Red Bull Wololo: Legacy - Official Announcement

Announcement​

Are you ready for the most outstanding and prodigious event in the history of Age of Empires? We have teased you enough and are now ready to reveal what we have been brewing behind the scenes. Red Bull Wololo started back in early 2020 and pioneered the use of Empire Wars in major tournaments. The fast-paced, action-packed game mode quickly took off, and we had so many incredible moments spanning through the initial Red Bull Wololo all the way to Red Bull Wololo V in late 2021. As time went on, the events only got bigger and better, and here we are, in 2022, and we are about to blow you away.
To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Age of Empires, we are announcing not one, not two, but three tournaments. You will get to experience the original game that started the entire franchise back in 1997 - the original Age of Empires. You will also get to experience the arguably most influential game in the franchise's history, Age of Empires II - originally released back in 1999. Finally, the newest edition in the franchise, the incredible Age of Empires IV.

Once again, we will go back to Castle Heidelberg in Germany for the offline event spanning from the 21st to the 30th of October. During these days, you will experience the main event of both Age of Empires II and IV as well as the finals of all three events during the last two days - the 29th and 30th of October.

But what exactly is at stake here? Well, we have a total prize of a whopping $550,000.00 distributed among the three games, as shown below.

• Age of Empires I: $50,000.00
• Age of Empires II: $200,000.00
• Age of Empires IV: $300,000.00

---

Invitations & Qualification​

Age of Empires II​

For Age of Empires II, you will see the return of all the previous conquerors. Mr_Yo, the champion of the original Red Bull Wololo. Liereyy, the only champion with two victories under his belt, Red Bull Wololo II and IV. DauT, the champion of Red Bull Wololo III. And finally, TheViper, the champion of Red Bull Wololo V. These players have proven themselves to be fierce warriors and have earned a direct invitation to the main event.

Other players must prove themselves worthy in different events leading up to the main event, as well as the two open qualifiers taking place from the 20th to the 21st of August and the 27th to the 28th of August.
You can already sign up for the open qualifiers here and here.

Age of Empires IV​

For Age of Empires IV, we're looking back to N4C to find our champions, and with that, Beastyqt, the winner of N4C, and Leenock, the runner-up, will already be waiting to meet everyone else that qualifies in Castle Heidelberg.

Other players must prove themselves worthy in tournaments leading up to the main event, as well as an extensive qualification event, Road to Red Bull held by EGC.
Registration and more information regarding this can be found here.

---

I sincerely hope we can make this one of the greatest events ever. I'm aware of the commotion there has been following the release of Age of Empires IV, but remember that we are celebrating the franchise as a whole and the incredible history our beloved games have. We can't wait to share even more details with you soon.

For streamers, broadcasters, content creators and so on - I'm not able to share much information regarding streaming policies as of right now. I'll be sure to provide more information as soon as it becomes available. Feel free to reach out to me on Discord, and I'll take note of your interest for later. I know some people have already reached out regarding this, but please do so again now that the event has been properly announced. You can reach me at Chrazini#5687, thank you.

For additional information, go to redbull.com/wololo.

 

I've got to say, I don't think this is unfair criticism by any means. I've seen plenty of praise for all the parts of the tournament that have gone well, and also fairly tame feedback for the one part that hasn't. I don't think anybody thinks that the production crew did this with any negative intent, but in the end these are decisions being made by someone on the organizer's side that are definitely negatively affecting the viewer experience. Their decision to cram multiple games into the timeframe of one tournament. Their decision to 'make up' for this with a B stream. Their decision to not plan ahead for whatever time constraint was run into today and put a very hyped series on a second, prior unknown B stream and spoil the in progress results on the main stream.

Again, none of this is to say the poor decisions of a few take anything away from the amazing work done by so many. Or that the viewer experience is not as a whole still very enjoyable. But the viewer experience could definitely have been better so far, and especially when we have RBW5 to compare things to, there are definitely valid reasons to be disappointed that the most prestigious, highest prizepool event we have seen feels a bit mishandled / poorly designed.

It's not harsh at all. It's been incredibly sub-par. Two streams, one that gets spoiled with real-time updates. Awful, really. Not to mention the dreadful commentary on B Stream. I didn't even see Capoch beat Daut.

Hopefully the finalists aren't knackered after the semis on Saturday as well.

 

Both Capoch and Viper got into top12 and got 9000 USD from AoE4, pretty good week for them even if result is not top notch.

Im suprised and happy for Mista and Magic, they both played a dead game (AoM) for a decade on voobly and just by reaching top 8 they take much more home then their total winning from AoM, also both got full time jobs so well done

 

Im suprised and happy for Mista and Magic, they both played a dead game (AoM) for a decade on voobly and just by reaching top 8 they take much more home then their total winning from AoM, also both got full time jobs so well done

And RecoN too! AoM/AoE Online pro, full time job, casually making the top 8 after qualifying last to the event.

 

Honestly, the talent pool in the aoe franchiese is just so small.

AOE2:
-Larry spends most of his time playing DOTA but still owns most of the players easily.
-Capoch came back for couple months and managed to qualify for S-tier tourneys.
-Daut switched to poker at some point and still stays in top 10 for so long without practicing much.

AOE4:
-The snek barely plays, yet still won a set and took one game from Lucifron.
-Recon has a job and still managed to get to top 8.
-Mista seeds more farms IRL than in the game.

 

the talent pool in the aoe franchiese is just so small.

Well, yes, while I somehow find it interesting and enjoyable that not all top players are full-time professionals.

 

What? Why? The guy is probably nearing millionaire status, if not there already. What about players like Daut, Villesse, Tatoh etc who commit full time but are probably rubbing pennies together? Crazy take...

1. I don't know if a million dollars is a lot for where viper lives, but a million dollars is barely enough money to buy a house in the city here, not really that well off

And 2, because I want the players I follow to succeed, surely were allowed to have favourites and we're not at the stage where everyone gets an equal participation trophy. If the other players win the money, good on them and great for their fanbase.

 

Honestly, the talent pool in the aoe franchiese is just so small.

AOE2:
-Larry spends most of his time playing DOTA but still owns most of the players easily.
-Capoch came back for couple months and managed to qualify for S-tier tourneys.
-Daut switched to poker at some point and still stays in top 10 for so long without practicing much.

-Mbl reaching top 8 (or 4) in tournaments he doesn't practice for

 

And RecoN too! AoM/AoE Online pro, full time job, casually making the top 8 after qualifying last to the event.

I think he was also 2.1k+ in aoe2

 

According to liquipedia there is 3 hours between start of the Liery/Villese semifinal and start of the Tatoh/Hera one. It is the same period as between the second semi and the final. My question is doesnt it favourite the winner of the first semifinal considering that the second finalist could have not a proper break and be more weared by fatigue in comparison to liery/villese match winner?

 

According to liquipedia there is 3 hours between start of the Liery/Villese semifinal and start of the Tatoh/Hera one. It is the same period as between the second semi and the final. My question is doesnt it favourite the winner of the first semifinal considering that the second finalist could have not a proper break and be more weared by fatigue in comparison to liery/villese match winner?

Yes. Not having to play 2 series in a row gives Larry or Villese an advantage in the finals.

 

Well there will be aoe1 final in between for ~2 hours, so it won't be same time to rest, but there will be some time for everyone, what else you suggest, to stream one set in B channel? 11

 

There is the AoE 1 match between semifinals and finals and also players have five days to rest without tournament games. I don't see real advantages for earlier semifinal. This is not like when the final has been immediately after the second semifinal, so other finalist had no time to rest.

 

According to liquipedia there is 3 hours between start of the Liery/Villese semifinal and start of the Tatoh/Hera one. It is the same period as between the second semi and the final. My question is doesnt it favourite the winner of the first semifinal considering that the second finalist could have not a proper break and be more weared by fatigue in comparison to liery/villese match winner?

Ehhh. They all get a couple of hours of rest. There's not much difference between resting for 3h or 6h between sets. Some players would actually prefer shorter break of the two, because the day isn't so stretched this way. At this point it's more of player preference than actual advantage.

 

Well there will be aoe1 final in between for ~2 hours, so it won't be same time to rest, but there will be some time for everyone, what else you suggest, to stream one set in B channel? 11

one of the rare events where a B channel would actually make some sense

 

Honestly, the talent pool in the aoe franchiese is just so small.

AOE2:
-Larry spends most of his time playing DOTA but still owns most of the players easily.
-Capoch came back for couple months and managed to qualify for S-tier tourneys.
-Daut switched to poker at some point and still stays in top 10 for so long without practicing much.

AOE4:
-The snek barely plays, yet still won a set and took one game from Lucifron.
-Recon has a job and still managed to get to top 8.
-Mista seeds more farms IRL than in the game.

Very interesting point I've thought about myself many times.

Why is that?
Is it because being a "professional" age of empires player, meaning you can make living out of it, is only a very recent thing?
Is this true for other games too?

 

Well, yes, while I somehow find it interesting and enjoyable that not all top players are full-time professionals.

Gives us a glimmer of (false) hope that we can do it too 11

 

And RecoN too! AoM/AoE Online pro, full time job, casually making the top 8 after qualifying last to the event.

And conqueror of hearts

 

Very interesting point I've thought about myself many times.

Why is that?
Is it because being a "professional" age of empires player, meaning you can make living out of it, is only a very recent thing?
Is this true for other games too?

I don't think you can have this discussion without concurrently acknowledging that streaming is a supplemental yet necessary form of income to make it worth it. There is inherent risk in streaming. It's a new phenomenon that could be usurped by another form of broadcast/entertainment/platform. Some pros simply lack the skills, patience, care and/or support network to perform the kind of administrative work it takes to run a good stream.

Lierrey is a perennial top 5 player, but it's obvious that he doesn't particularly enjoy streaming.

Out of professional earnings (tournaments,), only the very top players make enough money to consider it as a career. Given tournaments fluctuate and there is a near-monopoly on TG top prize (AM-GL and a handful of others,) you are left with pursuing a much smaller subset of prize earnings as an individual.

After defeating and competing for streaming audiences with players who have been playing aoe2 since they were in their teens -- comes taxes. Earnings for streaming and winnings are not a sustainable and reliable source of income for most, arguably any outside of the top 8 players -- especially in a developed country.

It's also a short-term career. It is unlikely whether due to life circumstances, age, or injury, players can maintain a high level of play for 20-30 years.

There is also the opportunity cost of forgoing further education, or starting a career that might set a young person back in terms of lifetime wages if they delay too long.

TLDR: The bar and opportunity cost is enormously too high for most, the career risky and susceptible to platform changes (platform encroachment on earnings/more ads,) and global economic disruption (disposable income given to streamers.)

It's an ideal risk for someone like Hera who can always go back to school when they grow tired of streaming/gaming -- but those are extremely unique cases.

For most it will remain both a hobby and/or source of supplemental income.

 

Very interesting point I've thought about myself many times.

Why is that?
Is it because being a "professional" age of empires player, meaning you can make living out of it, is only a very recent thing?
Is this true for other games too?

Depends on the scene really. Talking purely from my own experience:

Heavily centralized and publisher-oriented scenes tend to have a bare minimum salary. Valorant and Overwatch both have official leagues/tournament circuits. The teams involved in those have to show that they are paying their players a living wage.

In the case of the Overwatch League, it's because all the teams signed a league agreement when it was founded. As for Valorant, it's because any team that does not is unlikely to be partnered.

For smaller grassroots scenes (like in Fighting Games), you tend to have a lot more of a self-made culture. Players go out of their way to build up their channels (both Twitch and youtube) and offer coaching on sites like Metafy.

These revenue streams diversify their income enough to make it "safe" for them to continue competing. Eventually, when they are large enough, they will get invited to events, which lowers their expenses and, in some cases, adds a small "guaranteed" paycheck to go to events.

Say, for example, the viper was paid $500 just to show up at a LAN event in North America to compete in an open bracket with hotel/travel paid. He is being paid to be there and compete in the event.

I think, in theory, AoE (2 or 4) could sustain maybe the top 10 players of their scenes. One thing i do not know at all about the scene is how often players advertise themselves to potential teams.

For example, last year, when DeMusliM was picked up by TL, that only happened because he called them to ask if they wanted an aoe4 player. Sometimes it only takes going out and asking teams if they want a foot in the door for them to strike a deal and see at least some sponsorships come down. Things like Hello Fresh, PowerA, etc paid just about anyone with a pulse but are more likely to give the money to a team first for them to spread among many creators.

As I said, idk if players already do this on a regular basis, but if not, do it. Make a short reel of your best games (casted games in major events are great), put it up on youtube, and start sending DMs to teams on Twitter about being a player for them.

Is it embarrassing to shill out like that? yes, 100% it sucks in the moment. But it is worth it if you get like a part-time job out of just what you do already + maybe 1-2 promo tweets/videos/streams. If teams don't know they are available for pick up, then they never will think of picking them up.

 

Very interesting point I've thought about myself many times.

Why is that?
Is it because being a "professional" age of empires player, meaning you can make living out of it, is only a very recent thing?
Is this true for other games too?

It’s partially true for chess actually, which is the other game I know stories of to a certain depth.


Paul Morphy - “Unofficial World Champion”

Basically there’s an old story which dates back to the 1850s where he traveled from the US to EU to beat two of the best players. He caught influenza on the way to one of them, was treated with leeches, lost a lot of blood and was weak from treatment, still played one of Europe’s best and won like it wasn’t even close. An interesting fact about him was he only had like a 2 or 3 year chess journey I believe, the only reason for him playing that briefly was because he was too young to practice law then, so he played chess during that time. He wanted to be a lawyer as his father was a Supreme Court judge, guess he was following in his footsteps. Never returned to chess afterwards.


Mikhail Tal - World Champion

This is taking place in like the 1950s and 1960s. He’s famous for a lot of things, but there were two of them that are quite unique imo: bad health and supposedly he didn’t study a whole lot. He had around 10 or 12 surgeries in his life, was in pain a lot/withdrawing from tournaments. I thought there was one where he had his kidney removed and was still beating people (GMs). He drank and smoked a lot, one theorized it was a way of dulling the pain he went through regularly. Still became world champ despite that stuff.


Jose Capablanca - World Champion and nicknamed human chess machine

His story is in the early 1900s. I believe he was one of the first to be called the Mozart of chess (Magnus has also been called this). There’s quite a lot of things surrounding him. Supposedly he barely studied chess at some point if at all, much like Paul Morphy and Tal (just really a lot less “mythically”), and still beat pretty much everyone. There was a time when he didn’t lose a single game for 8 years and he didn’t exactly play beginners (seriously? without studying?). That’s more legends though so I don’t know how true they are when I first read them when I came to chess 6 years ago or so. Because then I heard a modern GM talking about Capablanca and how he believed the legends surrounding his lack of study and being like #1 as a result were “greatly exaggerated”. Then there’s Hikaru who was taking about him one stream and said like “It’s obvious Capablanca worked very hard on his chess.” Don’t know if that means even Capablanca had his big grinds like anyone else until he attained his level (where he didn’t study afterwards), or Hikaru also calls it shenanigans. Guess it’s up to a person to form their conclusions.


Emanuel Lasker - World Champion for 27 years (longest in history), also mathematician

He also takes place shortly before/around Jose Capablanca (who won world champ title from him). There’s far too many interesting tales about him and one of the most interesting people I’ve ever read about. PhD in mathematics, supposedly very educated in philosophy where he could have a second PhD, deep knowledge of psychology, friend of Albert Einstein, and supposedly only studied chess in his free time. Really with that last one and became world champion and held the title for the longest in history? He actually talked about it too, how he did it, saying he learned how to forget useless things and only remembered what’s useful and that everyone should learn how to do that. Then along with it, he said what he mostly remembered were “methods”, saying something like “methods are plastic and can be shaped to fit any situation.” Quite a thing to say from him. Also some other interesting facts about him were he contributed stuff to the math field. There’s even a really old legend I came across that he first wrote the theory of relativity but Einstein disproved what he wrote. As for how true that is, I dunno.


After those 4, what’s interesting is I never came across stories like that ever again in chess where it wasn’t truly a main focus (living, eating, breathing chess etc). There are opposites however, like one Alexander Alekhine (world champ during Jose Capablanca’s time) that studied chess 12 hours a day even Sundays. Or Garry Kasparov (world champ) who was renowned for his hard work, studying one particular correspondence game for 100 hours for instance (yes, one game was analyzed for that long, before chess computers though I believe or the start).

Don’t know about other games, but comparatively to aoe, I begin to wonder if it has to do with the state of the game and why that type of thing is absent now too (now it’s just about 10-12 year olds being GMs). A lot of those players I mentioned are from the very early 20th century (excluding Morphy from the mid 19th). Compare that to aoe, look at whose mentioned. Daut, and Capoch for example, very old names. From/during a time when the game was embryonic, to infantile, adolescent, to now which it could be considered adulthood unless 50 new dlcs and 9001 new civs are added. Viper too is something of an old timer almost, first hitting 2400 in 2010 if I’m not mistaken, so he’s been around as well.

Not just that though, there’s names missing from that list Hongeykong has for AoE2 I recall stories of. Grunt for one who could be called the past Liereyy. Hopped from game to game, being #1 or top 3 in them, doesn’t play aoe2, comes back tourney time and takes 1st place or is somewhere in top 3.

Then there’s Chris also. There was a time he studied chemical engineering and barely played the game. Occasionally, you’d see him play and only one who could win a set vs rusty Chris was Daut, or you saw this random name in lobby that was 2k who would lose one game, you’d never see that name again, then another would pop up within a month with 0 losses. So it’s been there even in the past, but dunno if there’s some correlation there between the state of when a game was young vs old. Maybe because the players during the young state thought far more about things and something permanently changed in their minds vs when a game in an old state and it’s just about “knowing” vs less imagination or thinking to that degree.

I dunnot tbh, maybe someone else could weigh in there but found this interesting when I thought about it. Think I’ve rambled on enough actually 11. I barely know anything about music Masmorra (could be considered nothing), but I know that field had Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and dunno who else except those super famous names. But there’s never been another like that “talent”, has there? (Or has there?) Just like there’s never been another Leonardo Da Vinci or Michael Angelo of the art world I believe. Wonder if there’s some kind relationship there when it comes to the state of things and a certain early time period.

 

Very interesting point I've thought about myself many times.

Why is that?
Is it because being a "professional" age of empires player, meaning you can make living out of it, is only a very recent thing?
Is this true for other games too?

Well my take on this is that aoe2 is really a nice mix between strategy, knowledge and speed. It isn't one of super fast games, I didn't play competitive starcraft, but would imagine it being kind of like you need a nice build order and great speed, else you can die within few minutes. In aoe2 it doesn't really work, you can be fastest player and still be bad, I mean speed always is an advantage, but pure speed is way less important in aoe2. Also I feel like ceiling for aoe2 has been pushed a lot during those 20 years, feel like currently top players mainly just adapt to new civs, their strats/build orders than actually improving their gameplay(like speed, micro etc).

For example let's pick Viper, he played aoe4 for a lot this year, then he took like 2 months or something to get back to his previous shape, yes he learned to play with new civs and so on, but did he really improve his gameplay from what he had before aoe4? And if top players do no improve or improve very little, then people like Liereyy can train some and get back into his previous shape and still beat/compete with best.

I would say looking into Villese, who was not streaming and I imagine practicing almost everyday, it really was visible he just improved his gameplay to anotehr level pretty much everywhere. Yes maybe Yo was not in best shape and didn't adapt as good for live event, but Villese in all his sets seemed like a beast and in 20min+ we will see how he will do against Liereyy.

Another player who kept improving was Vinchester. I mean many players improving, like look at Kingstone and Sebastian who appeared out of nowhere to most of viewers who didn't know them before or knew very little.

But my main idea is that people like Daut/Jordan do not get better or get better very little even if they play a lot by now, because they played this game in top level for decade or two. So for them being in shape and preparing strats/draft maybe is more important than trying to improve gameplay a little, although is just my opinion of course. But this basically would explain why MBL spaming tons of games and being in shape can compete with them, I mean he had a break before rbw, but played some and for such caliber players it seems being in shape is what matters most, because your friends can help you with draft for example. I don't know if that happens a lot, but they have team mates there, so if you come in a good shape and get decent civs all is possible. If you are in a good shape is quite easy to adapt some strats for top players even during tournament.

P.S. ofc fact that aoe2 is not really a mainstream game where competition is huge is a big factor in all of this, bigger competition would push limits of the game/players bit faster.

Although I'm quite hyped, so far Villese really impressed me with his gameplay in RBW, add Vinch to it and I think very soon there won't be clear top4 anymore.

 

...

Just wanted to say, what a fascinating and insightful post! thank you!

 

Well that was anti-climatic.... Hope Hera doesn't do the same to Tatoh.

 

Well that was anti-climatic.... Hope Hera doesn't do the same to Tatoh.

Well Liereyy played really well, but those strats with FC full wall felt really difficult to stop, especially adding few feudal troops. I guess could make tower faster with hindustanis, but that power spike with xbow seems super difficult. Then with Lithuanians Fc, takes 5 relics, so it makes easy to get redemtion/make more monks and have +4 free attack on knights, so camels won't even do well, not to mention you can't get with camels anywhere because of monks. Also that first game kind of showed we need faster swordsmen, they just got smacked by skirms all the time. In theory swordsmen seemed really good strat against skirm/EW, but it got just kited back all the time and did so terrible compared to knights.

Is just bit a disapointment, expected so much more from this series and felt not like Villese played bad, just Liereyy's strats didn't even give him a chance, like all games were over early castle age and Liereyy got to castle age in min 6 in last 2 games. Now curious how someone else will try to counter this, as it felt almost uncounterable.

 

Lierrey..........wow

We were alll doubting the Kid and his form 11.
Brutal domination