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soup /teamliquid/
A friend of mine has become rather cocky about his ability to play this not-starcraft RTS called AoE2. I've never played this game before and I'm not familiar with anything. I'm an okay SC player (I can manage about 160 apm if thats any indication that I can play the game some lol). The thing is I bet him $100 that I could beat him in a BO3 the day after I get it (I've seen him play SC before, he's really, REALLY scrubby).
But like I said, i know nothing about this game. Anybody got any advice/strats/tricks/good sites I could see? I'm gonna get my other friend's CDs for this game tomorrow and I'll be playing the guy at a LAN party on Saturday.
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United States24782 Posts
100 dollars? This does not sound like a good idea.
Edit: if you win the 100 I'll be impressed...
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I haven't played it either. But surely there's some sort of equivalent of the 6 pool rush you could do that wouldn't require much knowledge of the game to pull off well?
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United States20665 Posts
Well, let's see. What do I remember?
There's MBS, though you have to tab through the buildings.
There's no attack-move.
Maximum unit select is 30+
Everything is slow as molasses.
Counters are much harder than StarCraft counters [which are mostly soft], but micro is so easy for a SCer playing AoE that you don't really need TOO hard of counters.
Well if he's THAT atrocious at SC, have you specified what settings you're playing him on in AoE? If it's something like Deathmatch PostImperial [which is something like Fastest], then that's completely different than low-resource darkage start.
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why would you bet 100$ in a game you've never played?;x you don't need to be good at sc to know how to play aoe2, and if he's been playing it for awhile then you're in all sense of the word screwed.
Only advice is to get the game, get at least used to it, look up guides online, and pray. if he has any semblance of an idea how to play the game beyond initially learning it then you're going to be out 100$.
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AoE 2 Conquerors Expansion was fucking amazing.
Basically what LR said.
Also, the more workers you have building a building, the faster it is built.
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Just study the tech tree a lot. Tech to Castle Age asap, then make a bunch of Town Centers and macro villagers, then mass cavalry ftw. Your existing RTS knowledge should get you through the game as long as you use your superior SC multitask. One of the biggest things in AOE is gold management, make sure to spend your gold wisely.
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Meh, we're 19 and both have jobs and this guy really, really sucks at most video games but he boasts a lot about his AoEII. He boasted similarly with his Super Smash Brothers Melee skillz and I got $100 in a BO5 out of that. He got pretty pissed but I know he's not bad at fighters. I've seen him play quite a few RTS though, and he is sucky. I don't think he realizes how much I play SC though, so I'm definitely no scrub. I'm actually sort of hoping to see what kind of strategies he might throw at me, and hoping my amazing innate micro skills will carry me through.
Anybody got a race suggestion? Anyone analogous to an SC race?
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get trebuchets asap..
I really miss this game. I think I'm going to go install it now lol
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use the cheat code taht gets you the vipers with the guns lol
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loool. That's a pretty fun bet. I'm not sure, there's gotta be a ton of tricks and little strategic things you can only learn through experience.
I used to play AoM pretty hardcore, but a lot of the strategy stuff is a bit different.. AoK is HUGELY economy based. You need to have a ton of town centers, and pump a bunch of villagers at the same time, so your APM might come in handy off of multitasking, but I doubt it'll help you much in general macro.
Units also build WAY WAY faster, so you'll have to deal with that, your macro will be thrown off.
http://aok.heavengames.com/
here's a site with a basic strategy section, replays and all that.
One thing you'll be EXTREMELY frustrated, is the lack of responsiveness of your units. Also, they always try to make a formation regarding cavalry/infantry/archers whatever. This will also put a bit of a damper on your micro abilities.. try to choose a civ that has a decent Feudal age rush, or a civ with a lot of harassment capabilities. I went back to AoM after getting pretty fast at SC, and found my (probable) APM advantage didn't do much unless I forced situations where a lot of things were going on at the same time, ie. multiple harassments, battles, etc.
AOK really isn't all that APM dependant, a lot of the skill comes from game sense/econ management/strategy.
Good luck yo.
I think a lot of practice will also be useful, you'll need to get used to the MBS and the shitty micro.
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Races are more or less similar, not as varied as the SC races. Just look up the race-specific bonuses online. For example, my friend loved a certain unit (Teutonic knights) so he chose the race that supported them. Just look for something you think would help you most.
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it depends on what speed you play him at. last time i paid attention to the game, they are making some sort of super-express version of the game. Like the game is x2 faster than the fastest speed in the normal game.
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There's not really any "Race" analogies as far as I know, you'll have to do a bit of studying of different civ's tech trees and strats. (the game is pretty far developed strategy wise, so that a lot of civs are very specifically good at one or two things, you should find out what these things are. Some of it you can tell just from what their tech tree is (oh, this unit has a really fast infantry unit. good for harassment.), but it's not all intuitive.
Oh yeah, also your "castles" (a huge tower thing) produce a unique unit for each Civ.
Turtling is actually a pretty viable a strategy in AOM haha. Turtling (basically teching and getting an economy up, but controlling/defending really well) > rushing > booming (focusing almost entirely on massing a huge econ right away) I think the same transition is true in AOK, but I'm not entirely sure. Rushing is a lot weaker in AOK.
Also, they're not GUARANTEED wins. Just like 7 pool >>>>> 14 nexus, obvious a complete rush versus no military all villagers whatsoever will win, but for the most part, if you choose the wrong strat, it's more like 12 pool < forge cannon nexus. You're just at a disadvantage.
Sorry for this rambling/not necessarily helpful strat post, but I love talking strat about the Age of series, never have anyone to do it with (the forums from the site I linked you to are resoundingly poor, and a MUCH lower general skill pool than a place like TL)
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I might say you are screwed coz AoE 2 does need some time to get use to. 1st of all, if you guys are playing a normal match, meaning starting from stone/dark age. Try to tech up asap to at least bronze.
Get many workers to gather resources, expand, then just start massing your units. As long as you know what he is doing (scout plz), you should do fine since your SC is ok.
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Some tips:
If you play SC a lot, you should know this, and be good at it, but MASS PEASANTS. A LOT. On a 150 food game, 80 peasants is not unheard of.
Now, some civilisations are very very good, and some other completely suck. I don't know if they patched them, but Spanish were excellent (although destroyed by Saracens) and Persians were very good as well (although weak against Byzantines). Why, well, every unit is 1 food. Stupid peasant or hugeass elephant, it's 1 food. So, massing immense wads of castle units is, if you can muster the economy, very very good.
I played Byzantines. The reason why is simple, they are an extremely good turtle race, has fantastically cheap infantry and their castle unit is cavalry that destroys pikemen. Plus, at the time everybody massed the living shit out of Elephants (and elephants count as infantry! Cataphracts pwn them). Also, having boosted building armor, their tower rushes were extremely potent.
As a beginner race, the Byzantines are my favorite. If your macro is good, which it should since you play SC, you should be able to pwn the living shit out of your opponent with them. My advice would be this.
Practice getting castle within 15 minutes. 12 is possible, but 15 should be enough if you label your friend as a scrub. That means practicing to have excellent scouting, very good macro and good multitasking to control a lot of ressources. If you really outressource your opponent, just tower rush him and finish the game right there. Just, if you play Byzantines, DO NOT answer cavalry with Cataphracts. That'll be one hell of a rape. Even elite Catas are shit against anything but infantry.
Siege is why you want castle asap. One rule seen very often in MSN Zone AOE2 was "No Trebuchet!!!". They are about the equivalent of reavers, with twice the range. Protect them well and they'll make your opponent cry.
But, really, overall, AoE2 is an economy game, sim city like. If you master the economic system, and can multitask better than your opponent, you pretty much can't lose.
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I used the byzantines I think. They had this sick special calvary unit that just raped ground, and they had access to almost all of the tech tree.
An important note is that killing all the buildings in deathmatch is not a win, you have to kill EVERYTHING.
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I played AoE quite competitively and thought it was the best thing ever before I discovered the world of SC/BW... Boy, was I wrong... Lol
Anyways, there are usually two settings people play under according to preference: (1) Deatchmatch - where you start the game very high in resources; all you have to do is build an army AND (2) Random Map - where you start the game with spare resources and you have to build up resources before building up an army. Gameplay kind of changes according to these play preferences. Deathmatch is more about winning big battles and macroing while Random Map is more about micro/skirmishes/resource gathering/teching/etc.
If you are playing vanilla AoE2(Non-expansion) on Deatchmatch, play as the Turks. They have elites that have hand cannons. Using these as well as Trebuchets is similar to Marines and Tanks in SC. Leap frog your way into their base.
If you are playing vanilla AoE2 on Random Map, play as the Mongols. For the most part, all of the civilizations have similar tech trees with a few minor strength/weakness attributes, but going through all of those is not necessary. Basically, the idea is to hold off until you can get their elites which are horse archers. They are fast, good for raids, and basically are good for anything micro.
If you are playing AoE2 Exapnsion on either Deathmatch or Random Map, play as the Huns. If you build enough of their Tarkans (elite units), you can run around their base and kill their buildings faster than they can kill you 75% of the time.
And one last advice. Castles are your friend. You can never build enough Castles. What I usually did was take a few workers everywhere I went and just built Castles along the way. I don't know if AoE2 has changed much since I played, but gl. It shouldn't be too hard if you're as good as you say in BW.
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Just AoE2 or the Conquerers cause there are significant differences. The best place is definitely Heaven games and read the guides by Darq_Jihad (Sorry if that's not the exact name, it's been awhile and I'm too lazy to check).
You won't have many problem at all if you're good at SC. Key points are getting fast castle, make villagers, build a crap load of town centers, especially next to the gold and wood. Your macro should be very good, and aoe is way easier anyway.
And in aoe, you DO want to mass units, champions, paladins, and siege do real well.
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On December 07 2007 11:06 BlackSphinx wrote:
Some tips:
If you play SC a lot, you should know this, and be good at it, but MASS PEASANTS. A LOT. On a 150 food game, 80 peasants is not unheard of.
Now, some civilisations are very very good, and some other completely suck. I don't know if they patched them, but Spanish were excellent (although destroyed by Saracens) and Persians were very good as well (although weak against Byzantines). Why, well, every unit is 1 food. Stupid peasant or hugeass elephant, it's 1 food. So, massing immense wads of castle units is, if you can muster the economy, very very good.
I played Byzantines. The reason why is simple, they are an extremely good turtle race, has fantastically cheap infantry and their castle unit is cavalry that destroys pikemen. Plus, at the time everybody massed the living shit out of Elephants (and elephants count as infantry! Cataphracts pwn them). Also, having boosted building armor, their tower rushes were extremely potent.
As a beginner race, the Byzantines are my favorite. If your macro is good, which it should since you play SC, you should be able to pwn the living shit out of your opponent with them. My advice would be this.
Practice getting castle within 15 minutes. 12 is possible, but 15 should be enough if you label your friend as a scrub. That means practicing to have excellent scouting, very good macro and good multitasking to control a lot of ressources. If you really outressource your opponent, just tower rush him and finish the game right there. Just, if you play Byzantines, DO NOT answer cavalry with Cataphracts. That'll be one hell of a rape. Even elite Catas are shit against anything but infantry.
Siege is why you want castle asap. One rule seen very often in MSN Zone AOE2 was "No Trebuchet!!!". They are about the equivalent of reavers, with twice the range. Protect them well and they'll make your opponent cry.
But, really, overall, AoE2 is an economy game, sim city like. If you master the economic system, and can multitask better than your opponent, you pretty much can't lose.
I played this game quite often and not too long ago actually on hamachi with a couple of my friends;;
it's easy to win if your opponent sucks.
like sphinx said, AoE2's an economy game. counters almost never work really, and castle rushing/creeping into your opponent's base can be really lethal if he can't block it.
from your town center, start building villagers right away and don't stop until you establish a good economy - that means you have numerous farms, couple gold/stone mines, and a shitload of lumberjacks. i usually don't get the armor/attack upgrades and what not because i'm always rushing to castle age, where you can build castles and more importantly, trebuchets.
If your friend sucks which by description, he does, you should be able to rule him after trying the game out for 30 minutes (to figure out basics). AoE2 is a REALLY slow paced game - "rushing" in AoE2 takes like 10 minutes. So forget rushing, and sit down for an hour long slow paced strategy game.
As for civilizations, choose either spanish or byzantines. Personally, I like koreans (nothing related to sc.. x_x; because they can really be damaging if the map you're playing consists of ocean - one of their special unit, the turtle ship pretty much rules the seas. However, I think they are in the expansion set, not the Age of Kings which is the original?
But, on land maps, try out byzantines. they have most basic units, (like vikings I think, have NO archer towers/bombard towers) and can be pretty easy to play because their special unit are calvary.
My advice - build up a good economy; expand all over the map, sort of like what zerg does when the enemy's contained.
- Castle creep your opponent. If you can actually build castles near gold mines and lay trebuchets around with castles, your opponent will be screwed. Remember to take a few villagers with you to fix castles/trebuchets.
- AoE2 is unbelievably slow compared to SC. So be patient, and just imagine what you can do with $100 when you win =D
GL!
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EPT
