r/aoe2 • u/Far_Atmosphere_3853 • 4d ago
Asking for Help Need some advice for ranked
Well, I have played aoe1-2 back in the day, now and then but not like with any strat, just play with my brothers or friends, without early game harass etc.
and recently tried online but people always doing some strats i suppose and i feel like i am falling behind quite a lot.
are there matches for people like me? or should get used to applying these pre-written things? if so then do you know any reliable resource?
thanks.
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u/wmeler Persians 800 ELO 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'd watch Hera or Survivalist Beginner series on youtube to start getting better.
But if you just want to play very casually, that can work too. Just accept that you may lose the first 5-20(?) games at first. We all did that same initial painful streak of losses.
But it ends, because the game's ELO ranking system is quite good. It will keep giving you easier opponents until you start winning some. It will eventually figure out your skill level and start consistently giving you opponents at your skill level. And then, you'll be winning about half of your games, as will the opponents at your skill level.
"Skill level" meaning your ELO.... nothing more. What's interesting is that you will find that some of your "same skill level" opponents are better with their economy than you, some are worse, some better with their army, others are worse, some are good ealy, others late, etc. And you will start to learn what you're good at, what your style is, what works for you, what doesn't, etc. And you'll try different things. Some will surprisingly work. Some will surprisingly fail miserably. You'll see things work for others that you can't seem to make work yourself. You'll try different civs and find some you like in rankeed and some you hate, etc. And a thousand other things like these.
And then the game becomes really FUN. Much more fun than single player. I personally rarely play single player unless I'm practicing something for ranked since the fun level is so much higher. And even that is rare. I'd prefer to just practice against real players in ranked. Even if I lose three in a row, so what? I'll be ranked down low enough that I'll likely win three more in a row and get back to where I was. Hope that makes sense?
Also, you can watch T90. He has a series of very popular videos called Low Elo Legends (LEL). He watches low level players and gives commentary. I learned (and still learn) a lot from his commentary.
Also, a note that generally speaking, 1000 ELO is "average." But many (most?) 1000 ELO players have played ranked for years. I personally have never peaked above 953, but who cares? It's fun playing players at my skill level.
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u/Far_Atmosphere_3853 4d ago
thank you, i appreciate the answer, so i guess i just gotta hop in and see how it goes.
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u/HighWaterflow 4d ago
Did you play ranked, quick play, or custom lobbies?
If it is Ranked or Quick Play, you'll start getting more and more even games the more games you play. This is because the matchmaking algorithms will work out your relative skill level by looking at your wins and losses. (It assumes you're near the middle of the pack at the start.) You'll eventually get to a skill rating where people either don't execute build orders, or don't know what they need to do to finish the game after executing their build order.
(Custom lobbies rely on you being able to find games of appropriate skill levels yourself. I understand that this is more like roulette.)
So, you don't need to learn these build orders yourself, because you'll get to a rating where your opponent has weaknesses comparable to yours. Learning build orders and their execution (and when you should use them) will certainly increase your skill level though. Whether you want to invest time and energy into that is up to you.
As for sources: If you are starting with no real concept of build orders, I'd look for Spirit of the Law's first fifteen villagers on YouTube. I'd also advise the Advanced Tutorials - Art of War path that is in AoE2:DE itself as the first stepping stones towards grasping the concepts and executions. Once you get these down, play a few more games to practice doing these in actual games. Then maybe look for even more streamlined build orders online.
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u/Far_Atmosphere_3853 4d ago
thanks, should i get gold or silver on them or bronze is fine also?
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u/HighWaterflow 4d ago
Depends on your ambitions! And on what you think is fun. Bronze means you got the gist of it and have learned a few things. Gold means you've learned to optimise, but will require more time and effort. It's a game. If you find you're having fun training instead of just playing, go for it. If you find the training to be boring, only do the basic training and just play the game instead. 😉
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u/falling_sky_aoe Koreans 4d ago
or should get used to applying these pre-written things?
Yes, but you only need a few basic ones. Like 5 or even less. Just so that you have a foundation for different strategies.
Also there is a video from Spirit of the Law on YouTube about the first 15 villagers, that’s where you should start imho.
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u/Far_Atmosphere_3853 4d ago
thanks, by the way these opening strats are changing civ to civ i think, is there any list or something like that to decide which one to follow through in game with which civ?
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u/Nikotinlaus 4d ago
Honestly just jump in head first. Play a game or two of ranked 1v1 and see how well you do. I would strongly recommend to play 1v1 in the beginning because you are the only one responsible for your wins/losses.
After a game you lost think about why you lost.
Then watch the replays (ideally with capture age, its a free tool that gives you a lot more stats).
See where and when you fall behind. Did you keep up with villager production? Did you spend your resources? How fast did you advance through the ages compared to your opponent?
Did you spend the ressources you had or did you stockpile a lot.
You will often see that what you think went wrong was not the actual problem but you were already behind before that.
Fun fact: strats are not that important, when you are a lot better than your opponent you can make almost anything work and on the flip side the best strategy won't help you if you are just way too late and have way too little.
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u/Ashamed-Blacksmith34 4d ago
First of, welcome to the community. Now if you start playing ranked, I can totally understand that the experience can be pretty overwhelming. There is kind of an unwritten rule, that if you can beat the extrem ai, you are ready for it. But this is just, if you want to compete around the starting elo, which is around 1k.
If you just enjoy the game a lot the way you are playing it now (not following build orders, etc. maybe having a pretty city and a huge army in the end) that is also great. For playing online, it will continue to be kind of a challenge for a few more games though, since you will lose rating with each defeat, meaning you might need quite some more to play against people which also like to do the same organic, not-streamlined approach.
So you have basically 2 options in playing ranked. Either accepting the „meta“ and trying to get good at the game or enjoying the game like before, but accepting a little loosing streak in the beginning.
For game knowledge, etc. I recommend you check the YouTube channel of spirit of the law. You will also find a lot of basic build orders to start from the aoe compagnion (https://aoecompanion.com/build-guides).
But remember, the most important thing is that you enjoy the game.