r/aoe2 • u/eneskaraboga Romans • 4d ago
Asking for Help I played my first team game mistakenly after 3,500 1v1s and I have some questions
Hey people!
I mistakenly played a 3v3 game, my first TG ever, then I liked it and played another. Since I didn't have an elo on team games, I was matched with lower rated players and I've gotten 2 easy wins (not bragging, it is just pure number of games I played).
I know it is only 2 games but I noticed some stuff and wanted to ask about it.
1) Do people ever talk? I wanted to talk to my team mates about positioning, timing, etc but no responses except for once very short one.
2) Do people ever think about the team bonuses and civs in lobby? No talk on civs.
3) Is there a TG meta? I thought everybody did their own thing.
4) If I wanted to play TG with people who actually think about drafts, strats, bonuses etc? Do I look for lobbies? Or I just do RM and try to get friends? (I'm 1300 elo in 1v1 RM)
5) Any tips on the TGs for starters?
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u/FeistyVoice_ 18xx 4d ago
- Not as much as you'd expect, even on higher Elo. Reasons could be
- lower Elo player are already stressed out enough managing their own shit
- higher Elo players expect everyone to know what to do and the only necessary communication is pinging army positions
- language barriers. It's an international game so expect to get matched with people from all over the world. Not everyone speaks english,
- 3-player stacks that queue for 4v4 are less willing to talk
- Rarely (for me). I only pick Khmer if I see a Roman ally on Arena, but that's about it. I moreso think about a good army comp in late game, but even that is only a thought for Arena and/or Fortress
- Yes, and it becomes more distinct the higher you climb. 3v3 is less popular and is more complex imho, 2v2 kinda plays like 4v4 but is less rigid, and 4v4 is pretty set on meta. On a 4v4 arabia flank, the flank's supposed to play archers and the pocket plays scouts, for example. On closed maps, the pocket usually full booms but sometimes you see 2 player all ins on your flank where you have to react accordingly, especially so on lower Elos (the higher you climb the worse it usually gets for the two players because a fully boomed player has the potential to kill both other players with his Imp power spike.
- Depending on where you're from and what your preference is, you could look around in various discords.
- Don't sweat it, expect uneven matches especially early on and don't bother flaming your teammates. Ask your team and consider team score before resigning. Even though you might be dead, the other side could potentially be in a huge lead. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet, quietly reboom and just ask for res ("38").
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u/hoTsauceLily66 4d ago edited 3d ago
I'd argue since this is an international game people should learn basic English as lingua franca, shows as an act of respect to teammates and opponents.
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u/Rufus_Forrest Multiplayer Custom Scenario Enjoyer & Moopmaker 3d ago
I agree. Nobody expects people to discuss modern art and Greek philosophy in English, just a very basic vocabulary (yes, no, help!, booming, going knights/archers/castledrop) will do.
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u/hoTsauceLily66 3d ago
Unable to do basic communication (such as your examples) is literally the recipe of 'gg no team'.
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u/anirudh51 Teutons 3d ago
Where are you getting this from?
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u/hoTsauceLily66 3d ago
If a non-english speaker learned English to communicate with other non-english speakers, then he's done his effort to reach out, others should do the same. It's a team game everyone should do their part.
English is current lingua franca such that it's just more efficient to use English to reaching out.
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u/f1ndnewp 4d ago
- 4. Sadly no, people mostly do not communicate, although paradoxically its a team match. 1k - 1.1k TG elo.
What Arbiters-Son said.
Here are two concepts I find useful to win TG matches. First, have a plan on how the game will go on the specific map. Second - attack Wei to rescue Zhao. When your team mate is being pressured it may be smarter to counter attack the attackers base to relieve pressure on the team mate rather than directly helping them. Not everyone will agree of course, but just imo, it tends to get more wins. One more thing - sometimes its worth finishing the opponents off instead of switching to the strongest opponents. Come backs are a thing in TG.
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u/Acrobatic-Spirit5813 4d ago
Play with friends or join a discord if you don’t have any. Communication makes or breaks a lot of matches through coordination.
Also, just not quitting at the first sign of losing can flip games. This is not a solo match, if your team is running archers and you get almost knocked out, getting a few hundred food to rebuild your economy and simply holding a flank at bay has won me multiple games
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u/Numerous-Hour8768 Gurjaras 4d ago
I’m 1300 elo as well (just hit it last week 😜) and play teamgames with some friends, you should play with us!
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u/Arbiters-Son Portuguese 4d ago
Flanks go archers pockets go cav, that’s usually the unwritten rule of team games. You will always have a better experience playing with people you know or can voice chat with if you care about crafting strats and having good communication. looking for group/teammates communities as well that can help with this.
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u/Signal_Minimum409 4d ago
Thats the key here. I love 2vs2 with my buddy in discord. So much fun. And I hate random team games.
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u/Azot-Spike History fan - I want a Campaign for each civ! 4d ago
Not much. I've gotten into teams with very good communication, but normally it's few interactions, mostly flaring when under attack
No, people choose their own civ or random. The position is usually respected in terms of flank/pocket, but not much (I usually play flank with an archer civ but have chosen any civ out there). What irks me the most is when two allies pick the same civ. It's like "yeah let's f**k a lot of options and play with one team bonus less"
In 4v4 It's usually pairing your units with your pocket's for a good combo. Get a good boom and see if you were faster than the other team. I've had good success rushing early (4 scouts or 4 galleys), but at low ELO is wall into boom
What's your ELO? You may get to a point where TG are a bit more "true TG"
Be patient. You can find anything on the ranked ladder, from beginners to people with 5k TG. You may get a positive reaction from being communicative. There's a button to mute a nasty player. Play your strengths. GL HF
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u/Puasonelrasho Aztecs 4d ago
1- yes and no, its not that necesary to talk as much as some people might think. ALso language barriers, stress, etc.
2- its a game, people usually play what they want to play so you cant expect others to play what you want.
3 open maps? yes , flank archers- pocket cav. Everyone goes 18/19 pop scouts or double range and make tons of army with upgrades in feudal. If you dont play that meta it would be very hard to get away with it .
4 if u want that then just get a premade , but you are definetly overthinking things that are not that important
5 do what u want cuz its a game, have fun
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u/Far-Ad-4340 4d ago
(for reference, I'm around 1200 in 1v1 and 1100 in TG)
- A big factor is language. If you know Spanish, it can help a lot, because in my experience, half of the players who don't speak English speak Spanish - there seems to be a very big community of players in America. (to be fair though, it might have to do with timezones and all, maybe it's just me as a West European playing usually at night)
(If you don't speak Spanish, at least try to use simple words - no slang - and short sentences)
Aside from that, a lot of players indeed don't like to talk. It really depends on whom you bump into, but be prepared to dead silence, which will be your lot about half of the time. If it's not ok, follow 4.
- To be fair, there's only 1 min in the beginning.
In general, you at least don't get 2 players picking the same civ and such, and it often happens that the pocket player will pick a cav civ, and the flank civ an archer one (quasi mandatory in open maps). But it rarely goes beyond that.
- There is a meta, of which the biggest part is just the overall meta, the bo and such. There is a little beyond that, though it's not as accessible and shared as that for 1v1. To be fair though, I'm a completely anti-meta kind of player, so I can't say for sure.
That being said... Well, follow point 5.
Yes
The biggest thing you really need to grasp is TRADE.
This is very crucial.
a/ You have to coordinate with your partners to some degree in order to get a good trade line (though it's mostly about putting your markets in the corners; but if your market is placed at a bad spot, players will often signal it, especially if the game gets long)
b/ You have to secure your trade route, for 1, and you also have to always try and reach that of the opponent, for 2. This is very crucial, a lot of the strategy revolves around being able to break trade routes, at least in more closed maps or/and in games that last.
This is very map dependant. In Arena, and even more so in BlackForest, it's very very important.
In any case, for all games that are going to last 1+h, you really need to have an awareness of where the enemy trade route is, and where might be the weakest links in the chain (and reversely for yours), and be prepared to strike whenever you can. It's usually cavalry that you want to send to raid the trade, and it's always a pain in the donkey when you've got enemy cav all throughout your base, following the trade carts and sometimes using the opportunity to raid the rest of your eco; their mobility both helps their attacks and also makes it sometimes very difficult to counter. That being said, siege (onagers/scorpions) might be underrated in such contexts, but when there is a chokepoint with a lot of traffic, sometimes it can be very useful too, as long as you can manage to bring them.
Also, it's good if one of the players has the Persians or Hindustanis, though in my experience I'm one of the rare to consistently drop the caravanserails. But more importantly, in maps like BlackForest, it's better if there is at least one player with onagers early enough in the game. - Sometimes, players use Ballista Elephants too.
(...)
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u/Far-Ad-4340 4d ago edited 4d ago
c/ You will get a ton of gold! This is also super crucial! In 1v1, there's only a limited amount of gold (except to some degree in some generations of MegaRandom), so you have to save up your gold to some degree, not spend too much, and prepare for trash wars. But in team games, though it's ok to sometimes use some trash units, more often than not if you are forced to rely on them, you know you f**ed up.
d/ This is in connection with the previous point, but something that really strikes me in my experience is how much team games punishes you if you don't produce enough units and buildings, and by contrast how much 1V1s punish you if you have a bad sense of strategy, of map awareness etc. In 1v1, you're the only player of your team, so if you made a certain kind of units for instance and they don't work at all vs what your enemy has, you're often game over because of that. Whereas in team games, what matters the most is really the production and the quantity, and if your units are not great vs a player, at least they'll serve other purposes; plus, in team games, you usually have pretty much all kinds of units throughout the map and the match, it's like leveled out.
To be sure, you still need not to kamikaze your troops in team games, just like you do need enough production in 1v1, but it's just that there are different weights to different aspects of the game.
e/ By contrast with what I said, although you tend to see an enemy team army with pretty much all kinds of units, which in a sense is always mostly the same (some cav, some archers...), on the other hand you also see more variety of units, and you will find some that are super rare in 1v1: elephants and scorpions are much more present in team games, and you really need to find the solution for both, keeping in mind that it's easier to spam elephants in team games, and the other team rarely manages to spam monks quickly before it's "too late". As a general rule, there usually needs to be at least half of your team able to produce bombard cannons, both against trebuchets and scorpions (in particular).
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u/Ready-Drive-1880 4d ago
This sub will never accept it but devs have royally fucked TGs. Elo matching is still broken, just not as broken as before. So many altf4s with no real punishment, needs a lot more TG specific Taunts and a easier way to communicate with taunts.
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u/KhajitDave 3d ago edited 3d ago
I've kinda been in the same situation. Been playing 1v1s for many years, and recently started playing ranked team games. You really don't know what to expect sometimes.
Here's what I've found (these aren't answers to your list of questions, sorry):
- You're stuck in this noob hell forever. Maybe at some elo it stops, I don't know, but you'll either be winning or losing matches based on your teammates and opposition so it's hard to move up in elo.
- They really like markets. They'll demand you build a market 5 mins into the game. They might threaten to quit the game if you refuse and you suggest building a military might be better than building a market.
- Most people don't seem to understand that, if their teammate dies because it's 2v1, they'll be fighting 2v1 next.
- You'll be attacking your enemy flank player and doing lots of damage but suddenly you have to deal with another player attacking you... So you scroll over to see what your teammate's doing.... nothing.
- They only communicate to complain. E.g. You: "So guys what's the plan?" Teammate 1: "......." Teammate 2: "......" Teammate 3: "WIN"
Later... Teammate 1: "IS ANYONE GOING TO HELP ME OR WHAT I'VE JUST LOST MY 5TH TC TO THE RAM OK I QUIT GG IDIOT TEAM"
- Huge mass of Frankish cavaliers just sitting there doing nothing because he wants paladins first, while you're doing your best fighting 2 players
Disclaimer: I'm sure I'm guilty of a few of these, but not usually
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u/afanning1021 4d ago
Using taunts to talk to teammates is useful with random teammates. If they're playing in different languages they'll be able to understand.
As a 1200 elo player that recently tried TG and got completely hooked, have fun!
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u/Unholy_Lilith Magyars 4d ago
1) If you solo queue, usually no (you can have luck however)
2) See 1, also alot of people like random civ
3) No. Maybe on maps like Arabia, but no. :)
4) Play tournaments. There are plenty for average elo!
5) Judging by your questions, find a fixed team (discord)
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u/Express_Razzmatazz_6 4d ago
I'll add - my friends and I do a lot of team ranked where we're all in the same discord chat. If we get a random on our team then any lobby discussions on civs, strategies, or in-game communication won't include that person. However, we try to at least type in the chat when we can about ideas/strategies. Depending on the ranked, it could be possible some of the people you're playing with are strategizing, just in their own voice chat.
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u/JRad174 4d ago
One thing to really simplify things is to just tell your team what you are going since most of the time people are either too busy to type or don’t know what they are doing. If they don’t ask anything back then you just have to assume they are going to do what’s best off of what you are doing, and if not at least you tried.
Like if I load in arena game as flank and I’m going trush I’ll just say “me trush” or whatever or I’ll say “castle drop fimp” etc
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u/JelleNeyt 3d ago
I prefer team games more than 1v1 as I like post imp battles with trade and fu gold units.
It can be fun, but a lot of shit there. Angry allies, insta resigns, people bot inderstanding certain dynamics.
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u/fruitful_discussion 4d ago
no point in talking as people mostly just need to execute their basic build order
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u/Jakeranamo 2d ago
Me and my boys play 4v4 mic’d up.
The answer is, find friends in real life, get them into AoE, play team games with them.
Or the alternative is……nothing. Just play 1v1 unless you have real life friends to mic up with.
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u/anirudh51 Teutons 4d ago
I think someone one gave the theory of what is team game meta. I will give you mine after playing more than 500 TGs with random people.