hey guys Spirit of the law here in this video we're going to take a look at how to get started
on the right foot in Age of Empires 2 if you're playing on Console if you're brand new to the game
then welcome it's an amazing active Community with a lot of us who have played for years basically
since we were kids so the fan base is unusually mature and friendly on the whole and it's
fantastic that console is bringing in or bringing back some players I personally have thousands of
hours in this game on PC and a handful of hours on console and I hope this will help you jump into
the game and get off to a strong start if you have one nearby I'd actually encourage you to grab a
controller while watching this as I'll be talking about some of the controller shortcuts and we want
to start developing some of that muscle memory if possible we're going to be going over a basic
competitive start and breaking down the first few minutes as ab2 is a very optimized and figured out
game at this point at least in terms of the best way to start and build up in early economy and
we'll also talk about some traps to avoid namely Auto Scout and auto Eco too early the first thing
I should point out is I'm going to be using think the standard interface and not the advanced one as
I think it's really all you need to get started and that should be on by default I'm also going
to assume that you've played enough you already know the basics of how to move units QT military
at the appropriate building and can explore the different ages Technologies and units on your own
over time the first incredibly common question is what civilization should you pick honestly it
doesn't really matter that much but personally I would suggest a Cavalry sieve if you're just
starting out berbers are a great example as you get discounted Knights which are the strongest
and easiest unit to play in Castle age berbers also have faster moving villagers as well which
is Handy for luring board which we'll talk about how to do on Console if on the other hand you
prefer archers then britons are by far the most popular choice for beginners with extra range
any popular longbowmen which is fun for reigning death on the AI in the late game from a quarter
weight across the map probably the best sieve that I'd recommend though is the Franks as they have
fantastic Scouts and knights their reputation is the they're kind of the try hard Siff but
if you're looking to start with the best sieve against the AI then they're a very good contender
the last one I'd highlight and suggest as being a good early sip to learn is the lithuanians
not only do they have pretty good nights but more importantly they start with a 150 extra
food which makes everything a lot easier to manage in the early game it's totally up to you and you
really can't go wrong with any of them but I'm gonna pick Franks as it's what I'd suggests and
what I'll be demoing so with our civilization out of the way let's take a look at the all-important
first minute where there's really four big things we want to do and ideally a very specific order
that's not to say if you do anything other than these four things you can't be successful but
just that I think a little structure is nice when you're just starting out the first thing
we want to do when we start the game is cue up villagers at the Town Center this is done by
pressing down on a d-pad and then pressing y four times that should queue up four villagers which
is the maximum we can get on our starting food unless you're lithuanians who can queue up seven
down pad and Y is the most important sequence of moves that you can learn and should be doing it
throughout the game in fact even doing it randomly throughout this video is highly encouraged by far
the greatest nervous tick you could develop in aoe2 when you're thinking or stressed is
to do that automatically the second step is we need houses as after the first villager comes
out we'll already be at our population cap which means the Town Center stops working the quickest
way to do this is to hold a until a circle engulfs two of your villagers then press Y which has them
prepare a house and then press a to place it very close to them ideally on the opposite side of the
town's Center we do this first with two villagers or else you're gonna get housed and away from the
Town Center so it doesn't get in the way of future Farms after the two villagers have put
their house down do the same thing with the third villager though he's going to build the house by
himself for step 3 you start with four herdable animals already discovered and this is going to
be your first food source you should then send these under your town center and try to make
sure not to eat them until they are directly below it so far notice we haven't even touched
the Scout and don't worry about him we need to get our economy going first once you have all of
your herdables and your villagers now working on them below the town center you can select it and
then you can press a on one of those animals and then every new villager that comes out is going to
immediately get to work notice we haven't used the auto economy feature and we don't want to use that
yet as our first six villagers are going to go to sheep simply because that's what we need to keep
villagers being created constantly to see a quick recap in real time to start we queue up a villager
at a town center with down pad and why four times grab two villagers press Y and then a to fill the
house grab the last villager press line a to build a second house and then hold the right pad for a
second to grab the Sheep sending them under the town center and then put all of the villagers
onto their sheep once they've done their jobs and as they come out of the Town Center finally
at this point we can begin scouting a quick word of warning here is that I know it's very tempting
but don't use Auto Scout as it's a complete Noob trap the way it Scouts is to go around your town
once and then it runs off into the right corner of the map and works its way left you still have two
board you need to find and four more sheep that come in two sets of Two And if you don't find
all of those things you're gonna have a hard time in the early game I know it feels like Auto Scout
should make your life easier but it's going to make things so much harder five minutes from now
if you do it and you're missing resources at the same time scouting really doesn't have to be that
hard if you use waypoints to do that click on your scout with a and then press the right button just
above the right trigger which takes you to your mini-map you then hold the left trigger down and
use a to outline a path for your scout to follow where just one loop around your town is probably
good to start that should be enough to reveal your two board and probably two of your four
sheep though if you're really lucky sometimes you find all four the goal isn't to completely cover
the map but just give them a route that's long enough you don't have to look at them for a while
and if you're holding the left trigger he'll visit all of those spots in order all of this in total
should probably take about a minute though at this point you're completely set up right and in fact
you could probably just improvise from here but I won't abandon you quite yet the way we follow
this up is by continuing to put villagers on sheep until we have six though there are 10 technically
exceptions including britons and lithuanians who can get away with not following that rule but to
keep things simple just get the number six stuck in your head and it'll never lead you wrong while
you're waiting for your fifth and sixth villager to come out you may hear your scout find some
sheep in which case just hit the left pad to jump to your scout and if you only found one sheet make
sure you explore that area to find the other one as they always come in Paris send those to the
town center and have your scout keep exploring believe it or not most of the important stuff
is already over once you have six on sheep the next four are gonna go to Wood building a lumber
Camp against a tree line we're not going to use the trees immediately around the town center as
the lumber Camp is ultimately more efficient now here some build orders will say to just send three
villagers to Wood but if you're new to the game I highly highly recommend going with four no matter
your strategy it's just going to make everything a lot smoother remember to keep pressing down pad
and wide to cue up more villagers and at this point you should be ready to q1 up every time
a new one is created or just before because of those six on sheep once we have our six on food
and foreign with the next villager is going to head toward a boar and build a house after
that our next four are going to go to berries and make a house and a mill I would say even if you're
villager beside the boar is done building his house and just standing there for a few seconds
that's totally okay it's easiest to get everything rolling with a Mill and setting your town center
gather point on berries so you can pay a hundred percent attention to what's gonna happen next at
this point there's just one last hurdle which is luring boar boar elephant and rhinos have a
huge amount of food and there's only so far you can get in the game without luring them but it's
also quite dangerous making this an incredibly important and sometimes stressful minigame in
Age of Empires if you shoot the board he'll chase you and will definitely kill your villager one on
one and in fact even with four villagers attacking it you'll probably lose one or really don't mess
around likewise they spawn much too far to send all of our food villagers together from them so
we need to bring the board to your villagers the way you do that is to shoot it once and
then run back to the town center in as straight of a line as you can once you you're reasonably close
you grab all the villagers under the town center and have them attack it all at once the board is
going to continue chasing the original villager that shot it so that particular villager should
now take your full attention even if you're idling your town center and Scout to do this
it's critical to not lose that villager if things start to get hairy and that villager is taking a
lot of damage down to half health or lower you can select it and hover over the town center and press
X at that point your villager will jump into the town center and in fact I'd recommend having that
villager selected just in case you need to pull off that maneuver immediately after they jump
in you can safely let them out by clicking on the town center and pressing X again this does
take some practice but if you do it right the bore should end up either directly underneath
or at least very close to your town center and ideally none of your villagers die though
literally everyone loses a villager now and then especially if it's an elephant or Rhino as they're
a little extra dangerous at this point you want to make sure your town center is working again
possibly by forcing your villagers to drop off the food they're carrying at the town center and
then keep sending villagers to berries until you have four it's at this point and not before that
I'd recommend turning on auto economy by pushing down on the right joystick and selecting the food
and wood distribution you don't need any gold or stone to advance to feudal age so you don't
really want to pick it up until you've at least clicked up after this the world is really your
oyster and just keep pressing down pad and wide EQ villagers and make houses now and then ideally
building walls of houses to protect your base and funnel your enemies units toward your Town's
Center generally if you're newer somewhere between 22 and 25 population you should have enough food
to go to your town center where you can unqueue any villagers you have by highlighting them and
pressing b a bunch of times after which you should grab Loom to give your villagers more HP just in
case you're attacked followed by clicking up to the feudal age once there what you do is totally
up to you and you can make a barracks and then a stable to produce Scouts and I would recommend
making a few Scouts and harassing your opponent if you're a Cavalry sieve alternately you can
make an archery range in archers though make sure you put a few villagers on gold and change your
Eco distribution to balanced if you do that generally the best plays are to either make
scouts or archers in feudal age and then Knights or crossbows in Castle age followed by a Siege
workshop and eventually a castle much further down the line sending your villagers forward to build a
castle on a hill beside your opponent's town along with a seat Workshop is an incredibly effective
strategy at basically any level that's not to say it's the only viable strategy though and pretty
much every unit is viable in some situations so at this point I recommend just exploring the game
knowing you have a solid economy that should now run smoothly pretty much on its own just to close
on a couple of tips once you reach feudal age the lumber Camp upgrade in the middle upgrade
are considered very strong so you will want to prioritize those in Castle age for Knights
Bloodlines is an incredibly important Tech to grab at the stable on the other hand for Archers
you really want a blacksmith and to prioritize the attack upgrades since they also give you
extra range of course there are exceptions but generally in Castle age the standard is to make
two extra Town centers on important resources and qf villagers in all three as again we want want
to make really as many as possible at least up to a hundred this is done with multiple Town centers
the same way as with one hitting the down pad to jump between them and wide EQ villagers you have
been practicing that throughout the video right if you do end up coming under attack you can use the
town Bell which is an option of the Town Center to hide your villagers and they'll fire arrows
at the enemy though even better would be just to highlight the villagers in danger and use x to put
your villagers in the Town Center that way you're not disrupting your entire economy if it's only a
few units that you're worried about if you do want to learn more I'd suggest looking at counter units
as the game has a lot of hidden bonus damage and then pick at least one civilization that jumps out
at you and look at what people say about their good unit compositions and strategies just so
you at least have a bit of a game plan of course as the old saying goes everyone has a plan until
they're Scout rushed but at least it's good to have one so hopefully that helps nudge you in
the right direction and keep in mind a clean Dark Age takes a little while to perfect and
even with a keyboard and mouse it's quite tricky but it's definitely worth the effort that'll do
it for this one though and hopefully it doesn't scare you off even if you're just doing half of
these things you're already off to a good start thanks for watching and I'll see you next time