Hacker Remix

Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

433 points by apitman 1 day ago | 89 comments

Rendello 1 day ago

Classic AoE-playing Hacker News-types might also enjoy 0 A.D.

It's free and fun, but definitely humbling if you consider yourself a master strategist:

https://play0ad.com/

bryancrisso 1 day ago

i love 0ad so much but it runs AWFULLY as soon as you get a fun number of units on the map.

Dunedan 20 hours ago

Alpha 27 of 0 A.D. has a notable performance regression for a subset of users, compared to earlier versions. Users not affected by this regression should see improved performance, thanks to improvements like the added Vulkan support.

The regression in performance seems to be caused by a change in Spidermonkey. For details check out https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/7714

That said, even without this performance regression, 0 A.D. is prone to run slow in late game when lots of units are on the map. There are several reasons for that, but maybe the most intuitive one is that 0 A.D. is still largely single-threaded and therefore doesn't make use of the multi-core capabilities of modern CPUs. As you can imagine changing that is no easy feat and takes a lot of effort. As the number of volunteers to 0 A.D. is limited, nobody has picked up that topic yet.

If you enjoy 0 A.D. and want to improve it: it's Open Source and contributions are always welcome!

Rendello 1 day ago

I haven't had an issue with that personally (played on and off for almost 10 years), though I imagine it could be an issue on some older hardware. Massed units will cause lag in big team games where there's 4 armies clashing, though that might be more of a network thing.

yohannesk 24 hours ago

I am curious as a non game developer, are these types of games deterministic? If so if I send to the server that I moved huge units to attack another huge units, can the server determine what the end will be? Why do we face a network issue?

matsemann 22 hours ago

This article is a classic, 1500 Archers on a 28.8: Network Programming in Age of Empires and Beyond

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/1500-archers-on-a-...

Edit: original where the pictures work https://web.archive.org/web/20180719170411/https://www.gamas...

> Rather than passing the status of each unit in the game, the expectation was to run the exact same simulation on each machine, passing each an identical set of commands that were issued by the users at the same time. The PCs would basically synchronize their game watches in best war-movie tradition, allow players to issue commands, and then execute in exactly the same way at the same time and have identical games.

IshKebab 21 hours ago

Which was great until there's a bug and it just says "sync error" and your 3 hour game is gone.

immibis 19 hours ago

When this happens in Factorio, the game pauses, one player (the server?) saves the game and sends it to all other players who load the savefile and the game resumes when that's done. It's not a nice experience, but it's a lot better than "you can't play today, goodbye!"

doublerabbit 17 hours ago

Same with RA2/YR.

All it took was for some salty player to activate a trainer or prez IFS and kill the game.

I like that the lobbies were ran over IRCd.

Dreamforge IRCd with the server password being "supersecret".

HideousKojima 23 hours ago

Many (not all) RTS games use a networking method called lockstep synchronization that requires the gameplay to be deterministic, but has its own downsides. One of those being that if one player lags, everyone lags. I know AOE 1 and 2 use it, and I assume 3 as well

NortySpock 13 hours ago

For Beyond All Reason, it seems the Spring/Recoil engine will eventually decide to "close the action window", so that if one player is lagging hard, they simply submitted no actions for that "round" and the rest of the players keep going.

I know because I've gotten to the point in the late game where my computer can't simulate at realtime, and I can no longer control my units, but everyone else keeps playing.

Conveniently you can even still sort of chat in this state, and ask a teammate to assume control of your army on your behalf.

littlestymaar 22 hours ago

The good thing being that you get replay for free.

Panzer04 20 hours ago

It's got downsides. There's often no way to recover game state without actually running the simulation, and often no way to go backwards either. If you miss a moment in the replay you gotta watch the whole damn thing all over gain.

gsich 15 hours ago

You get that with any type of networking.

arlort 21 hours ago

They can be deterministic but I think you might be confused about the kind of game

In RTS games like 0AD or AoE you don't just send a single huge unit to attack and wait for the result, you send many tens of individual units near enemy units, then the "battle" goes on in real time and you can micromanage units to influence the outcome. You can't just simulate it on the server because the server can't simulate the thought process of the players

vasco 21 hours ago

AoE2 battles are all about the micromanagement. Last minute splitting the onslaught of trash units against your opponents treb micro shot can change everything.

Kind of old but lots of micro tactics per unit here: https://youtu.be/hjUgisPD_C4?si=F-UvzDOTsWRZhZSq

nophunphil 21 hours ago

Same here. I use a modern Windows 10 PC (Ryzen 5600x, RTX 3070Ti) when playing games. I wonder if the performance is better on Linux for some reason.

RUnconcerned 19 hours ago

Wow, this is still being developed? I still recall the Heavengames forum thread that spawned it...

Rendello 12 hours ago

It just had a big release in January even!

gsich 15 hours ago

8 player multiplayer is unplayable.

Rendello 12 hours ago

The lagging frames just give extra time to strategize ;)

recycledmatt 1 day ago

Awesome to see AoE, and games in general being future proofed. Sad when functionality is lost because someone turned off a server.

princevegeta89 22 hours ago

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.

moduspol 12 hours ago

It probably won't matter. When I play a "random civ" game with my friends, I always get Vikings. On maps with no oceans.

For real, though, it's really great to see this game continue to live on.

reactormonk 12 hours ago

Vikings are a very good archer civ, full tree and the free handcart is a top-tier eco-boost.

lippihom 10 hours ago

Good candidate for the next civ split after this next release. Curious to see what happens.

moduspol 12 hours ago

I just distinctly remember getting slaughtered by Paladins, and having very few good options to counter.

princevegeta89 11 hours ago

Note that the Viking Pikemen have a lot of extra HP though.

pertymcpert 10 hours ago

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.

princevegeta89 3 hours ago

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.

princevegeta89 11 hours ago

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.

_the_inflator 18 hours ago

Imagine AoE being owned by Nintendo. :D

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.

Cheers + gl + hf!

_CN

slightlygrilled 10 hours ago

This happened with supreme commander.

The company shut down and turned the servers off, but luckily someone created an implementation of the match making server.

And even to this day the community is fully alive and growing, they even continue to develop the game, and have taken it far beyond the original.

It’s called Forged Alliance Forever.

apitman 10 hours ago

That's awesome. What sort of changes have they made? I feel like that's got to be a tricky line to walk for a classic game.

4gotunameagain 22 hours ago

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.

red_admiral 19 hours ago

AoE2 was released 1999 based on a 1997 game engine, and a new major DLC is about to drop this spring in 2025 (for the definitive edition). Sandy Petersen should be proud.

Seanambers 19 hours ago

Remember we used to have Aoe2 sessions on LANS when we were kids back in the 00s and like 1 in 3 games just crashed after everyone had played for like 2-3 hours.

In a way it was even better because then nobody had to loose, and everyone believed they were winning.

matsemann 18 hours ago

And since everyone was "turtling" the games would almost never end anyways.

rightbyte 16 hours ago

That is how kids play Monopoly too. It is part of the fun :)

matsemann 16 hours ago

Yeah, I know of turtling because we used to do it ourselves! Have a pact that you can't attack in the start, then build an impenetrable city until there are basically no more resources left and then fight it off with having 10 castles and barracks and stables mass-producing units right to the front.