Ultimate Guide To 2k | Intro & Getting Started | AoE2 DE

New version of the Beginner to 2k guide, which i have done back on the old version of the game
In this episode I talk about what new players should focus on, and my tips and advise for the beginners with below 1000 Elo rating

Editing and Thumbnail by K1
You can check out K1's youtube channel here:

00:00 Introduction
01:24 New Players
05:08 Beginners (Below 1000 Elo)

[HeraAgeofEmpires]

New Episode of this series drops every sunday! Happy to help you all on your journey to 2000 ELO (and beyond) <3

[The_Room__Doggys_Revenge]

and don't forget to say GG even to the AI, you never when the robots will take control so we want to be friendly with them

[yenlabuda]

I used to play AoEII back in the '90s when I was a kid, I sucked at it, but I loved it. About a year ago I discovered that the game has a great player community and I started to watch it as an e-sport. It's awesome to see the game thriving even after 20+ years. I must say the community around it seems to be quite small but it feels very close. I'll continue to suck at it but I'm glad it's a true classic and I thank you for this video which, hopefully, will help me to suck at it a bit less.

[yaketysaks]

Glad you’re making this, I must be the most educated 1000 ELO player in the world with how much content I watch 😂

[jonaszwojnar]

*To sum up + some additional comments:*

(use small trees mod and use grid – either mod or in game)
Before playing online it is absolutely OK to play *campaigns and against the AI* (and do the Art of War)
This will allow to learn the *basics* of the game: *basic unit types* (and basic counters), *resources* (what are they for), etc.
*Beating the hard AI* means you can beat many online players (although you may lose most of your first several games until you get to your actual ELO; playing ranked is nice because you will play against players of similar skill level to yours)
Start learning *basic hotkeys* like those to build *farms* and *houses* and go to TC (Town Center). Try to add additional hotkeys later (like train villager in TC; build barracks, mill, lumber camp and mining camp; go back to work, garrison and ungarrison, set gather point)
*Dark age eco building placement:* preferably in the middle; lumber camp as close to the wood line, mining camp 1 tile gap; berries 1 tile gap or adjacent (similar effect)
*Basic scouting: find your starting resources:* sheep (4+2+2), boar (1+1+, berries (6), wood lines, gold (7+4+4) and stone (5+4)
Lear how to *lure boar* under the TC. It’s free food and it’s fast. If your vills tend to die it’s OK to do *loom before*
If not do *loom before clicking up* (to Feudal Age)
(If you get housed start building house with 1 or 2 vills, cancel queued vills in TC and click loom and the vills again)
In feudal *do eco upgrades* (especially double bit axe) and *military upgrades* (for ranged units attack upgrade, for melee armour)
*Have a basic plan for the game* e.g. go castle and produce knights
*Pick civ 1-2 and learn them* E.g. Franks are nice for beginners
*Try to have your town centre always busy*
To do that you need to have *6-7 vills on food* and you will need to *build houses*
Therefore *send 3-5 vills to wood line + build lumber camp*
Build *houses* when you can produce 2 more units at the latest e.g. 13/15 pop or 18/20 pop
Try not to kill more than 1 boar / sheep / deer at a time. Dead animals *decay* and you will lose some food
Try not to have *-idle vills-* When you produce new vills set gather point to a resource (e.g. straggler trees, wood line or gold)
*Diversify early food intake* (this will cause less walking and therefore idle time and also not overcrowded TC/berries --> unnecessary drop of efficiency). Make use of sheep, boar, berries, farms.
*After initial scouting* (found res maybe also plan for smart walls) *go find your opponent* *Auto scout is OK* (although you will not learn how to scout and may lose it to enemy TC)
Take *resources you will need* (e.g. mainly food and gold of plan to go knights). Don’t take stone for no reason. Do not keep 30 vills on gold when you have 4000 gold and only 50 food
Use *pause if playing offline* when you get overwhelmed
*Use you resources* E.g. for eco and army upgrades (for the units you are producing or switching to), houses (but don’t build 30 houses in the Dark Age), required buildings to go up, production buildings, army, walls. Its ok to stockpile if saving for upgrades or age up (e.g. imp or paladin upgrade). (But if you have 4000 wood and 200 gold and 200 food either sell some for gold and buy some food or/and take some vills of wood and send to gold and/or to farms). Don't mine stone in early game of you don't have a plan for it.
When *attacked* (and not prepared for it) *send vills to TC* (do not use -bell- – it will idle your entire economy). *Create military, * if it makes sense maybe also wall. After defending *strike back*
Try not to *-idle your military-* (defend or attack; unless a good reason e.g. you wait for and upgrade to kick in or are massing units and opponent has)
Generally *constantly produce units and vills* (unless you get pop capped at 200 pop. Vills fishing ships and trade should be @ around 60% of your total pop).
*More TCs is a good idea* (protection for vills and allows for faster vill creation – faster eco expansion)
Learn *basic counters and unit types*
When building *TCs do it close to resources*
(Don’t waste you APM: For those new TCs set gather to those resources; use auto reseed farm; after age up click 1 vill; que tasks for vills like build house and use shift to go back and cut wood, when you have a monk use shift to tell him to take a relic and drop it of at monastery)

[Goldenblade]

"I'm new to the game." Hera, Top 5 Player in the World

[Nyxseris]

Holy crap. I just returned to the game after years and been struggling against the hard AI. Watched this and completely destroyed the AI in one try. This was an amazing guide Hera, can't wait to watch the rest!

[pbsoccer]

Great advice! I always enjoy your uploads. For beginner civs, I would also recommend Spanish, Byzantines, Italians, or Japanese. They have a fairly broad tech tree and have standard builds, so it helps to learn the basics while also allowing the opportunity to explore the different units and upgrades. I would initially avoid mesocivs (bad habit of booming into eagles) and Huns (bad habit of not building houses). Most importantly have fun with the game.

[ck]

12:06 "But Hera, Spirit said having one tile space is 0.13 seconds or 3.1% faster!"

[andreeliasoliveira]

Nice vid. I'm below 1000 and I feel like what helped me the most was the "all x buildings" shortcut, because that made me able to spend resources on military and have them grouped together. I feel like what I lack the most is the ability to protect my eco, since a lot of my games end in a raided farm economy at home

It was interesting to watch the guide, but it's funny how I am in control of the mentioned things here and still can't translate that into a good gameplay. Can't wait for the next episodes!

[izzetbey]

New goal. At this moment; I am starting my diet. With the 10th epsilode I hope to lose too much weight. I am gonna inform you with my proses in the other videos. Wish me luck :)

[AgeofNoob]

Title should have been: "RIP Hera's Throat Part 1/10" :D

[GabrielDiaz-nhnt]

I'm so happy you re-amped the series, I'm on 1000 elo after watching the old series but of course some stuff has changed and being new at the game this is really helpful

[bertlemoi]

wait... this is fresh out of the box! sick! i just started with aoe. friends told me to get into it. it's kind of weird coming from sc2 but i want to get at least decent here as well. so, i hope you continue this series! :D

[DM-rcyu]

Totally agree it's best for new players to pick civs. I often hear how the best way to learn it to go random so then you end up learning all civs but IMO it is far better to go one step at a time and learn a couple of civs very well. After that it is much easier to adapt to other civs.

[FrostMonolith]

I'm getting back to this video to comment that thanks to this guide's lines of "always have a plan and not get overwhelmed by pressure", I went up from 650 to 800 ELO in this Sunday!

Thanks a lot Hera!

[spudjiii]

Hey, really like the clarity and pacing of this. Its a little below my level so I'm looking forward to the next episode, but I really appreciate the lack of too much jargon or assumed knowledge, and the clarity on what to focus on :)

[JimCullen]

The default to build a house is Q to build, and Q to make a house. Default shortcuts in DE match the grid pattern shown in the UI, which actually makes it super intuitive for newbies to pick up.

(One exception: the two unique techs at your castle are flipped. Castle age tech is D, imp tech is S.)

[radiantav]

Hera underestimates under 1000 players. I've been inside 900-1000 ELO for a while and it's very common for players in this range to wall up, advance to Feudal quickly with 20 pop and output MAA or scouts at that very moment. It's far from straight-forward to learn one game plan and march on to 1100 :)

[bethanstanyon]

3 months!! 3 months of not being able to beat the AI on hard (yeah, I'm rubbish) and turns out all I needed was someone to tell me to stop worrying about my build order and just commit to my knights. Thanks Hera :D officially supporting you in HC4.