This is a noob-friendly guide to get you to understand the basics of Age of Empires 2 skirmish and multiplayer.

#Please Add Romanians in AoE2, we have Dracula's campaign but not Dracula's civ.

1. In a match, press F11 to display the time elapsed in the game, as well as the difficulty level the game is set. This option saves so you won't have to press it again next match.

2. Top-right of the mini-map, click the button with 3 flags: red, blue and white one. It will display each player's score. This option saves so you won't have to press it again next game.

3. Options -> Game: Building Range Indicator always on, idle pointers check, small trees check, automatic farms/fish trap rebuilding on.

4. Options -> Interface -> Advanced Options -> Extended Unit Stats.

5. The Default Hotkeys are like this, from Top-left: Q, W, E, R. Middle row from left to right A, S, D, F, G. Bottom row from left to right: Z, X, C, V, B. They are very intuitive once you get them.

6. OPTIONAL: Mods. See the picture below. Only 10 for blood is for style, the rest are for making the game easier for the player.

- Open maps like: Arabia, Lombardia, Golden Pit/Rush, Ghost Lake, Highlands, Mongolia don't have pre-built defenses and it's easy to attack your opponent early game. You will usually start fights as early as Feudal Age with Scouts or Archers rush, sometimes Man-at-Arms rush. And defend with Spearmen for Scouts, Skirmishers for Archers, Archers for Man-at-Arms.

- Closed maps like: Arena, Oasis, Black Forest, Hideout, Amazon Tunnel, Michi, Fortress have walls and the fights will start in Castle age, usually when 1 player decides to drop a Castle next to another player's wall, players usually send a few Halberdiers outside so that they don't Castle dropped. If a Castle is placed then the player who built it garrisons all the villagers inside the Castle to destroy one of the enemy walls, then rush in with the army. Castles are best defeated with Rams from Siege or Trebuchets in Imperial Age.

- Hybrid maps like Baltic, Coastal Forest, Coastal, Continental, Isthmus, Bog Islands have with 50% connected land 50% water. Usually the battle starts later than on Open Maps but earlier than on Closed Maps, around Feudal or Castle age. Rushes are certainly possible. But you will also have to fight on the water. Water dominance does not win you the game, but makes it easier to get map control.

- Water maps like Islands, Pacific Islands, Migration, Archipelago, Team Islands is where you have to build docks and boats. This is almost all water, so water control is not a benefit here but a must have, you usually make a Dock in Dark Age or Feudal Age just like on Hybrid Maps, food taken from Fishing Ships is faster than food taken from Farms, and then fight on the water with the only purpose of land units being to be used in a transport ship for invasion.

- Nomad maps like Nomad, African Clearning, Steppe, Mountain Pass, Water Nomad is where you start with 3 villagers and can build your town center when and where you want. These maps are usually far more aggressive early game than even Open Maps, you can have fights in Dark Age with Milita or villagers or really powerful tower rushes in Feudal Age. Map control with Castles is very important in Castle Age.

This "Easy BO/Game Plan" was made with Arabia in mind, the Dust 2 of Age of Empires. But it works on all maps.

There are many hotkeys in the game, but here's a few that are very useful, in order of importance:

. -> select idle villager
SHIFT + . -> select all idle villagers
, -> select idle military unit
SHIFT + , -> select all idle military units

Q+Q -> build a house with a villager
Q+A -> build farm with a villager
SHIFT + right click -> keep the selected construction for construction building so you can build more. (very useful for when you want multiple farms, and when you hold the selected build farm over a TC or Mill it will automatically build it as close as possible to the TC/mill)
SHIFT + right click Farms on Town Center/Mill -> It will automatically place farms as close to the Town Center or Mill as possible. Saves you a lot of time.

Q+W -> build a mill.
Q+E -> build a mining camp.
Q+R -> build a lumberjack.

W+Q -> build a barrack (house for Q)
W+W -> build an archery range (milll for Q)
W+E -> build a stable (mine for Q)
W+R -> build a siege workshop (wood for Q)
W+C -> build a castle

Obviously knowing how to place the resource buildings and military buildings really fast is very useful, because you are going to build a lot of those.

H -> go to town center (you can press H multiple time to rotate between town centers)
You can then press Q to spam villagers. So H+Q to spam villagers.
SHIFT + CTRL + H -> select all town centers (this one is very useful, because it doesn't move your camera, allowing you to queue villagers from your Town Center while raiding)
SHIFT + CTRL + H then Q -> Spam villager production in all your Town Centers.
"It's all about the H and Q and Home"

Home/Middle Mouse Button -> go to last notification (very useful for when you are being attacked, when you get that alarm sound press Home or MMB immediately)

Control Groups -> Like in most games you can create Control Groups. Do that with your military units so that they are 1 button away. And then you can press H to go back home to Town Center, or press Home to go to last notification. And just like that you have complete map control.

ALT + making a square with the mouse -> selects only the villagers + sheeps within an area (very useful for when you want to select a handful of villagers but not the military units next to them. Such as when being raided, ALT + select everything and you select only the villagers to garrison to your Town Center/Castle)

Most of what you need for map control is: H, Q, Home, Control Groups. Just by knowing & using these 4 you can easily switch between your frontline and your base.

With a military unit selected:

Q + click -> with a military unit selected, puts said unit on Patrol, very useful for when attacking (otherwise they will all focus on 1 unit, which you only want for Archers must of the time but not all, but don't want at all for Infantry or Cavalry to all focus on only 1 unit)

S -> Defensive Mode. Meaning that they will not chase their enemy except for a few tiles then return back when they are. Avoids having your military units leave to chase an enemy and is very useful for when you want to avoid Town Center or Castle fire.

C -> Stagger Formation. This one is very useful when you fight against Catapults or Scorpions or any unit that deals Area of Effect damage, because the more far away your units are from each other the more they will avoid damage with an enemy hit lands.

There are tons, and I mean tons of hotkeys in Age of Empires 2. But these are the most essential.

ALL SELECT ALLS:

CTRL + SHIFT + B -> Barracks
CTRL + SHIFT + A -> Archery Range
CTRL + SHIFT + L -> Stables
CTRL + SHIFT + K -> Siege Workshops
CTRL + SHIFT + V -> Castles
CTRL + SHIFT + H -> Town Centers (I know I already mentioned it in the 4 map control tricks, but it's worth mentioning again)

S, M, U are for blacksmiths, markets, university but these are less important.

You can also double-click on an unit or building and will select all the identical units or buildings nearby.

- 1 Town Center
- 3 Villagers
- 1 Scout
- 4 sheeps nearby
- 2 boars further in the dark area
- 1 pack of 2 sheeps further in the dark area
- 1 other pack of 2 further sheeps further in the dark area (so 4 farway sheeps total)
- 200 Food
- 200 Wood
- 100 Gold
- 200 Stone
- 4/5 population (a TC provides 5 population and a house also 5)

Food math:
- Villagers gather around:
- 0.40 wood per second.
- 0.30 farm food per second.
- 0.40 gold per second.
- Also you get food from Boars slightly faster than from Sheeps.
- Farms cost 60 wood and provide 175 food (+75 collar; +125 Plow in Castle, +175 Crop in Imp).
- An unupgraded farm takes about 8 minutes to expire, or 12 minutes with collar.
- With no wood/food upgrades, 1 woodcutter can support 3 farms.
- With feudal wood/food upgrades, 1 woodcutter can support 5 farms.
- With castle wood/food upgrades, 1 woodcutter can support 8 farms.
- With imperial wood/food upgrades, 1 woodcutter can support 13 farms.
- No crop rotation in imperial, 1 woodcutter can support 9 farms.
- No two-man saw in imperial, 1 woodcutter can support 12 farms.
- Wheelbarrow after you hit Castle Age and Hand Cart right after. (improves every resource)
- A more specific Wheelbarrow math is at 16-18 farms or have 40-50 villagers for max efficiency.
- Late game, villager-warrior ratio in the population, you generally want around 100-100. Some pros go 116-120 villagers or 90 villagers in others.

1 Farm costs 60 wood. So to put this in perspective:
420 wood needed for 7 farms.
600 wood for 10 farms.
300 wood for 5 farms.

The First Battles are in Feudal Age:
- *usually*
- On closed map such as Arena it's usually in Castle Age with a Castle Drop attempt and a fight between Halberdiers at the wall to drop a castle.
- On even closer maps like Mitchi or Black Forest it's usually in Imperial Age.

In your army you're going to need 2 types of units based on gold:
- A unit that costs gold. (usually this is your main unit, the most powerful)
- A unit that doesn't cost gold. (usually this counters the unit that counters your gold unit, protects it)
- In Feudal age, most units can't break wood wall easily, and they build faster than stone walls, and it's only 3 wood per wall piece, so it's a good cheap protection.
- In Castle age, most units can break the wood wall easily so you want to go forward and build a stone wall in front of the wood wall, you're going to need some units that can break a stone wall like Rams from Siege Workshop or if you drop a Castle next to the enemy walls. Gold infantry and cavalry can break it too if you wait a reasonably long enough time, it also depends on their numbers.

At the same time, you're going to need 2 types of units based on range:
- One melee unit.
- One range unit.
It's not a rule, you can have 2 types of melee units or 2 types of ranged units, but usually 1 melee unit and 1 ranged unit, out of which 1 is a gold unit and another is a non-gold "aka Trash" unit whose purpose is to protect the gold unit that is your main damage dealer.

Examples of such formations:
- Champions + Skirmishers (Skirmishers counter Archers that counter Champions)
- Paladins + Skirimishers (Skirmishers counter Halberdiers that counter Paladins)
- Halberdiers+ Archers (Halberdiers provide a wall for your Archers so they can kill at a distance)
- Scouts + Cavalry Archers (Scouts provide a wall for the Cavalry Archers dealing damage)

And Siege Units, they are very powerful and slow, they usually do this:
Rams -> Do huge damage to buildings, have huge armor against range but very weak against melee. So you need to get close to destroy them.
Catapults -> Deal area of effect damage, very useful against other siege units and archers. Useful against infantry too if the infantry manages to get close. Deals good building damage.
Scorpions -> Deal pass-through damage, the more scorpions you have the damage is increased exponentially, beats infantry and archers, only beats cavalry in high enough numbers, is beaten by catapults or bombard cannons.
Bombard Cannon -> The siege sniper. Beats scorpions, catapults, rams and trebuchets easily from a distance. Good damage against buildings too. But very fragile, don't let anyone get closer.

- In Castle Age is less common but also possible, but in Imperial Age beside your gold unit and trash unit (the one that doesn’t cost gold) you should also add a siege unit to it.

You need either Rams, Bombard Cannons or Trebuchets if you want to easily destroy the enemy's walls and production buildings.

In Castle Age the Catapult/Onager is very good for breaking walls and buildings, but in Imperial no, it falls behind Rams, Bombard Cannons or Trebuchets and becomes more of an anti-archer & anti-Ram/Scorpions unit (being the only good range Ram counter, else Ram is countered by melee). They are also good on closed maps for cutting trees with manual shot to carve a path through the trees. Hussars are very good at sniping siege. Monks with the technology "Redemption" are also good against siege units.

In Feudal age, you generally have 5 units to play with:
- Archers for rush & defend against Men-at-Arms.
- Champions for rush.
- Scouts for rush & defend against Archers.
- Spearmen to counter cavalry who rushes you & good for rush too sometimes.
- Skirmishers to counter archers who rushes you & support a Man-at-Arms rush.
Generally, because a few civs have exceptions such as one extra feudal unit but that's about it.
Notice how the Champions can only be countered by another gold unit, the archer. Or themselves in fair fight.

The Archer Critical Mass:
With archers, one concept is important - critical mass. That means the amount of archers necessary to 1 shot an enemy unit. Because then you can move, shoot, move, shoot, move, shoot and so on, always killing 1 enemy unit, with minimal losses on yourself. This is why archers usually work better in numbers. Or if you don't want to overkill or micro you can always put them on patrol and each archer will attack their closest units.

Knights counter Archers unless you have a critical mass of Archers. It's very important to know the critical mass numbers so you can know when to, and when not to, take engagements with the knights. Provided you don't have meat shields in front of you.

Obviously both knights and archers upgrades play a role, and civ bonuses too, so this number isn't always the same. In Castle Age, when you have 1 Crossbowman and 1 Knight, it takes 40 arrows to one-shot 1 Knight. So it takes 40 Crossbowmen to kill 1 Knight instantly. 20 Crossbowmen to kill 1 Knight in 2 shots and 10 Crossbowmen to kill 10 Knight in 4 shots.

Similar rule applies to all other units. So mass for archers is important. In Feudal Age the critical mass for Archers vs Scouts is roughly 15 depending on upgrades. And in Imperial Age for Arbalesters vs Paladin is roughly 60.

Of course, in Feudal Age both you and your opponent will fight with a small number of units. It's only in Castle Age that you will see a lot of big numbers for everyone.

The Castle Age Stronghold named Castle:

In Castle Age the Castle is OP. More powerful than in Imperial Age. The only thing that can destory a Castle in Castle Age is a Ram or another Castle. And fighting under the enemy Castle almost guarantees loss. But if left alone you can attack the Castle with units in melee before Murder Holes from University is researched by the enemy, although this takes a really long time even with knights.

In Imperial Age however the Castle is still powerful but it gets a bit weaker than in Castle Age. This is because now you have more ways to counter it. A big group of Paladins or Champions can destroy it, and you have Trebuchets and Bombard Cannons that can reliably destroy them from afar.
The Trebuchets war is also a thing. You will try to take out enemy Castles from afar while the enemy tries the same. Now you both have a Trebuchets, and you end up in situations where Trebuchets fight Trebuchets because of this. You can also use Rams to take out Imperial Age Castles but this requires the area around the Castle to be clear of enemy melee units since they can easily break the Rams.

Most civs have pretty default & understandable units:
- Archers beat infantry & beat cavalry only in high enough numbers.
- Skirmishers beat Archers & beat Halberdiers only in high enough numbers.
- Cavalry Archers need to avoid damage like an uninsured rental car.
- Hand Cannonner beat infantry far better than Archers can.
- Champions are better than all trash units, Skirmishers, Pikemen, Scout.
- Hussars beat Skirmishers & beat Archers only in low numbers.
- Camels beat other horses but are weaker vs archers and infantry than Paladin.
- And the Unique unit from Castle is usually something like that with a minor tweak.
- Scorpions beat infantry and archers in numbers, even cavalry when in high mass.
- Catapults beat scorpions and archers, infantry too if they can hit them before they reach them.
- Bombard Cannons beat every siege unit including scorpion and catapults and buildings.

You usually make a unit to beat something else, here is what they beat:
Archers -> anti-infantry & Cavalry but only in high numbers (+40 in Castle and +60 Imperial).
Skirmishers -> anti-archers & anti-halberdiers but only in high numbers.
Cavalry Archers -> anti-infantry but can beat other stuff too if you manage to run away.
Hand Cannonner -> anti-infantry even better than Archers. Beaten by skirmishers and capapults.

Champions -> anti-trash, meaning all non-gold units Skirmishers, Pikemen, Scout.
Halberdier -> anti-cavalry & anti-skirmishers but only in low numbers.
Eagle Warrior -> anti-archers, the closest things American civs have to cavalry.

Hussars -> anti-skirmisher & beat Archers only in low numbers.
Paladin -> anti-champion, Hussar, Skirmisher & beat Archers in low and medium numbers.
Camels -> anti-cavalry but are weaker vs archers and infantry than Paladin.
Lancer -> half-Paladin half-Hussar with extra range, beaten by Camels or Archers.

Ram -> anti-building, very high armor vs ranged units, beaten by infantry and cavalry.
Catapults -> anti-archer & siege, infantry is 50/50, beaten by Cavalry, Eagles and bomb cans.
Scorpions -> anti-archers, infantry and cavalry. Hard counter bomb cans and normal by catapults.
Bombard Cannon -> anti-building, anti-siege. It can snipe catapults and scorpions from safety.

Counters are not the end all be all because you can beat in numbers a unit that counters you.
It's important to upgrade units and do the Blacksmith upgrades, counters can lose otherwise.
If you can reach a critical mass where archers can take out Cavalry in a few focused shots they easily counter them with some micromanagement. Where as in small numbers cavalry will consistently win out. Basically, one doesn't counter the other, it really depends what the numbers are on both sides.

Some civs have castle units that break the convention:
Aztec Jaguar Warrior -> anti-infantry infantry, beaten by archers, hand cannonners and knights.
British Longbowman -> huge range archers, beaten by Skirmisher, catapults. Cavalry is 50/50.
Byzantine Cataphract -> anti-Halberdier knight, beaten by paladins and archers in high numbers.
Chinese Chu Ko Nu -> anti-Skirmisher archer, beaten by catapults, 50/50 for cavalry and archers.
Frank Throwing Axemen -> archer with melee attack, treat them like Champions they are infantry.

Goth Huskarl -> anti-archers infantry, beaten by champions, paladins or hussars if massed.
Inca Kamayuk -> Champion and Halberdier in 1 anti-archer unit, Hand Cannoners and catapults.
Italian Genoese Crossbowman -> anti-cavalry archer, beaten by Skirmisher, catapults, Huskarls.
Khmer Balista Elephant -> Scorpions on Elephant, beaten by scorpions and catapults.
Korean War Wagon -> Cavalry Archer, beaten by Paladin, catapults, Halberdier in low numbers.
Mayan Plumed Archer -> faster better Archer, beaten by Skirmisher and Catapults, knights 50/50.

Mongol Mangudai -> Cavarly Archer good vs siege, beaten by Skirmisher, Camels, catapults.
Persian War Elephant -> Tankiest unit in game. Beaten by Halberdiers, Camel, Scorpions.
Portuguese Organ Gun -> anti-units Bomb Cannon. Beaten by knights, catapults, bomb cannon.
Spanish Conquistador -> mounted Hand Cannoner. Beaten by Skirmisher, Cavalry Archer, Huskarl.
Turk Janissary -> better Hand Cannoner. Beaten by Skirmisher, catapults, Archers.
Vietnamese Rattan Archer -> Skirmisher & Archer in 1 unit. Beat by Paladins, Eagles, Champion.

If you want to focus on 1 or 2 units, you need to know which technologies will improve those units.

You don't want to waste resources upgrading all technologies available when you won't even use 80% of the units those technologies improve.

- You get 1 new wood, food, gold and stone upgrade when you reach Feudal, Castle and Imperial.
- Gold and stone have no Imperial Age upgrade.
- So in total you have 10 upgrades here: 3 for wood, 3 for food and 2 for gold and 2 for stone.
- Depending on the civ you may have less as not all civs have all 10 economic upgrades.
- You naturally upgrade them as soon as you reach that age.

- Upgrade them in this order: wood, food, gold, stone. Because in case you are low on resources, you need wood for the food upgrade, and wood & food for the gold and stone upgrades.

- With Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart from Town Center you have a total of 12 economic upgrades.
- You get Wheelbarrow in Feudal and Hand Cart in Castle Age.
- But this is interesting, don't get it as soon as you reach Feudal Age unlike other upgrades.
- Wheelbarrow is usually good to get when you have either 16-18 farms 40-50 villagers.
- Or as soon as you reach Castle Age if you want to keep things more simple.
- Hand Cart should be taken as soon as you can afford it.

- Guilds in the Market only get it super super late if the game takes a long time and all the important resources are on 14, this will make them on 17. But unless you sell a lot of wood and food that 3 gold difference is not going to change a lot.
- Caravan in the Market makes your Trade Cards move faster, if you play solo no reason to get it, if you play team get it as soon as possible, not only you make more gold much quicker but also allows them to not be raided by the enemy as easier because they move faster.

One notable exception is damage Archer upgrades does not affect Hand Cannonner, only the armor upgrade affects him. This makes sense because he uses bullets not arrows for attack.

And one confusion clearing is that Cavalry armor upgrades do not affect Cavalry Archers, they are an Archer first so they are affected by the Archer armor upgrade, but they are affected by Stable upgrades such as Bloodlines or Husbandry.

So the archer armor upgrade affects both Hand Cannonner and Cavalry Archers. But only Cavalry Archers benefit from the damage Archer upgrades.

Arbalester -> Blacksmith damage, blacksmith armor, Thumb Ring, Balistics, Chemistry.
Skirmisher -> Blacksmith damage, blacksmith armor, Thumb Ring (small), Balistics, Chemistry.
Cavalry Archer -> Blacksmith damage, blacksmith armor, Thumb Ring, Balistics, Chemistry, Parthian Tactics, Bloodlines, Husbandry. (all normal archer + Parthian + stable upgrades)
Hand Cannoneer -> Kind of a lone wolf, only affected by archer armor upgrades.

Champion -> Blacksmith damage, blacksmith armor, Supplies, Gambesons, Squires, Arson.
Halberdier -> Blacksmith damage, blacksmith armor, Squires, Arson.
Eagle Warrior -> Blacksmith damage, blacksmith armor, Squires, Arson.

Hussar -> Blacksmith damage, blacksmith armor, Bloodlines, Husbandry.
Paladin -> Blacksmith damage, blacksmith armor, Bloodlines, Husbandry.
Camel -> Blacksmith damage, blacksmith armor, Bloodlines, Husbandry.

Battering Ram -> Siege Engineers.
Siege Elephant -> Cavalry blacksmith damage, Bloodlines, Husbandry, Siege Engineers.
Onagers -> Siege Engineers, Chemistry.
Scorpions -> Siege Engineers, Chemistry.
Bombard Cannons -> Siege Engineers.
Trebuchet -> Siege Engineers, Chemistry.

Notable unique units exceptions:
British Longbowman -> Exactly like an Arbalester. (not exception just wanted to point it out)
French Throwing Axeman -> Even though it's a range unit, it is considered a melee unit so it has the same upgrades as a melee infantry unit like Halberdier or Eagle Warrior.
Khmer Balista Elephant -> It counts as an elephant but also a siege unit so: cavalry armor, Bloodlines, Husbandry, Siege Engineers, Chemistry.
Korean War Vagon -> Is exactly like the cavalry archer.
Persian War Elephant -> Exactly like cavalry.
Spanish Conquistador -> Is like a mounted Hand Cannoneer, so only: archer armor upgrades and Bloodlines, Husbandry.
Portuguese Organ Gun -> Exactly like Bombard Cannons, only Siege Engineers.
Turkish Jannisary -> Exactly like a Hand Cannoneer, so only archer armor upgrades.

Blacksmith upgrades. Those on the left give damage, those 3 on the right give armor. Top row is for infantry and cavalry, bottom row is for archers.

Beside Blacksmith, then there's upgrades from each individual building of that unit:

Castle Thumb Ring -> Raise the accuracy of all range units in hitting the location they are aiming at 100%. And causes everyone except Skirmishers to fire faster.
Imperial Parthian Tactics -> Affects only Cavalry Archers, gives them armor and bonus damage versus Halberdiers.

Feudal Supplies -> Makes Champions cost -15 less food.
Castle Gambesons -> Makes Champion have +1 range armor.
Castle Squires -> Makes all infantry move 10% faster.
Castle Arson -> Males all infantry deal more damage to buildings.

Feudal Bloodlines -> Makes all cavalry have +20 HP
Castle Husbandry -> Makes all cavalry move 10% faster.

University Castle Balistics -> Makes all range units aim a moving target where they should be. Making them way better at hitting moving targets.
University Imperial Chemistry -> Archers, Skirmishers, Cavalry Archers, Galleons, Onagers, Scorpions and Trebuchets get +1 damage.
University Imperial Siege Engineers -> Affects Siege Ram, Onagers, Scorpions, Bombard Cannon, Trebuchet. More range and bonus damage.

To clear a common confusion: Castle Age technology Thumb Ring from Archery Range makes Archers, Skirmishers and Cavalry Archers to always aim 100% where the enemy is, as they don't always hit right on target without that, basically gives them aimbot.

University Castle Balistics makes them aim at moving target where they should be, rather than where they are, making them good at hitting moving targets. So you can have Thumb Ring without Balistics where you have 100% aim but don't hit moving targets that well, or Balistics without Thumb Ring where you can hit moving targets very well but without 100% accuracy.

Balistics affects a ton of different units including Castles, Town Centers, Towers, ranged unique units, Galleys, Longbows, Turtleships, anything with an arrow is affected by Balistics. And a weird exception also Bombard Towers, usually gunpowder units aren't affected by Balistics. For example, with Balistics it's much easier to kill fleeing enemies.

Thumb Ring is much more limited in scope but much more important. It only applies to Archers, Skirmishers and Cavalry Archers, as well as some unique units that use arrows, but not buildings or ships or Bombard Towers. Skirmishers get the smallest bonus by far, only an increase of accuracy from 93% to 100% and no increased speed. Everything else gets about 15% extra fire rate and from 90% accuracy to 100% accuracy.

Thumb Ring gives you more damage per second, Balistics allows you to hit moving targets. Out of these 2 I would personally say Balistics is much more important but there's a whole discussion it's not conclusive. Most top tier archer civs have both Balistics and Thumb Ring. Britons don't have Thumb Ring but they already have huge range so that's a nerf.

One of the hardest things but essential to understand for a new player is the siege units. Siege Workshop is unlocked in Castle Age and you must have the Blacksmith already built.

Ram -> Anti-building, deals 125 damage against buildings, that is a huge amount, they are very resistent to range fire, it barely scratches them, but melee hits will kill them easily.
Catapult -> Do melee damage, but attacks from range, best vs enemy groups. Use with Halberdiers. This Halberdiers + Siege combo is usually only countered by Champions or Bombard Cannons.
Scorpion -> Damage non-siege units. Like Archers the more they are the better they are exponentially, there is a mass where they begin to beat Cavalry too. As usually they only beat Infantry and Archers. But are hard countered by Bombard Cannons and countered by Catapults.
Bombard Cannon -> Do melee damage, so they take out siege easily. Beats siege and buildings from afar, the perfect sniper in the game, only outraged by Trebuchets that cannot move easily.
Siege Tower -> May be useful for some sneaky wall climbs, but otherwise not that used of a unit.
Siege Elephant -> The regional variant of Ram for some civs, so pretty much just like Ram.
Trebuchet -> Destroys buildings as fast as Ram but from a very long distance.

Siege is slow and expensive and weak to melee units.

Here you have:
- 3 fighting rock-papers-scissors units: Fire Ship > Galleon > Demolition Ship > Fire Ship.
- 2 anti-building late imperial units: Cannon Galleon & Dromon.
- 3 utilities units: Fishing ship for food, Transport ship for transport and Trade Cog for trade.

All of them cost wood & gold, except Fishing ship & Transport ship that costs only wood. So invest heavily in wood if you are playing on water & hybrid maps.

Fishing ship, whether used for fish or Fish Trap, provide more food/minute than boars, sheeps and farms. So whenever you can use Fishing ship for food instead, use them. The downside is that you need more wood for that as 1 Fishing ship costs 75 wood as opposed to 1 villager 50 food.

Likewise, Trade Cog is faster than Trade Cart. So whenever you can use the Trade Cog instead of the Trade Cart use it.

Usually, at lower level plays the players know:
- A lot about the 6 "default" units: Archer, Skirmisher, Champion, Halberdier, Scout, Knight and the siege from Castle called Trebuchet.
- Plenty know about regional units especially if they play those civs: Elephant Archer, Eagle Warriors, Camels, Steppe Lancer, Battle Elephant, etc.
- Some may know about the other Siege from Siege Workshop: Rams/Siege Elephant, Catapults, Scorpions, Bombard Cannons. And non-regional but more obscure Cavalry Archer and Hand Cannoneer.
- A few know about Docks usually those who play water maps: Fire Ship beats Galley, Galley beats Demo, Demo beats Fire Ship. Then you have: Fishing Ship for Food, Transport Ship and Trade Cog who are Trade Carts on water. And in Imperial Cannon Galleon anti-buildings.
- But very few know about Monks and use them for anything else than Relics. Which is a shame because your favorite civ may have really good Monks and you may not even use them.

What do Monks do?
- Collects relics
- Convert enemy units (or buildings/siege with "Redemption" upgrade)
- Heals your own units.

Even if you convert 1 unit, not only the opponent loses 1 unit but you gain 1 unit, so if it was a gold unit at that point the Monk already paid for it self. Monks are best used as "archers" behind your melee units where they either convert or heal units.

Monks are hard to micro because they are very slow although not impossible, there is some insane Monk micro at high level. The biggest issue is that you must make different Monks convert different targets, the Imperial age "Theocracy" helps you if you mess this up. For a Monk to be able to convert again it takes 62 seconds. In the meantime, they will automatically heal nearby units, they are smart enough to automatically heal different units.

Monks convert a unit in a random time between 4 to 10 seconds, unless you're playing against Teutons where 1 extra second is added.

Monk Upgrades:
1. Stats increase: Sanctity +15 HP, fervor +15% speed, Block Print +3 conversion range, illumination +50% faster recharge.
2. Conversion Resistance: Heresy your units die instead if they are converted by an enemy Monk, Devotion/Faith all units get conversion resistance.
3. Extra Conversion: Redemption you can convert enemy siege and buildings, Atonement you can convert enemy monks.
4. Easier Micro: Theocracy when you convert a unit with multiple Monks only 1 has to rest.
5. Passive Heal: Herbal Medicine increase the passive healing of units in building by 500%, this is the only tech here that has nothing to do with Monks. This is still 2 times slower than having 1 Monk healing them.

Block Print is especially good vs siege if you also have Redemption. Block Print + Redemption gets the Monks from being useless to Siege units to hard countering them. However: only Rams, Trebuchets and Houses require the Monk to be directly next to them to convert them. But you can easily convert Catapults/Onagers, Bombard Cannons and Scorpions.

The other exception is that: Town Centers, Castles, Monasteries and Walls cannot be converted. Only Scouts and Eagle Warriors get natural conversion resistance. Ships do not require Redemption to be converted.

Theocracy will also help you get faster conversions because it's only 1 single Monk that has to rest, and once that happen you can use the other Monks to target other units. You can use Monks with Patrol or Attack Move micro to cause a chain of conversions which is by far the most efficient.

Monks are very good against Knights and Catapults/Onagers. They move really slow so they are best used for holding position such as when defending against an attack or siege-ing. Your Monks will still recharge while in buildings so you can put them there to protect them before the 62 seconds have passed or 33 seconds with illumination. Monks take a long time to train so you really want to have about 3-4 Monasteries if you want to play Monks. Monks have a base range of 9 which is a lot. Elite Longbowman with no Blacksmith upgrade have 8 range. And with all Blacksmith upgrades will have the same range as Monks with Printing Block. Scouts are Monk's biggest weakness.

Putting your army in Box formation will put the Monks in the center which helps protect them.

The Best Monks in Game:
1. Aztecs
2. Bohemians
3. Spanish
4. Armenians
5. Burmese, Portuguese, Byzantines

- Aztecs Monks get +5 HP for every Monk reserach made, up to a maximum of 105 HP, this means your Monks will have more HP than a Champion. Although they lack the armor it still makes them insanely tanky. A normal Monk has 50 HP. They also have all Monk technologies.
- Bohemians Imperial Age tech "Hussite Reforms" replaces the Monks' and Monks technologies costs from gold to food. This means that suddenly one of the most expensive units in the game becomes one of the cheapest in the game. They also have all Monk technologies.
- Spanish Castle Age tech "Inquisition" makes Monks convert enemy units faster. They also have the unique unit Missionary which is a Monk with lower range but faster speed, solving the Monks' speed issue. They also have all Monk technologies.
- Armenians can build Fortified Church and have the unique unit Warrior Monk. It's a Champion in combat, much faster than Monks, can pick up relics, and they cannot be converted without Atonement since they count as a Monk. Making for a very easy relic war. The only downside is that it cannot convert units it can only heal units. They also have all Monk technologies.
- Burmese see all relics from the start of the game & all their Monastery technologies are half price. They also have full monastery. Portuguese have all Monk technologies and Monks are 20% cheaper. Byzantines get only 1 bonus and that one is that their Monks heal x2 speed, from 150 HP/minute to 300 HP/minute, this is a team bonus.

"Just learn a build order" that's the advice that most people are given when they are starting out Age of Empires 2. This is great advice, but the problem is that most build orders that you find online are trying to be as efficient as possible to hit the earliest time for attack.

This works great for intermediate and high level players and is eventually what you should aim for. But for lower level players efficiency and speed is something that should only be improved upon once you can execute correctly the fundamentals of the game.

This build order aims to strike a balance between being competitive and easy to follow. It's a basic build order to help you get the general idea of the game. The goal of this build is to be a general all-rounder, jack of all trades, master of none, doing all the default stuff, which is good for understanding the game. Focus on improving skill and not hitting specific timings. Once you can master this build order ie "the fundamentals" then you can look into more advanced and strategy-specific and civ-specific build orders.

The most important thing to do in a build order is to do things in the correct order when spending resources. For example: Don't create a Blacksmith at the start of Feudal Age if you don't intend to use it right away. The wood spent on it could have been used for something that's immediately useful such as Farms or a Stable. Everything that you do should have some kind of intention behind it, if you place a Barrack you should have the intention to use it to create units or as a pre-requisite for Stable or Archery Range. If you move your army, it should be for a purpose such as going to intercept your enemy or going to attack.

I recommend to practice this build order with the Saracens since they have 0 Dark Age bonuses, not even a discount. Their big economic bonus is a huge Market buy & sell discount that you're not going to need if you use this build properly. So if you can do it with the Saracens you can only do it better with other civs since they have Dark Age or Feudal Age bonuses.

There are many "openings" in Age of Empires 2 but 4 of the most common ones are: Man-at-Arms Rush, Archers Rush, Scouts Rush, Fast Castle.
- Man-at-Arms Rush means that you prepare Milita in Dark Age and on the way to Feudal Age you rush with about 3 Milita + starting Scout who are upgraded to Man-at-Arms right when you reach the enemy base.
- Archers/Scout Rush means that in Early Feudal you build Archery Range/Stables and then rush with Archers/Scouts, naturally this will slightly alter your economy management to support them.
- Fast Castle means that you only play defensive with Spearmen & Skirmisher if needed and focus on getting to Castle Age before the enemy to get better units and the eco upgrades faster than them.

This build order is so flexible that you can do either all 4 without having to learn another Build Order from the grounds up. You will notice that in late Dark Age and early Feudal Age there are a few "IF" optional steps if you want to go Man-at-Arms Rush, or for early Feudal Archers Rush or Scouts Rush. Otherwise if you don't do any of the "IFs" you are going Fast Castle.

This build order gives you 4 strategies to pick from: Man-at-Arms Rush, Archers Rush, Scouts Rush, Fast Castle. But how do you know what is best to go for in any given match? As while the 6-4-3-5 may not give you the fastest Dark Age possible, it gives you one of the easiest and most flexible.

From the earliest aggression to lastest aggression we have: Man-at-Arms, Archers, Scouts, Fast Castle. And in Castle Age from earliest to lastest aggression we have: Crossbowmen, Knights, Siege, Booming.

Strategies that are missing from this build order are for Dark Age: Milita Rush. For Feudal Age: Tower Rush, Archers into Scouts, Scouts into Archers, Skirmishers & Halberdiers Attack. For Castle Age: Fast Castle Unique Unit, Fast Castle Monk, Scouts into Light Cavalry, Archers into Crossbowman and Cavalry Archer, Halberdier and Siege push, Siege and Monk push. There are a lot of strategies in Age of Empires 2 but these 4 with this build order are the most common ones.

How do you know which of the 4 to pick? the most obvious thing to look at is your civilization match up. If your civilization has better bonuses for Dark and Feudal Age and worse bonuses for the Castle and Imperial Age compared to your opponent, then you should try to do damage while you have the natural advantage.

For example: Mongols vs Berbers. Mongols are one of the best rush civs because they collect food from hunted animals (boars, deers) 40% faster, which allows you to get to Feudal Age faster and attack your opponent before they are ready. It's their only economic bonus so after hunt runs out they have no other economic bonus to help them out in Castle or Imperial Age. While Berbers' only economic bonus before Castle Age is faster moving villagers that doesn't improve their economy much. They also don't have any military bonuses in the early game, so Berbers are really trying to get to Castle Age without taking too much damage so they can produce their cheaper stable units. They also have Camel Archer & Genitour in Castle Age which gives Berbers a lot of flexibility from Castle Age onwards. So in this match: The Mongols should try to damage the Berbers early, and the Berbers should try to get to Castle Age without taking too much damage. Mongols could try Man-at-arms rush, archers rush or scouts rush. Either way, the Berbers will likely be the ones going for Fast Castle defending initially.

As the Berbers, what can you do to defend?
- If the Mongols come with Man-at-Arms go fast into Archery Range and Archers or Skrimishers. Resource walls or very small walls are prefered here since Man-at-Arms attack before your military can be produced to defend. Make sure you make your Barracks or Archery Range in a safe location so it doesn't get denied.
- If the Mongols come with Archers (although they have no bonus for archers, it's a viable strategy to surprise your opponent) make one Archery Range and train Skirmishers.
- If the Mongols come with Scouts you have to make sure your walling villagers aren't exposed so they don't die to the starting Scout once it gets the movement speed boost and +2 attack for reaching Feudal Age. As soon as you reach Feudal Age you can add 1-3 Halberdiers to protect your walling villagers so you can safely secure your base. Going archers or scouts can work to defend against enemy scouts although Halberdiers and walls are all you need. If the Mongols come with Archers after Scouts building a Watch Tower next to your gold mine can be the key to keeping your gold mine going.
- If you manage to survive until Castle Age you can use your cheap Stable units to go in a powerful offense.
- What about the map? If the map is less unwallable it will favor the Mongols with their aggression, if the map is more wallable then it will favor the Berbers with their defense.

This build order can simply be named: the 6-4-3-5.
For the record, all this time your Town Center should never be idle. It should either produce more villagers or age up.

DARK AGE:
- H + QQQQ to queue up all 4 villagers in Town Center
- 2 houses (1 house with 2 villagers, 1 house with 1 villagers, then move them on sheep)
- select scout, go into your sheeps, then put him to explore around your base
- select your sheeps move them in the middle of your Town Center so you can farm them faster
- you want to find with the scout the remaining 4 other sheeps and 2 boars.

- 6 villagers to sheep (it takes 6 villagers on food for constant Town Center villager production)
- 4 to wood (the last should build 2 houses next to woodline that will be part of your wall later)
- 3 to boar (search "how to lure the boar" it's actually very easy but better explain visually)
- 5 to berries (build a Mill next to berries then start collecting berries)
- After boars are done, send 5 villagers to wood, build a 2nd lumber camp in another wood line.
- The rest on food until up to feudal
- IF: you cannot find all 4 sheeps and 2 boars in the dark, you can build 2-4 farms early.
- Up on 20-21 villagers

ON THE WAY TO FEUDAL:
- Wall your base with 2 villager from the wood line, 4 houses and a Barrack as part of the wall.
- IF you want Man-at-Arms rush build the Barrack first and move 2 villagers to gold from wood. Then queue 2 Milita by the time they are done you should have +10 gold for a 3rd Milita.
- Once sheeps are done put villagers next to Town Center on the wood around the Town Center.
- When you are Feudal Age and reserached Horse Collar, build farms with those villagers.
- Make sure you have a villager in the Town Center queue so you don't have to think about it.

You will want to make your wood walls smaller than you intuitively think, favoring resource-saving as by the time you are Castle Age you will grow out of your walls. Part of your wall, preferably on the front side, should have a Barrack so you can create Spearmen against enemy Scouts or build an Archery Range for Skirmishers against Archers or Man-at-Arms.

FEUDAL AGE:
- Get the economic upgrades: Double Bit Axe from Lumber Camp, then Horse Collar from Mill.
- IF you want Archers, get next 4 villagers to gold and build Archery Range, else skip this step.
- IF you want to fully commit archers, send next 2 on wood, next 2 on gold, and build a second Archery range, else skip this step. With this you can mass archers but hurts the economy.
- IF you want scouts, build a Stable and get 18 Farms instead of 15. If you commit get 2 Stables.
- Use all your remaining wood on Farms with the villagers next to Town Center.
- Every new villager will be send to a Farm until you have 15 Farms. (1 Farm = 60 wood)\
- Then send every additional new villager on gold. (you still have 9 on wood)
- Build additional houses behind your walls if the opponent is about to break one of your walls.
- When your Berries are depleted, use those villagers to create Farms. If you already have 15 farms, send them to gold.
- Build a Blacksmith and a Market so you can click to Castle Age
- If you can include Blacksmith & Market as part of the wall.
- Don't forget to also build gates for your wall.
- You should be able to click to Castle Age at around 33-37 villagers.

ON THE WAY TO CASTLE AGE:
- Get the Gold Mine upgrade.
- Get the Blacksmith upgrades for the units you want to use.
- Have a total of 3 Barracks, 3 Archery Ranges or 3 Stables depending on what unit you want.
- If needed, build more houses (best location is behind your wood walls to reinforce them)
- The economy should look like: 9-10 on gold, 15-17 farms, the rest on wood.

CASTLE AGE:
- Get all economic upgrades from: wood, then food, then gold.
- Build 2 more Town Centers: one next to a wood line, one next to an unused gold mine.
- Build extra houses when appropiate.
- You should expand yourself on the map, the more expanded the better, don't stay in your spawn.
- Upgrade the units that you play with from Blacksmith.
- If the maps allows it, build Stone Walls ahead of your wood walls, expand your base. Depending on the map, you may have to do this in Feudal Age, but on Arabia it's usually done in Way to Castle or Castle Age.
- What you do from now on depends a lot on what your battle strategy was so far:
- IF you want to build a Castle send next villagers on stone.
- IF you want to push attack build a Siege Workshop close to the enemy base and make Rams.
- You can either build the Castle in your base for defense or next to enemy walls for offense.
- IF you want more units production send villagers to wood, food and gold accordingly.

VARIATION OF STRATEGY:
- If you want to boom even harder in Castle Age, on the way to Castle Age you can take people from Gold and put them on Stone, so you have Stone for 4 extra Town Centers instead of 2 extra.
- Don't take this as set in stone, adapt! Want archers? costs wood and gold, more villagers there. Want scouts? costs food more farms. Want knights? costs food and gold? more farms and gold.

A very common tactic at low levels is a combination of Halberdiers + Siege and slowly push. To counter that: don't use cavalry or archers, unless you want to snipe the siege and leave, or unless you have Cataphracts as the Byzantines. Go for Champions to counter both and if your civ has them then Bombard Cannons too from Siege Workshop to snipe their siege from a long distance.

A second common tactic is to use mass Scorpions since they beat infantry and archers, and cavalry too in high enough numbers. The scorpion's increase of power is exponential, the more they are the more exponentially powerful they become. Instead, you must make either: Catapults or Bombard Cannons from Siege workshop. Even if you don't have their full upgrade.

Remember the magic numbers for Dark Age: the 6-4-3-5.

Here is the summarized version of that build order at the top: 6-4-3-5

DARK AGE:
- 6 to sheep
- 4 to wood
- 2 houses with 1 from wood
- 3 to boar
- 5 to berries
- when animals done, 5/9 to wood, 4/9 to wood next to TC.
- rest on food until up to feudal, up on 20-21 villagers

ON THE WAY TO FEUDAL:
- wall base with 2 villager from wood
- 4 houses and 1 Barrack as part of the wall
-IF Man-at-Arms rush: move 2 villagers from wood to gold. And queue 3 Milita.

FEUDAL AGE:
- eco upgrades: wood and food
- after food eco, build farms with the 4 villagers next to Town Center.
- IF Archer rush: next 4 villagers to gold and build Archery Range.
- IF more Archer rush: after, next 2 on wood, next 2 on gold and build second Archery range.
- IF Scout rush: build Stable and get 18 Farms instead of 15. If you commit get 2 Stables.
- send all new villagers to farms until you have 15
- send all new villagers on gold
- build Blacksmith and Market so you can click to Castle Age
- You should be able to click to Castle Age at around 33-37 villagers.

ON THE WAY TO CASTLE AGE:
- Get the Gold Mine upgrade.
- Get the Blacksmith upgrades for the units you want to use.
- Get a total of 3 Barracks, 3 Archery Ranges or 3 Stables depending on what unit you want.

CASTLE AGE:
- eco upgrades: wood, food, gold.
- Build 2 more Town Centers: one next to a wood line, one next to an unused gold mine.
- Expand on the map, with military buildings, castles, town centers and resource collectors.
- Upgrade the units that you play with from Blacksmith.
- build Stone Walls ahead of your wood walls. Depending on the map, you may have to do this in Feudal Age, but on Arabia it's usually done in Way to Castle or Castle Age. Adapt.
- What you do from now on depends a lot on what your battle strategy was so far:
- IF you want Castle: send next villagers on stone. Build it in your base or next to enemy walls.
- IF you want to push attack: build a Siege Workshop close to the enemy base and make Rams.
- IF you want more units production send villagers to wood, food and gold accordingly.

Remember the magic numbers for Dark Age: the 6-4-3-5.

- You should have as little idle time in your Town Center and with villagers as possible.
- The Town Center should always produce villagers in Dark Age, unless you reached 500 food.
- If for some reason you don't have 50 food for 1 extra villager, research Loom, don't waste time on the Town Center.
- You generally don't need gold and stone in Dark Age.
- You don't need stone in Feudal Age. (you start to mine gold in Feudal, and stone in Castle)
- If you are in a bad spot with food, you can make farms, otherwise, it's a good idea to delay farms so you can get the Mill eco upgrade in Feudal Age before placing farms.
- With the 2 starting houses and 2 houses near wood line at the 10th villager, should should have /25 max population, 24 villagers room is more than enough for Dark Age if you do everything right.
- While you wait for Dark Age to complete you should build more Houses to get to about 35-45 max pop. These buildings will later be part of a wood wall that will protect you. And 1 barrack if you feel you will get attacked.
- Where as in Dark Age you need a lot of food, in Feudal Age you need a lot of wood.
- If you're out of boars/sheeps while you wait for the Feudal Age to get the Mill upgrade for better farms, you can send the villagers to the trees next to TC so they don't waste time, or send them to berries.

- When you reach feudal age is: research wood & farm upgrade.
- You can either send the next 2 villagers on gold and leave them there, as soon as Feudal Age starts, or send a lot of new villagers to gold late Feudal Age, as you need 200 gold to get to Castle Age.
- You should always wall your base with wood walls starting on the way to Feudal Age, use at least 2 villagers going in opposite directions, but you can use 3-4 villagers if more are needed.
- Whether you want to rush or fast Castle is your call, but regardless you should build the extra Archery Range, Barracks or Stables in early Feudal Age after the economic upgrades.
- One Archery Range, Barrack or Stable is fine but if you want to commit to it you can even go for 2-3 of the said buildings. But the more you commit, the less powerful your economy is, the more you need to win the battle or destroy some of the enemy's villagers.
- If you want to commit a lot, it is also a good idea to make the Blacksmith upgrades for the given unit.
- Then continue building the wall and if you can include Blacksmith & Market as part of the wall. Depending on your needs. Don't forget about the gates.
- Feudal Age units cannot break wooden walls or buildings quickly. But Castle Age can, so consider building a forward Stone wall late feudal or early castle.
- Send new villagers to food & wood.
- Having about 10 villagers on wood should be able to sustain your Feudal Age economy.
- Having about 15 villagers on food should be able to sustain your Feudal Age economy.
- Increase the food if you wants Scouts, increase the Wood and Gold if you want Archers.
- Your goal after that is to make 800 food and 200 gold to reach Castle Age.
- To attack either use Scouts, Archers, Men at Arms. To defend either use Skirmishers, Spearmen or if the enemy has Men-at-Arms counter with archers.
- You need 2 of the 4 feudal age buildings to get to castle age: Blacksmith, Market, Archery, Stable.
- And it's going to cost you 800 food and 200 gold. (this is why you put 2 people at the start)
- Aging up is very useful because with each age up you get new economic upgrades from wood, farm, gold and stone.
- You are going to need a lot of wood for buildings in this period: the wall, the houses for population, the military that you may make more of, the blacksmith and market, all while keeping your farms alive, so don't underestimate wood.
- If you don't know what to do with your resources, build and put villagers on wood, food and gold. Or an army. Ideally, your Town Center should never stand idle, but if you are under attack and the enemy has a bigger army, might be a good idea to leave the Town Center a bit and invest in the army.

- First thing when you reach castle age is: research wood & farm & gold upgrade, send the next 2 villagers on stone and leave them there. (because in time you will make 650 stone for Castle)
- Second thing when you reach castle age is: upgrade from the Blacksmith the units you play with (see the "Which Technologies help Which Unit" section of the guide).
- And then your next immediate goal is to build 2 more Town Centers so you have 3 in total. One next to gold the other next to a forest.
- Don't stay in a pocket, it's never a good thing, expand upon the map, build many military buildings and make "mini-bases" and don't forget to upgrade those wood walls with some stone walls in front of them.
- Feudal was a time for battles of 10-20 units, but Castle is a time massive battles.
- Your Town Center and then Town Centers should never stand idle. Always produce villagers and put them on wood. If you have too much wood put the villagers on farms instead. If you lack gold for good units or stone for castles and walls but the villagers on those instead. They should never stand idle except in extreme situations.
- Research Wheelbarrow & Hand Cart from Town Center when you reach about 44-46 villagers.
- A good balance is having like 40% farmers, 30% lumberjacks, 20% on gold, 10% on stone + a few builders here and there. But it depends. And 100 villagers out of 200 population, while the other 100 is for military units.
- Fight for relics. 1 relic in monastery provides 1 gold every 2 seconds, as much gold as 1 villager with all gold upgrades that does not have to travel more than one tile.
- Some good combos: 25 wood, 50 food, 25 gold for Paladins. 35 wood, 35 food, 30 gold for Halberdiers and Siege. 50 wood, 25 food, 25 gold for Arbalesters and Rams.
- Trade carts are not included in villager count, although they serve the same purpose, so when I say 25 gold I mean villagers & trade carts combined. If you hoover the mouse over the villager count button it should reveal the exact number of trade carts as well.
- Dark Age will need 1 lumberjack for sustaining 3 farms, Feudal Age with wood & food upgrades 1 lumberjack for 5 farms, Castle Age wood & food upgrades 1 lumberjack for 8 farms, Imperial Age wood & food upgrades (if your civ has both) 1 lumberjack for 13 farms. You will need more wood to sustain building creation, units production + eco upgrades. But this is to give you a good perspective how much extra wood you make considering farms.

- First thing when you reach imperial age is: research wood & farm & gold & stone upgrade.
- Second thing when you reach imperial age is: upgrade from the Blacksmith the units you play with. You should have enough money to upgrade even your secondary trash units now.
- If you need more food you can always build new Town Centers or Mills and make farms around them.

Sheeps Time:
- When you start the game, click Town Center and queue 4 villages (use all starting 200 food)
- You have 3 villages, select 2 villages together and put them to build 1 house together, and the other 1 lone villager and put him to build 1 house. Make them slightly away from Town Center not to block the future farms.
- Select the 4 sheeps that started close to you and put them under Town Center.
- After the 3 villagers finished buildings houses, put them to kill the sheeps.
- Select the scout and have him find around the base: the 4 sheeps that are right next to your Town Center, the 4 other sheeps that are slightly further away (come in pairs of 2, so you will find 2 sheeps somewhere, 2 other sheeps somewhere else), the 2 boars.
- The villagers that come out of Town Center will also be put on sheeps until you have 6 on food.
- When you find the 4 other sheeps you should send them next to Town Center next to the other sheeps.

Wood Time:
- Now that you got 6 villages on food, you send the 7th villager in a forest close to you and put him to build a Lumberjack.
- Have the next 3 villagers join him.
- You should have 6 on food and 4 on wood by now, 11 population (with the scout).
- With the last villager meaning number 10 you should build 2 houses next to the wood line, they are the first stepping stones in your future wall.
- If you are on a map where you have to send the villagers farther from your base (like on Black Forest where you have to quickly build a wall in the middle) you may have to deal with wolves, Loom from Town Center is the solution.

Boar Time:
- Send the 11th villager to Boar, by this time you should have already discovered the boar, if not, put him to sheep.
- To lure the boar just attack him and then run back to Town Center, he will lure the Boar and then you can kill him with all other villages close to Town Center and take all the food.
- Send the 12th and 13th villagers like wise on the boar. When the other villagers are done with their current sheep, prioritize the boar over sheeps.
- You should have 9 villagers on food right now, when that boar is about 100 food left, send another villager to lure the 2nd boar.
- When you are out of boars make them kill the sheeps.

Berries Time:
- When the boar saga is done with the 14th villager you will build a Mill next to berries.
- Then you will send the next 4 villagers so in total 5 to berries.

Second Wood Time:
- You will need a lot of wood for Feudal Age, so once both boars are done, take 5/9 villagers in the Town Center area and make them build a 2nd Lumber Camp in another wood line.
- You should have 500 food by now, otherwise put new villagers on berries until 500 food.
- Click Feudal Age.

- You should have about 20-21 villagers when you click Feudal Age.

While Feudal Age is Done:
- Take 2 villagers from the wood line, in some cases 4, and wood wall around your base.
- Build 4 more Houses as part of the wall (from 25 to 45 max population)
- Build 1 Barrack as part of the wall (will be useful for anti-rush)
- If you run out of animals on the way to Feudal, send those villagers to the few trees around your Town Center.

- Your goal in Feudal Age is to either: Rush the enemy with Scouts/Archers, counting on the fact you will win and slow him down (it will also slow you down, but you hope to slow him down more) or try to get to Castle Age as fast as possible.

Instant Feudal Age Things:
- As soon as you made Feudal do 3 things:
- Reserach Wood upgrade and Farm Upgrade. (always start with the wood upgrade first)
- Try to get to 15 Farms while having about 9 villagers on wood.

Optional for Archers or Scouts:
- If you want to go Archers/Scouts, this is the time to build Archery Range/Stables.
- If you want to go light make only 1 Archery Range/Stable, if you want to commit make 2-3.
- Having only 1 Archery Range/Stable won't hurt your economy much, but it's slow production.
- It's up to you whether and how much you want to invest in such an attack.
- For Archers send the next 4 villagers on gold, if you want to commit more keep sending 2 villagers on gold, 2 villagers on wood, for each new Archery Range you want. (now you use gold)
- For Scouts get 18 Farms instead of 15. If you want to commit more keep making more farms 3 for each new Stable you want.
- Otherwise ignore and skip this section.
- It depends on you how strong you want the attack to be, but at some point you will have to invest in your Castle Age resources, because if the enemy gets to Castle Age before you he will have an advantage.

Defense:
- If you're under imminent danger from scouts make Spearmen.
- If you're under imminaent danger from archers or man at arms build 1 Archery Range fast and Skirmishers.
- You can garrison units inside their production building by setting the rally point there, and send them out only when you have good numbers.
- But given that you already walled your base, you should have more than enough time to prepare.
- If the enemy is breaking your walls build 1 house right at the back of the attacked wall.
- I would not recommend to fix the wall with an Archery Range or Barrack because it costs 175 wood and then the enemy can simply move its troops to another piece of the wall and you are out of wood.

Get to 15 Farms:
- As soon as new villagers come you should have 60 wood with 9 villagers on wood to build 1 farm.
- Build 15 farms.
- Or 18/21/24 farms if you want to make 1/2/3 Stables and spam Scouts. But make sure you have at least 9 people on wood.
- After the farms are done, send new villagers to gold. (you still have 9 on wood)
- Now that wood is free without those pesky farms to eat wood, build Blacksmith and Market.
- The best place to build said buildings is right behind your wood wall to be another layer of defense.
- If more houses for population are needed, also build them next to your wood wall.
- If at some point you don't know what to do with your new villagers, say get more food for faster Castle Age or more Wood/Gold for Archers, I would say lead with wood then catch up with food. While you need to prioritize food in Dark Age you need to prioritize Wood in Feudal Age, that's why right before going Feudal you sent 5/9 people from TC to a 2nd Lumber Camp.
- At about 33-37 villagers you should have enough resources to click for Castle Age.

While Castle Age is Done:
- Get the Gold Mine upgrade.
- Get the Blacksmith upgrades for the units you want to use.
- Have a total of 3 Barracks, 3 Archery Ranges or 3 Stables depending on what unit you want.
- If needed, build more houses (best location is behind your wood walls to reinforce them)
- The economy should look like: 9-10 on gold, 15-17 farms, the rest on wood.
- Depending on the map, either on Feudal, Way to Castle or Castle, you should expand your base and build stone walls in front of your wood walls.
- IF you want, you can move a few from gold to stone so you have enough stone to build more Town Centers or an instant Castle in Castle age, although this comes at the cost of more military units.

The Feudal Battles:
- Feudal Age is where *usually* the first fights happen, so even though it's easy to get from Feudal to Castle age in theory, in practice you would spend your resources on troops.
- To attack either use Scouts or Archers. To defend either use Skirmishers or Spearmen.
- You need 2 of the 4 feudal age buildings to get to castle age: Blacksmith, Market, Archery, Stable.
- And it's going to cost you 800 food and 200 gold. (this is why you only need gold in Feudal)
- Aging up is very useful because with each age up you get new economic upgrades from wood, farm, gold and stone.
- You are going to need a lot of wood for buildings in this period: the wall, the houses for population, the military that you may make more of, the blacksmith and market, all while keeping your farms alive, so don't underestimate wood.
- If you don't know what to do with your resources, build and put villagers on wood, food and gold. Or an army. Ideally, your Town Center should never stand idle, but if you are under attack and the enemy has a bigger army, might be a good idea to leave the Town Center a bit and invest in the army.

When you reach Castle Age, once again there are some things you should do instantly:
- Wood upgrade, Mill upgrade, Gold upgrade. (just like on Feudal)
- The next 2 villagers are sent on stone. (just like on Feudal, except this time on Stone)
- From the Blacksmith: Upgrade the units that you play with. (the Blacksmith is very important, always make sure you have your military units upgraded)
- You build 2 more Town Centers: One next to completely another forest, another next to another batch of gold next to you, on different wood lines/gold mines than those you are already using, you expand yourself on the map.

Booming and Expanding:
- As soon as you have lots of wood, build a stupid amount of military units all over the place, expand with your base, don't stay in a pocket, it's never good, also, don't forget to build stone walls in front of your wood walls, so you expand even more on the map.
- Castle is usually when you expand your TC, army, stone wall and build mini-bases in middle.
- Feudal was a time for skirmish battles of 10-20 units and raids, but Castle is a time massive battles so make sure you get as close as possible to that 100 villagers - 100 army ratio.
- It's a good thing to have at least 6 military buildings, at least, so you can spam those units in case you are attacked and then send them grouped. You do not want to die with gold in your base.
- You should spam your 3 to 5 Town Centers with villagers while keep going to wood & then to farms so you can maintain villager production. At the same time, put some on stone and gold so you can get the Castle/extra Town Centers if needed and military units with the gold.
- Having 3 Town Centers (the starting one + one on wood + one on gold) is the necessary minimum while having 5 Town Centers is the best for booming.
- In all of this economic play you do not want to neglect your army at all, this is why you should have at least 6 buildings for the unit you want to spam, your main unit, the gold unit, and also about 6-4 buildings for the secondary unit that will protect your main unit, you can even go 10 buildings, having more is good as long as it doesn't hurt your economy, having less is bad.

With your second and third Town Center:
- You put villagers on wood and gold/stone. And later if you feel like, you need make extra farms with them, so that you can sustain constant villager production with 3-5 Town Centers.
- Make sure you always have plenty of wood first before increasing the number of farms, as they naturally cost wood and you don't want to be left with 0 wood.
- You got to balance the flow between: wood & stone for Town Centers building, wood to allow you to build more farms that will be further used for constant new villager production. Stone for extra Castles, gold for extra units.
- To constantly build villagers with no idle time from 3 Town Centers, you need 18 Farms to keep them running non-stop, so 6 farm per Town Center, but you are going to need Food for other things as well such as upgrades and army, so in practice you need to have more than 18 Farms.
- If you feel brave, make a 4th or 5th Town Center and expand your base even further.
- But don't neglect your military, you need to have a good combo of good military, good booming and good expansion on the map.

Wheelbarrow & Hand Cart:
- These are 2 upgrades from the Town Center that increase production.
- Problem is they cost a lot and take a long time to reasearch, so when to take them?
- Get Wheelbarrow after you have a total of 44-46 villagers or over.
- For balance, generally you want: 30% lumberjacks, 40% farmers, 20% on gold, 10% on stone + a few builders here and there. So in terms of number of villagers you should have food > wood > gold > stone. You can also use different strategies like castle rush but that's a general rule.
- Generally, if you want to keep it very easy, you get Wheelbarrow right after you got to Castle Age.
- As for the villager-warrior ratio in the population, you generally want around 100-100. Some pros go 116-120 villagers or 90 villagers in others. Something like 70 villagers and 130 warriors is too little villagers and you won't be able to keep up your economy compared to other players. Although if you want to make a devastating push it could be a good tactic. But make sure you have counters and quality units, numbers don't always win.
- While you do your balance of villagers in your base, go and fight for relics from the map, they provide 1 gold every 2 seconds, the equivalent of an imperial age upgraded gold villager who does not have to travel more than one tile. It's not much but adds up.
- To get relics you need to reach Castle Age, create Monastery, recruit Monk, and the Monk can pick up relics to return them to the Monastery.
- Here are some good combos: 25 wood, 50 food, 25 gold for Paladins. 35 wood, 35 food, 30 gold for Halberdiers and Siege. 50 wood, 25 food, 25 gold for Arbalesters and Rams. Take as much from here and put on stone as you see fit, as units don't cost stone only walls, castles and Town Centers.
- Trade carts are not included in villager count, although they serve the same purpose, so when I say 25 gold I mean villagers & trade carts combined. If you hoover the mouse over the villager count button it should reveal the exact number of villagers, fishing ships, trade carts and trade cogs.
- In Dark Age, 1 lumberjack will keep 3 farms, in Feudal Age with wood & food upgrades, 1 lumberjack will keep 5 farms, in Castle Age with wood & food upgrades, 1 lumberjack will keep 8 farms, in Imperial Age with wood & food upgrades (if your civ has both), 1 lumberjack will keep 13 farms. Else 1 lumberjack for 12 farms if you lack the final wood upgrade or 1 lumberjack for 9 farms if you lack the final food upgrade. You will, of course, need more lumberjacks than that to sustain building creation, units production + eco upgrades. But this is to give you a good perspective how much extra wood you make considering farms.
- Hand Cart on the other hand takes less time to research and give no benefit so it's a no brainer, the only issue is that it costs 500 resources, so if you can afford that without losing your base, do Hand Cart after Wheelbarrow right away.

Upgrade to the next age + the Castle exception:
- To get to the next age, you need to build at least 2 buildings from the current age, that is:
- For Dark Age: Mill, Lumberjack, Docks.
- For Feudal Age: Blacksmith, Market, Stable, Archery Range. (just 2 of these buildings)
- For Castle Age: University, Monastery, Siege Workshop. (2 or just 1 Castle).
- By the way: For Farms you need a Mill, for Archery Range or Stable you need a Barrack, for Siege Workshop you need a Blacksmith.

Your Goal to Get to Imperial Age:
- After you have all those 3 Town Centers (or 5 if you're feeling bold), all those military buildings expanded all over the map, good fights with the enemy, walls to protect yourself.
- What you need is 2 of: Monastery, Siege, University
- In fact, you should make Monastery as soon as possible to rush those relics for extra gold, even if you aren't Lithuanian. So as soon as you build Town Centers, build a Monastery and get there for those relics.
- And then when you want to advance build University, Siege or Castle.
- Also, very useful to build outposts outside your map. I don't mean literal "outpost" building, that is useless. But the mines with a few villagers in places with resources all over the map.
- Never neglect building a ton of military buildings in Castle Age.

Ok, you made the 1000 Food, 800 Gold upgrade and now you are imperial, what do you do?
- Instantly: economic upgrades (just like in Feudal & Castle Age)
- Military upgrades (just like in Castle age, sorry no more new resource for extra 2 villagers, and no more 2 extra TC like in Castle Age. You can still expand and build new TC all over the place and new military units all over the place like in Castle Age if you want, but it's no longer a requirement)
- So just economic upgrades and military upgrades. Imperial age is easy.

What is new in Imperial Age
- The Trebouchet, a siege unit from castle with the best range in the game, forcing the enemy to come to you.

In general it's good to have as an army:
- 90-110 villagers to units ratio.
- Can try go low 80 villagers or high 120 villagers.

Usually, but this depends a lot on your army makeup, so "usually" is a loose term:
- 30% villagers on wood.
- 40% villagers on food.
- 20% villagers on gold.
- 10% villagers on stone. + some villagers on building things.

Troops cost:
Archers - wood + gold.
Skirmishers - wood + food.
Horse Archers - wood + gold.
Hand Cannoneers - food + gold (so all units in the Archery Range cost wood, except Skirmishers cost food instead of gold, and Hand Cannoneers are like Champions with food instead of wood)

Champions - food + gold.
Pikemen - food + wood.
Eagles - food + gold (so all units in the Barracks cost food, Champions gold and Pikemen wood)

Scouts - food.
Paladins - food + gold.
Camels - food + gold. (all cost food like the Barracks, Paladins and Camels also cost gold)
Everything that is Siege including Trebouchets: wood + gold (just like the Archers)

A few Imperial Age tips:
- Don't be afraid to go with your villagers to build forward Castles, forward bases, Outposts to scout on the map, etc. For as expensive and important villagers were in earlier ages, in Imperial Age they are very cheap, 50 food, you can make that in an instant now, it's a not a big loss if they die while trying to build an outpost or 6 military buildings in a corner of the map. Send them to further away resources, etc.
- The most important thing you need to do once you hit Imperial Age is hit 200 population. You should already have about 100 villagers from Castle Age, now you need to mass your army too.
- Remember what was said in the "Army Composition" section, a good rule of thumb for army composition is: a gold unit, a trash unit (one that doesn’t cost gold), a siege unit.
- Your gold unit is likely the strongest unit you can make. For Mongols that’s Mangudai, for Chinese that’s Chu Ko Nu, for Franks that’s Paladin, etc. If you have multiple strong options, choose based on the other person’s civ and what they’re building.
- Your trash unit should either complement your gold unit or counter the enemy’s gold unit. A complement to your gold unit is one that counters your gold unit’s counter.
- It's also important is the control of the extra golds/stones/forests in the middle of the map. Try to control the extra resource locations.
- Focus on building more military production buildings. In Feudal Age you had about 1-3 Stables at best, in Castle Age you had about 6-10 Stables and a few for your Trash units. This late in the game, wood shouldn't be an issue. Don't be afraid to take control of key areas on the map by building military buildings there maybe protected by a Castle in the middle of them.
- Have your gold units protected by trash unit.
- If you can protect them, Bombard Cannons protected by trash units (Skirmisher, Halberdier or Hussar depending on what you're up against) feel broken as f**k. So if your main composition fails you can try this one as well.
- Put down excessive amount of forward buildings.
- In Imperial Age brute force can be quite powerful.

Here are some tips for & against most civ in the game:
- Make use of Aztecs' bonus by picking up relics in the mid game.
- Watch out for Aztecs' Castle Age eagles spam: Eagles, Catapults, Monks. Very powerful.

- Berbers' stable units are cheaper in Castle and Imperial Age so don't be afraid to spam Knights in Castle Age.
- Berbers have strong Castle Unit Camel Archers and strong Stables because they are cheap.

- Make use of your cavalry as Britons to take the opponent by surprise, they are only missing Bloodlines and Paladin but otherwise they are pretty decent even without the final upgrade.
- Against Britons make sure you use a lot of Skirmishers and use split formation to dodge their archers.

- As Bulgarians play heavy cavalry Castle Age so Knights or Konniks and when the enemy is transitioning to Halberdier do a quick switch-up and go for your Champion-line as the upgrades are free.
- Against Bulgarians make Cavalry Archers, their best response is Skirmisher or their own Cavalry Archers which is not very good.

- As Burgundians be very passive in Feudal Age to get good eco and as soon as you get Castle Age and make use of their Cavalier.
- Against Burgundians keep the pace not to give them time to do a Flemish Revolution on you.

- As Burmese don't be so predictible with your Men-at-Arms which is their most popular choice so far. Feel free to go Scouts or even Archers and transition later into the game to Infantry if you need them.
- Against Burmese they are super succeptible to archers, so double-down on your archers.

- As Byzantines try to make Skirmishers and Halberdiers whenever possible as they are very cheap.
- Against Byzantines they are weak to double gold composition of Archer and Knights.

- As Celts make use of their siege as much as possible through the game, whether it is in the early game with Men-at-Arms or later with Halberdier/Unique Unit + Siege.
- Against Celts don't let them get a forward siege workshop on you. So make sure you scout with your scouts or archers.

- As Chinese master their early game, they have a very powerful early game but it's very difficult to master.
- Try to attack them early in the Dark Age even if it's laming, dark age rush, as they are the weakest in early game.

- As Cumans don't be too predicitble and always go for the second Town Center boom on open maps like Arabia and sometimes try to mix it up by even going for a rush.
- Against Cumans scout them to see whether they are going for a 2nd Town Center or not because if they are they are weaker and more exposed to an attack.

- As Franks don't be too predictible and go straight for cavalry, you can go Men-at-Arms in the early game or even Crossbow in the Castle Age. Your opponent won't be able to just blindly go into Halberdier expecting you to go knights all the time.
- Against Franks don't open with Scouts and wall earlier than usual.

- As Goths like the Franks don't be too predictible and rush straight into the infantry, you can go Scouts or Archers early game and only late game transition into those strong Halberdiers, Huskarls or Champions.
- Against Goths remember that they are mainly a 1-trick-pony, they have a few other options but their main option is infantry, you can stop them with: unique units, hand cannoners or even Champions of your own if you have all the upgrades mixed with some archers.

- As Huns play as aggressive as possible because they are a very mobile civ with fast stables.
- Against Huns try to make use of the fact that they don't have houses to wall, this means that they are going to be more exposed to attacks in Feudal Age. Play aggressive against them.

- As Incas make use of their wide variety of counter-units Slinger for infantry, Eagles for Archers, Castle Unit Kamayuk for cavalry and infantry.
- Against Inca since Incas are a very all-rounded civilization just make sure you are not countered by their units, sounds very vague but that's about it when dealing with an all-rounded civ.

- As Italians you get fully upgraded Hussars from an archer civ, make use of their late game with Genoese Crossbowmen and Hussars and Bombard Cannon to make for a very nasty and easy to get to composition. And if you have enough gold to get even more insane replace the Hussars with the Condottiero.
- Against Italians avoid cavalry as Italians completely destroy cavalry if they get to Genoese Crossbowmen, go for Elite Skirmishers instead or your normal Archers.

- As Japanese your early game eco bonus saves you a lot of wood allowing you to make even Dark Ages rushes but also Men-at-Arms or archer rushes.
- Against Japanese make sure you get for some early walls around your wood because they have strong early game rushes. Don't do scouts against Japanese it's really risky. Do Men-at-Arms if you have to to trade or go straight to range units.

- As Khmer make sure of their jumping into houses bonus by building houses next to resource location where a lot of villagers are, this can save you a lot making it very difficult for the opponent to break you early game.
- Against Khmer just open Scouts as most Khmer players will skip Barracks to make use of their civ bonus and this forces them to actually spend resources on those. At least you'll force them to stay with the villagers in houses and cause them idle time.

- As Koreans try to use the War Wagon as much as possible, is a very powerful unit and hard to deal with.
- Against Koreans make sure they don't get to War Wagons + Siege that can destroy you in a narrow path so try to keep the game open.

- As Lithuanians try to open the game with Scouts and use your scouts to look for relics to get them as soon as possible when you get to Castle Age.
- Against Lithuanians deny their relics by all means necessary. Their Paladins and Castle Unit Letis get insanely strong the more relics they have, that early Castle age moment against Lithuanians can dictate the rest of the game with them.

- As Magyars you have 2 strong points: early game Scout rush with free Blacksmith Forging technology and cheaper Scouts, and late game with Magyar Hussar + Cavalry Archer composition. But don't be too predictible with this, you can also go Men-at-Arms rush since Men-at-Arms also benefit from the free Blacksmith Forging technology.
- Against the Magyars fight them between those 2 strong points and you will find that the civ struggles to get going.

- As Mayans don't be afraid to go double-gold composition in Imperial Age, Castle Unit Plumed Archer is very strong and Mayan Eagle Warrior is very strong, those 2 in combination can destory a lot of civs in the game. Combine that with the fact that they have longer lasting resources including gold piles and stone piles it enables you to do these kind of power plays.
- Against Mayans make sure that you pressure them in such a way that they don't have enough gold for that double gold composition and they have to pick between the Pumed Archer or the Eagle Warrior. Watch out for when the Mayan player goes for one and then transitions into the other.

- As Mongols make use of Mangudai. We all know how strong they are.
- Against Mongols watch out that they don't get the Mangudai in early Castle, if they have a Castle make sure you prepare a counter because it's a really oppressive unit once it gets going.

- As Persians your Town Centers work faster so when it comes to booming in Castle Age you can do with 1 less Town Center than other civs. And if you have 3-5 Town Centers make sure you don't spam villagers like any other civ since your villagers are created much faster and you may quickly run out of food.
- Against Persians try to play a solid game, their Town Center bonus is only good in 2 scenario: if they are purely booming or if they are 1 Town Center pushing you.

- As Portuguese play gold units as much as possible to take advantage of their bonus and don't be afraid to play both Crossbows and Knights in the Castle Age.
- Against Portuguese Castle Organ Guns are super deadly, if they get there it's sometimes really hard to beat the and if they get them get Catapults or Monks or Archers.

- As Saracens make use of their Market, it's their only eco bonus so make use of it as much as possible.
- Against Saracens always watch their Market because they could be selling stone and get to Castle Age quite quickly. If you don't see it coming you get rolled. Make sure you understand how much the Saracens can abuse the Market.

- As Sicilians don't get too cought up with their Serjeants and Donjons, they are not that strong in the early game so definetly make use of their Crossbows, Skirmishers or Knights. And then just transition to Sergeants and Donjons later on in the game.
- Against Sicilians if they attack you or you them, Tower Rush them. Donjons are very expensive early game, they can't afford to make too many of them.

- As Slavs you have a really good bonus that makes your farmers work faster, use this bonus to go for a rush rather than a boom. Most of your farms come from early game so at the end of Feudal Age you have like 18 to 20 farms. So after you got the farms that's actually a really great place for Slavs to attack since they will get that extra. So don't be afraid to 1 TC push instead of booming with Slavs and push in early Castle.
- Against Slavs be way of their Castle Age push, they have really strong knight and siege push because they have a really good economy with their farm bonus and cheaper siege. Their late game is strong but they lack strong range options, so make sure you deal with their melee units and be careful of the Boyar.

- As Spanish make use of their Conquistadors whenever possible because it's really a very powerful unit.
- Against Spanish similar to Mongols they have a very powerful Castle unit, the Conquistador, so go Skirmishers against Conquistator, or Archers and Cavalry Archers, don't rely on your siege they eat that.

- As Tatars you have a very good late game so don't be afraid to get to late game and win the game with Cavalry Archers and Hussar with the unique tech to give them extra armor.
- Against Tatars they have Thumb Ring for free in Castle Age, so prepare them for going Cavalry Archer or at least have a counter to them going Cavalry Archer because free Thumb Ring Cavalry Archers will destroy knights, make Skirmishers.

- As Teutons try to play in a way that is not going to require too much mobility. Teutons lack mobility but have a very strong army that can fight melee units, but also their siege is good at dealing with archers in 1 spot.
- Against Teutons similar to Bulgarians play Cavalry Archers against them, they absolutely destroy Teutons at all stages of the game. Even if your civ isn't the best with them, it will absolutely destroy Teutons, or if you don't have them at least Archers.

- As Turks keep your options open as beside Jannissary and Hussar you also have Cavalry Archers and Hand Canoner.
- Against Turks double-down on 1 unit because they don't have any good trash units so if you double down on Archers with some Halberdiers, or double down on Knights with some Skirmishers. If you end up without gold the Turk player is going to do very bad.

- As Vietnamese you can try to steal the enemy's sheeps.
- Against Vietnamese absolutely betware that they don't lame you in the early game.

- As Vikings make use of the fact that you have the best economy in the game as much as possible because your late game while it's not bad it's not the best and it can get beaten by other civs. You will have the economic advantage from Feudal to Early Imperial. You can really end the game with Archers + Infantry and some siege.
- Against Vikings they are incredibly strong in all parts of the game except that super late game where they have very limited tech and poor siege, only option that is really good is siege ram. Make sure you draw the time as much as possible and that you have a winning composition against them in Imperial Age, stall to late game.

You have 50-ish civilizations that are not different but semi-different. You have the generic units that most civilizations had in history: archers with a bow, infantry with sword and shield, etc. But then you have that civilization's particularity, in form of different bonuses and that civilization's signature move, their castle unit.


The Goths are very very simple. Spam infantry units: Huskarls, Champions, Halberdiers.

What you want to do is get to Castle Age, build a Castle and research from the Castle a tech called "Anarchy" (the silver crown), then it will allow you to spam Huskarls from the Barracks. Huskarls are very powerful because they are anti-archer, archers usually beat infantry but Huskarls are the exceptions. Then spam infantry. All your infantry units are cheaper so you can make a lot of them, and all 3 infantry units specialize against a type of unit: Vs archers get Huskarls, Vs Infantry get Champions, Vs Cavalry get Halberdiers.

Spam Paladin and support them with Skirmisher/Throwing Axemen/Hand Cannoneer.

They have the most powerful Paladin in the game. But Paladin are countered by Halberdiers, so all you need is a 2nd unit to counter the Halberdier, you have 3 options: Skirmishers (from Archery Range), Throwing Axemen (from Castle), Hand Cannoneer (from Archery range). The villagers picking Berries work 15% faster and the Mill technologies are free, allowing you to have an easier Dark Age.

Spam Longbowman/Arbalester and support them with Halberdiers as meat shield and Trebuchet.

Your archers outrange every other unit, making them very hard to get close to. You will need Halberdiers to use them as meat shield between your Longbowman/Arbalester and enemy army. But you do not have building breaking power which is why you need Trebuchet from Castle. Longbowman (from Castle) are better but the regular Arbalester (from Archery Range) is also better than most other archer units. They have an Imperial Age technology called "Warwolf" (the gold crown) that makes their Trebuchets 100% accurate, normally Trebuchets are 30% accurate only hitting Castles all the time because they are very large targets, but this technology will make them 100% accurate against all other targets. And "Yeomen" (the silver crown) in Castle Age is also very good for extra range. The villagers picking food from Sheeps work 25% faster and Town Centers costs -50% wood in Castle age, allowing you to have an easier Dark Age and boom.

Spam Cataphracts and support them with Skirmishers or Halberdiers.

Halberdiers normally counter Cavalry. Cataphracts (from Castle) are the anti-anti-cavalry unit. They counter units that would normally counter cavalry. So they actually beat Halberdiers. Your weaknesses are Paladins since Cataphracts are roughly 75% as strong as Paladins. And to deal with that you make Halberdiers that counter them. Or if you're dealing with archers make Skirmishers that counter them. Your buildings have more HP, including Town Centers, Castles and Walls, allowing you to be harder to break.

Rush for relics and spam Letis/Paladin supported by Winged Hussars, Skirmisher or Halberdier.

Your Letis and Paladin get +1 attack for each relic you get up to +4, so rush for those relics as soon as you hit Castle Age. Of the 2, the Letis is the better unit but it comes from Castle so if you don't have the time or the resources Paladins are good as well. And to defend your main units you have 3 very good options: Winged Hussars are some of the best non-gold cavalry in the game and Skirmisher or Halberdier for the same reason as the Byzantines. You start with +100 food, allowing you to have an easier Dark Age and each new Town Center gives you +100 food allowing you to boom better in Castle Age.

Spam Champions/Samurai/Halberdiers and support them with Skirmisher/Archer.

Goths have the cheapest infantry in the game, with quantity over quality. Japanese have the strongest infantry in the game, with +33% attack speed. You have amazing infantry all over the place. The downside of infantry is that they are weak against ranged units, so to protect against that make Skirmishers (doesn't cost gold) or Archers (costs gold) from Archery range. The Samurai is like a Champion but has bonus damage against unique units, meaning units from Castle.

Spam Battle Elephant and support them with Imperial Skirmisher/Rattan Archer.

Hera, best Age of Empires 2 player in the world, recommended the Vietnamese as the best beginner-friendly civ. You see the enemy base at the start of the game, making your game much easier. You have the Battle Elephant with a technology from Castle called "Chatras" (Silver Crown from Castle) that makes your Elephants stronger and since they are weak to Halberdiers you have the Imperial Skirmisher, an improved version of a cheap anti-archer unit that doesn't cost any gold so you can easily spam them to protect Elephants. Or if you have the gold the unit from your Castle Rattan Archer is Archer+Skirmisher in 1 unit, having the strengths of both, a clear improvement but costs gold.

Spam Battle Elephants and Champions/Halberdiers.

An ideal unit composition would be the Aramabi (Castle Unit) and Halberdier. But they have a lot of options. Including Battle Elephant in stables with extra armor and Champions/Halberdiers with +1 attack per age starting Feudal so +3 in Imperial. Given that these units are used a lot at lower levels, often seeing huge Halberdiers and Champion fights, the Burmese are a very good civ in that regard with powerful Elephants and Infantry. You can get Skirmisher or the Castle Unit for support if things get bad.

Rush to Imperial Age and spam Janissary and support them with Hussars.

Another top player, Survivalist, recommended the Turks as the best civ for a beginner, since they are very powerful once you reach Imperial Age and what you have to do with them is very simple. They don't have an economic bonus that allows you to get to Imperial Age faster, but have a very powerful Imperial Age unit that is worth getting there for, the Janissary, it's a top tier unit. Their Janissary outrange almost anything and do a lot of damage. And you only need the Blacksmith Archer Armor upgrade to fully upgrade them. The Hussars are there to protect them, yes even against Halberdiers. And if you want archers you have very good Cavalry Archers, you also have the Champion if something else is needed, and Bombard Cannons from Siege Workshop with extra range.

High Armor but slow. Spam Teutonic Knight or Paladin and support them with Skirmisher.

They have some of the best Champions, Halberdiers, Paladins and Unique Unit in the game due to getting extra melee armor in Castle Age and Imperial Age, with the Teutonic Knight having an insane amount. Champions and Halberdiers are not top tier like the Japanese but are way above average, so don't expect them to beat Jaguar Warriors but expect them to beat generic Champions and Halberdiers. The Paladin by contrast is one of the best in the game. Pick either Teutonic Knight or Paladin, both are very good, and support them with Skirmisher as archers are your civilization's main weakness since you only have extra melee armor. Their farms are 40% cheaper, and while your Dark Age is normal this allows you to have a very easy Feudal Age for a quick transition to Castle Age. You also give bonus conversion resistance to your allies making it very nice to play together with an Elephant civilization. They are slow not in the sense of development but their main units Paladins and Teutonic Knights are slower than average. They also benefit a lot from having a Vietnamese ally since they need Skirmishers and Vietnamese give better Skirmishers to all their allies.

These civs are not as straightforward as those top 10, but are still very easy when compared to other civs. So if you don't like anything in the top 10 as a new player I recommend this. Easy in the sense that it's very straightforward to play with them, they have a simple game plan.

Never build houses and spam Paladin/Tarkan with Skirmisher/Cavalry Archer.

I have mixed feelings about Huns but I had to mention them. While they are a very good noob civilization they lead to bad habits. You have Paladins and the Tarkan (Castle Unit) that while not as powerful as a Paladin can melt walls and buildings. And like Goths after the Castle Age technology "Marauders" (the silver crown) you can train them at Stables. Then you need then is to support against Halberdiers with Skirmishers or their very good Cavalry Archers.

Cavalry Archers get upgrades from Archers & Cavalry so by going Skirmisher + Knight then switching to Cavalry Archer already have the upgrades for Cavalry Archer from both sides, Cavalry Archer are affected by the Archer Armor upgrade not the Cavalry Armor upgrade for the record, in rest they get upgrades from all upgrades that are either for Cavalry or Archers.

While the Houses bonus sounds good on paper, it's a double-edged sword, a house costs 25 wood, in Dark Age you'll typically make 5 houses and since you start with -100 wood you only save about 25 wood, compare that with the Japanese whose Mill and Lumbercamps costs -50 wood thus saving 100 wood, you could say it saves you the time of the villager to build the houses which is not much. The bonus does add up in Feudal Age where for say 45 population you would have needed 9 houses thus 225 wood, saving you 125 wood. By 100 population you would have saved 20 houses thus 500 - 100 = 400 wood. So you don't save that much, it's just more convenient.

The downside is that you can't use houses as part of your wall when you all, and if an enemy tries to break a wood wall in feudal you can't place a house right in front of the broken wall to block him.

Of course, Huns are suited for aggressive playstyle rather than staying in home and booming. The Tarkan has lower attack and melee armor than a Paladin but higher pierce armor, they are significantly weaker in melee but they are more resistant to archers, although that doesn't translate to dealing more damage to archers. And they can take out Walls, Castles and Town Centers easily. 8 Tarkans are enough to bring down a Town Center where as normally you would need about 30 Knights in Castle Age. They are also good support when you have Cavalry teammates as the 20% faster working stables benefit every cavalry ally civilization.

Spam Balista Elephant with Hussar/Battle Elephants/Halberdier. in front of them.

They have Balista Elephant and best food bonus in the game. You can dominate the field if you manage to mass their unique unit, the Balista Elephant. Then protect them with either Battle Elephants or Hussars from Stable, or Halberdier. And you have the food economy to make it affordable.

Farmers don't require Mills/Town Centers to drop off food. May not sound like much, but it's easily the best food bonus in the game. But you are easily going to need it, as elephants in general are very expensive. And while you don't have the best elephant in the game, the Persians have it, War Elephant. You have 2 good options when it comes to elepahants: Battle Elephant and the star of the show Balista Elephant; and the economy to support it.

Hands down the best economic bonus in the game. Spam Berserkers with Skirmisher as support.

The reason I recommend the Vikings to a new player is because they have hands down the best economic bonus in the game. Free Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart. Look everywhere, they all say this is the best eco bonus, so big that most of the Vikings' tech tree had to be nerfed because of this.

While civs like the Aztects, Teutons, Poles, Khmers, Celts, Slavs, Hindustani, Italians have significant eco bonuses that will last through the whole game while Franks, Britons, Lithuanians, Japanese, Mongols, Inca have bonuses that lead to a significantly faster Dark Age, the Vikings are in a league of their own.

Usually, you want to get Wheelbarrow right after you hit Castle Age, with the Vikings you already have it for free as soon as you turn Feudal Age, and Hand Cart for free when you hit Castle Age. This means that for the whole of Feudal Age your villagers will carry 25% more and move 10% faster than that of other civs, And handcart carry 50% more and move 10% faster instantly as you hit Castle Age. While also saving you the resources required to get them: 175 food and 50 wood & 300 food & 200 wood respectively, and the Town Center time as you build villagers in the time other players research Wheelbarrow and Handcart. Now that I put their massive economic bonus into perspective, what do the Vikings have?

They are considered a Naval civ but don't let that scare you from playing them on land maps, where they are still above average in terms of win rate in the current patch, they were never weak on land.

You can do a Feudal Age rush with Man-at-Arms supported by your very strong economy and Skirmishers if you encounter archers. You virtually have only 4 units: Archers, Skirmishers, Champions and Berserkers.

You still have Pikemen in Castle Age, and the lack of Halberdier is compensated that Berserkers can kill knights having bonus damage against them and in Castle Age Champions can too with the "Chieftans" (the silver crown) unique technology from Castle. Combine that with their extra HP and you'll have infantry that beats both infantry and cavalry.

While for archers you have Skirmishers or Archers of your own. So you can always transition from Pikemen to Berserker or Champions with "Chieftans" and still have anti-cavalry all the time. Berserker is as powerful as a Champion, but they auto-regenerate 40 HP/minute so in practice have more HP in fight while also getting better between fights. And they are faster than Champions so they can chase Archers easily and raid. Due to their strong eco bonus you can even play them as a cavalry civ in Feudal and Castle with Scouts and Knights, but you won't have anything to do with those units in Imperial. And late game you can get Berserkers with Arbalesters or Scorpions instead of Skirmishers.

Spam Conquistadors and support them with Hussar/Paladin/Missionary.

You get a lot of gold and have Conquistadors. Blacksmith upgrades don't cost gold and you get +20 gold for every technology researched. Great Paladins + Conquistadors combo with cheaper alternatives as Halberdiers, Hussars, Skirmisher. And good Bombard Towers rush.

The Spanish make a lot of gold. Their blacksmith upgrades don't cost gold, receive +20 gold for each technology researched and in team games trade units generate +25% gold. Builders work 30% faster, that's only when creating buildings. Have good Hand Cannonners and Conquistadors as Gunpowder units fire 18% faster, essentially mounted Hand Cannonners. Also have access to Champion and Heavy Cavalry Archer if they need it.

They are one of the best civs on Nomad, because of that bonus where they build 30% faster, it's something you don't think about but helps in small ways a lot.

Conquistadors are very good to use in Castle Age and an ideal Imperial Age composition would be Paladins + Conquistadors, or cheaper alternatives Halberdier, Hussar, Elite Skirmishers. So you could go something like Paladins + Skirmishers or Halberdier/Hussar + Conquistadors if you don't have that much gold. But if you don't have gold with the Spanish, what are you doing? You also have very good Bombard Towers rush due to Supremacy imperial age tech for villagers.

Spam Mangudai from Castle with Hussars/Siege late game.

You have 3 great cavalry units: Hussar, Steppe Lancer, Camels. And 2 great cavalry range units: Cavalry Archer and Mangudai. Combine them.Eventually you want to get to the Mangudai because it's such a powerful unit. Their cavalry archers fire faster. And their cavalry melee have extra HP.

With Mongols for the frontline you have either the Hussar or gold variant Steppe Lancer. While for the back you have the Cavalry Archer and even more powerful Mangudai. Mangudai is such a strong unit it's there with Goth Huskarl in terms of how good it is.

Aside from that, you also have a very powerful siege, because the tech tree is very open and with a castle research in imperial age they move a lot faster. To support all of that, your hunters working 40% faster allows you to have one of the best Dark Ages in the game. Due to their Hussar HP bonus they can also rush very well.

Steepe Lancer has +1 extra range as a melee unit (so 2 range) meaning more of them can attack at one time. Steepe Lancer works best when massed. The best way to use them is remember that 2 melee range and use chokepoints, micro hit and run on enemy infantry or better raiding of enemy villagers.

Spam Rams/Catapults and support them with Halberdier/Woad Raiders.

If you want to play Siege, the Celts are the best learning civ. They have 3 bonuses on siege: siege weapons fire 25% faster, Furor Celtica (siege units +40% HP), siege buildings work 20% faster. They are in a league of their own when it comes to siege.

Their economic bonus Lumberjacks work 15% faster, may not sound like much, but it's one of the best economic bonuses in the game, like the Vikings' free Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart, except this keeps benefiting you late game. And is perfect for your siege as you need wood.

The 10% speed for infantry starting Feudal is unassuming but huge. Your infantry will be faster than every single non-cavalry unit, including archers. Only Eagle Warriors are faster than Celt Men-at-Arms and the Celt Spearman is the fastest infantry in the game. Celts don't have infantry, they have semi-cavalry.

While the other units: Champion, Halberdier, Hussar, Paladin, Skirmisher and the Castle Unit give them a lot of options to support their siege units. With Celts, it's not a question of whether they will make a forward Siege Workshop, it's a question of when.

Spam Imperial Camels and support them with Skirmisher or Hand Cannoneer.

I had to mention at least 1 Camel civ. Camels are anti-cavalry cavalry. They are weaker than a Paladin but beat cavalry due to anti-cavalry bonus, however, they are weaker versus infantry and archers when compared to Paladin. Imperial Camels are the best camels in the game. Almost as powerful versus archers and infantry while they melt knights. With the Hindustani, you have an unique Imperial Camel upgrade just like the Vietnamese have the Imperial Skirmisher upgrade.

You don't have Halberdiers (generally Camel civs don't have Halberdiers since Camels already beat Knights) which may throw off some players but have plenty of things to compensate for that. Namely Skirmishers, Hussars and a Hand Cannoneer with extra armor and +2 range in Imperial Age due to a technology called "Shatagni" (the gold crown from Castle).

And if all else fails you also have Champions that will allow you to deal with enemy Halberdiers beside Skirmishers and Hand Cannoneers.

On top of that they have cheaper villagers at all ages, the higher in age you go the cheaper your villagers get, allowing you to have an easier Dark Age, Feudal Age, Castle Age and Imperial Age. If you get 25 villagers in Dark Age that saves you 100 food, that is not much, the equivalent of the Lithuanian bonus, but in Feudal if you make 20 more villagers that saves you 130 food and in Castle where you really boom with multiple Town Centers if you get 60 extra villagers that saves you 540 food, to say nothing of Imperial where the discount is -23% cost for villager.

Spam Kamayuks and support them with Skimishers/Slingers/Arbalest.

American civs are weird, but if you want to learn one start with Inca. Free food at the start of the game, housing bonus, cheaper units. Very open tech tree so you don't miss anything significant. Unlike Aztecs specialized on infantry and Mayans specialized on Archers. Kamayuks is anti-cavalry and anti-trash. Slinger is anti-infantry. Eagle Warrior is anti-archer.

You and all your allies start with a free lama and houses gives 10 population instead of 5, making for a very forgiving Dark Age. All your units except archer-line are cheaper. Monks and Siege give unusually good value, don't underestimate how quicky this bonus adds up. You have skirmishers but then you don't have cavalry so the Halberdiers aren't that much of a threat.

Kamayuks are a mix between Halberdier and Champion, the middle of the road in terms of damage, while the HP is closer to the Champion, they have attack bonus versus Cavalry like Halberdier but is not as extreme.

Fabric Shield makes the Eagle Warriors even more impressive. The Eagle Warrior is an anti-archer, and with Fabric Shield they get close to Goths Huskarls level of anti-archer. Of course, Goths still have the huge discounts and fast spawn rate as other advantages such as high damage versus buildings, so they won't dethrone the king but are there.

Spam Jaguar Warriors/Eagle Warriors with Skirmishers/Siege.

Insanely powerful infantry and monks, and powerful Skirmishers with extra attack and range to deal with the Archers that would normally counter the infantry.

You start with +50 gold that will help you with a Milita rush in Dark Age or to get a technology faster or to advance in Castle Age. That +3 extra carry capacity helps all resources but especially farms where you get about +10% more efficient farms. Creating all military units 15% is very useful in every situation, like the extra carry capacity it's one of those bonuses you don't have to do anything to be good.

Taking all the Monastery traits will give your monks double the usual HP of a monk, making them the tankiest Monks in the game. That you also have all the technologies for. Playing with Monks is a very viable strategy for Aztects.

Their unique unit, Jaguar Warrior, is an anti-infantry specialist, for a civ that already has a lot of infantry bonuses. This leads to a very interesting combo, where you make Eagles that are anti-archers, you opponent makes Champions in response, and you make Jaguar Warriors that beat the Champions.

With the Imperial Age technology Garland Wars your infantry becomes as good as the Japanese infantry. Eagles with +4 attack work great against both archers and cavalry, while the Jaguar Warriors can deal with Infantry. The Aztecs also have really powerful siege. With access to final level Rams and Catapults that are also created faster.

A high-risk high-reward booming civ. Spam Kipchak and support them with Hussars/Paladins.

Where as Goths are weak early game because they can eventually get very powerful army late game, Cumans are weak early game because they can eventually get very powerful economy late game, or they can be very aggressive breaking your walls in Feudal. You never know which is which.

Cumans get 2 bonuses that couldn't be more different: You get 1 extra TC in Feudal Age but no stone walls, so you are harder to defend but can boom like crazy if you are left alone. And you get access to Siege Workshop and Rams in Feudal Age, meaning you are one of the very few civs that can break stone walls in Feudal Age, meaning no one is safe from you.

Other than that, you have access to all the major units except Arbalester. While Light Cavalry, Steppe Lancers and Cavalry Archers train 100% faster. This is intended as a civ that you're meant to be fast with, either fast in development or fast in attack.

Spam Plumed Archer with Halberdier/Eagle Warrior as support.

Their team bonus is very good, walls including stone wall costs -50% less. This is more useful on open maps than closed maps but generally useful everywhere. The resources last 15% longer is most useful in Dark Age where sheeps and Boar last longer, giving you an extra 200 food from them. But also gives you extra resources from gold and stone mines.

And finally, their best bonus, Archery Range archers and Castle archers are discounted as you age up. Making it easier to hit that critical mass of archers.

The unique unit Plumed Archer, is more expensive but tankier than normal archers, with more HP and armor, and much faster movement, equal to eagle warriors. They are better vs infantry, vs catapults since they can take a direct hit but catapults still counter them they are just more resistant and easily beat generic archers of other civs. 8 of them can one shot a villager.

Their unique tech El Dorado gives Mayans the best Eagle Warrior in the game, a great anti-archer and anti-skirmisher while the Plumed Archer can deal with infantry as well as archers, and the Halberdier can deal with cavalry. So you have all 3 areas covered. Both Plumed Archer with Eagle Warriors both cost gold so it's harder to make than Halberdier. They also have final tech for Ram and Scorpions in case you need them.

Spam Hussite Wagon/Houfnice and support them with Halberdier/Champion.

Hussite Wagon are the best gunpowder unit in the game, beating Turk Janissary and Spanish Conquistador 1v1. While Houfnice are some of the best bombard cannons in the game. They have a lot of indirect advantages to Archers. Cheaper Blacksmith, cheaper University and Chemistry in Castle Age means that they can get very early and very quickly archers upgrade. They have the final Archer upgrade missing only Thumb Ring. It also helps on Siege as you need a Blacksmith to build a Siege Workshop.

Fast Imperial & Gunpowder are a classic Arena strategy. And Bohemians get a bonus to this with Hand Cannonner available in Castle Age. Bohemians, Byzantines and Turks have strong Hand Cannonners. Their Halberdier deals extra bonus damage, this translates as - they are even stronger against Cavalry. This makes for a great Halberdier + Siege combo. The Fervor applies to Villagers is actually an economic bonus, making the villagers move faster.

Their Unique Unit Hussite Wagon is a Gunpowder unit. It's a lot like the Portuguese Organ Gun. Is beaten by catapults and bombard cannons, but also anti-siege specialist units. They need to be protected with some melee. The Houfnice is a unique upgrade for Bombard Cannon. It gives them a little bit more HP and armor but an insane amount of extra damage and a small blast radius.

Spam War Elephant/Paladin and support them with Skirmishers/Wood Archers.

You have the elephants in the game - War Elephant.And then to defend those War Elephants you have Skirmishers or Archers that cost wood. In Castle Age you get Kamandaran reserach in Castle, that converts the gold cost for Archers to wood.

They are bad archers but it doesn't matter because after Kamandaran they are dirt cheap.
And until you get the War Elephants in late game you have very good stables in the middle game.
Hussar, Savar, Camel are all good options. That can be well defended with a Skirmisher.

Early in the game you are going to play like a typical knight civilization. With Hussar, Savar, Camel and Skirmisher. But late game you are going to switch from a typical knight civ to the War Elephant. The best elephant unit in the game who can make a very powerful push as long as he is not countered. And you have plenty of options to deal with those counters: wood Archers, Skirmishers. Even Cavalry Archer or Hand Cannoner.

You also have Halberdier if you need it for some reason, but you have the worst champions in the game, don't even bother. But, you have a nice +50 wood and +50 food at the start of the game, leading to a much easier Dark Age just like Lithuanians. It's a civ that requires you to change your mindset in the middle of the game, from cavalry civ to elephant push, but a very good civ.

Spam cheap but good Winged Hussars/Cavalier and support them with Skirmishers/Archers.

The Poles have 5 great options to pick from depending on what is needed. Their Winged Hussars are some of the best Winged Hussars in the game who even stand a decent chance against Halberdiers after the trample damage upgrade, and they don't cost gold. Your Cavalier while not as strong as Paladins after the Castle Age technology "Szlachta Privileges" (the silver crown) they become almost as cheap as a Champion despite being way stronger, so you can spam huge amount of these.

While Obuch is your deluxe unit, it removes armor from whoever it attacks, making them an easy target for the archers in the back. They are a more powerful champion who can remove armor.

In addition, the Poles have some of the best economic bonuses in the game, beside cheap Cavalier their farms generate a lot of food, second only to Khmer if they are placed right next to a Mill (so don't build farms in Town Center with Poles) and when they dig 2 stone they get 1 gold for free. Meaning you can dig stone right away in Feudal Age and will have enough to get to Castle Age and plant a Castle as soon as you are Castle Age.

Spam Organ Guns and support them with Halberdiers/Champions.

Portuguese and their allies reserach all techs 25% faster except for aging up. This is a great team bonus. You will especially notice it at Wheelbarrow or Loom and Archers, Cavalry or Chemistry upgrades. All units costs -20% saves you a lot of gold in the long-run, especially for gold-intensive units like Trebuchet, Bombard Cannons, Cannon Galleon but also Knights, Champions, Scorpions and Organ Guns. This also allows them like the Aztecs to have a very good Dark Age rush.

Their ships have +10% HP which is good overall on all water maps regardless of unit. For the Dark Ages, berries generate 1 wood for each 3 food collected, giving them some extra wood from sources you wouldn't normally expect.

And at the other corner of the game, you have the late game Feitoria building. It generates: 96 food, 60 gold, 42 wood, 18 stone per minute. So the numbers aren't equal. At the cost of 20 population. 20 villagers are more efficient, but Feitoria is more difficult to raid with 2.700 HP and the production is infinite which is very useful late game.

They have a very good unit. The Organ Gun, deals massive gunpowder damage to low armor high groups of enemies. Especially good against infantry and skirmishers. Is beaten by Cavalry and Catapults. But you don't have many other land units, use Halberdiers or Champions to protect them.

The other unique unit is for water Caravel. A Galleon that can hit multiple enemies like a Scorpion. They also have very good Bombard Towers, especially with the Arquebus upgrade that also applies to Organ Guns and Hand Cannonners. You're basically giving all your gunpowder units Balistics.

Spam Konniks with Halberdier/Skirmishers for support.

You have almost perfect Skirmishers & Cavalry Archers. Fully upgraded* Champion and Halberdier. You don't get the final upgrade for Champion but all other level-ups are free and you get a Castle technology giving the Two-Handed Swordman +5 melee armor, they beat generic Champions 1v1 but lose to specialized infantry such as Japanese or Teutons.

And all your cavalry: Hussar, Cavalier, Konnik attacks 33% faster. Making them very powerful. It's a civ that is very good early game because it can be very aggressive with a lot of superior rush options: free Man-at-Arms and Castle drop. While Scouts and Knights will later get +33% attack speed with the Castle Unique tech.

Castle drop meaning Krepost, that costs half the stone of a castle, has half the HP of a castle, but deals full damage, it's a mini-castle with full damage. This will allow you to have: free to upgrade and superior champions, one of the best Hussars in the game, one of the best Cavaliers in the game like Sicilians, a unique unit almost as powerful as the Paladin.

You also have fully upgradeable rams and catapults, so you can go: Rams, Catapults, Halberdiers, Hussars to push the enemy. Or you can go Konnik + Halberdier since the only thing that can reliably beat the Konnik are Paladins but only slightly or stronger cavalry. It's hard to beat Konniks with Paladins, Halberdiers or Camels. Since you need to deal with their infantry versions as well. Teutonic Knights, Samurai or Elephants can beat them.

Spam Genoese Crossbowman and support them with Hussars/Condottiero.

Condottiero is a Champion with more HP, lower damage but bonus anti-gunpower units damage and faster speed. The advantage is that you don't need to upgrade the Condottiero, were as for the Milita-line it costs about 1300 Food and 600 Gold to go from Milita to Champion. They are most useful when an ally is playing as: Khmer, Mayans, Huns, Tattars and Persians as these civs have really bad Champion-line.

Genoese Crossbowman is an archer good vs both infantry and cavalry. They still lose to Skirmishers but it's not as one-sided as vs regular archers. Just 18 of them can 1 shot a fully armored Paladin, where as you need 60 Arbalesters to 1 shot a Paladin. Their advance to the next age faster is very good at all ages. And their Hussars/Condottiero are very good at dealing with the Skirmishers that would normally counter the Genoese Crossbowmen.

It's very good to make Hussar + Castle Unit with them and bombard towers for wall. And when you have the gold go for Condottiero instead to tank Skirmishers and Hand Cannoners. They can both go for Scouts or Archers early game, having even a decent knight rush.

Spam Camel Archer with Hussar as meat shield in front.

The Camel Archer is your best DPS unit. Remember the Skirmisher that I said it's a very important unit against archers and halberdiers? You have the Genitour, a mounted Skirmisher. The Berbers are great in team games because of this, you give your team a good non-gold unit. While you yourself have faster moving villagers so you gather everything faster. And discount to Camel Riders and Hussar. Aside from the normal Camel Archer and Hussar combo, get those Camel Riders and Genitour if you need some flexibility.

The Berbers' faster moving villagers doesn't sound like much but it actually one of the best passive economic bonuses in the game. Their cavalry units become 15% cheaper in Castle and 20% cheaper Imperial age. They have all the available upgrades but no extra bonuses like the Franks or Lithuanians. So they can get some powerful and cheap Camel Riders and Hussars.

Their Imperial Age reserach from Castle Maghrebi Camels makes Camel units regenerate, namely Camel from stable and Camel Archer from castle. The Camel Archer is essentially a much better Cavalry Archer.

Their other unique unit Genitour is a very good counter to archer civs, not only beats archers, but is faster than their archer. This unit is not only cheap but so good that you can use it even when you don't have to deal with archers. On top of that Genitour is available for all their allies, leading to a powerful archer response for everyone in your team.

Spam Coustilier/Paladins helped by Skirmisher/Hand Cannonner.

Burgundians have a very powerful but difficult to use economic bonus, all their economic upgrades are available one age earier and cost 33% less food. Stable technologies including upgrades are 50% cheaper and get Cavalier in Castle Age. This means that they can rush Cavalier better than anyone else and then attack you in Castle Age with an Imperial Age unit. They can also rush Paladin in Imperial since it's 50% cheaper.

As for the other options aside from knights, they have Skirmishers to fight Halberdiers. Hand Cannonner with bonus to damage for late game. And their Castle Unit Coustilier that is very good, better than a Paladin.

Spam Boyars helped by Skirmishers. And late game switch to Champions/Halberdiers helped by Siege.

They have some of the best farms in the game right there with Khmer, Teutons and Poles. Cavalry is their safest default plan, they only get good infantry in Imperial Age. They have fully upgradeable Rams, Catapults and Scorpions while being 15% cheaper. They end up with one of the best Halberdiers + Siege combo in Imperial Age.

They lack Paladin so Knight is only good early game, but they compensate from this with the Boyar at the Castle that is almost as armored as a Teutonic Knight, but Halberdiers and Camels still beat them. However, they beat all other knights 1vs1.

They have a Castle Age technology called "Detinets" (the silver crown) that replaces 40% of the stone cost from Castle to wood, making it easier to mass more Castles. But this can't be used to fast 2 Castle as the first Castle is at full fost and the technology costs 400 wood and 200 gold.

But their best bonus is by far in Imperial Age, the "Druzhina" (the gold crown) makes your infantry deal trample damage, leading to one of the best infantry units in the game. Despite having a good Castle Civ unit.

There you go. You have 10 civs to pick from, and if you don't like either of those, 20 honorable mentions. Let's make a summary.

1. Goths -> Infantry: Get anarchy and spam infantry units: Huskarls, Champions, Halberdiers.
2. Franks -> Knight: Spam Paladin, support with Skirmisher/Throwing Axemen/Hand Cannoneer.
3. Britons -> Archer: Spam Longbowman/Arbalester, support with Halberdiers and Trebuchet.
4. Byzantines -> Knight: Spam Cataphracts, defend them with Skirmishers or Halberdiers.
5. Lithuanians -> Knight: Get relics, spam Letis/Paladin and protect them Winged Hussars, Skirmisher or Halberdier.
6. Japanese -> Infantry: Spam Champions/Samurai/Halberdiers, help with Skirmisher/Archer.
7. Vienamese -> Elephant: Spam Battle Elephant, support with Imperial Skirmisher/Rattan Archer.
8. Burmese -> Elephant: Spam Battle Elephants and Champions/Halberdiers. Aramabi if money.
9. Turks -> Hand Cannonner: Rush to Imperial Age and spam Janissary protected by Hussars.
10. Teutons -> Armor: Spam Teutonic Knight or Paladin and support them with Skirmisher.

11. Huns -> Knight: No houses, spam Paladin/Tarkan protected by Skirmisher/Cavalry Archer.
12. Khmer -> Elephant: Spam Balista Elephant, protect with Hussar/Elephants/Halberdier.
13. Vikings -> Infantry: Best eco. Spam Berserkers with Skirmisher/Archers as support.
14. Spanish -> Gunpowder Archer: Spam Conquistadors helped by Hussar/Paladin/Missionary.
15. Mongols -> Cavalry Archer: Spam Mangudai from Castle with Hussars/Siege late game.
16. Celts -> Siege: Spam Rams/Catapults and support them with Halberdier/Woad Raiders.
17. Hindustani -> Camels: Spam Imperial Camels helped by Skirmisher or Hand Cannoneer.
18. Inca -> Infantry: Spam Kamayuks and support them with Skimishers/Slingers/Arbalest.
19. Aztecs -> Infantry: Spam Jaguar Warriors/Eagle Warriors with Skirmishers/Siege.
20. Cumans -> Cavalry Archer: Best boom. Spam Kipchak helped by Hussars/Paladins.

21. Mayans -> Archer: Spam Plumed Archer with Halberdier/Eagle Warrior as support.
22. Bohemians -> Siege: Spam Hussite Wagon/Houfnice with Halberdier/Champion as support.
23. Persians -> Elephants: Spam War Elephant/Paladin, support with Skirmishers/Wood Archers.
24. Poles -> Knight: Spam Winged Hussars/Cavalier and support them with Skirmishers/Archers.
25. Portuguese -> Siege: Spam Organ Guns and support them with Halberdiers/Champions.
26. Bulgarians -> Knight: Spam Konniks with Halberdier/Skirmishers for support.
27. Italians -> Archer: Spam Genoese Crossbowman and support them with Hussars/Condottiero
28. Berbers -> Cavalry Archer: Spam Camel Archer with Hussar as meat shield in front.
29. Burgundians -> Knight: Spam Coustilier/Paladins helped by Skirmisher/Hand Cannonner.
30. Slavs -> Knight to Infantry: Spam Boyars helped by Skirmishers. And late game switch to Champions/Halberdiers helped by Siege.

In conclusion, what units do you want to play with?

Main unit:

Champion: Goths, Japanese, Burmese, Slavs (late only).
Halberdier: Goths, Japanese, Burmese, Slavs (late only).
Eagles: Mayans (situational, if you want to, they are the best of all 3 Eagle Warriors)

Knight: Franks, Lithuanians, Teutons, Huns, Poles, Burgundians.
Hussars: Poles

Elephants: Vietnamese, Burmese.
Camels: Hindustani.
Monks: (they are usually not the main unit, see Aztecs or Spanish for good as support unit)
Siege: Celts, Bohemians,

Archers: Britons.
Skirmishers: Vietnamese, Vikings.
Hand Cannoneer: Hindustani.
Cavalry Archers: Huns.

Unique Castle Unit: Goths, Byzantines, Lithuanians, Japanese, Vietnamese, Turks, Teutons, Huns, Vikings, Khmer, Spanish, Mongols, Inca, Aztecs, Cumans, Mayans, Persians, Poles, Portuguese, Bulgarians, Italians, Burgundians, Slavs.

Support unit (defend main unit):

Champion: Bohemians, Portuguese, Italians (sort of, Condottiero), (situational, if your civ has them and get attacked with Halberdiers + Siege go for them)
Halberdier: Britons, Byzantines, Lithuanians, Khmer, Mayans, Bohemians, Portuguese, Bulgarians.
Eagles: Mayans,

Knight: Byzantines (situational, you have the better Cataphract as the main unit), Spanish, Cumans,
Hussars: Lithuanians, Turks, Khmer, Spanish, Mongols, Cumans, Italians.

Elephants: Khmer
Camels: Byzantines, Turks. (situational, if you can't deal with mass knights you have them. With the Byzantines you also have the cheaper Halberdiers that you should get most of the time, but if you need extra speed get them)
Monks: Aztecs, Spanish
Siege: Mongols, Aztecs,

Archers: Japanese, Vikings, Inca, Persians, Poles.
Skirmishers: Byzantines, Lithuanians, Japanese, Burmese, Teutons (real must have), Hindustani, Huns, Vikings, Inca, Aztecs, Persians, Poles, Bulgarians, Burgundians, Slavs.
Hand Cannoneer: Hindustani (yes, cause you can play them as both main unit and support), Burgundians.
Cavalry Archers: Huns (same, you can play them as both main unit and support)

While most units and civs are pretty straightforward, there are some weird civilization gimmicks that you should keep in mind, because if you don't know these exceptions they can destroy you. So it's better to know them ahead of time than be surprised in battle.

Chinese -> Archer: starts with 0 food, -50 wood and 6 villagers.
Mayans -> Archer: starts with -50 food and 4 villagers.
Gurjaras -> Camels: start with 2 berries, can garrison sheeps.
Burgundians -> Knight: can get all economic upgrades one age earlier at a discount.
Armenians & Georgians -> Infantry & Cavalry: Have mule cart to collects resources instead.

This is how you start the Dark Age with these weird civs:

1. Chinese -> Send all 6 villagers straight to the Town Center to get sheeps, then continue as usual.
2. Mayans -> Pick loom as soon as you start the game. Then build 2 houses with 3 villagers and continue as usual.
3. Gurjaras -> Never kill sheeps. Build 2 houses as usual. Send all villagers on the berries under Town Center then rush with 1 villager to build Mill where you will garrison all your sheeps. Put your next few villagers on wood next to Town Center until you have 100 to make Lumber Camp.
4. Burgundians -> Even pros start with 7 villagers on sheep, get the wood upgrade as soon as possible, then get the food upgrade right before you start planting farms.
5. Armenians/Georgians -> Georgians also start with 1 mule cart out, it's just a free scout, then it becomes free lumber camp.

Burgundians -> (Cavalier in Castle Age, Coustillier with charge, Flemmish Milita spam late game)
Italians -> (Condottiero anti-gunpowder, Genoese Crossbowman anti-cavalry but weak to skirm)
Sicillians -> (Serjiant semi-Goths that can build Dojons, Dojons strong towers extra HP & attack)
Bulgarians -> (Konnik when it dies becomes infantry, Krepost Castle with half HP same damage)
Cumans -> (Can build one more Town-Center as well as Battering Rams in Feudal Age)
Lithuanians -> (Letis anti-armor unit who esentially ignores armor in enemy units)
Poles -> (Obuch removes 1 armor with each attack against the enemy helping archers)

Most civs have pretty default & understandable units:
- Archers beat infantry & beat cavalry only in high enough numbers.
- Skirmishers beat Archers & beat Halberdiers only in high enough numbers.
- Cavalry Archers need to avoid damage like an uninsured rental car.
- Hand Cannonner beat infantry far better than Archers can.
- Champions are better than all trash units, Skirmishers, Pikemen, Scout.
- Hussars beat Skirmishers & beat Archers only in low numbers.
- Camels beat other horses but are weaker vs archers and infantry than Paladin.
- Lancers can beat Halberdier with extra range but are weaker vs camels or archers than Paladin.
- And the Unique unit from Castle is usually something like that with a minor tweak.
- Scorpions beat infantry and archers in numbers, even cavalry when in high mass.
- Catapults beat scorpions and archers, infantry too if they can hit them before they reach them.
- Bombard Cannons beat every siege unit including scorpion and catapults and buildings.

Burgundians can make Cavalier in Castle Age. In spite of the shock value of seeing an Imperial-age unit in Castle, it's not that strong compared to a regular Castle Knight, with only +2 attack and Bloodlines. In a 1vs1 with Knight the Burgundian Cavalier usually wins with about 25% HP left.

Coustillier, cheaper but lower stats Paladin, has a "charge" mechanic. First attack deals +34 damage, then has a 40 seconds cooldown. Longer they stay in a fight worse than the Paladin they get. They are a shock cavalry unit meant to overwhelm smaller army of low hp units, or jump for a few quick attacks then retreat.

Flemmish Milita, Imperial Age unique tech turns all villagers into this. Stats-wise is almost as powerful as a Champion so can be treated as such. Have a small bonus against cavalry and camels. But no bonus damage against buildings like Champions.

Italians Condottiero is an anti-gunpowder infantry. A Champion but tankier and with lower damage and moves faster and protection from gunpowder.

Genoese Crossbowman, is archer great against cavalry, good against infantry and archers, but especially weak to mass skirmishers. Lower range than general archer but tankier and +1 more damage in castle.

Sicillians Serjiant is a Champion with lower attack but higher armor who can build Dojons. Dojons are a slightly stronger Tower with higher HP and a little bit higher attack.

Bulgarians Konnik has 2 lives, one as a cavalry the second as infantry. Weaker than the Knight and weaker than the Champion but the catch is that you basically have 2 units in 1.

Krepost, is a unique stone buildings like the Sicillians' Dojon but stronger, where as the Sicillians is a slightly better Tower, the Bulgarians have a slightly weaker Castle. Deals the same amount of damage as Castle but has half the HP of the Castle. Also costs almost half the amount of stone to build so they are a good investment.

Cumans Like Goths, are the only other civ without stone walls, while for goths this is because they are meant to be weak early game, for Cumans is because they are supposed to be exposed to attack due to how strong they can be early game. Will be good early game but have issues later game when you need stone.

Can build a 2nd Town Center in Feudal Age, huge for your economy allowing you to boost yourself like no other civ. One of those bonuses that can dictate the flow of the game in a profund way, you need to attack the Cumans else they will develop faster than you. A 2nd Town Center and the +50% wood walls defense they get makes them harder to raid.

Can build siege workshop and battering ram in Feudal Age, this is insane especially on but not limited to close maps. Generally, with a wood wall you are safe in Feudal, enemy units take a long time to raid it, and with a Stone wall you are safe until Castle age with siege workshop or much stronger upgraded units that can break it. Cumans have Battering Ram in Feudal age meaning they can destroy both your wood and stone walls.

Lithuanians Letis is anti-armor unit, you end up doing the full damage no matter the armor the enemy has. Beat Knights in 1v1 and Paladin 1vs1 but this is because they are armored, they melt Teutons "the armor civ" and against low armor units there is no difference. But they have lower HP and armor than paladins, meaning weaker to archers.

Poles Obuch removes 1 armor with each attack the enemy, a Champion with higher HP and armor but lower damage, if the Lithuanians ignore armor Poles break armor, this is very useful because also allied units like archers can hit the armor reduced enemy unit.

Previously, I told you about the easy build order which is not the best build order ever, but it strikes a great balance between being efficient and easy to follow.

These build orders are for those who want to be the real try hards. I don't recommend learning these build orders until you already master the easy build order. Because that one is generic and works for everything, these ones are more specialized down to the minute.

And naturally, a lot harder to pull off. So you are going to suck with these unless you have your bases of the game from the easy build order.

These builds are made by current best player in the world, Hera, feel free to check him out on Youtube, he has a lot of great Age of Empires 2 content that will help you learn a lot.

For example, here are some videos from Hera:

I recommend you to copy these photos, print them, and play a game vs AI on maximum moderate difficulty where you try to copy a few of these builds that you choose, until you can make it close to perfection.

These are not the only build orders ever, there are many ways to play a civ, these are just the build orders from the top player in the world, so they probably mean something. It's just a game, and if you want to get good, you have to learn the openings, only much later when you become better you will understand what the openings mean. But for now on, take it as just a game where you have to learn the openings.

Hera doesn't rigidly follow his build orders either, he wrote them for lower elos. He has followed them to a tee at the top level to prove they work and has used them in tournaments however.

I don't think anyone over about 1200-1400 strictly follows a build order either, they're just to give you an idea of what you're meant to do if your plan is x or y. In a game of a 900 elo player following a build order versus one who has no idea about them, the former will steam roll.

But the build orders will clearly help you understand and get a better idea of the game. Think of them as openings in chess. You have to memorize a good opening first, before you become better and understand what it does, then you can be more flexible with it.

Table of Contents:
1) Generic Infantry Rush (18 vills) -> Rec: Malians, Lithuanians, Japanese, Britons. Vikings.
2) Generic Archers Rush (19 vills) -> Rec: Britons, Mayans, Ethiopians, Tatars, Vikings.
3) Generic Scouts Rush (18 vills) -> Rec: Franks, Huns, Lithuanians, Magyars, Malians.
4) Generic Fishing Ships (19 vills) -> Rec: Italians, Japanese, Vikings, Lithuanians, Malians.
5) Generic Fast Castle Boom (23 + 2 vills) -> Rec: Burgundians, Poles, Bohemians, Portuguese, Bengalis.
6) Generic Fast Castle Into Unique unit (25 + 2 vills) -> Rec: Spanish, Turks, Mayans, Burgundians, Mongols.
7) Generic Fast Castle Into Light Cavalry (25 + 2 vills)
8) Turks Fast Imperial (28 + 2 + 2 vills)

Civ Specific Builds:
9) Georgians - Healing Scouts Rush (16 vills)
10) Japanese - Men-at-Arms Rush (17 vills)
11) Ethiopians - 2 Range Archers for Team Games (18 vills)
12) Koreans - Spear Skirmisher Rush (18 vills)
13) Chinese - Fast Feudal (20 vills)
14) Armenians - Spear Rush into Fast Castle (26 + 2 vills)









Specific Builds:

I'd say skirmish is more useful than campaign since you start from the Dark Age like in a normal game, but a campaign is more fun.

The purpose of this is to "get the feel of the game". The good news is that, unlike in other games, the game won't give them higher difficulty AI unfair damage buffs, the AI never cheats.
Easy -> AI never does anything, good if you only want to learn your civ.
Standard -> AI exists but rarely, if ever, attacks or builds an army. Good for babies first RTS.
Moderate -> The AI will attack you, though a player with any amount of skill should have no issue repelling attacks.
Hard -> Skill required. This is where you need to know a fair amount of this guide to win 1vs1 vs this AI.

There is a huge gap between Moderate & Hard AI. Think of the Hard AI as the "multiplayer requirement level". Not that you can beat him, but the moment you can stand a chance against Hard AI is the moment you can confidently join multiplayer.

Therefore, do most of your practice on skirmish vs Moderate AI.

Out of all I said, I think the Hotkeys and Counters are the most important. Because everything else you can learn by playing, but for the Hotkeys and Counters if you don't know them you don't know them, in time you will learn them, but it's easier to already know them.

These are the counters of the common AoE2 units:
Archers -> anti-infantry & Cavalry but only in high numbers (at least +36, generally is 50/50).
Skirmishers -> anti-archers & anti-halberdiers but only in high numbers.
Cavalry Archers -> anti-infantry but can beat other stuff too if you manage to run away.
Hand Cannonner -> anti-infantry even better than Archers. Beaten by skirmishers and capapults.

Champions -> anti-trash, meaning all non-gold units Skirmishers, Pikemen, Scout.
Halberdier -> anti-cavalry & anti-skirmishers but only in low numbers.
Eagle Warrior -> anti-archers, the closest things American civs have to cavalry.

Hussars -> anti-skirmisher & beat Archers only in low numbers.
Paladin -> anti-champion, Hussar, Skirmisher & beat Archers in low and medium numbers.
Camels -> anti-cavalry but are weaker vs archers and infantry than Paladin.
Lancer -> half-Paladin half-Hussar with extra range, beaten by Camels or Archers.

Ram -> anti-building, very high armor vs ranged units, beaten by infantry and cavalry.
Catapults -> anti-archer & siege, infantry is 50/50, beaten by Cavalry, Eagles and bomb cans.
Scorpions -> anti-archers, infantry and cavalry. Hard counter bomb cans and normal by catapults.
Bombard Cannon -> anti-building, anti-siege. It can snipe catapults and scorpions from safety.

And for Hotkeys I mentioned a necessary minimum:
H -> go to town center.
SHIFT + CTRL + H -> select all town centers.
Home/Middle Mouse Button -> go to last notification.
ALT + making a square with the mouse -> selects only the villagers + sheeps within an area.

. -> select idle villager
SHIFT + . -> select all idle villagers
, -> select idle military unit
SHIFT + , -> select all idle military units

Q+Q -> build a house with a villager
Q+A -> build farm with a villager
SHIFT + right click -> continous construction building

This is advice from Hera, rather than going from civ to civ as a new player. Go from civ to civ until you find a civ that you like (I already made a list of recommened civs for new players), and then play exclusively that civ. So that you will become better with that civ and learn the ins and outs of that civ.

This one is very important. Think of it like a Chess opening. You don't know why the Chess opening is that way, you only know it's good. It's the same in AoE2. A build order will get you through the Dark Age, Feudal Age and in some cases of boom even Castle Age.

The purpose of the "Easy BO/Game Plan" the 6-4-3-5 was to give you a general all-rounder, jack of all trades that is being competitive while also easy to follow so that you can learn the fundamentals well. But after that, if you want to get more specialized, just like there are multiple openings in chess, so are there multiple openings in AoE2:
- Dark Age Rush
- Tower Rush
- Archers Rush
- Scouts Rush
- Fast Castle Boom
- Fast Castle Into Unique Unit
- Fast Castle Into Scouts
etc.

There was a player who learned a 19 villagers Scouts into Knights rush perfectly. And he was able to get about 1200 elo in 1vs1. He hardly knew anything about the game, he was just perfect at executing the opening.