So I decided to investigate how good or bad 850-950 and here is a list of mistakes they make.

I've seen a few posts about how 900 players aren't bad or there are a lot of smurfs at that ELO and since I didn't have much to do this week so I took some time to spectate games and see how true this is, (to me it seems to be false) and give some advice. Note that I don't have a big sample size, about 7 or 8 games, I'm also not a good player being 1150 at the moment also I'm not looking to make fun of these players.

So looking at the games I saw so many mistakes through all the games, however not all players make the same mistakes and a lot of players seems to have many different weaknesses, this can make some games onesided at certain points in the game, a boomer player tend to have a better late game, an aggressive player can kill someone who messes up their dark age, etc.

However all the players I saw look really bad to me so it makes sense they are at these ELO, I didn't see plays that screamed SMURF! to me.

Here is a list of things that I saw as bad plays and lead to getting behind at this rating, they are not in any order.

• Bad buildorder: many players have weird builds, too many on berries, some take gold too early, some put a lot into wood, or go fast feudal into nothing (generally if you click feudal early it means that you are planning some sort of rush, if not then just go FC). There is a reason why most people say that if you're at this level focus on buildorder, but is not all that is bad at this level.
• Messy dark age: some players struggle with the dark age even if they are using some build order, they idle they TC a little, have problems scouting their res, kill boars far away from TC and sometimes loose vils luring boars, is not rare to see one player have two villagers more than his opponent. This should be fixed just practicing vs AI (what I did) or playing lots of games.
• Bad lumber, mill, mining camp and TC placement: This in the grand scheme of thing may just a nitpick, but when I see a lumber camp two tiles away from wood, or someone places a bad TC in between gold and stone, which gives you two badly placed TCs for the price of one, it annoys me because is such an easy thing to fix and will increase your income a lot.
• Not using their army, or using them badly: The reason for this is probably because they are focused in their eco or they are overestimating their opponent army. If you make some units you need to use them, they cost a lot of your resources, put some pressure on your opponent, or at least scout the map. I saw a few times a guy with 20 knights that could destroy his opponent eco and did nothing with them, 1200 food and 1500 gold badly expended. Do note that this is especially bad because of the next point.
• Everybody is extremely bad at defending, really really really bad: If you are stuck at this ELO I guarantee you, if you apply just a little pressure to your opponent there is a big chance that they die right there, that would be an easy way to boost your ELO, also PLEASE learn to defend yourself from a rush!. I can see now why so many games are stomps, is not smurf, players are bad at defending. It was so bad, that I saw someone die to 4 eagles scout and 2 archers without fletching, that was enough to idle the all his eco and get a resing from him, also saw someone die to a tower rush with only two villagers, he knew the tower was there and sent two spears which died to two spears of his opponent, he could build a counter tower, or send a few villagers to fight it would have been fine, but he let that tower get up, and three more, since he had autofarm on (don't use autofarm in the early game) when his farm expired the villagers went to work the farms under the tower putting him behind. When people get rushed they tend to panic and overreact, they get a lot of idle time and TC idle time, a lot of times they only have one lumber camp and have to relocate the whole woodline to another or to stragglers if they don't have 100 wood, and if they don't die to the pressure then they eco suffers and they die later. Of all the games I watched (except one) the first one to attack was the one who won, the fix: don't panic, wall your base, scout your opponent, if your opponent gets in then you will have idle time but make your best effort to minimize damage, this comes with experience so just play more, and of course, you should be aggressive yourself, it will give you a big advantage and you have fewer chances of being attacked.
• Bad imperial: Usually if you hit imperial it means that you have a big eco, and therefore, you should be able to produce a big army, a lot of people struggle here because they don't build enough production and die with a lot of resources in they can't expend, the fix: get a lot of production buildings.
• Early resign (104): a few players resign too fast when there is still a chance for them to comeback,
  even when they have a lot of resources. They lose a few vills, lose a fight or a castle and give up immediately. You're not playing vs AI where you can save the game and try again, instead if something goes wrong try to keep playing until it gets really bad, then you can resign. People at this level make so many mistakes that you can cockroach it up and comeback later and personally I have done that a lot in my own games (of course if it is really over please don't be toxic and resign, don't hide your villagers).
• Ninja base: I saw this a few times and it didn't work, you can maybe justify it if you are getting all-in and need a safe gold or stone, but generally, don't do it. You are just delaying your extra TC and if your opponent fin out can take advantage of this, in one game they did.
• Not walling, not walling in time: if you're going to be passive just wall up your base, it helps a ton, if you're going to be aggressive you can delay your walls. I saw someone die because he didn't wall at all and a lot of players be damaged because they don't have their walls in time.
• Upgrades: I saw players get their eco upgrades, but blacksmith upgrades not so much, some didn't get any upgrade even in imperial with thousands of resources. It sounds really obvious, if you're planning to go some unit, upgrade it.
• Capping your villagers: In castle age you should keep producing villagers almost always and try to get above 100, about 120 should be fine.

People at these ELO have bad micro and I could have included that, however, I fell that wasn't as important as the other ones, they could easily win if they fixed some of their mistakes before focusing on micro.

Lastly, it would be really appreciated if someone else made a guide on how to defend from different rushes (maybe there is, idk), it felt like a lot of people struggle on simple defences and the only advice I can give them is don't panic, get good and it depends...