Do You Have to Build Extra Town Centers? ft. Hera 

Was truly a pleasure helping out for this video! I hope I was able to shed some light on one of the more complex topics in aoe2

Interviewing pro players for this type of video is a nice touch. Edit: Case in point, trapping a whole scout rush in his wood line at 13:33.

"Hm. Yes, interesting." *plays at 14 APM building pretty villages*

"full knights with any civ with bloodlines" _suggests Franks_ This is why AI can't replace us

Three TCS or one, we won't be any closer to learning how villagers procreate.

this guy answers the questions very well

Im so glad DE came out, last time I played AOE was 10 years ago and we had to use Hamachi to play between friends...

i'm regularly impressed by how helpful and friendly a lot of the AOE2 community members are. it's really refreshing compared to the poisonous atmosphere of rude, egotistical people who congregate around other games. love the video.

I've never really bothered with extra TCs... mostly because I suck at the game! Feel like doing a starters guide soon? Maybe for when Definitive Edition drops?

We definitely need more of this, keep up the good work

Great video SotL as always - Loved the interview with Hera

Spirit of The Law with the content I need ♥️

Awesome video SOTL. Thank you for all your efforts!

I like your videos. Found them recently and they made me want to go back and play the campaigns again.

I'm impressed how well Hera can explain!

Very insightful and helpful video, Hera done a good job of thoroughly addressing the questions, I went and subbed his RU-vid immediately.

i'm so happy when i see a new video of yours :) a big thank you from Algeria

This video inspired me to look a little deeper at extra TC's and some less conventional strategies. Building two TC's does exactly what you think and splits the difference. I don't know why, but I was surprised to realize that it takes just as long for it to pay off it's investment though. You still don't surpass the one TC build until more than 9 minutes have passed, which is the same time it takes a 3 TC build to surpass either a one TC build or a two TC build. But the difference either way is only going be half what it otherwise would have been, so nobody is going to have as great of an army advantage during those ~10 minutes. Or after. So could be a good way to hedge your bets if you're not sure what your opponent may do, but it'd also be harder to leverage an advantage over your opponent once you find out what they're doing. You'll have less of an initial economy lead to disrupt them if they went for more TC's, and you're not going to have that much stronger of an economy than them after 10 minutes if they went for fewer TC's. Then for fun I looked at Indian players with their cheaper villagers specifically. Trying to replicate your math, I calculated that an Indian villager only costs 138.1 vill seconds to create. Thanks to this, the Indian player on three TC's will surpass the value of a Generic one TC build a full minute faster than other civs, at a bit over 8 minutes. A significantly shorter window. Another interesting option I looked at but haven't tried in game yet is an Indian player doing a four TC build. Since four vills for them costs nearly the same as 3 for a generic civ. The four TC build has the obvious and quite substantial drawback of a more expensive initial investment, basically bankrupting you at the beginning of castle age. However, it is never more than that initial investment behind a generic three TC build. Unlike the other comparisons, you're not falling further behind while making extra vills against a generic three TC build, so they will never have more than a 1237 vill second economy lead over you. AND that disappears surprisingly quickly after around 6:30 minutes. From that point forward, you're ahead.

Pretty interesting video and very dinamyc interview. Congrats!

5, for maximum Supremacy effect!!!!

Love your videos man. Your use of math to be objective is awesome. You are my AoE2 Yoda.

Came for the insane archer micro in the clips, stayed for the analysis.

Keep up the vids!!! Awesome stuff ❤️

I learned so much from Hera. Thanks SoTL!

Please remake with an interview with Hoang, an expert in this field!

So complete, so perfect video, so Spirit of the Law!

I'm glad you got Hera to join you. do similar for future vids!

This video will fill some gaps on 1 tc attacks. What an amazing piecr of information. Cheers SOTL.

Love the content. I think I've done math for this too already but nice to see it again. 13:20 I think often that extra resources goes into farms otherwise people would do 4 tc booms. In fact on arena people often do 4 tc with the 4th one after the first 3.

Absolutely love your vids. I ise TCs offensively a lot, so their value is hugely more important. Dropping a TC on an enemies resources is definitely worth the price of admission.

Good timing with this video - In a recent tournament game Hera went like +6TC and upto 170 vills :) _lost the game though, but won the series_

Very insightful. Thank you!

This channel, and also this video are gold!

Excellent Choice!

your videos are top class, thanks

A beginner guide would be spectacular my good sir!!!!

Great video! Would have liked to seen the 2 TC stats besides the others :)

Seeing the Conquistadors near the end of the video reminded me : for next video, top 5-10 unique unit!

Man, u certainly must put a lot of effort and time on these videos!! Great job!! I wonder how that would apply to aoe3 with the shipment mechanics!!

just like the Goths technology allowing Barracks to train Huskarls other than from the castle, there ought to be a technology research allowing houses to train villagers other than from the Town Center

My favourite 2 AoE 2 players in 1 video!!

Really like the pro player feedback. I would realy love if you could get that after you did your tests so you could potentially discuss some of the results and see if that changes their mind on otherwise add to the conversation. E.g. in this case it would have been nice to have the 9ish min mark be discussed to see how that held up to real scenarios as well as the whole converting of resources into villager seconds. I think a pro player could really use that sort of information since they would have better knowledge of how long techs take to research and could potentially give further insight with the resources represented that way.

I'm a Vietnamese, that means whenever you upload a video it's usually pretty darn late. Which is nice because you have a very calming voice and it helps me get over the trouble of not being able to sleep at night. Not trying to say that your videos bore me to sleep or anything, they actually interesting. But for some reasons, after watching a few videos of yours in a row, I'll always end up falling asleep. Blergh, enough about me blabbering about, great videos, keep doing what you're doing!

I wish you did the math for my every life choice :D

I always prioritise a second town centre as soon as I hit castle age. It's a simple strategy, but effective.

Great video! shouldnt you emperically consider the cost of building more lumber camps or mine camps, which players with only one TC have to do? Because when I build an extra TC I put it in a place i would a build a lumber camp and a mine camp. Just a suggestion!

Short answer : Yes.

Very nice video

Hey Spirit! Great video. If possible, could you make a quick video about AOE2 DE? Something like predictions or a wish list. Maybe things you want and don't want to see when it releases. Anything 😂

Just saw this video, 3 years in 😆. AOE2 hit game pass and this video was very instructional. Thanks.

Keep working bro best aoe 2 Channel ever

I typically go a little heavy on stone in the feudal age and place a castle soon after going castle age, then place only a second town center immediately after i have enough stone. I never go more than two tcs in my main town as i already have a hard time keeping up with tasking the vils coming out, without idling them too long anyway.

I always knew Hera was a beast in-game, but this shows that he also is a pretty eloquent speaker and good at explaining things. A+ to you both.

Great video. Myself I would really view it as whether to castle age rush (1 TC) versus Castle Age boom (at least 3 TCs) - the strategy being the determinating factor while the number of TCs is part of the build order/strategy. There might be rushes that use more than 1 TC and times where you boom and still do some sporadic raiding, but judging from what I saw in the video, 1 TC essentially means omitting to a big castle age rush because a lot of the time the game is over in Castle Age or you may may it to Imperial late and finish it off then which happens with a big castle age rush. I am not much of a rusher so I may be wrong about this if there are other builds that favour over 1 TC in castle.

My favorite AoE 2 players in 1 video! :D

Thank you SOTL and Hera. Let the AoE family grow. Get viper too someday to give some tips man

I'm a casual player nowadays that's super busy with work and play on turbo, so I generally stick to one largely because I'm fairly close to the number of villagers I want to have by that point and would now be switching focus to military. Back in the day of the original disk version, I used to make additional town centers, but not immediately upon castle age as I've just always liked to get a couple key techs out the way first ASAP then go about other things. I've been thinking about finally developing a proper build order as I do tend to spent too much time in the lower ages laying the groundwork for the later ages, which is another reason I typically stick to one TC as I occasionally rush through the castle age to the imperial, especially since I tend to gravitate towards civs that are the strongest in imperial. May try out aging up quicker (as in closer to typical build order) then catch up on villagers with extra TCs the next time I play.

I stopped playing aoe 2 10 years ago but i still dont mind watching your videos.

I'd be interested to hear how this stacks up against heavy fishing as your primary source of food, and whether fishing boats reduces or alleviates the need for the extra villagers/TCs.

20 min sotl video. *reschedule important doctors appointment*

You got Hera, pls get Dave, another Canadian for a video pls 11...

I like your videos keep going

it's fascinating that probably the game was never originally designed to be played like this and with this specific consideration and tactic in mind - this type of evolution of knowledge and understanding has only came from the competitive playing, which naturally forces people to actually study the game and its mechanics to rank higher.

more town centers makes you more resilient to villager raids (as in you'll have more villagers to begin with and will be able to replace lost ones faster) AND works as an extra layer of defense. i think it's worth it.

"Is it worth it" Spirit *takes deep breath for several minutes*

I don't usually build TCs just to get more villagers. I kind of think of them in terms of what they let me do on their own: research broad econ techs while growing pop, defend areas, and gain population space. In that sense, I'm more likely to build TCs if I have a glut of villagers and I don't have the economic research to benefit from them, or if I'm building far from my starting area, particularly if there's some barrier to streaming villagers to a remote area quickly, like water. Of course a few civs can also use the TC in place of a castle for drop strategies, in particular the Britons and Malians.

My two cents for intermediate level players is that you may only want to do the one tc push when you're confident you're a better player(through scouting, score) and that way you get good at it and finish the game fast, otherwise is safer to stick to the usual boom strats

I always just use 1 center. It makes it easier for me to have a central hub instead of spread around. I will however build extra sometimes in like allied territory or as a back up if my main one is in a more dangerous location.

I wish they would change the game to allow a max 2 town centers in feudal age but the game simply unlocks unlimited town centers in castle age. Also if you have a sweet spot with mining, food, and wood available, building a town center saves a house or 2 worth of wood and provide a mill, lumber camp, and mining camp worth of drop off point for resources and can make villagers and support population. That is a lot of benefits that come from building additional town centers. You don't have to have every town center always making villagers if you can't keep up with the food, make a villager, keep the town center providing its other benefits such as drop off, population support, and the ability to use the town bell if the enemy player bring their soldiers to kill your villagers.

I love getting extra Tcs,the feeling of having that huge trickle of resources .....

Now that Definitive Edition is out, the Cumans are hilarious for going and Douching your opponent in feudal with your second TC is really fun, even if I've only ever done it against the AI.

The main advantage is that you can continue to build villagers during the Imperial Age advance. I usually build 5 villagers and put down another TC during the Castle Age. After that I use the villagers to build farms or chop wood and you get the return on cost back fairly quickly. I also play Britons normally and their TCs are pretty cheap as it’s only the 100 stone cost that matters. I prefer only to have 2 TCs personally as the stone is better spent quickly walling off the enemy and building castles. Stone is normally the rarest resource and is vital for defence.

Watching this video got me interested in seeing eagles vs knights. time for scneario editor.

question: heavy plow before or after 4th tc in full boom? Feels like by the time my horse collar farms run out the wood is worth far less to me.

Hey spirit ! PewDiePie just used the same background music that you use in your videos it was so weird listening to it i immediatly thought of you lol it's in his video titled " Never do this in Minecraft... " at the beginning :p

More gameplay videos!

One with Viper please ♥️✨

I would like to see a 2 TC comparison added to the chart.

It's good to see at least one high ranking Canadian in top 10

*NOTIFICATION SQUAD PRESENT*

Hey Spirit, you have civ overviews, why not do player overviews where you take a look at top well known players' micro, macro, consistency, map control, late gameplay, and give them grade rankings for each just like your civ overviews? Or maybe a top 5 (or 10) aoe 2 players similar to your top 5 gunpowder, infantry etc. lists? I'd love that

For DE, now we need to know when cuman's extra feudal tc become worthwhile

Best aoe Chanel

When there's no intro music and it makes you feel sad.

I’ve found that for Black Forest maps where you wall up a lot, 4 or 5 tc’s is best

Somewhat related to this video, I think it would be really cool to look at the economic impact of Persians’ TC work rate bonus. Have always wondered how strong that bonus really is.

Everything in AOE2 is about timing. Therefore walling/map control determines this TC question. 3TC wins the long game, 1TC wins the rush. Black Forest is an example. Fast feudal, fast tower at the wall, fast Castle, fast knight to palisades GG. Low ELOs wouldn't even know what hit them. But if you fail at aggro the boomer will wreck you in Imperial. So it comes down to making your units really count, ergo micro and tactics. Good raiding practices.

I used a 1 TC strategy as Franks against a friend who plays Turks. It worked extremely well for me for the very reasons he mentioned it being useful at lower levels of play (I am definitely in the lower levels of play). My friend couldn't adapt to it.

How many minutes do farms last before expiring? Some factors: 1. Food on the farm itself. Chinese team bonus, mill techs, maybe Mayans longer lasting resources? 2. How fast villagers move, how much resources they carry. So wheelbarrow, vikings, aztecs +5 carry bonus 3. Direct bonus to farm food production like slavs have iirc

hera

Spirit would you do a video showing what factions are better to counter specific factions? I mean for example sarecens are better vs franks or Vietnamese vs Chinese something like that, it would be nice know what factions use :D

He balanced absolutely damn properly streamSmile

I know I'm very late on this, but I think you forgot to factor in the lost resources that those 8 villagers missed out on collecting while constructing the TC's. By my math 8 villagers working for 75 seconds adds up to a not insignificant 600 extra lost seconds. But maybe it's not worth factoring that in because players will be constructing things anyway.

But my original tc is mostly idle, so i'll just use that one and safe the ressources right?

6:01 funny how that worked out!

Been watching you for a while... I thought your accent sounded familiar, but I did not know you were for sure from Canada. Where about's? I'm from Alberta, 30 mins south of Edmonton myself.

Spirit Of The Law, what do you think about making a video about how to learn to make mods for this game? Like how to make data mods to change/add things in the game? You don't have to explain everything yourself, I'd assume you wouldn't know that much, very few people know it all, but I just mean where to go or who to go to to learn as much as possible. I love this game, but only for it's unique aesthetic style, map editor and modding, unfortunately I seem to be the 1%

So a question unrelated to the video: has anyone noticed any temporary bumps in popularity for civs/units/tactics in multiplayer games in the period after a video SoL or any other major channels?

I dont usually play against real life players so what i say is bunk for online play, but i usually build another TC when i have conquered 1 civ and when i move in, if their are different types of r3sources smooshed into 1 spot. Like a gold mine, berries around a forrest. Usually plopping a TC with 7 villagers, causes them to gather all 3 different types of rousources or to do all one by one.

I would like to know how the extra TCs difference changes depending on your pop cap. if you play with a lower cap, you hit the max villagers you can run with a lot sooner, so one tc could theoretically cover that.