How to Improve at Age of Empires 2 - Part 4: Micro [ES/简体/繁體 SUBS]

In the final part, we see how to control many of the common units. Getting better at micro will allow you to look really cool.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Various micro tips
2:41 - Running units from enemy tc
3:11 - Killing enemy villagers
4:09 - Microing militia
5:49 - Microing scouts
7:10 - Microing spearmen
7:42 - Microing archers
9:22 - Microing skirmishers
9:48 - Microing cavalry archers
11:07 - Microing villagers
15:13 - Microing knights
16:51 - Raiding with steppe lancers
17:13 - Microing mangonels
20:19 - Microing scorpions
20:53 - Using siege towers
21:13 - Microing monks
23:37 - Final thoughts
Baradin's channels:
/ baradin_aoe
/ @baradin_aoe9991
Jared Richardson (non-aoe Background music composer): linktr.ee/jaredrichardsonmusic
Understanding towers: • When Two Arrows are Be...
Deleting mangonels: • Deleting Mangonels 2: ...
Monks: • Do Monks Convert Faste...
Twitch: / survivalistaoe2de
Discord: / discord
Heroku: aoe2-de-tools.herokuapp.com/v...
Spanish subtitles by Rxon and Chinese subtitles by Just Xavier!

[@SurvivalistAoE]

Timestamps: 0:00 - Various micro tips 2:41 - Running units from enemy tc 3:11 - Killing enemy villagers 4:09 - Microing militia 5:49 - Microing scouts 7:10 - Microing spearmen 7:42 - Microing archers 9:22 - Microing skirmishers 9:48 - Microing cavalry archers 11:07 - Microing villagers 15:13 - Microing knights 16:51 - Raiding with steppe lancers 17:13 - Microing mangonels 20:19 - Microing scorpions 20:53 - Using siege towers 21:13 - Microing monks 23:37 - Final thoughts

[@cody2teach277]

"it's not like you're doing much in early game" *Cries in dead boar villager*

[@TheGrandFinally]

When I heard him say that I was like "did he not remember everything he said in part 1 and 2??" lol

[@joshm.5453]

This guy has a PHD in AoE 2 . So much knowledge

[@samarthnagar3856]

Nah he's freshmen sotl has PhD he literally made lines long formula for this game

[@prod.bronze]

dude your content is next level. this video is really amazing.

[@lukasg4807]

You should plug your youtube on stream more. I didn't realize you had a youtube until I got a reccomenation from KZbin

[@nothankkyou3176]

I genuinly havnt played this game in 20 years. When i was a really little kid like 4 or 5 i played 1v7 on max difficulty and games would take me 5hrs to sometimes several days. After coming back ive been struggling with just hardened difficulty. After watchimg this series i finally beat the hardened. Soi went into my first 3 online matches and won 2 out of 3. I am a very experienced RTS player but i only had 1 disc so i could only use 5 diff civs. Itll take me a long time to learn all the civs but youve given me such a solid foundation to build on. Thank you very much

[@SurvivalistAoE]

Nice, I used to go 1v7 hardest difficulty when I was younger as well. The AI has improved a lot since then though...

[@Pobeon]

This is like a chess tutorial. Very impressive.

[@MetalKingII]

I stumbled across this series and I have to say: to watch this should be mandatory for AoE players, especially newer ones. I'd say I have a lot of game knowlege by now and I still learned a lot. Well done. Subbed instantly.

[@DjFiveCore]

Man, you just have the magic touch when it comes to explaining and teaching what you know. Amazing series, honestly the best on YT by far. Keep it up Surv!

[@justxavier9999]

14:23 idk why but the sound of that was hilarious 😂😂😂

[@PotatoLover-vi9zw]

This video is amazing, there just aren't too many micro guides out there yet, which makes this video really special to me. It's easy to learn build orders etc. from other videos, but most don't take time to explain micro in such detail. Amazing work

[@fangrie_]

Thank you so much for the series. Really appreciate your educational content. Subbed you on twitch to support your channel!

[@ben1761]

You've done an amazing job making this easily digestable, but still highly informative. Excellent guide throughout.

[@justxavier9999]

Amazing and Thorough explanation! Very well made high-quality video and audio! Thank you Survivalist! More people should know about you

[@ar1sm70]

Thank you for this guide! Just finished watching all 4 parts. Very educational, though I'm still trying to master Part 3 skill-wise so this video is beyond me :)

[@SurvivalistAoE]

Strategy is really tough. It's one of those things where you get better by not playing and just thinking.

[@niknik0815]

Excellent stuff! Watched it the second time now and will definitely come back to it again for a couple of points.

[@hiran4935]

This is the best explanation channel ever. Thank you a lotttt

[@timson3489]

You deserve way more clout for these videos bro, thank you!

[@Mystprism]

Thanks for making these! Best aoe2 instructional overview on KZbin in my opinion. Will be passing these around to my friends who play.

[@alexxx4434]

Great series, condensed with info!

[@sillaceestekay2069]

Hands down the best video on micro!

[@Hammerscare]

This is great video. Keep up the great work, man!

[@satyamsingh-zo8ex]

I absolutetly love this series. Thanks for this Surv

[@grinningtaverngaming395]

Incredible series! Liked. Subbed.

[@skoe3251]

Keep up the good work, quality is great!

[@KNVT38]

Watched your series. Yup. Subscribed. And you'll get a ton more quick if you keep your content at this level. I like your style of explaining all the minutia in great detail, while also feeling like you didn't waste a single second of the entire 4 videos, and somehow, while in a long video format it still felt compact and dense with info. Keep it up!

[@SurvivalistAoE]

Thanks! These scripted videos take a lot more work than just posting games from the twitch stream. I plan to post a mix of good quality knowledge videos as well as entertaining games. If I only posted these kinds of scripted videos, I'd probably only upload every 1-2 months since I stream so much.

[@DeadEagleUE]

Yo this is INSANE bro, Thanks alot man! keep it up

[@nymets1104]

Great works as always sir. Thanks for doing this

[@panda_pnv]

Brilliant video!! This channel is going to explode soon

[@evanmatthia4228]

Well done. Helped me out alot actually. Good Work.

[@original9378]

god at explaining right here, sub to this man

[@JJDProductions]

Wow your channel deserves much more credit, you have one more subscriber. You should do a coop with the viper, hera, T90 e.g

[@equiz]

Amazing content! Thanks a lot

[@bradleymearns5544]

Amazing well done

[@Gardinho_III.]

Very helpful, thanks!

[@Ethanil]

2:41 I was so confused what that should tell me that i saw an elephant before the Let's Go!!

[@TheRealOnlineAcc]

Thanks for this content

[@PiscesKanna]

23:23 Retargetting now also resets the Monk's conversion!

[@bont3]

very nice! thank you, I know I shouldn't try this too much. It will hurt my macro big time

[@SheeceGardazi]

awesome

[@bdz_4206]

Respect.

[@graigaron1215]

Rxon tus subtitulos en español son impecables

[@anonymoususer3561]

Nice

[@pakkinen1340]

Thanks mate, amazing video! Just as a suggestion, it would be great to have some water micro too! :)

[@SurvivalistAoE]

I'm so bad at water maps, so I'd have to force myself to play them more. Could be an interesting addition as a 2nd page that can be printed on the back.

[@pakkinen1340]

@@SurvivalistAoE No worries man! Thanks for the good content and looking forward to see that 2nd part ;)

[@SurvivalistAoE]

@@pakkinen1340 Oh, I actually thought this comment was on my most recent video. Noob creator is showing :D. Either way, Microing galleys is something I lack the expertise in anyways.

[@pakkinen1340]

@@SurvivalistAoE 11 No worries! :) I'd like to learn that, will try to find any tutorial. Thanks!

[@ArieToon]

REspect brother, respectttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

[@fufaev-alexander]

Can you also explain the stregths of different civs and their counters

[@SurvivalistAoE]

This is a pretty broad question that would probably require an entire video for each civ to go over. If you have a specific civ in mind, I'd be happy to give some suggestions.

[@baradin_aoe9991]

I wanna offer an additional idea for the monk micro here: if you have a monk group of let's say 10 and you manually select groups of 3-4 monks and then shiftclick the conversions with the theocracy tech then you could actually come even better as the disadvantage of the shift-queueing is obviously that you have to go with 10 monks through 10 conversion-cycles. Like that you would get it down to 3 conversion cycles with manageable micro-management. Maybe worth trying that hybrid-idea.

[@SurvivalistAoE]

Yes, this would be even better in an actual game. The more actions you put in to microing your monks, the more you'll get out of it. It comes down to if you can afford the additional actions.

[@alexxx4434]

Monks micro is the same as "cloning" micro to use unit abilities in Brood War.

[@ThePsychedelicWave]

they still can collect resources at the same speed even if they're almost dead xD

[@dutchvanderlinde5004]

👍

[@Omni0404]

"If you're bad at the game, watch somebody better." *wipes away tear* that's what I'm doing now fam ._.

[@inkarnator7717]

huh, So you are the dude who turned my amateur matches into sweat fests.

[@ientruong9598]

Great video. But how can you keep seeing the health bar of enemy unit? I see there are no options for that.

[@SurvivalistAoE]

If you go into the options, go to the Game tab. Find Health Bars and set it to Default.

[@danpower7416]

Not 100 % sure but is the delete-"micro" on mangos still a thing? I'm pretty sure, I heard T90 saying in one of his videos (I don't know from when, maybe an older LEL video or a more recent one from the titans league), that the devs fixed this. Or maybe I just misunderstood him and he talked about some other things (the topic was these "it's not a bug, it's a feature" things in aoe2 like housewalls, deleting mangos, de-aggroing boars with buildings etc.)

[@SurvivalistAoE]

It was patched out like a year ago.

[@olddoggeleventy2718]

Am I correct in assuming that throughout a game you will be reassigning numbers to control groups, as you are switching around from villes, to military, to siege weapons, etc?

[@SurvivalistAoE]

Yes. I usually put the scout on 3 at the start of the game, but switch it to 1 once I have archers out (the archers go to 3). Lots more stuff like this.

[@olddoggeleventy2718]

@@SurvivalistAoE Thanks for your response. Just subscribed and hope I'm able to absorb some knowledge. You know Olddogg and new tricks and all that stuff...lol

[@patrickjayakumar3373]

Awesome tutorial. Can you teach AOE2 player.

[@SurvivalistAoE]

Join my discord if you want more tips or have questions that you want answered. The community is very helpful and I'm usually around to give my input (when I'm not sleeping 11)

[@shinobiighost6946]

I once surrounded a horde of camels with samurai preventing the ones in the middle from fighting, too bad I did that on accident.

[@jahrazzjahrazz8858]

9:20 thats actually bad advice because shift queue on ranged units makes them bug out, I once did that with skirms vs conqus+rams but the skirms just end up staring into the void while getting shredded if you shiftqueue

[@SurvivalistAoE]

It only bugs out if you do it when not in range. If your units are already in range of their targets, it works properly. It's very strange.

[@jahrazzjahrazz8858]

@@SurvivalistAoE yeah something about the "run at unit until in range to attack" behaviour :/

[@SurvivalistAoE]

@@jahrazzjahrazz8858 It's still necessary to do this micro if the enemy is tanking with rams.

[@jahrazzjahrazz8858]

@@SurvivalistAoE Necessary but sadly also equally worthless if you are unlucky 11 That bug needs a higher priority to be fixed

[@stevo271]

These tactics are waaay too advanced for me, sheesh. How do you even play this game?

[@SurvivalistAoE]

You have to learn things one step at a time. Eventually you will find use for more advanced micro, but only after you can macro effectively behind it.

[@stevo271]

@@SurvivalistAoE Thanks for doing these videos, they do help!

[@tonled6960]

i think the "delete" mangonel tip has been patched out now....at least thats what ive heard...

[@SurvivalistAoE]

Yup, it's not in the game anymore.

[@mypopsicle3208]

RIP mangonel delete trick

[@d2scamsta]

Yep. I'll probably never play this in my life lol. Too much to learn too many games already played, prehaps too old ?

[@SurvivalistAoE]

Many players are into their 40s at least in Age2 since it's been out for 20 years! There's only a lot to know if you want to play competitively. If you just play for fun, then you don't need a ton of knowledge to get into it.

[@d2scamsta]

@@SurvivalistAoE I'm in my 20s just seems like I played too many games and it's not worth learning bc I do only enjoy comp and pvp. Personally I love northgard.more

[@danpower7416]

@@d2scamsta If you like other strategy games it shouldn't be that hard and even then, it depends on how high on the ladder you want to get. Microing for example isn't nearly as important as producing vils constantly and get a good eco up and running, which is fairly easy, especially with some RTS-background. So you don't have to learn it all and even then, DauT for example, who is arguably a top 10 (or top 20 at the very least) player at the game is pretty bad at microing (compared to other pro-players). You can get to a pretty decent level with just good (not even great) macro and strategic knowledge of the game without ever microing a single unit.

[@XyntXII]

does microing economy not belong here? good stuff anyways

[@SurvivalistAoE]

That's basically the definition of macro, so that was done in part 2.

[@XyntXII]

@@SurvivalistAoE Maybe I misunderstood these concepts, but as I understand it telling a vill which tree to chop after which, on what side of the berries to be etc would be micro while how many to put on wood or which wood to take would be macro. Do you use the terms as in eco management of any kind = macro, army management = micro?

[@SurvivalistAoE]

@@XyntXII Even though you could argue any time that you control a unit is micro, when managing your villagers in an economic way, it's considered macro. Microing villagers would be more of when you're fighting with them/tower rushing.

[@theBeT95]

SpiritOfTheLaw (SOTL) should learn from your intonation, he's terrible with that

[@SurvivalistAoE]

Regardless, it seemed to work out well for him 11

[@maximillianburling492]

I would not want to play this dude

[@nOim210]

awesome