Comment by _the_inflator | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _the_inflator | Hacker News Reader

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Hey there fellow AoE II player!

Cool, to hear from some decent player. What time did you play? Around 2002?

Since I was a 2k player at the time, let me assure you, that the top dudes at the time (Koven, Sheriff for example) were already so called pro gamers who got payed/sponsored and they were exceptionally good.

The true story is, that many folks above 2k+ did what was called "points trading" back then. Koven once stated, that they got payed according to their rank in the official ladder.

So he also had to defend against cheaters, un-sync games etc. He was always top notch, but he had to adjust his rating accordingly, due to cheaters.

Almost all at the top did points trading. Smurf accounts, the system, some refusing to play against weaker players, or some playing DM to get points faster. Also some game "hacks", like the farming bug etc. that gave you the edge in early FLUSHing games.

So take this: 1850 is extremely good in RM 1vs1. 2k+ players are exceptionally good at micro-management. A skill to be learned.

I was part of CN, you might remember this clan from our most famous player, Lightning_CN. Greets to Force, Gwenny etc. where ever you are! :)

PS: There is a book from L_Clan_Chris at Amazon. Some knowledge bites to digest.

Played and followed the AoE scene many times: 2002-2004, 2013-2014, and now playing again on AOE 2: DE. The new training scenarios in DE are quite helpful and I'd recommend them to new or returning players.

DE has led to a massive resurgence of interest and a 3rd generation of players. First gen was AoE2 (CD), 2nd gen was the forgotten empires continuing things, 3rd is DE. Some players have spanned all 3. My current favorite streamers are Viper and Hera.

AoE2:DE Player here as well. It's a fantastic game and I love the current community.

Do real-world maps work with DE? I had fun making a map of Taiwan, with actual locations of gold, stone, fish, wild animals, etc.

https://github.com/peterolson/AOE2-Real-Map-Creator

Oh yeah the twitch scene has really made a massive difference to this generation and to the modern-day level of interest. Viper's stream was what got me into competitive play.

Is DE (or AoE in general) available on Mac and/or Linux?

It works on Mac but you have to use Boot Camp or Parallels (or a similar system). Kind of a pain but totally works.

I play AoE2 (non-DE) on Linux with Steam and its compatibility tool.

As someone who could never break 1750 on Zone, hat off to both of you. Even though I no longer play, I did follow the scene closely for a while until a few years ago. To my surprise DauT is still a top player, although one of his teammate is clearly the indisputable No. 1 by a distance compare to anyone else.

Yes, the Viper is truly the Hamilton amongst his fellow peers. Impressive! And he is now showing his tricks to his already AoE II infected girl friend Debbie! This is so cool! Way too few women play this game.

1750: This is also a great ranking. Competition there is pretty tough. Congrats! I remember playing lots of 1700er dudes whenever I started out with my smurf accounts, and I had plenty off em.

To me, DauT is the Mikhail Tal of AOE while Viper is Bobby Fischer.

I've watched endless videos of DauT and Viper playing AoE. ZeroEmpires has done a lot to popularize AoE streaming. Here's his YouTube channel if anyone is interested - https://www.youtube.com/user/ZeroEmpires

T90official is also suuuuupercool!

He also started as a pretty mediocre player and now deserves his rank among the best players! He shares a lot of his secrets and is also #1 commentator now for AoE II:DE related games: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZUT79WUUpZlZ-XMF7l4CFg

Also watch his Twitch account.

Spirit of the Law is also a great resource: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChzLZJo-SxuPHz-oYKAIC_g

T90 to me is such a confusing phenomenon. I've never understood why a low-rated player who (to me) did not have a particularly entertaining personality was the most-subscribed AoE2 player on twitch. Is he actually good now? How high-rated is he compared to Daut and Viper and so on?

T90 is on the 2000-2100 range currently, he just reached top 100.

He already beat Viper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tkf-BMMq-8

T90 is doing great. Also improved massively his commentator skills. Give him a try! :)

Ah, yeah, I kind of meant in a serious match though. In that match viper made 3 docks on a land map and no feudal army.

As T90 himself said, "The trouble with playing viper is that if viper memes me, and I win, people just say oh T90 isn't good, viper wasn't trying. And if I lose, well, T90 can't even beat viper when he's not trying. So it's a lose-lose situation." Too true.

I see he is #96 on rankings right now though, that's terrific. Being able to beat #1 isn't the only measure of success and I don't mean to imply otherwise.

Maybe because

> He shares a lot of his secrets

? Teachers don't have to be the best at the _thing_, they should be really good at explaining concepts. Maybe T90 is the people watch when then want to go from zero to average?

I don't want to be coached by the best tennis player in the world, it would be a waste and I couldn't do any of the things they could teach me.

A solid above average player that knows my limits and can explain how to correct flaws would be much better (for me).

He's likeable, non-offensive and casual. Watching people try too hard at a game is draining sometimes.

Here's a long video of them facing off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLNu7ELg4mk

(Their first round runs up to the 39:00 mark.)

Nilpferd is my favorite: https://www.twitch.tv/nili_aoe

Viper is pretty defensive and grindy. I think Carlsen is a much better comparison.

Much more recently, actually-- I peaked last year, in 2019. The game is alive and well in the Definitive Edition on steam, and players are still pushing the skill envelope. The meta has changed a lot with all the new civs they've added (they've doubled the number of civs overall).

Hey - this is pretty amazing. I have learned a lot about AOE from watching L_clan (mostly L_Clan_Chris but others as well!) replays back in 2004-2008 when I was playing a lot of Age. Never had Zone access, so we lived in a little bubble in our university of LAN AoE players with outside ideas, build orders etc. coming from watching pro replays.

No twitch obviously and very few blogs going around for strategy as well. It's amazing to see how far gaming has come in 15 years.

Just to let you know that Chris came back to the game recently, he streams on twitch as iamchris_age2

As someone who was in the thick of it, what do you think could've been done differently to improve the problems with the rating system?

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