![Age_of_Empires_II_-_The_Age_of_Kings_Coverart[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/IpQUxZJ.png "Age_of_Empires_II_-_The_Age_of_Kings_Coverart[1].png")
How the fuck do I get good at this? I grew up with consoles so I never played this or other RTSes growing up, but when my friends from college come through they always want to play this or Civ2. I've been able to get decent-ish at Civ2 (my asshole is still wide-open for anyone who does an early game rush), but I'm just helpless in AoEII.
I know it's hard to tell me what I'm doing wrong when you can't see how I play the game but what are some general strategies to use so that I'm not halfway to the castle age when all of a sudden I'm getting my shit pushed in by my friends who have amassed huge Tier IV armies?
For reference, I was able to beat the computer 1v1 on Easiest no sweat. Didn't lose a single unit, was able to rush their base with six scout cavalries and clear out their villagers before they could make much of a defense.
On Normal, the computer flooded me with Scorpions as I was halfway through researching the castle age. I try to have about 15 villagers per age. Should I have more than that?
Fuck, is this one of those things you can't talk about without people memeing? I used to lurk /vr/ back when it first opened but I haven't been around here in a few years.
>>3220150
Do they always rush?
>>3220175
They'll send around a six unit rush ASAP to disrupt your economy. They're a lot faster about getting their economy up so I'm always struggling to make military units by the time they show up.
It's not an earnest rush, but it is a pain to have to make everyone stop working and ring the bell because I haven't been keeping up with military expansion.
>>3220171
Use the report button. The 14 year olds will get tired eventually and they will move on to a hot new meme.
I'm not familiar with AoE 2, but a good strat is to practice rushing yourself to understand its strengths and weaknesses. Also, unless I'm wrong, there should SOME unit or building to counter that
>>3220150
do you know what boar luring is? you absolutely need to do that for a fast castle age
fast castle is basically the most important thing you can know how to do, more important than micro.
The general fast castle build is 27 villagers in the dark age, 3-4 in the feudal and then you go castle immediately once your two feudal buildings are done, will probley vary based on your micro and if you want to boom or knights or both. but 17ish - 20 minutes is when you should reach castle.
>>3220560
>20 minute castle
>rush
If he's not building anything other than 2 feudal buildings and stock dark he should have a 17 minute castle age at the minimum.
t.1400 mmr
>>3220575
he also said hes just learning, theres lots of little micro fuck ups that can add a minute and many who have been playing for years cant go under 17 minutes without lucky hunts.
I like building pretty bases
>>3220150
I'd say the first thing to remember is to always, ALWAYS be making villagers at your Town Centre. Don't stop until you need all remaining population for your military. Unless you're researching the next Age, your TC should be making a villager, with the next one queued up.
>>3222460
I normally run out of food for that. But I guess once I get enough villagers, that won't be a problem? But it's difficult to balance between building a military enough to fend off early raids and building villagers.
>>3220560
I typically start by sending one villager to pick berries, one to chop whichever tree is close to TC, and one to build two house with the TC qued to make two more villagers. By the time the houses are done, my scout has located the sheep and they are on their way to the TC where the builder and one of the new villagers start to gather food from them. The second free villager then makes a lumber mill at the nearest forest and starts gathering wood. I try to get at least one villager on a nearby stone and gold resource ASAP with a mine at both locations and lastly a barracks.I'll build watchtowers at any resource point that's too remote from my main base.
I think last game I played it took me 45 minutes to get to the castle age mostly because it took me forever to gather food. I have heard of boar luring but I normally just find where the boar and deer are and make mills around them rather than spend time to pull them back into the base. I then build some farms around the mills so all my farms aren't in one place to get trebuchet'd.
I won a standard game last night on the gold rush map against one standard PC (I was the slavs, they were the Persians, I think) by denying the PC any gold and then flooding their camel mount/pallys/archers with splash damage champions and whatever the unique unit for the Slavs is.
>>3220381
I'm not entirely sure. You can pull your resource gatherers in to defend the town center and strengthen its autofire, but that doesn't help anything out of the TC's range.
>>3220648
Dude, me too. That's what the game was all about for me. I was always frustrated that you couldn't zoom out.
So just played another game this evening on easiest so I wouldn't have to worry about the computer coming at me. I think I could have gotten to castle a little quicker, but I didn't notice I had passed the threshold to go up an age.
That being said once I got to the castle age it took a while to get an army up and going. I think I would have been crucified by a human/higher difficulty PC. Should I build any military units to have a standing army as I race to the Castle age? Being wide open for 17 minutes sounds like a bad idea.
>>3222589
Yeah, the first few minutes of the game are all about getting enough food to keep your villager production up. Use your scout to find the first four sheep, and then the two boar and the remaining four sheep. As someone said earlier, boar luring (shooting a boar twice with a villager and making it chase you back to the TC) makes a big difference. This should let you keep your villager production up, and as your sheep/boar get used up, you can move onto hunting/berries/farms.
You'll need a few villagers on wood, and to build houses, but stone and gold can wait until you've got your food/wood economy on track.
More villagers = more resources = more everything. Of course, the trick is to balance it with enough of an army to keep yourself protected. Scout the enemy's base as much as you can.
>>3220150
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kHXnXjkA5s
This is a decent step-by-step guide to the priorities/build orders for a fast castle. You can download the tutorial in the Steam Workshop and do it yourself. The guide itself is relatively high-end (as in, it will criticise you if you're a few seconds behind on development), but it's useful in getting a sense of what to do first, where to send your villagers etc.
>>3222931
military units are reactionary, you generally wall up to keep the enemy out or to force them into tc range until castle age when you actually start producing units.
note walling up doesn't mean just using stone or palisade, your houses/blacksmith/market/military buildings can block just as much. you will want to save your starting stone for more town centres or a castle.
WE DEM KANGZ
>>3224035
I forgot to add, would putting watch towers up around my town area help or is that just going to use valuable resources? How quickly should I wall up?
>>3224245
depending on the map there isn't much a feudal rush can do to you as long as you don't lose villagers and have a market you can mitigate much of the damage a feudal rush can do.
You want to start walling up from minute one, positioning your houses and such so that your TC could start having a makeshift wall, once you properly scout out your map you have to decide what and how to wall due to the randomness of map gen. You will want to not build towers if you can help it, unless the rusher starts building forward towers as in the feudal age towers can't do anything to units attacking the base.
>>3224248
I wouldn't bother with watch towers. As you say, they use up resources, and that early in the game you're better off using your TC for defence, and if necessary some early military units. Early rushes are more to disrupt your economy than to actually kill your shit.
Plus, until you've researched Murder Holes (in either the Castle or Imperial Age, I forget which), watch towers can only fire at things attacking at a distance (i.e, nothing which uses hand-to-hand attack). Pretty big weakness.
Walling depends on the map, and the natural defences that you have. In general, as the other anons are saying, you're better off starting by positioning your buildings in formation, as opposed to building actual walls. Just try to stop the enemy from getting a clear run at your villagers, and you should be fine.
>>3220150
>playing against AI
>not just tower rushing
>>3226306
Welcome dude, enjoy.
Hey OP! try youtube, yw
>>3227005
I'd rather ask people here and get a discussion on strategy rather than
>INTRO VIDEO WITH SHITTY MUSIC
>LOGO
>3 minutes later
>H-hey there Youtube welcome to my video what we're going to be doing today is showing you how to play Age of Empires II
>45 minute video
But yeah, videos of different strats would be useful if I had that kind of time to sink into things. I much prefer to learn by doing though. I'm excited to try to using my houses as a wall. I normally just put them off to the side away from everything so they are spared from the carnage of my inevitable occupation.
>>3220150
Ill tell you one thing. so simple.yet so effective and fun
many things already stated are essantial.
But.in the end u gotta get this better friends and have them datk/feudal rush you. for a couple hours. like 5-10 games.
they womt be too bored as each time youll try a new way of surviving
and evemtualy youll manage to live thru a rush almost unscathed amd still advance and match ur enemy
Who got.behind in evolving for producing military units
Itspure blood pumping rush
>>3220186
Don't ring the town bell unless you absolutely have to. You'll have villagers working in different areas, so instead just select and retreat the group being attacked. This way everyone else can continue doing their thing, and your economy doesn't stop entirely.
