Tips for 2v2 (anything helps)

Hey there. New to this reddit and also new to the game. I've played 6 ranked 1v1s now, and about 14 ranked 2v2s with my best mate as my duo. AOE2 DE that is.

We are starting to get the basics down as in certain BO's and using hotkeys. However strategy is not in our vocabulair yet lol.

For now we either go 1 player scouts, the other M@A or 1 of us does M@A and the other plays FC into knights. So far this hasnt worked out to great yet. Often enough we are able to put some early Feudal pressure on our opponents by idling or even killing some of their villagers. However most opponents we face seem to be able to defend quite well, after which we decide to fall back and retreat to our base to strengthen both our defences and to be able to focus better on our economies. Putting constant pressure on our opponents that are defending well, and also managing a good eco, well its just too difficult too manage. Either we get sloppy and eco gets bad, or we focus to much on eco and lose our units that are pressuring the opponents.

Almost every game in which we decide to retreat and defend, 1 of us gets attacked (overwhelmed tbh) by both opponents at the same time. Whats happens next is that I have to make a choice. Either I go help my friend who is in trouble, or I attack an opponent from who I already know his armies are in my friends base. Of course it's very situational, but in such a case what is better to do? Send my military units to my friend to help him survive, or send my units to the opponent and try to defeat or at least cripple him?

We actually always chose to go and help each other out. However because we are not very good yet in managing both eco and military at the same time, when we help each other to defend our bases, we have to focus so much on military and fighting our eco falls behind of the opponent... So well Im really not sure what to do actually. Help eachother defend, or attack an opponent who's army is no where near his base.

Any general tips for 2v2 teamplay would be quite nice as well. My friend likes to play civs that have acces to Eagle Warriors (he's just in love with the unit I suppose lol). I'm a fan of cavalry and like to play with the Lithuanians. Are cav and eagle warriors good with each other? I've read that as a duo the meta is (for gold units that is) to go with archers + cavalry. If thats really better I'm going to get him into playing archers lol...

Well thanks for reading all this, hopefully you have some good beginners tips for a new player :)