What happened to this game?

[mart900]

Hi guys

I've been playing this game from the moment it came out in 1998 (i was 8) and have loved it ever since. Finding out there was a remake pretty much made my year. If any of the devs read this, I love you guys!

Anyway after having spent most of my teenage years playing AoE3 (went by the nick of GoodSpeed, for anyone who played) I came back to play this game a few years ago and had a lot of fun with it. After being inactive for a year I now come back to play some more and find out that every single lobby is cursed ravine (which is a terrible map!) with x2.0+ game speed and insanely high PT... I just end up hosting back in the desert (my personal favourite) with x1.5 because with x1 speed no one ever joins. And then it turns out everyone is very bad or leaves early, I can't get a good game at all.

My first question is what happened?!? and my second question is where can I find the people who actually play this game on the correct settings if they still exist? I feel like the game needs a chatroom or something.

My nickname on KaM is Mart which is also my real name. I'm not good, I'll get 50-60 pop out max with 60 PT, but everyone else seems to be even worse

[The Dark Lord]

Hello Mart,

Welcome to the forum. We are always happy to welcome new people here, especially if they love 'normal' games like we do (no x2.5 speed/90 pt crap). The speed change has indeed done much damage for players that enjoy the more old-fashioned style of this game.
You should join us on TeamSpeak (kamts.eu) - we/they play games almost every day so I'm sure you can join one of them. We feature x1 speed, 60 pt games without leavers, and we never play Cursed Ravine (well chosen map name, especially first part).

[dicsoupcan]

Hello Mart,

Welcome to the forum. We are always happy to welcome new people here, especially if they love 'normal' games like we do (no x2.5 speed/90 pt crap). The speed change has indeed done much damage for players that enjoy the more old-fashioned style of this game.
You should join us on TeamSpeak (kamts.eu) - we/they play games almost every day so I'm sure you can join one of them. We feature x1 speed, 60 pt games without leavers, and we never play Cursed Ravine (well chosen map name, especially first part).

tdl is correct, and when he is in the lobby be sure to pick the black color fast, he loves it :3

[KaMRemakefan]

Ore stole Disco's color: yellow
BTW, welcome! :]

[Tiank]

no x2.5 speed/90 pt crap

I can understand why players decide do play on 2.5x speed and 90PT. On this setting, game during PT = 36 minutes of real time. So instead of playing one game on 1x/1x/60 PT, you can easily play two games. It's really important if you decide to play with unknown guys. If they're bad, you don't waste your time that much. If they're good - good . I don't see this setting as "crap", since it's fun and armies at PT are epic, but indeed, it's sad to see that most of players play like that, without experiencing 1x settings...

Mart, if you want to improve your skill, you can watch some replays. Recently there was a tournament, so most games are on top level: game results.

Games were played on beta version, which has some significant changes .

Hope to see you on the battlefield!

[pawel95]

Ah one more of those topics I like. . I tried it hard, those lobbies of "fast games" will stay how it looks like, because noone cares about the "original" gamemode, so like TDL said,the only way you can play, is to play with ts guys. However this option isn't optimal, unless you can find some lobbies only at nights or at the weekend, so you cant just run the game and play with others whenever you like :p one game per day should be maybe doable Xd

[mart900]

thanks for all the replies, it's nice to know that people are still playing this game right!

i don't have that much time to play though but i'll check out the ts for sure. what do you guys play usually? 1v1, 2v2? which maps? i haven't played much so i won't be a challenge i'm afraid but i have a lot of rts experience so i guess i'll learn fast even though this game is so different from any other rts.

gonna go a bit offtopic here: what kind of armies at 60 min should i be aiming for? i feel like knights aren't worth it in higher numbers or even at all, and swordsmen+bowmen (not xbow) seems pretty strong. am i wrong? either way what are the numbers you guys can crank out on, for example, loc 3 of Back in the desert (i feel like this is the best loc).

[The Dark Lord]

Usually 4v4. Don't worry about your skill level, if you're a nice guy and willing to learn there will be a spot for you.
What kind of armies you should expect at 60 pt... obviously depends on the player. Most people go for swords and bows these days. I consider 30 bows/30 swords a decent army, but a couple of knights instead of swords and/or extra other troops wouldn't hurt. Massing knights can actually be veeeery powerful, especially because no one seems to make pikes these days... Knight rushes are quite infamous because it is easy to, for example, rush one opponent before his allies can help. This greatly depends on the map though.
I too think location 3 on BitD is indeed the strongest. I usually don't have the biggest armies on that location (not the smallest either) but most of the time I have nice spam after peace time. Anyway, if you're looking for advice you shouldn't listen to me (I'm a lousy builder and my pt armies are often no good) but ask Romek or Bludmaster for help. When you join TeamSpeak you will meet them sooner or later. They are some of the best players and they barely screw up.

[dicsoupcan]

well in the current meta only 30 swords and 30 bows are not enough, most players make 40 bows 20-25 swords and 5-10 knights nowadays, sometimes with a few militia aswell. i often try to get 3 knights and stables running at pt, 25 swords 40 bows and 15-20 militia which is quite hard for a chaotic perosn like me.

[pawel95]

well in the current meta only 30 swords and 30 bows are not enough, most players make 40 bows 20-25 swords and 5-10 knights nowadays, sometimes with a few militia aswell. i often try to get 3 knights and stables running at pt, 25 swords 40 bows and 15-20 militia which is quite hard for a chaotic perosn like me.

I consider 30 bows/30 swords a decent army,

I guess 30/30 is just fine for a "new" player that wanna play first time in the Reamke a serious game with serious people

[The Dark Lord]

Well you must see it in perspective. 30/30 may not be the best army ever, but from what I have seen many people are unable to play so constant that they can always have more than this. In fact, I'd guess that 30-50% of the players in a game are unable to reach these numbers. I rarely reach them myself.
Anyhow; that's why I consider it decent. As said it's not the best army ever but if you'd always have 30/30 after pt, an average of 30-50% of the players would do worse.

[mart900]

surely it depends on the map too?

but either way 40 bows 25 swords and some knights is pretty sick, that build must be tight! i find it so hard to mix knights cause stables seem to take so much of my corn that my entire town is starving at 65 min. when do you build that stable and how many farms are you running on?

[dicsoupcan]

well i have no idea how others do it, but i ususally make my stables when i get my 4th frm up and only give it one corn so my 2 swinefarms still keep producgin as normal, then i add a 5th farm and expand form there on. but it is easier to explain using a replay rather then using text imo. just join us on teamspeak and play a few games with us. with 30/30 you can still beat sado

[The Dark Lord]

Or cheat and trade stuff for horses, usually wooden weapons.

[Tiank]

You should know, that 1 stable/swinefarm needs 1.5 farm. So 3 farms - 2 swinefarms. Also, I set corn delivery at 5 for stables and swinefarms. For Mill at 2 (then one farm can support two mills). To ask your question about amount of farms during the game, I have 5 farms for most of 60 PT games, 2 swine farms and 1 stable. If you want to aim for 40 bows, make swine farms first. With late stable, you'd have around 3-4 horses.

To have 30 swords, you need two working Armor Smitties at 30 minute. Of course, the earlier you make them, the better. Then make Weapon Smithy right away (it takes about 1 minute to make one iron weapon). Or make two at around 40 minute. Of course, then there's iron and coal distribution . For me, the best setting is: iron at 2 or 3 for both Smitties. Coal at 3 for Iron Smithy (Iron Smitties usually wait for iron ore, so they don't need that much coal imo). For weapon and armor smithy - coal at 2 or 3. Metallurgist's - coal at 4 works good for me.

Using Market is not cheating, it's playing as game's name indicates: Knights and Merchants .

I recommend you to watch this video. It helped me to build more efficently, so maybe it would help you as well .