Vikings are good for seemaps From a guy who once defeated five of his friends in AoE2, if you don't know at least the basics you have no chance. But since you are at least decent Starcraft players this shouldn't be so difficult for you. When I played against five others I did only one powerful long push which killed 3-4 of them and the rest of them were just in panic mode so I could macro up. So your main strategy should be one of you should be rushing in tier 2 and the other one should prepare a tier 3 push. I don't remember the complete build orders, but the guy who is rushing ( tier 2) should choose a race/nation which has good archers, since I don't think you are able to kill him on tier 2 since AoE2 is very much in favour of the defender in tier 2 since you can send your workers in to your base and it works like a big bunker. But if you can force him with archers to stay with his workers long enough in his base you/your teammate should have enough time to prepare a powerful tier 3 push. Since you want to finish the game relatively early (tier 3 around 10-12 Minutes) the guy how attacks in tier 3 should use a race which has good siege units. Since I haven't played AoE2 for some years I am not complete sure about the races you should choose, but like GertHeart mentioned before it depends on the civ your friend choose.
Some basics don't try to defend, don't let him dictate the game and don't try a strat like both of you just rushing ( 2guys 6pooling in a 2vs1 in SC might be nearly unbeatable but in AoE2 you will loose against every decent player).
On September 28 2011 10:22 GertHeart wrote: I was rated pretty high in AoK back in my day so I can help you out a little.(Plus I practiced castling recently =B took me a few games to get it back to about 16 minutes, but it was decent enough.)
Basic builds to learn are 15 minute castles or lower, depending on his civ and yours you may have to change strats, if he goes for I think it's the huns? Who have no housing at the start expect one of you to be bum rushed and throw the 15 minute castles out of the window.
If you know he is playing a civilization where he probably will not bum rush you, you can probably both get to castle and then take him out, problem with AoK is that it's very possible for a skilled person to take on 2v1, it's not like SC2 in where a pro will still have trouble vs 2 platinum players. A skilled AoE player depending on map choice can demolish 2-4 people who are unskilled easily.
Another thing is you don't want him to be allowed to play on an island map, there are 13 minute castles in AoK for Ocean maps and high level people can do these quite well. (Plus you won't be able to rush him.)
I would recommend this video for AoE2
Still applies for AoK.
What this guy said, ignore everything else in this thread pretty much
You could also try knight rushing (getting castle age asap and rushing knights, knights rapes everything), but the rush in the video linked is better and easier to learn.
All of the following advice pertains to LAND MAPS or maps without significant bodies of water.
I used to play AoE2 and AoE2:TC on Zone (peak rating around 1900 Elo sometime in 2005)
1. You need to know how to "flush" or feudal rush. There are three variants of flushes, only one of which works well in the vanilla AoE2. Rarely you can get away with tower rushing as well, but against a good player tower rushing is pretty shitty.
The variant of the flush that works in both AoE2 and AoE:TC:
a. 2 archery range skirmisher/spear flush, either forward base or defensive. Generally you go for a 22-24 villager age up to Feudal as Chinese or Brits (in vanilla AoE2) or Mongols (in either AoE2 or TC) or Huns (best civilization, only TC). Chinese are the best civilization in AoE2 and Brits/Byz/Mongols can all be fairly decent in AoE2 vanilla but Chinese are best. In TC Huns are by far the best, there's no doubt.
Build order:
-Build 2 houses at start of game, one with two villagers, other with the third villager and constant villager production unless otherwise noted -First 6 villagers gather sheep (7 population counting the scout) -Next 3 villagers go to wood, build a lumber camp next to forest. (4 if anything but Huns) -Next 3 villagers go to berries, first builds a mill at berries -Next villager builds house near first boar, research loom instead of making another villager here (huns skip house obviously) -As soon as house completes lure the boar to town center with builder (resume villager production after loom) -use the sheep villagers to drop off their food and shoot the boar underneath the town center -should be at 14/15 population now, next 4/5 villagers to boar, use the injured villager to build a farm next to town center -at 17 population take another villager and build house next to second boar, lure it, kill it (if Mongols you'll have to do this around 15 because they gather food from hunted sources faster) -if you're on a map with a third boar you can lure it at any time after this -villagers 18 and 19 build farms next to town center, second wounded villager also creates farm (4 farmers total) -villagers 20-22 or 20-24 go to wood, make a new lumber camp at a new section of forest or new forest (improves efficiency) as soon as the boar are finished switch 6 villagers to sheep again and send rest to wood -periodically drop off food from the sheep villagers as you get close to 500. If you don't have 500 keep making villagers (you should have it by now)
If you plan on doing a forward rush you need to age up at 22 villagers so it's faster, and send 4 villagers to build a forward barracks near your enemy (who you have hopefully scouted by now) around 40% to age 2. The barracks needs to start at around 65-70% to age 2 to be on time
If you're defending put one or two extra farms down, send 2-3 villagers to food (the four you would've sent away) and then the rest on wood.
Once the sheep are done you switch all those sheep gatherers to wood.
You should have 4 forward vils / 4 farmers/ 3 berries/10 wood if you're forward rushing Should have 4-5 farmers/5 berries/13/14 wood if you're defending
Barracks should start no later than 60% of the way to feudal (around 10:10? gametime if you're defending usually, don't remember exactly. Latest feudal should be like 11:30, rushing it should be like 10:30)
Upon hitting feudal immediately begin making villagers, research double bit axe at lumber camp, make two archery ranges immediately with 4 builders, make a spearman at barracks, research horse collar at mill (in that order)
once archery ranges finish constantly make skirmishers and spears. If he doesn't attack you by the time you get 10 or so, go across the map and start killing his wood villagers. If he attacks you, begin putting up palisades in strategic places to cut off his paths of attack and put up a tower near your wood if he towers you or if you think you need it there to garrison and what not.
With workers you want to balance food/wood income. A couple minutes into feudal you'll want to research wheelbarrow at the towncenter. You'll also want to get a blacksmith to research the archer upgrades and then start mining gold in order to prepare for a transition to castle age.
Then finally when you get enough resources/are comfortable with aging you go castle and build 2-3 stables, pump knights, add extra TCs, boom, etc etc etc.
EDIT: The other two types of flushes are archer flushes and scout flushes. Archer flushes can be done in AoE2 vanilla but skirm flush can straight up destroy it so no real point there.
In TC the feudal dynamic changes because scouts get +2 attack and bloodlines gets introduced (plus huns woot) so the scout flush becomes viable. The archer flush becomes viable too because you can go 1 range 1 stable and make archers and scouts or skirms and scouts, which will kill any pure scout flush and pure skirm flushes with some decent micro. It isn't a strict rock/paper/scissors but you can make any of the three flush styles work depending on your own playstyle. For a hybrid style, for example, I prefer an in-base scout flush, for offense I prefer a range/stable archer flush, and for defense I prefer a two range skirm flush.
Scouts and archers both take way more micro than skirms so it's not a great idea to use them in TC unless you know what you're doing
If you're C+ honestly you should win just with mechanics and having a basic idea of how things work. Obviously you won't understand the villager economy like you would SCVs but as long as you got a rough idea - just be sure to play low eco so you don't get caught out.
C+ is really good basically; this guy likely isn't good in comparison. Do some harassment to force multitasking and you can probably win 1v1 let alone 2v1.
On September 28 2011 10:10 Phyrigian wrote: i think hes saying ones C+ and the others diamond top 8 because they both have sc1/sc2 experience...
anyway, from what little i know about aoe its obviously less about mechanics and its a lot more of a traditionalist RTS. hes probably most likely some person who thinks hes hot shit and plays it amongst friends, but none of them use hotkeys and all suck. you guys got dis!
I'm trying to read the rest of this stuff, but basically, I haven't played much SC2 mostly cause of school.
The AOE2 match is because well, figured id give it a try to see if SC1,2 skillset applies to other strategy games
On September 28 2011 11:29 wherebugsgo wrote: Most of this advice is really terrible lol.
All of the following advice pertains to LAND MAPS or maps without significant bodies of water.
I used to play AoE2 and AoE2:TC on Zone (peak rating around 1900 Elo sometime in 2005)
1. You need to know how to "flush" or feudal rush. There are three variants of flushes, only one of which works well in the vanilla AoE2. Rarely you can get away with tower rushing as well, but against a good player tower rushing is pretty shitty.
The variant of the flush that works in both AoE2 and AoE:TC:
a. 2 archery range skirmisher/spear flush, either forward base or defensive. Generally you go for a 22-24 villager age up to Feudal as Chinese or Brits (in vanilla AoE2) or Mongols (in either AoE2 or TC) or Huns (best civilization, only TC). Chinese are the best civilization in AoE2 and Brits/Byz/Mongols can all be fairly decent in AoE2 vanilla but Chinese are best. In TC Huns are by far the best, there's no doubt.
Build order:
-Build 2 houses at start of game, one with two villagers, other with the third villager and constant villager production unless otherwise noted -First 6 villagers gather sheep (7 population counting the scout) -Next 3 villagers go to wood, build a lumber camp next to forest. (4 if anything but Huns) -Next 3 villagers go to berries, first builds a mill at berries -Next villager builds house near first boar, research loom instead of making another villager here (huns skip house obviously) -As soon as house completes lure the boar to town center with builder (resume villager production after loom) -use the sheep villagers to drop off their food and shoot the boar underneath the town center -should be at 14/15 population now, next 4/5 villagers to boar, use the injured villager to build a farm next to town center -at 17 population take another villager and build house next to second boar, lure it, kill it (if Mongols you'll have to do this around 15 because they gather food from hunted sources faster) -if you're on a map with a third boar you can lure it at any time after this -villagers 18 and 19 build farms next to town center, second wounded villager also creates farm (4 farmers total) -villagers 20-22 or 20-24 go to wood, make a new lumber camp at a new section of forest or new forest (improves efficiency) as soon as the boar are finished switch 6 villagers to sheep again and send rest to wood -periodically drop off food from the sheep villagers as you get close to 500. If you don't have 500 keep making villagers (you should have it by now)
If you plan on doing a forward rush you need to age up at 22 villagers so it's faster, and send 4 villagers to build a forward barracks near your enemy (who you have hopefully scouted by now) around 40% to age 2. The barracks needs to start at around 65-70% to age 2 to be on time
If you're defending put one or two extra farms down, send 2-3 villagers to food (the four you would've sent away) and then the rest on wood.
Once the sheep are done you switch all those sheep gatherers to wood.
You should have 4 forward vils / 4 farmers/ 3 berries/10 wood if you're forward rushing Should have 4-5 farmers/5 berries/13/14 wood if you're defending
Barracks should start no later than 60% of the way to feudal (around 10:10? gametime if you're defending usually, don't remember exactly. Latest feudal should be like 11:30, rushing it should be like 10:30)
Upon hitting feudal immediately begin making villagers, research double bit axe at lumber camp, make two archery ranges immediately with 4 builders, make a spearman at barracks, research horse collar at mill (in that order)
once archery ranges finish constantly make skirmishers and spears. If he doesn't attack you by the time you get 10 or so, go across the map and start killing his wood villagers. If he attacks you, begin putting up palisades in strategic places to cut off his paths of attack and put up a tower near your wood if he towers you or if you think you need it there to garrison and what not.
With workers you want to balance food/wood income. A couple minutes into feudal you'll want to research wheelbarrow at the towncenter. You'll also want to get a blacksmith to research the archer upgrades and then start mining gold in order to prepare for a transition to castle age.
Then finally when you get enough resources/are comfortable with aging you go castle and build 2-3 stables, pump knights, add extra TCs, boom, etc etc etc.
EDIT: The other two types of flushes are archer flushes and scout flushes. Archer flushes can be done in AoE2 vanilla but skirm flush can straight up destroy it so no real point there.
In TC the feudal dynamic changes because scouts get +2 attack and bloodlines gets introduced (plus huns woot) so the scout flush becomes viable. The archer flush becomes viable too because you can go 1 range 1 stable and make archers and scouts or skirms and scouts, which will kill any pure scout flush and pure skirm flushes with some decent micro. It isn't a strict rock/paper/scissors but you can make any of the three flush styles work depending on your own playstyle. For a hybrid style, for example, I prefer an in-base scout flush, for offense I prefer a range/stable archer flush, and for defense I prefer a two range skirm flush.
Scouts and archers both take way more micro than skirms so it's not a great idea to use them in TC unless you know what you're doing
Dude bro, you sound like you really know what you're talking about. I'm going to memorize that build order with a few single player games, and use uhm... what was that imbalanced race. Goths with their super fast training archer units? ok
On September 28 2011 10:22 GertHeart wrote: I was rated pretty high in AoK back in my day so I can help you out a little.(Plus I practiced castling recently =B took me a few games to get it back to about 16 minutes, but it was decent enough.)
Basic builds to learn are 15 minute castles or lower, depending on his civ and yours you may have to change strats, if he goes for I think it's the huns? Who have no housing at the start expect one of you to be bum rushed and throw the 15 minute castles out of the window.
If you know he is playing a civilization where he probably will not bum rush you, you can probably both get to castle and then take him out, problem with AoK is that it's very possible for a skilled person to take on 2v1, it's not like SC2 in where a pro will still have trouble vs 2 platinum players. A skilled AoE player depending on map choice can demolish 2-4 people who are unskilled easily.
Another thing is you don't want him to be allowed to play on an island map, there are 13 minute castles in AoK for Ocean maps and high level people can do these quite well. (Plus you won't be able to rush him.)
Dude this is exactly what I'm looking for. Kinda like someone typing in SC into youtube and seeing a bunch of noob stuff, but where is the pro mana? yup yup this is the AOK pro mana.
I'm going to work on some 15 minute castle builds. What do you think about one of us being Hun and timing bum rush, and the other guy be Goth or something, and do an archer timing rush.
seems that we will have to dictate the game cause he knows way more than us. if we attack first, that will be essential. Then we'll finish him off with some of the AOK "broken" stuff, which i hear is goth archer dudes (something about speed production bonus and pumping out a billion of them)
EDIT: I'm assuming the general flow of the game is: tech to castle units as fast as possible while not dying to rushes? this is why you mention the 16 minute castle tech and send me a youtube of rush defending?
What is the viability of having my ally feed resources to me, so I can get into the feudal age at like, 16 villagers instead of 24 villagers and do a superfast rush/towerrush on his lumbercamp?
How come the standard castle age unit to spam is knights. wouldn't it be whatever is coming out of the castle? neways, ok, feudal rush = spearmen/archer/scouts + bunker rush harass their wood. castle age = spam knights until he dies.
during this time, i'll tell my ally to do exactly what the opp is doing. and after the opp kills me, my ally does a huge attack and kills him.
in castle age, how do i know how many extra town centers to make? In sc2, expanding gives you a timing window of weakness and after that, you're doing better, but assuming that me and my ally both do a perfect feudal rush into castle tech, i doubt the opp will be too far ahead of us. what's preventing one of us from massing knights, and the other dude to mass town centers and hit pop cap and do a huge attack?
edit: do me and my ally have near spawn points? should we share a lumber camp so we only need to make one watch tower to watch our wood instead of 2? also, if we're close, we can make buildings shared defense.
On September 28 2011 12:39 infinity2k9 wrote: If you're C+ honestly you should win just with mechanics and having a basic idea of how things work. Obviously you won't understand the villager economy like you would SCVs but as long as you got a rough idea - just be sure to play low eco so you don't get caught out.
C+ is really good basically; this guy likely isn't good in comparison. Do some harassment to force multitasking and you can probably win 1v1 let alone 2v1.
the thing that gets me is the idea of "infinite resources". question that results thereof is, when should I stop making villagers to advance to feudal age (figured out it's 25, set to optimize feudal age time. or 30 to optimize castle wage time). But in castle age, when should i stop making more towncenters? There is almost no opportunity cost to making town centers... apparently the ideal number of villagers to pump nonstop knights is 100 villagers (out of 200 pop?). by castle age, i should have 40 villagers, so basically it's a question of, how many town centers do i need to hit 100 villagers fastest. 4 total town centers is probably the way to go, though there is some weakness window associated with building so many town centers.
also, there is more defender's advantage. So I need to know what are the standard rushing units and timings. Apparently there's a feudal age pikeman/bowman/scout rush, then a fucking castle age knight rush.
What i'm leaning towards now is 1 of 2 strategies:
1) I memorize a build order and do feudal age rush on his wood, then castle age knight rush (while mirroring his number of town centers), and spam knights forever. My ally gets almost no military and goes straight to castle, gets 3 town centers, and spams town centers and knights until 200/200 and hits opp with a huge army while i'm holding opp off best i can with my canned build order.
2) ally feeds me minerals so i can get a super fucking fast feudal age rush with proxy rax. then continue like (1).
edit: though i'm leaning towards (1), because (2) is kind of bm to tell my ally to just be my bitch you know? honestly though, I think whoever attacks first will either dictate the game, or at least have better scouting. I really don't like the idea of opp attacking us first. seems feudal age is the earliest to attack, and (2) does give us the fastest attack.
On September 28 2011 09:55 Torte de Lini wrote: You will never learn AOEII in time against this fellow.
Chinese castle units are broken Persian Elephants are broken.
Shit, I forgot which civilization it is, but there's one that let's you make their castle unit from their barracks and they're made every 2 seconds (so 30 barracks makes 15 units in a second). All you need is enough wood to keep your autoreplanting farms going, and then just a ton of gold and food. Any extra food you have, just sell for more gold and keep massing units.
However, they will die to onagers really fast or proper scorpions if he's good at micromanagement.
You're thinking of the Goths.
so Goth have baller castle archers, and huns have baller feudal age rush, and uhm, every other race probably has good knights?
should we go with a hun/goth combo then? feudal rush into castle rush into knight death ball.
I just think he isn't likely going to be good enough to play to this kind of standard but i guess it's good to be prepared Then again i guess why would he ask for 2v1 i suppose. I don't think you should double rush at least because it would be lame.
And SC skills in general go across really well, going back and trying old RTS with decent mechanics is very fun. All the stuff i read about AoE doesn't seem to mention simcity much; I was thinking walls would be really useful when they are so cheap and too hard to break down until siege weapons. But is there even need to mine stone except for that?
I posted it because it gives you two views, you can also watch some WCG gameplay if you'd like.
I would recommend one person bum rushing as long as one of you can pull off a 15-16 minute castle, while the other guy rushes, you castle and then go for fast knights. The guy with the build order does show something that someone higher level may use, but the issue is you aren't a high level AoK player, so it isn't going to help you as much, due to you having to look at pop, etc...
I would recommend just looking at a good 16 minute castle or earlier build and then study rushing on youtube for your buddy. If you both bum rush him and lose possibly, and say he's expected it, he could defeat both of you right then and there possibly.
There is also a Town Center rush I forgot about, but I don't remember if they fixed that. =B you used to be able to build a town center near the enemy and garrison units in it, you could check to see if your version allows for this. It's a cheap way to win =P, but possible.
On September 28 2011 15:09 GertHeart wrote: I posted it because it gives you two views, you can also watch some WCG gameplay if you'd like.
I would recommend one person bum rushing as long as one of you can pull off a 15-16 minute castle, while the other guy rushes, you castle and then go for fast knights. The guy with the build order does show something that someone higher level may use, but the issue is you aren't a high level AoK player, so it isn't going to help you as much, due to you having to look at pop, etc...
I would recommend just looking at a good 16 minute castle or earlier build and then study rushing on youtube for your buddy. If you both bum rush him and lose possibly, and say he's expected it, he could defeat both of you right then and there possibly.
There is also a Town Center rush I forgot about, but I don't remember if they fixed that. =B you used to be able to build a town center near the enemy and garrison units in it, you could check to see if your version allows for this. It's a cheap way to win =P, but possible.
how early is it possible to send resources to each other? Is it possible to have one person in the stone-age forever just feeding me resources, and i'll do a super fast feudal age harass and super fast castle age knights?
Yeah there is a percentage cost. There's an lategame upgrade to remove the tribute cost. Unless that's AoE1, but i wouldn't be surprised if it carried over.
if i have an ally, i can use trade carts to make gold instead of always mining right? that's a pretty big advantage in the castle age when the main units is knights right?
EPT
Then again i guess why would he ask for 2v1 i suppose. I don't think you should double rush at least because it would be lame.
