How To Consistently Beat the Extreme AI 

13 mins is OK :)

@@공략 hahahahaha

Well if u hit castle time under 18 mins its fine even 14 minutes to feudal.Assuming u not die to rush :D

@@krystofcisar469 The AI above hard, "hardest" or "extreme", won't forgive you even if you get to castle at 19 or 20. 17 minutes and they'l be there.

For some reason the AI didnt reacted to the his scout rush, but it usealy reacts pretty good. to me, the strategy is to rush the ai with 5 men at arms in the begging of feudal, then transition to skermishers and archers. doing as much damage as possible to the wood lines

@@Julionp Tower rush is the most effective strategy supported by men at arms. The AI will be confused and it will not know what to do in such a situation.

@@arkadiuszjandylewski152 that is just a weakness of AI I think by approaching standard and hard ways to beat AI is usefull for learning the game.

This is certainly doable, especially vs Hard AI. Make sure you're not idling your TC and that you're going for only villager snipes in Feudal, mostly on the wood lines and golds - you're going to lose your Scouts if you attack the AI's military units is Feudal, and killing villagers will hurt the AI far more - you'll be able to completely clean up the AI's Feudal age army when you have half-a-dozen Knights in Castle age, which you'll probably hit first if you've killed some villagers. To make things easier, perhaps try one of the following civs (personally prefer Lithuanians and Magyars for this strategy, but each to their own) - there are probably better or similar ones (Persians/Khmer/Berbers?), but these are the one's I've had time to try with - I by no means claim to be an expert: Franks : Faster foragers for Dark Age food boost - helps to hit the Age up button, rather than idling the TC. Free farm upgrade starting in Feudal, so small food/wood saving. Cavalry +20% Hit Points, mainly affect Knights from Castle onward, but free HP none-the-less (you don't get access to Bloodlines which would have been better for Scouts I think?). +2 LOS for Knights, meh. Lithuanians : Mainly good for the +150 starting food, that means no TC idling AT ALL in the Dark age so you can get the perfect Feudal times consistently, and should translate to a better eco earlier on. The 150 food also means free Scouts, or upgrade from the blacksmith (+1 attack scouts have an easier time killing villagers :D). Into Castle age, the +1 attack for the Knight line from relics can help (if it's not already over by the time you collect some). Magyars : You don't see any benefit with Magyars until Feudal age really, but free Blacksmith attack upgrades in each age for Cavalry and Infantry will really help to kill AI villagers, and obviously that's a small saving in food (and gold from Castle age). On top of that, you have the -15% cost to the Scout line, only a small saving, but free food none-the-less. The free attack upgrades will do the damage!

My exact thought process right now

İt’s almost too fast when pros are playing

I still bumped it up to 2x

@@marcosmercedesn It's all about finding the right balance, but I'm happy to see there are others who like to watch fast. Most just call me crazy. Many would likely call me crazy for watching this at 1x speed.

11

Wdym just tc drop them

I also wall their base in with wooden walls and keep the gold out, so its villagers wont be able to get any gold.

@@miltonlandriel Funny that AI recovers from it definitely faster than players would do :D

Hi Hera, read the description, this stood out to me ;) "Hey all, I've been asked " "copy what I'm doing as best " I enjoy your videos im off to watch this one :) As well as no link to Collin haha

@Hera When I play against ai , even if I'm on time to raid , the ai is ready with spearmen for scouts and skirmishers for archers

So how did you actually win this game? Did the AI surrender? I didn't see you destroy their TC

@@Warba98 yes they surrendered. U dont need to kill their tc to win

Spoiler: he uploaded it to RU-vid

Same here. I got about as far as Hera here when all of a sudden my walls were melted by dozens of swordsmen and spearmen and archers, too many to counter with what I had.

Cs you didn’t pressurize the economy and had idle tc

@@ihmpall what do you mean with idle tc?

@@AR-so6ch idle town center ... Not building villagers

@@jabberwocky9968 lolll

Imo just play and try to follow his build If you fuck up here and there it doesn't matter Just practice the build and try to fix some of your errors. You actually already pointed out what is needed to get better. Experience to not ditch a game comes by living it through and not by watching or reading it.

That's a solid life lesson in general. So many of those I learned from playing Aoe II as a teen.

@david smithe for some reason, I would rather lose 3 games to extreme and learn from it, than win 15 vs easiest. As other people have pointed out, it's a lot like life. I would rather fail in business as a doctor 100 times than ever scrub another toilet. 😎

@david smithe I've been a noob at this game for 20 years. I'm really not good at micro yet. I used to play 8 hour games in college. Back in the days of MSN Zone. Long live the noobs!!!

@david smithe nah. I'm a bit too sadistic for that

I just started AoE2, but for me it feels like AI real level is very random

@@JohnIdlewood videos old. now ai is much better

Same. But I think for a civ like Mongols, you gotta go for stone early to get Mangudai but I always make that mistake because I try to do a defensive castle and then it gets destroyed by battering rams while I am making archers lol

Same, also I don't start making military until castle age

@@jphallow78 man that literally just happened to me, but with the Britons.

I was able to keep the enemy from having an workers on the map and they still were able to spam cav and skirmishers and I lost :) fun game

I always find a good spot to put a mine camp right between gold and stone and the jerk villager always auto mines the stone and I’m like noooOOoo you FOOL

Ur not the only one I can’t win against them, lol

Me and the bois just lost a 3v1 against hard ai

@@denizcantulan4024 lol i did beat the hard AI try to make some army before it attacks you in feudal the ai makes some archery ranges, if it dont attack you the AI will go for knight rush or a crossbow rush. By the way I won I make some big army that counters the AI civ and then I won

@@AFreeMat. adres ? i want to send you a sticker

Improve your times, best way to beat ai

Ummm...tower rush is the one sure way to beat extreme ai in my experience.

@@rickl5596 Yea but the point is not to cheese AI but win it in "fair fight".

​@@Diegoshadow85but doesn't the ai cheat at the harder difficulty's ? I saw plenty of rts games where the ai gets a bonus to resource gain or extra resources and shorter build times in some cases

Not the de ai, although the old aoe2 ai did on hardest difficulty@@Assassin5671000

Same here

Might do a follow up whee i beat it by going fast castle and giving it time to build up, we'll see

@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 would be really helpful! The AI just gets to extreme when not controlled early on. Many thx for your vids @Hera !!!

I think actually the correct way to look at it isnt that AI sucks in feudal or castle but rather the human lags behind more and more as your base and army becomes bigger(going into imp). AI doesnt play amazing, but it plays semi good on every single unit at all times.

@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 He is actually quite correct. But i would add that in general it is not that good, i don't remember the last time i lost against the extreme AI, using a multitude of strategies and, although i don't play online, i can say that I am far from a very good player.

there are different kinds of playstyles. that ai played fc and thats probably the weakest strat they have to offer eventho their flush can be countered by your fc if you wall a little

No clue personally, but it can just be that you were late with your scout rush or that you didnt do enough damage

Not at all, I just got drushed by the Extreme AI the other day, this is something the lower difficulties almost never do. The Hard/Hardest difficulties do tend to go for heavy feudal aggression, but with scouts you should still be able to pick off a few vills using your mobility. Also they normally build up a sizable feudal army before they attack which delays their Castle time significantly and if you wall properly it should not be much of an issue.

It was weird, I usually do this against Hard and they always pop out spearmen I have to run away from. I've made it a habit of getting a few archers out specifically to kill the spears so that my scouts can run free killing vills. If it makes skirms, I don't fight them with my archers, I have my scouts kill them. So scouts beat the skirms and archers beat the spears. That's how I counter the AI's defence from my scout rush. nb: i'm another noob who can't get past Hardest and usually plays for the post-imp war XD

Same whenever I play. Sometimes the AI even began with dark age 3 men harass, not to mention the consistent feudal age aggression or defense with all kinds of unit. How come in this video we barely see any of that from the AI...?

I recently made a guide on my channel on how to play Nomad. It goes over the general build and guidelines, with some pro-level input.

I recommend colin's guide!

@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 you are such a humble man👍👍😸 I will download twitch to just subscribe you bro💓

Hi Collll...llin

That what's happens when you are faster up against the ai. His 1st 2 scouts are in his base just when the ai hits feudal. Then it does react with a tower.

true, but so what. you scout flush in circles around their base, when a circle is completed, the AI will have sent their vills out again. easy like that.

I had the same thing, this may be because the AI wasn't castle rushing and instead built an army of archers and spearmen by the time i sent my knights and it just seems so strange that the same time my AI had about 10 archers and 5 spear men, his didn't even build a barracks

True right, last time i tried i was in a team of 3 (me and the AI friends and foes all Extreme) and then the AI came with an army of fully upgraded soldiers and rammed my ally, and i decided to quit before seeing all my city which i made was to be in ruin in 2 minutes

@@liqem1111 yeah yeah, true, i just came back to try Magyars (me) vs goths (the tribe, not the mode one lol) after a couple of minutes they had skirmishers and spearmen, i didn't see any barracks (maybe they have the aoe3 homecity shipment) and also when i built a stable not so far from the houses i see, they immediately knew about it and came to destroy it Everyone says the ai now plays fair but i really doubt about it

Hahaha 3 years ago and this comment is still gold

it felt like a very "mediocre" level AI, sendind vills out alone, 0 defence outside of a tower, nothing at all to hinder your plan. that's not close to my experience even if my times are pretty close to these

More advanced tips for noobs Even noobs can reach a level of success against AI with some tricks which might take some more practice to execute properly but completely possible for all noobs.. Believe me, I am a noob who doesn't use a single hotkey. I only use the mouse. I play with one hand only. But I can beat a team of 3 hard AI's (who are allied together so it is 1 vs 3) with around 70% success rate if I use slow speed. I will switch to normal speed after it becomes clear the game is under my control to speed up the game. If I use normal speed my success rate is like 30% with random civs or around 40% if I use Huns. So now I am going to give tips for noobs on how to beat 2 or 3 allied hard AI's. 1. Once again Huns are your best choice. 2. To take on 2 or 3 AI's you will need to defeat at least one AI and slow down the other AI's early on. So you have to rush and attack in Feudal age itself. With the AOC version I use, the Feudal age scout is as useless as the one dark age scout you get. So archers are your main or only choice. 3. Obviously to rush, you have to reach Feudal age very fast in noob times. The AI usually reaches Feudal age around 13 mins. You will have to reach there at least by 11:30 mins. Sometimes if you get lucky, you can get away with later times but mostly not. But there are some ways to do this even as a noob. 4. Naturally, you would like to use a smaller size map (a 2 player map for 3 players for e.g) for rushing as opposed to turtling in. Once you get better you can try with an appropriately sized map. 5. Learn boar luring. It is easy to learn. Even if you don't execute a perfect boar luring like the better players it doesn't matter. The AI does not hunt boars. So this gives you nearly a 700 food advantage. If you got nearby deers, hunt them too. But don't try to lure deers. That is for the pro's. 6. Use some build orders. Not exactly like Pro's. I would suggest putting 7 on sheep and 4 on wood before luring the first boar. Don't worry if you mess up the build order a bit. 7. Even if you don't use hotkeys, use the shift key to set the flags for your scout to follow. That would reduce a decent amount of multitasking. 8. Try to reduce idle TC time as much as possible at least until reaching feudal age. Villager production should be almost continuous. Once again using slow speed helps a lot in this regard until you become fast enough. But don't worry if you can't avoid some idle TC time. you can still pull it off with some idle time. While taking food from boar you might need to force villagers to drop food from time to time to keep villager production. 9. Once you lure your first boar you should be sending all villagers after that to food, whether berries or sheep or boar it doesn't matter. Don't send villagers to any other resource until you click for Feudal age research. 10. As soon as you get 500 food you should click Feudal age. Usually as a noob you would have 22 or 23 villagers at this point. Sometimes if you get lucky you will have only 19 or 20 villagers which won't be enough so you will have to make 3 or 4 villagers as soon as you reach Feudal age. 11. As soon as your scout has found all 8 sheep and two boars you should send your scout parallel to the edge of the map but a bit away from the edge of the map. If your scout travels parallel to all three edges like this other than the one your base is in you can spot all 3 enemies 95% of the time. Rarely you will have to send the scout a bit further away from the edge where you didn't find the enemy to spot him. You don't have to find all three enemies before you reach Feudal age. You can find the second one when you are rushing the first one and so on. 12. Once you click Feudal age research, send 5 or 6 villagers to gold, keep like 4 villagers on food, send two villagers to the middle of the map for forward building and send the rest to wood. You should also be tasking a villager to build barracks while advancing to Feudal age so that once you reach Feudal age the forward builders can immediately start building Archery ranges. This idea of sending two villagers to the middle I stole from TheViper. Earlier I was sending 3 individual villagers to the three enemy bases. This could be better because the archers can reach the enemy base quickly but this fails often because of wolves. 13. Once you reach Feudal age, you have to do a few things. Getting wheel barrow, building 3 archery ranges in the middle, building blacksmith and getting the two archer upgrades and also making archers to send to enemy bases. Now these things need a lot of resources so you will have to intuitively decide what to do first. Obviously building the archery ranges and sending archers are the first priority. Getting the archer upgrades will become important very soon because the AI will start building some military units and attack the archers. Getting wheel barrow will speed up the inflow of resources but itself costs a decent amount of resources. So you will have to decide when to get each one. Over time you will get the hang of it. 14. To be successful with your rush , you will have to send two archers to each enemy's lumber camp and two archers to each enemy's main gold. This is where you need some luck spotting those areas. If you quickly find those areas, your rush will be successful. One important note: Our units are produced with aggressive stance as default. You will have to change each unit to stand ground. When you forget to do this for an archer, he will follow some villager and come under TC fire. 15. Even if you find the lumber camps and main golds, the AI will start gathering from secondary gold. And you will soon find upgraded militias or even long swords men coming at your archers. If long swords men catch your archers in Feudal age, they will easily finish them off and proceed to help their ally AI's similarly. So you should get lucky finding all golds and stones and place at least one archer near each resource. That is hard. That is where the next point becomes important. 16. You can't continue in this strategy for long. You will have to get to castle age as soon as possible. Even when you are attacking like this, AI will reach castle age in like 17 plus minutes. But since AI reaches prematurely it wont have units immediately. But you will see them decimating your units soon. If one AI is successful in decimating your units it will immediately do the same to your units in other Ai bases.Then your rush will totally fail. So you must reach castle age soon. For that, create a few villagers once you finish your archer upgrades in Feudal age. Then task them with farming. At this point you should have plenty of wood and gold. That is the advantage of archer rush. Archers only need wood and gold, so you can stockpile some food. Build a market and sell your extra resources and try to click castle age as soon as possible. You will only reach castle age after 23 minutes mostly even if you get lucky. But that is O.K. The AI won't accomplish much after reaching castle age in 17 mins. It will take some time. 17. Once you reach castle age, immediately get crossbow upgrade and bodkin arrow upgrade. Then you should get second armor upgrade for archer. Then try to build a university and get ballistics. You might not have the resources to do all these things immediately. But if you manage it before any AI has got enough decent army units, you are on your way to victory. Just to make sure spam some more archers to each base and put them next to golds and stones. If you have reached this point before any AI gets out units strong enough to take on your Feudal age archers mostly you will see the AI's resigning one by one. 18. Even if you don't manage to defeat all 3 AI's with your archer rush, if you finish two of them, you can play a 1 v 1 with the remaining AI and win eventually using some of the ideas in my previous post. Even if you manage to defeat just one AI, you might withstand the constant spamming of armies of two AI's and eventually win. 19. To accomplish the above, you need to do some things in your base. Since so far you fully concentrated in your rushing, most probably your base will be defenseless. So you must hurry and make villagers to collect stone and make a castle as soon as possible. You must also make a Monastery and gather as many relics as you can. Moreover you should immediately build a few stables and archery ranges to create army units. Even if you haven't defeated an AI but harmed it enough, it will play a very weak game.Anyways if you follow this you will eventually win the game in a war of attrition. Believe me, the above gives me a success rate of 70% against 3 hard AI's in slow speed and I am a total noob who don't remember even a single hotkey. So if there is any noob here you can do it too. Good luck!

@@johnprakash6033 almost nobody plays AoC anymore so this isn't very useful. AI is much better in HD version

It is not needed tbh, as long as u understand the concepts of the game, micro isnt that importnat

He needs to put it down to Hardest, that difficult always feudal rushes, easy counter is to just go all in on like 20 scouts, role most of their archers and decimate their economy while frantically aging up to castle to continue pushing with knights and rams. And if that doesnt get you the win you will be a in a good place to age up to imperial and treb down remaining castles and TCs

@@blaubeer8039 i mean... i play standard but i always win by conquering them :)

It is deffo possible I just did it twice against extreme AI, but only works on smaller maps for sure

It literally says (Normal) for the difficulty at the top menu bar. He's just demonstrating a build order. 💁

@@jonathanspeicher5298 That is game speed.

what's cheesy strat

The pros never let it get that far lol, my guess would be that they stalemate until resources run out and the human player's supior prioritization will get them the win.

It's actually not that hard, I win post imp fights consistently against extreme AI by just walling up and building towers /castles (towers are really effective) (or no walls, they don't really "go around" your towers that often) and then just take good trades and never forget to boom ~120-140 vils . snipe those trebs and rams and you're fine mostly

Start the war early, do this kind of aggression so that you can keep ahead while you go to castle. Then in castle, get light cav and knights and other castle-age units to harrass with (heck, even a ram or mangonel if you're ballsy), and slowly increase numbers and variety. The war will slowly grow over the course of the game into an all-our war, all from a small little scout rush at the start.

I wonder this too

This may be late but hotkeys. He used the garrison key and the go back to work key.

More like way too close to the TC ;)

Onyxsolo me too, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong. Some of the waypoints will be in the middle of the trees and your scout will make a song and dance about it and waste a small amount of time!