Here's a tip I found useful: holding down on the d-pad, rather than just pressing it, is "Select All TCs." This has the benefit that it doesn't move your camera, even when selecting only 1 TC. It lets you queue Villagers without moving the camera away from whatever else you're trying to do (scout, lure a boar, micro military, etc).
I think it's because its got one of the most loyal player bases of all time. Not many other games have this many people still dedicated to it 25 years later!
Agreed. Ans I am so happy to see the community really embracing the console players rather than treating them as outsiders. All our creators as well as the community in reddit etc. have been super nice
This is definitely the GOAT console beginner tutorial for AoE2. Some others have already popped up and to my dismay they don't start off on the right foot and risk letting new players learn bad habits.
@@goskiin I trust you will return in the future, whether that be next week or next decade, to present us with the new and actual GOAT of AoE2 console beginner tutorial.
I may not need a guide like this, but I'll go back to this video again and again whenever I feel I need this. So thanks Spirit for the guide, it'll really help us console players to get started.
My friend doesn't have a PC, so I urged them to get AOE2 when it came to Xbox. They're brand new to the game, so I'll send this to them. Thanks Spirit!
Man I’m over here watching 7 year old videos trying to learn strats for different Empires. Thanks for making something to show the controller stuff. I much prefer the advanced interface since it gives you more control over things
While holding down LT and then A button on top of any unit will queue five units, using B instead will remove the same amount. This also applies to garrisoned units in both rams and buildings.
I’ve been playing for the last 3 days and even started playing ranked. It’s a lot of fun, some of the micro stuff is a little overwhelming once you have a large army built up or trying to manage like a navy or monks in unison. And that’s only because you’re limited on what you can hotkey to the d-Pad
Just played cross platform with 2 friends yesterday who have it on console. It actually works really well. One of them even had keyboard and mouse and it turned off the auto economy!
this is an amazingly improved "first 15 villagers" video!!! I hope you can make this explanation for PC too, its incredibly clearer and easier to follow than your "first 15 vils" one
I would love to be at the point where I can start to strategize. For the time being though, still having lots of fun trying to remember to build everything and keep creating those villagers and an army. I've beat the AI twice now on standard, one of them with 2 AI opponents so not doing too bad. The tips in the video will help me a lot I think, so thank you.
There are four types of animals in the game. 1) herdables a.k.a. "sheep". These can also be turkeys, cows, pigs, etc but we call them all sheep for easy reference because they're the same thing. 2) big game a.k.a. "boar". These are animals that fight back when you hunt them. Includes boar, elephants, and rhino's. Be careful because it's easy to lose villagers to them, but they give more meat than herdables. 3) huntables a.k.a. "deer". These are animals that try to run away from militia and villagers. They are hard to hunt and only worth it if you can avoid getting overwhelmed by the micro management. Includes deer and zebra's. 4) predators a.k.a. "wolves". Animals that attack you by default and killing them will give no meat so they should be avoided (or killed to protect your villagers). Includes wolves, lions, crocodiles, etc. I probably missed some variants, most of them are relatively new to the game.
There's also shore fish (for when you can't find your berries and accidentally picked a water map), deep fish (for when you intentionally picked a water map) and flying birds (does nothing but look nice).
Thanks Spirit. I needed this man. The scout waypoint was for sure my learning curve moment for sure. Keeping the auto economy default at the beginning was also a note worth taking as well. Much Love and Thanks man.
I don't have a console, and I haven't even had AoE2 installed on my PC in over a year... I still clicked eagerly and watched this to the end, of course.
I’m surprised how well the UI has been adapted for controller. The menus are pretty intuitive and it’s kind of nice to kick back in the living room to play AoE on the big TV
Could you do an advanced video explaining how is played in Xbox? I don't have a console and I would like to know how did they manage to do it. I love the resource panel and the minimap, I will jump at mod that change the pc ui to the Xbox ui.
There’s a tutorial about Control Groups on the 4th and last mission of the William Wallace ‘learn to play’ campaign. In short, it’s behind Advanced Settings or controls I think it’s called. So you have to turn that on in order to get access to control groups
This has to be one of the top games of all time. My girlfriend just played it for the first time. I really love her sense of wonder as this is her first time playing an RTS game. Makes me think of myself when I first saw it and was addicted from the day one.
Haven’t played since I was a kid back in the day. Now I’m playing again on console. I must say the controls feel amazing and I’ve been having so much fun.
@@nschep yes, and without presets. you can say how much of the pie chart each resource is instead of the default options, so youre not gathering stone in feudal if you dont want to for example.
I totally thank them for adding this for the console I recently purchased an Xbox series s and when I saw aoe2 was there I try it out it’s very hard for anyone who haven’t play an rts game first time and even harder on console but I appreciated the videos who help me with the best setting for console it made an huge impact right now Iam on a 3 win streak on rank and I have it set up to play cross play with controller Huns it’s so good for new player because you will have time to walk up or control shock point on Black Forest since I don’t need spend time on houses.
Cheers dude, always wanted to play this game ever since I had the demo on my PC but never got the opportunity to play the actual game and now it's on Xbox I finally get to play it
Very informative tutorial. I think the keyboard/mouse is more efficient for Age of Empires, but still, the development team has nailed it by bringing this classic gem to consoles.
You can start a lot easier. Press d-pad down and Y for queue some villagers. Then press d-pad up to select the single villager and press Y and A to build a house. Then press und hold d-pad up to select the other 2 villagers at the same time and then press Y and A to build the second House. That saves some seconds and make it easier, then clicking on each of the villagers in the normal way.
I’m new to the game and I kept loosing over and over so came to UA-cam for help. Clicked on your video first and turns out I haven’t been doing anything right! So thank you for this video. Hopefully I can win at lest once now 😄
Reminder that shooting the boat once will only let him chase you a short distance. Shooting him twice makes for a permanent follow until he loses line of sight. Makes him extra angry. If your boar is close as usual then one arrow is usually sufficient
My AI (villagers) just do everything automatically and keep spending all resources on random stuff! How do I turn that off? I want to manually assign them to do things but I can’t 😢
Attention console newcomers, welcome to this, the comment section of a Spirit of The Law video. collected on this channel are the annals of aoe and it's workings, written (in video form) by a scholar of the utmost integrity and dedication; Spirit of The Law. proceed with respect and humility and you will gain powerful knowledge.
One thing : why not recommend to beginners to reseach loom early (before boar hunt), so that it makes boar hunting easier/less stressful/less risky ? At this level, waiting the end of Dark Age to reasearch loom isn't an optimisation that will make any difference really. We're talking just a small amount of ressources of gather time lost. There are many more benefits for a total beginner to research loom earlier.
Its better to learn things properly even if it means failing a bunch of times until you can do it right. To teach them to do it wrong first just causes further issues down the line as they have to unlearn tye bad habits.
@@IncredulousFox There's nothing easier to unlearn than clicking loom a bit later once you get used to luring the boar. It's the same thing with the recommended 4 villagers on wood. Many builds including scout opening are done "properly" with 3 on wood not 4, but that's an unnecessary optimisation at this level and, as SOTL rightly assess in the video, 4 on wood makes things easier and smoother when you already have tons of other things to worry about, being a total beginner. Using your reasoning, they should learn to do the build order properly right away and learn to put only 3 on wood, because it's too hard to "unlearn" the 4 on wood habit later when you're a bit more efficient? Again, with your reasoning they should learn to manually direct their scout right from the get go instead of using shift clicks on the minimap, because that's the "proper" way to do it. But as we know already from beginners who learnt AoE2 on the PC, it's easier for a beginner to shift queue the scout's early scouting movements than to do every move manually using control groups. And learning the game that way doesn't prevent them from evolving to using control groups later and manually move the scout around when they become more proficient at multitasking. Step by step approach
Is the first few minutes of a given AOEII match sort of like how chess openings work? In that there is a specific order (or a couple of orders) that are optimal, but there is also room for variations on the openings? For example, is it a total blunder if instead of building 2 houses immediately, I only build 1 house and send the other villager to create a lumber camp? Is that a blunder, or just a less optimal variation and not necessarily a mistake?
There's always room for variation, though the standard first few minutes here will probably never be improved on given how old the game is. It's hard to "blunder" in the early game, though sending one of the first 3 villagers to wood would probably lead to idle TC time without compensation, so it's just objectively a bad idea.
Good guide mate, im new to age, and i needed this. i waited for AoE to come to my Series X, and now im not playing anything else than AoE, send help! Suscribed by the way.
Some additional notes regarding AOE2 not covered here- • Why is the tutorial about William Wallace? The game was released in 1999, right around the time Braveheart was popular. That being said, the game is still more historically accurate than the movie. As a side note-the console tutorial fuses the first four PC missions into one, which is why the tutorial here is four missions rather than seven. • Any Civs I should wait a bit to play? Chinese have a unique start, with six villagers, but -200 food and -50 wood, which WILL throw off the typical build order, and generally suffers in lower ELOs. -What are the characters portrayed in the Civ selector? They are that Civ’s Unique Unit, which can be produced once you reach Castle Age and build a Castle-the Frank’s UU is the Throwing Axeman, an infantry unit that throws projectiles that convey melee damage. • Is there a Civ that I can ignore all this with? *HUNS.* They have a bonus that they automatically have the max population, and as such don’t need houses. Combined with some of the best Cavalry Archers outside of the Mongols, and the large part of 2000’s multiplayer was essentially Hun Death Matches. -Is there any other game like this? On PC, there is Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, which runs on the same engine and has a different combat flow, but lacks some of the QoL features that AOE2 offers. There are mods that to this day are still updating (and adding more factions than the 8 it has regularly), so it isn’t a dead game.
Yes Spirit. I always say Lithuanians is the best civ in the game for beginners to have success, as they are best civ for avoiding an idle TC. Not the best civ to learn the game, but frees up your attention by not having to force drop off from boars. Every 25 seconds idle TC in dark age is at least -200 resources by minute 20.
this is not the proper formula for PC lmao, you don't want your vil to build a house next to the boar and then idle you want it to lure the boar and have the first vil that moves towards berries build two houses instead. If you don't delay that means the boar gets to the TC as the fourth sheep is about to run out.
@@jeroen92 Well, of course, things are adjusted to controller optimization with the point you made being the most important one. But the fundamentals remain the same and I was stating that refreshers never hurt anyone.
I know it says "beginner", but many reference this video as a proof that the controller play is limited Would be great to cover the Advanced mode as some left with the message that there are no control groups (there are), not clear how to select a building type (e.g. blacksmith or all of them) by shortcuts (it is possible - hold LT + RT and a menu will pop up and select the building(s) you want), that the economy automation is limited (in advanced one can actually customize how many villagers to go to which resource), also making buildings can be done with holding RT without any selection on a terrain then a menu will pop up and you can select to build something, then villagers are automatically sent to build - then on the building foundation can hold RT and add more villagers) - so no need to micro select villagers - and many more really useful things like this (e.g. collecting relics, selecting army in the current view - local - or global - across all map) For the audience of this channel, Advanced is the way to go
I just played AoE II in my Steam Deck (w/ kb&mouse) and I have a hard time imagining the game w/ just a controller... but I find this implementation interesting... I wish they enable it for the Steam Deck too
I suck at this game and RTS but I am giving the console version a shot. I only play single player and have no intent to play multi so the console version sounded appealing to me.
Man i havnt played this game since the 90s. A guy at work told me about it on game pass so here I am logging into my kids xbox account trying to remember how to play a game I haven't played in like 25 years or longer lol
I would actually recommend the advanced controls since all it adds are 2 or 3 new elements the most important is the auto economy distribution as well as control groups. Economy distribution lets you quickly select a default economy such as basic but then lower or increase the ratio of villagers on whatever resource. Often when you select an entirely different economy most of your villagers move to gather a new resource but adjusting it slightly only moves a few and to where you really need them to go which is way more efficient. I'm still getting used to control groups but I find having all my siege on a control group as well as military unit producing buildings on one lets me select them way easier also once you have over 60 military and you can't select all of them control groups make managing them way easier. Having military unit buildings on one is especially useful since you can queue units without looking away from the fight. Double pressing A on the building does the same thing but depending on where you placed the buildings or if they are really spread out having them on a control group is faster.
The answer to what's the best civilisation to start with has always been Byzantines. Because they have almost everything thus new players can try everything to see how it plays, test all generic units. Although it's known as a "jack of all trades, masters of none", for new players it's not a downside, on the contrary - new players wont understand specific strategies anyway, they just do mostly random things. Later when they get to know the units, buildings, mechanics etc, they can pick something more unique and go for specific strategies. This is why Franks or Britons are not actually that good to start with, because they are too tunnel focused.
I thought he was going to say byzantines. Though I suppose if you want to practice just archers, or just calvary Frank's and Britons are good because their eco bonuses make it easier and allows you to focus on one strategy.
Eeeh... Byzantines don't get Blood lines, so you can't really go full cavalry with them - unless you go full camels which are cheaper. I'd say Italians or Portuguese are better civs to learn the game. Great range, great stable, great monks, access to bbc, decent infantry. It's all you need to learn the game.
I've tried to play this the last few weeks and as an older player who had felt pretty good about my play on PC I have struggled so much on console campaigns I assumed the tip would just be: get a mouse and keyboard.
I know you don't have Xbox Live or Game Pass Ultimate (for the online multiplayer access) to play online, but if you do get it, I'd love to see a video or two of you trying to win some games off Steam players with a controller. Could be fun!
Will it ever come to Playstation 4? It would be a waste not to let the Playstation community experience AoE2 if the console version of the game has already been made.
I have made it to 1600 elo on console and it's so much fun. Khmer small walls into 2 stable knights is broken. Also bulgarians Maa into krepost drop is absolutely meta.
How do I build a house? My y quick select menu is stuck on palisade wall and it won’t let me maneuver to a house icon and you can’t even create a house from holding down RT?!?! Awful awful awful that’s one of the most basic things and it’s nowhere to be found
Hey spirit, hoping I can trouble you really quickly, I found your breakdown videos fascinating regarding each civilization. Do you mind letting me know which five got the highest overall ratings so I can check those out in depth! Thank you so much
I've gotten to 1400s on controller and auto Eco is so messed up sometimes you need to refresh it to make it work properly advanced option ofc because basic Eco is too simple for advanced strategy. Sad thing is that cheap options are pretty good on controler like persian duche or Inca rush, because it's hard to be as responsive as with Mouse
Imagine im 14 and this game is my childhood i started playng the 1999 version age of kings and age of empires 1. Now i got a pc and just bought aoe 2 definitive edition and there is a Xbox version?! I cant imagine how much this game advanced.
This is a super helpful guide thank you. I'd be really interested to know your views on the civilisation meta for xbox given that some of the controls are less manageable than on PC or the auto economy.
I completed the first level on campaign but there is nothing that says it's completed. I did it twice because I wasn't sure if I beat it the first time. The game does seem kind of confusing. Is skirmishes where it's at or should I play through the campaign. Hopefully I remember what level I need to do next
Outposts can't be garrisoned, they exist to give you more explored vision of the map. On the other hand watch towers can be garrisoned and will shoot arrows, extra arrows if garrisoned by villagers or archer units. (Scouts cannot garrison except on castles) Otherwise X should allow you to garrison.
Hi, i Hope someone will read this- i starten with aeo on xbox. Every Time i Play online, i lose. I think the Reading is, that my enemies always collects mich more resources. After 1 Hour of Building Up, they always destroy me, if i Take a Look at the statistics, they Collect the Double Ankunft of Wood and Food, 3x more Gold and much more Stone. How can this be- is there an booster for resources? I think it Cant be, that they make so much more resources without much more villagers, but if they Produce so much more Workers, how Are they able to still got Faster to the next age and building an Army?
If only there was some kind of device with more than like 12 buttons for playing this... Just kidding, they seem to have tried really hard to make controller as viable as they can. Seems kind of complicated, but then again we all likely thought the same thing during our first RTS.
It works really well. Definitely a new standard for RTS controls on console. I'm not kidding, but imo AoE:DE is to RTS on consoles what Halo was for FPS games on console. I wouldn't use it in a highly competitive setting, but it works great for casual, campaign or playing against friends.
what the hell are you talking about. I need a turorial on the controller for the game. Im stuck on the town and how to build a vilager. It says open command rt what the hell does that mean? There is no RT on my controller.
![Best Civ for Beginners? [AoE2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/y0BA7iX14Wo/mqdefault.jpg)
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Here's a tip I found useful: holding down on the d-pad, rather than just pressing it, is "Select All TCs." This has the benefit that it doesn't move your camera, even when selecting only 1 TC. It lets you queue Villagers without moving the camera away from whatever else you're trying to do (scout, lure a boar, micro military, etc).
Thats really usefull!
God meets Demi-god
OMG you still alive 😂
Is it possible to do a shortcut like this for stables? I remember you could do it on the PC
@@michaelgoedeker9697 I think LT+RT opens another menu that let's you do "Select All Stables" on the d-pad.
It's just surreal how age 2 just keeps evolving
I think it's because its got one of the most loyal player bases of all time. Not many other games have this many people still dedicated to it 25 years later!
Agreed. Ans I am so happy to see the community really embracing the console players rather than treating them as outsiders. All our creators as well as the community in reddit etc. have been super nice
@@nicholaswoollhead6830 The console players remind me of myself when I first picked up Age, so I'm more than happy to help out
@@FloosWorld_AoE Do you have a game to recommend with more city building in it? AOE 2 is awesome but I like building stuff also. thanks
@@vcash6014 Uh.. Stronghold or Settlers probably
This is definitely the GOAT console beginner tutorial for AoE2. Some others have already popped up and to my dismay they don't start off on the right foot and risk letting new players learn bad habits.
Being "Greatest Of All Time" for a week old thing is not a huge achievement
@@goskiin I trust you will return in the future, whether that be next week or next decade, to present us with the new and actual GOAT of AoE2 console beginner tutorial.
GOAT? Games just come out on Console.
@@Argooh and it's already top 6 or something on metacritic as best games of 2023 and it's not even March yet. exciting times
I do not doubt this will stand the test of time. Sotl the da best. Some might say GOAT
I may not need a guide like this, but I'll go back to this video again and again whenever I feel I need this. So thanks Spirit for the guide, it'll really help us console players to get started.
Spirit Of The Guide
The only game where the more time passes, the more of an epic comeback it makes
My friend doesn't have a PC, so I urged them to get AOE2 when it came to Xbox. They're brand new to the game, so I'll send this to them. Thanks Spirit!
Man I’m over here watching 7 year old videos trying to learn strats for different Empires. Thanks for making something to show the controller stuff. I much prefer the advanced interface since it gives you more control over things
I think this is a really good guide for beginners!
While holding down LT and then A button on top of any unit will queue five units, using B instead will remove the same amount. This also applies to garrisoned units in both rams and buildings.
If you do a hard hold down it’ll max the queue also. So even fast if you want to max it out.
Does this work in the market for selling like 5k wood for gold as well?
@@niklask1477 Yes
@@MrEllinan i have been clicking A like a madman dude.... ty
@@niklask1477 Sure, definitely helps!
“Everyone has a plan until being scout rushed” 😂😂
I’m so happy you made this! I think this will help a lot of new players from the console and also get them involved in the community more
The UI for the console version is pretty clean. Honestly, the thought of playing an RTS game on a controller sounds overwhelming.
and to me it looks like, they did a really great job.
Age of Empires coming to console, Anno 1800 coming to console. Bright days are coming.
I’ve been playing for the last 3 days and even started playing ranked. It’s a lot of fun, some of the micro stuff is a little overwhelming once you have a large army built up or trying to manage like a navy or monks in unison. And that’s only because you’re limited on what you can hotkey to the d-Pad
@@BlackyRay_Patrick あっぷ
Would be nice to get command and conquer or StarCraft on consoles now
I bet archer micro that the micro nerds like to do is a bit harder on console.
Just played cross platform with 2 friends yesterday who have it on console. It actually works really well. One of them even had keyboard and mouse and it turned off the auto economy!
this is an amazingly improved "first 15 villagers" video!!! I hope you can make this explanation for PC too, its incredibly clearer and easier to follow than your "first 15 vils" one
oh my god the waypoint scouting is completely new to me, thank you for this wonderful video sir
This is a God send! Thank you brother! Amazing! Had some really competitive games today!
I'm brand new to the game and was completely lost at first but you helped me out tremendously, thank you!
I would love to be at the point where I can start to strategize. For the time being though, still having lots of fun trying to remember to build everything and keep creating those villagers and an army. I've beat the AI twice now on standard, one of them with 2 AI opponents so not doing too bad. The tips in the video will help me a lot I think, so thank you.
There are four types of animals in the game.
1) herdables a.k.a. "sheep". These can also be turkeys, cows, pigs, etc but we call them all sheep for easy reference because they're the same thing.
2) big game a.k.a. "boar". These are animals that fight back when you hunt them. Includes boar, elephants, and rhino's. Be careful because it's easy to lose villagers to them, but they give more meat than herdables.
3) huntables a.k.a. "deer". These are animals that try to run away from militia and villagers. They are hard to hunt and only worth it if you can avoid getting overwhelmed by the micro management. Includes deer and zebra's.
4) predators a.k.a. "wolves". Animals that attack you by default and killing them will give no meat so they should be avoided (or killed to protect your villagers). Includes wolves, lions, crocodiles, etc.
I probably missed some variants, most of them are relatively new to the game.
There's also shore fish (for when you can't find your berries and accidentally picked a water map), deep fish (for when you intentionally picked a water map) and flying birds (does nothing but look nice).
You forgot the last animal, those who betray you in diplomacy games
@@henke37 What about Bigfoot? I swear I saw him on forest nothing one time.
I plug my mouse and keyboard into the Xbox, and it works. The whole in-game UI changes over to the PC UI.
I was curious if it changed the UI. Thanks!
Thanks Spirit. I needed this man. The scout waypoint was for sure my learning curve moment for sure. Keeping the auto economy default at the beginning was also a note worth taking as well. Much Love and Thanks man.
I grew up playing this with my grandfather probably 15 years ago at this point
I don't have a console, and I haven't even had AoE2 installed on my PC in over a year... I still clicked eagerly and watched this to the end, of course.
I’m surprised how well the UI has been adapted for controller. The menus are pretty intuitive and it’s kind of nice to kick back in the living room to play AoE on the big TV
Could you do an advanced video explaining how is played in Xbox? I don't have a console and I would like to know how did they manage to do it. I love the resource panel and the minimap, I will jump at mod that change the pc ui to the Xbox ui.
There’s a tutorial about Control Groups on the 4th and last mission of the William Wallace ‘learn to play’ campaign. In short, it’s behind Advanced Settings or controls I think it’s called. So you have to turn that on in order to get access to control groups
Also, great video. Really useful thank yoh
Fucking thank you I've been relegated to only moving 60 at a time and it's been getting me killed your comment really helped
@@hooky17 you are a legend!!!!!
This has to be one of the top games of all time. My girlfriend just played it for the first time. I really love her sense of wonder as this is her first time playing an RTS game. Makes me think of myself when I first saw it and was addicted from the day one.
Haven’t played since I was a kid back in the day. Now I’m playing again on console. I must say the controls feel amazing and I’ve been having so much fun.
I'm tempted to get a console just so I can appreciate this guide even more
i really suggest switching the controller input from "basic" to "advanced". you get things like control groups that way.
The control groups are a bit funky. Any way to select a control group without pressing LB first?
@@juanpunchhombre551 not that i can find, no.
Can you still use the eco assit or whatever it's called in the advanced inputs?
@@nschep yes, and without presets. you can say how much of the pie chart each resource is instead of the default options, so youre not gathering stone in feudal if you dont want to for example.
I totally thank them for adding this for the console I recently purchased an Xbox series s and when I saw aoe2 was there I try it out it’s very hard for anyone who haven’t play an rts game first time and even harder on console but I appreciated the videos who help me with the best setting for console it made an huge impact right now Iam on a 3 win streak on rank and I have it set up to play cross play with controller Huns it’s so good for new player because you will have time to walk up or control shock point on Black Forest since I don’t need spend time on houses.
Great video for new players! Thank you on controller explanation!
Cheers dude, always wanted to play this game ever since I had the demo on my PC but never got the opportunity to play the actual game and now it's on Xbox I finally get to play it
Very informative tutorial. I think the keyboard/mouse is more efficient for Age of Empires, but still, the development team has nailed it by bringing this classic gem to consoles.
You can start a lot easier.
Press d-pad down and Y for queue some villagers.
Then press d-pad up to select the single villager and press Y and A to build a house.
Then press und hold d-pad up to select the other 2 villagers at the same time and then press Y and A to build the second House.
That saves some seconds and make it easier, then clicking on each of the villagers in the normal way.
Thank you for these videos! I'm console player. My friends stopped pc. Parts got too expensive.
I’m new to the game and I kept loosing over and over so came to UA-cam for help. Clicked on your video first and turns out I haven’t been doing anything right! So thank you for this video. Hopefully I can win at lest once now 😄
Reminder that shooting the boat once will only let him chase you a short distance. Shooting him twice makes for a permanent follow until he loses line of sight. Makes him extra angry. If your boar is close as usual then one arrow is usually sufficient
A banger of a tutorial, thank you very much!
Pumped that this came out for console. Thanks for the vid!
My AI (villagers) just do everything automatically and keep spending all resources on random stuff! How do I turn that off? I want to manually assign them to do things but I can’t 😢
What a very friendly welcome to a community:D
"If you do end up coming under attack, you could use the town bell"
Me: ,,,,,, are you kidding me?!!
Attention console newcomers, welcome to this, the comment section of a Spirit of The Law video. collected on this channel are the annals of aoe and it's workings, written (in video form) by a scholar of the utmost integrity and dedication; Spirit of The Law. proceed with respect and humility and you will gain powerful knowledge.
One thing : why not recommend to beginners to reseach loom early (before boar hunt), so that it makes boar hunting easier/less stressful/less risky ?
At this level, waiting the end of Dark Age to reasearch loom isn't an optimisation that will make any difference really. We're talking just a small amount of ressources of gather time lost. There are many more benefits for a total beginner to research loom earlier.
Its better to learn things properly even if it means failing a bunch of times until you can do it right. To teach them to do it wrong first just causes further issues down the line as they have to unlearn tye bad habits.
@@IncredulousFox There's nothing easier to unlearn than clicking loom a bit later once you get used to luring the boar.
It's the same thing with the recommended 4 villagers on wood. Many builds including scout opening are done "properly" with 3 on wood not 4, but that's an unnecessary optimisation at this level and, as SOTL rightly assess in the video, 4 on wood makes things easier and smoother when you already have tons of other things to worry about, being a total beginner.
Using your reasoning, they should learn to do the build order properly right away and learn to put only 3 on wood, because it's too hard to "unlearn" the 4 on wood habit later when you're a bit more efficient?
Again, with your reasoning they should learn to manually direct their scout right from the get go instead of using shift clicks on the minimap, because that's the "proper" way to do it. But as we know already from beginners who learnt AoE2 on the PC, it's easier for a beginner to shift queue the scout's early scouting movements than to do every move manually using control groups. And learning the game that way doesn't prevent them from evolving to using control groups later and manually move the scout around when they become more proficient at multitasking.
Step by step approach
going up at 24/25 for scouts as franks is also not ideal. Meta is 19.
Please do more of these for us noobs! Awesome video help so much!
Is the first few minutes of a given AOEII match sort of like how chess openings work? In that there is a specific order (or a couple of orders) that are optimal, but there is also room for variations on the openings? For example, is it a total blunder if instead of building 2 houses immediately, I only build 1 house and send the other villager to create a lumber camp? Is that a blunder, or just a less optimal variation and not necessarily a mistake?
There's always room for variation, though the standard first few minutes here will probably never be improved on given how old the game is. It's hard to "blunder" in the early game, though sending one of the first 3 villagers to wood would probably lead to idle TC time without compensation, so it's just objectively a bad idea.
Good guide mate, im new to age, and i needed this. i waited for AoE to come to my Series X, and now im not playing anything else than AoE, send help! Suscribed by the way.
Some additional notes regarding AOE2 not covered here-
• Why is the tutorial about William Wallace? The game was released in 1999, right around the time Braveheart was popular. That being said, the game is still more historically accurate than the movie. As a side note-the console tutorial fuses the first four PC missions into one, which is why the tutorial here is four missions rather than seven.
• Any Civs I should wait a bit to play? Chinese have a unique start, with six villagers, but -200 food and -50 wood, which WILL throw off the typical build order, and generally suffers in lower ELOs.
-What are the characters portrayed in the Civ selector? They are that Civ’s Unique Unit, which can be produced once you reach Castle Age and build a Castle-the Frank’s UU is the Throwing Axeman, an infantry unit that throws projectiles that convey melee damage.
• Is there a Civ that I can ignore all this with? *HUNS.* They have a bonus that they automatically have the max population, and as such don’t need houses. Combined with some of the best Cavalry Archers outside of the Mongols, and the large part of 2000’s multiplayer was essentially Hun Death Matches.
-Is there any other game like this? On PC, there is Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, which runs on the same engine and has a different combat flow, but lacks some of the QoL features that AOE2 offers. There are mods that to this day are still updating (and adding more factions than the 8 it has regularly), so it isn’t a dead game.
Yes Spirit. I always say Lithuanians is the best civ in the game for beginners to have success, as they are best civ for avoiding an idle TC. Not the best civ to learn the game, but frees up your attention by not having to force drop off from boars. Every 25 seconds idle TC in dark age is at least -200 resources by minute 20.
Even for PC players, reviewing the proper early game formula never hurts.
this is not the proper formula for PC lmao, you don't want your vil to build a house next to the boar and then idle you want it to lure the boar and have the first vil that moves towards berries build two houses instead. If you don't delay that means the boar gets to the TC as the fourth sheep is about to run out.
@@jeroen92 Well, of course, things are adjusted to controller optimization with the point you made being the most important one.
But the fundamentals remain the same and I was stating that refreshers never hurt anyone.
@@BrownFoxWarrior if you need a refresher there are plenty of build order guides for the PC
I know it says "beginner", but many reference this video as a proof that the controller play is limited
Would be great to cover the Advanced mode as some left with the message that there are no control groups (there are), not clear how to select a building type (e.g. blacksmith or all of them) by shortcuts (it is possible - hold LT + RT and a menu will pop up and select the building(s) you want), that the economy automation is limited (in advanced one can actually customize how many villagers to go to which resource), also making buildings can be done with holding RT without any selection on a terrain then a menu will pop up and you can select to build something, then villagers are automatically sent to build - then on the building foundation can hold RT and add more villagers) - so no need to micro select villagers - and many more really useful things like this (e.g. collecting relics, selecting army in the current view - local - or global - across all map)
For the audience of this channel, Advanced is the way to go
I just played AoE II in my Steam Deck (w/ kb&mouse) and I have a hard time imagining the game w/ just a controller... but I find this implementation interesting... I wish they enable it for the Steam Deck too
I usually scout the perimeter manually, with waypoints. The last waypoint brings it back to my TC so I don't forget about him. Then I click auto scout
I suck at this game and RTS but I am giving the console version a shot. I only play single player and have no intent to play multi so the console version sounded appealing to me.
Xbox players, here we come! The DauT castle rush! xD
Man i havnt played this game since the 90s. A guy at work told me about it on game pass so here I am logging into my kids xbox account trying to remember how to play a game I haven't played in like 25 years or longer lol
Age 4 is better honestly, heck I even preferred Age 3 to 2. Now would I still play it over fortcrap? 100% but there's other RTS games I'd rather play.
@@portman8909 Nah, AoE 4 isn't better. It's solid but underperforming in many aspects the other Age games still do better.
You know you did everything right when your villager suddenly screams "HADOOOUUUUKEN!"
0:02 But what if I want to get started on my left foot?
Ok, I'm sorry, I'll see myself out.
Coming back after 25 years
I would actually recommend the advanced controls since all it adds are 2 or 3 new elements the most important is the auto economy distribution as well as control groups. Economy distribution lets you quickly select a default economy such as basic but then lower or increase the ratio of villagers on whatever resource. Often when you select an entirely different economy most of your villagers move to gather a new resource but adjusting it slightly only moves a few and to where you really need them to go which is way more efficient.
I'm still getting used to control groups but I find having all my siege on a control group as well as military unit producing buildings on one lets me select them way easier also once you have over 60 military and you can't select all of them control groups make managing them way easier. Having military unit buildings on one is especially useful since you can queue units without looking away from the fight. Double pressing A on the building does the same thing but depending on where you placed the buildings or if they are really spread out having them on a control group is faster.
The answer to what's the best civilisation to start with has always been Byzantines. Because they have almost everything thus new players can try everything to see how it plays, test all generic units. Although it's known as a "jack of all trades, masters of none", for new players it's not a downside, on the contrary - new players wont understand specific strategies anyway, they just do mostly random things. Later when they get to know the units, buildings, mechanics etc, they can pick something more unique and go for specific strategies. This is why Franks or Britons are not actually that good to start with, because they are too tunnel focused.
I thought he was going to say byzantines. Though I suppose if you want to practice just archers, or just calvary Frank's and Britons are good because their eco bonuses make it easier and allows you to focus on one strategy.
Eeeh... Byzantines don't get Blood lines, so you can't really go full cavalry with them - unless you go full camels which are cheaper.
I'd say Italians or Portuguese are better civs to learn the game. Great range, great stable, great monks, access to bbc, decent infantry. It's all you need to learn the game.
I've tried to play this the last few weeks and as an older player who had felt pretty good about my play on PC I have struggled so much on console campaigns I assumed the tip would just be: get a mouse and keyboard.
Yo thanks for ur video but how can u turn on that Info box above ur map ?
I found only out for myself when u press somehow all at same time back start and rb it’s turn on ?
@@Patrick-ng1jh thank you dude!! I was looking for that info for 2 hours
I know you don't have Xbox Live or Game Pass Ultimate (for the online multiplayer access) to play online, but if you do get it, I'd love to see a video or two of you trying to win some games off Steam players with a controller. Could be fun!
Will it ever come to Playstation 4? It would be a waste not to let the Playstation community experience AoE2 if the console version of the game has already been made.
I have made it to 1600 elo on console and it's so much fun. Khmer small walls into 2 stable knights is broken. Also bulgarians Maa into krepost drop is absolutely meta.
What are you reading this for? Did you remember to press down+yyyy?
There is a preset that lures the boar to the town center for you and they’ll all shoot the bore and than return back to there tasks
How do I build a house? My y quick select menu is stuck on palisade wall and it won’t let me maneuver to a house icon and you can’t even create a house from holding down RT?!?! Awful awful awful that’s one of the most basic things and it’s nowhere to be found
today i was downloaded this game, come from aoe4 over pc, thats a big difference to play with a controller :D
Hey spirit, hoping I can trouble you really quickly, I found your breakdown videos fascinating regarding each civilization. Do you mind letting me know which five got the highest overall ratings so I can check those out in depth! Thank you so much
I've gotten to 1400s on controller and auto Eco is so messed up sometimes you need to refresh it to make it work properly advanced option ofc because basic Eco is too simple for advanced strategy. Sad thing is that cheap options are pretty good on controler like persian duche or Inca rush, because it's hard to be as responsive as with Mouse
Does anybody know how to display the player score on xbox? I can’t seem to find it in settings
Turn cross play off In options
Imagine im 14 and this game is my childhood i started playng the 1999 version age of kings and age of empires 1. Now i got a pc and just bought aoe 2 definitive edition and there is a Xbox version?! I cant imagine how much this game advanced.
Advanced? Not much, that's Age 4 you're thinking of.
Hope this UI will come to PC too. (For Steam Deck).
This is a super helpful guide thank you. I'd be really interested to know your views on the civilisation meta for xbox given that some of the controls are less manageable than on PC or the auto economy.
I completed the first level on campaign but there is nothing that says it's completed. I did it twice because I wasn't sure if I beat it the first time. The game does seem kind of confusing. Is skirmishes where it's at or should I play through the campaign. Hopefully I remember what level I need to do next
Thanks for the video! There is one thing I currently can't find out, how do I get a unit to garrison something, such as an outpost?
Outposts can't be garrisoned, they exist to give you more explored vision of the map. On the other hand watch towers can be garrisoned and will shoot arrows, extra arrows if garrisoned by villagers or archer units. (Scouts cannot garrison except on castles) Otherwise X should allow you to garrison.
@@nschep thanks for the info!
Can u give me a tip to fix the crash it does at 35 minutes of game play I don't know how to fix this
The Console version probably runs smoother online than the PC version since there are no players playing on a toaster
Damn, my controller's D-Pad down has been stuck for ages! 🙃🙃
Someone help me! Stuck on Bapheus on Coop and cannot figure out how to make an ally on console!
Hi, i Hope someone will read this- i starten with aeo on xbox.
Every Time i Play online, i lose. I think the Reading is, that my enemies always collects mich more resources. After 1 Hour of Building Up, they always destroy me, if i Take a Look at the statistics, they Collect the Double Ankunft of Wood and Food, 3x more Gold and much more Stone.
How can this be- is there an booster for resources?
I think it Cant be, that they make so much more resources without much more villagers, but if they Produce so much more Workers, how Are they able to still got Faster to the next age and building an Army?
Will the hud look like the classic hud if I’m using M and K?
Any idea how to send the entire army to a location? My armies idle too much and select all only does 60 units
How you you tactical pause on xbox really need help i only play ai
They need to bring battle for middle earth two back
spirit of the law why is your music so low volume in the most recent videos?
Halo Wars crawled through the primordial muck so AOE 2 could go to the moon
I never understand how people get armies and to the imperial age in like 15 mins
To my new console friends, don't be intimidated by the idea of a mouse and keyboard, if you want to try it, go for it!
What a good video! Thanks
After holding the dpad to select all, how do you deselect 1 individual?
If only there was some kind of device with more than like 12 buttons for playing this...
Just kidding, they seem to have tried really hard to make controller as viable as they can. Seems kind of complicated, but then again we all likely thought the same thing during our first RTS.
you definitely wont be able to do 400 actions per second but still its a viable way of playing this game in my eyes.
It works really well. Definitely a new standard for RTS controls on console. I'm not kidding, but imo AoE:DE is to RTS on consoles what Halo was for FPS games on console. I wouldn't use it in a highly competitive setting, but it works great for casual, campaign or playing against friends.
@@S3mj0n せㇺ죠ン
what the hell are you talking about. I need a turorial on the controller for the game. Im stuck on the town and how to build a vilager. It says open command rt what the hell does that mean? There is no RT on my controller.
Great job 👍
You are thé best, thanks from France
Does it have Mouse and Keyboard Support ?