An Age of Empires II ranked match between 25-year-old Finnish streamer Rubenstock and 25-year-old Romanian streamer Andrei_2i has been going on for over 50 hours. The match has no stakes except for ELO on the ranked leaderboards.
Age of Empires II is a RTS game released by Ensemble Studios in 1999. The game has maintained a small cult following since its release.
Rubenstock and Andre_2i both play Age of Empires 2 at a high level. At the time of publication, the game has taken over 92 hours, judging by the in-game clock, which translates to 54 hours in real time. Both streamers are alternating between playing and sleeping.
2 Age of Empires streamers Rubenstock and Andre 2i are now 90 HOURS in to their ranked match vs. eachother. Both are sleeping and afking until the other either forfeits or accepts a draw.
Ruben refuses to accept a draw as he can't lose. I repeat this is just a ranked match. pic.twitter.com/88ITRKpUuY
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) February 11, 2022
Both players have long since passed the point where gameplay is the focus. They are now engaged in a battle of wills, neither willing to forfeit first. They are also benefiting from an influx of viewers with a combined 2,300 concurrent viewers at the time of publication.
Rubenstock holds a slight edge in the match, where he is capable of winning if Andre_2i is AFK or asleep. In contrast, Andre_2i cannot win the match even if his opponent is sleeping. This is because Rubenstock’s defensive structures can destroy Andre_2i’s units even without him there to man his remaining troops. Rubenstock has a slight chance of using his remaining units to destroy Andre_2i’s defenses, though the maneuvers required are difficult and time-consuming. Andre_2i is hoping that Rubenstock chooses to forfeit.
It is not uncommon for real-time strategy games like Age of Empires to reach “stalemate” situations. The maps eventually run out of resources, meaning neither player can construct more units or structures and leaving them with whatever they’ve held onto. In the case of this ranked match, both players ran out of resources and are now relying on their defensive structures and a few units to keep the game going.
