SOTL vs Updated Extreme AI 

Spirit: Man this Extreme AI is being weird and inferior to me. Me: Loses 15 minutes in to Standard AI

5:47 - "He really loves his berries, as all AIs do." _looks down at own berry yogurt breakfast_

Hitting the AI with 105 taunt at the end ... I don't think computers are yet ready to handle such devastating wrath.

forward university was definitely a winning move

One of my favorite new little things about the AI in DE is that, if you had typed in "GG" when they said they're about to resign, just before the victory screen, they would respond saying, "Thou hast proven thyself worthy! I shall declare us friends!" ^^

Since I played a lot of AI vs AI matches a few explanation of what is going on here. At first since you reach feudal a lot faster and make some military he thinks is losing, so he choose to make a tower (randomly protecting one resource, this time he has luck with the tower) and go fast castle, he still do some counter units if he can, like the spearman. Then in castle he made a couple of knights to counter your skirs, and now he has 3 options in a map like arabia 1º very passive boom, making 2nd and 3rd TC as soon as possible, some civs make a castle (not khmer) and some civs make even a 4th tc, and wait to fight in imperial. 2º Very aggresive crossbow/skirks push with rams, they delay their tcs making a Siege Workshop before any tc, this sometimes can be very scary, sometimes they got stuck way too much time in a random building and is a fail. 3º Sadly, a veeery slow knight "rush" before the last updates the AI would attack with knights as soon as he make 4 to 8 knights, the new AI only attack with at least 20+, that is very very passive, and this is the worst strat for the new AI. Since he already did a couple of knights to counter your skirks, he choose the option 3, which is the worst, so you could recover very easy from the scout rush fail and win easy. Very sad, Khmer AI is pretty decent, he likes to go with a nice non-elite elephant attack in early imperial and when you switch to Halberdier/monks or something like that to counter, instead of upgrade the elephants they arrive with a full army of double ballista heavy scorpions which is perfect for your counter, in AI vs AI matches this "trick" works very well.

Magenta and cyan. You gotta love that early 80's CGA graphics palette.

I like how the Ai got a sneaky scouting of your base that you didn’t notice and immediately snuck away.

0:50 "Everything else is just standard for a 1v1" ✓ Allow Cheats hmmmm

More of these please! I've been getting into AOE2 recently and your video's have been helping a lot. The Spirit of the Lockdown! 😅

Me and my friends play a lot with AI and one big issue I have with the AI is that it focuses on a specific player. After destroying player 4 for example, player 4 hides and makes a second base behind an ally, the AI will attempt to attack said player instead of going over the ally first. It also beings retreating before the player has been destroyed. It may be destroying your base and randomly decides to retreat even though no forces are defending it.

Spirit of the Law: *makes videos on farm placement optimization* also Spirit of the Law: *places willy nilly T90 farms*

We need more of these gameplay videos.

25:22 RIP Castle with the mangonels friendly fire

Recently discovered your content.. And i'm on a binge.. really good! Keep 'em coming dude!

Last time I was this early, you had to reseed farms manually every single time!

So I play exclusively against the Extreme AI (either 1v1 or in groups 2v2,3v3 etc). Here's a little explanation of what I've seen: Based on the map size, the AI will choose it's strategy. Medium and Larger maps (short rush distances), the AI will prioritize fast castle rush. You played on such a map. (Note: They glitch with hybrid maps as they won't use land units to attack ships). When rushing Castle Age, they have 2 tech paths. 1. Blacksmith Market -> Buy resources -> Fast Castle Age 2. Archery Range -> Stable -> Slower Castle Age 2.1 Archer Skirm Rush 2.2 Knight / Scout Rush Since you forced the AI to build military buildings you pushed it into path #2 - and taking path 2.1 would be bad against your scouts. Hence it moving to 2.2 If you had not rushed the AI - and they went to path #2, they would most likely hit you pre-castle with Archer Skirm. It's next objective is to hit Imp, have ~ half the pop as vills, then pump out units. Since you put pressure on the AI throughout the game, it was unable to do that. I'd challenge you to do the same test (any non water map) and free boom to Imp, then try to fight the AI. It will be a different experience. Either way - love your videos!! Sub'd

So happy to see SOTL upload a gameplay video after a long time...

Nice video! Since you like optimization, you can optimize your build order (a lot) by going up 21 pop instead of 22. Don't make the 2 farms. With 21 pop up you will have enough food to sustain scout and vil production, horse collar and double bit axe just when you arrive at feudal, than you can start dropping farms. Also, instead of going 1 lumbercamp, as soon as you finish your second boar, get 5 vils and make a new one. It will be more efficient. Aim for 10 lumberjacks until you click to castle, the odds are you won't need more than that. I think you have the skill to pull that BO with just little training.

8:40-10:00 The game was pretty much decided at that point already. The AI did have a time window for a comeback when reaching Castle Age, but it was on defense already.

We love you so much. Your channel means so much to me and my friend group. Your videos make long drives so much better. Thank you for doing all these videos and putting so much love into them.

25:27 Spirit of the Daut.

I sincerely enjoy watching SOTL play. I wish he'd upload more of his games.

Anyone noticed how the AI keeps sending its army back and forth? It sends the army to attack, then immediately retreats, then immediately attacks again and it keeps doing that over and over again while getting shot at and doing almost no damage. Also, notice how the AI army just stands under the town centre at 28:15 without doing anything. I think they might have gone a little overboard with that updated retreat functionality. The AI seems to be retreating all the time now and it uses its army extremely inefficiently.

Please do make a lot more video's like this, I really love the content. It's so nice to listen to you explain everything that is really nice!

I feel like when he plays he does equations in his head at the same time

Shout out to AIs, playing on uncomfortable thrones so you don't have to 🙏🙏🙏

Ok I'm only going to watch this video and then back to work.

I know you like to use Arabia as your standard go-to since it's likely the most played map, but for vs AI I'd really like to see some Arena action, (maybe 1v2) so you can worry less about walling to safely boom and fend them off come Castle Age

Hey bro i finally learned how to play aoe thanks to you.. Your guide videos are the best

"SpiritOfTheLaw1" Reality is often disappointing...

Hey dude, I absolutely love all of your videos. I'd like to support you financially because you make quality content that is well scripted, well spoken, as researched as "Engineering Explained", with a hint of humor once in a while. All surrounding one of my favorite video games with such a small user base. When I get my finance situation together, expect a donation or two. Keep up the incredible work, I look forward to you covering AOE4!

Haven't even watched the video yet but I already know SotL won comfortably. The guy is too good and never loses to anyone apart from insanely skilled human players on occasion.

hello im new to age of empires although i have played a lot when i was a kid on the ps2 i still consider myself knew as im enjoying the game in a newer way and i really like how your channel made me aware of those things i can enjoy more like build structures and empire choices i really like what you and your channel represent.

Ive been playing with it a bit as well. Definitely seems more passive than I'm used to it being. Kinda freezes for a while when its first strategy fails - At 25:00 I think he had a bigger army, but was too scared of the castle to take out the mangos.. Yet still stayed in their range. Those things put thousands of damage on his town center hiding units. Still some work to do on this one, I guess.

Whenever I get tired of Extreme beating me to a pulp, I use a cheesy thrush to heal my ego.

This dude's voice is beautiful! Clean and super soothing. Oh and the gameplay is off the hook

It would be great to hear more about the maps in the 1v1 map pool and what civs/units are good on them, how to control key areas etc.

Hey spirit can you do an updated version of the older top 5 vids and civilizations overviews

When will you tell me how to find your music SOTL

I knew it, I was saying in my head "building castles with 2 villagers and with mangonels shooting everywhere? Yep, that won't work"

Before this video I would bet my money on the extreme AI. You’re way better than I expected. You played that perfectly I swear. GG.

"Hey guys, Spirit of the Law here. Today, we are reading this in my voice."

I'm struggling against the new Extreme AI, thanks for the video, now I have a major reason to rush more

Please do more content like this; it's pretty great! Happy Easter btw

I really like how spirit plays Theres almost never double clicking on the same spot

I’m pretty sure the AI is NEVER this flustered and confused when I play it on moderate. Also, I was waiting for that onager to hit your castle foundation. So much evil satisfaction.

@16:24 "I think I do want one scout. Just 1." I will call him Jerry, and he will lead our army to victory!

I learned to love this game late in life (for a gamer) with 24 i first played aoe 2 (the DE). And ir was love at the first sight

I'd like to see spirit play ladder games.

I don't know how or why the AI was so passive in this game. I just started playing the game a month ago and when I play at Moderate or Hard then I keep getting rushed by AI military as soon as it hits Castle and it just doesn't stop from there.

Ai in Aoe and similar games is like Ai in Chess, If humans are to get a chance it must hold back. So its mostly about striking a balance between it being challenging in a fun way and it crossing the unbeatable line.

Hi SOTL.. Can you do a video on how much more units (same units with same upgrades) you need to win while fighting uphill. Will it be 25%+25% or 25%x25% or something in between?Or less than 25%?

Been waiting for more gameplay really excited!!!!

I did a fun little experiment with the AI earlier on a ludicrous map, I decided to go Goths and see how well it would react if I went all-in on Huskarls. The AI in turn built a ton of siege workshops and barracks, and spammed out both onagers and champions like there was no tomorrow. The second AI I tried that on was playing Vikings, same map, so it built 12 castles all in a line and spammed out berserkers. I'm not sure how well it counters mixed armies, when I played Mongols with a mix of champions and Mangudai it went down relatively quickly, but if you're leaning heavily on one type or another it seems able to counter.

If there is someone in the comments that isn't a mere n00b like me, how do you place farms so that you don't have task each villager individually? I see experienced players do it all the time but I have yet to figure it out. I think SOTL did it here too.

Hey SOTL, I came up with an equation that will give you the optimum ratio of villagers on food and wood to get the required resources to tech up in the least amount of time. It's just an approximation, but I thought it might be a cool idea for a video for you to make. I've tested it in AoE DE and so far it's pretty accurate. Please let me know if you're interested and maybe we can work out some better applications. Love your content and I've been watching your videos since you first started!

Was watching the extreme AI play a game just now and I noticed it pushing deer towards TC in dark age. That's pretty cool :)

Rewatching this and just noticed Spirit said "gg" at the end, to the AI lol

@1:50 "[Going archers against the AI] is a bit of a cheesy strategy." Agreed, but a lot of those changes to the extreme AI appear to directly address some of that. Maybe it's not so effective a strategy anymore? Edit: *Later* Ah, you beat me to it.

What elo are you in 1v1 de? I think you could do some kind of challenges with viewers

There is a portrait of the ultimate fight between the Law and the Chaos

Back in the days of original age of Kings I made the AI resign after only a small longbowman rush in castle age, still scratching my head about that one

Great video, happy Easter SOTL

Barbarian is now available for definitive edition!

Watched the extreme AI walk military unit after military unit under a castle to die instantly. It was very extreme.

I find that the AI does vary their playstyle up every once in a while. I actually got archer rushed in fuedal once.

SOTL: has 190 pop Proceeds to build 7 houses 23:30

Compared to the HD AI, the new definitive edition seems overall less aggressive. I actually find it much easier to beat. I only play at standard/moderate difficulty normally though. The old HD AI was certainly vulnerable to early aggression though, and had its own easy exploits.

Why can't I find SOTL on the Random Map 1v1 ladder?

You should do a rematch. I play almost exclusively against Extreme AI and, while it is easy to beat still, in this match it went for a a fast castle which is very rare. Most of the time it will do a straight flush, or a drush into archers. Game was basically over when it went up to feudal so late. Good game though, was fun to watch.

There’s an AI being developed through Machine Learning for Starcraft 2 that can beat professional players. Maybe that technology should be tried on AOE2

Nice game. Side note: probably should have clicked Conscription before Logistica

Interesting game to watch. The AI played quite well initially, and it could've put you under lots of pressure if it attacked you with all it's knights after your initial failed scout rush, yet for some reason it decided not to. Its biggest issue was trying to preserve all its units instead of risk losing them to take yours out.

Yes, spirit of the stream. You have returned.

Here's how you can make Byzantines viable in high level play Teutons, Byzantines, Goths, Italians Teutons for the healing fortress and other uses Byzantines for their 50% heal speed bonus for the teuton's hf formation - cataphracts(heal regularly at the hf) - cheap trash Goths for their anti archer huskarl(heal at hf regularly) and other uses Italians for their castle's elite crossbow - and most importantly the condottiero for anti gunpowder capabilities of the whole team.

Scouts are usually made at 21 pop. I think you committed way too hard on feudal. I would suggest scout into skirms only if you are going to micro very heavily your scouts. Also you should only make around 3 or 4 scouts (plus the initial one if he's still alive) and 4 skirms just to clean the spearmans. Otherwise you are going to fall behind in castle. But still the """extreme""" ia is really passive and doesn't rush almost at all

Cool to see some gameplay again!

The A.I. used to make towers back in the old Age of Kings.

You can be a streamer now Spirit, it's a good step that you show you're gameplay in a video to the audience. You don't need to be a pro to be an expert that you are on the topic.

I wonder if anyone's ever done a Tool Assisted run of AOE2 against an AI to try to figure out what might be theoretically possible in an AI. Such as an AI that has the thinking and foresight of a human, but the insane micro and ability to think/order units hundreds of times a second. What might actually be possible when it comes to playing the game

Idk about you guys but when I 2v2 in “Hard” my A.I. partner is just not good, and doesn’t play as well as the Hard A.I. we’re facing, lower eco, military everything. Costing us an otherwise winnable game. Does this happen to you guys?

How do you continuous build houses or farms like that? I keep seeing people do it but haven't figured it out yet

It wasn't being aggressive because it was aware of your population and the game score. So it avoided attacking you. If you fell behind, it would have been attacking like crazy.

Nice Video. I have leard something but how did you clear your controll group?

I love to watch the video on this game, continue to shoot further) I really like:)

my probelm with the ai currently on all the diffculites is it will make units but not attack with them. it waits for you, sometimes it will unload once you come over other times it just defends and sits but either way it waits.

The DE IA is playing more defensively.. Yesterday I tried 1v1, the hard and hardest always do a rush with archers or knights. Then starts an army of skirmisher, pike, mangonel, etc. The extreme IA, if you don´t rush, when it hit Imperial Age, it will sent to you and large army of knight or castle unit and siege then keep upgradting theme to paladin (if it has)

objectively I think a video is smoother without a form of intro. however, i did miss hearing your intro song this time.

Maybe it thought attacking a defense civ would be harder so it just boomed. Maybe if you played Turks it would've rushed you to prevent imperial age. Like you said, ai takes civ choices into account

Yeah the extreme ai became very passive 1v1 with the update but I think it shines now in teamplay. At least what I observed in a 2v2 they defeated my team member (normal difficulty) some 30 min into the game and put also pressure on me but in the end I randomly played goths and had the economy to flood the area. They got worse in raiding tho.

Seems like getting the AI that last little bit of the way towards being on the level of a skilled human is way more difficult than the first long stretch.

i like to see you play against extreme ai in arena with out rushing

I click when spirit of the law uploads

I gave this AI infinite resources. Let me tell ya, the map turned red faster than you can create a Shotel Warrior.

Have you all ever seen the hard-level AI wall itself in upon capturing relics. It did this to me when I was booming on it 1v1, and I was like...touché...

Was it just me, or did it seem like something was not working as it should when all the AI units bunched up under the TC? Watching this video if you'd asked me to guess the difficulty I'd have said moderate DE, maybe hard DE? Although hard DE would have been more aggressive in my experience.

The new AI has it's moments of stupidity. Saw one AI working on several animals at the same time, then the AI would pull a boar to the TC where half the people would kill it and carve it up. So there were periods of time where carcasses had 0-1 villagers working on them. Once the boar was finished the villagers did spread out to the other carcasses, but the process would repeat when it did another boar pull. Saw another AI that was working on 3 sheep suddenly send everyone except one villager off to chop wood, it did send a couple more villagers to carve them up but by the time they arrived one of the sheep expired.

Will you do the next attempt with no rush time? That will very interesting. It was a nice Video 👍🏼.

3:56 that minimap !