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Right now we don't know when the Nations Cup will happen, but the interviews will continue.
Today I welcome Villese and Jupe as representation of Finland. I already interviewed Rubenstock last spring, so I already shared something about Finland and Team Suomi, so if you want you can keep some answers shorter. However, with DE being released and a 3v3 Nations Cup to start in the next months, it is a good idea to evaluate the last months and look into the future of Finnish AoE and AoE 2 in general.
Villese to the left and Jupe to the right.
Who are you? How old are you?
Villese: My name is Ville and I’m a 25-year-old Engineering Physics student.
Jupe: My name is Juuso and I am 24 years old. I am studying History in University and hopefully I will become a teacher one day.
Why did you choose the AoE nicknames Villese and Jupe?
Villese: I used the nickname Wille_Wallace for my first Voobly account, but I wanted a shorter and more personal name so that’s how I came up with Villese.
Jupe: I picked up the Jupe nickname for my MSN Messenger when I was like 8 years old and I have been using it mostly since.
Since when do you play Age of Empires 2, have you played Age of Empires 1/3? What are your expectations and wishes for AoE 4? If you could add one thing from AoE 1 and one from 3 to add to AoE 2, what would it be?
Villese: I’ve played AoE 2 since I got the gold edition for my sixth or seventh birthday in 2000/2001. Actually even before that I played the demo version. I only played single player and some LAN games with my family and friends until I discovered Voobly in 2014. I’ve tried demo versions of AoE 1, AoM and AoE 3 years ago, but I don’t remember too much from those games. I hope AoE 4 will be a good game, but I don’t have any specific wishes for it. I like that they went for the medieval theme, because in my opinion that’s the best setting for the Age of Empires series. I’m not very familiar with the gameplay of either AoE 1 or 3. I prefer most of AoE 1’s music to AoE 2’s music, so I would add that. I used to love the destruction animations in AoE 3, but now that we have them in AoE 2 DE, I don’t know what I would add from that game.
Jupe: Never played AoE 1, just campaigns and only a few multiplayer games in AoE 3. I started playing AoE 2 during late summer/early fall of 2012. After that I’ve been playing, apart from a couple of longer breaks in between.
What are your impressions of AoE 2 DE so far?
Villese: At this point, UP 1.5 on Voobly is still a better experience than AoE2 DE in many ways. I like the idea of matchmaking for 1v1s (except the map pool), but it doesn’t really work for team games. There is a 2k TG Steam group though, so at least we can do unrated team games. The game itself runs quite smoothly for me and there is less delay than on Voobly most of the time. Pathing is the worst issue at the moment, since units stutter a lot and especially melee units are very hard to use because of that. I also hate that units can stop whenever they get attacked, so you have to spam-click every time you’re retreating or trying to attack ranged units. I don’t really like the new graphics, and many units are hard to distinguish from each other. I’m getting more and more used to the new graphics, but I wish they had included a classic graphics option in the game. Luckily there are some good mods available. The sound effects are also worse than in the original game. All the sounds kind of blend together and it’s hard to hear the important ones like getting attacked or villagers dying. Then there are issues with performance, crashes, drops, game balance and spectating, but hopefully they will get fixed soon, since they seem to be releasing patches pretty often.
Jupe: I like the matchmaking system, but it already has a lot of issues created by such a small playerbase. During the late stages of the beta I was hopeful but when it came to the overall performance the recent patches have shown very little signs of improvement and like the latest patch, they seem to break more than they actually fix. It’s just way too amateurish looking right now to be too hopeful unfortunately.
In which clans and tournaments have you been since you started to play AoE 2 online?
Jupe: I played a few tournaments earlier on with TheJedi where I joined pretty much since I started playing on Voobly. I got in touch with the Finns before the 2014 Nations Cup and since then I have been playing a lot with other Finns, especially Rubenstock and TheMax. I played with Finland in the Nations Cups 2014 and (?) 2016. During the most recent Nations Cup I played with Finland B which was kind of a tragic story because we literally got eliminated from the group stage because Valas got his king sniped by paladins in Regicide Fortress against Italy A, which in the end meant the difference between being 1st in our group and being 3rd in our group while 1st and 2nd advanced. We almost managed to win that RF game 2v3 even because we had just killed half of their trade and were right next to the trade line.
During last 2018’s World Cup I played with TheMax and Rubenstock and we won.
Villese: I’ve played with the Finns since early 2016. I guess you could call team Suomi a clan, but aside from that I’ve never been in one.
Legacy of the Huns, SY Nations Cup 2017, King of the Desert 1 & 2, Battle of Africa, Nomad Battlegrounds, Escape Champions League, Hidden Cup 2, Clash of the Hippo 5, King of the Sauna, Mangrove Shallows Cup, NAC 2 & 3 Qualifiers.
How would you describe your playstyle and how much has it changed during the last years?
Jupe: I used to play pretty passive macro oriented playstyle but it has been switching more and more into very aggressive playstyle. However, I usually don’t play 1 tc agressions in Castle Age but like to focus more on macro while trying to keep pressure on. When it comes to team games, I usually like focusing on booming except when I TC rush.
Villese: I would describe myself as a macro player. I like having a strong economy, taking map control in Feudal and Castle age and winning games from there. I started as an Arabia huns player and that helped me learn the game quickly. Since Wololo Kingdoms became the standard, rated 1v1 meta was to play with random civs, which was great in my opinion. Even though there are sometimes civ wins, you get to think about the civ matchup every game and come up with a plan to win the game with the tools that your civ has. That’s something you won’t learn by playing Hun wars or mirrors.
Villese, you reached a RM 1v1 rating of 2568 on Voobly. So if you are in top shape, you are undoubtedly one of the best AoE 2 players in 2020. Still, if people remember you, there are not really 1v1 tournament successes to be remembered, but rather successes with Team Suomi. Can you explain this more in detail? Do you prefer TG or what is in your case the difference between a high rating - which is close to F1Re, slam, dogao, Tim, TheMax and Nicov - and successful performances? Some players struggle much more in tournaments than in random rated games, how about you?
Yes, I do prefer team games and I especially enjoy tournament team games. I feel like I often play even better in TG tournaments than in rated games. High ratings are not important to me, what matters is tournament performance. I think my biggest problem, especially in 1v1 tournaments is inconsistency. My micro isn’t very good either compared to the top top players. On a good day I can beat almost anyone, which you can see by my Mangrove Shallows Cup performance. I used to take huge pressure from 1v1 tournaments, but that has mostly gone away with more experience, and I wouldn’t say that is my issue anymore. Sometimes, I just don’t “feel” the game the same way. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like watching the game from the outside and just doing things on autopilot. That leads to tunnel visioned gameplay, poor map control and decision making. This is much more devastating in 1v1 tournaments than team games, because there is no one else to support you, so if you’re playing bad you lose most of the time.
Jupe, you have reached a 2k 1v1 rating on Voobly after a long time. I remember when I came to Voobly in 2012, you still were an average to upper level New Player lobby player. What made you stick to AoE 2 for so long despite not being someone who can earn money from tournaments? Also, how do you see your potential for improvement in the future? If AoE 2 moves over to DE, it is not whether you could reach 2k2 or more on Voobly, but rather, do you see yourself perform in 1v1 or TG tournaments competing with the top 20-30-40 players?
I had quite a few longer breaks during those years. Why do people usually play games? I did get a cut from the World Cup win, 11. Right now I think I'm not too far away from the higher top level but I need to work a lot on consistency and general skill. I think it’s possible that few things ‘’click’’ and I would be pretty close to a consistent top 50 spot.
With which setup and at what place do you usually play? Would you add a photo of your gaming setup?
Jupe: I have a Ryzen 2700x, 16 GB RAM, 1050 ti, 2x 23 inch monitors 1080p resolution. Mouse is a Razer Mamba 2012 that I won from the War is Coming stream chat !taffle, the battery exploded a few years ago, there’s a Twitch clip of that too ( https://www.twitch.tv/jupeeeeee/clip/NurturingAbstemiousPigeonBIRB?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time ). My keyboard is a Cooler master Quick Fire RAPID-i.
Villese: I used to play on a laptop connected to an external monitor, but this August I bought my first real PC.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
RAM: 16 GB
Monitors: ASUS 27’’ and Samsung 23,6’’, both 1080p@60Hz
Mouse: Steelseries Rival 310
Keyboard: QPAD MK-50 mechanical keyboard
Headset: HyperX Cloud II
Do or did you stream? What is your stream link, how often do you stream and what is special about your stream?
Jupe: In the past year I have been streaming quite actively. More frequent streams last winter started because of an accident. I was mostly busy with uni during the winter but then I got sick for almost 2 weeks and because I normally never get sick I had not banked on the possibility, so I had already used my max amount of absences from the classes + I also missed some deadlines so there was no way I would get back on some of the courses. That left me with quite a lot of extra time so I decided, why not stream?
After that things got out of hand a bit and I decided to stream the summer as well. Looking back at it now I feel like I haven’t managed to convert my viewership into subscribers that well.
How did it develop with DE? Many streamers profit from increased viewer numbers.
Jupe: The viewer numbers took a huge jump during the last Beta weekend where you could stream and during the release. I was the first from the ‘’new wave’’ of streamers to benefit and got my Twitch partnership shortly after the release of DE, however the viewers seemed to have been more interested casuals so that didn’t really have an effect on the subscriber count, even when the viewer counts more than tripled in Nov/December. From my POV it seemed the biggest streamers benefited the most when it came to new subscribers.
Villese: Villese: I streamed a few times last autumn on https://twitch.tv/villese, but I don’t feel like starting to stream regularly. Part of the reason is that I don’t like doing long sessions of 1v1 and I don’t think team games with Finnish Teamspeak are what most people want to see.
I don’t know about the teamspeak, but I think Suomi has a lot of fans and seeing you play as a team can be very interesting. However, I think some of you (I don’t know how many) use some visual mods that probably make the stream less enjoyable. I understand the advantages, but I would always prefer watching a streamed game with real trees, fish, etc. instead of cubes.
I don’t actually use the cube mod (except for fish, the fish are really hard to see in DE). The only time I used it was in NAC 3 because of the chance of having acacia forests in almost every map, which is fixed already. And for the memes of course, 11.
Jupe, I actually never really watched your stream, maybe at a point for some minutes, but I have been told that you stream in Finnish too. How is the feedback for Finnish streams? There was a newspaper article about Finland A in China even.
I have not done streams in Finnish in a long time, last time was probably from the latest Nations Cup. There simply aren’t that many Finnish viewers and even many of those prefer to watch English streams.
Which city do you come from/live in? What do you like/dislike about it and where would you like to move to?
Villese: I’ve lived my whole life in Espoo, which is the second-largest city in Finland (288 000 population) just west of Helsinki. I currently live in a student apartment less than a kilometer away from the university campus. What I like about Espoo is that it doesn’t really feel like that big of a city since the population is scattered around instead of having one main center. The location is also pretty good on the coast of the Gulf of Finland and close to Helsinki, and the public transportation system works decently. I don’t like the winters here too much. This winter we’ve had snow for maybe three days, it is very dark and it’s been raining on most days for the past month. I’d like to move somewhere further north with proper winter and lots of snow, even though it is probably easier to get a job in the south.
Jupe: I was born and raised in Jyväskylä. I am currently studying in Joensuu. I like Jyväskylä because it's a pretty small yet decent sized city. You have lots of beautiful nature around the city like lakes and forests. The winter there isn’t that terrible either; you will have a few months to ski if you wish. In Joensuu it’s pretty similar, there’s a beautiful river that I like to walk around. Winters are slightly better and longer than in Jyväskylä.
Joensuu on the left (you can see the autumn trees), Jyväskylä to the right.
Now to your favourite things:
What is your favourite food and drink?
Villese: Sautéed reindeer with mashed potatoes and lingonberries. Favourite drink is milk.
Jupe: I think it’s impossible for me to have a favorite when it comes to food/drink :P. There’s just way too many good dishes and I’m always looking forward to trying new dishes.
Which foods from your home country/region and family background would you recommend?
Villese: I can’t really recommend any specific food since there are so many good ones. I like food that is made of fresh ingredients from nature such as fish, different kinds of berries and mushrooms. Freshly baked Finnish rye bread is also really good.
Jupe: Finnish cuisine in general is pretty mild in flavor. There is a historical reason for that as well, we were too far north, too far away from the spice trade. If I would recommend a few things they would be:
Fish: Especially fresh water. Pan Fried Zander (the most expensive fish in Finland) fillet with oven baked vegetables, new potatoes and a slice of lemon. Whitefish Pan fried or smoked with mashed potatoes. But my personal favorite has to be muikku (Coregonus albula) rolled around in rye flour and fried in butter, served with mashed potatoes. Both whitefish and muikku we netfish with my father and grandfather. A very traditional muikku dish that you need to try if you visit Finland is obviously the fried muikku (you can find this literally at any outside marketplace or big event) or muikkukukko (muikkucock.. muikkurooster?). This is something my mother used to make when we got enough muikku and it’s very popular around the Kuopio area (you can find it everywhere there), it’s basically muikku baked with fatty pork inside a rye bread crust. Overall it’s common in Finland to smoke fish but what is common in Finland that’s not so common elsewhere is cured fish; salmon is the most popular one, but you can almost cure any fish, and many people do so for their freshly caught fish.
Berries: Wild berries; Blueberry, lingonberry, raspberry and cloudberry were the ones my parents dragged me along to pick. Those are also probably the most commonly known and used wild berries. Finns are known to die before they give away the location of their best berry picking spots. Especially cloudberry spots. Those notoriously hard to find berries that you can only find around swamp areas also cost a fortune. I remember one trip as a kid when I walked 10 km around a swamp area just to find 2-3 litres.
Berries are eaten fresh inside pies, desserts or just with milk and sugar. Sometimes they are made into juice as well. The rest is frozen and eaten during winter, commonly in Kissel. Lingonberries make a great porridge (or whipped porridge), the common way to eat cloudberries is with bread cheese. What I recommend the most is to try the berries fresh if you happen to be in Finland at the right time to buy them fresh. My favorite very traditional berry dish has to be blueberry rooster; fresh blueberries baked inside rye flour+butter+sugar mix eaten with vanilla sauce or vanilla ice cream. It is very traditional and if you visit Finland you should be able to find it somewhere.
Mushrooms: I think Ruben talked about mushrooms in his interview. My personal favorites are mushroom pie (made from bolete), overall I like chanterelle the most. My favorite tradition Finnish mushroom dish is mushroom salad (mixed mushrooms and onion mixed with whipped cream; traditional on the Christmas table)
Overall Finns eat a lot of dishes with rye as well as rye bread. One of the most traditional rye food in finland apart from bread has to be karelian pie (kind of like a bread with rye pastry filled with rice porridge, eaten with egg butter). I would be 100 % sold if someone makes these themselves (they are commonly bought from stores now days).
Muikkukukko (left), mushroom salad (right):
That is actually my mother’s that I found pictures of - cloudberry jam to the right.
More photos:
Cured Salmon: https://www.husko.fi/tuotekuvat/1200x1200/Graavilohi-tillill.jpg
Karelian pie: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...0227.jpg/1200px-Karjalanpiirakka-20060227.jpg
Rye bread: https://www.martat.fi/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ruoka_ruisleip_viipaleita-682x660.jpg
What can you cook well yourself and how often do you do it?
Villese: I usually eat at the uni restaurants during the week, but I cook myself at most weekends. It’s usually simple foods such as rice and chicken, pasta with some kind of sauce or meatballs and potatoes.
Jupe: I usually eat something I've made from scratch every day. I can make any traditional Finnish dish and many other styles of cuisines too, mostly just what I feel like trying. Probably Italian, Indian and Chinese style the most but there is too much I need to try and learn. Right now I'm also only working with 1 pan and 1 small pot and 1 knife basically so that limits me quite a bit.
I can remember the exact moment that got me interested in cooking; I was 11 or 12 years old when we were in China and I overall just got mindblown how different yet great the food tasted. There was one specific dish that made me realize that cooking is pretty universal and that it’s possible to do the same kind of dishes at home. We were eating at this very basic lunch time restaurant that serves noodle and pork soup. The soup tasted strange yet very nice so I asked my mother (who worked as a culinary school teacher) what made such a taste? She knew the taste was from lovage and that lovage also grew in our garden. So we came back home and made the exact same noodle soup. After that even when it took a while for me to actually start cooking myself, my mother noticed my interest and always made me taste different dishes for flavors and spices (asked what spices she added for example) even when I didn’t cook that much myself at the time I think it helped to keep interest in cooking and also working on my palet a bit.
That is a very interesting story. I know lovage, but I actually have not seen it used in Chinese cuisine or supermarkets. Do you remember in which city it was? Could it also have been this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_celery? The most common one in soups I have seen in China is coriander, but I trust you and your mother that you could recognise that, so I guess it wasn’t. But it could also be that you are right and it was just an uncommon case, or a herb that is very similar - because I could find anything about this plant (Levisticum officinale) being used in Chinese cuisine.
To be honest when I translated lovage from Finnish to English I was wondering the same thing, because I saw that it doesn’t naturally grow in China. My taste memory doesn’t go that far back either, but as a child the taste was the same. I don’t know how leaf celery tastes like as we don’t use it here but atleast to normal celery we use here in soups, lovage has a different flavor. So it might be possible that it was not lovage but indeed something with very similar taste.
OK. I guess we can't find out for the interview for sure. I assume that it was something similar, but not the same species. Because in East/South East Asia there are many herbs and spices not used in Europe and we always try to relate them to our known species. I have also had one that I would say tastes like spinach, but it looks different. And there were 3 different-looking plants they all translate to spinach...
There are even many vegetables Chinese just call "green vegetable" in colloquial language, which clearly are different genera of plants, so it is difficult.
If the Chinese leaf celery does have very dense celery flavour, it could likely have been that. Were were in Beijing.
What would you put on top of a pizza? (One you would eat yourself.)
Villese: Salami, mozzarella, arugula and jalapeno.
Jupe: Depends what type of pizza, the ones eaten here? Pepperoni, bell pepper, onion. Naples style pizza? Just margherita. New York style? Doesn’t really need anything, maybe pepperoni. Those strange thick American pizza? Doesn’t matter because they will disappear in the middle of the pizza. I once ate pizza like that in Canada and I thought it had no topping/filling except tomato sauce and cheese but once I bit into it I realized there was a full sized meatball buried inside of the pizza.
What is your favourite colour? (Does not need to be one of the 8 AoE II colours.)
Jupe: Teal.
Villese: Green. In AoC orange became my colour because I was always the slowest to launch the game, so orange was the only colour left.
What is your favourite animal?
Villese: Swan.
Jupe: Hmm? An owl maybe. I usually spot one owl once a year at almost the exact same spot! It’s the most excited I get around nature during the year.
Which species?
Eagle owl.
Where is your favourite place on Earth?
Villese: Home.
Jupe: My parents' summer cottage; surrounded by beautiful nature, lake with crystal clear water and no neighbors in sight. I love dipping between the smoke sauna and the lake for hours and hours. Only thing I hope is that I could spend one winter there alone.
What is your favourite song at the moment, of all time (can be top 5)?
Jupe: My music taste is boring nowadays, I can listen to pretty much anything.
Villese: I don’t have a favourite song. If I listen to music, it’s usually just some random Spotify or Youtube playlist.
What is your favourite recent movie, of all time (can be top 5)? Who is your favourite actor?
Jupe: Always been a huge Chris Nolan fan, very hard to do even a top 5 movies list. I can’t stand superhero movies and constant remakes or reboots (they are more like quilty pleasures VERY rarely), neither ‘’mainstream’’ movies that much either. Prefer something that challenges my thought and my feelings. #1 mention has to Be Inception because that’s what got me more into movies in the first place. Honorable mention to Hacksaw Ridge which inspired me to begin my research/thesis on the unarmed soldiers/those who refused to take arms.
For actor/actress, I have to go with Denzel Washington and Amy Adams.
Villese: I don’t have a favourite movie or actor. I rarely watch movies, I can’t even remember the last time I went to the cinema. I watch movies on TV every now and then, maybe once a month at most.
What are your favourite books?
Jupe: I only read school books or books that are part of my field at the moment.
Villese: I don’t read many books these days apart from school books. I used to read a lot of all kinds of literature when I was younger, and I would say that the Harry Potter series was my favourite.
Do you have a favourite sports team or athlete? (football, basketball etc.)
Villese: Arsenal. I also love watching the football World Cups and European Championships and I try to catch every single match of those. During the Brazil 2014 World Cup I would stay up until 4-5 am every night to watch some random group stage matches. My favourite team in those tournaments has always been Germany. This year Finland qualified for the European Championship for the first time in history, so it will be even more exciting to watch.
Jupe: I don’t really follow team sports that much except ice hockey WCs. I will however cheer for Finland in the Euro Championship
.
What are your favourite traits on a woman?
Jupe: Educated and intelligent, natural looks and hair color. I don’t think I would want anyone quite like me, so preferably more extroverted. Wouldn’t mind a good baker.
Villese: Smile, voice.
What time do you usually go to sleep? What do you like doing before sleeping?
Villese: I try to go to bed before midnight, but depends on when I have to wake up. I usually read some forums and play a bit of Clash of Clans before sleeping.
Jupe: I usually go to sleep way too late around 2 am mostly. Sometimes I manage to have a decent sleep schedule (from midnight to 8-9 am) but usually can’t keep that for too long. I usually watch a movie or TV series in bed before going to sleep.
What do you plan to be doing on 5/10/20 years? What did you want to be today 5/10 years ago?
Villese: In 5 years I hope I’ll have finished uni and have a job. I don’t really have plans for 10/20 years time.
Jupe: Hopefully in 5 years at least I have finished uni, 11, and working as a teacher. In 10 years hopefully I have a family or I live and work somewhere abroad.
Which 3 countries would be your top choices for your future work?
Canada would be my go-to for sure, USA as long as I don’t have any kids, 3rd one is a harder one. Probably somewhere near central Europe; Germany, Austria, Netherlands.
Which countries have you visited? And where would you like to go? Why?
Villese: Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Spain, China, UK. I’d like to visit Austria or Switzerland someday because I want to see the Alps.
Jupe: I have visited roughly 30 countries, most when I was a kid, because my parents really liked traveling. I would like to visit at least Russia (I am studying 50 km away from the border but never visited), probably Australia and New Zealand and then somewhere in South or Central America.
I have one funny story of when I was in Beijing. We went to see the zoo in Beijing; turns out my family was almost bigger attraction than the animals in the Zoo! During the day we spent there probably 100 Chinese people came to take picture with me and my sisters. We had heard that especially on those places there might be Chinese from more remote areas of China and that they have never seen a westerner. But we didn’t expect quite so many Chinese ‘’fans’’, 11.
I think a lot has changed since then. In 2014 and later, in big cities Chinese are not that interested in foreigners anymore. Of course it still happens, I also had 3 photos of me with strangers, but in 3 different cities and when I was in the zoo in Beijing in 2015, no stranger talked to me. There probably are many Chinese who never came close to a foreigner, but from my experience nowadays it will be children rather than adults who can't hide their curiosity.
Which languages can you speak and which would you like to learn?
Villese: I can speak Finnish, English, some German and a bit of Swedish. I would like to learn Chinese but I guess it’s one of the hardest languages to learn.
I think Finnish is much more complicated :D. But I agree that the writing is one of the hardest of the most common languages. Grammar and speaking not that much, if you already know Finnish, English and German, because you already know how to pronounce many different sounds.
Jupe: Finnish, English, very little Swedish and German. If i ever got inspiration to study languages I would want to learn Russian and maybe Spanish.
What are your hobbies beside AoE?
Villese: I don’t have any proper hobbies, but I like taking long walks every now and then, usually by the sea or in the forest. I enjoy looking at nature especially when the season changes (first leaves in the spring, autumn colors, first snow etc.).
Jupe: I just started skiing again, so I am enjoying that right now. Other than that, cooking. I like trying different recipes and then mastering them. Just simply cutting vegetables is pretty relaxing to me. I haven’t had money to put on that hobby in recent years, that’s why I kind of came to a stop for a while when it came to trying new recipes. Recently I overcame this issue by trying to create as many recipes as I could that were under 50 cents per meal. I’m again kind of in a crosspath because I don’t think I can find more possible ingredients to use for under 50 cent meals. Some of the developed recipes also go just a little above that 50 cents, when you have to count in spices and everything; keeping it under 50 cents is often rough
Would you share some of your favourite of those recipes?
I’ve been enjoying lentil soup quite a bit recently and usually even if I eat it quite often it won’t get boring.
- (Dried) red lentils washed and boiled. Sweat onion and garlic, add with the boiled lentils. Add crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Add salt, paprika, curry, black pepper, chili and a bit of soy sauce. Mix and let it simmer under the lid for as long as you have the patience. Finish with a touch of double cream (adds about 10 cents per portion) or milk, or you can also eat it without cream too, more as a tomato lentil soup then.
-Price per portion (7.5 dl, so a big portion): 45-50 cents, not counting soy sauce, cream/milk which is optional. You can PM me for the whole recipe.
- Another one: Chickpea curry (this will make you fart a lot, so be alerted):
(Dried) chickpeas, soak overnight, boil with salt for about an hour. Big drizzle of vegetable oil in a pan, add onions, garlic, salt, turmeric, garam masala, paprika and black pepper. Sweat the onions, add garlic later so you won’t burn it and roast spices. Add crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Throw in the boiled chickpeas. Finnish with plain non-flavoured yoghurt. Eat with rice of your choice.
- Price per portion (heavily depends on portion size and what rice you choose): 150 g chickpeas (50 g dried, they about triple in size) + sauce and 75 g (dry weight) cheapest rice: 49 cents.
Who would you like to meet once, who you have not met? One AoE player and one other person.
Villese: Slam, he is such a nice guy and watching his stream used to be a good way to get the day going. He was also one of the few possible high level opponents on Voobly when I wanted to play in the morning, and I enjoyed playing against him even though I would lose most of the time. Too bad he’s been pretty inactive for quite some time, but I’ve seen him stream a bit more often again lately.
Jupe: In all honesty, probably no one. People have a tendency to be very different IRL than on the internet or on their streams. I wouldn’t mind meeting international AoE people but I wouldn’t have high hopes or expectations going into those meetings.
Do you have an AoE idol?
Villese: I can’t really name a single player. When I was learning the game, I used to watch a lot of streams of good players like Feage, slam, Viper and Pike and try to copy their strategies, even though I often failed. I also like Mr. Yo’s and TheMax’s gameplay.
Jupe: Wouldn’t say I have any one single idol.
What is your favourite civilisation, map and unit?
Villese: Chinese, Arabia, Throwing Axeman.
Jupe: Persians, Chaos Pit, Villager.
What is your favourite in-game sound?
Villese: 12.
Jupe: 11.
If Arabia did not exist, which map do you think everyone would be playing as much as people play Arabia (and not Serengeti etc., which are just very similar to Arabia)?
Jupe: The game would be dead then, only a few guys with Memb would be playing BF.
Villese: Full Random or Nomad.
Who is your favourite and least favourite 1v1 opponent?
Jupe: I like playing against players that stick to the meta so I have more surprise options and also it’s way easier to predict their moves. Also those players always die to my TC rush.
Villese: Favourite opponent is TheMax, even though I sometimes get tilted by his walls and sneaks. Least favourite is Vivi, because I hate facing men at arms and towers every game. Even worse was him picking cumans every game in DE before they got nerfed.
Who is your favourite team mate for a 2v2?
For just playing:
Villese: TheMax, I think we’ve played hundreds of 2v2s together.
Jupe: Rubenstock or TheMax, sometimes Ruben trolls too much and we end up losing so then I hope I would have played with TheMax 11.
Also outside of the game:
Villese: All team Suomi players, especially when we’re preparing new strategies for tournaments.
Jupe: Rubenstock, but honestly all the other Finns would do as well.
Would you live with him/her together in one apartment for a month or a year? With one bedroom or two?
Villese: Why not, two bedrooms though since I like my private space.
Jupe: In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t want to live with any of my irl friends.
How often have you (Suomi players as a full team) personally met outside of tournaments like in China or Manchester?
We just had a LAN party where me, Max and Ruben attended also. Usually the lower level Finns host LAN about 3 times a year.
Never.
In the new expansions (after AoC), what is your favourite new civilisation and unit?
Villese: Ethiopians, Magyar Huszar.
Jupe: Khmer are pretty fun now with the buffs. Arambai.
Make a ranking of the best Finnish players currently based on 1v1 skills.
Villese: TheMax, me, Zuppi, Ruben, Pike, Valas, Jupe, Emalius.
Jupe: ^
How do you evaluate the results of ECL?
Overall I’m quite happy with our performance in ECL. The start was pretty rough but we caught up with some victories, especially both East Asia stages were some of our best tournament results. Towards the end aM started playing stronger and got the second place, but we got lucky and got to the LAN anyway. We could’ve played better in some games, but that could be said for every team.
How long do you think Suomi will stick together (TheMax, Villese, Rubenstock, Zuppi, possibly Pike)? What/who comes then? Valas? Jupe?
We will stick together as long as we enjoy playing together. Some of us are more inactive at times (real life…), but usually we become more active before TG tournaments. At the moment Valas is closest to our level, but maybe Jupe will surprise everyone since he even reached 2k on Voobly.
Did any of you ever receive an offer from TyRanT, Secret or aM?
Jupe: Yes.
Villese: No.
Interesting to know. I guess Suomi nowadays is a very respected team. But it could also be that they think that you would not be as strong in a different team as you are together. There were some tries like dogao in SY or Tim in international teams, but in the end teams are not just about putting the best 1v1 players together.
Which 4-5 players from your country do you think will form the A and B team in the upcoming Nations? Which maps would you like to be included apart from Arabia, Nomad, Islands? Would you prefer the Nations Cup to be on Voobly or on the new Definitive Edition?
Jupe: I have no clue to be honest. Time will tell.
Villese: Finland A team will probably be the same old TheMax, me, Zuppi, Ruben and Pike. I liked the large and diverse map pools of the past Nations Cups, so hopefully it will be similar this time, because unusual maps give room for preparation and upsets. I understand the concerns about DE’s performance and system requirements and making the tournament accessible for everyone. I hope Microsoft can optimize the game for lower-end computers as well so that we can test the new civilizations and balance changes in a team game tournament.
What is your goal for the 2020 Nations Cup? Which teams do you think will reach the top 8? Do you think Italy has a better chance in 3v3 than 4v4?
Jupe: I would be happy being able to play the best that I can, if I will play in the A or B team that’s secondary. Top 8 teams should be Finland, China A+B, Canada, Vietnam, Brazil. After that there are more contenders for top 8.
Villese: Our goal is to win the Nations Cup after Finland got 3rd and 2nd places in the past two editions. My top 8 guess: Finland, China A & B, Brazil A & B, Vietnam, Canada, Norway. I think Italy has a better chance in 3v3 since their 4th player wouldn’t probably be as strong (unless Coccolino makes a comeback, 11). The same is true for many other teams though.
Which 4 players would you like to see forming a team? (can include inactive players)
Villese: Lyx, Straydog, Noboru and Rubenstock for the craziest forward team of all time.
Jupe: Rubenstock, Hurleyfreestyle, TheMax and me for 4x douche.
Did you actually ever have a 3v3 or 4v4 where all members of one team did it?
Me and Ruben once did douche all 4 enemy players with Cumans.
Any new information about DreaIVIs?
No, other than it seems that he has logged into Voobly just recently.
Nili’s Apartment Cup 3: What did you think about it a) when it was announced; b) when you lost the finals; c) when you suddenly were invited anyway and d) during and after participating? Would you share any interesting stories from it?
I don’t have any interesting stories to share.
At whose apartment would you also like to have an apartment cup?
I would like to see DauT’s Apartment Cup just for fun.
Jupe: Some Finn’s so you could go to the sauna.
What is the funniest moment in your life you experienced because of AoE?
Jupe: At one LAN party little over a year ago I dropped a castle right next to Rubenstock’s TC and Ruben just ran to our room even before the castle was up, 11.
Villese: When Jupe lost 4 villagers to one boar. I was on TS with him, Max and Slaktarnn and I’ve never laughed more than that during an AoE game. Memb was casting, and after the game we watched the clip on his stream. He even made a Youtube video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM476XgFOKA.
Choose:
Chris or DauT?
Villese: DauT
Jupe: DauT
Tim or TheViper?
Villese: TheViper
Jupe: TheViper
Edie or Terror?
Villese: Edie
Jupe: Terror
Metal or DraCoNT?
Villese: Metal
Jupe: Metal
T90 or ZeroEmpires?
Villese: T90
Jupe: T90
Gold miner or hunter?
Villese: Hunter
Jupe: Hunter
Wolf or jaguar?
Villese: Jaguar
Jupe: Wolf
1v1 or 4v4?
Villese: 4v4
Jupe: 4v4
Feudal Age or Imperial Age?
Villese: Imperial Age
Jupe: Imperial Age
Black Forest or Nomad?
Villese: Nomad
Jupe: Black Forest
What would you do to make the world a better place?
Villese: I try to buy only things I really need and recycle whenever possible.
Jupe: Be less selfish.
If you were not in a relationship, and could date anyone, who would it be?
Jupe: No one.
Villese: No one.
Add one more comment or question for me or someone else.
Villese: Thanks for doing these interviews, I’ve read most of them and they’re really good to get familiar with some lesser known players, especially Chinese ones.
Jupe: Have you ever been to a sauna?
I have to disappoint you that I did not really like it, but a) as an adult the experience probably is different and b) in Finland it’s probably different from Denmark/Germany too. So I would not say I will never do it again, although I find it rather boring.
Thank you for doing the interview. Do you have any recommendations for the next people to be interviewed? I already some ideas and Argentina (Maxi+Aramis) and T90 already confirmed to do one, but I am always looking for some interesting and not so well-known players to present.
Villese: Hoang or Kotex, maybe you can get someone to help translating Vietnamese.
Jupe: Slam + Chris would be great but Chris isn’t active anymore.
Today I welcome Villese and Jupe as representation of Finland. I already interviewed Rubenstock last spring, so I already shared something about Finland and Team Suomi, so if you want you can keep some answers shorter. However, with DE being released and a 3v3 Nations Cup to start in the next months, it is a good idea to evaluate the last months and look into the future of Finnish AoE and AoE 2 in general.
Villese to the left and Jupe to the right.
Who are you? How old are you?
Villese: My name is Ville and I’m a 25-year-old Engineering Physics student.
Jupe: My name is Juuso and I am 24 years old. I am studying History in University and hopefully I will become a teacher one day.
Why did you choose the AoE nicknames Villese and Jupe?
Villese: I used the nickname Wille_Wallace for my first Voobly account, but I wanted a shorter and more personal name so that’s how I came up with Villese.
Jupe: I picked up the Jupe nickname for my MSN Messenger when I was like 8 years old and I have been using it mostly since.
Since when do you play Age of Empires 2, have you played Age of Empires 1/3? What are your expectations and wishes for AoE 4? If you could add one thing from AoE 1 and one from 3 to add to AoE 2, what would it be?
Villese: I’ve played AoE 2 since I got the gold edition for my sixth or seventh birthday in 2000/2001. Actually even before that I played the demo version. I only played single player and some LAN games with my family and friends until I discovered Voobly in 2014. I’ve tried demo versions of AoE 1, AoM and AoE 3 years ago, but I don’t remember too much from those games. I hope AoE 4 will be a good game, but I don’t have any specific wishes for it. I like that they went for the medieval theme, because in my opinion that’s the best setting for the Age of Empires series. I’m not very familiar with the gameplay of either AoE 1 or 3. I prefer most of AoE 1’s music to AoE 2’s music, so I would add that. I used to love the destruction animations in AoE 3, but now that we have them in AoE 2 DE, I don’t know what I would add from that game.
Jupe: Never played AoE 1, just campaigns and only a few multiplayer games in AoE 3. I started playing AoE 2 during late summer/early fall of 2012. After that I’ve been playing, apart from a couple of longer breaks in between.
What are your impressions of AoE 2 DE so far?
Villese: At this point, UP 1.5 on Voobly is still a better experience than AoE2 DE in many ways. I like the idea of matchmaking for 1v1s (except the map pool), but it doesn’t really work for team games. There is a 2k TG Steam group though, so at least we can do unrated team games. The game itself runs quite smoothly for me and there is less delay than on Voobly most of the time. Pathing is the worst issue at the moment, since units stutter a lot and especially melee units are very hard to use because of that. I also hate that units can stop whenever they get attacked, so you have to spam-click every time you’re retreating or trying to attack ranged units. I don’t really like the new graphics, and many units are hard to distinguish from each other. I’m getting more and more used to the new graphics, but I wish they had included a classic graphics option in the game. Luckily there are some good mods available. The sound effects are also worse than in the original game. All the sounds kind of blend together and it’s hard to hear the important ones like getting attacked or villagers dying. Then there are issues with performance, crashes, drops, game balance and spectating, but hopefully they will get fixed soon, since they seem to be releasing patches pretty often.
Jupe: I like the matchmaking system, but it already has a lot of issues created by such a small playerbase. During the late stages of the beta I was hopeful but when it came to the overall performance the recent patches have shown very little signs of improvement and like the latest patch, they seem to break more than they actually fix. It’s just way too amateurish looking right now to be too hopeful unfortunately.
In which clans and tournaments have you been since you started to play AoE 2 online?
Jupe: I played a few tournaments earlier on with TheJedi where I joined pretty much since I started playing on Voobly. I got in touch with the Finns before the 2014 Nations Cup and since then I have been playing a lot with other Finns, especially Rubenstock and TheMax. I played with Finland in the Nations Cups 2014 and (?) 2016. During the most recent Nations Cup I played with Finland B which was kind of a tragic story because we literally got eliminated from the group stage because Valas got his king sniped by paladins in Regicide Fortress against Italy A, which in the end meant the difference between being 1st in our group and being 3rd in our group while 1st and 2nd advanced. We almost managed to win that RF game 2v3 even because we had just killed half of their trade and were right next to the trade line.
During last 2018’s World Cup I played with TheMax and Rubenstock and we won.
Villese: I’ve played with the Finns since early 2016. I guess you could call team Suomi a clan, but aside from that I’ve never been in one.
Legacy of the Huns, SY Nations Cup 2017, King of the Desert 1 & 2, Battle of Africa, Nomad Battlegrounds, Escape Champions League, Hidden Cup 2, Clash of the Hippo 5, King of the Sauna, Mangrove Shallows Cup, NAC 2 & 3 Qualifiers.
How would you describe your playstyle and how much has it changed during the last years?
Jupe: I used to play pretty passive macro oriented playstyle but it has been switching more and more into very aggressive playstyle. However, I usually don’t play 1 tc agressions in Castle Age but like to focus more on macro while trying to keep pressure on. When it comes to team games, I usually like focusing on booming except when I TC rush.
Villese: I would describe myself as a macro player. I like having a strong economy, taking map control in Feudal and Castle age and winning games from there. I started as an Arabia huns player and that helped me learn the game quickly. Since Wololo Kingdoms became the standard, rated 1v1 meta was to play with random civs, which was great in my opinion. Even though there are sometimes civ wins, you get to think about the civ matchup every game and come up with a plan to win the game with the tools that your civ has. That’s something you won’t learn by playing Hun wars or mirrors.
Villese, you reached a RM 1v1 rating of 2568 on Voobly. So if you are in top shape, you are undoubtedly one of the best AoE 2 players in 2020. Still, if people remember you, there are not really 1v1 tournament successes to be remembered, but rather successes with Team Suomi. Can you explain this more in detail? Do you prefer TG or what is in your case the difference between a high rating - which is close to F1Re, slam, dogao, Tim, TheMax and Nicov - and successful performances? Some players struggle much more in tournaments than in random rated games, how about you?
Yes, I do prefer team games and I especially enjoy tournament team games. I feel like I often play even better in TG tournaments than in rated games. High ratings are not important to me, what matters is tournament performance. I think my biggest problem, especially in 1v1 tournaments is inconsistency. My micro isn’t very good either compared to the top top players. On a good day I can beat almost anyone, which you can see by my Mangrove Shallows Cup performance. I used to take huge pressure from 1v1 tournaments, but that has mostly gone away with more experience, and I wouldn’t say that is my issue anymore. Sometimes, I just don’t “feel” the game the same way. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like watching the game from the outside and just doing things on autopilot. That leads to tunnel visioned gameplay, poor map control and decision making. This is much more devastating in 1v1 tournaments than team games, because there is no one else to support you, so if you’re playing bad you lose most of the time.
Jupe, you have reached a 2k 1v1 rating on Voobly after a long time. I remember when I came to Voobly in 2012, you still were an average to upper level New Player lobby player. What made you stick to AoE 2 for so long despite not being someone who can earn money from tournaments? Also, how do you see your potential for improvement in the future? If AoE 2 moves over to DE, it is not whether you could reach 2k2 or more on Voobly, but rather, do you see yourself perform in 1v1 or TG tournaments competing with the top 20-30-40 players?
I had quite a few longer breaks during those years. Why do people usually play games? I did get a cut from the World Cup win, 11. Right now I think I'm not too far away from the higher top level but I need to work a lot on consistency and general skill. I think it’s possible that few things ‘’click’’ and I would be pretty close to a consistent top 50 spot.
With which setup and at what place do you usually play? Would you add a photo of your gaming setup?
Jupe: I have a Ryzen 2700x, 16 GB RAM, 1050 ti, 2x 23 inch monitors 1080p resolution. Mouse is a Razer Mamba 2012 that I won from the War is Coming stream chat !taffle, the battery exploded a few years ago, there’s a Twitch clip of that too ( https://www.twitch.tv/jupeeeeee/clip/NurturingAbstemiousPigeonBIRB?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time ). My keyboard is a Cooler master Quick Fire RAPID-i.
Villese: I used to play on a laptop connected to an external monitor, but this August I bought my first real PC.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
RAM: 16 GB
Monitors: ASUS 27’’ and Samsung 23,6’’, both 1080p@60Hz
Mouse: Steelseries Rival 310
Keyboard: QPAD MK-50 mechanical keyboard
Headset: HyperX Cloud II
Do or did you stream? What is your stream link, how often do you stream and what is special about your stream?
Jupe: In the past year I have been streaming quite actively. More frequent streams last winter started because of an accident. I was mostly busy with uni during the winter but then I got sick for almost 2 weeks and because I normally never get sick I had not banked on the possibility, so I had already used my max amount of absences from the classes + I also missed some deadlines so there was no way I would get back on some of the courses. That left me with quite a lot of extra time so I decided, why not stream?
After that things got out of hand a bit and I decided to stream the summer as well. Looking back at it now I feel like I haven’t managed to convert my viewership into subscribers that well.
How did it develop with DE? Many streamers profit from increased viewer numbers.
Jupe: The viewer numbers took a huge jump during the last Beta weekend where you could stream and during the release. I was the first from the ‘’new wave’’ of streamers to benefit and got my Twitch partnership shortly after the release of DE, however the viewers seemed to have been more interested casuals so that didn’t really have an effect on the subscriber count, even when the viewer counts more than tripled in Nov/December. From my POV it seemed the biggest streamers benefited the most when it came to new subscribers.
Villese: Villese: I streamed a few times last autumn on https://twitch.tv/villese, but I don’t feel like starting to stream regularly. Part of the reason is that I don’t like doing long sessions of 1v1 and I don’t think team games with Finnish Teamspeak are what most people want to see.
I don’t know about the teamspeak, but I think Suomi has a lot of fans and seeing you play as a team can be very interesting. However, I think some of you (I don’t know how many) use some visual mods that probably make the stream less enjoyable. I understand the advantages, but I would always prefer watching a streamed game with real trees, fish, etc. instead of cubes.
I don’t actually use the cube mod (except for fish, the fish are really hard to see in DE). The only time I used it was in NAC 3 because of the chance of having acacia forests in almost every map, which is fixed already. And for the memes of course, 11.
Jupe, I actually never really watched your stream, maybe at a point for some minutes, but I have been told that you stream in Finnish too. How is the feedback for Finnish streams? There was a newspaper article about Finland A in China even.
I have not done streams in Finnish in a long time, last time was probably from the latest Nations Cup. There simply aren’t that many Finnish viewers and even many of those prefer to watch English streams.
Which city do you come from/live in? What do you like/dislike about it and where would you like to move to?
Villese: I’ve lived my whole life in Espoo, which is the second-largest city in Finland (288 000 population) just west of Helsinki. I currently live in a student apartment less than a kilometer away from the university campus. What I like about Espoo is that it doesn’t really feel like that big of a city since the population is scattered around instead of having one main center. The location is also pretty good on the coast of the Gulf of Finland and close to Helsinki, and the public transportation system works decently. I don’t like the winters here too much. This winter we’ve had snow for maybe three days, it is very dark and it’s been raining on most days for the past month. I’d like to move somewhere further north with proper winter and lots of snow, even though it is probably easier to get a job in the south.
Jupe: I was born and raised in Jyväskylä. I am currently studying in Joensuu. I like Jyväskylä because it's a pretty small yet decent sized city. You have lots of beautiful nature around the city like lakes and forests. The winter there isn’t that terrible either; you will have a few months to ski if you wish. In Joensuu it’s pretty similar, there’s a beautiful river that I like to walk around. Winters are slightly better and longer than in Jyväskylä.
Joensuu on the left (you can see the autumn trees), Jyväskylä to the right.
Now to your favourite things:
What is your favourite food and drink?
Villese: Sautéed reindeer with mashed potatoes and lingonberries. Favourite drink is milk.
Jupe: I think it’s impossible for me to have a favorite when it comes to food/drink :P. There’s just way too many good dishes and I’m always looking forward to trying new dishes.
Which foods from your home country/region and family background would you recommend?
Villese: I can’t really recommend any specific food since there are so many good ones. I like food that is made of fresh ingredients from nature such as fish, different kinds of berries and mushrooms. Freshly baked Finnish rye bread is also really good.
Jupe: Finnish cuisine in general is pretty mild in flavor. There is a historical reason for that as well, we were too far north, too far away from the spice trade. If I would recommend a few things they would be:
Fish: Especially fresh water. Pan Fried Zander (the most expensive fish in Finland) fillet with oven baked vegetables, new potatoes and a slice of lemon. Whitefish Pan fried or smoked with mashed potatoes. But my personal favorite has to be muikku (Coregonus albula) rolled around in rye flour and fried in butter, served with mashed potatoes. Both whitefish and muikku we netfish with my father and grandfather. A very traditional muikku dish that you need to try if you visit Finland is obviously the fried muikku (you can find this literally at any outside marketplace or big event) or muikkukukko (muikkucock.. muikkurooster?). This is something my mother used to make when we got enough muikku and it’s very popular around the Kuopio area (you can find it everywhere there), it’s basically muikku baked with fatty pork inside a rye bread crust. Overall it’s common in Finland to smoke fish but what is common in Finland that’s not so common elsewhere is cured fish; salmon is the most popular one, but you can almost cure any fish, and many people do so for their freshly caught fish.
Berries: Wild berries; Blueberry, lingonberry, raspberry and cloudberry were the ones my parents dragged me along to pick. Those are also probably the most commonly known and used wild berries. Finns are known to die before they give away the location of their best berry picking spots. Especially cloudberry spots. Those notoriously hard to find berries that you can only find around swamp areas also cost a fortune. I remember one trip as a kid when I walked 10 km around a swamp area just to find 2-3 litres.
Berries are eaten fresh inside pies, desserts or just with milk and sugar. Sometimes they are made into juice as well. The rest is frozen and eaten during winter, commonly in Kissel. Lingonberries make a great porridge (or whipped porridge), the common way to eat cloudberries is with bread cheese. What I recommend the most is to try the berries fresh if you happen to be in Finland at the right time to buy them fresh. My favorite very traditional berry dish has to be blueberry rooster; fresh blueberries baked inside rye flour+butter+sugar mix eaten with vanilla sauce or vanilla ice cream. It is very traditional and if you visit Finland you should be able to find it somewhere.
Mushrooms: I think Ruben talked about mushrooms in his interview. My personal favorites are mushroom pie (made from bolete), overall I like chanterelle the most. My favorite tradition Finnish mushroom dish is mushroom salad (mixed mushrooms and onion mixed with whipped cream; traditional on the Christmas table)
Overall Finns eat a lot of dishes with rye as well as rye bread. One of the most traditional rye food in finland apart from bread has to be karelian pie (kind of like a bread with rye pastry filled with rice porridge, eaten with egg butter). I would be 100 % sold if someone makes these themselves (they are commonly bought from stores now days).
Muikkukukko (left), mushroom salad (right):
That is actually my mother’s that I found pictures of - cloudberry jam to the right.
More photos:
Cured Salmon: https://www.husko.fi/tuotekuvat/1200x1200/Graavilohi-tillill.jpg
Karelian pie: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...0227.jpg/1200px-Karjalanpiirakka-20060227.jpg
Rye bread: https://www.martat.fi/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ruoka_ruisleip_viipaleita-682x660.jpg
What can you cook well yourself and how often do you do it?
Villese: I usually eat at the uni restaurants during the week, but I cook myself at most weekends. It’s usually simple foods such as rice and chicken, pasta with some kind of sauce or meatballs and potatoes.
Jupe: I usually eat something I've made from scratch every day. I can make any traditional Finnish dish and many other styles of cuisines too, mostly just what I feel like trying. Probably Italian, Indian and Chinese style the most but there is too much I need to try and learn. Right now I'm also only working with 1 pan and 1 small pot and 1 knife basically so that limits me quite a bit.
I can remember the exact moment that got me interested in cooking; I was 11 or 12 years old when we were in China and I overall just got mindblown how different yet great the food tasted. There was one specific dish that made me realize that cooking is pretty universal and that it’s possible to do the same kind of dishes at home. We were eating at this very basic lunch time restaurant that serves noodle and pork soup. The soup tasted strange yet very nice so I asked my mother (who worked as a culinary school teacher) what made such a taste? She knew the taste was from lovage and that lovage also grew in our garden. So we came back home and made the exact same noodle soup. After that even when it took a while for me to actually start cooking myself, my mother noticed my interest and always made me taste different dishes for flavors and spices (asked what spices she added for example) even when I didn’t cook that much myself at the time I think it helped to keep interest in cooking and also working on my palet a bit.
That is a very interesting story. I know lovage, but I actually have not seen it used in Chinese cuisine or supermarkets. Do you remember in which city it was? Could it also have been this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_celery? The most common one in soups I have seen in China is coriander, but I trust you and your mother that you could recognise that, so I guess it wasn’t. But it could also be that you are right and it was just an uncommon case, or a herb that is very similar - because I could find anything about this plant (Levisticum officinale) being used in Chinese cuisine.
To be honest when I translated lovage from Finnish to English I was wondering the same thing, because I saw that it doesn’t naturally grow in China. My taste memory doesn’t go that far back either, but as a child the taste was the same. I don’t know how leaf celery tastes like as we don’t use it here but atleast to normal celery we use here in soups, lovage has a different flavor. So it might be possible that it was not lovage but indeed something with very similar taste.
OK. I guess we can't find out for the interview for sure. I assume that it was something similar, but not the same species. Because in East/South East Asia there are many herbs and spices not used in Europe and we always try to relate them to our known species. I have also had one that I would say tastes like spinach, but it looks different. And there were 3 different-looking plants they all translate to spinach...
There are even many vegetables Chinese just call "green vegetable" in colloquial language, which clearly are different genera of plants, so it is difficult.
If the Chinese leaf celery does have very dense celery flavour, it could likely have been that. Were were in Beijing.
What would you put on top of a pizza? (One you would eat yourself.)
Villese: Salami, mozzarella, arugula and jalapeno.
Jupe: Depends what type of pizza, the ones eaten here? Pepperoni, bell pepper, onion. Naples style pizza? Just margherita. New York style? Doesn’t really need anything, maybe pepperoni. Those strange thick American pizza? Doesn’t matter because they will disappear in the middle of the pizza. I once ate pizza like that in Canada and I thought it had no topping/filling except tomato sauce and cheese but once I bit into it I realized there was a full sized meatball buried inside of the pizza.
What is your favourite colour? (Does not need to be one of the 8 AoE II colours.)
Jupe: Teal.
Villese: Green. In AoC orange became my colour because I was always the slowest to launch the game, so orange was the only colour left.
What is your favourite animal?
Villese: Swan.
Jupe: Hmm? An owl maybe. I usually spot one owl once a year at almost the exact same spot! It’s the most excited I get around nature during the year.
Which species?
Eagle owl.
Where is your favourite place on Earth?
Villese: Home.
Jupe: My parents' summer cottage; surrounded by beautiful nature, lake with crystal clear water and no neighbors in sight. I love dipping between the smoke sauna and the lake for hours and hours. Only thing I hope is that I could spend one winter there alone.
What is your favourite song at the moment, of all time (can be top 5)?
Jupe: My music taste is boring nowadays, I can listen to pretty much anything.
Villese: I don’t have a favourite song. If I listen to music, it’s usually just some random Spotify or Youtube playlist.
What is your favourite recent movie, of all time (can be top 5)? Who is your favourite actor?
Jupe: Always been a huge Chris Nolan fan, very hard to do even a top 5 movies list. I can’t stand superhero movies and constant remakes or reboots (they are more like quilty pleasures VERY rarely), neither ‘’mainstream’’ movies that much either. Prefer something that challenges my thought and my feelings. #1 mention has to Be Inception because that’s what got me more into movies in the first place. Honorable mention to Hacksaw Ridge which inspired me to begin my research/thesis on the unarmed soldiers/those who refused to take arms.
For actor/actress, I have to go with Denzel Washington and Amy Adams.
Villese: I don’t have a favourite movie or actor. I rarely watch movies, I can’t even remember the last time I went to the cinema. I watch movies on TV every now and then, maybe once a month at most.
What are your favourite books?
Jupe: I only read school books or books that are part of my field at the moment.
Villese: I don’t read many books these days apart from school books. I used to read a lot of all kinds of literature when I was younger, and I would say that the Harry Potter series was my favourite.
Do you have a favourite sports team or athlete? (football, basketball etc.)
Villese: Arsenal. I also love watching the football World Cups and European Championships and I try to catch every single match of those. During the Brazil 2014 World Cup I would stay up until 4-5 am every night to watch some random group stage matches. My favourite team in those tournaments has always been Germany. This year Finland qualified for the European Championship for the first time in history, so it will be even more exciting to watch.
Jupe: I don’t really follow team sports that much except ice hockey WCs. I will however cheer for Finland in the Euro Championship
.What are your favourite traits on a woman?
Jupe: Educated and intelligent, natural looks and hair color. I don’t think I would want anyone quite like me, so preferably more extroverted. Wouldn’t mind a good baker.
Villese: Smile, voice.
What time do you usually go to sleep? What do you like doing before sleeping?
Villese: I try to go to bed before midnight, but depends on when I have to wake up. I usually read some forums and play a bit of Clash of Clans before sleeping.
Jupe: I usually go to sleep way too late around 2 am mostly. Sometimes I manage to have a decent sleep schedule (from midnight to 8-9 am) but usually can’t keep that for too long. I usually watch a movie or TV series in bed before going to sleep.
What do you plan to be doing on 5/10/20 years? What did you want to be today 5/10 years ago?
Villese: In 5 years I hope I’ll have finished uni and have a job. I don’t really have plans for 10/20 years time.
Jupe: Hopefully in 5 years at least I have finished uni, 11, and working as a teacher. In 10 years hopefully I have a family or I live and work somewhere abroad.
Which 3 countries would be your top choices for your future work?
Canada would be my go-to for sure, USA as long as I don’t have any kids, 3rd one is a harder one. Probably somewhere near central Europe; Germany, Austria, Netherlands.
Which countries have you visited? And where would you like to go? Why?
Villese: Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Spain, China, UK. I’d like to visit Austria or Switzerland someday because I want to see the Alps.
Jupe: I have visited roughly 30 countries, most when I was a kid, because my parents really liked traveling. I would like to visit at least Russia (I am studying 50 km away from the border but never visited), probably Australia and New Zealand and then somewhere in South or Central America.
I have one funny story of when I was in Beijing. We went to see the zoo in Beijing; turns out my family was almost bigger attraction than the animals in the Zoo! During the day we spent there probably 100 Chinese people came to take picture with me and my sisters. We had heard that especially on those places there might be Chinese from more remote areas of China and that they have never seen a westerner. But we didn’t expect quite so many Chinese ‘’fans’’, 11.
I think a lot has changed since then. In 2014 and later, in big cities Chinese are not that interested in foreigners anymore. Of course it still happens, I also had 3 photos of me with strangers, but in 3 different cities and when I was in the zoo in Beijing in 2015, no stranger talked to me. There probably are many Chinese who never came close to a foreigner, but from my experience nowadays it will be children rather than adults who can't hide their curiosity.
Which languages can you speak and which would you like to learn?
Villese: I can speak Finnish, English, some German and a bit of Swedish. I would like to learn Chinese but I guess it’s one of the hardest languages to learn.
I think Finnish is much more complicated :D. But I agree that the writing is one of the hardest of the most common languages. Grammar and speaking not that much, if you already know Finnish, English and German, because you already know how to pronounce many different sounds.
Jupe: Finnish, English, very little Swedish and German. If i ever got inspiration to study languages I would want to learn Russian and maybe Spanish.
What are your hobbies beside AoE?
Villese: I don’t have any proper hobbies, but I like taking long walks every now and then, usually by the sea or in the forest. I enjoy looking at nature especially when the season changes (first leaves in the spring, autumn colors, first snow etc.).
Jupe: I just started skiing again, so I am enjoying that right now. Other than that, cooking. I like trying different recipes and then mastering them. Just simply cutting vegetables is pretty relaxing to me. I haven’t had money to put on that hobby in recent years, that’s why I kind of came to a stop for a while when it came to trying new recipes. Recently I overcame this issue by trying to create as many recipes as I could that were under 50 cents per meal. I’m again kind of in a crosspath because I don’t think I can find more possible ingredients to use for under 50 cent meals. Some of the developed recipes also go just a little above that 50 cents, when you have to count in spices and everything; keeping it under 50 cents is often rough
Would you share some of your favourite of those recipes?
I’ve been enjoying lentil soup quite a bit recently and usually even if I eat it quite often it won’t get boring.
- (Dried) red lentils washed and boiled. Sweat onion and garlic, add with the boiled lentils. Add crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Add salt, paprika, curry, black pepper, chili and a bit of soy sauce. Mix and let it simmer under the lid for as long as you have the patience. Finish with a touch of double cream (adds about 10 cents per portion) or milk, or you can also eat it without cream too, more as a tomato lentil soup then.
-Price per portion (7.5 dl, so a big portion): 45-50 cents, not counting soy sauce, cream/milk which is optional. You can PM me for the whole recipe.
- Another one: Chickpea curry (this will make you fart a lot, so be alerted):
(Dried) chickpeas, soak overnight, boil with salt for about an hour. Big drizzle of vegetable oil in a pan, add onions, garlic, salt, turmeric, garam masala, paprika and black pepper. Sweat the onions, add garlic later so you won’t burn it and roast spices. Add crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Throw in the boiled chickpeas. Finnish with plain non-flavoured yoghurt. Eat with rice of your choice.
- Price per portion (heavily depends on portion size and what rice you choose): 150 g chickpeas (50 g dried, they about triple in size) + sauce and 75 g (dry weight) cheapest rice: 49 cents.
Who would you like to meet once, who you have not met? One AoE player and one other person.
Villese: Slam, he is such a nice guy and watching his stream used to be a good way to get the day going. He was also one of the few possible high level opponents on Voobly when I wanted to play in the morning, and I enjoyed playing against him even though I would lose most of the time. Too bad he’s been pretty inactive for quite some time, but I’ve seen him stream a bit more often again lately.
Jupe: In all honesty, probably no one. People have a tendency to be very different IRL than on the internet or on their streams. I wouldn’t mind meeting international AoE people but I wouldn’t have high hopes or expectations going into those meetings.
Do you have an AoE idol?
Villese: I can’t really name a single player. When I was learning the game, I used to watch a lot of streams of good players like Feage, slam, Viper and Pike and try to copy their strategies, even though I often failed. I also like Mr. Yo’s and TheMax’s gameplay.
Jupe: Wouldn’t say I have any one single idol.
What is your favourite civilisation, map and unit?
Villese: Chinese, Arabia, Throwing Axeman.
Jupe: Persians, Chaos Pit, Villager.
What is your favourite in-game sound?
Villese: 12.
Jupe: 11.
If Arabia did not exist, which map do you think everyone would be playing as much as people play Arabia (and not Serengeti etc., which are just very similar to Arabia)?
Jupe: The game would be dead then, only a few guys with Memb would be playing BF.
Villese: Full Random or Nomad.
Who is your favourite and least favourite 1v1 opponent?
Jupe: I like playing against players that stick to the meta so I have more surprise options and also it’s way easier to predict their moves. Also those players always die to my TC rush.
Villese: Favourite opponent is TheMax, even though I sometimes get tilted by his walls and sneaks. Least favourite is Vivi, because I hate facing men at arms and towers every game. Even worse was him picking cumans every game in DE before they got nerfed.
Who is your favourite team mate for a 2v2?
For just playing:
Villese: TheMax, I think we’ve played hundreds of 2v2s together.
Jupe: Rubenstock or TheMax, sometimes Ruben trolls too much and we end up losing so then I hope I would have played with TheMax 11.
Also outside of the game:
Villese: All team Suomi players, especially when we’re preparing new strategies for tournaments.
Jupe: Rubenstock, but honestly all the other Finns would do as well.
Would you live with him/her together in one apartment for a month or a year? With one bedroom or two?
Villese: Why not, two bedrooms though since I like my private space.
Jupe: In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t want to live with any of my irl friends.
How often have you (Suomi players as a full team) personally met outside of tournaments like in China or Manchester?
We just had a LAN party where me, Max and Ruben attended also. Usually the lower level Finns host LAN about 3 times a year.
Never.
In the new expansions (after AoC), what is your favourite new civilisation and unit?
Villese: Ethiopians, Magyar Huszar.
Jupe: Khmer are pretty fun now with the buffs. Arambai.
Make a ranking of the best Finnish players currently based on 1v1 skills.
Villese: TheMax, me, Zuppi, Ruben, Pike, Valas, Jupe, Emalius.
Jupe: ^
How do you evaluate the results of ECL?
Overall I’m quite happy with our performance in ECL. The start was pretty rough but we caught up with some victories, especially both East Asia stages were some of our best tournament results. Towards the end aM started playing stronger and got the second place, but we got lucky and got to the LAN anyway. We could’ve played better in some games, but that could be said for every team.
How long do you think Suomi will stick together (TheMax, Villese, Rubenstock, Zuppi, possibly Pike)? What/who comes then? Valas? Jupe?
We will stick together as long as we enjoy playing together. Some of us are more inactive at times (real life…), but usually we become more active before TG tournaments. At the moment Valas is closest to our level, but maybe Jupe will surprise everyone since he even reached 2k on Voobly.
Did any of you ever receive an offer from TyRanT, Secret or aM?
Jupe: Yes.
Villese: No.
Interesting to know. I guess Suomi nowadays is a very respected team. But it could also be that they think that you would not be as strong in a different team as you are together. There were some tries like dogao in SY or Tim in international teams, but in the end teams are not just about putting the best 1v1 players together.
Which 4-5 players from your country do you think will form the A and B team in the upcoming Nations? Which maps would you like to be included apart from Arabia, Nomad, Islands? Would you prefer the Nations Cup to be on Voobly or on the new Definitive Edition?
Jupe: I have no clue to be honest. Time will tell.
Villese: Finland A team will probably be the same old TheMax, me, Zuppi, Ruben and Pike. I liked the large and diverse map pools of the past Nations Cups, so hopefully it will be similar this time, because unusual maps give room for preparation and upsets. I understand the concerns about DE’s performance and system requirements and making the tournament accessible for everyone. I hope Microsoft can optimize the game for lower-end computers as well so that we can test the new civilizations and balance changes in a team game tournament.
What is your goal for the 2020 Nations Cup? Which teams do you think will reach the top 8? Do you think Italy has a better chance in 3v3 than 4v4?
Jupe: I would be happy being able to play the best that I can, if I will play in the A or B team that’s secondary. Top 8 teams should be Finland, China A+B, Canada, Vietnam, Brazil. After that there are more contenders for top 8.
Villese: Our goal is to win the Nations Cup after Finland got 3rd and 2nd places in the past two editions. My top 8 guess: Finland, China A & B, Brazil A & B, Vietnam, Canada, Norway. I think Italy has a better chance in 3v3 since their 4th player wouldn’t probably be as strong (unless Coccolino makes a comeback, 11). The same is true for many other teams though.
Which 4 players would you like to see forming a team? (can include inactive players)
Villese: Lyx, Straydog, Noboru and Rubenstock for the craziest forward team of all time.
Jupe: Rubenstock, Hurleyfreestyle, TheMax and me for 4x douche.
Did you actually ever have a 3v3 or 4v4 where all members of one team did it?
Me and Ruben once did douche all 4 enemy players with Cumans.
Any new information about DreaIVIs?
No, other than it seems that he has logged into Voobly just recently.
Nili’s Apartment Cup 3: What did you think about it a) when it was announced; b) when you lost the finals; c) when you suddenly were invited anyway and d) during and after participating? Would you share any interesting stories from it?
- The past 2 NACs had been really fun to watch, and I was excited about the announcement. Especially after hearing that MbL, Nicov and Hera wouldn’t participate in the qualifiers, I thought this would probably be my best chance to qualify.
- I was sad because I didn’t feel like I played my best in the final, even more so after the semifinal against dogao, which was one of my best 1v1 tournament performances so far. I had heard about Vivi having some issues with his visa, so I still had a tiny bit of hope of getting into NAC3 even after losing.
- It was quite an unfortunate situation for Vivi, but I was obviously very happy to get invited. I had been in two LAN events before and they’re always special.
- All the people at NAC3 were very nice, I had met most of them in the ECL finals in Manchester. It was great to get to know them better during the ten days in Hamburg. There were a couple new faces as well, and especially Dave was a very fun guy. I really liked the overall relaxed atmosphere, and I enjoyed watching the games with so many top players and casters and hearing their thoughts. The only bad thing I experienced during NAC3 was the flu, I got sick towards the end of the group stage.
I don’t have any interesting stories to share.
At whose apartment would you also like to have an apartment cup?
I would like to see DauT’s Apartment Cup just for fun.
Jupe: Some Finn’s so you could go to the sauna.
What is the funniest moment in your life you experienced because of AoE?
Jupe: At one LAN party little over a year ago I dropped a castle right next to Rubenstock’s TC and Ruben just ran to our room even before the castle was up, 11.
Villese: When Jupe lost 4 villagers to one boar. I was on TS with him, Max and Slaktarnn and I’ve never laughed more than that during an AoE game. Memb was casting, and after the game we watched the clip on his stream. He even made a Youtube video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM476XgFOKA.
Choose:
Chris or DauT?
Villese: DauT
Jupe: DauT
Tim or TheViper?
Villese: TheViper
Jupe: TheViper
Edie or Terror?
Villese: Edie
Jupe: Terror
Metal or DraCoNT?
Villese: Metal
Jupe: Metal
T90 or ZeroEmpires?
Villese: T90
Jupe: T90
Gold miner or hunter?
Villese: Hunter
Jupe: Hunter
Wolf or jaguar?
Villese: Jaguar
Jupe: Wolf
1v1 or 4v4?
Villese: 4v4
Jupe: 4v4
Feudal Age or Imperial Age?
Villese: Imperial Age
Jupe: Imperial Age
Black Forest or Nomad?
Villese: Nomad
Jupe: Black Forest
What would you do to make the world a better place?
Villese: I try to buy only things I really need and recycle whenever possible.
Jupe: Be less selfish.
If you were not in a relationship, and could date anyone, who would it be?
Jupe: No one.
Villese: No one.
Add one more comment or question for me or someone else.
Villese: Thanks for doing these interviews, I’ve read most of them and they’re really good to get familiar with some lesser known players, especially Chinese ones.
Jupe: Have you ever been to a sauna?
I have to disappoint you that I did not really like it, but a) as an adult the experience probably is different and b) in Finland it’s probably different from Denmark/Germany too. So I would not say I will never do it again, although I find it rather boring.
Thank you for doing the interview. Do you have any recommendations for the next people to be interviewed? I already some ideas and Argentina (Maxi+Aramis) and T90 already confirmed to do one, but I am always looking for some interesting and not so well-known players to present.
Villese: Hoang or Kotex, maybe you can get someone to help translating Vietnamese.
Jupe: Slam + Chris would be great but Chris isn’t active anymore.
interview please!
Kamigawa
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lceland 
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