Age of Empires II Tips and Tricks
Each entry below is one mechanic, what it costs you, and the build it was last checked against. Filter by category or difficulty to narrow the list, and use the anchor beside any heading to link straight to a single tip.
Counters
#Halberdiers barely dent a Cataphract
Cataphracts carry plus 12 cavalry armor, and plus 16 as Elites, which cuts the Halberdier's plus 32 bonus down to 20 or 16 before anything else applies. Mass Arbalesters or Champions against them instead of reaching for the usual cavalry counter.
Verified on update 87863
#Sicilian land units shrug off 40 percent of bonus damage
It is innate rather than a technology, so every counter unit you build against them lands softer than the tooltip promises. The resistance never applies to their siege weapons, which is the one opening a counter push genuinely has.
Verified on update 87863
Monks
#Heresy makes your converted units die instead
That denies the enemy Monk the army it just took from you, which is a different problem from resisting the conversion at all. Devotion and Faith raise resistance, so the full answer to a Monk push is both halves of it rather than either one alone.
Verified on update 87863
Terrain
#High ground is a 66 percent swing, not 25
Units above deal 25 percent extra while units firing upward lose 25 percent, and the two stack into a net two-thirds advantage for the higher position. Tatars deal 50 percent from high ground, and Georgians take 20 percent less, so attacking uphill into them costs 40.
Verified on update 87863
Siege
#A loaded Mongol ram moves faster than Scout Cavalry
A Siege Ram holds 6 units, and each garrisoned infantry adds a flat 0.05 speed and 10 attack up to plus 0.30, taking a base 0.6 to 0.9. Mongol Drill applies an independent 50 percent multiplier on top, which is what pushes it past a Scout.
Verified on update 87863
Castles
#A forward Castle wants 10 to 12 Villagers, not two
Save the 650 Stone in late Castle Age, escort the group across the map behind your main army, and place the foundation within range of the enemy Gold vein or Town Center. Build with every Villager at once so it finishes before their army reaches your builders.
Verified on update 87863
Hunting
#A boar that loses sight of you walks back to spawn
Boars walk at 0.8 and run at 0.96 once angered, which is faster than your Villager, so the entire lure rides on your head start. Issue one clean right-click back to the Town Center along a path the boar can see, because breaking line of sight behind trees resets its aggro.
Verified on update 87863
#Scouts can push deer under your Town Center
Three of them accelerate food collection enough that some civilizations advance at 20 pop or transition with only three woodcutters. It costs you the Scout's map exploration for a few minutes, which is the trade to weigh rather than whether the push works.
Verified on update 87863
Market
#There is no way to buy gold at the Market
Selling Wood, Food, or Stone is the only route into it, which makes your Market fee a real strategic number. Saracens carry an innate 5 percent fee and cannot research Guilds, and Hindustanis lost Guilds too, though Grand Trunk Road cuts their fee to 10 percent.
Verified on update 87863
#Selling 100 Wood returns 70 Gold, buying costs 130
Food sells for 81 and buys at 150, and Stone buys at 169, so the spread eats roughly a third of every trade you make. The Guilds technology halves the Market tax from 30 percent to 15, which is what turns trading from a last resort into a plan.
Verified on update 87863
Naval
#Deep fish out-gather foraging and match deer
Send Fishing Ships to the deep spots rather than the shore fish, because the harvest rate beats land foraging outright and matches deer hunting speed. Shore fish are the ones you leave for a land Villager who happens to be standing nearby.
Verified on update 87863
Relics
#Each garrisoned Relic pays 30 Gold every minute
That is 0.5 Gold a second per Relic sitting in a Monastery, so holding four is 120 Gold a minute arriving with no Villagers on it at all. On a map where gold veins run out, Relic control decides who still has an army in the late game.
Verified on update 87863
Villager Upgrades
#Wheelbarrow only pays off past 14 active farms
It costs 75 seconds, which is three Villagers of production time you are not getting, in exchange for 10 percent movement speed and a 26.95 percent carrying capacity multiplier rounded to 13 units. Below that farm count the delay is the larger number.
Verified on update 87863
#Hand Cart wants 60 to 70 Villagers before you buy
Middle Castle Age is the window, and it adds another 10 percent movement speed on top of a plus 50 percent carrying multiplier rounded to 20 units. Researching it while your economy is still small spends the time without the fleet to spread it across.
Verified on update 87863
Achievements
#One cheat code voids the medals for that whole match
Typing anything like furious the monkey boy, how do you turn this on, or aegis disables the scenario medal and every campaign achievement for that game. Start a clean match whenever you are chasing a medal, because there is no undoing it mid-scenario.
Verified on update 87863
#Thirty Missionaries farm two conversion achievements
Play Spanish in a custom game against Easy AI with a Post-Imperial start and infinite resources, set the opponent to spam infantry, and convert the waves. That feeds Unexpected at 100 Missionary conversions and Wololo at 1,000 total in one session.
Verified on update 87863
Civilizations
#Every civilization has two Castle-researched unique techs
One arrives in the Castle Age and sharpens the core bonus or unique unit, and the second lands in the Imperial Age and unlocks a stronger army ability. Both come out of the Castle, so a civ with no Castle up is a civ playing without half its identity.
Verified on update 87863
Game Modes
#Empire Wars hands you 27 Villagers and a Barracks
It opens in the Feudal Age with Loom already researched and a working base standing, against Random Map's Dark Age start of 3 Villagers, 1 Scout, and a Town Center. Picking it means the whole build order layer of the game is simply gone.
Verified on update 87863
AI
#The Definitive Edition AI is not resource cheating
It runs true strategic decision-making rather than the scripted resource cheats older versions leaned on, and Extreme plays near-perfect macro with fast counter reactions and no handicap at all. Losing to it is a macro problem rather than a rigged one.
Verified on update 87863
Monks
#Conversion rolls on 1.25 second intervals, not instantly
Regular units are immune for the first 4 intervals, then face a 38 percent roll each one with conversion guaranteed by the end of the 9th. Scout Cavalry and Eagles stretch that to 8 through 10, and buildings only start rolling at the 15th at 13 percent, guaranteed by the 25th.
Verified on update 87863
What to Read Next
- Economy and Build Orders. Luring, villager upgrades, and the market in full detail.
- Unit Counters and Combat. Counter tables, terrain, and the conversion system.
- Sieges and Defensive Structures. Rams, castles, and what actually breaks a wall.
- Technologies and Relic Economy. Monastery techs and relic income over a long game.
- Civilization Overview and Meta. All 53 civilizations and their unique techs.
- Game Modes and Campaigns. Random Map, Empire Wars, Deathmatch, and the AI.
- Getting Started. Hotkeys and fundamentals if this is your first Definitive Edition match.