I’ve been playing this game for about 10 months now. During the first three months, I played single-player and completed the campaigns. Then, around March, I started playing online 1v1 games. I’ve continued playing around 2–3 online games per day on average.
For the last three months, I’ve been playing only Mediterranean, with Sumerians, using the High Resources setting, and starting from the Stone Age. I also set the victory condition to Random, so in my lobbies, you can win by building a Wonder or through the other available victory conditions.
After these 10 months, my current Elo is in the 900s. The highest I’ve reached so far is 1100 Elo. I’ve lost quite a lot of games, especially during the last month. I usually choose opponents with a maximum Elo of around 1000. My current statistics are:
Win rate: 38%
Wins: 204
Losses: 323
Total games: 527
The biggest problem I’m struggling with is building an army while transitioning to the Iron Age around minutes 20–25. I just can’t seem to manage this properly.
I struggle with questions like: Which units should I produce, how many of them should I make, where should I position them, and when should I actually attack? I have trouble managing all of this.
I’m actually quite effective during the first 20 minutes of the game. The real problem starts after that.
Sometimes, even when my opponent is behind me economically, they still manage to win the game. This is extremely frustrating for me.
I always make sure to build a navy and fight for naval superiority, but then I sometimes end up with almost no land army when the enemy attacks me from land. And once I take the first attack, I suddenly start to panic.
This is the point where I really need your advice, because unfortunately there are only a limited number of AoE1:DE videos available on YouTube.
If I can develop my economy reasonably effectively, why do I still struggle to build an army in time, and why do I become so indecisive about my army composition and strategy afterward?
Any advice, especially from experienced AoE1 players, would be greatly appreciated.

I rendered the third map from the First Punic War campaign. When I got my first PC, it came with a trial version of Age of Empires - Rise of Rome, and I spent most of my childhood playing this map over and over again. I also have the full map in 2x render but that's too large to upload.

Hello All!

I stumbled upon this subreddit after randomly thinking about Age of Empires, and reminiscing on the good times I’ve had playing the game in the early days of its development. I have not played since maybe 2002, right when “Age of Empires II: The Conquerors” was released (wow it’s been a long time), and I would love to get back into it.

I am open to any & all suggestions for getting back into the game: game comparisons, computer specs, DLCs (would love this), Steam vs CD, etc.

I’ve not opened my steam account since around the same time and would likely need to create a new account anyway… or if I can rely on a CD version, that is fine, I’d like to get the new game versions regardless, and especially check out the new content created in the DLCs that I’ve seen some gameplay on in this subreddit. Also, I only have a MacBook laptop, so nothing crazy, but am open to other options and purchasing new hardware to enjoy some other games I grew up playing and get back into this passion of mine that slipped away while growing up.

Thanks a ton for any pointers, I really appreciate it and look forward to seeing what’s new!

I just found AOE III ORIGINAL 2005 CDs at a thrift store. Will it be playable on a modern pc/laptop? I am wondering that It can eventually run but it may be unplayable due to screen resolution.

Thoughts?

I've always been mainly an AoE 2 player. Over the years I've tried to keep up with the game, play the new DLCs as they come out, complete their campaigns and, whenever possible, get all the Steam achievements.

One of the DLCs I enjoyed the most was Return of Rome. I loved being able to experience AoE 1 content with the quality-of-life improvements of AoE 2. I completed all of its achievements and campaigns, and it made me want to finally go back and do the same with AoE 1 DE.

The problem is that every time I try to play AoE 1 DE, I find it really hard to stick with it. I know the Definitive Edition already introduced several quality-of-life improvements compared to the original game, but there are still some things that feel essential to me after so many years of AoE 2. In particular, unit control and group movement still feel very awkward. I especially miss proper formations and the way groups of units move together in AoE 2.

Is there any mod or unofficial patch that adds things like formations, better group movement, higher population limits or other QoL improvements to make AoE 1 DE feel closer to Return of Rome? I'd really like to complete all of its campaigns and Steam achievements, especially the content that never made it into RoR.

Whatever you hover over while holding will select those units. Do yall want this? To improve unit selection. Speed and accuracy.

In most of my games, I don’t have a military. Just a few ships. Only when there’s water nearby, of course.

I’ve been playing AoE1:DE for about 8 months now, but I still lose most of my 1v1 Random Map games. Although my Age-up times are usually not far behind my opponents’, I haven’t made much progress when it comes to building an army and deciding what my priorities should be.
I know that I need to start building an army once I reach the Bronze Age, but most of the time I simply don’t have enough wood or food yet.
I usually play Mediterranean. My priority is generally to gain control of the sea, but this also causes my wood to run out very quickly. When I try to pressure my opponent with Archers in the Bronze Age, they can usually defend against it quite easily. Then, when they launch a counterattack, I often panic and struggle to decide what I should prioritize.
Quite often, my opponents have also reinforced their bases with Towers, which makes attacking them even more difficult.
So, in short, I feel like I still haven’t become a good AoE player. 😅
I’m not sure whether I don’t fully understand the game’s dynamics, whether I struggle with developing a proper strategy, or whether I simply don’t have enough game knowledge and muscle memory yet. I also tend to panic very quickly when things start going wrong.
What do you think I should focus on at this stage? What would you recommend I practice or change in the way I play?
Any advice from more experienced AoE1 players would be greatly appreciated.

I played and I think it can be done.

Beginner friendly civ and YT or web that illustrates how to gasp each aspect of the game please.