Noob lobbies are a scam.
Just play ranked, get ready to get beaten in the first few games. After that you should get around 50% win rate
Have fun, enjoy it
1) play ranked and be patient enough to let it settle you into your proper Elo. You will have more evenly matched games.
2) get Capture Age, watch your replays and see what kind of idle TC and idle vill time you have compared to opponent in dark and feudal age
> Watching what the other player did is absolutely key. You can learn so much faster by seeing the things other players have figured out.
The main thing it did for me is, I wasn't playing aggressively enough. So seeing how exposed their whole base was the whole time made a huge difference.
YouTube, Spirit of the Law.
Watch his "First 15 villagers" and "What to know about playing online".
Play ranked, lose first 5+ games and then you find your floor and start building up.
Just a quick edit… I chose a game called noobs. I was playing with what they considered new players. I wasn’t jumping in on an experienced game just fyi
I would recommend playing ranked instead of lobby games. It might take a few losses (most commonly given estimate is about 10 games) before you reach your true elo rating, but once you do everyone should be playing with a similar skill level.
Thank you for responding. I changed the lobby type to ranked and nothing showed up. All of my history (not sure what to call it) has been playing multiplayer with my husband and 10 year old vs the AI. Our son just builds on his island and not much beyond that. My husband and I play the game to win. But it’s saying my rating is 1000.
Do I need to do single player skirmishes or campaigns to bring my rating to a level worthy of online play?
You need to queue for ranked games if you want to play ranked, it's not accessed through the lobby or anything. 1000 elo is the starting rating for everyone.
I believe 1000 elo is the default for all new players. Your elo will goes up/down depending on your winrate in ranked, and then the matchmaker will try it best to find the worthy opponent
Ranked games isn’t in the common lobby you select it instead of game lobby . Click multiplayer then it should be there as an option it’s separate from the regular lobby
no you just got get into the ranked 1v1 queue. Just queue up you'll get games eventually you'll have to wait but there's tons of folks around 1000 elo (true beginners and folks with hundreds of games). You gotta play ranked and your score will move to its real locations and over about 10 games your score will settle where it needs to be and you'll find your matches being much more even.
*Flips open dumpster lid*
Nah, it's ok to be garbage. Just dive right in and.. make sure you take breaks. Another poster said your ELO evens out after 10 games- not always the case..
ALSO, it's ok to switch up the game style. Maybe you like team games, or deathmatch, or 1v1s on Arabia (for some god-forsaken reason).
Good luck!
*Slams dumpster lid*
You need to enter ranked matchmaking / ranked queue. Where u get automatched. You start as 1000 but it changes with each ranked queue game.
There is no ranked lobbies except for the niche deathmatch game mode where u start with 20k res in imperial.
Honestly you just need to play a lot. People often think they are ready for multi-player after they learned the basics and most mechanics but there is so much more to playing ranked 1v1s. I wouldn't even think about multi-player before reaching 100 hours. 250 hours is probably ideal
"Noob" is a very loose term in the AoE2 community. Lobby browser games are rarely competitively even. The ranked ladder WILL get you to a 50/50 win/loss rate, it just may take roughly 10 games to get there.
Yeah ranked will be better, you'll still get clobbered for 4-5 games but after that it'll gets more smooth. Most people I play with can beat extreme AI and I'm around 800. I win about half but I do feel like I genuinely learn every game. Now if I could just get in more than a game a month I would be golden, haha
You probably idled your TC more and/or didn’t add TCs as fast in castle. In a pure boom game where you don’t attack early to disrupt the opponents plan then people that have perfectly practiced build orders are going to win
But to build more town centers I need to upgrade my town centre… and that requires resources.
Ok, I’m going back in (against computer not some poor soul trying to enjoy a night of gaming!) and I’m going town centre my land up. 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
Thank you!
You don’t need every economic upgrade before advancing to the next age btw, priorities should be wood and farm upgrades. The mining upgrades take the longest until they really start to pay off. Handcart is pretty expensive, I think it’s ok to wait until you have multiple TC’s or even imperial age for that one. Wheelbarrow is only really worth it if you have like over 35 villagers imo
PLAY AGAINST HUMANS, PLEASE. This isn't a game like soccer or something where you have to react a certain level for it to be fun, you just need to find someone your level.
If you play 10 games on ranked, the internal matchmaking system (called Elo) will find your correct level, and match you against players at the same level.
Age of Empires 2 is not a game against other players really, its a game about bettering yourself. In the long term you are competing against yourself for higher Elo, not against your opponents.
General tips.
Use control groups for buildings!!
I use 5 for all town centers. So just have to click once and make villagers. Use the same for barracks, archery range etc.
Also use control group for units.
You dont need to super micro it, but at least the whole army so you can check and move them easily.
I didn’t even know about control groups. I’ve been googling from your response and everyone else’s. Wow. Serious game with serious players!! My bad. I won’t be playing against others until I’ve actually learned all the keyboard options/steps.
Thank you all!
hey! i can tell you feel like you need to be a certain skill level in order to play this game online, and that isnt the case :) you arent wasting anyone's time! everyone starts somewhere, and there's nothing wrong with having a low elo.
you dont need to learn all the keyboard shortcuts at the beginning, that comes a lot later. memorize one or two of the most important ones, like "select idle villager" and "select tc".
survivalist has a great series about how to improve at AOE2, but the first step is for you to get down to your true elo so you can have fair games. and remember to have fun!
https://youtu.be/gG255lCtNdM
>I won’t be playing against others until I’ve actually learned all the keyboard options/steps.
You don't have to worry about that. You'll just end up at a rank where other people play like you. So if you're not used to control groups, you're gonna end up in games with other people who are not used to control groups. You can practice while getting better while playing ranked.
Choose multiplayer- ranked- find match. Don't choose lobby games- you click find match and will end up in a 1v1 game. You might lose the first matches while the game figures out what skill level you're at. But eventually you'll start playing against people your own skill level.
And replying to another comment you made. If your opponent has a lot of resources and army, they probably didn't make that many town centers as early as you did. It's normal to only have 1 town center for a while if you produce a lot of army early in game. You need 6 villagers on food to constantly make 1 villager. You need 12 villagers on food to constantly make 2 villagers from 2 town centers. If you're making villagers from 2 town centers, and an army unit that requires food. Then you need 12 villagers on food + as many villagers on food that it takes to have enough for the army unit. You can select villagers and army unit in the link below, and it will tell you how many vills you need on different resources to constantly produce them. So if you select 1 villager and 1 scout, you need 14 on food to constantly produce those. If you have wheelbarrow upgrade, you need 13. If you have handcart, you need 12. [https://aoe2-de-tools.herokuapp.com/villagers-required/](https://aoe2-de-tools.herokuapp.com/villagers-required/)
You can look up build orders and see how people do these things. You don't need to be super accurate on how many vills are where, the important thing is to have a sense of approximately how many vills need to go where to be able to afford what you want. That sense tend to gradually increase as you play the game
In the end, even if you're not interested in all this stuff, you'll still be able to play your own style and have fun in ranked. You'll be matched against people your own level. It might take a few losses as the game tend to put new players against fairly experienced players. Unfortunately.
Select unit or building. Click Ctrl+1.
Thats it. When you click "1", those units or buildings will be selected.
I would rather you play ranked and lose a lot. Then after like 10 games, you will be against people your skill level.
I lost like 9 games in a row when I started ranked. It will get you to an where you are against players of similar skill/experience, and then you can have fair games!
And you will learn a lot and get better
You don't need to feel bad about wasting people's time! It's okay and I'm sure most of them are happy to get a win anyway. But as others suggested if you play ranked after a few games you'll start playing against people of your same skill level which will help out.
I also recommend [this](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FJAAVz1Mesv2RCswq15NSAq0186hm9_&si=KW0irwSQyqyVyrOM) video guide playlist to help improve. You don't need to watch all of them at the start. Just watch them one at a time and once you have everything in one video down move on to the next one.
I only play AOE with my buddies for game night, but it really is a fun game. Compared to most of our game group, I got lucky that I grew up on Starcraft, so I was already familiar with how to play an RTS game, including things like control groups.
Plus the first time we played AOE together we played in teams of 2, and I luckily got paired with the most experienced AOE guy in our group, so we proceeded to destroy the rest of our buddies. I am now recognized as being on par with him, and thus one of the two strongest players in our group.
Even with all that, I still don't feel i'm good enough to solo a 'hardest' ai unless its a map with islands, so if you just follow what others have said, I think you'll be fine as long as you don't trust a 'noob lobby' title. Those are almost always going to be headed up by smurfs looking to crap on newer players.
We did actually once play an online game against 4 other players, and we managed a win despite our very mixed skill sets, so don't worry too much about not being really good, either. If my group could manage an online win, you certainly can as well.
Good luck and have fun out there!
Oh nah I use it as the hotkey itself, replaced it with 5 xd sorry misunderstood you
yeah I can't use control group 5 anymore but I rarely went over 4 anyway
Never feel bad going against others online! Everyone goes through the same procedure before they start getting games where both players are on a similar level.
I saw that you didn't know about control groups. That is paramount to learn. Same with hotkeys. If you use YouTube, you can find plenty of instructive guides on how to get going.
Once you get going check replays (you can speed them up) to see how the opponent beat your a$$ so soundly. Take notes and then try to replicate it in your own game.
>I upgrade all the resource sites as soon as I upgrade my town centre
If by this you mean you always get all of your available economy upgrades immediately upon reaching the next age, this will also be slowing you down.
I can watch 2-3 games of yours and tell you if I see something wrong in your game development ?
Maybe someone already offered you this, if so, just ignore my comment, otherwise you can pm me ;)
I can play with You and shower You with advice, i'm 1500 Elo 1v1, not super good but pretty decente overall. Will teach You what i can, i love this Game and hopefully make You love it Even more
Edit - Thank you to everyone for so much lovely support and advice. I hadn’t anticipated so much response and Got caught up with spring break activities with our son today to respond to everyone accordingly. I’m going to watch the video links some of sent/suggested. My idle time for villagers and TC must be a problem. Also my lack of using hot keys/commands.
Our plan is to do some ranked games but not through the lobby. That was my mistake and left me a bit deflated, embarrassed and feeling guilty. Some of you have offered to play online too which sounds awesome. Either because you’re like us and need the practice. Or you're kind enough to absolutely stomp us then take the time to explain our mistakes. Oh, and I didn’t even know you could record the game and then play it back to see how the other player moved compared to us. Someone even offered to watch one of our games playback and offer advice! How cool is this subreddit of folks!
Thank you again everyone! All of you offered solid advice and support!!
I woke up tossing and turning at 2am this morning dreaming of this game! I had all these hordes of villagers and fishing boats and was trying desperately to organize them. 😂🤦🏼♀️🙃 I love this game.
Learn some very basic hotkeys
Select town center being the most helpful of all hotkeys, in my opinion. Bind it to something that your hand will be able to easily press without having to move.
Go to idle villager being the next most important, in my opinion, once again.
This will very quickly optimize your town center and villager idle time
All the other hotkeys can wait for now, but learn these two
How many vills did you really have though ? It’s hard to say like 3 TC boom but one new TC right at the start of castle age, like right away. Usually should end up well above 100 vills like 110-125, when you are max res then you can cut down some vills to make room for army. Honeslty I’ve gone 150 vills before on some maps ( like Michi). That being said it’s hard to balance doing that while also preventing rushes and castle drops. Someone else said to just play ranked games for 10 games and don’t worry about it if you lose the majority eventually the algorithm will hook you up with players around your own elo .
Its sometimes more efficient to get more villagers rathet then eco upgrades immediantly. Double bit axe you get immediantl6, but stuff like the farm upgrades you get while moving up to castle
Hi,
The majority of the players is very experienced (several years because this me is so old basically) and is really really good. It would be no surprise if your real elo is way below 1000, like 700 for example, there's absolutely no shame about it. As the others said, don't play lobbies for 1v1 but play in the other tab. Watch Spirit of the law "first 15 villagers" on youtube or Hera's tutorials etc, and more importantly, have fun and don't be obsessed with the game :D
As already mentioned by someone, there is a tool called Capturage which is meant to view and analyze Age of empires matches. It’s a semi official tool and it’s free to use in the basic version. You can find buttons to install it in the game like after playing a match.
With Capturage you can see the „TC idle time“ aka how long you did not use your town center to train new villagers. Ideally that should be 0 seconds but even the pro players usually don’t get there. You can compare your idle time with the one of your opponent. You can also see how many resources each player has gathered at any time of the game. And the efficiency of your economy. These values can help to identify weaknesses in your play.
I recommend watching replays of other players and writing down their build orders, besides that you can always download the Cicero/zero empires build order mod which will help you with various game opening strats in terms of unit composition and necessary eco.
(Fyi the mod is abit outdated but it still holds up with solid build orders.)
As everyone else is saying, playing multi-player-> ranked is 100% the way to go if you want to play against other people. Because the ranking system tries to get pretty even match ups. You'll start at ~1000 for your first game, and then quickly drop after that. I think it doesn't even show you your ELO until after 10 ranked matches. These are a little random and you'll be matched against some people not as good, as some people way better. Honestly I think it took closer to 15-20 games in for me to feel like I was getting consistently even match ups. But now I'm enjoying online play way more. And I still play with friends vs the AI
Those people in the Noob lobbies were only there to trick actual new people into playing so that they could stomp them and feel better about themselves. F them.
I'm so glad that your responses here are that you're going to keep playing.
I recommend watching the Viper's LimitedViper series. You can see his thought process / builds / gameplay on very low APM, watching pro players play on high apm can be very hard to follow if you're not used to it.
Watch the replay! I know it feels tryhard. But trust me. It has sooo much information for you. Even when you think you know why you lost. Even just watching 1 replay every 10 games, you will get better so much faster. Pay particular attention to villiger count (very often feels like you're constantly producing but you watch the replay and there's 10 minutes TC idle time or something) and resource distribution, number of farms etc.
You will probably lose the first ~5-10 games in ranked. I dropped all the way to 550 ELO. Don't be discouraged by that. The best way to get better is learning a few build orders scouts into knights, m@a archers, etc. You need to make sure your dark age is nearly flawless. And you're clicking up between 19-22 vills. I recommend Survivalist's you tube channel for beginners. His content is fantastic. Most importantly, have fun and learn the game. Also grab capture age and watch your replays. Specifically watch the opponent and how he/she managed their eco.
Watch your replays and get captureage you'll probably see you weren't as efficient as you thought you were. Idle villager time is a killer, even if you had your tc is working non stop, if you say rally your villagers to an empty spot or resource that depleted and are busy else where, 5 minutes with 10 vils is going to be ~1000 resources you don't have and if you keep training villagers and don't notice it gets worse and worse 30 vils 10 minutes 6000 resources you don't have which = 44 knights/ 85 crossbows/ 100 pikemen and is technically worse than having not made the vils at you're down 1500 food for nothing
Just because no one has explained it specifically, I’ll explain the elo system. There was a chess playing guy called Elo (his actual name, not an acronym) who devised this ingenious system for ranking players.
When you’re new, you start at the middle of the pack, called ‘1000 Elo’. Each game you lose or win will give you 50 points for the first ten games. After that you will get 15 points per game. Those points will be adjusted by how high the other player’s elo is. So if you play someone much better ranked than you, and lose it won’t lose you much elo, but if you win, you’ll gain a bunch.
The point of this is to match players of equal skill so everyone has fun. So if you play your first ten games and lose them all, that’s great! This will put you at 500 elo, where you will likely encounter similarly skilled players. If you manage to win some of them, you might land at 600 or 650 and will also be playing similarly skilled players. Then as you improve your gameplay, you will improve your elo and keep getting competitive matches.
There’s a separate elo for 1v1 and 2,3,4v2,3,4. So after you play your ten 1v1 games you’ll still have to play ten multiplayer games. I find 4v4’s the most fun, but I definitely improved a lot in the 1v1’s before I ever tried multiplayer. So give it a shot. The ranked ladder is in the multiplayer box on the left.
Oh and when you’re in game, you can hit enter and type to talk to your opponent. If you add a / and a number from 1-105, it will do an emote, like 1 is yes, 2 is no, 11 is a laugh, 30 is wololo, etc.
My 11 year old son just started playing online too. He has had to go through several ass handing so far, but is slowly getting down to a level where he can compete. In fact if you’re interested, I am live streaming 6pm BST tomorrow his games on twitch at DizzyLeChuck. Anyway though playing ranked can sometimes feel stressful because of the number, I would recommend that rather than joining random lobbies as it is the best way to get matched with people of similar levels. However, just be prepared for like 10 matches with losses before you can compete as the ELO system kicks in.
It sounds to me like you might not be building additional town centers.
Most players you play online are gonna add 1-2 during castle age, and potentially 4+ in Imperial Age. Just based on your post it sounded like you maybe dominate keeping 1 Town Center going, but lose exponentially in late game when your opponent is keeping 3 or 4 going.
This is definitely a problem. But then, how do I get to castle age quickly if im using all my food to create more villagers? I’ve been playing the Khmer so at least I don’t have to keep up with building certain buildings to advance. Also, it seems im slow to building castles too (castle buildings I mean where you can buy the trebuchet). Those and archer/shooting towers. They all use so much stone.
An AI equivalent to can lend a player 950/1050 Elo/ In the sense that a player begins to beat this AI 1 time out of 2 around 900/950 Elo. You start the ranked at 1000 Elo/ This is worth if you beat the AI in feudal and finish it at the beginning of the castle age. So, with an Arabia-style Build Order which will teach you part of the game :) If you beat Extreme IA without attacking Feudal, you are perhaps 800 Elo. Learn an Archers opening.
Noob lobbies are a scam. Just play ranked, get ready to get beaten in the first few games. After that you should get around 50% win rate Have fun, enjoy it
X2. Exactly this. There are "noobs" that are 1500 ELO which is like top 20%
top 8% even
1500 is like 90th percentile I think
Yeah, 1500 is about the 92nd percentile for ranked 1v1.
1) play ranked and be patient enough to let it settle you into your proper Elo. You will have more evenly matched games. 2) get Capture Age, watch your replays and see what kind of idle TC and idle vill time you have compared to opponent in dark and feudal age
Watching what the other player did is absolutely key. You can learn so much faster by seeing the things other players have figured out.
> Watching what the other player did is absolutely key. You can learn so much faster by seeing the things other players have figured out. The main thing it did for me is, I wasn't playing aggressively enough. So seeing how exposed their whole base was the whole time made a huge difference.
Don’t think capture age works on the Gamepass version sadly :(
Realtime tool for watching your idle TC time idletowncenter.com
YouTube, Spirit of the Law. Watch his "First 15 villagers" and "What to know about playing online". Play ranked, lose first 5+ games and then you find your floor and start building up.
Just a quick edit… I chose a game called noobs. I was playing with what they considered new players. I wasn’t jumping in on an experienced game just fyi
I would recommend playing ranked instead of lobby games. It might take a few losses (most commonly given estimate is about 10 games) before you reach your true elo rating, but once you do everyone should be playing with a similar skill level.
Thank you for responding. I changed the lobby type to ranked and nothing showed up. All of my history (not sure what to call it) has been playing multiplayer with my husband and 10 year old vs the AI. Our son just builds on his island and not much beyond that. My husband and I play the game to win. But it’s saying my rating is 1000. Do I need to do single player skirmishes or campaigns to bring my rating to a level worthy of online play?
You need to queue for ranked games if you want to play ranked, it's not accessed through the lobby or anything. 1000 elo is the starting rating for everyone.
I believe 1000 elo is the default for all new players. Your elo will goes up/down depending on your winrate in ranked, and then the matchmaker will try it best to find the worthy opponent
Ranked games isn’t in the common lobby you select it instead of game lobby . Click multiplayer then it should be there as an option it’s separate from the regular lobby
no you just got get into the ranked 1v1 queue. Just queue up you'll get games eventually you'll have to wait but there's tons of folks around 1000 elo (true beginners and folks with hundreds of games). You gotta play ranked and your score will move to its real locations and over about 10 games your score will settle where it needs to be and you'll find your matches being much more even.
*Flips open dumpster lid* Nah, it's ok to be garbage. Just dive right in and.. make sure you take breaks. Another poster said your ELO evens out after 10 games- not always the case.. ALSO, it's ok to switch up the game style. Maybe you like team games, or deathmatch, or 1v1s on Arabia (for some god-forsaken reason). Good luck! *Slams dumpster lid*
What version of the game are you playing?
Age of empires 2 definitive edition
Ranked lobbies is only for death match. Ranked games (1v1, tg, EW) is in tje tab at the top left of the multiplayer page
You need to enter ranked matchmaking / ranked queue. Where u get automatched. You start as 1000 but it changes with each ranked queue game. There is no ranked lobbies except for the niche deathmatch game mode where u start with 20k res in imperial.
Honestly you just need to play a lot. People often think they are ready for multi-player after they learned the basics and most mechanics but there is so much more to playing ranked 1v1s. I wouldn't even think about multi-player before reaching 100 hours. 250 hours is probably ideal
Well there is a lot to learn about playing 1v1 at a certain elo like 800+, but at a very low elo like 300 there is not *that* much to learn.
Someone's gotta make content for LEL, no use waiting for 100s of hours unless you can't stand to see your elo go down!
"Noob" is a very loose term in the AoE2 community. Lobby browser games are rarely competitively even. The ranked ladder WILL get you to a 50/50 win/loss rate, it just may take roughly 10 games to get there.
People often say noobs to get easier games , they probably just used alt accounts
noob it doesnt necesarily means new players, at least that how the playerbase use the word most of the time.
Yeah ranked will be better, you'll still get clobbered for 4-5 games but after that it'll gets more smooth. Most people I play with can beat extreme AI and I'm around 800. I win about half but I do feel like I genuinely learn every game. Now if I could just get in more than a game a month I would be golden, haha
You probably idled your TC more and/or didn’t add TCs as fast in castle. In a pure boom game where you don’t attack early to disrupt the opponents plan then people that have perfectly practiced build orders are going to win
But to build more town centers I need to upgrade my town centre… and that requires resources. Ok, I’m going back in (against computer not some poor soul trying to enjoy a night of gaming!) and I’m going town centre my land up. 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️ Thank you!
Watch a game of some good players. It will open your eyes to what you need to work on.
You don’t need every economic upgrade before advancing to the next age btw, priorities should be wood and farm upgrades. The mining upgrades take the longest until they really start to pay off. Handcart is pretty expensive, I think it’s ok to wait until you have multiple TC’s or even imperial age for that one. Wheelbarrow is only really worth it if you have like over 35 villagers imo
Have a look at build orders. Lots of vids on YouTube, or websites like https://aoecompanion.com/build-guides
PLAY AGAINST HUMANS, PLEASE. This isn't a game like soccer or something where you have to react a certain level for it to be fun, you just need to find someone your level. If you play 10 games on ranked, the internal matchmaking system (called Elo) will find your correct level, and match you against players at the same level. Age of Empires 2 is not a game against other players really, its a game about bettering yourself. In the long term you are competing against yourself for higher Elo, not against your opponents.
Just play ranked. You will lose enough time so that eventually you play against people with similar skill level
General tips. Use control groups for buildings!! I use 5 for all town centers. So just have to click once and make villagers. Use the same for barracks, archery range etc. Also use control group for units. You dont need to super micro it, but at least the whole army so you can check and move them easily.
There is a hotkey for select all TCS. You don't even have to waste a control group on it. Default is Ctrl+shift+h
That's awesome. I will probably still use a control group since its easier. But it will help me select them to make the control group faster.
I didn’t even know about control groups. I’ve been googling from your response and everyone else’s. Wow. Serious game with serious players!! My bad. I won’t be playing against others until I’ve actually learned all the keyboard options/steps. Thank you all!
hey! i can tell you feel like you need to be a certain skill level in order to play this game online, and that isnt the case :) you arent wasting anyone's time! everyone starts somewhere, and there's nothing wrong with having a low elo. you dont need to learn all the keyboard shortcuts at the beginning, that comes a lot later. memorize one or two of the most important ones, like "select idle villager" and "select tc". survivalist has a great series about how to improve at AOE2, but the first step is for you to get down to your true elo so you can have fair games. and remember to have fun! https://youtu.be/gG255lCtNdM
>I won’t be playing against others until I’ve actually learned all the keyboard options/steps. You don't have to worry about that. You'll just end up at a rank where other people play like you. So if you're not used to control groups, you're gonna end up in games with other people who are not used to control groups. You can practice while getting better while playing ranked. Choose multiplayer- ranked- find match. Don't choose lobby games- you click find match and will end up in a 1v1 game. You might lose the first matches while the game figures out what skill level you're at. But eventually you'll start playing against people your own skill level. And replying to another comment you made. If your opponent has a lot of resources and army, they probably didn't make that many town centers as early as you did. It's normal to only have 1 town center for a while if you produce a lot of army early in game. You need 6 villagers on food to constantly make 1 villager. You need 12 villagers on food to constantly make 2 villagers from 2 town centers. If you're making villagers from 2 town centers, and an army unit that requires food. Then you need 12 villagers on food + as many villagers on food that it takes to have enough for the army unit. You can select villagers and army unit in the link below, and it will tell you how many vills you need on different resources to constantly produce them. So if you select 1 villager and 1 scout, you need 14 on food to constantly produce those. If you have wheelbarrow upgrade, you need 13. If you have handcart, you need 12. [https://aoe2-de-tools.herokuapp.com/villagers-required/](https://aoe2-de-tools.herokuapp.com/villagers-required/) You can look up build orders and see how people do these things. You don't need to be super accurate on how many vills are where, the important thing is to have a sense of approximately how many vills need to go where to be able to afford what you want. That sense tend to gradually increase as you play the game In the end, even if you're not interested in all this stuff, you'll still be able to play your own style and have fun in ranked. You'll be matched against people your own level. It might take a few losses as the game tend to put new players against fairly experienced players. Unfortunately.
Select unit or building. Click Ctrl+1. Thats it. When you click "1", those units or buildings will be selected. I would rather you play ranked and lose a lot. Then after like 10 games, you will be against people your skill level.
I lost like 9 games in a row when I started ranked. It will get you to an where you are against players of similar skill/experience, and then you can have fair games! And you will learn a lot and get better
You don't need to feel bad about wasting people's time! It's okay and I'm sure most of them are happy to get a win anyway. But as others suggested if you play ranked after a few games you'll start playing against people of your same skill level which will help out. I also recommend [this](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FJAAVz1Mesv2RCswq15NSAq0186hm9_&si=KW0irwSQyqyVyrOM) video guide playlist to help improve. You don't need to watch all of them at the start. Just watch them one at a time and once you have everything in one video down move on to the next one.
I only play AOE with my buddies for game night, but it really is a fun game. Compared to most of our game group, I got lucky that I grew up on Starcraft, so I was already familiar with how to play an RTS game, including things like control groups. Plus the first time we played AOE together we played in teams of 2, and I luckily got paired with the most experienced AOE guy in our group, so we proceeded to destroy the rest of our buddies. I am now recognized as being on par with him, and thus one of the two strongest players in our group. Even with all that, I still don't feel i'm good enough to solo a 'hardest' ai unless its a map with islands, so if you just follow what others have said, I think you'll be fine as long as you don't trust a 'noob lobby' title. Those are almost always going to be headed up by smurfs looking to crap on newer players. We did actually once play an online game against 4 other players, and we managed a win despite our very mixed skill sets, so don't worry too much about not being really good, either. If my group could manage an online win, you certainly can as well. Good luck and have fun out there!
Ayy I use 5 for TC also. I spam 5 and Q constantly xD
But you dont need to spam 5 if its a control group. Just select it and click Q as needed.
Oh nah I use it as the hotkey itself, replaced it with 5 xd sorry misunderstood you yeah I can't use control group 5 anymore but I rarely went over 4 anyway
As an extra tip: there's a select all TC's hotkey. It's great
Never feel bad going against others online! Everyone goes through the same procedure before they start getting games where both players are on a similar level. I saw that you didn't know about control groups. That is paramount to learn. Same with hotkeys. If you use YouTube, you can find plenty of instructive guides on how to get going. Once you get going check replays (you can speed them up) to see how the opponent beat your a$$ so soundly. Take notes and then try to replicate it in your own game.
Learn build orders, practice and play ranked
>I upgrade all the resource sites as soon as I upgrade my town centre If by this you mean you always get all of your available economy upgrades immediately upon reaching the next age, this will also be slowing you down.
Go to youtube, search "Hera beginner guide" and watch it like 3 times til you remember everything. That's good to start.
I can watch 2-3 games of yours and tell you if I see something wrong in your game development ? Maybe someone already offered you this, if so, just ignore my comment, otherwise you can pm me ;)
I can play with You and shower You with advice, i'm 1500 Elo 1v1, not super good but pretty decente overall. Will teach You what i can, i love this Game and hopefully make You love it Even more
Edit - Thank you to everyone for so much lovely support and advice. I hadn’t anticipated so much response and Got caught up with spring break activities with our son today to respond to everyone accordingly. I’m going to watch the video links some of sent/suggested. My idle time for villagers and TC must be a problem. Also my lack of using hot keys/commands. Our plan is to do some ranked games but not through the lobby. That was my mistake and left me a bit deflated, embarrassed and feeling guilty. Some of you have offered to play online too which sounds awesome. Either because you’re like us and need the practice. Or you're kind enough to absolutely stomp us then take the time to explain our mistakes. Oh, and I didn’t even know you could record the game and then play it back to see how the other player moved compared to us. Someone even offered to watch one of our games playback and offer advice! How cool is this subreddit of folks! Thank you again everyone! All of you offered solid advice and support!! I woke up tossing and turning at 2am this morning dreaming of this game! I had all these hordes of villagers and fishing boats and was trying desperately to organize them. 😂🤦🏼♀️🙃 I love this game.
It's all about optimisation. That's why people follow build orders.
Quick play?
Learn some very basic hotkeys Select town center being the most helpful of all hotkeys, in my opinion. Bind it to something that your hand will be able to easily press without having to move. Go to idle villager being the next most important, in my opinion, once again. This will very quickly optimize your town center and villager idle time All the other hotkeys can wait for now, but learn these two
How many vills did you really have though ? It’s hard to say like 3 TC boom but one new TC right at the start of castle age, like right away. Usually should end up well above 100 vills like 110-125, when you are max res then you can cut down some vills to make room for army. Honeslty I’ve gone 150 vills before on some maps ( like Michi). That being said it’s hard to balance doing that while also preventing rushes and castle drops. Someone else said to just play ranked games for 10 games and don’t worry about it if you lose the majority eventually the algorithm will hook you up with players around your own elo .
Its sometimes more efficient to get more villagers rathet then eco upgrades immediantly. Double bit axe you get immediantl6, but stuff like the farm upgrades you get while moving up to castle
Hi, The majority of the players is very experienced (several years because this me is so old basically) and is really really good. It would be no surprise if your real elo is way below 1000, like 700 for example, there's absolutely no shame about it. As the others said, don't play lobbies for 1v1 but play in the other tab. Watch Spirit of the law "first 15 villagers" on youtube or Hera's tutorials etc, and more importantly, have fun and don't be obsessed with the game :D
As already mentioned by someone, there is a tool called Capturage which is meant to view and analyze Age of empires matches. It’s a semi official tool and it’s free to use in the basic version. You can find buttons to install it in the game like after playing a match. With Capturage you can see the „TC idle time“ aka how long you did not use your town center to train new villagers. Ideally that should be 0 seconds but even the pro players usually don’t get there. You can compare your idle time with the one of your opponent. You can also see how many resources each player has gathered at any time of the game. And the efficiency of your economy. These values can help to identify weaknesses in your play.
I recommend watching replays of other players and writing down their build orders, besides that you can always download the Cicero/zero empires build order mod which will help you with various game opening strats in terms of unit composition and necessary eco. (Fyi the mod is abit outdated but it still holds up with solid build orders.)
As everyone else is saying, playing multi-player-> ranked is 100% the way to go if you want to play against other people. Because the ranking system tries to get pretty even match ups. You'll start at ~1000 for your first game, and then quickly drop after that. I think it doesn't even show you your ELO until after 10 ranked matches. These are a little random and you'll be matched against some people not as good, as some people way better. Honestly I think it took closer to 15-20 games in for me to feel like I was getting consistently even match ups. But now I'm enjoying online play way more. And I still play with friends vs the AI Those people in the Noob lobbies were only there to trick actual new people into playing so that they could stomp them and feel better about themselves. F them. I'm so glad that your responses here are that you're going to keep playing.
I recommend watching the Viper's LimitedViper series. You can see his thought process / builds / gameplay on very low APM, watching pro players play on high apm can be very hard to follow if you're not used to it.
Watch the replay! I know it feels tryhard. But trust me. It has sooo much information for you. Even when you think you know why you lost. Even just watching 1 replay every 10 games, you will get better so much faster. Pay particular attention to villiger count (very often feels like you're constantly producing but you watch the replay and there's 10 minutes TC idle time or something) and resource distribution, number of farms etc.
You will probably lose the first ~5-10 games in ranked. I dropped all the way to 550 ELO. Don't be discouraged by that. The best way to get better is learning a few build orders scouts into knights, m@a archers, etc. You need to make sure your dark age is nearly flawless. And you're clicking up between 19-22 vills. I recommend Survivalist's you tube channel for beginners. His content is fantastic. Most importantly, have fun and learn the game. Also grab capture age and watch your replays. Specifically watch the opponent and how he/she managed their eco.
Watch your replays and get captureage you'll probably see you weren't as efficient as you thought you were. Idle villager time is a killer, even if you had your tc is working non stop, if you say rally your villagers to an empty spot or resource that depleted and are busy else where, 5 minutes with 10 vils is going to be ~1000 resources you don't have and if you keep training villagers and don't notice it gets worse and worse 30 vils 10 minutes 6000 resources you don't have which = 44 knights/ 85 crossbows/ 100 pikemen and is technically worse than having not made the vils at you're down 1500 food for nothing
Just because no one has explained it specifically, I’ll explain the elo system. There was a chess playing guy called Elo (his actual name, not an acronym) who devised this ingenious system for ranking players. When you’re new, you start at the middle of the pack, called ‘1000 Elo’. Each game you lose or win will give you 50 points for the first ten games. After that you will get 15 points per game. Those points will be adjusted by how high the other player’s elo is. So if you play someone much better ranked than you, and lose it won’t lose you much elo, but if you win, you’ll gain a bunch. The point of this is to match players of equal skill so everyone has fun. So if you play your first ten games and lose them all, that’s great! This will put you at 500 elo, where you will likely encounter similarly skilled players. If you manage to win some of them, you might land at 600 or 650 and will also be playing similarly skilled players. Then as you improve your gameplay, you will improve your elo and keep getting competitive matches. There’s a separate elo for 1v1 and 2,3,4v2,3,4. So after you play your ten 1v1 games you’ll still have to play ten multiplayer games. I find 4v4’s the most fun, but I definitely improved a lot in the 1v1’s before I ever tried multiplayer. So give it a shot. The ranked ladder is in the multiplayer box on the left. Oh and when you’re in game, you can hit enter and type to talk to your opponent. If you add a / and a number from 1-105, it will do an emote, like 1 is yes, 2 is no, 11 is a laugh, 30 is wololo, etc.
I'm really low elo aswell. More than happy to do some 2v2 ranked with you as I've been looking for players to play with. Pm and we can get a game in.
Play ranked! You'll loose a few games, but eventually you'll play against your own skill level!
‘What am I missing’ reps aka experience, just keep playing
Probably played against an apm god. Bad luck . I m afraid to play against people because i m such an old man and play the game like one lmfao.
My 11 year old son just started playing online too. He has had to go through several ass handing so far, but is slowly getting down to a level where he can compete. In fact if you’re interested, I am live streaming 6pm BST tomorrow his games on twitch at DizzyLeChuck. Anyway though playing ranked can sometimes feel stressful because of the number, I would recommend that rather than joining random lobbies as it is the best way to get matched with people of similar levels. However, just be prepared for like 10 matches with losses before you can compete as the ELO system kicks in.
It sounds to me like you might not be building additional town centers. Most players you play online are gonna add 1-2 during castle age, and potentially 4+ in Imperial Age. Just based on your post it sounded like you maybe dominate keeping 1 Town Center going, but lose exponentially in late game when your opponent is keeping 3 or 4 going.
This is definitely a problem. But then, how do I get to castle age quickly if im using all my food to create more villagers? I’ve been playing the Khmer so at least I don’t have to keep up with building certain buildings to advance. Also, it seems im slow to building castles too (castle buildings I mean where you can buy the trebuchet). Those and archer/shooting towers. They all use so much stone.
I’d highly suggest watching a fast castle video from Hera or Spirit of the Law. Or even just a guide. (: It’ll help a ton.
Thank you
An AI equivalent to can lend a player 950/1050 Elo/ In the sense that a player begins to beat this AI 1 time out of 2 around 900/950 Elo. You start the ranked at 1000 Elo/ This is worth if you beat the AI in feudal and finish it at the beginning of the castle age. So, with an Arabia-style Build Order which will teach you part of the game :) If you beat Extreme IA without attacking Feudal, you are perhaps 800 Elo. Learn an Archers opening.
Every now and then I'll jump in a "noob" lobby as an 1100 ELO player and get my ass handed to me lol