What is the Best Civilization for a Beginner?
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Hello everyone!
I just started playing Age of Empires 2, and it’s an amazing game.
I’m a beginner, so I’m not sure which civilization would be best for me.
I’ve tried the Goths, and it seems like a good fit.
Could anyone give me some advice about civilizations that are perfect for new players, like archer, infantry, and cavalry civilizations?
My go-to infantry civ will always be Goths.
You get a hunting bonus for early game and cheaper infantry throughout.
While Franks were historically (for the game’s lifetime) the leading cavalry civ, only contested by Huns, I personally prefer the Burgundians because of three key bonuses: all economic upgrades are available one age early, cavalier upgrade in castle age, and their passive income from farms and relics.
However, the Polish are also a good option to consider because their Hussars can do trample damage with the castle upgrade, and the Folwarks can impressively scale up your food production.
For archers, you have a pretty nice range to pick from.
As Mongols or Cumans, you can double down on cavalry archers supported by hussars.
For foot archers, Mayans have a head start because their Plumed Archers are a delight to watch when combined with eagle warriors.
Alternatively, the Ethiopian archers fire 18% faster, and their siege do a lot of blast damage.
If you are really new I recommend a cav civ like berbers and just make lots of discount cavalier.
btw, things you wanna haved experienced in this game at some point in your AoE2 career:
1.
Mongol Drill Siege Ram and Siege Onager!
2.Torsion Engine Siege in general, in particular flattening mass Archers with Siege Onagers
3.Goth Spam and ripping through Archers with Huskarls
4.Steppe Lancers
5.ripping through infantry with Cataphracts
6.Mangudai Deathball with almost 0 Frame Delay.
Honorable mentions: Kipchaks, Longboats
7.Winged Hussars spam, or Magyar Huszar Spam
8.Early Castle Age Conquistadors or Organ Guns
9.ripping through any sort of Cavalry with either Mamelukes or Genoese Crossbows
10.Huns
11.Flemish Revolution
12.mass killing land units with Demolition Ships
13.Steppe Lancers
14.Mass Longbowmen
15.Cuman Feudal Boom
16.dodging projectiles with Shrivmsha Riders
17.Poles or Khmer food eco
18.Houfnice
I agree with the comments about just finding a civ that works for you, which gives you flexibility to pick up more civilisations in the future.
I also think it’s good to avoid civs which basically give you a crutch because their eco or civ bonuses are just so strong.
Personally I started with a bunch of different civs (Byzantines, Britons, Khmer), but when I really started improving was when I mained Turks for a while (on Arabia).
The reason I think Turks helped me is because:
1.
Their eco bonus is good, but not amazing.
So it won’t mean you fall super behind good eco civs, but it also won’t be a crutch for you going forward.
2.Their lack of pikeman and elite skirm forced me out of the “noob trap” of just going for trash units which hard-counter whatever the opponent is making.
It’s not that you should never make trash, but it’s easy to get too caught up with the counter system when you’re starting out, rather than planning to make a powerful army, and sticking to that plan.
3.Their broad tech tree lets you try out different unit compositions and the transitions between them tend to be quite smooth.
I would say Turks have a decent chance to win against any civ except Gurjaras, so when you lose, you can’t just blame the civ matchup – it’s always a learning experience!
4.They are also quite strong throughout all stages of the game except for late imp, so you can try going heavy feudal age or castle age if you don’t want to face the late game from your opponent.
Britons, byzantines or franks would make for great starter civs imo.
Magyars.
No reason at all but they’re one of my favs.
Good cavalry
Depends a lot what your goals are.
When I played as a kid I just did Spanish because I liked their unique unit.
And that’s fine.
Not ideal if you want to climb the ranked ladder, but just fine if that’s what you want.
I get the sense you want to play on the ranked ladder and try to get better at the game.
If so, you’ll probably want to get better at a variety of civs, and it doesn’t matter too much which you start with because you’ll end up learning something about most/all of them eventually.
Not that you can’t pick a few civs to start like the ones recommended in this thread.
But you probably don’t need to stress too much about it either.
Something very important about aoe2 civ design is that for the most part all civs share the same basic tech tree.
So although Celts are an infantry/siege civ, you can and will see them build knights…and even paladin occasionally (famous game from Hidden Cup 3).
Cavalier aren’t the default choice for Portuguese on arena, who prefer their all in castle drop into unique unit.
But recently a pro game turned on a switch to Portuguese cavalier in the late game.
So although civs do have comparatively stronger and weaker unit lines, it’s not set in stone.
To learn the game, your civ pick is probably less important (at least at the beginning) than getting a solid foundation in learning hotkeys, continually producing villagers, and spending your resources either to expand your economy or produce military, getting your upgrades, learning build orders, and more basic things like that.
YMMV.
Have fun! 🙂
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tl;dr Franks
Long version is a bit what /u/csgonemes1s said, although different in details: Most civs are fine, avoid a few.
Do not pick Chinese and check the technology tree that your chosen civ has access to knights (from the stable in castle age) and crossbows (upgrade from archers in the archery range in castle age).
Both present and still not Chinese?
Take them! (I personally don’t think the Malay timing is anywhere near important if you don’t follow any build order anyway)
Best civ are the ones you like playing.
I like Mongols because of good scouting, fast siege and great unique unit.
Mangudai do recuire a lot of upgrades.
Ballistics, thumbring, bloodlines, husbandry, elite, bracer, armour and Parthian tactics.
Which means you need both stable and archery range.
Mangudai and hussar is a good combo and generally trades well vs most compositions.
Magyars (at leat I have fun with them).
No eco bonus so you can play any generic build order without generating bad habits, the +1 attack is helpful because it’s usable for scouts (probably your first play) / MaA and you can go knights/archers/CA because you have FU.Also they don’t lack halbs.
I like them because you can train nearly any starting BO.
Also your opponents will expect scouts on low elo, so going archers can be nice 😀
Britons = archers, goth = infantry (huskarls), Magyar or berbers = cav.
Britons have long range archers and cheap town centers and a Bonussen gathering food from sheep.
Therefore you get strong archers and good economy.
Goth are a strong infantry civ, they get cheap Champions and they have the huskarls which they can train very fast and use to overrun the opponent.
Also they can produce 10 more units than the actual limit.
Alternatives might be Japanese (they have an infantry unique unit and infantry bonuses) and the Bulgarians (great for early men at arms rush as they get the upgrade for free).
Magyars are simply a straight forward knights civ.
They get the attack upgrade for free which is really nice.
Other than that there is not much to think about, so they are strong but also easy to play.
Berbers can spam knights cuz they get a discount, with solid economy you can build 3 stables in castle age and train lots of knights. (By the way an alternative „horse riding“ civ would be Mongols.
They have steppe lancers and mangudai, a powerful cav archer Unit.)
The problems with franks is that even new players might know they are a knight civ.
So they might be well prepared and try to make counter units such as the spearmen line.
And with franks you have no other option than playing knights if you are a beginner.
Yes you can try to train counter units, especially axe throwers, but in reality beginners don’t do that.
They continue making knights and then struggle and lose.
Also Frankish knights are not the strongest.
In actual matches Magyars are better cuz of the free attack upgrade.
And Berbers simply can overrun.
Unpopular Opinion: Chinese.
Most say Chinese is the worst Civ for a beginner I’m here to explain why that’s not the case.
They say it’s the worst because it has a unique start and even good players 1k4 don’t get the real value from the extra vills.
Which is true.
It’s hard to get the real value of the 6 villager start but there are many reasons this should be your first Civ.
1) You will get to know every unit but Bombard Cannons, and Redemption Monks.
2) Getting Loom first means you can safely lure in boars later.
3) You can expect your opponent to have about the same Idle time as you anyway so you actually do get extra vils.
4) Helps improve your eAPM as you have a lot to do early.
5) You cannot rely on 1 over powering unit.
IMO stick to civs without weird timings, like Chinese or Malay, with solid crossbows or knights in castle age.
Huns are very fun to play, but they don’t build houses, so they won’t teach you important part of the game.
IMO Franks, Britons, Poles, Ethiopians or Sicilians will let you learn without pushing you into bad habits.
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