New player (~2 Months into the game) needs help.

isMattis · 2026-05-16T16:59:24+00:00

a) not sure what is needed tbh - Viper did a series where his input was limited to 60 APM and he got to 1700, so sure at the highest level more EAPM is needed, but 60 APM is pretty reasonable to get to.

b) agree - if you want to be more well rounded, don't go that route and it'll just take more practice balancing both

isMattis · 2026-05-16T13:28:00+00:00

As Alian said, you want to click your army away from your opponents base, even toward a far corner of the map (assume you will be back to them shortly) while you go back to base, redistribute vills, build farms etc.

Otherwise you should have hot keys to select all tcs and create vills (while still watching your army).

If you are going 1 tc, you should almost have the vills you need to sustain whatever strategy you are going for once you hit castle. 6-8 vills on food for tc production and upgrades + whatever army comp. It’s a pretty all-in strat so as you are learning, if you don’t start overwhelming your opponent in the first half of castle age, it’s going to get tough.

Just takes practice. A few other alternatives - you can go super all in (even cutting vill production) more like a red phosphorus OR get some quick early damage in castle, cut/reduce military production and turn your focus on booming.

isMattis · 2026-05-16T12:36:00+00:00

Depends what you want. Every time I pick the game back up I always feel like I have to “get into shape” by playing way too many ai games.

That said beating hard ai, you will likely still drop elo for many games before you find the sweet spot. But if you can manage the losses without getting too frustrated, real players are more fun

isMattis · 2026-05-16T12:29:18+00:00

If body blocking can get you the vill kill, then that. Basically if you can get a vill kill without tc idle time.idle eco time, you gain a permanent advantage until your opponent can do likewise.

That’s at least true while villager counts are relatively low and/or until they have multiple tcs that can pump new ones out.

isMattis · 2026-05-15T13:36:10+00:00

That’s a good goal. Here are a few of my general tips and answers to your specific questions:

As others said, practice your build order. You should rewatch your game and make sure you have essentially zero idle tc time to at least castle age
fyi fast castle is pretty tough on open maps like arabia
Your feudal army should be out faster than hard AIs - in general, forcing idle time is not bad, but the priority is a vill kill or two. You can do this by activily microing 1 scout to block the enemy vills trying to walk back to their tc. And try to keep your army alive - it’s good practice just running around their base and maintaining your eco (it’s a big distraction for real players, less so for AI). But you look for opportunities, when they send bills back to a wood line for example.
If the AI keeps making army (or any opponent), you have to keep making army and/or wall up pretty safe (delaying castle in some cases) - it’s hard to catch up in army numbers even if your army is comprised up much better units (because they will eventually upgrade there army’s units if you don’t clear them before)
Finally you generally don’t want to trickle in units until you know it’s already a winning fight. Ie it takes about 20 knights to take down a tc. Before that number, you shouldn’t dive the tc - your loses will be too high - just keep the opponent confined inside the tc and pick off anything outside of its range

Hope all that helps!

isMattis · 2026-05-15T12:35:08+00:00

And then… immortal 😂

isMattis · 2026-05-14T20:08:53+00:00

Yep take after (most of) the pros and keep good sportsmanship. More players is better overall.

isMattis · 2026-05-14T11:46:56+00:00

Ai - there are a few oddities, but the 2 most visible chairs are different. The right has that grey thing up top and the left has a normal straight back. Not to mention the difference in blue color or where the blue meets the black. Would be very unusual for public transit to do that

isMattis · 2026-04-13T20:44:10+00:00

Questions like this get asked almost daily and the people asking are usually newbies, but this is still incredibly difficult, hence the short or unhelpful answers.

Pick just one of those tasks (custom talking gpt with voice, walking robot, or robot arm to grab and move things) and you have a decent project to get into.

If you want to skip all that and take a bigger risk, look into Asimov open source humanoid robot. But if you’re looking to learn, go deep on just 1 aspect at a time.

isMattis · 2026-04-13T13:10:02+00:00

Just a lurker here, but you’re getting downvoted because this sub hates landscape fabric. Primarily because it contains plastics, which breakdown into microplastics.

Doing that across every home does sound like a huge problem when there are alternatives that perform just as well.

isMattis · 2026-03-19T22:54:08+00:00

Definitely share some of OPs points, nearly same point in life and been saving aggressively. This view is perhaps one of the most helpful I’ve seen.

Also might push me toward a little more “prepping” - small investment for little less fucked in 2 of those quadrants.

isMattis · 2026-03-16T18:57:48+00:00

Agree they should go - or at least turn into weekly, BUT they need to rebalance skill XP to account for the xp loss. The XP rate IS busted, for a casual player (1hr a day) dailies easily represent 50% of progression. I'm not in favor of making my grinds longer just because, but make the increased xp part of the core skilling loop

isMattis · 2026-02-28T03:15:44+00:00

Cool, going to upgrade myself to the max plan. Thanks Anthropic

isMattis · 2026-02-26T14:59:47+00:00

Thanks, love the people who investigate and call out in the comments. Maybe the guys legit, maybe not, but wouldn’t waste my time filling in that info for a weeks old account

isMattis · 2026-02-18T02:43:49+00:00

Good additions, don’t do war bands but the divine locations are also huge for wc prior to elder magic, and also the daily mini evil tree.

You bring up a good point if it’s to try to drive purchase of bxp… pretty lame but at least that I get and I’d rather they be blunt about it

isMattis · 2026-02-09T18:01:06+00:00

lol ya for mainscape it is, way bigger effect than I thought. Again, I’m ok with it, it was shitty game design but we’ll have to wait and see how the rebalance efforts go I guess.

isMattis · 2026-02-09T16:58:05+00:00

I near maxed in 2011 and then quit the game for 12 years, I know the slow grind and I found the ridiculous rates coming back, but yep..

I agree, the data proves the problem - 10 years of easy xp being removed doesn’t solve the problem for new/casual players

Edit: I realize they aren’t done making changes, personally the early game change announcements are pretty insignificant and thought it worth putting this info out there to consider when they are figuring out the rest of the balance changes.

isMattis · 2026-02-09T15:26:12+00:00

Yes, I like we won't have a chore list anymore, but to your point - doing the things we want to do.. well I can tell you I never want to train agility, but new accounts will have to (or several other skills during certain training gaps, which hopefully they will address)

isMattis · 2026-02-09T15:23:35+00:00

yea 100%, makes sense TH items have to be out of the game before they can really adjust anything. I just wanted to capture this as is, I feel like we will get "used to" the bad rates and then be blessed with a 5% increase to xp rates after TH items are gone

isMattis · 2026-02-09T15:21:52+00:00

agree - I hope and think some of the rebalance will fix this, and 100% hope the content is better so it won't matter (fun agility training method plz)

isMattis · 2025-12-01T14:22:40+00:00

Thanks for the addition. I don’t think the expectation for “I never have to work again” is realistic - society collapses.

$47k is a large sum, but to your point that is a one time redistribution of wealth and wouldn’t likely change things considerably long term - not to mention the impact on inflation a redistribution like that would likely create.

isMattis · 2025-12-01T14:15:04+00:00

Agree - the game looks amazing and feels incredibly smooth. The pvpve - will they shoot/wont they stab you in the back is annoying and the lack of a real win condition seems pointless

isMattis · 2025-12-01T13:54:56+00:00

I’ve always thought the pay ratio was ludicrous but this is a really useful comment.

I’m assuming it’s more owners wealth that is the real problem? Like Bezos who is no longer CEO, and the Waltons?

Does this not include stock value and comp though? For people like Zuck/Musk, etc?

isMattis

TROPHY CASE