Elo vs Actual Ability | How Do You See It?

[AlexHerbert]

Hi everyone, I’m trying to understand what “skill” really means in 0 A.D.
Ratings are often used to "balance" teams in group games, so I’d like to know what abilities actually correspond to each rating.
I’d like to know how you associate abilities with Elo ranges. For example:

• 1100–1200: What basics does a player handle well?
• 1300–1400: What additional skills or strategies have they added?
• 1500–1600: What have they perfected compared to lower ratings?
• 1700+: What makes a top-tier player stand out in terms of abilities?

The idea is to get a clearer picture of what each rating represents in practice, not just the number of win/losses.

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[Perzival12]

8 minutes ago, AlexHerbert said:

1100–1200: What basics does a player handle well?

As someone who is around this rating, I’d say that the basic skills are:

General understanding of the controls

Starting to learn how to have a self-sustained economy (doesn’t need micromanaged in order to get returns).

General knowledge of what techs and units to train over others.

General tactics (turtling and massive attacks)

[guerringuerrin]

26 minutes ago, AlexHerbert said:

 

Hi everyone, I’m trying to understand what “skill” really means in 0 A.D.
Ratings are often used to "balance" teams in group games, so I’d like to know what abilities actually correspond to each rating.
I’d like to know how you associate abilities with Elo ranges. For example:

• 1100–1200: What basics does a player handle well?
• 1300–1400: What additional skills or strategies have they added?
• 1500–1600: What have they perfected compared to lower ratings?
• 1700+: What makes a top-tier player stand out in terms of abilities?

The idea is to get a clearer picture of what each rating represents in practice, not just the number of win/losses.

Thanks for sharing your experience!

From what I’ve seen about how other players more or less define Elo ranges, I’ll go ahead and share my take on this:

1100–1200: Basic understanding of game mechanics. Basic/slow boom. Weak player, needs a strong carry to guide them. Poor game sense. Weak micro / low combat skill.

1300–1400: Intermediate understanding of game mechanics. Decent boom most of the time. Strong if left to boom, but probably weak against rushes. Limited ability to improvise. Decent game sense. Can rush, but at a high cost to their boom. Can have good micro / combat skills. Needs to be carried most of the times.

1500–1600: Advanced understanding of game mechanics. Consistent boom. Decent defense against rushes. Good ability to improvise and read the game. Can rush, but at the cost of delaying their boom. Good micro / combat skills. Can act as a carry in some matches.

1700+: Advanced understanding of game mechanics. Boom is always effective. Strong defense against rushes. Excellent improvisation and game sense. They can rush without significantly hurting their boom. Excellent micro / combat skills. Can always carry. Capable of deciding the outcome of the match.

Edited yesterday at 11:15 by guerringuerrin
forgot rushing skills

[Deicide4u]

1100-1200: Pretty noob plays, always loses, except VS other noobs like him.

1300-1400: Can win if he really, really tries to, but still pretty noob.

1500-1600: Yeah, he is still a noob alright. Will lose a lot of 1v1 games, but win some 4v4s.

1700-1800: Finally starts winning some games, but it's still considered a noob by peers.

1800-2000+: A good player, someone who can be considered regular in 4v4s.

2000+: A literal God of 0 A.D., probably played the game since A17.

As you can see, there is a fine line between being good and being a God here  

Spoiler

I'm a SP player, don't listen to me about this, please. I am only joking.

[Emacz]

@Deicide4u I have a slight issue with your elo sysytem

2000+: A literal God of 0 A.D., probably played the game since A17.  - Ive been playing for a long time, maybe not a17, not really sure, but at least 10+ years off and on, but im still more in the nub stages, definitely not 2k

[AlexHerbert]

12 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

1100-1200: Pretty noob plays, always loses, except VS other noobs like him.

1300-1400: Can win if he really, really tries to, but still pretty noob.

1500-1600: Yeah, he is still a noob alright. Will lose a lot of 1v1 games, but win some 4v4s.

1700-1800: Finally starts winning some games, but it's still considered a noob by peers.

1800-2000+: A good player, someone who can be considered regular in 4v4s.

2000+: A literal God of 0 A.D., probably played the game since A17.

As you can see, there is a fine line between being good and being a God here  

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm a SP player, don't listen to me about this, please. I am only joking.

Thanks for the joke, it made me realize the calculation should weigh differently each skill mentioned by @guerringuerrin and @Perzival12, since some are considered more critical than others by the team  

Edited 13 hours ago by AlexHerbert
Language reasons

[AlexHerbert]

12 hours ago, Emacz said:

@Deicide4u I have a slight issue with your elo sysytem

2000+: A literal God of 0 A.D., probably played the game since A17.  - Ive been playing for a long time, maybe not a17, not really sure, but at least 10+ years off and on, but im still more in the nub stages, definitely not 2k

It happens, when too long without playing, can get rusty. 
(I have seen it even in top players)

Edited 13 hours ago by AlexHerbert
To add ( )

[guerringuerrin]

1 hour ago, AlexHerbert said:

Thanks for the joke, it made me realize the calculation should weigh differently each skill mentioned by @guerringuerrin and @Perzival12, since some are considered more critical than others by the team

Obviously, but the truth is that...

Spoiler

 

 

Edited 12 hours ago by guerringuerrin

[AlexHerbert]

Just trying to get a real sense of my level for future tournaments, because honestly I don’t really know my rating and I’d rather not make one up 

Edited 11 hours ago by AlexHerbert
Forgot a word

[guerringuerrin]

3 hours ago, AlexHerbert said:

Just trying to get a real sense of my level for future tournaments, because honestly I don’t really know my rating and I’d rather not make one up 

My humble-noob advice is: start playing 1v1s and 1400+ TGs. People will start rating you, and you’ll be in shape sooner than you think 

[0 calories]

My 2 cents: Ratings is not that accurate as it seems until you get 2000 with 1000+ games

[BeTe]

For ELO to work near to correctly, you need matchmaking system. 

Otherwise, as guerringuerrin said, this is small community - you will find out your relative skill level by playing with others.

Btw, i'd not use ELO numbers, rather Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, etc. Or Level 1,2,3....

Edited 7 hours ago by BeTe

[Seleucids]

6 hours ago, AlexHerbert said:

Just trying to get a real sense of my level for future tournaments, because honestly I don’t really know my rating and I’d rather not make one up 

You are good enough for TGs and I know how to balance you. That's all that matters.

[Emacz]

I think the biggest problem with the rating system is its too easy to "farm" points and then refuse to play against bettter players.  So in a lot of ways most of the ratings you will see don't mean anything.  For 1x1 it should be more like SC and you get assigned a player based on your rating, so new players can only play new players etc (For rated games) that way you cant get to 1500-1600 by only playing 1200 players

I try and find rated games of ~100 of my current rating, but its harder cause a lot of 1400/1500s don't want to play rated, mostly cause they probably aren't 1400-1500! 

[Arup]

as a bourgeoisie of this scale, I must say that I divide people in classes by using petra:

>1100 = can't defeat very hard petra

>1200 = can defeat very hard but will be tough

1300 = can defeat multiple very hard petra bots

1400= can defeat 4 very hard petra bots but barely

1600= can defeat 4 very hard petra bots with time but easily enough

1700= can defeat 5 very hard petras alone.

this scale is calibrated for a27 dumb petra,not the gigachad we have right now thanks to troops scanning for units even while attacking buildings

(lucky if you did it in a27, 1400+ is nigh impossible in a28)

[Arup]

but if i were a host doing TG i would judge rating like as follows:

<1000 as useful as maginot line in WW2 (complete new,as useful as a tiny roadbump)

<1200 knows how to get full pop at some point

<1300 can get 200 pop at min 17 with a few forge upgrades

<1400 mature enough to play the "elite" TG if hes lucky. can get 200 pop in 15 mins and all forge upgrades in 17, but dumb at choosing what fights to take,how to fight in a battle,that (actual fight) sort of thing

<1500 has enough IQ to understand what is rushing and how to play with/against it pretty well. has eco good enough to reach 200 pop before min 12 and all forge upgrades in min 15, can be officially considered as a "strong player" in most TG games these days

<1600 old enough player to know what is OP,what is gimmicky,what works great in a given specific situation, what is bad asf, and etc.

<1700 knows the very rarely known things (e.g what type of army to make against a certain civ, what kind of resources your particular civ takes up a lot, how to heal heroes at giga fast speeds without any temple) and knows how to play atleast one civ perfectly well, in the best way that civ can be played tactically

2000+ right now = vinme,vali,borg,wolf

 

[Arup]

On 25/03/2026 at 11:41 PM, guerringuerrin said:

From what I’ve seen about how other players more or less define Elo ranges, I’ll go ahead and share my take on this:

1100–1200: Basic understanding of game mechanics. Basic/slow boom. Weak player, needs a strong carry to guide them. Poor game sense. Weak micro / low combat skill.

1300–1400: Intermediate understanding of game mechanics. Decent boom most of the time. Strong if left to boom, but probably weak against rushes. Limited ability to improvise. Decent game sense. Can rush, but at a high cost to their boom. Can have good micro / combat skills. Needs to be carried most of the times.

1500–1600: Advanced understanding of game mechanics. Consistent boom. Decent defense against rushes. Good ability to improvise and read the game. Can rush, but at the cost of delaying their boom. Good micro / combat skills. Can act as a carry in some matches.

1700+: Advanced understanding of game mechanics. Boom is always effective. Strong defense against rushes. Excellent improvisation and game sense. They can rush without significantly hurting their boom. Excellent micro / combat skills. Can always carry. Capable of deciding the outcome of the match.

this scale is okayish as well but it seems a bit too generous. in your scale you assume them a bit better than I do,which is close enough to be still almost same as mine

[Seleucids]

10 minutes ago, Arup said:

but if i were a host doing TG i would judge rating like as follows:

<1000 as useful as maginot line in WW2 (complete new,as useful as a tiny roadbump)

<1200 knows how to get full pop at some point

<1300 can get 200 pop at min 17 with a few forge upgrades

<1400 mature enough to play the "elite" TG if hes lucky. can get 200 pop in 15 mins and all forge upgrades in 17, but dumb at choosing what fights to take,how to fight in a battle,that (actual fight) sort of thing

<1500 has enough IQ to understand what is rushing and how to play with/against it pretty well. has eco good enough to reach 200 pop before min 12 and all forge upgrades in min 15, can be officially considered as a "strong player" in most TG games these days

<1600 old enough player to know what is OP,what is gimmicky,what works great in a given specific situation, what is bad asf, and etc.

<1700 knows the very rarely known things (e.g what type of army to make against a certain civ, what kind of resources your particular civ takes up a lot, how to heal heroes at giga fast speeds without any temple) and knows how to play atleast one civ perfectly well, in the best way that civ can be played tactically

2000+ right now = vinme,vali,borg,wolf

 

This is the best scale I have seen so far and the most useful