Not gonna lie that is pretty creative. Not good manners, but more creative than just shit talking in chat. Hope that one bad apple didn't discourage you.
@@gosucab944 I like to think I at least pressured him to the point of not having the time and resource to spell out "noob" properly x) Haven't gone online since then but that's only because I wanted to be able to spank the extreme AI cc consistently before I try my hand at playing the game properly(without tower abuse as per based SOL's 2nd commandment) that match was really just to get a feel for the netcode and online path finding since that really makes or breaks an RTS for me.
I remember my first online game in gameranger, I was not playing aoe2 but aom instead, before this I was just playing against AI and singleplayer scenerios. I thought that I was playing very good until that day. 4 minutes passed in game time and one of my allies marked my base, after that everyone saw my shitty strat , surrendered and quit the game xd
honestly, online matches are very unbalanced. You can be rushed down in 15 mins by one player, but then have a series of matches with 10 noobs in a row who stop building their economy at 40 villagers or even less...
hes very off on that, the Extreme AI is much better than 1000 imo, i started playing a few days ago and i wiped the floor in every match so far, yet i struggle vs the Extreme AI
SOTL: What level of AI should you be able to beat before going online? Expected answer: "Don't worry about it, your rating will adjust to find you similar opponents." Actual answer: "Don't worry about it, if you can beat the Extreme AI without towers you're probably fine!" 💀
honestly you shouldn´t think that way when i started playing online i couldn´t even handle the moderate AI but after a few games i lost i found enemys at my skill level at 800 elo now im above 1000 elo and can kill the extreme AI easily because i learnd online so much more than offline
People don't win against the AI because they often can't read their opponents at all, let alone come up with a counter reaction. Time, experience, and watching your failures helps with that. If you have a really good match that you lose, it's the perfect time to boot up the replay and see how your opponent won. you will be surprised at the weakness you see. Next time, you will have an idea of how to look for them and when.
Remember that SOTL is already ranked and doesn't know how it actually is going through shit. Honestly dude as long as you can beat standard ai and know the fundamentals you'll be fine
This video pretty nicely sums up why I don't like playing multiplayers - there's just so much stress involved in being a good teammate that you spend the whole game just trying not to piss off other people instead of playing and having fun. Not. My. Jam.
From experience in Team Games below 1250 ELO (maybe bottom 33% of players) hardly anyone tries to coordinate a Team Strategy other than trying to help a team member who's being attacked or joining up for an attack. Very few toxic players. Above this level people might start expecting feam mates to use the 'meta' strategies
Have you even tried it, or do just assume how it would feel like to you based on some videos or some people on the internet? I dont feel stress just because there is a common team strategy.
@@schierlingsbecher7778 Have I played multiplayer games before? lol. Yes. What I said above applies even in 1v1 though - then again, I do prefer to play AoE more like a city-builder than an RTS, so any competative play doesn't really have any apeal...
I am a total noob but I love playing ranked 1v1. The fun of playing a real opponent, without the stress of possibly letting a team down. Love my 750 Elo level haha
@@MohammadBaidas That was clearly a joke. I like 1v1, too. I'm not good at the game, so I don't waste my ally's/allies time. It's also much easier to coordinate just my own actions than take care of another person. :-)
I'm right there with you, at 750 elo but bored with the ai. beating a human is so much more satisfying, especially because they use different strategies. I love team games but only play with people I know because if you can't coordinate with voice chat then you're at a huge disadvantage, might as well be playing 1v1.
Just started recently and the thrill of playing a real opponent is so much better than playing the ai I prefer playing 500 elo noobs and losing to winning against the easy ai Also i love teamgames Usually my team is very supportive and im 750 elo in team rm now and 600 elo in 1v1
@@the_rover1 houses are set on fire if they're low HP, like most other buildings. your opponent could just attack them with normal units to do this, but buildings will stay at the same HP even when they're on fire - that's just the visual indicator that you probably need to repair them before the next rush, but not necessarily. so a fire brigade can be villagers smacking a burning house with hammers. yes, that's a funky game mechanics right there
Me, playing against standard AI since i played aoe2 on windows xp as a fuckin four year old: Oh man, this is good advice, i wonder what- SoTL: "If you can beat Extreme AI without towers you're good to go" me: [Worried laughter]
Extreme AI mops the floor with me everytime, I ended up at 950 elo (barely below the starting elo, which is 1000) after 30 ish games. I'd say beating Moderate AI puts you at 700+ at the very least already. You could just go lose 6-7 games and start playing against people of your caliber
Honestly Age of Empires 2 is trash tier multiplayer compared to SC 2. At least in SC 2 you can wall off your base quickly and easily to avoid being buttfucked in the first 5 minutes of the game. The economy also makes a lot more sense in that resources are severly limited and you can’t field an army at all if you run out unlike in AOE 2 where wood and food are virtually limitless on many maps.
I think SotL forgot one very important thing that many newer players don't know. If the game isa 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 you need to type an asterix (*) in front of your message for it to show for all players (your team mates and enemies) - otherwise only your team mates can see it. This is important when you are asking if it is okay to unpause the game, or if you want to call the gg
Poor excuse. Cats throw up hair balls rather often. Once a cat of mine pissed on me during a match and I still didn't quit. Did ask for a 30s pause though.
Resign manners only applies to team games not 1v1. In a 1v1 you don't have anyone depending on you, so you don't need a reason. If you want to be done, you can just resign at any point for any reason.
@@ritesharora4207 search for legend of fatslob, on T90official's channel. that guy only hosts viking mirrors on map black forest, and it tends to take hours of grinding. he baits you with trebs, and then he beats his clueless victims with a scorpion/berserks combo trap.
Dont be its the easiest way to match with people of similar skill level. Unless you are trying to go pro the rating is just a number that doesnt mean anything
Dude do the art of war campaigns first, after that learn the strats, you can download scenarios from workshop it will improve your gameplay a lot. Sometimes you may match with a pro player and they can beat u easily but it does not means that u are bad.
Honestly, watch SotL's build order videos, get at least silver on the Art of War campaign stuff (preferably push for gold on the dark age build order) and you will be good for most lobby games. You only get better if you play. Yes, you will lose. I have lost more games than I have won, but I took the time to learn why by watching the replay after. Many games I still lose because I kept forgetting to build villagers or something. It's a lot to think about, but work on it one at a time. Looking at it another way, if you think the risks are high (and that's what you're afraid of), maybe you can see that also it has a high reward (whoa, I just had a good game that was close but I closed the W!). That's what drives me to play competitive games. It's not everyone's bag, though.
I think another bit of etiquette should apply: do not immediately resign if your cheesy strat failed but you're still quite far ahead. Once had a Nomad game on the 2014 HD version where 3 opponents surrounded one of our teammates, really boxed him in with towers and pallisades. Me and another teammate (4th dude did not respond whatsoever) managed to break through and extract a few of our teammate's villagers and raid a bit. 2 of our opponents resigned within 30 seconds, followed by a third later. The catch: their armies were at that point more than twice our strength in terms of combat potential, and economy was practically equal due to our teammate's losses. Really felt like they wouldn't play unless if it will be a curbstomp :(
Took me a couple reads, but I get the gist. Cheese/nonstandard play always requires a resilient followup. You are doing yourself a disservice not sticking it out and continuing to be an annoyance to your opponent. You are building a different game sense skill.
@@fyrjefe3928 I think he meant that these guys literally played only to stomp their opponent. They wouldn't play a game unless they were galaxies ahead of the opposition, shown by a game where they resigned in spite of still being ahead. But maybe I'm interpreting it wrong.
@@egdrei that is indeed what I meant. Sorry for the confusion. I think they were being really bad sports and a breach of online etiquette during that game.
People with big egos like to feed them. They like crushing noobs because they know they cant fight back. The second theres a chance of resistance or uncertainty in their god-complex and the fun immediately ceases. They dont want a challenge, they want to make others feel helpless at their hand. Ive known a few people like that.
Don't forget among the 19358 is one player usually in the editor smashing unit combinations against each other for the scientific advancement of the AoE2 community.
I hate to be the critical guy here again, but the fact that the video has this much detailed explanation and preparation just to get players ready for trying an online game really says something. Sure if you've been following youtube video's about the game for the longest time, give it a try. But you have to imagine that there's players starting the game now that * do not know the exact difference between a knight and light cavalry *. Really, before trying online games in AoEDE you really have to have quite some hours into getting to know the game, I'd say. And I think that this video actually supports that statement.
It's true. Art of War campaign helps close that gap. But you and I like many take advantage of years of exposure to the game. But the best time to begin is now :)
The most important factor that the least people talk about. On average, people lose half their games and it's something everyone needs to understand that its normal and most of all an expected outcome. Yet it is so rarely mentioned.
Dude don't listen to him. If you want to be good at the game extremes a good marker for that but if you can beat a standard ai you'll do fine against the average player as long as you got the fundamentals down. Just do it, what do you have to lose? You already expect that you're going to lose so who gives a shit if you do. Just try it, and if it doesn't work out then practice. It's much more fun that way man, believe me.
I don't agree that it's necessary to beat extreme. Yes, if you can't beat it you won't be among the 'pro' level competitive players, that's for sure. But it doesn't exclude you from playing at all - just find some 'noob' games (noob doesn't actually mean noob in the AOE world though, unfortunately) and/or play ranked.
Lmao I had the exact same reaction. I’m having a hard enough time not getting my shit kicked in on the 4th Joan of Arc campaign mission on STANDARD. RIP my chances of playing online if Extreme is the criteria
AOE2 community is so wholesome and helpful for the most part. I find the most helpful way of improving online is actually asking your opponent what they think you could improve on. Most people are happy to oblige 😁
I've had a lot of very enjoyable conversations with people at the end of the game while we both look at the explored map. It's really fun and informative indeed and most people will be happy to oblige if they haven't already left.
Things I used to do: never built more than 1 TC never incorporated other buildings into my early walls didn't have more than one of each military building either so I'd just queue 15 of something spent too much resources on research rather than getting out some form of military lost castles to archer-spam from the ai
telling from the last one, you forgot to get blacksmith upgrades. I had the opposite problem as a kid. I would try to get most of the upgrades before going to the next age. I slowly learnt to be a little more focused in my resource allocation though. Now it's about remembering to keep making vills to you hit that magic ~100 or so
That’s exactly how I used to play before I knew any better. :D Need to add to that list though: - Either played as Franks and created almost only paladins or British with longbowmen - Created 30 villagers max No wonder I got stomped the first time I played against people.
I've been playing with various degrees of intensity for over 15 years and this may finally be the thing that convinces me to try online for the first time
You really should, is a total different experience. If you use keyboard shortcuts properly, you won't play bad. Watch elite players games in their channels, there's a lot of useful advices.
im playing just with my brother forgotten empires against AI with game ranger since my 10 years old pc wont run newest aoe2 but its still fun. I got aoe 2 HD but they stopped updating the game such a shame.
@@alexandersebela370 I'm still playing HD as well, I got given DE for my birthday but the old system can't run it :) it's still good fun playing online even if it's not as popular as DE.
I think a lot of executives and analysts undererstimated for a long time, how many players don't play (competitive) multiplayer, not just in Age, but in general. A friend of mine plays a lot of Age2, but doesn't even play skirmish. He plays campaign und builds crazy scenarios, where he is really overpowered compared to the AI opponents, but enjoys going through them like a hot knife through butter.
I remember doing custom szenarios against 7 extreme AI with the "aegis" cheat and giving them close to infinite recources. Then i would spam cobra cars and win that way with hundreds of units on the screen at once in an epic battle.
Spectator chat hasn't come in to DE yet, but the scenario scripting tools are night and day from HD to DE All the executives and analysts know that it's the single player crowd that plays the game. Which is why there are two new civs and 3 new campaigns coming, even though it upsets the balance of an already hard to balance game.
0:55 incredibly accurate depiction of my first couple of online experiences. My tip would be to not let losses discourage you and try to keep having fun. Once you knwo some basic build orders and counters, just playing ranked is actually one of the fastest ways to improve.
my first match was both our first online AOE match, and I won! Then the next two matches, the opponent DC'd! I am now 1100 ELO! Will I ever return to ranked? Nah too scary
The minute you realize playing ranked is about getting balanced or equal matchups and not about grinding all the stress from playing ranked goes away 11
Yep, that 0:58 meme applies a lot. Go online, enter "n00b game", get stomped by serious competitors, or rushed with meme strategies by players who might as well be the Viper, and go back to AI for a while.
hover over the names and look at their rankings. i have an average ranking and for me the tell for a bad lobby is when a bunch of people click "team 1" together. stacks are usually cheese strats. I don't mind that per se, either. but it's a waste of time if team mates are expecting a 1h treaty and they quit in the middle of feudal.
I never, never write gg when I win. It's really up to the opponent to judge if he liked the game, especially if I won by some "cheesy" tactics. I always thank the ppl for game. They've spent their time with me instead of friends/family/book/movie/we, so it's appropriate. :-)
I watched this video and went online 2 weeks ago. ELO 1000 went about 50/50 in my first 5-6 games. Then proceeded to lose 12 of 13 and dropped all the way to to 600 ELO. Slowly crawled back to almost 700. Biggest takeaway: You need to be able to rush in feudal or be able to defend it. I started off trying to fast castle and boom, but kept getting rushed and kept trying to get better at walling and defending. Then I had an epiphany and decided to start rushing. I use the Celts mainly and it took me a while to get the Man at Arms rush cadence down, but now most games I win are over in 20 minutes. The great thing is, once you play 10-15 games, you get matched pretty evenly, and at this level people play every Civ and play in really unpredictable and interesting ways. Cannot overstate how playing a human can be way easier or way harder, but it’s never the same game twice like playing the AI.
He did say it's the sure fire way to know. I think hard is what you should aim to beat personally if you want to avoid falling straight down, but starting lower is fine too. It all depends on how you look at it. As SotL said, losing early just means easier games later. The first 10 games are your placement matches to get you to the right opponents.
One thing I'd recommend to people to try if they don't want to play competitive online is to make matches vs the AI online. IE 4 players vs 4 AI etc, I use to make these rooms all the time and they always filled up relatively quickly. Its a nice middle ground between just playing against the AI on your own, and actually having others to play with.
I went from binging your videos, to watching some T90 casting to playing all pretty recently. No prior RTS experience and I am competitive in most unranked games. I was scared to play but happy I made the jump. I think following your first 15 villager guide and doing the Art of War early defense training will set up most players to be at least OK at the game. Love the content :)
As someone who has been highly competitive in scenes like CS:GO, Battlefield, Call of Duty and League of Legends... man the AoE community sounds so nice and relaxed! No one's throwing around N-words, wishing death upon your family or making rude assumptions about your sexuality. You sound like a really nice lot of people! Age of Empires was a big part of my childhood and it's amazing that it's been re-invigorated on Steam!
Hard is a weird case, because it just spams trash really early. I couldn't beat hard, and got tired of it, so I went unranked for about 6 games and then ranked, and I ended up around 800 elo with a 35% winrate after the first month. By now, 7 months later, I made it to around 1200, without ever having bothered with the AI ever again. Don't let yourself get discouraged by the AI, you can do it.
@@leopoldkoppen9081 exactly!!! I went with scout rush n it was a little challenging. But FC into knights wasn't even a challenge. I am gonna hardest now
Your videos each are a scientific work. You start with an introduction, explaining the relevance and motivation, then present your methods, and sources, transisting in the results your work yielded, and finally discussing them. I love it.
5:45 you can know from the start witch players are pocket or flank. Team position is based as a clock from player's number, from lowest to highest in each team (in a 2, 5, 7, 8 team, player 5 will be player two's pocket)
I like that in AOE2, unlike SC2 for instance, you can stay in a game AND forfeit - I find chatting with my opponent helps me to pick up new tricks, or get some information about my opponent's idea. It's also nice that you can look around. Helps to recap the game and learn a bit more per game.
Those "ultra noob" lobbies are just scams. It'll have a 1600 Elo player teaming up with a 1800 Elo player just so that they can feel good about themselves after beating a bunch of low Elo players. It's such a shame.
@@Carpatouille Always feels shitty for people like me who usually would play a team game with a friend and both suck at the game and just want to have fun. Can't even enjoy those anymore too
Yep. I played online for the first time yesterday and I created a noob lobby and checked everyone's record to make sure. It was a 4v4 and one of the enemies got to imp super fast and kill me and all my teammates by himself with castle drops and vill rushing with spanish vills. If people wanna crush noobs i dont see why they dont just fight a bunch of AI
They are bunch of idiots, I dont really like when I win easily, I want to struggle I want to survive hard and feel stressed when I play, otherwise game is being farming and building razing simulator.
My first online game was a early feudal rush men at arms with goths. I won. I ain't gonna be the first nestling to be eaten. And if the jungle can be cruel, so can I.
Started playing 2vs2 ranked matches with a mate a couple of days ago, after watching your video and I absolutely love it. I felt well prepared because of your videos and wanted to thank you for giving me the little push I needed! :)
I just want to say that your tutorials are the best! I spend a lot of a time watching other players even great players but none of them were as clear and as eloquent as you are! Keep up the good work! I just had a few victories on line thanks to you!!!
I have been playing AoE for the last 2 decades and never once have I gone online and that's because I felt that online games are so quick and have all these build order thereby prevents us from soaking into the game and playing a slow paced game.
The most important thing to understand is what you have mentiond about the rating. Don't be afraid to loose. 50% of the players you get matched against in rated games are better at the game than you and 50% are weaker. That mean you are supposed to loose every other game. Or to put it differently... the more you loose, the more you win. Not just experience and knowledge but literally.
I've been playing the game on and off since release. Decided to give a go to multiplayer but got so obliterated that it put me off playing online again
@@ranchyeezys5735 though when you manage to pull through in later games, it just feels so majestic. One time I managed to build a castle in a tower rusher's base to even the score, felt awesome :)
Personally, I’ve been playing a ton of team ranked on DE lately and it feels like the games are just so damn unbalanced. Every time I play there’s always 1-2 players that are so much above everyone else like we all hit castle age around the same time but then you have purple who’s already there and has 20+ knights out already. The reverse is also true, I get into games where I end up just steamrolling my opponents and they have no military or eco. That’s my short rant about team games but it might just be that I haven’t played enough to be paired evenly ig. However, I’ve found 1v1s to be really fun and a lot more balanced it truly does feel like the 50/50 mentioned in the video whereas team feels more 90/10 win or 10/90 win depending on the day and your teammates/enemies. But yeah, don’t be afraid to hop into ranked, I’d start with 1v1s to get a feel for it then jump into team games once you can hold your own so you’re not getting steamrolled in a 3v1 if your teammates aren’t helpful.
An issue with Multiplayer is also the elo. In unbalanced Teams, the stronger Player gains less elo than the weaker one, even if they obviously have the same Chance to win, since they're in one Team. Seems like the elo only takes into Account whom you Beat, but Not who helps you. Maybe the games would be better balanced if the matchmaking would base on the 1v1 elo
Often, people think team games = my ally carries me. You do have to learn to respond to aggression in some way or another. In team games, often you get much more of it, and it's harder. Obviously you ping and calmly tell your team mates there are two or three players at your base, if you are in trouble. but also temper your expectations if you get hit by early archers and your ally is FC knights. don't expect him to send his two cav into the meat grinder. All I can say is what others are saying: just play some games and take note.
Team games are probably harder to balance but also team games can snowball a lot harder. If you go fc knights as pocket you flank can be "dead" before your 1st knight comes out.
Thanks to your videos I am beating the Moderate AI now. Moving on to hard. So far online has been loses to rush plays against me. Your videos are great !!
My first online game was also my first Arena game. I mainly play Burgundians and my opponent was Portugese. Fortunately he played very defensively and I was able to take down his 4 castles with a mix of capped rams, bombard cannons, and much later trebuchets. He resigned once I broke a hole in his wall and he saw the swarm of Coustilliers streaming in.
It makes me happy that there's actually a guide for online behavior. I play left 4 dead versus and there is a bunch of unwritten rules that no one bothers to make a video on until very recently but for over a decade there wasn't one. A lot of the terms too conflict with each other/have no reference (dc could mean death charge or dead center, r/nr mean ready or not ready, +1,2,3 means wait for those about more players, sack means get rid of that special infected, etc.) A lot of players would play a few games then get trashed for not knowing the unwritten rules then never play again so I'm glad there's a video for aoe2 explaining it before I go in
I have played for 12 years and I dont like competitive games, i play scenarios and play against the computer on moderate-tough. On a rare occasion i play with friends
Download the Interactive Build Order Mod (by Cicero) from the in game mods scene. You'll get a bunch of custom scenarios (voiced) that guide you through and rate your uptime for many different builds
1st 6 vills on food(sheep), then the next 3 or 4 on wood(3 if you want to get up a bit faster).After that lure a boar, and the rest of the vills goes for food click up when you have 20 or 22 vills. When you clicked up u change your eco depending on what you wanna do in feudal age. That should get you started. On closed maps you should learn a fast castle build order tho. There are some civ specific build orders and tower rush build order also requires you go up earlier with less vills. When you get to 1300 + in 1v1 more people start to do m&a into archers and drush into fast castle, but they are harder to pull off.
SotL made a nice video on first fifteen villagers, and Hera just started a new guide to 2k. I like the first part, the "make a simple plan" plan seems simple. I pick Magyars and spam scouts.
I would say: Just start playing online, if you want to play online. Sure, you'll most likely loose your first 10-15 games (as a non-RTS-player), but you can already learn stuff one step at a time. There's for example no need to know counters, if you already loose before you've even the option to build units in the first place So get to be a master of the dark age first. Eventually you're reaching feudal age as fast as your opponent and at that point, take the next step and learn stuff about rushing, counters for units usually seen in this age and how to proceed with upgrades and growing economy. Again there's no need to learn, how to play with or counter trebuchet's, if you've problems making it into imperial age. And that can be done, until you consistently make it into a proper late game, where everything matters. Overall, learn things, when they're needed, since learning 10 things at once even when you realistically only need 3 things means, that you're worse at those 3 things, while the rest doesn't matter anyway. Same goes for other things as well. If you're so low in ELO, that your opponents doesn't rush early anway, then there's no need to put 5 hours work into learning, how to counter that and you're better off putting all these 5 hours into learning better build orders and unit counters. Same for counters of unique units. There are so many of them, that you realistically can't remember everything the first time you watch it (assuming that you've no aidetic memory). Rather wait, until you get beaten by something so hard, that you'll remember it for like the next 3 month and then learning the counter for it sticks to that information way easier than remembering it on its own. This approach also ensure, that you learn the meta-stuff first and don't waste your time with units, that won't get build on your ELO as well or with units, which people on your ELO can't really manage in the first place. And last but not least: embrace your low ELO as a beginner. It means, that you've a tool which can tell you, that you got better over time. People who train for weeks in AI games will more likely start at a higher ELO and will have a much harder time to get higher, up to a point that it can easily feel like they're not improving further at all, which can easily be devastating, if you think, that you as a "new, bad player" are supposed to get better, even when realistically spoken you're already an average or above average player due to the time you've put into before even starting playing online. And if you say to yourself, that you're not ready for Ranked or drop out after being defeated by a mile 2-3 times, then chances are high, that you'll never really start playing it anyway, so i would recommend to break this habbit of "i'm not good enough" as soon as possible in any kind of competitive game, because lets be real, you'll never be ready unless you've played so many Ranked games that you know what to expect in them (and no, AI is never a proper substitute for human players, because you build some bad habbits of things, that simply doesn't work against humans^^). Though obviously all of this refers to 1v1. For team games you should at least know the basics of countering and getting into castle age in a reasonable amount of time^^
the elo adjusts pretty quickly to be honest. so just play a few games and you will be at your level. the chat harassment... honestly i feel like that is way more common at lower ELOs than a bit higher up, sadly.
Too bad to hear this :/ having these experiences right out of the gate is really discouraging. Don't give up, tho! I think that in team games chat harassment can be worse, cause some players will harass their teamates if the mach isn't going well. It takes some time for the elo to adjust, but after that things go waaaay better (specially in 1v1). Try to look for people to play together, it helps a lot (on reddit you can find discords with nice people).
I remember when I first started playing online I immediately lost the first 3 games. The 4th one I finally won, and I was very happy about it, but my opponent was sad, because he was also completely new. I tried encouraging him by saying it was also the only win so far for me, and we had a nice short chat. I've had very little bad experience in this community so far. Also, I see lots of people being discouraged by not being able to beat Extreme AI, but I say don't worry about it. The AI is actually pretty good at keeping villager production and has very reasonable up times, so for newer players I can see it being very challenging. Just take everything at your own pace.
I’ve played AOE II The Conquerers originally on my grandparents PC when I was 5-6 and have been hooked ever since. Only recently though I’m learning some of the more basic basics since I only recently got DE for myself so I’m having to learn unit counters and build orders my 5-6 year old brain wouldn’t understand. Some point I’d like to begin online but I’ll probably need at lot more practice with more standard games before I try it especially now that I’ve watched this video lol. (For whoever is curious I’m currently 16 and the reason I needed to buy the game is my grandparents live in another state from me for more than six years now.)
"You spilled water(cofee) on your keyboard and need to grab a towel" This is viper "your cat walks in front of the monitor"-pause This is roxyc. "Your house is on fire" This is MBL with the fire alarm. "You/your wife goes into labor" This is Daut ?) And will add this one myself "Checking the tech tree" This literally hera. 11
Yeah also as a noob myself, I encountered those types of players too. But I have no other choice than joining those noob lobbies. Honestly, smurfing not only in AoE but in any multiplayer game is disgusting. I never understood this concept and I don't know why it is not hated by most people, everybody seems to accept it as normal. I see it as one of the cheapest ways to satisfy your ego along with literal cheating.
I wouldn't say we "accept it as normal". Personally, I virtually never encountered clear smurfing against me. It's true that I learned on Ranked games. Maybe you should try that. It's paradoxally safer than salons. Once you go down to your actual (current) elo level, the matchmaking will provide you with opponents you can deal with.
@@blaubeer8039 I encountered people taunting in the chat once the match started, to the effect of "Ha ha, I'm not a noob, get wrekd skrub" Honestly I will try the ranked if I go back online with it. Ironically it would be a lot better at finding people of the same skill level.
While all of this is true, most of it is also only applicable to a specific set of players, and it might even do a disservice to many of those that are scared of going online. I think the mindset of most of these people is that online matches have so many variables and factors they think they need to be able to consider, to even have relevant matches, and this is what keeps them away; the idea that you need basic (not basic to them) build orders, always think competitively about unit counters and how the match progresses, and that there isn't room for playing at your own pace. In reality, there is plenty of space for such players, these games just happen to be found below the average skill rating. What this means is that you will most likely lose quite a few matches in the beginning, but it's important to remember that this is just a temporary process of the algorithm figuring out where exactly you belong, so that you can have those kind of matches that suit your pace and style of play. And there is nothing wrong with that, you will end up in the right place and play with/against likeminded people sooner or later, and once you get to that point you can improve at your own pace if you want, or you can just stick around and not care about the competitive aspect too much. It's up to you in the end. This video is primarily beneficial for offline players who want to go online and be competitive right off the bat, and try to land somewhere in the average position of the existing online player base. But I think most of those people are already playing online in the first place. Ok point here is, that you don't need to learn anything in particular to play online at all. All you need, is to set your expectations realistically. And remember, no matter how you play and at what level, there are already 100s or 1000s of players just like you who are already enjoying the online scene, so don't be afraid of taking that step. You aren't the first, and won't be the last :)
Ranked play is the best way to play AoE2 or any RTS. You should make a video about conquering "ladder anxiety" to help people get over their fear of losing ranked games.
Age is THE most fun online game ever, there is something special about it. I started playing 2 monthts ago, and have over 200 matches, and after every single match i watch the replay, search for aoe insight and my EAPM, there is something i cant explain about, but age of empires feels alive, like Rts in general there is so much going on that the experience at the end feels complete
I remember jumping straight into the fray back in the voobly days. No build orders, nothing, I started playing lots of diplo, and damn was that rough! But it was also lots of fun, too, I've got the best memories from that era ^^ Now I'm back to 1600 ELO in 1v1 DE after a long break from the game, and it's still very enjoyable. The amount of different strats and the constant balance changes keep this game fresh
One thing i got from the many other online competitive games, it is to keep playing, i am so damn driven to be good at this game, win rates and sample sizes be damned
@@hzkaka5425 I went down to 800 then it was a huge challenge to go back to 1000. Then its a even harder challenge to reach 1100. After that you feel like a semi-pro XD
Thanks for these great tips ! If you play online, there are actually lots of nice players who you can chat with even after GG saying things like "I thought I was done when you scout rushed me".
I really love that you outline the etiquette as a subset of the communication aspect of online play. While I had played this game since AoC days as a kid, I took a detour into semi-competitive Starcraft 2. The etiquette rules were much more strict because the competitive scene stems from Korean culture, but it isn't as far off from AoE. In 1v1 you would see 9/10 players giving a "glhf" and losers giving a "gg". Not doing the latter was considered being salty, though not doing the former was not as big a deal, just odd. The pause etiquette is different. the expected protocol is saying "ppp" (press pause please) or "pp" (pause please) as a warning before hitting pause. I personally missed this aspect, for a lot of times I see people just hitting pause and everyone spamming question marks in chat. One thing that didn't come up in SC that I have noticed with AoE2 is the abuse of map ping. It's such a jarring sound and often newer players will spam it if they're angry or in trouble. I liked that SotL covered some reasons why one would ping, which helps make communication better. It's super key to be clear, because sometimes frustration gets high, but everyone genuinely wants to be on the same page so they can win. That leaves to the last part, where sometimes you lose. That's okay, but before leaving you should definitely check in with your team before calling "g.g." and quitting (or just abandoning). There were so many games where I was tunnel visioned and losing badly, but I missed that my team mates were winning their fights straight up. I said that I thought I was done, and they "said, keep rebuilding! we're winning our front", and we won the game. Sometimes you do lose those ones, but either way it turns out to be a memorable game where both teams were slogging it out post-imp. Learning to read a game state is an art that takes experience, though. Thanks for the good video and food for thought, SotL!
I've never played an online game, and honestly, I'm not sure if it's something I'm going to do anytime soon because of the established meta. One idea I think would be awesome is having T90 cast an all "new player" 4V4. I would absolutely be willing to dip my toes in for something that epic. If we got enough people to support it, maybe we could actually get T90 to do one?
Just to add to never quit in a team game: Pocket player was rushed (attacked early game) and lost their town centre. I asked that they send some villagers to my base so they didn't loose everything. Instead they quit and our team went on to eventually win.
![Beginner guide to the first 15 villagers [AoE2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/O7zaXjaJVWM/mqdefault.jpg)
My first online game had my opponent spell out "nub" with houses outside of my base :(
Not gonna lie that is pretty creative. Not good manners, but more creative than just shit talking in chat. Hope that one bad apple didn't discourage you.
that's actually pretty creative in order to scout you. just destroy them when you can later in the game
Oh God, this is sad, but halarious!
@@gosucab944 I like to think I at least pressured him to the point of not having the time and resource to spell out "noob" properly x)
Haven't gone online since then but that's only because I wanted to be able to spank the extreme AI cc consistently before I try my hand at playing the game properly(without tower abuse as per based SOL's 2nd commandment) that match was really just to get a feel for the netcode and online path finding since that really makes or breaks an RTS for me.
I remember my first online game in gameranger, I was not playing aoe2 but aom instead, before this I was just playing against AI and singleplayer
scenerios. I thought that I was playing very good until that day. 4 minutes passed in game time and one of my allies marked my base, after that everyone saw my shitty strat , surrendered and quit the game xd
Me: *starts beating moderate, maybe online next?*
SotL: 900-1000 rating equals extreme AI
Me: *back in the single player hole*
@Wasted Trojan True, Im 1200 and I can't beat extreme without abuses either.
Just pick persians and do a tc drop😂
honestly, online matches are very unbalanced. You can be rushed down in 15 mins by one player, but then have a series of matches with 10 noobs in a row who stop building their economy at 40 villagers or even less...
hes very off on that, the Extreme AI is much better than 1000 imo, i started playing a few days ago and i wiped the floor in every match so far, yet i struggle vs the Extreme AI
@@Phoenix-zu6on Early game is around 900-1000 elo but late game it's better.
The most OP build order is the "Three Archery Ranges on Neutral Island" build order.
People will never forget t90 for that and I think that is beautiful
Hail
Too bad T90 didn't play long enough to train you on said island my friend.. :(
3 to be exact
Based username
SOTL: What level of AI should you be able to beat before going online?
Expected answer: "Don't worry about it, your rating will adjust to find you similar opponents."
Actual answer: "Don't worry about it, if you can beat the Extreme AI without towers you're probably fine!"
💀
honestly you shouldn´t think that way
when i started playing online i couldn´t even handle the moderate AI but after a few games i lost i found enemys at my skill level at 800 elo
now im above 1000 elo and can kill the extreme AI easily because i learnd online so much more than offline
People don't win against the AI because they often can't read their opponents at all, let alone come up with a counter reaction. Time, experience, and watching your failures helps with that. If you have a really good match that you lose, it's the perfect time to boot up the replay and see how your opponent won. you will be surprised at the weakness you see. Next time, you will have an idea of how to look for them and when.
You commenting here does raise an interesting question for me though, what would you say the minimum skill level should be to try out CBA? :P
Remember that SOTL is already ranked and doesn't know how it actually is going through shit. Honestly dude as long as you can beat standard ai and know the fundamentals you'll be fine
@@lethrington Pretty low. The reason people always say 'experts only' on CBA lobbies is because it's easy to get to grips with.
This video pretty nicely sums up why I don't like playing multiplayers - there's just so much stress involved in being a good teammate that you spend the whole game just trying not to piss off other people instead of playing and having fun. Not. My. Jam.
Play 1vs1 then?
From experience in Team Games below 1250 ELO (maybe bottom 33% of players) hardly anyone tries to coordinate a Team Strategy other than trying to help a team member who's being attacked or joining up for an attack. Very few toxic players. Above this level people might start expecting feam mates to use the 'meta' strategies
@@longbow857 1v1 is even more anxiety inducing than team games, cuz you're on your own
Have you even tried it, or do just assume how it would feel like to you based on some videos or some people on the internet?
I dont feel stress just because there is a common team strategy.
@@schierlingsbecher7778 Have I played multiplayer games before? lol. Yes. What I said above applies even in 1v1 though - then again, I do prefer to play AoE more like a city-builder than an RTS, so any competative play doesn't really have any apeal...
I am a total noob but I love playing ranked 1v1. The fun of playing a real opponent, without the stress of possibly letting a team down.
Love my 750 Elo level haha
I only play team games so I have someone else to blame 11
allt misc people such as you are the only negative thing about this game
@@MohammadBaidas That was clearly a joke.
I like 1v1, too. I'm not good at the game, so I don't waste my ally's/allies time. It's also much easier to coordinate just my own actions than take care of another person. :-)
I'm right there with you, at 750 elo but bored with the ai. beating a human is so much more satisfying, especially because they use different strategies. I love team games but only play with people I know because if you can't coordinate with voice chat then you're at a huge disadvantage, might as well be playing 1v1.
Just started recently and the thrill of playing a real opponent is so much better than playing the ai
I prefer playing 500 elo noobs and losing to winning against the easy ai
Also i love teamgames
Usually my team is very supportive and im 750 elo in team rm now and 600 elo in 1v1
9:15 Those poor 2 spears coming to the “rescue” :’ (
Lmao
They did their best
@@sirexo3168
Sad, but we won't forget thheir sacrifice
@@informitas0117
If SOTL was the one who sent them so he should do the a funeral worthy of their sacrifice
that's my ally when i ask for help while being rushed in every team game ever 11
7:23 read "just resign if your house is on fire" and I actually thought he meant an in-game house for a few seconds
best comment ever. be friends?
Same actually
Lmao sounds like a typical 4v4 in 900 ELO
in that case: how do I rally the fire brigade ingame...? (yes, I'm new to AoE2)
@@the_rover1 houses are set on fire if they're low HP, like most other buildings. your opponent could just attack them with normal units to do this, but buildings will stay at the same HP even when they're on fire - that's just the visual indicator that you probably need to repair them before the next rush, but not necessarily. so a fire brigade can be villagers smacking a burning house with hammers. yes, that's a funky game mechanics right there
Me, playing against standard AI since i played aoe2 on windows xp as a fuckin four year old: Oh man, this is good advice, i wonder what-
SoTL: "If you can beat Extreme AI without towers you're good to go"
me: [Worried laughter]
I couldn't. I was fine. I lost Elo, but it stabilized after a while and the games were fun.
Extreme AI mops the floor with me everytime, I ended up at 950 elo (barely below the starting elo, which is 1000) after 30 ish games. I'd say beating Moderate AI puts you at 700+ at the very least already. You could just go lose 6-7 games and start playing against people of your caliber
don't worry, i can't beat hard AI and I am at 1000 ELO
Standard is too weak, man, let's put it straight, you can beat it whenever you decide to do so :)
Exactly the same for me, 20years of experience, still playing against standard ai
Yeah, the majestic feeling of building an empire in the campaigns scenario gets somehow lost when you lose in 15 minutes to 3 scouts...
If you are into building majestic empires the online world isn't for you. But there are more things to appriciate in this game :)
@@longbow857 well tell that to fatslob
@@longbow857 I have seen custom games with largest map size with the only purpose for multiplayer Sim city
@@emilhult3394 I'd to have such a match
Honestly Age of Empires 2 is trash tier multiplayer compared to SC 2. At least in SC 2 you can wall off your base quickly and easily to avoid being buttfucked in the first 5 minutes of the game. The economy also makes a lot more sense in that resources are severly limited and you can’t field an army at all if you run out unlike in AOE 2 where wood and food are virtually limitless on many maps.
I think SotL forgot one very important thing that many newer players don't know. If the game isa 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 you need to type an asterix (*) in front of your message for it to show for all players (your team mates and enemies) - otherwise only your team mates can see it. This is important when you are asking if it is okay to unpause the game, or if you want to call the gg
Asterix - a bande dessinée (French or Belgian French-language comic) series about Gaulish warriors
Asterisk - the symbol *
:)
Good point, should get pinned
Legit only found out about this last week. One of my friends who I got to play the game told me it while we were in game.
@@onepalproductionsaaah I think I’ve been saying that wrong due to reading a lot of Asterix and Obelisk as a child x)
7:19, To add to that, a couple of days ago my opponent resigned after 10 minutes and said "sorry, cat threw up"
Poor excuse. Cats throw up hair balls rather often. Once a cat of mine pissed on me during a match and I still didn't quit. Did ask for a 30s pause though.
"No wonder thou wert victorious!"
Resign manners only applies to team games not 1v1. In a 1v1 you don't have anyone depending on you, so you don't need a reason. If you want to be done, you can just resign at any point for any reason.
11
I played against this guy called Fatslob once. It was fun, but i was three hours late for work after.
Dang
HAHAHAHA! the legend.
Fatslob is a legend
What?
@@ritesharora4207 search for legend of fatslob, on T90official's channel.
that guy only hosts viking mirrors on map black forest, and it tends to take hours of grinding.
he baits you with trebs, and then he beats his clueless victims with a scorpion/berserks combo trap.
8:33 Nice to see Spirit of the Lag in the list. Truly embodies the history of the game.
Now i'm even more scared to play online
*same*
Dont be its the easiest way to match with people of similar skill level. Unless you are trying to go pro the rating is just a number that doesnt mean anything
I'll be your teammate, and together we can put a stop to all of those evildoers!
Dude do the art of war campaigns first, after that learn the strats, you can download scenarios from workshop it will improve your gameplay a lot. Sometimes you may match with a pro player and they can beat u easily but it does not means that u are bad.
Honestly, watch SotL's build order videos, get at least silver on the Art of War campaign stuff (preferably push for gold on the dark age build order) and you will be good for most lobby games. You only get better if you play. Yes, you will lose. I have lost more games than I have won, but I took the time to learn why by watching the replay after. Many games I still lose because I kept forgetting to build villagers or something. It's a lot to think about, but work on it one at a time. Looking at it another way, if you think the risks are high (and that's what you're afraid of), maybe you can see that also it has a high reward (whoa, I just had a good game that was close but I closed the W!). That's what drives me to play competitive games. It's not everyone's bag, though.
The pausing guide is really accurate, some time it hard to fighte an alien invasion while doing a a knight rush
Your life sounds very interesting
And if that invasion happens during dark age you'll just lose all your cows anyway. 11
I think another bit of etiquette should apply: do not immediately resign if your cheesy strat failed but you're still quite far ahead. Once had a Nomad game on the 2014 HD version where 3 opponents surrounded one of our teammates, really boxed him in with towers and pallisades. Me and another teammate (4th dude did not respond whatsoever) managed to break through and extract a few of our teammate's villagers and raid a bit. 2 of our opponents resigned within 30 seconds, followed by a third later. The catch: their armies were at that point more than twice our strength in terms of combat potential, and economy was practically equal due to our teammate's losses. Really felt like they wouldn't play unless if it will be a curbstomp :(
Took me a couple reads, but I get the gist. Cheese/nonstandard play always requires a resilient followup. You are doing yourself a disservice not sticking it out and continuing to be an annoyance to your opponent. You are building a different game sense skill.
@@fyrjefe3928 I think he meant that these guys literally played only to stomp their opponent. They wouldn't play a game unless they were galaxies ahead of the opposition, shown by a game where they resigned in spite of still being ahead. But maybe I'm interpreting it wrong.
@@egdrei that is indeed what I meant. Sorry for the confusion. I think they were being really bad sports and a breach of online etiquette during that game.
@@scottvanzoomeren8067 So basically Vampire Marty, but for ELO.
People with big egos like to feed them. They like crushing noobs because they know they cant fight back. The second theres a chance of resistance or uncertainty in their god-complex and the fun immediately ceases. They dont want a challenge, they want to make others feel helpless at their hand. Ive known a few people like that.
There's a strong positive correlation between my anxiety level and how much of this video I've watched.
LOL
Don't forget among the 19358 is one player usually in the editor smashing unit combinations against each other for the scientific advancement of the AoE2 community.
I hate to be the critical guy here again, but the fact that the video has this much detailed explanation and preparation just to get players ready for trying an online game really says something.
Sure if you've been following youtube video's about the game for the longest time, give it a try. But you have to imagine that there's players starting the game now that * do not know the exact difference between a knight and light cavalry *.
Really, before trying online games in AoEDE you really have to have quite some hours into getting to know the game, I'd say. And I think that this video actually supports that statement.
It's true. Art of War campaign helps close that gap. But you and I like many take advantage of years of exposure to the game. But the best time to begin is now :)
Do I pause if my cat walks in front of my monitor and knocks over a glass of water?
No
Only if you get permission from the cat
then you get a 1 minute pause
Build fish traps
Only if she is in labor, while also being abducted by aliens!
tip: its completely okay to lose. Thats the first step.
This comment should be pinned
Even if that's the world's biggest blunder that gets my entire team against me?
Yes, this
People scared to lose, wth man!! It's just a game.
@@bouteilledeau1463 Yes man..its completely okay..
Its finally just a game!
The most important factor that the least people talk about. On average, people lose half their games and it's something everyone needs to understand that its normal and most of all an expected outcome. Yet it is so rarely mentioned.
“If you can beat Extreme AI...”
Ok looks like it’s Single Player and Skirmish for this guy right here.
Dude don't listen to him. If you want to be good at the game extremes a good marker for that but if you can beat a standard ai you'll do fine against the average player as long as you got the fundamentals down. Just do it, what do you have to lose? You already expect that you're going to lose so who gives a shit if you do. Just try it, and if it doesn't work out then practice. It's much more fun that way man, believe me.
I think beating Moderate/Hard is a much more realistic benchmark for online play. Beating Extreme you'd already probably be in the top 50% online.
I don't agree that it's necessary to beat extreme. Yes, if you can't beat it you won't be among the 'pro' level competitive players, that's for sure. But it doesn't exclude you from playing at all - just find some 'noob' games (noob doesn't actually mean noob in the AOE world though, unfortunately) and/or play ranked.
@@JamesBrown-dr1yc the top 50% is inclusive of the average lol
Lmao I had the exact same reaction. I’m having a hard enough time not getting my shit kicked in on the 4th Joan of Arc campaign mission on STANDARD. RIP my chances of playing online if Extreme is the criteria
AOE2 community is so wholesome and helpful for the most part. I find the most helpful way of improving online is actually asking your opponent what they think you could improve on. Most people are happy to oblige 😁
Sometimes, people be mad at me because I kind of suck lol.
How is your comment from 8 hours ago??? Video just came out 30 min ago for me lmfao you took “first” to another level
@@dpaddle Maybe patreon
I've had a lot of very enjoyable conversations with people at the end of the game while we both look at the explored map. It's really fun and informative indeed and most people will be happy to oblige if they haven't already left.
The second most useful function of the flare feature is to spam the crap out of it when your ally fails to support you.
Things I used to do:
never built more than 1 TC
never incorporated other buildings into my early walls
didn't have more than one of each military building either so I'd just queue 15 of something
spent too much resources on research rather than getting out some form of military
lost castles to archer-spam from the ai
telling from the last one, you forgot to get blacksmith upgrades. I had the opposite problem as a kid. I would try to get most of the upgrades before going to the next age. I slowly learnt to be a little more focused in my resource allocation though. Now it's about remembering to keep making vills to you hit that magic ~100 or so
That’s exactly how I used to play before I knew any better. :D Need to add to that list though:
- Either played as Franks and created almost only paladins or British with longbowmen
- Created 30 villagers max
No wonder I got stomped the first time I played against people.
Noob: less than 6000 hours played.
Semi-noob: has never heard of build orders.
Ultra-noob: 1900 ELO, 80% winrate.
spot on lmao
@Hey It's Me!! 11
What's ELO?
@@machr293 it's a rank. More precisely, a way of ranking players (very used in chess)
@@pvbferreira Isn't it the same system in Wii Sports?
I've been playing with various degrees of intensity for over 15 years and this may finally be the thing that convinces me to try online for the first time
You really should, is a total different experience. If you use keyboard shortcuts properly, you won't play bad. Watch elite players games in their channels, there's a lot of useful advices.
And don't be discouraged if your placement matches aren't favourable. After them, the matches will be much more balanced and lots of fun!
im playing just with my brother forgotten empires against AI with game ranger since my 10 years old pc wont run newest aoe2 but its still fun. I got aoe 2 HD but they stopped updating the game such a shame.
@@alexandersebela370 I'm still playing HD as well, I got given DE for my birthday but the old system can't run it :) it's still good fun playing online even if it's not as popular as DE.
I think a lot of executives and analysts undererstimated for a long time, how many players don't play (competitive) multiplayer, not just in Age, but in general. A friend of mine plays a lot of Age2, but doesn't even play skirmish. He plays campaign und builds crazy scenarios, where he is really overpowered compared to the AI opponents, but enjoys going through them like a hot knife through butter.
I remember doing custom szenarios against 7 extreme AI with the "aegis" cheat and giving them close to infinite recources. Then i would spam cobra cars and win that way with hundreds of units on the screen at once in an epic battle.
Spectator chat hasn't come in to DE yet, but the scenario scripting tools are night and day from HD to DE
All the executives and analysts know that it's the single player crowd that plays the game. Which is why there are two new civs and 3 new campaigns coming, even though it upsets the balance of an already hard to balance game.
@@drschwandi3687 i used to do that too lol, but then in aoe1, sometimes I even lost because the enemy converted my cars
@@krityaan This
If all the discouraged people in the comments started playing, they would met eachother in the ranked games hahaha
Two plebs enter, one pleb leaves... a _man._
welcome to low elo legends!
Brooooonze leeeeeeeague heeeeroooos
2:05 the nick name of player 6, "Dr. Housed" haha
MbL's smurf account?
11
Legend
That feel when 18-19 minute castle then I forget to build military while playing medieval eco sim
0:55 incredibly accurate depiction of my first couple of online experiences. My tip would be to not let losses discourage you and try to keep having fun. Once you knwo some basic build orders and counters, just playing ranked is actually one of the fastest ways to improve.
I played an won exactly one ranked match and then never played again, so my winrate stays at 100%^^
my first match was both our first online AOE match, and I won! Then the next two matches, the opponent DC'd! I am now 1100 ELO! Will I ever return to ranked? Nah too scary
@@elisangale431 The curse of winning too much,
Ultimate Chad Energy
LOL
The minute you realize playing ranked is about getting balanced or equal matchups and not about grinding all the stress from playing ranked goes away 11
Yep, that 0:58 meme applies a lot. Go online, enter "n00b game", get stomped by serious competitors, or rushed with meme strategies by players who might as well be the Viper, and go back to AI for a while.
hover over the names and look at their rankings. i have an average ranking and for me the tell for a bad lobby is when a bunch of people click "team 1" together. stacks are usually cheese strats. I don't mind that per se, either. but it's a waste of time if team mates are expecting a 1h treaty and they quit in the middle of feudal.
My TC being completely crushed while enemies spam laugh.
Afterwards they say gg even though it was a massacre.
Gotta love online play.
did you use town bell?
I never, never write gg when I win. It's really up to the opponent to judge if he liked the game, especially if I won by some "cheesy" tactics.
I always thank the ppl for game. They've spent their time with me instead of friends/family/book/movie/we, so it's appropriate. :-)
@@Halvtooth double edged sword, be careful with that. just garrison them manually otherwise your whole eco will suffer.
@@ADCFproductions No I know a lot of people that write 11 if their enemy does town bell.
I watched this video and went online 2 weeks ago. ELO 1000 went about 50/50 in my first 5-6 games. Then proceeded to lose 12 of 13 and dropped all the way to to 600 ELO. Slowly crawled back to almost 700. Biggest takeaway: You need to be able to rush in feudal or be able to defend it. I started off trying to fast castle and boom, but kept getting rushed and kept trying to get better at walling and defending. Then I had an epiphany and decided to start rushing. I use the Celts mainly and it took me a while to get the Man at Arms rush cadence down, but now most games I win are over in 20 minutes.
The great thing is, once you play 10-15 games, you get matched pretty evenly, and at this level people play every Civ and play in really unpredictable and interesting ways. Cannot overstate how playing a human can be way easier or way harder, but it’s never the same game twice like playing the AI.
solution for hosting unranked lobbies would be to attach Elo number in bracket
example 4 v4 (900 -1000 ) Elo
noobs dont have elo.
"If you can beat the extreme ai without towers then you're good enough."
:(
me who cant beat normal
He did say it's the sure fire way to know. I think hard is what you should aim to beat personally if you want to avoid falling straight down, but starting lower is fine too. It all depends on how you look at it. As SotL said, losing early just means easier games later. The first 10 games are your placement matches to get you to the right opponents.
One thing I'd recommend to people to try if they don't want to play competitive online is to make matches vs the AI online. IE 4 players vs 4 AI etc, I use to make these rooms all the time and they always filled up relatively quickly. Its a nice middle ground between just playing against the AI on your own, and actually having others to play with.
Hat off to Spirit of the Lag
the absolute mad lad, he actually made it
I went from binging your videos, to watching some T90 casting to playing all pretty recently. No prior RTS experience and I am competitive in most unranked games. I was scared to play but happy I made the jump. I think following your first 15 villager guide and doing the Art of War early defense training will set up most players to be at least OK at the game.
Love the content :)
It's the first and maybe last time I listen the word "flank" or "pocket" in this channel.
As someone who has been highly competitive in scenes like CS:GO, Battlefield, Call of Duty and League of Legends... man the AoE community sounds so nice and relaxed! No one's throwing around N-words, wishing death upon your family or making rude assumptions about your sexuality. You sound like a really nice lot of people!
Age of Empires was a big part of my childhood and it's amazing that it's been re-invigorated on Steam!
Do i pause or resign if i get the sudden and overwhelming feeling of inadequacy and uselessness both to my teammates and in real life ?
😂🔥
In that case just tower rush please.
Depends on whichever way you can grab the noose faster.
You keep playing and see if you can assess your situation
dial 1-800-market1 and build one next to your teammates... then take some gold and funnel victory!!!! DONT GIVE UP... NEVER SURREDNER...
"Beating the extreme AI"
Still struggling to beat hard :(
Check out Hera's recent video! You will be beating hard in a week!
Hard is a weird case, because it just spams trash really early. I couldn't beat hard, and got tired of it, so I went unranked for about 6 games and then ranked, and I ended up around 800 elo with a 35% winrate after the first month. By now, 7 months later, I made it to around 1200, without ever having bothered with the AI ever again. Don't let yourself get discouraged by the AI, you can do it.
@@leopoldkoppen9081 exactly!!! I went with scout rush n it was a little challenging. But FC into knights wasn't even a challenge. I am gonna hardest now
Dude We played against 2v2 against hard once time, my mate killed one of them but the other one killed both of us 🤣
Me struggling to beat easy
Your videos each are a scientific work.
You start with an introduction, explaining the relevance and motivation, then present your methods, and sources, transisting in the results your work yielded, and finally discussing them.
I love it.
5:45 you can know from the start witch players are pocket or flank. Team position is based as a clock from player's number, from lowest to highest in each team (in a 2, 5, 7, 8 team, player 5 will be player two's pocket)
I like that in AOE2, unlike SC2 for instance, you can stay in a game AND forfeit - I find chatting with my opponent helps me to pick up new tricks, or get some information about my opponent's idea. It's also nice that you can look around. Helps to recap the game and learn a bit more per game.
I've never heard of anyone staying in game after forfeitting lol, that's interesting
In SC2 the replay system works so flawlessly you can usually just review your replay after the game to determine why you lost.
we really need this kind of videos to help the new players settle in
Those "ultra noob" lobbies are just scams. It'll have a 1600 Elo player teaming up with a 1800 Elo player just so that they can feel good about themselves after beating a bunch of low Elo players. It's such a shame.
Never entered one before but I always guessed it would be how it is, it seems obvious if you've played online games in general in your life
Exactly my experience too.
@@Carpatouille Always feels shitty for people like me who usually would play a team game with a friend and both suck at the game and just want to have fun. Can't even enjoy those anymore too
Yep. I played online for the first time yesterday and I created a noob lobby and checked everyone's record to make sure. It was a 4v4 and one of the enemies got to imp super fast and kill me and all my teammates by himself with castle drops and vill rushing with spanish vills. If people wanna crush noobs i dont see why they dont just fight a bunch of AI
They are bunch of idiots, I dont really like when I win easily, I want to struggle I want to survive hard and feel stressed when I play, otherwise game is being farming and building razing simulator.
My first online game was a early feudal rush men at arms with goths. I won.
I ain't gonna be the first nestling to be eaten. And if the jungle can be cruel, so can I.
They're coming for us. I can hear them just beyond that hill in the centre of the map. There's probably a million of them, at least.
My boi trying to bring new meat to the game, love it.
Started playing 2vs2 ranked matches with a mate a couple of days ago, after watching your video and I absolutely love it. I felt well prepared because of your videos and wanted to thank you for giving me the little push I needed! :)
Shoutouts to whoever was playing a custom game named "los putitos" at 0:24
I just want to say that your tutorials are the best! I spend a lot of a time watching other players even great players but none of them were as clear and as eloquent as you are! Keep up the good work!
I just had a few victories on line thanks to you!!!
I have been playing AoE for the last 2 decades and never once have I gone online and that's because I felt that online games are so quick and have all these build order thereby prevents us from soaking into the game and playing a slow paced game.
The most important thing to understand is what you have mentiond about the rating. Don't be afraid to loose. 50% of the players you get matched against in rated games are better at the game than you and 50% are weaker. That mean you are supposed to loose every other game. Or to put it differently... the more you loose, the more you win. Not just experience and knowledge but literally.
1:01 I never related so hard LOOOOOL
I've been playing the game on and off since release. Decided to give a go to multiplayer but got so obliterated that it put me off playing online again
I remember my first ranked game I got tower rushed by Koreans. It took me a solid week to play again
@@ranchyeezys5735 though when you manage to pull through in later games, it just feels so majestic. One time I managed to build a castle in a tower rusher's base to even the score, felt awesome :)
It's always so great getting informative content; thanks for being a staple of the community!
Personally, I’ve been playing a ton of team ranked on DE lately and it feels like the games are just so damn unbalanced. Every time I play there’s always 1-2 players that are so much above everyone else like we all hit castle age around the same time but then you have purple who’s already there and has 20+ knights out already. The reverse is also true, I get into games where I end up just steamrolling my opponents and they have no military or eco. That’s my short rant about team games but it might just be that I haven’t played enough to be paired evenly ig.
However, I’ve found 1v1s to be really fun and a lot more balanced it truly does feel like the 50/50 mentioned in the video whereas team feels more 90/10 win or 10/90 win depending on the day and your teammates/enemies.
But yeah, don’t be afraid to hop into ranked, I’d start with 1v1s to get a feel for it then jump into team games once you can hold your own so you’re not getting steamrolled in a 3v1 if your teammates aren’t helpful.
An issue with Multiplayer is also the elo. In unbalanced Teams, the stronger Player gains less elo than the weaker one, even if they obviously have the same Chance to win, since they're in one Team.
Seems like the elo only takes into Account whom you Beat, but Not who helps you.
Maybe the games would be better balanced if the matchmaking would base on the 1v1 elo
Often, people think team games = my ally carries me. You do have to learn to respond to aggression in some way or another. In team games, often you get much more of it, and it's harder. Obviously you ping and calmly tell your team mates there are two or three players at your base, if you are in trouble. but also temper your expectations if you get hit by early archers and your ally is FC knights. don't expect him to send his two cav into the meat grinder. All I can say is what others are saying: just play some games and take note.
Team games are probably harder to balance but also team games can snowball a lot harder. If you go fc knights as pocket you flank can be "dead" before your 1st knight comes out.
@@Halvtooth Yep, that's it. Your +50 Elo advantage doesn't really matter when three people rush you or when your buddy's base is full rainbow.
It is not improbable that you are encountering farm-slinging, the soup of the week.
Thanks to your videos I am beating the Moderate AI now. Moving on to hard. So far online has been loses to rush plays against me. Your videos are great !!
I was doing my homework, but SoTL is far more important.
School is temporary. AoE is forever.
Stay in school kid, dont do SoTL
Same, have an exam in 2 days
Good joke, but hope you don't really neglect your duties. You can always come back to watch Sotl later
Taking breaks is fine so long as you work and fulfil your potential. Always think of your future because tomorrow always comes
My first online game was also my first Arena game. I mainly play Burgundians and my opponent was Portugese. Fortunately he played very defensively and I was able to take down his 4 castles with a mix of capped rams, bombard cannons, and much later trebuchets. He resigned once I broke a hole in his wall and he saw the swarm of Coustilliers streaming in.
I'm ready to end up on Low Elo Legends
It makes me happy that there's actually a guide for online behavior. I play left 4 dead versus and there is a bunch of unwritten rules that no one bothers to make a video on until very recently but for over a decade there wasn't one. A lot of the terms too conflict with each other/have no reference (dc could mean death charge or dead center, r/nr mean ready or not ready, +1,2,3 means wait for those about more players, sack means get rid of that special infected, etc.) A lot of players would play a few games then get trashed for not knowing the unwritten rules then never play again so I'm glad there's a video for aoe2 explaining it before I go in
I have played for 12 years and I dont like competitive games, i play scenarios and play against the computer on moderate-tough. On a rare occasion i play with friends
Best advice (there was a lot of good advice in this) = Don't quit. You'll learn a lot from trying to come back, especially in team games.
19:38 the first one should be to bring your insults to the best level. you should have given a good list
community is really great and supportive; almost never gets toxic.
Last time I was this early, people only played Hun wars in Arabia.
THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO
The timing is fantastic and the content is very clear. I'll try to convince my friend to play this together
Watching Low-Elo games really motivates me to try to play ranked. I just need to learn a build order so I don't lose the game in the dark age.
Commander root on steam guides is where to start
Download the Interactive Build Order Mod (by Cicero) from the in game mods scene.
You'll get a bunch of custom scenarios (voiced) that guide you through and rate your uptime for many different builds
1st 6 vills on food(sheep), then the next 3 or 4 on wood(3 if you want to get up a bit faster).After that lure a boar, and the rest of the vills goes for food click up when you have 20 or 22 vills. When you clicked up u change your eco depending on what you wanna do in feudal age. That should get you started. On closed maps you should learn a fast castle build order tho.
There are some civ specific build orders and tower rush build order also requires you go up earlier with less vills. When you get to 1300 + in 1v1 more people start to do m&a into archers and drush into fast castle, but they are harder to pull off.
SotL made a nice video on first fifteen villagers, and Hera just started a new guide to 2k. I like the first part, the "make a simple plan" plan seems simple.
I pick Magyars and spam scouts.
Just start out by playing multiplayer on black forest then after mastering booming move on to arabia
I would say: Just start playing online, if you want to play online. Sure, you'll most likely loose your first 10-15 games (as a non-RTS-player), but you can already learn stuff one step at a time. There's for example no need to know counters, if you already loose before you've even the option to build units in the first place
So get to be a master of the dark age first. Eventually you're reaching feudal age as fast as your opponent and at that point, take the next step and learn stuff about rushing, counters for units usually seen in this age and how to proceed with upgrades and growing economy. Again there's no need to learn, how to play with or counter trebuchet's, if you've problems making it into imperial age. And that can be done, until you consistently make it into a proper late game, where everything matters.
Overall, learn things, when they're needed, since learning 10 things at once even when you realistically only need 3 things means, that you're worse at those 3 things, while the rest doesn't matter anyway. Same goes for other things as well. If you're so low in ELO, that your opponents doesn't rush early anway, then there's no need to put 5 hours work into learning, how to counter that and you're better off putting all these 5 hours into learning better build orders and unit counters.
Same for counters of unique units. There are so many of them, that you realistically can't remember everything the first time you watch it (assuming that you've no aidetic memory). Rather wait, until you get beaten by something so hard, that you'll remember it for like the next 3 month and then learning the counter for it sticks to that information way easier than remembering it on its own. This approach also ensure, that you learn the meta-stuff first and don't waste your time with units, that won't get build on your ELO as well or with units, which people on your ELO can't really manage in the first place.
And last but not least: embrace your low ELO as a beginner. It means, that you've a tool which can tell you, that you got better over time. People who train for weeks in AI games will more likely start at a higher ELO and will have a much harder time to get higher, up to a point that it can easily feel like they're not improving further at all, which can easily be devastating, if you think, that you as a "new, bad player" are supposed to get better, even when realistically spoken you're already an average or above average player due to the time you've put into before even starting playing online.
And if you say to yourself, that you're not ready for Ranked or drop out after being defeated by a mile 2-3 times, then chances are high, that you'll never really start playing it anyway, so i would recommend to break this habbit of "i'm not good enough" as soon as possible in any kind of competitive game, because lets be real, you'll never be ready unless you've played so many Ranked games that you know what to expect in them (and no, AI is never a proper substitute for human players, because you build some bad habbits of things, that simply doesn't work against humans^^).
Though obviously all of this refers to 1v1. For team games you should at least know the basics of countering and getting into castle age in a reasonable amount of time^^
2 reasons I only played multiplayer twice:
- The ELO I started with, was waaaay to high.
- Chat harassment
the elo adjusts pretty quickly to be honest. so just play a few games and you will be at your level. the chat harassment... honestly i feel like that is way more common at lower ELOs than a bit higher up, sadly.
Git gud, skrub
Too bad to hear this :/ having these experiences right out of the gate is really discouraging. Don't give up, tho! I think that in team games chat harassment can be worse, cause some players will harass their teamates if the mach isn't going well. It takes some time for the elo to adjust, but after that things go waaaay better (specially in 1v1). Try to look for people to play together, it helps a lot (on reddit you can find discords with nice people).
I remember when I first started playing online I immediately lost the first 3 games. The 4th one I finally won, and I was very happy about it, but my opponent was sad, because he was also completely new. I tried encouraging him by saying it was also the only win so far for me, and we had a nice short chat. I've had very little bad experience in this community so far.
Also, I see lots of people being discouraged by not being able to beat Extreme AI, but I say don't worry about it. The AI is actually pretty good at keeping villager production and has very reasonable up times, so for newer players I can see it being very challenging. Just take everything at your own pace.
"definitive pausing guide" 100% pure gold
Was waiting for this video for 20 years
9:12 "The best argument for playing raided"
I prefer my town unraided thank you.
I’ve played AOE II The Conquerers originally on my grandparents PC when I was 5-6 and have been hooked ever since. Only recently though I’m learning some of the more basic basics since I only recently got DE for myself so I’m having to learn unit counters and build orders my 5-6 year old brain wouldn’t understand. Some point I’d like to begin online but I’ll probably need at lot more practice with more standard games before I try it especially now that I’ve watched this video lol. (For whoever is curious I’m currently 16 and the reason I needed to buy the game is my grandparents live in another state from me for more than six years now.)
"You spilled water(cofee) on your keyboard and need to grab a towel"
This is viper
"your cat walks in front of the monitor"-pause
This is roxyc.
"Your house is on fire"
This is MBL with the fire alarm.
"You/your wife goes into labor"
This is Daut ?)
And will add this one myself
"Checking the tech tree"
This literally hera.
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and what's mr. yo's thingy? and lierrey's?
First 15 vills video helped me a whole lot. Would highly recommend.
I honestly don't trust the "noob" thing in the match description. As I encountered better players disguising as noobs to dunk on people for no reason.
Yeah also as a noob myself, I encountered those types of players too. But I have no other choice than joining those noob lobbies. Honestly, smurfing not only in AoE but in any multiplayer game is disgusting. I never understood this concept and I don't know why it is not hated by most people, everybody seems to accept it as normal. I see it as one of the cheapest ways to satisfy your ego along with literal cheating.
@@permafrost5229 I agree. Nobody is happy or ok if an adult beats up a child, why is this not more routed out?
I wouldn't say we "accept it as normal".
Personally, I virtually never encountered clear smurfing against me.
It's true that I learned on Ranked games. Maybe you should try that. It's paradoxally safer than salons. Once you go down to your actual (current) elo level, the matchmaking will provide you with opponents you can deal with.
@@blaubeer8039 I encountered people taunting in the chat once the match started, to the effect of "Ha ha, I'm not a noob, get wrekd skrub"
Honestly I will try the ranked if I go back online with it. Ironically it would be a lot better at finding people of the same skill level.
@@LightKnight_Age_Of Play a MOBA game and you'll understand how many disgusting smurfs there are out htere
While all of this is true, most of it is also only applicable to a specific set of players, and it might even do a disservice to many of those that are scared of going online. I think the mindset of most of these people is that online matches have so many variables and factors they think they need to be able to consider, to even have relevant matches, and this is what keeps them away; the idea that you need basic (not basic to them) build orders, always think competitively about unit counters and how the match progresses, and that there isn't room for playing at your own pace.
In reality, there is plenty of space for such players, these games just happen to be found below the average skill rating. What this means is that you will most likely lose quite a few matches in the beginning, but it's important to remember that this is just a temporary process of the algorithm figuring out where exactly you belong, so that you can have those kind of matches that suit your pace and style of play. And there is nothing wrong with that, you will end up in the right place and play with/against likeminded people sooner or later, and once you get to that point you can improve at your own pace if you want, or you can just stick around and not care about the competitive aspect too much. It's up to you in the end.
This video is primarily beneficial for offline players who want to go online and be competitive right off the bat, and try to land somewhere in the average position of the existing online player base. But I think most of those people are already playing online in the first place.
Ok point here is, that you don't need to learn anything in particular to play online at all. All you need, is to set your expectations realistically. And remember, no matter how you play and at what level, there are already 100s or 1000s of players just like you who are already enjoying the online scene, so don't be afraid of taking that step. You aren't the first, and won't be the last :)
Ranked play is the best way to play AoE2 or any RTS. You should make a video about conquering "ladder anxiety" to help people get over their fear of losing ranked games.
Age is THE most fun online game ever, there is something special about it.
I started playing 2 monthts ago, and have over 200 matches, and after every single match i watch the replay, search for aoe insight and my EAPM, there is something i cant explain about, but age of empires feels alive, like Rts in general there is so much going on that the experience at the end feels complete
Pause the game when SOTL uploads a new video.
Or should I just resign?
pauze, and tell everyone. they will understand and watch it aswell
I remember jumping straight into the fray back in the voobly days. No build orders, nothing, I started playing lots of diplo, and damn was that rough! But it was also lots of fun, too, I've got the best memories from that era ^^ Now I'm back to 1600 ELO in 1v1 DE after a long break from the game, and it's still very enjoyable. The amount of different strats and the constant balance changes keep this game fresh
SOTL:Resign if your house is on fire
MbL: no, no, no
Top team game tip! Build a market in Feudal to automatically get cartography and be able to see ally line of sight.
I recently started playing online ranked, I’ve lost every match so far. Lol
You'll get there eventually! 14
11
One thing i got from the many other online competitive games, it is to keep playing, i am so damn driven to be good at this game, win rates and sample sizes be damned
so im not alone. yay !
@@hzkaka5425 I went down to 800 then it was a huge challenge to go back to 1000. Then its a even harder challenge to reach 1100. After that you feel like a semi-pro XD
Thanks for these great tips ! If you play online, there are actually lots of nice players who you can chat with even after GG saying things like "I thought I was done when you scout rushed me".
I really love that you outline the etiquette as a subset of the communication aspect of online play. While I had played this game since AoC days as a kid, I took a detour into semi-competitive Starcraft 2. The etiquette rules were much more strict because the competitive scene stems from Korean culture, but it isn't as far off from AoE. In 1v1 you would see 9/10 players giving a "glhf" and losers giving a "gg". Not doing the latter was considered being salty, though not doing the former was not as big a deal, just odd. The pause etiquette is different. the expected protocol is saying "ppp" (press pause please) or "pp" (pause please) as a warning before hitting pause. I personally missed this aspect, for a lot of times I see people just hitting pause and everyone spamming question marks in chat.
One thing that didn't come up in SC that I have noticed with AoE2 is the abuse of map ping. It's such a jarring sound and often newer players will spam it if they're angry or in trouble. I liked that SotL covered some reasons why one would ping, which helps make communication better. It's super key to be clear, because sometimes frustration gets high, but everyone genuinely wants to be on the same page so they can win.
That leaves to the last part, where sometimes you lose. That's okay, but before leaving you should definitely check in with your team before calling "g.g." and quitting (or just abandoning). There were so many games where I was tunnel visioned and losing badly, but I missed that my team mates were winning their fights straight up. I said that I thought I was done, and they "said, keep rebuilding! we're winning our front", and we won the game. Sometimes you do lose those ones, but either way it turns out to be a memorable game where both teams were slogging it out post-imp. Learning to read a game state is an art that takes experience, though.
Thanks for the good video and food for thought, SotL!
I do love me some good SC etiquette
The chart at 10:59 is just delish. Thanks SotL
I've never played an online game, and honestly, I'm not sure if it's something I'm going to do anytime soon because of the established meta.
One idea I think would be awesome is having T90 cast an all "new player" 4V4. I would absolutely be willing to dip my toes in for something that epic. If we got enough people to support it, maybe we could actually get T90 to do one?
Just to add to never quit in a team game: Pocket player was rushed (attacked early game) and lost their town centre. I asked that they send some villagers to my base so they didn't loose everything. Instead they quit and our team went on to eventually win.
I won my first ranked game, but my opponent called me a cheater and M*F*er. Truth is I can't even beat extreme AI.
I used to spend weeks on campaign editors making my own maps and scenarios. So, if I ever play again, that's about all I'll ever do, lol.
0:56 ladder anxiety in a nutshell.
It's a terrible curse.
I'm laughing so much at this video because I play with the two guys they were against a lot 1111
I LOVE that you put pause etiquette. One time I was playing online and this guy kept pausing cause he didn’t get a good team. Such a jerk