hey guys Spirit of the law here in this video we're going to do a relatively brief crash course
in aoe1 for those of you trying it out with the new DLC this will hopefully speed up the learning
curve of the early game priorities Tech Tree and the hidden unit bonuses especially which can take
a lot of trial and error to figure out the hard way now I'm not the best aoe1 player by a long
shot but if you're struggling against the extreme AI or nervous about playing online with a new DLC
I'm very confident after this video and a couple of practice games you'll be beating the extreme AI
in no time we're going to start off with some economic Basics highlighting some important
distinctions from Age of Empires 2. first of all a very important thing to note that contrasts with
aoe2 is that all of the major food sources collect at basically the same rate over a couple of minute
long tests I found basically all food sources are 26 or 27 food per minute for each villager
aside from shore fish which is the one exception and fastest gathering this is very different than
aoe2 where food from Deer is collected over thirty percent faster than berries and even
more so for Mongols as one example villagers in a wee one also carry 10 of every resource
instead of having their carry capacity increase for hunt making that again even less efficient
something else to note is the various Decay rates elephants actually Decay a bit slower than
gazelles at 12 instead of 15 food loss per minute but interestingly crocodiles and wolves Decay at
Double that rate so despite having a hundred food in them with one villager collecting you
don't even get half of that much while this has admittedly started a little bit on the technical
side the main takeaway is that berries are the best food source to start with and taking into
account villagers cost and creation time you need six on berries to sustain that long term which is
best to do as soon as possible after building one or two houses personally I like to have a
scouting villager as well early and then put the next few villagers on straggler trees of course in
aoe1 you don't start with a scout and that Scout villager can also do things like build houses put
steer or lure elephants even though our goal is to get 500 food to advance the next age those next
villagers on trees are very important so you can afford houses and eventually save up the wood for
a storage pit on your Woodline if you can find a good spot for a storage pit that covers wood
as well as being close to gazelles that's pretty much ideal or even if you can find gold or stone
that's also close to Wood so you can get both if not you can always build a separate storage pit
near gazelles or push them with a villager if you have some patience a at the end of the day though
as long as you're keeping your villagers coming out from the town center and putting them on
a mix of wooden food you're going to get to Tool age at a decent time very likely competitive with
the extreme AI if you aren't idling the town center and even doing just that will put you
ahead of a lot of people online in fact even just knowing which buildings go and what resources is
already a competitive advantage and a surprising number of games as the DLC is a lot of people's
first experience with aoe1 but speaking of which we should cover that topic back in
that earlier test notice I had a mix of storage pits and granaries and this is one of the more
confusing parts of picking up the game at first these are not interchangeable and granaries are
the drop-off point for berries and Farms whereas storage pits drop off everything else the easy
way to remember it is that granaries are for vegetarians and storage pits are for carnivores
one little trick to know though is if your villager is carrying any type of food you
can assign it to a different source of food to change its drop-off point and the game forgets
what you were previously carrying for example a hunter carrying food can be assigned to a farm
and then use a granary and notice food isn't lost when switching between food types but while we're
on the topic The Granary and storage pit have a couple of other interesting roles The Granary
gives defensive building upgrades of all things having the text to enable walls and towers as well
as their upgrades the storage pit on the other hand has unit upgrades with melee attack and melee
armor upgrades for infantry archers and Cavalry the exception is The Shield tax giving infantry
Pierce armor but basically aside from a couple of civ bonuses the only way to upgrade Archer
or cavalry Pierce armor is to switch to an Archer with more bass Pierce armor like the horse Archer
or upgrade farther down the Cavalry line at the stable so that's the admittedly confusing Granary
and storage pit and another critical economic building we should talk about is the market
this is a crucial building to get in the early tool age for a few reasons first it unlocks Farms
which usually you'll need at some point in the tool age as you run out of berries gazelles and
elephants nearby a couple of important texts to highlight at the market are first the wheel which
increases villager walking speed by a whopping 50 and also amongst chariots other high priority
techs are the wood upgrades which in addition to boosting your wood collection are the only
way to increase your Archer's range this is also where you find the farm upgrades with each one
scaling to make your Farms last about 30 percent longer than before Stone Mining and gold mining
techs can also be important if you have a lot of villagers on those resources and note the stone
mining Tech also gives your Slingers an extra attack and range I should also point out that
market rebalancing and trade are also in the game now though the rebalancing is done at far worse
buy and sell prices compared to aoe2 so I wouldn't rely on the market unless you absolutely have to
moving on another hugely important building is the government center which you get in the
Bronze Age you can tell this is a video game and not real life because a lot actually happens at
this building first off government centers are important if for no other reason then you need
it to create more Town centers so in a booming situation you'll want to get this building right
away keep in mind Town centers are only 200 wood in aoe1 and cause no stone compared to a storage
pit or granary's 120 while of course being able to create and hide villagers so Town centers
end up being a great deal the most notable tax at the government center I'd say are nobility
given your mounted units HP like Bloodlines in aoe2 ballistics which is the same as ballistics
in aoe2 and Alchemy which gives you ranged units plus one attack given how hard it is to upgrade
attack that's a pretty good one for archers in the return of Rome DLC there's also a few new
texts added including City watch as basically the game's version of ab2's town watch and
conscription with similar names and effects there's no also the brand new urbanization
Tech which doubles the capacity of houses and keep in mind houses in aoe1 hold 4 instead of
five villagers one final note about buildings is be careful if you're coming from aoe2 that
buildings here have much lower HP than you're used to things like houses die fast even to archers and
in fact housing an opponents can be a great move to mess up with their army and villager production
that's the buildings and techs and now let's talk about your military options including the
basic counters and hidden bonus damage right away something you'll notice in the AoE 1 Tech Tree is
that all of the early units dead end immediately where massing axemen Slingers bowmen or Scouts
and too lage don't directly lead into Bronze Age unit upgrades discouraging a lot of early military
investment that said if your challenge right now is beating the AI and that's your immediate goal
I think making some too late units is probably the best way to go rather than trying to rush
to the Bronze Age the AI tends to make early units itself and I think you're better off
being aggressive and making it Chase your army than get stuck on the back foot as it's quite
hard to defend in aoe1 giving your lack of town center arrows but now let's actually go through
the different units for each building and see what they're good at starting at the barracks
notice you have three different unit lines the first is the Clubman which are a slightly slower
and tankier version of a villager but upgrade to axemen in tool H which are maybe surprisingly your
anti-cavalry Infantry with five base attack but another plus four against Cavalry don't
underestimate how surprisingly easy it is to die to an axemen rush in the first 12 minutes of the
game especially if your plan was to go scouts or Slingers neither of which do particularly well
and instead the only real counter is Bowman due to some bonus damage that leads us to our second
Barracks option which is the Slinger as your anti-archer and almost early Siege unit they
have just two base attack but gain plus two more against archers and plus three against
towers and walls while also starting with two pure summer making Slingers a reasonable Choice
against almost anything firing arrows early keep in mind they cost 10 Stone each which is
very unusual for Age of Empires and are upgraded by Stone mining attacks for more attack and range
final unit line at the barracks is The Swordsman line which have some pretty good bonuses for
Romans and chosen this is your standard cheap Mass infantry and in fact with the government center
Tech Logistics take up just half a population slot each don't sell them too short though as
they're also incredibly upgradable with not only attack and melee armor but their Pierce armor
can also be improved making them in the end fairly well-rounded one major thing to note that the game
doesn't tell you but is really important is they take massive bonus damage than the Cavalry line so
while the barracks starts as anti-calvary in tool age with the axemen in the late game that Dynamic
mostly flips at least in terms of population efficiency of course that means The Swordsman
line is technically weak to archers and also Cavalry to some extent and for that reason only
a couple of civilizations regularly make them moving along to the archery range now this is
where I'd say you get the largest variety of units and some really tough decisions you start off in
the tool age with the Bowman which as of Return of Rome have plus two damage against axemen so
they are obvious early game response to infantry but also make for a good rating unit in their own
right in return though they're countered by Scouts and Slingers who both do bonus damage against them
remember not to mask too many though as you can't upgrade them later and instead in the next stage
you have a brand new separate foot Archer Line This Time costing gold but having better range
and attack interestingly they don't have any bonus damage this time but are just strictly
better stats wise and it is worth making the switch of course your other Bronze Age choice is
the Chariot Archer which are famously overpowered for a few reasons they have the same range as a
composite bow more HP and are almost 70 percent faster while only costing food and wood so this
is an aoe2 trash unit while the composite Bowman has more total damage output Chariot archers are
always a safe default especially for civs like Assyrians Egyptians and Hittites who have a good
bonus for them moving into the Iron Age though you get another two options of course you can
either keep making Chariot archers or composite bowmen or you could switch to Horus archers which
aren't objectively better but expensive version of Chariot archers having more attack and armor
but swapping the wood for gold cost if you're floating a lot of resources you can even upgrade
them further to heavy horse Archer and once you add in a bunch of government center text you can
make them quite possibly the strongest unit in the game when masked the other new Option you
get is the elephant Archer which costs a ton of food and are very tanky but I think are overall
worse than horse archers they're just basically what carthaginians and Phoenicians are encouraged
to use instead and in fact I should note for all of this that lack the yet is the only civilization
with all of these units available at the archery range next we're going to move on to Siege as
for some reason the siege Workshop is unlocked by making an archery range first here you have
two options with the major difference being Stone throwers are anti-building with 140 hidden bonus
damage against most buildings whereas the ballista is more anti-unit with double the fire rate but no
anti-building bonus damage so they're better at just out-ranging enemy units especially after a
government center Tech giving them two extra range but now let's take a look at the Cavalry options
the first is of course the Scout which had a very important Improvement in Return of Rome gaining
plus three secret bonus damage against archers essentially doubling their attack against them
outside of that I personally like using Scouts to uncover the map and a group of three or four
can even fight villagers in fact I would say they might be the easiest unit if you want to rush the
AI as axemen are only a counter if you accept that fight now as we look to the Bronze Age it
turns out you have three new options depending on your civilization the first and most important is
the Cavalry which as I mentioned earlier has a bonus against Swordsmen and while they are
quite expensive at 70 food and 80 gold they can seriously end the game quickly if they get into
someone's economy alternately you have what I think of as a discounted alternative in The
Chariot which is unlocked by the technology the wheel they only cost food and wood and give you
the same speed as the standard Cavalry but have lower HP attack and armor for me Egyptians are
the main civ coming to mind that makes these as they don't have Cavalry and get a decent Chariot
bonus of 33 more HP the third option is the Camel Rider who are similar in Costa Cavalry but a bit
worse stats wise depending on the civilization they make up for that though with a bonus against
all types of Cavalry chariots and elephants and against Cavalry especially their plus eight is
quite strong letting them win one-on-one naturally they're worse than Cavalry against anything else
though and also can't be upgraded in Iron Age to a more Elite version speaking of which the
Iron Age opens up a few more options including some upgrades for both chariots and Cavalry
the side Chariot in particular is notable for gaining trample damage to nearby units and the
Cavalry upgrades are also quite good giving more armor in HP making them very tanky by the end
if you're willing to sacrifice some speed for an even tankier option at the stable though you also
have the war elephant for some civilizations which have not just a hidden bonus against buildings but
their own trample damage to adjacent units so infantry and even Cavalry can really struggle
against them the elephants are surprisingly quick as well but conversions are still probably the
easiest way to deal with at least a small number of them but now let's move on to the academy
which is unlocked by building a stable of all things and gives you a single unit the hot plate
if you're familiar with ab2 this is basically the Teutonic Knight as a relatively slow infantry with
great HP attack and armor notably they also don't take the cavalry's anti-infantry damage while
having up to 14 melee armor and 5 pure summer generally in a competitive setting it seems
speed and range are what win games and hop lights are the exact opposite of that but are generally
still an effective anti-infantry and anti-cavalry choice based purely on Raw stats alone finishing
up with the final land unit here we have the priest at the temple unlocked by the market
of all things this one's pretty self-explanatory and converts enemy units while healing your own
and they have various upgrades to improve them ending up converting and healing significantly
faster than monks in aob2 once they get older upgrades one word of warning though is be careful
of the technology zealotry which is actually a villager upgrade dropping their carry capacity
to 6 or 8 depending on the resource and can't be undone so it ends up being an economy Nerf
to buff your villager's stats almost like a hybrid of Supremacy and Flemish Revolution so that's the
basics of the economy buildings and units covered and now let's wrap up with a few final tips the
first and a probably very natural question at this point is what's a good civilization The Diplomatic
answer is they're all fun and balanced but if you're looking for some suggestions the Lac Viet
are very strong their early forage bonus faster created units and faster built houses all give you
a great economy while archers are also fun to play so at the moment it's either my personal favorite
another good Archer civ is the Minoans who are a bit slower to get going but have faster farmers
and a deadly plus two range on their composite bows they're super cheap long range and have
decent damage output with the potential to be a bit of a deathball unit if on the other hand
Cavalry is more of your thing then I'd say the Yamato are pretty fun their new team bonus gives
them cheaper stables and ranges which also have cheaper upgrades and cheaper Cavalry and
horse archers there's a lot of synergy here where everything is streamlined toward a great stable
combined with horse archers in the late game which as I said I think are eventually the strongest
unit in the game if instead though you're looking for an aggressive tryhard strategy Assyrians
Egyptians or Hittites and Chariot archers are kind of a classic once you hit Bronze Age just get the
wheel and then just Spam Chariot archers as much as you can until you have an overwhelming number
while that particular strategy might sound a bit mind-numbing everyone has some pretty creative civ
with palmyrans for example having villagers that cost 50 more but work 25 faster for the whole game
really every civ has a specialty and civ choice in the Age of Empires franchise never completely
dominates the outcome of a game to stick with good principles by constantly making villagers staying
focused on the resources you need so not getting sidetracked with golden Stone in the first age use
hotkeys and control groups to speed up repetitive things make lots of production buildings if you're
floating resources and generally just experiment with units while paying attention to what seems
to counter wet these are great principles in any Age game and apply just as much to aoe1
those are my thoughts on what you need to hit the ground running in the new DLC and
hopefully it was helpful thanks for watching and I'll see you next time