Age Royale - Battle Royale Preview

Battle Royale is coming to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition in the upcoming November Anniversary Update, and we’ve planned a massive launch tournament to celebrate! Battle Royale pits up to 8 players against each other in a free-for-all contest fought to the last combatant standing.

The Contest Begins​

Sixteen players & casters will enter the battlefield with only a few units under their control, but as they explore the map they will find and capture supply and military buildings. The supply buildings begin a resource trickle, the more under their control the faster they will gain resources. Military buildings allow the training of units and to rally your forces onto the battlefield. The more you control, the faster you can bolster and replenish your armies.
However, be vigilant – these buildings may not be yours forever. Any other player can take those away by eliminating your defenses and defending units. Your opponents aren’t the only danger in Battle Royale. The map will slowly constrict, destroying anything caught in its way.

You’ll see a mix of casting and gameplay as players alternate between casting and playing their heats, with the champions continuing to the final showdown and a shot at the title of Battle Royale Champion.

The Contenders​

• DauT
• Debbie (German / Deutsche)
• dogao (Portuguese / Português)
• Hera
• Lyx (Chinese)
• Mario Ovalle (Spanish / Español)
• MembTV
• Mr_Yo (Chinese)
• Nacho AoE (Spanish / Español)
• Nicov
• Nili_AoE
• Odette
• OGN_Empires (French / Français)
• T90Official
• TaToH (Spanish / Español)
• TheViper

Expert players that we know and cheer for will battle it out alongside community favorites to see who is the last player standing and earn a share of the $10,000 prize pool!

1st = $2,700
2nd = $2,000
3rd = $1,500
4th = $1,250
5th = $1,000
6th = $750
7th = $500
8th = $300

Spoiler: Format & Settings

Participants will be split into 2 groups of eight players, and after playing four games the top four players with the most points scored will advance to the Final!

There they will play a further two rounds to decide the overall placement & crown a winner!


Players will earn points based on their placement in each round: 1 point for 8th, 2 pts for 7th, up to 8 points for 1st place. See the score sheet here.

In the case of a tie between 2 or more players, they will be ranked on the number of high placings they have. The player with the most 1st placements would be ranked ahead. If it is still a tie, the player with the most 2nd placements, continuing down until most 4th placements. If it is still a tie the players will play a further FFA round among themselves to determine placements.
Example: Two players have a score of 22, split as P1 = 8+6+7+1 & P2 = 7+8+5+2. Both players have the same number of 1sts (8 pts) & 2nds (7 pts), but P1 has a 3rd place (6 pts) while P2 does not. Therefore P1 will be ranked ahead of P2.

Watch Live!​

You can watch the entirety of the Age Royale this Saturday at 15:00 UTC / 8 am PT / 11 am ET. Watch any of the competitor's streams and cheer them on their way to be crowned as the Battle Royale Champion!

 

Great to have Lyx and Yo involved!

 

Yes it's nice to have a new game mode but I am extermly disappointed, that neither me nor anybody else can sign up and participate. (especially as reigning king of the hippo double-champion)

Streamer involvement is not the same as community involvement.

I honestly don't see why you can't make qualifier games with open sign up. If you keep the same format of 2 players advancing per game, then a Round of 16 qualifier consisting in two 8 player FFAs to get a 8 player FFA final instead would make far more sence than a 4 player FFA final. One could even expand that system further to a Round of 64 with first sign up -first serve and the tournament would actually involve the community.

 

looking forward to watching it.
nethertheless, having such a high pricepool for an invite only tournament for only streamers is not something im a fan of.

 

Please tell me it's a bad joke.

 

Hope I'm wrong, but I'm not sure how interesting this will be, if the players are gonna try hard (and why wouldn't they with this prizepool), it would be in their best interest to play until they are defeated, which isn't that entertaining.

 

This should be fun, but you need to be extremely clear about your selection criteria for officially sponsored exclusive events like this.

Using anything but objective measures of popularity or skill is a great way to poison the community.

 

Format sounds interesting, but not sure if it is interesting to see casters getting smashed by the pros...
Price pool seems way to high to expect the pros going easy on them and also in general for this lineup.

 

Well this a big promotion for new game mode Battle Royal. And Microsoft put big money into it. But this not something competitive. I think is good that after one year from launch Microsoft brings new stuff and promote it.

But for competitive tournaments it is better that Microsoft supports community figures like T90, Nili and Memb, who organize better tournaments, which are mostly open for every player.

 

Not a fan of this tbh.

 

listening to Turkman literally turns me on

 

Hera not included?

 

LMAO, why is Debbie invited? She's not even a top 50 AOE streamer in terms of viewership, Odette is barely. Absolutely bizarre selection of players for a prize pool that big. Jordan, Hera, MBL, Slam, are all top 10 AOE streamers on Twitch in terms of viewers. Chris, Ashley, Capoch? Inviting a player to a 10k prize pool because she's Viper's girlfriend isn't a good look.

 

LMAO, why is Debbie invited? She's not even a top 50 AOE streamer in terms of viewership, Odette is barely. Absolutely bizarre selection of players for a prize pool that big. Jordan, Hera, MBL, Slam, are all top 10 AOE streamers on Twitch in terms of viewers. Chris, Ashley, Capoch? Inviting a player to a 10k prize pool because she's Viper's girlfriend isn't a good look.

Looks like they have invited streamers to cover all/most languages. And, we don't know if other German speakers have accepted to play it.

 

Obviously can't afford to have a male-only lineup in 2020. But sure, it's about covering all the languages!

 

Im super hyped! Sounds awesome!

 

That's... an interesting mix. I'm otherwise happy to see what looks like a casual, fun event, but I'm a bit curious about the fact that about a third of the players are affiliated with one team. 5/16 players are affiliated with GamerLegion: DauT, TaToH, Nili, TheViper + Debbie.

It's less about how invitation/selection actually went down, and more about the optics. I get that there's any number of factors involved and assume good faith, but it still looks weirdly stacked. Hope the event repeats so we get to see some more players have a go at it.

 

I actually think it’s cool that they went for diversity in the lineup. It‘s not just the typical bubble.

In defence of Microsoft: I guess the goal is to get many different communities together in order to reach as many viewers as possible, while covering different languages and not boys only. We don’t know who has been invited and declined. It’s a save approach to promote the new game mode and make sure many will be interested to watch the event.

However, I agree that a 10k price pool for a single day, invitation only, fun event is heavy. It is probably still way less than paying them as influencers to promote the game mode would have been, but marketing it as a mini tournament and adding this much money feels weird.

 

Hope I'm wrong, but I'm not sure how interesting this will be, if the players are gonna try hard (and why wouldn't they with this prizepool), it would be in their best interest to play until they are defeated, which isn't that entertaining.

Why not ? As long as they have units they can reconquer buildings and make a comeback. The mode explicitly relies on total defeats, thats why there is a inherent timelimit and somewhen there are no buildings left (a trigger will constrictingly destroy them starting from the mapedge) and there is a final battle with all units left over.

 

Why the hell are people complaining about this? Dont watch if it doesnt interest you and dont play when its out if you dont care. This really isnt rocket science 11

 

LMAO, why is Debbie invited? She's not even a top 50 AOE streamer in terms of viewership, Odette is barely. Absolutely bizarre selection of players for a prize pool that big. Jordan, Hera, MBL, Slam, are all top 10 AOE streamers on Twitch in terms of viewers. Chris, Ashley, Capoch? Inviting a player to a 10k prize pool because she's Viper's girlfriend isn't a good look.

Ahh what would Aoezone be without the constant complaining and jealousy.
I find it refreshing that it’s not always the same top 8 players that are invited and the wider community is involved.

Microsoft spending 10k$ on a showcase gets my hope up that there are way bigger things to come.

 

I personally don't really care that it was completely invitational, but it seems weird that there's so much money on the line 11. I just hope Microsoft is still going to be willing to invest that much in real tournaments in the future.

 

LMAO, why is Debbie invited? She's not even a top 50 AOE streamer in terms of viewership, Odette is barely. Absolutely bizarre selection of players for a prize pool that big. Jordan, Hera, MBL, Slam, are all top 10 AOE streamers on Twitch in terms of viewers. Chris, Ashley, Capoch? Inviting a player to a 10k prize pool because she's Viper's girlfriend isn't a good look.

LMAO. You know nothing. This event is not meant to convince AoEZone that Battle Royale is a cool mode and to please stop shitting on MS whatever they do. It is meant for people OUTSIDE of the "esports" community. A mode that can be used in something like the Zerator FFA with a viewership we otherwise just dream of or basically any fun event on the big stage or in someones living room. Its no event to distribute the award "Most viewed streamer by solo AoEnerds", but its freaking marketing, they need someone that can attract people outside our bubble, but also have connections to the community and know the other contenders as well.

It is not only about who is the biggest twitch streamer, it is about covering also many non-english streams. So can Hera, Chris, MbL, slam, Ashley, Capoch deliver a stream in German for many hours ? I doubt it. JorDan hasnt streamed anything outside AoE since he is full-time and his contacts are very limited within the AoE bubble, while Debbie has solid viewership even when she streams Sims or whatever, numbers that other invited people dont reach with AoE alone. And Hera was asked if he wants to participate in marketing events and he declined. Same could be for all the people you listed here to "not have been invited" when you dont even know if there was contact before.

If you are unpleased by the selection of people please write to MS but this is not in the hand of the people invited and not a discussion that needs to be discussed in the community. MS decides and takes responsibility, so please stop embarrising yourself and cry a river in a letter to Bill Gates. The money they put in is huge, but its not from the tournament sponsoring budget, but its pure marketing. Goddamn. The prizepool is nothing compared with other marketing expenses and it would look embarrassing if they wouldnt outbet Zerator's prizepool for a FFA tournament between 8 French streamers only with no Pros involved, wouldnt it ?

If it would only be about a person that regularly ****s TheViper, MS would just leave it at inviting MrYo.

 

I was expecting something like this to promote this new game mode, but don't really like it anyway.

I just hope this new CS doesn't impact our beloved AoE

 

I was expecting something like this to promote this new game mode, but don't really like it anyway.

I just hope this new CS doesn't impact our beloved AoE

It wont, at least competitively if you ask me, its dulled down AoE. But it makes AoE more accessible to noobs to check out during a Lan etc. No eco, all trickle is the next step from AoE3 to a simplier game. Its what AoE3 is, but it doesnt affect the original game at but will attract new people to the game. I think it can work as a casual version of AoE to be played once by a lot of people but nothing more, but for that its totally fine. We have seen how Fall Guys and Among US have been successful by a simple game concept and social interaction. I can see here some potential for treachery and fails :D