Hey this is a great tutorial! Don't let anyone who said it's subpar bug you; they aren't getting that this isn't fully designed to make you master of the map, game, etc. It's just a useful way for intermediate players to boost their skill and learn the intuition and routine behind getting to a fast castle or feudal. Like the video says: really designed to help players master the Dark Age and working through it efficiently; however, it focuses almost solely on the economy aspect. That is the whole point though! I have to say, after hitting a block trying to learn myself and get faster and better just watching videos and playing more - nothing has quite boosted my ability and skill like this tutorial has. I was legitimately a E, maybe at times a D, player (in respect to this video). After mashing out the tutorial nearly 100x over the past few days, I was finally able to achieve an A+, and most importantly, can now comfortably control my economy and make room to learn to scout more than just the beginning stages and think about other plans while I operate the economy instead of being 100% distracted by that aspect I now have mental room to breathe. I play consistently at an A to high B level now in regards to the Dark and Feudal Ages, and I have transitioned that knowledge and skill into my regular play and it's been spectacular. Even if you are looking to do other things besides Fast Castle, this tutorial helps you master a solid structure for mainly the Dark Age and with minor tweaking you can detail it to be something more like a Feudal Rush or Drush/Fast-Castle, etc. It's very handy to be able to run your economy without the actual feeling of urgency, yet still work it like you were being quite urgent. A+ for this! Make more!
+MOISECRIMI Na... Both farms you have down are the two wounded villagers that lured the boars. With scout it should be 26 pop going into castle age for half of the civs
So the build order is : 6 Food (Sheep) 2 house+ 1 house (new vills) 4-Wood (Lumbercamp) 1 Lumbercamp (new vills) 1-Food (Lure Boar) 4-Food (Berries) 1 house+ 3 Mill (new vils) 1-Food (Farm) 1 farm (wouned) 1-Food (Lure second Boar) 1 house (lumberjack) 3 -Food (Sheep) 1-Food (Farm) 1 farm (wounded) 3-Wood 1 house (lumberjack) 3-Gold (Miningcamp) 1 mining camp (new) Send 4 vills to the deer 4 mill (new) sheep runs out? 6 farms + send one vill to cut wood Research Loom Go to feudel Send one vill from gold to wood Send two goldminers to built a market + one lumberjack to built a blacksmith 2-wood go to castle
I made castle in 16:05 in an actual game after a bit of practice but I can't break lower than 16:35~ish in the tutorial no matter how hard I concentrate lol
I would suggest giving the player advice on how to scout much earliet - for instance: scout around your base, make sure that you find your 8 (stress the number so that they don't look for them forever) sheep, 2 boar, stone mine and 2 gold mines, and once it's done, send your scout to find the enemy (you can flare potential spots in which he can be). Also the in-game sound in the video is a little too loud.
@Tiber Mentese I just beat hardest Ai ..you have to use hotkeys and play fast ..know when to go to next age ..and never let your town center idel in the early game ..the walling is important ..and as soon as you be in castel age ..build 1 or 2 or even 3 more town centers
10.57 Feudal 14.58 Castle (Without waiting and no loom) Very helpfull tutorial. Lots of fun to practice and very satisfying when you manage to knock off some seconds!
I used to be really bad, however after a handful of attempts and a few resets (stupid AI stealing my sheep), I managed a 16:18 Castle Age, including the 35 seconds of waiting at the beginning, which puts me only a few seconds behind this video. While a lot of it is due to the fact that I was starting to know this map by heart, I really learned a lot on how to get to the Castle age in a really efficient manner. My biggest issue in the past was gathering that 800 food quickly. I would often get to the feudal age on 25-26 population, but then I would have 300-400 food and I was never able to get the 800 required for Castle.
Fantastic. I actually got an E first time. The disappointment in your voice was hard to bear, especially when you said I must be new!! Fixed myself up and got A+ second time round. A few constructive criticisms: - I think it's a good idea to keep a running total of which villagers are doing what. In video, this can be achieved by keeping the economy tab open. In tutorial, this can be achieved by the triggered messages. This way, it's easier to memorise what's supposed to be happening, as the information is collated. It's also easier to check that you're doing things right. - The more mnemonics and elaboration the better. Maybe with a followup reader to explain why the things are being done. e.g. you need six on sheep to maintain villager production. This also allows people to extend on that logic when playing with different races (5 on sheep for brits). - Maybe have an updating mission objective. Build a house, put three on wood, build a mining camp. Whatever. Again, it helps structure the information in people's heads. Great work though, I look forward to seeing more.
@@cowchunks5120 Such a fast feudal time is really bad for you. Especially since a 4 minute feudal means you have ~4-5 villagers, depending on if you get loom. 7 minutes results in 11-12 villagers, which is better, but still awful. The point of build orders is that they give you a solid feudal time:economy balance so that you can harrass/outboom the opponent.
I feel like this games skill is based off of memorization and speed running. Kinda weird I used to play this game as a kid like I played roller coaster tycoon 2. A city buildeing game now that I'm older and comeing back I see what it really is an intense speed run that requires precision,memorization,and extreme multitasking abilities.
You can play it calmly if you want, against the easy ai or in wonder games. But if you're doing it competitive, yes then it's brutal. Just do what you enjoy
First try I got an E, tried it a few days later with more practice and got a D, just did it again and got an A but was only a few seconds off A+. Awesome tutorial🙏
eViL RumPy Are you using hotkeys? What I do is set my scout to 1, my 6 sheep vils to 3, my town center to scroll down on the mouse wheel and idle vil to scroll up. Seems to work pretty well so far. I keep forgetting to build houses tho🤧
First try: E (20:30 min) Second try: E (18:30 min) Third try: D (18:00 min) This is looking good, my best last game before trying this tutorial was 22 min, I cut down 5 minutes just by learning the order of things. Thanks! I'll be aiming for an A+.
Nice tutorial, but a few key points :) 1. You should have let the boar luring villager build a house instead of luring the boar immediately then come back as soon as the second sheep is over. 2. Mill the deer first and the berries later (but you didn't scout the deer soon enough! use your sheep to scout and make sure you have everything in your immediate surroundings revealed to you before you scout away and into the opponent territory). The reason for that are two-fold: A) you're decreasing the chance of your opponent(s) laming them, and B), they gather faster which means you're going to have food for going up the castle age quicker. This allows you to deprioritize food in favour of some other resource like wood which will enable you to boom quicker. Stone is also a good candidate if you require more than a single defensive tower or if you're planning a tower/castle drop. 3. You have to build a barracks in the dark age if you want any castle rushing done, the barracks unlocks the stable and the archery range. If you want to knight rush, you need to have a stable built as soon as you hit castle age. In this situation the stable is built instead of a market. If however you plan on full booming, then avoid building a barracks and send the unemployed villagers to wood instead of gold.
The very first time I took too long and had to restart, I got an E grade the second time and a D grade the following two times. But it has definitely helped my game quite a bit even against the computer Thank you!
+Im Flash hi!! how much time for a E, and how much for a D?? i take like 20min before i saw this video and now i know that i need 27 villagers maybe i can inproove a couple of minutes
Have one coming up for flush defense? It's not incredibly hard to defend from a flush, but it's hard to do it without blowing your resources, and your opponent still somehow advancing before you.
I'm a new player and I just tried your tutorial. I got a C at first try. I got a lot of TC idle time and a few idle villagers... I can definitely improve this!
Thanks a bunch zero, A+ after about 30 tries. Fantastic guide, although I found that when you had the 5 villagers gathering sheep after sending 4 to the mill, it was best to send one villager to wood before, not after finishing the sheep.
If you get this stuff down, here are some pro tips not mentioned that apply to EVERY game: -Don't build houses against the wood line in the dark age, they will get in the way when you build more camps/ TCs later on. -Don't build houses between your TC and resources (between mill/ TC for example) -Only boar lure without loom if the distance is short enough. If there are hills, or the villager has to take a couple corners, they may die. -Don't return sheep food before shooting boar unless you need the food to build villagers. The food does not disappear when shooting a boar and it's unnecessary idle time and micro. -Build economic buildings with one villager while the other(s) gather the resource. Especially if getting deer, have 2 or 3 shoot the deer while one builds the mill. -Taking deer is risky, the villagers are exposed. You can achieve a great castle time without deer, or by pushing the deer to your TC with your scout.
+Gerrit Beltman These are all great. Some of them (deer lure comes to mind) might be a bit beyond newer players, but it's all pretty sound. Those Dark Age houses, ideally, should be placed in such a way as to also not impede later farm placement around the TC, and potentially so that a make-shift wall of buildings to protect, for instance, the woodline and maybe berries is achievable later on.
Finally managed to pull this off without the guide and without any major mistakes. I kept messing up things around the time of the second boar (killed vil, forgot housing, forgot exploration and ran out of sheeps, etc). Funnily enough, the times where the enemy scout steals my sheeps and I can't get them back is usually when I do best.
This is awesome. So far I have been playing only BF maps. This has immensely helped my game. Can you make similar videos for archer rush and tower rush. So that i can make the transition to arabia. I know i am being greedy, but could you make one for water maps as well. Please... :))))
What I would recommend as well is that you should tell the player that FC is quite a risky strategy in a 1v1 Arabia match, so in order to survive safely without much harrassment in the Feudal age they should place some walls or build barracks and create some spearmen - you can set the AI to send like 3 scouts to attack their base at let's say 13 mins.
+AlphaPlays Well Zac got to castle at 16:15. You did 45 seconds better than he did without hotkeys? That doesn't seem right. Did you start the tutorial at 00:37?
Seems like I gotten better. I got a B after a couple Ds. I got housed once though in the B. 11. On a side note I didn't do the Horse Collar - though in fairness I think I had well over the amount of food to do it (Wood I was unsure on - enough for 1 TC I'm sure). This has been a huge help for me. Thank you!
Edit the Steam listing, to include this video on its page, so that peple can Shift+Tab and open this tutorial video IN-GAME. Subbed cuz of this, great stuff for players of other RTS games who want to learn BO's and meta fast.
So I tried this and it has upped my game a little bit but I find myself diverging from this build order significantly in order to not get slaughtered when my enemy first sends troops against me. If my strategy is to play defensive until castle and then do an all out push in castle age, what would be a good guide that incorporates putting out just enough defenses/troops in feudal to get me to castle safely?
Just tried this, got a E grade of course. 19:10 to finish Castle Age. Some things could be better, like my vil not dying to the first boar, and my vils not killing all the sheep and deer at once. Thanks for making this though, scenarios like these are, I find, much more helpful than tutorial videos that people make.
i prefer to go up on 26 vills to have one more villager on wood - i get an A+ doing it like this scenario but i'm always missing like 30-40 wood when i'm up to feudal and i hate to wait building the blacksmith...
Haven't played this since hs, now I'm 23, & after floundering my way in to a victory, thought "Maybe I should learn a real strategy" So not a total noob, this was easy to follow & I got it down after 3 tries Ready to crush my friends
Ok I realised that reflexively toggling between looking at the scout and selecting the TC over and over again really helps. Only got a D this time because I had low food due to messing up my sheep micro at the start. But my scouting was WAY better than before, never had a problem finding all my resources quickly, and my TC only went idle due to having low food a couple times. I still wonder if I'm having frame rate issues since some people in the comments are claiming to get away with more mistakes and still getting better grades.
One thing that would make this video better is having the bottom right hand corner display economic stats such as how many villagers are on each type of resource instead of the players scores. That way it would be easier to tell how many villagers you have on food for example.
I see people (like mbl) sending what would be the 4th lumberjack to collect the boar, then the next vill goes to wood/build house. Probably just to time the boar for when the sheep runs out.
I've used this tutorial and have only managed to get an A so far, but well done. This is a great training scenario. I noticed your instructions are to take 3 wood gatherers for the market & bs, but in this video you use gold miners for the market. Any reason the video and tutorial don't match?
Sorry! An error was encountered while processing your request: That item does not exist. It may have been removed by the author. Registered - Subscribed... still Im unable to get the download of this scenario! Please help!
I wanna share a strategy I use in the initial two ages of the game (this isn't gonna come to you as a revelation for sure). Because I use my unique units, heavy cavalry and gunpowder units a lot I am always in need of gold in the late stages of the game. So what I usually do in the earliest stages is to scout for gold mines in the far ends of the map, and also on the outskirts of my enemy or ally towns. By the Feudal age, I'd have sent a lot of my villagers to such far out goldmines and extract as much gold from there as I can, keeping my own reserves intact for the late stages when I have walled and fortified myself well. This creates a gold crunch for the rest of the players while I myself have typically two mines entirely untouched from which to extract. Combining this with my market activity keeps my gold economy heavily loaded for my heavy cavalry, gunmen, and unique units.
Just started playing couple days ago and im stuck on 20 minutes :| keeping my scout moving and remembering to make vills, and luring boar seem easy when you watch, but i consistently lose a villager to boar xD
I just started the game a month ago. I downloaded the tutorial days ago. Got an E, the last time I played I hit Castle Age in 19:17 minutes. Got to practice more.
@@spyrojoe4721 I always lose my villiager because I'm like ok now send vill to boar, oh shit i have to build a house, oh shit another vill is idle. oh shit i havent found my sheep yet and i need to micro my scout... oh shit i forgot about the vill now its dead
Hi ZeroEmpires. I absolutely love your Videos. Your Commentary is absolutely perfect. Could you please do a print-out of what all the villagers should do for a successful Fast Castle. I would really appreciate it. I tried doing one myself but I feel it isn't that good. All the best and I hope you wont get sick of this game any time soon ;)
this helped me so much! any chance of you doing another tutorial for a different build? for a grush or for a feudal archer rush maybe? that would be so helpful!
you said to scout around you for boar sheep and deer, and neglected to scout the enemy until then but what if the enemy was preparing some sort of rush? Or does this strategy not care about that?
+Peter GANS that's exactly why. With good micro, you can avoid scouts and potentially even archers (or at least get out a few revenge arrows) whereas a weak vill on the woodline or on gold is easier to kill. Also, under-strength vills who are sent forward or otherwise exposed can be killed by wolves if a player isn't careful.
I go 10/10 until the first boat lure. I can lure the boar fine, I can micro the house by the berries etc. The problem I'm having is I always run out of food around this point and I've tried a billion times to micro drop-off as diligently as possible and it never changes. I've found I can otherwise keep pace with the video for the most part aside from that. I tend to just get loom when I lure the first boar now because it seems like no matter what my TC is just idle for a few seconds there.
I know this is kind of irrelevant but boy do i wish my screen was as zoomed out as much as yours. Thanks for this, i don't often use specific builds but i think i'll be giving this a go some time soon :D
Great video ! However can you make a tutorial for a feudal aggression. You know after the standart 22 pop how many villagers on gold for archers or how many on food for scouts. Thanks !
Zak...but what about walling? If you know your opponent isn't going to boom, he's going to Feudal agreession(something much more common and viable now with FE and AK). Would be nice to have a tutorial where you teach us the best spots to wall yourself and prevent your economy from being attacked(streesing how important is to know the distance of archers so you don't get caught sleeping)
So many people can do this that it almost always comes down to experience. This is only like 1/4 of the game. That is how I can go for months and then not advance on time and still win the game.
But the custom scenario will always load up the same map? If that's the case isn't it always easier for the second time? Since you'll know where all your resources are
+Klaymen 47 I don't expect newer players to have hotkeys down, however if you want to achieve an A then you'll need to know and use hotkeys. This is an Intermediate tutorial remember :P
+Klaymen 47 My fastest castle on black forest is %@$@ 14:33 and I have all my hotkeys memorized not one hundred percent but almost perfectly. so you can be a person that can't fast castle properly and have all you hotkeys memorized.
Hi Zack, great stuff as always. But one thing, is there any offline download option available for this Interactive session. Since my internet is behind a proxy server I am not able to download it from STEAM. But I would like to practice the build order on my PC. Thanks in advance. :)
Why never take the trees that are right next to the TC? you'd save on that 100 wood, free space for farms and the villagers wouldn't have to run all the way..
Your boar luring is very strange. Why are you waiting until they hit the boar twice? Gets the villager health unnecessarily low. If you hit them once and run you won't need to garrison them and you don't end up with one boar knocking health off multiple villagers.
maybe say that you should scout your base until you have found your deer as well xD - a kind of housewall to the tc would be good - good job, make more campaigns :D
Hey zach, great vid. If you wanna put a 4th TC, is it more efficient to go up with a lil later with extra vils in the dark age, or play a standard FC meta?
One thing you didn't mention: I like building a barracks and training two militia while Feudal Age is being researched. Like that I can go for a stable earlier. What is the difference in the build order in that case? If I go fast castle + knights, maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea, but I need the militia (upgrade them to M@A once Feudal is up) to have some edge against potential small raids. Same with spears. I always fear if my opponent will try to refute the fast castle order and rush me in Feudal. At least I like playing with Mongols... They're flexible...
Hey this is a great tutorial! Don't let anyone who said it's subpar bug you; they aren't getting that this isn't fully designed to make you master of the map, game, etc. It's just a useful way for intermediate players to boost their skill and learn the intuition and routine behind getting to a fast castle or feudal. Like the video says: really designed to help players master the Dark Age and working through it efficiently; however, it focuses almost solely on the economy aspect. That is the whole point though!
I have to say, after hitting a block trying to learn myself and get faster and better just watching videos and playing more - nothing has quite boosted my ability and skill like this tutorial has. I was legitimately a E, maybe at times a D, player (in respect to this video).
After mashing out the tutorial nearly 100x over the past few days, I was finally able to achieve an A+, and most importantly, can now comfortably control my economy and make room to learn to scout more than just the beginning stages and think about other plans while I operate the economy instead of being 100% distracted by that aspect I now have mental room to breathe.
I play consistently at an A to high B level now in regards to the Dark and Feudal Ages, and I have transitioned that knowledge and skill into my regular play and it's been spectacular. Even if you are looking to do other things besides Fast Castle, this tutorial helps you master a solid structure for mainly the Dark Age and with minor tweaking you can detail it to be something more like a Feudal Rush or Drush/Fast-Castle, etc. It's very handy to be able to run your economy without the actual feeling of urgency, yet still work it like you were being quite urgent. A+ for this! Make more!
i´m not reading that
So the build order is :
1 Food (Sheep)
2-Food (Sheep)
3-Food (Sheep)
4-Food (Sheep)
5-Food (Sheep)
6-Food (Sheep)
7-Wood (Lumbercamp)
8-Wood
9-Wood
10-Wood
11-Food (Lure Boar)
12-Food (Berries)
13-Food (Berries)
14-Food (Berries)
15-Food (Berries)
16-Food (Farm)
17-Food (Lure second Boar)
18-Food (Sheep)
19-Food (Sheep)
20-Food (Sheep)
21-Food (Farm)
22-Wood
23-Wood
24-Wood
25-Gold (Miningcamp)
26-Gold
27-Gold
+MOISECRIMI Na... Both farms you have down are the two wounded villagers that lured the boars. With scout it should be 26 pop going into castle age for half of the civs
+MOISECRIMI Is like a %*$# combine with icecream. The idea is genial but the gameplay is %*#$.
Thank you but you forgot about house
Add:
-2-Wood (House)
-1-Wood (House)
0- Wood (House)
So the build order is :
6 Food (Sheep) 2 house+ 1 house (new vills)
4-Wood (Lumbercamp) 1 Lumbercamp (new vills)
1-Food (Lure Boar)
4-Food (Berries) 1 house+ 3 Mill (new vils)
1-Food (Farm) 1 farm (wouned)
1-Food (Lure second Boar) 1 house (lumberjack)
3 -Food (Sheep)
1-Food (Farm) 1 farm (wounded)
3-Wood 1 house (lumberjack)
3-Gold (Miningcamp) 1 mining camp (new)
Send 4 vills to the deer 4 mill (new)
sheep runs out? 6 farms + send one vill to cut wood
Research Loom
Go to feudel
Send one vill from gold to wood
Send two goldminers to built a market + one lumberjack to built a blacksmith
2-wood
go to castle
thak you
thanks man
Lol thanks. Literally gonna just screenshot this. I get wrecked so hard man
En is Magyar vagyok!
if you are new its good order but i would not recommend this build order if you a little strong
In case anyone else was wondering how this is graded,
you have to reach castle age by the following times for each grade:
A+ 18:20
I reached castle age within 12:57, but it still graded me an E.
Maybe too good? haha
I got 17:40 on my first try......not too bad considering I am terrible with hotkeys and multitasking.
it is to fast. You haven't a stable eco then
I made castle in 16:05 in an actual game after a bit of practice but I can't break lower than 16:35~ish in the tutorial no matter how hard I concentrate lol
I would suggest giving the player advice on how to scout much earliet - for instance: scout around your base, make sure that you find your 8 (stress the number so that they don't look for them forever) sheep, 2 boar, stone mine and 2 gold mines, and once it's done, send your scout to find the enemy (you can flare potential spots in which he can be). Also the in-game sound in the video is a little too loud.
+Przemysław Gradek I agree
Don't forget the 4 deer at the back of your base.
Are you always assured these resources in AOE2? Or is that only on specific maps?
Most maps yeah
@@jonpaulcer3128 Awesome thanks friend! I'm just getting into AOE2 after a lifetime of AOE3 so this little stuff is really helpful
I realized just how bad I am within the first 40 seconds
I know that feeling bruh
Thats great, at this pont im sure you are far better.
Try online games :)
@Tiber Mentese I just beat hardest Ai ..you have to use hotkeys and play fast ..know when to go to next age ..and never let your town center idel in the early game ..the walling is important ..and as soon as you be in castel age ..build 1 or 2 or even 3 more town centers
@Tiber Mentese ua-cam.com/video/NDu8tiD8Al4/v-deo.html
"Don't forget, keep exploring the map!"
"Hahaha! A splendid sight!" :P
shift + right clic over the minimal apll the time until you discover all the map or your explorer dies
i guess im the only one that read it in the tutorial guys voice
@@666vurdalak doesnt work in original AoE2
@@MicK22ICE naah me too😂😂😂
Please make more of these, they are amazing!
10.57 Feudal 14.58 Castle (Without waiting and no loom) Very helpfull tutorial. Lots of fun to practice and very satisfying when you manage to knock off some seconds!
I used to be really bad, however after a handful of attempts and a few resets (stupid AI stealing my sheep), I managed a 16:18 Castle Age, including the 35 seconds of waiting at the beginning, which puts me only a few seconds behind this video. While a lot of it is due to the fact that I was starting to know this map by heart, I really learned a lot on how to get to the Castle age in a really efficient manner. My biggest issue in the past was gathering that 800 food quickly. I would often get to the feudal age on 25-26 population, but then I would have 300-400 food and I was never able to get the 800 required for Castle.
wow thats actually amazing
now i'd like to have something for practicing my archer rush :D
+Stefan Stockinger It's all coming up!
+ZeroEmpires - Age of Empires 2 I would love to see that too.
+ZeroEmpires - Age of Empires 2 this is awesome! thanks for this!!! MOARRR!!!
+ZeroEmpires - Age of Empires 2 will you make it on the steam workshop
want more! This is sooo good!
Fantastic.
I actually got an E first time. The disappointment in your voice was hard to bear, especially when you said I must be new!! Fixed myself up and got A+ second time round.
A few constructive criticisms:
- I think it's a good idea to keep a running total of which villagers are doing what. In video, this can be achieved by keeping the economy tab open. In tutorial, this can be achieved by the triggered messages. This way, it's easier to memorise what's supposed to be happening, as the information is collated. It's also easier to check that you're doing things right.
- The more mnemonics and elaboration the better. Maybe with a followup reader to explain why the things are being done. e.g. you need six on sheep to maintain villager production. This also allows people to extend on that logic when playing with different races (5 on sheep for brits).
- Maybe have an updating mission objective. Build a house, put three on wood, build a mining camp. Whatever. Again, it helps structure the information in people's heads.
Great work though, I look forward to seeing more.
Zero Empires: *Clicks up to Feudal at 11 minutes*
MbL: "Hold my scout" *Reaches Castle at 11 minutes*
Haramasch Abrasir feudal age is usually within like 4-7 mins... unless your worse than me.
@@cowchunks5120 Such a fast feudal time is really bad for you. Especially since a 4 minute feudal means you have ~4-5 villagers, depending on if you get loom. 7 minutes results in 11-12 villagers, which is better, but still awful. The point of build orders is that they give you a solid feudal time:economy balance so that you can harrass/outboom the opponent.
I feel like this games skill is based off of memorization and speed running. Kinda weird I used to play this game as a kid like I played roller coaster tycoon 2. A city buildeing game now that I'm older and comeing back I see what it really is an intense speed run that requires precision,memorization,and extreme multitasking abilities.
You can play it calmly if you want, against the easy ai or in wonder games. But if you're doing it competitive, yes then it's brutal. Just do what you enjoy
First try I got an E, tried it a few days later with more practice and got a D, just did it again and got an A but was only a few seconds off A+. Awesome tutorial🙏
Hey how did you manage to get so much better? I've just done E three times in a row and I'm struggling to see what I'm getting wrong :/ haaalp
eViL RumPy Are you using hotkeys? What I do is set my scout to 1, my 6 sheep vils to 3, my town center to scroll down on the mouse wheel and idle vil to scroll up. Seems to work pretty well so far. I keep forgetting to build houses tho🤧
Hy-JRez_ yeah maybe the wrong hotkeys though :/
Great work Zak. This kind of tutorial maps should be part of the official game by default.
First try: E (20:30 min)
Second try: E (18:30 min)
Third try: D (18:00 min)
This is looking good, my best last game before trying this tutorial was 22 min, I cut down 5 minutes just by learning the order of things. Thanks! I'll be aiming for an A+.
After so much solo practice and hours of effort, I finally got that D! Wololo!
Nice tutorial, but a few key points :)
1. You should have let the boar luring villager build a house instead of luring the boar immediately then come back as soon as the second sheep is over.
2. Mill the deer first and the berries later (but you didn't scout the deer soon enough! use your sheep to scout and make sure you have everything in your immediate surroundings revealed to you before you scout away and into the opponent territory). The reason for that are two-fold: A) you're decreasing the chance of your opponent(s) laming them, and B), they gather faster which means you're going to have food for going up the castle age quicker. This allows you to deprioritize food in favour of some other resource like wood which will enable you to boom quicker. Stone is also a good candidate if you require more than a single defensive tower or if you're planning a tower/castle drop.
3. You have to build a barracks in the dark age if you want any castle rushing done, the barracks unlocks the stable and the archery range. If you want to knight rush, you need to have a stable built as soon as you hit castle age. In this situation the stable is built instead of a market. If however you plan on full booming, then avoid building a barracks and send the unemployed villagers to wood instead of gold.
Teach me your ways, Zero senpai :3
Damn, I need to practice. You are one full minute ahead of my best time. I see it's balancing the resources and timing perfectly at the end.
I live for the day where Zero will verbally tell me I did a good job
i play the game 3 days now and was able to hit the B awesome Tuturial my friend playing AoE 2 over 1 year now and im Able to beat him now thank you :)
The very first time I took too long and had to restart, I got an E grade the second time and a D grade the following two times. But it has definitely helped my game quite a bit even against the computer Thank you!
I. Got. E.
12 times.
+Im Flash I know that feel. I've been playing this game for fucking ten years, and I still suck major balls. I wish I'd get a D sometime.
+Ipu Finally I Get a D. :D
+Im Flash same :D
Mage Bank Ohh yess, I did manage to get the D once already, it was amazing
+Im Flash hi!! how much time for a E, and how much for a D?? i take like 20min before i saw this video and now i know that i need 27 villagers maybe i can inproove a couple of minutes
Have one coming up for flush defense? It's not incredibly hard to defend from a flush, but it's hard to do it without blowing your resources, and your opponent still somehow advancing before you.
I'm a new player and I just tried your tutorial. I got a C at first try. I got a lot of TC idle time and a few idle villagers... I can definitely improve this!
Finally got an A+ after a few tries :D
Just bought AOE and tried it, took me 22 min. AOE memories from childhood ;D
its funny how in this video you're acting so professional lool you're talking style is like an automated service haha
+KingQuraish because its part of the scenario and not a commentary
because it is.
***** that's cool didn't know that. Thanks
Thanks for keeping aoc alive
Thanks a bunch zero, A+ after about 30 tries.
Fantastic guide, although I found that when you had the 5 villagers gathering sheep after sending 4 to the mill, it was best to send one villager to wood before, not after finishing the sheep.
"at this point you build a FARM"
God that was great.
the fuck, i pressed randomly on the time bar and took me in to that part
If you get this stuff down, here are some pro tips not mentioned that apply to EVERY game:
-Don't build houses against the wood line in the dark age, they will get in the way when you build more camps/ TCs later on.
-Don't build houses between your TC and resources (between mill/ TC for example)
-Only boar lure without loom if the distance is short enough. If there are hills, or the villager has to take a couple corners, they may die.
-Don't return sheep food before shooting boar unless you need the food to build villagers. The food does not disappear when shooting a boar and it's unnecessary idle time and micro.
-Build economic buildings with one villager while the other(s) gather the resource. Especially if getting deer, have 2 or 3 shoot the deer while one builds the mill.
-Taking deer is risky, the villagers are exposed. You can achieve a great castle time without deer, or by pushing the deer to your TC with your scout.
+Gerrit Beltman These are all great. Some of them (deer lure comes to mind) might be a bit beyond newer players, but it's all pretty sound. Those Dark Age houses, ideally, should be placed in such a way as to also not impede later farm placement around the TC, and potentially so that a make-shift wall of buildings to protect, for instance, the woodline and maybe berries is achievable later on.
This guide is fantastic! Please add other interactive tutorials for additional tactics.
Yay I finally got an A on normal speed! Food drop off and keeping TC going while doing boar lure is the hardest thing.
Finally managed to pull this off without the guide and without any major mistakes. I kept messing up things around the time of the second boar (killed vil, forgot housing, forgot exploration and ran out of sheeps, etc). Funnily enough, the times where the enemy scout steals my sheeps and I can't get them back is usually when I do best.
Thank you so much for the time & work you spent on this! I really appreciate it (fun fact: my father, who is in his fifty, is learning also how to FC)
This is awesome. So far I have been playing only BF maps. This has immensely helped my game. Can you make similar videos for archer rush and tower rush. So that i can make the transition to arabia. I know i am being greedy, but could you make one for water maps as well. Please... :))))
What I would recommend as well is that you should tell the player that FC is quite a risky strategy in a 1v1 Arabia match, so in order to survive safely without much harrassment in the Feudal age they should place some walls or build barracks and create some spearmen - you can set the AI to send like 3 scouts to attack their base at let's say 13 mins.
It's not as risky when you're playing other new players because they might not be able to pull of a feudal or dark age rush.
I so wanted to see a demo for myself have read this strategies many times
Wow i did get an A+ in 15:30 without using ANY Hotkeys..... :D
Nice video keep it up!
+AlphaPlays Well Zac got to castle at 16:15. You did 45 seconds better than he did without hotkeys? That doesn't seem right. Did you start the tutorial at 00:37?
+Jake Belyea I have to agree with your assumption, as what Alpha says seems incorrect.
How do you know he took 16:15? Is the video sped up? Or does he have the game on fast?
top left corner you have the time
@Hielke You forgot Santa being the Queen of England
Seems like I gotten better. I got a B after a couple Ds. I got housed once though in the B. 11.
On a side note I didn't do the Horse Collar - though in fairness I think I had well over the amount of food to do it (Wood I was unsure on - enough for 1 TC I'm sure).
This has been a huge help for me. Thank you!
It's just fascinating how different is the early game in every AoE.
Edit the Steam listing, to include this video on its page, so that peple can Shift+Tab and open this tutorial video IN-GAME.
Subbed cuz of this, great stuff for players of other RTS games who want to learn BO's and meta fast.
So I tried this and it has upped my game a little bit but I find myself diverging from this build order significantly in order to not get slaughtered when my enemy first sends troops against me. If my strategy is to play defensive until castle and then do an all out push in castle age, what would be a good guide that incorporates putting out just enough defenses/troops in feudal to get me to castle safely?
Just tried this, got a E grade of course. 19:10 to finish Castle Age. Some things could be better, like my vil not dying to the first boar, and my vils not killing all the sheep and deer at once.
Thanks for making this though, scenarios like these are, I find, much more helpful than tutorial videos that people make.
i prefer to go up on 26 vills to have one more villager on wood - i get an A+ doing it like this scenario but i'm always missing like 30-40 wood when i'm up to feudal and i hate to wait building the blacksmith...
Haven't played this since hs, now I'm 23, & after floundering my way in to a victory, thought "Maybe I should learn a real strategy"
So not a total noob, this was easy to follow & I got it down after 3 tries
Ready to crush my friends
I started before the intro finished and still could only get D
Yeah!!! hold there Viper im coming for you !!!! ... in a few life times hehehe thanks for this ZACK !!!!
Help! The mod installed correctly but the scenario won't show up in the scenarios list. Any tips to fix?
This is great, I'd love to see a flush or a grush for the next video!
This is great, do you think you will do more interactive tutorials for other build orders? Thanks!
Thanks mate, video like yours is a real pleasure to watch ! :)
Ok I realised that reflexively toggling between looking at the scout and selecting the TC over and over again really helps. Only got a D this time because I had low food due to messing up my sheep micro at the start. But my scouting was WAY better than before, never had a problem finding all my resources quickly, and my TC only went idle due to having low food a couple times. I still wonder if I'm having frame rate issues since some people in the comments are claiming to get away with more mistakes and still getting better grades.
At 08:29 You say, you take the villagers from wood to build market and blacksmith, yet you take them from gold.
as long as you get 200 gold ready for the castle click up it should be fine
One thing that would make this video better is having the bottom right hand corner display economic stats such as how many villagers are on each type of resource instead of the players scores. That way it would be easier to tell how many villagers you have on food for example.
This should be a tutorial they implementedinto the real game, where you could improve your timing and it would keep records of your best timing :)
I see people (like mbl) sending what would be the 4th lumberjack to collect the boar, then the next vill goes to wood/build house. Probably just to time the boar for when the sheep runs out.
Great job on this scenario!
I've used this tutorial and have only managed to get an A so far, but well done. This is a great training scenario. I noticed your instructions are to take 3 wood gatherers for the market & bs, but in this video you use gold miners for the market. Any reason the video and tutorial don't match?
Sorry!
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Registered - Subscribed... still Im unable to get the download of this scenario! Please help!
+arun prabhu yeah me too
Is there a spreadsheet we can look at to make sure we are doing this right?
I got an E twice.
The second time I though I went at least 5 minutes faster.
Nope. Still 20 minutes. HOW?
Same here xD 18 - 19 minutes is the best i can get. And i play AoE 2 since the year 2000!!!
@@karnevalsjeck1984 So did you get an A+ yet?
YAY, I got a D, what an achievement xD
Fantastic vid, Helped our build orders alot! liked and subbed
Helps out a lot man! Awesome!
Holy hell that game volume vs mic volume
Awesome tutorial bro! Keep it up
I wanna share a strategy I use in the initial two ages of the game (this isn't gonna come to you as a revelation for sure). Because I use my unique units, heavy cavalry and gunpowder units a lot I am always in need of gold in the late stages of the game. So what I usually do in the earliest stages is to scout for gold mines in the far ends of the map, and also on the outskirts of my enemy or ally towns. By the Feudal age, I'd have sent a lot of my villagers to such far out goldmines and extract as much gold from there as I can, keeping my own reserves intact for the late stages when I have walled and fortified myself well. This creates a gold crunch for the rest of the players while I myself have typically two mines entirely untouched from which to extract. Combining this with my market activity keeps my gold economy heavily loaded for my heavy cavalry, gunmen, and unique units.
Thanks for sharing, will use.
I practice and practice but my time doesn't get any better as 18 - 19 minutes =(
Draufschicker Zero is a gun you're doing well at 18-19 keep up the practice.
Just started playing couple days ago and im stuck on 20 minutes :| keeping my scout moving and remembering to make vills, and luring boar seem easy when you watch, but i consistently lose a villager to boar xD
I just started the game a month ago. I downloaded the tutorial days ago. Got an E, the last time I played I hit Castle Age in 19:17 minutes. Got to practice more.
@@spyrojoe4721 Try getting Loom first, or running the villager into the TC before they die.
@@spyrojoe4721 I always lose my villiager because I'm like ok now send vill to boar, oh shit i have to build a house, oh shit another vill is idle. oh shit i havent found my sheep yet and i need to micro my scout... oh shit i forgot about the vill now its dead
Hi ZeroEmpires. I absolutely love your Videos. Your Commentary is absolutely perfect.
Could you please do a print-out of what all the villagers should do for a successful Fast Castle. I would really appreciate it. I tried doing one myself but I feel it isn't that good.
All the best and I hope you wont get sick of this game any time soon ;)
this helped me so much! any chance of you doing another tutorial for a different build? for a grush or for a feudal archer rush maybe? that would be so helpful!
Oh, can you actually improve from A+?
you said to scout around you for boar sheep and deer, and neglected to scout the enemy until then but what if the enemy was preparing some sort of rush? Or does this strategy not care about that?
i guess whem you re in middle way to castle you buy at least a barracks and other military to defend against a flush?
great. i dont speak good english but i undertnd all your video and its the best i ever seen. thankyou
'Tis what I needed, thank you!
Now this is great. I wonder why one should build farms with weak Vills? Because they stay near the TC and are less vulnerable to harras?
+Peter GANS that's exactly why. With good micro, you can avoid scouts and potentially even archers (or at least get out a few revenge arrows) whereas a weak vill on the woodline or on gold is easier to kill. Also, under-strength vills who are sent forward or otherwise exposed can be killed by wolves if a player isn't careful.
what happens if there r no sheep or bores or deer or berries?
really nice zak
that's quality stuff m8, thanks
I go 10/10 until the first boat lure. I can lure the boar fine, I can micro the house by the berries etc. The problem I'm having is I always run out of food around this point and I've tried a billion times to micro drop-off as diligently as possible and it never changes. I've found I can otherwise keep pace with the video for the most part aside from that. I tend to just get loom when I lure the first boar now because it seems like no matter what my TC is just idle for a few seconds there.
I know this is kind of irrelevant but boy do i wish my screen was as zoomed out as much as yours. Thanks for this, i don't often use specific builds but i think i'll be giving this a go some time soon :D
+kriskong1 He's running 1080 resolution, my monitor goes to 1440p and then it's too small haha.
Great video ! However can you make a tutorial for a feudal aggression. You know after the standart 22 pop how many villagers on gold for archers or how many on food for scouts. Thanks !
Zak...but what about walling? If you know your opponent isn't going to boom, he's going to Feudal agreession(something much more common and viable now with FE and AK).
Would be nice to have a tutorial where you teach us the best spots to wall yourself and prevent your economy from being attacked(streesing how important is to know the distance of archers so you don't get caught sleeping)
So many people can do this that it almost always comes down to experience. This is only like 1/4 of the game. That is how I can go for months and then not advance on time and still win the game.
Got grade E for my first try (which I didn't fall behind too much by not making enough villages)
Finally got to B after like 50 tries
Can you do an archer rush after this?
But the custom scenario will always load up the same map? If that's the case isn't it always easier for the second time? Since you'll know where all your resources are
can u make a demo video how to boom in differnce ways that would be awsome
Are you implying that someone who can't FC properly will have all the hotkeys perfectly memorized anyway? :v
SO UNREALISTIC. *Kappa*
+Klaymen 47 I don't expect newer players to have hotkeys down, however if you want to achieve an A then you'll need to know and use hotkeys. This is an Intermediate tutorial remember :P
+Klaymen 47
missed first text that says "this is not for Klaymen 47"? :D
+Klaymen 47 Klaymen you have to get past 1500 elo first, Kappa
+Klaymen 47 My fastest castle on black forest is %@$@ 14:33 and I have all my hotkeys memorized not one hundred percent but almost perfectly. so you can be a person that can't fast castle properly and have all you hotkeys memorized.
+TheAzFace TheBadGas Sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say... Are you saying 14:33 is a bad time?
Hi Zack, great stuff as always. But one thing, is there any offline download option available for this Interactive session. Since my internet is behind a proxy server I am not able to download it from STEAM. But I would like to practice the build order on my PC. Thanks in advance. :)
Why never take the trees that are right next to the TC? you'd save on that 100 wood, free space for farms and the villagers wouldn't have to run all the way..
Just commenting in case someone answers..
*****
True! I sometimes want to age up but realize that I forgot to build something xD
Your boar luring is very strange. Why are you waiting until they hit the boar twice? Gets the villager health unnecessarily low. If you hit them once and run you won't need to garrison them and you don't end up with one boar knocking health off multiple villagers.
maybe say that you should scout your base until you have found your deer as well xD
- a kind of housewall to the tc would be good
- good job, make more campaigns :D
In order to get A+:
Start feudal age research at 10:25 (in-game speed)
Start castle age research at 13:37 (in-game speed)
I ended up getting a A+ after a couple tries, I'm curious to know how this is graded
+DaN00b1 Read the triggers in the scenario editor
the time you hit Castle Age is key
Hey zach, great vid. If you wanna put a 4th TC, is it more efficient to go up with a lil later with extra vils in the dark age, or play a standard FC meta?
One thing you didn't mention: I like building a barracks and training two militia while Feudal Age is being researched. Like that I can go for a stable earlier. What is the difference in the build order in that case?
If I go fast castle + knights, maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea, but I need the militia (upgrade them to M@A once Feudal is up) to have some edge against potential small raids. Same with spears. I always fear if my opponent will try to refute the fast castle order and rush me in Feudal.
At least I like playing with Mongols... They're flexible...