Age of Empires II
Tools
Build Order Videos
Reddit Posts
I have made some reddit posts/comments with studies and analysis of various aspects of the game or just open ended questions to the community that got some interesting replies.
- Deer vs. Berries
- The Forgotten Second Patch of Deer in Arabia
- Research Wheelbarrow In Feudal or In Castle Age: An In-Game Experiment
- Long Swordsmen vs. Knights after October 2021 Update
- Would it be worth it to destroy houses with militia?
- Stone Walls vs. New Palisade Walls
- My Suggestions of New Quality of Life Features
- How to Make Your Own Build Orders
- Knights or Light Cavalry vs. Archer Civs in Castle Age
- 6 Deer (Zebras/Ostriches) per Player in New Arabia Map
- Stone Walling in One Town Center Push
- Cost in Villager Time of Resources Through a Game
- Build Buildings Outside Woodlines to Protect Lumberjacks
- Housebreaking Mechanic Idea
- Don't build farms around the Town Center with Poles
- Optimal Number of Villagers for a Panic House
- Rhinos/Eles vs. Boars
Background
I've been playing Age of Empires II on and off since 2000. I've never played competitively because I tried to play online in The Zone around 2002-2003 and I was so wipped off by the opponents that I felt discouraged to try it again. After that, I went back to play random map against the AI and every few years I would redo all the campaings from scratch.
I've never been a good player, recently I played some ranked games and I was ranked around 1000 ELO. I feel the 'normal' speed of the game is too fast to my taste, I like to play in slow speed which I find more comfortable and relaxed.
Since the start, I've been interested in collecting data about the game and to use it to make mathematical models and predictions. In 2001, I calculated the walking speed and attack rate of every unit, the resource gather speed of villagers, the accuracy of archers and more. The result of this study was a small spreedsheet that calculated the outcome of any 1 vs. 1 battle, including bonus, walking distance (if facing an archer), attack speed, etc.
In 2006, I was learning to program and I had the idea of making a small program for helping me to analyse different aspects of the game: Battle outcomes of a group of units and build order planning mainly, but I really never got to do any of it because the magnitude of the endevour was too big for me at the time.
In 2013, I got down to business and made general mathematical models for resource gather speeds and I made a complex spreadsheet that uses those gathering models for planning build orders. It was a success! I was so happy when I made the 20 knights in 20 minutes build order without ever looking at the popular one. Probably mine is different from that one but it worked! I never liked to look at or learn build orders from others, probably that's the reason I'm not that good ;), but I prefer it this way, I like the challenge of doing them by myself.
In 2021, I was redoing all the campaings in definitive edition when I noticed that farms mechanics was changed, so I put a hold to my campaings to revisit my model of farming, revamp it and adapt it to the new 2021 farms.
Future plans:
I want to revisit, organize and update all the studies I have done and put them in this site. Today, I feel that I'm a much better programer, so I may try again the 2006 idea of making a program or macro-powered spreedsheet to help to plan your own build orders given any given objective (for example, 20 knighs in 20 minutes), civilization, starting conditions, resources avaliable, etc. This would be a big project, so life may get in the way, but it would be nice if I manage to do some of it. Besides, if I like Age of Empires IV and it has interesting mechanics I would like to make similar studies for it.