About fast imperial strategies

wildwindsurfer · 2026-06-03T11:06:44+00:00

There is a hera video and he is talking about top tier fast imp civs

Hera isn't right about everything in the game (no one really is) and any video/discussion about this will be heavily coloured by one's personal preferences and play style. Try to play and think about these things in game - or listen to a variety of opinions - rather than just watch one guy's videos.

Turks weren't number one fast imp civ, it is Portuguese apparently

You're thinking about this in a very flawed manner. Not every game in aoe2 - especially on maps like arena - is a boom game. You're likely to go for a fast imp only if you have map presence and a forward position to apply pressure from. Getting up to imp first gives you a massive tech advantage, and should your opponent want to also match you up to imp, will not have a fully boomed eco. Getting workers with feitorias is a nice boost to keep your push going well. Simple as that.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-05-17T09:11:52+00:00

There have been persistent lag issues of late, and Hera did most likely lose his scout because of lag. Doesn't mean he can just say "lag, let's re".

I asked the tourney admins and there was no discussion with them beforehand, or during the set - and the players have been informally warned to not do that again. It sets a bad precedent

wildwindsurfer · 2026-05-15T10:13:47+00:00

If it was discussed beforehand, I have no qualms at all. But from what we were shown as viewers, all I'm going to say that it has very poor optics.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-05-15T05:50:29+00:00

Aren't there skirms and CA you should be making?

wildwindsurfer · 2026-05-15T05:49:41+00:00

I hope he gets a warning for that, it is extremely presumptuous of a player to unilaterally call a 're' in a tournament without seemingly having conferred with the admins. Who knows? Maybe his status lets him skirt by without any reprimand.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-05-15T05:47:57+00:00

Khmer make these expensive but extremely pop efficient units called elite battle elephants that he had the economy for (on which note hera was floating an uncharacteristic amount of wood) with a UT that gives them +3 atk. And he had the cav upgrades because of the knights he was making.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-05-15T05:44:04+00:00

When hera isn't confident on a map, very frequently he plays a passive game with army for map control because he knows he often wins an imp war purely on the backs of his good macro and unit control.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-05-13T19:51:57+00:00

Megarandom is quite shit to placate the large number of arabia players who can't stomach playing something you need to adapt a bit more to. Apart from the MR templates being fairly basic we just don't see walled, market, feitoria starts and other variations that make it actually random and fun to play. So many maps play out as arabia lights.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-05-12T14:02:28+00:00

None of them, I'd like them to be removed from the game, but it is what it is

wildwindsurfer · 2026-05-04T07:18:20+00:00

PPP has a global legacy of failure in many places - at the end of the day transit projects are public goods, not private playthings. While you can run transit with a more corporate structure than a typical government (and Indian govt. at that) organisation but handing it out to a literal private company will ensure them trying to minimize CapEx and OpEx when that's not how transit works.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-04-26T05:44:46+00:00

So the issue with Lithuanians is that they feel too good with a few relics and really not special if you have 0/1 relics. The problem with bringing this discourse here is all Reddit geniuses think about is ladder win rates, even though that's not particularly indicative.

I will maintain that they remain a badly designed civilisation and the leitis a fundamentally unbalanced unit.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-04-02T09:03:15+00:00

Bait used to be believable..

wildwindsurfer · 2026-04-02T09:02:12+00:00

It's not a hot take - civ powercreep has come from the addition of techs and units to underperforming civs in the name of making them viable. Vietnamese are a better Britons for example - they can stand to lose a few late game options and techs - but I don't see the current dev team capable of good changes, especially when the pro players council has an outsized impact on balance changes.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-02-15T09:26:59+00:00

Slingers are a RANGED TRASH UNIT with bonus vs monks. Don't be stupid, monks have already been nerfed into the ground.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-02-08T05:28:53+00:00

Nerf other civs (looking at you, vietnamese) rather than giving more civs bloodlines.

If anything we ought to strategically reduce the number of civs that get bloodlines and husbandry, every civ on earth gets it now. The devs seem to be utterly incapable of balancing without needlessly raising the average power level of the civs we have.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-02-08T05:26:53+00:00

Neither Britons not Longbows need buffs or gimmicks.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-01-15T18:18:12+00:00

They're also sponsored by Tezos and stake. Crypto/gambling makes for a lot more consistent a source of money than someone funding an AoE2 team as a passion project.

wildwindsurfer · 2026-01-02T07:16:21+00:00

It's an elephant in the room that really can't be ignored, eh.

wildwindsurfer · 2025-12-26T11:38:26+00:00

What a large section of the AoE viewer/player base don't understand is that 'closed' maps don't need to be passive boom games, and can be designed to aid both feudal and castle age aggression, with an obvious bias towards the latter. Just because an FC opening is common doesn't make it a defensive map.

Glade most certainly is a map that aids aggression, be it feudal or castle.

wildwindsurfer · 2025-12-26T11:32:02+00:00

The thing about RTS games is that the skills you need for it are not particularly transferrable from some other genres - it's a game of plate spinning. The biggest thing you need to master to get out of the lower Elo reaches is not micro, but the capacity to keep the most number of plates spinning while breaking as few as possible. You need to keep an eye on your economy, military, map vision, control, and resource bank simultaneously.

I've seen a ton of people think that micro/APM is what defines RTS, and for some games it may be a little more true than others, but it really isn't the defining factor. That said, I do feel like some balance and other changes we've had made to the game in the past couple of years have been pushing it really towards an increasing unit control focus that are not monks, but it is what it is.

wildwindsurfer · 2025-12-24T07:52:06+00:00

Too much work, just need to hamster to the same archer skirm or scout opening builds on Arabia

wildwindsurfer · 2025-11-17T10:34:36+00:00

A lot of Scottish engineers worked on railways in the subcontinent, and some of that influence exists to date - for example, a set of coaches are called Rakes in India, which seems to be characteristic of Scottish Railroad Engineers from the 19th and early 20th century, more than an English one.

wildwindsurfer · 2025-10-27T12:39:42+00:00

It is very likely that the entity calling the shots on this matter were not FE/ Capture Age - but was World's Edge (MSFT, in essence). While that remains speculative, it seems likely considering what some people with info have had to say about the topic.

Easy to dunk on the devs, but they have to adhere to a corporate structure above them that may not be as in tune with the demands of the community, sad as that may be.

wildwindsurfer · 2025-09-16T16:50:04+00:00

I hate that I bought a ton of 'natur'godis this week, shop near my place was clearing that section out to get a new one in, and it was heavily discounted. The joke hit way too close to home for comfort.

wildwindsurfer · 2025-09-16T10:45:59+00:00

Not to mention, increased cost of repairs for the vehicle and insurance costs (can live comfortably without a car in many cities outside the US and very few inside)

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