Age of Mythology Retold: A Guide On Effective Micro

[@sebastianheselaars4315]

IamMagic, I want to tell you something. For years you were a mythological household name I only came across from prehistoric videos. To have you around now and giving so many useful insights is absolutely wonderful. You are a major reason for me and my friends to play the game. Keep up the work and I just want you to know that you have a positive influence on many people

[@IamMagicAOM]

Thanks so much! It’s comments like these that really motivate me to push out videos, even after a hard day of work.. it’s the immense gratitude and positivity you guys showcase that really makes me go the extra mile, thank you again.

[@synxss]

And top comment as well, youve earned a special spot in the whole aom community, appreciate the work so much! Played AOM in the beginning days casually offline vs normal bots with even 10k ressources cuz I was a dumb kid and couldnt handle much more then only spamming myth units. Now im getting into rankeds, learning my micro and macro and now playing around 1.1k elo raising. Youve took me there. And this video also will improve me further, people like you are always a gem in any community!

[@surgeonsergio6839]

W glaze!!!

[@Shigglett]

Bro the music makes me feel like you are telling me the most heartfelt deeply emotional information I've ever heard

[@IamMagicAOM]

Haha

[@Pyromaniac77777]

Part 2 please, this is so helpful for beginners and experienced alike

[@Mathilde_Moksha_333]

Yes part 2 and part 3 please!! 😁😇

[@cpttunn5]

Yes!! Best AoM channel on KZbin, thanks so much for sharing your knowledge Magic! Hoping for more build orders and guides from you.

[@christiantoth9513]

I'm coming from aoe2 and even though I'm familiar with microing different kind of units, there's still so much to take away from this video because you're making the thought process clearer than anyone else did before. well done!

[@astrozombie8188]

I'm fairly new to AOM and truthfully, I have always been terrible at RTS. Its videos like this that help shed some light on why and how I can improve. Thank you so much for sharing your insight!

[@ProdigyDDK]

Another good and informative video, looking forward to watch it!

[@Readwandx]

A SWOT analysis while playing AOM?? Damn man you’re good. I’ll may never be as good as you, but your tutorials are damn amazing. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences. By the way, love the logo and intro

[@SergiuHellDragoonHQ]

I needed to see this! :) I always suck at micromanagement!

[@Drachnid]

Not sure what you changed on your mic, but it's peaking in this video, and it sounds much worse. Almost as if the gain was doubled or tripled. Also while I'm at it, maybe I'm alone in this, but I think these videos are better without the background music. Or you could make it AoM music? Hope I don't sound rude, thanks for the videos as always. I think it's cool you're looking at viewers games, and the new logo looks great. Edit: Looks like the video might have had some rendering issues, maybe that's why the mic is messed up too. For example @15:03. Speaking of which, timestamps would be useful too! :)

[@Guyy5878]

Definitely would prefer aom music

[@18runnerman]

this comment is spot on

[@sevenseven6123]

i agree i love his videos but this is the first one where he changed the voice, theres was no reason - his voice was always perfect and crystal clear. and not a fan of piano background music either, listening to you is interesting enough magic :-)

[@IamMagicAOM]

Thanks guys, feedback received. Something went wrong in this video not sure what exactly, I switched from adobe after effects to DaVinci for my editing software and I probably have something incorrectly turned on/off.. let me troubleshoot it and find out what went wrong. I spent almost 4 hours yesterday trying to figure it out haha, then it was getting late so I just posted what I had. Sorry again

[@18runnerman]

@@IamMagicAOM all good if u using obs jus make sure the mic volume isnt in the red at all yellow max

[@liamwilson7812]

I can't even tell you how much I appreciate you Magic. It's one thing to be a pro but to show the whole world how they can do it too is a whole other thing and you excel at it. I learn so much from watching your videos I've managed to sustain a solid winrate on controller lmao, even w crossplay enabled which I really didn't see coming at all. Can't wait to see how good I am once I plug in M&K, I know I haven't tried it since I was around 4-5 years old so the results are finna be in. Excited for what you're doing for this community, it's really really great stuff. Love you, man.

[@IamMagicAOM]

That’s awesome to hear man, also thanks for the kind words!

[@yungtubercolosis1073]

New logo looking crispy 😚 I also found select all cavalry hotkey very useful for raiding and surrounds. Very nice video

[@RoosSkywalker]

Part 2 definitely! I play the legacy version but I still learned a lot from this.

[@amadeusbender3417]

Part two would be great 👍. Thank you for this Video. Love your grafics and the intro

[@TheLucEOM]

Relly good content. Couldnt found a video like this one with my langue, thank you

[@xHarZxTeam]

Damn i was the one rushing your viewer ! Nice video

[@The_Toxotes]

Hey, IamMagic, I love your videos. I am learning so much, so fast, and I hope I can implement this knowledge into the game with more practice. I would love to see a part 2 of this video. Also, something I would like to see is, tips or strategies that are specific to ranked maps. Keep up the awesome work!

[@zahinrashid8418]

And here i was planning to play competitive with this level of illiteracy.... thanks a lot magic ❤️

[@AngelJimenez-yw5mp]

Class 101 on Micro, awesome tips IamMagic, thank you. I'll be on the lookout for part 2. Awesome new banner as well!

[@mikedugai870]

Great video, very helpful 😀 do recommend lowering music in background s bit to help with the mic being a little lower quality that you might want. But really excited to see more of your content!

[@maestro0798]

So fun fact, when you talk about swot analysis its actually derived from Sun Cu, Art of War. Which is a great circle from war strategy, to business, and back to war. ;)

[@IamMagicAOM]

Ohh I had no idea

[@papa_rao]

I m looking aom all over again after 20 years

[@dredge1334]

Thank you this has help me a lot ! I would like to see a part 2 on more insight from you Magic !

[@MrAbgeBrandt]

Hey Magic, great content as always! But I have a minor suggestion for your intro cinematics: You can use camera triggers (see for example Husksuppe's tutorial on a custom main menu screen where he uses them) to get really smooth camera movements, including turns, tilts and whatnot. Would really up your intro game! :D

[@IamMagicAOM]

Suppe just messaged me offering his help! What a nice guy he is, I’ll fix it up for the next one!

[@MrAbgeBrandt]

@@IamMagicAOM awesome :D

[@GoldenSkeeter]

Ty! Box formation can be useful when you have a manticore+army and you want to protect the manticore from a ball of hersirs coming in. Can also protect archers if youre expecting a surround.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Good point!

[@congogaming9915]

​@@IamMagicAOMi am totally new to game and i started playing it 10 days ago i have played age of empires in childhood but story mode now i started with my friends and by watching your details video i am literally dominating among them even i am able to do 1v2 with them i also looked forward to start rank and i played 5 matches and won 3 now i have rating of 1050 and trying my best i still lost 2 of them so i want to improve and become one like you so please try to make a proper basic to advance guide in which i can learn and many other players and try to vod review some pro matches so we can learn then pro and cons among them

[@danielvanderkruis6989]

great video. Very insightful. As an extra, maybe more advanced tip at around 12 minutes, when the cyclops is attacking your archers, you can click on 1 toxotes and move that one away from the cyclops so that it follows the toxotes and therefore can't attack. That way you can do damage without the cyclops hurting your archers while they attack the heroes.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Good tip!

[@UncleRico-bl2xo]

Another great video 👍 Part 2 would be much appreciated! Thank you for all this content

[@RyukDeathmatch]

I’d like to add: when orb walking/kiting with archers, it’s even stronger to not use attack move commands, but instead use attack commands to specifically target the lowest health units while you’re kiting backwards. This makes the effective DPS of the opponent’s army decrease for every kill you get, thus having a higher chance of winning the fight. Obviously this raises the risk of misclicks, but to reach that higher level of skill, it is something to keep in mind!

[@biowiener7825]

hey man, love your videos, i learn alot from them! just a little addition, in moba games and other rts that i know the "hit and run" from ranged units is called "kiting", "orb walking" would be the same in a circle which varies your angle and makes spells harder to hit (in mobas at least) while still maintaining the same ideal distance (like an orbit) to attack and not get hit back. i dont see the exact use for orb walking in aom yet, maybe to dodge a cyclops throw but thats hard with many units instead of a single one. most stuff is point and click and/or have big enough hitboxes to be hard to really dodge in a fight with multiple units while microing your other units to focus down stuff, while maintainting your eco etc. and just for fun: the triple tech mod makes medusas pretty insane and you can kite every army that you want if you have the micro, the higher the movement speed and the attack speed the more fluent it feels, basically moonwalking while shooting everthing in sight.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Thanks!!

[@Muhammed_Furkan_Yilmaz]

Great video, great tutorials, great logo and a great channel overall. I wish you become world champion for aom Retold. Waiting for your Myth unit tier list btw.

[@zionpenumbra]

I like to use the hot key for ranged units, Calvary units. As well as make controlled groups. Pretty much any unit that I can use as a counter or raid I like to have a hot key for. And then infantry units I just lump with military units hot key. Hero’s I also use as my mouse button. It’s super handy when playing as Norse to stop the centaur spam. Great video! I still have to finish setting up my hotkeys.. there are so many options it can feel a little overwhelming lol

[@toufexisk]

Very nice! Looking forward to part 2! I actually liked the old logo, it felt more.. personal, direct or down to earth. It was your choice, not a brand thing and that made the distance between you and the video watcher/community feel smaller. Not that I dislike the new one. The new one is great too and I undesrtand the reasons behind changing it. But I wanted to leave my possitive comment for the old one :)

[@IamMagicAOM]

Thanks for the feedback !

[@XxjazzperxX]

I really love your videos they are very informative. I would love to see a video on how to make a good army composition for Loki (or the Norse in general (or just in general)). I usually struggle against Greek cavalry and archers.

[@FcoAngelPD]

The banner is pretty cool, thanks for your work!

[@farcry1235]

Love your guides and in depth videos Magic, I would love to see your take on effective harassment, how to maximise harass whilst also maintaining your own economy, something I find really difficult and off putting, harass is so powerful but too often I find it more distracting for myself than my actual opponent and I get behind.

[@RhoVabien]

Fantastic, this is what I needed 🔥 Well done!

[@TheDmviper]

I would love to see a part 2. I can see you improving at making content as your videos come out and I cannot wait for your content making and teaching to get to the level of your gameplay expertise. One piece of advise I have for the content going forward is to prerecord the gameplay actions and then record the analysis separately and add the audio in editing. The example at the very beginning from the recorded game was very clean, and I imagine if you recorded your examples with no audio but then added the analysis after in editing it would improve the quality a lot. It also helps if you have a particular demonstration you want to reuse, you don't have to setup the exact same scenario over and over, you can just reuse the recorded gameplay snippit and put different audio over it.

[@antonioiborra8]

amazing video, thanks for posting it

[@mannerv8178]

Thank you for all of these vids! Helps a ton!

[@XbobSector]

I am winning against my friends due to IAmMagic's guides. I love our northern neighbours! USA x Canada forever

[@evilrumpy7208]

Great new banner! And the micro help doesn’t hurt either :)

[@karnak4188]

I was waiting for your video. Thanks you ! Do you have a specific plan for what video you will produce ? (For example the tierlists or guides etc... in what order etc...) PS : Just a suggestion but do you plan to create a community/discord ? Would be fun to create community group of aom retold :) With your notoriety you can make something cool, maybe ?

[@IamMagicAOM]

I was actually thinking about it! The unfortunate thing is I don’t have that much time right now to moderate and respond in the group as often as I should so I was still thinking about it

[@karnak4188]

@@IamMagicAOM I understand. For the moderation i don't think it's a huge problem, im pretty sure you can find people that have time to moderate who are reliable :)

[@mattyIce42E]

Great points. Part 2: YES PLEASE!

[@ManchmalGaming]

Another nice one! Would really like to see a video on building placement!

[@chantzmoore781]

Good stuff dude we need more aom guides

[@Guilherme-qf9ko]

Such a great video, Magic Thank you

[@seanmooney7999]

Great video! Would love a part two

[@aucurdesengrenages8369]

Thx Magic for the amazing content again ! What are your stream hours on twitch generally ? I'd like to catch you on stream ! Definitely the best AOM Channel so I''m now looking for the best AOM stream !

[@IamMagicAOM]

Hey usually it’s a bit random, I tried to have a time but sometimes I’d end up having to work late or family issues arise so I couldn’t commit to a time, I usually try to stream on the weekends - I’d recommend just hitting the follow/ring icon on twitch so you know when I’m live!

[@KiluminatiOG]

FIRST BEST VIDEO EVER

[@IamMagicAOM]

my man!

[@KiluminatiOG]

@@IamMagicAOMyo no way you said orb walking 111 that’s that keen glory day league talk

[@ReInvestir]

AWESOME video didnt know about much of these stuff

[@MarcelodeOliveiraSilva-fp1tv]

Best AoM tutor. Tnx, bro!

[@Mouahaha42]

Great video, thanks :) Please keep going !

[@borispavlovic1186]

Great video! Can you do a guide about matchups and what to do in certain scenarios? For example how to play as Odin vs Set? Or what to if opponent is building second TC early on? I know that you can't do every match up, but general video what are offensive gods, what are defensive and how to play with them will help us a lot!

[@IamMagicAOM]

Sure! I’ll try to get that for you at some point

[@potatoflys]

Gonna try the army hotkeys on my mouse buttons, thanks magic!

[@marievanderpoel]

Really good video again thanks Magic

[@Solimala]

Great video, keep 'em coming!

[@Lazy_Froovlet]

We need a beginner-friendly guide on effective macro as well!

[@blackkodiaq9878]

4:00 Atalanta just wants to secure that cash instead of fighting :D thank you for the insightful vid!

[@br0nsy]

Yeah for sure part 2 magic thank you 🤞

[@luizsergio2854]

Bring us more builds, more ways to play the game, some strategies, I'm using raiding strategy with any god that I've learned on ur Odin's guide

[@gringodofficial]

Best channel

[@farcry1235]

definitely want a part 2 please!

[@r3m1xs3]

GOATED video

[@lazerwolph]

Great info, this is super helpful! Unfortunately the audio is quite harsh and distorted. You want to make sure your audio is not in the red on the meters when recording, try to keep it in the green/yellow 👍

[@IamMagicAOM]

I fixed it for the new videos, thanks!

[@BR-bd1nv]

@IamMagic, I am a noob to RTS, and playing on PC your content has been so helpful. I'm so far behind and have so much to learn that I was tempted to not even play. I have enjoyed the time I've had in AOM and want to get better your videos help a lot. I'm curious do you mess with the defensive/aggressive stance option? If so how do you use it?

[@IamMagicAOM]

Aggressive is on by default and it’s my go to for 99% of scenarios, I use passive stance on scout units and patrol them to ensure they don’t attack units and die!

[@BR-bd1nv]

@@IamMagicAOM Thanks, Keep the great content coming. There’s not a lot of places explaining information in a way that completely new players can understand. There’s a lot of videos that reference game terminology but don’t explain it. I understand It’s not wild to assume that everyone watching has a AOM background when the game is so old. I appreciate you considering the newbie’s perspective and clearly explaining everything

[@hardlogic3046]

Age of Motivational speech. Don't let your macro be dreams, you have to wake up every day and ask yourself: do I want to spend that 50 food on hippeus over and over again, or do I want to invest in myself and age up. Every minute, every second, every click is a new you, and you have to go out there and secure your second gold mine! Jokes asides, I'd really love your insight on classical economy, I have trouble deciding how much wood vils to take because I make too many raxes and transition to farms too early.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Ahah, hmm in terms of the wood dillema which civ are you playing ? I’d highly caution against early farms unless you’re Ra or have absolutely no choice

[@herotalib9556]

Great video like usual!

[@MrGiovanniOSFP]

awesome video! Thank you very much

[@SupMrBlaze]

Fantastical video, it help me a lot!

[@IamMagicAOM]

Glad to hear it!

[@IamMirezNL]

Idea for part 2: how to micro archers so they don't overkill. e.g. you want to use your ball of 20 slingers to attack his turma but not all on the same one.

[@TheRealSpecder]

in most games that hit and run technique is called kiting. thank you for the great videos btw. u have helped my win rate in 2v2s so much. I went from pretty much always losing and always being the reason my team loses to like a 50% win loss rate and I'm not the only reason we lose now LOL. If you have any tips on how to deal with people doing centaur spam it is the reason I lose a lot of my games. i play as hades most of the time with a Freyr/Loki as my 2v2 partner. Normally early game ill scout and try and harass one of the enemies villagers with my minotaur/Ajax and rush to age 3 while my duo builds an army and then we underworld pass into the weaker enemies backline and kill them as fast as we can. it works really well for us normally but when people play centaurs and micro them well my only answer early really is Achilles and even he just dies normally cause its hard for him to close the gap vs them and then they just nonstop harass my villagers delaying my progress significantly. any tip would be amazing! thank you again for all the guides and everything. keep up the amazing work

[@IamMagicAOM]

glad to hear! :)

[@phatchrispratt5392]

Such a great guide for beginners! I hate to mention this because it feels rude, but do you think a new mic setup might be possible? An inexpensive audiointerface like a single channel Scarlet and an affordable condenser mic+XLR cable and you're pretty mucj good to go. I can intuit that this is a passion project for you so I understand that a monetary investment might not be in the cards. Thanks for the helpful videos!

[@IamMagicAOM]

I bought a $200 mic (antilon usb modmic) I think this mess up was just a software rendering issue, it will be fixed for the next one !

[@Katos92]

I really like your videos Magic, keep going. AoM is the most difficult RTS I ever played imo, too much things too learn. What do your recommand for a beginner ? Focus only on 1 god ? I try to learn, rewatch my games, but I can't do many games and I really struggle to play after a pause of 3/4 days (BO, maps, building positioning, units, ressources, etc.)

[@IamMagicAOM]

My progression journey was sticking to one god for a few weeks and then moving onto the next, watching replays and having friends or players better than you walk you through your errors is definitely very important too, imo the best way to learn at the start is to mimic the pros until you grasp the basics!

[@viniciusrosasilveira2344]

Keep going! 👏🏻👏🏻

[@Wam01]

Great as always Magic

[@IamMagicAOM]

Thanks Wam!

[@lorebender260]

Thank you for the content

[@kirbee1113]

Part 2 would be nice!

[@MiroslawHorbal]

Thank you for your tips and content. I imagine it's been mentioned, but the audio quality for the voiceover on this video is significantly worse than previous videos. It reduces the quality of the content and might affect future growth.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Really sorry, I will fix it for the next one

[@gms7288]

amazing video, finally someone explained the "attack move" just one question, the archers hit n run are made using the attack move aswell? like click away, mid move press the attack button the archers stop and attack, and then move away again...?

[@IamMagicAOM]

yep! sorry should have mentioned that.

[@gms7288]

@@IamMagicAOM no worries thanks for the amazing videos and the work with/for the community one suggestion, maybe make some videos talking about the maps and matchups. Which gods and minor gods are better in certain scenarios

[@GreyEffinBeard]

Awesome video thanks so much!! Quick question, when you ran your cavalry behind the archers, was that just a regular move action? Did they just auto attack after the move? When you were showing moving the archers back whilst reloading, couldn't see you click on a unit to turn and fire before running again, was this a combo of regular move and attack move?

[@IamMagicAOM]

Hey, When I was moving the cavalry back that a regular move command When I was hit and running with archers I was doing a regular move command then a move to attack thereafter Hope that helps

[@GreyEffinBeard]

@@IamMagicAOM it certainly does! I will practice this, thanks again!

[@Baou-i3v]

Great video!

[@298AOM]

Really like it!

[@niko_goosebumps]

THAT'S MY BOY VAYNE

[@roflBJ]

Pathfinding is such a pain in Retold. Babysitting every unit and vill to make sure he follow the orders given. And yet even though you have to command one unit or vill to do one task he actively do otherwise. Iam so flustrated

[@IamMagicAOM]

you get use to it over time, don't give up !

[@roflBJ]

@@IamMagicAOM You are such a sunshine in this community.

[@Harahgon]

This is INSANE

[@ParaNoiya-m1n]

theres a question id like to ask: how do you make those arrows appear on screen that point in certain directions? great guide overall, thank you for the informative content, keep it up!! c:

[@IamMagicAOM]

it's a software called epic pen, i pay around $50 a year for it, something like that

[@ParaNoiya-m1n]

thank you very much for the quick response! it looks useful for reviewing replays and discussing strategies ^^ first i thought it was inbuilt in the game but couldnt find it anywhere in the settings :')

[@LL-if4pg]

I feel like the controls could be easily improved: When you have your army selected, allow players to click on the unit they want and give orders to ONLY these units Currently it gives the order to your whole army

[@bananatheseus4516]

let us hanging in the "infantry tir list" video

[@IamMagicAOM]

this one was heavily requested!

[@naummw6328]

y

[@cloudshifter]

The only thing League has taught me was micro decision making and especially to kite with ranged units like a God in Aom. I swear i must be winning 90% of the games for that reason alone.

[@danekaulfuss7050]

the GOAT

[@itswakkowarner]

the intro is hilarious

[@mickevans6205]

Great video! So much good information. Since you asked for tips though, didn't like the music. The loop was too short and the tone was off from your content. I think no music with just the in game audio would have been much better. Also, would highly recommend writing a script for videos if you don't already. This video could have probably been closer to 15 minutes but you had a lot of filler language as you were communicating the points you had. I found myself skipping forward a bunch to get to the next crucial piece of info. Wonderful work though, you're obviously very knowledgeable about the game and I felt I learned alot of things in this one place I've been trying to scrape from a bunch of other random videos ad hoc.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Good points? Thanks!

[@mickevans6205]

@@IamMagicAOM Hopefully it didn't sound too critical. Great job! I loved it.

[@betterfly7398]

Amazing video. Don't dig the music though. Maybe it should be a lot quieter.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Thanks will not use it for the next one!

[@logicftw7700]

Great video. How did you do the hit and run with the tox vs the cavalry? Specifically the turn around and shoot. All I can think of is using the mouse to attack one unit or attack move but your mouse wasn’t in that direction.

[@Piet-d1j]

attack move will attack the closes unit even if clicking the other way

[@IamMagicAOM]

Yep I run back and then click attack move when I’m ready to fire

[@Orine7]

Hi magic, do you what any help with filming and editing ? I'm currently learning about the editor and although i'm not the best, i think i can help you

[@IamMagicAOM]

Sure! I’d love that, maybe message me on discord _IamMagic

[@vladimirlizard8242]

top content!

[@gb7youtube]

Thx for that useful video! I had a question : whats a good way to micro manage my Nemean lions? So i can put them in a separated group and unable the auto roar, but then is there a way to switch from one to another quickly without having to click manually on them?

[@IamMagicAOM]

I’d space them apart honestly, then naturally they’ll just use their special at diff times

[@Evilkwiet]

Tyvm!

[@DoomHyp]

Hey IamMagic, I was wondering how did you set your selection options. When you have both military and villagers in an area and you select, does it select all or only military ? For now I have set on only military but sometimes it's bad if I want to escape my villagers during raid or something. Is there a way to have button to change the behaviour of the selection ? Or how do you micro these situations ? Thanks a lot for your videos; really appreciate them !

[@IamMagicAOM]

I set it to all, I’m just too use to that for now, but do what works best for you!

[@mementomori1483]

Not quite orb walk. Its kiting. Orb walking relates pulling to aggro in dota. It looks similar but its specifically for some dota heroes who have orb attacks instead of normal auto attacks. Auto attacks pull aggro but orb attacks dont. Kiting enemies is just hit and run tactics. Also known as stutter stepping. Or I've seen also stop micro. Where you instead of attack moving every time, you merely retreat then tell the archers to stop. They then find their own targets with a slightly different calculation than attack move. These words are all very similar and often used interchangably but they actually related to different things.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Thanks!!

[@luizsergio2854]

Awesome!