EPTPretty interesting to see that AOE2 got it's own "remastered" version and that it seems to be doing well in viewership thus far.
Are we living in a RTS revival? :p
Red Bull Wololo (AOE2 DE tournament)
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neptunusfisk
2286 Posts
Pretty interesting to see that AOE2 got it's own "remastered" version and that it seems to be doing well in viewership thus far. Are we living in a RTS revival? :p | ||
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JieXian
Malaysia4677 Posts
I'm all for an RTS Revival! I don't know how AOE2 plays though, I played it back when I was a typical campaign playing only 30APM noob | ||
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neptunusfisk
2286 Posts
On May 02 2020 23:22 JieXian wrote: haha nice tournament name, that's what made me click I'm all for an RTS Revival! I don't know how AOE2 plays though, I played it back when I was a typical campaign playing only 30APM noob It's quite interesting actually, there's a lot of micro management of resources, lot's of different tech trees to climb and fairly intense battles. Especially in this tournament the format is making the games lean towards all-out agression in the early midgame (aka feudal wars, since you have to advance to the feudal age to get non-sucky army units, and it costs a lot to get to castle age where you can get even better ones, which is difficult to afford if you are fighting) Edit: actually they are playing some kind of mode where they skip dark age entirely | ||
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Latham
9569 Posts
The map pool is very nice, much better than standard ladder Microsoft put in. The only bad thing about this tournament that I can say is, is that there is a time limit on games. 58 minutes and 16 seconds or so...? Apparently that's 700 in-game years, but I just feel time limits are such horseshit. They already had a few close games where the score difference was around 200-300 points and deciding a winner off of that feels so incredibly cheap. AoE2 macro games can go for much longer than an hour and they're really incredible to watch. | ||
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neptunusfisk
2286 Posts
On May 03 2020 02:27 Latham wrote: I'm watching this everyday, AoE2 DE is amazing, never knew the game has such a big competitive scene still going on. The map pool is very nice, much better than standard ladder Microsoft put in. The only bad thing about this tournament that I can say is, is that there is a time limit on games. 58 minutes and 16 seconds or so...? Apparently that's 700 in-game years, but I just feel time limits are such horseshit. They already had a few close games where the score difference was around 200-300 points and deciding a winner off of that feels so incredibly cheap. AoE2 macro games can go for much longer than an hour and they're really incredible to watch. Yeah, I suppose that this + starting directly in feudal age is meant to give a lot of action early on, but it does limit some aspects of the game.. | ||
Kau
Canada3500 Posts
On the whole time limit thing, I'm surprised that they do a lot of bo5/7s instead of just bo3s to save time. | ||
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Latham
9569 Posts
On May 03 2020 05:10 Kau wrote: I've been following the tourney and even tried playing some aoe2 games. I feel like my SC skills don't transfer that well but maybe it's just the knowledge of what counters what that I don't have yet. On the whole time limit thing, I'm surprised that they do a lot of bo5/7s instead of just bo3s to save time. You might want to check out the in-game Sun Tsu's "The Art of War" challenges. They're a new series of challenges (introduced with AoE2: Definitive Edition) aimed at preparing newish players (newish to AoE, not new to RTSes in general) for online play. They teach you what is important like build orders, unit counters, micro, macro etc. Basically solid foundations for ladder. ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/qafQwGw.jpg) This game is quite different from SC because maps aren't static. Each game is a slightly different variation on the basic map. Food, Trees, Gold & stone positions change every time you start a game. There's also very little high ground & low ground. Starting positions are almost always on even ground & open wide, so you need to wall. Day[9] recently started AoE2 as well, and he had a really hard time grasping the concept of walling in yourself to protect your eco. Food & Wood are practically infinite resources so units that require only those 2 resources are called "trash units". Thats a pretty derogatory term but that does not mean they are bad. It only means you can create them all game long, really. Assume that they are mineral-only units. Gold is the real important resource. Like vespene gas. These units will be the real effective units that will win you games. Be it the Knight-line of units (Knight-Cavalier-Paladin) or Archer-line (archer-crossbowman-arbalester) you want to make sure these units deal damage and aren't thrown away needlessly. For workers you want about 100-130 workers out of your 200 pop limit. That may seem like a lot but that's what a healthy economy looks like. Like in SC, always keep your nexus/CC producing (here: Town centre) and add more Town Centre when you hit Castle Age. 3-4 Ideally. All units also cost only 1 supply, be it a worker or an elephant so that's why it would feel weird making so many workers in SC2 or BW. | ||
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palexhur
Colombia730 Posts
For Latham, if a game goes to Post Imperial when the gold has been mined out,usually it ends with a lot of raiding and trash wars everywhere, and you need wood to make farms, so at the end wood is the most important resource in dark, and post imperial age, there are a lot wood in the maps compared to other resources, but it is not infinite, usually some Islands games ends when they cut all the wood, not that often in Arabia that is the most played map. | ||
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Latham
9569 Posts
The Finals are TODAY and the whole stream (semis and finals) starts in about 20 minutes! Now it's pre-game banter. + Show Spoiler [twitch link] + https://www.twitch.tv/redbull + Show Spoiler [ Youtube stream] + | ||
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Yurie
12053 Posts
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Harris1st
Germany7104 Posts
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Yurie
12053 Posts
On May 04 2020 16:20 Harris1st wrote: Holy moly, this thing had 25k + viewers on twitch! That is incredible! And I guess a whole lot more than any WC3 tournament recently? (anyone have numbers for WC3?) WC3 is big in China. That is where the viewership and money for the game is. Not sure the same really holds true for AoE. Still the 30k number is around the peak for WC3 tournaments as well when I quickly google it. So more or less same in the west I think. | ||
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neptunusfisk
2286 Posts
On May 04 2020 18:38 Yurie wrote: WC3 is big in China. That is where the viewership and money for the game is. Not sure the same really holds true for AoE. Still the 30k number is around the peak for WC3 tournaments as well when I quickly google it. So more or less same in the west I think. According to https://escharts.com/tournaments/aoe/redbull-wololo this tournament peaked at 56k viewers, of which 36k were English speaking viewers. Since there was a Chinese player in the finals, it's not unreasonable to expect that some of those 20k were watching from China :p | ||
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palexhur
Colombia730 Posts
Edit: AoE2 is really popular as a classic game in China. | ||
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Jealous
10287 Posts
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Aceace
Turkey1305 Posts
On May 03 2020 05:10 Kau wrote: I've been following the tourney and even tried playing some aoe2 games. I feel like my SC skills don't transfer that well but maybe it's just the knowledge of what counters what that I don't have yet. On the whole time limit thing, I'm surprised that they do a lot of bo5/7s instead of just bo3s to save time. Latham did a pretty good job explaining basic aoe2 game mechanics. Also Art of War is surprisingly decent at teaching game basics. To be honest, I wasn't expecting a proper game tutorial from Microsoft. About SC2 to AoE2 transition.. Well.. In some cases yes your skills transfer. If you are good with marine split/stutter step it actually helps a lot. Unlike SC2, AoE2 does not have smart fire. If you don't want to overkill with units you have to split and stutter step with range units in late game. Especially none/low attack delay units like kipchak, mangudai (used to have 0. Now 0.5) benefits A LOT from proper stutter stepping. But most of the time you have to focus much much much more in macro aspect of the game. If you are a regular supply blocked player like me, your transition will be a lot harder. About time limit... AoE2 games can go prettty wild. At sunday Hera had to play a 3 hours 49 minutes game. It was just ladder RM not even a tournament  I can understand why they had to put time limit. Games generally over in 1 hour but a single long game like this could ruin all schedule.Game did not release at march, game did not get a dlc at march. Just a regular balance patch. Yet %20 increase shows us something. Without a big content AoE2 still found a traction. I believe corona quarantine helped a lot because old guys remember the nostalgia ![[image loading]](https://i.snipboard.io/8lnjpA.jpg) AoE may never see top 5 numbers but its safe to say AoE2 will stay relevant for a looong time. | ||
Valiver
Caldeum1977 Posts
It was a massive tournament with super fun games and it got a lot of viewers (50k+ at times). If anyone is looking for AoE2 content I highly recommend his channel he casts games basically every day. | ||
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Latham
9569 Posts
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Jealous
10287 Posts
On May 06 2020 01:26 Valiver wrote: It got a huge boost in players in March going into April because of Hidden Cup 3 by https://www.twitch.tv/t90official Also corona lockdowns. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7104 Posts
Do you see this Blizzard? This is how it's done! Now go fix War3 Man the nostalgia I feel looking at this is incredible Wish I had the time to follow more than one gaming scene | ||
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