There is no need to reissue follow command like on the old patch. Auto Push, Auto Macro, Auto Build.

I own a tiny channel with gameplay/ walk through vids and history shorts. I thought his community might be a good place to share it. Any feedback is welcome

https://youtube.com/shorts/DWqORM1JXq8?si=W_Zk32PVvbpASfgw

So in recent news it was reported that Microsoft (which owns the AoE franchise) is offering voluntary buyouts to up to 60000 staff. While the internal memo explicitly includes Xbox/Gaming, I couldn’t find Activision mentioned specifically. But if this was true, it might become a second blow to the franchise short after the takeover into Activision. On the other hand, the direct devs at Forgotten Empires and CaptureAge are not Microsoft employees anyways.

So, as information is still vague, do you guys think this might be an issue to the franchise?

Source (one of many possible):

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-staff-among-up-to-60000-microsoft-employees-offered-voluntary-exit

https://www.ageofempires.com/news/age-of-empires-ii-definitive-edition-update-188329/

General:

Champi Scout bonus damage vs. Scout Cavalry-line and Camel Scout increased from +1 → +2 (Champi Runner unchanged).

(Elite) Elephant Archer cost increased from 60 food 80 gold → 70 food 80 gold.

(Elite) Elephant Archer HP reduced from 230 → 220, Elite 280 → 270.

Gaia:

Snake attack reduced from 3 → 2.

Komodo Dragon attack reduced from 3 → 2.

Elk attack increased from +2 vs. cavalry, +6 vs. camels → +3 vs. cavalry, +8 vs. camels.

Fixed Walrus stats to use intended values (7 attack, 2.3 attack reload speed, 400 food).

Mapuche:

Bolas Rider movement speed reduced from 1.5 → 1.45 (Elite unchanged).

I've been playing against my friends, usually 3 or 4 of us and 1v1v1 or 1v1v1v1

Most dark age and feudal age is quiet. Everyone's just booming. I'm usually raiding with scout cavalry chopping down stray vills trying to slow them down.

Because of this, I'm usually the first to castle age

My go to strat is keep it lean, upgrade my cavalry and make a knight or two then go drop a forward castle and just attack with a small army of 10-12 units or so and try to roll them before they get sufficient defense

When this fails....they're the most boring games

Everyone gets pretty even, fully upgraded units, 2-3 relics, upgraded walls and keeps, etc. and just hangs out

Usually whoever attacks first loses. Too many castles, keeps, archers, elephants, bombard cannons, etc. defending....then whoever attacks first loses that attack, they get counter attacked and lose more often than not

Ideally I'm trying to rush and knock out at least 1 opponent before they get to imp. Ideally early castle age before they can even get a castle up.

Recently I've made some sneaky plays with siege towers just funneling a bunch of trash units over walls and attacking from the rear, then attacking with siege on the other side of their base. Also had some fun with petards just blasting a hole in a wall and doing the same....funneling a bunch of trash for a distraction before starting my real attack somewhere else.

But most of the time it just ends up being a drawn out stalemate and someone builds a wonder and everyone attacks them to try to stop it lol

What are some good tips for rushing? And if not rushing, what's the best way to attack late game when everyone's built up and super defensive?

If you have bothered to keep them alive (they are pretty slow and fragile), then it would be cool to be able to garrison them in Krepost or Castle and pay to train them to 'remount' turning them back into mounted Koniks.

Otherwise, a handful of dismounted Koniks are just annoying and not worth anything (if only they were actually militia or spearman line instead of their own unit type - but this would be OP).

Skirmishers have been the meta in Feudal and early Castle Age for quite a while now, and most pros have complained about how oppressive skirms are.

In theory, skirms are a situational counter-unit. In practice, they do everything:

• They hard-counter archers.
• They can deal with the militia-line well enough while being perfectly prepared for their natural follow-up of archers.
• You can push out with them in Feudal with almost no risk and idle economy or even pick off a vil.
• If you're caught off-guard by scouts, you still deal decent damage to them. In the worst case you just run back to your base with the majority of skirms surviving, even though scouts are supposed to be their direct counter!

Even in Castle Age, pros often avoid going Knights into massed skirms because pathing, choke points, and a single Monk behind the skirms render the Knights useless. St4rk made a great video breaking this down (youtube).

I've seen several complicated suggestions before like adjusting training time or fire rate of skirms, but in my opinion the only thing that's wrong is that cavalry doesn't counter skirms hard enough.

I propose that all cavalry (or at least the Scout and Knight lines) should deal +1 damage to skirms. I'm sure there are experts who know the cleanest way to implement this, like adding +1 bonus damage against the skirmisher armor class or something.

I think this would improve balance and encourage more active play with infantry, archers, and cavalry rather than devolving into stale skirm-mirror non-action.

What do you think?

• Champi Scout bonus damage vs. Scout Cavalry-line and Camel Scout increased from +1 -> +2 (Champi Runner unchanged).

What is a general rule of thumb for when to stop purely booming and start building an army? For example let's say on nomad. No one is attacking your team. Do you stop booming in Castle Age to make an army for a bit?

The Bel cup makes a return in 2026 :a 1v1 tournament for Belgian players only: Anyone with the Belgian nationality, living here or abroad, or anyone residing in Belgium can sign up. We strive to make fair brackets for everyone, the exact format will depend on the number of sign-ups: more information can be found in the Belgian discord :https://discord.gg/NJ44hd7hv , or just join the discord to hang out with your fellow countrymen

For those who have seen the recent changes in the October 27th update, this would make sense

Hera had recently made a few videos showcasing Elephant Archers and how op are especially in Castle Age, though it might be more so his skills. Now they got hit with 2 needs

In another video he talked about Bolas Rider and how unfair it felt To play against this unit which I don’t think many people fully agree with it tho I can be wrong. this got a small nerf to movement speed in Castle Age

Than the video about how Champi civs were struggling and the initial Champi always got beat by the scout which I think everyone agreed was an issue so I’d say it was a good fix

All 3 of the things he mentioned recently all got added to the balance changes in less than 2 months which seems baffling to me. Am I overthinking it or is his influence really that big on the devs?

I know im supposed to kill berbers in feudal, i know im supposed to deny castles to prevent camel archer production. But theoretically what if he has like 20Camel archers and genitour as trash spam.

Genitour pretty op against archers and it even beats skirms cost effectively?!

I tough about knights or magyar huszar+skirm?! does it make sense?

Skirms should in theory kill camel archers and knights push back genitours, but then he can throw in few camels or discounted hussars So i guess you really want to have some arbs in mix or scorpions??

If you go for some cavalry+skirm+arb/scorp combo, i feel like you die to BBC

Cav isnt that great at sniping BBC if its camping behind walll of thick genitours...

Any better ideas

arabian desert, enclosed, land nomad (or steppe dont remember exactly) and megarandom seem pretty balanced between aggresiveness and more standard game play. might switch enclosed and arena here and there if im getting beaten to much on enclosed

how does glade keep getting so many votes constantly? cant understand that map 11

TL:DR
I LOVE THIS GAME AND ITS BECAUSE I BOUGHT A 3 DOLLAR BOX OF CRUNCHY SUGAR

I just want to say if it wasn't for a random promo i don't think i wouldn't of fallen for this genre. as a kid my mother one day came home with a box of cereal and this was inside. as the picture says in Australia and new Zealand we could find a free copy of this in a box of Nutra grain. this was in 2002 so aoe 2 was all ready out so its interesting to give and old game for free but it worked all most all the kids i know growing up played this and aoe 2 and this god dam promo was the reason why.
i was 5-6 at the time we got this and we were quite poor so no internet, very view games that weren't a bunch of cheap pirated games you could buy for like 5 bucks at a market. but my mother and sister also fell for this game that with in the month we went and bought the collectors edition. I'm sad to say i don't know were this is anymore but i know it got downloaded on dozens of pc over the decades. and then later on we saw age of mythology now I'm looking up the release dates it actually might of been to promote AOM it came out same time as the promo. my mum never knew what she was doing and quickly moved to AoM because of the myth units. my sister prefers making scenarios for me to play. and i loved the campaigns when i would get stuck probs once a mission i would ask my big sister to help me only learning years later she never finished a mission with out cheating and she would just put in cheats for me, but me being between 5-10 thought she was just the best player.

But this love for this franchise made me beg mum for warcraft 3 and commander and conquer.
i enjoyed generals but the sci-fi stuff never grabbed me, but warcraft this this game is the reason i have to many hours on wow. and then came Aoe 3 now this game just felt wrong in my child brain. to be called Age of empires, was it about the different empires in the age it was talking about yes, was it medieval no. so this game some how just didn't grab me.

Then i became a teenager at some point and girls and shooters and league took me away for some time. but there was all was an itch once every 3-5 months after there would be a random teaser about aoe 4 or a mention. i would download do a bunch of campaign missions till i lost and be angry and then repeat. Then D.E came out it looking like what my childhood brain saw the game as, all the new stuff i was hooked. i was back watching my funny little burn towns and found armies, i went back and said I'm gonna finish these campaigns ALL OF THEM, Biggest wake up call of my life i was shit getting stuck on some stranded difficulty and 1 sword missions. this changed my whole look at the game, when i played with friends i thought i was good if not great no one in my friend groups could beat me even 1v4 at some stages but thats it if you tell a young child to beat these 3 newborns the young child should win. so i changed me goal to be on bronze tick on all missions and work my way up from there. i was slow at doing this as it would be like maybe 2 missions a week, just played a lot of other games.

Then aoe 4 came out and Aom retold. I'm in different about aoe 4 its a good game but aoe 2 feels better. But Retold i didn't play another game till i 100% the achievements and beat it on titan (hardest at the time, fuck that tree/elephant level). Now i only have 5 victor and vanquished missions the last Francisco (Portuguese) and alexander the great dlc, The Aztecs on Retold.
But base aoe 1 and return to Rome, All aoe 2 dlc besides mentioned above aoe 4 all done on the hardest difficulty after 24 years, Biggest tip i can say is Build 1-2 castle in a choke point like 5-10 units to kill siege and wait till you get enough stuff, 90% of missions can be completed like that if you get stuck.

And none of this wouldn't of happened if it wasn't for a cereal box prizes. My mum just asked me to get retold working for her witch inspired this post and my sister downloaded D.E on her xbox last year and has been playing it.

I love the Britons. Amazing classic AoK civilization with a clear and overwhelming theme: Range and power. They do what every other civ does with archers and siege and they do it harder

In addition to their formidable longbowmen and arbalests, what I've also always loved are their Warwolf Trebuchets. It's really kind of a quietly amazing upgrade that gives you such a massive advantage in treb wars, and it can be difficult to discern what you're up against if you are an opposing player. My idea is to give them a visual indicator, like we do already for Elite Upgraded UU. Basically it would appear as a bigger taller sturdier trebuchet with those two cursed giant hamster wheel things on the side for loading. Let's make it happen people. Discuss

I would have assumed the Warrior Priest was a regional unit shared with the Georgians and possibly the Slavs.

How much would a Warrior Priest that heals itself for the Georgians and the Druzhina for the Slavs break the game?

Taking advantage of the fact that neither civilization has regional units.

I scout rush, i kill 2 or 3 vills, than idk what to do, and uncertainty (having no game plan) kills me, i find myself producing random bull crap trying to respond to hindustanie random bull crap that they throw at me, (they tend to produce some camels some skirms some ghulams some hussars, i almost feel like they are trying to bait you into commiting to some unit.

Should i go for 2 range CA or knights+pikeman or xbows+1 castle magyar hussar? Or knights + scorps?

Ppl are saying that CA is bad choice in this matchup, but CA should counter camels no? Not sure how does CA perform against imp camel mixed with ghulam tho. Probbably not well but if you have like 40 of HCA with recurve bow and you throw in some random meat? Idk

I feel like when going for knight+pike im not utilizing any bonuses what so ever and it feels like hand canons will clear me in imp.

If going for knight+scorp i feel like im on timer bcs of BBC + scorps suck and always die for no reason. 11.

I suspect magyar hussar + xbow might be the right choice here, but idk if i gonna be able to produce enough magyar hussars, and save stone for enough castles...

edit:

you go full CA, it turns out you destroy ghulam in late game as recurve bow HCA deals 4 to elite ghulams, not 2 as i tought

Vietnamese received a lot of changes with Vikings Saga DLC. While they did get masonry, they lost the 20% HP bonus applying to Cav Archers and Fire Lancers. They also still miss blast furnace and also don't have Gambesons.

All other civs with fire lancers have some type of applicable civ bonus. I understand the unit can be hard to balance, but do you think the Fire Lancers deserve some type of bonus for Vietnamese?

The Varangian Guard occupies the Shock Infantry class for the Vikings, Danes, Varangians, Saxons, and Byzantines and all 5 of these civs have either a unique tech, civ bonus, or both that apply to the Varangian Guards.

If a civ has a special regional type unit such as Fire Lancers for East Asia, Varangian Guards for Northern Europe and Byzantines, Slingers, Champis, or Eagles for America civs, and so on. Should those civs that have these unique regional units always have a civ bonus or unique tech applicable to them?

I did not mention Three Kingdoms but Grenadiers have a bonus for Jurchens, Xianbei and Jian Swordsmen for Wei and Wu. And Chinese, Wei, Wu, and Shu all have some type of bonus or unique tech for Lou Chuans and Traction Trebuchets.

So is this Fire Lancer change for Vietnamese really more about the unit being hard to balance? And perhaps they are planning to add something back?

Auto follow deer push is a nice automation for a boring annyoing thing.

But lets go further. How many more villagers could be added to the start before it changes something to build orders?

Maybe start with increasing from 3 to 4 too see if that changes anything?
The goal is to make the game more fun and the beginning is just repetition right now.

Another Idea: A second auto scout functin for the scout where he circles around the base to make the sheep finding process easier

DM Michi feels like a chess match against multiple people.

Pure late-game glory from the jump where it’s relaxed at the start, very explosive at the end and way more team-oriented.

The community is chill apart from one youtuber, the games feel epic every single time and you get to experiment with crazy compositions and base designs you never get to try in ranked.

You start off building 25+ towncenters and 10+ markets, there is a race for 'winning' the stone & reaching 400 pop the fastest. 'Taking the stone' is a reaction timing test to see who is the fastest at placing down the market & buying up the stone before anyone else.

All the players racing for it wait anxiously for the loading screen to finish, and it is painstakingly nerve wracking when the loading screen takes forever. Maxxing your pop is #1 priority during treaty time, you want all 400 villagers booming.

Then it's down to structuring your base; Where you place your houses, military buildings, walls & towers.

Finally you battle & try to exploit your opponents weaknesses while showcasing your strengths.

Some players choose to solely boom & sling, here are some other strategies/terms players utilize in DM Michi

• Wood War - Trying to obtain the most wood possible
• Booming - Continuing to gather resources post treaty
• Slinger - Boomers who share resources thus teammates can have bigger army pop
• Rusher - Players ready before the treaty aiming to catch their opponent off-guard
• Micro - Manual use of Siege Onager/Bombard Cannon/Flaming Camels/etc
• Waller - Multiple layers of walls with gates to ward off opponents
• Pusher - Players who gradually push & take control of the map
• Protector - Players who defend/wall/etc for their ally
• Deathball - 250+ pop army composition that farms opponnet
• Commander - Tells his teammates what to do, where to push, etc
• Surging - Deleting villagers/trade carts to produce bigger army
• Ganker - Supporting your teammate attacking his opponent
• Tanker - Holds off big army, sometimes 2+ people

The strongest civs in the game are the following:

• S Tier: Teutons, Saracens, Tatars, Spanish, Celts, Persians, Khmer, Gurjaras
• A Tier: Bohemians, Hindustanis, Bengalis, Mongols, Slavs, Ethiopians, Jurchens, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Incas & Danes
• B Tier: Khitans, Bulgarians, Varangians, Chinese, Turks, Georgians, Dravidians, Romans, Franks

If you want to see DM Michi gameplay you can click here

They’re inferior as scouts, inferior in melee vs MaA, inferior to the militia line against shock infantry which are becoming very prevalent, and I only a couple of them are FU units in imperial age.

what if the whole unit line upgraded free in each age for every civ, just as a feature of the unit rather than a civ bonus? If you were to slow down production time by several seconds in dark age I don’t think you’d have a sufficient mass to be OP upon hitting feudal to be oppressive, and I don’t think it’s strong enough at any later stage to need any further nerf beyond Dark age.

Im pretty sure this is some kind of personal milestone. Something clicked in the last week and im finally winning more than im losing. Definetly not a smurf but ill take the accusation all day. (Dont mind the trolling)