The Mad Strategists of Age of Empires 2

[@NachoAoE]

Amazing video as always! I have a very fun anecdote! In spanish speaking community I casted hoang since he did a full all-in Drush with huns and then CA castling at min 22. And since he was 1800 I've been covering a game of him at least twice a month (since like 2012). This guy is so well known in spanish speaking community that he himself chose to call himself "juan" which is what our people call Hoang since that's how it sounds like. He is a lovely guy and till this day one my favourite players. Red phoshporu is top player, absolutely love him aswell

[@Tiramis_]

That's a great anectode! I had never heard of it 11 Thank for sharing and for the kind words :)

[@_moritzperez_]

Grande nacho !

[@AgeofNoob]

Another banger episode.

[@CptSquirrel]

Hope you are doing good, I wish you the best!

[@AgeofNoob]

@@CptSquirrel Cheers, thank you mate. Likewise. 🫡

[@Tiramis_]

Thank you so much! All the best for you!

[@mattlozinski1700]

your docs are so good man. So glad you put your talents into the aoe2 scene

[@bassegoder]

9:39 absolutely. It was sad and unfair to see all the bullying Hoang received back in the day for trying new strats in high level (and not only celts, he was also shredding with Saracens and aztecs...) Very good video and approach ❤

[@titanayrum]

AOE 2 Needed this style of documentary series! Great job sir. Cheers from Brazil

[@Tiramis_]

Thank you so much!

[@AtlasJotun]

I just whined at T90 a couple days ago that he hasn't plugged Phos' YT channel enough in all the videos covering his batty strats. Tiramis to the rescue! GG

[@TheOhioNews]

Tiramis back with another great video 😊 I love this niche you're filling ❤️

[@PurpleBraveGiraffe]

only 4k subs ? what a hidden gem..

[@santiagodc89]

Dude, you are "the spirit of the law" of aoe2 stories, I hope you can keep producing this videos, your chanel will grow a lot! cheers!

[@Majiger]

100% agree on that strategy games need these sorts of strategies. People get so stuck on metas that they refuse to try and experiment to try and find something that might be better or will beat the meta. I would be very sad if the devs decide to kill these strats for no reason other people are frustrated and refuse to learn to play against something.

[@AEGISAOE]

0:38 TC goes shhh hooo

[@blackgoku2023]

Tiramis is now my fav aoe 2 content creator after viper. So informative and so much enjoy to watch these vids

[@Tiramis_]

Dang, that's big! Thanks!

[@francoisgassiat533]

great quality, as always, keep up the good work

[@SCCH286]

Your videos are always amazing. Keep at it!

[@SHiX11]

I love how your videos have everything - well researched, good music, great stories!

[@sams8302]

Great video, this type of content is especially needed for AOE2

[@nicholaswoollhead6830]

Thanks for making these videos mate, they really make the game feel so alive.

[@nrjg2696]

So great content ! Love it !

[@jacobwood3326]

Great video, thank you!! Really looking forward to the next one!

[@Tiramis_]

Thank you for watching :)

[@CptSquirrel]

Huge fan of Red, not only is he entertaining but a great guy, check out his streams!

[@samajhdarprani5779]

With every episode you are going more and more crazy. Keep on the good work.

[@gamedevinsiderplays1285]

I love these mad strats and agree completely that they add to the game and mixing up the meta is always good. However, it's when these strats become the meta for the lower levels it's frustrating. I gave up on ranked fairly quickly at around 1200 elo because the games were too much about executing these S-tier strats and you either felt like there was nothing you could do or you disrupt it in the slightest way and the other player resigns immediately. In that sense the game suffers. But the problem is people farming elo rather than the strat itself.

[@CG-eh6oe]

Another masterpiece. Pls keep making those.

[@clarkbeken3909]

always look forward to these videos

[@ar1sm70]

Fantastic video once again!

[@jonrite4]

quickwall episode?

[@jacquessuisse]

Probably, yes. Nice teasing, tiramis !

[@vincentmaltais2206]

J'aime l'approche documentaire !

[@danielaaoe]

I love your videos, you're such a talented artist! Thanks for all the work you are putting constantly into the scene! Keep up the good work :)

[@Tiramis_]

Hey, thank you so much! And thank you for all the work you put in, keep it up too ;)

[@jamieee_taylor]

Great content bro

[@janseidel4849]

Love this again. Keep it up. ❤

[@castofempires]

Fantastic video!

[@Tiramis_]

Thank you! :)

[@xacxdcx]

Good video! It's a shame you didn't go more in depth about the call you had RedPhosphorus, or explain more about who he is or his strategies.

[@luismercado5160]

these vids are so good man!

[@Dawoud_Shirin]

Awesome! More videos

[@boatman2801]

Your videos are unbelievably high quality. We in the AOE2 scene are so fortunate that you are a part of the community. Keep it up Tiramis!!

[@Tiramis_]

Thank you for watching and for your kind words! :)

[@2031331e]

great video as always

[@Thomas_Jv]

As always, very interesting video even for someone who's only played the game on Windows 98 ;)

[@Tiramis_]

glad to hear it :)

[@lordesfairgenug]

As someone who just started playing aoe2 competitively recently: How were the celts nerfed? When I look into the patch logs, I only see buffs like woad raider more hitpoints and attack, ring archer armor added and stronghold buffed? The only thing I see is that the infantry speed bonus no longer applies in dark age, which takes away the bonus for a drush as celts, but hoang was not performing drush? Or was drush a crucial part of the all-in with hoang with rams? Would like to get an answer to this as it confuses me. On the topic itself as a game dev and having played many other RTS competitively: It's absolutely not a problem if such strategies emerge. It enriches gameplay and diversity of games and it is very interesting to see what happens when 2 of those strategies bump into each other like fc rathas vs. fc war wagons and so on. Does one UU emerge as the best of all those in a meta, where everyone is doing ths stuff? In such a case, something must be done. Or does it change the game to no longer anyone wins with this as 2 such UU strats bump into each other usually and then both have to start getting 2nd TC and then 3rd also makes sense and the game just has a new default opening which includes UUs and not only scout/archer. Of course it must be balanced, but that does not mean it will be nerfed out of the meta. It can be balanced so that FC into UU is just another opening that works with like 10-20% of the civs. In such a meta players just have to accept that they need to get a defensive castle up fast so they will no longer be overrun by rathas etc.

[@Tiramis_]

The drush was indeed a big part of the Hoang Rush, I remember seeing him making 4-5 even 6 militia, which would allow him to fast castle in peace.

[@Progeusz-]

Before the nerf, Hoang was always making multiple militia and he often went way past beyond the standard 3. Even 5-6 wasn't the limit, there were games where he would make 10 or more. His strategy was very oppressive, he was attacking you with a lot of military before you could make any feudal army. By the time you finally cleared up all the militia, he was already in castle age with forward siege workshop and knights coming into your base. Bonus to infantry speed was crucial for this because it meant militia were arriving at your base faster, it was harder to wall against them, they could outspeed the villagers and even after you reached feudal, it was hard to kite them. The nerf didn't kill the strategy, Hoang managed to adapt, but it was definitely less potent since then.

[@ezio_aoe821]

best strategy game ever

[@MrTheQuestioner]

keep making amazing aoe2 content!

[@danieltoth9742]

The strategies themselves are really cool. The big problem is how much easier they are to pull off than to counter. If they were just as highly effective but also took an appropriately high level of skill to pull off, they would be fine -- good for the game, even. IDK how that could be solved, though...

[@Aoedam]

I really wonder what other cheese strats are out there that haven’t been produced yet

[@snack711]

i first thought maybe sth farm related (scouting from the old days or range "bonus" for mangonels) or mangonel deletion trick, but i guess that wouldnt fill a whole video. my guess for the next video is monk conversion target changes.

[@Tiramis_]

Interesting! But not quite :D

[@DatakTarr]

I really hope 'reaction' tubers don't just show the full videos on their channels, and instead just urge people to come watch the full video here. Love your content.

[@Tiramis_]

Thank you so much for the kind words!

[@gingerbeard3341]

9:32 the main issue with those all-in strategies is that very often the game become a coin toss, especially at higher levels. Pro players also innovates pretty much all the time but aiming for more consistent strategies, which may be less exciting to watch and are more difficult to replicate.

[@isaisotarriva8162]

And that is how wet got to the current era of aoe2. FC into wood-gold UU.

[@bilbobagainsaoe]

People have no idea the amount of street credit Red Phosphoru has on the 1000-17000 elo range. Everyone is either doing his strats, playing against them or talking about them on a regular basis

[@epicsheephair5785]

Next video is on deer pushing and the steady increase of sub 20 pop build orders?

[@harooooo1]

10:05 deer luring :D ?

[@LuisManuelRoballoAlvarez]

It must definitely be deer luring.

[@IamTristanC]

The thing I hate about the Youpudding and Red Phosphoru strategies is that I was a 1000 elo player attempting to theory craft all in strategies where you stop building villagers to get a quick boost in the economy to win rather then just get better at castle dropping or the regular 1000 elo strats. The strategies they use are basically exactly what I was looking for and it killed my motivation that someone beat me to it. Just starting to get back into the game/ranked and I think I have a fast feudal rush that will be able to get me past 1000 in my own style.

[@stefane9631]

Keep it up man, that’s the most fun part after all. I made it with my own style playing Japanese to almost 1400.

[@NedtureTVT]

Fun fact, in tornaments phosphorus and youpudding has potential, for example Lierrey lose against a freakin andy with Portuguese, and barles win against dogao with youpudding in "S" tier tournaments And many more examples

[@Tiramis_]

Definitely!

[@TsvetanVuchkovTeam]

Phosphoru is an innovator but he cant move beyond 2200 with his strats. Having a few allins in your arsenal is fine but he has nothing else. You need to be able to play a normal game too if you want to progress. He catches people a few times and then they figure him out and his cheese no longer works. Standard play is harder to pull off but its not capped like that.

[@fouratiahmed4878]

and I was thinking Pudding and phosphoru were the same person 1111

[@MRRookie232]

Good episode although the volume was all over the place here mate. Your audio is a lot lower than the music tracks and other audio sources.

[@markusdegenhardt8678]

The unintended feature? Quick walls

[@samajhdarprani5779]

Is the split micro?

[@Bannothegreat]

How were the celts nerfed? Just general power creep, or am I missing something?

[@Tiramis_]

The militia movement speed bonus used to be active from dark age, it now only starts in feudal age :)

[@stain2901]

next video going to be about deer pushing

[@gerbassman]

Pushing deer...

[@Eurynomos326]

Aoe2 players discovering that timing pushes exist has been very fun to watch. Jk, aoe2 is a fuckin hard game to optimise. The timings will probably never get as tight as StarCraft.

[@acidGoatG]

tree hunting? unit stacking? there are so many unintentional features in this game haha

[@hidro2353]

Who came here after Viper-Liereyy Wololo's game 4?

[@BlazonStone]

i cant strategize for shit and Im happy playing AOE2 at 800 elo for lifetime

[@Robert-sq7bp]

Check out manaless dredge in mtg

[@2010Cortana]

easy fix for all these strats. nerf the f market. thanks dev

[@alexfraughton9938]

Just wanna point out, in the beginning you say these cheese strats that cut villager production don't work against pros... Which is not necessarily true. Sure, pros are going to be much better equipped to deal with these strats but even someone like Hera can lose the odd game to Hoang from time to time

[@N1ghthavvk]

Next video: Deer pushing? Probably not intended for players to "herd" them back to their TC. And it is pretty much used by everybody on a high level these days.

[@Tiramis_]

Good guess, but not quite what I have in mind 11

[@N1ghthavvk]

@@Tiramis_ Palisade Scanning and the House Trick are to niche to count imho, and Boar Luring is way to old, so it's probably something else. But I can't really think of anything else that's as integral, while possibly unintended. Looking forward to it!

[@16vSciroccoboi]

AUTO SCOUT VIDEO CONFIRMED!

[@jshally1852]

Next video will be on quick walling 100%

[@sanmedina]

i am a simple man i see a red phosphoru video i reward it with engagement

[@joelw1730]

Next video--quickwalling?

[@Dubistgenial]

Micromanagment?

[@armchairsaurus]

...quickwalling

[@markusdegenhardt8678]

Im deeply anoyed by these cheese all in strategys. I have to admit that the idea behind took a lot of creativity. But since it once got established there is no creativity involved in executing these all ins which are so difficult to counter. I consider that abusing the over powered units which should have been nerfed a long time ago.

[@fasstaerke]

whereas AoK hasnt been changed often enough, AOEII since DE is in my opinion being changed way to much. exibit A: celts nerv because of one player who did find a successful strat with a very mediocre civ. that is just stupid from microsoft, takes aways variety even thoug its a one trick pony strat. its not OP if 1-5 players in the world use ist plus its so hard to execute perfectly.

[@TheGurke1995]

I agree on the strategy part, its nice if people come up with new stuff. But i don't like the promotion of that Phosphoru guy. I watched some of his videos and it did feel like he's a relay toxic guy and due to this i think he shouldn't get the attention he get's in the community.

[@stefschuermans8438]

imagine if you would make monks and they never nerfed monks ... it would have been no problem ... But hamsters ruined monks ...

[@JG-nm9zk]

And still no strategist has found a way to make Bulgarians viable

[@kartiksaraf4676]

I think people react very strongly to anything new. This strat is nothing new than going FC and all in CA or archers or any other units. Very one-dimensional and will work once or twice against good players but never again. Just like the Persian douche or hun CA spam

[@cristianbarriostoro589]

yes!! please don't nerf Bengalis, people just need time to figure out how to defend, its a strategy game, you supposed to spend some time strategyzing

[@16vSciroccoboi]

Quick walling.

[@SheeceGardazi]

its silly that devs keep on nefing ligit strats .... using buildings for walling ? 11

[@Whokare]

The main problem with phosphorus strategies are they are just way too simple and easy to do. It’s basically game breaking. Someone spends months learning meta and trying to get good and 2k+ players are dying to this. Even phosphorus said that he could not get that high with hoang strategy. That is what makes hoang unique. It actually had a super high skill ceiling with the strategy. These strategies are too easy and strong. If that is how the devs want the future of aoe and the ladder to be then so be it. It feels like age has become so much more stupid than the old strategy game I loved and played for years.

[@Lokalo1]

yeah exactly. Those Tiramis's words are lil bit weird at the end where he says he likes off meta strats. Daut does off meta strats in tournaments with m@a rushes and stuff. This red phosphoru bs where you cant even counter is not a off meta strat, but OP one. Like I played vs same guy twice, first time i lost fine, second guy i knew exactly what he is doing with bengalis, i had tons of skirms to counter rathas, but pathing screws you a bit and if ratha gets on top of skirms they like 3shot them. Is just dumb. Usually aoe2 is and always been about balance and if you go full in you are on huge timer, but when you spam castle age unit non stop vs feudal or early castle age there is nothing balanced about it. And I would actually liked a bit more coverage, where F1re lost to Viper's korean fc phosphoru thing. Like it does work even at super top level, because those units do not have a counter early on

[@aarondiaz1467]

Exploit abusers are the cancer of every game. Nice video as always.

[@eodo14051]

how is this an abuse? given i don't play the redph strat as i'm not good enough

[@milliondollarart]

yeah, hate these guys who uses their brain to invent new strats. effing brain abusers

[@aarondiaz1467]

@@eodo14051 AOE2 is a good game cause it has a lot of possibillities, the problem comes when a strat is abused cause it has no clear counter. In this case is the market abuse + strong unique unit. It doesnt make any sense that you have eco+army, but you cant counter organ guns, when is a unit that requires no upgrades for being as strong as it is, and kill anything you do in feudal age or early castle. And yes you can counter it sometimes if you enough damage, i've won them RP and Hoang, but i've also lost to RP when he has 13 vils alive, all in wood/gold, when i have eco, army and such. The same goes for other games, if u pick Akuma and abuse that he can fire hadoukens in the air and in the ground and fasters than the others, is not cheating, but is abusing an exploit, and for me, that kills the game. I tell you, if this becomes the meta, FC no eco into UU the game would die in months.

[@eodo14051]

@@aarondiaz1467 i see your point

[@markdowse3572]

Great strategies are superb. NEW, great strategies are innovative and difficult and can take the AoE2 world to another level! 😄😄 Remember, AoE2 is 25 years old... 🤣 Thanks for another excellent video, Tiramis. 👍 G'day from Australia! M 🦘🏏😎