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[ENG] Hun Wars · Start the game already!

0:00
Hera, though, has is a very young player who's had a sort of
0:03
meteoric rise to top 1V1 status in recent times.
0:08
He's known primarily for playing in Hunt Wars, but obviously he's
0:13
played lots of other settings at a very high level too, with the
0:17
Canada Nations Cup team most notably.
0:20
Hunt Wars were the birth place of the greatest age of empires,
0:23
two players of the past and the present.
0:26
Hun Wars is the term used when Huns are played against Hans in
0:30
A1V1 just now you heard SMB as he introduced a match from the
0:36
Legacy of the Hans tournament in 2015.
0:39
Ten years ago, a game between none other than Hera and a
0:45
player named Melchior. Hera, the world's best player
0:50
today, established himself as a world class player through Hun
0:53
Wars. Aside from the Nations Cup,
0:56
Legacy of the Huns was his first major tournament in which he
1:00
became known to a broader audience as a very, very young
1:04
and up and coming talent. His expertise in Hun Wars even
1:08
earned him third place in that very tournament.
1:12
Another player who also grew up with Hun Wars could not be more
1:16
different from Hera and yet shares his roots in Hun Wars.
1:20
If Hera is the personification of the meta, then the other
1:25
player is the embodiment of the anti metal.
1:28
I'm talking of course about the Vietnamese player Huang.
1:32
Yes, that Huang. The one who is mainly known
1:36
nowadays for his Celtic fast castles.
1:39
That's the one I mean. Blong is 2.2 K voobly, which
1:44
means that he is currently rated 52nd on the 1V1 ladder on the
1:49
platform where all the Ros play. So this weird strategy that he
1:53
always does that he is known for and you will see he does it
1:57
consistently and he does it well.
2:01
It is a Hans war because he does not play any other civilization.
2:04
He does just Huang things with Hans and it is not played with
2:09
the expansion and balance changes.
2:11
So it is AOC Hans. This is just classic stuff and
2:14
he's been doing this for years and years and years has not
2:17
changed how he does it. Wang's strategy in Han wars was
2:20
always the same. Instead of a three militia
2:23
drush, Wang would go with eight or more militia, exploiting the
2:27
fact that walls were rarely built in Hun wars and following
2:31
it up with a vast castle. The Huang Rush with Celts, for
2:35
which he became so famous, is an evolution of his interpretation
2:40
of Hun wars. Personally, I have always been
2:44
fascinated by Hun wars. I joined the competitive scene
2:47
shortly after the era of Hun Wars ended and never experienced
2:51
them myself. They fascinate me precisely
2:55
because there are so many legends surrounding them.
2:58
After all, at first glance, it seems as if people hardly played
3:02
anything else for probably 15 years.
3:05
Over the years, I've formed the impression that Hunt Wars were
3:09
the great benchmark for a player's skill.
3:12
That's why I set out to cover the history of the Hunt Wars in
3:17
this podcast. Hi my name is Andre in game I'm
3:21
called Slap and I play age of empires since the year 2000 till
3:26
2016. The biggest part of that were
3:29
the Hun was. Slap is just as active today as
3:33
he was back then and with his 1900 ELO would absolutely stomp
3:39
me. He's a true veteran amongst
3:42
players and remains to this day a true Hunt player as well
3:45
because even in the definitive edition, Hans are by far his
3:49
most played civilization. Slap shares his experience with
3:53
the Huns with the namesake of mine, whom you might also know.
3:58
You know, I, I go by, I am Chris on Age of Empires.
4:02
But yeah, in real life, I'll go by Chris or Christopher.
4:04
Chris is a Canadian player who was regarded as one of the best
4:08
players in the world between the year 2000 and 2008 and had a
4:13
healthy rivalry with a player that we know as doubt today.
4:17
During that time, as I see it, he was the second player after
4:22
COVID to be considered the best player in the world.
4:26
Although he appeared as a very versatile player, his trademark
4:30
was probably his particularly aggressive play style with the
4:33
Huns. Yeah, and I'd say my style, I
4:35
described it as adaptable with a constant state of pressure.
4:39
Slap and Chris are two great players who both fully
4:42
experienced the peak period of the Hunt Wars and therefore not
4:46
only have a whole lot more ELO than me, but also much more
4:50
experience in the Hunt Wars. From today's perspective that's
4:55
kind of hard to imagine though. A mirror match is considered
4:58
extremely boring because it undermines the game's strategic
5:02
diversity, so I can't help but ask why, for such a long time,
5:07
people saw it exactly the other way around.
5:11
Above all, someone must have come up with the idea that this
5:14
would actually be fun playing Huns versus Huns, and it turns
5:18
out there was even a time before the Hunt Wars.
5:22
If you look back when the time when Coven arch Coven from Korea
5:27
was the best player in the world, he was there during the
5:31
time of Chinese wars and an extremely fast player and very
5:35
strategic. And I think he went to the
5:38
military, which is what caused him to drop off the ladder at
5:40
that time. But those in those days, that
5:44
was before scouts even had five attack in the feudal age.
5:47
So you you would very frequently see you kind of seen militia and
5:51
Archers or you've seen skirmisher wars in the feudal
5:53
age, you've seen more towers and back then villagers were very
5:57
squishy. They didn't have the the Pierce
5:59
armor that they have today. So if you have 3 Archers in your
6:03
wood line and if you had no army there, you were hooked.
6:06
You were done. Well, in that sense, the Hunt
6:08
Wars weren't a completely new invention.
6:10
They were the better Chinese. Unlike the Chinese who were part
6:16
of the original Age of King's civilizations, the Hunts didn't
6:19
come into the game until the Age of Conquerors in 2000.
6:22
And apparently in the early days, in the Age of King's era,
6:26
the Chinese were the best civilization.
6:29
That changed, though, once the Huns have been released with the
6:33
Age of Conquerors. If you look at it just before
6:36
that time frame, just a step before, Chinese was the
6:39
strongest sieve. They nerfed that civilization.
6:42
They they removed the starting villager.
6:44
And what that did was it made it so Huns were slightly better
6:47
than Chinese at that point in time.
6:49
And so it just got caught on as like, oh, they're similar in
6:54
nature. You got to balance strategies
6:56
and, and even at the very start, it was not clear what the best
6:59
strategy was. And even, you know, today I'd
7:02
say it's very situation specific.
7:04
So you had you had this dynamic where you could play the
7:07
strategy you liked. If you like going scouts, you
7:10
like doing a skirm rush, you like going men at arms, you
7:12
liked, you know, walling in your base.
7:16
Like there, there were tons of things you could do with Huns
7:20
and that allowed each player to pick what they liked and to do
7:23
that and still be in a competitive situation throughout
7:26
the games. With patch one point OB from
7:30
June 5th 2001, there was the Chinese nerf Chris has mentioned
7:35
in the form that they started with -200 food instead of -150
7:41
food as previously, as is still the case today.
7:46
In the same patch something else was changed as well as SLAP
7:49
recalls. And yes he says one point OC
7:53
patch, but of course he means one point Obi mean come on.
7:57
As if you would remember such a detail after 25 years.
8:01
After the famous one OC patch I believe in 2001, it was not long
8:06
after the AOC release, the now empowered scouts became
8:11
increasingly popular. The fast production from staples
8:15
and mobility were also arguments in favour of the Huns in these
8:19
extended fuel age battles without walls and with plenty of
8:24
chaos everywhere. They were therefore the first
8:27
choice for the most top players. We could only get a few recorded
8:33
games of Kovum and KO and all these records showed us Hanwa's
8:38
and that just established the Hanwa meta.
8:43
And this meta changed very slowly compared to nowadays
8:48
standards. After the MSN song closed in
8:52
2006, I believe it even came to a standstill.
8:56
I don't remember playing anything other than the typical
9:00
Humble during the transition period up until 2009.
9:05
And even with Woopley things didn't change immediately.
9:08
So the Humble remained kind of standard and the most common
9:13
play set up for more than 10 years at this point.
9:18
Coven and the other top players were trendsetters in this
9:21
respect. They played Hun Wars and others
9:24
copied them. Of course, it's always been the
9:26
case that people look to the world's best players, whether in
9:29
sports or esports. But in the early 2000s, that
9:33
wasn't so easy. Especially because Coven, the
9:36
best player in the world at the well, the first best player in
9:40
the world. He had the habit of not making
9:43
many of his games publicly available because he just simply
9:47
didn't record them so others couldn't see his strategies, as
9:52
he said in an interview in 2002, which I have linked for you in
9:56
the description of this episode. Well, as Slap already said, the
10:01
Hun Wars became the dominant style of play for at least a
10:04
decade. It was only later with the
10:07
transition to Voobly that this slowly started to chain, and
10:12
even then, and not entirely. There were many reasons for
10:15
this, though the most important one in my opinion was probably
10:19
that every player could develop their own play style in Hun
10:22
Wars. Even today you can still feel
10:26
that hunts work well in games that become very messy.
10:30
Back then, Arabia was messy by definition.
10:34
It was more open and heavily unbalanced, and super aggressive
10:39
forward strategies made popular by Ken or KMKM were not only
10:46
successful in tournaments but also commonplace in the rated
10:50
rooms. And even when attempting
10:53
defensive counter play it was still the hands that showed the
10:57
best results. There was Halen, in my opinion
11:01
the best player of that era. Who also played the hunts in the
11:05
defensive position and nearly all the time Schmaker AKA Dowd
11:11
copied this style with the hunts and developed it even further.
11:15
And what remained were many, many lobbies titled with one
11:20
versus 1 Hunt War not only in the zone but also in Game Park
11:24
and Game Ranger and later in Vrubli.
11:28
And that also explains why I found it so difficult to figure
11:32
out whether there was such a thing as a meta in Hun Wars at
11:36
all. The Hun Wars were like a canvas
11:40
for the most beautiful side of Age of Empires Two.
11:44
You give both players the same colour palettes and they start
11:47
painting with completely different techniques no matter
11:51
how often you sit down, every time a new picture would occur.
11:56
It also reminds me of chess a little.
11:58
Usually every game starts with a very small selection of
12:02
openings, but no matter how many thousands of games you play,
12:06
every single game you play develops well with its own
12:11
unique dynamic after just a few moves.
12:15
Like let's say your base scenario is is you go feudal,
12:18
rush, skirmisher rush. Your opponent does either scouts
12:20
or skirmishers. If they do scouts, they're
12:22
putting pressure on you while you put pressure on them.
12:24
If they go skirmishers, you're kind of just skirmishing at
12:27
their base. And very often that would turn
12:30
into a few full feudal army type scenario where there's like you
12:33
say, there's scouts, there's Archers, skirmishers, Spears,
12:35
there's towers. And like you say, if if you're
12:40
the one putting the pressure on, you can decide when to go to
12:42
castle age, right? Yeah.
12:44
You know, if if they try and sneak in castle age and you go
12:46
10 extra scouts and overwhelm their base, they might get to
12:49
castle age, but they might not have anything left when they get
12:51
there. So, but at the same time, if you
12:54
can kind of have a couple towers offensively and kind of, you
12:59
know, build a bit of army, trick them into thinking you're going
13:02
full feudal and then hit castle age ahead of them and get those
13:05
few nights out, that might make all the difference too.
13:08
So you're, you're, you're often I would say the base strategy at
13:11
the top level was full feudal aggression and whether you're
13:15
doing it defensively or offensively, followed by
13:18
adapting at the right point in time, which that's hard to
13:22
define because it's a it really depended depend on each game.
13:27
Skirmishes, Spears, scouts, arches, joshes, men at arms,
13:31
towers. Any opening was possible and you
13:35
could express yourself in both offensive and defensive play
13:38
styles. That was of course always the
13:41
case in Hunt wars, but to be honest, the Hunts could play
13:45
like that against any civilization.
13:48
The Extended Fuel Age was often played without walls, and here
13:52
the Aztecs or Maya and all the Mongols by the way, simply no
13:57
longer offered any decisive advantages, while the Huns are
14:02
becoming increasingly stronger in this mode.
14:05
After the scouts got buffed, the Meso civilizations had a hard
14:10
time keeping up in the specific matter, even though players like
14:13
Grant here and there demonstrated that the extended
14:17
Feudal Age can also be played with AT stacks.
14:21
Therefore, alternative strategies were needed, such as
14:25
increased walling to rush FC or the Kits rush which utilized the
14:31
advantages of the Meso civilizations.
14:33
However, the meta was progressing very slowly and it
14:38
took quite some time for these strategies to become widespread.
14:43
Of. Course there were players like
14:45
Mozart who were able to keep up with the top Hunt players using
14:51
FC strategies with Maya, but these players were outnumbered.
14:56
Later I also followed P Park who regularly played Rush FC with at
15:02
stakes and over all the meso versus Hans or meso versus meso
15:08
match ups became more and more common.
15:11
Of course, there were seen also other civilizations and many
15:16
other strategies, but still the majority of daily games remained
15:21
Hun Wars. Looking back, the Aztecs and
15:25
maybe the Mayans as well, were considered stronger
15:27
civilizations than the Huns, but the Huns had a long feudal age,
15:32
a weapon that was able to take the wind out of the sails of
15:35
even those two civilizations. So it's understandable that's in
15:39
the end, everyone wants to play Huns.
15:42
And so the Hun Wars emerged. Hun Wars that was for the real
15:47
Age of Empires players, for those who wanted to make a life
15:51
hell for their opponents with relentless rushes and constant
15:54
aggression. And since the Huns didn't need
15:57
to build houses no one walled with open maps like Arabia, the
16:02
perfect scenario for pure aggression was given, right?
16:06
Right. Well, I'd say it's, it's funny
16:09
though too, because so for a period of about six months
16:11
there, I had a strategy where I would go scouts.
16:15
And while I was going scouts, I would send 5 villagers to
16:17
Stonewall in my whole base. And it would work quite well in
16:22
all honesty. Because after that you can never
16:25
be attacked, right? So you were 100% focused on
16:27
attacking your enemy. And you can choose if, if they
16:30
build enough army to defend, you could just stop attacking and
16:33
just boom, right. And, and they might not be able
16:35
to do much damage. And if they didn't build enough
16:38
army, you just go one TC full army and you take them out.
16:42
So there were some unique strategies like that that
16:46
existed. I would say another one was on
16:48
occasion you would skirmisher rush your opponent.
16:50
And while skirmisher rushing, I would do like, you know, 10
16:53
skirmishers, 3 villagers, I'd build a tower.
16:56
I'd keep them all in that area at the same time as mining stone
16:59
with those villagers and stonewalling a home.
17:01
Again, not not commonly, but if you do that every now and then,
17:05
your enemy is going full army, they're thinking you're
17:07
attacking them nonstop, but you just kind of said it was full
17:11
attack. Now it's full peace mode and
17:14
you're going to make it to Castle Age way ahead of them.
17:16
So if you, and that's what I mean by watching your opponent,
17:20
right, as if, if you aren't aware of what they're up to, you
17:23
can be really surprised by things like that.
17:25
And I used to love doing those type of surprises.
17:28
So really, anything was possible, even walls.
17:32
In my research, I watched pretty much every Hunt War I could find
17:35
on YouTube, and I noticed something.
17:38
Many of these games had an unusually long fudelage.
17:42
It wasn't uncommon to see players lingering in the
17:44
Fudelage for 30 or even 40 minutes with 20 or more scouts
17:49
per player on the field, alongside Spearman and
17:51
skirmishers on completely open maps without any walls
17:56
whatsoever. Players often preferred
17:59
investing further into the Feudal Age rather than advancing
18:02
to the Castle Age. Chris did tell us that walls did
18:06
exist, but I hardly found any games that actually showed them.
18:11
Of course, it's possible those games never made it to YouTube,
18:14
because open games fit our mental image of the Huns way
18:18
better, but my suspicion was that there was some kind of
18:22
gentleman's agreement not to wall.
18:25
You know, I don't think so. I mean, like I, I, I know in the
18:30
original age of empires, they eventually said no scorpions
18:33
because they were they were too strong at one point in time.
18:36
But in age of empires, the the age of Kings or sorry, the
18:40
conquerors, we the hunt wars were actually pretty well
18:44
balanced all along. I don't think there's anything
18:48
like that. I mean, some people would say
18:50
don't lame, don't don't take my sheep or my boar, but I mean,
18:55
that's probably still a thing today on occasion.
19:01
In practice you could force open games through aggressive play as
19:05
long as you weren't like Chris committing 5 villages to stone
19:10
walls. Nut walling is pretty much
19:14
unthinkable today, especially on Arabia.
19:17
Anyone who wants a fully walled map can achieve it now very
19:22
easily. But back then times were
19:24
different. Since much like today, the Huns
19:27
didn't have houses back then as well, relying on walls was never
19:31
really in their nature. So here's what I did over the
19:35
past few weeks. I played a couple of Hun walls
19:38
myself on Modern Arabia, with modern Huns keeping the
19:42
gentleman's agreement of only building small walls and
19:46
avoiding full walls to recreate that old feeling, even though as
19:50
we know now, historically that agreement didn't really exist.
19:54
And let me tell you, it's a completely different game
19:58
experience. Not being housed constantly gave
20:02
me a kind of tailwind that pushed me towards attacking my
20:05
enemy. Tech switches felt very natural.
20:09
I opened with French drushes, 3 militia drushes, full scouts and
20:13
scouts into Archers. Just knowing my opponent
20:16
wouldn't be fully walled was exhilarating.
20:19
At the same time, there was a constant tension.
20:22
What if my opponent sneaked in and suddenly appeared at my
20:26
base? Maybe towered a resource even?
20:30
Because I, much like my enemy, was not walled, and this really
20:35
did something to me. I found myself watching the
20:38
minibab way more closely and committing more heavily to
20:42
attacks to force defensive reactions rather than letting
20:46
the enemy counter attack me. And yet we reached the Castle
20:50
Age significantly earlier than in the historical games I
20:54
watched, and advancing to the Castle Age became the rule
20:57
rather than the exception. Once in the Castle Age,
21:00
transitions into cavalry Archers usually followed since they
21:04
countered Knights, but as it turns out, that wasn't always
21:08
the case. Early in the 2000s, it was a bit
21:11
laggier. So if you went Cav Archers and
21:14
let's say someone else went Knights, you can't really hit
21:17
and run as effectively because you might have one second
21:20
between the time you click and the time your your Cav Archers
21:22
retreat. So someone's patrolling their
21:25
Knights and they might get a few hits in before you even move.
21:27
But The funny thing is, is that Cav Archers stayed the same
21:32
cost. But when lag got reduced after 5
21:34
or 10 years, because Internet connections were better, Cav
21:37
Archers became so much stronger because you just you can
21:40
maneuver them. You go to the nearest hill, you
21:42
go to the choke point, you, you know, you hit and run whatever
21:45
you're going to hit and run. And if anything, that made it so
21:49
we eventually had to slightly nerf the the Cav Archers to to
21:52
keep it in balance. So and then I mean, even even
21:58
then, I would say you also get a lot of evolution in in the maps,
22:02
right. I mean, in, in the mid 2002
22:04
thousand fifteens or so, I think some of the Arabian maps were
22:07
turned into being a lot more closed.
22:10
And the more closed you are, the less you're going to have like
22:14
melee units, right? You're going to, you're going to
22:15
have ranged units more often just because there's more
22:17
control points and easier to wall in.
22:20
So you you seem kind of shift from from Knights to to more
22:23
cave Archers that point in time. This is of course hard for us to
22:27
fully understand today since we haven't experienced the high
22:31
pings and lag of back then. Unlike Chris Anslap, who did
22:37
very much experience this and who emphasized that the Huns
22:42
matter wasn't just about balancing the Huns, it was
22:45
fundamentally shaped by the realities of Internet
22:48
connections, lags and pings. Until the 2013 user patch in
22:54
Bubly there was still a significant lag and that was a
22:58
real problem for cavages. I think Knights were therefore
23:02
the most played unit for a long time in castle age.
23:06
This is even more true when playing without walls and many
23:11
games also ended in the feudal age or the early castle age.
23:15
It's also important to remember that you usually reach castle
23:19
age even with larger armies of skurms and Archers.
23:24
Therefore they were usually played after a complete walling
23:29
so you could survive the critical time until you got a
23:34
large mass of them. And walling and CAF Archers was
23:38
also played by some top China players like BT4 or Windy I
23:44
think, but I'm not completely sure about that.
23:48
It's just so long ago. With the user patch, the
23:52
handling of the CAF Archers was improved and the unit became
23:56
increasingly dangerous, which is why the discount in Wallaloo
23:59
Kingdoms was reduced. In any case, this is a good
24:03
example of how strongly things like a lower ping can affect the
24:08
game balance. Ironically, since the Definitive
24:12
Edition and it's notorious Melly parthing, we've mostly known the
24:16
opposite the meta of ranged units.
24:20
The recent patch, five years after the Definitive Edition, is
24:23
the first step toward breaking the meta a little.
24:27
Hun Wars evolved alongside the game itself.
24:30
As the game became more stable, cavalry Archers emerged as an
24:34
important unit, further enriching the variety of Hun
24:37
wars. This is certainly significant
24:40
when considering why Hun wars were dominating for about 15
24:45
years. The wars had their own
24:47
evolution, so to say, even though the games changes were
24:52
more technical than balance related for the most of that
24:55
time. There's one unit we haven't
24:58
discussed yet, the Tarkin. I read very conflicting accounts
25:02
of Tarkins in Hunt Wars. Some forum posts suggested that
25:07
Tarkins were rarely seen. Others present them as a core
25:11
part of Hunt Wars, especially as a counter unit to cavalry
25:15
Archers, which as we know only became particularly prominent
25:19
toward the end of the Hunt Wars. You know, I think the Tarkin
25:23
came more into its own in like team games and things like that.
25:26
Like it in in one-on-one. If if your opponent went cab
25:30
Archers and and let's say like you had an intense feudal age,
25:33
it was a nuts game like that. Let's say it was pretty
25:35
balanced. And then you had a castle age
25:36
where one of you went Knights, the other one went cab Archers.
25:39
And let's say you're the one that went Knights and you so you
25:41
have all the cab upgrades, they have all the Archer upgrades and
25:45
you were you managed to get like a full economy and A120140
25:48
villagers and you have a few castles up.
25:51
So in that situation, you, you definitely sometimes decided,
25:55
Hey, I know that Tarkins are, you know, with their higher
25:58
Pierce armor are going to smoke cat Archers, right.
26:02
So sometimes you make the unit switch then.
26:05
And I'd say that was probably the perfect time to do it,
26:09
especially if if, let's say in mid castle age, like I found a
26:12
few at nights, sometimes you'd you'd do a bunch of siege with
26:14
it. So you went manganiels and
26:16
scorpions and stuff like that. And and so sometimes your
26:20
opponent would, you know, do a bit of their own cavalry, right,
26:23
They do some light cavalry or things like that.
26:25
So you put up castles kind of to defend those raids and defend
26:28
the Cav Archer raids and stuff. It became a thing where Tarkins
26:31
actually produced quite quickly and they had the higher Pierce
26:34
armor. So if you could surprise them,
26:37
especially without them being able to get to pikemen, because
26:40
if you, if you just had Cavaliers or you just had, you
26:42
know, Knights, caval Archers can deal with those, but they cannot
26:46
deal with especially right as you hit amp, if you get that
26:49
elite Tarkin upgrade and you get the Pierce armor upgrade, even
26:53
with full Cav Archer upgrades, all of a sudden those Tarkins
26:55
are beasts. So I, I've seen scenarios where
26:59
like, OK, you know, if you had, let's say you had 20 Tarkins and
27:03
they have 40 or 50 Cav Archers, right?
27:05
A number that you think one would beat the other.
27:07
But if you split that Tarkin army into 3 and you said, you
27:10
know what, 8 or 10 at each Town Center, if he doesn't have units
27:15
there, you're just taking that TC out and all those villagers,
27:17
right? And like, you don't care at all.
27:19
You're just like, well, I might lose 1 Tarkin as this TC falls,
27:22
but you're losing 20 villagers. So good luck, right?
27:26
And so I'd say it's similar in nature to eagles, where
27:31
sometimes the best way to use some of these units is not
27:35
necessarily to fight their army, it's to to ignore it entirely.
27:39
And and Tarkins were one of those scenarios like that.
27:43
Don't know about you, dear listener, but that was a very
27:46
thrilling revelation to me. Tarkins are a unit almost never
27:50
seen today, much like the Huns themselves.
27:53
Knowing they had such spectacular uses is quite
27:57
exciting to me. In one of my Hun war games this
28:00
actually happened. We had a fairly balanced feudal
28:03
age. I played cavalry Archers, my
28:06
opponent countered with Tarkins and I had my own.
28:10
This was one of the few games to reach the late game, even post
28:14
imperial, because by the end I had fully upgraded elite cavalry
28:18
Archers alongside elite tarkins on the field, and it was a
28:22
glorious game. It was amazing, better than any
28:25
game I've played on the ladder. And it wasn't just the tarkins,
28:29
it was the late game experience itself.
28:33
Many of my Hun wars ended earlier than my non Hun games,
28:37
similar to what I saw in my research.
28:40
But of course I'm only a roughly 1500 thousand 600 ELO player at
28:45
the pro level. Games almost never end pre post
28:48
imperial anymore. After 15 years of Hun wars that
28:52
was bound to change right? They must have played into the
28:56
late game more often than not once everyone knew exactly what
29:01
to do having faced every situation 1000 times before.
29:05
Yeah. I'd say, you know what, you'd be
29:06
surprised because I'd say at A at a really high level, if you
29:09
said, Hey, take Riot or take a Viper in there early when you
29:14
when he was so you know, much younger or you know, and myself
29:19
playing them or even like grunt or Halen or someone like that.
29:22
Even just before Viper and Riot, very commonly, you do both do
29:26
scouts. You'd both palisade in your base
29:29
with a villager or two. There might be some skirmishes
29:32
in in between. You might realize, hey, we're
29:34
both gold Archers or we're both not gold Archers, depending on
29:37
the map. So then it would get to castle
29:39
age. And in castle age you might, you
29:42
might decide, OK, we're both walled in.
29:43
Let's both go cat Archers. Or you might say we're both
29:46
quite opened. We, we were able to partially
29:48
wall, but we're not fully walled.
29:49
Let's both go Knights. You know, you're not saying
29:51
that, but you're, you're kind of both doing it because it's makes
29:53
sense, right? So you'll, you'll find a lot of
29:56
situations where you, you both did and you both did a couple
29:59
town centers and, and you were booming.
30:02
Sometimes those games were incredibly close because you
30:06
both kind of chose the optimized situation for that that
30:09
particular game. And so while you think that, you
30:13
know, maybe it's 100 games ago late, I would say it's probably
30:15
closer to like one or two and 10:00 just because the the the
30:21
skill level differences and we're not that great
30:24
necessarily, and because the strategies were quite similar in
30:27
those situations. And when you did go post amp
30:30
you, you, you really had to decide because if so, if you did
30:34
Cav Archers, you'd always do light cab in front or, or halbs
30:37
or something like that. But if you did paladins and you
30:40
mixed it with trash units, that was an extremely powerful
30:43
composition as well. So whether that's halb, skirm,
30:47
light cab, you know, whatever it is, the skirm to deal with any
30:50
halbs that come up, because in in hunt wars, your halbs don't
30:53
have the last pure server. So skirmishers do counter them
30:57
and skirmishers, you know, are not amazing in these cab
31:00
Archers. They're good in these cab
31:01
Archers because they don't have their last Pierce armor.
31:04
But when you put paladin in front, the skirmishers just eat
31:06
the cab Archers. So I'd say it actually depended
31:10
on kind of like what upgrades and what's your middle game
31:12
looked like to see what you tacked into in early MP and then
31:16
kind of how it would end up later.
31:17
And I'll tell you if I was going Knights and castle age and then
31:19
I had, you know, like in the deponent was going cab Archers,
31:22
you might end up being at Paladin skirm and and they might
31:25
be at cab Archer Pasar type of thing.
31:28
And those, those situations could go either way, even though
31:33
in all honesty, Kavarks or Hussar sounds better to me
31:36
because you're not losing your gold units.
31:38
But again, it you can get overwhelmed, right, one or two
31:41
fights or or you can't rate as effectively, you know, So it
31:48
games did evolve that way sometimes.
31:50
If two or three out of 10 games reached the late game, and I've
31:54
counted correctly, that means most ended in the mid game.
31:58
And you know what that implies? To me that means few stalemates
32:03
and much more excitement in each individual match.
32:07
That's exactly what I look for in Age of Empires 2, and often
32:11
what seems missing to me. I'm starting to feel a longing
32:15
for something I have never experienced first hand.
32:19
Very strange sensation, but the deeper I delved into the hunt
32:23
walls, the stronger my connection became.
32:26
The way Chris described the games, it sounds incredibly
32:29
entertaining precisely because of all the strategic
32:33
possibilities. Scouting must have been
32:36
absolutely crucial to understand the enemy's plans and decisions
32:41
had to be made without hesitation to retain the
32:44
initiative. Hun was almost remind me of
32:47
StarCraft and less of modern Age of Empires.
32:50
Where you often see two players executing pre planned strategies
32:55
and the art is probably more about committing to a plan
33:00
rather than adapting. Indeed, Hun was long stood as a
33:04
measure of player skill. Well, I'm going to say
33:07
disproportionately yes, I'd say if you if and maybe not even my
33:11
opinion, but the opinion of the fans of people that were just
33:14
pleasurably watching most of them were playing hunt wars.
33:17
Most of them loved to watch hunt wars.
33:19
Some of them would only watch hunt wars.
33:21
And also they'd you know, I'd say even if you're a really good
33:25
player, if you were a player that dodged hunt wars, people be
33:28
like, I don't know if that fight is as good as they, you know,
33:30
the results seem to show cause 'cause like they can't handle
33:33
being open, no walls fighting non-stop, right, Like they can
33:37
only do islands or they can only do arena, right.
33:40
So it used to be a perception back then.
33:43
So I do think it's if, if you were to say, hey, if people were
33:48
judging on average, like what's the most entertaining and what
33:51
is the most skillful, I'd say that yeah, people did consider
33:54
Hunt Wars in that in both those discussions.
33:57
Perhaps that's also why we now picture Arena players as clowns.
34:02
When you think about it, it's almost absurd how that label
34:06
stuck. It's a classic example of what
34:09
social scientists like me call othering othering.
34:13
This term describes how people of the same group of a dominant
34:18
group perceive outsiders of that groom as being exotic.
34:23
For some, being exotic is intriguing or even fascinating.
34:27
For others, it's probably threatening.
34:29
Labeling arena players as clowns fits perfectly and it's
34:33
conceivable that Hun was on Arabia seeded this very
34:38
perception. I too was socialized this way.
34:42
Real Age of Empires 2 is Arabia and nothing else.
34:45
Playing on Arabia against someone who full walls
34:48
immediately is no longer fun for me.
34:51
I just want to quit the game and start again.
34:54
Of course that's a lot of nonsense.
34:56
It's just the contemporary game. It's how the game is being
35:00
played in in this day and age. So go ahead and wall.
35:04
But really, just between us, if you start full walling in dark
35:08
aged you are a clown in my eyes and my age of Empire
35:12
socialization utterly revolves. But jokes aside, Hunt Wars were
35:17
almost their own game mode with different dynamics and probably
35:21
expectations. I.
35:23
Think that over the years the Hunt war has become the most
35:27
common and traditional match up in the game.
35:30
All the players in particular can certainly understand why the
35:34
Hunt War has become a kind of standard test, even as a
35:38
starting game in tournaments to influence the further course of
35:42
the match. The Hun War is, so to speak, a
35:45
kind of mandatory program and the rest of the match is the
35:49
freestyle part. Your comparison with the Hun War
35:53
as a separate game mode is also very fitting.
35:56
I would say Hun. Wars were a staple in many
35:59
tournaments. The Huns were often picked as
36:02
early as possible if there was a draft, and why not?
36:07
Many tournament records from the Hunt War era survived. 1 custom
36:11
had emerged. Starting and ending a final
36:14
match with a Hunt war. Begin with a spectacle and end
36:18
with a spectacle must have been the motive.
36:21
Performance in Hunt Wars was a definitive indicator of player
36:25
skill for both pros and amateurs at.
36:29
That time it was also common practice to undergo so-called
36:33
pop test when you wanted to join a clan.
36:36
Essentially you had to show that you can get 45 to 50 pop on the
36:42
map within 50 minutes and prove this way that you are a skilled
36:47
player. So you started wreck against the
36:50
AI, usually producing mass Spearman and squirms, and you
36:55
mostly did it with Hans. And this style was also common
36:59
on the ladder. Unfortunately for me, this
37:02
approach is still all too often part of my play style these days
37:07
such. Habits are hard to shake off for
37:09
a die hard Hunt player, but by now it's clear the meta has
37:13
shifted. The great strength of the Huns
37:16
on Arabia, almost unbeatable and open aggressive games no longer
37:22
guarantees the same success. This leads to the question, why
37:27
don't we see Han Wars today? What caused the paradigm shift
37:31
toward map and civilization diversity that we experience in
37:35
today's game? Oh.
37:36
Yeah, yeah. So, well, I'd say there's a lot
37:39
of things all in kind of combination with one another.
37:43
First off, I'd say the biggest thing was that every other
37:46
civilization kind of got buffed over the years.
37:50
Not not a lot, but enough. I mean, if you, if you said
37:53
like, hey, you know what the problem with dealing with Huns
37:56
in the past was even if you made Spears, the scouts were coming
37:59
out so fast that you that it was tough to make enough Spears in
38:02
the right spots. That was true.
38:04
And then even if you didn't make enough Spears, they added the
38:06
archery range and a few Archer skirmishers to take out your
38:09
Spears. And it was just tough to deal
38:11
with in mid feudal age because the cost of all those houses and
38:15
the time it took to build them and all that type of stuff while
38:18
doing everything else was too much to focus on.
38:22
Also, I'd say like ironically, you, you wouldn't think this had
38:25
much of an impact, but our screen resolutions are bigger.
38:28
We can see more. So Hun, scout raids used to be a
38:32
problem. And you might see, you know, if
38:34
now you're zoomed out so you can see your whole base.
38:37
If you could only see a third of your base, all you see is this
38:40
little red on the mini map coming in and you're like, Oh
38:42
no, I don't have time to wall in my villagers or do anything
38:46
right. So, you know, I mean, I know
38:49
some players give doubt a hard time and they probably would
38:51
give me a hard time too if I was still playing a bunch.
38:53
Is is like our you know, for doubt it, you know, it doesn't
38:56
well as much for me. My farm position is atrocious.
38:59
And I'd say some of those are old habits when it it, it was
39:03
more important to do something than it was to like get it
39:07
dialed in right, like so which. Brings us back to the thesis.
39:12
So that it was primarily the technical evolution of the game,
39:16
not changes to the hunts themselves, that influenced the
39:19
Hunt wars. The game back then is almost
39:22
unrecognizable today, whether in graphics, user interface,
39:27
mechanics, or even quality of life features perhaps.
39:31
The hunt dominance is better understood when considering the
39:35
other circumstances. There was no walling matter,
39:39
there was an enormous like no multi queue at all, and no queue
39:44
commands for villages. Food resources weren't allowed
39:48
to be mixed so we had to drop off every time you switch.
39:52
Houses were more expensive and you only saw a significantly
39:56
smaller section of the map. And the list certainly goes on.
40:01
In any case, almost every action caused idle time and resource
40:05
losses. The Under these conditions, the
40:07
Hans were just the easiest way to maximize resources and army.
40:12
Today, no one would call it a quality of life feature that
40:17
food from a boar is treated the same way as food from a sheep,
40:22
but looking back far enough, that's exactly what it was.
40:26
Mechanics and tech changes have made the game more defensive
40:30
because we spot attacks earlier because we see more of the map,
40:34
we perceive them better and react faster to them.
40:38
Who remembers that? Before the Definitive Edition,
40:41
casters often criticized prose for risking weakening their
40:45
bores with their town centre. That risk came mostly from ping
40:51
and lag, which is just not a thing today.
40:54
Today even that wouldn't be a problem though, since we can now
40:58
collect food from a boar even after killing it with the town
41:02
centre. Or remember Viper, the quick
41:06
wall guard, the only one attempting quick walls and often
41:10
saving villagers this way when others would have lost them.
41:15
Quick walling was impossible for most players simply because lag
41:18
was too great. Viper was exceptional because he
41:23
could manage it despite the lag. Now an average player can do it
41:28
any day of the week. You also couldn't build a 20
41:32
tile wall with houses and Palisades simultaneously using
41:36
10 villagers like today because the game couldn't register the
41:40
commands in time. Even the Hun scout rush, which
41:44
now runs into a wall quite literally often scored multiple
41:48
villager kills in Vrubli times. In short, just as the game isn't
41:53
what it used to be, neither are Hun Wars anymore, even though
41:57
the Huns themselves barely have changed.
42:01
I. Think there are several reasons
42:03
for this. First of all, the game balance
42:06
has continued to improve, though that almost every match up
42:10
offers opportunities for both sides, leading to greater
42:13
variety and different strategies and also different unit
42:18
combinations. Mirror matches are therefore
42:21
simply no longer necessary and it turns out that most players
42:26
prefer different sifts or the random match up.
42:30
A queue in which you don't have to agree on a set up with the
42:33
opponent before the game is very helpful there.
42:37
Another aspect is the complete shift to defensive play.
42:41
In particular, the heavy use of walls on increasingly closed and
42:47
balanced Arabia generations makes Huns less attractive, who
42:51
tend to play open and offensive. This aligns with what pros have
42:56
said when asked about balancing. It's better than ever.
43:01
Having 50 civilizations with no end insight balance to work this
43:06
well together is quite remarkable.
43:09
Yet many civilizations resemble one another quite closely, with
43:13
differences appearing primarily in later stages of a game.
43:18
Looking at other RTS games highlights how exceptional Age
43:22
of Empires 2 is in this regard. StarCraft has three radically
43:26
different races. Stormgate imitates this, and in
43:30
Warcraft three you might have more races, but they all play
43:33
very differently. Even Age of Empires 4 is hardly
43:38
comparable to Age of Empires Two since its civilizations are far
43:42
more distinct. In Age 2, build orders cater to
43:46
unit compositions shared across many civilizations.
43:50
In Age 4, they are mostly CIF. Specific similarities in Age of
43:55
Empires 2 enable great balance but make mirror matches
43:59
unappealing for tournaments and pros.
44:02
There's no real reason to play Hunt Wars anymore.
44:05
The hunts no longer represent the best in the game.
44:09
They no longer extract the best from the game as well.
44:14
While the Huns remained on the Age of Conquerors level, most
44:17
civilizations have overtaken them in pro tier lists.
44:23
For civilizations on Arabia, the Huns are, it's sad to say, mid
44:28
tier at best. Hun wars seem to belong to
44:32
history, and for good reason. But my journey into the Hun Wars
44:37
was far from wasted. I discovered them personally for
44:41
myself and recommend you to try them as well.
44:45
Just grab a similarly skilled friend and play Hun Wars in
44:48
Arabia and do so with your own gentlemen's agreement.
44:53
Only small walls, no full walls. Because it's really easy to wall
44:57
nowadays. And I think that's just the
45:00
defeating the purpose of this exercise.
45:03
The feeling of not constantly running into walls, finding
45:07
damage opportunities, and simultaneously fearing counter
45:10
attacks fundamentally changes the game's dynamics and delivers
45:15
a genuine adrenaline rush to me. I lost repeatedly on the ranked
45:19
ladder with Hans, yet in Hunt Wars I had more fun than I had
45:24
in years with other game modes in Age of Empires too.
45:28
So my friends, this was my small tribute to Han Wars.
45:32
I tried to explain how they emerged, why they were played
45:36
for such a long time, and what led to their end.
45:40
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Whether you're a veteran like
45:43
Slap or Chris, or just know of Han Wars through the Legends
45:48
like I do, take the time to try it yourself.
45:51
I can only encourage you to do so.
45:54
I invested a lot of effort into the research of this episode and
45:59
sincerely thank my 2 discussion partners Chris and Slap for
46:03
sharing their knowledge with me and and us.
46:06
I'd be delighted if you considered supporting this
46:09
podcast project, allowing me to produce more of these kind of
46:14
episodes. This is a massive undertaking.
46:17
I'm not going to lie, I probably spent more than 10 hours and
46:21
putting that amount of work into this episode, but I do it gladly
46:25
because I feel like I'm still learning so much about the game
46:28
and I want to deliver this knowledge to you.
46:31
So if you can support me, best to do it so by becoming a
46:36
Patreon at patreon.com/start the game already contributing
46:41
monthly as literal as much as you like.
46:45
This episode exists thanks to generous support of existing
46:48
backers and supporters on Steady and Patreon.
46:51
So again, if you do become a subscriber, A Patreon, then I'm
46:56
very grateful. And that's the end of this
46:59
episode. I hope you enjoyed it again, and
47:02
please recommend this episode to other players, to other people
47:06
to, to just spread the word about this podcast.
47:08
Share it, share the link, post it wherever you can so other
47:12
people may find it. And I for one hope to find you
47:16
as a listener in a different episode.
47:19
Also, I had an over an hour long discussion about the Hunt Wars
47:24
and other topics with Chris. And that episode will also be
47:28
published at the full length, more than an hour of Chris and
47:32
me talking about various subjects, of course, mainly
47:34
about the Hunt Wars. So if you want to find that
47:37
episode, just subscribe to the RSS feed of this podcasts on
47:41
Spotify or wherever you listen to this podcast and you will be
47:45
notified once it's released. Again, thank you very much for
47:49
sticking with this episode with me until the very end of this
47:53
episode. And I wish you a great day.
47:56
And hopefully, I wish, I hope I had motivated you to try out the
48:00
Han Wars. If you haven't experienced them
48:02
back in the days. And let me know what experiences
48:05
you had playing the Han Wars. I'd be delighted to know.
48:09
Just write me an e-mail at age of cast@gmail.com, Just an
48:14
e-mail to ageofcast gmailcom or write me U on Discord, wherever
48:19
you prefer. That's going to do it for the
48:21
show. I hope you enjoyed it.
48:22
See you in the next one 1. Hour now broken and he's in fuel
48:28
age. With five. 100 food, 100 gold.
48:31
It looks like he's thinking about going Castle age, but
48:34
well, not before the one hour mark for sure.
48:37
And yeah, just for continuous producing scouts.
48:40
No, he queued up another circle, a cycle of scouts, and yeah,
48:45
just doesn't think about going Castle Age, right?
48:49
Eagle isn't developed enough yet.