How to Play AOE2, Just Started and its Too Difficult Compared to AOE4

[user91]

No Hotkey for Scouts OMG, and food decay is a massive pain to deal with

Food drop off feels very cancerous, Sheep in AOE4 drop 10 food per gather, here you gather like 30-40 and it still doesnt drop? from elephant

[Darkness01101]

@user91

No Hotkey for Scouts OMG, and food decay is a massive pain to deal with

In AoE2, your hand isn’t held, which is great. Just make your own Control Group hotkey for Scout when game first starts. Select it and hit CTRL+1 to assign the “1” key to it. Then anytime you want to see where scout is, just hit “1” twice

@user91

Food drop off feels very cancerous

Dropoffs are a part of AoE canon. Don’t they drop off in AoE4, too? Only one that doesn’t I think is AoE3, which seems cancerous to me. A mutant anomaly that popped out of nowhere. Nobody playing AoE1/2 was saying, “Please can we have no drop-offs. Please just magically teleport food to our econ”

EDIT: I think I see what you say now. Well, it’s just a fun part of AoE2 to get used to then I think sheep in AoE2 drop off after like 10 food, while boar (and larger creatures, like elephants and boar) are more like 30 or 40. Sounds good to me. You can also manually force them to drop off sooner by clicking the icon to ‘drop off and return to gather’ if you’re getting close to aging up and are eager to reach the food threshold

PS: Decay is great. You might learn to like it and other stuff in AoE2 more over time, as you can zoom out farther than AoE4, the graphics are more detailed in their own way, you’re not capped at 200 pop for SP games, siege take up 1 pop space instead of 2, and animations are more realistic (not as floaty and slow-mo)

[SMUM15236]

@Darkness01101

I think sheep in AoE2 drop off after like 10 food, while boar (and larger creatures, like elephants and boar) are more like 30 or 40.

Didn’t get what are you talking about. If you commented about decay rate of animals, here is the number -

Herdable 0.25 food/sec or 15 food/min.
Non aggressive huntable 0.25 food/sec or 15 food/min.
Aggressive huntable 0.4 food/sec or 24 food/min.

[Darkness01101]

@SMUM15236

Didn’t get what are you talking about.

Just seems to me villagers deop off food to TC or mill a lot quicker (smaller amounts at a time) when gathering food from sheep than they do when gathering from boar. I can’t do a test right now, but don’t they stay a longer time on boar before dropping off? Or if it’s equal then it is an optical illusion. Either that, or they are gathering at a much slower rate from boar compared to sheep

@user91 - This thread may be of interest to you, too:

Unit Veterancy Mod for AoE 2?

Hi there. Just start reliving the AoE 2 experience and the wonders of modding it. So i wondered if there is any unit veterancy mod out there i didnt catch on. I like the mechanic and would be happy to give it a go in AoE 2, too. Thanks for letting me know.

Seems odd for that to pop up around the same time as your thread, but it did. Maybe they saw your thread and it inspired them, not sure. But over a number of years on this forum, it’s the first time I’ve personally noticed the request before

[SMUM15236]

@Darkness01101

Just seems to me villagers deop off food to TC or mill a lot quicker (smaller amounts at a time) when gathering food from sheep than they do when gathering from boar.

Oh, yes. Shepherd drop off after 10. Hunters drop off after 35.

@Darkness01101

they are gathering at a much slower rate from boar compared to sheep

Wrong. Hunters gather 25% faster than shepherd.

[FloosWorld]

@Darkness01101

Dropoffs are a part of AoE canon. Don’t they drop off in AoE4, too? Only one that doesn’t I think is AoE3, which seems cancerous to me. A mutant anomaly that popped out of nowhere. Nobody playing AoE1/2 was saying, “Please can we have no drop-offs. Please just magically teleport food to our econ”

It’s a consequence from the way Atlanteans in AoM work.

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@user91
Let me just paste my comment on your reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1j654r3/comment/mgnvxlx/

[Darkness01101]

@FloosWorld

It’s a consequence from the way Atlanteans in AoM work.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I didn’t like auto dropoffs, including auto culture, in AoM, so you’re right. It was a little more palatable in AoM due to the more fantasy/mythological setting there, but being in AoE3 was a travesty, imo

[II.Selim]

I dislike the food decay feature as well, along with the deer luring mechanic.

[TheLiberator236]

Then return to AoE IV

[TheLiberator236]

Only Atlanteans drop directly to stockpiles
Other Pantheons do not!

[JuryMusic777863]

This is AoE2.
You should play Khmer for farm dropoffs. otherwise aoe2 doesnt have this.

[Darkness01101]

I didn’t say other civs in AoM do or do not. I merely acknowledged its existence in AoM in response to FloosWorld