This is a noob-friendly guide to get you to understand the basic concepts 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 game, pressing F11 will 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 game.
2. Top-right of the mini-map, there is a button with 3 flags: red, blue and white one. Clicking on it will display each players' 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.
4. 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.


1. It is very useful to see the time of the match. Villager count & game time are important indicators to see how well you have done by the time you aged up. To give an example, pros can make age up to Feudal in 8 minutes & 19 villagers count or 13 minutes & 31 villagers count. But they typically have anywhere between 19-25 villagers at best, usually 22-23 anything beyond that is overkill. This is of course getting 500 food without idle time in Town Center. However, you won't have that much skill as literally anyone who plays in tournaments. You'll get maybe 13-15 minutes & 20-22 villagers or 20-22 minutes & 28-30 villagers. The important thing is you keep track of this so you know how well you are doing compared to the other players in the game. While Castle Age is usually at about 35-45 minutes & 50-70 villagers, but this is regular player level not pro and it really depends on what happened in Feudal whether there were fights or not.

2. This is useful to see your score compared to other players. This can show you how fast you develop compared to others. But it doesn't differentiate between military or economy. So you don't know whether someone is building army or booming. However, there are some tricks to learn information regarding the score: if the opponent's score suddenly drops 100 score in Dark Age, it means they've clicked up to Feudal Age. It dropped because they spent 500 food to advance. Again, if he suddenly drops 200 score in Feudal Age he just clicked for Castle Age. The score is calculated as such: 20% of the resource value (cost) of all enemy units and building you destroyed, 10% of all resources each player currently has or has paid in tribute, 20% of the resource value of his current units and buildings except Castle, 20% of the resource value of each technology a player has researched, 10 points for every 1% of the map explored, 20% of the cost of the Castles you have created. It's worth keeping in mind that the score is not the end-all-be-all, just because you have good score doesn't mean you're winning or bad score losing, it's mostly informative, giving you a general idea but never the complete picture.

3. Building Range Indicator will show you the range of buildings like Castles, Towers and Town Centers. This is very useful to see how close you can get to them before you get attacked by arrows, likewise to see where your units are safe in the range of a friendly castle. Idle pointers shows a huge red "!" above an idle villager. You should never have idle villagers so this is very useful especially for new players, not to leave villagers doing nothing. Small trees basically makes the trees smaller not to block your field of view, this is especially useful when you have a forest south of your camera and cannot see or cannot select the unit you want because of the forest. Of course, all of these make Age of Empires 2 look more game-y, so if you want to keep the atmosphere you can disable some or all of them, but if you want to play better or be more informed during the game is very useful to have all of them.

4. These help you play faster using the keyboard to press the buttons. The are always the same no matter what unit or building you have selected. For example: you select a villager, just by looking at the bottom-left table you know that house is Q,Q and farm is Q,A.

Strategy is a war of resources. You want to get those resources for yourself and drain your enemy of those resources. With the resources you can build the army that will help you achieve this.

Disclaimer: This is NOT the best build order ever, if you want to go pro learn a very good build order, this is a basic build order to help you get the general idea of the game. It strives to strike a balance between being efficient and easy to follow.

Disclaimer 2: This build order was made with the map Arabia in mind, which is the Dust 2 of Age of Empires. Arabia, Lombardia, Golden Pit/Rush, Ghost Lake, Highlands, Mongolia are open maps, meaning you don't have pre-built defenses and it's easy to attack your opponent early game. It will also work on closed maps like Arena, Oasis, Black Forest, Hideout, Amazon Tunnel, Michi, Fortress where you have walls and the fighting will start much later. Will somewhat work on hybrid maps like Baltic, African River, Costal, Continental with 50% connected land 50% water, on water maps like Islands, Pacific Islands, Team Islands but here you have to consider building docks and boats, and on nomad maps like Nomad, African Clearning, Land Nomad where you start with 3 villagers and can build your town center wherever you want these maps are usually far more aggressive early game.

Disclaimer 3: The ideal dark age most pro players use is: 6 on sheep, 3-4 on wood depending if you're going scouts, 1-2 on boar with sometimes a second villager going on to that, then the next 4 berries, this is the basic economy set-up at dark age, civilizations exceptions aside. But this is very complicated to pull off and you need to pay close attention to everything to pull it off correctly, this is why this build order/game plan is focused on being easy yet still competitive, with 7 on sheep, 7 on wood, 5 on berries, boar when sheeps run out, next 5 villagers on wood, after sheeps and boars are done get wood next to TC to get 420 wood for farms and send the next villagers on farms until you get 500 food for Feudal Age, and so on. All you need to remember for this build order is "12 12 farms".

- 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.
- You don't need gold and stone in Dark Age.
- You don't need stone in Feudal Age. (so you start to mine gold in Feudal, and stone in Castle)
- The Dark Age can be split in a few more sub-sections to be easier to remember: sheep time when you build the 2 houses and lure the sheeps to have your sheeps and food income covered, wood time when you get the lumberjack and build more houses to support a population of at least 30, berry time when you build the mill next to the berry and put a few villagers on them, boar Time when you are done with the sheeps, farm time when you try to get 420 wood to build 7 farms after you are done with the boars. Sheep > Wood > Berry > Boar > Farm.
- And as soon as you reach 500 food, which is usually around this time after you placed a few farms, stop all the villagers queue and advance to Feudal Age.
- Then you aim to have 9 farms around Town Center and 8 Farms around the Mill, balancing it out with wood by either sending villagers to wood or farms without running out of wood.
- Remember the magic numbers: 7 on sheep, 7 on wood, 5 on berries, 5 on wood another camp, farms until you made 9 next to Town Center, 8 next to Mill. 7-7-5-5 (12-12, after 12-12 farms)
- If you are on a map that deals with wolves get Loom from Town Center before sending your villagers to explore.

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 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.
- 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.
- All 4 extra villages that come out of Town Center will also be put on sheeps. (so in total 7 villages on sheeps)
- 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 7 villages on food, you send the 8th villager in a forest close to you and put him to build a Lumberjack.
- Your next villager will also help with the Lumberjack.
- When you have 10-13 population, build a 3rd, 4th and 5th house near the Lumberjack using one of the villages from the wood.
- Ideally, build the 3 houses in a line at the end of the forest where you get your wood from towards the enemy, this will be your first piece of the wall. After he is done send him back to the wood.
- Keep sending villages to wood until you also have 7 villagers on wood. (so in total 7 food, 7 wood)
- If you are on a map where you have to send the villagers farther from your base you may have to deal with wolves, Loom from Town Center is the solution, the same applies on map like Black Forest where you send villagers in the middle of the map and they may fight enemy villagers.

Berry Time:
- Send the 15th villager next to Berries and have him build a Mill.
- After the Mill is complete he will collect berries.
- Do so until you have 5 villages on berries. (so in total 12 food, 7 wood; those 12 on food would be 7 on sheep and 5 on berries)
- If sheeps are not done by the time you reached the 20th villager, put him to sheeps/ berries/ another lumber camp wood, whatever you think you need more at the moment.

Boar Time:
- When the 7 villages next to Town Center are almost done with the sheeps, send 1 of them to hunt a Boar, but just attack 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.
- After you're done with that one, repeat with the other boar.
- After you're done with the 2 boars, build 7 farms around the Town Center, if you don't have wood, put the 7 villages on the wood next to the Town Center until you make the wood (420 wood needed; 1 farm costs 60 wood)

Farm time. Adjust for Wood & Food with the goal of 500 food:
- It depends on the civilization. But your goal now is to make 500 food to get to Feudal Age. For that, you need farms, and for farms you need wood.
- Ideally, you want to have 9 Farms around Town Center and 8 Farms around the Mill, so 17 in total. But you need wood for that, so you need to send villagers to wood so you can afford the wood for the farms.
- You will get 500 food to click the Feudal button long before you build all 17 farms.
- After you are done with the 5 villagers on Mill, you should have 19 villages in total, 7-7-5, and with the scout 20 population, send the next 5 villages on building another Lumberjack camp in another forest. So you should have 2 different Lumberjack camps with 7-5, in total 12 villages.
- Now that you are like 12 food (Town Center and Mill), 12 wood (the 2 lumberjack camps), put the next villages on farms near Town Center until you make 500 food.
- When you reached 500 food, you cancel any villager queue and go for the Feudal age.
- You should have about 24-30 villagers depending on how quickly you were and your civ.

While Feudal Age is Done
- Build 1 Barrack.
- Build 3 more Houses. (30-45 max pop)
- Ideally, take a guy from the wood, as you still need food.
- This will be the 4 pieces of your wall, or second 4 pieces if you built the first 3 houses in a wall shape as well at the end of the lumberjack forest. (his name is "Bob")

- First thing when you reach feudal age is: research wood & farm upgrade, send the next 2 villagers on gold and leave them there. (because in time you will make the 200 gold for Castle)
- Whether you want to attack the enemy or reach Castle as soon as possible is your call, but regardless you should build with Bob either: 1 extra barrack, 2 archery ranges, 2 stables depending on what you want to play with. Maybe even 3 of them if you're feeling powerful. Because even if you won't attack, the enemy may attack you.
- And then after Bob is done with the military buildings either: wood wall, houses or Blacksmith & Market as part of the wall. Depending on your needs.
- It is always a good idea to start walling yourself up in feudal age. Meaning building a wall around you, made of houses, other buildings and palisade wall with gates to protect yourself from rushes. Feudal Age units cannot break wooden walls or buildings quickly. But Castle Age can, so consider building a forward Stone wall either late feudal or early castle.
- Designate a villager as the wall and houses builder, different from the one building other structures. Take it in the opposite direction from Bob.
- 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 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.

- 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), try to get to Castle Age as fast as possible.
- To recap: right now you have at least 12 wood, 12 food villagers. 1 Food camp in TC, 1 Food camp in Mill, 2 Lumberjack camps. At least 8 houses (2 start game + 3 15-30 cap + 3 30-45 cap). You should build even more houses if you want to go for a rush.

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)
- Next 2 villages from TC are send on gold. (now you're going to start to use gold)
- Houses (if you see you're housed)

The Builder Villager:
- The 3rd Villager after those 2 who went to gold is the one who is going to help Bob, going in the opposite direction from Bob, make him build extra wooden walls around your base and extra houses as part of the wall if you see you're housed.
- While with Bob who built 3 houses and 1 Barrack in Dark Age, continue to make: 2 Archery Range, 2 Horse Houses or 1 extra Barrack, depending on what units you want to play with.
- If you don't have the resources build some houses or wooden walls in between as part of the wall.
- Don't forget to have 1 or 2 gates.
- After the military buildings are done, Bob will build Blacksmith & Market, but still as part of the wall (they are needed for Castle Age).
- In the meantime, send other villagers to wood & food.
- Generally, I would say lead with wood then catch up with food. So if you want 18-18, put up to 18 villagers on wood first, then up to 18 villagers on food. So you get 18-18-2 (the gold), then if you want to advance to 24 start with the wood again. It's also a viable strategy to invest in gold. Let's say put up to 6 villagers on gold.
- When the wall is done and the 2 villagers connected each other, one of the villagers can either be sent to build extra houses, just literally spam blocks of houses, more military buildings or retreat him to wood, food or gold. Depending on what you need or what your game plan is.
- While Bob's job is simple, he builds houses from now on, he is Bob the house builder. I told you Bob was important. If you don't need houses anymore send him to wood or food and promote another one to Bob when you need it.

Carry 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 have a total of 44-46 villagers or over, and Hand Cart right after.
- 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.

Road to Castle Age:
- Your goal after that is to make 800 food and 200 gold to reach Castle Age.
- Those 2 villagers you put at the start of Feudal Age should get you 200 gold right now.
- And given that all the time you put more villagers into your farms and Lumberjack you should be good with food & wood as well to get a quick Castle Age.
- The issue? 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.

PS: The reason I will not mention "build houses" anymore is because Bob remains your designated house builder through the game. In Castle, and in Imperial, always there, building houses, while others are working in the field or fighting, until you reach /200 population. Then the title of Bob will became vacant. Sometimes Bob may have no job so you send him to wood/food and promote a new one when needed, sometimes Bob may need help with more houses asap. Others may build structures, but Bob does one thing and he does it best, builds houses. Sometimes others try to copy Bob's craft and build houses too.

Life of Bob: He first became noticed when he built 1 barrack and 3 more houses next to that line of 3 houses on the Lumber Camp on the way to the Feudal Age. Then Bob didn't give up, he built either: 1 extra barrack, 2 archery ranges, 2 stables depending on what the player wanted, maybe 3 if the player felt bold. Then he continued with the wood wall, houses and Blacksmith & Market when he had the money as part of the wall. Starting Feudal, after 2 villagers went to gold, another raised up to help Bob starting in the opposite direction from the Lumber Camp, with wall and houses too. After the wall was done, the other villager took his day off and resumed his duties, but not Bob, no, not Bob, from that day on, Bob became Bob the Legendary House Builder. Praise Bob! All Praise Bob! The House Builder! Sometimes he takes a break and another is designated as Bob when the time rises, sometimes he gets one extra helper when the times are hard just like the wall, sometimes he builds structures, but he is always, Bob, Bob the Builder. Some say he is a legend, some say he is a myth, but he is, Bob the Builder.

The First Battles are in Feudal Age:
- *usually*

In your army you're going to need 2 types of units based on gold:
- A unit that costs gold. (in Feudal, you're usually good with only 1 type of unit, scout or archer)
- A unit that doesn't cost gold. (aka "Trash Units", cheaper but weaker except vs their counters)
- In Castle age, you're also going to need some wall breaking units that cost gold.

At the same time, you're going to need 2 types of units based on range:
- One melee unit.
- One range unit.

You can ignore that but gold intensive combo like Champions+Archers/Hand Cannonners are hard to make.

For example, you can make your army like:
- Champions (counters all trash units, Skirmishers, Pikemen, Scouts) + Skirmishers
- Paladins + Skirimishers
- Pikemen + Archers (*wink*, *wink* Britons)
- Scouts + Cavalry Archers (Cavalry Archers are Castle Age units but for sake of example)
As for the Siege Unit to support dealing with buildings: Battering Ram in Castle, Bombard Cannon in Imperial and Trebouchets break the wall from the longest distance. (*laughs in Hun Tarkan*)

In Feudal specificaly, you generally have 5 units to play with:
- Archers for rush.
- Champions for rush.
- Scouts for rush.
- Pikemen to counter horses who rush you.
- Scouts to counter archers who rush you.
- Skirmishers to counter archers who rush you.
Generally because a few civs have exceptions such as one extra feudal unit but that's about it.

This only applies to Castle & Imperial Age, not "the time of skirmishes" with a few units Feudal Age, but I believe it's important enough to be worth mentioning and not intuitive. Archers work best in numbers, and the magic numbers are 10 & 20. Of course, the more the better, but there you will see a huge gap, unless you face a catapult.

WIth all archers, you need 10 or more to start to see their effectiveness, and 20 or more is even better. Over 10 makes them not sitting ducks, and over 20 makes them really that force of massed archers you see your opponents have.

And while the infantry isn't as powerful as the knight, they are also cheap in gold.

In Feudal Age is all about the raid with those 6 units: 2 archers, one gold the other non-gold (trash), 2 infantry, one gold the other trash, and 2 cavalry, one gold the other trash.

In Castle Age however, the dynamic is changed significantly by the appearance of the castle. The castle is a very strong defensive point, think of it as a mini-base. You can build around the castle knowing it will be protected, and you can place your units around the castle knowing they will be protected.

In Imperial Age the dynamic changes once again because now you have a powerful answer to Castles, the trebuchets. That are also produced at the castle. Trebuchets outrange anything in the game and can attack Castles from a safe distance, meaning, the enemy has to come to you if they want to keep their castles, their mini-bases, intact. Of course, the enemy can also make trebuchets. There are other good picks the Bombard Cannons or Battering Rams but trebuchets are the best.

- 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 last 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 military buildings and make "mini-bases" and don't forget to upgrade those wood walls with some stone walls in front of them.
- 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.

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 another batch of gold next to you, another next to completely another forest, you expand yourself on the map.
- 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 walls.
- Castle is usually when you expand your TC, army, stone wall and build mini-bases in middle.

With your second Town Center:
- You put villagers on gold & wood. And later if you feel you need make extra farms with them.
- Spam a stupid amount with your Town Centers, this is your time to boom.
- With your 3rd Town Center do the same and put the villagers on Wood & Food later meaning farms.
- If you feel brave, make a 4th 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: 40% farmers, 30% lumberjacks, 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, you get Wheelbarrow just before going Castle Age or right after you got 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 4 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.

- 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.

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:
- 40% villagers on food.
- 30% villagers on wood.
- 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)

In Age of Empires 2, you have 47 playstyles to pick from. What makes Age of Empires 2 different in my opinion is that the civilizations are not different, they semi-different. You have the same generic units that most civilizations would have: archers with a bow, infantry with sword and shield, etc. Every civilization had these in history, regardless of whether they looked slightly different, it fulfilled the same role, being the same thing more or less, just looking different. But then you have that civilization's particularity, in form of different bonuses and that civilization's signature move, their castle unit.

Here are top 5 best civilizations for beginners:
Goths -> Infantry (spam huge numbers of infantry units: Huskarls, Champions, Halberdiers)
Franks -> Knight (spam Paladin with maybe Skirmisher or Throwing Axemen/Hand Cannoneer)
Britons -> Archer (spam Longbowman/Arbalester with Halberdiers/Champions as meat shield)
Byzantines -> Counter (get Cataphract and counter every enemy civ with your counter units)
Lithuanians -> Knight (rush for relics and spam Paladin/Letis with Skirmisher/Hand Cannoneer)

Why top 5? They are both very good and very easy to use. They are also very versatile, good on all kinds of maps, so you don't have to worry about the map that much. They are overall a good choice everywhere.

Let's go more in-depth why:

Late game powerhouse with an answer to everything: infantry? Champion, archers? Huskarl, cavalry? Harberdier; if you manage to get to the Castle age. Very weak early game. Get Anarchy from Castle in Castle Age.

Goths are probably the best beginner civilization. It does well at beginner level, better than Franks, better than Britons. Basically, you are a 1 trick pony. The Huskarl is completely overpowered, most people don't know what to do if you make a tons of Huskarls. And if you manage to get to the point where you made tons of Huskarls, chances are, you've already won.

You have great Huskarl and cheaper Harberdier and Champion. The catch? Goths are very weak early game, so you need to survive up until Castle to get all these benefits. Beside your 3 infantry units that can deal with everything, you also have other good late game options: Hussars, Elite Skirmishers, Hand Cannoner, Heavy Cavalry Archer. And of course Trebuchet from Castle for stone buildings.

One thing about the Goths though is that you can't just train champions against every infantry you encounter. For example, Aztec jaguar warriors and champions can still win. That's one of the reasons they get hand cannoneers.

Average Paladin Enjoyer. Best Paladins in the game. Support them with either Throwing Axemen, Hand Cannoneer, Scorpions or Skirmishers to keep those evil Halberdiers at bay. Very powerful but predictible, everyone knows what you are going to do, but can they stop it? Also have infantry Champions and Halberdiers if you need it.

What the Britons are for archers, the Franks are for cavalry. The Franks are the bread & butter of the cavalry civs. You have the best paladins in the game. It's very easy to understand what to do with them. And then you only need to worry about Halberdiers. You have: Throwing Axemen, Hand Cannoneer, Scorpions, Skirmishers.

Just like Britons take advantage of range, killing everything before they reach them, the Franks take advantage of knights. Their good late game units are the star of the show Paladin and then support for these Elite Skirmishers, Throwing Axemen, Scorpions, Hand Cannoneers but also Champion, Halberdier, Heavy Cavalry Archer for situations.

Average long range Archers enjoyer. Much like Franks, everyone knows what you are going to do. You're going to have 60 Longbowman/Arbalester and in front of them 40 Halberdiers.

Very easy civilization to understand: your archers outrange everyone. Everyone? EVERYONE! Enjoy. It's so simple to understand Britons, you have good economy (Shepherds work 25% faster, so you will have a faster dark age due to sheeps). Britain is the bread & butter of the archer civs, this (Foot archers (except Skirmishers) have +1/+2 range in the Castle/Imperial Age) means that your archers, whether it's from Archery Range or Castle will simply outrange everyone. Britons can outrange almost any unit, and making them very hard to approach. For the frontline you can simply use Halberdiers. The stars of the show are the Longbowman from Castle but Arbalester are not far behind if you need faster production. Supported by Halberdiers or Chapions if you want something more expensive. And they also have access to Elite Skirmishers.

Nobody knows what you are going to do. Your other units can counter everyone and you have the Cataphract.

Very easy civilization to understand: Where as Goths, Franks and Britons are very specialized. The very thing of the Byzantines is that they are jack of all trades. They can do everything, just not everything great. Meaning, you can always look at the enemy units/civilization, see what units they are likely to have, and prepare a counter for that.

Byzantines have discounts on Halberdiers, Skirmishers and Camel Riders. Their tech tree is very open, so you can make every kind of unit with the Byzantines. With the Byzantines it's not about what you play, it's about what the enemy plays, and then counter that with the right troops. If you want to go your own way make Cataphracts from Castle which are cavalry units that beat Halberdiers (usually Halberdiers counter cavalry), but more often than not play based on what the enemy is playing.

Enemy goes: Cavalry? you have cheaper Halberdiers and Camels. Infantry? you have Cataphracts, Paladin, Hussar. Archers? you have cheaper Skirmishers.

You can also make: Arbalester, Champions, Heavy Camels, Hand Cannonner and Heavy Cavalry Archers of your own if you feel like it, they are nothing special but are late game units that you can make when the situation calls for it..

The relic hunters. A Frank with less powerful Paladin but more knight options: Paladin, Letis, Winged Hussar. They do not have the French's Throwing Axemen or Heavy Scorpions for support but that still leaves you with Hand Cannonners and Elite Skirmishers with a speed bonus. And they have a very easy start.

It's so easy to understand what you have to do as Lithuanians. Hunt down relics. For every relic you have in a monastery, your Knights and Castle Units get +1 attack, up to a maximum of +4. They get a little weaker in Imperial Age due to missing the last cavalry blacksmith upgrade for +2 damage but if you got 2 relics that basically makes up for it, with 3 relics you have a Paladin with +1 damage.

Relics are taken with Monks in Castle age and will teach a new player to hunt them down and fight for relics, number of relics depends on map size: 3 on tiny, 5 standard, 10 ludocris. You also start with 100 extra food making your dark age very forgiving.

And late game your trash units: Elite Skrimisher, Halberdier, Winged Hussar are very good. In a lot of way Lithuanians are Franks with Winged Hussar. You either use Paladins/Letis from castle (cost gold) or Winged Hussar (no gold) as the frontline, Letis are more efficient than Paladins versus high armor units like Paladin or Teutonic Knight, but less efficient than Paladins against units with no or little armor. While Hussars are a cheaper good alternative, but still one of the best Hussars in the game.

With Elite Skirmishers (no gold; bonus speed) or Hand Cannonners (gold) as your ranged line. You also have late game Cavalry Archers and Champions in case you need it.

The top 5 were in that particular order, but the honorable mentions are in no particular order. So don't think that the Berbers are more new player friendly than the Vietnamese. From 5 onwards, I'm just using the numbers to keep track how many civs I present.

Honorable Mentions: (in case you didn't like any of the above)
Berbers -> (spam your discount Hussars/Camels and counter archers with Elite Genitour)
Huns -> (take advantage of never having to build houses and attack with Paladin/Tarkan)
Hindustanis -> (mop the floor with horses using Imperial Camels and Hand Cannonners)
Japanese -> (destroy with great Champions/Samurai/Halbs supported by amazing archers)

Khmer -> (survive until late game to get mass Balista Elephants and Hussars with insane farm)
Persians -> (start with great knights, switch to War Elephants and wood archers late game)
Teutons -> (slow tank, your best units have +2 melee armor but slow, fear archers, use skrimis)
Inca -> (American civ, get Eagle Warrior/Kamayuk with Skirmishers with cheap units and houses)

Turks -> (rush to imperial even with no economic bonus, spam Janissary with support Hussars)
Spanish -> (have and make lot of gold, use Conquistadors and Paladin/Hussar and other options)
Celts -> (Siege civ, siege are your main units and the archers, infantry and cavalry are support)
Mongols -> (Rush with Cavalry Archers, Steppe Lancers and Siege. Until you mass Mangudai)
Vietnamese -> (Elephant and Archer civ, go Rattan Archer + Halberdier or Skrimisher + Elephant)

Discount Camel Riders and Hussar since Castle Age and faster resources. With Mobile Skirmisher. And Camels regenerate since Imperial. I don't like them personally, but I have to be impartial.

The Berbers' villagers move 5% faster in Dark Age and 10% faster in Feudal Age. This doesn't sound like much but it's one of the best passive economic bonuses for all resources that adds up. 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.

They have a unique tech in Imperial Maghrebi Camels that makes Camel units regenerate, namely Heavy Cavalry Camel and Camel Archer from castle. They don't have the Paladin but still get the 20% cheaper bonus for Cavalier, although their best units are the late game good units like Hussar and Heavy Cavalry Camel who also get that 20% cheaper bonus.

Another unique unit Elite Genitour, which is essentially mounted Elite Skirmisher. Skirmishers are anti-archer archers. Good versus archers and Halberdiers but suck against anything else who is also a cheap unit like them.

Other than that they have: Hand Cannonner, Elite Skirmisher, Heavy Cavalry Archer and Champion as good late game options.

The Genitour is a very good counter to archer civs, not only beats archers, but is faster than their archer. On top of that Genitour is available for all their allies, leading to a powerful archer response for everyone in your team.

Pay 25 wood to build a house? I think not. Getting housed? I think not. Here, taste my Paladins and Tarkans who will melt your walls.

The Huns best and worst bonus is that you don't need houses. Best for obvious reasons. A house costs 25 wood. You start with /200 population form moment 0. But the downside is not so obvious at low level, you need to build your wall in Feudal Age, and houses were a good source of walling. Not a big deal, but worth mentioning for higher levels.

They have fully upgraded Paladin and Hussar from Stable and their castle unit Tarkans melt buildings. With Cavalry Archers or Skirmishers as range support.

They hardly have any other good late game units but the point with the Huns is to finish the game before the late game, since you have such a huge starting advantage. They also have Halberdier in case they need it. But their castle unit Trakan literally melts building, the Huns were raiders so the Trakan is the perfect raiding unit. Slightly weaker but also slightly cheaper than a Paladin but melts buildings.

Best cavalry counter in the game because they have the best camels in the game, Imperial Camel Rider. And an easier start due to getting cheaper villagers. Their camels also attack faster.

The Hindustanis have the Imperial Camel. Which is an unique extra upgrade from the Heavy Cavalry Camel. The Heavy Cavalry Camel was already a counter to the Paladin (or Hussar) but the Imperial Camel is already overkill. As if it wasn't enough, their camels also attack faster. Aside from that you get cheaper villagers that will give you an indirect food bonus all over the game.

They also have bonuses to getting gold and Hand Cannoneers making for a perfect late game gold intensive combo of Imperial Camels + Hand Cannoneers.

They also have: Elite Skirmisher as a cheaper alternative to Hand Cannoneers to deal with those pesky Halberdiers, and for emergency Champions and Hussars if they need them. And their Castle unit is good versus archers, the Ghulam, as the middle ground between a Champion and Huskarl in terms of archer resistance but are weaker than Champions on 1v1.

JAPAAAAN! A jack of all trades with a master in one of the best infantry in the game and very powerful archery. Are a very easy beginner-friendly civ to understand. You have amazing infantry all over the place, if it's a japanese infantry it's very good, anti-archers cavalry archers, good default archers, skirmishers in case you are low on gold for the back line and really strong trebuchets.

If the Goths are infantry quantity army, the Japanese are infantry quality army. All japanese infantry units attack faster, so the Japanese Champions are the best Champions in the game and the Japanese Halberdiers are the best Halberdiers in the game. Their infantry Castle unit, the Samurai, does +10 damage to any other unique Castle unit.

So in a Japanese vs Goths game, the Japanese will butcher the Huskarls, never rely on your unique unit when facing the Japanese. Infantry is usually weak against ranged units, to counter that you have fully upgraded Arbalester and Halberdiers against knights.

So where is the downside? The stables. Their stable units suck. No Hussar, no Paladin, no final armor upgrade. Don't even bother with the Japanese stables, but their top tier infantry Champion/ Halberdier/ Samurai and amazing archery Arbalester, Elite Skirmisher, Hand Cannonner, Cavalry Archer with bonus damage vs regular archers options are all very good.

You can describe Khmer in 2 words and a sentence: Balista Elephant and best food bonus in the game. You can absolutely dominate the field if you manage to mass their unique unit, the Balista Elephant from Castle and then protect them with either Battle Elephans from Stable, 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.

Where as for the Persians is more like a late game. trick up their sleeve option for when they are done with using stables, Savar and/or Heavy Camel Rider and Heavy Cavalry Archers. For the Khmer, Balista Elephant are something unique and hard to counter, you need siege for that or light cavalry to be cost effective. This is why usually the Khmer player goes something like Balista Elephant + Hussars/Halberdier or Heavy Scorpions + Battle Elephants.

Beside those 2 elephants. You also got great archers, halberdier and hussars if you need them.

Bring in the best Elephants! And cheap no gold archers for those Halberdiers. Get Kamandaran technology from Castle. Also you have good stables with Savar and Heavy Camel Rider and good Heavy Cavalry Archers. Don't forget to abuse your cavalry.

You start with 50 extra wood and 50 extra food, leading to a much easier Dark Age just like Lithuanians. Have very good Stable units: Hussar, Savar, Heavy Camel Rider.

Good Halberdier not that you would need it as you already have the Savar and Heavy Camel Rider as an answer to Horses.

And the start of the show, the castle unit, War Elephant, the best elephant unit in the game. The answer to that is usually going to be Halberdier. For that you have 4 answers: good Heavy Cavalry Archer, very good but expensive Hand Cannonner, cheap Elite Skirmisher and the Persians' third trick up their sleeve, Kamandaran (Archer-line gold cost is replaced by additional wood cost).

Your Archers, that normally cost gold, will replace their gold cost with wood. You don't have the final upgrade Albalester but still it's a gold unit converted to wood.

The War Elephants and Archers are usually the late game plan, you have that and can do that, but before that the stables can carry you. The stables are still very powerful late game, it's just that the Elephants are like the nuclear option if you manage to protect them. If Crossbowmen won't do and you have a lot of gold you can always try Elephants and Cavalry Archers or Hand Cannonners.

So you have very good Stable units, very good Cavalry Archer, archers costing wood and War Elephants, what more do you want?

Aka "the wall'. A lot like Franks except more defensive. Way more defensive. Very armored. Not slow in development, but slow units. Have 4 good units: Paladin, Champion, Halberdier and the feared Teutonic Knight. They all get +1 armor in Castle age and then again +1 armor in Imperial age. So they are going to have +2 armor than the same unit from other factions. And significantly cheaper farms for a way easier start. Your biggest weakness is the archer, so you need to support them with skirmishers.

This is so good that the Teutonic Paladin can go head to head with the Frankish Paladin, it's just that the Franks are more specialized on Paladins, where as the Teutons are specialized on armor.

Beside their 4 armored melee units: Champion, Halberdier, Paladin and Teutonic Knight, the Teutons have either Elite Skirmisher or Hand Cannoner for support in the back. Or in siege Trebuchets and Bombard Cannons. They also have cheaper farms which is very good. And the Teutonic Knight melts everything that is infantry, including, shocking, the Samurai.

In fact, the Teutons' farms cost -40% is an insane bonus that will carry you from early game to late game. You farms cost 36 wood instead of 60 wood. Meaning that instead of 480 wood for 8 farms you will need 288 wood. And less lumberjacks to support the constant farm production.

Every research that would give units speed, like the Squre for infantry or Husbandry for cavalry, you don't have it. You're like a slow buildozer. And the late game technology Crenellations makes it that Bombard Cannons cannot outrange your castle.

Teutons are very good against civs that lack archers, because Teutons' weakness is the archer.

This is also why Skirmishers are very good as a secondary unit for Teutons. They beat archers. And you also have a 'teutonic archer' in Imperial Age if you really want to play with a range unit other than the Skirmisher, the Hand Cannoneer.

Very open tech tree for an American civ, free food at the start of the game, housing bonus, cheaper units. Very good Kamayuks anti-trash and cavalry in numbers also decent vs archers castle unit and Slinger anti-infantry. With an extra powerful Eagle Warrior against archer.

Inca are one of the 3 American civs in Age of Empires 2. The other 2 being Aztecs and Mayans. However, while the other 2 are very specialized, Aztects on Monks, Skirmishers and Infantry while Mayans on Archers and Eagle Warriors. Incas are the fast development jacks of all trades.

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.

Their Kamayuks are a mix between Halberdier and Champion, they are 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, but their biggest scheme is that they have 1 extra reach. Meaning they can attack 2 tiles away. This makes no difference in 1vs1 but in big numbers they usually obliterate other infantry like Champions.

Of coruse, specialized anti-infantry like Samurai, Teutonic Knights or Jaguar Warriors are going to beat them. With knights is the same as with Champion, they lose 1vs1 but obliterate them in large numbers. They beat Camels even 1vs1. They are as resistant to arrows as Champions, which is somewhat but not much as Champions lose to Arbalesters, but with their castle unique tech Fabric Shield they become somewhat better against Arbalesters.

Fabric Shield makes the Eagle Warriors even more impressive. The Eagle Warrior has a completely different role as 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.

Their 2nd unique unit, Slinger, is the Inca version of Hand Cannoner, the answer to enemy infantry. Usually, default to Skirmishers or Arbalesters and only go for Slinger as an emergency, switch if you are against a lot of infantry. With either Kamayuks or Eagle Warriors as your front line, supported by Skirmishers. Or Halberdiers if you want to go Arbalesters (costs gold) or Slinger (also costs gold) as the ranged option.

I would say default to Kamayuks/Eagle Warriors and Skirmisher, if you are rich you can go either Kamayuks/Eagle Warriors and Arbalesters. First beats cavalry better, second beats archers better, all are moderate versus infantry where as Slinger destroys infantry. And yes you also have the Champion and Halberdier just in case.

If you like to boom, these are yours. Go fast Imperial. Turks don't have any economic bonus to get to Imperial Age quickly, but they have a very powerful Imperial Age game, the Janissary. Support them with Hussars.

Their Janissary have a lot of range so they outrange almost anything to and do a lot of damage. Essentially, you want to go through Dark age, Feudal Age, Castle Age with fast castle drop and Imperial Age as quickly as possible. And use Hussars as support. This is especially good on closed maps. You also have Champion, budget Janissary aka Hand Cannonner. And also Heavy Cavalry Archer and Heavy Cavalry Camel. And for the walls use Siege Workshop or Trebuchet from castle.

As a cheaper alternative to Janissary are Hussars with Cavalry Archers in their back or Hand Cannonners. You also have Champion and Camels in case you need them.

You get gold and Conquistadors. Units upgrades don't cost gold and you get +20 gold for every technology researched. Great Paladins and Conquistadors combo with Halberdiers and Hussars as support. 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. Have access to Paladin, Hussar, Halberdier, Champion, Heavy Cavalry Archer and Elite Skirmisher.

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 if you want cheaper front Halberdier or Hussar. You also have very good Bombard Towers rush due to Supremacy research in Castle for villagers.

When it comes to siege, there are 2 types of civs: Celts and the rest.

If you want to learn to play with the Siege Workshop, Celts are by far your best choice. There are other good siege civs as well like the Bohemians, Koreans, Mongols, Ethiopians, but the Celts really take the cake when it comes to siege.

Usually a good siege civ has one really good siege bonus and lots of options on siege. The Celts have 3 bonuses on siege: siege weapons fire 25% faster, Furor Celtica (Siege Workshop units +40% HP), Siege Workshops work 20% faster. They really are in a league of their own when it comes to siege.

While the Celts are the most renowned for their Siege, they certainly do not lack options with access to Cavalry Archers, Champions, Halberiders, Hussars and Paladin.

Their economic bonus Lumberjacks work 15% faster, may not sound like much, but it's actually one of the best economic bonuses in the game, like the Vikings' free Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart, except this one also keeps stacking you benefits late game.

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

They are flexible enough to do anything. They can go with Crossbowmen, Halberdiers or even Knights as support for their siege units. That's right, when you play the Celts the siege are your main units, and the other units are the support.

When playing against Celts, it's not a question of whether the Celts will make a forward Siege Workshop, it's a question of when.

You know the Mongols, right? yes, you will play like that. To start, their scouts have almost double line of sight, making for great raids, then you have great cavalry archers, castle cavalry archers, steppe lancers, hussars and siege.

Beside the 5 great cavalry archers, light cavalry and siege options, you also have Champion, Arbalester, Elite Skirmisher if you ever need.

Your hunters working 40% faster allows you to have one of the best Dark Ages in the game, allowing you to... RUSH MORE EFFICIENTLY!

With the Mongols you should take all extra hunt you can have, including deers. Top players can do the Mongols Feudal Age in 15 villagers, which is insane, most civs require 19-21 villagers even for pros. This just highlights the difference of the Mongols' dark age.

How is the Steepe Lancer? Only 3 civs have Steppe Lancer: Mongols, Cumans and Tatars. The Steepe Lancer's whole thing is that they have +1 extra range as a melee unit (so 2 range) meaning more of them can attack at one time. Meaning Steepe Lancer work best when massed, like Genghis Khan's huge army or something. It's one of those things where the total is greater than the sum of its parts. 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.

But they also have surprising good siege, don't underestimate the siege. It's like a cavalry, raid, and siege civ.

And the Mangudai. The Mangudai is considered easily one of the best castle units in the game. Mangudai are to Mongols what Huskarl are to Goths. They are the signature unit of the civ. Mangudai has bonus damage vs siege. They fire instantly unlike Cavalry Archers, which makes them a heaven to micro, stop and fire, move, stop and fire, move, stop and fire.

In fact, if you micro Mangudai only Camels and Elite Skirmishers may be a problem. But, like all archers, you need 10 or more to start to see their effectiveness, and 20 or more is even better. Over 10 makes them not sitting ducks, and over 20 makes them really that force of massed archers you see your opponents have.

But they really take a lot to make, so don't expect no Goths Invasion on this one.

But once you have them, Mangudai are the deathball of the Mongols, being both anti-spear and anti-siege.

With Mongols it's imperative you understand what upgrades go into Cavalry Archers and Mangudai, they are some of the hardest upgrades to understand: Both Mangudai and Cavalry Archer gets upgrade from: Blacksmith damage, blacksmith armor, Thumb Ring, Balistics, Chemistry, Parthian Tactics, Bloodlines, Husbandry. (all normal archer + Parthian + stable upgrades). There are 2 from Blacksmith, 2 from Stable, 2 from Archery Range, 2 from University. They are some of the most expensive units to fully upgrade in the game.

Vietnam, no.1, undefeated, just ask America. They are a very good archer civ that is easy to play. It makes playing Age of Empires 2 as a noob so easy.

You see where enemy is at the start of the game, every single research in game costs no wood and is at 200% speed, archers have more HP, Rattan Archer are really good. But you also have Imperial Skirmishers as cheaper anti-archers or Arbalester as cheaper archers. Imperial Skirmisher are a good low-cost option even if you don't have to counter archers.

For the frontline you can use either Battle Elephants or Halberdiers, but your core is the back. Paper Money is huge in 1vs1 late game, not as much in teams as you already get gold from trade with your allies, although some extra gold never hurts.

Vietnamese are easy to play, simple to understand and forgiving. You have the great start with seeing enemy locations, techs are more forgiving to make, good archers with an answer to everything and good Paper Money for late game.

Instead of Paladin they have Battle Elephant, stronger but slower, and also weak to Halberdiers, but for that you have archers, and some of the best in the game. Either go Imperial Skirmisher + Elite Elephant or Rattan Archer + Halberdiers. Best is Rattan Archer + Elite Elephant but too expensive in gold.

Once again, all recommended civs explained quicky:

1. Goths -> Infantry strong civ, get to Castle Age quickly, research Anarchy from the Castle and spam infantry units like: Huskarls, Champions, Halberdiers.

2.Franks -> Cavalry strong civ, spam Paladin with something on the range line to protect their weakness to Halberdiers, such as Skirmisher, Throwing Axemen, Hand Cannoneer.

3. Britons -> Archer strong civ, spam Longbowman or Arbalester with Halberdiers or Champions as a frontline meat shield. They also get very good trebuchets.

4. Byzantines -> Strong counter civ, you have a counter for everything and can play however you want, in lack of a clear option make the Cataphract unique unit from Castle and give it the trample damage bonus also from Castle.

5. Lithuanians -> Relic Cavalry civ, you have to rush for Relics as soon as Castle Age starts then spam Paladin or Letis protected form the back by Skirmisher or Hand Cannoneer.

6. Berbers -> Discount counter civ, you have cheaper Hussars and Camels so you beat with numbers, and a powerful anti-archer cavalry Elite Genitour that you share with your team as well as a very good unique Cavalry Archer from the Castle named Camel Archer.

7. Huns -> Houseless Cavalry civ, you never have to build any houses in your game. All your Stable units are amazing and you also have Skirmisher or the stronger but gold costing Cavalry Archer. In Castle you have another cavalry that is weaker than a Paladin, stronger than a Hussar but melts buildings like no other.

8. Hindustanis -> You and the Gurajas have the best Camels in the game, you obliterate horses. And in the back you can use Hand Canonners or Skirmishers.

9. Japanese -> Jack of All Trades Infantry civ, you have amazing infantry namely Champions, Samurai, Halberdiers, just like the Goths. But they can also be supported by very good Archers, Skirmishers, Cavalry Archers and Hand Cannoners. The only thing bad about the Japanese is the stable.

10. Khmer -> Late Game Balista and Elephants push, you have a lot of economic bonuses that will help you get to Castle Age faster, which you need to because your Castle unit is very powerful. Combine and mass Balista Elephants with either Hussars or Battle Elephans for a really strong push.

11. Persians -> 3 Great Moves civ, you have 3 great moves: you have amazing Hussars, Paladins and Camels, so always use your stable, you have an amazing War Elephant from the Castle for push and you have the ability to make archers (although not fully upgraded form) that cost wood instead of gold. Stable units, War Elephant, wood archers.

12. Teutons -> King of Melee Defense, a very defensive civ whose only weakness is archers. Champion, Halberdier, Paladin and Teutonic Knight get extra melee armor. For the back use either Elite Skirmisher or Hand Cannoner for support. Cheap farms. Teutons are very good against civs with bad archers, because Teutons' weakness is the archer. This is also why Skirmishers are very good as a secondary unit for Teutons. They beat archers.

13. Inca -> Most flexible American civ, easy dark age, Kamayuks are the middle ground between Halberdier and Champion, but with 1 extra reach, in big numbers they usually obliterate other infantry like Champions. Eagle Warrior are great anti-archer, and Slinger is the Inca version of Hand Cannoner. Use Kamayuks or Eagle Warriors as your front line, supported by Skirmishers. Default to Skirmishers or Arbalesters and only go for Slinger as an emergency.

14. Turks -> Imperial Age Powerhouse civ, Janissary are OP. This is why with Turks you want to get to Imperial Age as fast as possible, even if you have no economic bonus. Use Hussars as meat shield for Janissary. And the Siege Workshop or Trebuchet for walls.

15. Spanish -> The gold maker civ, 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. Conquistadors are very good to use in Castle Age and an ideal Imperial Age composition would be Paladins + Conquistadors, or if you want cheaper front Halberdier or Hussar.

16. Celts -> Best siege civ in the game, there are other good siege civs as well like the Bohemians, Koreans, Mongols, Ethiopians, but the Celts really take the cake when it comes to siege. Their economic bonus Lumberjacks work 15% faster, may not sound like much, but it's actually one of the best economic bonuses in the game. They have Cavalry Archers, Champions, Halberiders, Hussars and Paladin but their best units are from Siege Workshop.

17. Mongols -> Mangudai and other great horde cavalry civ, great Hussar, Steppe Lancer, Cavalry Archer and the unique unit Mangudai. Steppe Lancer are in between Hussar and Paladin but with +1 range so they work best when massed. They have very good siege. But the Mangudai is arguably one of the best units in the game. Also have Champion, Arbalester, Elite Skirmisher.

18. Vietnamese -> Archers and elephants civ, archers have more HP, Rattan Archer are very good units. Otherwise make Imperial Skirmisher for cheaper anti-archers or Arbalester for cheaper archers. You can use Battle Elephant as frontline or cheaper Halberdiers. Paper Money from castle gives you gold when you cut trees. Instead of Paladin you have the stronger Battle Elephant, their main weakness are Halberdiers, but... you have... archers.

Also, don't be afraid to explore with the other non-18 civs, each civ has a different "story" and your personal playstyle may fit better with civs who are not in the 18 easiest civs to play with. So even though it may not be an easy civ to play with in general, it would be an easy civ to play with for you. Different people have different playstyles.

Some people really like the Malians that others consider weird, castle drop fans will love Sicilians, unpredictable players like Cumans, Slow pushers with Towers and Siege and War Wagons like Koreans, Aztecs have easily the best Monks in the game and a powerful +4 damage to all infantry with an already powerful Jaguar Warrior in castle and top tier farms due to their extra carry bonus, players who sometimes like to go Super Sayan Mode in the Middle of the game like me only to have a weaker late game if you don't end up winning there like Burgundians, and those who like to be weak until late game and then spam champion with 0 gold cost is the Malay.

I gave you a list of 18 civs to pick from. Now I will tell you what civs definitely not to pick as a new player. Usually, many of those top 18 civs had either a very easy and forgiving dark age or a very simple and efficient battle plan much later. These civs are the opposite.

As I said previously, every civ has a "story" and your personal playstyle may make you to be great with one of these "worst beginner civs". This is still true, maybe Chinese have a really weird start but their playstyles definitely fit yours, but, as I said, regardless of how simple or complex and efficient or complicated battle plan they have, they have the opposite of a forgiving dark age.

They have a complex dark age, because they are the only civilizations with a dark age different from the norm, which is why it's not recommended to learn the game with them. Even if you learn how to play with them, you will only learn how to play with them, otherwise, if you learn with any other civ, you will also learn the dark age with the other 90% of civs.

They are good civs, don't get me wrong, they are just not recommended for beginners, not because of the battle plan as much as it is because of the not forgiving dark age.

You normally start the game with: 200 wood, 200 food, 100 gold, 200 stone, 3 villagers, 1 scout, 4 sheeps next to you. Close to you in the dark: 2 groups of 2 sheeps, 2 boars, 6 berries, 7 gold tiles mine, 4 gold tiles mine, 5 stone tiles mine, 4 stone tiles mine.

Here are the civilizations with a weird dark age:
1) Chinese (One of the best archers civ, but start with 0 food and 6 villagers and -50 wood)
2) Mayans (One of the best archers civ, but start with +1 villagers meaning 4 total but -50 food)
3) Gurjaras (Them and Hindustani are best Camel civs, start with 2 berries, can garrion sheeps)
4) Burgundians (Can get the wheelbarrow, food and wood upgrade one age earlier at discount)
5) Armenians/Georgians (Have mule cart to collects resources instead of wood camps and mines)
6) Huns on Nomad (ONLY NOMAD, start with -100 wood, get free scout after TC)

Chinese -> Send all 6 villagers and next 7th straight to the town center to get sheeps, then continue as usual. Only build houses next to wood line when getting 10-13 population.

Mayans -> Start with 4 villagers but housed. Picking up loom is the first thing you do when you start the game. Then build 2 houses with 3 villagers as usual and have the 4th extra villager chop wood.

Gurjaras -> Rush Mill next to 6 berries and garrison any sheeps you find into that, the other 2 villagers go to berries in Town Center, you then put your TC villagers on close to TC wood, until you have enough to make a lumbercamp, then continue as usual.

Burgundians -> Even pros start with 7 villagers on sheep to get the wood upgrade as soon as possible, then get the food upgrade right before you start planting farms.

Armenians/Georgians -> Georgians also start with 1 mule cart out, it's just a free scout, then it becomes free lumber camp.

Huns on Nomad -> Normally on Nomad you build a dock and town center at the start of the game, with Huns you don't build docks, but you get a free horse that can scout and even collect sheeps for you.

Most civs have pretty default & understandable units:
Archers beat infantry & cavalry in high enough numbers.
Skirmishers beat Archers and Halberdiers 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 Archers in low numbers, Skirmishers and usually with 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.

These aren't unrecommened to play as, but have unqiue mechanics you should be aware of.
1) Burgundians (Cavalier in Castle Age, Coustillier and Flemmish Milita)
2) Italians (Condottiero, Genoese Crossbowman)
3) Sicillians (Serjiant, Dojons)
4) Bulgarians (Konnik, Krepost)
5) Cumans (Double Town-Center and Siege in Feudal)
6) Lithuanians (Letis)
7) Poles (Obuch)

Burgundians can make Cavalier in Castle Age, which is an Imperial Age unit. 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 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 14 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.

Disclaimer: Best "civ in X" doesn't mean that that civilization is overpowered. It only means that that civilization is very specialized. Very good at that thing, but usually sucks at everything else.

For example, Britons, very good archers, the best archers in the game. But trash cavalry, and their late game infantry units Champion and Halberdier are fully upgraded but nothing special. The Romans, absolutely great infantry and discount Scorpions, but other than that trash cavalry, and the other late game units that they have like Elite Skirmisher or Heavy Cavalry Archers don't have Bracer (an important archer upgrade) or Thumb Ring (another important archer upgrade) so they really are a below average late game unit. The Franks have an even worse archery range with lacking Bracer, Thumb Ring and Ring Archer Armor (another important archer upgrade), the only saving grace being the Hand Cannonner who is very expensive, and the Paladins are already expensive. And they lack Hussar, a cheap cavalry option which most cavalry civs have. So it's all about checks and balances. Others like Goths have a lot of options late game, Hussar and Hand Cannoneer beside their top 3 stars, but are very weak early game.

Best Infantry Civs:
1. Romans -> The best infantry civilization in the game right now. Romans can use infantry better at all stages of the game than all other civs. Their infantry receives double effect from Blacksmith upgrades.
2. Slavs -> An incredible civ on infantry. Late game, Druzhina is such a powerful upgrade to their Champions and Pikemen, the downside is that it's very expensive.
3. Incas -> They make all their food units cheaper. Eagle Warriors and Kamayuks are very powerful. Mass Kamayuks can destroy almost any melee unit. If you deal with ranged units, Eagle Warriors are the best option.
4. Goths -> Many consider them the best infantry civilization. It's the easiest to play with that is also great, but not the best. Because they don't have the best infantry at different stages of the game, only late game.
5. Japanese -> They got good infantry at all stages of the game. Very powerful Champions, Pikemen and Samurai. Unless you go against archers and rage units, you should be able to completely beat them with your infantry.

Best Archer Civs:
1. Britons -> All archer civs are compared to Britons. Britons produce faster archers for the entire team due to their team bonus. They also get the extra range in Castle age. They also get extra range in Imperial. And then once again extra range with their Yemen unique tech. So +3 range. Really good with archers, trebouchets, pikemen and castles to secure their positions.
2. Chinese -> Have one of the best economies in the game, weird start due to +3 villagers and -200 food but technologies are cheaper and the Chu Ko Nu is amazing with Siege Ram and Bomber Towers.
3. Ethiopians -> Archers fire faster, pikemen upgrade free to have a meat shield, more damage but the Britons' extra range is better.
4. Mayans -> Not as good as the range of the Britons, have cheaper archers, very good Plumed Archers, and Siege Ram available with all archer techs available as well. The team bonus -50% wall cost is very good for the entire team.
5. Vietnamese -> Have 2 archer bonuses but none as good as the Britons. Archers have +20HP which you don't really need, because if an archer starts to take damage he's already dead, Imperial Skirmishers for everyone in the team, and again a complete archer tech tree.

Best Cavalry Civs:
1. Franks -> The best paladin in the game. Britons are the golden standard for archer civilizations and Franks are the golden standard for cavalry civilizations.
2. Huns -> Decent economy due to no houses, faster working stables and fully upgraded paladins.
3. Hindustanis -> The Imperial Camel is huge. Great economy, great units. A great camel meaning cavalry anti-cavalry civilization.
4. Khmer -> Fully upgraded Cavalier but no Paladin, but has the Elephants that are really really strong and quite easy to get into. Pretty much the best elephants in the game.
5. Lithuanians -> They need to get the relics to get the good paladins, yes can become better than Franks but it's very hard to get +3 relics. Franks get the free bloodline, also get the free mill techs that the Lithuanians don't get. Franks get good no matter what, Lithuanians don't get that luxury and really need the relics to get good.

Best Defensive Civs:
1. Britons -> Are like nearly impossible to push. You have extra range on your crossbow, and in Imperial Age an insane 12 range Longbowman. That's the same as the bomber cannon. And their unique tech Warwolf 100% guarantees you are going to win the trebouchete war.
2. Byzantine -> An extremely strong defensive civilization. Extra hit points on buildings. Cheaper Imperial Age that lets you get out there quickly and win the trebouchete war. Your castles are so hard to push due to more HP. And combine that with cheaper trash units they are very hard to push.
3. Portuguese -> Can build Fetoria in Imperial Age. Fetoria gives infininte gold and stone, generates resources without need for villagers. You simply trade gold with your opponent while you generate infinite gold but they are not. So you can fortify as much as you want, trade with your opponent and then outlast them. Your bomber units also have balistics. All you have to do is hold out until your opponents starves and then push out when they are out of gold.
4. Teutons -> They have the monk bonuses, you have extra armor on your melee and cavalry units (except the castle unit, that already has a ton of melee armor), they also have a technology that gives their castle +3 range.
5. Koreans -> Mainly from their bonuses to their towers. Their towers are great against any kind of pushes. But it takes a long time and a lot of resources to build that tower powerbase. You can even tower rush. You need university, you need guard tower, and you need to actually make the towers.

Best Economic Civs:
1. Vikings -> Free wheelbarrow and free hand cart.
2. Romans -> Villagers gather, build and repair 5% faster. This lasts the entire game, on farms, on wood, on gold on stone.
3. Vietnamese -> Economic upgrades research 100% faster, this is especially good with Wheelbarrow, economic upgrades cost no wood so you save a lot of wood. And Paper Money which means that lumberjacks slowly generate gold.
4. Bohemians -> Get both upgrades from gold and stone for free. Monasteries give Fervor and Stancity to villagers that makes them move faster, thus collect resources faster.
5. Burgundians -> Not only have discounts in all of their technologies but also complete them one age earlier. And Burgundian Vineyard makes their farmers also slowly generate some gold in addition to food.

Best Unique Units
1. Romans -> Centurion. It's very expensive but better than the knight. The Elite Centurion is not that more impressive than a Paladin. It also buffs your infantry units, so not only has incredible stats, it also makes your own infantry better.
2. Spanish -> Conquistador. Conquistador it's a bit vulnerable to archer fire and TC, Castle fire. They can deal great with the archer units, are also efficient at dealing with cavalry units and infantry units. They can be countered by Skirmishers, Cavalry Archers, Monks.
3. Goths -> Huskarls. Just like Mangudai carry the game for Mongols, Huskarls carry the game for Goths. If the Goths didn't have Huskarls they would be useless. It wins the matches on its own. Yes, it has some counters, Champions, Hand Cannoneers, Paladins, but it shapes how Goths are played and gives them a lot of good matchups. They are so cheap and so spammable that not only it's a good unit, but you can make tons of them.
4. Mongols -> Mangudai. The it has very good damage vs siege weapons, speed, range. A unit that kind of carry the Mongols.
5. Incas -> Kamayuks. Kamayuks are a very viable unit late game. Mass Kamayuks is one of the hardest unit to deal with in the game. If you have anything that deals with massed archers, the Kamayuks will deal with any other unit. Cavalry, infantry, most of the time get anihiliated by the Kamayuks.

Best Post-Imperial Trash Wars Civs
1. Poles -> Trample damage on Winged Hussars. The Folwark, so many bonuses into spamming out Hussars.
2. Byzantines -> The cheap trash units the Byzantines have makes them extremely unit late game when you ran out of gold. Sometimes having a cheaper unit is better than having a better unit.
3. Lithuanians -> They got insane trash war options. Their Skrimisher not only got a lot of armor but also move faster. They got Winged Hussars and got good Pikemen. If you're looking for a civ that can do it all late game, pick Lithuanians.
4. Magyars -> The Magyar Hussar from Castle costs no gold and have fully upgraded Skrimishers and almost fully upgraded Pikemen, missing squire the last armor upgrade.
5. Berbers -> Flexible options and really cheap Hussars. Hussars + Skirmishers or Hussars + Gentiour is going to give you a really good option against most civilizations. Gentiour is basically a Skirmisher on a horse that lets you keep your mobility.

Previously, I told you about the "12 12 farms" 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 "12 12 farms" 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 "12 12 farms" 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:

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 stone each.
- 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. This is because in case you are low on resources, you need wood for the food upgrade, and wood & food for the gold and stone upgrades.
- Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart from Town Center. You get them in Feudal and Castle.
- But this is interesting, shouldn't get as soon as you reach Feudal Age unlike other upgrades.
- Wheelbarrow is usually got to get when you have like 16-18 farms or have 40-50 villagers.
- 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 do not affect Hand Cannonner, only the armor upgrade affects him. 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.

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.