Hey guys, we had this video in the works for a while and are happy to finally have it out! What about subjects/titles would you like us to potentially look into for future videos?
I know this one is not that obscure but I think it would be cool if you could cover Competitive Starcraft 1, especially the early days when LAN play was the only option.
The Darwin Project is a failed battle royale that couldn't make it past beta. I don't know much about the competitive scene but it could be an interesting topic.
maybe because of Microsoft partner agreements or something? idk it was kinda odd, considering it was the platform where most of modern AoE2 competitive evolved to the stage we find it at today.
This game has seen economies crash, presidents come and go, music changes, style changes, multiple generations of people coming in and out of the work force, and some of us still cant play to win. LOL
Oh yes it's still pretty fun to watch too if you don't have AoE 1 or 2 downloaded. I'd watch T90 commentate on his Twitch or UA-cam channel if you have time.
Yea T90 videos are great even for people who aren't deep into the competitive knowhow of AoE2. He also does a ton of content and viewer games for new or less experienced players, he's a great guy and honestly one of the people who have done the most for the entertainment part of AoE
The age scene is fantastic, however its the community that I like more, aoe 2 is one of those rare communities which has so much interaction between top players and casual viewers, the community is nice and non toxic for most part and most importantly people play this game for fun even during gigh stakes tourneys
it is just because it is (still) a small community. Once (if ever) it becomes bigger and more money and sponsors get involved, it will evolve to resemble the big ones with their advantages and cons.
in Asia, especially in China and Viet Nam there are tons of AOE tournaments every months with prize pool can reach over 1000 dollars for championship which is a very very huge amount of money here
Are those top asian players tournaments? I know there are big communities that don't involve much with the main events or don't even know of the top players (Game Ranger or HD Steam players for instance), but I don't know how competitive they are.
@@reclutacontramontina5354 yes there are! Mr. Yo of china was widely considered to be a contender for no. 2 in the world a couple years ago and there are IIRC like three top fifty players in vietnam alone. AOE2 is a very small and close knit community, bizarrely popular in certain relatively isolated regions. Hilariously there are almost no top players from the USA. T90 the commentator is probably one of the top three american players!
@@TheStrangeBloke Oh I thought you meant closed communities organizing their own tournaments apart from the main events. I do know of the chinese and vietnamese top players, even some indian players are joining the top ladder. Very strong players and teams with a long history in the game
TheStrangeBloke Vietnamese here. Yes it’s strange how the AoE communities here are based on regions. AoE 1 is dominant in the north while AoE 2 is popular in the central region. The top players ACCM, BacT, etc are all from there. Our scene is resilient and consistent but not going very well tho. All those players are pretty much old now with family affairs to tend to. Almost no new generations have appeared yet due to the massive popularity of Moba games like LOL.
2:17 I cried when this happened.. I lost so many friend from a clan and AoE community in Zone.. I miss Zone, forever! I used to play AoE, MS Ants, Rogue Spear, Star Wars Galactic Wars & Midtown Madness for hours
The incredibly rare thing about AoE2 that's been a part of it's popularity is how fun it is for both casual and competitive players. The amount of depth and options in the game is staggering and it has fantastic bot support. Casual players could put 500 hours into the game offline and still not see everything it has to offer. Competitive players find a mostly solid balance that's constantly changing. Civ's go in and out of fashion as balance tweaks and new strategies come out. Compared to something like Starcraft it's just a world of difference. There's only so much fun you can have with SC as a casual player. I've never played AoE2 online and I've put a stupid amount of hours into it.
Seriously glad you made this video! To anyone who saw this and has thought "wow I really want to play this game now" I highly recommend you do. The community is awesome and the game its self is so fun. I got in to the game about a year before DE (Definitive Edition) and fell in love with it. I am by no means good at the game but now I am a member of multiple discords and will be playing in my first tournament in a few weeks. Dont be scared to jump in
Specially now that YO has decimated theViper multiple times in some tournaments and show matches. That being said they didn't mention other top players like MBL too much.
@@3atsleeprepeat yea They mentioned wololo tournament but not the prize money of HC 3 which was I guess the largest prizepool since forever in AOE history to $50k+
The most amazing thing to me is how little balance changes have happened through AoEIIs life. It should be the subject of a case study to figure out how to balance games.
Ehh, the balancing wasn't that good before atleast HD Edition. Most of the time you would only see a Hun mirror on Arabia. Some civs, like Teutons or Saracens were straight up useless. Today the balancing is much better, although some of the new civs were a bit overtuned at their release.
@@donaldducklas4155 not really. Franks have almost always been at the top, and still are. Huns are older too and remain top5. They seem really good until they get figured out, then they drop down in power.
@@shithappens6887 I think it all depends on the strategy and game style. Is it 1v1 Arabia? 4v4 Black Forest? Arena? The older civs tend to be more specialized in certain specific aspects and modes from what I have seen. Or rather, I think the meta was built around the older civs' advantages, so if you play those strategies well, you'll still come on top using older civs. With the newer ones, I think novel strategies and units that haven't been analyzed and explored much gives them a sense of being OP.
Great video! One thing to say is that there has been some major re-balancing in AoE2 Definitive Edition with the release of new civs, tons of updates to others, and more. You should do more of these videos, they're really dope.
Ah yes, Akshon Esports forgets the historical existence of Voobly, just like how AoE2 forgets that Turks historically have great skirmishers. All seems to be in order
@@ifuckinglovehumanism3624 They are meant to represent the historic skirmish units, which were light infantry units recruited from peasents. They were equipped with bows, slings and, yes, javelins as depicted in the game. They were not extraordinary good against archers though. That's just because of balance reasons.
@@randomdude2026 Oh I see! Thank you for the info. In my language the units name makes no sence and because of it´s strengh and weaknesses I just assumed it´s fictional.
Lol I played loads of AoE when I was young and what I used to do sometimes is summoning super fast cars (and tricycle riding babies) through cheat codes to fire rockets (or nukes) on my enemy territory. Good times.
Started playing Aoe2 in the late 90s / early 2000s as a kid. The release of HD version and later the Definitive Edition was such an awesome gift for someone who grew up with this masterpiece. The online community is really awesome, but even playing the campaigns or skirmishes offline is such a wonderful trip down memory lane.
It's no wonder that this game survived for that long. It's objectively a reall well-made game and I'm so happy that the team developing it nowadays is composed of passionate people. All the events, the regular patches and improvements are so healthy for AoE. I'm glad one of my favourite game is getting the love it deserves. Also shoutout to the community, AoE players are wonderful.
@@jewellui Probably the oldest streaming channel in AOE. Memb has been streaming for a decade on many platform ( now mainly Twitch), and he is the one who organises the biggest tournaments in AOE both historically and now. E.g. Memb organised all King of the Desert tournaments, and he is organising KotD3 this year with a prizepool of 50k. He is a biiiig deal in the community and has keep AOE alive for years and years.
Nice video. Did a good job of explaining why the game isn't being changed. Complexity in Age of Empires is emergent: the game is complex not because of how many different technologies etc it has, but because of how many different possibilities emerge from the basic concepts. Same way chess hasn't needed an update despite having like 6 units. Only think I would add is to say it's easy to start playing even if you haven't been playing for 20 years.
I grew up playing Age of Empires ll. I'm 20 years old and I still play this. I got onto AoE because of my Dad. I play AoE not for it competitive side but more is casual vs ai, campaigns and just playing with friends.
Come play. You will lose a lot of games initially but people are friendly and after a few games you start getting paired with other newbies then you work your way up.
I always thought this was a mobile game meme, I had no idea this game was so old and had such a long competitive scene, I love this channel, keep OW as your main game but I love seeing these videos on smaller scenes(: oh and Rivals of aether is so much fun! Wouldn’t of found it without y’all
Thank you for covering this. I love AOE2 as an esport. The only thing I would like to say negative about this is the claim that Secret made a dream team. That's not really what happened. Before team Secret was formed there was the Tyrant Clan. Mostly represented by Viper, Daut, Jordan23 and Tatoh. However a super team of 5 people would have looked like Viper, Tatoh, MBL, Lieryy and Yo.
@@lukasg4807 actually the one who probably doesnt belong there right now is mbl, he dropped out of the top 5 after hera and tatoh's improvement in the last year
@@KurtFan69 i think mbl is still definitely top 5, yo has had some good performances recently, but he hasn't really been consistently at the top 5, we'll see if he continues. Also you have to keep in mind that yo's English isn't great, which is the biggest reason for replacing him with Hera.
God...I remember playing this game as a kid in 2001 and loving it. I never got into the online scene and just kind of assumed it had faded away like so many other classics. And now, 21 years after it came out, it's still popular and has become a thriving ESport. Absolutely incredible.
Respect to the video, however this omits a pretty lenghty period in AOE, when there was Voobly. And before Voobly, people used to matchmake with Hamachi and there was an Argentinian site which would offer the recordings of the games. Then aoczone was founded and it was, coupled with Voobly a really big platform and a home for aoc players. Daut has been the best for so many years, that noone can come close, even if today he is not number 1. In addition, we should mention L_Clan_Chris (who has recently made a comeback), because he was the only one who was on par with Daut at the time. And this is a really really long period of time.
I really don't remember Kaiser_Wilhelm (who I guess is Daut) as a top 10 contender during the during the MrFixit/AocZone years although he was a good player among many for sure. It was always really Arch_Koven and later Grunt who dominated that time period.
@@Verity98765 Koven left quite early. Well, not early, but after him there was a big period of time. At least around 2008 - 2012 Daut was THE best. I think even earlier.
@@Archerinho Yeah he left for military service just before the MSN Zone shut but during those early days he was the top guy so that's like 1999-2006 (maybe PG-Grunt surpassed him at the end) . I used to play at a decent level back then (came second in UK Bracket of the Microsoft tournament) so I knew all the people in the community pretty well. It's kind of hard to get a handle on what came after because the zone dying really killed the existing structure and a lot of amazing players left the game forever.
As always, such incredible, informative, well structured, and extremely well presented content. Thanks for all the effort you put in these videos :D. I'd love to see some content on: Warcraft 3 esports, the history of esports exposition on public television, the history (and "death" of) of Hon, the history of Heroes of the Storm esports. I'd also LOVE to get a series on strategies that changed the meta of a game forever (GOATs in Overwatch being the most classic example).
As a esport fan and old lover of this game as a kid. It so cool to see my goof around rts be taken so such heights. Love playing it with friends and t90 and other pros/content creator have done so much to not only revive but evolve the game
I don't play multiplayer against people, I'm trash. But I'm so thankful for those that have pushed both in a competitive sense, and a business sense. I played AOE on my father's lap when he was around, Ive played RoR and eventually AoE 2. When HD came out I threw hundreds of hours into it, and I was incredibly happy when the DE were announced. The series is on the short list of my favorite franchises. Seeing it survive and thrive fills me with joy. Thank you for the video, Akshon
The secret of Age of Empires II is that it is so fun to play. The levels are beautifull, civilizations are interesting and the campaigns really tell a good story. The Middle Ages come to life! I have bought AoEII DE a couple of weeks ago. I was s sceptical about this update because I was dissapointed in AoEII HD. But holy shit does this update feel fresh and good. I am replaying old missions and have so much fun. Got my ass kicked by a moderate AI so I really have to start training again. Back in the old days I could beat the hard AI. 😄
Yes, AoE 2 is indeed fun to play. It's extra funny when you realize that tech tree is very simplistic and all civilizations share it with minor changes. Then you have several bonuses that throw these similarities into the trash. Add the unique techs, slap the unique unit - and you have a party.
The community-based were deeply hurted and effectively declined since Microsoft shut down the MSN Zone server. Iirc, AoE have huge community following on there but sadly most people have forgot about MSN Zone stuff
Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing the history of Age of Empires. I have fond memories of The Zone. Cho War death match was my jam. Age of Kings was fun too but as I got older I also got busier and we all know how that story ends. It's fun to see the history of the game though, and in such a well done way. Kudos and thanks!
I've been following this game for more than a decade. I'm not a player, but I follow AoE2 regularly.... This video was A BIG NOSTALGIA hit for me... Thanks for that.
Nice vid, but i have to point some things out you forgot in the timeline in my opinion :). 1. Voobly, the platform used by competetive players until AOE DE was released. 2. ECL - The escape champions league, a one year long competition where about the top 32 ~ 40 players participated 3. NAC - Nilis apartment cup, a LAN event which for the first time broke 10K viewers on twitch for aoe (if i remember correctly) 4. Covid - Which happened a few months after DE was released, which caused intrest in the E-Sport to rise (causing hidden cup to break viewer records).
That was a really nice summary. I have been playing since 2018 and following the competitive scene since then and I can tell the game is totally alive. You can find a game in less than a couple of minutes, from very low to very high levels. More than 20K players are playing the game every month. The game is usually in the top 50 most played games on steam. Those are some crazy numbers for a game that essentially has more than 20 years.
Always a pleasure to hear more about the game i love. Some things that bothered me that hopefully can be addressed for your next project: the timeline of events, topics and subjects like the mechanics, players and their significants jumped all over the place, the introduction of the pro players of Daut and Viper were so far apart that i just assumed Viper wouldn't be getting the focus, if mentioned at all; 6:14 Adam Isgreen as new creative director from 2014 onwards seems like a big thing for the game and i expected the 3 seperate expansions for HD to be noteworthy enough to fit there, as well as right before as you stated that after HD launched and little hope was held out of it retaining relevance (a statement from a pro player would fit nicely here) the footage is from DE which implies that after 3 expansions for HD and a remaster with another expansion the community was stil sceptical that the game would last, which i highly daut is the case. Also forgetting Voobly is kind of sloppy
I feel like ZeroEmpires or Zak, don't get enough credit for what he has done for the community and Age of Empires as a whole. He was doing a lot of work for the game in the early 2010's and still continues to work on related stuff. The commitment and passion he has shown is something to be admired.
I think a major reason for that is quitting forever, coming back in 6 months, and then going out of the public eye for the past few years. Yeah, he still exists, but you rarely see him.
I’m glad to be a part of this amazing game thanks to the community and developers who kept it alive. The online battles are just legendary and nothing I have ever experienced somewhere else!
Great video. This is one of my alltime favorites and i played it in pretty much every version there is. Back when it came out and i was incapable of understanding how to win against the easy AI without cheats, back when the HD version came out and i could beat the easy AI and nothing more, back when the HD hype died out and i switched to voobly to loose against real humans, and now i came back for DE to win against the hard AI and still loose to human players. Everytime i have a hard time I take out AoE and everything is good.
Always liked this game but it was about 3-4 years ago I started watching casts and streams and have been blown away by the community. Maybe the finest example of community in all of competitive video gaming.
I've been playing casually since 99. You know, with cheat codes and just goofing off and stuff. Loved the game and has been my all time favorite. But I stopped playing for a while and recently built a high powered PC and found out about the DE. Literally have a $4,000 PC to play AoEDE... and seeing how competitive the game can be and learning so many dope techniques from UA-camrs like Spirit I have grown a new love for AoE.
as much as I love seeing my country mentioned (Chile), I think the big dogs of South America are Brazil and Argentina, not Chile. Although I hope the level keeps improving over here too!
Cool video, thanks! If I may nitpick one thing, Team Secret didn’t assemble that group of players, they recruited a group who had already been playing together (as team TyRanT) for several years. And while they were certainly an all-star team five years ago, that’s not really the case any more: only TheViper and TaToH are still top-five players. Aftermath are much more of an all-star team.
Interviewer : So Viper how did you become the best AOE II Player? *flashback* "Help Me!", screamed Joan of Arc. "Why would you do this?", sobbed Charles Martell. "You Monster", spoke Erik the Red. Barbarossa remained silent. Viper came in, a smile on his face, a knife in his hand and exclaimed "DARK PRINCES! HEAR ME! GRANT ME ETERNAL POWER TO DEFEAT MY FOES! I HEREBY GIVE YOU THESE LEADERS OF HUMANITY AS SACRIFICE!" *flashback ends* Viper(nervous laughter) : Oh you know. Practice, fan support yada yada
I wish I could give this more praise than just a single thumbs up.....the level of complexity to this game are on a near chess level. It's always interesting and always entertaining. This game, the top players and streamers that keep it going deserve massive recognition for growing a community that is obviously gaining more and more attention. Congrats to all who keep this community going.
How could you not at least say a big "Thank you!" to the Voobly team for keeping all this story alive long long years before the streaming came to the present level?! Shame on you!!!
Thanks for making this vid! The AoE2 community is amazing, and rediculously tight-nit. Hope this leads to the game growing a bit more, it's truly the GOAT game
What i love the most about the Age of Empires 2 Community is the close to non exsiting toxcicity or flamming. Which is kinda something you had to got used to, in games like lol, Overwatch etc. Everybody is welcoming anybody whos intrested in the Game and are just enjoying it to chatt about the game they like. Huge shoutout to T90 - Offical, whos always making the game also understandable for new players!
It’s definitely not perfect - there are a few really unpleasant figures in the community and lots of others who enable them, the very few women in the community tend to get harassed, etc. But on the whole I agree. The community tends to skew older, which might help, as may the fact that the game is a bit more chill and cerebral than the typical esport.
@@200mccsa You can always focuse on the negativ aspects. But compare the positive aspects to diffrent Professional E-Sport Leagues. there are enough examples of T90 Casting female pro players. Sry mate but I dont rly see a point in your argument there. Especially since RTS games are rare with female players in the first place.
Age of Empires was the first game I ever fell in love with, the first one, it came free with our Gateway 2000. I have never stopped loving this franchise
Some events that were important to the game that wasnt mentioned: In 2001 microsoft held a tournament with a 100,000$ prize pool In 2014-2015 a saudi guy held a tournament in dubai for 110,000$
*Cleaning throat* As much as I love AoE2, let's not forget the still strong E-Sports scene in the beautiful Starcraft 2. I'd argue it's way bigger than AoE2
Such an amazing game. I’ve been playing Ages competitively since before Rise of Rome was released. I remember playing on MSN zone and everything. Amazing franchise.
I'm amazed how AOE2 is still alive and well to this very day, I mean a few months back there was a Vietnamese AOE2 tournament that had 50k-100k viewers
Sticking to the RTS Genre, I believe the spiritual successor to Command and Conquer deserves its own video, Supreme Commander, the game has a strong modding community in the form of Forged Alliance Forever. Its definatley worth looking into.
Hidden cup 3 was also the biggest tournament for aoe2 in 20 years or possibly ever. It had a $55,000 prize pool and the finals got over 56k viewers on T90s twitch,pretty big deal
The meta keep on evolving itself, absolutely true, but it'd be nice to point out how melee civs (specially calvary civs such as Franks and Huns) were dominant before DE was released. But when DE came up, melee pathfinding wasn't polished at all and the meta was forced to change into a ranged meta where civs like Mongols and Mayans could outstand.
AI Team battles of FFT have been a thing for absolutely ages, which is what makes me sad that the Tactics Ogre remake, which featured this mode, never really took off PvP wise.
As Age of Empires 2 is my favorite game of all time, I can't wait to see just how big its Esports scene becomes. It'll also be the only Esports scene I'll be paying attention too.
I espect to see the Ensemble Studios Intro in the Defintitve Edition. Disapoints me alot that there was no honorable mention or anything. Aoe was there game and still is. Nothing essential was changed for 20 years.
Total War Warhammer 2 has not such a big esports scene, but it deserves one. It is so interesting to watch. There is already the Everchosen Tournament hosted by Creative Assembly, but also countless Events hosted by UA-camrs and the Community. Especially Turin does much for the cometative Scene. I would be very happy if you could lead some attention to this:)
Hey guys, we had this video in the works for a while and are happy to finally have it out! What about subjects/titles would you like us to potentially look into for future videos?
I know this one is not that obscure but I think it would be cool if you could cover Competitive Starcraft 1, especially the early days when LAN play was the only option.
The Darwin Project is a failed battle royale that couldn't make it past beta. I don't know much about the competitive scene but it could be an interesting topic.
Which civ do u play Akshon? 😆
Maplestory!!!
F-ZERO GX
An honorary shoutout to Voobly: the third-party service which kept competitive Age of Empires 2 alive.
Well said, not sure why they didn't mention Voobly... without it we wouldn't have what we do now.
True
maybe because of Microsoft partner agreements or something? idk it was kinda odd, considering it was the platform where most of modern AoE2 competitive evolved to the stage we find it at today.
That's true!!! I was expecting that they should mention it eventually, and later I thougth "well, perhaps they did it, and I just missed it"
Yeah, Voobly deserved a mention as well as Memb with KOTD and Nili with NAC but oh well.
Even more viewers to T90 I guess.
This game has seen economies crash, presidents come and go, music changes, style changes, multiple generations of people coming in and out of the work force, and some of us still cant play to win. LOL
exagerating just a bit haha
I'm glad y'all made this,the game deserves to be way more popular than it is
way more popular ? youre joking right ? AoE 1 and 2 are by far the most praised RTS of all time
@@semiramisubw4864 really? I thought that was StarCraft and C&C?
@@semiramisubw4864 compare it to overwatch or lol or something
@@anirudhv5940 you cant. the golden age of RTS is sadly over, RTS games doesnt egenrate as much revenue as MOBA/other games that are trashed with MTX
@@semiramisubw4864 I hope a new age of RTS is in the making
I loved Age of Empires as a kid, I had no idea it was still this huge
Oh yes it's still pretty fun to watch too if you don't have AoE 1 or 2 downloaded. I'd watch T90 commentate on his Twitch or UA-cam channel if you have time.
Yea T90 videos are great even for people who aren't deep into the competitive knowhow of AoE2. He also does a ton of content and viewer games for new or less experienced players, he's a great guy and honestly one of the people who have done the most for the entertainment part of AoE
T90 is the gate way drug for AOE2
Took several years, it was underground for a long time
the redbull wololo 2 tournament just ended and it was a treat! You should check it out
The age scene is fantastic, however its the community that I like more, aoe 2 is one of those rare communities which has so much interaction between top players and casual viewers, the community is nice and non toxic for most part and most importantly people play this game for fun even during gigh stakes tourneys
it is just because it is (still) a small community. Once (if ever) it becomes bigger and more money and sponsors get involved, it will evolve to resemble the big ones with their advantages and cons.
AOE scene is one where you have a guy playing black forest vikings vs vikings EXCLUSIVELY for more than a decade becoming a legend.
@@averestless i think one of the reason is that the audience is much more mature. Most played aoe as a kid and are now around 30s
@@averestless reminds me of the DotA community back in the day when it was still not so popular .
@@timchanux I agree. I m one of them :)
in Asia, especially in China and Viet Nam there are tons of AOE tournaments every months with prize pool can reach over 1000 dollars for championship which is a very very huge amount of money here
Are those top asian players tournaments? I know there are big communities that don't involve much with the main events or don't even know of the top players (Game Ranger or HD Steam players for instance), but I don't know how competitive they are.
@@reclutacontramontina5354 yes there are! Mr. Yo of china was widely considered to be a contender for no. 2 in the world a couple years ago and there are IIRC like three top fifty players in vietnam alone. AOE2 is a very small and close knit community, bizarrely popular in certain relatively isolated regions. Hilariously there are almost no top players from the USA. T90 the commentator is probably one of the top three american players!
@@TheStrangeBloke Oh I thought you meant closed communities organizing their own tournaments apart from the main events. I do know of the chinese and vietnamese top players, even some indian players are joining the top ladder. Very strong players and teams with a long history in the game
and mr.yo wins all
TheStrangeBloke Vietnamese here. Yes it’s strange how the AoE communities here are based on regions. AoE 1 is dominant in the north while AoE 2 is popular in the central region. The top players ACCM, BacT, etc are all from there. Our scene is resilient and consistent but not going very well tho. All those players are pretty much old now with family affairs to tend to. Almost no new generations have appeared yet due to the massive popularity of Moba games like LOL.
Akshon Esports
: Being as historically accurate as possible
Age of Empires II: How do you turn this on
Good one
That was my favourite siege unit
*wrooom wroom* *horny car noises*
really sad vooby was forgotten was such a vital part of keeping AOE2 alive. Good video but how do you miss such a crucial detail
2:17 I cried when this happened.. I lost so many friend from a clan and AoE community in Zone.. I miss Zone, forever! I used to play AoE, MS Ants, Rogue Spear, Star Wars Galactic Wars & Midtown Madness for hours
"There is no daut that.." "A new hera..."
Theses puns ahah
"The future of the Age of Empires franchise was in Daut"
08:24 Decimating not only in 1v1 games but team games aswell
Biper: WHERE'S MY TEAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Heeelllllllp
The incredibly rare thing about AoE2 that's been a part of it's popularity is how fun it is for both casual and competitive players. The amount of depth and options in the game is staggering and it has fantastic bot support. Casual players could put 500 hours into the game offline and still not see everything it has to offer.
Competitive players find a mostly solid balance that's constantly changing. Civ's go in and out of fashion as balance tweaks and new strategies come out.
Compared to something like Starcraft it's just a world of difference. There's only so much fun you can have with SC as a casual player. I've never played AoE2 online and I've put a stupid amount of hours into it.
This so much. Imo also the reason why AoE 4 is under its potential atm because it mainly caters to only one aspect of the game.
Seriously glad you made this video!
To anyone who saw this and has thought "wow I really want to play this game now" I highly recommend you do.
The community is awesome and the game its self is so fun. I got in to the game about a year before DE (Definitive Edition) and fell in love with it.
I am by no means good at the game but now I am a member of multiple discords and will be playing in my first tournament in a few weeks. Dont be scared to jump in
what's up. Nice profile pic ;)
Good luck in the tournament!!!
What's your handle?
I can’t believe this video completely ignored the Chinese community, even without a mention to players like Yo, Tim, etc
Specially now that YO has decimated theViper multiple times in some tournaments and show matches.
That being said they didn't mention other top players like MBL too much.
They didnt even mention T90 haha
@@3atsleeprepeat yea
They mentioned wololo tournament but not the prize money of HC 3 which was I guess the largest prizepool since forever in AOE history to $50k+
@@3atsleeprepeat they did mention t90
@@3atsleeprepeat They mentioned him at least twice?
So glad you made this, eventually started watching this channel for overwatch but aoe2 has been a secret fav game of mine since I was a child
So happy Microsoft treated AoE so well, and of course to Voobly for keeping the competitive scene functioning
The most amazing thing to me is how little balance changes have happened through AoEIIs life.
It should be the subject of a case study to figure out how to balance games.
^bump
Yeah except that all of the new civs are insanely overpowered compared to most of the original civs.
Ehh, the balancing wasn't that good before atleast HD Edition. Most of the time you would only see a Hun mirror on Arabia. Some civs, like Teutons or Saracens were straight up useless. Today the balancing is much better, although some of the new civs were a bit overtuned at their release.
@@donaldducklas4155 not really. Franks have almost always been at the top, and still are. Huns are older too and remain top5. They seem really good until they get figured out, then they drop down in power.
@@shithappens6887 I think it all depends on the strategy and game style. Is it 1v1 Arabia? 4v4 Black Forest? Arena? The older civs tend to be more specialized in certain specific aspects and modes from what I have seen. Or rather, I think the meta was built around the older civs' advantages, so if you play those strategies well, you'll still come on top using older civs. With the newer ones, I think novel strategies and units that haven't been analyzed and explored much gives them a sense of being OP.
Great video! One thing to say is that there has been some major re-balancing in AoE2 Definitive Edition with the release of new civs, tons of updates to others, and more. You should do more of these videos, they're really dope.
Ah yes, Akshon Esports forgets the historical existence of Voobly, just like how AoE2 forgets that Turks historically have great skirmishers. All seems to be in order
also like how AOE2 doesnt give china access to gunpowder yet they are literally the place that invented it
Aren´t skirmishers a fictional unit anyway? Or do you think guys with spears and shields where historically great against archers?=D
@@Michaelonyoutub well they get bombard towers. Also be fair, they invented gunpowder, but the first people using hand cannoneers where not chinese.
@@ifuckinglovehumanism3624 They are meant to represent the historic skirmish units, which were light infantry units recruited from peasents. They were equipped with bows, slings and, yes, javelins as depicted in the game.
They were not extraordinary good against archers though. That's just because of balance reasons.
@@randomdude2026 Oh I see! Thank you for the info. In my language the units name makes no sence and because of it´s strengh and weaknesses I just assumed it´s fictional.
This game was a significant part of my childhood. Really happy to see my favorite esports channel giving it some love!
Lol I played loads of AoE when I was young and what I used to do sometimes is summoning super fast cars (and tricycle riding babies) through cheat codes to fire rockets (or nukes) on my enemy territory. Good times.
Started playing Aoe2 in the late 90s / early 2000s as a kid. The release of HD version and later the Definitive Edition was such an awesome gift for someone who grew up with this masterpiece. The online community is really awesome, but even playing the campaigns or skirmishes offline is such a wonderful trip down memory lane.
It's no wonder that this game survived for that long. It's objectively a reall well-made game and I'm so happy that the team developing it nowadays is composed of passionate people. All the events, the regular patches and improvements are so healthy for AoE. I'm glad one of my favourite game is getting the love it deserves. Also shoutout to the community, AoE players are wonderful.
How could you leave out Voobly and the main reason AoE2 HD was even made? Userpatch. Without userpatch AoE would be dead with no doubt.
Agreed!!! And he also didn't mention MembTV ...
KL what is MembTV?
@@jewellui Probably the oldest streaming channel in AOE. Memb has been streaming for a decade on many platform ( now mainly Twitch), and he is the one who organises the biggest tournaments in AOE both historically and now. E.g. Memb organised all King of the Desert tournaments, and he is organising KotD3 this year with a prizepool of 50k. He is a biiiig deal in the community and has keep AOE alive for years and years.
@@kristianlykke at least they showed him a few times..
Nice video. Did a good job of explaining why the game isn't being changed. Complexity in Age of Empires is emergent: the game is complex not because of how many different technologies etc it has, but because of how many different possibilities emerge from the basic concepts. Same way chess hasn't needed an update despite having like 6 units. Only think I would add is to say it's easy to start playing even if you haven't been playing for 20 years.
You know you watch a lot of age of empires streams when you remember most of the random clips in this video
I grew up playing Age of Empires ll. I'm 20 years old and I still play this. I got onto AoE because of my Dad. I play AoE not for it competitive side but more is casual vs ai, campaigns and just playing with friends.
Love these types of vids, makes me wanna play AoE
Only about 20 bucks on steam. If not on sale.
@@anaccountmusthaveaname9110 And it's a steal on that price considering how much content there is both single player and multiplayer.
Yesss! Play now! :)
Come play. You will lose a lot of games initially but people are friendly and after a few games you start getting paired with other newbies then you work your way up.
do it, do it, do itdo iti doit
I always thought this was a mobile game meme, I had no idea this game was so old and had such a long competitive scene, I love this channel, keep OW as your main game but I love seeing these videos on smaller scenes(: oh and Rivals of aether is so much fun! Wouldn’t of found it without y’all
Thank you for covering this. I love AOE2 as an esport. The only thing I would like to say negative about this is the claim that Secret made a dream team. That's not really what happened. Before team Secret was formed there was the Tyrant Clan. Mostly represented by Viper, Daut, Jordan23 and Tatoh. However a super team of 5 people would have looked like Viper, Tatoh, MBL, Lieryy and Yo.
I'd switch out yo with hera
@@lukasg4807 actually the one who probably doesnt belong there right now is mbl, he dropped out of the top 5 after hera and tatoh's improvement in the last year
@@KurtFan69 i think mbl is still definitely top 5, yo has had some good performances recently, but he hasn't really been consistently at the top 5, we'll see if he continues. Also you have to keep in mind that yo's English isn't great, which is the biggest reason for replacing him with Hera.
God...I remember playing this game as a kid in 2001 and loving it. I never got into the online scene and just kind of assumed it had faded away like so many other classics. And now, 21 years after it came out, it's still popular and has become a thriving ESport. Absolutely incredible.
Respect to the video, however this omits a pretty lenghty period in AOE, when there was Voobly. And before Voobly, people used to matchmake with Hamachi and there was an Argentinian site which would offer the recordings of the games. Then aoczone was founded and it was, coupled with Voobly a really big platform and a home for aoc players. Daut has been the best for so many years, that noone can come close, even if today he is not number 1. In addition, we should mention L_Clan_Chris (who has recently made a comeback), because he was the only one who was on par with Daut at the time.
And this is a really really long period of time.
I really don't remember Kaiser_Wilhelm (who I guess is Daut) as a top 10 contender during the during the MrFixit/AocZone years although he was a good player among many for sure. It was always really Arch_Koven and later Grunt who dominated that time period.
@@Verity98765 Koven left quite early. Well, not early, but after him there was a big period of time. At least around 2008 - 2012 Daut was THE best. I think even earlier.
@@Archerinho Yeah he left for military service just before the MSN Zone shut but during those early days he was the top guy so that's like 1999-2006 (maybe PG-Grunt surpassed him at the end) . I used to play at a decent level back then (came second in UK Bracket of the Microsoft tournament) so I knew all the people in the community pretty well. It's kind of hard to get a handle on what came after because the zone dying really killed the existing structure and a lot of amazing players left the game forever.
hamachi the good old days :D
If this channel was a drug I would have a crippling addiction
S ame
Me at first "Who the fuck is orjan larsen ??"
Me afterwards " oh man hes the viper , praise the god "
As always, such incredible, informative, well structured, and extremely well presented content. Thanks for all the effort you put in these videos :D.
I'd love to see some content on: Warcraft 3 esports, the history of esports exposition on public television, the history (and "death" of) of Hon, the history of Heroes of the Storm esports. I'd also LOVE to get a series on strategies that changed the meta of a game forever (GOATs in Overwatch being the most classic example).
Glad you like them!
As a esport fan and old lover of this game as a kid. It so cool to see my goof around rts be taken so such heights. Love playing it with friends and t90 and other pros/content creator have done so much to not only revive but evolve the game
Wish y'all had a lot more subs! This is one of the best video essays/mini-documentary channels out there.
I don't play multiplayer against people, I'm trash. But I'm so thankful for those that have pushed both in a competitive sense, and a business sense. I played AOE on my father's lap when he was around, Ive played RoR and eventually AoE 2. When HD came out I threw hundreds of hours into it, and I was incredibly happy when the DE were announced. The series is on the short list of my favorite franchises. Seeing it survive and thrive fills me with joy.
Thank you for the video, Akshon
The secret of Age of Empires II is that it is so fun to play. The levels are beautifull, civilizations are interesting and the campaigns really tell a good story. The Middle Ages come to life!
I have bought AoEII DE a couple of weeks ago. I was s sceptical about this update because I was dissapointed in AoEII HD. But holy shit does this update feel fresh and good. I am replaying old missions and have so much fun. Got my ass kicked by a moderate AI so I really have to start training again. Back in the old days I could beat the hard AI. 😄
Yes, AoE 2 is indeed fun to play. It's extra funny when you realize that tech tree is very simplistic and all civilizations share it with minor changes.
Then you have several bonuses that throw these similarities into the trash. Add the unique techs, slap the unique unit - and you have a party.
actually they also made the AI much much better, so that might be a reason aswell
The community-based were deeply hurted and effectively declined since Microsoft shut down the MSN Zone server. Iirc, AoE have huge community following on there but sadly most people have forgot about MSN Zone stuff
Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing the history of Age of Empires. I have fond memories of The Zone. Cho War death match was my jam. Age of Kings was fun too but as I got older I also got busier and we all know how that story ends. It's fun to see the history of the game though, and in such a well done way. Kudos and thanks!
I've been following this game for more than a decade. I'm not a player, but I follow AoE2 regularly.... This video was A BIG NOSTALGIA hit for me... Thanks for that.
Thank You for featuring the Battle of Africa 2!!!
Nice vid, but i have to point some things out you forgot in the timeline in my opinion :).
1. Voobly, the platform used by competetive players until AOE DE was released.
2. ECL - The escape champions league, a one year long competition where about the top 32 ~ 40 players participated
3. NAC - Nilis apartment cup, a LAN event which for the first time broke 10K viewers on twitch for aoe (if i remember correctly)
4. Covid - Which happened a few months after DE was released, which caused intrest in the E-Sport to rise (causing hidden cup to break viewer records).
That was a really nice summary. I have been playing since 2018 and following the competitive scene since then and I can tell the game is totally alive. You can find a game in less than a couple of minutes, from very low to very high levels. More than 20K players are playing the game every month. The game is usually in the top 50 most played games on steam. Those are some crazy numbers for a game that essentially has more than 20 years.
Always a pleasure to hear more about the game i love. Some things that bothered me that hopefully can be addressed for your next project: the timeline of events, topics and subjects like the mechanics, players and their significants jumped all over the place, the introduction of the pro players of Daut and Viper were so far apart that i just assumed Viper wouldn't be getting the focus, if mentioned at all; 6:14 Adam Isgreen as new creative director from 2014 onwards seems like a big thing for the game and i expected the 3 seperate expansions for HD to be noteworthy enough to fit there, as well as right before as you stated that after HD launched and little hope was held out of it retaining relevance (a statement from a pro player would fit nicely here) the footage is from DE which implies that after 3 expansions for HD and a remaster with another expansion the community was stil sceptical that the game would last, which i highly daut is the case. Also forgetting Voobly is kind of sloppy
That accelerated drone footage at 0:06 made me think you were showing World in Conflict
I feel like ZeroEmpires or Zak, don't get enough credit for what he has done for the community and Age of Empires as a whole. He was doing a lot of work for the game in the early 2010's and still continues to work on related stuff. The commitment and passion he has shown is something to be admired.
I think a major reason for that is quitting forever, coming back in 6 months, and then going out of the public eye for the past few years. Yeah, he still exists, but you rarely see him.
I’m glad to be a part of this amazing game thanks to the community and developers who kept it alive. The online battles are just legendary and nothing I have ever experienced somewhere else!
If Team Secret was the equivalent of the Avengers Joadn is our Hawkeye
well they werent put together there. Tyrants domintated for much longer. lmao
But Jordan is the hot one. So, Black Widow or Thor, depending on your taste.
El age of empires 2 es la perfeccion es como el ajedrez... Pasaran 1000 años y se seguira jugando... El age es vida.
Great video.
This is one of my alltime favorites and i played it in pretty much every version there is.
Back when it came out and i was incapable of understanding how to win against the easy AI without cheats, back when the HD version came out and i could beat the easy AI and nothing more, back when the HD hype died out and i switched to voobly to loose against real humans, and now i came back for DE to win against the hard AI and still loose to human players.
Everytime i have a hard time I take out AoE and everything is good.
You forgot to mention how Forgotten Empires made an unofficial expansion looong before they became the team who actually runs the game.
Always liked this game but it was about 3-4 years ago I started watching casts and streams and have been blown away by the community. Maybe the finest example of community in all of competitive video gaming.
I've been playing casually since 99. You know, with cheat codes and just goofing off and stuff. Loved the game and has been my all time favorite. But I stopped playing for a while and recently built a high powered PC and found out about the DE. Literally have a $4,000 PC to play AoEDE... and seeing how competitive the game can be and learning so many dope techniques from UA-camrs like Spirit I have grown a new love for AoE.
as much as I love seeing my country mentioned (Chile), I think the big dogs of South America are Brazil and Argentina, not Chile. Although I hope the level keeps improving over here too!
4:00 "was in daut" i see what you did there
My favourite game ever since 2004, when i was just 16yo... nice video guys, regarda from Brazil! :)
Cool video, thanks! If I may nitpick one thing, Team Secret didn’t assemble that group of players, they recruited a group who had already been playing together (as team TyRanT) for several years. And while they were certainly an all-star team five years ago, that’s not really the case any more: only TheViper and TaToH are still top-five players. Aftermath are much more of an all-star team.
Interviewer : So Viper how did you become the best AOE II Player?
*flashback*
"Help Me!", screamed Joan of Arc. "Why would you do this?", sobbed Charles Martell. "You Monster", spoke Erik the Red. Barbarossa remained silent. Viper came in, a smile on his face, a knife in his hand and exclaimed
"DARK PRINCES! HEAR ME! GRANT ME ETERNAL POWER TO DEFEAT MY FOES! I HEREBY GIVE YOU THESE LEADERS OF HUMANITY AS SACRIFICE!"
*flashback ends*
Viper(nervous laughter) : Oh you know. Practice, fan support yada yada
I wish I could give this more praise than just a single thumbs up.....the level of complexity to this game are on a near chess level. It's always interesting and always entertaining. This game, the top players and streamers that keep it going deserve massive recognition for growing a community that is obviously gaining more and more attention. Congrats to all who keep this community going.
Couldn't agree more!
That battle of Africa 2 final was INSANE... Would fully reccomend a watch such competitive play ✌
How could you not at least say a big "Thank you!" to the Voobly team for keeping all this story alive long long years before the streaming came to the present level?! Shame on you!!!
Team secret didn't have fatslob? Oof, big mistake
He did beat Viper, after all. Missed opportunity.
🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
🧱🧱😁🧱🧱
🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
@@imrekalman9044 We found his UA-cam channel guys!
Love to hear SOTL get a shout out!
6:40 I'm pretty sure that Adam isn't green
Thanks for making this vid! The AoE2 community is amazing, and rediculously tight-nit. Hope this leads to the game growing a bit more, it's truly the GOAT game
What i love the most about the Age of Empires 2 Community is the close to non exsiting toxcicity or flamming.
Which is kinda something you had to got used to, in games like lol, Overwatch etc.
Everybody is welcoming anybody whos intrested in the Game and are just enjoying it to chatt about the game they like.
Huge shoutout to T90 - Offical, whos always making the game also understandable for new players!
It’s definitely not perfect - there are a few really unpleasant figures in the community and lots of others who enable them, the very few women in the community tend to get harassed, etc. But on the whole I agree. The community tends to skew older, which might help, as may the fact that the game is a bit more chill and cerebral than the typical esport.
@@200mccsa You can always focuse on the negativ aspects. But compare the positive aspects to diffrent Professional E-Sport Leagues. there are enough examples of T90 Casting female pro players. Sry mate but I dont rly see a point in your argument there. Especially since RTS games are rare with female players in the first place.
Age of Empires was the first game I ever fell in love with, the first one, it came free with our Gateway 2000. I have never stopped loving this franchise
I used to watch my grandpa play this when my age was still single digits.
now in my mid 20's I still play the game.
Thanks for this, I had no idea about these overlays and how much people still like Age of Empires.
Glad That You Made This Video.Started Playing this game when I was 5years of age.And Really death of Age of empire is not possible.Love From India
Some events that were important to the game that wasnt mentioned:
In 2001 microsoft held a tournament with a 100,000$ prize pool
In 2014-2015 a saudi guy held a tournament in dubai for 110,000$
very much appreciated, that you shed more light on this beautiful game that is still alive today
there are a few inaccuracies tho :D
*Cleaning throat* As much as I love AoE2, let's not forget the still strong E-Sports scene in the beautiful Starcraft 2. I'd argue it's way bigger than AoE2
Both bw and sc2 are really important scenes, i like sc2 more than bw tho
We haven't forgotten SC2, but this video is about AoE2 and has nothing to do with Starcraft.
@@jamaly77 it's just this guy's pretending as if aoe2 was the last alive rts pro scene
One note on Hidden Cup 3, it had the largest prize pool and twitch viewership of any AOE2 tournament ever. (As of august 2020)
Such an amazing game. I’ve been playing Ages competitively since before Rise of Rome was released. I remember playing on MSN zone and everything. Amazing franchise.
Daut , just a month ago won Redbull wololo 3 tournament ( among the best tournament)
He is just crazy 2 decades of being a pro in same game🙄🙄.
I'm amazed how AOE2 is still alive and well to this very day, I mean a few months back there was a Vietnamese AOE2 tournament that had 50k-100k viewers
Can't wait for this channel to be at the forefront of Esports News/Analysis
This channel is the shit. Easily top 5 esports channels on YT, holy moly.
A french event, Z-LAN, is live right now, and it's about teams competing on many different games, of which AoE 2 is always a favourite
I'm a simple guy
I heard spirit of the law and give a like in an instant
May be a shout out to voobly was needed, voobly is the reason Age if empires is what it has become today
Sticking to the RTS Genre, I believe the spiritual successor to Command and Conquer deserves its own video, Supreme Commander, the game has a strong modding community in the form of Forged Alliance Forever. Its definatley worth looking into.
Hidden cup 3 was also the biggest tournament for aoe2 in 20 years or possibly ever. It had a $55,000 prize pool and the finals got over 56k viewers on T90s twitch,pretty big deal
Thanks for making this video.. it was a but technical and occasional viewers may find it difficult to understand but it is fine.
I used to watch my dad play age of empire all the time when i was a kid sure bring back memories
The meta keep on evolving itself, absolutely true, but it'd be nice to point out how melee civs (specially calvary civs such as Franks and Huns) were dominant before DE was released. But when DE came up, melee pathfinding wasn't polished at all and the meta was forced to change into a ranged meta where civs like Mongols and Mayans could outstand.
I'm having tears of joy while watching the video🙏 for making this fine piece of art
AI Team battles of FFT have been a thing for absolutely ages, which is what makes me sad that the Tactics Ogre remake, which featured this mode, never really took off PvP wise.
"Here comes the JOAN OF ARC the last hope fo france "- Narrator
Cheering with pride and joy hearing this in my childhood
AOE was my very first foray into RTS and nothing has compared. Nothing ever will!
As Age of Empires 2 is my favorite game of all time, I can't wait to see just how big its Esports scene becomes. It'll also be the only Esports scene I'll be paying attention too.
This video was very well done. But one this I think they overlooked was the role of Voobly of sustaining the game in the earlier pre-DE days
I espect to see the Ensemble Studios Intro in the Defintitve Edition. Disapoints me alot that there was no honorable mention or anything. Aoe was there game and still is. Nothing essential was changed for 20 years.
Total War Warhammer 2 has not such a big esports scene, but it deserves one. It is so interesting to watch. There is already the Everchosen Tournament hosted by Creative Assembly, but also countless Events hosted by UA-camrs and the Community. Especially Turin does much for the cometative Scene. I would be very happy if you could lead some attention to this:)
Kinda reminds me of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, which also had its comeback on Twitch.
Enjoyed your video!
Thank you!