As someone who spent an immeasurable amount of time on AOE 2 online multiplayer, it has been a steadily refreshing experiencing the rise of AOE2 DE over the recent years.
The game not only received updates that brought in the total civilization count to 50+, but also a ton of visual enhancements and improvements in the overall gameplay and performance.
This is nothing short of stunning to see new developments happening for these games, especially in the open-source community.
With non-unique units paladins can only be countered by upgraded halberdier, heavy camels or a huge mass of arbalesters. Monks counter them in small numbers but in late game when they're massed they're almost unstoppable unless you have halb/camel in equal numbers.
Well even arbalesters get slaughtered by Paladins, unless we are able to push them behind a wall or a corner with only a very tiny attack area for the Paladins.
I think even in open ground if you have a big enough group you can still trade well. Ethiopian arbs fire 25% faster. If you micro the arbs to focus on individual paladinsthey can one shot paladins and their attack surface area increases with the sqrt() of their numbers. For sure it's a lot more work than spamming halb.
The Vikings are an incredible civilization. Berserks are one of my most favorite units. Not sure where they are today, but they totally matched Paladins in terms of attack strength back in the day.
A no small wonder. I never thought that MS, as the IP owner, would allow such an open community to grow and thrive. MS is notoriously bad at game community growth development.
I remember that right after the acquisition of ES through MS in 2001, Microsoft went on a rigid IP enforcement role and, for example, targeted people at MFO.
The story of DBD_Jinx losing his account to MS
Legendary DBD_Jinx lost his account and had to start anew under _IamJinx because MS suspended his ZONE account due to copyright infringement for using MS trademarks without a license.
What did he do?
He advertised at MFO to help people increase their early game through his academy training, which offered advice on micro-management, game planning, strategy, and scouting.
Together with a couple of other 2000+ Zone Rating dudes from the US, they started to make a few bucks on the side using AoE as a vehicle.
What a knee-jerk reaction from MS back then.
And today? Red Bull Wololo - I hardly can hold my pants compared to 2001.
I hope this keeps going, even though I am a purist "old-schooler" who prefers the AoE 2 classics game.
Mostly balance and quality of life, the UI especially improved a lot. Better AI opponents as well, and a few new units that fit well within the rest (and improve balance between races)
Imo this should be legislated. Do you provide a service necessary to use your product ? Great. But if you decide to deprecate said service, rendering said product inoperable or partially operable, you should be obligated to release an implementation & documentation.
