Content

• To step
• Method 1 of 5: General advice
• Method 2 of 5: The Middle Ages ("Dark Age")
• Method 3 of 5: Feudal Age ("Feudal Age")
• Method 4 of 5: Castle Age ("Castle Age")
• Method 5 of 5: Imperial Age ("Imperial Age")
• Tips
• Warnings

Have you ever wondered how your opponent is already building castles while you still have militia units? It may simply be that the other person's economy is stronger than yours. This article describes a method to make sure you always have enough resources to do whatever you want in Age of Empires 2. This strategy works best with maps with a lot of land, as you don't have to create a harbor and ships. It is also assumed that all nations in the game are equal, so you do not use their special advantages or disadvantages or start with extra resources. A typical civilization starts with 200 pieces of food, wood, gold and stone, and that's what this article is based on. It is also assumed that you are not using rushing techniques.

To step

Method 1 of 5: General advice

1. Make sure you keep creating villagers. Villagers are the key to a thriving economy as they gather resources and build buildings. In fact, every second you don't spend creating new villagers in your city center is a waste of valuable time, especially in the Middle Ages. How you play the first two minutes of the game can be decisive for the development of your economy and whether it becomes stronger than that of other players.
2. Don't forget your army. This manual does not describe a comprehensive game strategy. To play the game successfully you need a strong army where you have explored all development options, but to do that you need a strong economy.Beware of so-called "rushers" who will attack your society in the feudal era, or sooner or later in the castle era. If you don't create an army or don't develop your army, you will lose the game unless you play a wonder race.

Method 2 of 5: The Middle Ages ("Dark Age")

1. Perform the following stepsvery quickly in succession out when the game starts:
   • Instantly create 4 villagers in the city center, completely using up the 200 pieces of food you have. For the city center you use the shortcut "H" by default and to create a villager the shortcut "C" (please select the city center first). So the fastest way to perform this step is to press "H" and then press "Shift" + "C". By pressing the Shift key you immediately create 5 villagers in a row. This is probably the most important keyboard shortcut in the entire game.
   • Have two villagers build two houses. The population limit is now temporarily increased to 15, allowing you to create more villagers. Do not let the villagers build a house each, but let them make a house together so that you can keep creating villagers and you do not have to wait because you do not have enough houses. When the two houses are finished, have the two villagers build a logging camp near a forest (at least your scout should have found a forest by now).
   • Select your scout and explore the area all around the part that is currently visible to you. In the Middle Ages it is very important to find the 4 sheep. The sooner you find them the better. Sometimes one of the sheep will already be visible in the fog. If so, have the scout go over to the sheep. The 4 sheep will get your player color and you can continue to look for the other 4 sheep (in pairs) further away, as well as the berry bushes, two wild boars, deer (some cards don't have these, gold mines and stone mines).
   • Have the other villager chop wood near the city center.
2. Leave two sheep just outside the city center and two in the city center itself when the 4 sheep have arrived at the city center. Have the villagers you just created collect food froma sheep at a time. Divide the shepherds into groups if you run out of space. (That will certainly happen.) Have the other villager who has chopped wood bring his wood to a camp or the city center and also collect food from a sheep.
3. In the city center, investigate the loom technology ("Loom") when the four villagers are created. This technology allows the villagers to survive if attacked by a wolf (this is very important if you play the game on a higher difficulty setting as the wolves will become very aggressive) and will lose fewer health points while hunting wild boars. When you click "Loom", no more than 1 minute and 40 seconds should have passed (1 minute and 45 seconds if you are playing the game in multiplayer mode because it slows down).
   • Meanwhile, the villagers will have finished collecting food from one sheep. Just select all the villagers and let them collect food from the sheep in the city center, not the two sheep just outside. Make sure to keep exactly two sheep in the city center so that the villagers don't have to walk to deliver the collected food.
   • Once you have researched the loom technology you will keep creating more villagers. You may have to select all of the herders and have them deliver the food they have collected to get the 50 pieces of food you need to do this. In the meantime, keep an eye out if you already have 13 villagers, because then you will have to build a house.
4. Have a villager who does not collect wood build a mill near the berry bushes. You then have the two buildings you need to be able to investigate the feudal era. Your people therefore have a second, more reliable food source, with which you collect food more slowly than with sheep. When you have created more villagers, you can order more to collect berries. When you have found the other 4 sheep in pairs, repeat the process you performed with the first 4 sheep.
5. Attract wild boars. Attract wild boars when the sheep are running out of food. Select a villager and have him attack a boar. When the boar runs to the villager, have the villager walk back to the city center. When the boar is near the city center, have the villagers who gather food from the sheep (if there are still sheep, otherwise the villagers will be standing still) to deliver the food and attack the boar.
   • Keep an eye out as the villager could die. There is also a chance that the boar will return to where it came from. Keep an eye on this as you will waste time doing it.
     There are two wild boars to hunt. When the first boar has about 130 to 150 pieces of food left, send a villager to lure a new boar. Don't use the same villager as before.
   • When you can no longer collect food from the boars, you start hunting deer. Hunt a deer with 3 villagers. You can easily kill deer, but you can't lure them anywhere.
6. Keep creating villagers until you have 30. Also keep building houses until you have enough for 35 villagers. Order a few new villagers to chop wood, as this is very important in the feudal era and beyond. Have 10 to 12 villagers chopping wood.
   • Build a miner's camp next to the gold mine near your city center. You don't need gold to advance to the feudal era, but it is important to start collecting gold as early as the middle ages (or at least while researching the feudal era) because you won't be the feudal era. Some nations start with -100 pieces of gold, and it is strongly recommended to start collecting gold early on. Order up to 3 villagers to collect gold.
   • Later in the game, fields will be your primary food source, but you can create them as early as the Middle Ages. You will need 60 pieces of wood to make a field, and you will have to make some because eventually you will run out of deer and berry bushes to gather food from. You need wood for fields and you may have to order some villagers who are still collecting food to start chopping wood. Ideally, you should plant fields around the city center because the villagers who work on them can then quickly hide in the city center in the event of an attack. However, if you run out of space, lay out the fields around the mill.
7. Explore the feudal era. At the end of the Middle Ages, you should have 30 villagers.

Method 3 of 5: Feudal Age ("Feudal Age")

1. Perform the following stepsvery quickly in succession out when you get into the feudal era:
   • Select three lumberjacks and let them build a market.
   • Select a woodcutter and have him build a blacksmith shop. You use more villagers for the market because it is much slower to build than the blacksmith shop. When you have built the market and the blacksmith shop, you have the 2 buildings you need to move to the next era. Let the villagers who built them start chopping wood again.
   • In the city center, make 1 (or maximum 2) villagers. You order these villagers to chop wood.
   • Don't research yet. You will need the food and wood to meet the Castle Age requirements. All villagers gathering food should now be working in fields, unless they are gathering berries.
   • Make sure your scout keeps examining the map, especially if you only have 1 opponent.
2. Have 800 pieces of food. You shouldn't have to collect much more food to get to 800 pieces, as the feudal era research capabilities allow you to collect food much faster. When the market is built, your people should already have 800 pieces of food and 200 pieces of wood (that's your goal). If you make only one villager, you may have to buy food from the market to get 800 pieces of food.
3. Investigate the castle era. The feudal era is a so-called "transition era," and with this strategy, you will not stay in the feudal era for long.
   • As you research the castle era, you will also explore the new technologies for the mill and the lumberjack camp. When you research the castle era, you probably have very little wood. Have your villagers collect 275 pieces of wood during the investigation. Build a miner's camp next to a stone mine. Have this task performed by two wood-chopping villagers. Stone is important to build more city centers and later castles. While researching the next era, you should have 31 or 32 villagers.

Method 4 of 5: Castle Age ("Castle Age")

1. Even now, perform a few steps very quickly in succession:
   Choose three wood-chopping villagers and let them build a city center in a strategic place, preferably next to a forest and a gold or stone mine (ideal if you can find all three close together). If you don't have enough wood, make sure to collect 275 pieces of wood and then build the city center. It is very important to your civilization to build more city centers as you can make more villagers faster with both city centers. In addition to 275 pieces of wood, a city center also costs 100 pieces of stone. If necessary, trade resources on the market. In the castle era, it is best to build 2 or 3 more city centers to optimally grow your economy.
   • Make more villagers in the city center. To keep building villagers steadily, don't forget to let your lumberjacks build more houses on a regular basis. New villagers let you collect food, wood or gold. Make sure you keep these numbers roughly the same. However, it is important to have about 8 villagers chop wood.
2. Examine the Heavy Plow ("Heavy Plow"). You will need 125 pieces of food and wood for this, so you may have to wait a while before you can research this technology. When you collect more wood, it is also a good idea to reseed the fields using the queue in the mill. There are other technologies to explore, such as the hacksaw ("Bow Saw"), gold mining ("Gold Mining"), and the wheelbarrow ("Wheelbarrow"). Remember, it's a good idea to have the other town centers create more villagers when you explore the wheelbarrow.
3. Build a university and a castle. If you have a university, you can research a number of useful technologies in the economic and military field. When you collect 650 pieces of stone, you build a castle with four villagers who were previously working at the stone mine. If you are nowhere near 650 pieces of stone, especially if your opponents keep attacking you, you can build a monastery or a military building from the castle era. That way, you have the two buildings you need to move to the next era.
4. Keep expanding your civilization. Keep building more fields with the villagers you just created. It is important to reseed the fields using the queue as this is tedious to do manually. It is also very frustrating to have to do this while working with the army to attack an opponent or defend your civilization. Because of the city centers that you previously built, you would no longer have to build mills.
   • Unlike mills, you do have to build more lumber camps. This is especially important during the castle era, as fast opponents attack woodcutters that are not near a city center (if you hide your villagers in a building, the woodcutters will not go to the city center). It is necessary to build new logging camps because in the long run you will have completely cut down forests. By building new camps, the villagers will have to walk less and you will collect wood faster.
   • Order villagers to mine gold. So make sure you build more miner camps. If you don't keep telling villagers to collect gold, it will suddenly be a lot harder to reach the requirement of 800 pieces of gold. Especially in the castle era it is important to have villagers collect gold, because that is the era when you have to expand your army. Most army units cost gold (for some nations this is even more important because their armies are expensive). Collecting stone is less important now, as stone is mainly used for building towers, city centers, castles and walls, and investigating murder holes ("Murder Holes").
5. Build a monastery to make monks. Relics can only be collected by monks and make sure you get gold steadily. This is an excellent source of gold if you have a gold shortage and when it is not very efficient to trade resources in the market.
6. Make trading carts. This is an excellent way to collect gold if you have at least one ally. The further his market is from yours, the more gold your cart brings in per ride. Researching caravan technology ("Caravan") will make your carts go twice as fast. Note that cavalry units can attack and destroy your carts very easily.
   • When you are ready to explore the imperial era, the composition of your population will change. As the game progresses, you will use more and more resources for building army units and researching improvements and technologies, and less for developing your economy. Remember, while researching the Imperial Age, you still need to expand your people.
7. Investigate the Imperial Age. Depending on the game progress, you will press this button a little earlier or a little later to explore the next era. If you're not rushing and building an army (which you should, unless you're playing a wonder race), you should click this option about 25 minutes after starting the game. Ideally, you'll use your very first city center to research this, as the land around it is already in use. While investigating the Imperial Age, you can investigate the Handcart ("Handcart") in another city center (you will need to investigate the wheelbarrow first).
   • Often you will forget your population limit and have to build new houses. Make sure to have a villager build new houses on a regular basis. This does not necessarily have to be the same villager over and over again.

Method 5 of 5: Imperial Age ("Imperial Age")

1. Know that from now on your army is the most important in the game. Hence, it is important to keep researching new military technologies, researching army unit improvements, and creating more army units to have a well-equipped army. However, do the following things to further develop your economy:
   • Just like in the previous eras, it is important tocreate new villagers. The ideal civilization has about 100 villagers. If you play against very good computer opponents or people you will have to keep creating new villagers, because during attacks villagers will die. Give the villagers assignments based on how many resources you have. For example, if you have 7,000 pieces of wood and only 400 pieces of food, it is a good idea to use a few loggers to build more fields and re-seed the fields using the queue. In maps with a lot of land and little water, wood generally becomes less important than food and gold during the Imperial Age.
   • Investigate crop rotation ("Crop Rotation"), the two-man saw ("Two-man Saw") and the latest gold mining technology ("Gold Shaft Mining"). You don't necessarily have to research the latest technique for collecting stone ("Stone Shaft Mining"). There is no need to do this as you can better use your resources to expand your army. Use the university to investigate the construction crane ("Treadmill Crane").

Tips

• Standard food statistics
  • Sheep: 100 pcs
  • Wild boar: 340 pcs
  • Deer: 140 pcs
  • Field: 250, 325 (horse yoke, or "Horse Collar"), 400 (heavy plow, or "Heavy Plow") or 475 (crop rotation, or "Crop Rotation")
• Learn the keyboard shortcuts and use them. As a player, you can develop your civilization a lot more efficiently by using your left hand for the hot keys and your right hand for scrolling and operating the mouse.
• As described above, you should not forget your army. Build military buildings and research to improve your army units and research new military technologies. Continue to do this depending on what you need. Also use defense strategies. For example, when you enter the feudal era, it is a good idea to build a tower next to your lumberjack camp to fend off fast opponents who want to stop you collecting wood.
• To be able to research the different eras, you must meet the following requirements (exceptions apply for some nations):
  • Feudal Age: 500 items of food and 2 buildings from the Middle Ages
  • Castle Age: 800 pieces of food, 200 pieces of gold, and 2 feudal-era buildings
  • Imperial Age: 1000 Food, 800 Gold, and 2 Castle Age Buildings (or 1 Castle)
• Note that if the screen is black just before the game starts, you can press "H" + "CCCC" (or "H" then "Shift" + "C"). You can only do this if you only play against computer opponents. You should be able to hear the sound of the city center when you press "H", even if you can't see anything yet.If you wait until you can see something and then press the hot keys, then 1 minute 40 seconds after the game starts you will not be ready to explore the feudal era (this will be 1:45 or 1:48) .
• If at any point you are attacked by a (fast) opponent, press "H" and then "B". The villagers will now hide in the nearest building (city center, castle, tower).
• Every civilization is different and has certain advantages and disadvantages. For example, the Chinese start with 3 extra villagers, but with -200 pieces of food. It is a good idea to experiment with each people and get to know the pros and cons of each people.
• The goals described in this article can be achieved by anyone. Many of them are difficult for players with little experience, but it is important to always try to get as close to them as possible.
• Have each villager build a house at the start of the game to make many villagers as quickly as possible.

Warnings

• Beware of "rushers," or fast opponents who attack you to try to disrupt the development of your economy. There are three types of rushers: the "frusher" (which you attack in the feudal era), rushers in the early castle era, and rushers in the late castle era.
  • The quintessential frusher finds your town early in the game and explores it to find your lumberjack camp. Usually they will send archers, spearmen and tirailleurs (rarely warriors) to harass your woodcutters and make sure you collect less wood (not to kill your villagers). Since the game has only just started, this is very detrimental to the development of your economy. By building a tower you can partially counteract the attacks of frushers.
  • Rushers that attack you early in the castle era are by far the most dangerous. It concerns a nation that makes 6 to 10 knights and some battering rams. This time, the goal is to kill villagers near the logging camp, the miners' camps and the outer fields surrounding a mill, while attacking the city center with battering rams. Pikemen should be able to fend off these attacks along with some camels (if your people have camels or you play with the Byzantines). With infantry or knights you can stop the battering rams (the city center itself cannot do that because battering rams are heavily armored).
  • A common strategy at Age of Empires online is to use monks as rushers. This is mainly done by the Aztecs in the Black Forest. Monks and gladden (and sometimes battering rams) are then used to attack a nation. The best way to counter these attacks is to use multiple scouts.
  • During the late castle era, rushers have a similar purpose, but then use an army that has evolved better. Which army units are used depends on the people who use them.
  • It's important to be able to recover quickly enough to catch up. If you don't recover quickly enough, you will lag behind your enemies and your allies. (If you don't get it right during the feudal era, the game is pretty much over. Your enemy has won.) If you do manage to recover, the entire attack won't cause you much trouble and will cost your opponent a lot more. Counterattacking is one way you can use to take advantage of its temporary weakness.
  • "Drushers" (rushers in the Middle Ages) only appear in more difficult games, and rarely in easier games. This technique is not often used because the army was not very developed during the Middle Ages and has its limitations. Usually an opponent will send about 4 militia units, as well as the scout on horseback and some villagers to harass your villagers at the lumberjack camp and gold mine. Because this strategy is not often used, you don't have to worry about rushers until the feudal era.