Age of Empires Strategies

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Ahoy folks

I've recently got back into Age of Empires 2, and am learning how to play it in multiplayer. As in, I'd rather lose my old ways of building walls and defending until ready, and would like to be able to go out on the attack early. Against the computer, I'm only around moderate difficulty. Would be good to hear other peoples strategies and thoughts.

 

[Fifty]

Before any specifics are given, I can tell you one thing that will make you 30x better than you are. Once you can do that, then you can worry more about strategy.

Learn how to do the following 2 things. You don't even need to worry about the computer, just do this against one computer on easiest so you don't even have to think about being attacked. Each of these constitutes a separate "task" to be completed on different games. Just try to do these things to the exclusion of everything else. They are just exercises. All to be completed in a standard game starting in the dark age with low resources:

1. Get to the castle age in under 16 minutes.

2. Get 115 villagers in 30mins.


Learn how to do that and your game will improve manyfold.

Once I reinstall it I'll PM you a recorded game of a good start. Establishing a good economy is paramount.

Oh and I'll also record a standard skrush, the most basic and widely used rush. It consists of an early-ish feudal, and immediately building barracks, archery ranges, and later stables. and harrasing the enemy's wood production while simultaneously moving towards castle age, at which point you upgrade your skirms and build knights and battering rams, and finish him off. Its a great strategy and a very good starting point. Oh and just so you know, if you are playing black forest the viability of a rush is reduced (though not eliminated by any means). Rush is best on arabia.

 

[mythmonster2]

115 villagers??? wow, i'm way off.(I normally have 10 for food, 10 for wood,10 for gold, and 3 for building.)

 

[sirtommygunn]

115 villagers??? wow, i'm way off.(I normally have 10 for food, 10 for wood,10 for gold, and 3 for building.)

i get about 5 for each

 

[Fifty]

115 is the minimum. Sometimes you'd go as high as 150 or so (if, for instance, you are doing a siege boom as Korea on black forest map) You would think that it would hurt your ability to effectively create military, but the opposite is actually true.

By creating so many villagers you can do things like be at the 200 pop limit with 80 fully upgraded paladins in 40 minutes quite easily.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Cheers Fifty. Ironically I curbed the amount of villagers I build in MP in order to build up an army faster than I would in SP. I normally have around 60 by the endgame, using the market to boost any resource loss.

Will try out some maps today where I'm actively pushing for more villagers.

 

[Fifty]

and don't forget that once you hit castle age, you should always be looking to create new town centers. 6-8 town centers may seem like a lot, but if they are scattered about the map not only do you get much faster production of villagers, but you also control more of the map (map control is extremely important in multiplayer) and you can also defend more effectively since you aren't so centralized that one big attack will totally ruin you.

 

[mythmonster2]

Well, personally, I play AOE 3 more than 2 and getting new town centers is hard.(unless you're the portugese)

 

[nodikus]

In terms of military, I find groups of archers surrounded by spearmen in box formation most effective if you want to attack early. In the castle age add a couple of monks and an onager and you have a self contained and relatively cheap strike force that you can park in his base and can cause considerable havoc. Works especially well with english Longbowmen.

 

[Fifty]

In terms of military, I find groups of archers surrounded by spearmen in box formation most effective if you want to attack early.

That sort of attack is economically inefficient compared to skirmishers+spearmen. I would only worry about archers in the feudal age if you are also creating scouts and want a counter to his spearmen, or if you did a dark age rush as a meso civ (aztecs or mayans) and have excess gold once you hit feudal, while not yet having enough food to castle.

In the castle age add a couple of monks and an onager and you have a self contained and relatively cheap strike force that you can park in his base and can cause considerable havoc. Works especially well with english Longbowmen.

In the castle age the cornerstone of any non-meso civ's attack should generally be knights (light cav if you are short on gold). Monks are generally a waste of gold except under certain special conditions (like if you're trying to fast imp to champs and elite eagle warriors as aztecs, or if you are playing arena map).

Mangonels (onagers are an imp age upgrade) are useful if you have a forward base and want to push forward slowly, but they are difficult to use effectively and you're probably beter off with battering rams + knights + xbows. Mangonels can be good on occasion if you are outnumbered and he has lots of skirmishers in a tight formation.

 

[Cataphract887]

Fifty speaks the truth I was going to write something up, but he covered it well.

You could also try searching for clan sites and watching their recorded games as well.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Aye, Fifty sent me some recorded games of his own strategies and of other good players. Makes for some grand watching and certainly helped me out, though I haven't tested it on stronger computer opponents yet. Thanks folks!

 

[Atlas14]

Playing multi-player is an entirely different game. It also could have been my 24K dial-up, but thats not the point.

I personally like to play as either the Koreans, Huns or the mongols and get to the castle age as quickly as possible like Fifty said, then max out on the castle unit, cavaliers or paladins, and champions once all are attainable. You need champions (mixed with some halberdiers/pikemen) to crush the enemy's pikemen and protect your cavalry-heavy army.

If you are playing conquest/deathmatch mode and start in the Imperial Age, then build about 6-7 stables and 4 castles. Build another 2 stables and 1 castle away from your base, plus about 3 town centers near your base.

Get about 30 paladins/cavaliers plus 30 castle units of which ever civ you are. Rush the enemy base as quickly as possible. Back it up with Champions and onagers if you can.

This can easily take out AT LEAST one unsuspecting opponent, two if you are very efficient and timely. Very quick scouting before attack would do a lot of good so you attack the right opponent. What I mean is if you are rushing with a War Elephant + Onager army, do not attack an infantry-heavy opponent.

I personally have been demolished by the Persians and Koreans before in Multi-player, literally demolished, so those would be good choices for people familiar with them (The Koreans have much better all-round units and tower power in my opinion though).

The Huns are excellent for rushing since you don't need to build houses. Just build 4-5 castles right off the bat, plus 6 stables, and keep pumping out the cavalry. Don't rush/attack until you have about 30 of each, then use them all on one opponent to get full use of power. Keep them coming though, since you will surely be attacked by someone else while you're attacking.

 

[felagund]

Playing multiplayer is something that takes a long time to master.... I've been playing at least once a week for the last 5 years or so and I'm still nowhere near expert. As another poster said, it helps to be able to get to castle age quickly, but there are many other aspects to master too. WATCH LOTS OF RECORDED GAMES!! The more records you watch, the better you will get... If you are playing multiplayer on Gamespy, I suggest you try Gamepark instead... http://www.gamepark.eu/en/ There are more players, but don't join any expert games, or even rook games for that matter. Try joining newbie or bad rook games until you have the hang of things. I wanted to attach a recorded game but the limit is 300kb so not enough room. Maybe I will try PMing it to you.

 

[tossi]

I remember a huge .pdf file called The book of AoK or something which greatly helped me, but I lost it... Only found http://www.salamyhkaiset.org/aoe2/ which is fine, too.

 

[Captain2]

all I remember from playing Age of Empires 2 is that I would build a ton of little forts.... each with its own garrison, it didnt improve my playing at all but it was pretty cool since I felt like i had a real kingdom....

I wasnt really struck on AoE.... thus the debate I have as to buy Beyond the Sword, Command and Conquer 3 or Age of Empires 3 first...

I love this conflict, I tended to notice back when I had a job and could easily afford this stuff I tended to give up on games really easily just because I didn't really have to earn it

 

[Fifty]

I personally like to play as either the Koreans, Huns or the mongols and get to the castle age as quickly as possible like Fifty said, then max out on the castle unit, cavaliers or paladins, and champions once all are attainable. You need champions (mixed with some halberdiers/pikemen) to crush the enemy's pikemen and protect your cavalry-heavy army.

If you like fast castle you'd be much better served by different civs. Specifically, trying to fast castle vs. a meso fast castle (aztecs mainly) will end very very very badly for the hun/mongol/korea player. aztecs are the fast castle/fast imp civ. In fact, on open land maps aztecs are the best in the game.

If you are playing conquest/deathmatch mode and start in the Imperial Age, then build about 6-7 stables and 4 castles. Build another 2 stables and 1 castle away from your base, plus about 3 town centers near your base.

This isn't very good advice for deathmatch. You're going to want to build many more stables and focus less on early castles (unless you are doing an advanced strat like a korea or saracen castle clump). Barracks should also be built for halberdiers.

Get about 30 paladins/cavaliers plus 30 castle units of which ever civ you are. Rush the enemy base as quickly as possible. Back it up with Champions and onagers if you can.

You're going to want WAY more units than that, and focus less on unique units. The only civ that ought to make especially heavy use of unique units in deathmatch are koreans, spanish, and goths, and the goths build their unique unit from barracks. Huns' unique unit is pretty crappy. The mongol unique unit is good only in certain esoteric settings (like fortress regicide).

This can easily take out AT LEAST one unsuspecting opponent, two if you are very efficient and timely. Very quick scouting before attack would do a lot of good so you attack the right opponent. What I mean is if you are rushing with a War Elephant + Onager army, do not attack an infantry-heavy opponent.

an army of siege onagers in DM is a very bad idea with any civ except Korea.

The most common rush tactic for DM is to play huns, make 15 or so stables right away (and either defned your vils or raid your opponents' with your hussar) and just go nuts with halberdiers, paladins, and hussars, all while building up an economy and establishing a line with your allies to create a trade route.

I personally have been demolished by the Persians and Koreans before in Multi-player, literally demolished, so those would be good choices for people familiar with them (The Koreans have much better all-round units and tower power in my opinion though).

The koreans are overpowered and banned from competitive DM play. As for regular non-DM, koreans are one of the worst civs in open land maps, which is definitely the most common setting. They are pretty good on land nomad, black forest, and michi though, which are common game-types played by rookies.

The Huns are excellent for rushing since you don't need to build houses. Just build 4-5 castles right off the bat, plus 6 stables, and keep pumping out the cavalry. Don't rush/attack until you have about 30 of each, then use them all on one opponent to get full use of power. Keep them coming though, since you will surely be attacked by someone else while you're attacking.

That's decent advice except you are overephasizing early castles. Huns especially, with their rather lackluster unique unit, do not need to be building early castles on deathmatch.


If anybody is interested, here is a pack of 27 games by the best current player in the world (and probably 2nd best age2 player ever).

 

[felagund]

One tip I forgot to mention is this... If you are playing a random map game, never stop making villagers until you reach about 130 villis. A full population of 120-130 villis + 70-80 military units is ideal... This game depends much more on how you manage your economy than other games. If you find you have way too much resources when you are at 200 population, then maybe consider deleting a few villis so you can make more army.

 

[Chieftess]

- Play as China. Find the nearest enemy town with your villagers. Lure the villagers away from the town center. Watch the fun!

- Get to the next age as fast as possible. Have your villagers build 2 towers, some distance apart, but close to the enemy town. Watch the fun!

- Use your scout to find an enemy town early, and start picking off villagers by the mill.

- Start building a wall near an enemy town. Villagers will come an attack it. Bring along some archers, or other units and defend the area.


Now, if you don't want to win within 2 minutes, then don't do this.

Speaking of villagers...

If you're playing a 1vs1 Black Forest map, find the chokepoint made out of trees -- usually at the center of the map. Defend it (build a wall, and some towers -- just hope villagers don't find it too early, or they'll all make like lemmings and try to attack it). You could leave some units on the other side to keep the AI at bay, or, if you're evil, build a wall around them, and pen them in! For some reason, a villager won't attack a completed wall...

Then, when you have maybe, 200 villagers, have 10 forestry parties of 20 each chopping down forests. Pretty soon, you'll have no forests left!

Things go by even quicker if you type in aegis... of course, the AI cheats, and levels up when you do when you have it on.

 

[Fifty]

Just so you know, Chieftess' advice is incredibly horrible when talking about fighting anything except AI on very early difficult levels. Would never work vs. humans.