Lessons from playing Age of Empires 2

— 5 minute read

I've been playing Age of Empires 2 after hours and on the weekends to unwind. Ya I know, saying I play a high stress real time strategy game to "unwind" is a bit wild.

The biggest lesson from Age of Empires 2, build order and how you setup your base early matters. When you get the machine started, collecting resources, and managing population space with houses (lucky HUNS).

If there is water, build a dock, and fish!

Always be scouting around the map, you may know where the enemy base is, but its probably a good idea to keep tabs on it. See what units they are making and how you can counter them.

You can always pivot a military unit, it can be expensive to switch but it could turn the battle into your favor.

So much of this game can be related back to building software and businesses.

Remember, those that attack early are the move fast a break things people, the economy back home isn't as strong as it may seem. Fend off the attack and counter back to their base.

Building software has a build order. Starting a project often requires the same 10-20 steps every time. Decisions on tech stack (Civilization) each have different perks and downsides. What hosting platform to use for said project (Map), each one provides different resources.

There are Age of Empires players that play 1 map, and 1 civilization. They like it, its fun and enjoyable to them. Thats generally how I want to built my software too. 1 tech stack, 1 hosting platform. It makes building and starting projects easy and repeatable.

Sure, doing a lot of the setup, can feel boring. But the fun part is around the corner. Is that Scout Cavalry army lurking in the fog of war? Is my product gonna change the world?!

What if things go according to plan?!

Even the speed bumps or small raids on your base, you can get through this. the hiccups make the experience interesting and keep me coming back.

You may have to pivot

Thats ok, after seeing the competition out in the world you may need to pivot your approach. Just remember the counter units or ways to out maneuver them. Sometimes the best strategy is to wall up, protect your base. Sometimes its best to charge in early. All of it depends on resources collected.

WOLOLO

Sometimes the tactics will mean you need to bring in the MONKS! Or the sales organization. Gotta win over customers/villagers/unique-units.

I don't recommend yelling WOLO WOLO during a sales call though.

Protect the KING!

If you are play regicide, name of the game here is protect your king at all cost (Production Database), You lose your king or database its game over for you.

Some people play the long game!

I saw a video of a Age of Empires game that went over 6 hours. Just like building software its a long game, and from the outside people won't understand the amount of joy we get from it.

HOTKEYS

Setting up hotkeys for your workflow with building software, make your tasks much easier and faster. Hotkeys for creating units or upgrades can save you when you get getting attacked. Learn the hotkeys spend time some perfecting your keyboard mapping.

NO I won't mention VIM.

A lot of people like old things!

Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings launched in 1999. Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition launched in 2019

There is still an incredibly loyal fan base to the game, with full time pro players and full time streamers of the game (T90 Forever).

A lot of software tech has launched since 1999 as well, lots of hype around a lot of tech, but so much of the web is running on old tech. Hard to beat HTML/CSS/Javascript many have tried. HTML/CSS/Javascript is the Teutonic Fortress of the internet. Incredibly strong and hard to get past.

There will be matchups you can't win

Look, life isn't fair. Sometimes the matchup isn't in your favor. Your competition is really good, you launched to early before you had a good product. You ran out of resources because of over investing in the big shiny trebuchet or you forgot to build a mill.

Gold, Please.

Asking your allies for money! An underrated move to keep the game moving and the product rolling. Sometimes you'll be shocked with what your friends send you!

Fog of War

Scouting and finding out whats out in the world is critical to putting yourself out there. There are players that will sit behind the nice stone wall in Arena and never venture out until they feel ready. Unfortunately, when they feel ready to venture outside the walls. Their opponent has Castle dropped right outside their gate.

This is the never ship crowd of people. "Oh its not ready, just 2 more features(upgrades)."

Keep making Villagers.

Keep making villigaers, keep building projects, keep sharing stuff. Eventually you ask chat "how do you turn this on", and BOOM next thing you know you have a sports car with a machine gun racing around the name.

Keep making things.

Age of Empires has played a huge role in my life for how I think and how I execute day-to-day. Nail the early base setup, get that BOOM going and then the fun begins. The best part, just because you are a young knight now, don't let that stop you from being a fully upgraded Paladin in the future.

Never be afraid of the Fog of War, keep exploring and building, keep sharing. If you don't know whats out there, you'll never advance.

Please let me know what civilization and maps you've played if you have played Age of Empires. Maybe we can setup a LAN at the next conferenc and play together.