Lady of the Empires!
Today, we’re doing a special interview with a fantastic community member, Bebe “LilTrouble”: Winner of the Lord or Lady of the Empires Tournament, Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition Streamer and parody songstress. Learn about her adventures into Age of Empires, how she got started, her journey as a streamer, and more!
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Q. Congratulations on winning the Age of Empires 2: DE tournament with Xbox ANZ! For those who do not know, can you give us some details about you and what you do?
Hi! My name is Bebe. I’m an Australian streamer who, in early 2019, became addicted to Age of Empires 2. I primarily grind the 1v1 RM ranked ladder on stream, but also host community games and sing viewer song requests while waiting in queue. I am far from a high-level player (currently ~1100 ELO), but am dedicated to improving my gameplay while having a lot of fun along the way!
Outside of gaming, I am a rowing coach, a goose mum, and a music enthusiast.
Q. Can you tell us some of your most favorite moments during the tournament?
There were so many highlights for me. I loved the tournament and found it a really fun challenge to learn a new game style that I hadn’t tried before. As an RM kid, Death Match with a Dark Age start turned out to be quite the challenge!
Some of my favourite moments were struggling against MissZee’s impressive defenses in Round 1, playing hide and seek with TheFlamingPieman on Black Forest in the semi-finals, and going full Scorpion plus Elite Khmer (mastapiece!) against Alishiera in the finals (before the Khmer were cool!).
Q. What are some of your most memorable or best plays in Age of Empires?
Honestly, some of my most memorable plays have also been my most titanic plays, of which there are plenty of examples! Accidentally deleting a starting vill—or perhaps a TC—nine minutes into a Team Game…
But I consider my best plays to be instances where I can see clear improvement in my gameplay. For example, being able to pull off quick-walls, having an epic comeback in late Imperial Age games, improving my micro, pulling of sneaky ‘wall-their-trade-in’ strats, or simply being able to execute a new build order effectively.
Q. When did you start playing Age of Empires? Do you have a favorite game and civ in the series?
When I was very young, I was pouring out my NutriGrain cereal one morning and out fell an Age of Empires CD. This is what started it all, really. My brothers and I spent a LOT of hours playing through the AoE1 campaigns—creating ridiculous custom maps and taking advantage of every cheat code we could get away with.
When Age of Mythology was released, we jumped right on-board. I have to say that until I got into AoE2, AoM was my favourite because—as a young kid—I had never seen a game that looked so pretty, was so fun, and which also taught me a lot about mythology while playing.
I only started playing AoE2 in February of 2019—just after I started streaming. All it took was one or two AoE2 streams before I realized how addicting the game is and how amazing the community is; barely a day has gone by where I haven’t played at least one AoE2 game since then!
Picking a favourite civ is hard… I really enjoy playing Aztecs, Franks, Celts, Incas, and Japanese, but currently my favourite are the Byzantines! I love their versatility and feel that regardless of the map, Byz always have good options.
Q. What are your current goals and aspirations as a gamer and streamer?
As a gamer, my current goals are to reach 1200+ ELO (1v1 RM) and learn the build orders that I don’t yet know. I’m also working on learning different map strategies—currently Arena builds—and learning as much as I can from pro players about the new maps in the ranked pool.
As a streamer, I aspire to keep working on improving my content to provide frequent, friendly, and entertaining AoE2 streams. I recently submitted my Partner application—which is a massive milestone for me—and regardless of the outcome, I will keep working hard as both a streamer and a player. (update)
Q. How often do you stream? When and where can everyone tune in to support and follow you?
I stream most days of the week at www.twitch.tv/LilTrouble__, starting at around 9:00 AEDT (22:00 GMT) or 20:00 AEDT (9:00 GMT).
Outside of Twitch, I have an active presence on Twitter (@LilTrouble__), Instagram (@LilTrouble___) and YouTube (@LilTrouble_AoE) – where I post AoE2-themed parody songs.
Q. Anything else you would like to add to inspire others, or give a shout out to?
The AoE2 community, as a whole, inspires me. Since day one, I have been so warmly welcomed to the scene and have made so many great friends that make an already-enjoyable game even better. I would love to give a shoutout to my amazing Mods who keep my stream running smoothly both online and offline, and finally a big thanks to my viewers—for being patient with me while I learn the game and for giving me so much great advice about how to improve.
I don’t have any words of inspiration per say, but just a message of encouragement to anyone that may be thinking about getting into Age of Empires: do it! The community is incredible, the game is always exciting, and you’ll learn something new each time you play.
Follow LilTrouble for more Age of Empires Community Content:
Thank you everyone for tuning in, and thank you, Bebe, for the interview! We look forward to your epic parody songs and streams while you climb the ladder to 1200+ ELO!
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* UPDATE: Since conducting this interview with LilTrouble, we have learned that she was accepted into the partner program on Twitch! Please join us in congratulating her on this major milestone by letting her know in the comment below or giving her a shout-out on her social channels! Congratulations!