Someone posted exactly the same post in aoe3… “i can’t win a single game”…calm down you will win eventually after losing a bunch at beginning
Build orders can only get you so far. The problem with following build orders blindly is when somebody counters your strategy then the build order falls apart. You need to know when to adapt and switch to a different build order if the original plan has failed. E.g. You go scouts but the opponent is fully walled and eventually up to castle age before you. Or you go feudal archers and the enemy has too many skirms with armour and fletching. Obviously your decision making at that point should be to recognise that the opponent has invested a lot of food into fletching, armour and skirmishers, but meanwhile you’ve only invested in fletching so you will have a lot more food to get up to Castle Age before him and get crossbow and bodkin to kill his skirms.
Once you hit Castle Age and beyond, the sheer chaos of the game means your brain cannot process everything at once so you have to simplify decisions, because it cannot retain every single step of a long build order. That’s why I use Survivalist’s Heroku app so I know approximately how much of each resource I need per military unit. In my head I know I need 6 on food and 6 on gold to make constant knights from one stable. So if I’m going 2 stable knights, just double it, so I’ll need 12 on food 12 on gold. Constant villagers need 6 on food per TC so if I’m going 3x TC in castle age, I need 18 on food just for villager production. Then add on the 2 stables for knights and it’s 18 farms for villagers + 12 farms + 12 gold miners for knights = 30 farms + 12 on gold. So you see it’s much easier to not get overwhelmed with your economy and macro management if you break down the essence of build orders into smaller parts which are much easier to remember. And the other advantage of this “bitesize” approach is you can change your mind and distribute your villagers onto resources differently in order to transition into different military units without needing to completely learn a whole new build order from scratch when your opponent counters the original strategy you planned.
How is your hotkeys setup? Because you simply cannot improve at this game without hotkeys and fast keystrokes. Once you understand all the units, counters and basic build orders, it’s often not your brain or your game knowledge which is holding you back. You get to the point where you know what you need to do, you know the tech trees and counters fairly well, but your mechanical skills are not as fast as your brain. Drill your hotkeys and improve your APM, get really good at the mechanical side of the game, then add that onto your build order knowledge and everything else will fall into place. Also I think you simply haven’t played enough ranked games to get to your natural ELO. Play at least 10x consecutive ranked games win or lose and once you start winning 50% of your games, you’ll know you’re at the right ELO level. Don’t be put off by a losing streak. It happens even at the highest level over 2k+ ELO. Every single player (apart from like the very elite top 0.5% of players or something) loses around half their games. Once you accept that, you will start appreciating the game more. Enjoy the fact that you will learn more from your losses and improve more when you lose. But only if you’re willing to swallow your pride and revisit your losses with a notepad.
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There’s a mod called “Interactive Build Order Guide” by Cicero. The build orders included there are slow by today’s standards but for starting out in online, they’re absolutely fine. You are narrated through the build order so it’s easy to pick up if you practice over and over 
Can only give the same tip to @Gargarensis
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Watch some tutorials on youtube and replicate them against AI till you get the structure right and timing then test it against ranked?
So you hate this game, by your own admission, have no talent, and don’t want to practice build orders. Okay, maybe this game isn’t for you then. I don’t know what to tell you, everybody here has gone through this process.
Or, take your own pill:
Stop making your psychological issues worse. You are being hysterical. Take a chill pill, learn a few build orders. You don’t even have to learn tight build orders, you can pick loose ones. Loose build orders don’t prescribe when to take a boar, or when exactly to send vils to berries. They will just ask you to put x on food, y on wood, and z on gold.
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I’ve checked out the “buildorderguide” site that was recommended to me. In the front page, all of them have these tags: “fast feudal” and “fast castle”. When I reach Castel age I don’t have enough resources to do everything I want. My solution? Advance to Feudal with 40 villagers and to Castle with 50. That’s a lot more that these build orders instruct. There’s a serious snag with this economic stategy, and if you’re still reading this you’ll realise it: my opponent will PROBABLY SCOUT RUSH / ARCHER RUSH ME BEFORE I’VE EVEN ADVANCED TO FEUDAL. The probability of that happening is quite high precisely because EVERYONE SEEMS TO BE FOLLOWING THOSE GOD **** BUILD ORDERS .
In my latest games in Ranked I’ve tested this strategy and I wall up with Palisades before my opponent has a chance to attack me. One of them came up with two Men at arms and tore down a tile of palisade as if it was made of paper. The following match I did manage to hold on, but resigned when my opponent’s score was 2000 higher than me. See? SEE??? I CAN’T MAKE THIS FIT. I still don’t understand what I’m doing wrong; how is it that my opponents don’t instantly kill me but grow so much.
Oh, the IA. I did manage to beat the IA on hard quite a few times. Do you know how I did it? I placed Outposts surrounding it’s base. Yes; that worked. I have no idea why, but strating from there I could place military buildings right next to the IA’s base and counter every unit with which it tried to defend itself. There was a fun secondary effect: it the Outpost was next to a mine or berry bush, with IA villagers working on them, they would start having seizures, evidently trying to decide which direction to go.
Then I tried to do that to humans. It was a disaster.
Heh…there was a reason for me saying that.
About my ELO: indeed, I started at 1000 and it has been dropping consistently. I still haven’t played the 10 recommended matches; I think I’ve played (and lost) 8, and my ELO is… 500?
And there is a reason for me saying that. You are literally losing your sh1t here. Wanna see hysterical? Look at a mirror.
I shouldn’t be extending you even an ounce of charity, considering how much arrogance you’ve displayed despite not knowing even the very basics of the game.
But I will, because I like to be nice. So, here’s what you do if you want to get better.
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Download CaptureAge on your computer
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Watch your previous 3 matches on replay with capture age
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What you are looking for is a comparison between your villager count and your opponent’s, the techs you have, and your armies
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In addition, post your recordings here. People are generally nice enough to give feedback
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Learn one build order. Scouts, or archers. Just one. Pick one civ. Practice that one build order on that one civ. Make sure that the two are compatiable.
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Watch Survivalist’s videos. Hera is good, but not that great for noobs. Survivalist has comprehensive videos about walling, making decisions, and playing properly.
Most importantly, make sure that your tc is never idle.
If you follow these, you should be able to reach 1000 Elo no problem. But also, stop losing your $h17 and being hysterical. Chill. Use smaller case fonts, explain things properly. And don’t be mean to people. You will get better, I can promise you that.
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Dude, I was referring to myself, not you; that “reason” were my own emotional problems. See, that’s why I have a beef with you. You didn’t understand the subtext of my reply. Fine. But you assumed the worst and lashed out and declare that I don’t deserve an ounce of charity.
There’s one match I’d like to upload. It’s my second to last; the one where I walled with palisades and it was wortless. How do I do it? Which server do I upload the file into?
You can upload it here, the forum supports .aoe2record files. Alternatively, you can go to aoe2insights, find yourself and link the game
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First , you need lose until the 400 elo , after that, make a scout build order , that’s the game.
after that you don’t need so much resources , you need make 1 scout in 1 stable and 1 vil in on TC.
In the Castle age make Kina 6 on food and 6 on gold for each stable, just do that and have fun
Gargarensis game.aoe2record (1.9 MB)
Here’s the file. You can all see why I reject the established build orders and what I’ve tried to do instead. All of you have been supportive and I thank you very much, so keep being like that and PLEASE do not roast me.
I’ve been playing Magyars so a scout rush would fit, what with cheaper scouts and free smelter tech. But the “scout build order” is as far away from me as Godot is from finally appearing on stage.
What elo are you In this game?
I’m 585 and I have one more match to go to appear on the leatherboard.
What is your name on the aoe2 DE?
I can see your journey on the game with this information
I’m Gargarensis, just like here.
You won some games in the unranked game , you shoud be habby with that
Alright, let me take a look at it…
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At the start of the match, you should shift queue villagers in the Town Center + build two houses with the starting villagers. Two build one house, the third builds the second. First 6 villagers to sheep
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For a scout rush, 3 on wood in the beginning is enough
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The 10th villager in total should lure the 1st boar
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Your initial scouting is actually good for this Elo. Try to put your scout into a control group at the beginning of the game and occasionally check if he’s just standing idle
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I don’t think you have to wall that early. You should rather focus on optimizing your Dark Age bc 20 mins is quite long…
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You ignored your 2nd boar for a long time
Basically, what you need in first place is routine in your Dark Age. You clicked up with 39 villagers which is way too much as you’d normally have that number when going up to Castle Age. Normally, you don’t want to have more than 21 villagers in Dark Age.
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Umm… yes. A quote of myself from earlier:
In the replay I uploaded, I carried out this strategy. I don’t really understant your reply. Did you mean that my strategy is ridiculous and won’t ever work, so you dismiss it entirely?
Indeed. I’ve talked about the winning streak I had one night. You’ve brought up an important word: “happy”. When I realise that my wins in unranked AMOUNT TO NOTHING because hardly any talented people can be found there, how do you think I feel? Happy? Well, no; I feel EQUALLY LACKING IN TALENT.
Nobody begans on the top , start from the begin , and after you will play well on ranked