How many villagers should I aim for in aoe2?
A. It depends on the map! In general the rule of thumb is 100~140 villagers. Here is a detailed list of maps and how many villagers you need in aoe2:
Arabia Map
On open maps like Arabia.. You have three tasks:
1. Queue army from your military structures.
2. Keep making villagers until you reach pop 200.
3. Distract and disrupt your opponent to force him to idle his villagers and his economy.
To conclude, usually pro players that win in Castle Age they have around 75 villagers, while in Imperial Age 100 – 140 but ideally 120 villagers.
Black Forest Map
On closed maps like Black Forest, booming is the standard option as long as you close the opening between you and the enemy.
In Team Games, players in the pocket side (in the middle) always go for a boom and aim for 120 villagers at least, but often 140 is where you want to stop because you will also need around 20 – 40 trade carts which means you will start deleting farmer/lumberjack villagers around 200/200 pop to free space for both army and trade carts.
Islands
In water maps like Islands, Team Islands or a map where water overtakes land, villager is irrelevant if you take over the entire water in Feudal and Castle age, during these ages you do not want to stop making villagers. You have two simple tasks, spam Villagers + spam Galleys until the enemy resign.
However, in a close matchup where everyone is doing fine, you would want to stop at 100 villagers and go to imperial as fast as possible while maintaining the spam of boats.
