Computer Game Guide

AdvancedStrategies and

Tactics

PART II

Now that you’ve covered The Age of Kings’ strategic

foundation, it’s time to build on that knowledge. While many of the

tactics and concepts you learn here can be applied to the single-player

campaigns, these chapters are particularly geared toward making you a

top-notch multiplayer opponent.

Chapter 4 expands on what you learned back in Chapter 1 and offers

a detailed, minute-by-minute guide to quickly setting up a thriving

economic infrastructure. Master its tenets, then hone your offensive

and defensive techniques with the tactics presented in Chapters 5 and 6.

Finally, Chapter 7 explores strategies specific to multiplay, including how

to be a superior teammate, while Chapter 8 takes an in-depth look at each

civilization’s strengths and weaknesses.

CHAPTER

4Advanced Economics

Now that you understand The Age of Kings’ (AoK)

basics, let’s put that knowledge to use in a real game. Building

a good economy is more than just understanding how to

gather resources. You must plan your strategy and organize

your economy to support that particular strategy.

This chapter applies to every AoK game mode, but it’s

especially useful for skirmish and multiplayer games. It

discusses how to get your economy off the ground and into

the next age. It describes the options available and how the

economy must be shaped to support your choice of strategy.

Finally, you’ll read how to keep your economy working

smoothly in the hurly-burly period of the Imperial Age.

Getting a Good StartWaging war is a tough business. Getting a good start is critical to success in AoK. Thefirst ten minutes play a large role in determining the resources available to wage warwith in the coming ages. This section shows how to get off to an immediate good startby outlining the key actions to take at the game’s outset and as the game progresses.Repeat these tasks in the order listed, game after game, until you feel comfortable witheach step. As you develop your own style, you’ll want to alter these steps to improveyour early game economy given your strategic goals.

A unique aspect of AoK compared with most other RTS games is that random mapgeneration makes every game different, so you can’t depend on a set “build order.”Keep the following principles in mind and refine your techniques as you get better.

Your First Thirty SecondsOne of the drawbacks to playing random map games at default resources is that the firstthirty seconds are very important to your long-term success. While it is quite possible torecover from a small stumble later on in the game, a stumble at the start can put youway behind your opponents. Then, like compounding interest on your credit cards, amistake keeps adding up. Even getting behind an opponent by only two villagers at theoutset can mean that opponent has a 400-resources advantage ten minutes into thegame. The following steps will help you get the fast start that all the lads and lassesadmire!

At first you may not be able to do all the steps in thirty seconds, but keep practicing.This is a lot to do in a short time, but soon it will become second nature to you.

Queue New VillagersThe moment the game screen comes up, use the hotkeys to select your town center (thedefault is H) and queue up as many new villagers (C) as possible. In the early phase ofthe game, constantly train new villagers. Failing to keep up with opponents’ villagerproduction means you’ll have fewer villagers gathering resources than they will. Queueup as many villagers as possible.

Build a HouseImmediately select your villagers and build a house. You want to get a house up quickly,but you also want to leave open space around your town center for farming. It isimportant to get the first house up before your fourth villager appears, otherwise you

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Advanced Economies

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Official Strategies & Secrets™ to

Microsoft® Age of Empires® II: The Age of Kings™

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will suffer a delay producing your fifth. To build a house quickly, double-click on one ofyour villagers. This selects all of your villagers visible in the current screen. At the start,these are your three initial villagers. Use them to build a house near the villagers, but atleast three tiles away from the town center. Figure 4.1 shows villagers building a houseat the start.

Starting with the ChineseYou’ll generally use the same starting technique when playing a game with theChinese civilization, but you have the ability to make some modifications. Youalready have twice as many villagers as any other civilization, but only enough

food to make one more. Also, because your town center supports a population often, you do not need to make a house right away.

Use these advantages to get all of your villagers onto food production right away. Ifyou cannot see it available at the start, fan your villagers out quickly to locate thefirst source of food. Once you have enough food, queue up your eighth villager.

Use this villager to build your first house.

If you have a decent starting position—food readily available—and you play it justright, you might be able to maintain a one or two villager advantage from the start.

Against evenly matched players, this can provide a significant advantage.

Figure 4.1:

Use two or three villagers

to build a house next.

Leave enough room

between it and your town

center for farms.

If one of the villagers is too far away to help build the house, use him to help scoutthe initial area until you’ve found food. Once you find food, redirect the villager toward it.

Scout for FoodWhile your villagers are busy building a house and your town center is training morevillagers, use the scout located nearby to search for your initial food source. You canquickly select your scout using the hotkey “,” (which hops you from one idle militaryunit to the next) rather than searching by scrolling. Use way points (hold down Shiftwhile right-clicking) to have the scout search around in a pattern.

Gather FoodGetting food is the most important step you must take next. Gather the first food sourceyou find. If you find both sheep and berries, collect food from the sheep first becausethis food source is faster to collect and gives you a greater chance of maintaininguninterrupted villager production. Get all your villagers on the first berry patch or sheepflock you find. Sheep are the best, but you can do well with berries, too. It is critical toget food flowing in quickly so that you can maintain villager production. Collect 50 foodby the time the seventh villager is produced or suffer a break in villager production.

If you find sheep,move all of your villagersto the town center to beginslaughtering them. If youfind berries instead, moveyour villagers to theberries, build a mill rightnext to them, and startharvesting.

Set a Gather Point for New VillagersOnce you have the first food source identified, set the gather point for your town centerto that food source using the I hotkey (or right-click on the resource). If you are reallyfast, you’ll be able to set the gather point before your first villager is produced so thatthe villager goes directly to that food source and begins working. Every second counts inthe beginning phase of the game, and saving that one or two seconds assigning time pervillager really adds up fast.

Tip Queue up a new villager everytime you have the 50 food necessary to do so. Don’t let your food level rise above 50 until

you’re saving up to advance to the next age.

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