Help me not suck at Age of Empires II!

[antonio107]

Yes, it has been a good, what? 10 years since this game came out? I never got good at it.

I could beat the majority of the offline campaigns, but team me up against the computer on "Hardest," or get me to play one of my friends online, and it is a no go. I'm just barely getting out of the Dark Ages into Feudal, and my buddy has twenty man-at-arms coming down and just ransacking my village...

Apparently, my woeful lack of knowledge on how to use the hotkeys has been part of the problem. The game is not as "point and click" as it may appear on first glance.

I build lots and lots of villagers at the start, in order to jump start my economy. But somehow, my opponent always does this faster and better than I do. What fundamental trick(s) am I missing? Do I need to memorize ALL the hotkeys? Are some more important than others?

I wanna get back on game ranger in a week and mop the floor with my high school friends, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Ellis Dee]

I don't remember if I played I or II; it's been a while. I was pretty good at whichever one I played. As far as I remember, the key is to explore your area to find the good resources, particularly fish since fishing returned the most resources/minute. Berries were consistent but slow, hunting was in between. The two races with the faster peasants (Assyrians and...I forget the other one) have a huge advantage, though I always played sumerians for the fast catapult fire.

I'm pretty sure the conventional wisdom ended up being to rush to bronze age and send out a swarm of cheapo bronze fighters, preferably chariots. I tended to play defense against the early bronze rush while rushing to catapults to level all the enemy's secondary installations, choking off their resources so they had only their starting base to work with. Of course you have to expand to as many places as you can while all this is going on.

That's all I really remember. I do recal pretty clearly it took well over 10 game minutes before any combat ever took place, which is why I ended up switching to starcraft as soon as that came out. I really loved AOE, though.

[Airman Doors, USAF]

Hit enter, Type "aegis".

If you get attacked, hit enter and type "how do you turn this on".

You'll never be beaten.


OK, seriously. The two most important resources for infantry development are food and gold. Build no more than 5 houses, create 10 villagers, get to work on food and gold, and create 15 militiamen as fast as you can for defense. Get to the next age, upgrade your soldiers to man-at-arms, and go to town. Once you put up a reasonably sustainable force you can work your economy and technology while putting your opponent behind the power curve. The people who attack you in the manner described are hoping to do exactly that.

[antonio107]

Originally Posted by Ellis Dee

I don't remember if I played I or II; it's been a while. I was pretty good at whichever one I played. As far as I remember, the key is to explore your area to find the good resources, particularly fish since fishing returned the most resources/minute. Berries were consistent but slow, hunting was in between. The two races with the faster peasants (Assyrians and...I forget the other one) have a huge advantage, though I always played sumerians for the fast catapult fire.

I'm pretty sure the conventional wisdom ended up being to rush to bronze age and send out a swarm of cheapo bronze fighters, preferably chariots. I tended to play defense against the early bronze rush while rushing to catapults to level all the enemy's secondary installations, choking off their resources so they had only their starting base to work with. Of course you have to expand to as many places as you can while all this is going on.

That's all I really remember. I do recal pretty clearly it took well over 10 game minutes before any combat ever took place, which is why I ended up switching to starcraft as soon as that came out. I really loved AOE, though.

Yeah, the Assyrians were definitely AOE I. Thanks to you and Airman Doors, though!