I set it to be my text notification sound. It works pretty well. Hopefully, I'll also find some other AOE players by seeing who draws a knife when it plays ;)
I always considered the "bell sound" as a warning for my base, so either buildings or villagers beeing attacked. Although this does little sense in reality when you have buildings all over the map or you are trying to relocate your eco
+Til Tiege Me too. I just learned the distinctions by hearing them play a lot mainly, but it seems with the steam release there are a lot of new players getting interested.
So many peculiarities with these alarms, particularly with that trade cart. Yeah, that lack of alarm when the boar was attacking is annoying, but I figure that since the boar doesn't attack unless attacked first, I figure that's the game assuming you know the consequences of attacking that boar, if that makes sense. Meanwhile, I never knew about that gender-swap glitch with the Iron Boar. Might have to check that out in Scenario Editor for myself.
except if a Ranged Unit attacks a animal like a bear or wolf. and the animal reaches them, a alarm plays. I see No Reason why Boar can't Trigger it. Especially because now in 2023 I think Age of Mythology AND Age of Empires IV Trigger a alarm when a Villager is attacked by a Wild Animal (Even a Boar)
What about having the alarm triggering an audiobook ? An enemy scout landed a small attack. 20 minutes later, he sends army attacks you "Damn you ! Frodo hadn't even left the Shire left !!!"
+scarfacemperor they actually stack, weirdly enough, so if you put in an audiobook it would continue reading about leaving the shire while another voice starts talking over it from the beginning. There's also no way to stop a sound file once it starts, so by the third time you're attacked it would be a garbled wall of speech haha
Playing the game for years and years you would think you know every little detail. But the Spirit of the Law comes along and dissects all things you know and love. Good work Spirit, you're really thinking outside the box!
The issue with the games files comes from the format and the frequency of the file. It has to be the same quality too. Remember the game codec is old, so it has to be a low quality sound effect in raw wav format. I had to do this to make some sounds to Counter Strike 1.5 several years ago. I made my weapons scream Bang and shit like that, loved that era with uncompressed sound files.
I don't really tend to 'like' your videos because then they clutter up my usual list of music etc. but when you do little things like the Batman graphic 'to the scenario editor' it reminds me why I subscribed to you in the first place. Educational and entertaining! Thank you!
Apart from the fact that those videos are great for the AoE2 fans ,they are also great for game developers,with that analysis you kinda understand the mechanisms of the game.Thanks for that !
An interesting exception I found to the "being attacked by your own units/allies" was when I converted a Calvary archer right after he shit and the arrow was in the arrow. By the time the arrow hit my monk, the archer was converted to my side, and the alarm went off saying I was being attacked by Infantryhawk. (or whatever I went by at the time.)
I have no idea mate about you as a person, if you like to do this,if you gonna stop tomorrow or if you are gonna keep doing this for a long time, but i love your work. I learned so many usefull and useless info about the game and i need more. There are so many things i had no idea i had a need to know about what this game offers and the work the devs put into it, like the hill and cliff bonuses, something so small that they could just ignore and made it easier on them when making the game and yet here we are. We got this amazing game that we still play 20 years later. Thank you.
You nailed it on the difference between sounds, I forget where I read that but you are correct. I think it is a separate set of units attacking you that also plays into whether it is considered part of the same battle as well, but that is merely my observation.
Im not a Aoe2-player but long time Wc3-fan, but man... your videos are so well done and it is so cool to see people support that old game and putting so much love into it! Aoe2 also seems to be damn fine game, certainly one of the best ever made!
I always feel panic at the conversion alarm...ugh, I hate enemy monks so much: my light cavalry approaches to kill that monk bastard...got converted enemy troops approach to kill my monk...got killed UGHHHHH
Nice job on the research, I never did consider there being an alarm event radius, never gave it much thought really. That does leave those cryptic battle events, though. Surely there's some self-adjusting threshold, because I've seen small fights get marked, and large ones never show up.
To be honest, the best replacements for the attack sounds would be a voice actually saying what the alarm means. - ''Your army is fighting!'' - ''Your town is under attack!'' - ''The animals are hunting you!'' Probably the only thing some other RTS' have on AoE 2. ^^
I might be a bit late, but here it goes: The alarm with the bell, triggered by an enemy attacking your villager or building, suggests that the programmers were thinking of setting different alarms for battles on the battlefield and for someone attacking you at home(i.e. at your base). Furthermore, I believe the bell is meant to resemble a town bell.
Hey SOTL, have you ever done a video about deleting buildings mid-build when enemy units have reduced their HP partially, and the amount of resources you recoup per the amount of damage done? I've always wondered if it's determined by a) the % remaining to complete the building is the max % of the recoupable resources (i.e. a castle canceled at 50% will recoup 325 stone), but b) a castle abandoned by villagers at 50% and knocked down to 25% HP by enemy units, then deleted, how much stone is recouped? Does that make sense? It'd be interesting if you could get a full video out of it, I've always wondered if it's a linear relationship.
Thanks for this video. This is one of those questions that I always wondered about that I have not wondered about until now. And by the way, I play the horn and the trumpet, and the sound is most definitely 100.0% horn and 0.0% trumpet.
I totally love this vid. Great content and boy do I love the sound of the bell with the horn. Brings a tear to my eye everytime...and distress that I need to build another Paladin or Villager depending on the situation...
The first alarm is for someone attacking an army, the second (bell) is telling you your base is being attacked. Hence the bell sounding when buildings or villagers are attacked and we seem to instinctively panic more when hearing it.
2 things: 1 Thank you Spirit Of The Law for creating this content. I'm usually a lurker and rarely login, but figured I would do so this time to express my gratitude for the excellent quality of content you bring to the table. 2 Someone in the comments mentioned putting in custom sounds for the alarms and mentioned the sound "wololo". I miss interpreted this sound and assumed it was a noise made by a character in Family Guy. I ended up playing with a few sounds and uploaded them to soundcloud. They aren't perfect but perhaps someone will find use for them. soundcloud.com/user-17778136/sets/aoe2-hd-sounds One of them is a snippet of your intro edited slightly to extend the sound.
I have not played this game in over a decade but still find myself watching your channel. Is there a way I can give you money to support what you are doing?
Ever play Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds? It was a strategy game that came out back in '01, an almost complete clone of AoE2 with Star Wars skins over the top. The point: in that game. you would also receive two different main kinds of alarms, but the generic "You are being attacked by" instead would say either "Your base is being attacked by" or "Your armies are being attacked by", depending on the alarm sound and under the same situations as in AoE2. Given just how similar SWGB was to AoE2 (seriously, they changed none of the underlying mechanics, I hope Ensemble got royalties) it's not too risky to conclude that the horn alarm is intended to indicate your military forces are under attack and the bell alarm to indicate your town is. We'll just forget about the trade carts. Maybe they're plotting to rebel.
most of the dark age, feudal, castle and medieval battle times, they used horns at the watch towers to warn the town when an attack is imminent or if there is a siege! The horn alarm notification in AOE2 is more sounding like of a ceremonial horn than the ones that mostly used for attack warnings.
the people who think its a good idea to turn the alarm off must be those 1300s guys that only play 500 pop black forest high resources and immediately resign when you attack them
Hey Spirit, cool video. Ive always thought that the bell alarm was a defensive thing and trumpet was offensive. Do you know if location of attack matters in which alarm sounds? I think I remember once where the other guys archers attacked my infantry really close to my tc, and it triggered the bell alarm instead.
One Sound that has been missed : Wololo is when a monk is in the process of conversion or when he is healing a unit. There's another "tring..tring" - a trinket like sound that plays when the monk succeeds in conversion - especially when your screen is not on the action. A fun video would be to analyse the sounds when a unit dies - each have a different one !!
perhaps the reason trade carts and monks seem like an exeption to the bellsound is because they are military units? If I recall correctly the monk was changed to count as military. The trade cart however, alongside petards and camels (no longer after AK) was classified as ships, although they count toward villager population it is possible that the assignment for the alarms sets it as a military ship.
The canonical explanation of the alarm sounds in the manual is that the bell is for non-military and buildings, while the horn is for military. It's specifically an *attack* notification, so there's none if you're attacking. Just FYI. Didn't know about the trade cart thing though!
I think at some point people unconsciously start to differentiate them without giving them too much reflection. The first one means that you're under attack by the units you're attacking, possibly, and the second one means that you're being attacked in another part of the battlefield, possibly. Although I've always found it more useful when units start blinking on the mini-map, so as to detect quickly "where's the hot action" haha.
I believe in one of the William Wallace campaign tutorials he explains what the alarms mean. But this video is still helpful on working out how the actual mechanics work :)
Takeaway: - Wolf sound is for any unit being attacked by an animal except a boar (Glitch?), and this sound overrides the horn. - Horn is for military units being attacked by an opponent. - Bell is for buildings and non-military units being attacked by an opponent. - If your onager or an ally's onager attack your unit(s), no sound alert will trigger. - A sound alert will only go off once every 10 game seconds of being in battle. - If multiple sound alerts trigger within 10 seconds, it's because two or more (battles or attacks) are taking place at different places on your map or because your unit has been attacked in a new 'battle zone.' Keep this in mind: a 'battle' is any enemy attack or retaliation that takes places within a 10 tile radius, and a 'battle/attack zone' is a battle that has started to take place in a 10 tile radius zone or a battle that was last active 10 game seconds ago or longer. So let me explain the first part (two or more battles or attacks are taking place at different parts of the map). If 2 or more battles or attacks take place at least 10 tiles apart, 2 or more sound alerts will trigger within 10 seconds of the last alert. For example, you could have separated military units each attacking enemy units 10 tiles away from the main battle (the one you're microing). A sound alert will trigger for your main battle if you get retaliated before getting attacked elsewhere. But then within 10 game seconds, you may receive more sound alerts if wondering military units are in the middle of fights 10 tiles (radius) apart from the main battle and each separate battle. At the same time (to make it even more complex), if one or more of your non-military units are being attacked by an opponent or aggressive animal, you'll also get sound alerts for them - all within 10 game seconds of the first sound alert! Now you know why you hear the bell, horn, and wolf sound a lot within 10 seconds or throughout the whole game. Now the last part ( your unit has been attacked in a new 'battle zone'). If a military unit gets attacked or retaliated, a the game initiates a battle and 'zones' it off, creating a battle zone. This means if your unit makes it outside that battle zone and gets attacked in an area outside of the battle zone, a new sound alert will trigger. And it will continue to trigger the more times your unit gets attacked in a 'new' battle zone. Now you know why you hear it so often when you're scouting the map or are 'constantly' being attacked by an enemy or animal. - Use the 'Go to last notification' hotkey to keep with sound alerts better. - If you want to turn off sound alerts, find them in the game folder, and either delete or safe-move the sound alert files. If you decide to safe-move because you think you want to keep the files for future purposes, move the files to a safe folder, instead of deleting them.
I think the difference between the two alarms is clear in the SW:GB game (which is a glorified mod of aoe2) There are two different texts that go along with the alarm in SWGB: "Your army is under attack" and "Your base is under attack". The sound is the same IIRC, so this must mean that the difference is the same between the texts in SWGB and the sounds in AOE2.
You seemed to be hypothesizing that the warning sound was for fighting, but I was always under the impression that the alarm happens when you are attacked, not when you attack.
I'm honestly surprised that this game is picking up enough new players for there to be folks out there that don't know this. :) I've been playing this, apparently since it came out, and I'm pretty sure I figured that out within the first few games, based on the text notification that goes along with it. :) Nice to know where the files are though, so I can use them elsewhere. :)
I've always seen the first one as a warning of your armies being attacked and the second as your base. But that's also because Galactic Battlegrounds has corresponding warning messages to go alone with the alarms.
The first part is actually in the game's manual! vztimg.exent.com/Prem/products/330450/manual.pdf > A horn notification sounds when your military units come under attack (or you initiate an attack). A bell notification sounds when your non-military units or buildings come under attack (or you initiate an attack). The horn or bell sounds once for every attack by a specific enemy within the area of the initial attack. After a brief period, the attack area is reset, and the horn or bell sounds again if the area is still under attack. Attacks outside the original area (or by different players) generate additional notifications.
I never knew what the real difference between the first two were, only that they meant your units were getting attacked. I For some reason I always scanned my base when I heard the bell alarm though. It does sound more important and I realize now that was for good reason.
There was a bug that kept being reported in play tests of AOEII where the battle alarm wasn’t going off. They could not for the life of them determine what the problem was until they watched them play. Turns out the alarm was going off, they were just so distracted they weren’t hearing it.
What are you talking about when you say that "you shouldnt play around with the sound files, ESCPECIALLY if you are going online" ? Great video by the way, very informative :)
+RoswellReid I think I said game files, not sound files, and that sound files are the safest. The issue is sometimes you can get something to work in single player (a mod or whatever for new units), but if you play against someone else online it causes your game to go out of sync with theirs or won't start at all. The sound files, as far as I know, are not something that runs of a risk of desyncing a game if you've made modifications. Skins/visuals are also quite safe.
Spirit Of The Law THANKS a lot for the answer dude :) I heard something about the "sync" problem before, but I wasnt very sure about the topic. Keep on the excellent job and thanks again :)
+RoswellReid Steam tends to hand out bans if you mess with your own files too much. Some mods will even get you banned from online. Switching up already existing files is fine though, sound files included.
I think one of the Alarms is for when ur base is under attack, so it works für buildings and villagers. The other alarm is for being attacked elswhere, so it affects military units and tradecars, whilst the monk is a military unit. Of couse the theory fails for building castles in enemy bases and military units in the own base, but maybe that's how its meant by the developers. Execuse my bad english. :)
+OberstSkeptic yeah, there's something about that population block alarm that gets my blood boiling - its so irritating that not only is my villager production stopped but i also have to take villagers off of their work and make them build houses. so annoying
The alarm sound doesn't activate when you attack enemy units or buildings. it only activates when your units or buildings are being attacked. btw good video☺😊
Maybe the battle area is only relevant as long as units are acting aggressive toward other units, and during that time, the area affected by the 'battle sound' is muted. I imagine this would salvage some sanity after hours of gameplay instead of a battle horn every ten seconds.
You should do a math video about the cost effectiveness of monks. As in, how many monks do you need in a group before it starts tipping in your favor against a Paladin rush. With or without Illumination.
I've got an idea of which alert will come. It's not a military alert or an other units alert. I think that the military alert (first one) is when your unit can escape (or kill) the attacker so you can survive or your units are stronger. And the second alert is when you can't escape the attacker (like building) or you're weaker than the attacker. Sorry for my low English quality.
Better to modify some alarms that are important but easily missed. Like the farm reseed alarm that a player misses and realises only when there are 20 idle villagers near their base. Better to replace it with your own voice screaming farm quickly.
I might be wrong but I noticed that sometimes the town-bell alarm goes off as soon as a trebuchet is in range of a building. Or that's the impression I tend to get...maybe worth looking into and testing :D
Nice question, most people would not think of this. I find that when i'm raiding, if I let my units auto attack the eco, the enemy tends not to notice. If I right click on individual villagers when raiding, they notice sooner. Is this because auto-attacking units less frequently make the alarm sound?
Man this game just keeps getting deeper.
+Jombo Not bad for a game that's 17 years old, right?
+Jombo So deep you can't see it anymore?
"how do you turn this off"
By spawning "how do you turn this ON" so that you overwhelm your opponent by heavy mobile firepower, obviously.
Spirit of the Law, can you make a sequel video trying to explain the battle symbol in the victory achievement page? I am deathly curious.
+1. I never figured out whether they are about you attcking others or about you being attcked.
+David Wever I get the feeling it has to do with a fast drop in population. Maybe military population.
+David Wever me too!!!
+David Wever I second this.
+David Wever Yeah, I've been waiting 15 years now...
I find the battle alarm epic as hell.
I find the dry farm annoying as hell
Raik absolutely
+Raik When over 4 happen in a row... I HATE LIFE.
I set it to be my text notification sound. It works pretty well.
Hopefully, I'll also find some other AOE players by seeing who draws a knife when it plays ;)
+Raik *battle sound*
*farm sound*
*battle sound*
*farm sound*
*battle sound*
...
FUCK
I always considered the "bell sound" as a warning for my base, so either buildings or villagers beeing attacked. Although this does little sense in reality when you have buildings all over the map or you are trying to relocate your eco
+Til Tiege I also interpreted the bell sound as a "siege alarm" (not siege weapons alarm, but base under siege alarm).
+Til Tiege Me too. I just learned the distinctions by hearing them play a lot mainly, but it seems with the steam release there are a lot of new players getting interested.
The sound is how I remembered my childhood LOL
So you got attacket
@@SirAntoniousBlock Well of course, it's a war game...👍😜
Thank God now I can replace those damn maracas of the goddamn dry farms. Those were designed to dry you nuts.
+Raik dry you nuts? loool ball maracas
+creatorofdragon
I might been the one making the noise all along! mind fucking blown!!!
Im so going to replace the converion alarm with WOLOLOO!!
+Mursustaja mursu I think theres a mod for that which I have.
+Richard Wheeldon you only Think there's a mod....but you have it? lol
creatorofdragon Oh. Shit.
So many peculiarities with these alarms, particularly with that trade cart. Yeah, that lack of alarm when the boar was attacking is annoying, but I figure that since the boar doesn't attack unless attacked first, I figure that's the game assuming you know the consequences of attacking that boar, if that makes sense. Meanwhile, I never knew about that gender-swap glitch with the Iron Boar. Might have to check that out in Scenario Editor for myself.
except if a Ranged Unit attacks a animal like a bear or wolf. and the animal reaches them, a alarm plays. I see No Reason why Boar can't Trigger it. Especially because now in 2023 I think Age of Mythology AND Age of Empires IV Trigger a alarm when a Villager is attacked by a Wild Animal (Even a Boar)
What about having the alarm triggering an audiobook ?
An enemy scout landed a small attack. 20 minutes later, he sends army attacks you
"Damn you ! Frodo hadn't even left the Shire left !!!"
+scarfacemperor they actually stack, weirdly enough, so if you put in an audiobook it would continue reading about leaving the shire while another voice starts talking over it from the beginning. There's also no way to stop a sound file once it starts, so by the third time you're attacked it would be a garbled wall of speech haha
Spirit Of The Law that sounds interesting to hear :D
10/10 research, keep it up :D very informative
Playing the game for years and years you would think you know every little detail. But the Spirit of the Law comes along and dissects all things you know and love.
Good work Spirit, you're really thinking outside the box!
this is one thing i always knew by instinct.
horn = "We're under attack!"
Horn + bell = "Our town is under siege! (including villagers)"
The issue with the games files comes from the format and the frequency of the file. It has to be the same quality too. Remember the game codec is old, so it has to be a low quality sound effect in raw wav format. I had to do this to make some sounds to Counter Strike 1.5 several years ago. I made my weapons scream Bang and shit like that, loved that era with uncompressed sound files.
I don't really tend to 'like' your videos because then they clutter up my usual list of music etc. but when you do little things like the Batman graphic 'to the scenario editor' it reminds me why I subscribed to you in the first place. Educational and entertaining! Thank you!
Apart from the fact that those videos are great for the AoE2 fans ,they are also great for game developers,with that analysis you kinda understand the mechanisms of the game.Thanks for that !
An interesting exception I found to the "being attacked by your own units/allies" was when I converted a Calvary archer right after he shit and the arrow was in the arrow. By the time the arrow hit my monk, the archer was converted to my side, and the alarm went off saying I was being attacked by Infantryhawk. (or whatever I went by at the time.)
been playing this game since AOK and I had never figured this out .. you're analytical skills are off the charts dude!
I have no idea mate about you as a person, if you like to do this,if you gonna stop tomorrow or if you are gonna keep doing this for a long time, but i love your work. I learned so many usefull and useless info about the game and i need more. There are so many things i had no idea i had a need to know about what this game offers and the work the devs put into it, like the hill and cliff bonuses, something so small that they could just ignore and made it easier on them when making the game and yet here we are. We got this amazing game that we still play 20 years later. Thank you.
Jeez, good digging around. Been playing this game since it first came and literally had no idea what those two sounds corresponded too.
BUT WHERE DO THE BATTLE EVENTS ON THE TIMELINE COME FROM? CAN THE GREATEST MYSTERY OF AOE2 BE ANSWERED?
You nailed it on the difference between sounds, I forget where I read that but you are correct. I think it is a separate set of units attacking you that also plays into whether it is considered part of the same battle as well, but that is merely my observation.
Im not a Aoe2-player but long time Wc3-fan, but man... your videos are so well done and it is so cool to see people support that old game and putting so much love into it! Aoe2 also seems to be damn fine game, certainly one of the best ever made!
I always feel panic at the conversion alarm...ugh, I hate enemy monks so much:
my light cavalry approaches to kill that monk bastard...got converted
enemy troops approach to kill my monk...got killed
UGHHHHH
Tourettes guy battle alarms
"HOLY SHIT"
"FUUUUUUUUUCK"
We want some SotL gameplay!!
Great video as always
Best video of this channel, and I've almost watched all. Thank you for informative content.
Nice job on the research, I never did consider there being an alarm event radius, never gave it much thought really.
That does leave those cryptic battle events, though. Surely there's some self-adjusting threshold, because I've seen small fights get marked, and large ones never show up.
That tip of the last known alarm shortcut will make a big difference from now on ;) thank you.
Your analysis methods are awesome. I raise my hat to you, sir.
Love you for doing this video. Alarm sounds are nerve-wrecking
Best transition to the scenario editor ever. Ever.
To be honest, the best replacements for the attack sounds would be a voice actually saying what the alarm means.
- ''Your army is fighting!''
- ''Your town is under attack!''
- ''The animals are hunting you!''
Probably the only thing some other RTS' have on AoE 2. ^^
MrHeesman U can use stronghold alarms)
in the aom campaign there is somthing like that "a hero has fallen" it could be nice
Replace the war horn with the "Declare War" horn from Civ 4. That would sound awesome!
I might be a bit late, but here it goes:
The alarm with the bell, triggered by an enemy attacking your villager or building, suggests that the programmers were thinking of setting different alarms for battles on the battlefield and for someone attacking you at home(i.e. at your base). Furthermore, I believe the bell is meant to resemble a town bell.
Hey SOTL, have you ever done a video about deleting buildings mid-build when enemy units have reduced their HP partially, and the amount of resources you recoup per the amount of damage done? I've always wondered if it's determined by a) the % remaining to complete the building is the max % of the recoupable resources (i.e. a castle canceled at 50% will recoup 325 stone), but b) a castle abandoned by villagers at 50% and knocked down to 25% HP by enemy units, then deleted, how much stone is recouped? Does that make sense? It'd be interesting if you could get a full video out of it, I've always wondered if it's a linear relationship.
Dude, that transition to the editor is golden.
Nice. Everything I didn't think I needed to know, but actually did.
Thanks for this video. This is one of those questions that I always wondered about that I have not wondered about until now. And by the way, I play the horn and the trumpet, and the sound is most definitely 100.0% horn and 0.0% trumpet.
I totally love this vid. Great content and boy do I love the sound of the bell with the horn. Brings a tear to my eye everytime...and distress that I need to build another Paladin or Villager depending on the situation...
The first alarm is for someone attacking an army, the second (bell) is telling you your base is being attacked. Hence the bell sounding when buildings or villagers are attacked and we seem to instinctively panic more when hearing it.
2 things:
1 Thank you Spirit Of The Law for creating this content. I'm usually a lurker and rarely login, but figured I would do so this time to express my gratitude for the excellent quality of content you bring to the table.
2 Someone in the comments mentioned putting in custom sounds for the alarms and mentioned the sound "wololo". I miss interpreted this sound and assumed it was a noise made by a character in Family Guy. I ended up playing with a few sounds and uploaded them to soundcloud. They aren't perfect but perhaps someone will find use for them.
soundcloud.com/user-17778136/sets/aoe2-hd-sounds
One of them is a snippet of your intro edited slightly to extend the sound.
I have not played this game in over a decade but still find myself watching your channel. Is there a way I can give you money to support what you are doing?
I always knew that the bells were associated with battles but I was confused why two were needed. Now I know why.
Ever play Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds? It was a strategy game that came out back in '01, an almost complete clone of AoE2 with Star Wars skins over the top.
The point: in that game. you would also receive two different main kinds of alarms, but the generic "You are being attacked by" instead would say either "Your base is being attacked by" or "Your armies are being attacked by", depending on the alarm sound and under the same situations as in AoE2.
Given just how similar SWGB was to AoE2 (seriously, they changed none of the underlying mechanics, I hope Ensemble got royalties) it's not too risky to conclude that the horn alarm is intended to indicate your military forces are under attack and the bell alarm to indicate your town is. We'll just forget about the trade carts. Maybe they're plotting to rebel.
most of the dark age, feudal, castle and medieval battle times, they used horns at the watch towers to warn the town when an attack is imminent or if there is a siege! The horn alarm notification in AOE2 is more sounding like of a ceremonial horn than the ones that mostly used for attack warnings.
the people who think its a good idea to turn the alarm off must be those 1300s guys that only play 500 pop black forest high resources and immediately resign when you attack them
Hey Spirit, cool video. Ive always thought that the bell alarm was a defensive thing and trumpet was offensive.
Do you know if location of attack matters in which alarm sounds? I think I remember once where the other guys archers attacked my infantry really close to my tc, and it triggered the bell alarm instead.
Trumpet alarm is for military units receiving damage, trumpet and bell is for your "town" which is any building or a villager receiving damage.
A top-notch video, as always.
One Sound that has been missed :
Wololo is when a monk is in the process of conversion or when he is healing a unit.
There's another "tring..tring" - a trinket like sound that plays when the monk succeeds in conversion - especially when your screen is not on the action.
A fun video would be to analyse the sounds when a unit dies - each have a different one !!
perhaps the reason trade carts and monks seem like an exeption to the bellsound is because they are military units? If I recall correctly the monk was changed to count as military. The trade cart however, alongside petards and camels (no longer after AK) was classified as ships, although they count toward villager population it is possible that the assignment for the alarms sets it as a military ship.
The canonical explanation of the alarm sounds in the manual is that the bell is for non-military and buildings, while the horn is for military. It's specifically an *attack* notification, so there's none if you're attacking. Just FYI. Didn't know about the trade cart thing though!
I think at some point people unconsciously start to differentiate them without giving them too much reflection. The first one means that you're under attack by the units you're attacking, possibly, and the second one means that you're being attacked in another part of the battlefield, possibly. Although I've always found it more useful when units start blinking on the mini-map, so as to detect quickly "where's the hot action" haha.
I believe in one of the William Wallace campaign tutorials he explains what the alarms mean.
But this video is still helpful on working out how the actual mechanics work :)
Takeaway:
- Wolf sound is for any unit being attacked by an animal except a boar (Glitch?), and this sound overrides the horn.
- Horn is for military units being attacked by an opponent.
- Bell is for buildings and non-military units being attacked by an opponent.
- If your onager or an ally's onager attack your unit(s), no sound alert will trigger.
- A sound alert will only go off once every 10 game seconds of being in battle.
- If multiple sound alerts trigger within 10 seconds, it's because two or more (battles or attacks) are taking place at different places on your map or because your unit has been attacked in a new 'battle zone.' Keep this in mind: a 'battle' is any enemy attack or retaliation that takes places within a 10 tile radius, and a 'battle/attack zone' is a battle that has started to take place in a 10 tile radius zone or a battle that was last active 10 game seconds ago or longer. So let me explain the first part (two or more battles or attacks are taking place at different parts of the map). If 2 or more battles or attacks take place at least 10 tiles apart, 2 or more sound alerts will trigger within 10 seconds of the last alert. For example, you could have separated military units each attacking enemy units 10 tiles away from the main battle (the one you're microing). A sound alert will trigger for your main battle if you get retaliated before getting attacked elsewhere. But then within 10 game seconds, you may receive more sound alerts if wondering military units are in the middle of fights 10 tiles (radius) apart from the main battle and each separate battle. At the same time (to make it even more complex), if one or more of your non-military units are being attacked by an opponent or aggressive animal, you'll also get sound alerts for them - all within 10 game seconds of the first sound alert! Now you know why you hear the bell, horn, and wolf sound a lot within 10 seconds or throughout the whole game. Now the last part ( your unit has been attacked in a new 'battle zone'). If a military unit gets attacked or retaliated, a the game initiates a battle and 'zones' it off, creating a battle zone. This means if your unit makes it outside that battle zone and gets attacked in an area outside of the battle zone, a new sound alert will trigger. And it will continue to trigger the more times your unit gets attacked in a 'new' battle zone. Now you know why you hear it so often when you're scouting the map or are 'constantly' being attacked by an enemy or animal.
- Use the 'Go to last notification' hotkey to keep with sound alerts better.
- If you want to turn off sound alerts, find them in the game folder, and either delete or safe-move the sound alert files. If you decide to safe-move because you think you want to keep the files for future purposes, move the files to a safe folder, instead of deleting them.
Very well done! As usual :) .
"I has l33t haxxor skillz!"
*hacks into your computer and replaces alarm soundfile with an 8 bit version of never gonna give you up by Rick Astley*
If you changed the sound file does the new one have to be from AoE or can we import and random sound tone into the spot?
I think the difference between the two alarms is clear in the SW:GB game (which is a glorified mod of aoe2)
There are two different texts that go along with the alarm in SWGB: "Your army is under attack" and "Your base is under attack". The sound is the same IIRC, so this must mean that the difference is the same between the texts in SWGB and the sounds in AOE2.
Just a question, what's tehe name of the map you are playing at the beginning of the video with Viking wonders?
+Elías Muñoz dont mind me ,,, just here for the map name
When I'm watching AoE2 games, I find the horns hilarious. It's so funny to watch a crazy game where the horns don't stop!!!
You seemed to be hypothesizing that the warning sound was for fighting, but I was always under the impression that the alarm happens when you are attacked, not when you attack.
I'm honestly surprised that this game is picking up enough new players for there to be folks out there that don't know this. :) I've been playing this, apparently since it came out, and I'm pretty sure I figured that out within the first few games, based on the text notification that goes along with it. :) Nice to know where the files are though, so I can use them elsewhere. :)
I've always seen the first one as a warning of your armies being attacked and the second as your base.
But that's also because Galactic Battlegrounds has corresponding warning messages to go alone with the alarms.
what kind of map is this? at the beginning of the video, the world map one
+Expulze
Risk :-).
The first part is actually in the game's manual! vztimg.exent.com/Prem/products/330450/manual.pdf
> A horn notification sounds when your military units come under attack (or you initiate
an attack). A bell notification sounds when your non-military units or buildings come
under attack (or you initiate an attack). The horn or bell sounds once for every attack by
a specific enemy within the area of the initial attack. After a brief period, the attack area
is reset, and the horn or bell sounds again if the area is still under attack. Attacks outside
the original area (or by different players) generate additional notifications.
I never knew what the real difference between the first two were, only that they meant your units were getting attacked. I For some reason I always scanned my base when I heard the bell alarm though. It does sound more important and I realize now that was for good reason.
that what you did at 1:00
how is it called? ive seen that in many different videos
+fam morf It's the 1960s Batman TV show transition
There was a bug that kept being reported in play tests of AOEII where the battle alarm wasn’t going off. They could not for the life of them determine what the problem was until they watched them play. Turns out the alarm was going off, they were just so distracted they weren’t hearing it.
Can we get a Spirit Of The Law sound package for the japanese?
So much to learn about this game!
Instructions unclear
I now hear "putter in reverse terr"
When i get attacked
Never have to watch before giving it a like!
What are you talking about when you say that "you shouldnt play around with the sound files, ESCPECIALLY if you are going online" ?
Great video by the way, very informative :)
+RoswellReid I think I said game files, not sound files, and that sound files are the safest. The issue is sometimes you can get something to work in single player (a mod or whatever for new units), but if you play against someone else online it causes your game to go out of sync with theirs or won't start at all. The sound files, as far as I know, are not something that runs of a risk of desyncing a game if you've made modifications. Skins/visuals are also quite safe.
Spirit Of The Law THANKS a lot for the answer dude :) I heard something about the "sync" problem before, but I wasnt very sure about the topic. Keep on the excellent job and thanks again :)
+RoswellReid Steam tends to hand out bans if you mess with your own files too much. Some mods will even get you banned from online. Switching up already existing files is fine though, sound files included.
1:47 I hear this spammed a million times in a row when the AIs mass monk.
Great video Spirit! :D
this was haunting me since 1999. thx for that!
dat "let's head to the scenario editor" vignette though
I think one of the Alarms is for when ur base is under attack, so it works für buildings and villagers. The other alarm is for being attacked elswhere, so it affects military units and tradecars, whilst the monk is a military unit. Of couse the theory fails for building castles in enemy bases and military units in the own base, but maybe that's how its meant by the developers. Execuse my bad english. :)
Dude great videos I love them and thank you for making them
I now use the battle alarms for a text message notification from my EX. The 10 second rule for new fights doesn’t seem to work in this scenario.
Well played
I will go and replace the sound for being housed with "you must construct additional pylons" that will surely be less annoying.
+OberstSkeptic yeah, there's something about that population block alarm that gets my blood boiling - its so irritating that not only is my villager production stopped but i also have to take villagers off of their work and make them build houses. so annoying
'But I'm not here to talk about quantum physics though' AM I THE ONLY ONE HERE THAT GETS THAT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA AHHHHHHHH THATS SO GOOD
This guy is informative and hilarious.
Just for the batman reference i'm giving you a thumbs up!
- A Rabid Whale
In DE the wild animal alarm is different.
The alarm sound doesn't activate when you attack enemy units or buildings. it only activates when your units or buildings are being attacked. btw good video☺😊
What is that earth map you're playing that has more than 1 monument? Is the goal to control all of them to win?
+o2Tenka
Yeah, it is the Risk map :-).
+Michael Šperl Where can I download it?
+King George ll - Age of Empires ll HD De una!
I thought the horn was for units and the bell for buidings. Interesting video.
i hate the alarm sound. it goes of too often. thnx for sharing info on how disableing it.
Maybe the battle area is only relevant as long as units are acting aggressive toward other units, and during that time, the area affected by the 'battle sound' is muted. I imagine this would salvage some sanity after hours of gameplay instead of a battle horn every ten seconds.
I never knew I needed this
New mic?
You should do a math video about the cost effectiveness of monks. As in, how many monks do you need in a group before it starts tipping in your favor against a Paladin rush. With or without Illumination.
I've got an idea of which alert will come.
It's not a military alert or an other units alert. I think that the military alert (first one) is when your unit can escape (or kill) the attacker so you can survive or your units are stronger. And the second alert is when you can't escape the attacker (like building) or you're weaker than the attacker.
Sorry for my low English quality.
Better to modify some alarms that are important but easily missed. Like the farm reseed alarm that a player misses and realises only when there are 20 idle villagers near their base. Better to replace it with your own voice screaming farm quickly.
Good job as always.
I might be wrong but I noticed that sometimes the town-bell alarm goes off as soon as a trebuchet is in range of a building. Or that's the impression I tend to get...maybe worth looking into and testing :D
Nice question, most people would not think of this. I find that when i'm raiding, if I let my units auto attack the eco, the enemy tends not to notice. If I right click on individual villagers when raiding, they notice sooner. Is this because auto-attacking units less frequently make the alarm sound?