[Anonymous Player]

I have been playing campaigns as a gamer for a long time, even since 1999.

Recently, I have been avidly following online gaming matches and want to give it a try myself.

However, there’s a problem – I suffer from ALS, which makes it difficult for me to press buttons with my left hand.

My right hand is relatively fine and can still operate the mouse with little difficulty.

Could anyone suggest ways to improve my play or speed up certain actions, given my disability?

I’m concerned I’ll be at a disadvantage and lose.

[HoneyInBlackCoffee]

An MMO mouse with more buttons would help you

[VacuousWaffle]

Lacking access to full set of hotkeys will slow you down, but with good game sense I agree with u/SurvivalistAoE that 1200+ is possible but challenging.

Daveaoe on Youtube sometimes plays with a [controller](https://imgur.com/EqRQbTV) (link to his key shortcuts showing what he thought were the most important binding priorities with few buttons available).

You can probably also pick up a couple triple foot switches to bind some common hotkeys (Idle vil, goto TC might be candidates here) to your feet and maybe somehow SHIFT equivalent for building 5 units/time.

I suppose while you say your left hand can barely press a button – do you mean just keyboard is out of question, or could you maybe find a set of three or six larger buttons like on a game-pad (often has a joystick) that mimics an old arcade machine?

Microsoft also has the xbox [adaptive controller pad](https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/xbox-adaptive-controller) for those with mobility issues, that can be paired with a custom set or arrangement of different [buttons like these from logitech](https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/products/gamepads/adaptive-gaming-kit-accessories.943-000318.html).

If the issue is also with arm motion, [articulating wrist-rests](https://www.ergoexperts.com/products/ergorest-articulating-arm-rest) exist too.

That said I am no expert on either ergonomics or the computer peripheral hardware available for those with hand mobility issues.

If you have access to an occupational or physical therapist as part of your diagnosis they may be worth asking about making your gaming setup more ergonomic and usable.

Worst case they don’t know either I suppose – never hurts to ask.

And at the end of the day, having fun gaming is probably more important than winning or chasing ELO.

Upgrade setup perhaps, or just send it with what you got.

[cloudfire1337]

Can your left hand press the space bar?

I have 4 functions on my space bar:
– set building gatherpoint
– garrison units into buildings
– quickwall (palisade)
– mangonel target fire

These functions do not have any collisions so overloading space bar works great this way!

[Retax7]

I recommend logitech G600 or similar mouse with 24 extra configurable buttons(12 extra buttons + one button that if pressed or not will offer another functionality).

You can also put combination of keys to select all barracks or all tcs or things like that.

its a pain to use at the begining, but once you get used to it, every game is amazing.

[Full-Interest-6015]

Look into getting a foot pedal of some kind that you can bind keys to.

Also, fuck the haters and come up with some macros that can press multiple buttons or maybe help create vills automatically Whatever you gotta do if fair game I’d say.

[Anarch33]

I have a mmo mouse and I play pretty much mouse only with keyboard being just for stance control which I could move to some more mouse buttons if I needed to.

Spend some time just setting hotkeys and trying them in skirmish

[Exe0n]

I’d recommend getting an MMO mouse, I personally use the Logitech G600.

These come with 12 extra side buttons that you can freely map for hotkeys, you can hotswap profiles or add combinations that can ramp up the amount of hotkeys quite comfortably.

It won’t be the same as using 2 hands, but you will still be able to play quite competitively.

[schism1]

They have mice with many buttons like this Razer Naga Trinity Gaming Mouse: 16,000 DPI Optical Sensor – Chroma RGB Lighting – Interchangeable Side Plate w/ 2, 7, 12 Button Configurations – Mechanical Switches https://a.co/d/d6dw9tH

[laveshnk]

I’m a 15-1600 on most days.

Sometimes as a challenge, i play with one hand against my lower rated friends.

So far I’ve been able to beat upto 1200s quite comfortably (only tried arena)

I don’t have much tips except i noticed that your hand can get a bit exhausted after even one game (or maybe my hand is just weak) so take plenty of rest and do vn’tdon’t play long games.

Focus on macro and decision making rather than micro.

You literally can get upto 1800 if you just have good macro

Ayways, it’s awesome that you figured out a way to continue enjoying your game even with your condition.

Hats off man

[Ptee92]

Got to 1450 with mouseonly with a fresh account.

Biggest tip is to do builds well.

Bind make house and make farms into a single key on mouse.

If you have more extra keys to spare I’d recommend control groups for some of them and access to top row of production buildings.

Playing long macro game is not recommended, that will absolutely wreck your wrist if you try hard.

Go for EW if you want late game games.

Edit: so yea, if you are using only mouse creating control groups is a problem, but there is a nice option to get the control groups show at the bottom of the screen and the panel has a huge + sign that creates new control groups.

So you need just a button that you can double tap to use the group.

If you have mobility in another hand even for just pressing shift you’ll have easy time compared to just being able to use mouse.

[carreiraesteban]

Some great suggestions here already!

Just wanted to add my opinion:

I’ve played this game for 20 years.

I’ve only used keyboard hotkeys in the past 3.

The game is perfectly playable with mouse only.

Of course you lose some kind of speed but, as Survivalist has said, pro players have played with mouse only and reached competitive levels just fine.

If you do good at strategy, you can absolutely beat me with just your mouse

[Kahlenar]

There are mice with 12 side buttons, in addition to the 3 on the top and the wheel.

That could give you a lot of kotkeys, but would take a long time to practice up.

Also you could find a mod that moves your bars and the mini map together.

There might be a transparent mood that you can click moves through as well, because you could probably find a way to adjust the mods to place your entire UI near the center of the screen.

Then you wouldn’t have to move very far to make your clicks.

If you take an existing mod and make it your own you can adjust the locations exactly how you want.

It’s not quick to do, and I’m not good at it, but I was able to shove over a modded resource bar I liked by making it my own.

Good luck.

[thegwfe]

I use a pretty mouse heavy hotkey setup, maybe there’s some ideas in it for you:

* use mouse wheel for a lot of things, e.g.

I use wheel down for creating gold units and wheel up for trash units in all military buildings, similarly for creating siege and vills

* Use middle button for idle vill hotkey

* Other people also like using gaming mice with extra buttons.

You can use the extra buttons or the wheel tilt function for extra hotkeys

* (this is maybe a little hardcore, but I’m into it) I use foot switches for shift control and alt.

That way I can use these modifiers without actually using the left hand at all

In any case, don’t sweat it too much.

Any given player playing with mouse only will probably only lose what, 200-300 elo?

I know some pros did no-keyboard challenges and still won against extremely good players.

[sheppo42]

Hey mate I use a Razer Naga which has 12 buttons on the side.

I use each of them as go-to-*building*.

It fits everything except the dock (and TC because the rhythm of tapping HAHA helps remember and reduce idle time or I group them).

Plus scroll up as idle-vill, scroll down idle-military, scroll click as go-to-notification and the button behind the wheel as G for garrison.

I’m not sure how much you can do with your left hand at all, but with my setup the hand doesn’t need to move much it’s just resting fingers on asd and shift.

The razer also means that you can assign any key/mouse button (I’ve got razer keyboard as well) to activate hypershift which then doubles the amount of actions you can use your mouse alone to 40.

I’ve experimented with making the hypershift buttons on the side select groups but find it hard to micro using it.

I use the keyboard to build but maybe for you I would recommend trying hypershift assigning the same go-to-*building* as build-*building* when you select a villager.

Obviously this is all only relevant if you try the mouse out.

I can’t think of anything that would improve how much you could do with only a mouse more though.

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