How can we assign handicaps in our Age of Empires 2 HD games?

One idea for handicaps could be as simple as having one or more honor system rules such as:

• Expert cannot touch their game for the first 5, 10, or 15 minutes
  • During this time noobs cannot rush the expert nor are they allowed to amass an army which could walk across the map as soon as the time is up and wipe out the expert unfairly
• Expert not allowed to advance past a certain age such as Feudal
• Expert can only make use of army units x, y, and z
• Expert cannot use siege units
• Expert not allowed to build defensive walls or towers
• Expert not allowed to attack noob towers which are x number of grids apart from the next closest tower
• Expert not allowed to attack from a higher ground position

The list can go on and on so just think of random things which would make it both easier for the noob and will keep things interesting for the expert.

What I’ve done a few times is teaming the weak player with one or more AIs.

Combining the number of AIs and the difficulty, you have ways of balancing just how much of a handicap you intend to give.

In a diplo game, there tends to be a natural balancing, as players will gang up on stronger players. If you're creating a custom game, there's a wide variety of handicaps you can give, such as resources, terrain, and events. In a team game, you can try to balance the teams. In a one-on-one game, you can add AI players. For a small skill difference, the weaker player can get a weak AI teammates. For larger differences, a stronger one or several weak ones. Small skill differences can also be handicapped by choice of civilization. You can give the stronger player a civilization that's weaker in general, or one weak against the one the weaker player has, or one that is a poor fit for the map (for instance, a civilization with a weak navy on a water map). You can also look at asymmetrical game types. For instance, it's probably easier to play as the defensive player on Defend the Wonder. You can also have handicaps not handled within the game, such as the stronger player idling for the first x minutes, agreeing not to use certain units or get certain upgrades, having a time limit and resigning if they don't win within it, etc.

Keep in mind, though, that the larger the handicap, the harder it is to keep the game balanced and fun. For instance, the original AI on the hardest level started with a bunch of resources, which eliminated early rushes as a valid strategy. The more of a handicap there is, the more the stronger player is going to be pushed into "How do I play around the handicap" and "How do I exploit the other player's weakness" rather than "How do I play an optimal AoE game". Going back to the Hardest AI example, one of the ways to play against it was to get a choke point and draw them into throwing a bunch of units away until their initial stockpile was used up, and then come in and kill them. This made the game very different from "normal" AoE, and if, you don't like that play style, less fun.

I realise that my question is now the top result whenever anyone searches for "age of empires II DE handicap". This question was originally about the HD version, but an upcoming AoEII: DE update has solved this problem so comprehensively it's worth mentioning.

Age of Empires II: DE has introduced a built-in handicap system. Now, rather than agreeing on rules among ourselves, the built-in handicap system can bridge the gap between players.

Spirit of the Law, of course, has a detailed video on the topic, but the main points are as follows:

1. Handicaps are set in the lobby before a game starts, as a value from 100% to 200%. Though it's called a "handicap value", a bigger number here provides a greater advantage, so stronger players should have smaller numbers here than weaker players.
2. A handicap of 100% does nothing. At higher values, the handicap multiplies the player's starting resources, villager gather rate, build rate, military building work rate, and bonus damage. For example, at no handicap (100%), a villager might gather 20 resources per minute. At a 150% handicap, that villager would gather 30 per minute. At 200%, 40 resources per minute
3. As a rough starting point, you might try a 5% handicap for every 100-points ELO difference.

I used to run a handicapped clan competition back in the day. Each player was assigned a skill value between 3-7, with the most skilled players having the highest number.

When teams were due to play, the challenging team would pick a points value, and both teams could pick players as close to that value as possible.

So, you could get two high skill 7s facing off against three others players (4, 5, 5), or even four low skill players (3, 3, 4, 4). The games were surprisingly balanced, and teams began adapting their tactics and map usage.

• It allows you to use standard maps etc.

• It needs to be handled tactfully so nobody is upset.

However, it could help you balance your games out!

Unfortunately I can't comment, so I will make another answer.

A custom map might be a good decision for you, but generally its a lot of work and you need to rebalance it every time the skill of the players changes. Also this solution doesn't allow for a lot of variety. There are so many beautiful maps in the game, and you only want to play one map the whole evening? Meh...

@MonkeyZeus put the best answer in here, which is to make the better player idle for a little while. This is actually what is usually done when 2 players of different skill want to play against each other. A general rule of thumb is 1 minute for every 100 Elo points difference. And you can easily adjust this, by just raising or lowering the idle time depending of the outcome of the game.

If you don't know the Elo of the players, you can look up checklists of what different Elo players should be able to do and estimate it.

There is also a series of an AoE 2 caster, T90Official, playing against the best players in the world and making them idle 1 more minute every time he loses.