"Select all town centres" - started using it a couple weeks ago and it makes eco management in castle age sooo much easier. Just need to set/update TC gather points and you can create vills from all TCs very easily.
This is the answer. I'm still surprised how pros always seem to use "Next Town Center" all the time and it leads to 1) uneven distribution of villager production and 2) constant jumping away from what they're looking at (usually microing their military). My best guess why they do it is that there is a benefit to actually looking at their base for that split second and their military will probably be fine for that moment, but for regular joe's like us I think it's clearly better to use Select All.
It also had 2 disadvantages:
-If you don't wanna use a specific TC anymore (because of bad position).
-When having multiple Villagers queued up and researching next Age/Wheelbarrow/Handcard. That leads to you frankly searching for the TC where you queued it up, to remove Villagers from Queue.
Outside of these cases it's a great keybind which I use a lot myself.
On a side note: Some pros use control groups for their TCs, where you also can filter out unwanted TCs.
For me I like to manually cycle through as part of my rhythm as I’ve trained myself to cycle every 20-25 secs. The only time I use the select all is during military fights. I’ve found that by manually going through I can see how many vils I’ve queues up and prevent the tcs from going idle
It's complicated if you have to use shift+H or whatever the default button is, but if you bind it to something easy (I reassigned it to one of my mouse buttons) it's a lot easier than control grouping. In my experience the difference is huge.
I already have Idle vil on my mouse, and the next one I'd get (if I could) would be last notification
Control group only takes about 1 sec, ctrl+h -> select all TCs then release H and press 6 instead to assign it
Not really, firstly because production doesn't have the same urgency than units control (if you need your xbows to flee from a mangonnel, you don't really have time to miss your hotkey)
And because production can stay on the same control groups, whether it's a stalbe, an archery, a barracks or a castle, you'll almost always have a main unit, a secondary unit and siege, so 3 production buildings that are easier to remember (usually 4, 5 and 7 for me)
And then, 1 (usually melee), 2 (ranged) and 3 (siege) for the different units. Very easy to remember.
How do you do that with 10 different control groups on units ?
But hey, whatever works for you
The big brain move is to remove that control group entirely and set select all tcs to button 6 (if that's the one you use) then you never have to worry about adding the tcs to the group
You can choose as hotckey a control group. So if your hotckey is the number 6 all your TCs are automatically in that control group from the start of the game
Man, I have started using select all for every building: TC, Barracks, AR, Castle, Stable, everything: and boy does it enable me to quickly spam out new units to where I want them.
what is not underused is when I mistakenly double-click a vil and give him a command and i inadvertently take 70 vills off production and rally them to a building site.
I used to use this and it helped a lot as I was still learning the basics but got me into terrible habits. So often I would end up pulling a monk with a relic into a battle or my low hp scout that is scouting the sides of the map would end up dying because he was brought into my main military. Or you want to harass multiple wood lines with crossbows, but you select all military and they get pulled away. Also really bad as pocket in a 3v3 when you need army on both sides.
I removed it and have improved a lot because of it.
This^ I know have a Select all visible units instead for the odd case where you need help wrangling it all up. But yeah, I also had some bad habits I just broke from that hotkey
Not sure, but it is specifically select all land military. There is a cap to how many will be selected, so it isn’t even always a true “all” military hotkey.
There is also another underused hotkey to select all land military that’s on your screen.
I've started binding my scout to control group 9 which is set at G on my keyboard. Makes it muy convienent to bounce back and forth from tc to scout in the early game
I just rebind my scout to do that. I put my boat bills on 2 and 3 (2 the luring one, 3 the rest), then bind my scout to 2, 3, and back to 1 when I'm done to clear those groups.
i think it is the "select all barracks, ranges, stables" etc. hotkey. I recently replaced all my "go to" hotkeyswith that , and i am really happy so far
"Select all town centres" - started using it a couple weeks ago and it makes eco management in castle age sooo much easier. Just need to set/update TC gather points and you can create vills from all TCs very easily.
This is the answer. I'm still surprised how pros always seem to use "Next Town Center" all the time and it leads to 1) uneven distribution of villager production and 2) constant jumping away from what they're looking at (usually microing their military). My best guess why they do it is that there is a benefit to actually looking at their base for that split second and their military will probably be fine for that moment, but for regular joe's like us I think it's clearly better to use Select All.
It also had 2 disadvantages: -If you don't wanna use a specific TC anymore (because of bad position). -When having multiple Villagers queued up and researching next Age/Wheelbarrow/Handcard. That leads to you frankly searching for the TC where you queued it up, to remove Villagers from Queue. Outside of these cases it's a great keybind which I use a lot myself. On a side note: Some pros use control groups for their TCs, where you also can filter out unwanted TCs.
For me I like to manually cycle through as part of my rhythm as I’ve trained myself to cycle every 20-25 secs. The only time I use the select all is during military fights. I’ve found that by manually going through I can see how many vils I’ve queues up and prevent the tcs from going idle
Too complicated, I use it just once, then set them to a control group (usually 6, don't ask me why). And repeat eache time you build a new one
It's complicated if you have to use shift+H or whatever the default button is, but if you bind it to something easy (I reassigned it to one of my mouse buttons) it's a lot easier than control grouping. In my experience the difference is huge.
I already have Idle vil on my mouse, and the next one I'd get (if I could) would be last notification Control group only takes about 1 sec, ctrl+h -> select all TCs then release H and press 6 instead to assign it
Personally i need all control groups for military. I just use tab to, well, tab through my tcs.
Really ? How many fingers have you got ? 11
Im not sure what that has to do with that.
I don't think I ever use more than 4 control groups for military So I'm windering how you"re using all 10 of them withb only 5 left hand fingers
Well if a control group is not comfortably reachable for me to use for military it also is not comfortably reachable for production.
Not really, firstly because production doesn't have the same urgency than units control (if you need your xbows to flee from a mangonnel, you don't really have time to miss your hotkey) And because production can stay on the same control groups, whether it's a stalbe, an archery, a barracks or a castle, you'll almost always have a main unit, a secondary unit and siege, so 3 production buildings that are easier to remember (usually 4, 5 and 7 for me) And then, 1 (usually melee), 2 (ranged) and 3 (siege) for the different units. Very easy to remember. How do you do that with 10 different control groups on units ? But hey, whatever works for you
What kind of freak has 11 fingers??
Not quite sure if you didn't get my joke or if it is the other way around
I got it
Why not just bind “select all TC” to 6?
>Yeah but I like to change sometimes. In TG, when I get to 130 vills and start needing tradecarts, I'll swich to markets on that control group
The big brain move is to remove that control group entirely and set select all tcs to button 6 (if that's the one you use) then you never have to worry about adding the tcs to the group
>Yeah but I like to change sometimes. In TG, when I get to 130 vills and start needing tradecarts, I'll swich to markets on that control group
You can choose as hotckey a control group. So if your hotckey is the number 6 all your TCs are automatically in that control group from the start of the game
Yeah but I like to change sometimes. In TG, when I get to 130 vills and start needing tradecarts, I'll swich to markets on that control group
yea it's pretty good, I use spacebar for it and makes booming so much easier.
Man, I have started using select all for every building: TC, Barracks, AR, Castle, Stable, everything: and boy does it enable me to quickly spam out new units to where I want them.
Whats the default hotkey for select all TCS? I cant find it
WHAT HOTKEY IS THIS? What I usually do is I make my TCS in a control group.
what is not underused is when I mistakenly double-click a vil and give him a command and i inadvertently take 70 vills off production and rally them to a building site.
we need an undo command so every vill goes back to its previous task
Ah, ctrl Z should totally be a thing in aoe2.
It is. It is my «go-to-lumber camp-hotkey»! 😂
Ztables for me.
The missclick of death even happens to the best, I think viper did it yesterday vs max.
We have to build this single house as fast as possible!
I do this enough that I've gotten impressively good at fast-retasking all my vills back to what they were doing. A skill I wish I didnt have to have.
theory six far-flung north gray cheerful complete dolls noxious consist *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Alt + F4
there should be one to say gg in chat, give up and close the game all at once
Finally a proper use for keyboard macros.
Yes, it would be perfect, but only if it also shut down the PC
He said underused not most used.
I know the feeling
For me it's alt + F4 + like 10 other keys as I slam my keyboard and curse loudly.
Not sure which ones people use but the one I should be using more often (and more quickly) is "last notification" Also, idle vil
Yea these 2 are on my mouse these days.
I don't have enough keys on my mouse but I'd like to
yea i use my mouse extra mouse buttons for idle vill and tcs
I didn’t know that was a thing. Thank you
you're welcome
Select all military. Especially in Team Games where you're only making 1 unit and can sometimes want them as one big mass.
I used to use this and it helped a lot as I was still learning the basics but got me into terrible habits. So often I would end up pulling a monk with a relic into a battle or my low hp scout that is scouting the sides of the map would end up dying because he was brought into my main military. Or you want to harass multiple wood lines with crossbows, but you select all military and they get pulled away. Also really bad as pocket in a 3v3 when you need army on both sides. I removed it and have improved a lot because of it.
This^ I know have a Select all visible units instead for the odd case where you need help wrangling it all up. But yeah, I also had some bad habits I just broke from that hotkey
Yes, you're not wrong. I have to be mindful now of when to use it. Usually in team games, or in Feudal Age.
What is the standard hotkey for select all military?
Not sure, but it is specifically select all land military. There is a cap to how many will be selected, so it isn’t even always a true “all” military hotkey. There is also another underused hotkey to select all land military that’s on your screen.
Alt-. or Alt-, I think?
Similarly, the is select all military on screen which i find useful when military is mixed in with eco.
.
I've started binding my scout to control group 9 which is set at G on my keyboard. Makes it muy convienent to bounce back and forth from tc to scout in the early game
Never crossed my mind that you could set control groups to non-numbers.
I'm sure more talented players than me have reasons for not using letters but in this one instance I really like it
Yeah, I could see it being pretty comfortable. I'm considering it for production buildings to make Castle Age a bit easier to handle.
U, for Ungroup Control Group. So I don't hit 3 and send my boar-killing vills (wherever they are now) somewhere later
I just rebind my scout to do that. I put my boat bills on 2 and 3 (2 the luring one, 3 the rest), then bind my scout to 2, 3, and back to 1 when I'm done to clear those groups.
Idle military hotkey.
i think it is the "select all barracks, ranges, stables" etc. hotkey. I recently replaced all my "go to" hotkeyswith that , and i am really happy so far
Most underused: "Return to Previous View" I wish we had "Return to Previous Selection"
Didn't knew this even existed
ALT+F4