[Anonymous Player]

I have heard from various 2k players, including Nectarie on Hera’s stream, that they have poor macro skills and lack a thorough understanding of civ matchups.

However, they still manage to win through strong macro and unit spam.

This concept may be valid, but may also rely on a flawed assessment of elite and pro player statistics.

It is unclear whether a 2k player like Nectarie truly lacks awareness of civ matchups, or if they can simply rely on good macro and unit spam to win.

A match between Bohemians and Hindustanis on Arabia is presented as an example of a nuanced matchup, where knowledge of civ strengths and weaknesses is crucial.

As a lower-ranked player, the author personally believes that they need to know a significant amount about the civs in order to win, but wonders if they could be successful with just good macro skills and unit spamming.

[Koala_eiO]

I simply don’t think that’s possible.

It sounds a bit like the imposter’s syndrome.

Sometimes you are lucky and it happens that your strongest unit composition also beats the opponent’s civ strongest composition, so you don’t need to think and adapt too much, but it still takes match-up understanding to catch that.

I could see why he considers his macro worse than other players at the same level considering he’s playing 90% of the time on Arabia.

[Ranulf13]

There is certainly a commentary to be made about how sometimes one tricking meta civs with straight up superior eco can get you really far without having to understand how the game works in a macro scale.

The best example being Franks, who have such a simple and powerful economy and army gameplan that they can get away with overpowering their (in theorical) counter civs at equal skill levels just because they have a very railroaded aging up and gameplan.

Specially talking about 2k elo, some games are decided almost entirely on a micro level because every single early encounter can snowball into a massive advantage.

Its not a wild guess to think that just picking the strongest eco with best knight/archer bonuses would let you potentially ignore macro game if you bully enough your enemy with early aggression and micro.

Its at 2k where you can see how the game is broken in several ways.

Things like the value of gold vs food, archer micro kite leading to a lack of counterplay outside of very shitty line of units, how overtuned knights, how useless most infantry are, etc.

[Umdeuter]

Macro determines your level

Decisions determine if you win on your level

(If you get decisions wrong, you still clap players that have an inferior macro, if you get them right, you win against someone who has the same macro as you.)

[jmh0257]

Yep, bad decision making and not understanding civ matchups is a thing even in 2k2.

Macro is MACRO.

It feels OP sometimes, like micro.

Of course every player can just spam arb with an amazing eco (if they have the macro) and win easily against a lower rated player.

Without taking into account any matchup.

As long as you have the upgrades with your civ you can definitely win against lower rated players just spamming one unit (and maybe a mangonel or two in castle age in the case of xbow).

Talking about bohemian vs hindustani, 2k players know everything u stated.

Probably I would even play it different than what you said, since the cheap blacksmith is not a big bonus.

And my strategy would also depend on the map.

So what nectarie is probably talking about is not about civ matchup on paper, but feeling the matchup and knowing the direction you have to take based on the civs and the current situation.

I don’t know if im making myself clear.

[thegwfe]

>With the cheap blacksmith, Bohemians need a quick early punch to give themselves time.

I’m 2k and this is a bonus I didn’t know of until now, let alone take into consideration for my gameplan.

Likewise, I have never in my life researched sanctity or fervor with the intent of buffing my vills…

So is it possible or even common for 2k players to not know a lot about civ matchups?

Yes and no.

The thing is, it’s *really* important to know the basics of the civs.

For example, a civ being good at archer or at cav, or having a good eco bonus early or having no eco bonus.

I’d wager almost everyone at this level has a good idea of this, with few extreme exceptions (e.g.

a starcraft grandmaster trying out the game or whatever).

But then the more specialized the knowledge gets, the less important it is.

For example, knowing about niche UUs or even UTs or knowing every civ bonus, or parts of the tech tree not used that often isn’t necessary for being 2k.

There is definitely high level players who have incredible intuition about the most essential parts of civ knowledge, but less and less the more specialized you go.

Another thing is that with high level players, general skill and game sense can replace knowledge about the civs.

For example, if you just have a vague idea that opponent’s civ has better eco early, but you have better late game options, you will do the right thing, you often don’t need to have the exact compositions figured out.

Or you will expect the enemy to go fast imp, not because you know “that’s what his civ does”, but just because your game sense tells you that’s what makes sense in the given situation.

[flyaway22222]

Of course they understand civ matchups.

It’s just they don’t understand civ matchups well compared to Hera so it’s easier to say that in this way.

Just like you don’t understand civ matchups well compared to 2k players.

Just like I don’t understand civ matchups well compared to you (since I am lower elo than you)

Just like player at elo = XXX doesn’t understand civ matchups well compared to me.

​

Everyone who played some amount of games and noticed that Magyars often starts with scout rush and Ethiopians often starts with archers, and Franks push castles and so on and so on understands civ matchups which is even more true at lower elos where players don’t improvise as much and they tend to stick to their civ role, but the higher elo you go the more you understand.

That’s why I don’t understand people saying that “at ELO XXXX you are good player and below YYYY you are not good player”.

That’s bullshit.

There is no good or bad players.

It’s all relative.

There are just players that are better than X and worse than Y.

If any decent company like IBM or Microsoft ever decides to create proper AI (deep mind style or simmilar) for aoe2 then it would have 100% winrate against Viper, Hera and other top players just like it was with starcraft, chess, go and other such games.

Even if we buff micro and APM of AI to low levels it would have 100% winrate.

Among other things also because AI would have better understanding of civ matchups and macro.

Does it mean that Viper and Hera don’t understand civ matchups?

No.

Just like my smarphone being able to beat Magnus Carlsen and Garry Kasparov at chess every time doesn’t mean that they don’t understand openings, strategies and such.

​

Also Dunning–Kruger effect comes to play.

Experts know their limits, uexperienced players don’t.

I often see Hera speaking about his mistakes after he easily crushed his opponent.

It’s just the opponent did more mistakes.

[flightlessbirdi]

2k elo is still a good 600+ away from the top level, a 2k player civ match up knowledge is usually going to be worse than a top player, just like a 1400 player isn’t usually going to have as good insight as a 2k player.

[SurvivalistAoE]

I only really started understanding civ matchups once I was 2k level.

I remember thinking the same thing.

It was only after I started playing a lot of arena that I started to really think about how the matchup should affect how you appoach the game.

[nectarie_]

Hey man, Nectarie here!

Here s a thing, understanding a civ match up doesn t just mean ,, u go archers, i go skirms to counter and it s over”.

Understanding a match up means to understand what unit to spam, when to spam it, how many tcs u can add and at what time u can add em.

Let s use ur example, bohemians-hindustanis.

In this match up i would go for a drush/maa cuz the hindu eco needs ti be damaged, otherwise it s gg.

Then i ll add one or 2 ranges, depending on how much damaged i did.

In castle age tho, hindustanis don t have knights, so they can only push slowly, so i would go for a greedy boom, cuz if they go for ghulam, this means my opponent invested into stone so his eco is worse than mine.

If he goes for camels, u win easy with pikes.

If he goes for archers, i have the advantage cuz i get chemestry in castle age.

I guess i can say i understand this match up, but most of the time i just play whatever i feel like, for fun.

I m 2k, but i play aoe for fun, so i don t really analyze match ups in ranked games.

Also, there are some match ups that make no sense to me.

Some days ago i played as sicilians against burgundians.

My opponent started walling at min 6, by the time i was feudal he was fully walled.

I got to castle age first, i added tcs, knights and monks, i took way better engagements, i played better overall, but i lost cuz of the match ups.

So, even if i m 2k, there are some match ups i don t understand at all.

And yeah, my macro is better than the average, but the average is pretty bad tbh.

Even tho i m top 1% in the world, my macro is way worse compared to pro players.

They understand the ideea of macro, i just freestyle.

For example, i played against liereyy a while ago.

He underestimated me, so i ended up killing 10 vills in feudal age while only losing one ( my eco was basically untouched).

But, his macro is way better, he understood his position and he ended up winning.

So yeah, macro at 2k is not that good.

Also, i m not the best example, cuz i play only for fun.

I have a ton of games in which i chose not to end the game ( one time i was at 100 vills 50 army, with hindu, i had the map control, more vills, mire army, i was imp and my opponent was in castle age, but i waited for him to get to imp) to make it fun for both me and the opponent.

But, there are some guys who are just ,, abusing” op civs and they are actually try harding every game.

That s when u get that 2k players aren t actually as good as u might think they are, cuz they are picking civs, try harding, playing as boring as possible just to win and they still make a ton of mistakes.

So, if u want to compare a 2k to the average, yeah, our macro is great and we can understand the game way better, but compared to pro players who actually know every aspect of the game, we are just some bunch of noobs with a high elo

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