After many failed attempts, I beat the moderate AI as a beginner. I have some questions.

Beating the AI on moderate was super gnarly for me, but after watching some streams and adapting some tips from this sub I made it. I was playing as Khmer, the AI as Huns on Arabia since everybody told me to not do Black Forest. I'm just practicing for playing online.

1) My times:

• Feudal - 12:21
• Castle - 19:20
• Imperial - 35:23

Since I don't have any benchmarks I don't know if my times are any good for a beginner?

2) I've seen many people bulding housewalls like this. Is this a permanent solution or should I build a real stonewall around this?

3) How do you actually counter attacks like this?. I had some battle elephants and halberdiers in my base but that wouldn't stop him. I kept pushing his base from the other side of the map and harassed his economy. So he retreated, I guess I was just lucky? I don't think I would have survived if this was a real player in a 1v1

4) What counters unit XY? Is there a list for that? The only thing I know is halberdiers are good vs. any kind of cavalry.

5) Since this match took 2hours I ran out of gold. I also couldn't trade. Relics were also very unlucky placed for me. The AI had 3 relics nearby and found a 4th one, while I only had 1. Any advice on that? Spamming trash units? I also abused the market as much as possible.

6) I'm trying to get used to hotkeys. I only use "next town center", "idle villager" and "produce villager". I want to implement a new hotkey every game and get used to it. What should I do next? "next barracks" ?

7) Generally some tips for new-ish players? What challenge should I do next?