The Best AoE2 Learning Resources

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to improve at Age of Empires II — the community has produced excellent, well-tuned material. These are the resources we lean on, and that informed the guides on this site.

Build orders

• AoE Companion — clean, categorised build guides (Scout Rush, Archer Rush, Fast Castle variants, drush, water). Our build orders are cross-checked against these.
• Build Order Guide — an interactive build-order tool you can step through.

Unit counters & stats

• aoe2techtree.net — the full tech tree with hidden unit stats and attack bonuses. Indispensable when you want exact numbers.
• Spirit of the Law (YouTube) — deeply researched balance breakdowns, a beginner counters guide, and a “countering every unique unit” series.

Strategy & improvement

• r/aoe2 wiki — a hub linking community guides, counter cheat-sheets, and beginner material.
• T90Official, ViBE (YouTube) — pro and educational creators whose build guides and coaching content are gold for ladder players.

How to actually use them

Pick one weakness at a time — idle Town Center time, a shaky build order, poor scouting — fix it across a few games, then move to the next. Reviewing your own recorded games against these references is the fastest way to find the gap between what you think you did and what actually happened.

For a structured path, start with our Learn chapters and the Counters page.