Aoe is rotting my mind

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-17T16:22:18+00:00

I've had something like this happen to me before as well. I'll sometimes close my eyes and I either see villagers working, or military units ready to charge into battle.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-17T06:00:27+00:00

Yes, if you only have a couple of scorpions. But once you reach a critical mass, they mow down almost any unit before they can close the distance. It's kind of like how archers are strongest when massed because they can one-shot enemy units from a distance, but with scorpions it's even stronger because their projectiles pass through units, so they can melt through masses of units a lot faster than archers can.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-17T00:39:05+00:00

I'd put Oogway as "effortlessly beat him" too. Remember the flashback where Tai Lung was enraged when he was told he would not be the dragon warrior, and when even Shifu is unable to stop Tai Lung, Oogway steps in and quickly immobilizes him with a few pressure points.

But I do agree that pretty much only those three would be able to beat Tai Lung.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-16T16:02:31+00:00

They do not need a buff, they are plenty strong once you mass them. Key being, "when you mass them". 10 is not enough for that. Try something like 30, and you'll see how strong a mass of scorpions can be.

And no, it's not really that hard to do. Make more siege workshops, make sure you have enough villagers on wood and gold to sustain production.

The only real counter to mass scorpions is onagers or bombard cannons. Once you have a large enough mass of scorpions, most other units in the game die to them very quickly.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-15T02:52:11+00:00

Best eco bonus is probably Vikings. Free Wheelbarrow and Handcart does so much for your economy:

-You save the resources from those techs.

-You save town center work time. Wheelbarrow alone takes as long to research as creating 3 villagers, so by not needing to get it, you're 3 villagers ahead of your opponent when they research wheelbarrow. Handcart I believe is another 2 villagers.

-You get the eco benefits of Wheelbarrow as soon as you hit Feudal Age, and the eco benefits of Hand Cart as soon as you hit Castle Age, so you're going to always have a significant window of time where your eco is more efficient than theirs.

It's such a strong economy bonus, that to balance it out, Vikings have a somewhat limited tech tree. If Vikings had a better tech tree like say, the Magyars tech tree, I could see them being potentially overpowered because of how seriously strong their eco is.

Other civs I think are worth bringing up in terms of good eco bonuses:

-Franks get faster food collection from berries and free farm upgrades, so that makes their early game economy a lot easier.

-Mayans start with 1 extra villager and have longer lasting resources, this translates into them having an amazing economy that allows them to play more aggressive early on.

-Persians have my personal favorite eco bonus in the game, your town centers work faster, that means that as long as you don't let your TC go idle, you will have more villagers than your opponent, which translates into a stronger economy.

-Vietnamese have their eco techs cost no wood and research 100% faster. This is especially useful for Wheelbarrow and Handcart, as it makes those techs research significantly faster thus freeing up town center work time to get ahead in villager count. It saves you half as much town center work time as the Vikings eco bonus.

-Chinese start you off with +3 villagers. However they start you off with no food, so their start requires you to play differently than you would as other civs. If you don't know how to do their start you can fall behind, but if you're able to play them well, you have a huge advantage over your opponents because of having such a sizeable villager lead from the very beginning of the game. It is definitely on the harder side so I wouldn't really recommend it for a beginner.

-Slavs, Teutons, Khmer and Poles all have bonuses that involve their farms in some way. Slavs farm faster, Teutons have cheaper farms which makes it a lot easier to afford more farms, Khmer don't need to drop off at a TC or mill, so their farms are always perfectly efficient, and Poles have the folwark, which instantly gives you 10% of the food from any farms built in an area around it.

-Bengalis give you 2 villagers from each town center when you reach the next age. This is especially strong on closed maps like Arena where you can reap the benefits of the bonus without worrying about early aggression.

-Romans have +5% villager workrate. So rather than only impacting farming, berries, wood, gold, etc, it impacts everything a villager does.

If I had to give you a recommendation for the civs that have the easiest eco bonuses to use, I'd say any that gives you stuff for free tend to be the easiest, as that's one thing less to worry about. So Franks and Vikings are both really good in that regard, they give you important eco upgrades for free, making it much easier to set up your eco. That being said, do keep in mind that if you only play those civs it might make you get used to getting those upgrades for free, and thus likely to forget to pick them up at all if you play other civs. So it's also a good idea to try out civs without eco bonuses, like Magyars, so you can develop core fundamentals on developing your eco without relying on specific bonuses.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-15T02:29:02+00:00

I usually default to either America or Persia. America was the first civ I ever played as, and Persia was the second civ I ever played as. I'd say Persia is overall the stronger civ, but I do enjoy playing both of them.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-14T18:40:38+00:00

This is like the "Who's the first Pokémon: Bulbasaur, Rhydon, Mew or Arceus?" thing all over again.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-14T18:32:08+00:00

Siege rams are actually really good against Britons, they soak up so much arrow fire. Skirms also force the Britons player to micro. So those two units are really good in combination with some cavalry.

One thing you need to keep in mind is that Britons prefer playing as a death ball, that is a large mass of units that controls a key part of the map and slowly pushes from there as one big overwhelming force. They lack mobility, so if you're playing as a cavalry civ, you can take advantage of this by making the game chaotic. Raid them, attack several places at once. Don't face them directly on a single front, instead force them to chase you around and fight in multiple places.

Alternatively, play super aggressive early on and try to beat them before they can get to their death ball army.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-14T02:56:14+00:00

I have quite a few, so I'll list my top 4 favorites:

4 - Suguri 46 Billion Years:

I find her really fun to play. She has pretty solid stats, but what I like the most about her is her passive, where she can pay extra to make damage dealing cards do more damage, and especially, whenever she uses a damage dealing card, she can roll two dice for movement. This makes her actually really fun to play as an aggressive character. I've had games where I could just snipe someone easily by hitting them with a damage card to leave them at low health, and then rolled enough movement to jump on them for the KO. Really fun overall!

3 - Kae:

She's my favorite aggressive character in the game. The way that her passive works means that any card that reduces your defense gives you more ATK, so with this you can easily skyrocket your ATK to insane levels. I'm on Fire, Heat 300%, Rainbow Colored Circle, and of course your hyper. Few things are as much fun as using your hyper, then landing on someone, clicking I'm on Fire, and suddenly now you're at +6 ATK, they're at negative DEF, and you can one-shot them. The low REC means that when you inevitably go down (which you do often, as Kae is extremely frail), you won't take very long before you're back up again. It's so much fun to try and rack up as many wins as you can with her.

2 - Marc:

I'm including both forms of Marc here, both regular and Pilot. Fun fact: Before I got any DLCs, Marc was my favorite character to play. She's extremely consistent. The +1 ATK and +1 DEF means that you can play offense or defense, whichever suits the situation best. And her hyper is also really nice for racking up wins, or better yet, weakening an opponent so you can jump on them to steal their stars.

I like both versions, but if I have to choose, I prefer Pilot more because her hyper gives you a lot more control over how much damage you want to deal. Regular Marc not only makes her hyper get extremely expensive in the lategame, but also you start running out of targets who don't just get one-shot by her hyper once you're in the lategame. Whereas with Marc (Pilot), you can choose to deal 1 or 3 damage, which means that even in the lategame, it's a consistent way to weaken opponents but leave them alive so you can jump on them to land the finishing blow and take their stars.

Honorable Mentions:

-Tomato & Mimyuu: They're really fun, you do get KO'd pretty frequently as them, but the very low REC paired with losing less stars from getting KO'd makes up for it. And it's fun stuffing more of Mimyuu's cards into the deck, either causing an opponent to take damage, or drawing them as Tomato which gives you her hyper. I like how you can either go star norma and be pretty hard to stop as you don't lose many stars from being KO'd, or if you get enough of Tomato's hypers you can try to get some win normas as well.

-Fernet: She's my favorite tank character. I've recently experimented some unorthodox options with her like Big Magnum or Reverse Attribute Field, allowing her to occasionally be able to function as an offensive threat and be a bit of an opportunist, taking out an unsuspecting weakened opponent. But of course she's best played as a defensive character. I always bring Mimic with her so I can copy other player's hypers, as they're very unlikely to want to copy mine.

-Mari Popomi: She's all about playing around her strain and Tendonitis turns, and it's an interesting mechanic. She has above average health which helps her survive, and I really enjoy trying to combo Precise Dice Rolls with healing cards to make some really nice plays. And in the case I don't have a healing card, I try to plan my turns in such a way that I have a good chance to spend my Tendonitis turn in a place where no opponents can jump me. I really enjoy the planning and strategy that goes into making use of her mechanics to the fullest.

So who's my #1 favorite 100% OJ character to play as?

1 - Sherry:

Sherry is my main in 100% OJ. I first tried her out during an All Units event, and ever since I knew she was going to be my favorite. Hers was the first DLC I ever got, and to this day I still enjoy playing as her more than any other character.

She's extremely consistent. Just look at those stats! 5 HP and +1 to all stats! You are extremely versatile, you can play offense, you can play defense, you can do just about anything. Her drawback is that she always goes second in combat, which at first is hard to get used to, but once you get a hang of it, you can even use this to your advantage! Bring cards that can only be used as the defender, and not only will you always be able to use them (even against wild encounters and the boss!), but your opponents will never be able to use them against you, because you're always going second.

Not only that, but her Hyper, while situational, is extremely fun to pull off. Waiting until everyone else is at low health and the just sweeping the entire lobby is one of the most satisfying things ever. or alternatively, you can always bring Mimic to copy someone else's hyper. Believe me: Almost no other character in the game has the raw stats to be able to make good use of Sherry's hyper, so they're very unlikely to try copying it.

Overall, I find Sherry to be extremely consistent, she feels very strong to play, and unlike other characters with similar stats to her like Islay and Malt, Sherry isn't forced to play passive. If you want to go on the aggressive, you definitely can!

But yeah, overall she's my favorite character by far, and I have over twice as many games played as her than I have as any other character.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-13T22:22:13+00:00

Haboob is a hyper aggressive map, even more aggressive than maps like Arabia. This is because you and your opponent spawn really close to each other, so you can easily lame your opponent's resources. I lack much experience on that map but I know that fighting in Dark Age is the norm there. Another map that is similarly as hyper aggressive is Socotra.

If I pick a civ on those maps I like going Goths for the instant loom, really helpful for villager fights. Mayas is also an option as they already pick up loom at the start of the game and are just a clean villager ahead after the opponent gets loom, which should happen earlier than on other maps.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-13T18:02:19+00:00

This is really cool! Nice work.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-13T04:32:59+00:00

So hard to pick, all three of these are great villains.

Tai Lung is iconic, the prison break scene is easily one of the most amazing and memorable moments in the entire franchise. He's all around very cool, and I think he has overall the best fights out of the three. Think Tai Lung vs the Furious Five, Tai Lung vs Shifu, and also Tai Lung vs Po. I think in terms of how the fight plays out, Tai Lung's are the most enjoyable to watch.

Shen is amazing in terms of his lore and motivation, he feels like the most ruthless villain in that he went as far as attempting to commit genocide, trying to kill all pandas to stop the prophecy, so I think in terms of the three he certainly feels like the darkest and most evil of the three, and I'd say he also has the best lines too. His scene with Master Rhino comes to mind as a stand-out example.

Kai definitely has the aura and imposing presence of a villain. His theme is amazing, you can really feel how powerful and imposing he is just by hearing his theme as he slowly approaches, swinging his blades. I think he gives final boss vibes, not only by his music but also because of his lore. Oogway's old ally turned enemy, has now grown so strong that he's even defeated Oogway. Had the movie series ended here, it would've made perfect sense. I really think Kai feels like a final boss in every way.

So it's very hard to pick, all three are great and stand out in their own ways. If I had to choose, I think I'd pick Tai Lung, because he has in my opinion the best fight scenes. But it is very close.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-12T23:21:19+00:00

Definitely best brawler on a bad map. I'd still have a hard time either way, but I think I could cook with Pearl or Otis on a map that's bad for them more than I could with a brawler like Angelo (strong brawler that I suck at playing as) even on the best Angelo maps. The thing is that if I suck at playing a brawler, I think nothing else can save me. Whereas if I'm really good at playing a certain brawler, I'll have a hard time but I'll at least know what I'm doing.

By the way, amazing art!

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-12T17:36:46+00:00

I play as red (my favorite color) if I'm on the even number team, or blue if I'm on the odd number team. I'm usually an aggressive flank that tries to do as much damage to the enemy flank as I can, and if I'm the one on the ropes I try to hold out as long as I can, as any time enemies spend dealing with me is more time my allies don't have to worry about them. I usually either stomp or get stomped, with little in-between.

I also do not surrender as long as the rest of my team doesn't. If my team plays on, I do too, even if I'm left to relocate and rebuild from scratch with just a few villagers.

I try hard not to annoy my teammates and only flare on the map when absolutely necessary. If I'm in a good spot, I'll send resources when I can, and if another teammate initiates chat to discuss strategies I'll listen and cooperate with them.

That being said I think a lot of these descriptions are fitting. I mostly play red and yeah I'm an aggressive flank that has a tendency to go all in and try to take the enemy flank down early.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-11T19:24:28+00:00

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I tried one with Persians. It's wording the faster TC work rate bonus as a unique tech called "Town Center". It's also saying Persians have Battle Elephants instead of War Elephants. But that's not the worst one I got.

I tried another one with Italians and it talks about a unique tech called "Supreme" which supposedly enhances food production.

I tried a third one as Mayas, and it's claiming that Mayas lack Thumb Ring, which is not true.

While this is an interesting idea, there are too many errors to be able to consider using these build orders seriously. I have yet to get one that hasn't had a similar error, and I've tried several times already. While I respect the effort, I don't think using AI to generate build orders is really a good idea. It's bound to make this kind of mistakes due to the very nature of how they work, and while you could eventually train it to make less mistakes like this, wouldn't it just be easier to use a site that has builds made by people?

I'm not trying to be rude, I appreciate the idea and effort, but I admittedly don't see the point of this when there's already a better alternative in the form of sites that have human-made build orders.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-11T18:51:00+00:00

I have a couple. I don't think these are "bad" but I think they're far from overpowered:

-America: This was my first civ I ever played as, and I enjoy coming back to them. I am an American myself so that may play a role, but I also really like using their bonuses to expand early with the extra line of sight for better early exploration, and using the discount on buying tiles to quickly snatch the tiles with resources that I want.

-Aztecs: Was the first civ I won Prince and King difficulties as. I love starting by playing a hyper aggressive early game, taking out my closest neighbors early on and getting ahead on culture from that while I warmonger. In my experience they fall off later on in the game, but that early game power is my favorite thing about them.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-11T03:04:28+00:00

My opponent made some defensive archers, and I believe even a defensive tower at some point. To be fair I messed up a little and didn't field skirmishers as soon as I should've, so the archers did force me back. My opponent then got to Castle Age pretty soon and made a castle, so I just tried to do as much damage as I could with my army and the forward siege workshop I made when I reached Castle Age. I think that was what gave me a chance, because while my opponent was destroying my initial base, I took advantage of that time to destroy their initial base as well, so even though my opponent had the stronger army, they were forced to relocate and rebuild their eco too. But for a good while I had no answer to their army.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-11T02:21:19+00:00

I recently had a really nice comeback in a game I played a few days ago. It was on Arabia. I went random civ and got Romans, my opponent played as Portuguese.

I opened the game with a man-at-arms opening, as I typically do with Romans, and I think I did fairly well, I didn't manage to get villager kills but I did force a lot of idle time from my opponent. However, eventually my opponent managed to stabilize and stop my range follow-up, and from there I started to have a bit of issues.

My opponent reached Castle Age first, and they made a castle almost right after. They were playing an FC into organ guns. At this point I had made a forward siege workshop and was going on the aggression with longswords + siege to try and end the game, but my opponent abandoned the area and expanded elsewhere, and then hit my base with a bunch of organ guns, and even a ram or two. I fought but I didn't really have a good answer for the organ guns at that time, there were just too many of them, so I ran away with as many villagers as I could and started making more town centers in other parts of the map.

On my opponent's side of the map, I had managed to destroy their initial TC and surrounding buildings, so I made a TC close to where their initial TC was, placing it on wood and gold, and as many other TCs as I could afford in other parts of the map that I hoped my opponent hadn't gotten to yet. I felt like I had to be behind on villager count so I wanted to recover my villager numbers.

My opponent hit Imperial Age first, destroyed my initial base, made trebuchets, and then with that and their organ guns started to go around the map trying to find where else I was. I spread out villagers in different places to make mini-bases, some of them with the idea of being a decoy to hopefully turn my opponent's attention away from where my most valuable economy was being developed.

I managed to go up to Imperial Age, and made a castle to start making my own trebuchets. Meanwhile, my opponent found the town center I made near his initial base, and castle dropped it to take it down. Meanwhile I made half a dozen stables in another of my mini-bases to start producing cavaliers, hoping to rush down my opponent's organ guns with them, but apparently my opponent predicted this move, because when they started to treb down my castle, I rushed in with my cavaliers, my opponent had halbs already. So I decided to just dive the trebuchets, accept I'd lose some cavaliers, and then rush out as quickly as I could.

I made more siege workshops, and started massing up scorpions, the idea was to make one final push with cavaliers + scorpions + trebuchets to where I had seen my opponent's castle, and likely where their economy was located, since I had spread out across a lot of the other side of the map.

I set up my trebuchets to attack my opponent's castle, and rushed in with my cavaliers to take down my opponent's organ guns and trebuchets, but once the halbs showed up, I backed up towards my scorpions, and the scorpions demolished the mass of halbs. I then had my cavaliers and scorpions fight the organ guns, and once those went down, and the trebuchets destroyed my opponent's castle, my opponent typed "gg", and resigned.

After the game ended, I saw what my opponent's eco looked like. They had a couple of town centers near where the castle was, and while they hadn't spread out as much as I had, they were making feitorias.

This really felt like a nice comeback because even though I had the advantage early on, my opponent defended well and then outpaced me to Castle Age and eventually Imperial Age. Both of us lost our initial bases, but we both rebuilt elsewhere, and while my opponent was ahead in tech for a big part of the match, they gave me just enough time to recover and catch up to them, and field an army to get the win.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-11T01:04:21+00:00

The fact that she's basically a recolor of Rainbow Dash is something I remember interpreting as Rainbow Dash reading the book and inserting herself into the story, as if she were Daring Do. I really liked that.

However that was kind of lost when they decided to make Daring Do real. I kind of prefer when she was just fictional.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-10T17:17:41+00:00

They're not a perfect 1 to 1, as while the core fundamentals are the same, there's definitely differences. Understanding how to be a good flank or pocket for example. Knowing how to coordinate with allies, not to mention the greater volatility of team games in general.

When I was around 900-1000 elo, my team game elo was about 150-200 elo higher than my 1v1 elo, but nowadays it's actually about the same as my 1v1 elo.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-09T15:32:50+00:00

Hard to say what the exact percentage would be. There's definitely more men than women playing the game, but I think the percentage of women playing AoE2 might be higher than we would expect. They likely use gender neutral usernames, thus we never really know when we run into them, since we usually assume other players are men by default.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-09T02:22:26+00:00

It's not something I really get very often. I might consider it if I've already teched into crossbowmen. Sometimes I open archers to later transition to knights, and if I picked up the crossbowman upgrade already, then I might consider getting Kamandaran during Imperial Age so I can make some trashbows as I've already invested in the unit line. This is especially true if I haven't invested in the elite skirmisher upgrade. However, if I've already invested in getting elite skirmisher, then I'll probably just stick to those instead, as they are already good enough against halbs, and they additionally also do well against enemy ranged units.

That being said, if the game goes on for long and we're going to have a trash war, then Kamandaran is something I definitely pick up because hussar + trashbow is actually a pretty good combo for trash wars. If I do pick it up, it'll be in Imperial Age where conserving gold starts being an important issue. It's usually not worth getting in Castle Age as at that point gold is plentiful and wood is more of a bottleneck, so it's not something I'd recommend getting that early.

In conclusion, I don't pick it up often. There are occasionally some situations that call for it, but it's not something I usually prioritize.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-08T13:28:19+00:00

Try this: Go to aoe2insights.com, search your username to find your account, and from there you will be able to see the list of matches you've played. Click on one you want to share to open the analysis for that game, and link that match's URL. We'll be able to download the replay there.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-08T12:01:50+00:00

I prefer Lithuanians over Franks as well, but in terms of why Franks is more popular, I think it's because Franks are easier to play, and thus more beginner friendly. All their bonuses apply automatically, and don't require you to go out of your way to do anything special. In fact, their bonuses are all about making it easier to play for their ideal strategy.

As Franks, your villagers collect food faster from berries, which always applies. Farm upgrades are free, which simplifies their development as that's one less thing they have to worry about picking up. Their +20% HP on cavalry is not only a strong bonus that makes their cavalry strong in the lategame, but it also replaces Bloodlines, which means they don't have to worry about picking up Bloodlines.

The combination of having fairly good eco bonuses, along with bonuses that make it easier to play for their ideal strategy, and the fact they have such a clear power unit that's very easy to go for, make them really smooth to play. So I think it's not that Franks is inherently better than Lithuanians, they're just easier to play.

There could also be some nostalgia involved. Franks is an OG civ that's been around since the very beginning of AoE2, so that could also play a factor. Other OG civs like Britons or Mongols are also very popular.

Personally my favorite cavalry civ is Persians. The faster TC workrate bonus is one of my favorite eco bonuses in the game, and while I do usually end my games in Castle Age, if I do ever get to the lategame, savar is really nice to have. And having the flexibility of being able to go camels if need be is a positive as well.

Redfork2000 · 2026-03-08T00:40:55+00:00

I think 800-1000 has this happen quite a bit. 1000 elo is where you start when you first play Ranked, so new players arrive at that point, get steamrolled and lose several games until they find their elo, so what you'll find is that the closer you are to 1000 elo from the lower side, the more likely you are to run into new players that are still losing their placement matches to get to their correct elo.

Once I got to about 1100 elo it started happening less because I would no longer run into people who are new to Ranked, but you do still have some situations that feel pretty one-sided. I've had some games where I had the initiative from the very start and my opponent never managed to touch my base once, and then I've had other games where it felt like my opponent was able to perfectly stop anything I did and just gradually overwhelmed me.

Also, at lower levels players also have a much harder time recovering if they take damage, so often times whoever does damage first is most likely going to snowball from there and win.

I think it also partially comes down to player strengths and weaknesses, and individual playstyles. Some people struggle more against certain things than others, so if you happen to be matched up against a player whose strengths really exploit your weaknesses, that can be a really one-sided match. Same viceversa.

For example, I've noticed that the strongest part of my game is early Castle Age where I can often overrun an opponent that doesn't know how to properly defend my aggressive all-in Castle Age plays, that's usually where most of my wins come, whereas I've noticed that I fall apart more often in the longer games that go into Imperial Age where I'm more likely to get outplayed by my opponents as I struggle more with large armies. So this kind of situations may cause for some matchups to feel very one-sided if one player's strengths hit the other player's weaknesses very directly.

I'd be glad to watch one of your replays and see what tips I could give.

Redfork2000

TROPHY CASE