Were these 20 mins real life or ingame minutes? Because it’s quite important to keep in mind that AoE 2 runs at 1.7 speed. 20 minutes ingame equal 11.7 real life minutes.
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I started to play back in the early 2000, when AoC was released. We did not have pro streamers, youtube channels, discord, not even the possibility to watch any ranked or lobby match as observer. Having a rec game from a pro was something memorable.
We barely had build orders, but we build a community that is still alive 23 years later.
That’s the point: helping the newbies, taking them under your wing, explain them, play with them.
I still remember my firts matches vs real people: I was annihilated even more then 10-20 times.
But some times people gave me some advice, and once I met one persone that explained me how to play, and introduced me to a clan.
That’s how I learned. I started practicing VS AI, learn build order, taking familiarity with hotkeys…then I played some lobby games VS sparring partner. Then starting playing vs other people, losing most of the game but knowing how to improve, and so on…
I suppose it would be faster with the tools we have today.
The answer is: friends and community!
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No because that also buffs walls for all ELO, including high ELO. One of the things that puts off viewers of aoe2 is the slow action in the early game. Open maps like Arabia are not supposed to be turtle fast castle every game. In fact, palisades already got a buff and quickwalls already got a nerf, remember? Palisades take longer to build but have more HP when complete. And quick wall palisade foundations are much easier to break since they made that change.
In game, but 12 minutes (before ANY meaningful actions - what they did before that is mostly seeding farms, chopping woods etc) each game is terribly long as well.
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Well, don’t you usually have your first fights in Feudal Age?
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I guess standardise the 9 vill start is the way to go. In aoe3, age 1 is about 4 mins, and real action start in age 2 immediately.
In aoe2 3 vill start, age 1 is 9-10 game minutes which is 6 mins in real life, it is 50% longer. Actions doesn’t immediately start in age 2 as we need to make buildings and create army slowly, one after one, after 15 mins which is 9 - 10 real minutes, we are still fighting with a few archers, skirms, or pikes. In comparison aoe3 10 mins can end a lot of games and players can be 100 to 150 pop for certain civs.
Aoe2 empire war was a good attempt to make game faster but the action start immediately or the first 2 mins, making a lot of players overwhelmed.
So i think 9 vill start is the perfect middle ground.
I was playing AI with them - if I remember they seldom started at Feudal.
Granted they may face faster games if they play PVP - but I think a ~7min buildup are gonna be terrible either (and they prob will lose a bunch of games, each having a 7min buildup)
Am i the only person playing that enjoys 3 vil start? I’ve noticed many people that want to change this.
If you make the game faster it will be even worse for new players because they won’t have time to react to anything, and it makes the game more confusing. 3 vils start is slow, you have time to think about everything there is to do! 9 vils makes the game faster and so, more aggressive, which isn’t really the goal here.
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I see… have you maybe tried playing Empire Wars with them as well?
The game is noob friendly enough. The only thing to do it’s to improve the elo system and make elo lower for beginners match with each other.
But no change in the gameplay, just the interface.
its my opinion.
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I had 20-30 college friends who played Age of Empires on a monthly basis, and enjoyed LAN parties.
To be honest, most of them stayed away from online multiplayer because they didn’t have time or interest to practice hyper-optimized build orders (or be crushed like noobs xd).
99% of casual players enjoy the game from Castle Age onwards, when they have a “decent base” with castle and armies. They would enjoy a game where they start with a small base in Castle Age, like in a campaign mission of Age 2 (not with 10k resources like Death Match, because that’s hardcore in a different way).
Maybe a team game mode that starts in Castle Age with a small base would be appealing to casual players. That’s what 99% of people like to be honest.
Just want everyone to know, that after further inspection, this has been revised.
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No, Empire war was not a thing / trend back then.
I personally dont think empire war would help, because it prebuilds too much for the player but others can try it.
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yeah I ain’t got the time for all that pro play noise. Lots of cheap moves that seem like an incredible chore to develop for a videogame that isn’t even a MMORPG. Not to play down the achievement, of course. If this is what you want to become pro at, by all means. But as a gamer over 40, and as much as I love the AOE series, I just cannot afford that kind of time anymore. I have to be picky, and I leave the pro play for MMORPGS.
With that said, I just play with my brothers. I would recommend anyone who has family or friends to just play with them and avoid the random pvp games. As I recall, it used to be a thing to host games for whoever you wanted to play with. It’s as old as AOE is. Is that not a thing anymore? or are people gifting noobs? I’d love to check all replies and find out for myself but holy hell this site here is horrendous to use because game companies seem very anti using established forum boards and go make their own boards and just create pure crap.
I’ll be honest, I have been trying to find other rts games which are a bit more suitable to my tastes.
This game has 3 main units if you want to play multiplayer. Crossbow, Knight/Camel/Steppe lancer, and cav archer. Try anything else, and you lose. It’s getting boring. Just watch any pro team games. This only changes once you get to late imperial.
And cavalry is so easy to use that every time I try full cav, my Elo goes up by like 100. If feels like cheating.
One of the few things that still keeps me around is the slow buildup. There is a beauty in the fact that economic unit production is basically linear till you hit early imperial. You have a few TCs, and every villager is valuable. You slowly build up your army, and fight in small skirmishes.
It feels like you are building up an empire, and you want to win not just because you want to destroy your enemy, but you want whatever you built to last. There is enormous satisfaction in going from 3 villagers to 150.
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thats not true because there are spear man and skirmishers and they are used a lot in feudal play and scouts too
He said “main” units. And he’s right. Going all in Skirm isn’t really an option. Going all in crossbow is, for example. If you go all in skirms in feudal age, the other guy is going to show up with a few scouts and is going to kill all of them! In castle age, it will be knights.
Same thing if you go all pikes. The other player goes all xbow, and you’re dead again.
And team games it’s all crossbow + knights vs crossbow + knights! 
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One solution would be to give the option of a Treaty checkbox, which would work in exactly the same way as random civ. So the match will only be a treaty if both players tick the box.
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Yeah the crossbow knight is what drove me away from aoe2. I want to play team games. But every game is crossbow knight. Camel sometimes but they melt to crossbow. Elephant is slow, monk siege is not so useful in team game (maybe suitable for 1v1). It is also hard to improve elo in 1v1, once I reach a bottleneck, I was stuck at 1300-1350 for a very long time.
Maybe I would admit black forest is the only fun game mode where players uses a variety of units, scorpion, unique units, infantry spam, cutting trees with onagers etc. But it did become quickly boring if I play black forest lobby games every game.
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That’s why I try to play off-meta to keep things fresh for me. One of my favourite strats for a while now is massing Steppe Lancers as Mongols.