[Anonymous Player]

At my current skill level, I think it would be best to focus on mastering a few civilizations that have strong early game bonuses and fast raiding units.

This way, I can capitalize on my strength in the Feudal and early Castle Age and try to win the game before I get to the Imperial Age, where I am not as strong.

I could look at civilizations like Malay, Mongols, Inca, Ethiopians, or Mayans to get the most out of my current skill level.

[Parrotparser7]

This first paragraph will answer you, and the rest is just for anyone else trying to pick a civ:

Based on what you’ve told us, I’d recommend the Saracens.

They have a flexible economy at all stages of the game, good archers, multiple ways to counter siege, good tools to defend your anti-siege, dive potential, and a wide tech tree overall.

They’re good on just about any map, and you can easily adjust for macro failures via your market.

You might also look at the Portuguese.

*

I’d recommend using civs primarily to enhance a strength of yours, or to access an option you can take advantage of.

If you want to learn the game, you should choose civs with open tech trees (Chinese, Berbers, Saracens, Tatars, Magyars.) to start with, and learn the place of each unit in the meta.

Get comfortable with using them and switching through techs.

Choosing a civ comes mainly down to sacrificing options to gain a strength.

Imagine you had access to every unit and tech (save the Paladin, Bombard Cannon, and regional units), which would you be willing to discard in exchange for an economy or military bonus, or one of the excluded units?

Which sort of bonus would you want in exchange?

That should help you figure out which civ you want to play as.

If you want to be a decent all-rounder, I’d recommend the Burmese, Chinese, Tatars, Magyars, Malians, and Saracens.

If you want to take efficient trades via counter options, you have Italians, Berbers, Bohemians, Gurjaras, Incas, and Hindustanis.

If you want to use brute force as a strength, you have Huns, Goths, Mongols, Malays, Mayans, Slavs, and Turks.

Going through the specialties is a bit much for this post, and taking advantage of a civ’s specialty unit type (Briton archers) may often involve using a side unit to either cover for them, or to make the right circumstances for their use. (Portuguese Organ Guns when your archers are being repelled by skirmishers and/or cavalry.

Burmese monks after getting your enemy to tech into siege or monks.)

Check out Spirit of the Law to get an idea which civs have what you’re looking for.

[TevecQ]

Find something you like

[TheConqueror753]

Wait, you don’t pick Khmer because of all the elephant and scorp stuff you can do with them?

[the_juice_is_zeus]

Basically do what you’re doing.

Pick a playstyle that’s fun for you, then a civ that does it well.

If you like feudal aggression and early castle age spikes, then look for that.

I’m too much of a noob to tell you which civ to pick but if it really comes down to it, you can just pick the one with the higher win rate.

Or pick two civs – one for open maps and one that’s better when Arena comes up.

[wiseakbar]

I agree with the archers rush theory.

I am currently in 800 Elo range.

And have first hand seen easy wins/ loses if archers are rushed.

I don’t know why that is.

I hope I can learn and capitalize on that.

If you mix archers with spearman.

It’s like one of the best combinations, below 1000 elo, for an early rush.

[M-dizzle18]

I play mostly on xbox controller ~1200 ELO 1v1 and ~1150 ELO team games.

My main CIV is bulgarian.

You can count on me to try to hit you in feud age and finish the game by castle.

Bulgarians get their militia upgrades for free so as you age they will immediately be promoted.

My strategy is to overwhelm you with military volume ASAP.

I usually infantry spam and if I get to late game I add a calvary unit.

In late game you must prioritize slowing down their economy, try to focus on killing villagers and markets over Castles.

This is where my late game calvary help, killing villagers and flanking seige or archers.

My infantry are always qued and pretty much collateral, throw in a few trebs/rams for walls and castles.

[karma_is_a_spook]

Same but I haven’t played age of empires since the last expansion came out

[6_Won]

Be an adult.

Play random.

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