How can I beat the moderate a.i. difficulty when it cheats so much?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

a.i. gets castle age at the 20 minute mark, then a few minutes later they have 10 knights, 2-3 battering rams and I have 20-30 villagers but struggle to get 1000 of any resource, while the a.i. has gathered 8000 food and 8000 gold and I’m struggling to get 1000 of any resource.

Some players say that before playing online, players should beat the extreme a.i.

I’ve beaten hundreds of campaign missions but I can’t beat moderate a.i. in skirmish. I figure that these youtube videos must be referring to the old HD edition a.i. because there’s no way I can beat moderate a.i. in the definitive edition.

I can beat the standard difficulty a.i. only because he doesn’t build an army. Moderate difficulty cheats so much, already has a massive army and almost 10k of each resource. What a joke. I was going to redeem a voucher so I can play multiplayer for free on xbox but now I think I’ll put my points toward a gift card.

Score screen stats reveal that the a.i. has numerous unfair advantages (cheats). Seems to train units faster than me and gather more resources somehow. At the start of the feudal age I was even with a.i. but then it gets a huge boost and the cheats seem to kick in sometime during feudal.

2

But the AI don’t really cheats, they mostly are more active and aggressive on higher difficulties (and only gets more resources on the hardest, not on moderate). It is better at multitasking, because it is a computer, but it is strategically dumb.

7 Likes
3

Have you beaten the Art of War with gold medals? That’s a first step on how fast you are

6 Likes
4

Hey @MuscleChad !

First off, I think that beating the extreme AI is an excellent goal before playing online because it is highlighting the main issue that you will need to address if you want to get more “competitive” at the game.

While it is true that older versions of the AI (HD Edition etc.) did use cheats, the Definitive Edition AI actually does not. 20 minutes to hit castle age is a slow time, most individuals hit castle age 14-15 minutes and then have knights out shortly thereafter. What the AI (and people online) are doing that you are not, are Build Orders.

AoE2 has been around a long time; and consequently, people have spent hundreds of hours figuring out the most optimal number of villages to build and place on what resource when in order to pursue a particular strategy. These are called Build Orders, and there are a few popular ones you may have heard of: Fast Castle, Drush, Archer Flush, etc..

Now that being said, you in no way have to learn these Build Orders and can continue to play the game however you want to play it that gives you the most enjoyment. However, if you want to be able to beat an Extreme AI or other opponents online .. you will need to learn and practice a few of these build orders, as they give you instruction in how best to quickly get an army and strong economy in the most optimal way to defeat your enemy.

I would recommend that you first learn the Fast Castle → Knights | Build Guide | AoE Companion Build Order. This is one of the first Build Orders that AoE players learn that is very versatile on a variety of maps and situations. It will work very well against the AI, and once you are comfortable with that, you can learn how to do an Archer or Scout rush in the Feudal Age for more open maps against human players etc. Generally, for closed maps or in the pocket, you will do a Fast Castle into boom or knights, and for open maps or on the flank you will do some type of archer or scout rush. If you are interesting in learning more, there are numerous sites and youtube videos online that give you step by step instructions detailing how to best perform these build orders.

Hope this helps, and please keep asking questions, its one of the best ways to learn and get better!

6 Likes
5

Just practice enough and you’ll eventually get it. I used to struggle against the Moderate AI for years, and now it’s a joke. Even the Hard AI is starting to not be a challenge.

2 Likes
6

The secret to killing any difficulty ai is fast castle early aggression. Just go fast castle with bohemians(like 14 to 15 min castle age) make Hussite wagons and win. The ai in aoe2 can’t handle early lethal aggression.

1 Like
7

@Akleoni I agree, a.i. tends to be pretty stupid. While I’m not great at these skirmish matches, I did manage to beat normal level a.i. in halo wars 2. I discovered that the a.i. quickly builds up an attack force to smash my base, but if I do the same and I start smashing their base, they don’t even withdraw their army to protect their only base. I’ll check out Art Of War again. I am playing with controller, but timing is also important, not only a player’s reaction speed. I wonder if I’m training too many villagers and not getting enough return on them, while I could have trained 10 soldiers.

@SlyfoxLegend I’m not strictly following a build order, but I did practice building up from dark age to castle age. Getting the right resources at the right time and training extra villagers etc. I still make mistakes like not scouting enough or sometimes, not having the resources or required buildings to advanced to next age. Fast castle would mean you have about 15 villagers right? It feels so slow unless I have >20 and even then it seems like everything costs too much.

I guess armoury upgrades are for later and it’s better to have units, even if they’re only tier 1 or tier 2 upgraded. I have watched a few videos but there is so much info and I think I have to watch a few more. I’ll take your suggestion on trying different rush strategies. I haven’t planned what units to train in my games. Sometimes I have a mix or I’m trying to build up the economy and don’t have spare resources for military (big mistake)

Map type makes a big difference it seems.

I like the idea of a scout rush because I haven’t got the Ride For Ruin achievement (kill x amount of enemies using scouts in the Tool Age)

A lot of maps would allow flanking I guess, if the middle isn’t plugged (for small maps not defending the gap in the trees would be bad). I’m playing skirmish games in Arabia and Black Forest, but I’m more interested in game modes. It seems that Random Map is the best game mode - always start in dark age with few resources and 1 scout, 3 villagers. Does Random Map force a random map every time? The option to choose a map still seemed to exist but I think it’s over-ridden.

Are other game modes popular online, like regicide or wonder victory, or is that mainly a thing that people do with friends? From my understanding most people play in “ranked” matches, and that effects ELO, so an idiot like me with a controller will get lower ELO to get better matches, or do any matchmaking games effect ELO? I’ve never dared to start a match online, I’m holding off :innocent:

My avatar is a pig, just for lols. I’m 34 years old so I want to play as well as I can, but I will disable cross-platform chat, if not disable chat entirely in xbox settings if I play online. I’m interested to know if anyone else knows how to approach this on xbox, is there much point in ever learning chat features? The chat commands are button combos, like cheat codes. Also I’m not aware of a shortcut to use text chat, even though I’m playing at a desk with a mechanical keyboard permanently plugged into my xbox.

One final comment - seems like building a castle isn’t a smart plan for defense. a.i. usually has siege or enough units to attack a castle, so perhaps getting lots of stone isn’t smart. I kinda want to wall off a few towers but this doesn’t seem like a good move, I think I should gather less stone early in the game, or just have ~600 but not necessarily use it right away. Rather have wood, food, gold.

8

Found some good old fashioned text articles:

Man I hate Youtube.

1 Like
9

I used to think the Hard AI cheats. They don’t.
Can you watch replays of your game on Xbox? If so, watch the AI. You will see they don’t cheat. They just don’t stop producing. No idle time.
As for castle, I found that a tower is best to dissuade early AI aggression and a Castle loaded with archers will just murder any AI units, so it is a good investment if you want to play defence. Just keep some knights around to attack rams. If Ai is in imperial, keep some knights/cavs off to the side so they can run behind the AI attacking army and take out the trebs.

1 Like
10

Damn this is hard. I’m trying to get into castle age at a reasonable time, but a.i. gets castle age at 17 minutes and I’m at 32 minutes, only just getting the 800 food for it now. I built 9 farms which is probably too much, but it also takes a long time to walk to the boar. I got quite a lot of wood just to build a lumber camp, mining camp and to wall off my base.

I could get to castle age faster, but then I’d have no wall and probably no skirmishers to stop the a.i. archer rush. I have 20 villagers, is that too much for feudal age?

11

Walling is not really mandatory.
I think the key is not producing enough villagers. 20 is enough in dark age. You need a bit more in feudal. More villagers will accelerate ressources gathering, and then your castle age time.

4 Likes
12

Interesting. In my experience most campaigns missions are harder then the AI on the same difficulty.

Maybe playing with a controller is kind of a handicap in AoE2.
RTS are just easier to play with mouse and keyboard.
Definitive Edition Moderate AI is not that strong. You can actually test it by letting different AIs play against each other. Though unfortunately you can’t choose different difficulties for each player so you can’t make an Moderate DE AI fight a Hard HD AI.

1 Like
13

Not to the point that it matters though. I can select things very quickly because controller is all I know. I can manage the economy without the auto economy option. I can go 100% manual, but usually I’ll set auto-villager priorities to a preset, but then I’ll cancel it and reassign - especially things like “naval” which gathers mainly wood and gold, but I might not need more wood, so I set the preset and give automatic villager placement, then cancel it and reassign maybe 10 villagers from wood to something else.

Mouse and keyboard will save precision milliseconds in a player vs player game but I’m not freaking out.

14

Opps big mistake, I had the wrong ai selected. I have three options:

  • ai
  • ai CD edition
  • ai HD edition

I had HD edition selected, so now I’m playing with just “ai” selected (first option in the list) and my economy is ahead of the ai.

5 Likes
15

On Arena:

Pick a gunpowder civ and go with a 26-pop fast castle UU. No need for a castle drop, just build it inside your base. Train a few of them along with a petard, break through their walls, and kill all of the AI’s villagers. Even Extreme AI isn’t good at handling them.

On Arabia:

Go with a 20-pop archer opening. Wall your base and/or put a tower at the shortest distance between you and the AI’s base. Since the AI has no concept of “going around,” you can abuse it. Sneak something like 8–10 archers into the AI’s base when you’re on your way to Castle Age. Immediately get Crossbow and Bodkin. The early Crossbow powerspike just kills the AI.

1 Like
16

Watch me play using the controller in these short videos. It’s just skirmish ai… uploaded directly to my One Drive from Xbox.

Age of Empires II_ Definitive Edition-2025_08_13-11_54_18.mp4

Age of Empires II_ Definitive Edition-2025_08_13-11_56_27.mp4

2 Likes
17

I’ve recently spent 2 months or so to help my wife start from a complete beginner to being able to beat hard ai. My suggestion is don’t wall off, but do build some early towers around your eco zones and fight off early aggression with towers and counter units, namely using scouts, militia-line and spearmen. Try keeping the impact on your economy to the minimum. Walling on open maps will take up too much attention for beginners to the point where it’s not worth it any more.

Also from the clip you posted, everything else looks fine but i think your army composition looks a bit unusual, maybe you are just playing it casual because it’s black forest?

18

AFAIK, no the AI does not cheat. (DE/New Standard AI. The CD version did. I am unsure on the HD one. Maybe… I don’t remember.)

I dunno if this is still the same but, last version (before the recent major patch.) Promi (the new DE AI.) would actually get easier when you repeatedly lose if you play on moderate and below. (You could try this by losing a few games and see if it becomes easier.)

I know this because I played a 1v1 on moderate one day and it somehow got super strong. (I guess they coded this in? I dunno.) I then just resigned and started a new game. It seemed to be much weaker the second game but, I still lost and resigned. I started a third game and the AI was a joke. It score was extremely low and barely did anything. I won with ease. (Too easily honestly though…) Maybe worth a try?

But, I will mention something. (It seems we are about the exact same skill.) I found that team games with AI is actually better balanced compared to 1v1. The main one being that the AI helps you out a lot, you get team bonuses, and infinite gold from trade. (Relics are nice but, they are not as helpful in 1v1. They are great for team games though.)

For example: In a 1v1, I can ‘barely’ handle moderate ai. (in most cases.) However, in a 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4, I can ‘probably’ survive/win on hard. (This being standard resources. Set it to infinite resources and I could ‘probably’ win/survive on extreme with a team. I am better at DM. I need to test 1v1 DM though…)

But, practice does help a lot. I got all bronze and a few silver metals in the Art of War. Although, there is nothing wrong with playing standard either. Don’t worry about it too much. Just play to have fun from time to time. If you want to play more competitive, just go higher difficulty and challenge yourself. If you lose, don’t worry about it. Just try again. If it’s too much, just lower it.

1 Like
19

If you want a fast castle age you need a long dark age. You should have around 25 vils when you age up to feudal and 27 when you age up to castle age. Feudal age should just be you making a market and blacksmith and 2 vils, no military.

Also try playing arena vs ai, it simplifies things.

2 Likes
20

Here’s my Arena game with the moderate AI. Doesn’t seem like resource cheating at all.

tgame
tgame1919×1079 152 KB

And this one with the Extreme AI.

ey2
ey21919×1079 152 KB

2 Likes