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?

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?

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

Just annoys me that after playing dozens of multiplayer games I’m 50/50 on winning but have never one a match against those paid ones. Just played a WEI and it absolutely cleaned me up before I’d even really got started, iv got 2 horse and old mates got a dozen… for for the rant

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

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

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).

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

unit gimmicks not included (no charge attacks, gold generation, healing, trample damage...) - forget about those

I would personally remove almost all eco bonuses as i consider them useless as when every civ has eco bonus nobody really has any eco bonus.

On the other hand i think we need more cool ways to play game and unique strategies.

For example i consider Persian TC douche absolutely UNIQUE GOATED COOL way of playing game. Same as berber faster moving villager bonus, which i think should be restored to 10% as it was before.

I am absolutely bored playing with same units each game in feudal and i think every civ should have somewhat secondary option to play in each age.

IMO there should be standard way of playing for each civ and than there should be the gimmick strategy....

For example i would absolutely be happy if captured Briton sheeps could attack, would have slightely more HP and 3 or 4 sheeps could kill 1vill. Imagine the fun... 11. And than if you saved them till feudal they would become even slightely better, being able to do 2sheep vs 1loomed villager

And it would be balanced because if you lost them than your opponent would get free food and you would loose your free food.

Or imagine if some civ had +100% hp palisade walls since dark age, than walling resources would be extra effective and would make your opponent think twice about guarding his res...

Or some civs starting scout would get +15 bonus against buildings. Perhaps starting champi of incas? as it can always be killed by regular scouts..

Imagine the chaos and difference and freshness on ladder.

I know that most ppl including pros want game to be super stable and boring. But honestly i think enveryone enjoyed red phosporus and hoangs cool new strats. Its sad that it got nerfed so hard by devs. I really think they overdid nerfs instead of making resources more wournable to feudal pressure like on arabian desert.

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?

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).

Ok. So i do enjoy a game from time to time on ranked as it usually places people of same skill one against the other rather than "noob lobbies" where everyone is a pro :)

Yesterday played few battles and... in first battle 1.5 minites into resign of two players. Second battle one minite into resign by one of the 4 teamamtes.... ok... drop of internet?

Today was amazing. First game. We got black forest as a map. One player started cursing how he doesnt like the map and why he didnt get pocket.

Killed his TC and moved to pocket position to build a lumber camp into resign. On the other side we killed a vil so we had advantage....

Second game Arena. Dude got donjon rushed. I was pocket. Didnt boom. Did FC into knights with rams. But i guess i wasnt fast enough. So he came to me and instead of trying to reboom couse enemy economy is shit too with dojnojs, he walles in my gold. I tell my team that and resign. I dont want to play with such a toxic dude. Then he destdoyes the walls so enemy doesnt see him and report him and resigns.

Question. Why so you que up for a game if you only wabt to bitch and resign? Whats the point? Is there a tournament comming for low elos (i am round 1k) where people are dropping their elo??

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?

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

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

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

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