No, this technology wouldnt be that impressive. it would just change which units i micro.
if skirms will auto attack archers, ill just dance with some archers behind my knights and destroy them easily just the same.
I mean I have a problem that units focus the closest unit every time. when i have 30 CA and spearmen are closing in, they all fire on 1 single spearmen… I would like that to change that archers would autoaquire different units. it should be lets say 40% chance to hit the closest, 20% second 10% the rest is a random target in proximity.
This would also heavily disrupt micro potential but would be interesting.
I had an idea very long time ago when the mule cart was set as lower priority to attack. The longswordsman would have lower target priority. But even this was controversial. Even Ballistics 2 will be expensive, Knight civs will dominate in team games and no xbow civs survive the new meta.
Xbow need mass to be effective while knight is effective in low number. When xbow get the mass, knight civs research ballistic II. I find it unfair for archer civs. There should be some other mechanics other than cost to balance this tech imo.
I like the main poster idea, especially for long-range weapons. I want my Cannons to prioritize Onagers and Threbuchets, for example.
I also would like to make it as simple as C&C, meaning 4 settings to attack something like Attack General, Attack Military Buildings/Units, Attack Civilian Buildings, Attack Civilians.
I know that is not possible, but I would like something like that.
For siege, this actually doesn’t make them OPm it just makes them finally usable for lower ELOs.
At a high level, nothing changes because pros can already click their Mangonels or Bombard Cannons to target specific units. This tech just allows average players/low elos to experience that same high-level tactical loop (Bombards cannons against Siege, Monks counter Bombards) without destroying their army with siege.
Once again, on elos that can already micro normally, like above 1300-1400, this tech will cost very much and will be useless, as using the resources for the army will be without a doubt a better choice.
I am 1200, and this tech would be useless when fighting is close.
On lower elos? Yeah, obviously, strategies will shake up, there will be something like Turks Fast Ballistics 2 on 50 vils. 11. But I am saying that it will make the game more fun for them.
So my essays have always been bad, I think I should start with the goal and the problem first so people do not just start fighting over the “randomly proposed idea”. I would say, even if this tech is stupid, but I think it would do its job. I am down to hear your ideas on the problem I will explain and how it could be fixed.
There is a personal story behind all this as well.
A while back, a friend of mine wanted to try the game out with me (he downloaded a cracked version to test it, 11). I taught him everything he needed to know to play on Arena, Fast Castle, counters, army compositions. He understood the strategy completely.
However, he just couldn’t manage the army control. Against the AI, a single melee unit would run forward, and all of his Arbalesters would blindly shoot at it while the enemy ranged units in the back completely destroyed his army.
He eventually gave up and quit the game, saying that combat requires impossible micro for the game to be fun, and not to forget he came from LoL, so in theory he should have had the easy time with it compared to other starters.
And honestly? He’s right. I have over 250 hours in 1v1’s, and I still feel like I’m bad at it because no other modern game has a mechanical barrier this punishing.
God knows how many new players we lose for this exact reason. Numbers are not the exact, but you get the idea.
I would say roughly 60% of the player base only plays offline. A massive portion of them struggle with this exact micro thing.
The 30% (Low ELO), the majority of these players love the strategy, they float resources and play mostly on maps like Arena, so they would be able to pay four times the Imperial Age up cost for the tech. Its low elo after all, fight only starts after everybody is ready 11 (still talking about the majority, small part are aggressive too, but most low elo just play Arena).
On the mid/high elo players, nothing changes. They won’t spend 2,500 resources on an expensive Imperial tech just to get something their APM can already do manually. Every single unit and resource matters too much at that level.
My father said as well: *“*AoE2 gets better the more you play, because as your micro improves, your strategic decisions finally start to mean something.”
He’s completely right, but the learning curve is so steep that thousands of players quit before they ever get to see how beautiful the strategic depth of this game actually is. This technology wouldn’t ruin the pro meta, it would just throw a lifeline to the players who want to love this game but get filtered out by a 25-year-old targeting system.
Unless, I’m mistaken this is already almost the case. SOTL made a video about this.
When in equal distance, unit targets the unit that it can kill in the shortest time, not highest damage. So for example if an War elephant and a skirmisher are at equal distance from a Genoese Xbow, the Xbow will target the skirm despite having lower damage against it. Because it can kill the skirm faster than War Elephant.
All being said, I can be completely wrong. Need to check the SOTL video again.
Possibly, I made an error while writing that, I mean, not at equal distance, but in view, even if the archer is far away, if skirm sees it, it will select it as its target, if not, then normal. I can not edit the post now for some reason.
Interesting addition to the thread, alot of guys are worried about this selective targeting benefitting archers one sided which I feel is not much true, the system is broader than just archers. The toggle applies to every unit line Spearmen prioritizing Knights, Hussars hunting Monks, infantry ignoring ranged to close gaps. People fear Knight+Skirm dominance, but the Spearline benefits from the same system to answer it.
My main concern: the tech becomes a ceiling, not a stepping stone.
Your entire case rests on “helps beginners, doesn’t affect pros” — but what happens to those beginners long-term? Your father said it best “AoE2 gets better the more you play, because as your micro improves, your strategic decisions finally start to mean something.” This tech short-circuits exactly that loop.
Lemme give you an example : a 600 ELO player on Arena researches this, their Skirms auto-hunt Arbalests, army fights smarter. Great experience. But they never learned why that targeting decision matters. When they hit 900 ELO and face someone who skipped the tech and bought 18 Knights instead, the gap in army control understanding is real — and the tech actively prevented them from building it. They plateau and quit again. Just later. Training wheels help a child not fall, but used too long, they never develop balance.
Though I myself am not a pro so this system that you suggested might help me save time and dodge the frustration 11. Though the system is not all flawed as the option 1 that you gave is still a strategic decision after all.
First, we have to understand why beginners quit. A 600 ELO player doesn’t quit because they hit a skill ceiling 11, they quit because the game is frustrating.
At that level, players usually boom to Imperial Age and clash in one massive, deciding fight. Because their micro is poor, the engagement rarely goes the way they planned, skirmishers shoot Champions, Knights “fight” walls, siege just suicides the whole army, etc. (If you’ve watched T90’s Low Elo Legends, you know exactly what I mean, 11). This tech ensures their army actually executes their intended strategy, giving them the satisfaction of a well-planned fight. I genuinely believe this will keep them playing longer.
Furthermore, researching this tech doesn’t magically win the game. They still need the strategy knowledge to build the correct counter-units, and they still have to manually set the target priorities.
As for the “training wheels” acting as a permanent ceiling, the game’s economy naturally solves this by dividing players into two paths:
The Casual Player: They just want to enjoy a 40-minute boom on Arena. They will buy the tech, have fun, and stay invested in the game instead of quitting. + They always have enough floating res 11.
The Improving Player: As they play more, their macro gets better. By the time they hit 1000 ELO, they stop floating massive resources. Eventually, they will look at the massive price tag of this tech and realize they could just skip it and buy 18 Knights instead.
That is the moment they naturally take the training wheels off. They will start skipping the tech, fighting with a numerical advantage, and learning to micro manually. By the time they step into the “real” competitive loop like the rest of us, they are already hooked on the game, rather than quitting at 600 ELO out of sheer frustration.
The post lacks a lot of this, because I did not really phrase it correctly 11. If you guys think this tech has any potential, or maybe you have even better idea to fix the problem and make it more enjoyable for beginners. We can discuss that.
You might be on to something but I am not sure its necesary. It could be ballistic upgrade or I would call it military academy training.
It can be a 2k resources tech that would do what u say. If you think that will keep ppl from leaving the game i think it wont do any harm to the game. We will just ignore the tech in above 1000 elo play.
But if you would like that even pros would pick it up in post imp, it needs to do sth usefull to them too. I guess in mass battles even pros dont micro every individual unit, but do more broad general strokes. It would feel like an AI overhaul for your units. I think it must be really good at that or it will be ignored.
