If I were on Twitter I would definitely ask. I suspect it was pretty much dumped entirely. Maybe some small elements ended up making their way into Age of Mythology.

What ever happened to "Sorceress"?

Of the expansion? I know a lot of people in Australia got the base aoe1 game in Kellogg's cereal. That was how I first got into it. What I think most people have forgotten (or never realised) is that the reason for that promotion was that the disks also contained the trailer for the upcoming/newly-released Age of Mythology. It was an advertising campaign for AoM.

Personally I ate up that trailer. And Age of Mythology has been my most played game over the last year, thanks to Retold. And games in the aoe franchise as a whole have been by far my most-played since 2019 with the Definitive Editions.

It all started thanks to aoe1 in a cereal packet. I never knew that there even was an aoe1 expansion until many years later.

I got my copy in a Kelloggs cereal box. Those were simpler times

Yeah the funny thing is I remember cheering for Hera during his initial rise. It felt so great watching a relative newcomer rising through the ranks and toppling Viper, during the early days of Definitive Edition. But now, Hera has gone 13 S-tier tournaments in a row without defeat, and it doesn't even feel like there's anyone on their way to beating him. (Unless he's under-prepared, as he sometimes is in lower-tier tournaments.)

One thing I really enjoyed was when Return of Rome came out and a bunch of people were briefly playing the aoe1 mode within that. Hera came onto a small Australian streamer's stream to ask for tips before his showmatch against Daut. Chat recommended he try a strategy they called "boning": stone age rushing with villagers, where they attack with weapons that appear to be bones. Hera actually tried it..

I can empathise with that. I made similar comments (a long time ago) about JP. I think a lot of people initially appreciated the “clean your room” portion of his “teachings”. As a former catholic I found his lecture series on the bible interesting. Boy did I regret mentioning that to some people when he then went on his right wing debate bro crusade before cooking himself on benzos and going to Russia to be put into a coma. All that’s to say I doubt Hera is the first person to be drawn in only to regret it immensely after.

These days, I want Hera to lose, but that's only because he's so good I think it's good for the community for his dominance to end.

That’s interesting, I did derive satisfaction at him losing the second round against a couple of rookie streamers.

I got a bit iffy on Hera a while back because he was saying some vaguely positive things about Jordan Peterson, but looking back and comparing it to Hera's other statements and actions, I get the impression that it was not because he was some diehard fan of the guy, but just that he was in that state where he had only seen the vaguely positive "clean your room" type claims and hadn't thought to contextualise it more broadly.

These days, I want Hera to lose, but that's only because he's so good I think it's good for the community for his dominance to end. I really like the guy on the whole.

and Hera, responded very quickly that they are against this.

Hera still being a decent representation of the AoE community is both unsurprising and commendable, alongside the others.

For context: a crypto-based betting app appeared over the last week or so, and seemed to get multiple high-level players on board, including:

• Jordan
• Sitaux
• Viper
• Tatoh
• Daut
• Vinchester
• Barles
• ACCM
• Classicpro
• Lucho
• Sebastian
• Capoch
• Dogao
• FreakinAndy

A lot of the community, including casters and other pro players such as T90, Mbl, Memb, and Hera, responded very quickly that they are against this. For the damage it can do to the community, for the risk of tainting trust in games, and more.

Some people pointed out that because this gambling company is based out of the Autonomous Island of Anjouan, Union of Comoros, it may not be legal for some of these players to participate.

As of 2024, Anjouan-licensed operators are specifically prohibited from targeting or serving players in the following countries:

United States United Kingdom France Australia Germany Netherlands Spain Austria Belize Comoros (home territory) Statia and St. Martin (Dutch territories) Any country blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)

(The irony that Anjouan-based gambling companies cannot serve people from other parts of their own country is not lost.)

After this news, many of the German & French players put out statements saying they erred and would not be participating, including Jordan, Sitaux, Viper, and Daut.

Long-time fans might remember that this is not the first time Viper, in particular, has been caught up in a crypto grift. In 2021, he announced a partnership with "Denarius", an already long-dead coin. After all the problems were pointed out to him, he announced he would not be continuing that partnership. But it seems to me he hasn't learnt the lesson about being careful about who he partners with and considering how it might impact his fans and the broader community. So for me at least, he doesn't get a pass for this as an "innocent mistake". He had a chance for that, and screwed it up again. Dude's an inconsiderate wannabe grifter.

Thankfully, with the biggest players having publicly left it (whatever the reason for their leaving may have been), this seems dead on arrival. But gambling being as insidious as it is, and the Age community being mostly such a wholesome one, it's important to stay vigilant.

Yeah I absolutely love it. There are still people playing it, modding it, etc.

Age of the Ring even recently released a standalone version of their enormous mod so you don't have to figure out how to install the original game to play their mod.

BFME2 is still my favorite RTS of all time

Boit titled his video about the patch "The Age of Norse-ology is over! The time of the Kuafu begins!" I'm mainly interested in ranked balance, so my summary ignores the single-play campaign and Gauntlet mode changes, but:

• All general-purpose infantry made weaker against pierce

Greece:

• Various myth unit buffs
• Hero buffs vs myth

Eggy:

• slingers made slightly more general-purpose
• spearmen slightly less general

Norse:

• Major eco nerf

Atty:

• Cheiroballista -1 base range, but +1 range for each line upgrade (so +2 range when fully upgraded)

China:

• fire archer range reduced
• unique heroes nerfed against human, but stable against myth
• kuafu 15->10 favour

Japan:

• Kamaitachi (the razor-weasels) +30 food, reduced special attack area, increase hack armour
• Jorogumo (the spider-ladies) buff armour & health
• Yumi archer frame delay reduced (I think that's what this says, essentially?)
• Dojo units give less bushido
• shrine gives more base favour, but less favour from food

I'm really excited to see this come through. I've never liked aoe2's water play, and part of that is because of the lack of a clear counter triangle that's created because of the fact that demo ships are supposed to be the counter for fire ships. Taking an approach more similar to Age of Mythology (with its arrow ship > hammer ship > siege ship triangle) with demos sitting outside that should make for much more dynamic fights.

And speaking of Age of Mythology, the new boarding ships apparently have a snare mechanic! Which is new to aoe2, but aom and aoe3 have always had it for melee land combat.

Yeah, between the huge range of games getting DEs (the entire Age franchise, some Stronghold games), long-lasting franchises getting new entries (Age, Company of Heroes), fan support for older games (BFME2's enormous Age of the Ring expansion) and an astonishing array of brand new entries to the genre at a range of budgets (including most of your own submissions to this Community), it really does feel like we're in a renaissance of the genre.

There does seem to be a revival in the last few years.

I used to play a lot of RTS back in the day, but these days it's mostly StarCraft 2 and that too, mostly Arcade/Use Map Settings.

This really does look pretty unique.

Maybe try Beyond All Reason? It's a Total Annihilation inspired open-source RTS.

Temples no longer eject their garrisoned relics when timeshifted.

As someone partial to a Kronos rush, this is huge. It's in "fixes", but honestly it feels more like a balance patch. Previously, I would just never get relics when Kronos rushing, or slow down my rush immensely by building a second temple back home to bring relics to.

Their favour mechanic reminds me a lot of the Rus in aoe4 with their Hunting Cabins.

Given how hard stromgate flopped, I don't know if the golden age is returning...

Age of Mythology is still my favourite game. The flavour of it and sheer fun factor is so high.

But it's hard to deny that Age of Empires 4 does basically everything better. Defences are more relevant, my experience has been that there is a greater need for adapting your strategy. The value of scouting (particularly age ups). The experience of playing ranked games with ranked badges, map bans, better colour selection, and persistent groups for team games. For competitive gaming, even at a low or mid level like me, nearly everything aoe4 does differently from AoM is something that I wish AoM also did.

At least there was an American around to set things straight!

Anglois propaganda making France look bad? Shocking!

Oh right, you were comparing it to Sandy's comment about Joshua? I'll admit I don't know what exactly he was thinking when he said that, but I took it as him joking a bit.