Age of Empires II is the sequel to Age of Empires I, a hugely popular PC game. Age of Empire allows you to play 13 different civilizations, each of which is unique in architecture and units.
This guide is for beginner and intermediate players. It is useless for advanced gamers who can easily beat the computer.
Steps
Part 1 of 5: The Early Middle Ages
Step 1. Create the villagers
Villagers are the key to a thriving economy, as they gather resources that can be used to build, craft and research new elements of the game. Create as many as possible at the start of the game.
Step 2. Take two for lumber harvesting and one for berry harvesting
There should be some trees near the city center, order the villagers to cut down those trees first. Berries should also be close, build a mill for them in the area. You will be able to collect food faster and you will be able to build farms around it later in the game.
Step 3. Send the explorer on horseback on a patrol
Number it by pressing Ctrl + 1. In this way you can return to it simply by pressing the number 1. Start by exploring the black area around the known area. Since you will need sheep, the explorer on horseback is essential. When there are more than six people, you can even steal the sheep, so the explorer on horseback is useful for this purpose.
Step 4. Gather the sheep
Now, after 30 - 45 seconds, the explorer on horseback should have found 4 sheep. You can check them when they turn blue (or red, if you are player # 2). The villagers you created should be in the city center. Send them immediately for the sheep.
Step 5. Create more villagers as soon as you get the chance
Continue the exploration with the explorer on horseback and create new villagers. The goal is to create at least 10 inhabitants during the High Middle Ages, 15 in the Feudal Age, 30 in the Age of Castles and 100 in the Imperial Age. You will need food and the villagers are the only ones who can collect it, even if the price will be high.
Step 6. Develop the Loom technology when the sheep are done
Start looking for wild boars. The explorer on horseback must keep moving, regardless of the situation in which he finds himself. If you find other sheep, one or two villagers must collect their food units. A villager should attack the boar and return to the city center where the others await him. Wild boars hold 300 units of food, so the more villagers collect them, the better.
Step 7. Keep exploring the map and creating villagers until you have at least 10 and build a woodworking shop near the forest
Employ a villager to harvest wood and when one boar's meat runs out, go find another one. At this point you should have:
- 10 villagers
- An explorer on horseback
- At least 400 units of food
- A mill
- A carpentry
- At least 50 wood units
- 100 gold units
- 200 stone units
Step 8. At this point it will have taken you about 6 minutes from the start of the game
When you have 500 units of food, develop the Feudal Age in the center of the city.
Remember to build the necessary houses
Part 2 of 5: The Feudal Age
Step 1. Create more villagers and put two to the wood harvest and 1 or 2 to the berry harvest
There should be no sheep by now, so you can start exploring other places, including where your enemies and opponents are. There should now be 4 people employed in harvesting the timber.
Step 2. Build a blacksmith shop and market
The blacksmith costs 150 units of wood, the market 175. The construction of the market is slower, while the blacksmith has many technologies to improve the military setup in the later stages of the game.
Step 3. Develop the yoke (in the mill) and the double ax (in the carpentry)
These are excellent technologies to be developed to improve the economy.
Step 4. Create 2 more villagers
Build a farm after building the market. Farms cost 60 units of lumber to build and another 60 to resow. It is best to hunt some deer by moving away from the city center. Each deer contains 140 units of food and there should be at least 4 around.
Step 5. Build a mine near the gold not the stone
You will not need stone in the Feudal Age, so get gold. You will need one hundred more units of gold to be able to pass into the Age of Castles. The Feudal Age should last from 7 to 8 minutes. You will need 800 units of food, 200 of gold, a blacksmith and a market to advance to the Age of Castles. If you have extra wood, use it to build the chambers away from the enemy. On top of a hill it is better, as infantry cannot climb.
Step 6. At this point you should have: 15 villagers, one explorer on horseback, one carpentry, one mine, at least 650 units of food, one mill, one blacksmith, one market, at least 50 units of wood, at least 200 units of wood. 'gold, 200 stone units, loom, yoke and double ax
Step 7. Wait until you have at least 800 units of food
Then you can advance to the Age of Castles. Continue exploring the map with the explorer on horseback. By now you should have revealed at least 50% of the map (unless you are playing with a normal, large, or huge map).
Part 3 of 5: The Age of Castles
Step 1. Immediately develop heavy plow and bow saw technologies
If you don't have enough resources, then you will have to wait. It also develops other technologies, such as gold mining and stone mining (stone mining must be developed later, unless you want a castle as a "second" center of power).
Step 2. Build a monastery and a university
The university should be built sooner, because it has a lower price and better technologies. The monasteries should be built later, unless you are planning a siege at the beginning of the Age of Castles. Keep creating villagers, and develop wheelbarrow and sentries (wheelbarrow may be too expensive, but don't use food on sentries if you don't have at least 100 units). You will need to build another city center. More villagers bring more resources, so better military technology and more chances of destroying enemies.
Step 3. Build your gun arm
Build housing, laboratory, stable, archery area and other buildings. Here are which ones you need to build in order: housing, stable, laboratory, archery area.
Step 4. Gather the infantry into one group, the archers into another, the cavalry into a third and the siege units into a fourth
You should have four military groups. Slowly keep building your army, but DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE ECONOMY. If you forget, you won't have enough resources to build your army and… well, you'll lose. Keep creating new villagers until you have at least 50. You must also have 50 military units (15 infantry, 15 archers, 15 knights and 5 siege units).
Step 5. Take care of the economy before the army
This will make things easier for you, because the economy will improve and provide you with resources to focus on military strength. When you have reached 1000 units of food, 800 units of gold and have built one or two buildings from the Age of Castles, you can decide to advance to the Imperial Age and continue to improve your military strength to facilitate victory. Or you can decide to lead your 50 military units (there are a lot of them in this game) and go destroy them all. If there are more than two enemies you should advance to the Imperial Age, and attack if there are two or less. If you are planning to carry out a military attack, go ahead and smash it all. Otherwise, here's what you need to do in the Imperial Age.
Part 4 of 5: The Imperial Age
Step 1. Develop all the most important technologies, such as crop rotation, woodcutter saw, stone / gold mining in the mine, and other relevant things
Develop the technologies that only you have in your castle, no one else has the same. If your enemy has many buildings, it is better to build one or two trebuchets to bring them to the attack.
Step 2. Continue creating villagers
You should have at least 80. Make another 20 more (don't worry, you won't have to do them all at once), 5 at a time. When you reach 100 villagers, you can fully focus on military strength. Re-sow the fields as always and create your military. Create many units so that you have 50 infantry, 25 archers, 20 knights and 5 assault units. If you are playing with the Goths, you have +10 for the population in the Imperial Age, this means that you can create 5 more villagers and build some more trebuchets. Now, with your 100 (or 105) units, you can go and destroy your opponents like you've never done before !!!
Part 5 of 5: Alternative Method
Step 1. Employ all the villagers provided at the beginning for the theft of sheep and the collection of food from the bushes
Create as many villagers as possible. When you have created the first villager, have him build a house and send him to collect food.
Step 2. Use the explorer on horseback to explore the surrounding area in search of other resources
When you have 5 villagers looking after food, create five villagers looking after wood, so that you have 10 units in all.
Step 3. When you run out of food, order five villagers to build a mill near the city center
When they are done, have them build a farm and add five villagers to the tail of the mill. Have the villagers who work with the timber build a carpentry shop near the woods. Create two more villagers to build the buildings and, if protection is needed, have them build the quarters.
Step 4. Advance to the next age
Advice
- You can set the difficulty of the level. Easy, normal, medium, difficult, very difficult (in this the enemy uses "tricks"! If you set the speed to "low", it will be easier to do many things in less time. In any case the playing time is slower than the real one, so you have plenty of time, don't worry.
- MAKE SURE TO SET THE SPEED TO "HIGH", otherwise you will be moving in slow motion throughout the game, which is not good. Also make sure that the map is zoomed as little as possible, look in the Settings.
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There is a very fun setting called Regicide where you start the game with a king, along with other things, and it's simple because to win you just need to kill the opposing king they just have to kill yours, but it's fun to build fortresses to prevent him from dying.
- You can assign it a key, as you can with each unit / group, by holding Ctrl and choosing a number while it is selected. When you press the number, you select the character automatically. If you still have the unit selected, but it is off the map, just press the space bar to return to it.
- When playing Regicide, you choose the Black Forest or Island map. For the islands, even if it may take longer, try to enclose the entire perimeter, with the exception of a few gates, without leaving room for someone to land. This is the best strategy for this type of map. For the Black Forest, get a good siege onager (be sure to choose a civilization that builds them, like the Saracens). Use this siege weapon to blow up trees and create a path to surprise the enemy king from behind. Build outposts along the way until you find an area where the enemy is not very active, and send them 5 trebuchets to blow up the castle quickly. Since the king is fast, you will need an archer or mounted unit to kill him.
- Also, you don't always need to have all kinds of units, just use the ones you like best. Use other units if you want, but be aware that cavalry is the fastest.
- Check the civilization of your enemies before starting the game to understand which one you will have to choose. Some are better than others in civilization clashes, thanks to special units created in the castle. If you have already started the game, you can check the civilization type in the upper right area. If they are Persians, for example, build a lot of halberds, because they can take them out as if they were flies, they are also excellent against paladins, and besides they are cheap.
- A good civilization is that of the Saracens, their special units on camels can destroy practically anything, just try to keep them at a distance from their targets, like archers on horseback.
- Huns don't have to build houses, probably because they are nomads, but their special units only work well against buildings.
- Food is an important resource, and it can always be found, unlike wood, gold and stone. Build as many farms as possible, and assign factors to keys so you can keep them in check and have them re-seed when needed.
- If you have an ally, build the market as far away from him as possible, and have theirs built away from yours, then build at least 20 cargo wagons. The farther the markets are, the more resources you get.
- One useful tool is GameRanger, you can play against people online and it's free. You can even play LAN with friends and family, but if you don't have anyone to play with besides your computer, you might like GameRanger. If you can't beat the computer on a medium or high level, you may not be able to get away with people who regularly play online.
- There is an expansion called Forgotten Empires, it contains the Italians and other new civilizations, units and map elements.
