Have you ever had a dream about this game?

Lately I keep dreaming of quick walling and exploring with my sheep.

I don't know if it's normal, maybe I need to stop playing before sleeping time.

I have finally gotten accused of being a smurf which means I'm getting better 11 Thank you Hera for all the great tips on your stream!

But honestly, I think the smurfing happens much less often than people like to admit. I've only played 30 1v1 games and have only matched with one clear smurf which is a pretty good rate.

Hi all,

Whenever I get douched, by Persians or other civs, I get an easy win. I can't remember the last time I lost to a douche.

I'm in the 1000s elo bracket, so maybe the douche I face are not that skilled, I get destroyed by a lot of other strategies but I can understand the point of douching.

Can anyone recommend me some (preferably blind) aoe2 playthrough on yt? I don't want pro players breezing through the campaign on legendary

Like I find it really annoying to multitask eco and military, and often forget to place barracks, archery range stables etc

Like any build order tips I can follow to help? I'm pretty confident at microing with ranged units. I like using defensive civs with good towers/castles to back my army whilst I attack for defence and offence and to lock down gold and stone, but the issue is that I can only really do that on standard, on moderate I don't even get to that stage.

And I often end up being rushed in castle age, and all my previous mistakes add up and now I'm out of resources or don't have enough buildings/fast enough production of units to keep up with the flood of rams and then bombard cannon in imp if I hold out long enough

Civs I feel confident with:

• Bohemians (UU + Hand canoneer or Arbalest depends on enemy + monks)
• Teutons (UU + Paladins + Monks for healing)
• Saxons (UU + Varangian Guard + Arbalesters)
• Spanish (UU + something to get rid of skirms)

If I'm playing any of these civs wrong, what am I supposed to do instead?

Thank you to Reddit and the players on here, all the AOE2 youtubers, and discord communities as well! Have learned alot since coming back after not playing for nearly 25 years.

One of my issues on this one despite save scumming to a ridiculous degree is that I can't seem to get rid of the Fortified towers at all, and if I can't do that, how do I destroy the bases that keep producing all the ships?

The equivalent of the Cannon Galleon for the Chinese civ is being outranged by towers, which all ships seem to be weak to.

So far I was only able to save two of the Transports.

Reposted because I made a mistake and mixed up the tech name for the poison damage which made the original post confusing.

Curare (Poison Damage Tupi UT) when made available in custom scenarios appears to apply to unique unit foot archers. So it works for:

Genoese Crossbowman, Plum Archers, Longbowman, Composite Bowman, Fire Archers, Rattan Archers as well as editor units such as Amazon Archers and Heavy Crossbowman

It works on Chronicle units such as Bactrian Archers, Paddiyodha Longbowman, Mercenary Peltasts, Cretan Archers, and Rhodian Slingers.

It does apply to Donjons, Kreposts, Fortified Outposts, Special Towers such as the Accursed tower in editor mode.

It does not work for the New Mounted Crossbowman nor for any other mounted archer or mounted skirmisher type unit. It also doesn't work for Arambai.

Anyone know why the tech works for non-archers such as Mercenary Peltasts and Rhodian Slingers but not Skirmishers or Slingers? Is it just an oversight with Chronicles interactions.

Knowing it works for Fire Archers, Composite Bowman, Longbowman and any unique foot archer unit would be very fun for custom scenarios.

Hey everyone,

It’s been over two months since my last post about the severe multiplayer performance issues with Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition running on Mac through CrossOver.

Unfortunately, I’m still unable to play the game properly, and I wanted to check whether anyone in the community has made any progress since then.

For context, my issue was (and still is) pretty specific:

• Single-player runs perfectly smoothly.
• The main menus work fine.
• As soon as I enter the multiplayer menu, everything becomes extremely laggy.
• Creating or joining a lobby is painfully slow.
• Multiplayer matches are essentially unplayable due to massive stuttering.

I tried pretty much everything back then: fresh CrossOver bottle, reinstalling Steam and AoE2 DE, DXVK, D3DMetal, MSync, disabling overlays, clearing caches, different network connections, etc. Nothing worked.

I also contacted CodeWeavers support directly.

They confirmed that they were actively investigating a regression introduced somewhere between Wine 10.0-rc1 and Wine 10.3, and were bisecting nightly builds to identify the root cause.

They also mentioned that a fix would likely be included in a future minor CrossOver update (possibly 26.4), but couldn’t provide an ETA.

That was over two months ago, and I haven’t received any further updates.

So, before I start experimenting with different CrossOver versions and settings all over again, I wanted to ask:

Has anyone managed to get AoE2 DE multiplayer working properly on Mac since then?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who have tried newer CrossOver versions, Preview builds, alternative Wine configurations, or any other workaround that actually works.

If you’ve found a solution, I’d really appreciate knowing your CrossOver version, graphics backend, and any specific settings or tweaks you used.

I’ve been playing AoE2 for over 25 years, and after more than 5,000 hours, it’s genuinely frustrating to be unable to return to a game that used to run perfectly well on my Mac.

I’m not particularly interested in buying a Windows PC just for one game, so I’m still hoping there’s a way back.

Any good news from fellow Mac players?

Thanks!

First time posting on Reddit. Wanted to share my joy, after a week trying to defeat Extreme AI without cheese, I did it! I'm trying to get my macro in a good spot, learning a couple of openings and overall strategies to jump in to ranked. That's it hahaha

I don't understand their gold generation. And I think they are meant to be used for raiding, but I don't know if that includes buildings or just villagers/siege units.

So, recently have I been facing more issues than normal with multiplayer. Matches stuck in loading screen. Teammates crashing upon loading it etc. And bassicly every other match has a delay upon loading in leaving you unable to play the first 10ish seconds of the match.

Those issues existed in the past too but were quite rare, and has now become alot more common. Are you people having the same experience?

Alternative clip by Masmorra: https://www.twitch.tv/masmorra_aoe/clip/AltruisticPreciousBunnyDancingBaby-z_luirBksI3sjyES

Feature of the map: when the dock gets destroyed, the whole sheet of ice falls and every unit on it dies.

I noticed something recently while playing the new and improved Vikings.

At the blacksmith, Vikings Saga hasn't changed anything. There is still Bracer and Ring-Archer armour. And the civ still lacks thumb ring. On paper all that changed at archery range is Cavalry Archers being replaced by Mounted Crossbowman but there's actually a neat wrinkle that exists solely for the Vikings.

No Thumb Ring, No bloodlines, No husbandry, No Heavy Mounted Crossbowman, and No Cranequins should mean the Vikings have one of the weakest Mounted Crossbowman.

However there's actually a situational buff hiding in plain sight.

Mounted Crossbowman have 7 base attack and 2 base melee armour as well as 45 HP and 1.25 movement speed The Fire Rate is 2.50 while Crossbow/Arbs without thumb ring is 2.00. This means while the unit is more expensive, it allows the power-spike of Vikings Arbalesters without getting Bogsveigar (650 Food, 500 Gold) and Arbalasters (450 Food, 350 Gold)!

Obviously Bogsveigar is worth it on water maps. But on a land map, Vikings can opt for the same power-play brought on by UT2 (Bogsveigar) and Arbalasters (without spending the 1100 Food, 800 Gold, and research time). The Food savings instead can be spent on the new Elite Varangian Guard Upgrade (750 Food 475 Gold) to get it out quicker or Elite Berserks quicker. Either option would give the Vikings a little more utility in early Imperial Age.

Lacking Thumb Ring for 100% accuracy and +15% fire rate, already hampers their Crossbow/Arbs as the game goes on.

The Mounted Crossbowman however, can fulfill the same exact role, with less upgrades and even has +5 HP, .31 faster movement speed (.96 versus 1.25) and 2 base melee armour versus 0 for Crossbow/Arbs.

Vikings already get free wheelbarrow/Free handcart. So the economy boost in Feudal and Castle will make it easier to afford the more expensive Mounted Crossbowman.

Varangian Guards lets you focus more on infantry with +20% HP. And not needing Arbalasters or Bogsveigar on land maps gives the option to get Chieftains earlier to help against Cavalry civs as well as push out elite Varangians and elite berserkers faster than before.

I am not sure how viable this approach would be on a land map, but its something I've noticed can make for great pushes and windows in single-player.

Another interesting tidbit is Varangian Guards and Berserks have the exact same movement speed post squires at 1.15.

I can sometimes beat the ai if it’s a good civ matchup and I get the initiative. But in these team games I’m trying to get out on the map quickly and put pressure, collect relics and then two or three opponents rush into my base and tear it up. Occasionally I’ll win just by surviving until my team can support, but often once I lose initiative and get a bunch of vils killed I can’t even get to imp. I’m not idling tc much at all and I’m familiar with basic mechanics. Do you have any advanced tips for flank?

I like the pathing this patch, but I’ve heard some people still complaining, and while I do agree that the units getting stuck on each other is in need of a fix, I think the bumping that I’ve noticed more is actually fine with me.

Being able to micro ranged units without them regrouping is actually heavenly.

Thoughts?

Edit: the reason I wanted to post this is to say thanks to the devs but forgot to actually say it 11

Thanks Devs!

It's frustrating because I would prefer to mix it up but I know if I go cav civ my elo is around 1300, if I go 1TC all-in my elo can go as high as 1400, if I try and play e.g. aztecs on Arena my elo is probably 1000-1100, if I go archer civ it's probably around 1200.

This means that if I want to change strategy I will have to either lose horribly at least 4 and up to 10 games in a row or play some boring easy stomps to win 4 or more in a row. (It's glaringly obvious if you look on aoe2insights at map and civ win rates, vast majority of players I see are the same)

When you don't have time to play it can be so frustrating I find.

Hi. I need help with he 1v3 multiplayer achievement. If anyone is online and can help please let me know. I'm willing to return the favor. Just need 2 more people.

I’m 28 years old myself and just picked it up again after playing it as a kid.

I’m playing ranked team games at 700-800 elo, winning every other game ish.

But often if I’m having a bad game, I’m called an idiot, a loser and “you fucking suck”, even though I’m apologetic.

I thought this would mostly be a 25+ community so is it seriously adults sitting there typing that stuff out? I’m not hurt, just confused

(Once I was asked if I was playing sims, that made me laugh 11)

Found this video in the wild. I don't know this user at all, and don't care if its AI slop, I love it already. I need Galatic Battleground with DE support. I would make some crazy scenarios with this.

I genuinely like the slinger - not only is it incredibly historically accurate for the American civilizations, it also functions largely the way that it should in the game. The Mesoamerican civilizations, like the South American ones, made abundant use of the slinger, and often appear in Spanish accounts. In his second letter to Charles V, Hernan Cortez recounts:

"With their slings, they threw so many stones into the fortress, that it seemed as if they rained from the heavens, while arrows and missiles were so thick, that all the buildings and courts were so full of them we could hardly move about."

Conquistador Bernal Diaz de Castillo remarked:

"the hail of stones being so furious that even well-armoured Spanish soldiers were wounded. Slings were sufficiently effective that the slinger and the archer were essentially equals; when both were used, they were complementary and usually served close together"

They were incredibly lethal - with modern tests showing even basic sling stones capable of delivering as many joules of force as a modern firearm. Even with a steel helmet, they could deliver enough blunt force at distance to kill or knock a man unconscious. They have also been proven capable of smashing plywood and bones. They were very easy to pick up and inexpensive to practice and find projectiles, but difficult to master. Likewise, in game they function as a cheap "trash" infantry and siege counter. Honestly, that's perfect. Actually surprisingly closer to historical than many units in this game ever get. At this point what I don't understand is why the Aztecs and Mayans (who are not in a great place competitively) didn't get them from The Last Chieftains expansion, while old civs like Byzantines got Varangian Guards from the Sagas expansion. The slinger even actually dovetails much more nicely into the Aztec and Mayan tech trees. Consider for instance the structural weaknesses of the American tech trees:

- They miss hussar as a lategame meatshield and raiding unit

- They have little or no counters at all vs heavy ranged siege and simply roll over and die

- They are given incredibly overt infantry counters to defeat infantry (which counter their eagles), and in the case of Mayans, it is often still not enough to stand up to civilizations with high PA infantry like Goths or Saxons or even some Champi civilizations like Inca

- They have only the comparatively fragile and expensive eagle warriors for sniping monks

Would a slinger solve all of these issues? No, but it would give them a fighting chance, and at least mitigate the abundance of "civ-wins" the Aztecs and Mayans frequently face. The unit is an incredibly historically, thematically, and gameplay-wise, necessary complement to these civilizations. What are your thoughts? Would this subtly help these civilizations, or strengthen and alter two classic civilizations entirely?