10 Tricks I use to play faster [AoE2]

Here's a list of hotkey, mouse, and macro tricks that I've found useful in speeding up or simplifying routine aspects of Age of Empires 2. While they won't necessarily increase APM, they help me keep up with crazy moments of the game more easily, so hopefully you find at least some of them helpful!

Game: Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition, with Forgotten Empires, African Kingdoms, Rise the Rajas, and Last Khans expansions

[mikeavery]

Spirit of the law is why I came back to this game

[UrsielHauke]

Today I learned about the "go to last notification" button. I'm amazed and I think my play just improved instantly.

[historicmetal]

0:40 set "select all Town Centers" to mouse button
1:50 change "select idle villager" button from default to more accessible key
2:54 use Alt to select sheep/ villagers without selecting military
4:38 use "all stables", "all barracks", etc. hotkeys
5:16 use waypoints and command queues by holding Shift
6:09 select/ deslect specific units with Ctrl and Shift
6:46 don't stress over late game farm placement
7:14 use the market
7:58 make more military buildings in late game

[BenjaminKeller]

Does anyone remember the time when villagers used to just stand around after building a resource camp?

[OroborOSX]

I love that the AoE2 community has such dedicated, high quality content creators like SotL.

[noelnemo]

One more very useful tip :
Use same hotkey for 'select all mills" and mills upgrade ; select all lumbercamp and wood upgrades ; select all mining camp" and gold upgrades.

For example if lumbercamp Hotkey is K, you just need to type 'KK' once you are up into feudal age to get wood upgrade without moving screen.

[RaynmanPlays]

Spirit of the Law: *Uploads*
Me, who does not play AoE2: "Interesting."

[raspootin]

That’s crazy and all, but I asked for a video about tree hp.

[Xardas]

The real art of playing Age is to fight efficiently while building beautiful cities (like in the amazing campaigns!)

[Progeusz]

This is the best "tips and tricks" video I have seen for Age of Empires period. Actually important, meaningful stuff, that might not be obvious to many players.

[theraindog]

So useful. Between you and T90 I've rediscovered this gem from my childhood and the buzzing community around it. Brilliant info

[francovenica]

I think the Idle villager button in my mouse and waypoints are the things I use the most, as well as "go to town center" specially in the early game. I love way points for, for example, when 4 or 5 villagers are in the last 2 bushes, I click both bushes in sequence and then I made them construct the farms or go for a deer, and with that I know those guys are going to be busy for the next 10 minutes. Also I like to use waypoints with the monks. Click on the relic, then monastery, then relic, then monastery and again, one guy busy for a while.

[calebcouch]

I actually mapped my idle vil and TC hot keys to the 2 extra buttons on my mouse, definitely helped me speed up. Too bad I’m still terrible

[MrCosinuus]

Tricks I use to make YOU play faster: Settings->Playback speed -> 1.5

[Tiramis_]

SOTL : "The market is not a replacement for well balanced economy"
Hoang : "Naniii ?!?!?!?!?!"

[hartesgeld]

when your aoe2 play style starts to look like you were playing piano, than you know that your getting closer to perfection :D

[BeyondDM]

4:42 I adopted the UIOP setup from one of your older videos and have been using it with CTRL to select all (fe. CTRL-U = all barracks) and this improved my game by a lot. I'm happy to see you making a video for newer players, I consider this a must watch for anyone looking to play online

[BrigadaRealBriggy]

Fun fact:
You don't need to play faster when you play just the campaigns, cause you can pause the game all the time :D

But seriously, some of these are going to help me improve a little.
I played this game back when I was a kid. in 2013 I got the HD version off Steam and now I'm playing the DE.
Am 30 years, by now, lol.
I wouldn't say, I'm a bad player in this one, but surely I can improve a little more. Thanks for that
Specially the shift button thing will come in handy, that's one I didn't know yet and I really never made use of the hotkeys, tbh.
But might set them up and see how I do then.

[Dran_____]

2:37 "Whether that's the sound of a monk picking up a relic, an alarm that you are under attack, the sound of a university being built, unit created, unit created, unit created, unit created or unit created."

[NoName-mtjb]

Thank you so much for this! It's easy to peruse the hotkeys and controls in game, but knowing exactly what they do and when to use them is a different story.