Quick Civ Information for Beginners
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If you’re new to the game, it’s important to learn about the different civilizations (CIVs) and how they can be played and countered.
However, it can be challenging to gather all this information in a short amount of time before the game starts.
There are several resources available online to learn about CIVs, but they are scattered and not easily accessible during the game.
To address this, you could create a simple spreadsheet with all the relevant information, such as basic CIV characteristics, preferable openings, best played with certain strategies (e.g., m@a, drush), and recommended unit compositions.
This would provide you with a quick reference guide during the game to help you react to your opponent’s moves and make informed decisions.
If you don’t have the experience to create this spreadsheet yourself, you could enlist the help of more experienced players.
Additionally, you could consider adding other parameters and information to the datasheet, such as recommended build orders, ideal map types for each CIV, and popular counter strategies.
Do you know if any similar resources exist?
What other information would you add to the datasheet for each CIV?
I would say “That’s too much!” But I am a nolife (I posted this before but I copied it here and a lot of edited things).
Any civ without any preferred opening listed can do any opening.
All the things you want are in the descriptions for each civ.
Also there’s no way to shorten the list, trust me I tried.
Lastly this is how to counter and use them
AZTECS: Expect lots of aggression, they have a very bad late game, and a weakness against cavalry and gunpowder can also do well though it doesn’t work alone.
Preferred:drush or maa
BENGALIS: A civ that lives and dies with its eco, strike at their eco and make use of their lack of good mobile options, make sure to raid in because their deathball is strong.
BERBERS: They have no military bonuses except in castle age and beyond so attack them early and watch out for camels or knights.
Preferred: Scouts->Knights
BOHEMIANS: Similarly bengalis they win in post imp with a houfnice, halb and hand cannon deathball, using your own bombard cannons and skirms can work to deal with their deathball but to fully stop it raid with hussars or in castle age.
Preferred: Archers
BRITONS: Longbows in the late game are very problematic so try to win early fights.
If you can’t kill them fast then try to use skirms, scorpions and rams, rams can soak up fire if your opponent doesn’t use micro, or they can protect skirms by giving them a place to garrison.
Preferred:Archers (however they can scrush well too)
BULGARIANS: They lack any early eco bonus so they must be crushed before they can use their konnicks or bargains swordsmen.
Just be careful of the switch into 2hs.
Preferred: maa
BURGUNDIANS: Their eco can spiral out of control so attack early.
If they survive then watch for their early cavalry upgrades and their +4 attack hand cannons.
It’s hard to stop them late in the game.
Preferred: scouts or fc
BURMESE: They’re weak to archers because of lacking the second archer armor upgrade for their skirms.
Halbs can work but are countered by their champions or arambai so they aren’t always effective.
Halb arb is the best counter.
Preferred: Not archers
BYZANTINES: Haven’t faced them much but what I do know is that your turtling and booming should be better than their turtle+boom because of them lacking an eco bonus, also don’t open archers vs them, cheap skirms are much stronger than cheaper spears.
Preferred: Anything but doesn’t have to stick to it
CELTS: All in strategies aren’t uncommon for celts so be ready for one.
Celts can drush and go for an all in siege push so watch for those and don’t panic.
Preferred: Hoang
CHINESE: They do anything pretty well so don’t think they’ll stick to any kind of unit, it’s cheaper for them to tech switch than it is for you.
CUMANS: There are 2 ways to play them.
Either boom with an extra tc (arena best for this) or full aggression with extra stables and archery ranges.
Scouting is key and make sure to deny any extra TCS they might make you can never know which strat the cuman player is using.
Preferred: Not infantry
DRAVIDIANS: Never played against them, though their tech tree lacks good cavalry so siege is difficult to defeat as them, their late game can be overwhelming so try to stop them from getting wootz steel urumis.
Preferred: maa
ETHOPIANS: Expect an archer rush, but don’t forget their shotel warriors or exceptional siege, just like other civs they have options and aren’t a 1 trick pony.
Preferred: Archers or maa occasionally
FRANKS: THIS is a 1 trick pony, scouts into knights is extremely common for them, they lack amazing options aside from cavalry, so exploit that.
Frank players love castles so have units patrol around to spot their castle early.
Preferred: scouts or castle drops
GOTHS: Goths lack any eco bonuses.
Also a good goth player goes for a drush into fc and hopes it works so try to counter it.
A bad Goths player is easy to beat.
Don’t think the late game is lost immediately vs goths, hand cannons and your own infantry can work well.
Preferred: drush/maa
GURJARAS: They’re broken so try to hope the enemy doesn’t know what a house is.
Ok but actually try to wall with monks, shawarma riders struggle vs most walls so they’ll stop them in their tracks.
Opening maa vs them can destroy their mill which you want to do EVERYGAME.
Preferred:Scouts
HINDUSTANIS: Another broken one!
I personally think they’re impossible to beat in the late game except in the super omega ultra “OMG WHERE’S THE GOLD!” late game.
I’d personally try to go for a forward siege workshop, but to be honest I don’t know how to beat them, archers are your best bet and never stick to only 1 unit.
Preferred:Scouts
HUNS: They have good knights and good cav archers so spamming too many pikes will just end in them dying to cav archers.
Preferred: Scouts or Archers
INCAS: Another civ that is supposed to counter everything.
They lack outstanding trash so try to survive to the trash wars and their lack of good trash will show.
Preferred: Maa
ITALIANS: Despite being a naval/archer/gunpowder civ, they have many options and counters.
Try to attack fast to stop their genoese death ball.
JAPANESE: Haven’t fought them.
But from what I know they’re a versatile civ with good arbelests, and infantry.
Preferred: Archers
KHMER: Khmer players come in 2 breeds, the fc into knights player whose countered by rushing and stone walls or the scouts player who loses to scouts+spears.
Just ready your redemption monke and bombard cannons in imperial age for their deathball.
Preferred: FC or Scouts
KOREANS: Towers rushers love them so mine some stone to build counter towers to contain the rush.
They however have a good archer rush/skirmisher turtle with their 2 archer bonuses.
Opening archers vs them isn’t recommended.
They lack good cavalry so exploit that but watch out for their arbelests and long range onagers.
Preferred: Archers or towers
LITHUANIANS: They love scout rushing so prepare walls or spears early.
After their scout rush finishes try to deny as many relics as possible, if you deny all of them their lack of blast furnace hurts a lot.
They also have good trash but bad halbs.
Preferred: Scouts or Instant drush
MAGYARS: Another scout rushing civ.
They rely on aggression to make up for their lack of an eco bonus, also again don’t spam pikes, they have amazing cavalry archers.
They have a relatively weak castle age so pushing then or fast imping is key.
Preferred: Scouts
MALAY: They have access to an amazing elephant push so if possible use monks or pikes.
However they do have great arbs and goldless 2hs plus FU halbs, they’re not just elephant rushers.
Make sure to exploit their lack of mobility.
Preferred: FC or archers
MALIANS: Malians have extra pierce armor on infantry so spamming archers is much less effective so knights can be better.
Watch out for farimba cavaliers.
Malians are able to switch units similarly to chinese so try to catch their tech switching.
Preferred: maa
MAYANS: This meso civ is the best.
Also they’re weak to mangos because of no cavalry or redemption and remember that they have great eagles and archers.
Preferred: Archers
MONGOLS: This scout rushing civ forces you to wall early and it also has an incredible late game but no castle age eco bonuses so you should try to destroy them in castle age.
Preferred: Speedy scouts or archers
PERSIANS: Deny the tc drop by placing palisades around your tc.
Make military when you have enough for it.
Also never engage their tc in a fight, just keep making vills from yours and destroy your farms so they don’t steal them.
Preferred: Tc drop or anything
POLES: Their bonuses can spiral out of control so prevent their eco from becoming too powerful otherwise you will die.
Preferred: scouts or fc
PORTUGUESE: They can scout rush extremely early or go for a good archer rush so watch for those.
In the late game counter organ guns with other siege and try to avoid the late game or you might lose.
SARACENS: By selling stone they can get a very good castle age time.
Make sure to watch for their options, good archers, infantry, camels, siege.
SICILIANS: There are 2 Sicilians players, the donjon rusher and the scouts into knights guy.
Both aren’t great but against the donjon rush act like it’s a normal tower rush, and against scouts they’re pretty generic.
They have a big weakness to tower rushing though thanks to the donjon’s price.
Also if they reach castle age a little faster they can get a tc down much faster than you can while needing less wood for farms.
Preferred: Scouts or donjons
SLAVS: Again their eco can spiral out of control, though not as much as other civs.
Watch out for their cheap castles and boyar spam though they hsve an otherwise underwhelming lategame.
Preferred: scouts and siege
SPANISH: They’re best on nomad thanks to the building bonus, otherwise Spanish aren’t great on Arabia and should be defeated asap before they use conqs.
Preferred: FC
TATARS: They’re strong in the late game and castle age so fight early.
Make sure to manipulate their bad infantry.
Preferred: Archers
TEUTONS: Their cavalry is extremely good thanks to the armor and it’s resistant to conversion.
They lack good early bonuses and their archers aren’t great so pikes are still good.
Aggression and pikes/monks are good and their bad trash is easily exploitable.
Preferred: scouts and booming
TURKS: Never played against them but you should be aware of their options (sipahi, +1 p on light cav) and early gunpowder access (free chem).
VIETNAMESE: They can easily lame you so scout your front first.
After that expect archers.
In imperial age they’ll use lots of arbs, skirms and siege or still good but for an archer civ they have great cavalry so beware of that.
Preferred: Archers
VIKINGS: Last civ.
Watch out for their eco bonuses, they’re the best in the game.
Otherwise their only good late game option is the berserk or chamos so if you can counter them you win.
Preferred: Not scouts or drush
What I did was to copy each civ’s unit rankings from [survivalist’s app](https://aoe2-de-tools.herokuapp.com/civ-ranking/) and write them each on their own page.
Then I also added the ideal unit comps provided by Hera in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88CbKXXHyRQ) (mainly for TGs on closed maps) and also [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C6tQOW0MbE) (ideal comp for most other cases.) That way I know what my strongest theoretical comp looks like, and also what other units are passable in case I have to improvise.
The best way to know your opponent’s civ strengths is to have played that civ yourself.
So I would recommend just playing through different civs as much as possible so you can learn each of their strengths and weaknesses firsthand.
After doing that for a while you’ll find it much easier to predict what your opponent might try to do.
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