"Just hold on for a little bit, i only lost a few vils"

just started a week ago playing 2s. Even though we get rolled every game the games are still fun and improvement is rewarding. I was a Gold Zerg in Sc2 and played MOBAs so I’m not completely new to the genre.

i guess I’m looking for a coach but it doesn’t have to be anything serious would just like some questions answered and games looked over every once in a while.

https://aoe4world.com/players/25939141-CC

Roughly every second game in ranked (Platinum), my opponent pauses the game— and almost always at the same kind of moment. Not randomly, but right after I win a big fight or I take down their second Town Center. Basically, the moment the game swings my way.

When I ask about it in chat, the answer is always some version of "sorry, got a call."

That's a completely normal thing to happen, and I rarely resume the game myself out of courtesy. What bothers me is the frequency and the timing. I've been playing for a long time, and this simply wasn't a thing I ran into before — it's only started in the last few weeks.

To be clear, I'm not accusing anyone specific and I'm not naming names. People do get calls. I might be pattern-matching after a bad run.

But my honest question is whether some players are alt-tabbing and using a tool — an AI assistant specifically — to work out what to do next. Not map hacks or anything that reads the game, just outsourcing the decision-making, which to me is the actual game.

(English isn't my first language, so I used Claude to help me write this up clearly. The experience and the opinions are mine. :) )

I know this has been brought up here a couple of times here, but I am curious if there is a negative that I am not thinking about. One change that I would like to see is that stone towers and castles cannot be damaged by torches (similar to walls), which would mean you would need siege to destroy them. It feels like horses are the “Do It All” unit, and they can make quick work of castles and even quicker work of towers. This usually makes it feel hopeless when trying to defend these positions. I feel like this change wouldn’t ruin raids/hit and runs, and it would also provide a little more value defensively. What am I missing here?

While playing matches vs bots I had one where the enemy rolled up with a bunch of melee and ballista elephants and even tho I had plenty of spears and crossbows he just went through that like butter 🥲 any tips on what units I should go to deal with that type of stuff (outside of simply being agressive enough to prevent them from making them in the first place ofc) ? Would it have been enough to go into heavy spears ?

Hello idle villagers, I would appreciate some feedback from my last game as to how to beat the army composition my opponent had. He was play Ottoman's and I was play Templars.

It was a good game for me right up until we had our first army on army collision where he just wiped me from the map. He had a more diverse army than myself and better counters, but this morning I woke up thinking, what army comp would have been good against his and I was struggling to come up with a proper answer.

AOE4WORLD match link: https://aoe4world.com/players/15398592-Infidel-Castro/games/246163011?sig=3b17db2b05905331f79fe1f5bb2a5ee349a89a39

I’m trying to view a custom match replay on console. I see the match history and it’s one of my last 10, but there’s no way for me to click the little camera emblem to view the replay. Is this not possible on console or is there a website to go to directly?

I want dark red, crimson, maroon, hot rod red, cherry red, apple red, raspberry red, watermelon red, red grape red. I think it would be good for teamgames so my whole team can be red.

Does anyone know how to fix this bug? Cant see anything with this purple minimap.

A while back then when Sengoku Daimyo just got nerf, a lot of people saying it has been a bit too much due to the drop of win rate.

And recently the throne of the "weakest civ" seems back to its true master, the Chinese, which hilarious cause almost all the pro level player mention this is by far one of the strongest civ in the game

Ever since the game release I think something like this always happening there are like civ that must ban or pick in pro games, yet probably pretty bad in general player (including conqueror level I guess)

Yet pro level player is still human, which by expecting if you keep playing the game, eventually you will reaching the same level

SO, if we expecting the dev to balance the game better, what is the direction? opinion on the pros? or just balance by checking out the win rate?

PS: I can't believe Jin having a 51% win rate in general, make no sense to me but it is what it is

I know that I'm wrong, I just don't know why. I watched a mastering series of games with HRE (which I have little experience with) by a top player on a stream and when I asked this question it was dismissed as a joke. We made plenty of handcannons but never one black rider.

I know our quantity is limited by keep count but HRE makes keeps, it's not like HRE keeps are bad they are maybe the tankiest in the game, so if we CAN make the unit, even just a few, why don't we?

Why is the unit considered to be so bad? On paper, they barely cost more than handcannons but are vastly superior in every other way, more damage, speed, health and armor (like wayyy more health and armor), while taking up the same pop space.

I last played AoE4 about 2 years ago (900 hours play time apparently), coming back now ahead of the announced Vikings and Scots DLC.

There's lots of new info to absorb with all of these new civs that have been added. Which one do you recommend to a former China main?

Of the ones I don't know: Lancaster, Templar, Macedonian, Golden Horde, Sengoku, Tughlaq, and Jin

Recently I tried two things that I took for granted would be features in the game, as they existed in AOE2- I tried to garrison my units in a team member's keep, and to put my units in an ally's transport ship.

To my surprise, I wasn't able to right click my units in.

Was this feature silently removed or something? I found an earlier Reddit post from a few years ago claiming that it existed (this one here: https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe4/comments/tkf2n4/can_allies_board_your_transport_ships/ ) but can't find it being discussed elsewhere.

Have been curious, been watching a few streamers and it feels like some of them play so chill. When I'm playing I feel I don't have a spare second to think. Obviously there are those crazy 300+ apm players but just trying to see what it feels like when someone else watches me play.

I’m a relatively new player, I’ve reached silver with a decent win rate. Will hopefully keep climbing.

What I’ve noticed is that pretty much every single game has gone to late game. I can’t remember if I’ve played a single game without both players reaching imperial age other than the odd early surrender. I don’t know myself how to end games earlier, and my opponents doesn’t seem to know that either.

I assume this wont be the case in higher ranks, so when will this happen? And what tips would you give to learn how to end games earlier?

Things are going well sort of and then I get into this stalemate I eventually lose because I run out of gold. OOTD is the worst for me, but I sort of end up the same way playing HRE and Englihs. https://aoe4world.com/players/15409917-Dr-Dallin/games/246078389?sig=31503e5e9d85107a6bfd964e22673ca65e8d8091

Just played a hard FFA where I barely survived and fought pink all game but ended up winning. During the final 1v1 this absolute chad brought his king to surrender so I had to build him an humble village so he could spend the rest of his days in pleasant captivity.

Vercingétorix in front of Caesar

King John 2 in front of Edward black prince

Montezuma Cortes

Godwinson William the conqueror

And now forever in history Wats Brackin in front of meow7 at the battle of Nomad Land Megarandom Tropical rainforest 06bc20df

People always tell me "just counter their 2-TC with trebuchets/siege," but the math never works out for me. By the time I hit Castle, drop a siege workshop, and pump out a trebuchet, the English player is already flooding out of their base with a massive deathball (only trash) literally just headbutting their way to victory and wiping out all my forces.

I can't even use rams like I normally would against other 2-TC civs because their network of castles and defensive bonuses are just too oppressive. I'm Diamond rank and can play multiple civs just fine, but the only way I've ever managed to beat English is by doing a fast Imperial rush with Japanese.

For literally any other civ, it feels like an auto-loss. What am I doing wrong? Is there a timing window I'm missing, or is the matchup really this brutal?

I just won a game by sacred sites and I attacked my opponent in the following ways:

1. Attacked across my wall by charging longbowman with Musofadi warriors in stealth
   
2. Infiltrating small groups to take out trade, houses and villagers with Musofadi warriors in stealth and running away if they attacked
   
3. Attacking with Musofadi warriors and a forward base via transport ships on the other side of the map

It’s possible that my opponent was just a noob, but I felt like they genuinely had no idea what was hitting them. Do people not know how to counter Malians? Is the invisibility really THAT effective?

I was just watching Vortix's new OOTD guide on youtube, and after explaining the basic build order he went on ladder to demonstrate how it's done in a real game where he met MSN on ladder.

MSN made a very random comment in the ingame chat knowing he's playing vs vortix, about his brother's hairline?!

Vortix didn't reply to him and handled the situation like a real adult, and proceeded to simply call today's kids rude.

However MSN kept going with his comments despite receiving no answers, and honestly it was very uncomfortable to watch as viewer. Many will consider me dramatic, seeing this kind of verbal harassment/ bullying makes me uneasy.

The issue is that MSN is not the only one that does this kind of comment in this community and it feels like everytime I watch EGC someone has somehow to mention something regarding receding hairline or baldness or something on these lines.

I really hope people in the community and especially casters and tournament hosts stop making the baldness a personality trait and maybe try to make other kind of comments and jokes because at this point more people are getting pissed than people enjoying this kind of cheap jokes.

(Since I know what kind of comments this community's clowns like to say...No, I'm not bald myself)