Latest / Start the game already! / [ENG] Magazine Ep. #05 October 2025

Transcript

[ENG] Magazine Ep. #05 October 2025 · Start the game already!

0:12
Welcome to the October Magazine. I'm Chris, your host of this
0:16
wonderful podcast, and unfortunately, I am sick.
0:20
It's every podcast as nightmare. The voice is nasal.
0:24
The throat hurts. Honestly, a broken leg would be
0:27
far more pleasant. And that's why today's episode
0:30
won't be quite as long In the news, I'll be talking about
0:33
Sudden Disaster 2, the Quintessential Cookout, the
0:37
cancellation of the December LAN, and the announcement of a
0:41
new DLC. In the franchise news.
0:44
I'll briefly touch on the fact that we've received more info on
0:48
the new Rogue Lite RTS game mode in Age of Empires 4, The
0:51
Crucible, and that the second and possibly final DRC Four Age
0:56
of Mythology has been released. As for gay news, I'll skip that
1:01
this time to save my voice. So we'll head straight to to
1:04
podcast News and then look at the tournament outlook for
1:08
October 2025. I sincerely hope you'll enjoy
1:12
this show and consider supporting this podcast on
1:15
Patreon News. Sudden Disaster too was the
1:21
highlight of September, and for good reason.
1:24
In the Sudden Death game mode, we experienced Age of Empires
1:28
Two in a whole new way. Much more aggressive, much more
1:32
creative, with tons of high risk, high reward strategies.
1:36
The tournament hosted by Jon Slo and TW was an absolute success.
1:41
Not only were the sets nearly all entertaining no matter who
1:45
was playing, but the viewer numbers surely exceeded the
1:48
expectations for an A tier event.
1:51
In the final, frickin Andy faced off against Lewis, but before we
1:55
get to that, I just want to casually mention the path Lewis
1:59
had to take to even reach the finals.
2:02
His opponents in order, survivalist Valas Bals,
2:07
Sebastian Hart and then finally frickin Andy in the final.
2:11
From at least the third round onward, we're talking about
2:15
potential tournament favourites. Andy's Roads, at least judging
2:20
by the names, seemed somewhat easier.
2:23
No zombie Stone please. The young star Neos, the ultra
2:27
aggressive Doo Doo Jew, Sora Kuma and then Louis in the
2:31
final. None of the series between Louis
2:34
and Andy ended in a sweep, and that was true for most of the
2:39
matches in general. In the round of 32, there was
2:42
only one single sweep, Villas versus Dark.
2:46
After that, only Heart swept Mr. Yo and Do, the Jew swept
2:49
antagonist. All of this leads me to wonder
2:53
whether or other mixed map tournaments shouldn't also
2:56
introduce a sudden death category.
2:58
Well, it's probably just wishful thinking on my part, so let's
3:02
move straight to the final between Andy and Lewis.
3:07
While Andy is a proven top player, often ranked somewhat in
3:10
the world's top 10, and now more than ever thanks to his
3:13
qualification for the Ling Yuan Cup in China, Lewis is a
3:17
newcomer who's been making waves over the past year.
3:21
He's somewhat considered to be a mini Hera and seemingly standing
3:25
on the brink of a major breakthrough.
3:27
Reaching the final of this tournament is undoubtedly his
3:30
biggest achievement so far. And the question was, which of
3:34
these two players would come out on top?
3:37
The match up looked almost perfectly 5050 in my opinion,
3:41
especially in sudden death mode. But the finals started in a very
3:45
unusual way for this tournament. On the least sudden death like
3:49
map triple tunnel with Andea's Persians and loses Japanese.
3:54
These civilization picks might seem odd for a map that's
3:58
basically, well, Black Forest with three passages.
4:01
But since both players had a lake to fish boom in, the
4:04
choices did make sense. Andy opened with a sneaky
4:08
villager and docked Lewis's lake to contest his fish, but Lewis
4:13
spotted it in time, so the plan didn't really work out.
4:16
From there the game developed as expected into a late game
4:19
slugfest with heavy fighting in the central tunnel.
4:22
In the end Lewis came out on top since the Japanese simply have
4:26
the stronger match up here, especially with trash units and
4:30
towers. So for me the most boring game
4:32
was already out of the way right at the start.
4:36
Game 2 was played on Skusa. Andy picked the Jurgens while
4:40
Lewis went with the Khmer. Skusa is a very open map where
4:44
players spawn close together in the centre, which itself is full
4:48
of zebras and ostriches. Given this set up, everyone
4:51
probably expected full scout play from both sides, but Andy
4:55
actually went for a fast castle with walls on this probably
4:59
unwallable map. Once in castle age, Andy went
5:04
nearly all in with fire lenses and rocket carts.
5:07
I say nearly because he still kept enough food in come to keep
5:11
producing villagers, all without ever building a single farm.
5:15
Lewis tried to defend at home with manganels while launching
5:18
counter attacks with Knights and especially car Archers, but in
5:22
the end the sheer pressure and sheer number of rocket carts
5:25
from Andy were just too much for Lewis to handle.
5:28
That evened the score. It was 11.
5:32
Game 3 was played on hideout. Lewis picked away while Andy
5:36
went with the Kitan. Andy thought hey that worked
5:39
well last time so he went for another fast castle.
5:43
Lewis on the other hand invested more into economy and prepared
5:46
for an attack. Andy struck again with rocket
5:49
cars and fire Lancers, this time adding step Lancers into the
5:53
mix, and Lewis didn't have cavarchers like in the previous
5:57
game since he's playing us the way, but the Xian Xianbei gave
6:01
him a very effective counter attack too.
6:05
They crippled Andy's economy for several minutes, forcing Andy to
6:08
pause his push and deal with them using his step Lancers.
6:12
While in the second game Lewis never really managed to counter
6:16
attack successfully, this time around his Xian by Raiders
6:21
caused so much trouble that Andy's push was kind of put to a
6:25
halt. In the end, Lewis's economic
6:28
lead was simply too large and Andy's attack too weakened.
6:32
After fending off one last big wave of Andy's attack, Lewis
6:36
forced the GG going up two to one.
6:39
The next map was Chicken Arena. Lewis picked the Burgundians
6:43
while Andy chose the Portuguese from the Burgundians.
6:47
You'd expect a strong economy with early Texan light cavalry
6:51
to grab some relics. Portuguese on the other hand can
6:54
go fast castle into a castle, drop fast castle into monks or
6:58
even fast imperial with treps and fitorias, which is
7:02
especially powerful and sudden death.
7:05
Andy went for a fast castle into a defensive castle with monks
7:08
after all, while Lewis played the expected monk and light calf
7:13
style with Burgundians, and he then brought out organ guns and
7:18
monks securing map control. Lewis countered with a clever
7:22
fast imp behind defensive castle to push Andy back, which worked
7:26
for a while thanks to his large Monk count in particular.
7:30
But Andy wasn't far behind to the Imperial Age, and he dropped
7:34
a Fetoria to boost his economy. What followed was the inevitable
7:39
Monk war. Lewis had more monks and earlier
7:42
traps, but the fight for the middle turned out surprisingly.
7:45
Even thanks to his stronger economy, Andy was able to secure
7:50
and hold the map control. However, after just under 40
7:54
minutes, Lewis tapped out and Andy tied the series once again.
8:00
Game 5 wasn't wellsprings the map with the long aqueduct
8:03
connecting the two walls starting bases at the bottom of
8:07
the aqueduct. Each base has 30,000 fish, but
8:11
since the aqueduct can be destroyed along with the fish
8:15
under it, timing and decision making are critical on this map.
8:20
Andy picked Italians, Lewis went with the Gajaras.
8:24
Both went fast castle, though of course the Italians are a bit
8:27
quicker. Andy leaned on Genoese
8:30
crossbowmen, while Lewis opted for Lightcap and Monks.
8:34
An interesting choice since Genoese crossbows are supposed
8:38
to counter that, but Lewis managed to leverage his monks
8:42
well enough to push Andy back for now.
8:44
Both then minimize their risks and clicked up to the Imperial
8:48
age. Just before that, Andy decided
8:51
to destroy the aqueduct, though it didn't really change much
8:55
because he didn't make use of that timing.
8:58
In Imperial, Andy launched a push with a forward castle,
9:01
Genoese crossbows and trebuchets.
9:03
Lewis had no proper defence, not even 5 relics could save him
9:08
that he were collecting while Andy was on his way to the
9:11
Imperial age. In a last desperate move, he
9:15
tried to Snape Andy's TCS with trebuchets, but Andy spotted it
9:19
right away and stopped it immediately.
9:22
Lewis resigned and Andy took the lead for the first time in the
9:25
set. Game 6 was on Ring of Reed's
9:28
with Lewis as Bengalis and Andy as Koreans.
9:32
Andy's opening as Koreans was to wall Louis out of the centre
9:36
while pressuring from the outside with minute arms.
9:39
Louis went for a fast castle but couldn't really leave his base.
9:44
The real trouble began when he dropped a castle at the walls in
9:47
front of his base to break out toward the middle again.
9:50
Once this castle was up, he started producing Rathas.
9:53
From there it was just a slow, steady push by Louis that Andy
9:58
couldn't stop. That meant we got the dream
10:01
final I'd been hoping for the deciding game on my favorite map
10:05
of the whole tournament, Canberra.
10:08
Canberra plays like Hideout in that both players start walled,
10:12
but here they're connected by a river.
10:15
The middle is full of fish that's almost always contested,
10:19
and the river splits the map into two sides linked by shallow
10:23
crossings. Water control is absolutely key.
10:27
Lewis went with Byzantines, dangerous because of their fast
10:30
imperial timing, while Andy chose Armenians strong for monks
10:35
and water control. Andy indeed took control of
10:38
water and thus the valuable fish in access to Lewis's base via
10:43
the river. Lewis went for a faster, fast
10:45
castle, which didn't pay off initially.
10:48
Andy gathered relics and castle age, won the monk war and
10:52
controlled the middle. Both headed toward Imperial age,
10:55
but Lewis invested into stone and reclaimed the center with
10:57
one, then two castles. True to the tone of the previous
11:01
games, very much respecting each other, both players played more
11:05
cautiously than usual for this tournament.
11:08
But just before Imperial, Lewis took a risk.
11:12
He built a transport ship and petards.
11:15
Andy smelled something was up and tried to prepare.
11:19
And then a chain of events unfolded, one that I I cannot
11:23
really retell you myself because of my cracked voice, so I will
11:27
let T19 narrate instead. Here's the clip from his cast of
11:32
the grand finals. Guys, the transport's still
11:35
there and the petard are still there.
11:36
If Lewis can wait for like the opportune time when it gets
11:42
really messy, maybe there's a chance.
11:47
Oh, but Andy's walling, which is so smart because it will get
11:52
messy and you're not going to be paying attention all the time,
11:55
so he's walling that up. Oh, and there go the Petards.
12:00
Lewis thinks he's going to die. There goes Lewis, there he goes.
12:05
Lewis's hopes and dreams are in this transport ship.
12:09
His hopes and dreams are being blocked.
12:15
He is being oh, but he's out and he's gonna, he's gonna oh, he's
12:25
back in. Get faked.
12:27
Freaking Andy. Get faked.
12:28
Get faked. Get faked.
12:29
Get faked. Get faked.
12:30
Get faked. No, there's a wall.
12:32
No, no. That would have been amazing.
12:37
He doesn't have enough. He doesn't have enough.
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I mean, the distractions probably worth it, though.
12:43
He hits the TC. He doesn't have enough.
12:45
Wow guys, that gives him an opportunity to roll through and
12:52
use the trebs to finish it off. It's not finished yet.
12:56
Castles and Dramans and and micro as needed.
12:59
Panic for Andy. Panic for Andy.
13:01
He has to hit those trebs. He has to stop those trebs.
13:03
He's going to drop a church. Here comes Lewis Grand final
13:07
Game 7. Lewis going for the TC.
13:10
His draman will be converted, so he deletes it.
13:13
He's bringing the trebs. Lewis is.
13:16
Andy is bringing the vils. This could be an epic finish.
13:19
Lewis go. Can he range it?
13:22
There's not enough repairs for Fortrebs.
13:25
There's not enough repairs for Fortrebs.
13:26
They just have to get into the spot.
13:29
He's going to win. He's going to win.
13:32
He's going to win it. He will win it.
13:35
It's not winnable for Andy, I'm pretty certain.
13:38
Repairs, Repairs. He doesn't.
13:46
Lewis wins in the most epic way possible.
13:50
He was so dead here, guys. He was so dead.
13:55
But he remembered the game mode and he remembered he had to send
13:59
everything. Literally everything.
14:01
He brought his bills, he had the transport, he had the Petards.
14:05
What a finish, Trebs and a dream.
14:09
And Lewis wins the final and and this is going to go down is as
14:14
probably one of the best wins he's ever had.
14:16
Man, it has to be right. He's had such a short career.
14:19
We hope he continues to fight, continues to play like this in
14:23
other tournaments. But a whole, my goodness, are
14:26
you not entertained? That is sudden death.
14:29
That was a fitting conclusion to Sudden Disaster, an absolutely
14:34
fantastic tournament, and 1:00. I definitely want to see more of
14:40
Quintessential Cookout. So I only have a short note on
14:43
Quintessential Cookout because I didn't follow the tournament at
14:45
all during my vacation, and to be honest, I didn't really feel
14:49
motivated to catch up on it afterwards either.
14:52
The event was hosted by GL at a price pool of two and a half,
14:55
$1000 and was won by a Viper. I did ask my community if anyone
15:01
could tell me something about the tournament that was
15:03
noteworthy, and it turned out that most people hadn't even
15:07
heard of it. That might be because only MEM
15:10
Ben Orner uploaded the event on YouTube, and even then men just
15:15
tucked the finals into a Rage Forest video like there was a
15:18
Rage Forest game before it and after it.
15:21
And his editor or himself didn't even bother to cut that away,
15:27
even though the title of the video was only the finals of
15:31
Quintessential Cookout. So it doesn't seem like the
15:35
tournament carried much weight after all.
15:38
At least I heard MEM recommend the Viper versus Yo Set, and
15:42
I'll just pass that recommendation on to you
15:44
unverified. Then there's also the news about
15:48
the cancellation of the December land event.
15:51
At the end of September, nearly announced that the land planned
15:54
for December in Germany had been cancelled.
15:58
The reasons are unknown, but the result is that the prize pool
16:01
for the upcoming Telesocracy Cup in November has been increased
16:05
by $5000 to a total of $25,000, which is a significant boost.
16:11
Apparently there will also be an STR online tournament instead of
16:15
the LAN, though we'll only get more details on that soon.
16:20
The most realistic explanation I can come up with is that GL had
16:24
originally planned the LAN. I'm assuming that GL is the
16:28
host, but due to logistical or organizational issues or maybe
16:32
sponsoring, it couldn't go ahead so they switched to online.
16:37
That would explain why part of the designated price pool is
16:41
moving to a different tournament, because they
16:44
probably planned with $5000 for hotels or other equipment that
16:50
they now don't have to use if GL has pulled out entirely.
16:54
Though if they if they ever were involved, I could imagine MEMP
16:59
stepping in. He recently said he wasn't
17:01
planning to attend the German man anyway because he wanted to
17:04
stay with his family. And if there's one thing
17:07
everybody knows about MEMP is that he has two families, His
17:12
real family of course, and his lover boys.
17:15
Maybe he'll find a way to juggle both.
17:18
Also, the three-week tournament structure, two weeks of
17:21
qualifiers, and one week of main event definitely has MEMS
17:24
fingerprints on it. But that's all just speculation
17:27
on my part and I'm very curious to see who actually ends up
17:31
running the tournament. My bet is still on GL.
17:35
On September 17th a new single player DLC was announced.
17:40
Chronicles Alexander the Great with the release date of October
17:43
14th, 2025. The DLC was developed by the
17:48
Capture Age team who are a development partner of World's
17:52
Edge, and it continues the Chronicle series that began with
17:56
the first DLC set in Ancient Greece, released in November
18:00
2024. This new DLC includes a long
18:04
campaign with 18 scenarios and introduces 3 new civilizations,
18:09
the Macedonians, the Thrushians or Thrakians, and the Puru,
18:14
along with new architectural sets.
18:16
If it's anywhere near as good as the First Chronicles DLC, the
18:20
missions should be a lot of fun to play.
18:22
Unlike Battle for Greece, where all three Greek civilizations
18:26
played an equal role, this campaign focuses almost entirely
18:31
on Alexander the Great and the Macedonians, with only two
18:35
scenarios as exceptions. Personally, I'm a huge fan of
18:39
the First Chronicles DLC, so I'm very excited to dive into
18:43
Alexander's story. The only.
18:45
Very only minor criticism I have is actually the setting.
18:51
I'm not a huge fan of having Antiquity as a setting for Age
18:56
of Empires 2 campaigns, even though it was very nicely done.
19:00
I'd really I'd I'd favour a campaign in the Middle Ages with
19:06
this amount of this amount of effort put into them.
19:10
But then again, antiquity is much richer in history than most
19:15
of what has happened in the Middle Ages.
19:19
Since there were a few recent layoffs that capture Age in key
19:22
positions, we can probably assume that there won't be any
19:26
further Chronicles DLCS for now. By the time of the next magazine
19:30
I'll most likely have played this one already, so I should be
19:33
able to share more impressions then franchise news.
19:40
Yesterday the new DLC Four Age of Mythology was released,
19:43
Heavenly Spear, which explores Japanese mythology.
19:47
In the last magazine I already talked a bit about the
19:50
mythological units and now that the DLC is out I can turn my
19:54
attention to the campaign. That reminded me, though, that I
19:58
have never actually finished the last mission of the Chinese
20:00
campaign in Age of Mythology, something I quickly caught up on
20:04
during my vacation. While you can already play the
20:07
new DLC at the time of the recording of this episode, it
20:11
hasn't been released yet for me personally, so I'll only be able
20:15
to start playing in the evening of today, and I'll only be able
20:20
to tell you the next magazine whether it's any good.
20:22
What I can tease for now is that there's a shrine that lets you
20:26
turn trees into cherry blossom trees to gain favour, which
20:30
means there's a real chance I'll ignore the missions for a while
20:33
just to make the map prettier. Coming up in November, we'll
20:37
also get the new DLC, four Age of Empires 4, which I mentioned
20:41
in the last magazine. In the meantime, more details
20:44
have been shared about the Crucible, the new single player
20:47
RTS rogue light game mode in Age of Empires 4.
20:51
Here's how it works. You find off waves of enemies
20:54
and ideally try to survive up to 45 minutes.
20:58
There will be 4 missions to choose from.
21:01
Contested coastline where you'll be fighting pirates on a
21:04
Mediterranean map, Dynodynamics where you'll be defending
21:09
yourself against 3 Japanese clans, forest Lords battling
21:14
bandits of the Holy Roman Empire, and pardon the pun, I
21:19
guess watch your step. You'll be holding out against
21:24
mounted hordes of Mongols. You can freely choose your
21:27
civilization. All these missions, as well as
21:29
the difficulty level, of which there are 8 in total.
21:35
The match starts with a wonder, which must be defended at all
21:39
costs. So essentially it's a wonder
21:41
defence mode. According to the description,
21:44
the enemy waves won't always be the same.
21:47
Alongside standard waves, there will also be boss waves.
21:51
During the game, you can earn bonuses called boons, which
21:55
might give extra resources or powerful effects like making
21:59
your army invincible for a short time.
22:02
This is where the rogue light aspect comes in, since the
22:06
available boons are random, making each run different.
22:10
That's not all. While defending the Wanders, the
22:12
main objective, you can also tackle side missions scattered
22:16
across the map, for example freeing powerful champions who
22:20
then join your army. After 25 minutes, you'll earn
22:23
Bronze rank, after 35 minutes silver, and after the full 45
22:28
minutes you'll get a Gold rank, plus the option to enter in
22:33
Endless mode to keep playing as long as you can.
22:37
Since it's a rogue light, not a rogue like.
22:40
There are also persistent upgrades that carry over between
22:43
runs, like faster production speed, extra scouts, or starting
22:48
buildings already constructed. Honestly, as someone who doesn't
22:52
normally play Age of Empires 4 but just watches the competitive
22:56
scene, I'm actually tempted to reinstall it and give this mode
22:59
a try. But before that, I first need to
23:02
play through the new Age of Mythology campaign and the new
23:06
Age of Empires 2 campaign. This fall is surely packed with
23:09
single player content across all the whole franchise.
23:16
Podcast news? Yes.
23:18
Podcast news, no. Game news.
23:19
I won't be covering them today simply to save my voice.
23:23
Just a quick note, the Steam Autumn sale has just started,
23:27
and at least for me, about half of the games on my wish lists
23:31
are heavily discounted right now.
23:33
That also applies to the Age of Empires franchise though, and
23:36
Age of Mythology, so if you've been meaning to pick up a DLC or
23:40
try out another title, now's probably a good time.
23:45
Now on to the podcast news. First and foremost, the release
23:48
rhythm of the podcast is going to change a bit.
23:51
Unfortunately, I'll have less time in the future to research
23:55
and record episodes, so for now I'm going.
23:58
I'm giving up on the weekly rhythm.
24:01
Instead, I'll publish an episode whenever I can.
24:04
Every two weeks should definitely be doable, which
24:07
means the magazine episodes and Civilization episodes will still
24:11
come out regularly. The reason is simply that I'm
24:15
taking care of my father. I've been doing this for the
24:18
past couple of years, but his condition has worsened, so I
24:21
need to spend more time with him, and I don't want to feel
24:25
constant time pressure because of the podcast, which is, after
24:28
all, just a hobby project. If I tried to stick to a weekly
24:32
rhythm, I couldn't maintain the quality of the episodes anymore,
24:35
and that's definitely not something I'm willing to
24:38
compromise on. I also want to thank you all for
24:41
your messages and great topic suggestions.
24:44
After the last magazine, Thomas, Sandro, Bernardo, and Theo wrote
24:49
me some really exciting ideas via e-mail at age of
24:53
cast@gmail.com. If you'd like to do the same,
24:57
feel free to do so at age of cast@gmail.com.
25:01
A few of you also sent me research material for my
25:04
upcoming episodes on the play styles of pro players.
25:07
Thanks especially to FOMO, May and Dan for that.
25:11
I've already been looking through it.
25:14
In fact, I used my sick days productively for exactly this,
25:18
and your material has been really insightful.
25:21
There's also been a couple of other messages, but since my
25:26
voice is really weird and actually my throat is starting
25:29
to hurt again, I already had to take a couple of breaks.
25:32
Even though we're just 25 minutes into this podcast, I'll
25:36
be postponing those messages to the next magazine and probably
25:40
answer in more detail then. I apologize very much for my
25:43
voice, but can't do much about it now.
25:47
So now you know the situation, please have a bit of patience
25:50
with new episodes in the near future after this one.
25:53
I'd love to hear from you about which civilization I should be
25:57
covering next. So far we have looked at the
26:00
Aztecs, the Huns, and the Romans.
26:02
So which civilization should be the 4th 1:00 to do an episode
26:06
on? And most importantly, tell me
26:10
why do you think it won't see many changes anymore?
26:14
Let me know by e-mail or on Discord because I'm trying to
26:18
cover those civilizations first. That probably won't change for a
26:23
while. That's going to do it for the
26:26
podcast news, and now we'll take a look at tournament outlook for
26:32
October 2025. Masters of Hyper Random 3 is
26:36
already underway and will keep us entertained until October
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19th, just right before the Lean Yuan Cup begins.
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The tournament has a price pool of $10,000 and has been very
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entertaining so far. Strictly speaking, the
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tournament is only really starting now since up to this
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point it's only been the qualifiers.
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The player line up, Tarto, Vilesa, Frickin, Andy and Vinge
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qualifies through their placements in the 1st 2 editions
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and ACCM, Liri, Viper and Yo received direct invitations from
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the recently finished qualifiers.
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Kapoch, Doubt, Lewis, MBL, Mihai, Sito, Sora, Kuma and Vivi
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secure that spots. I watched most of the qualifier
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finals and found them to be very entertaining.
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The format begins with a group stage featuring two groups,
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followed by playoffs. Tournament concludes on October
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19th, just in time for the Ling Yuan Cup.
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And this Ling Yuan Cup is a $45,000 land event in Beijing,
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China running from October 22nd to 26th.
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The event is named after the organizers, the Chinese team
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Ling Yuan, which includes 2 of the 10 participants, Yo and
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Vivi. The invited players are Yo,
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Hara, Leary and Viper. ACCM Heart, Nickofric and Andy
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and Sebastian qualified through international qualifiers while
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Vivi security spot via the Chinese mainland qualifier.
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It is set to be 5 packed and exciting days.
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The 1st place will take home $9450 in price pool.
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Yo and Vivi will have the chance to prove themselves in front of
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their home crowd and Microsoft will get to see how well they
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can strengthen their foothold in the Chinese competitive scene.
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For viewers, we won't get much of the LAN atmosphere since
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we'll just receive a clean feed of the games, which will then be
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commentated by your casters of choice.
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The format is a nine villagers start and four of the five days
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are a Swiss system group stage only.
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The final day is a short playoff bracket with semifinals and a
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final no third place match, which I really appreciate and
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probably everyone does. The map pool is diverse and
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designed to suit different play styles, and four of the 10 maps
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were created specifically for this event and already featured
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in the qualifiers. Cormier is an aggressive water
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map. Lookout is where players start
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with outposts in a faraway barracks, Not Nomad is actually
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Nomad but with randomly placed town centre so no nomadic start.
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And Seychelles is kind of reminiscent of Northern Isles
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but the islands are connected by two long crossings so a kind of
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kind of different to northern Isles.
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The rest of the pool, Acropolis, Bedouins Arabia Arena, Fish and
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Fish, Ring of Reeds, and Rocky forest.
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The favorite to win the tournament is obviously Hera,
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but this could be a unique chance for Mr. Yo to win an STA
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event on a home turf, and that's quite noteworthy, I think,
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without jet lag. It would also be an amazing
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comeback story if Viper took the trophy.
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And well, there's also Leery, but he will almost certainly
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take second place no matter who he plays against after cruising
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through the whole tournament without dropping a single game.
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At last. For Age of -2, there is a
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community tournament going on or starting soon for all German
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speaking players. In early November, the AOE 2
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Germany 1V1 league for German speaking players will start
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again. If you want to participate, you
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can register until October 31st. I can highly recommend it.
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That's a friendly people take part.
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The organization is very well organized and many games get
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casted as well on the AOE 2 Germany Twitch channel.
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Players of all ELO levels are welcome.
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The only requirement really is to set aside time for one set
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per week for 8 weeks and to be German speaking.
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Plus, if you're really good and qualify, you also need to take
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your time for playoffs. Each set consists of two games,
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both of which are played so draws are possible.
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The top players from the group stage advance to the playoffs.
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There's also a detailed handbook in German which will be updated
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in the next few days, and the map pool's already announced.
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I've included the link to the league in the episode
31:13
description so you can stay up to date.
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Then. Age of Empires 4 The big Age of
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Empires Four event right now is the EGC Masters Fall with a
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$20,000 prize pool which started in September and runs until
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October 12th. The group stage is still ongoing
31:31
with no real surprises so far. I am curious to see if Louis can
31:36
once again snatch an STI tournament away from Marine Lord
31:40
at the end of October. There's also the King of the
31:42
Rockies 2025 tournament an A tier $15,000 LAN in Denver, USA,
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which takes place from October 24th until 26th and is organized
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by Rising Empires, the same people behind the Garrison's Age
31:59
of Empires 4 LAR event. It'll be a short three day
32:02
event. Notably, Magic will be competing
32:05
after qualifying last minute. He recently switched from Age of
32:09
Mythology back to Age of Empires 4, so this will be an
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interesting one to watch. Speaking of Age of Mythology, at
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the end of October, the 4th season of the Champions League
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will begin running until December 7th.
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It's hosted by Age of Mythology veteran Boyd with a $10,000
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prize pool. And that's it for this month's
32:32
magazine. As I already told you, it's a
32:35
little shorter than usual, just because my voice is slowly
32:39
dying. But before we wrap up, still a
32:42
bit of housekeeping needs to be done.
32:44
If you have any questions or feedback, you can reach me in
32:48
two ways. Either join the podcast Discord
32:50
server, which you'll find the link to in the episode
32:54
description or show notes, or just write me an e-mail at age
32:58
of cast@gmail.com. One more reminder, this podcast
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is still ad free and funded only by listeners.
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If you enjoy the show, you can support me on Patreon.
33:10
There are several support tiers to choose from, and German
33:13
speaking business can also support on Steady, where they
33:17
can unlock German language versions of all English
33:20
episodes. Depending on your Patreon or
33:23
Steady tier. I'll proudly read your name here
33:26
in this magazine. So let me now thank this month's
33:31
especially generous patrons. Matt Kanak.
33:34
Tom Luk. Yannick Schultz.
33:36
Stefan Weitzer. Iris Miller.
33:38
Lawrence, Hurlan, Jan, Zoysia, Marek, Kenna, Pathfinder, and
33:43
Limbonic, thank you very much for all your continuous support.
33:48
The next magazine will appear in early November, but you'll hear
33:51
from me in other podcasts before then.
33:55
I hope you'll all enjoy the Masters of Hyper Random Three
33:59
Tournament and the Chinese Land. And now I'll excuse myself and
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go take a shower and then go to bed.
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I'll see you in the next podcast.