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.
Checked against update 177723
#Sicilian land units shrug off 40 percent of bonus damage
It is innate and not 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.
Checked against update 177723
Monks
#Heresy makes your converted units die instead
That denies the enemy Monk the army it just took from you, 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 and not either one alone.
Checked against update 177723
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. Tatars get plus 50 instead of plus 25. The Georgian bonus is buildings only, taking 40 percent less on high ground.
Checked against update 177723
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 then applies an independent 50 percent multiplier, and that is what pushes it past a Scout.
Checked against update 177723
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.
Checked against update 177723
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.
Checked against update 177723
#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. The cost is the Scout's map exploration for a few minutes, and that is the only part worth weighing.
Checked against update 177723
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.
Checked against update 177723
#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 and turns trading from a last resort into a plan.
Checked against update 177723
Naval
#Deep fish out-gather foraging and match deer
Send Fishing Ships to the deep spots and leave the shore fish alone, because the harvest rate beats land foraging outright and matches deer hunting speed. Shore fish are for a land Villager who happens to be standing nearby.
Checked against update 177723
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.
Checked against update 177723
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.
Checked against update 177723
#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.
Checked against update 177723
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.
Checked against update 177723
#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.
Checked against update 177723
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.
Checked against update 177723
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.
Checked against update 177723
AI
#The Definitive Edition AI is not resource cheating
It runs true strategic decision-making instead of the scripted resource cheats older versions leaned on, and Extreme plays near-perfect macro with fast counter reactions and no handicap. Losing to it is a macro problem, not a rigged one.
Checked against update 177723
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.
Checked against update 177723
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.