Who made the decision so you can force civ pick and not force random civ?

[Lokalo]

If that was the case then low elo games would turn out like higher elo games but slower.
What you actually see in low elo is wild swings, massive vill differences, huge overreactions, inconsistencies in peoples play and stomps because these things snowball.

Not sure if I should reply to you seriously, as you seem just like a troll. Although here is my last msg for you, as you didn't say anything smart again, just trying to push your agenda which objects the stats. Yes, in low elo games swing tons by mistakes, even in pro games sometimes games swing a lot. The higher elo you go less mistakes people do sure. But that doesn't mean civ bonuses are not important. Although I would leave 500 elo alone, thought you said you are around 1850, didn't you? So check at least an average player which is at ~1k and most civs have very similar win rates which says the story. You can float res, can be slow, but if you don't need houses or don't have knights or get some upgrades for free as with franks/burmese often can mean even more in lower elo. Sure as lower elo you go the more games are decided by big mistakes, but with certain civs(which they know what to go for final composition etc) they are still more likely to win.

There are many bonuses where you don't need to do anything specific to get benefits. Like any 1000+ elo will get way more res just because being vikings and having free hand cart and in most games will reach imp faster than with other archer civs and in lower elo often people panic even more, so faster imp can be even more beneficial. So again there are tons of mistakes why they losing, but civ still impacts their game quite a lot.

 

[Zbyszek]

The higher elo you go less mistakes people do sure. But that doesn't mean civ bonuses are not important.

It definetely means that civ bonuses are less important.

So check at least an average player which is at ~1k and most civs have very similar win rates which says the story.

At <1000 elo the biggest gap is 53,09% to 46,13% = 6,96% (Franks/Chinese)
At >1650 elo the biggest gap is 56,18% to 44,04% = 12,14% (Mayans/Malay)

aoestats - Age of Empires II Civilization Statistics

aoestats aggregates the latest ranked matches for Age of Empires II DE and provides indepth data and statistics on a civilization basis; stats include: win rate, play rate, win rate vs. game length, and more!

aoestats.io

Doesnt that support my point?

And I agree that if you play the same strategy over and over again you will climb faster in elo but that doesnt make you understand the game better. I assume its more enjoyable to win some more games and gain 50 elo but thats pretty short lived. Claiming that it is more fun because you quickly get a more in dept undertanding of the game doesnt feel very honest to me. And it is rather nonsensical for a ~1000 elo player to memorise specific matchups.
In aoe the civs are so similar that fast castle 3 TC, men at arms, archers and mostly scouts/knights (except meso) can be played with any civ.

So you can have the opinion that pick civ is more desirable. That annoys me because I dont like to play against the same civs and strats over and over again. But it is fine.
However the argument that a new player cant figure out the game without picking the civ doesnt have much weight when all the civ share like 50% of the techtree/units and 90% of the buildings with each other.

 

[The_Philos]

Doesnt that support my point?

Simply said, no. And btw the data you are refering to hasn't been updated for over a year. Even if we consider this data, it is incomplete without considering the playrate.
Considering your example: Chinese is a good example to point out that at lower elos the 6 villager start has its downside, since the start is difficult to handle properly. Civ bonuses play a role at lower elos aswell, but in a different way. They are less of a factor but not a non-factor, hence the winrates and the dominance of knight civs.
The point of being able to civ pick is simply, that you allow an easier start for new players and every player can try to learn Civs one at a time, if they wish so. Going random every game is more difficult, since there are simply Civs (like Chinese), which have to be played different from the start or are limited in their options starting in castle age or even in feudal (Mesos). I agree though that we have many Civs that can play out exactly the same.
I don't know why your sentiment is "playing more Civs"--> "knowing the game better". It's simply not true. You are actually contradicting your point by saying that many Civs play out the same. So a person actually can learn the game by playing only one Civ, since there is not much of a difference anyway.
The downside of picking Civ is only that it annoys some players to play against stronger Civs and I would just say, that's the lesser of two evils. And in my experience at higher elos civ picking is not that big of an issue anyways (not including TGs).

 

[Giggling Gbeto]

It definetely means that civ bonuses are less important.

At <1000 elo the biggest gap is 53,09% to 46,13% = 6,96% (Franks/Chinese)
At >1650 elo the biggest gap is 56,18% to 44,04% = 12,14% (Mayans/Malay)

aoestats - Age of Empires II Civilization Statistics

aoestats aggregates the latest ranked matches for Age of Empires II DE and provides indepth data and statistics on a civilization basis; stats include: win rate, play rate, win rate vs. game length, and more!

aoestats.io

Doesnt that support my point?

And I agree that if you play the same strategy over and over again you will climb faster in elo but that doesnt make you understand the game better. I assume its more enjoyable to win some more games and gain 50 elo but thats pretty short lived.

It doesn't support your point since you're acting like civs don't matter at low Elo at all. It just shows that civs matter less at low Elo, which I don't deny. Btw Frank's at 1000-1250 Elo have a 63% winrate against Sicilians. Seems like the civ matters a lot here.

Also disagree about learning the game better when playing random. When I play a different civ, different eco bonus, different military bonus, different units every game, there is almost no learning effect. I find myself in situations that I don't recognize, no Idea what went good or bad, and can't even try to do the same thing better next game. Also I just might have won or lost because my opponent had a good or bad game. It's just too much to much variation to draw conclusions.

Playing the same civ for a while, I can develop my feeling for the eco balance for a certain unit, get some experience when it's worth to go for my unique unit or for which siege unit helps the most in which situation. Hard to get statistics for that when your options are different every game. Don't forget that even then you face a different opponents civ each game, which already adds variation.

After learning that for one civ, it becomes easier for me to recognize and appreciate the strengths of other civs because then I really notice the difference.

 

[kalpit00]

It doesn't support your point since you're acting like civs don't matter at low Elo at all. It just shows that civs matter less at low Elo, which I don't deny. Btw Frank's at 1000-1250 Elo have a 63% winrate against Sicilians. Seems like the civ matters a lot here.

Funny I had this exact matchup yesterday. Now I am a rusty player and my peak is 1800 and I was playing some 15xx guy. I was Franks. I won this game in feudal age with pure decision making. I was up 1 vil faster, and frank more hp on sc meaning I was at his base with 3 sc + 2 spear. This forced him to overmake scouts (he just made 5 scouts all feudal age). You know the result? Both of us fully walled behind, I made 2 less scouts, focused more on macro - earlier farms smoother economy due to franks and clicked castle only one min faster. Come castle age, I insta made a 2nd tc and a monastry, and sent the first kts to his base in 3 different spots, I was able to break in somewhere. then I used Stand ground on my kts (neat little trick here) and just dived more vils. I lost all my kts but killed a lot of vils. I immediately made 2 more barracks, added a 3rd tc on stone. He tried to raid but I already had pikes prepared, 3 monks picking up relics and ready for defense, the game was pretty much over at this point.

Now I checked the replay and he was at 34 vils to my 50 after i broke in with kts. You see this is the elo where civs really matter. I was able to get that 1 min faster castle age because I was franks and made only 3 scouts, while forcing him to make 5. (Sure he could have gone for a different strategy, if I was him I would definitely add archers or towers to break in, he had to punish my greed - that's where experience comes in)

But if you compare this at <1200 elo, civs absolutely do not matter. It honestly all depends on which player put the walls down, and made farms in time. It don't matter if you are franks and kill 3 vils because he didn't make quick walls or spears. If he made 16 farms while you were only on 8 and didn't macro well enough, the sicilians player would reach castle faster and the game would be completely different, poor macro would result in you being 3 or even more mins later to castle age, and those 3 vils you killed means nothing (also both players will have inconsistent idle time, just the way it is for lower elos)

I am not trying to be mean or rude to you, but if you are trying to improve at that level, focus more on macro and game theory, keeping your vils pumping, walling and farming, not on civ bonuses or how different civ plays out. That stuff comes later once you have played 500+ games

 

[Giggling Gbeto]

I am not trying to be mean or rude to you, but if you are trying to improve at that level, focus more on macro and game theory, keeping your vils pumping, walling and farming, not on civ bonuses or how different civ plays out. That stuff comes later once you have played 500+ games

What you're writing here is in agreement with my initial point. Playing random is overwhelming as beginner because every civ plays out different. That's why for me it's easier to get a feeling of the game by picking a few civs.

Then again, you say that civs don't matter at all at <1200 elo after I gave the example of Franks having a 63% winrate against Sicilians. I don't see how your personal opinion after playing exactly that matchup could overrule the stats.

 

[kalpit00]

What you're writing here is in agreement with my initial point. Playing random is overwhelming as beginner because every civ plays out different. That's why for me it's easier to get a feeling of the game by picking a few civs.

Then again, you say that civs don't matter at all at <1200 elo after I gave the example of Franks having a 63% winrate against Sicilians. I don't see how your personal opinion after playing exactly that matchup could overrule the stats.

My bad. Yes my personal opinion doesn't comply with the stats because at that level, stats mean nothing. That does not exemplify what actually happened in the games. You see, yes Franks won Sicilians 63% of times, but at that level its mostly because both players are making tons and tons of mistakes which aren't related to the civs at all. For example, you don't see a 1600 player idling his tc and floating 500 wood not making farms while he is busying microing some feudal units in opponents base. But that happens at <1200 level. This would be such a game losing moment if a 1600's macro suffered like this vs another 1600 player. Because that wood floating snowballs into a later castle age time and a definite loss (You saw my example where even with almost no idle time, having Franks vs Sicilians I was able to get a 1 min faster castle age time, due to the civ bonuses, not lack in macro mechanics)

At <1200 level, civ bonuses don't matter because it is expected for both players to have some idle time. What I am trying to emphasize is try to focus on minimizing that. I guarantee you, if you are a genuinely new player at this game (aka not a smurf), you will be bound to have some idle time, macro slip ups etc. Watch your recorded games and you will find it. So try to work on having almost no idle time and then see how the game pans out for you.

To reference your initial stat, I say its hugely inflated because Franks and Britons are such popular and frequent picks on lower elos. Nobody at 1600 or higher rates franks and britons as high, I would pick Hindus or even Gurjaras and wreck both those civs simply due to counter units and economies. 63% winrate from franks vs sicilians but 99% of those games both players will have sub-optimal macros and the games usually won by franks because the other guy does not know how to stop all in knights. With proper macro and economy transition, he could simply make monks pikes and the 1200 frank picker loses because his own macro was limited in that he does not know what to transition into next

 

[kalpit00]

What you're writing here is in agreement with my initial point. Playing random is overwhelming as beginner because every civ plays out different. That's why for me it's easier to get a feeling of the game by picking a few civs.

Also I realize I did not mention about the original OP's post, about the argument between random and forced civ picking. Yes I can understand as a newcomer, random civs can be very difficult as every civ is different and with different bonuses and units. My advice in that regards would be to not emphasize on the economic bonuses, rather try to play similar civs or do similar strat with different civs. Most games you can win at <1200 level just by making kts, so don't only pick franks but pick every other cav civ and you will get variety. In fact, if you play 100+ games and play either knights/camels or xbows/skirms, you will pretty much be ok with going random civs as those are the 2 key types of units which people play on arabia. Its all ranged or cavalry. The openings are usually MAA or scouts followed with archery ranges. Skip the Unique Units for later, once you get comfy with playing the standard units, then you can try UUs and learn from your losses with them

 

[Snizl]

i dont understand why this is even a discussion. There are so many ways the Civ influences your play at any level and so many reasons over 40 civs get overwhelming for someone.
Lets say you are at about 1300 elo game 1: You get Ethiopians. You go m@a archers, mass archers, defend in castle age against knights with your free pike upgrade and win with imp Powerspike.
Game 2: You get Japanese. You suddenly realize that its much harder to afford your pikes, you lose because knights overwhelmed you.
Game 3: you get franks, you are forced into m@a archers into knights. Because you know your archers suck in imp.
Game 4: you get celts. None of your powerunits work and you have no idea how to play them.
Game 5: you get celts again and are getting frustrated because you just want to play your sweet little archers.
Game 6: You get goths and just resign and quit for the day because you cant be bothered with this ****.

Next day you start by randoming into hindustanis. You are already frustrated, but luckily you play vs an inexerienced Franks player and your camels shred them.

In game 8 you play against the franks again, this time as the Persians. Somehow you cant afford nearly as many camels and they dont do nearly as well. You die, not being sure what went wrong.

Game 9: Malians, you finally get an archer civ. You play your standard m@a archer build, get good damage in castle age and hit imp early. You tech arbalest and realize that you dont get bracer. ffs.

Game 10 : Malay. You check the tech tree, see excitedly that you get full archer upgrades. You arrive in feudal with a super good time, but realize that your m@a arent built yet, nor can you afford a range or any upgrades. You feel extremely crippled but the game keeps going until imp. The opponent has lots of skirmishers and you want to counter them with light cav. You realize you dont even get the second armor upgrade and your lightcavs die against skirmishers. You think for your next game you have to try to counter them with onagers, but tough luck.

your next game is as the huns, you lose 10 seconds trying to build houses at the start. It doesnt matter, but already frustrates you. Your cav archers get countered by skirms, so on your way to imp you build a couple siege workshops and queue mangonels, but you find out you dont get the onager tech.

The next time you random into malay is two months later and you completely forgot about the lack of cav armor. You feel like you will never understand this game. Every civ feels generic, bonuses like 50% cheaper ressource camps, just lead to you floating wood, faster gathering sheep or hunt just mean you have idle villagers under your tc much earlier, but at the same time every civ feels like they always lack that crucial upgrade that you would need in your game. You get frustrated, when you random into bengalis, celts or goths and never know what to do with them so you just stop playing this clusterfuck or a game all together.

 

[KolyaKrasotkin]

i dont understand why this is even a discussion. There are so many ways the Civ influences your play at any level and so many reasons over 40 civs get overwhelming for someone.
Lets say you are at about 1300 elo game 1: You get Ethiopians. You go m@a archers, mass archers, defend in castle age against knights with your free pike upgrade and win with imp Powerspike.
Game 2: You get Japanese. You suddenly realize that its much harder to afford your pikes, you lose because knights overwhelmed you.
Game 3: you get franks, you are forced into m@a archers into knights. Because you know your archers suck in imp.
Game 4: you get celts. None of your powerunits work and you have no idea how to play them.
Game 5: you get celts again and are getting frustrated because you just want to play your sweet little archers.
Game 6: You get goths and just resign and quit for the day because you cant be bothered with this ****.

Next day you start by randoming into hindustanis. You are already frustrated, but luckily you play vs an inexerienced Franks player and your camels shred them.

In game 8 you play against the franks again, this time as the Persians. Somehow you cant afford nearly as many camels and they dont do nearly as well. You die, not being sure what went wrong.

Game 9: Malians, you finally get an archer civ. You play your standard m@a archer build, get good damage in castle age and hit imp early. You tech arbalest and realize that you dont get bracer. ffs.

Game 10 : Malay. You check the tech tree, see excitedly that you get full archer upgrades. You arrive in feudal with a super good time, but realize that your m@a arent built yet, nor can you afford a range or any upgrades. You feel extremely crippled but the game keeps going until imp. The opponent has lots of skirmishers and you want to counter them with light cav. You realize you dont even get the second armor upgrade and your lightcavs die against skirmishers. You think for your next game you have to try to counter them with onagers, but tough luck.

your next game is as the huns, you lose 10 seconds trying to build houses at the start. It doesnt matter, but already frustrates you. Your cav archers get countered by skirms, so on your way to imp you build a couple siege workshops and queue mangonels, but you find out you dont get the onager tech.

The next time you random into malay is two months later and you completely forgot about the lack of cav armor. You feel like you will never understand this game. Every civ feels generic, bonuses like 50% cheaper ressource camps, just lead to you floating wood, faster gathering sheep or hunt just mean you have idle villagers under your tc much earlier, but at the same time every civ feels like they always lack that crucial upgrade that you would need in your game. You get frustrated, when you random into bengalis, celts or goths and never know what to do with them so you just stop playing this clusterfuck or a game all together.

Man, that is the best short story I've read in a long time.
Simply cut out from life itself.

 

[Giggling Gbeto]

i dont understand why this is even a discussion. There are so many ways the Civ influences your play at any level and so many reasons over 40 civs get overwhelming for someone.
Lets say you are at about 1300 elo game 1: You get Ethiopians. You go m@a archers, mass archers, defend in castle age against knights with your free pike upgrade and win with imp Powerspike.
Game 2: You get Japanese. You suddenly realize that its much harder to afford your pikes, you lose because knights overwhelmed you.
Game 3: you get franks, you are forced into m@a archers into knights. Because you know your archers suck in imp.
Game 4: you get celts. None of your powerunits work and you have no idea how to play them.
Game 5: you get celts again and are getting frustrated because you just want to play your sweet little archers.
Game 6: You get goths and just resign and quit for the day because you cant be bothered with this ****.

Next day you start by randoming into hindustanis. You are already frustrated, but luckily you play vs an inexerienced Franks player and your camels shred them.

In game 8 you play against the franks again, this time as the Persians. Somehow you cant afford nearly as many camels and they dont do nearly as well. You die, not being sure what went wrong.

Game 9: Malians, you finally get an archer civ. You play your standard m@a archer build, get good damage in castle age and hit imp early. You tech arbalest and realize that you dont get bracer. ffs.

Game 10 : Malay. You check the tech tree, see excitedly that you get full archer upgrades. You arrive in feudal with a super good time, but realize that your m@a arent built yet, nor can you afford a range or any upgrades. You feel extremely crippled but the game keeps going until imp. The opponent has lots of skirmishers and you want to counter them with light cav. You realize you dont even get the second armor upgrade and your lightcavs die against skirmishers. You think for your next game you have to try to counter them with onagers, but tough luck.

your next game is as the huns, you lose 10 seconds trying to build houses at the start. It doesnt matter, but already frustrates you. Your cav archers get countered by skirms, so on your way to imp you build a couple siege workshops and queue mangonels, but you find out you dont get the onager tech.

The next time you random into malay is two months later and you completely forgot about the lack of cav armor. You feel like you will never understand this game. Every civ feels generic, bonuses like 50% cheaper ressource camps, just lead to you floating wood, faster gathering sheep or hunt just mean you have idle villagers under your tc much earlier, but at the same time every civ feels like they always lack that crucial upgrade that you would need in your game. You get frustrated, when you random into bengalis, celts or goths and never know what to do with them so you just stop playing this clusterfuck or a game all together.

This post should make it clear for everyone, thanks! That's pretty much me before I started picking civs :F

 

[kalpit00]

This post should make it clear for everyone, thanks! That's pretty much me before I started picking civs :F

I am fairly sure that was sarcasm but that really sums up the feelings for a newcomer I guess

 

[Giggling Gbeto]

i dont understand why this is even a discussion. There are so many ways the Civ influences your play at any level and so many reasons over 40 civs get overwhelming for someone.
Lets say you are at about 1300 elo game 1: You get Ethiopians. You go m@a archers, mass archers, defend in castle age against knights with your free pike upgrade and win with imp Powerspike.
Game 2: You get Japanese. You suddenly realize that its much harder to afford your pikes, you lose because knights overwhelmed you.
Game 3: you get franks, you are forced into m@a archers into knights. Because you know your archers suck in imp.
Game 4: you get celts. None of your powerunits work and you have no idea how to play them.
Game 5: you get celts again and are getting frustrated because you just want to play your sweet little archers.
Game 6: You get goths and just resign and quit for the day because you cant be bothered with this ****.

Next day you start by randoming into hindustanis. You are already frustrated, but luckily you play vs an inexerienced Franks player and your camels shred them.

In game 8 you play against the franks again, this time as the Persians. Somehow you cant afford nearly as many camels and they dont do nearly as well. You die, not being sure what went wrong.

Game 9: Malians, you finally get an archer civ. You play your standard m@a archer build, get good damage in castle age and hit imp early. You tech arbalest and realize that you dont get bracer. ffs.

Game 10 : Malay. You check the tech tree, see excitedly that you get full archer upgrades. You arrive in feudal with a super good time, but realize that your m@a arent built yet, nor can you afford a range or any upgrades. You feel extremely crippled but the game keeps going until imp. The opponent has lots of skirmishers and you want to counter them with light cav. You realize you dont even get the second armor upgrade and your lightcavs die against skirmishers. You think for your next game you have to try to counter them with onagers, but tough luck.

your next game is as the huns, you lose 10 seconds trying to build houses at the start. It doesnt matter, but already frustrates you. Your cav archers get countered by skirms, so on your way to imp you build a couple siege workshops and queue mangonels, but you find out you dont get the onager tech.

The next time you random into malay is two months later and you completely forgot about the lack of cav armor. You feel like you will never understand this game. Every civ feels generic, bonuses like 50% cheaper ressource camps, just lead to you floating wood, faster gathering sheep or hunt just mean you have idle villagers under your tc much earlier, but at the same time every civ feels like they always lack that crucial upgrade that you would need in your game. You get frustrated, when you random into bengalis, celts or goths and never know what to do with them so you just stop playing this clusterfuck or a game all together.

This post should make it clear for everyone, thanks! That's pretty much me before I started picking civs :F

I am fairly sure that was sarcasm but that really sums up the feelings for a newcomer I guess

I don't think it was sarcasm. It's funny to read, a littel exaggerated, but he seems to make a serious point for us beginners here.

 

[kalpit00]

This post should make it clear for everyone, thanks! That's pretty much me before I started picking civs :F

I don't think it was sarcasm. It's funny to read, a littel exaggerated, but he seems to make a serious point for us beginners here.

we have all been there. The only difference is a lot of us started playing in Voobly. And in those days, you wouldn't be allowed to pick civs, it was always random. (In fact, the lobby host would determine if your ping and elo was playable and then launch the game, where they would get in first and choose the color 11). Not all games of course, but majority of people believed random civs was the norm, they would even put that in the lobby title : (14xx HC2 Arabia random Civs WK) something like that.

And if you tried picking a civ in the game room, the host would proceed to kick you 11 (especially if you were to pick a OP civ like aztecs or mayans). Of course, some hosts would allow it, some would pick their own civ to "counter" your civ and then it would result in an endless back and forths of both you changing your civs to counter each other's civ, eventually leading up to the host getting frustrated and kicking you.

And for this reason, after some games, when you host your own lobbies, you understand the problem and force random civs yourself (unless you are a confident player or a smurf and let your opponent pick civ while you go random)

 

[Snizl]

I don't think it was sarcasm. It's funny to read, a littel exaggerated, but he seems to make a serious point for us beginners here.

Indeed this was not sarcasm at all. I dont usually pick civs, but i do still get frustrated with some of the random choices (such as goths and celts) getting forced on me ocassionally.
I also definitely took got a lot of fun from trying to make civ bonuses work best, trying out novel build orders or off meta strategies. I never picked top civs when trying to learn the game, but regardless of all the annoyance random civs brings with it, trying to optimize a game plan yourself still gives a lot of joy, which is just as much of an important argument for allowing civ picking.
I did explain "civ abusing" on a previous comment, but to me thats mostly a map problem and one that shouldnt be fixed by forcing random civs.

@kalpit00 was there no option on voobly to pick civs hidden?

 

[SouFire]

The only way to learn to play this game properly is by going random civ, practicing and executing the same BO, same units and timings are just a fraction of the necessary skills to adapt to different game situations.

When a player claims that he finally got 1500 using franks or mongols but using other civs he is like 1300 then he is not a 1500 player, factually he is just repeating most of the conditions from his previous games, in other words he is just limiting his experience under certain conditions, just like in the past few players would only win by going towers.

The best way to learn anything in this life is by doing it alright even if it takes longer to achieve, i have seen several players who have only played franks on their 1x1 and do terrible with other civs and they reject the idea of playing different as they would often say they only know how to play scouts but not archers cause franks have bad archers and they become stubborn about trying something else, imo those kind of players are just lying to themselves.

 

[kalpit00]

Indeed this was not sarcasm at all. I dont usually pick civs, but i do still get frustrated with some of the random choices (such as goths and celts) getting forced on me ocassionally.
I also definitely took got a lot of fun from trying to make civ bonuses work best, trying out novel build orders or off meta strategies. I never picked top civs when trying to learn the game, but regardless of all the annoyance random civs brings with it, trying to optimize a game plan yourself still gives a lot of joy, which is just as much of an important argument for allowing civ picking.
I did explain "civ abusing" on a previous comment, but to me thats mostly a map problem and one that shouldnt be fixed by forcing random civs.

@kalpit00 was there no option on voobly to pick civs hidden?

Usually lobby settings would be either hidden or visible, and most games were played with visible civs. The option of being able to hide civs only came after Userpatch I believe

Keep in mind back in the day, the game was a lot lot smaller, we didn't have matchmaking system. There were times you would have to sit idle in a lobby for 10-15 mins until someone would join. It was a task trying to get in into someone else's lobby too because once you join, the host would run /ping command to check if you are fast proxy, check if you are from a faraway country (like South America vs China), and could decide if they wanted to play with you or not (Also a reason why AoE was so user-connected back in the day, as most people were nice and friendly and add you as their friends as long as you were ok with the standard settings 11)

 

[Akkal]

what about forcepick mirror civ? I believe it's a little unfair that you can do that

This function should 100 % be banned 111.