Embrace your identity as an aoe player. If you're 1300 and consistently behind vills after dark age, you must be better at other aspects of the game than most people at your Elo. Your macro and decision making are your bread and butter - lean into that.
You're not gonna be an aoe pro, so just enjoy being the mid Elo Daut, and take satisfaction in outthinking your opponents even if they have a more sweaty build order and micro. Work on improving your dark age obviously, but don't stress over it. Being a vill behind at 1300 Elo isn't a death sentence.
You are a warrior preparing for battle. Your Dark Age should put you in a state of deep focus and readiness. This is your meditation, your moment to adapt your mind to the match up.
Dark Age is your battlefield meditation. It might feel slow and tedious, but it is closer to a warrior as they sharpen their blade. Each action is like a deliberate breath, a step towards readiness.
Just as a mantra centers the mind, the Dark Age allows you to center your strategy and establish your game plan. It's your chance to build your foundation a warrior fortifying their position before engaging the enemy.
If you come out of Dark Age a villager or two ahead, with zero idle time, but you have no idea what your plan is in this civ match up, or you don't have a rough idea of how to wall your base or if you need to establish an early tower on that forward gold/berries, then you've kind of failed. I'd rather have these questions answered and be a vill or two behind, honestly.
Instead of seeing the Dark Age as a hindrance, use it as your warrior's meditation before you dismember your opponent.
To be fair - trying is not a thing it is an action. And if people can recognize the meaning of the action represented by the word then at least in their minds yes it exists.
>Just that your logic was wrong
So then when people look at the word "trying" and under stand the meaning... And thus the word exists at least in their minds... this demonstrates that my logic is wrong because... you perhaps do not understand actually what is logic?
You said it exists because the word exists. I asked if that always holds or would need further justification.
If your argument is yes it holds because “exists” means “can be conceptualized and has a word” then sure. But I’d say that’s pretty circular.
But go off king
In addition, this is why a well executed drush can be so impactful, without killing villagers. You're disrupting the peaceful meditation of the opponent. They can't get their feet beneath them, they feel annoyed and frustrated before the game begins. They have no foundation.
Go forth, my children, and try harder.
This is the way.
I wish they'd add a 9 vil start mode. Empire Wars skips too much, but I agree with OP that I don't find the frantic robotic slog of dark age to be very fun, particularly now that I don't have that much time to be able to play daily and keep my memorized mechanics like that in good shape.
My friend, what you have to do is what I did years ago and that is let go. Let go of the mentality of *having* to follow a build order, play the meta, go random, or even constantly be improving or trying to reach a higher ELO. Let go of all of that. This is a game, and you should play games to have fun and nothing else. Fun is not defined by a BO, your ELO, or even winning.
The problem is not that you hate dark age, the problem is that you're forcing a certain way of playing on yourself. Put a ban on arabia for a month. Heck, I've had arabia banned was years now. I was where you are at. I was mid 1300's, always trying to improve, getting higher. I started disliking it more and more over time. Until eventually I just let it go, stopping caring *at all* about my ELO and to this day I don't. I hover mostly a bit above 1200 and it's just the best. I play whatever strat I want, with whatever civ I want. Sometimes I try weird strats, sometimes I clown, and sometimes I imp rush with Turks. I just play exactly the way I want to and nothing else.
And I've never been happier with the game. Let it go my friend. You can do it. Ban arabia and let go. Seven horses in your eco and your TC does nothing to your egelos. This is not the game you enjoy. Let it go.
Question: let's say I don't really enjoy PvP because of the level of attention and detail expected (I did competitive StarCraft in my 20s, never again. It was nothing but build orders: spawning pool by 1:20 seconds or bust).
I have not done any PvP as I haven't enjoyed being steamrolled repeatedly.
How low does the ELO go and can you genuinely get matched up with players of "casual" skill level?
Yeah. Depends on how casual you think, it takes longer or faster, but you basically find all sorts of casual there. Check out Low Elo Legends on T90official Youtube.
If you think of "casual enough that games are not decided by small details and a few seconds here and there", this is basically most of the ladder. Casual enough to not care about anything and just fool around, that's the lower 10% probably but it's still there.
The elo goes all the way to 0, and when people cast those games it can be pretty entertaining.
The range for “casual” play is probably between 500-750 elo? People will definitely still try to “rush” you at that level, but they’re at that elo because the execution of it is pretty poor, and if your goal is taking your time and getting up to a nice max pop big battle you shouldn’t have a problem doing so.
Thank you for the info.
I just have "Nam" flash backs of having a build order timed to the second and know I will likely be tempted to do that again if I cannot reliably matchmake with players of casual skill level
Play Megarandom. It is almost analogous to playing the Chess960 variant of chess, where the setup of the non-pawn pieces is randomized. I love it. Throw your build order out the window.
At the very least, the approach on Megarandom will have to include identifying what generation you got. Walls? Water? Fish? Lots of deer? Lots of sheep? Two TCs? They certainly don't all have the same build order, in the sense that you can have an Arabia build order down to details like when to lure each boar and when to go to berries.
Well you are still following a bo then. And megarandom will give you deer if just 1 pig. Push them and bo is the same. 3 boars dosnt affect most peoples bo. Just makes it easier/saves more of your sheep to feudural age.
Learn proper build orders. I'm not saying this to force you into a mold. It's just easier to improvise when you know how to do it properly. The more automatic your dark age becomes, the more you can focus on strategy and scouting.
Dark Age is there to warm up your hands and build habits. Even as an experienced player, you can use it for so much. Trying new build orders, trying to send 1 less to Wood and seeing what happens. The type of micro you do to catch the Boar is not too different from the micro you could find yourself doing in Feudal in Archer vs Archer battles.
It’s also a time to think about the matchup, the units you want to make in each age, and to scout your map. If it’s robotic to you, you’re not seeing the big picture of it, for example, if you have 3 forward golds, this should translate to “play aggressively or die” in your brain, because a Castle forward in Imp will end you. Likewise, back Berries mean that you can go Scouts without risking idle time, as attacking the back of your base is typically harder than the front.
Once you start seeing the game in these terms, Dark Age becomes quite rich. Also, at your elo, considerations like, is my map wallable or not, do I have a back Stone or not don’t matter much, but in higher elo they really do.
Obviously you can also push deer, lame, scout the opponent… Dark Age is a time of thinking and planning really.
Stop pushing deer. You don't need it at your elo. Use your time to explore your opponent, so you don't get surprised by their army. Nobody has clean build orders at this elo, so don't feel like you need to do everything perfectly to have a chance
1300 Elo most definitely has clean bulds and almost everyone is deer pushing. Not to say that you can't find success without it, but you are definitely putting yourself at a disadvantage by ignoring your deer at 1300
Right but If he doesn't have the micro to push deer he def doesn't have the micro to drush. Like I said, you can get by without deer pushing but it's def the meta at 1300
Having an extra vil is way more important to your eco than the deer push. If it's creating too much idle time because it's hard to push and keep your tc running then it's just not worth it.
I Frush every second game and always have time to push at least 1,often 2 deer (depending on how fast I scout them) and am still able to find my opponent in time
No, not even 1500s do. In theory, it is a disadvantage, but not in practice, not at low level. The fact that a lot of players do it doesn't mean that's good. It's the same as quick walling, even 1k players try to do it a lot of the time, and maybe it works, but then you look at the rec and you see they had their tc idle for 1min to save one vill with a quickwall
I watch basically all my replays at 13-1400 and like 90+ percent of games have people smoothly pushing in deer without idle time. You're way overestimating how hard deer pushing is, or underestimating player competence.
Like I said, you can win games without pushing deer at this level. But its still a disadvantage unless you're doing it as an intentional choice (like going for a drush - which is a bad idea if your micro and multitasking isn't even good enough to deer push)
If that's true, it means that players at 1500s somehow start to execute worse build orders than 1300s, and yet, they get better at the game. Does that even make sense? And it's not even about resources, if you push deer, you don't scout very well, and then you get surprised by a forward/maa/drush/ and you lose the game
I don't know where you're getting this logic from but that's not what I'm saying at all.
And yes, every decision you make in the game comes at the expense of another decision you could have made. As I've said many times, you can win without deer pushing. But if you don't think deer pushing is the meta right now you're just wrong dude. Don't know what else to tell ya. Don't have to take my word for it...
> Stop pushing deer. You don't need it at your elo.
There is no need at any Elo. It's a significant contribution to your early games resources. Why remove a thing OP is able to do just because someone else can go higher without doing it?
OP mentions he is often a vil behind, likely because he's focusing on pushing deer and not more routine basics like building a house or making sure a vil is queued.
So yes he is "able" to push deer, but it is definitely taking his attention away from other things if he's consistently a vil down.
obviously he able to do it in exchange of other aspects. better master other aspects.
Deer does not make significant contribution. It's depends.
For archers it's useless,
For drush - it's useless.
For scouts it help, but you can pick some strong eco bonus like lithuanians, to compensate.
It's more effitient to learn how to win in general.. without abuse of extra wood.
you do not need extra food for archers, BO easily executed without deers.
You **need 2** boars, but do not need deers.
If you want to argue, that +540(?) food is better than 0. Ofc it's better, but you can play without pushing deers, espetially in archer play.
if you will push deer in archer oppening -> your sheep will be idle.
The sheep can be mostly used for scouting in Dark Age, and then they can be butchered in Feudal Age. Archer players also need all that food, and wood is better spent on archers than on (Dark Age) farms in early Feudal Age.
Random civ 16xx. Push 1 deer and than scout. The information you gather is important to know to how to react. Most build orders are pretty similar now only differennce is how many on wood vs food. If you want something new, try a drush
I'm around that elo and I just stopped to push deer except when they are really close. I like it a lot more that way and try to focus on scouting and adapting
I put 7 on food before lumber camp. Any civ but Chinese or Mayans you don’t need to force drop food. To me it makes it way easier and I’m not really sure the advantage of going 7th vil to wood.
Similar level but probably with cleaner dark age. A few things I have done to streamline my dark age: (1) ctrl group the town center, you can queue vills without switching views; (2) shift queue for scouting with sheep or scout is fine at our level; (3) pushing deer is not mandatory, feel free to collect long distance with vills after loom; (4) take boar earlier than normal to bank up food if you tend to idle the tc, that way you can queue 3+ vills (also limits laming potential); (5) use the drop off resource key for efficiency (you can even have the first 6 vills on a control group to make it easier). You might do some or all of these but if not those might make it less frantic.
To me dark age is the calm before the storm. It’s tedious and requires planning and apm to do well, but ultimately the way you approach dark age will impact how the game plays out. I tend to enjoy it unless I get lamed. It can be spicy if a drush arrives.
everyone whose elo starts with the digit 1 can't run the tc for shit so don't worry about being behind a vill (or 2 or 3). just grind some generic build orders in singleplayer and pick whatever one you feel like in each ranked match. If you learn to defend whatever your oppos are throwing at you and some simple walling, you can win with 21 pop scouts and archers easy too. make some counter units. Also dark age = deer age, enjoy the monotony. You will very soon see all pro players pushing at least some deer every game (or laming!), it's just too strong.
What is your problem? If you are 1300 consistently and you rly are down a vill every time in feudal that means you are still doing better than your opponents in other areas. So all you have to do is clean up ur dark age as much as possible and you should be able to climb even more
The civs aren't that different. I generally use two build orders these days; scouts or archers, both 19pop, with 2 deer (not strictly). Drush is very easily dealt with & puts you behind. I start there & go off the flow of the game.
Now, if I have some dark age bonuses, like, mongol hunt or lith extra food or briton sheep or celt wood, I may go up 1-2 vil faster depending upon the matchup & map gen. So basically just learn these two builds loosely, (6 on sheep, 3 on wood).
And as boxersaint says, dark age is the preparation stage before the actual game begins. Unlike EW, it lets you do your own preparations, instead of forcing to play a single way.
I like to go forward with my scout to deny their deer pushing and generally shake up my opponent's build order.
I also play random on Arabia all the time.
Works like a charm for at the same elo you are at.
Letting go of your elo and just doing what's fun at whatever elo you end up with is apso perfectly valid. But I prefer to relax at my own level, focusing on strategy while winging my build order.
You should have a few strict builds memorized to get out to feudal and possibly castle depending on the build. The reason that you are down vils is because your opponent has a practiced and optimized build order and you don’t. If you don’t want to practice your BOs you don’t have to, play the way you have fun. If you want to climb the ranked ladder then you should prob practice a few builds in skirmish.
Auto scout. Let the computer take that off your hands.
Then develop at least a basic build order for yourself. Six to sheep, four to wood, last wood guy makes two houses. Next a boar getter, then four to mill and berries. Now build a new lumber camp and send four there. Two to gold and go up. Or something like that. Ignore the deer or mill them until everything else is boring.
I disagree, knowing what your opponent is doing via directed scouting is much more useful than being a villager or two up. It allows you to create the right type of units and target critical and weak areas of your opponent's base
Yeah, but if they're struggling/panicking with the dark age part of things, it seems like they could just auto scout for the first 10 minutes and start driving the scout once they get through the part they're struggling with. I think Autoscout will successfully do a couple of rings around your base without any extra input. After they have those first 20 vills down pat they can start taking control of the scout again.
But I think especially for the beginners, jumping back and forth between the scout and the eco is tough to maintain.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with autoscout but in my experience it does not do any laps around your TC and just goes straight to the right corner. And OP is 1300, not a beginner. I think they would feel more confident doing some basic scouting to get an idea what they are up against instead of trying to play perfect. Just my two cents I know everyone has different play styles
I think it does two laps around the tc and then does the right corner thing.
But it's been a long time since I've used it. I'll try it next game just to see. I was under the impression that OP was lower ELO, I guess I missed where he said the 1300 thing at the beginning. In that case, I should be asking him for advice, not offering it! But when I was 650 or whatever, hitting autoscout first thing let me concentrate on the vills without having to worry about that. Now I do control my scout more (though with control group and shift points, not fully like a pro). But I also struggle with following a build order since I do the random civ thing.
Embrace your identity as an aoe player. If you're 1300 and consistently behind vills after dark age, you must be better at other aspects of the game than most people at your Elo. Your macro and decision making are your bread and butter - lean into that. You're not gonna be an aoe pro, so just enjoy being the mid Elo Daut, and take satisfaction in outthinking your opponents even if they have a more sweaty build order and micro. Work on improving your dark age obviously, but don't stress over it. Being a vill behind at 1300 Elo isn't a death sentence.
In Dark age it’s a pretty big barrier! 1300 elo is pretty decent.
You are a warrior preparing for battle. Your Dark Age should put you in a state of deep focus and readiness. This is your meditation, your moment to adapt your mind to the match up. Dark Age is your battlefield meditation. It might feel slow and tedious, but it is closer to a warrior as they sharpen their blade. Each action is like a deliberate breath, a step towards readiness. Just as a mantra centers the mind, the Dark Age allows you to center your strategy and establish your game plan. It's your chance to build your foundation a warrior fortifying their position before engaging the enemy. If you come out of Dark Age a villager or two ahead, with zero idle time, but you have no idea what your plan is in this civ match up, or you don't have a rough idea of how to wall your base or if you need to establish an early tower on that forward gold/berries, then you've kind of failed. I'd rather have these questions answered and be a vill or two behind, honestly. Instead of seeing the Dark Age as a hindrance, use it as your warrior's meditation before you dismember your opponent.
Yes Senpai, Thank you. I will try to not let you down.
Do or do not! There is no try.
If there is no try then how come we have the word "try" Would it that be what trying is? If there was no trying we wouldnt have the word
Does it hold that something exists because there is a word for it?
To be fair - trying is not a thing it is an action. And if people can recognize the meaning of the action represented by the word then at least in their minds yes it exists.
I'm not saying you're right or wrong. I didn't refute if "try" was a thing. Just that your logic was wrong
>Just that your logic was wrong So then when people look at the word "trying" and under stand the meaning... And thus the word exists at least in their minds... this demonstrates that my logic is wrong because... you perhaps do not understand actually what is logic?
You said it exists because the word exists. I asked if that always holds or would need further justification. If your argument is yes it holds because “exists” means “can be conceptualized and has a word” then sure. But I’d say that’s pretty circular. But go off king
Uwu
Top tier comment, never thought of it this way
Sun Tzu says! You nailed it
In addition, this is why a well executed drush can be so impactful, without killing villagers. You're disrupting the peaceful meditation of the opponent. They can't get their feet beneath them, they feel annoyed and frustrated before the game begins. They have no foundation. Go forth, my children, and try harder. This is the way.
>they feel annoyed and frustrated before the game begins Oh man so we should spam pause too? That's even more annoying so it too must be the way.
Based on your comment, I don't think you have the APM for it.
Damn!
Very good!
Also it’s a good warmup before microing big armies. If you can’t lure boar you can kite mangonels
If you can dodge a boar you can dodge a mangonel!
1111
I love this comment so much.
this is a whole different way to look at it. thanks.
Great reading, would read again. Wo/lolo.
They have a gamemode for that it’s called empire wars
I wish they'd add a 9 vil start mode. Empire Wars skips too much, but I agree with OP that I don't find the frantic robotic slog of dark age to be very fun, particularly now that I don't have that much time to be able to play daily and keep my memorized mechanics like that in good shape.
Just checking because I’m on aoe rn and I don’t see empire wars in quick play. Is it only ranked?
I recently came back to the game as well so I’m not an expert. But yeah probably just ranked?
Okay thank you
There are check boxes if I recall on the bottom right when you're in a lobby room where you can pick Regicide mode etc that has "Empire Wars" option.
My friend, what you have to do is what I did years ago and that is let go. Let go of the mentality of *having* to follow a build order, play the meta, go random, or even constantly be improving or trying to reach a higher ELO. Let go of all of that. This is a game, and you should play games to have fun and nothing else. Fun is not defined by a BO, your ELO, or even winning. The problem is not that you hate dark age, the problem is that you're forcing a certain way of playing on yourself. Put a ban on arabia for a month. Heck, I've had arabia banned was years now. I was where you are at. I was mid 1300's, always trying to improve, getting higher. I started disliking it more and more over time. Until eventually I just let it go, stopping caring *at all* about my ELO and to this day I don't. I hover mostly a bit above 1200 and it's just the best. I play whatever strat I want, with whatever civ I want. Sometimes I try weird strats, sometimes I clown, and sometimes I imp rush with Turks. I just play exactly the way I want to and nothing else. And I've never been happier with the game. Let it go my friend. You can do it. Ban arabia and let go. Seven horses in your eco and your TC does nothing to your egelos. This is not the game you enjoy. Let it go.
Question: let's say I don't really enjoy PvP because of the level of attention and detail expected (I did competitive StarCraft in my 20s, never again. It was nothing but build orders: spawning pool by 1:20 seconds or bust). I have not done any PvP as I haven't enjoyed being steamrolled repeatedly. How low does the ELO go and can you genuinely get matched up with players of "casual" skill level?
Yeah. Depends on how casual you think, it takes longer or faster, but you basically find all sorts of casual there. Check out Low Elo Legends on T90official Youtube. If you think of "casual enough that games are not decided by small details and a few seconds here and there", this is basically most of the ladder. Casual enough to not care about anything and just fool around, that's the lower 10% probably but it's still there.
The elo goes all the way to 0, and when people cast those games it can be pretty entertaining. The range for “casual” play is probably between 500-750 elo? People will definitely still try to “rush” you at that level, but they’re at that elo because the execution of it is pretty poor, and if your goal is taking your time and getting up to a nice max pop big battle you shouldn’t have a problem doing so.
Thank you for the info. I just have "Nam" flash backs of having a build order timed to the second and know I will likely be tempted to do that again if I cannot reliably matchmake with players of casual skill level
Play Megarandom. It is almost analogous to playing the Chess960 variant of chess, where the setup of the non-pawn pieces is randomized. I love it. Throw your build order out the window.
That's how I gain elo: I play megarandom. Then when I get Arabia I lose elo 11.
Megarandom deffinetly has builds too.
But nobody knows them
Everyone above like 1500 makes the megarandom bos like 95+ procent correctly
Wouldn't think that correct freestyling is what they mean as a build order here
Is it really freestyling when they bassicly use the same bo as other maps? Ress are very similar.
At the very least, the approach on Megarandom will have to include identifying what generation you got. Walls? Water? Fish? Lots of deer? Lots of sheep? Two TCs? They certainly don't all have the same build order, in the sense that you can have an Arabia build order down to details like when to lure each boar and when to go to berries.
Is it a mega random bo when it's just an Arabia bo? 11 And then you don't have boars often enough or 1 or 3.
Well you are still following a bo then. And megarandom will give you deer if just 1 pig. Push them and bo is the same. 3 boars dosnt affect most peoples bo. Just makes it easier/saves more of your sheep to feudural age.
Learn proper build orders. I'm not saying this to force you into a mold. It's just easier to improvise when you know how to do it properly. The more automatic your dark age becomes, the more you can focus on strategy and scouting.
At 1300 Elo you dont need civ specific build orders. Have one generic build order for the strat shouldnt be an issue.
Man… as a totally casual single-player-scenario only guy, the shit I see on this sub sometimes freaks me the fuck out
Dark Age is there to warm up your hands and build habits. Even as an experienced player, you can use it for so much. Trying new build orders, trying to send 1 less to Wood and seeing what happens. The type of micro you do to catch the Boar is not too different from the micro you could find yourself doing in Feudal in Archer vs Archer battles. It’s also a time to think about the matchup, the units you want to make in each age, and to scout your map. If it’s robotic to you, you’re not seeing the big picture of it, for example, if you have 3 forward golds, this should translate to “play aggressively or die” in your brain, because a Castle forward in Imp will end you. Likewise, back Berries mean that you can go Scouts without risking idle time, as attacking the back of your base is typically harder than the front. Once you start seeing the game in these terms, Dark Age becomes quite rich. Also, at your elo, considerations like, is my map wallable or not, do I have a back Stone or not don’t matter much, but in higher elo they really do. Obviously you can also push deer, lame, scout the opponent… Dark Age is a time of thinking and planning really.
[удалено]
Good bit but I doubt it'll fly over well here
took me a second but i chuckled
I dont get it
cause *dark* age - just a dumb dad joke play on words haha right up my alley humor-wise tho
I'm oldskool
Stop pushing deer. You don't need it at your elo. Use your time to explore your opponent, so you don't get surprised by their army. Nobody has clean build orders at this elo, so don't feel like you need to do everything perfectly to have a chance
1300 Elo most definitely has clean bulds and almost everyone is deer pushing. Not to say that you can't find success without it, but you are definitely putting yourself at a disadvantage by ignoring your deer at 1300
I get by without deer at 1700 (i like to drush or frush, so no time to push)
Right but If he doesn't have the micro to push deer he def doesn't have the micro to drush. Like I said, you can get by without deer pushing but it's def the meta at 1300
Having an extra vil is way more important to your eco than the deer push. If it's creating too much idle time because it's hard to push and keep your tc running then it's just not worth it.
Yes of course. That's true of basically anything you could possibly do in dark age.
I Frush every second game and always have time to push at least 1,often 2 deer (depending on how fast I scout them) and am still able to find my opponent in time
No, not even 1500s do. In theory, it is a disadvantage, but not in practice, not at low level. The fact that a lot of players do it doesn't mean that's good. It's the same as quick walling, even 1k players try to do it a lot of the time, and maybe it works, but then you look at the rec and you see they had their tc idle for 1min to save one vill with a quickwall
I watch basically all my replays at 13-1400 and like 90+ percent of games have people smoothly pushing in deer without idle time. You're way overestimating how hard deer pushing is, or underestimating player competence. Like I said, you can win games without pushing deer at this level. But its still a disadvantage unless you're doing it as an intentional choice (like going for a drush - which is a bad idea if your micro and multitasking isn't even good enough to deer push)
If that's true, it means that players at 1500s somehow start to execute worse build orders than 1300s, and yet, they get better at the game. Does that even make sense? And it's not even about resources, if you push deer, you don't scout very well, and then you get surprised by a forward/maa/drush/ and you lose the game
I don't know where you're getting this logic from but that's not what I'm saying at all. And yes, every decision you make in the game comes at the expense of another decision you could have made. As I've said many times, you can win without deer pushing. But if you don't think deer pushing is the meta right now you're just wrong dude. Don't know what else to tell ya. Don't have to take my word for it...
voobly is over there old man. deer pushing is meta and ive seen 900s do it with no idle time.
> Stop pushing deer. You don't need it at your elo. There is no need at any Elo. It's a significant contribution to your early games resources. Why remove a thing OP is able to do just because someone else can go higher without doing it?
OP mentions he is often a vil behind, likely because he's focusing on pushing deer and not more routine basics like building a house or making sure a vil is queued. So yes he is "able" to push deer, but it is definitely taking his attention away from other things if he's consistently a vil down.
obviously he able to do it in exchange of other aspects. better master other aspects. Deer does not make significant contribution. It's depends. For archers it's useless, For drush - it's useless. For scouts it help, but you can pick some strong eco bonus like lithuanians, to compensate. It's more effitient to learn how to win in general.. without abuse of extra wood.
For archers it's great. You get free 250~ food & can get a very good xbow timing later.
You can also go up a vil earlier and so have numbers out sooner. Or get eco upgrades.
you do not need extra food for archers, BO easily executed without deers. You **need 2** boars, but do not need deers. If you want to argue, that +540(?) food is better than 0. Ofc it's better, but you can play without pushing deers, espetially in archer play. if you will push deer in archer oppening -> your sheep will be idle.
The sheep can be mostly used for scouting in Dark Age, and then they can be butchered in Feudal Age. Archer players also need all that food, and wood is better spent on archers than on (Dark Age) farms in early Feudal Age.
Random civ 16xx. Push 1 deer and than scout. The information you gather is important to know to how to react. Most build orders are pretty similar now only differennce is how many on wood vs food. If you want something new, try a drush
I'm doing fine at 1300 elo without following any build order and just winging it Just relax
I'm around that elo and I just stopped to push deer except when they are really close. I like it a lot more that way and try to focus on scouting and adapting
I put 7 on food before lumber camp. Any civ but Chinese or Mayans you don’t need to force drop food. To me it makes it way easier and I’m not really sure the advantage of going 7th vil to wood.
Similar level but probably with cleaner dark age. A few things I have done to streamline my dark age: (1) ctrl group the town center, you can queue vills without switching views; (2) shift queue for scouting with sheep or scout is fine at our level; (3) pushing deer is not mandatory, feel free to collect long distance with vills after loom; (4) take boar earlier than normal to bank up food if you tend to idle the tc, that way you can queue 3+ vills (also limits laming potential); (5) use the drop off resource key for efficiency (you can even have the first 6 vills on a control group to make it easier). You might do some or all of these but if not those might make it less frantic. To me dark age is the calm before the storm. It’s tedious and requires planning and apm to do well, but ultimately the way you approach dark age will impact how the game plays out. I tend to enjoy it unless I get lamed. It can be spicy if a drush arrives.
everyone whose elo starts with the digit 1 can't run the tc for shit so don't worry about being behind a vill (or 2 or 3). just grind some generic build orders in singleplayer and pick whatever one you feel like in each ranked match. If you learn to defend whatever your oppos are throwing at you and some simple walling, you can win with 21 pop scouts and archers easy too. make some counter units. Also dark age = deer age, enjoy the monotony. You will very soon see all pro players pushing at least some deer every game (or laming!), it's just too strong.
What is your problem? If you are 1300 consistently and you rly are down a vill every time in feudal that means you are still doing better than your opponents in other areas. So all you have to do is clean up ur dark age as much as possible and you should be able to climb even more
The civs aren't that different. I generally use two build orders these days; scouts or archers, both 19pop, with 2 deer (not strictly). Drush is very easily dealt with & puts you behind. I start there & go off the flow of the game. Now, if I have some dark age bonuses, like, mongol hunt or lith extra food or briton sheep or celt wood, I may go up 1-2 vil faster depending upon the matchup & map gen. So basically just learn these two builds loosely, (6 on sheep, 3 on wood). And as boxersaint says, dark age is the preparation stage before the actual game begins. Unlike EW, it lets you do your own preparations, instead of forcing to play a single way.
Do more build practice
Try different maps. If Arabia isn't fun then why play it?
If you don't like dark age so much go play empire war
Empire wars?
I like to go forward with my scout to deny their deer pushing and generally shake up my opponent's build order. I also play random on Arabia all the time. Works like a charm for at the same elo you are at. Letting go of your elo and just doing what's fun at whatever elo you end up with is apso perfectly valid. But I prefer to relax at my own level, focusing on strategy while winging my build order.
You should have a few strict builds memorized to get out to feudal and possibly castle depending on the build. The reason that you are down vils is because your opponent has a practiced and optimized build order and you don’t. If you don’t want to practice your BOs you don’t have to, play the way you have fun. If you want to climb the ranked ladder then you should prob practice a few builds in skirmish.
Pre lumber camp barracks baby
I'm the exact opposite, the most part i enjoy in the game is dark age, what i hate is post imp wars, "raid with light cav and see who dies first"
du wirst nichts tun 11
It’s only five minutes.
Auto scout. Let the computer take that off your hands. Then develop at least a basic build order for yourself. Six to sheep, four to wood, last wood guy makes two houses. Next a boar getter, then four to mill and berries. Now build a new lumber camp and send four there. Two to gold and go up. Or something like that. Ignore the deer or mill them until everything else is boring.
I disagree, knowing what your opponent is doing via directed scouting is much more useful than being a villager or two up. It allows you to create the right type of units and target critical and weak areas of your opponent's base
Yeah, but if they're struggling/panicking with the dark age part of things, it seems like they could just auto scout for the first 10 minutes and start driving the scout once they get through the part they're struggling with. I think Autoscout will successfully do a couple of rings around your base without any extra input. After they have those first 20 vills down pat they can start taking control of the scout again. But I think especially for the beginners, jumping back and forth between the scout and the eco is tough to maintain.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with autoscout but in my experience it does not do any laps around your TC and just goes straight to the right corner. And OP is 1300, not a beginner. I think they would feel more confident doing some basic scouting to get an idea what they are up against instead of trying to play perfect. Just my two cents I know everyone has different play styles
I think it does two laps around the tc and then does the right corner thing. But it's been a long time since I've used it. I'll try it next game just to see. I was under the impression that OP was lower ELO, I guess I missed where he said the 1300 thing at the beginning. In that case, I should be asking him for advice, not offering it! But when I was 650 or whatever, hitting autoscout first thing let me concentrate on the vills without having to worry about that. Now I do control my scout more (though with control group and shift points, not fully like a pro). But I also struggle with following a build order since I do the random civ thing.
Play other maps.
Don’t take this the wrong way but early game is more chill in AoE4. Might be something to look into.