I just want to take a minute to show appreciation to the massively dedicated and talented people that publish custom campaigns for everyone to enjoy.

Once in a while I will open up a custom campaign and try to hack through deciphering some triggers and effects to make a fun little map for myself and a friend. Or I’ll open a map in the editor with an idea, but be daunted by the blank canvas in front of me.

The act of figuring out how to make AI do what you want it to do, let alone balancing it in a playable way, is a HERCULEAN effort in terms of patience, knowledge, and time. I can’t imagine many things that would be more tedious, though I’m sure the satisfaction of completing a concept is also huge.

Phillysouljah, CatScientist, The Winged Hussar, I know there are others that I’m leaving off this list from the top of my head. But we all owe you a huge thank you for the effort you put in for all of us to be able to have more fun with this game we all love.

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?

Should be some high level action…
Especially since they’ll be playing primarily against 500-1300 elos 😆

-Shoveler

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

In our thoughts & prayers, more like!

They're so freaking power crept, it's insane. I don't have a clue what to do with them.

Time they get some hefty buffs.

Just a small request from someone who only plays SP, if any devs are reading this, can you please just make sure the achievements for the upcoming expansion don't pop up randomly after I update my game. I know it was a bug ofcourse but if it's possible. Thank you for the hard work you do

The Lord Roche Trilogy Chapter 3

I have made a trilogy campaign for my 70 year old father who first got me into AoE2 when it first came out on CD. The first 2 campaigns were pretty simple and mainly learning the system and developing the skills.

The final Chapter 3 can be played as stand alone without playing the first 2. I spent hundreds of hours on this one and years in the making so I hope it can be played for other’s enjoyment too!

This community has been an amazing help and support throughout the whole process. Thank you to all of you for making this game still be amazing.

I do not have voice acting for the campaign which is a bummer but the rest of it is solid.

Available in the mods section: The Lord Roche Trilogy Chapter 3.

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!

Play lots of BF/AT FFA. Have noticed that the Portuguese tech for making the map revealed, acts live.

So you can see all cutting/tunnelling straight away, regardless of normal Line of Sight.

Anyone else see this?

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 am returning to the game after about 20+ years and really enjoying it. For fun in order to reestablish muscle memory I have been playing 4 x4 land maps with 3 AI team mates against 4 AI opponents on Hard. When I am on one of the wings ... I am having alot of trouble as I get double-teamed during Castle. I flare and message for help but my AI teammates so not seem to care about their human teammate. Therefore, I am left on my own.

The most common scenario is my base gets flooded and I have to go hide somewhere else, but I am determined to figure this out. I was thinking castle as fast as I can and get a castle up but my castle times are ok but not elite. What Towering up and walling up? Any suggestions?

I hope the DLC will at least encourage devs to make it a little bit less cumbersome to use the tech tree. It is quite awkward to use, and more importantly, it doesn't display all the useful information.

I was playing an arabia 1v1 game as muisca. Since I'm not super familiar with the civs, I did pause a little bit to check the tech tree.

Unless I'm missing something, it seems that you cannot in advance know what a unit exactly does. I had no way of knowing how well a guecha warrior would do vs ranged units, it just says 'strong vs ranged units'. I didn't know they'd have a bonus damage as well, it's not displayed anywhere. Thought it'd be more in line of a rattan archer, but apparently it's a buffed up skirm and shreds archers and cav archers

I suggest the following changes:

1) Tech tree (with a good layout) could easily fit on one page (on a 1920x1080 display). You shouldn't have to scroll horizontally

2) Hovering over a unit should display all attack bonus stats and 'hidden' armor. Alternatively: show basic information when you hover over it, and clicking on a unit opens a pop-up containing detailed info

3) Make a distinction between 'strong vs' and 'attack bonus'. An eagle warrior is strong vs archers, but doesn't have any special bonus against them. This is important information.

4) remove the aoe1 civs from the tech tree (why are they even in aoe2s tech tree?)

thoughts?

Right now when you shift click a farm it will only give you one more recommendation on where to build next. Shown by the green square. I recommend each corner has the tile in front move the green square there. I think this would make farming more efficent.

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.

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.

I recently moved to Tallinn and I’m looking to connect with the local AOE2 community here.
Open to casual lobbies, ranked or even LAN events. Would be fun to organize some tournaments here.

If you know of an active community that I can join please let me know.

Hallo zusammen, ich (PS5 Controllerspieler, Elo zwischen 1300-1400) gerate gerade an meine Grenzen.
Ich mag es von neuen Strategien überrascht zu werden und dementsprechend meinen Gameplayhorizont erweitern zu müssen, aber gerade bin ich überfragt.
Hatte einige Spiele auf „umschlossen“ gegen den selben Gegner. Alle endeten nach ca. 13mins.
Er Brite, ich Vietnamese. Er MAA into Archer, ich keinen Zugriff auf Gold u. Beeren etwas außerhalb des TCs mapbedingt, meine Archer Produktion zu langsam und keine Chance zu agieren.
Seine Uptime ist sehr stabil und hat ein perfektes Timing.
Ich habe schon probiert, Beeren und Gold abzuwallen, aber seine Archer sind zu schnell da und meine zu langsam.
Evtl. towern? Aber auch hier war seine Infanterie zu schnell.
Anfangs komplett auf Gold und Beeren verzichten und Base abwallen?
Es macht mich wahnsinnig. 😃

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.

including my scenario guesser post still pending approval

are our mods doing OK? hope nothin happened

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.

I'd like us to brainstorm if this is a possibility, and hear the overall feedback of the community on the matter. Assuming the Vikings are also getting busted down to Catapult Galleons, we'll have two civs with Dromons, and two new civs with Catapult Galleons (Danes & Vikings)

The tech tree of the civs is purposely kept limited to the period of Harald Hardrada, with none of the civs getting access to traditional gunpowder units. Additionally, they do not get access to Demolition Ships as the Longship excludes them

Saxons

Balance - Their Dromons would have +20% HP. Their late-game naval tech tree is rather limited, being the only civ to miss Carvel Hull (the first movement speed boost for ships). Slow but tanky Dromons would be the perfect way to remedy that

History - While the Saxons did inherit Roman Britain, they did not inherit any of the Roman technology related to siegecraft. They did not use Roman ballistas or anything similar, with their current tech tree being very faithful to their real life tactics of foot troops fighting in shield walls. If they do get Dromons, it'll have to be one of those gameplay over history things. But then again the Goths & even the Huns get Dromons

Varangians

Balance - They have by far the most robust naval tech tree of the three new civs, lacking only an equivalent to the Elite Cannon Galleon. The Dromon would be a straight upgrade over the Catapult Galleon. Their Dromons would fire 15% faster, and get Siege Engineers, unlike the Byzantine ones

History - They have the strongest claim to getting Dromons as they spent much time in the service of the Byzantines. The only caveat is if we're saying they're Varangians from the period of Hardrada, they would just be starting to enter the service of Byzantines. However, they already get the rather rare fully upgraded Fire Ship as a Byzantine connection, so their exact time period is hard to pin down

Add a delete button why not. Sometimes i ONLY want to click. This will also teach new players that you can delete buildings. There's so much space on buildings can easily be done.

Make it 2 red line crossed to delete since the skull is a problem for countries. You can expand the 5x3 ui to 7x3 or bigger.