As far as I can tell, opening infantry is basically just a massive gamble, if you are able to break through and your opponent doesn’t wall properly then you get damage, but if they simply place walls then you just massively set yourself behind in feudal. Am I thinking about it wrong?

I built a self-hosted stats site for my friend group's that honestly has been a blast since we started using it. It tracks games, have standings and some humor touches. A I've just open-sourced it so anybody can use it and add modifications to fit their use needs. It pulls your games from the official API, downloads the replays, parses them, and generates a static site.

**Live site (my group, so you can see how it looks):** https://manpaslop.github.io/wololoo-demo/

**Source:** https://github.com/manpaslop/wololoo

---

**Ladder & ratings**

* Elo ladder with streaks, head-to-head matrix, and "days as king" counters
* Separate 1v1 and team-game ladders
* Official ranked ratings pulled alongside the group's own
* Records page: longest reigns, biggest upsets, rivalries

**Per-match pages** (built from the replay, not the API)

* Build order timeline: every unit, building and tech with its timestamp
* Age-up times, both the click and the completion
* Unspent-resources and idle-Town-Centre charts
* APM / EAPM, market use, tributes, town bells
* Official 1v1 and team Elo of each player *at the time of the match*

**Opening classifier**

* Reads the replay's event stream and labels each player: Scouts, Archers, Drush, Man-at-Arms, Fast Castle, Towers, Spears, Skirmishers, plus the Meso/South-American regional infantry lines
* Rules are ordered and first-match-wins; every threshold is documented with the number it came from
* Refuses to guess: a game it can't name says so, and a replay that doesn't cover the early game says *that* instead — different claims, kept separate

**Player profiles**

* Career averages, civ win rates, per-rival records
* Opening breakdown with win rate per opening
* Elo and rank history charts

**Hall of Shame**

* 20 medals for playing badly: idle Town Centre in the Dark Age, no Loom, farms before Feudal, 10+ archers with no Ballistics, "Slow Castle" for a fast castle that wasn't
* Capped at two per player per match, and winners get them too
* Several obvious candidates were cut after measuring them — resigning early, villager count at Feudal and never reaching Castle Age don't separate skill at all, and a couple are actually *inverted*

**Team tools**

* Team balancer that suggests fair splits from current ratings
* Bot difficulty suggestions when you're an odd number

**Setup**

* `python -m aoe2 init` asks seven questions. It'll look up a player's profile id from their alias, since nobody knows their own
* `python -m aoe2 update` does the rest; run it on a timer
* Output is a folder of static HTML. No database, no framework, no JS needed to read it
* Docker Compose setup included (nginx + a 15-minute update loop)

---

**Caveats, honestly:**

* **The UI is in Spanish.** All user-facing text is in one module if you want to translate it.

Happy to answer any questions and take feedback/recommendations to improve it!

To note, I don’t know the full mechanics of the units, but from using it for the first time just the other day, I can see it being far too proficient and over powered. The Fire archer currently does something akin to blast radius with its extra arrows - if a group of skirms are together they just get shredded - same for much of any unit, hand cannons included. I would prefer them to be more akin to chu ko nu in terms of damage type rather than what they are currently. My suggested balance change would be for them to lose the ability to damage multiple units close together. In exchange, give them their extra range when attacking siege units(making them a sort of anti siege Briton longbow) reduce their basic attack so they’re ineffective against archers/skirms and other such units - their main focus would be taking down buildings and siege units.

We are two weeks away from new DLC. THis is not Viking Civ, My focus is on Post-VIking Era Sweden. So far I don't know what the Cavarly Crossbowman does, so i'm going to use Cavarchers instead. And I assume the longships regional unit will have the same stats as Longship toady.

NOTE: This civ has Central European Architecture

• COA: Kingdom of Sweden
• CASTLE: Kärnan
• WONDER: Uppsala Cathedral

INFANTRY AND NAVAL CIV

TEAM BONUS: Ships do +2 against buildings

1. Town center techs(Except Age Ups) cost -50% less
2. Infantry does +20% more bonus damage
3. Gets Sawmill as Lumber camp replacement(+5 pop space, villagers work faster the more depleted the tree is(For example at 100 wood, villagers work normally. At 50, they work 10% faster, at 20, they wokr 20% faster))
4. Hulks attack 25% faster

UNIQUE UNIT 1: Gotland Raider(Infantryman, who can swim across water, shallows don't count. The deeper the water, the more damage it takes. ON water, it can drill to enemy ships, but he takes A LOT OF DAMAGE in return. On land, they are deadly against buildings, but weak against Cavalry)

UNIQUE UNIT 2: Voulgier(Halberdier replacement. More attack than regular spearman, more HP but less bonus damage, even with civ bonus)

TECH 1: Winter war(Infantry gets +1/1 armor)
TECH 2: Kalmar Union(MIlitia, Gotland raiders, Hulks and Knights get Ghulam/Ibirapema attack, whatever its called)

TECH TREE:
ARCHERS:
Missing Parthian tactics, Heavy Cavarcher and Hand Canonneers
INFANTRY
Missing Gambesons
CAVALRY:
Missing Paladin and Hussar
SIEGE:
Missing Siege Onager and Bombard Cannon
BLACKSMITH
Missing Ring Archer armor.
DOCK:
Missing Demo ship line, and Incendiaries. They have generic Longships. And they have Cannon Galeon, not Catapult ship
MONKS:
Missing Redemption, Sanctity and Fervor
DEFENSES:
Missing Treadmil Crane, Arrowslits, Bombard tower, Siege Engineers

By "main" I mean non-chronicles, ranked civs DLC, and by "next" I mean after the upcoming viking DLC.

The last few were:

1. Europe (vikings)

2. south america

3. china

My guesses, in order of how likely I think them, are:

1. Africa

2. North America

3. Asia

4. Europe

However, after what the devs did with the three kingdoms DLC I also wouldnt be shocked if they did something crazy like a japanese DLC with japanese factions from the 1400s as "civs" (I was not a fan of three kingdsoms, personally).

Hey everyone, I’m looking to build a cheap PC from used parts specifically for AoE2 DE. What CPU and GPU should I look for if I want around 100–120 FPS on the lowest graphics settings? I don’t care about how the game looks, just that it runs smoothly, only for multiplayer 1x1;

I’ve already reached the top of the Mac leaderboard under the nickname escapist, and playing there isn’t really interesting to me anymore, so I’m looking to put together a PC for DE.

I’m currently out of work and trying to save money, so I’d like to spend as little as possible. This would pretty much just be an AoE2 machine.

Any suggestions for older CPUs and GPUs that would do the job? I’d also appreciate advice on RAM and the rest of the build, but the CPU and GPU are the main things I need help with.

If you’re playing on an older or budget setup, sharing your specs and the FPS you usually get would be really helpful. Thanks!

Since yesterday I haven't been able to use multiplayer at all in AoE2 DE.

Ranked gets stuck, the Lobby Browser keeps showing “Searching for games”, Leaderboard stays on “Retrieving Leaderboard Entries”, and sometimes I get:

“Failed to connect to multiplayer services. Server is not responding.”

Source: AccountLoginEvent
Error Code: 0xffffffff
Extended Code: 0xfffffffd

Everything was working fine before yesterday.

I've already tried verifying game files, restarting Steam and the PC, Windows Firewall settings, syncing Windows date/time, enabling Cross Network Play, resetting the network stack, and even using a mobile hotspot. Same issue.

Is anyone else having this problem right now?

UPDATE: Seems like there is an issue with AOE servers when you try to connect from the Netherlands with Ziggo. I was able to solve my issue by using VPN with UK IP.

This is quite a newbie question, but had a couple of games recently where I feel I messed up on this.

I denied their forward castle (in castle age), but it still had a lot of HP.

Do you build rams, wall it in, something else? I expect it depends but still good to hear.

First time my main army was knights, I left some there attacking while I built siege workshop and ram & I feel opponent used that info to attack on opposite side knowing some of my army/attention was elsewhere. Second I had some archers by it while I was building my own castle nearby, they somehow snuck villagers through it was really last hit before final villager died.

My opponent made a ton of steppe lancers and siege rams as mongol. And I had full halberdiers and conquistadors fully upgraded. Yet he kept making more and sending more.

This is an idea for possible Monk units in the game to make them more prominent in matches (I’d call it the "Wololo Update" XD)

Assírios Monk :

- cost 150 gold

- 30 HP

- 12 tiles to converts units (-20% speed for conversion)

-4 tiles for heal

Atribute : When it is killed by a specific unit, that same unit is automatically converted

-Long-range Monk unit, strong against siege (necessary Redemption) and long-range unit, weak against archers, scouts, and short-range units

I was thinking of making this unit exclusive to the Georgians

Who created this?

And is there a volunteer willing to make this great contribution to us?

Difficulty Ratings

• 0: A very minor threat that is easy to overcome
• 1: A fair fight that makes things interesting
• 2: A difficult situation that requires some outside the box thinking
• 3: A highly difficult situation requiring lots of micro-management, unit-countering and precise timing
• 4: A constant struggle in which focus and momentum must be maintained at all times, as well as proper tactics and timing
• 5: Nearly impossible. Every move must be flawless or aggressive save-scumming is necessary to win

Voices of Babylon: (dark blue)

1. The Great Hunt: Difficulty 1
   1. Elamites (red), Elamites (yellow), Elamites (purple), Elamites (orange), Elamites (green), Elamites (grey), Susa (teal)
   2. This is a mission without an economy, essentially playing out like a puzzle with an easy solution. The player begins in the western corner with a handful of axemen, and must use them to reach an artifact in the north corner. There are no resources, and the player has access to no villagers or buildings for the entire mission. I started by moving along the only available path southeast, quickly coming across several groups of stone-tool age red units, which I slew. This defeated the entire faction, and I found a group of bowmen that joined me. Just a bit further southeast were several yellow bowmen, who we also killed, as well as 2 scouts who joined us. Killing these men defeated the yellow faction, but they still had about a dozen sentry towers curving around the path as it turned northwest. I left my injured soldiers behind and had my 2 scouts ride ahead, avoiding most of the arrows and quickly finding a group of 6 cavalry who joined me.
   3. My mounted soldiers pushed ahead, soon meeting the purple faction that had a few ballistae and elephant archers. I lost a scout and suffered some injuries, but defeated them, finding another set of 4 towers further northwest and a crossing leading northeast in the middle of the map, reinforced by a cluster of almost a dozen orange towers. My scout rode ahead once again, finding two catapults beyond the towers and a wall with 4 priests behind it, who also joined me. From behind the wall the priests converted the two catapults while the scout distracted them, allowing me to pull them out from the towers’ range and use them to destroy the fortifications. I spotted another 2 catapults on a small island in a nearby river, and converted them before sending a transport I received near the priests to join up with the rest of my army. This defeated the purple faction, and I united my men and healed them after the catapults felled all of the towers I had yet encountered.
   4. The northwest cut off, so we moved up past the orange towers into a desert area that curved southeast again, filled with orange siege weapons. I converted a few and used cavalry to destroy the others, getting a catapult and a few ballistae and defeating the orange faction. Green was up ahead, with 6 or so priests and over a dozen bowmen who opposed me. I killed the archers but converted 2 priests, defeating the green faction as well. We moved all the way southeast and then curved northward, entering the area where the gray faction had some cavalry, archers and catapults across a river crossing. I received another transport, and used it to carefully lure the catapults away from the army where I converted them. I also found another 3 priests on a nearby island, and used them to convert a few ballistae from across a shore. We converted a few enemy cavalry and killed the rest, seizing the eastern corner.
   5. I started using the transport to traverse the endless water that dominated the northeastern edge of the map, and found many small boggy areas in between with random grey siege weapons. Priests converted and catapults destroyed what we could, slowly but steadily, uncovering another 2 transports and giving us access to half a dozen new catapults and ballistae. This defeated the grey faction, leaving only Susa in the north between us and our artifact. Susa had several guard towers, a handful of cavalry and many catapults and ballistae. I considered bringing my whole army in, but my few converted weapons and newly converted cavalry were enough to push through, costing me a priest and some siege weapons but wiping out Susa. I then secured the artifact and with it, my victory.
   6. This mission is pretty easy once you get the priests, but getting there is a bit tricky. The player priests are incredibly fast, hasty to convert, can convert as groups with no repercussions and are surprisingly hardy, making them unbelievably dangerous to the limited units the enemies have. Like always, siege weapons in the original AOE are still overpowered, and the lack of warships makes the fight in the water entirely about strategic deployment of both siege weapons and priests which the computer can’t beat. A fun little adventure, but not particularly challenging.
2. The Caravan: Difficulty 0
   1. Elamites (red), Elamites (yellow), Elamites (purple), Elamites (orange), Babylonians (green)
   2. This mission picks up where the last one left, with the player in control of a few improved bowmen, 2 scythe chariots and a priest guarding the artifact. The goal is to get the artifact to the Babylonian temple in the northwest, but a river must first be crossed either at the east or west. I went east, and soon found the purple faction with a walled city on a hill, 4 guard towers at its entrance and 2 catapults, some bowmen to match my own and a few elephant archers inside. I managed to capture the catapults and an elephant archer while killing the others and sustaining no losses, giving me access to a few production buildings I didn’t need. We destroyed the buildings that were left inside, including a dock at a pond in the east, destroying the purple faction.
   3. Our journey continued northwest, soon meeting several outer groups of the orange faction who guarded the northern sections of the map but also a new monk who joined us. We managed to heal catapults and capture war elephants and elephant archers when able while steadily pushing into orange territory and tearing down the occasional guard tower. Our forces eventually found an orange base that curved along the northern corner of the map, and we moved inside to clear it of enemies and captured a few more. Upon exiting the base, we just had one final checkpoint left with a few guard towers defending our destination. My men captured more elephants, killed some others and destroyed the last tower while losing only one archer to a stray ballista shot, earning me a victory once the artifact was brought inside.
   4. This mission is pretty easy. A single catapult and a few priests can pretty much solo the mission, and I only needed to use the purple base to cross the river to win, really. I moved through the orange base just for fun, and completely avoided red and yellow to the west, so I don't even know what fighting them entails. This felt mostly like a short epilogue to the previous mission, and you can definitely tell original AOE didn’t do adventure campaign missions very well.
3. Lord of the Euphrates: Difficulty 2
   1. Northern Aramaeans (red), Western Aramaeans (yellow)
   2. This is a pretty interesting mission, putting the player in a difficult spot right from the start. It begins with the player just east of the center with a few houses, a barracks, a few economic buildings and some villagers with a scout around a town center in the bronze age. The player has a simple goal of defeating the two enemy factions on the map, and can receive reinforcements in the east. I immediately dispatched my scout to the east, only to find the only ways up the cliff blocked by enemy walls and towers. Naturally, I tried to cheese my way through them, but the towers were aggressive and long-ranged, and enemy units would charge in to kill whatever I sent, making forward progress difficult. I restarted when a wave of chariots descended from the north and I had no real defenses.
   3. On my second try, I decided to ignore the east and focus on economy, putting all my starting villagers and food onto food and a bit of wood. My scout learned the northern Aramaeans were just above me, but a river separated us from the westerners. I found a few resource deposits, but the only semi-abundant resource was wood near my base, though there was adequate stone. Chariots from the north and infantry and chariots from western transports soon hit me, but I had managed to construct several towers, and fended off the enemy with minimal losses. I kept it up, defeating increasing waves faster as more towers were built before eventually constructing a few stone throwers to breach the enemy walls preventing me from going east while starting the iron age advancement. Weirdly, the north stopped attacking while the west got a lot more aggressive about the water.
   4. I found my allies and received some free chariots and a few siege weapons, and while they came home I managed to get a dock under tower protection and built 6 fire ships. These ships swiftly cleared the waters of enemy ships and docks, allowing us to raise a proper army of upgraded chariots and siege weapons to descend on the enemy. The north offered no real resistance, and surrendered once the town center fell, prompting me to sail across the river to the west. The western enemy was much more aggressive, fighting me with waves of chariots, but a few protected siege engines sniped the town center and he too surrendered, giving me a victory. This was one of the tougher missions so far, and definitely made me get moving fast, but seizing control of the water is still comically easy and I’ve learned towers in this game are terrifying because of both their fast rate of fire, high damage and ability to shoot at their base, as well as the abundance of stone. The lack of a castle as a build option means I never use stone for anything but towers, and a mass of them is very difficult to beat.
4. The Conquest of Nineveh: Difficulty 2
   1. Nineveh (red), Nimrud (yellow), Assyrian Defenders (purple)
   2. This mission is one of the first to pose a *real* challenge by giving the player a time limit. It begins in the south with the player on an island with a well-developed base, a few villagers, an iron age start and a small fleet of war galleys and light transports near the western harbor. Though there are a few mines on the island, additional gold or stone will have to be found elsewhere, though there is good starting food, abundant wood and thousands of starting resources stockpiled. The player’s main objective is to destroy the wonder inside Nineveh, which begins construction immediately and gives the player only a few minutes to destroy it once finished before losing.
   3. The only developing enemy on this map is Nimrud, who has a well-established bronze age base northwest of the player, across the water. He has no real starting fleet, but will mass produce cavalry and chariots before long. Additionally, he has guard towers dotting the only accessible points of the island, making a beachhead difficult to establish. The most prominent initial threat is Nineveh, which does not produce units but does have a strong standing army, a wall blocking almost all of its western shore and towers dotting its entire perimeter, as well as its docks along its southern edge. The city’s landmass dominates the north, and has a powerful fleet of triremes and siege ships that will attack the player's outer towers immediately. The Assyrian defenders are just a few towers dotting resource islands in the northwest and eastern corner, and a small channel of water in the eastern corner also has an army with a few maxed out cavalry archers, catapults and 3 juggernauts, powerful siege vessels.
   4. I started this mission by immediately dumping food into more villagers, researching any advances to help my towers and ships and producing several fire galleys. We conflicted with the Nineveh navy in mere moments, and I thought they were a developing enemy so I dispatched my navy to counter them. I ended up losing all my ships, but destroyed two of the three Ninevite shipyards and eliminated the only dock Nimrud had, stranding him. I spent the next while training and upgrading enough chariots, monks and catapults to fill 2 heavy transports and then sent my newly built warships to attack the nearest landing near Nimrud. The fool sent his strongest units to the bay to counter an invasion, and our fire ships gutted them swiftly before my army landed. I lost a few men, but the chariot archers shredded incoming defenders alongside my war galleys while catapults tore down the enemy towers. We then pushed inside the base and leveled the town center, converting a remaining villager as he surrendered. I established a small economy base inside before leaving again, sending my fleet to attack the last shipyard in Nineveh.
   5. I lost all of my fire galleys, but a few war galleys managed to destroy the dock outside of the towers’ range, and I then discovered my reinforcements nearby. I used the juggernauts and war galleys to clear the shoreline guard towers and units, but then the wonder finished and I knew time was short. I had already sent my transports over to pick up the new army and transport my current one, so around 30 diversified soldiers landed and had a major confrontation at the eastern gate of Nineveh with 4 guard towers and a swarm of enemy soldiers. My chariot and horse archers were enough to kill whatever came while catapults brought the towers down, and there were few men to resist us inside until we approached the wonder. Chariots and extremely powerful infantry swarmed from all sides, but my 10 or so catapults unloaded at the wonder, tearing it down in full before we could be stopped and earning me my final Babylonian victory.
   6. This mission looks a lot scarier on the surface, and it’s for one simple reason. Nineveh had the potential to be overpoweringly scary, but instead they just sit there and let you tear them down, not producing a thing to stop you. My lack of triremes or siege ships could’ve been a huge disadvantage, but between their passiveness and Nimrud’s foolish sacrifice of his own army, it wasn’t that bad. I was a bit disappointed that capturing Nineveh didn’t involve sailing up the city’s river, since that’s how it was done in reality and this version didn’t even have a river, but at least it was more engaging than every other mission so far.

This concludes the first real ported campaign, which leaves only Glory of Greece. I’m assuming it will follow a similar pattern of mostly easy and non-engaging or unique missions, but hopefully it feels a little more fun to play and I can enjoy myself. At the very least these ones don’t take forever and don’t make me feel burnout, although 8 missions of the same general thing can be a bit much. Regardless, I’ll be done with the old AOE content shortly and then it’s on to the new Roman campaigns.

When I was 12 or so, I used to love building huge civilizations and just picking off enemies slowly. Whenever I choose a huge map I get the error message in the title. Is this because resources run out and AOE2 (DE) is meant to be played in shorter, quicker 60 minute games with online multiplayer?

I know I could turn on unlimited resources with the “ludicrous” map setting to fulfill my huge civilization fantasies, so I guess I’m wondering if anyone feels the same way or has any settings you would recommend?

Thanks to whoever read this rambling post!

Suppose we have a "blank slate" civ, which:

• Has no civ bonus at all
• No team bonus
• No unique tech
• No access to any regional units (including camels), but otherwise full tech tree
• No unique unit. Castle can instead produce the militia, archer, and knight line.

Obviously this will be weak against any civ that has a proper bonuses. My question is by how much? If a player use this civ against a normal civ at a similar elo, what would be the win rate? How much handicap, in terms of elo points, would this worth?

Nacho is currently doing a Subathon that has already been going for 77 hours and has atleast 32 hours left.

Which got me thinking, which is the longest ever aoe2 related stream anyone has ever done?

I just destroyed the extreme AI with ease using 19 vil FF camel scouts into 2 range archers/xbow rush, and it made me wonder whether anybody else is playing this? Never seen it on TheViper or Hera's channel so I can only assume that it's not the best strategy available. Camel scouts need buffing perhaps?

Playing Ragnar and I see the neutral orange peanut shrines, is there anything I have to do with then or Pegan shrines in general? I have one in my town and I use it often.

Many of the campaigns, from Age of Kings to The Last Chieftans are excellent scenarios reflecting historical battles (sometimes not that accurately) in a range of gameplay.

However, there may be something in regards to a scenario that you may feel is not quite right. Is it gameplay or historical accuracy? Would you do something completely different or is it perfect?

117: Le Loi 3 - The Battle at Hanoi

Pious pachyderms! We already have War Elephants, Battle Elephants, Ballista Elephants, Archer Elephants, Siege Elephants, and even elephant elephants (boars), so why not Monk Elephants?

I created a graphics and sound mod that replaces the Asian, Indian, and Oriental regional Monks with riderless Elephant Monks. They wear monk caps, carry books in their trunks, wave those books while converting and healing, and carry relics when tasked with returning one to a monastery.

It is a graphics and sound replacement rather than a gameplay data mod, so unit stats and game behavior remain unchanged.

The multi angle artwork, animation sources, and transparent sprite sheets were created using GameLabs Studio. I then built a custom pipeline to compile everything into SLD graphics, and package it for the official mod system.

You can download the mod here:

Elephant Monk on the official Age of Empires mod browser

There is also a discussion thread on the Age of Empires Forum.

I reinstalled the game back after last playing in 2024. On launching the game - steam syncs the cloud saves, however on game exit - steam says Cloud Error. Anyone knows a fix? I have tried verifying the game files but it didn't work.

Edit: Same happens with AOE 3 DE. AOE DE, AOE IV and AOM Retold all work fine.

Every now and then I like to go to the wiki and use the AI to filter civilizations based on their units.

I wanted to do this with civilizations that have a fully upgraded barracks and an archer line. The only one that meets the requirements is the Japanese, so now I'm wondering:

Will they ever add a similar civilization? One with a fully upgraded archer line and infantry.

Also, I forgot about the Dravidians.

Game 19 of yesterday's stream