[AoE2] Opportunity Costs and Advance Times

(0:18-0:39) The cross-game theme in today’s post is opportunity cost as seen through the lens of advance timings in Age of Empires II HD. In AoE2, a player’s access to higher tier units and technologies is gated by their empire’s advancement through the Ages. There are four Ages: Dark, Feudal, Castle, and Imperial. Progressing from one to the next requires an investment of resources and town center time. Spirit Of The Law addresses a common misconception in the AoE2 community: the belief that faster age advance times indicate stronger play. It is true that a strong player’s efficient resource collection lets them advance through the ages more quickly than an inefficient player could. However, it is wrong to blindly believe that quicker advancement is always better. Resources and time sunk into an age upgrade are not available to be spent elsewhere. AoE2 players need to marry their targeted advance time to their gameplan, and keep their eyes peeled to spot the opponent’s advance time in order to predict what is coming for them:

(3:40-4:25) A player’s buildings change appearance depending on the age they are in, and players scout to spot the opposition’s advance timing. The time a player targets for advancement is an important clue about their chosen strategy. A quick upgrade from Dark to Feudal indicates some type of rush attack during Feudal. Slower advancement to Feudal tends to be more economically focused, allowing the town center to pump out more resource-gathering villagers before switching it over to researching the Feudal Age:

(5:09-5:38) A fast push to the third age, Castle, is usually part of an economic boom strategy, since villagers can only be recruited at town centers, and extra TCs (beyond the initial free one) can only be built starting at Castle. But advancing too hastily will backfire, because the town center cannot make villagers while it is busy researching Castle. “You run into trouble putting down town centers or making units, and it’s a bit like changing gears in your car too early and stalling the engine.” When your too-early Castle research finishes, you won’t have the villagers/income to actually take advantage of the overly-quick timing:

(8:20-8:54) Spirit asks top player TaToH questions relating to advance times. Scouts are a higly mobile mounted melee unit that become available in the Feudal Age, and TaToH shares his thinking on how a quick Feudal timing relates to the effectiveness of a scout rush. He tells Spirit the scouts have to hit while the opponent’s resource gathering areas are still vulnerable. The opponent wants to protect their resource patches to protect their economy against harassment. Striking before they make defenses and close the window of vulnerability lets one cause enough economic damage to offset the opportunity cost of the low-eco rush build (low-eco due to the lower villager count and lack of Loom research involved in a quick Feudal uptick). It’s not just that “earlier is better,” although there is some truth to that. There is a particular window that must be hit for the payoff to be reached:

(12:17-12:46) An early aggressive approach to the Feudal Age involves getting quickly out of the Dark Age, but TaToH shares how an aggressive (as opposed to economic) plan for the Castle Age will likely involve a slower than normal timing. The resources that would otherwise go towards an earlier Castle upgrade instead are put into military production buildings and technologies to upgrade the armor and/or weapons of the appropriate unit type. This type of lean attacking plan tries to keep extra unit production of units with weapon/armor upgrades going instead of focusing as much on extra town centers and villagers. As a result, it needs to strike damaging blows with its superior count and quality of units. Failing to cause real damage in this pushing window results in one’s low-villager economy sinking into irrelevance:

There are costs to making buildings, recruting units, researching techs, advancing to the next age, setting villagers to gather one resource type (instead of another), and so on. Spending resources one way incurrs the opportunity cost of not spending those resources in a different way. Players of all games are faced with these types of tradeoffs. Having a strategic plan will guide you to making fitting choices when faced these forks in the road. Tracking how other players allocate resources will clue you in to their thinking and help you respond with correct play.

[AoE II] Mathcrafting a villager gather rate formula

The following video by YouTuber Spirit Of The Law is one of those few-but-beautiful videos that is tightly targeted and site-appropriate, being chock full of great game analysis all the way through. Spirit, an Age of Empires II analyst, uses math and in-game testing to arrive at data-driven answers to strategy questions. Here he gets to work to create a useful formula for estimating villager gather rate, previously nebulously-understood. After arriving at a formula, he goes a step further, applying it to answer some otherwise-unanswerable questions:

[AoE2] Key commentary selections from EGM Grand Finals Game 1

I previously posted the games of TheViper vs Daut in the Age of Empires 2 Escape Gaming Masters grand finals. Here I've pulled out some key moments in the coverage of game 1.

Right off the bat TheViper makes a grievous error with the placement of his initial lumber camp. The camp is badly blocked in by trees, causing a bottleneck of wood-delivering villagers at the small accessible portion. TheViper in effect has fewer villagers than he should, due to the accrued idle time. It does not take long for the difference to make itself felt, as he is left without the option of placing down a Dark Age rush ("drush") timing barracks:
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[AoE2] EGM Grand Final – TheViper vs Daut

Commentators ZeroEmpires and T90Official provide coverage of an Age of Empires 2 grand finals between players TheViper and Daut. I will in another post revisit some of the key commentary moments, but for now: enjoy!

Game 1:
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[AoE2] Losing map control forces painful investment into towers

Here we have an Age of Empires 2: Rise of the Rajas match between top-tier players TheViper and Dogao, with commentary by ZeroEmpires and EscapeAoE. A few key moments in the commentary stood out.

Suffering from economic raiding, TheViper identifies cost-effective spots for watchtower placement. One tower in particular stands out as being in range to protecting three different resource patches, apparently netting good value from the wood and stone invested in the structure:

Unfortunately for TheViper, Dogao's harassment is able to continue due to a vulnerable angle and an exposed second wood patch. TheViper is forced to invest in more defensive watchtowers on a small tree cluster that will be quickly exhausted. Down the line, the opportunity cost of constructing those towers will hurt, as villagers mining stone for towers are not gathering food or gold for teching up:

[AoE2] Overview of the Aztecs

YouTuber Spirit Of The Law conducts an excellent review of the strengths and weaknesses of the Aztec civilization, backed up by tests and mathcrafting. I've included the full video here, and below it I've pulled out a couple of small clips that I may want to reference later.
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[AoE2] Early and midgame commentary selections

YouTuber ZeroEmpires provides insightful Age of Empires II coverage on a game between players Skittles and Melkor. The whole cast is great, but here are a few moments of especially clear presentation.

First an assessment of Skittle's unfortunate spawn location:

The open terrain around Skittle's base enabled early harassment that in turn contributed to an economic advantage for Melkor:

Melkor's larger and safer economy is invested in an army size and upgrade advantage which in turn is used to keep some pressure against Skittle's awkward home terrain, preserving Melkor's economic advantage:

Melkor takes a cost-efficient tactical shot with a well-chosen armor upgrade to enable raiding under watchtowers. Skittles continues to lose gathering time with his villagers: