I don't really even play Age much(save for a random game vs. AI here and there), but I absolutely love these videos. Well presented and easy to understand even for someone who's not overly familiar with the game mechanics.
Much the same ... It might well be 12 years ago i last touched my old AoEII:Conquerers CDs to give the scenarios a spin (never been much into competitive multiplayer gaming), but i really enjoy theses videos
Ok so maybe i have the macro and micro skills of a boomer but my knowledge about the meta is fucking divine thanks to Sprit of the Law's theorycrafting.
Advantages of 2 TC Feudal: - 2-3 more villagers once you reach castle age - secure resources earlier with the 2nd TC - douche your opponent - collect 1500 more resources Advantages of 3 TC Boom: - you can pick Japanese as civ
Disadvantages of 2 TC feudal instead of fast Castle: -Enemy siege knocking at the door -Xbows/knights enforcing their population control policy -Relics disappearing from the mini map -Your units and buildings wanting to change religion -Wild enemy Castle appearing out of nowhere
@@dogeofgreatness2222 Not really. Walls go down very fast in DE, specially in Feudal, and if your opponent forces the issue you'll have to fight having less numbers and worse technologies which can add to a snowball effect where you can never match your opponent army to fend it off And while you are struggling to keep the enemy out of your base, he's taking all the resources of the map PS: Not saying it doesn't work, I'm just describing the downsides. Cuman 2 TC boom is a valid strategy but it's not so easy to pull off like the video suggest
@@shafoz well I have to say I have to agree with you. On a map like arabia it's like axing your own foot. Arena like map is still VERY risky. BF which has been walled off properly you would still need near perfect execution to pull it off. The only map where I think it can work the best is Michi?
@@dogeofgreatness2222 is a decent strategy in arena and regicide fortress, some pros have had some success with it in tournaments I remember Viper managing pull it off in AOELYMPICS But I also remember Viper failing miserably with that strategy against Mr.Yo in another tournament
Without seeing this video - This is something I have been wondering for so long. In a straight-up boom which is better. Thanks for making this video. You're a gem to the community
Great video as usual))) Buuut is it just me or what, i still hear spirit of the LA HIRE since the franks campaign vs history video. I seriously can't unhear it XD
@@Hashslingingslasher- probaly if u are going for a feudal rush or play u should do the 2 TC cause it would make ur eco as good as a fast castle one... If not Fc is always better imo
@@justlikeit417 I played some low elo games last night 1400ish and i think you're correct. Although going fc is just much easier especially because going fc as cumans throws them through a loop as they're expecting you to boom
I just tried it out after seeing your video in a 1v1. Got a win and pretty great stat difference - final we both in castle age him with only 1TC and 2 stables and I had 2 TC and 3 stables and 56 vs 44 vills. Thanks
One thing you can do is attack when the cumans have the big resource advantage right after you hit castle. 2000 resources is a ton of knights and stables. Just skip the third tc.
@@kevley26 You can't. It's mathematically impossible. 3 stable knights needs 39 vills and with the third tc you need something like 20 on food. Upgrades on top can't be gotten, I've tried this strat a lot. You enter castle with something like just over 50 vills if you did a 20 fast feudal and build the tc with 7 vills and do everything after close to optimally.
Nevermind skipping the third tc. Idle your existing tcs as well! Sound stupid I know but I've had crazy success with this. I try drag out the feudal age for both players as long as possible, get a nice 5 or 6 vill lead, go castle, then idle both tcs and just spam fully upgraded cav out of 4 stables with one or two rams. People have no idea how to respond. Even if they're full on spears your numerical advantage is just too crazy.
I'm curious if Cumans would be able to pull off a Feudal TC drop. Unlike other TC drops, you'd still have your TC at home and could still gather resources and produce villagers. The downside is that you would necessarily be dropping the TC later than, say, Persians, and you don't get any special bonuses to your TC, combat-wise. I'll bet it would combine well with a scout or archer rush, letting you put a lot of pressure on another player without sacrificing your entire economy.
Something I've come to appreciate this year is that thinking of tcs as purely exponential is a bit inaccurate. Exponential graphs don't have cutoff points. AOE has a population limit, limited resources, and an enemy who can kill your villigers and tcs, and the fact that tcs are discreet "step functions" not continuous graphs. I now think more in terms of the logistic growth function and the Lotka-Volterra equations.
@@neildutoit5177 Yeah, that is a interesting and probably more accurate way of thinking about that. Thinking about the function of total resources collected over the whole game, I think that is basically continuous, but the first and second derivatives are definitely discrete. And how fast villagers are added should in theory not generally rely on how many resources you have because you should always have enough to keep your TC's working. So in reality, that figure should be constant until you add another TC. Which would definitely mean that it's not strictly exponential. And you're right, there are so many other factors that mess with villager numbers and the generalized collection rate that it's not that simple.
Because the point is to figure out whether cumans should go for fast castle or start booming in feudal, not how they compare to other civs doing fast castle boom
It's not that close. Mongols for instance get about 600 extra resources from 11 deer and 3 boar (on a map like scandinavia) and that's with a 40% faster bonus. Something like celts is a 15% bonus reduced by travel time much more than hunting. And lumber gathers slower than hunting. There is more wood though. But yeah in the medium-short term an extra tc blows all other eco bonuses out of the water. Long term it's hard to answer. If you're just booming you can go to 4 tc easily as cumans as soon as you hit castle and it's possible as other civs a little after hitting castle.
I just recently wanted to project this myself and happy to stand on the shoulders of giants. Thank you SOTL for taking such a calculated approach. Now we can all focus on the important question, is the risk worth the reward :) Presumably going Cumans is asking to be victim of early aggression.
Nice analysis. This paired with 1) more flexibility, 2) easier to defend with, 3) early castle power timing without 3rd TC shows why it's such a popular strategy compared to common castle boom.
it is insane how much knowledge he just had ready to spray around just because he made 100000 videos about all the other small things you have to consider to answer this question...
Everyone can tell beforehand that planting the FA TC is better economically. I think the real questions are 1)how many vils to go up with depending on if you want to plant the TC immediately or go for some scouts/archers first 2) what happens if there is water (pond or fully accessible sea)? Do you try to contend with galleys or fish or just plant TC immediately and try to go docks later? 3) if both of you are relatively passive is it better to be aggressive and use rams in feudal age to attack if he is fast castling? Or do you plant TC immediately? Or do you do both? And how many villagers to go up to feudal with?
I believe the Cuman option of having a second TC up in Feudal is fantastic when timed right, opposed to the strat of going 2 TCs right at the start of feudal age, i tried going for the 2nd TC right before upping to Castle age, as you wil be having the resources needed due to the 27-28 vils working as well as the wood and stone. When being halfway through to castle age, you already adding new workers and this only compliments the 3 tc boom even further getting to castle age and already have 2 self maintaining TCs, meaning you can either opt for a 2TC Castle age all in or a slightly faster 3TC boom with getting your military out faster as well as techs. Although you might consider playing this style only if you have pre walled maps, as pressure on more open maps can be applied as early as dark age and gets considerably stronger in feudal age. An all in feudal strat with a 2TC boom behind it might also be a strong option, teching into castle age when you got a sizeable lead. This espacially works great against archer civs when taking the feudal age ram option and s-ram in castle age into consideration.
I love this model building so much! Solving a real-world problem (well... AoE is real, right?) by using measurements, carefully crafted assumptions and statistical methods is pure science. Always nice to see the power of science in action, and video-game problems are such nice demonstrations, because they are contained and not overly complicated as the real world.
Feudal age second town center cumans is an interesting bonus... The ram option also allows you to spend longer time in feudal age and get the technologies before going to castle age.
Essentially. My understanding (albeit limited and growing) is that it's easier to shit out too many lumberjacks and redirect them to other resources after they've chopped some logs
At 3:33 why does the Cuman resources plateau and not drop while making the 3rd TC at 19- 20 min? Was each data point take at one min intervals, and the 19min just happened to equal the 20min point?
I hope you read this and consider a minor update to this video. in a regular 3 tc boom its kinda hard to get a wheelbarrow due to constant production of villagers but in 2 tc cuman boom I can regularly get wheelbarrow just around the time when i clicked castle age. I generally have 20-25 villagers on food at that time so its pretty optimal timing to get it. I really think that early wheelbarrow upgrade helps a ton while booming.
Yeah. With 2 TC's you can generally get all the eco upgrades a bit sooner. That's actually one of the big advantages of the 2 TC's. You can also transition into castle to quick imp by dropping a castle and staying 2 TC's for a long time without actually needing extra villager production for a long time.
In your video "how long does it take for a tc to pay off" the answer was 7 minutes. I assume 8 or 9 due to longer build time here. So my logic is wait until opponent has built 2 town centers. Then they have made big investment with no reward yet but your investment in 2nd tc is already paid off. So if you can force a fight at exactly that time then you win. And you can force the fight cus you have rams.
Yeah, but that is assuming opponent fast castles. If opponent goes for feudal aggression, then you're the one who's made a big TC investment that hasn' t paid off yet.
@@Naccarat yes I agree the strategy is mainly a counter to boomers HOWEVER If the opponent goes feudal aggression it might be even better just over-invest in defence, quick wall as much as possible and every minute you can stay alive you will be gaining more and more of a villiger lead so you don't worry about over-investing if the opponent doesn't go castle you will eventually win if you can stay alive. Scouting is important to know if you need to defend or attack.
@@neildutoit5177 Well that is the same thing as 1TC push vs booming in castle age. If the booming player can defend they gonna win. If the pushing player kills the a decent amount of vills he is winning. Actually most games get opened with a drush or at least feudal units. Cuman with 2nd feudal TC is always in defending position.
@@ComfyDents I agree it is very similar and many of the same principles apply but there are 2 noteworthy differences: number 1: If you are defending as cumans against a feudal push it is a bit easier to defend than defending against a 1tc castle push because defending in the feudal age is just easier. Even if opponent gets castle age before you, by the time siege gets there your tc has paid off so you can defend with spears, skirms, scouts, towers. Number 2: When you defend with Cumans in Feudal opponent is probably trying to save up for castle also so not investing everything in millitary so even though you put a lot into tc you can invest a lot into army as well because you aren't saving for castle (I disagree with sprit that you should go so fast to Castle. Stay in Feudal until 9 minutes after tc built just defending with all resources, then save for castle.) This is different from a 3tc boom defence because with 3tc boom defence opponent is not saving up for next age so it is harder.
If you are interested, my elo 1250 I got it up from 1100 playing cuman 2tc strat. I don't know how viable it is at a higher level but for mid-elo it is good.
Knowing the Fast Feudal TC puts Cumans at an advantage, the palisade bonus couldn't have gone to a better civ, as the TC builders would otherwise be such easy prey for a flusher.
@spirit of the law, please make a video series on how you extract data and make spreadsheets. I know most people know that. I am more interested in your methodology. Thanks in advance.
it glitched. it happens to farms every once in a while, my dad hates it when it happens in real life too. One minute you're planting tomatoes and then BOOM everything is gone.
Hmm, I always thought of the feudal-TC only as a tool for doing a feudal rush and still having a decent economy, but good to know it can be an advantage for booming as well. Thx.
... I'm not sure why investing in a fuedal rush would make the second TC better. The second TC is the easiest way to double your rate of constant economic growth
@@suddenllybah The longer your opponent stays in feudal age the longer time you will have a 2 TC advantage. But if you do 2 TC you will not have enough resources to apply any pressure to delay your opponents castle age time.
Watching your videos have made me improve DRASTICALLY so thank you for that. But honestly multiplayer is where you see the true potential of this game come out. I still can’t hang. Lol
If you start building the TC when you are in Feudal and reach Castle while still building. is the building speed than accellerated to the normal castle age rate, or is it still the slower feudal time? So will it be viable to build the 1st TC on the ways up to castle?
So how about FC but little longer dark age (collect more wood), and build second tc when hitting feudal while still fc-ing? Would also be nice to calculate the numbers when its _most_ efficient. I mean, calculate houses + buildings, control for the function to never go below the minimum needed resources, and tell us what the best way would be. 2 scenarios are pretty nice but still not really comparable now?
I am not a 100% sure on this but the fact that the feudal tc takes almost 2x longer to build, while FCing, it is pointless to start the TC while advancing as it will finish roughly at the same time as if a new TC was started just after hitting castle (and more villagers would not be working for the duration making the economy a lot weaker). There was one game in Arena (in one of the recent tournaments, I dont remeber who) where one of the pro players FCd with Cumans and had wood but delayed building the TC until hitting castle age as it would be up at the same time but more villager seconds will be wasted.
The sooner the fast castle into 3 TCs the better. I considered factoring in buildings like market and blacksmith (houses are actually already included in the villager cost here), but just assuming 20 pop for Cumans and 26+2 fast castle already covers that. Those are both common builds, which through trial and error already account for all of those costs and get you to the intended age consistently with the necessary amount of resources and not too much extra floating. I didn't see a need to reinvent the wheel in this case while those builds have already been worked out.
Great topic, and as always the calculations, etc. well explained. With Cumans it'd be good to know the optimal villager count going into Castle as well. You mentioned 20/21 villagers for clicking up to feudal age and assumed hitting Castle around 17:10. Is that because the math is already done on the optimal up-time? Or just cos that's what's typically done in games? I've seen top players boom with Cumans and hit castle even later, around 20 minute mark on defensive maps like Arena. Of course Arabia would likely need that faster up-time at 17:10, but curious to see what the 'optimal' strategy would be for resource gathering that we could aim - optimal villagers for clicking up to Castle - and then adjust according to the map, RNG, and aggression of the opponent. Nice job as always :D Thanks.
Delaying castle time makes more vulnerable to knights tho, i think i would play it safe and build the 2nd TC after i click, the vil advantage will be smaller but i get to castle in the same time with a bit more vils
To be fair, timing and other such things is also important. If someone *knows* that you're going to be advancing to castle later than they are, they can fc straight into crossbows or something else and be raiding the Cuman player before they can adequately defend themself. So staying in feudal longer with 2 tcs does obviously have some non-economic negative tradeoffs.
Unrelated to the video but I was curious if the idea of a video of the difference between patrol and attack move in aoe2 was something interesting enough to go into
@3:18 makes me wonder what the total resources graph would look like if you didn't bother spending the time to age or get the third town center. the trajectory before many of the dips makes it seem like those dips are not worth it. of course they give you the ability to build new units and research new techs, but ignore that for a moment and just look at it purely from an economic perspective.
Is it possible to find the answer by comparing the score curve of a Cuman 2TC vs a Saracen fast castle 3TC vs a French fast Castle 3TC over the first 25min ? The score encompass the ressources collected, technologies, villagers count etc... in one metric already, just remove the exploration and military components and map generation RNG by using all revealed and a sandbox map maybe ?
im starting to play as Cumans. I delay a bit feudal and advance after i collected all animal and berries food, with around 500 food as i click on advance age. As i advance, lumberjack tech and mill, and i start adding farms after those are finished and start training scouts.Bloodlines, armor and attack upgrades then. I only advance to castle if my scouts are dealing good damage with 1 or 2 rams, and i only build de 2nd TC when i can spare some vills as i kill at least 10 enemy vills raiding. I know its not the best strat ever, but as i said, im starting to understand how to sinergize those feudal rams with the temptation of the 2nd TC :P
I feel like the 2 tc and ram thing is for you to go allout feudal war on your opponent and pressure him so much he just can't go up an age. Which gives you an insane advantage with rams and 2 tc's.
Hello SOTL, how about video about blacksmith upgrades? I watch T90 low elo legends recently, he speaks a lot how upgrades are important, I wonder How much they are important. It would be nice just how much more powerful/weaker you are if you forget your blacksmith updates or if it's even good idea to engage againts someone who has upgrades.
Thanks for this! Very interesting. Doesn't seem that strong at all when you factor in civs that have other economy bonuses, since this was done vs. generic...correct? Basically if you don't do this with cumans vs. civs that have econ bonuses and boom you'll be behind :(
One big thing here is if these two strategies went up against each other the fast castle player is hitting castle age about 4 minutes faster than the Cuman player. Leaves a lot of time to attack with knights or xbows
Attack but what ?! several layers of walls&buildings while just a few tiles behind a feudal siege work shop is going up just about the precise moment the cuman player hits castle age to pump out mangonel&skorpions to buy enough time to either mass kts/camels from more stables then u can sustain or build a castle to bait you into either wasting more resorces on more units&siege or go for an imp race he will easily surpass you in... Early pressure is indeed the best&default way most civs have to deal with the cuman 2 TC boom but its heavily dependent on the map and how good at waling the opposing cuman player is.
3:23 As you have shown, between 12 and 15 minutes the total resources graphs line up pretty well, while the generic civ is advancing to Castle and before it builds 2nd and 3rd TCs. Would a 1 TC Fast Imp be a good strategy to counter Cuman 2 TC? Until you advance to Imp, you'll be on the same Res as the Cumans, and if you can get to Imp while Cumans are in early Castle, and press that army tech advantage with trebs and snipe a few vills before building your own TCs. I wonder if that would bring the Cuman player back in down enough in vills and res to put you on more even footing economically with a tech lead?
Sortof but "not really". By the time you attack with imp units, they're in early castle, as you mentioned. Which means that they are in an advantageous position compared to a person who has done the classic build (3 TCs) instead. Keep in mind that a cumans player does not have to build the third TC, it's done like that in this video in order to make the resources line up, (obtaining the same number of incoming villagers). It's not a bad option (in reality, it is a good option), but it's not to be confused as their ONLY option. Whether fast imp can compete with 3 TCs is an age-old battle with advantages on both sides of the board, and cannot be determined by maths alone. But regardless of that, the cuman's would be objectively harder to defeat than a generic 3TC boomer due to having a 500 resource advantage. Edit: The one thing you would gain from using fast imp against cumans is the knowledge that they are extremely likely to go 2 TCs, and are less likely to go on a Feudal Offensive or Fast Castle Offensive (not to be confused with a large Castle Age offensive). Whether that knowledge alone is good enough to go fast imp is up to the player
How many villagers building the second TC would be ideal ressource-wise in the endgame? You seem to have picked 8, as it's the most common, but can't we use... maths? ;) I assume 4 villagers would construct the slow second TC in 1:48 min instead of the 4:30 of a single villager, while 8 push it down to 1:00 min. (Every villager after the first building half as fast as the first.) Is that correct? 48 sec earlier 2x villager output + 48 sec earlier double-bit axe + 4x 1:48 min of a villager not collecting versus 8x 1 min of a villager not collecting (+ walk-over time ofc course) 4 vil collect 144 res in 1:48 min; 20 vil with double-bit axe collect 24 res more in 48 sec + ~ 2 more villagers minus their 100 food cost versus 8 vil collect 160 res in 1 min So clearly, as long as you produce enough ressources for no idle time in villager production, construction with 8 vil is worth it. But how many would be ideal, assuming no subsequent idle time? 4 vil collect 144 res in 1:48 min; 20 vil with double-bit axe collect 45 res more in 1:30 min + ~ 3.5 more villagers minus their 175 food cost versus 12 vil collect 168 res in 42 sec Looks even better, if you're not running out of ressources during the construction and have to idle your TCs afterwards. I probably made some mistakes here, so feel free to correct them. Would walk-over time significantly change the result?
But how does sticking on 2 TC compare to the 3 TC boom if you just don't transition? Seems to my eyes that the Cuman player should have a pretty massive advantage to work with if they go for military play in Castle age, especially with their capped rams in tow.
Hey Spirit, have you heard Viper's theory that if yo do the feudal boom and then idle your tc at around 40 vills to go castle you are still ahead and reach castle age almost at the same time?
It's the best general concession. You don't dump too much of resources + build time early on in feudal but building it a few mins before advancing seems to work out the best. Of course, the safer you are, the faster you can drop it
![Mayan Unique Tech: Hul'che Javelineers [AoE2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/29h36Ykn3GM/mqdefault.jpg)
4:52 That deer thought it was a boar for a second there
it made me question whether deer run away or attack back
...until it died.
@@terner1234 Maybe Ibex's are different
I don't really even play Age much(save for a random game vs. AI here and there), but I absolutely love these videos. Well presented and easy to understand even for someone who's not overly familiar with the game mechanics.
You are better than me, I don't play at all except Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds from time to time :P
I really like listening to SoTL.
Much the same ... It might well be 12 years ago i last touched my old AoEII:Conquerers CDs to give the scenarios a spin (never been much into competitive multiplayer gaming), but i really enjoy theses videos
Ok so maybe i have the macro and micro skills of a boomer but my knowledge about the meta is fucking divine thanks to Sprit of the Law's theorycrafting.
I don't even own the Game.... Yet I've been watching SotL for a few years now - his vids are great and I like his analytical style.
Advantages of 2 TC Feudal:
- 2-3 more villagers once you reach castle age
- secure resources earlier with the 2nd TC
- douche your opponent
- collect 1500 more resources
Advantages of 3 TC Boom:
- you can pick Japanese as civ
Disadvantages of 2 TC feudal instead of fast Castle:
-Enemy siege knocking at the door
-Xbows/knights enforcing their population control policy
-Relics disappearing from the mini map
-Your units and buildings wanting to change religion
-Wild enemy Castle appearing out of nowhere
@@shafoz well closed off and walled maps can leseen those disadvantages .....
@@dogeofgreatness2222 Not really. Walls go down very fast in DE, specially in Feudal, and if your opponent forces the issue you'll have to fight having less numbers and worse technologies which can add to a snowball effect where you can never match your opponent army to fend it off
And while you are struggling to keep the enemy out of your base, he's taking all the resources of the map
PS: Not saying it doesn't work, I'm just describing the downsides. Cuman 2 TC boom is a valid strategy but it's not so easy to pull off like the video suggest
@@shafoz well I have to say I have to agree with you. On a map like arabia it's like axing your own foot. Arena like map is still VERY risky. BF which has been walled off properly you would still need near perfect execution to pull it off. The only map where I think it can work the best is Michi?
@@dogeofgreatness2222 is a decent strategy in arena and regicide fortress, some pros have had some success with it in tournaments
I remember Viper managing pull it off in AOELYMPICS
But I also remember Viper failing miserably with that strategy against Mr.Yo in another tournament
Come on, I was watching the Mayan overview!
Get to work, you still have a boar to lure!
That TC ain't gonna build itself.
Hey! what are you doing here, did you completely build that wall?
Who told you to stop farming? Get to work!
Cuman player to everyone else: ok, boomer
@JR 1986 Can't speak for anyone else, but I hadn't heard the pun before.
Coomans in Castle Age: "Oh God I'm boooming, aaaaaaah!" (Releases a load of Kipchaks)
Ok Cumer
Without seeing this video - This is something I have been wondering for so long. In a straight-up boom which is better. Thanks for making this video. You're a gem to the community
Putting ressources/villagers in a graph like that is SO usefull. it makes everything so clear. once again a great video by SOTL.
Generic 3 town centre "boomer". Lol.
Cuumer vs boomer
I prefer Bloomer.
Hera did this in game and proved that is better going 3tc than 2 tc.
Great video as usual)))
Buuut is it just me or what, i still hear spirit of the LA HIRE since the franks campaign vs history video. I seriously can't unhear it XD
I feel that we need a full version of the La Hire montage
I don't really play age of empires anymore. I'm just here for the mafs
Ah finally I will be able to decide
verdict ?
@@Hashslingingslasher- Dk
@@Hashslingingslasher- probaly if u are going for a feudal rush or play u should do the 2 TC cause it would make ur eco as good as a fast castle one...
If not Fc is always better imo
@@justlikeit417 I played some low elo games last night 1400ish and i think you're correct. Although going fc is just much easier especially because going fc as cumans throws them through a loop as they're expecting you to boom
Thanks for all the work and nerdetics ❤️
I just tried it out after seeing your video in a 1v1. Got a win and pretty great stat difference - final we both in castle age him with only 1TC and 2 stables and I had 2 TC and 3 stables and 56 vs 44 vills. Thanks
I don't even play this game but cant stop myself from watching each video as soon as it comes out
Can relate
Next subject: optimal fish trap placement!
Malay players are waiting
Next to the dock, with a one tile gap
@@martijn9568 Some players will read your comment and will take it seriously as a pro advice.
I feel bad for them already !
One thing you can do is attack when the cumans have the big resource advantage right after you hit castle.
2000 resources is a ton of knights and stables. Just skip the third tc.
Thats how is steamroll my oponenet in 1v1s if i get cumans
honestly you can still afford a third tc and three stable knights with upgrades, it can be really strong.
Depends if you want to stay alive 4 minute more or try to destroy ennemy in this amount of time.
@@kevley26 You can't. It's mathematically impossible. 3 stable knights needs 39 vills and with the third tc you need something like 20 on food. Upgrades on top can't be gotten, I've tried this strat a lot. You enter castle with something like just over 50 vills if you did a 20 fast feudal and build the tc with 7 vills and do everything after close to optimally.
Nevermind skipping the third tc. Idle your existing tcs as well! Sound stupid I know but I've had crazy success with this. I try drag out the feudal age for both players as long as possible, get a nice 5 or 6 vill lead, go castle, then idle both tcs and just spam fully upgraded cav out of 4 stables with one or two rams. People have no idea how to respond. Even if they're full on spears your numerical advantage is just too crazy.
I'm curious if Cumans would be able to pull off a Feudal TC drop. Unlike other TC drops, you'd still have your TC at home and could still gather resources and produce villagers. The downside is that you would necessarily be dropping the TC later than, say, Persians, and you don't get any special bonuses to your TC, combat-wise. I'll bet it would combine well with a scout or archer rush, letting you put a lot of pressure on another player without sacrificing your entire economy.
Earlier investment into an exponential factor almost always wins out. I'm glad my personal mathematical intuition wasn't contradicted by the data.
Something I've come to appreciate this year is that thinking of tcs as purely exponential is a bit inaccurate. Exponential graphs don't have cutoff points. AOE has a population limit, limited resources, and an enemy who can kill your villigers and tcs, and the fact that tcs are discreet "step functions" not continuous graphs. I now think more in terms of the logistic growth function and the Lotka-Volterra equations.
@@neildutoit5177 Yeah, that is a interesting and probably more accurate way of thinking about that. Thinking about the function of total resources collected over the whole game, I think that is basically continuous, but the first and second derivatives are definitely discrete. And how fast villagers are added should in theory not generally rely on how many resources you have because you should always have enough to keep your TC's working. So in reality, that figure should be constant until you add another TC. Which would definitely mean that it's not strictly exponential.
And you're right, there are so many other factors that mess with villager numbers and the generalized collection rate that it's not that simple.
@@neildutoit5177 TBF, you could argue that in this case, the earlier TC also has value because it can be used to defend resources effectively.
What about comparing Cumans to a Civ with other resource bonuses? (celts, vikings, slavs etc..)
vikings free wheelbarrow/handcart will demolish this
Thats quite interesting. In my opinion it would probably close the gap and be better late game I guess
Because the point is to figure out whether cumans should go for fast castle or start booming in feudal, not how they compare to other civs doing fast castle boom
@@anderslaustsen6546 Well sure, and I am very glad he did that math for us. But I still think my question is a natural follow up.
It's not that close. Mongols for instance get about 600 extra resources from 11 deer and 3 boar (on a map like scandinavia) and that's with a 40% faster bonus. Something like celts is a 15% bonus reduced by travel time much more than hunting. And lumber gathers slower than hunting. There is more wood though.
But yeah in the medium-short term an extra tc blows all other eco bonuses out of the water.
Long term it's hard to answer. If you're just booming you can go to 4 tc easily as cumans as soon as you hit castle and it's possible as other civs a little after hitting castle.
I love the overlays graphs. It's such a clean visualization of the timings
I just recently wanted to project this myself and happy to stand on the shoulders of giants. Thank you SOTL for taking such a calculated approach. Now we can all focus on the important question, is the risk worth the reward :) Presumably going Cumans is asking to be victim of early aggression.
Nice analysis. This paired with 1) more flexibility, 2) easier to defend with, 3) early castle power timing without 3rd TC shows why it's such a popular strategy compared to common castle boom.
it is insane how much knowledge he just had ready to spray around just because he made 100000 videos about all the other small things you have to consider to answer this question...
Everyone can tell beforehand that planting the FA TC is better economically.
I think the real questions are 1)how many vils to go up with depending on if you want to plant the TC immediately or go for some scouts/archers first
2) what happens if there is water (pond or fully accessible sea)? Do you try to contend with galleys or fish or just plant TC immediately and try to go docks later?
3) if both of you are relatively passive is it better to be aggressive and use rams in feudal age to attack if he is fast castling? Or do you plant TC immediately? Or do you do both? And how many villagers to go up to feudal with?
I believe the Cuman option of having a second TC up in Feudal is fantastic when timed right, opposed to the strat of going 2 TCs right at the start of feudal age, i tried going for the 2nd TC right before upping to Castle age, as you wil be having the resources needed due to the 27-28 vils working as well as the wood and stone. When being halfway through to castle age, you already adding new workers and this only compliments the 3 tc boom even further getting to castle age and already have 2 self maintaining TCs, meaning you can either opt for a 2TC Castle age all in or a slightly faster 3TC boom with getting your military out faster as well as techs. Although you might consider playing this style only if you have pre walled maps, as pressure on more open maps can be applied as early as dark age and gets considerably stronger in feudal age. An all in feudal strat with a 2TC boom behind it might also be a strong option, teching into castle age when you got a sizeable lead. This espacially works great against archer civs when taking the feudal age ram option and s-ram in castle age into consideration.
I love this model building so much! Solving a real-world problem (well... AoE is real, right?) by using measurements, carefully crafted assumptions and statistical methods is pure science. Always nice to see the power of science in action, and video-game problems are such nice demonstrations, because they are contained and not overly complicated as the real world.
I hope this means the cumans civ overview is coming up next
Cant wait to see it 😊
Feudal age second town center cumans is an interesting bonus... The ram option also allows you to spend longer time in feudal age and get the technologies before going to castle age.
1:00 that gold on arena make me jealous. Mines usually balls deep in the woods
Micromanagement with multiple town centers has to be abysmal, does one just throw the villages at random forests or..?
Essentially. My understanding (albeit limited and growing) is that it's easier to shit out too many lumberjacks and redirect them to other resources after they've chopped some logs
@@hahaureadmyname pretty much xd
Finally... When could I expect full civ review?
At 3:33 why does the Cuman resources plateau and not drop while making the 3rd TC at 19- 20 min? Was each data point take at one min intervals, and the 19min just happened to equal the 20min point?
I hope you read this and consider a minor update to this video.
in a regular 3 tc boom its kinda hard to get a wheelbarrow due to constant production of villagers but in 2 tc cuman boom I can regularly get wheelbarrow just around the time when i clicked castle age. I generally have 20-25 villagers on food at that time so its pretty optimal timing to get it. I really think that early wheelbarrow upgrade helps a ton while booming.
Yeah. With 2 TC's you can generally get all the eco upgrades a bit sooner. That's actually one of the big advantages of the 2 TC's. You can also transition into castle to quick imp by dropping a castle and staying 2 TC's for a long time without actually needing extra villager production for a long time.
The exact content I appreciate here. Thank you.
In your video "how long does it take for a tc to pay off" the answer was 7 minutes. I assume 8 or 9 due to longer build time here. So my logic is wait until opponent has built 2 town centers. Then they have made big investment with no reward yet but your investment in 2nd tc is already paid off. So if you can force a fight at exactly that time then you win. And you can force the fight cus you have rams.
Yeah, but that is assuming opponent fast castles. If opponent goes for feudal aggression, then you're the one who's made a big TC investment that hasn' t paid off yet.
@@Naccarat yes I agree the strategy is mainly a counter to boomers HOWEVER If the opponent goes feudal aggression it might be even better just over-invest in defence, quick wall as much as possible and every minute you can stay alive you will be gaining more and more of a villiger lead so you don't worry about over-investing if the opponent doesn't go castle you will eventually win if you can stay alive. Scouting is important to know if you need to defend or attack.
@@neildutoit5177 Well that is the same thing as 1TC push vs booming in castle age. If the booming player can defend they gonna win. If the pushing player kills the a decent amount of vills he is winning.
Actually most games get opened with a drush or at least feudal units.
Cuman with 2nd feudal TC is always in defending position.
@@ComfyDents I agree it is very similar and many of the same principles apply but there are 2 noteworthy differences: number 1: If you are defending as cumans against a feudal push it is a bit easier to defend than defending against a 1tc castle push because defending in the feudal age is just easier. Even if opponent gets castle age before you, by the time siege gets there your tc has paid off so you can defend with spears, skirms, scouts, towers. Number 2: When you defend with Cumans in Feudal opponent is probably trying to save up for castle also so not investing everything in millitary so even though you put a lot into tc you can invest a lot into army as well because you aren't saving for castle (I disagree with sprit that you should go so fast to Castle. Stay in Feudal until 9 minutes after tc built just defending with all resources, then save for castle.) This is different from a 3tc boom defence because with 3tc boom defence opponent is not saving up for next age so it is harder.
If you are interested, my elo 1250 I got it up from 1100 playing cuman 2tc strat. I don't know how viable it is at a higher level but for mid-elo it is good.
As a Cuman user this is the video I've been waiting for!
can you make a behind the scenes video of all the math you calculate and how you do it. How you keep track and such and how those graphs are made?
Love your vids keep up the good work m8 ;)
Knowing the Fast Feudal TC puts Cumans at an advantage, the palisade bonus couldn't have gone to a better civ, as the TC builders would otherwise be such easy prey for a flusher.
That is a really nice model. Great video
@spirit of the law, please make a video series on how you extract data and make spreadsheets. I know most people know that. I am more interested in your methodology. Thanks in advance.
3:50 wth happened to that farm above the tc? the vil was farming in plowed land and disappeared suddenly 11
it glitched. it happens to farms every once in a while, my dad hates it when it happens in real life too. One minute you're planting tomatoes and then BOOM everything is gone.
Hmm, I always thought of the feudal-TC only as a tool for doing a feudal rush and still having a decent economy, but good to know it can be an advantage for booming as well. Thx.
... I'm not sure why investing in a fuedal rush would make the second TC better.
The second TC is the easiest way to double your rate of constant economic growth
@@suddenllybah The longer your opponent stays in feudal age the longer time you will have a 2 TC advantage. But if you do 2 TC you will not have enough resources to apply any pressure to delay your opponents castle age time.
Watching your videos have made me improve DRASTICALLY so thank you for that. But honestly multiplayer is where you see the true potential of this game come out. I still can’t hang. Lol
Tighter execution = advantage?
Love the balance
If you start building the TC when you are in Feudal and reach Castle while still building. is the building speed than accellerated to the normal castle age rate, or is it still the slower feudal time? So will it be viable to build the 1st TC on the ways up to castle?
So how about FC but little longer dark age (collect more wood), and build second tc when hitting feudal while still fc-ing? Would also be nice to calculate the numbers when its _most_ efficient. I mean, calculate houses + buildings, control for the function to never go below the minimum needed resources, and tell us what the best way would be. 2 scenarios are pretty nice but still not really comparable now?
I am not a 100% sure on this but the fact that the feudal tc takes almost 2x longer to build, while FCing, it is pointless to start the TC while advancing as it will finish roughly at the same time as if a new TC was started just after hitting castle (and more villagers would not be working for the duration making the economy a lot weaker).
There was one game in Arena (in one of the recent tournaments, I dont remeber who) where one of the pro players FCd with Cumans and had wood but delayed building the TC until hitting castle age as it would be up at the same time but more villager seconds will be wasted.
The sooner the fast castle into 3 TCs the better.
I considered factoring in buildings like market and blacksmith (houses are actually already included in the villager cost here), but just assuming 20 pop for Cumans and 26+2 fast castle already covers that. Those are both common builds, which through trial and error already account for all of those costs and get you to the intended age consistently with the necessary amount of resources and not too much extra floating. I didn't see a need to reinvent the wheel in this case while those builds have already been worked out.
I sense a 'Kipchak' video coming.
Great topic, and as always the calculations, etc. well explained.
With Cumans it'd be good to know the optimal villager count going into Castle as well. You mentioned 20/21 villagers for clicking up to feudal age and assumed hitting Castle around 17:10. Is that because the math is already done on the optimal up-time? Or just cos that's what's typically done in games? I've seen top players boom with Cumans and hit castle even later, around 20 minute mark on defensive maps like Arena. Of course Arabia would likely need that faster up-time at 17:10, but curious to see what the 'optimal' strategy would be for resource gathering that we could aim - optimal villagers for clicking up to Castle - and then adjust according to the map, RNG, and aggression of the opponent.
Nice job as always :D Thanks.
4:52 is that Goat attacking the villager? WTF!?
"Interesting spreadsheet problem." This is who I follow.
Does pop space make any difference there ? the non cuman player has to build houses which slows collection rate
you know, i think i play a game of age 1 time every 6 months if i do, but i always like watching ur videos
I made up a spreadsheet for this earlier this week after I played an arena game of cumans vs aztec.
No I'm not uncool you're uncool.
Spreadsheets ARE cool man, what are you talking about?!
i love it when he does math videos
Delaying castle time makes more vulnerable to knights tho, i think i would play it safe and build the 2nd TC after i click, the vil advantage will be smaller but i get to castle in the same time with a bit more vils
To be fair, timing and other such things is also important. If someone *knows* that you're going to be advancing to castle later than they are, they can fc straight into crossbows or something else and be raiding the Cuman player before they can adequately defend themself. So staying in feudal longer with 2 tcs does obviously have some non-economic negative tradeoffs.
CUMAN OVERVIEW INCOMING
Well done
Unrelated to the video but I was curious if the idea of a video of the difference between patrol and attack move in aoe2 was something interesting enough to go into
Do a video about tree hp.
@3:18 makes me wonder what the total resources graph would look like if you didn't bother spending the time to age or get the third town center. the trajectory before many of the dips makes it seem like those dips are not worth it. of course they give you the ability to build new units and research new techs, but ignore that for a moment and just look at it purely from an economic perspective.
Is it possible to find the answer by comparing the score curve of a Cuman 2TC vs a Saracen fast castle 3TC vs a French fast Castle 3TC over the first 25min ?
The score encompass the ressources collected, technologies, villagers count etc... in one metric already, just remove the exploration and military components and map generation RNG by using all revealed and a sandbox map maybe ?
i love your background music ^_^
*Gestures at 2TC in Feudal* This is great.
*Gestures at 3TC in Castle* But I like this.
How does it compare to civs with big eco bonuses like Aztecs, Vikings or Persians?
Too bad he didnt test those. I would add Khmer to this list.
And Malay!
Two Handed Swordsman Malay eco is bad
@@ThisIsMyRoad I don't think so...
I mean that fast aging is everything for it.
@@ThisIsMyRoad How can they be bad? They have one of the best types of bonuses?
The application of math! Cool.
im starting to play as Cumans. I delay a bit feudal and advance after i collected all animal and berries food, with around 500 food as i click on advance age. As i advance, lumberjack tech and mill, and i start adding farms after those are finished and start training scouts.Bloodlines, armor and attack upgrades then. I only advance to castle if my scouts are dealing good damage with 1 or 2 rams, and i only build de 2nd TC when i can spare some vills as i kill at least 10 enemy vills raiding. I know its not the best strat ever, but as i said, im starting to understand how to sinergize those feudal rams with the temptation of the 2nd TC :P
I feel like the 2 tc and ram thing is for you to go allout feudal war on your opponent and pressure him so much he just can't go up an age. Which gives you an insane advantage with rams and 2 tc's.
Hello SOTL, how about video about blacksmith upgrades? I watch T90 low elo legends recently, he speaks a lot how upgrades are important, I wonder How much they are important. It would be nice just how much more powerful/weaker you are if you forget your blacksmith updates or if it's even good idea to engage againts someone who has upgrades.
Please do cuman overview
Viper pointed out that the fast imp with cumans on arena using de 2nd tc is a terrifying strategy if done correctly
I hope you make new video about allies civ Bonus like your top 10 from 10 jears ago
Thanks for this! Very interesting. Doesn't seem that strong at all when you factor in civs that have other economy bonuses, since this was done vs. generic...correct? Basically if you don't do this with cumans vs. civs that have econ bonuses and boom you'll be behind :(
Yeah imagine vs celts, they'd get smashed lol. Also the early castle age spike if they used a couple knights or xbows
Kind of, the economic bonus of this is really good. The weakness is that it leaves you open to high aggression in feudal age/early castle
Malay, Aztecs, Vikings, Persians can beat the crap outta this.
What about if you only use 1 village to build it? Or build it while you're clicking up to castle?
I neither play AoE, nor I like math, more like I hate math, but I still somehow keep watching all your videos to know current meta.
One big thing here is if these two strategies went up against each other the fast castle player is hitting castle age about 4 minutes faster than the Cuman player. Leaves a lot of time to attack with knights or xbows
Attack but what ?! several layers of walls&buildings while just a few tiles behind a feudal siege work shop is going up just about the precise moment the cuman player hits castle age to pump out mangonel&skorpions to buy enough time to either mass kts/camels from more stables then u can sustain or build a castle to bait you into either wasting more resorces on more units&siege or go for an imp race he will easily surpass you in...
Early pressure is indeed the best&default way most civs have to deal with the cuman 2 TC boom but its heavily dependent on the map and how good at waling the opposing cuman player is.
This channel is so incredible awesome....
Can u do best civs for team games (current civ stats)
Or can u do some gameplay of yours
A new video? Well, than-cu-man!
wow can you do graphs like that for the civs that are commonly picked in arena for booming or for arabia pocket fc boom that'd be siiiick
As an Indonesian/Malay, I misread the youtube video title as: "Just 2 TC or FC 3 TC"
Cuman feudal ram push is the only opion ;)
I smell a cumans civ overview on the way
I love the smell of cumans.... oh wait no, that's cumin.
spirit we need a patrol vs attack move vid
Wonder when we'll get the civ that allows for an additional TC in dark age
Would be incredibly busted
this sounds like a job for the Goths!
when you talk about time, do you refer to the ingame clock or real life time?
always the F11 in-game timer
3:23 As you have shown, between 12 and 15 minutes the total resources graphs line up pretty well, while the generic civ is advancing to Castle and before it builds 2nd and 3rd TCs. Would a 1 TC Fast Imp be a good strategy to counter Cuman 2 TC? Until you advance to Imp, you'll be on the same Res as the Cumans, and if you can get to Imp while Cumans are in early Castle, and press that army tech advantage with trebs and snipe a few vills before building your own TCs. I wonder if that would bring the Cuman player back in down enough in vills and res to put you on more even footing economically with a tech lead?
Sortof but "not really". By the time you attack with imp units, they're in early castle, as you mentioned. Which means that they are in an advantageous position compared to a person who has done the classic build (3 TCs) instead. Keep in mind that a cumans player does not have to build the third TC, it's done like that in this video in order to make the resources line up, (obtaining the same number of incoming villagers). It's not a bad option (in reality, it is a good option), but it's not to be confused as their ONLY option.
Whether fast imp can compete with 3 TCs is an age-old battle with advantages on both sides of the board, and cannot be determined by maths alone. But regardless of that, the cuman's would be objectively harder to defeat than a generic 3TC boomer due to having a 500 resource advantage.
Edit: The one thing you would gain from using fast imp against cumans is the knowledge that they are extremely likely to go 2 TCs, and are less likely to go on a Feudal Offensive or Fast Castle Offensive (not to be confused with a large Castle Age offensive). Whether that knowledge alone is good enough to go fast imp is up to the player
How many villagers building the second TC would be ideal ressource-wise in the endgame?
You seem to have picked 8, as it's the most common, but can't we use... maths? ;)
I assume 4 villagers would construct the slow second TC in 1:48 min instead of the 4:30 of a single villager, while 8 push it down to 1:00 min. (Every villager after the first building half as fast as the first.) Is that correct?
48 sec earlier 2x villager output + 48 sec earlier double-bit axe + 4x 1:48 min of a villager not collecting
versus
8x 1 min of a villager not collecting (+ walk-over time ofc course)
4 vil collect 144 res in 1:48 min; 20 vil with double-bit axe collect 24 res more in 48 sec + ~ 2 more villagers minus their 100 food cost
versus
8 vil collect 160 res in 1 min
So clearly, as long as you produce enough ressources for no idle time in villager production, construction with 8 vil is worth it. But how many would be ideal, assuming no subsequent idle time?
4 vil collect 144 res in 1:48 min; 20 vil with double-bit axe collect 45 res more in 1:30 min + ~ 3.5 more villagers minus their 175 food cost
versus
12 vil collect 168 res in 42 sec
Looks even better, if you're not running out of ressources during the construction and have to idle your TCs afterwards.
I probably made some mistakes here, so feel free to correct them. Would walk-over time significantly change the result?
I often combine fast castle with 3 extra tcs- could that be a counter to cumans 2 tc feudal boom?
What about the Persians Civilization bonus faster Town Center in this matter?
But how does sticking on 2 TC compare to the 3 TC boom if you just don't transition?
Seems to my eyes that the Cuman player should have a pretty massive advantage to work with if they go for military play in Castle age, especially with their capped rams in tow.
Could you please make a scenario like that you made with the zombies only that you are the hunter and the others are the prey?
The fated Coomer vs. Boomer video is finally here!
Prepping for an analytical suport job at Forgotten Empires ;)
Hey Spirit, have you heard Viper's theory that if yo do the feudal boom and then idle your tc at around 40 vills to go castle you are still ahead and reach castle age almost at the same time?
What about if you did a standard fc, but you build your 2nd TC on the way up to castle?
It's the best general concession. You don't dump too much of resources + build time early on in feudal but building it a few mins before advancing seems to work out the best. Of course, the safer you are, the faster you can drop it
It would make my day if someone could tell me what the last song is called on epidemic sound?
What about building the 2nd TC on the way up to the castle age?
Thank Sotl for aoe2 maths, the best of maths