Hamburg, Germany??? Where is Nili
I cant believe Isaac Newton needed an apple to realize the existence of gravity.The game has evolved a lot, so the criteria to rank players will never be accurate and specially most players will never agree with it since they will have their preferences according to their best times with the game.
Viper changed the game, a pro player before viper was good at micro or macro, after viper to be in the fight you had to be good at both, only jordan managed to follow him in that revolutionary year.
From 2016 thanks to lierey the game went even further a top player and contender would have to be a micro maniac in order to compete with the snake, viper quickly adapted to the insane micro and gave us as result the best micro intense fights were ballistics is ignored and counter units, fast response and the fastest reaction ever seen.
Only mbl, hera and tatoh have adapted to that heavy game play, while mr yo unable to compete in such micro intense scenarios has polished the rush strats to put their enemy outside their field having a solid macro game play.
So having that in mind mbl or tatoh are miles away of any older legend, basically any new top player is faster and stronger than the old experts could ever be, if you study a rec from 2004 from the very best of that year, you only see big exchanges of army, not micro well not even patrolling, tons of iddles, poor macro with the exception of daut, so if it was up to me any old player before 2005 should be ranked in a honorable list, since the skills were not even remotely close to what we have now.
Depends on the criteria. For a shorter period than many in that list, but Koven could probably beat anyone on that list in terms of dominance. He was acknowledged by pretty much everyone as the best before he retired. I don't think TheViper or Halen at their peaks were as dominant (Halen's peak happened after Koven retired btw. The played a million times 1v1).Also sometimes I feel like these pre 2005 guys are being given a bit too much credit.
This is exactly my point, this guy is comparing koven who came back for 2 years in 2014(getting 2.1k max, being paid for playing aoe exclusively) and won few tournaments during 2 years back at his prime, while viper has been winning and been dominant for 8 long years and still.Depends on the criteria. For a shorter period than many in that list, but Koven could probably beat anyone on that list in terms of dominance. He was acknowledged by pretty much everyone as the best before he retired. I don't think TheViper or Halen at their peaks were as dominant (Halen's peak happened after Koven retired btw. The played a million times 1v1).
Course he would lose games, sometimes important ones. You have to remember at that time most tournaments were single elimination so luck played a bigger role. One bad game, one bad map, etc, you were out (Clash of titans final comes to mind).
Still, tons of his games were posted, mostly team games as his 1v1's were rare, and he was consistently the best player in the game.
At the time, when you asked Halen, kkab, Grunt, RD who was the best, they all said Koven. And for good reason.
He didn't invent anything, as in creative or strategy-wise. He was not the DevilZs guys, gutter_rat or The_Sheriff_, but his execution was THE best at the time.
That is absolutely not true.Like i said 2001-2004 anyone in top 10 could win and get into the finals, in fact there are different winners in most of those tournaments(1x1), demonstrating that the peak of one top player wasn't that long or his level wasn't really ahead of others in that category,
Villagers didn't automatically go to work. The screen showed JUST your TC. Default hotkeys? Now I can't remember if you could edit them in the beginning. I guess probably. Dial-up connections. Only recorded games to learn from, and only if the players allowed recording games.not that I know much about it, but playing like this 20 years ago surely has an impact 11
who doesn't catch himself by the thought "common, zoom out a bit more already"
There was a technological disadvantage for sure, daut was playing 800x600 and most players were using crap ball mouses, internet was super slow and weak a phone call entering would drop you from the game.Villagers didn't automatically go to work. The screen showed JUST your TC. Default hotkeys? Now I can't remember if you could edit them in the beginning. I guess probably. Dial-up connections. Only recorded games to learn from, and only if the players allowed recording games.
On the other hand, the minimap position and resource bar are almost easier to keep track of when not way off in the corners 11.
So the bottom line is, no old school pros should be ranked higher than DauT, who has been delivering so constantly. Many of them hit some walls after returning, but daut is still consistently top 8 till now, and can still deliver impressive gameplay vs Liereyy and Hera.There was a technological disadvantage for sure, daut was playing 800x600 and most players were using crap ball mouses, internet was super slow and weak a phone call entering would drop you from the game.
There is a reason why aoe top players of the past were mostly asians or from advanced countries, not everyone back then had a computer or internet to play the game online, i played the game on release but i could play online until 2006 when changed the dial up connection, there were thousands of players that couldn't play the game on the first years, so the top was limited to people with better resources, who would say that playing aoe online on the first years would be elitist compared to now.
@Rayne I did not say they had no macro at all, it was just that it wasn't their best, from the thousands of recs that i saw, only the lord was relying on his macro to win the games as his main strength that is why his style was always effective vs rushers.
When i started learning the game i heard the same that the best players were yanzi, iori, peel(besides daut and chris) so i spent hours and hours watching their recs, the older recs shows how iori was taking more games from daut the same with yanzi, but the more recent the games, everything changed they were hitting a serbian wall for 2005 those guys were no match or threat for daut, i saw more games of them losing to him without any chance while chris was a bit higher than them, most of them were retiring after that, so you tell me how would you remember Iori or yanzi? from their best times or their last moments? which games have more value those from 2004 or from 2005? to me the year is irrelevant as i rather to rank them in the skills and how they adapted to the evolution of the meta.
I remember a lot of come backs from ancient legends, on game park they got 1800 on igzones 1700, take ruso as example from 2600 to 1900 in voobly, abe the best old mexican from 2300 to 1800 in voobly, great players from the past had a hard time adapting to the faster and evolved meta, well even jordan from 2700 voobly to 2200 voobly 2 years later, when you see those cases and believe me there are plenty more, instead of remember or ranking a player for one or two good years, you have to take into consideration the other years and the most recent especially since the game level keeps increasing.
About koven after the tyrant sponsor he kept playing for a while mainly team games, i lost to him pretending he was too outdated but he adapted very well as kkab said before the map control and awareness have been the basics of 2k players, but he was not close of any 2300 player of that time, koven was mostly a gamer making his living of being good at games, same like capoch, i don't think he was too rusty or lost the contact with playing, i think he just hit the wall.
I think it's way harder to return after a long hiatus from the game then just playing it consistently at the highest level. When you keep playing you just kinda evolve with the meta and never lose your mechanical and tactical nous.
Long breaks are deadly. That's why I fear for Jordan.
Yes, well said. Koven had a tremendous boom for the time. He was an excellent castle, to late castle, to imp player, which was standard. He morphed into a strong feudal player as well. Keeping up with economy and fighting without smart villagers that idle, having to reseed farms, resolution, lag, it was much different. Management of the economy has only gotten easier. So if micro wasn't huge in 99-early 2000s, assume had it been, Koven would have been top tier with it. With anything, I can't stress how you have to look at the times, and all the variables. He was a beast of a player, feared, rarely lost, and was strong in RM, DM, 1v1 and TG. The game was heavily about improvising as no orders were perfected over years, there was no streaming, or even access to all recorded games.I thought this topic was pretty much done so was mostly just looking like others, but incredible to hear some more history.
I know SouFire and probably others think the play from the early 2000's was bad but this is not completely true. I thought it initially as well when I took on 4 of the list (3 with a big thanks to Funito), but I found myself wrong. I was more in awe of what I saw and how the players understood and played the game really well back in the day.
Thanks to Funito for alerting me to a rec site that had old games, I must've watched around 70 or even 80 games, maybe more I dunno tbh 11. Around 20-25 of Koven, 30 of Grunt, and whatever others of Halen I found which is probably around 20. (Chris was mostly done from my memory, but I downloaded random games from various times to confirm one particular detail I chose to include in.) Koven was definitely the strongest of the BsK trio.
For certain details, saying the macro was bad for instance is definitely not correct. Often a lot of the games I saw, Koven, Grunt and Halen all seemed to like making a lot of tcs to boom while making military (I think this might be a thing Koven started and others followed, it looked almost like a general way of play back then, but these 3 did it best). Most games were in Castle Age so I saw many of these. They were maintaining everything pretty well, nothing I'd ever call bad. Considering sometimes there were 5-6 tcs, maybe even 7 making vills, making farms, military production ontop of that, controlling military, and thinking about what to do (maybe castle here, time to try and claim this hill, time to imp etc) is not something you could ever manage with bad macro. Like ever ever.
Funito mentioned to me Koven had a great Imperial and I definitely saw it. There was a game where Koven just gradually took control of around 70% of the map (and controlled right spots) and was fighting from two fronts in Imperial while defending his base from being assaulted with army + siege. There may have been raids going on too. Nothing was on the same screen, everything was practically in opposite directions. I didn't see something like this from Halen (I don't recall seeing a single serious imp game from him so can't judge him there), but I saw something similiar from Grunt. It was a tourney game vs Chris where Grunt was fighting from multiple fronts as well and raiding. Not exactly same as Koven, but quite similiar and very impressive. Funito also said Koven liked to make units 1 by 1 in Imperial, but I didn't check the detail myself 11. I wouldn't be surprised though.
For micro yes, that was suspicious and can't completely disagree. Out of all the 3 and who they were vsing, Koven's micro was better than the others. Koven actually looked like one of the few who actually cared about his army most of the time (don't mean others didn't, just in terms of consistency). There actually were patrols in the early 2000s believe it or not, but only one I saw it from was Grunt. I saw him do it with knights in an Arabia game, and another in the Legion Cup Final.
I also happened to have a run in with Koven back in 2014 when he came back, and one game in particular I recall very vividly, I'd like to say I saw his "shadow". That game happened to become much like a zone situation he was very familiar with and I just got outplayed. I just knew from that he was a serious beast in his prime.
Otherwise, what was generally impressive about the older games is that all of the players knew how to get ahead. I mean that as just a general statement too, they were all very smart. They recognized when their opponent was behind and knew how to not let them get back in the game. Grunt did this the most brutally imo. When Grunt had this advantage in Castle Age, he gradually took control of practically the entire map while gaining a massive economy. Game was over at like min 38 even if it 'somehow' went past the 40 min mark. He never botched the job either, just squeezed the life out of his opponent very slowly.
Players also understood hills quite well back in the day and map in general, but it definitely wasn't as polished as it is today. I did see Halen for instance neglect a key hill despite winning a game. If he did that vs a top player today, he'd probably hand the game back and lose in time.
Hard to know exactly where some go on the list, but I think they earned their spots. Grunt especially imo. Personally though, I thought dogao should've been closer to the top 10 if not in the top 10 imo. He's been one of the best for around 13 years right? I also heard back in the day, he played water maps with grushing better than anyone else. And he's been one of the friendliest pros from my experiences which is just a bonus. Stuff like that last one especially goes very far to me along with the others.
Also for a fun fact since I couldn't list all details in the paragraphs I wrote, Koven was taught by RD Champion in AoK. I happened to come across this by chance in an ancient interview. Came from Koven.
@Rayne I did not say they had no macro at all, it was just that it wasn't their best, from the thousands of recs that i saw, only the lord was relying on his macro to win the games as his main strength that is why his style was always effective vs rushers.
When i started learning the game i heard the same that the best players were yanzi, iori, peel(besides daut and chris) so i spent hours and hours watching their recs, the older recs shows how iori was taking more games from daut the same with yanzi, but the more recent the games, everything changed they were hitting a serbian wall for 2005 those guys were no match or threat for daut, i saw more games of them losing to him without any chance while chris was a bit higher than them, most of them were retiring after that, so you tell me how would you remember Iori or yanzi? from their best times or their last moments? which games have more value those from 2004 or from 2005? to me the year is irrelevant as i rather to rank them in the skills and how they adapted to the evolution of the meta.
I remember a lot of come backs from ancient legends, on game park they got 1800 on igzones 1700, take ruso as example from 2600 to 1900 in voobly, abe the best old mexican from 2300 to 1800 in voobly, great players from the past had a hard time adapting to the faster and evolved meta, well even jordan from 2700 voobly to 2200 voobly 2 years later, when you see those cases and believe me there are plenty more, instead of remember or ranking a player for one or two good years, you have to take into consideration the other years and the most recent especially since the game level keeps increasing.
About koven after the tyrant sponsor he kept playing for a while mainly team games, i lost to him pretending he was too outdated but he adapted very well as kkab said before the map control and awareness have been the basics of 2k players, but he was not close of any 2300 player of that time, koven was mostly a gamer making his living of being good at games, same like capoch, i don't think he was too rusty or lost the contact with playing, i think he just hit the wall.
I think it's way harder to return after a long hiatus from the game then just playing it consistently at the highest level. When you keep playing you just kinda evolve with the meta and never lose your mechanical and tactical nous.
Long breaks are deadly. That's why I fear for Jordan.
One of the matches that stands out was a 3v3 rivers game. Koven, RD_Champ, and Pak_Se_Rei ( apparently kovens teacher) vs SHS_Disciple, SHS Slugur, and SHS_littleknife, widely regarded as one of the top games of the time.
You are right about dogao, he became popular beating chris and reaching 2300 in arabia i liked a lot of his games on that map, he was indeed very good at water maps, i think dogao got shadowed by riut in those years, but he has been active and in the top for more time than him and getting great tournaments results in the last year, showing how he has evolved with the game.Hope it doesn’t seem like I am getting into something with you as I am not, but it is not accurate saying like how Daut won games solely (or mainly) by macro. Same with micro, you can’t win games consistently against super strong players by mainly one or even two things. You just can’t, I know from experience. Or maybe I was just terrible at this game. It is a combination of things toned to a certain degree, and some of which that are used at the right moment in games, is how it seems you’ll win vs them. Take one thing away from that combination, winning often is very debatable depending on what it is.
Tarsiz for instance summed up Liereyy very beautifully here. Incredible micro, but he won games because he could do manage economy very well, he knew when he had a grip on the game and took advantage of that, and was really aware of weak points on the map. When I looked at a lot of Liereyy’s games last year, I saw same thing. Take away Liereyy’s ability to manage economy, it’s a much different story.
Back in the day what I recall about Daut, his style was very effective vs rushers (assume we mean feudal) was because Daut had a seriously good understanding of map. Present and future issues. And I mean the whole map, not just his. He also didn’t make many mistakes vs rushers, and some rushers made mistakes which Daut took advantage of. Daut was very patient that way and didn’t panic, overreacting to the rush. Then yes, macro and way he managed economy if game hit castle come into play much more. That’s all I recall since I haven’t watched those games from Daut since I was around 1600 that time. Would have to revisit, just working from memory.
I wouldn’t know where to rate Yanzi or IORI as I never really watched them much, but you do have a point. I don’t know which is the best “objective” way to rate some players. Some can seem more deserving of some spots than others.
But if you want to go more by players adapting to meta or the times, dogao definitely should be in top 10 without question. I’d put him around 7 then or even higher. The whole top 10 list would be different though.
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I always found it interesting how koreans always remembered and mentioned who was their "teacher". Champ, pak se ri and previously Ikarus_II for Koven, Koven himself for kkab, etc. I cant recall seeing something similar from others. As an example, i recall Chris posting a very nice message about what had he learnt from other players, but i dont think he would call them teachers. He was just mentioning particular traits and tricks he had incorporated after watching/playing them.
i recall Chris posting a very nice message about what had he learnt from other players, but i dont think he would call them teachers. He was just mentioning particular traits and tricks he had incorporated after watching/playing them.
I mean there is not point of comparison because of the years that daut or chris were dominating the game and stayed relevant are x3 more than any top from 2001-2004, both of them stopped playing the game for years and came back always in top level even now with current generations.So the bottom line is, no old school pros should be ranked higher than DauT, who has been delivering so constantly. Many of them hit some walls after returning, but daut is still consistently top 8 till now, and can still deliver impressive gameplay vs Liereyy and Hera.