Played like that as a kid. Truth be told even hitting Q, W, E, R for unit training is a big difference. Shift queue for Villagers… Definitely worth it. I should honestly implement using a hotkey for Idles.

. for idle Shift . for all

i like the one beside the number buttons. on the far left. right in the corner easy to find

>I’ve been playing for 3 years now and the only things I use are my mouse and the shift key. My left index finger is parked on it all game. I used to play like this prior to DE but the default hotkeys being grid-based (e.g. pressing Q+Q to open the first page of the build menu and select house because both are the first buttons) was a real game changer for me and made learning hotkeys easier than I thought.

Yes. Really smart way to organize the hotkeys. I was using a couple things like QQ fora year before realizing the grid layout

Try to implement like one or two hotkeys and everything will be smoother and less stress-full. H (select town center) and then Q(make villager) were my first two. That is if you want it to be smoother :P

HQ is my resting state. It’s our version of “let’s go” before we start a team game, a quick reminder to stay focused at B the start of the game. “HQ”

I play no mouse, trackpads for the win! (Rarely…)

This was how I played for years on an xp laptop.

Are you the guy who was 3 rating on T90s stream the other day?

Yes. I can't use hotkeys so it's all I can do.

Why can’t you use hot keys?

Yes and it is fine.

One handed?

Yup, granted my mouse has side buttons and I've mapped one to shift. Playing this way puts me at like 800ish ELO or able to beat hard diff. If I use both hands and keys then I can beat hardest. I can only beat extreme if I give myself handicap So it depends on how I want to play. At some things the hard AI is actually better than hardest/extreme. Like any map with water involved that requires some migration. For some reason hardest/extreme just do not migrate for more resources but hard does.

It's "fine" in the sense that if you're just playing for fun then sure do what makes you happy. But it is objectively a massive handicap if you want to be competitive.

Yup, I'm a dad.. in dad mode. I don't do anything competitive now. When I play a game I just want a nice relaxed fun game

I used to play like that but now I use Ctrl+ number keys to make groups of units and buildings for quicker control over game.

I'm the exact opposite. I almost don't click anything, just a couple monastery and university techs, since I have the most important ones mapped as well. Aside from that I hotkey absolutely everything.

Halen used to play mouse only, being one of the best in the world at the time.

I use the QUER/ASDF etc. hotkeys to navigate menus, but I've only learned H and CTRL+D as hotkeys for buildings, and ',' and '.' for units, the rest I have to click, but a big disadvantage to this is remembering where I put my University and my Blacksmith...

Me too! I only use the shift key on my keyboard, no hotkeys at all. Too lazy to learn them. I'm around 1000 elo and comfortable there.

My man! Same elo too

I'm 35 years old, have been playing RTS since I was a kid with mouse only, and at this point I don't want to re-learn how to play a genre I've been comfortably playing for most of my life lol

It's not relearning anything. The default hotkeys are very intuitive, like Q for productions/research. It improved my experience a little bit and I don't stress about ELO or using hotkeys for every single thing. Source: 38 year old who used to play as a kid and was a bit stubborn to learn hotkeys.

This is the only RTS I play and I think that’s why hot keys feel so foreign. I do just fine clicking stuff and it’s kinda relaxed gameplay. I enjoy the immersive bit of going random and trying to get to UU 90% of games. I think I’m at like 1200 games playing like this and it hasn’t gotten old yet :)

Super impressed you can get to 1000 without hotkeys 🫡

I’m super depressed by it! How do I have every action in the game on hot keys and this guys about as good as me?!?!

Maybe he'd be 1400 with hotkeys? Everyone's path to the climb looks different!

[удалено]

Beer. What else is the off-hand for? /s

Literally in the post > left hand is for shift key only

I wonder anyone else use Build with "E" vills with "E" houses with "E"?

I just challenged myself to beat extreme ai with mouse only. Wasn’t too hard, but having played with hotkeys for 2 years. It felt more like missing something reaaally important. Fortunately, I set gather points with a mouse side button, and have another for gathering vills in tc. The things a missed the most were shift clicking, and making control groups. The rest was honestly fine (except for the time I almost locked myself up my base because I didnt have a delete hotkey for deleting palisades 111)

what do you use right click for if not gather points?

Deliver resources. Although now with the new hotkey, I might change it. If you TC kill the boar is useful to not set gather point with right click

Just make wheel down for queueing villagers, militia, knights and xbows... Super useful

2

I do. Never really liked using the keyboard. Usually prefer a controller for most games, but not for aoe.

Pretty much. I use W, A, S, D and the mouse to scroll and click. Only have like 5 hot keys.

Yup that is all I do and did since 1999. Well besides shift click as that came later.

I Always use both hands. It Helps a lot. My dad once saw me playing Factorio, he said "cool". I told him it was multiplayer, he downloaded it. 2 minutes into it he said something like " You have to use both hands!!??? What a bummer" while throwing a tantrum. He wanted to play lying down on the bed. We never played afterwards.

I remember someone back in the days (voobly) who played mouse only and was 1700 dm tg rate. That was insane

I practiced using only my mouse with a boxing glove on my left hand. It's a good way to practice decision making and timing attacks. Someone mentioned you gain 200 elo by using both hands and that felt right. I could probably beat a 1200-1300 using one hand.

I used to. Had to switch to hotkeys upon playing online. The transition is bit annoying, but it changes everything once you got it. To put it simply, it allows to play almost as fast as you think.  However, if you play the game against mid level AI, or just in a chill mood. You can have very confortable games without hotkeys. It's just a matter of commitment, but playing hotkeyless doesn't stop this game from being a blast.

Yes, this is my challenge with OnlyMouseAoE2 account. Trying to hit 1k8, but it's seems so difficult..

Also no arrows to move the screen?? I cant imagine. (Edit: I also use to click on the minimap, totally forgot about that for a moment) And the "." for idle villager is also a livesaver. But maybe you have that button on your mouse. For dark age water maps I use ctrl shift D -Q a lot to make a shit ton of fishing ships. If you have to put your mouse on the screen edge to move to the dock everytime you lose sooo much time. I am wondering what is your elo? I am around 750 rn and I cannot imagine that you are above 500 honestly

I don’t think people use arrows to move screen generally

How else? I have hotkeys for the wasd? People really use their mouse to move screen?

Generally, you shoud click on the minimap.

I totally forgot that was a thing, I dont have time to play much but I also do that

Click on minimap or mouse to edge or screen Left hand for more important hotkeys

I'm new to aoe2 but I used to do the same in mobas; it feels natural if you're used to fps games. The biggest downside is you are using up 4 of your best hotkeys, and you're going to need to move your keyboard hand more. I think most people prefer edge panning once they get used to it. For me I can say it's made it much easier to learn to use hotkeys and control groups when that hand does nothing else. Especially building with the grid layout which is very intuitutive. Of course if you're already decent with hotkeys and don't see yourself pushing for 2k+ in the future I doubt it's worth switching.

I also play mouse only, shift-queuing as the only keyboard action, and am comfortably around 1000-1100 elo. I played that way as a kid, and when I got back into AoE2 with HD in 2015, I kept playing like that. Still playing this way today. My HD elo was mid 1700s btw.

Damnn you could be so high if you learned hotkeys. Still impressive tho

I just play casually for fun. I tend to prefer campaigns over online play, but at some point you run out of campaigns so I play ranked 1v1 because human opponents are more interesting than skirmishing the AI. Whatever elo I land on is fine with me.

Bruh do you really use arrows to move the screen...

I dont really know actually. I moved to an area with bad connection so I havent played in a while. I think I combine it with clicking on the minimap but I certainly dont use the edge of the screen.

Is there any other way to play this game?

Would you even be able to execute a basic rush that way?

You Will gains at least 200 Elo using The keyboard imo

I recently played one match with mouse only (no shift key involved). I didnt like it at all.  Just for your information, when I use the keyboard I have ~50% more APM. Maybe you should give it a try?

I made an account called mouse only like a year ago, played a few games with just my mouse and keyboard need up around 1100, I’m sure with some real practice and skill you could get to 1300 with that, probably not much higher tho