FINALLY! Somebody (a Streamer or Player), who gets it. Thank you so much for the video. I, myself, figured it out after weeks of trial and error, but with a video like this the start or in most cases restart of AoE2 could have been so much smoother. That's what beginners and even lots of quite decent players need.
It's honestly so refreshing after watching other pros like Viper just say "well it's super personal and you shouldn't use mine" with no other guidance. Yes, I get that everyone will have their own, but give me something to start with! Thanks Nili.
Back in 2009, when I printed out my exam, there was a guy who printed out small pieces of various picture. When I asked him, he said it was for AOE Conq. and he sticks them on his keyboard.
I like the DE Grid System for hot keys. You have always the same key for the same position of the unit or tech. This way you can learn the hot keys really fast and easy.
@@johannesha186 Yes. They are not perfect and I changed a few things already, but I think they are really good to get started until you have figured out what keys you need more often and so on.
@J K I have idle villager on space like Nili and select all TCs on Tab for example. And I am not really sure about the other select building hot keys. Nilis method from the video seems good, but it would interfer with the grid layout.
Imo its easy to remember the keys as long as they are comfortable to use, It's more important to have them spread out efficiently. The most used functions need to be closest to your natural hand position. Why set it up for easy learning when soon you will have mastered all of them?
I just want to mention something about overlapping hotkeys I don't quite agree with: Like Nili said it is very important to not have certain hotkeys overlapping as that can slow you down, e.g. that you have jump to barracks and split formation on the same hotkey. If you are in a post imp fight you will want to jmp to the barracks to produce more units, but you have your military selected so all it does is let them go in split formation thus costing you important time and fucking up your micro. BUT you can overlap villager building and selection hotkeys. I have B+A for building an archery range and A for going to the archery range and it works perfectly fine: If you have a villager selceted and want to go to the archery range that still works as you first would have to press B for the building hotkey to be prioritized. And you are only in the building menu if you want to build sth anyway This way you can get your hotkeys to be more compact and also they might be way easier to learn for beginners (A for building the range and going to the range). More overlaps can be
You can overlap multiple keybinds like this without conflict. (Each line is 1 key) - Produce unit 1, Build economic, Build military, Build palisade, Build fish trap - Produce unit 2, Build wall. Pack treb - Produce unit 3, Build gate. Unpack treb - Produce Unit 4, Build palisade gate. - Garrison, Ungarrison, Unload, Build Farm - Attack ground, Repair, Send back to work, Build House - Patrol, build tower You can overlap unit formations & stances onto any other build building hotkeys that you don't need "Go to" hotkeys for, like outpost or farm for example You can also overlap produce unit/tech hotkeys with formations or stances if you prefer
Bro do you even know how to play the game? You have to spam the villager hotkey from the start of the game all the way to 130 vills. Only way to improve is to make your roommate know how much you want to produce more vills
Overlapping commands are very useful: You can accomodate many more fast commands within reach of one hand. There are no disdavantages if you just know which actions can be on the same hotkey and which can't. Every command that requires you to have selected a unit or building is situational and thus can share a hotkey with other situations. For example, you could use E to tell a villager to build an economy building, to build a house, to develop the most important technology in each building and to have your army do something. In every given situation, all actions must have a different hotkey. As you want to be able to select or go to specific units or points in any situation, those actions need unique hotkeys. I like mouse wheel up for producing the primary (gold) unit in each building and mouse wheel down for producing the trash unit. It's so much smoother for queuing up several units than pressing a key multiple times or even having to use the left hand.
I like the idea of taking a step back to look at how hotkeys are set up. When I played HD, I reassigned to a grid system, and now on DE many of the defaults are the same as I set myself. However, I have some ideas: 1. Like others have mentioned, side mouse button for TC and idle vill is great. Even idle military for a third mouse button if possible 2. It would be very interesting to gather analysis of what actions are performed most often (by percentage) and use hotkeys based on that 3. Maybe to help with the "go to" conflicts, the space bar could be set to "select nothing" (I don't know if this is possible and I'm not by my PC)
I remember TheViper saying he doesn't agree with having hotkeys on the mouse buttons because you are already having to do so much precise clicking and maneuvering with the right hand and any hotkeys can have a negative effect on that. But I suppose it's a preference thing.
@7:30 you can still use two fingers. Just the middle finger for the stable, and then the ring finger for the unit. But you have to move your hand position. Great Vid!
What really works for me is I put build archery range on A, Go to archery range also on A, and select all archery ranges on ALT-A. This basically means evrything related to archery ranges is on 1 key (and also the building and going to key dont overlap since when you enter the build menu, you're gonna build anyway and not go to production building)
for techs and upgrades there are diffrent cases to consider. For lumbercamp etc hat have just 1 tech you can put the hotkey on the goto hotkey for the same building bc when it matters nothing is faster than double clicking the same hotkey twice. for a unit upgrade you can put the hotkey right below the unit that makes it easy to click. make sure you have the most common and time critical things on easy combinations. the castle age trifecta of goto lumbercamp->bow saw, goto blacksmith->bodkin and goto range->Crossbow is probably the most important one. same with goto university->ballistic. the super fringe techs i wouldnt place bc it is to easy to missclick and then some res is gone before you realize.
Well... That's something I need to figure out. For now I'm thinking of something like the StarCraft hotkeys. A for archery range, S for stable, D for dock, W for siege workshop, E for barracks, C for castle, R for monastery, U for university and B for blacksmith. Q stands for build a house and building everything else is Ctrl+select hotkeys (like Ctrl+A - build an archery range.) Since Shift is used for queues I use it for nothing else. I think the best hotkey for the TC is Space since I anyways press it very often. Still I need to get my keys for queuing units, because in SC the hotkeys work differently. I could use the wheel to select my camps, but I'm not sure if pressing the wheel does something. But still I'm rather used to pressing Shift and Ctrl while spider-handling a keyboard - main thing I use my pinky for - so maybe I won't need that many hotkeys. Another advantage of it is me having big hands. (Not that big though, on the guitar I can only stretch from fret 3 to fret 8.) So I should test it. And practice a lot.
Like someone else said, you can overlap Go to X building and Build X building since when ur in the building menu u will be building something anyway and when a villager is selected the Go to building still works as long as ur not in the villager building menu. This way building a archery range is done with ''A'' for example and Go to archery range is also "A". Works like a charm :)
The way you talk about index finger and thumb makes me think we place our hands on keyboard completely differently. I always default to WASD setup and the only button I would ever press with my thumb is space while W I usually press with middle finger and not index finger. Even E can be pressed with middle finger if index one pressed R etc. beforehand. Regardless, you raised a lot of good points and I believe your setup should be very effective as long as someone can get used to it.
Hey Nili, thanks for the video. Do you have "Select" or "Select all" as default when selecting buildings? Which key do you use as a modifier to switch between those options? Vielen Dank. :)
@@horsthuber482 Ive put my tc ooon e pushed as fast as i could go And for all this, theres only one thing you should know: I tried so hard and got so far but in the end it didnt even produuuuce I had to fail, to lose em all but in the end my eco was shit anyway
My hotkeys are much simpler than that and i feel it helps me use them in a more streamline fashion. All units have corresponding hotkeys with their position in the building menu and buildings are jumbled up where more common ones are closer to my left hand
I think DE's hotkeys are really intuitive since they actually line up to the left side of the keyboard. I guess nili had to adjust because HD didn't have such easy keys. Im glad the devs made decently good default keys, except for things like selecting stables and university which are L and U.
I picked this game up after 20 years and the first thing I did was reload all the original hotkeys. It's amazing how well I still knew them and instantly picked them up. Finally forcing myself to fix that garbage.
Do you use ctrl+y(german keyboard)? I see ctrl+x and ctrl+c, ctrl a,s,d but not ctrl+y... do you have all your keybinds posted somewhere. This videa gives a lot of good principles, but I feel like for new players it would be helpful to see the entire picture of your setup
I use standard DE hotkeys, but I have my idle villagers and select TC on my mouse buttons because I find pressing those way easier. I'm bad at the game, but I generally control group my production buildings and use those instead of jumping to them so I can easily produce out of all my production buildings at once and reset gather points for all.
I use similiar but use Mousewheel for farms and houses which I use all the time. Units are CVBNM. TC is at X so XC to spam villigers and Docks at Z. I use S for Stable and D for DaBarracks. Making up words will help to remember as well. So the 'F '#$%ing Castle and 'G'uns (Seige)
for techs i'm (slowly) getting comfortable using the same unit key: example, archery range is W for archer, so my blacksmith W is archer attack, shift W archer armor. Stables E is knight, so blacksmith E is cav armor. Carrying this over to Shift + build unit key = upgrade. R for skirms? shift R upgrades to elite skirm. Shift C and V are for good misc tech (thumb ring, husbandry) I love archers and pointy bois, so my university main W E R, shift W, shift E, shift R are the common ones(ballistics,chem,etc). Weird shit i never use is on N, M. TC tech E is Vil, so shift E is my hand cart line. Market i'm using W E R for SELL, and shift W E R for BUY. techs are on CV, shift CV I fumble a lot with the monk tech, but the keybinds are there lol. Thank you again for this video.
Excellent introduction. I end up using the home row more to reduce finger movement. Only problem with my setup is I have to deselect units before going to buildings. I wish they had options to chain hotkeys (key followed by another key).
nice video, if its possible you should add a comparison to the default set of hotkeys, since i think most of us are working with these. the defaults do look to have a system in them. why aren't they as good? i saw you mention some things like overlap, but where are these in the default set? This way we are more able to adjust the default set to our own standard, as you suggest in the beginning of your video. Keep up the good work and the nice community together with the other casters!
Where can I find the file? I am just starting with AOE2 DE for the first time after about 10 years and whant to start with a sensible hotkey set from the getgo. After a bit of research i like your the best. but can't find the file...
@@NiliAoE2 Wood, more like it... Or some cheap substitute that looks like wood even. With some savescumming I could beat the campaigns though! P.S.: Ich möchte die Gelegenheit nutzen, dir für die vielen unterhaltsamen Kommentare und Spiele zu danken, zu denen du beigetragen hast. Mach's gut und frohe Ostern!
I think the standard hotkeys are really good and intuitive, and you don't need to move your hand at all, so you stay precise and consistent. I only remap idle vil to mouse wheel down (idle military mouse wheel up), and then I have it all. All I need. And learning to use hotkeys for techs is in reality now just to remember to do it, because I know where the hotkeys for those are already.
@@antonfilimonov9131 yes. That sounds like a stupid hotkey. Unfortunately I don't use the "go to" hotkeys, so I didn't know that some of them were stupid.
@@light_david7 well I can't imagine playing without ctrl+shift+L to select all stables (ctrl+L is out of question), and the same ctrlshift stuff for all unit production buildings. Starting to play aoe 2 and having trouble setting hotkeys up, apparently there is no perfect setup on the whole internet. Everybody is using some odd mixes from original aoe 2, aoe 2 HD and the new aoe 2 DE. I love the aoe 2 DE default grid hotkeys and now just have to figure out how to make crtl+(and sometimes shift)+building comfortable for using with left hand. Boy this L for stable made me furious first time I saw it. And other building are weird: mill, castle, camps. I wish the developers would explain the logic, it is super tough to understand without HD experience. I get it when university is U, all right, but others? Idle units are also some bs, thankfully they go to mouse easily.
Since I´m coming back to RTS I wanted to start on the right track - this video helped me alot. The grind layout does not take advantage of the most impressive feature of AoE, the select buildings feature. Could you help me out Nili with the following: 1. you use B (for opening the building tab) then 2. select the desired building. But if i want to build a farm with B the system jumps back to step one. What am I missing? EDIT: had B on "cancel" - so classic conflict. Any chance on a settings video? I guess all low (to see key features like hills?) and keep it as simple as possible?
Thank you so much! I have been slowly adding hotkeys, from the start, and arrived at a point where there is no logic, and I use too complicated combinations. I will definitely try your patterns, going to be hell though with over 400 games played, but well ;) also, i was wondering, with DE, doesn't it more sense to have your quick GO-TO hotkeys (a,s,d etc) on select ALL archery ranges, barracks, stable etc? Isn't selecting just one building a bit of a remnant from single queue?
@ nili with DE we can select all production buildings of a kind with a hotkey, which on voobly we had to do with control groups. Do you think thats a good feature? because i started to do it with shift + y/x/c/v (for all rax/ all stables etc.) and it works fine, but of course its more than one finger...
Most of the keys depends on everyone but there's one that you should always have. Mousewheel up for idle armies and down for idle villagers Is just to convinient, you can check it every few seconds or minutes and then you wil do it without thinking of it. is awesome
@@JonaBoy16 i just change the zoom from wheel up/down to ctrl+wheel up or ctrl+wheel down. I find i dont zoom super often so i don't mind the ctrl click, but it's still quick enough to be easy when you need it (fast micro)
I'm a StarCraft player trying to get into aoe 2, but I can't get the attack move to work. Also, why is attack move called Economic buildings in the hotkey menu?
@@floijd I think it's that way regardless. For example with hd hotkey defaults, if i'm in dark age, click the military build button "s", and try to build an archery range with "w", which is redundant with the hotkey to build a mill, it automatically just builds a mill, even though I'm in the military menu from the military hotkey.
Can you show, how you set up the "5" to be able to choose all town centre ? I didn´t find it... : -( , furhtermore, how do you make groups in game and what are your favorite groups ?
Its Great Nili, but only one question... If you use wheel up and down to build lumberjack and mining camp, how you turn the gates?. Thank you, i based my hotkeys on this video!
@@NiliAoE2 Thanks, you re the best! Followed you during the Red Bull Wololo, you did great matches. Just one more thing about the hotkeys. Instead of "GO TO" University, Blacksmith or Market (technologies buildings) don't think is better to change that for "Select All"? Think you don't need to go to that buildings... Maybe you re in a battle and you just want to do some tec upgrade. I am super noob anyway it's just a doubt.
It seems you have an only two button mouse. You could consider getting a mouse with two buttons on the side (natural thumb mouse position) . This gives two more options (I have them bound to "Jump to TC" and "Idlle Villager"). you could also consider binding one of them to control, to "unlock a second layer" of hotkeys.
Whats important with mouse keys is that they shouldnt be super important ones for the reason it will fuckup your mouse accuracy by pushing a button with thumb meanwhile moving it.
my logitech g604 has 2 buttons on top next to left click and the scroll wheel moved to the sides act as buttons. I use these in combination with thumb modifiers on my dactyl manuform keyboard to do common actions. I don't think this affects mouse accuracy since finger location and pressure are the same as left and right click
Hi Nili, just fyi, I tried downloading your hotkeys file but when I load them onto my settings, they're just the default DE hotkeys. I uploaded the file to aokhotkeys.appspot.com/ and that indeed seems to be the case.
The one Hotkey I struggle to find a place for is delete and mass delete... I used to have it on the DPI mouse button somewhat easy to reach, but I don't click it by accident. My new mouse doesn't have a DPI button, for now I put it on F1 and F2, but it doesn't work I delete my scout every second match and lost several games because I deleted 40 archers by accident.... My hotkey setup is somewhat similar to Nili's, but not completely, he skips a lot of unit commands that are frequently use like stop, select all army on screen, aggressive and defensive stance.
Nili, I bought a mouse with 4 buttons in a circle on the thumb (could have bought one with 2 in hindsight) and put the ALT and CTRL buttons on the two easiest ones to hit. This opened up SOOO many more options for hotkeys and unit selection. Example, when you hit ALT+LeftClick to grab only villagers, that's done on just one hand. It also allows me to keep my left hand in the SAME SPOT the whole time as I can just bind stuff to CTRL+A for military buildings or something like that. I HATE trying to move my left hand to the right side of the keyboard and this fixes that issue... I'm curious if anyone has thought to do this... just throwing it into the ether!
just a little tip for future videos. dont select yellow and light green as colours near to each other, or even better, try to not use one of them at all. i'm one of those people blessed with red-green colourblindness and for me those 2 colours look exactly the same. try using complementary colours, for better contrast. :)
Hey Guys, I have a really hart question.My Hotkeys sometimes work different than other times. Example: I put building a castle on alt+F. Than I discovered that I can put "going to castle" on the same combination. (alt+F). Everything was fine. But now I started a game and it changed. Every time I want to build a castle the game now jumps to an existing castle. Why is that not consistend????
These tips were really awesome man. I play lots of different games, including shooters etc. So I'm basically always around WASD with my hand as well. This is really helpfull now that I'm getting back to AOE some more. Another issue I am having with AOE though is that I can't seem to get used to using the mouse for camera movement. I play Total War games quite often as well and in those I use WASD for camera movement. Now if I were to do this in AOE I have to relocate quite some fundamental hotkeys to 'harder to reach keys'. Anybody else here use WASD for camera movement or should I really try harder to unlearn this habit?
I used WASD for League of legends to move the camera, and am now going to ESDF for AOE. That allows me to use qw and rt as well as a and g My wrist gets tired and sore from using my mouse to move around the camera! I also find it's much quicker for navigating camera during fights.
any word near wasd work, any number from 1-7 works, 8-9 is too far away. 1-3 for military units, 4-7 for tech, production buildings. that was my rule for control groups back when i played sc2, the only confusion i have right now, is whether i should use the 4-7 control groups for production tech buildings, or use the ctrl+a ctrl+s ctrl+d etc.
am I the only one that's confused? I love you videos, but I don't get why you wouldn't use the default qwert when selecting a villager i.e: QQ for house. do you use the arrow pad to move around map or is that a rookie move lol
![10 Tricks I use to play faster [AoE2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/DGUGkEfQjKE/mqdefault.jpg)
![10 Tricks I use to play faster [AoE2]](/img/tr.png)
![Eminem - Somebody Save Me (feat. Jelly Roll) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Vwa0HenQMi4/mqdefault.jpg)
FINALLY! Somebody (a Streamer or Player), who gets it. Thank you so much for the video. I, myself, figured it out after weeks of trial and error, but with a video like this the start or in most cases restart of AoE2 could have been so much smoother. That's what beginners and even lots of quite decent players need.
God, I've been waiting for this forever!!! way to go @Nili_AoE
It's honestly so refreshing after watching other pros like Viper just say "well it's super personal and you shouldn't use mine" with no other guidance. Yes, I get that everyone will have their own, but give me something to start with! Thanks Nili.
Back in 2009, when I printed out my exam, there was a guy who printed out small pieces of various picture. When I asked him, he said it was for AOE Conq. and he sticks them on his keyboard.
This video comes at a perfect time. Now that i am in quarantine i finally have the time to reset my hotkeys :) thanks nili !
actual corona patient?
I'm sick but I'm not sure if I have Corona
@@areebmasoodi8932 I know right? Any illness is now scary.
so illogical, yet I have the same experience. you always had time, but now priorities change :D
I like the DE Grid System for hot keys. You have always the same key for the same position of the unit or tech. This way you can learn the hot keys really fast and easy.
are you refering to the standart hotkeys in DE?
@@johannesha186 Yes. They are not perfect and I changed a few things already, but I think they are really good to get started until you have figured out what keys you need more often and so on.
@J K i personnaly dont like there hotkeys for select buildings
@J K I have idle villager on space like Nili and select all TCs on Tab for example. And I am not really sure about the other select building hot keys. Nilis method from the video seems good, but it would interfer with the grid layout.
Imo its easy to remember the keys as long as they are comfortable to use, It's more important to have them spread out efficiently. The most used functions need to be closest to your natural hand position. Why set it up for easy learning when soon you will have mastered all of them?
This took me a second to realize but german keyboards (like nili's) they have the Z and Y key switched around.
ÄÖÜß f*ck zou! :D
I just want to mention something about overlapping hotkeys I don't quite agree with:
Like Nili said it is very important to not have certain hotkeys overlapping as that can slow you down, e.g. that you have jump to barracks and split formation on the same hotkey. If you are in a post imp fight you will want to jmp to the barracks to produce more units, but you have your military selected so all it does is let them go in split formation thus costing you important time and fucking up your micro.
BUT you can overlap villager building and selection hotkeys. I have B+A for building an archery range and A for going to the archery range and it works perfectly fine:
If you have a villager selceted and want to go to the archery range that still works as you first would have to press B for the building hotkey to be prioritized. And you are only in the building menu if you want to build sth anyway
This way you can get your hotkeys to be more compact and also they might be way easier to learn for beginners (A for building the range and going to the range).
More overlaps can be
More overlaps can be WHAT??? thell us ... I need those answers...
yes i think so too. I do it this way too.
That's... ur a legend i love you
You can overlap multiple keybinds like this without conflict. (Each line is 1 key)
- Produce unit 1, Build economic, Build military, Build palisade, Build fish trap
- Produce unit 2, Build wall. Pack treb
- Produce unit 3, Build gate. Unpack treb
- Produce Unit 4, Build palisade gate.
- Garrison, Ungarrison, Unload, Build Farm
- Attack ground, Repair, Send back to work, Build House
- Patrol, build tower
You can overlap unit formations & stances onto any other build building hotkeys that you don't need "Go to" hotkeys for, like outpost or farm for example
You can also overlap produce unit/tech hotkeys with formations or stances if you prefer
Dude, can you upload your keys? I'm having a real rough time trying to make it like Nilli's...yours sound good
the most important thing when you queue more villagers is to get "you don't have enough food" sound at least 5 times. just to be sure.
Bro do you even know how to play the game? You have to spam the villager hotkey from the start of the game all the way to 130 vills. Only way to improve is to make your roommate know how much you want to produce more vills
@@diegeigergarnele7975 you mean breed minecraft villagers right ?
Overlapping commands are very useful: You can accomodate many more fast commands within reach of one hand. There are no disdavantages if you just know which actions can be on the same hotkey and which can't. Every command that requires you to have selected a unit or building is situational and thus can share a hotkey with other situations. For example, you could use E to tell a villager to build an economy building, to build a house, to develop the most important technology in each building and to have your army do something. In every given situation, all actions must have a different hotkey. As you want to be able to select or go to specific units or points in any situation, those actions need unique hotkeys.
I like mouse wheel up for producing the primary (gold) unit in each building and mouse wheel down for producing the trash unit. It's so much smoother for queuing up several units than pressing a key multiple times or even having to use the left hand.
Would be great to see these in action with a cam on your keyboard. Would be amazing to see. Thanks for the great vid. :)
I like the idea of taking a step back to look at how hotkeys are set up. When I played HD, I reassigned to a grid system, and now on DE many of the defaults are the same as I set myself. However, I have some ideas:
1. Like others have mentioned, side mouse button for TC and idle vill is great. Even idle military for a third mouse button if possible
2. It would be very interesting to gather analysis of what actions are performed most often (by percentage) and use hotkeys based on that
3. Maybe to help with the "go to" conflicts, the space bar could be set to "select nothing" (I don't know if this is possible and I'm not by my PC)
I remember TheViper saying he doesn't agree with having hotkeys on the mouse buttons because you are already having to do so much precise clicking and maneuvering with the right hand and any hotkeys can have a negative effect on that. But I suppose it's a preference thing.
@@HawkOfGP if I recall MBL got 10+ buttons on his mouse
For the eco techs i use the same key that i use to go to eco building. Eg: i use strg+z to go to lumbercamp and then z for the upgrade
makes sense, thanks
@7:30 you can still use two fingers. Just the middle finger for the stable, and then the ring finger for the unit. But you have to move your hand position. Great Vid!
What really works for me is I put build archery range on A, Go to archery range also on A, and select all archery ranges on ALT-A. This basically means evrything related to archery ranges is on 1 key (and also the building and going to key dont overlap since when you enter the build menu, you're gonna build anyway and not go to production building)
This is a fantastic tip man, i'm going to implement it.
@@Whistler112 Im happy you found it usefull, and you're welcome!
THIS is the video. Was researching EXACTLY this for the first time in my life today. Spooky
for techs and upgrades there are diffrent cases to consider.
For lumbercamp etc hat have just 1 tech you can put the hotkey on the goto hotkey for the same building bc when it matters nothing is faster than double clicking the same hotkey twice.
for a unit upgrade you can put the hotkey right below the unit that makes it easy to click.
make sure you have the most common and time critical things on easy combinations. the castle age trifecta of goto lumbercamp->bow saw, goto blacksmith->bodkin and goto range->Crossbow is probably the most important one. same with goto university->ballistic. the super fringe techs i wouldnt place bc it is to easy to missclick and then some res is gone before you realize.
Thanks bro! years playing Aoe and just recently i'm trying to improve my game, thx again
new player here, grid is good.
Im using alt modifier to cycle: alt+'qwert' for military, alt+asdfg for eco and alt+ zxcv for upgrades.
Some unique things I got
Tab = idle vil
Shift + Tab = all idle vil
` = idle military
Shift + ` = all idle military
Agreed. This is very good
Just be careful for those who have steam overlay lol
@@clintony3000 which you can also edit, no?
Seems like Empire Earth hotkeys; if I switch to AoE2, I'd definitely use Tab for vils too
Nice!
Well... That's something I need to figure out. For now I'm thinking of something like the StarCraft hotkeys. A for archery range, S for stable, D for dock, W for siege workshop, E for barracks, C for castle, R for monastery, U for university and B for blacksmith. Q stands for build a house and building everything else is Ctrl+select hotkeys (like Ctrl+A - build an archery range.) Since Shift is used for queues I use it for nothing else. I think the best hotkey for the TC is Space since I anyways press it very often. Still I need to get my keys for queuing units, because in SC the hotkeys work differently. I could use the wheel to select my camps, but I'm not sure if pressing the wheel does something. But still I'm rather used to pressing Shift and Ctrl while spider-handling a keyboard - main thing I use my pinky for - so maybe I won't need that many hotkeys. Another advantage of it is me having big hands. (Not that big though, on the guitar I can only stretch from fret 3 to fret 8.) So I should test it. And practice a lot.
Like someone else said, you can overlap Go to X building and Build X building since when ur in the building menu u will be building something anyway and when a villager is selected the Go to building still works as long as ur not in the villager building menu. This way building a archery range is done with ''A'' for example and Go to archery range is also "A". Works like a charm :)
The way you talk about index finger and thumb makes me think we place our hands on keyboard completely differently. I always default to WASD setup and the only button I would ever press with my thumb is space while W I usually press with middle finger and not index finger. Even E can be pressed with middle finger if index one pressed R etc. beforehand.
Regardless, you raised a lot of good points and I believe your setup should be very effective as long as someone can get used to it.
I have the same, but can't really picture how Nili places his hand on the keyboard. Could you explain that to me?
"the only button I would ever press with my thumb is space while W I usually press with middle finger and not index finger" +1 on this
Thanks, I've been looking for this advice and other people's set-ups for a while! Very helpful!
Is there an upload of his keys? I'm having a real hard time with overlapping keys while trying to make changes..
Hey Nili, thanks for the video. Do you have "Select" or "Select all" as default when selecting buildings? Which key do you use as a modifier to switch between those options? Vielen Dank. :)
D: select all stabled
SHIFT+D: go to stable
Hey, nice layout. Also, there should be a 'clear all queues' feature.
Finally a vid on this topic for the average aoe 2 player!
Thank you Hippo man
THIS, THIS IS WHAT THE PRO SCENE NEEDED.
0:40
IT DOESNT EVEN MAAATTTTEEEEER
I tried so hard and got so far
@@horsthuber482 Ive put my tc ooon e
pushed as fast as i could go
And for all this, theres only one thing you should know:
I tried so hard and got so far
but in the end it didnt even produuuuce
I had to fail, to lose em all
but in the end my eco was shit anyway
My hotkeys are much simpler than that and i feel it helps me use them in a more streamline fashion. All units have corresponding hotkeys with their position in the building menu and buildings are jumbled up where more common ones are closer to my left hand
Hey Nili, thanks for continuing to make videos for beginners. It’s helpful.
This might be THE GREATEST AOE2 upload of all time. Thx Nili
I think DE's hotkeys are really intuitive since they actually line up to the left side of the keyboard. I guess nili had to adjust because HD didn't have such easy keys. Im glad the devs made decently good default keys, except for things like selecting stables and university which are L and U.
this video was ask and needed, good job, really appreciated!
I picked this game up after 20 years and the first thing I did was reload all the original hotkeys. It's amazing how well I still knew them and instantly picked them up. Finally forcing myself to fix that garbage.
Nili's approach is more pragmatic than most aoe2 pros.
Do you use ctrl+y(german keyboard)? I see ctrl+x and ctrl+c, ctrl a,s,d but not ctrl+y... do you have all your keybinds posted somewhere. This videa gives a lot of good principles, but I feel like for new players it would be helpful to see the entire picture of your setup
uploaded my updated hotkeys in my discord
@@NiliAoE2 thanks!
I use standard DE hotkeys, but I have my idle villagers and select TC on my mouse buttons because I find pressing those way easier. I'm bad at the game, but I generally control group my production buildings and use those instead of jumping to them so I can easily produce out of all my production buildings at once and reset gather points for all.
Amazing video! Finally someone talking in depth about hotkeys in aoe!
I don't know how he managed to make a great and helpful video about setting up hotkeys. Thanks so much for this though.
I use similiar but use Mousewheel for farms and houses which I use all the time. Units are CVBNM. TC is at X so XC to spam villigers and Docks at Z. I use S for Stable and D for DaBarracks. Making up words will help to remember as well. So the 'F '#$%ing Castle and 'G'uns (Seige)
Thx for sharing this. And pleasce come back soon Mr. Nili! ;)
for techs i'm (slowly) getting comfortable using the same unit key: example, archery range is W for archer, so my blacksmith W is archer attack, shift W archer armor. Stables E is knight, so blacksmith E is cav armor.
Carrying this over to Shift + build unit key = upgrade. R for skirms? shift R upgrades to elite skirm. Shift C and V are for good misc tech (thumb ring, husbandry)
I love archers and pointy bois, so my university main W E R, shift W, shift E, shift R are the common ones(ballistics,chem,etc). Weird shit i never use is on N, M.
TC tech E is Vil, so shift E is my hand cart line.
Market i'm using W E R for SELL, and shift W E R for BUY. techs are on CV, shift CV
I fumble a lot with the monk tech, but the keybinds are there lol.
Thank you again for this video.
Excellent introduction. I end up using the home row more to reduce finger movement. Only problem with my setup is I have to deselect units before going to buildings. I wish they had options to chain hotkeys (key followed by another key).
I don't quite get where the fingers are supposed to be hovering. Can someone explain that? :)
nice video, if its possible you should add a comparison to the default set of hotkeys, since i think most of us are working with these.
the defaults do look to have a system in them. why aren't they as good?
i saw you mention some things like overlap, but where are these in the default set?
This way we are more able to adjust the default set to our own standard, as you suggest in the beginning of your video.
Keep up the good work and the nice community together with the other casters!
You miss the most important hotkey, ring town bell!
This was ironic, right? I'm not sure. So I might ad a "nobody in the right mind uses this one"
For the techs, I'd do a mouse button to act as shift and then shift + q, shift + w etc.
Which editor did you use to "create the concept" of your hotkeys? It would help to have something to visualize as you did in the video!
paint
I very much appreciate this video
Where can I find the file? I am just starting with AOE2 DE for the first time after about 10 years and whant to start with a sensible hotkey set from the getgo. After a bit of research i like your the best. but can't find the file...
Absolutely Excellent. Thanks Nili.
Thanks to you I am now a Silverboi! Great job, Nili!
If you were a gold boy before, I‘m sorry
@@NiliAoE2 Wood, more like it... Or some cheap substitute that looks like wood even.
With some savescumming I could beat the campaigns though!
P.S.: Ich möchte die Gelegenheit nutzen, dir für die vielen unterhaltsamen Kommentare und Spiele zu danken, zu denen du beigetragen hast. Mach's gut und frohe Ostern!
What is this, a T90 title?!
I have been playing AoE2 DE on MacBook and this will help me a lot.
How did you install it? Windows in a VirtualVox? I would appreciate your help!
@@gonzalomanoukian3332 I installed it on Bootcamp with Windows 10.
I think the standard hotkeys are really good and intuitive, and you don't need to move your hand at all, so you stay precise and consistent. I only remap idle vil to mouse wheel down (idle military mouse wheel up), and then I have it all. All I need. And learning to use hotkeys for techs is in reality now just to remember to do it, because I know where the hotkeys for those are already.
How do you use the standard ctrl+L to go to stable? Too far away imo
@@antonfilimonov9131 yes. That sounds like a stupid hotkey. Unfortunately I don't use the "go to" hotkeys, so I didn't know that some of them were stupid.
@@light_david7 well I can't imagine playing without ctrl+shift+L to select all stables (ctrl+L is out of question), and the same ctrlshift stuff for all unit production buildings.
Starting to play aoe 2 and having trouble setting hotkeys up, apparently there is no perfect setup on the whole internet. Everybody is using some odd mixes from original aoe 2, aoe 2 HD and the new aoe 2 DE.
I love the aoe 2 DE default grid hotkeys and now just have to figure out how to make crtl+(and sometimes shift)+building comfortable for using with left hand. Boy this L for stable made me furious first time I saw it. And other building are weird: mill, castle, camps. I wish the developers would explain the logic, it is super tough to understand without HD experience. I get it when university is U, all right, but others?
Idle units are also some bs, thankfully they go to mouse easily.
Since I´m coming back to RTS I wanted to start on the right track - this video helped me alot. The grind layout does not take advantage of the most impressive feature of AoE, the select buildings feature.
Could you help me out Nili with the following:
1. you use B (for opening the building tab) then
2. select the desired building.
But if i want to build a farm with B the system jumps back to step one. What am I missing?
EDIT: had B on "cancel" - so classic conflict.
Any chance on a settings video? I guess all low (to see key features like hills?) and keep it as simple as possible?
all lowest :)
How did you set up the switch between economic and military buildings?
If I use this layout the hotkeys only work if I select the category first.
i only use economy building and it uses the key from the 2nd page
Thank you so much! I have been slowly adding hotkeys, from the start, and arrived at a point where there is no logic, and I use too complicated combinations. I will definitely try your patterns, going to be hell though with over 400 games played, but well ;)
also, i was wondering, with DE, doesn't it more sense to have your quick GO-TO hotkeys (a,s,d etc) on select ALL archery ranges, barracks, stable etc? Isn't selecting just one building a bit of a remnant from single queue?
I prefer select all (except for TC)
@@NiliAoE2 So you use to select all on A S D etc, or you use to select all only on TC on 5?
@@sirh0tsauce He answered this, and also in another comment: he uses select all for most, but not on TC, he uses 5 for that.
Well I'm using cyce for A S D F and also TC. If I want to select all I just use Alt + A S D F. Is taking some time to adjust. But I think it works
I´ve changed my keys, helped a lot, thanks
@ nili with DE we can select all production buildings of a kind with a hotkey, which on voobly we had to do with control groups. Do you think thats a good feature? because i started to do it with shift + y/x/c/v (for all rax/ all stables etc.) and it works fine, but of course its more than one finger...
Most of the keys depends on everyone but there's one that you should always have.
Mousewheel up for idle armies and down for idle villagers
Is just to convinient, you can check it every few seconds or minutes and then you wil do it without thinking of it. is awesome
I used to have that in HD and I miss it, but I like the zoom out/in in DE. Where have you put zoom? Or do most people just not use the DE zoom?
@@JonaBoy16 i just change the zoom from wheel up/down to ctrl+wheel up or ctrl+wheel down. I find i dont zoom super often so i don't mind the ctrl click, but it's still quick enough to be easy when you need it (fast micro)
thx nili for doing this and playing ttl gold cuz now i know u have highest apm in the world
I recommend a split keyboard with thumb modifiers. I use a dactyl manuform
also I love my logitech g604 for control groups on the side buttons and common actions on the extra top buttons
As a new player I had to watch this maybe 30 times before I understood
Mouse 4 for idle vills mouse 5 for selecting TC and for the rest I use the standard DE grid system which is just awesomely intuitive.
It is. But, I've gotta have those go to military building keys. I'm considering buying a mouse with 6+ side buttons for that.
I have a steam deck and I'm trying to use it for aoe
Set gather point and Transport Ship share the same hotkey, messing it up. Am i correct?
Thanks for the hotkey list tho nili, major help!
I'm a StarCraft player trying to get into aoe 2, but I can't get the attack move to work. Also, why is attack move called Economic buildings in the hotkey menu?
How do you set "build" to just one key instead of "military" and "economic" buildings?
floijd same question here!
@@ivanweissbein5253 I figured it out: You simply delete the "military" option, then all builings will be selectable by pressing your "econ" hotkey.
@@floijd thanks a lot man!!
@@floijd I think it's that way regardless. For example with hd hotkey defaults, if i'm in dark age, click the military build button "s", and try to build an archery range with "w", which is redundant with the hotkey to build a mill, it automatically just builds a mill, even though I'm in the military menu from the military hotkey.
Can you show, how you set up the "5" to be able to choose all town centre ? I didn´t find it... : -( , furhtermore, how do you make groups in game and what are your favorite groups ?
"select all towncenters"
CTRL+1 sets something to group 1
scout, vils under tc, fwd vills, army, military buildings
Its Great Nili, but only one question... If you use wheel up and down to build lumberjack and mining camp, how you turn the gates?. Thank you, i based my hotkeys on this video!
CTRL+Wheel
@@NiliAoE2 Thanks, you re the best! Followed you during the Red Bull Wololo, you did great matches.
Just one more thing about the hotkeys. Instead of "GO TO" University, Blacksmith or Market (technologies buildings) don't think is better to change that for "Select All"? Think you don't need to go to that buildings... Maybe you re in a battle and you just want to do some tec upgrade. I am super noob anyway it's just a doubt.
I have many overlapping keys, it works perfect as long as it does not conflict in game.
Hi there! Very useful information Nili! Is there anyway we can download this hotkeys?
in my discord
@@NiliAoE2 Thx!
5:39 "B gates"
I see what you did there!
It seems you have an only two button mouse. You could consider getting a mouse with two buttons on the side (natural thumb mouse position) . This gives two more options (I have them bound to "Jump to TC" and "Idlle Villager"). you could also consider binding one of them to control, to "unlock a second layer" of hotkeys.
Whats important with mouse keys is that they shouldnt be super important ones for the reason it will fuckup your mouse accuracy by pushing a button with thumb meanwhile moving it.
my logitech g604 has 2 buttons on top next to left click and the scroll wheel moved to the sides act as buttons. I use these in combination with thumb modifiers on my dactyl manuform keyboard to do common actions. I don't think this affects mouse accuracy since finger location and pressure are the same as left and right click
Hi Nili, just fyi, I tried downloading your hotkeys file but when I load them onto my settings, they're just the default DE hotkeys. I uploaded the file to aokhotkeys.appspot.com/ and that indeed seems to be the case.
You're not alone. It's the same for me
I've got the same issue. Could you checkt he file, Nili?
Dumb ass question: what do I do whit the hotkeys download file? Is there a way to import them directly in the game?
@@f0rtyEight Ok but how?
I was in need for something like that. Cheers!
Great video Nili. Lovely graphics.
The one Hotkey I struggle to find a place for is delete and mass delete... I used to have it on the DPI mouse button somewhat easy to reach, but I don't click it by accident. My new mouse doesn't have a DPI button, for now I put it on F1 and F2, but it doesn't work I delete my scout every second match and lost several games because I deleted 40 archers by accident.... My hotkey setup is somewhat similar to Nili's, but not completely, he skips a lot of unit commands that are frequently use like stop, select all army on screen, aggressive and defensive stance.
I have it on F1 and SHIFT+F1 now
ruclips.net/video/Qyah-W9ZJgk/видео.html
Nice job on putting up all the images
Ah yes, the QWERTZ keyboard layout we all know and love
I had never really thought to change the hotkeys. Personally I use the default.
Nili, I bought a mouse with 4 buttons in a circle on the thumb (could have bought one with 2 in hindsight) and put the ALT and CTRL buttons on the two easiest ones to hit. This opened up SOOO many more options for hotkeys and unit selection. Example, when you hit ALT+LeftClick to grab only villagers, that's done on just one hand. It also allows me to keep my left hand in the SAME SPOT the whole time as I can just bind stuff to CTRL+A for military buildings or something like that. I HATE trying to move my left hand to the right side of the keyboard and this fixes that issue... I'm curious if anyone has thought to do this... just throwing it into the ether!
oh yeah, nice stuff
What application did you use to visualize the hotkeys? You know, the keyboard picture and buildings/technologies on specific keys.
ms paint
@@NiliAoE2 Haha! I thought there was a tool like Tier Maker. Welp!
i learned how to use the default hot keys, H for TC, then Q for Vill, it seems faster to me on the default and manual control groups shift + number
Hi. How do you set the hotkey that you have on 5 (to produce villigers from all towncenters without going back)?
What is your opinion on Grid? Any ideas where to put the military buildings (and maybe other important ones) on?
never put any thought into it and don't really know how it looks like, sry
@@NiliAoE2 no problem. Someone will know ^^
you have to like them, I never thought of that before.
just a little tip for future videos. dont select yellow and light green as colours near to each other, or even better, try to not use one of them at all. i'm one of those people blessed with red-green colourblindness and for me those 2 colours look exactly the same. try using complementary colours, for better contrast. :)
Do you see green yellow or the opposite?
Videos about how to defend the most common builds would be nice
I.e scout rush archer rush maybe drush as well
Hey, how can i use your hotkey file from the download link ? I cant find the correct place to put it in
Is your hotkeys setup still good 3 years later? Did you make some changes?
ruclips.net/video/Qyah-W9ZJgk/видео.html
playing wiht like 98% of the same
Hey Guys, I have a really hart question.My Hotkeys sometimes work different than other times.
Example: I put building a castle on alt+F. Than I discovered that I can put "going to castle" on the same combination. (alt+F). Everything was fine.
But now I started a game and it changed. Every time I want to build a castle the game now jumps to an existing castle. Why is that not consistend????
And what is the key for selecting a sheep? or maybe 'go to sheep'?
I just use classic hotkeys. I could instantly recall any hotkey, even after a 10 year break.
Ayyy girl lemme get a bombard tower
What a great video, very usefull
Dude... this is a major lesson
These tips were really awesome man. I play lots of different games, including shooters etc. So I'm basically always around WASD with my hand as well. This is really helpfull now that I'm getting back to AOE some more.
Another issue I am having with AOE though is that I can't seem to get used to using the mouse for camera movement. I play Total War games quite often as well and in those I use WASD for camera movement. Now if I were to do this in AOE I have to relocate quite some fundamental hotkeys to 'harder to reach keys'.
Anybody else here use WASD for camera movement or should I really try harder to unlearn this habit?
I used WASD for League of legends to move the camera, and am now going to ESDF for AOE. That allows me to use qw and rt as well as a and g My wrist gets tired and sore from using my mouse to move around the camera! I also find it's much quicker for navigating camera during fights.
any word near wasd work, any number from 1-7 works, 8-9 is too far away. 1-3 for military units, 4-7 for tech, production buildings. that was my rule for control groups back when i played sc2, the only confusion i have right now, is whether i should use the 4-7 control groups for production tech buildings, or use the ctrl+a ctrl+s ctrl+d etc.
oh my, I just spent hours on making keybinds and referencing this video without realizing that z & y are switched.. I feel pranked
am I the only one that's confused? I love you videos, but I don't get why you wouldn't use the default qwert when selecting a villager i.e: QQ for house. do you use the arrow pad to move around map or is that a rookie move lol
there are three different "defaults": AoK, HD, DE
DE hotkeys can be absolutely fine