26 years later, Age of Empires 2 update makes a life-saving early game change

Long-running RTS games like Age of Empires 2 are notoriously well-optimized. Picking up set build paths and strategies is crucial, even as a total newbie, or else you'll quickly fall behind the tempo of the lobby. When every second counts, so too does every morsel of food and splinter of wood you can gather early on. This typically includes having your villagers dance around a boar or two, which can quickly descend into chaos, and a spree of murdered townsfolk, if you have a tough time kiting the peeved off pigs. Fortunately, a new update is empowering your collective action, making the risky maneuver a thing of the past.

Age of Empires 2's early game loop is pretty much cut and paste at this point. Whether you want to rush your opponents with Archers in the Feudal Age, Fast Castle, or sit back and boom all the way into the Imperial Age, getting the early game right in what I think is the best RTS game of all time is the most important element. You're effectively working on speedrunning-style splits, ensuring you have X units and Y buildings up and running by Z point, or else you'll find yourself with a dirty great enemy castle staring down your measly walls.

Luring boars is an intrinsic part of this initial loop, providing a ton of food to your civ as you work towards your first couple of dozen villagers. Historically, this would require using one villager as live bait, kiting back the steamed-up swine as the rest of your retinue lay into it. While seasoned vets typically pull this off without much fanfare, newer or less dexterous players often end up sacrificing one of their workers to the cause. At 50 food-a-pop, losing villagers can be disastrous this early into the game.

According to the latest Public Update Preview notes, this will no longer be an issue. "Food from animals killed by military or buildings no longer spoils and can now be gathered by villagers," the rundown reads. Effectively, you'll now be able to tag the boar, garrison your firing squad in your Town Center, and let them rain hell down upon the helpless hog without losing the ability to farm its corpse for food. It's a small quality-of-life change, but it can have a huge payoff as the game progresses.

Elsewhere in the patch notes, a huge, potentially meta-shifting change to Skirmishers is coming down the pipeline. When the update lands, it'll now take roughly 20% longer to train what has become the de facto 'shit, I'm broke' late game unit (unless you're Hamzah 'Hera' El-Baher with his ten trillion Hussars, of course). With positive changes coming in at both ends of an AoE 2 match, the new patch looks to be a corker.

If your AoE 2 games haven't been going so great and you fancy a shake-up, check out some of the best 4X games and best grand strategy games that'll give you a breather.

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