[Anonymous Player]

Greetings everyone!

I recently started playing Age of Empires II Definitive Edition on Xbox and I’m trying to sharpen my skills.

I’d be grateful if anyone could provide me with any advanced tips that could help me become more aggressive in the early game or defend against enemy pushes better.

Any advice that could be considered game changing would be greatly appreciated.

I also have a few questions if anyone can help:

1) What should I do to counter or defend against a large group of elephants?

I’ve tried using pikemen, but they still get steamrolled.

2) How many trade carts should I have in a match?

Is it better to have a few over long distances or a lot of them over a shorter distance?

Does it depend on the number of players in a match (2v2, 3v3, 4v4)?

3) I have been able to get my villager count to 70, but I’m still about 30 shy of the recommended minimum of 100.

I’m having difficulty balancing between booming and defending.

I apologize for asking so many questions.

I just wanted to get as much information out there as I can.

Thank you in advance and have a great day!

[Hjoerleif]

1.

Monks are always the most effective vs elephants but note that you can only convert with one monk at a time so it’s micro intensive and particularly difficult with controller
2.

You shouldn’t start trade until the gold on the ground is gone or almost gone.

Once you start trading, make as many as you can without hindering your other doings (military production/population etc).

Make sure to build your market as far away from ally market as possible, preferrably on each opposite side of the map
3.

Select all idle villagers hotkey is your best friend.

Make sure you put all TC’s gather points onto wood and then balance vils from wood onto other resources.

Make sure to spend resources.

Use market if you have to, to even out floating resources.

[ConsoleEmpires](https://www.youtube.com/@consoleempires) is a good guide for aoe2 xbox players on youtube

[Executioneer]

If you are playing with a controller, I cant really give you much advice on some of the most important things like hotkeys, and apm improvement, as Im really unfamiliar with console aoe gameplay/game experience.

However, I can answer your questions.

1) assuming it is battle eles you are talking about.

monks if you can manage the micro.

apart from that, spam MORE halbs/pikes, maybe mix in some onagers/siege onagers, while your pikes act as meat shield.

until they exhaust their gold.

or dont let your opp mass eles, thats the best strat.

2) Depends^^TM on your army comp.

That up for you to balance.

For a more gold heavy army to maintain, you’d need more carts / Long distance rules.

the longer the distance, the more gold the carts carry.

so the meta is to set up markets in corners so carts go the longest distance possible. / player count doesnt affect trade gold.

map size does (larger map=more distance=more gold).

EDIT: dont start trade until theres gold on the map.

Mining is always superior to trade.

3) Where is the question?

Yep, ideally your villager count should be 50-70% of your max pop depending on what stage your game is in (so in a standard 200 pop game, around 110ish).

Managing your eco is just something you have to get good at.

Some resources you might find useful:

[Survivalist’s How to Improve series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG255lCtNdM&list=PLQ8BgSJQQkY3VRQMZ3mJAhdWn9YLum8k6) and [knowledge dump](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89b4QzHmYEo&list=PLQ8BgSJQQkY3XiYdhsAp1tcPAAJob9CJb&index=1)

Viper’s tips and tricks [1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IHedKtcSW4), [2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDMwFkKEkz4)

[Hera’s guide to 2k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zPzvO3YApg&list=PL2FJAAVz1Mesv2RCswq15NSAq0186hm9_)

Welcome in the age community!

[the_juice_is_zeus]

Well I’m a console player, but I’m a noob so take it with a grain of salt.

As a controller player, you really do have to use auto-eco and auto-farms after ~12 vills.

It’s just too hard to micro them all without it.

Practice with it and use the advanced settings.

Learn to use control groups.

You do this by selecting units ( or buildings – more on this in a sec), holding LB and putting your selecting in one of the 8 slots.

This is useful for putting your scout as a control group early on once you start making military units.

More importantly with the control groups – select all of ONE production building (or TCs) and set it to a control group.

This way, in the later game when you have 5+ stables and you want them all to make knights, all you have to do is select that control group and hit Y and all 5 buildings will queue up their Y unit.

For TCs it’s vills so that’s extremely useful for having 3 TCs on it, then queueing up all 3 to make vills without having to go to each TC individually.

It also doesn’t snap your screen so you can watch a fight and just keep an eye on your production queue in the top left corner of the screen.

You can track if you have vills being made or if you need to queue up a few.

Same thing with military buildings.

Watch the fight, see you have enough resources to make 4 gold units, select the control group with all those production buildings and press one button to queue them all.

In the early game, your attention will be on your auto-eco to make sure your vils are going where they should.

In the late game, your attention should be on your engagements, your resources bar, and your production queue.

Using control groups is the #1 controller tip I have.

Edit: usually my control groups are all my TCs for one, all my stables or ranges or whatever for another, and all my castles as a third.

Trebs are another especially useful one later on.

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