On skills, progress and guidance

So, here's a topic I thought about lately. Just for the record I've started around 700 Elo and in the last year and change I've managed to get 1242 so far. I'm nowhere near close to being a good player, but I'm confident I'll get there eventually.

Here's the thing: what I've realized throughout these 500+ 1v1 games and hours of practice is that there's no linear progression in aoe2 and furthermore, some advice will HINDER your progress.

When some players ask here about tips etc. they often get "practice build orders" or "set your hotkeys", but in my experience this didn't work, as it's higher level of advice for optimizing your gameplay. In my initial stages of growth (700-900) much more helpful was to just watch LEL and pros and trying to emulate the strategies in 1v1, learning the game and its mechanics the hard way. Practicing build orders before that only led to my disenchantment as I couldn't crack B on Cicero's.

After that, between 1k and 1k1 Elo tightening my build orders really helped and I know there's a lot of work to be done in this capacity. Same goes for hotkeys, micro etc. But you can't get out of the LEL on these alone. What I'm trying to discuss here is that all this advice is great and helpful, but it only helps when the practicing player is ready to receive it.

So, my biggest advice to newbies and bad players would be to 1) play 2) watch other people playing, especially with casters. After you get enough experience you'll know when to improve and you'll know where to look for advice.