AoE 101 By _Dr_Katz_ aka...(_10K_Lord_Byron)
I'll provide you with a basic outline for how I play and how to win. WARNING: I can't guarantee a win every game but through implementation and subsequent perfection of the following basic rules you should win a lot more than you lose.
First I think it is important to realize that by committing yourself to one strategy every game you limit your skills and are generally a role player who can never be considered elite, and is an easy kill for ppl like me =D. Generally my strategy involves brzning as fast as i can then dominating pop and ideally making them resigning through sheer realization they can't catch me in pop and size and therefore will lose all battles they fight. This becomes tougher when you have to do this vs. 3 opponents. In which case victory will be won through decimation of their pops and towns. The idea is to first demoralize then decimate. Realize you are not playing a computer but another individual. Individuals get lazy as the game progresses and economically weaken in correlation with others, they are also easily frustrated, this is especially true of some of the volatile personalities experts (I imagine you know several). Now to more specifics.
I try to tool with 22-26 villys and play to my strengths...which is fast brnz, iron age fighting, and resiliency. I think it is important that you should try to play to your strengths and not necessarily do what I do, because they might not be the best thing for you. In stone I set myself up for brnzing as quickly as I get tool this usually involves changing villys around from food to wood. I don't keep a set number on each because every map is different (though I have played the same map twice, but that's because I played aoe a few thousand times). When on a shallows map or on one big land mass I try to find a hill close to my base or wood. Preferably outside of an area I can wall in and protect my base. In certain occasions I will build on my opponent first but usually I'll try to ensure safety in my base before attempting a hostile takeover of another one. I'm not a big proponent of making more ranges than you can pump constantly. I feel it's a waste of good res which could be spent on making a pit closer to wood or possibly setting up a new tc. If you can pump 5 ranges I say go for it, but if you feel that you can only pump 3, then do that and save the wood. When you get brnz try to build up ca and villys at the same time non stop. CA, Warships and Villys are all I make in brnz age for the most part. It dumbs the game down and makes it easier to play. If you brnz first and get like 6-10 ca hit the guy next to you. Always attack in this order...villys, boats, cats, ca, dominate their ranges, houses, attack other enemy. I find that works best. If you are losing don't be afraid to pull back and lose a battle, unlike many players believe 1 battle isn't the entire game. I usually make a huge army and continuously add ranges in different parts of the map, so I can pump 4 on one front and 4 on another. I'm not to high on cats in brnz because of the res cost. If you are taking their town out by all means make cats and destroy them, but in most cases I'd just rather have a tc then a siege workshop. While booming get mainly wood and build farms.
It is a popular belief that farming is a waste of res and it would be better to go find antelope or a 3rd or 4th berry, but I say, fuck that. Farming is much easier defended than foraging and more importantly takes much less time to micro manage. In a fast paced game with fighting on multiple fronts, its more important to manage the battles worry about whether you are saving some wood.
If it's rivers I highly recommend docks on rivers for warships. The best defense on a shallows map is war ships, even when iron they will have a tough time getting into you if you have a ton of ships. Docking the river for sf is not always the best. I like to do it when i see some enemy sf across the river and decide to take their res, and even then I plan on using the docks for war ships and by no means will depend on boats for food. Dependency on boats is a major problem amongst gps. Fishing boats are easily killed and harder to defend than villys, they also have less uses. If I were given the choice between 2, 2 sf pits along side a river or small lake or a dock and boats, I'd take the sf pits. They produce food more quickly and if you're lucky at least one of the pits can later be used to get another res, even if it's strags.
One thing I see people do that hinders this process is mine gold. I rarely get any gold before I decide to go iron. I don't even get shared usually until iron or while I'm ironing. While it can give you insight into what else is going on in the game, achievements and timeline work rather well. I look at timeline and achievements constantly, when lag hits look at achievements and timeline. You don't need shared to see if your ally is winning or not.
When looking for a fight look at timeline and decide who needs help the most. If it seems no one is fighting than start a fight with the opponent closest to you. If you are middle then attack the opponent either closest to your weakest pard or the opponent with biggest pop. Think of AoE as a race, the winner is the one who gets the biggest quickest, you need to win this race in most cases to win the game. Try to screw their biggest even if it means allowing one of their weaker players to get stronger. I'd rather fight 3 decently popped players in brnz than 1 decent 1 weak in brnz and a strong in iron age. Get big and get iron as quickly as possible, when you decide to go iron pit or better yet tc 2 gold mines and horde the gold. Don't wait for villys to come out of tcs alone, take villys off other res and put them on gold. When you have enough res go iron. Don't attack with your entire army while you are ironing leave some to guard the base. When you are about 75% iron and your town is not in immediate danger, your ca army becomes expendable, make a bold move and let the chips fall. Your army may get slaughtered as they leave the hill but you will be iron and can then kick the shit of the guy who just killed your ca. When you have expendable units send them off to the nearest fighting. Don't listen to your pards if they say they are doing fine....Remember GPs and Experts are inherently arrogant and want victory for themselves and want people to fear them. Many a time my p will say he is ok only to in a few min bitch about double team and later complain about no help. When 2 min earlier he said I'm fine go somewhere else. Your key objective should be to demoralize your opponents and then decimate them. Nothing demoralizes and pisses a gp off quicker than a double team on his own turf.
Assuming you make it iron, get jihad. Screw what people say about res, I have held off about 20 cats coming over shallows for a 5 min period with about 10 jihad villys. This also means you have a temple and legions are now an option =D. In iron do whatever it takes to win. If fighting is going on and help is needed quickly make ha and cats and send them to fight without building up. If you have time then the fun begins. Triremes, Cavs, Legions, Cats, Tower rush, jihad, and HA are all at your disposal, DON'T LIMIT YOURSELF TO 2 UNITS (cats and ha). They are both expensive and if the game goes for a long time you will wish you had that gold back. Remember that the game doesn't need to end in less than an hour so you can gb and play another quickie. Conserve gold for the end and try to kill as many units of theirs as possible while marinating as much res as you can. Because the number of res it takes to kill more units goes up, this inverse relationship is difficult to master. Legions work well but take time to implement. Cavs are sweet but take lots of res...everything has a draw back and it's important to not feel hard pressed to force your favorite unit just because.
I realize general philosophy may be hard to follow since I'm just writing this as it comes to me. But some basic things to remember are boom, be flexible, don't give up just because you are losing (you do have 2 other partners), warboats always on rivers, declare Jihad on the enemy, be Assyrian every game that is to be taken seriously (yamato sucks), if you are middle try to double the enemy on 2 fronts or more, don't spend res on buildings you wont use, fishing boats are overrated, having the worst player donate res to the best player is sorely underused, realize that some games you aren't the dominant player and work as a compliment to your best partner, 2.0 is for girls, upgrade every technology for every unit you are using (armor for ca later when he gets cats or has cavs (if he is stebu and is the only gp using yamato)), don't get lazy with boom, heavy cats are also overrated, stretch the game as long as possible, towers are underrated. Main goals should always be to DEMORALIZE and DECIMATE, and in that order. I know I'm forgetting shit, and ill update later, but i also assume if you are still reading this damn essay you have some knowledge of aoe strategy. Ill be around so get ready for AoE 102.