnus Hyperrandom, and have you played it before? If so, a similar video with comparing these maps would be captivating. If not, I'd suggest you to try it out. It's a crazy map. Thank you for the video.
He gave it a shout out at the end of the video :P
what is the worst possible seed one can get regarding ressources?
MegaRandom is really not random enough! Sure, some intricacies are always different, but in general, the map is not random enough! There should be more variety in villager number, extra resources, buildings upon start, different units as scouts etc.
Yea, it feels like a 5 map on a rotation. And most of the map ideas are just about "bad" woodline. I wish it was more funky.
I actually freaking *despise* the 2 scout start on MegaRandom team games. If the enemy team has any kind of coordination, they'll quickly organize some kind of Dark Age pseudo scout rush, meanwhile my teammates will be playing farming sim while their scouts are off autoscouting the corners of the map.
Hey, SotL, apparently there is some research being done with Age of Empires and ants to determine the quality vs quantity debate.
BAKURETSU MEGARANDOM is where the randomness is at :D
Petition to introduce Hyper Random to ladder map pool.
0:27 did you just say the map has tractors?
I have not played MR in Definitive Edition. It is so different from its namesake from AoK Heaven from years back. Anyone else here play that wildly fun version ?
i always play mega-random. This video makes me so happy, but spirit of the law you ain´t get even half of what it is the actual idea behind choosing this particular map. It´s that the fun is UNLIMITED, not random.
Interesting
The random in megarandom is how your picked civ will interact with the map.
It doesnt create truly random maps but it does create random playable maps.
If it was truly random there would be lots of unfair map generations or even just completely broken ones (surrounding your starting town with water).
It's the good kind of random.
This is certainly the best option, I can easily imagine several ways a truly random map would break the game.
I've experienced map generation in the Civilization series that required embarkation research to expand beyond one city, as well as having several players share the same landmass while one player had a large continent entirely to themselves.
How random is random civ selection?
What's a nomad start
I wish they added real world maps to the mix
I would add that on Megarandom I know less before scouting.
i love it when i get a free building on MR