Hi all. I come from a Starcraft/Dota background. I'm quite updated about the Dota 2 scene, while I used to keep in touch with Brood War when the Koreans were still playing it competitively. So I consider myself quite familiar with esports in general. Just a few hours ago, I suddenly thought about AOE2. I remember playing AOE2 more than 10 years ago (I was total crap). So I decided to look up on AOE2 to see if there was a community, and here I am. I started looking through random videos/commentaries about AOE2, and I got quite intrigued by it. So I just want to know a little more about the community and the game itself. Please bare in mind that I am absolutely clueless about the mechanics/details of this game.
1. I know that TheViper is one of the pros in the scene. I read from the "Best AoC players' thread that he is the son of _PkZ_. Well it's obviously interesting that both father and son are prominent figures in the community, so may I ask who is _PkZ_? Was he a competitive/top player as well?
2. How are competitive games like? For example in Starcraft, most competitions are 1v1 on competitive maps. Each player tend to play only 1 race (Terran/Protoss/Zerg). Even in clan league games, it's still 1v1. As for Dota, competitive games are mostly in Captain's Mode, and each of the 5 players usually have a general role in the team (Carry, Support, Solo Mid etc).
So how would you describe the equivalent for AOE2? I see that there are discussions for Death Match and Random Map. I saw on youtube several 3v3 or 4v4 games. I also saw naval battles and nomad. AOE2 have many civilisations too. How does all these come into play in the competitive scene?
3. Speaking of civilisations, are there overpowered/underpowered civilisations? Are there terribly uneven match ups? Do players master specifically a civilisation, or are they expected to play any.
4. There are several LAN tournaments for popular esports games like LoL, SC2, and Dota. The fighting game scene also have LAN tournaments such as EVO. Does AOE2 have such tournaments as well?
Personally because of the relatively small scene, I doubt many LAN tournaments exist. So I presume many tournaments are online based. Is latency very common/problematic for AOE2?
5. What is the average game length for AOE2?
6. How varied and viable are the strategies/builds? In Starcraft, you could either cheese or go for a greedy macro route. There's many different tech which you could go for which are all valid (albeit some more common/standard than others). In Dota, there's so many heroes to form a team of 5, which in turn means a lot of different strategies. You could generically classify them as pushing/turtle/ganking strategies, although that would be to simple to describe as such. For AOE2, are there cheesy rush tactics or unconventional builds etc?
7. Where is the draw or excitement in AOE2? Forgive me for being blunt but after watching several videos, I could not see how the game is exciting. Of course it could be that I do not understand how the game works. It appears to me that the game always start very slowly. It is first managing your economy while slowly progressing to Castle Age to build Knights. Big fights or skirmishes do not happen early, and players are mainly concentrating on the economy rather than units. The game feels way too slow for me :\ I pretty much watched mainly for nostalgia.
8. What is the most exciting things you can describe in watching AOE2? For example in Brood War, you could see crazy Shuttle Reaver micro, or you could see mass Psi Storms. For Dota 2, players could get kills by microing neutral creeps to bodyblock the enemy's movements, or using fog of war or jukes to escape/get return kills.
9. One thing I remember about Market is that you could even trade with the enemy, and you get more gold for this. Do players actually do it in 1v1 games?
Well I appreciate any help in understanding the game/community. I apologise if I offended anybody. Have a good day
1. I know that TheViper is one of the pros in the scene. I read from the "Best AoC players' thread that he is the son of _PkZ_. Well it's obviously interesting that both father and son are prominent figures in the community, so may I ask who is _PkZ_? Was he a competitive/top player as well?
2. How are competitive games like? For example in Starcraft, most competitions are 1v1 on competitive maps. Each player tend to play only 1 race (Terran/Protoss/Zerg). Even in clan league games, it's still 1v1. As for Dota, competitive games are mostly in Captain's Mode, and each of the 5 players usually have a general role in the team (Carry, Support, Solo Mid etc).
So how would you describe the equivalent for AOE2? I see that there are discussions for Death Match and Random Map. I saw on youtube several 3v3 or 4v4 games. I also saw naval battles and nomad. AOE2 have many civilisations too. How does all these come into play in the competitive scene?
3. Speaking of civilisations, are there overpowered/underpowered civilisations? Are there terribly uneven match ups? Do players master specifically a civilisation, or are they expected to play any.
4. There are several LAN tournaments for popular esports games like LoL, SC2, and Dota. The fighting game scene also have LAN tournaments such as EVO. Does AOE2 have such tournaments as well?
Personally because of the relatively small scene, I doubt many LAN tournaments exist. So I presume many tournaments are online based. Is latency very common/problematic for AOE2?
5. What is the average game length for AOE2?
6. How varied and viable are the strategies/builds? In Starcraft, you could either cheese or go for a greedy macro route. There's many different tech which you could go for which are all valid (albeit some more common/standard than others). In Dota, there's so many heroes to form a team of 5, which in turn means a lot of different strategies. You could generically classify them as pushing/turtle/ganking strategies, although that would be to simple to describe as such. For AOE2, are there cheesy rush tactics or unconventional builds etc?
7. Where is the draw or excitement in AOE2? Forgive me for being blunt but after watching several videos, I could not see how the game is exciting. Of course it could be that I do not understand how the game works. It appears to me that the game always start very slowly. It is first managing your economy while slowly progressing to Castle Age to build Knights. Big fights or skirmishes do not happen early, and players are mainly concentrating on the economy rather than units. The game feels way too slow for me :\ I pretty much watched mainly for nostalgia.
8. What is the most exciting things you can describe in watching AOE2? For example in Brood War, you could see crazy Shuttle Reaver micro, or you could see mass Psi Storms. For Dota 2, players could get kills by microing neutral creeps to bodyblock the enemy's movements, or using fog of war or jukes to escape/get return kills.
9. One thing I remember about Market is that you could even trade with the enemy, and you get more gold for this. Do players actually do it in 1v1 games?
Well I appreciate any help in understanding the game/community. I apologise if I offended anybody. Have a good day