The Ages.
In order to successfully progress through the ages in AOE, then you should read these strategies.
- With the default settings, you should start out with three villagers and one town center. Have one villager build a house and the other two villagers search for berry patches in opposite directions. Train one more villager and have him chop down the closest tree.
- Your highest priority is to find a food source. This first food source MUST be berry patches. Build a granery very close to the berries once you find them.
- Once you find this food source, search for a forest of trees. Be sure to keep up with the houses and put 2 or 3 villagers to work chopping down trees close to the town center. Once you have enough wood and find a large forest, build a storage pit. If you can, place the storage pit strategically so that it is also near gold mines, stone mines, elephants, or shore fish. You can collect those resources without traveling long distances or building an additional storage pit. Your resources early on should be conserved!!
- Put 4 to 6 villagers on wood when you build the storage pit next to the trees. If that storage pit is also close to stone, put one villager on stone. You can add another in right before you upgrade to Tool Age.
- If your first food source of berries seems to be running out, find a second food source if you havn't already found one. Preferably, stick with berries for this second food source, but if there aren't berries close by, you can hunt elephants or go fishing for additional food.
- Before upgrading to Tool Age, you should have at least 16 villagers. I recommend 16 villagers if the unit limit is 50; 18 villagers the limit is 100; 20-22 for limit of 200.
- Once you start upgrading to Tool Age, build your barracks. DON'T BUILD ANY CLUBMEN!!! THEY ARE ONLY A LITTLE STONGER THAN VILLAGERS AND THEY'LL WASTE YOUR RESOURCES.
- After the Tool Age upgrade is done, research towers and walls in the granary. If you have enough stone for one tower but not two, build one near your wood-cutting villagers. Spend the remaining stone on walls or save it until you have 150 stone again and build another tower. Be sure these towers guard your villagers.
- Build your market next and start building farms if you're running out of other means of obtaining food. Build an archery range at roughly the same time if you have the wood.
- Now, you have two choices : You can either rush for your opponent or you can cruise to the Bronze Age.
- I recommend that you try to cruise directly to the Bronze Age unless it's utmostly important that you conquer your opponent early (like if you're playing the tribe Shang.)
Choice 1 : Cruising to the Bronze Age.
- Train no more than three archers with your archery range. Use them on defense. If your villagers happen to be attacked and the attackers cannot be hit by towers, then use these archers to lure the attackers.
- Keep collecting resources but don't overdo villagers.
- If your enemy sends in a devestating attack that you have no chance of fending off, then RUN!! Move all your villagers away to a region that's kinda far from your first base and build a storage pit near some trees. Keep collecting wood and rebuild any buildings you lost. You're in luck unless your enemy attacks with upgraded scouts. Usually, this devastating tool rush attack will arrive when you already spent the 800 food on the Bronze Age upgrade and you're almost there. Most likely, your enemy will search in vain and then start attacking your buildings. Once you have enough resources and you're at the Bronze Age, go for Bronze Age units. Hoplites and calvary are prefered if you have the gold. Otherwise, try going for the wheel upgrade and build the chariots and chariot archers. It's party time now!! The enemy might not have even started the Bronze Age upgrade since he spent all his resources on Tool Rushing. Your Bronze Age units will crush his Tool Age units.
Choice 2 : Tool Rushing.
- Build a stables and build one or two scouts and no more. If your enemy has bowmen or axemen, kill them with bowmen and axemen you make. Be sure to get the axemen upgrade.
- If you're sure the enemy has no bowmen, axemen, walls, or towers, then keep building scouts!! Be sure you have the first calvary upgrade!! Villagers cannot take out scouts easily with it. It'll be pretty difficult for your enemy to run away unless they run in multiple directions since scouts are fast and have a wide range of vision.
- If you are cruising to the Bronze Age and weren't attacked, then start collecting gold. Build a storage pit near some gold if you havn't already. Put one or two villagers on the gold. You should do all this right before you hit the button to upgrade to the Bronze Age.
- The Bronze Age is when you should start concentrating on your military. Be sure you diversify your military and don't depend on one class of unit (calvary, archers, siege weapons, etc.) or worse, one type of unit.
- Calvary crushes archers and siege weapons; archers crush infantry and villagers; infantry crushes calvary and (sometimes) towers; siege weapons crush archers and towers; priests crush infantry and (sometimes) siege weapons.
- Once the Bronze Age upgrade is completed, go for the wheel research in the market. This will make your villagers faster and allow you to build chariots and chariot archers. If you don't want to save up your gold, then build calvary and improved/composite bowmen instead. But keep in mind that you need 1000 food and 800 gold for the Iron Age upgrade.
- Remember to upgrade your units!! I highly recommend the wood-working and artisanship upgrades in the market and the tool-working/metal-working upgrades in the storage pit. Do one farm upgrade if you have the excessive resources.
- Don't do the Iron Age upgrade too early or too late. Finding the right time can be hard; I can't even really find the right time. If you go too early, you'll get crushed by the Bronze Age units that you didn't have enough resources to build. If you go too late, your Bronze Age units are already obsolete compared with upgraded Iron Age units (like Centurians, Helepolis, Cataphrats, etc.)
- If your tribe's tech tree includes Elephants, then build them!! They're strong early in the Iron Age, but once people get upgraded priests, Helepolis, and Centurions, the Elephans are just a piece of cake.
- Super Upgrades :
Centurion. Costs :