Compared to AoE2, AoM already feels like that.
You mean using Spies?
No, just by using my lazy APM skills and then suddenly after a few minutes getting alerted and see my scout haunting an autoscouting AI scout, and the AI always autoscouts of course, it’s auto-everything. So to correct that issue I need to pay attention and micro even more (put scout on defensive or stand ground). For the same reason I would not use AS until I got full map control already and only for the last hidden spots. So AS is nice for local skirmish games but not too usable, nearby scouting and enemy scouting I always prefer to do manually in my own pace.
You can’t compare AoE with AoM imho (and shouldn’t) as there are so much differences between those two. You should compare AoE I, AoE II, HD (2013) with AOE I / II DE, huge difference in pace but still playable for all paces. If you can keep up with that faster pace you will get better in time for sure and so also rise in ELO and become a high level player.
From AOE III on the series has gotten more into A-RTS style and you could even consider the choice of faith to be as turn based strategy.
I think that the era of AoM Titans Expansion and Blizzard’s Frozen Throne expansion were the golden years of A-RTS, because of the competition between MS and Blizzard at that age of RTS empires ago. And let’s not forget EA. Even Atari (Eugene Systems) entered the RTS genre with Act of War.