Age of Empires II Pro Tips

I’ve been playing age of empires for a long time, and thought I’d share some words of wisdom for new players. Here are ten tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years:

Starting out

1. Your starting town center is your most important building before the Castle age. Make sure to wall it up so the enemy can’t access it.

2. You start the game with four villagers (on most civs), and a scout. The scout has a really low attack, and should be deleted to clear up population space for more useful units.

3. There are usually two boars located around your starting town center. Hunt them down with militia before they can hurt your villagers.

4. Mills, mines and lumber camps are used to deposit resources. While these buildings can be useful in certain situations, they are redundant to the town center and cost a lot to build.

Units

1. Monks are an incredibly useful unit that can collect relics (which generate gold), convert enemy units to your side and heal your own units. They should make up about half of your total population.

2. Petards are devastating units that can annihilate enemy bases. They take awhile to get the hang of, but they should be trained in mass once you know how to use them.

3. Remember, archers are strong against cavalry, infantry is strong against archers, and cavalry is strong against pikemen and halbreds.

Construction

1. Clear out forests with onagers at the earliest opportunity to give yourself more space to build.

2. Castles are an incredibly expensive investment. They should only be built in the center of your base far from enemy troops if you choose to construct them at all.

3. Wonders increase the attack and defense of your units and the units of your allies. Try building them near enemy bases before attacking.