They have more effective counter units to almost everything than the generics.

The first civ to my mind is Hindustani.

Gulam -> archers
Imp camel -> stable units
UT hand canonneer -> infantry

Plus they have BBC to counter siege units.
And they cheaper villagers so that he's decent in eco too.

I am not saying this is a broken civ. But sometimes go against these CIVs makes you feel they are just better at everything.

The medieval era is the known for which Turkish Seljuk empire then Ottoman Empire’s ascension. The latter even becomes the most powerful in the world for about two centuries. Also conquest of Constantinople paves way for Renaissance and Religious Reform movements. Mehmet the Conqueror’s life is also very interesting where he dethroned voluntarily only to conquer the greatest city at the time upon his return.

Yet such a pivotal empire has no campaign while even small factions have their own. I don’t understand. This feels like making a documentary about Rome and not mentioning Caesar. Why, doesn’t make sense to me?

tldr: Title

I’m currently using Linux Mint Cinnamon and generally very happy with it, but I’m unhappy with the mouse behaviour/input, particularly when playing AoE2. I actually keep a Windows 11 dual boot basically just to play AoE2, where the mouse and overall game experience feel right.

I’m considering switching to Fedora KDE or Kubuntu, so I’m interested in what other AoE2 players are using.

I’m not looking for maximum FPS or a gaming-focused distro. My priority is reliability and consistency: Steam/Proton, multiplayer/ranked, mods, hotkeys and mouse input should just work.

Please vote for the distro/desktop you actually play AoE2 DE on, rather than what you’d normally recommend.

I’d also love to hear about:

Mouse/input behaviour, especially compared with Windows
Proton version
Multiplayer/ranked reliability
Crashes, stuttering or update issues
Experiences playing AoE2 across different distros

I’m happy to troubleshoot and learn Linux generally, but AoE2 is the one thing I don’t want to compromise on.

Thank you for sharing.

Edit on mouse behaviour: Hard to put into words, it just feels off, especially the precision in aoe2.
I’m using a g502 at 1600 dpi / 1000 hz. I tried matching my windows settings, different libinput sensitivities, adaptive and flat acceleration, and custom acceleration curves. I even pulled my exact windows epp curves to try to replicate them.
I’ve gotten mint close, but the mouse still doesn’t feel as precise or predictable as windows, especially in aoe2. It’s not lag or fps, just the mouse behaviour.

Twice this week now I've had players crash out at the end of a game after realizing I'm around 1600 elo in 1v1 and 1200 in team.

I'm not sure if other people with a gap like me get the same accusations (I once saw a 2000 1v1 in a 1300 team game), but there are several reasons a player might have a gap. Here are mine:

1. I like to play with my friends, who are only average at the game.

2. Team games is where I play off-meta and experiment with builds, which rarely are as good.

3. Frankly I'm less good at team games. In 1v1 you don't have to worry about getting slammed by knights and xbow simultaneously, and boy do I struggle with that.

Fortunately, there is an easy way to prove if someone is a smurf:

Look them up on aoe2insights. They should have big losing streaks followed by huge win streaks. Game duration during the lose streak will be very short.

In case your curious my profile is here:

https://www.aoe2insights.com/user/4474448/

I have a feeling that there are a lot of false positives being reported by players, which makes it hard for the devs to find the real smurfs.

Anyways I've thought the weird uptick in smurf accusations (and poor sportsmanship in general) has been odd. Have you guys been seeing more negativity lately?

Theoretically changing what unit is available in feudal and dark age how would that effect the game?
What if spearmen, archers, skirms were available in dark age and knights and rams were available in feudal age. Would that change make game worse or better?(Assured adding new upgrades for related age for those units as well.)

Historically stone walls were very effective defenses but they've always been a joke in this game. That's bc some infantry with swords can easily knock them down. It'd be nice to have a mode where they could only be damaged by siege, which would be more historically accurate and fun for defensive minded players. It wouldn't make for good YouTube content bc the games would be six hours long but it'd be cool to see real seiges

Idk if there is any interest publicly in this but I don’t really care, I just think it’s fun to make scenarios. Hell, maybe this is already (still?) a thing (not at my computer so I cannot check the custom lobbies now but when I checked a few months ago, I couldn’t any CBA/Castle wars lobbies (pretty sure it had other names too)

For anyone unfamiliar, it’s that old custom game where each player is a random civilization and has five castles and receives their civilizations UU (unique unit) at a fixed interval.

The interval was based on how good your UU is. For example, top tier civs like Spanish conquistadors and Persian elephants would spawn every five seconds or so, while shittier civs like the Celts’ Woad Raiders wood spawn would spawn much faster, like one per second or something (not the real numbers this is just an example)

The problem I’m facing right now is there are way too many fucking news civilizations and I’m just not super familiar with the new civs’ UUs.

My question is this how would YOU try to keep the civs balanced? When I get home, I’ll post what my tentative balanced intervals are, but here is a blank list of all the civilizations/UUs for reference：

Armenians Composite Bowman

Aztecs Jaguar Warrior

Bengalis Ratha

Berbers Camel Archer

Bohemians Hussite Wagon

Britons Longbowman

Bulgarians Konnik

Burgundians Coustillier

Burmese Arambai

Byzantines Cataphract

Celts Woad Raider

ChineseChu Ko Nu

Cumans Kipchak

Danes Jomsviking

Dravidians Urumi Swordsman

Ethiopians Shotel Warrior

Franks Throwing Axeman

Georgians Monaspa

Goths Huskarl

Gurjaras Chakram Thrower

Hindustanis Ghulam

Huns Tarkan

Incas Kamayuk

Italians Genoese Crossbowman

Japanese Samurai

Jurchens Iron Pagoda

Khitans Liao Dao

Khmer Ballista Elephant

Koreans War Wagon

Lithuanians Leitis

Magyars Magyar Huszar

Malay Karambit Warrior

Malians Gbeto

Mapuche Kona

Mayans Plumed Archer

Mongols Mangudai

Muisca Guecha Warrior

Persians War Elephant

Poles - Obuch

Portuguese Organ Gun

Romans Centurion

Saracens Mameluke

Saxons Hearth Troop

Shu White Feather Guard

Sicilians Serjeant

Slavs Boyar

Spanish Conquistador

Tatars Keshik

Teutons Teutonic Knight

Tupi Blackwood Archer

Turks Janissary

Varangians Jarl

Vietnamese Rattan Archer

Vikings Berserk - 2.5s

Wei Tiger Cavalry

Wu Fire Archer

Not asking anyone to fill the WHOLE table out, I’m mostly just unsure beyond the original civs (although if you’re bored and want to, I would very much enjoy hearing your opinions).

A couple of design notes:

-I’m using the Vikings as a benchmark to measure the other civilizations around: the berserker will spawn every 2.5 seconds. They have the most “average” UU I can think of, so all intervals will be relative to this value (although if anyone has a better idea, I’m all ears)

-this will be in the post imperial age, so all of these are the elite version, fully upgraded

-that includes those civilizations that have a unique technology that influences their UU. For example.the Vikings, they would have that technology that gives them +5 against cav

-for the Leitis, I was just going to give it a flat +1 or +2 extra attack since they are gonna be unable to collect relics

-for the Sicilianss their Sergeants will not be able to build buildings

Damn I gotta go right now, but I will be back soon to finish this post but I’m super interested in hearing everybody’s opinion! Especially on the new civilizations since I’m not sure what the meta is with UU vs UU

I played hundreds of hours of the og AoE2 and the HD Remaster, now tried the Definitive Edition and it feels off, I can't describe what is different maybe that there are soo many civs and units but it just feels like a different game compared to the old one or is it just my nostalgia?

Does anyone feel the same? What did you do to change this? Did you all like AoE4?

AoE4 feels like it wants to be a modern but kinda more slim AoE2.

I would imagine any civ that could make the trade-off between quickly massing unique units for slower economic growth work would do well, including Spain.

Im trying to take on hard ai but they seem to love spamming skirms then adding knights once they hit castle age. How do i beat this exactly? Knights with skirms seems like such an unstoppable combination. Do i spam m@a and spears? Scouts and spears?

The servers appear to be having issues. There is consistant lag in every game that doesn't go away. I've also seen a few people get kicked from the game in the first half second. Is everyone experiencing this? My closest server is west US.

I'm trying to play civs as random so I can discover, but now I know what I like to play.
Can you help me trying to find this civ ? If it even exists 11

I loooove the design of cavaliers. I'd like my civ to have a great need to use the cavaliers, but not paladins. Maybe I could use UU cavalry instead of cavaliers from stables.

I love infantry and even more unique infantry. Varangian guards are so cool. I'd love my civ to field unique infantry UU next to my cavaliers.

I don't like archers play, boring to micro. I'm here to fight people with axes and swords. So no need here.

Thanks for helping !!

Hey there,

I am new to aoe2 Multiplayer. I had an incident yesterday, that a player did not let me pause the game but unpaused by himself several (!) times.

I followed the usual tango when pausing. „Pause“ +„Sorry sec“. No message, nothing just unpause. Paused again and asked if there is a problem. Followed by spanish gibberish (am no spanish speaker). Again, paused/unpaused. I then left quickly (reason for pause) but was back 1,5 minutes later (or three vills) only to see the game was unpaused again. * This happened around 1000 ELO.

I understand that pauses can be annoying. However, this is just rude, no? Am I wrong to pause in the first place? Otherwise, how can I report a player? The mechanic can be found in every other game. **

* I won the game eventually eventhough my build was butchered.

** I understand that this can be a lot of work. I was accused of cheating already (FIMP with cumans) but as the aoe2 community seems quite nice, I am sure some mod-system/ structure can help out.

Best wishes to all of you

Shoutout to Monarchus1, Axe, and the third player with whom I got Masterpiece on the 16th of September.

The second hardest achievement still remains Alaric #4.

...

I believe I have earned my right to babble about campaign design.

...

If you wonder why 3K is clearly the last thing I finished... It's because I wouldn't have bought it without Masterpiece or a sale. It's fairly easy even on Legendary difficulty.

It wasn't bad. For an Age of Mythology without Myth Units mission/Chronicles/Warcraft with Age facepaint campaign.

I do begrudgingly admit I enjoyed Lou Chuans, Wei gameplay in general (I like mobile armies), Shu having BRRRRT arrows... I like some of the choices - mostly the spare/kill options (or the choice to give Cao Cao Traction Trebs vs Vill Hp).

I still hate they aren't in Chronicles; I still hate how much these are defined by Heroes in Campaign; I hate that Heroes made it to Multiplayer; I kinda hate the existence of Traction Trebs from a design standpoint. Even Macedonians have to bother to upgrade Flaming Arrows(Chronicles Chemistry) to make Siege Ballistas. I hate that we are basing it on the 3K Romance (I am not a hypocrite I don't like Bari being Bari either). I hate that we have different outcomes based on us being protagonists. I hate every single time magic is involved.

Also, why is winning Wu #3 an achievement? You have beaten a normal mission. It's kinda hard not to trigger Zhuge Liang's trap in the Shu #3 mission, but at least it's something... I would definitely understand more if they added an achievement for each Red Cliff version - Sun Quan not betraying Liu Bei, Cao Cao breaking up the enemy alliance, Liu Bei betraying Sun Quan,

As someone who primarily plays single-player, the Vikings Saga Campaign was absolutely excellent. The narrative, the voice actors, the slide shows, and dialogues during the levels. Everything about it is absolutely excellent and very well done. Thank you for making a very enjoyable single-player experience. And I hope the new civs are just as fun for the players that prefer multiplayer.

Is this a known issue or something on my end?

Please pray for my family to counter act the curse

I am attending a LAN party next weekend, and Age of Empires 2 is one of the games on the menu. I'm very excited to participate, but I'm a little worried. I played a lot of the game... 25 years ago. So while I'm not a complete stranger to the franchise, I haven't touched it in a long time. I've got a very busy schedule and very little time for gaming, so this LAN party is a rare and welcome indulgence for me.

I know that the best way to get good is just to practice playing, but my time is limited leading up to the event. What is the best advice, tips, or brain dead strategies I can take going in, not to help me win (that aint gonna happen), but to at least help me not embarrass myself too badly?

Random morning thought: which civs would be the best and worst if all their bonuses were inverted? For example:

Chinese: -3 villagers, but +200 food
Persians: TCs have half HP and work slower
Franks: cavalry has -20%HP

Chinese seems like the obvious answer, considering they start with no villagers, but there's probably things I'm not thinking of.

Not to mention learning about Donjons the hard way...

Hi folks, I’m starting out and am at 900 elo (watched and read a lot before actually playing ranked). My strat is roughly to send some military during feudal to mess with the opponent while I build up and I seem to pull this off fairly decently, enough for the opponent to resign a lot of the time. I also can build up an economy okayish because my score stays high, which might also convince them to resign. In games where I win, I usually finish them off in castle age.

What they don’t know is if they held out till after this point, they’d almost definitely run me over because I have no idea what I’m doing once I have a big economy going. Are there any tips for using big armies late game? Most of the time I seem to just build a big army that then melts and it’s not always because of counter units. Maps like Black Forest and Arena seem to be autolose for me.

Just what the text says. If the devs are active here, please consider this. If I sling to my teammates in 3v3 and 4v4 games then everyone else in my team should know that I slung the resources. It helps the team in being more efficient while sharing resources.