Ending a Match – Xbox

When playing Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, it’s important to know when the match is over, and it is time to resign and start another match.

Though a match on the ranked ladder officially ends when all your opponent’s Villagers, Military Units and Production Buildings have been destroyed, slowly scouring the map for your opponent’s remaining units is not an overly enjoyable experience.

If you should find yourself in a position where you believe the game is no longer winnable, it is good manners to resign. To resign, open the Pause Menu, highlight the Resign option and press the A Button. This will end the match and award your opponent the victory.

You will be able to tell when a match is over, when you are stuck at a disadvantage and cannot think of a way back into a winning position. At this stage, it is most likely the match is already over.

Before you consider resigning, ensure you have exhausted all your options, resources and gathered all your military units into the battle.

Once you have run out of military units, resources and your opponent has sieged down your defenses, it is most likely time to resign.

However, if you still have a plan that is accomplishable, do your best to execute it before resigning. A strong strategy always has the chance to change the match!

The score is a great indicator of how things are progressing in the current match. You can see the score by clicking the Flags button on the mini-map. 

The score is calculated using several match statistics, available resources, defeated military units and buildings, completed research, exploration, etc.. This gives you an understanding of how vast the potential gap between you and your opponent is throughout the match.

Though the match score is a good indicator of the difference between you and your opponent, a couple of hundred points difference could be that they have scouted the map more fully, or you have invested in expensive research that has not fully come into effect yet. 

It is not worth considering resigning over a couple of hundred points. But if you are a few thousand points behind and do not have a plan to execute, it may be time to make your final stand.

Knowing if you are in a winning position can be difficult to figure out. There is an easy way to gain an understanding of where you are at in the current match by thinking about a few key objectives you are trying to achieve:

• Are you denying your opponent resources and expansion options?
• Are you successfully raiding your opponent’s economy?
• Do you have a larger economy than your opponent?
• Do you have a larger military than your opponent?
• Are you ahead of your opponent in technology or Age?

If you are answering yes to most of these questions, there is a good chance you are ahead in the match. If you are answering no, but your opponent is achieving these, you may be behind. If this is the case, it is time to execute or create a plan.

If you are behind, look at the list again and start thinking about which of these objectives you could work towards.

Once you have the advantage in a match, getting to the final victory can be a hard-fought battle and can easily turn into a stalemate situation. By destroying key enemy structures and focusing on economic damage to your opponents, it makes it harder for them to formulate a comeback.

By prioritizing damaging your opponent’s Town Centers and defenses, your opponent has nowhere to hide if your major attack does not immediately end the game.

Do not avoid your opponent’s military when an engagement is necessary, but economic damage is what prevents your opponent from training an entirely new army.

Inflicting serious economic damage means your opponent will not be able to recover their military numbers easily, giving you a huge advantage to continue reinforcing your military numbers and attacking.

Breaking a stalemate situation can be a hard task in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. This is where Siege Weapons can be used to their advantage.

Trebuchets can topple mighty Castles from a safe distance, forcing your opponent to leave the safety of their defenses to deal with the assault.

Siege Rams are perfect for soaking up enemy arrow fire and dealing devastating damage to buildings. These are perfect for ripping down enemy defenses or breaking into an enemy base defended by archers.

Continually raiding your opponent’s economy in late game with the Scout Cavalry-line is a great way to stop your opponent getting comfortable: it keeps your opponent under constant pressure.

Remember: garrisoned and idle Villagers are not gathering the resources your opponent needs to continually train their military.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition features a Ranked Matchmaking system designed to put you against players of your level and to ensure both you and your opponent have fun. When playing using the Ranked Matchmaking system, you will win as many games as you need to resign in, due to being matched with equally skilled opponents.

We’ll cover the need-to-know of ranked play in the next step to ensure you’re comfortable and ready to go!

~Coming soon!

Remember that Ranked exist to get you quick, balanced, and fun matches.

Some days you may fly up the rankings and on others, fall back down. Though it’s great to see the numbers go up, you are playing because you enjoy the game and are having fun!

You will constantly improve while enjoying yourself, so don’t worry about the numbers and have fun!