AoE DE Competitive Games' Settings (RM)

Age of Empires: DE I - Discussion
1

Hey everyone.

For those who don’t know me, I’m a long time AoERoR player (now DE player) committed on solidifying the community.

Given that ratings will be live anytime soon, I’ll share with the community the recommended settings you should start polishing so you can climb to the top and conquer the competition!

Map type: the preferences are Continental, Hill Country and Inland. Map rotation is not uncommon so expect to see those 3 maps rolled on most games. Don’t expect “Random” map type to be common since most players prefer to know beforehand what type of odds they will be dealing with.

Reveal map: NEVER! There are some small niche groups of players (Brazilians mostly) who play with map revealed. Even more, back in MSN Zone “Kor setts” were quite popular, but I hardly doubt it will be happening this time around in DE (with shared exploration features and whatnot).

Resources: ALWAYS DEFAULT! Yes, I know in recent years some people enjoyed playing Iron Age high resources, but these settings have not been that popular even in legacy RoR, and for sure are now not popular in DE.

Starting age: ALWAYS DEFAULT (Stone Age). Nomad won’t be occurring in expert games, unfortunately.

Speed: 2.0 might be the most popular for high level, competitive games. Speed 1.5 is the one I have always played in legacy RoR, but with the inflow of many high level players from Asia (Vietnam and China), 2.0 is becoming predominant. And for a reason: 2.0 is undoubtly the most challenging of speeds and demand serious skills.

Civilization: Random for team games, pick for 1v1.

Yes, of course, everyone is free to choose the settings they enjoy the most and that’s great. I am just letting people know how the high level games are currently being played, so that we all will be playing together in the nearest future.

Best regards,

2

@RealIronSteel said:
2.0 is becoming predominant. And for a reason: 2.0 is undoubtly the most challenging of speeds and demand serious skills.

Let’s not confuse reflexes with strategy. 2.0 means reflexes matter more, and thus strategy matters less. Chess for example is pure strategy and zero reflexes. And grandmasters aren’t 17yr old kids. On the other hand most online games are dominated by kids because older people can’t compete in reflexes.

So if “skill” here means “I’m able to compete better with insects and less with Einstein” then yeah, 2.0 demands more “skill”. I however prefer 1.5 over 2.0., and if I’m gonna play games with rankings I’m not going to play on 2.0 for sure because I don’t like the direction of modern gaming that seems to be designed for kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It’s enough to compare original Guild Wars with Guild Wars 2. The first is the game of tactical thinking. The second is a game of maniacal button spamming where you can’t even tell what’s going on and everything is over in 1-2 seconds, and you’re surprised that people involved aren’t having seizures.

So yeah, experts can play on whatever speed they agree on. I’m sure I’ll find many others who will play at 1.5 or lower.

Civilization: Random for team games

Oh and also, I don’t play random civs because it’s no fun, but of course, others are free to agree to whatever. I’ll find games that suit me.

3

I think that’s quite appropriate. It’s pretty similar to the next trial cup of GTV, we are having chance to try when map types will be more specific
forums.ageofempires.com/discussion/15725
However I don’t see recommendation about map size. It will be set to large in this tournament, do you have any idea about that?
Anw to me, which setting is not important, as long as it’s becomming common to our community and able to connect playing styles all around the world.

4

So yeah, experts can play on whatever speed they agree on. I’m sure I’ll find many others who will play at 1.5 or lower.

Civilization: Random for team games

Oh and also, I don’t play random civs because it’s no fun, but of course, others are free to agree to whatever. I’ll find games that suit me.

RTS is RTS , quick Hand and quick brain , 1.5 is a good speed Iron said he use for ROR legacy but the future probably for competitive game will be 2.0 , he give only a tips.
For the civ normally using random let people to play all civs and find plus and minus of all of them.

I add to this discussion… please pop 200 or 250 , i see often game with 50 pop or 100 ( in team ).

5

I am by no means a pro player, but 2.0 speed seems not a good idea to me. If people wanted to show off their APMs, they would play starcraft 2. 1v1 are already short in most of the cases anyway, why the need to make them even shorter? Most of the time we don’t even reach iron age.
And random civs with the current balance? There is no way this could work.
Finally, no offense, by I could not care less how pros play in Vietnam or China. They are the guys who mostly played with weird settings until now, just to allow endless chariot spam. I don’t see why the rest of the world should adapt to that.

6

Hello, and thx for the post.

I agree with most of your settings, however speed is a problem.
Continental, Hill Country are great, i really hate island with the almost obligation to engage a sea war where it will be necessary to count the trees on his island.
I think Coastal and Mediterranean are underestimated, they offer a lot of choice and scoot are more important on this map than any other.

Reveal map, never for sure, exploration is an integral part of the skill, and unlike other RTS like AoE2 where the exploration is “free” because the game offered a free and very effective unit to do it, here it is up to the player to decide timing / intensity of the exploration, and these actions reveal a part of his strategy via the points of exploration obtained.
If you wall / turtle you will do a little less exploration point than if you go on a rush (because when you will rush you need some information like possible wall, three position, etc)

Speed 2.0 is perfect when you spam bronze units, with no rush under 13min like Vietnamese play.
With speed 2.0 it’s more maccro, less micro, not really an expert setting ;).
If speed 2.0 is becoming predominant to play with Vietnam / China community, i don’t think it’s a good way if we want various strategy and a good e-sport.
I remember Msn gaming Zone, where expert game name “usual”, it’s speed 1.0 on nomad mode, and yes we play with modem 56k…

Why tool-rush and Axes are so efficient in last tournament? Because speed 2.0…so hard to instant wall without loose some villagers in the process.
With speed 1.5 i think more tournament game will go to Bronze age.

That my 2 cents

7

Agree with Legion. Faster speed simplifies the game as You focus on the basics, macro And spam units.

I would like to add about this time on the zone if i recall correctly, There where tournaments every weekend and mostly with unusual settings. Those where a lot of fun and a Nice break from Your usual 1-1 Continental.

I also think its not ’ expertish’ to focus only on a few maps because a good player should be able to hang on any map.

8

It’s nonsense to play on 2.0 very fast game speed.

The difference to Starcraft, Warcraft and other RTS (like CnC) is that those games even on high speed play much slower than Age of Empires on 1.5 game speed, and the economy system is much less diverse than in AoE.

Lower speed = more micro = more fun to watch.

9

For everyone who thinks 2.0 speed is too fast, think of it this way. When there’s a tournament and people watching, they don’t have to wait 10 minutes at the start of each game to see something interesting. 5 minutes of downtime at the start of the game is a lot better than 7½ or 10.

@RealIronSteel said:
Hey everyone.

For those who don’t know me, I’m a long time AoERoR player (now DE player) committed on solidifying the community.

Given that ratings will be live anytime soon, I’ll share with the community the recommended settings you should start polishing so you can climb to the top and conquer the competition!

Map type: the preferences are Continental, Hill Country and Inland.

Continental seems a given since it’s a very consistent map type.

Hill-country is also a given because of it’s history although I prefer Highland. The terrain is more open, thus less turtling opportunities and pathfinding issues. There’s no dirt or sand on the map so the minimap is clearer to read. There’s less hills to screw with buildings as well so it’s just a nicer, cleaner map in general.

Inland though, why? It’s a very inconsistent map. I’ve seen fully land-locked Inlands, I’ve seen Rivers, I’ve seen Narrows, I’ve seen Continentals. Inland can turn into pretty much anything, it’s like playing Random. The worst ones have had a full sea in one corner of the map with the other team getting free fish while the other had none. So when I see someone of your level promote this I am intrigued as to what makes this map worth it?

@oOLeGiONOo0 said:
Hello, and thx for the post.

I agree with most of your settings, however speed is a problem.
Continental, Hill Country are great, i really hate island with the almost obligation to engage a sea war where it will be necessary to count the trees on his island.
I think Coastal and Mediterranean are underestimated, they offer a lot of choice and scoot are more important on this map than any other.

Coastal gives very random map shapes and there’s a possibility the other team spawns land-locked while the other does not. It’s also pretty likely to have islands for each player with only one shallows to get in or out, just like Narrows. In case that happens, it’s basically a naval map because those will get dock blocked early on.

Mediterranean is a pretty good map. I’ve seen a few funky ones where players start from inside a ring of trees but those seem really rare. Aside from that, there’s a chance for rivers to spawn and those seem to always have only one shallow across, right at the sea-shore, but there’s usually another way around the sea. Some players can spawn really far from the sea, which can be a bit of a problem, but most of the time it’s a decent map.

Oasis is also a pretty good map. It’s nice and open, which allows for a lot of raiding and there are no big issues with map generation. Sometimes the oasis doesn’t actually have water inside but rather it’s just one big forest but that doesn’t really matter. It’s annoying that you have to hunt Gazelles a lot but that’s true for everyone in the game so it’s fair.

@Rain19910610 said:
I think that’s quite appropriate. It’s pretty similar to the next trial cup of GTV, we are having chance to try when map types will be more specific
forums.ageofempires.com/discussion/15725
However I don’t see recommendation about map size. It will be set to large in this tournament, do you have any idea about that?

This is a very good point. Medium size(2player) Continental is about the size of a Small land map, the rush distance is very short. It might make sense to play on one size larger Continental to have similarly sized landmass(so 1v1 games on 4player and so forth.)

10

@JoonasTo Even though I agree with most of your points, I disagree on the “speed is important for audience”.

In league of legends you have 2 players (top lane) pretty much farm minions until the first drake arrives, which can be 10 mins into the game (even if the other two lanes are more entertaining to watch). In warcraft 3 you also have around 5-6 mins before a real combat starts, same with starcraft. The only popular RTS that are faster are the games based off SAGE Engine (CnC games) or Company of Heroe. But those have 0 eco management.

Since in AoE you have more economy to manage and there are many variables on scouting, getting elephants etc I don’t think that those 2.5 minutes for 2.0 speed compared to 1.5 matter much.

11

@ZheBoyz said:
@JoonasTo Even though I agree with most of your points, I disagree on the “speed is important for audience”.

In league of legends you have 2 players (top lane) pretty much farm minions until the first drake arrives, which can be 10 mins into the game (even if the other two lanes are more entertaining to watch). In warcraft 3 you also have around 5-6 mins before a real combat starts, same with starcraft. The only popular RTS that are faster are the games based off SAGE Engine (CnC games) or Company of Heroe. But those have 0 eco management.

Since in AoE you have more economy to manage and there are many variables on scouting, getting elephants etc I don’t think that those 2.5 minutes for 2.0 speed compared to 1.5 matter much.

In AoE 2 ppl play at 1.5 and i dont see complains on Dark age boringness.
I dont agree with the “viewer experience is better on 2.0”. You still enjoy early game if u are an AOE fan. And if u are not an AOE fan, you dont watch AOE, lets face it non gamers will NOT watch AOE. You go watch Counterstrike or something (or some real life sport), so saving some minutes for me isnt enough to say 2.0 is the best setting.
anyways with time you get used to it.

12

Fastest on Age of Empires is too fast, it’s un-natural, it’s like Fastest on Warcraft 2, it’s unrealistic and unfair.
Fastest on Starcraft, Starcraft II, Warcraft III is ok, as units would move at this speed in the real world.

13

Ok, if you want to play in Vietnamese tournaments etc, play on 2.0. For the other 99.9% of people, play on 1.5. For the love of dog.

Twenty years ago we played on 1.0 often but yeah, feels a bit slow these days even for an old man like me :slight_smile: 2.0 is for kids on a sugar high, though.

The rest of the settings are legit, yes—no gimmicky maps like Islands and whatnot.

14

Economy is an essential part of AoE. Your build, adaptability, decision making. It’s a sport by itself already to race to tool age and put a nice time on the clock. This period 0-8 minutes actually is very important as it sets the trend for the game. You can read his gameplan by watching his startup.

In the rated rooms everybody played continental 1.5 No shang …because its the most fair and diverse map.
You can’t really get screwed too much as there are multiple options for food.

Meditterean was also very populair. Espescially in team games. Its a very interesting decision to fight on land or on water…or both in a certain extent. Big boat booms vs superfast tool rushes. booms vs superbooms, semi bronze rushes…transport everything is there.

Anyway, im wondering how many people actually want to invest masses of time in becoming expert level at this game? And why are you hosting tournaments? To find the best? Or just to have fun basicly? To get social interaction between players?
I think this decision is important. Back in the day we played in the non rated rooms, with everything random. Sure you get screwed for civ and map sometimes but it didnt really matter because we played for fun anyway.

15

Hey guys, thanks to you all for giving your insights.

Regarding the speed issue, I am by no means “imposing” anything. Like I said, I have always played 1.5 speed in legacy RoR and even in DE prior to my participation in official AoE DE tournaments. I am sure 1.5 will occur often too, but I am just sharing with you guys that 2.0 speed is already happening in most of expert+ games, and the trend does not seem to be a return to 1.5.

And to the guy that made a comparison with “Einstein” and “Reflexes”, meh, I can tell you most experts are Einsteins WITH reflexes, not “turn-based” Einsteins. Heck, even chess matches are timed!

In the end, whether you like 2.0 or not-so-much, it would be ideal that you are capable of handling it so you don’t have to miss expert games that use 2.0.

Cheers,

16

Oh, and just to give you a better dimension of the amount of expert players engaged in the settings im mentioning, take a look at the brackets for the upcoming 1v1 RM tournament:

https://challonge.com/es/AoEDEtrialcup3

42 players which are only a few of many other high level players (probably 80-100 more) have signed up. Like I said, I advise you all to also get used 2.0 speed, so you don’t be left out of expert games.

17

@RealIronSteel said:
Hey guys, thanks to you all for giving your insights.

Regarding the speed issue, I am by no means “imposing” anything. Like I said, I have always played 1.5 speed in legacy RoR and even in DE prior to my participation in official AoE DE tournaments. I am sure 1.5 will occur often too, but I am just sharing with you guys that 2.0 speed is already happening in most of expert+ games, and the trend does not seem to be a return to 1.5.

And to the guy that made a comparison with “Einstein” and “Reflexes”, meh, I can tell you most experts are Einsteins WITH reflexes, not “turn-based” Einsteins. Heck, even chess matches are timed!

In the end, whether you like 2.0 or not-so-much, it would be ideal that you are capable of handling it so you don’t have to miss expert games that use 2.0.

Cheers,

The “expert” games you’re mentioning are vietnamese. And they only play 2.0 speed because tool rushing isn’t a thing for them. I read somewhere that those vietnam games have a “hidden rule” that no vills are killed until bronze age warfare begins… So ofc it makes sense to play 2.0 speed to get to Bronze fighting faster.

Still, doing a proper tool rush on 2.0 is pretty much impossible, especially since the pathing is pretty bad for melee units. Having to fight against the clock AND against pathing is too punishing. If it becomes easier to micro vills away from Axers and focusing them with archers is easier there’s no point in tool rushing.

@RealIronSteel said:
Oh, and just to give you a better dimension of the amount of expert players engaged in the settings im mentioning, take a look at the brackets for the upcoming 1v1 RM tournament:

Aoe DE Trial Cup -Season 3 - Challonge

42 players which are only a few of many other high level players (probably 80-100 more) have signed up. Like I said, I advise you all to also get used 2.0 speed, so you don’t be left out of expert games.

So yea, Vietnamese players, vietnamese rules… aoe 2 is played on normal speed on “skilled” player games and tourneys, and that’s for a good reason afterall.

18

@RealIronSteel said:
And to the guy that made a comparison with “Einstein” and “Reflexes”, meh, I can tell you most experts are Einsteins WITH reflexes, not “turn-based” Einsteins. Heck, even chess matches are timed!

Yea… When you look at pro gaming scene everything is full of 60yr olds with grey hair… See when you add “reflexes” you eliminate all the Einstein’s, and then you’re left with 17yr kids. Smart kids, sure, but kids that focus on multitasking and not on one object. That’s very different actually. As for chess matches being timed, that’s irrelevant because it’s all about brain power per minute anyway. Chess players do numerous calculations that are nowhere near an expert AoE player who spends most of the time executing memorized build order and then micromanaging villagers and what not, which mostly consists not of tactical decisions but of pure reflexes. Comparably, turn based “Einsteins” spend 100% of time making tactical decisions. In AoE DE I can know exactly what the enemy will do with each villager, exactly what army he will create and what he will do with it, and it doesn’t matter if he can click faster. That’s just how it is. Einstein is going to lose AoE with 2.0 speed to a 17yr old kid of mediocre IQ who can click fast. Skill in AoE matters only if two players have similar apm. If not, good luck.

In the end, whether you like 2.0 or not-so-much, it would be ideal that you are capable of handling it so you don’t have to miss expert games that use 2.0.

The reason why I always preferred AoE over Starcraft is, besides the historical setting, normal speed of gameplay. Original AoE was both fun, tactical, and relaxing. I agree that that speed would be too slow for today’s multiplayer, but 2.0 makes AoE into non-AoE for me. That’s all. It just becomes another apm competition.

Anyway, again, I am not saying other’s shouldn’t play 2.0 if they prefer it. I am only saying I won’t, and I’m also refusing to classify ADHD as “skill” or “strategy”. It would be like saying eating fast food means eating better.

19

@ZheBoyzForum said:

@RealIronSteel said:
Hey guys, thanks to you all for giving your insights.

Regarding the speed issue, I am by no means “imposing” anything. Like I said, I have always played 1.5 speed in legacy RoR and even in DE prior to my participation in official AoE DE tournaments. I am sure 1.5 will occur often too, but I am just sharing with you guys that 2.0 speed is already happening in most of expert+ games, and the trend does not seem to be a return to 1.5.

And to the guy that made a comparison with “Einstein” and “Reflexes”, meh, I can tell you most experts are Einsteins WITH reflexes, not “turn-based” Einsteins. Heck, even chess matches are timed!

In the end, whether you like 2.0 or not-so-much, it would be ideal that you are capable of handling it so you don’t have to miss expert games that use 2.0.

Cheers,

The “expert” games you’re mentioning are vietnamese. And they only play 2.0 speed because tool rushing isn’t a thing for them. I read somewhere that those vietnam games have a “hidden rule” that no vills are killed until bronze age warfare begins… So ofc it makes sense to play 2.0 speed to get to Bronze fighting faster.

Still, doing a proper tool rush on 2.0 is pretty much impossible, especially since the pathing is pretty bad for melee units. Having to fight against the clock AND against pathing is too punishing. If it becomes easier to micro vills away from Axers and focusing them with archers is easier there’s no point in tool rushing.

@RealIronSteel said:
Oh, and just to give you a better dimension of the amount of expert players engaged in the settings im mentioning, take a look at the brackets for the upcoming 1v1 RM tournament:

Aoe DE Trial Cup -Season 3 - Challonge

42 players which are only a few of many other high level players (probably 80-100 more) have signed up. Like I said, I advise you all to also get used 2.0 speed, so you don’t be left out of expert games.

So yea, Vietnamese players, vietnamese rules… aoe 2 is played on normal speed on “skilled” player games and tourneys, and that’s for a good reason afterall.

No, it is free rules. But you can see a lots of fail micro.

20

I can agree that conti and high country are probly the best maps, the only thing i dont like about Inland aka Usuals Settings is that ships get stuck so ez because of the narrow rivers. Also agree with no revealed map, standart res, standart age and civs. It would be nice, if there was a mirror option for civs like in aoe2 for 1v1.

About Speed: 1.5 Speed should always be the standart for RM, whe you wanna Micro your Units + vills and have to do stuff like luring deers, eles, lions. Since pathing isnt the best and there can be plenty of lag, luring is very luck based in 2.0 Speed, especially eles on hills tend to randomly hit villagers from like 2-3 tiles away.

2.0 speed should only be the standart for DM, like in aoe2 where you play DM in fast Speed (2.0) and RM in normal (1.6). Also the starting age there should be Post Iron and not just Iron as some ppl host it; DM is apart from the early game micro, mainly about macro, spaming Units and making the best out of them and not researching stuff for the first 5 mins and if you forget something, you’re screwed.