Let me begin by pointing out that video games are supposed to be fun. Building habits isn't fun. But I'm here telling you about it anyway because it's the best way to get better at things and it means more fun later. Less thinking means less stress and things are more fun when you do them well.
If you don't wanna read a detailed explanation of why you should be doing this, skip to the highlighted part!
A lot of good advice gets offered here every time somebody asks for assistance and one that deserves it's own topic more than any other is the importance of building habits and muscle memory, since it is by far the most important one.
The number one difference between somebody at 1000 and 2500 ELO is how many habits they have built, because there is no time to think when playing RTS games.
"But it's a strategy game!", you might argue. "Isn't thinking what's it's all about?!".
No, it's not. A big brain is actually optional! If you're thinking, you're losing. The person at the top is gonna be whoever can perform the highest amount of useful actions automatically, whether it be queuing a villager or executing a strategy.
Why?
Because we humans are incredibly bad at RTS games. Nature never intended for us to engage in total and brutal domination (in AoE2). It doesn't help us survive in the wilderness (don't try luring boars near your local woodline) or help us find a partner (I still haven't found those hot singles in my area, maybe they are all playing water maps?).
Playing AoE2 at a 1000 ELO level might not sound impressive, but it is! You are already in the top 1% of all people. As somebody that has spent plenty of time helping others familiarize themselves with technology, just opening a text document can be a struggle for some. An average match of AoE2 is rocket science compared to that!
30 minutes spent playing RTS games means 30 minutes of mental overload. There are always more actions and calculations that need to be performed than you would ever be capable of. You want to be performing as many actions every second as you can, and doing things sub-consciously is much faster than doing them consciously. Every second you think is a second you aren't doing something else that requires to be done.
If three mother-in-laws... I mean Men-at-Arms are knocking on your doorstep with the usual intent to cause havoc and you are caught with your pants down not knowing what to do next, you are gonna have a bad time, because
- Your response is gonna be significantly delayed if you gotta think about what to do first.
- All the time you spent thinking you will stop doing other things that require thought.
Unfortunately, there is no easy fix for the first part. Knowing what to do in every situation requires thousands of hours of practice. It's unavoidable.
It's the second part that I would like to address. If fundamental actions like queuing villagers and checking your mini-map require conscious thought, you will stop doing them every time you start thinking. This cannot happen. These are actions that need to be performed all the time, and solving that issue takes less time than you may expect.
>Here is how you do it:
Every time you sit down to play AoE2, for a single match, slow down and focus on integrating the following habits into your gameplay. Whether you win or lose is irrelevant. What matters is forming habits.
However, don't do this more than once per session! Don't burn yourself out. Doing things consistently is more important than doing them a lot. 15 minutes each session are more useful than 5 hours once a month, especially if that makes you stop doing it altogether because you turned life into a boredom competition.
>Now, whether you practice in a real match, against the AI or even in the campaign is up to you. Habits can be build anywhere. Building them in a proper match is the most effective, though. Don't worry if you are losing ELO; that's great! It means you were too busy improving to focus on winning. That ELO is an investment. You will gain it back many times over eventually.
I'm starting to sound like a shitty life coach or somebody that spent too much time on LinkedIn, so let's actually start talking about the habits.
>Habit 1: Queuing villagers
Time: Every 20-60 seconds
The most important habit and the one that I'm happy to see people talk about all the time! Yet it's always worth mentioning. Set "Select all TCs" to an easily available hotkey and press (Shift)+Q regularly, especially before important moments like luring a boar or attacking. You want your TCs to keep working while you are distracted.
>Habit 2: Attend to idle villagers
Time: Every 5-30 seconds
Just as important as producing villagers is making sure they are actually doing something. Bind the "Select Next Idle Villager" hotkey and press it regularly to check whether somebody decided to spend too much time on the antiwork sub. Only the Portuguese get universal basic income.
>Habit 3: Check the top left corner
Time: Every 15-60 seconds
Are you floating resources? RTS are the one place where broke people are the ones winning. If you aren't living paycheck to paycheck, you are doing something wrong.
Are your villagers distributed correctly? You can't archer rush someone with 2 villagers on gold.
Is your production queue about to be empty? If you build two stables early, I wanna see you use them.
>Habit 4: Check your mini-map
Time: Every 5-10 seconds
Your screen only captures a small part of the battlefield. Your mini-map shows all of it. Are you about to be attacked? Did somebody sneak into your eco? Where are the next stone and gold deposits? Any relics left to be gathered?
>Habit 5: Check in on your opponent
Time: Every 5-10 minutes
The AoE2 community is known for being caring and respectful, so make sure you pay your enemy a visit regularly! Knowing what your opponent is doing is almost as important as knowing what you are doing. Remember that you don't need a scout to do this, any unit can gather information. If your spearman pokes the enemy walls and gets killed by a cavalry archer, that already tells you what he's producing and what his investment portfolio looks like (wood/gold). Don't stop scouting just because you lost your scout.
>Habit 6: Move your idle army
Time: Every time you look away
It's easy to lose all your scouts to a few spearmen or archers to a stray mangonel shot if you leave your army standing around, especially near the enemy base. Make sure to send them away from the enemy or give them a patrol command every time you focus on your economy. If your army is moving, it's also covering more of the map.
>Habit 7: Take a breather and assess your situation
Time: Every 1-5 minutes.
It's easy to get lost in the sauce doing everything else on this list. Take a step back and look around every now and then. Are there parts of your base that should be walled? Do you need more military buildings? Did you overchop somewhere? Are your resources about to run out? Do you have the right unit composition? Should you add another TC?
Keep in mind that the times are just a rough estimate. Many of these habits can be worth performing more often, but time and attention are finite and overloading yourself isn't worth the benefit. Better to pace yourself and do things consistently every 30-60 seconds instead of running out of brain juice and not doing it for the second half of the match at all. Just checking the mini-map one more time than you usually would might save you from losing 10 villagers to a minor raid.
Don't be surprised if you are struggling with this. It's natural. Constantly reminding yourself of these things is tough even in a relaxed environment, let alone while you are overloading your brain by playing an RTS.
TL;DR: Nothing is more important than creating habits. If you want to improve, spent one game each session focusing on automating these behaviors: Queuing villagers and/or military, checking your resources/villagers, checking the mini-map, scouting, moving your army, taking a breather to check your situation (More Walls? Build outposts? Resources low?)