If you are new to AOK Online, or new to DM, Here is a topic explaining what you must do to improve. Even if you aren't new, you may find these tips useful.
Zonerules:
These rules are the rules DMers have used forever. Don't break them unless you want to be very unpopular, and kicked from almost all DM games. The Rules: NO SIEGE, 5 TREBUCHETS MAXIMUM. There are more, but if you are reading this, you don't need to know them. Towers are optional, but Bombard Towers ARE NEVER ALLOWED.
Frankwar:
This is when all players in the game choose franks as their civilization, some will tell you the "experts" usually prefer to play frankwar only.
Hotkeys:
Go into your game and set your hotkeys inside the options menu, use easy to remember buttons on your keyboard/mouse that will allow you to build and que units quickly.
-as an example, you could set economic buildings to the letter 'E' on your keyboard, and stables to the letter 'S', that way once the game starts you just highlight a vill and press E + S and a stable would be ready to be built. Do this with EVERY BUILDING, houses, barracks, castles, etc.
In order to create units quickly(vills/pikes/paladins/archers) you can set your mouse's scroll wheel to the hotkey for creating a unit.
-an example would be setting create villagers to 'Scroll down', or create paladins to 'Scroll down' or 'Scroll up', do this with EVERY UNIT IN THE GAME, paladins, vills, pikes, skirmishers, etc.
Shiftkey:
While you are creating units, you can hold down shiftkey to make 5 units in any building instead of only 1 unit at a time, also, while you are building, if you hold down shift key, it allows you to keep building the same thing over and over without going back and selecting that building.
Military Stances:
When you are using archers of any kind, always put them into the 'stand ground' military stance, so that they stay grouped together and dont wander off chasing an enemy, this allows you to use them more effectively with better control.
When you are using foot units of any kind (barrack units/stable units), your going to want to put them in 'patrol', and then set the patrol point behind the enemies army during a battle so that they go straight into your enemies army and every one of them engages in the battle, and none are left idle/not fighting.
-you can also set 'stand ground' and 'patrol' to a hotkey, that way you can use both quickly during battle.
What to build first:
When the game first starts, que up your towncenter with villagers to the max, and then use one of your first 3 vills to create houses, and the other 2 to create stables and barracks, stables if you are using a civilization that HAS PALADINS, or build barracks at the start if your civilization DOES NOT HAVE PALADINS, use the barracks to create pikemen.
Try not to build more than 7 stables/barracks at the start, because you also need to build castles as quickly as you can, and your going to want about 2-5 castles around your base early as well, so after about 4 stables/barracks start building castles around your base. All of this needs to be done very quickly, to defend your base from the enemy.
Advanced Technique:
-Try to build your stables/houses/castles/barracks as close to your towncenter as possible, this will cut down the time it takes to build, allowing you to make an army quicker.
-Build 3 stone wall blocks around 1 vill when you are making a castle to protect the vill from oncoming paladins.
-Build 1-2 castles around your main pot of gold to protect miners from attacks/raids.
-Build 2-3 Towncenters around your main pot of gold to get villagers out and ready to collect gold as quick as possible.
-Always keep foot soldiers(cavalry/infantry) INFRONT of your ARCHERS, that way your soldiers attack the enemy while your archers are allowed to kill the enemy without getting killed by the enemy's army(archers are usually weak, they must stay behind)
-Always build atleast 1 castle around your gold piles to protect the miners.
-Make your farms around castles, or make castles around your farms to protect the farmers from raids, and gives them a place to retreat if the enemy raids your eco.
-You may want to spread some pikemen around your eco(farms,goldmines) to aid in the protected of your villagers.
-When you are attacking your opponents army, you may want to put your paladins in the ''staggered'' military formation, that way they surround your enemies army when you patrol them into battle.
-Before the game starts, there is a black screen that lasts about 1 split second, you can use that time to que vills in your towncenter if your have ''go to towncenter'' hotkey set, ex: mine is set to the letter X. This allows you to start building that much faster to get the edge on your opponent.
-Rush the enemy's base as soon as you possibly can using paladins, when you are using a civilization that has paladins. use the paladins to attack his villagers, preventing him from building.
Thats all for now, good luck and have fun!
Anyone may contribute to this thread, but I will not be answering questions.
