Battle of Africa 3 - Official Announcement

Announcement | Handbook | Maps | Discussion | Questions & Answers | Registrations | Discord
​

Official Announcement​

The biggest and most prestigious team game tournament of Age of Empires II is finally making its return. It is long overdue, but we cannot be more excited to share with you that Battle of Africa will once again be happening, and we are incredibly excited to share the details with you.

All games from the main event will be broadcast live starting from Thursday the 2nd of June and ending with the grand final on Sunday the 26th of June. During this time, sixteen teams will be playing in a group stage for the initial three rounds while finishing it off in the last weeks in an exciting single-elimination final stage with everything on the line and a chance to win a significant portion of the $30,000.00 prize pool.

Up to eight teams will immediately qualify for the main event based on previous tournament performances, while everyone else will have time prior to the main event. Two weeks of qualification will occur from Monday the 16th of May to Sunday the 29th of May - allowing up to eight teams to qualify.

As a viewer, you will catch the face of every player in the tournament, experience professional casting, see the player's point of view during intense moments as well as get insights into what goes on in the voice communication during games.
We can practically guarantee that we will see every single civilisation in the game, even the ones from the brand new Dynasties of India.

Prize Pool​

Huge thank you to our sponsor, Microsoft, who made this event possible by sponsoring the event's prize pool of $30,000.00. Another $2,500.00 was provided by MsHuggah, to help cover the tournament costs.

1st place: $10,000.00
2nd place: $5,000.00
3rd and 4th place: $2,500.00
5th to 8th place: $1,250.00
9th to 12th place: $750.00
13th to 16th place: $500.00

Map Pool​

The list of maps is available and shown below; however, the map pack is still being developed and will be released in the upcoming week. Watch out for the three brand new maps, as well as one first-timer featured in this instalment of Battle of Africa 3.

• African Springs (new)
• Beachfight
• Boulder Forest (new)
• Canyon Lake
• Colosseum
• Desert Slope
• Donut
• Dry Socotra
• Grand Bara
• Haboob
• Mahgreb (new)

The map pack are created and maintained by Chrazini.

---

All further information, rules and settings will soon be published in the official handbook. Signing up is already possible here, under the assumption that the handbook will be read once released. Up to five players can be registered per team.

The event will offer entirely open streaming, given that the streaming rules and conditions are respected and adhered to.

 

Yeeeeeeeessssss

 

If it's to see ganji's face I'm on the facecam train

 

I do realise this is already happening in the very top of professional play in other games, but AoE is something else.

That is what we dont want, we want AoE is not something else, is something better and professional. Thanks for your feedback but we will work to make everyone enjoy and feel comfortable, also this won´t be live all the time 100%, will be only in few ocassions like in others E-sports.

We remind that our main goal is to keep moving into the direction to make aoe2 bigger everyday, those details matters alot.

 

gone, dont think arabia is needed, been always there and i didn´t miss arabia in return of the clans, so we decided remove it and bring more variety on maps.


we dont make play all games, in many situations tend to useless games, we want games that matters 100%.

facecames IN KOTD4 was synced and in BOA3 will be synced.

About civlizations, we are confident we will see some great deciders like we did in BOA2, still alot civlizs can happen with draft instead of hidden pick, and never mirror.

About prizepool, we think 30k is great for a 3v3 event, the more the better? yes, but we want make more events.

memb, i dont know how the tournament will follow, and i will tell you something. a friend made a DM tournament this saturday, where teams could not repeat civs in the hole tournament. teams play a maximum of 8 games, so it was posible. it was a 4-4 tournament. was a really fun tournament.

 

Memb bringing awesome news as usually. Great job and I'm sure the tourney will do great!

 

Memb is a BEAST!! AGUASOME!

 

hype!

 

memb, i dont know how the tournament will follow, and i will tell you something. a friend made a DM tournament this saturday, where teams could not repeat civs in the hole tournament. teams play a maximum of 8 games, so it was posible. it was a 4-4 tournament. was a really fun tournament.

the main problem with this (we saw it in kotd1? iirc) is that if you get an easier first round you can save the better civs and have an advantage against a team who had a tougher first round

 

the main problem with this (we saw it in kotd1? iirc) is that if you get an easier first round you can save the better civs and have an advantage against a team who had a tougher first round

I think it was kotd2

Fully agreed with the rest though, I don't like the idea

 

Great news! I think there is some translator software that can provide subtitles for voice in real time. It will be useful for viewers to see what's going on for the non-English speaking teams, e.g. Brazil, China, Vietnam, etc.

 

Great news! I think there is some translator software that can provide subtitles for voice in real time. It will be useful for viewers to see what's going on for the non-English speaking teams, e.g. Brazil, China, Vietnam, etc.

Oh man I would totally tune in for bungled AI translations of foreign language voice comms.

 

Should add the traditional map Arabia to the tournament, it's less excited without arabia

 

the main problem with this (we saw it in kotd1? iirc) is that if you get an easier first round you can save the better civs and have an advantage against a team who had a tougher first round

to add to this:
I personally think, the excitement about every civ is being played is overrated. For one, most of the mass viewers dont care much about civs at all. Apart from the castle and some minor architecture, the units look all the same anyways and some civ bonus like gather faster food, or free horse collar doesnt interest most of the viewers, especially in a 3v3. Also, we'll most likely see archers + knights anyways, no matter the civ.
It's not like in Starcraft or Warcraft, where each faction has a big lore and identity, thus fans.
Viewers want exciting, thrilling games with big battles at the highest lvl possible.
Watching an one sided game, because one Team has better civs is the opposite of it.

 

to add to this:
I personally think, the excitement about every civ is being played is overrated. For one, most of the mass viewers dont care much about civs at all. Apart from the castle and some minor architecture, the units look all the same anyways and some civ bonus like gather faster food, or free horse collar doesnt interest most of the viewers, especially in a 3v3. Also, we'll most likely see archers + knights anyways, no matter the civ.
It's not like in Starcraft or Warcraft, where each faction has a big lore and identity, thus fans.
Viewers want exciting, thrilling games with big battles at the highest lvl possible.
Watching an one sided game, because one Team has better civs is the opposite of it.

They still add flavor to the units.

 

Also, we'll most likely see archers + knights anyways, no matter the civ.

I mean this is exactly the reason Arabia is not in the map pool. To avoid this (well we likely will still see it on haboob). Return of the Clans did not have too much archer knight play either. This kind of stale meta is exactly what you can avoid by picking interesting maps, that force other strategies.

 

I mean this is exactly the reason Arabia is not in the map pool. To avoid this (well we likely will still see it on haboob). Return of the Clans did not have too much archer knight play either. This kind of stale meta is exactly what you can avoid by picking interesting maps, that force other strategies.

Pretty sure Arabia will be included in some sense. Either as renamed version, or simply more open version of the map (didn't check the maps in the map pool yet).

 

if subtitles for chinese speaking teams are needed hit me up

 

the main problem with this (we saw it in kotd1? iirc) is that if you get an easier first round you can save the better civs and have an advantage against a team who had a tougher first round

you cant compare a 1-1 tournament with a 3-3 tournament, plus i think there is not a single easy team in the group stage.

 

Since the first round is just in 3~ weeks, can we get some more info regarding sign ups?
Specially those related with conditions to sign up and seeding rules (specially if only a limited number of teams is allowed to participate)
I'm trying to find some sort of handbook but I don't see anything public yet.
@MembTV @Chrazini

 

to add to this:
I personally think, the excitement about every civ is being played is overrated. For one, most of the mass viewers dont care much about civs at all. Apart from the castle and some minor architecture, the units look all the same anyways and some civ bonus like gather faster food, or free horse collar doesnt interest most of the viewers, especially in a 3v3. Also, we'll most likely see archers + knights anyways, no matter the civ.
It's not like in Starcraft or Warcraft, where each faction has a big lore and identity, thus fans.
Viewers want exciting, thrilling games with big battles at the highest lvl possible.
Watching an one sided game, because one Team has better civs is the opposite of it.

I like seeing rarer civ picks as much as anyone, but it's certainly secondary to fair and competitive settings that will provide top play.

 

to add to this:
I personally think, the excitement about every civ is being played is overrated. For one, most of the mass viewers dont care much about civs at all. Apart from the castle and some minor architecture, the units look all the same anyways and some civ bonus like gather faster food, or free horse collar doesnt interest most of the viewers, especially in a 3v3. Also, we'll most likely see archers + knights anyways, no matter the civ.
It's not like in Starcraft or Warcraft, where each faction has a big lore and identity, thus fans.
Viewers want exciting, thrilling games with big battles at the highest lvl possible.
Watching an one sided game, because one Team has better civs is the opposite of it.

i love to see all civs beeing played. and is part of the strategy threw the tournament. maybe no repeat in group stage, and then in the elimination another way.

 

...voice communication
...guarantee that we will see every single civilisation

I am already curious about these.

 

...voice communication
...guarantee that we will see every single civilisation

I am already curious about these.

Needless to say, voice communication, as well as the player's point of view and player cameras, is not going to be on at all times. Small snippets may be shown here and there and not even sure to appear every game. We're not currently looking into translating teams not speaking in English, but I'm sure listening to those voice chats can still give a sense of what's going on, despite language barriers.

Regarding guaranteeing every civilisation - we don't actually have any rules to enforce this, it's just very very likely, and it looks better in the announcement, doesn't it

And to everyone else, we intend to release rules and settings shortly, and the maps later this week. Apologies for the delay, but we wanted to get the announcement out the door as soon as possible.

 

Regarding guaranteeing every civilisation - we don't actually have any rules to enforce this, it's just very very likely, and it looks better in the announcement, doesn't it

No worries, I understood the same.

 

it's just very very likely, and it looks better in the announcement, doesn't it

Disagreed, in this case you should definitely not have put that into the announcement imo.