I think a pretty viable way to end the problem with smurf accounts harassing new/weaker players would be to link the game serial to the Steam (or whatever platform you use) account.
So if the serial of your copy of the game gets linked to your steam account, even if you “borrow” the game to a second account, when you play the borrowed game, you play on the owner profile.
Ex: Player A borrow the game to player B. When player B turns on the game, he plays as player A, with the same stats as player A.
This way there is no need to block the game sharing, and if the smurfs try to create a new profile, they’ll be still playing on their main account.
This also will force ppl who borrows their games to be more careful with who they share their games with, as someone could get their account banned.
I don’t know if this is something the aoe team can manage on their own, so I’ll post thins on Steam’s community page too.
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Wholeheartedly agree.
Smurfs just ruin the game for anyone who’s trying to improve their game after learning the basics. They should all be banned.
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Interesting. The simpler method I’ve always suggested is just to ban family shared accounts from ranked. It would function similarly to this, but without the risk of someone messing with your account.
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That is a good idea. if the guy who use the family share account and want to enjoy the rank game, they need to purchase a new copy or they will use the owner rank to play and probably lose
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Its actually a very good idea.
Better than banning family shared accounts from ranked.
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If this is possible it’s a great idea. I’m all for it. 
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yeah basically the same thing. one ranked account per serial, the only difference is your suggestion is more inclusive, which is ok either way.
as long as people have to pay to play multiple ranked accounts
the nail in the coffin will be when devs actually start punishing transgressions properly, then the true importance of a singular ranked account will come into play
the ulitamte truth though, is devs (at some level in the hierarchy) dont care that much, otherwise they couldve/wouldve fixed this a long time ago
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I still think they should just ban family shared accounts from ranked play.
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I have a better suggestion. The secondary accounts are seperately allowed in ranked, but their initial elo comes from the primary account when playing MP for the 1st time.
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that works as well, makes it harder to smurf without just blatantly tanking.
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Not sure whether it works. Most of the time when you play team game nomad rank with asian player, you will have a speculator and your opponent just know where you are and driectly send the knight to your TC. Look at those replay many time and their vision is dark but they can accurately send the knight directly to your TC without any scouting. That mean some of those smurf actually have more than one account and one of their account are just for blatantly tanking. In order to make them harder, one account should share the same rank would be a better approach
If he is sending units without scouting, I guess he is not just smurfing, he is using cheats as well.
this will only make it more work to have a smurf account, it wont block it. There already are plenty of players who blatantly throw matchs to keep their elo low.
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Just use another account to spec yourself so that you can get the map information in nomad. Not sure whether it is considered as cheating
It definitely is considered cheating
Albeit hard to prove for others
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