Control Groups

[thakronickid420]

Hi I am a long time player but never got into playing the game very seriously. I really want to learn control groups and hotkeys to take my micro and game to the next level. Any pro players or good advice on how to use them and hotkeys would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[[Armag] diarouga]

Group your production buildings (raxes, stables, tcs), that way you can watch the fight and micro.

[iNcog]

you should use actual hotkeys rather than control groups for production structures

bing "q" to barracks for example and w, e, r, to musk, skirm, pike, etc. respectively.
bind "a" to stables and s, d to hussar and dragoon

that sort of stuff

[lordraphael]

you should use actual hotkeys rather than control groups for production structures

bing "q" to barracks for example and w, e, r, to musk, skirm, pike, etc. respectively.
bind "a" to stables and s, d to hussar and dragoon

that sort of stuff

you are saying he shouldnt use control groups for barracks but instead use the hotkeys so that hell jump to the place of the next barracks ? If thats what you suggest its a bad advice

[Cometk]

you are saying he shouldnt use control groups for barracks but instead use the hotkeys so that hell jump to the place of the next barracks ? If thats what you suggest its a bad advice

you can disable the "snap to" feature in options, so what incog says is valid. personally i still prefer binding my production facilities to control groups, but it's not the only way to play the game. goodspeed also plays similarly to the set-up incog mentions

[thebritish]

I have changed my hotkeys 3 times.
First i had "A" for one barrack, "S" for one stable, then "A" for all barracks, "S" for all stables.
Now i use "A" as Control group 7 and put the barracks which i need there.
I use "S" for control group 8 and put there stables.
I use "D" for special buildings [for ex. artillery foundry(which i use almost 1/20 times), or saloon/native tradeposts]
I'd recommend you to put your TC as a hotkey instead of puttng it in a control group..

[iNcog]

you should use actual hotkeys rather than control groups for production structures

bing "q" to barracks for example and w, e, r, to musk, skirm, pike, etc. respectively.
bind "a" to stables and s, d to hussar and dragoon

that sort of stuff

you are saying he shouldnt use control groups for barracks but instead use the hotkeys so that hell jump to the place of the next barracks ? If thats what you suggest its a bad advice

yeh as cometk said, you don't actually move to the building if you have the right settings.

i prefer not using control groups as it allows me control over individual buildings if i need that; or i can select them since i have "select all units of same type" put on F1, which allows me to select every rax in an instance.

it's just a lot more flexible than control groups, which i use exclusively for units.

[deleted_user]

I lack any sense of dexterity on the keyboard so I bought a mouse with 12 buttons on the side to try to help me become slightly less mediocre and slightly more better-than-average. Mapping keys to my mouse is actually really nice. My production buildings are on there, my unit tactics are on there, and my explorer and alt key (hitpoints) is on there. Might be a suggestion if you play a lot of aoe and have $60 to spare.

[iNcog]

Oh yeah I have those "forward backward" buttons on my mouse, which you use for web-browsing. I have "put camera on selected unit" on one of those buttons. Good key

[thakronickid420]

so you can group production buildings with units? not sure if i understand

[deleted_user]

so you can group production buildings with units? not sure if i understand

Some people group their production buildings to control groups (i.e. rax = 4, stable = 5, etc). And they will use the remaining control groups for units (i.e. 1, 2, 3). Others will group production facilities to an actual hotkey (i.e. find all barracks type buildings = a, find all stable type buildings = s, etc) and only use control groups for units. Either works, it's what you are comfortable with. Important to note, however, that if map it to a hotkey for "find all _____ type buildings," the camera will snap onto that building unless that option is turned off in the general settings.

Before I bought my mouse with buttons on the side, I used control groups for my raxs and stables, now I use the latter method on my mouse. Hope this makes sense.

[sdsanft]

I am not very good, but I use control groups for units and buildings: 1 for explorer, 2&3 for rax/stable, 4 for other (fort, artillery, etc), 5-9 for units. For hotkeys i just use the default ones and i always use them to build buildings and units. Thats what works for me.

[drumal]

2 rax in 1 group just sux for me.. cause while Iam fighting and hit key for rax group and then with shift click I just send bunch of musk into the queue... for some reason only in one rax are musk in queue ..I dont know why

[fatalimperium]

Don't use shift to queue and problem solved.

[drumal]

but then if I wanna add 20+musk to queue I have to mouse click like mad instead make them with shift (5 musk batch)

[sdsanft]

Don't click urge icons when training units. Just use hotkeys. Imo spamming the m key is better than spam clicking, and is much faster than having to move your mouse around.

[briowl]

I lack any sense of dexterity on the keyboard so I bought a mouse with 12 buttons on the side to try to help me become slightly less mediocre and slightly more better-than-average. Mapping keys to my mouse is actually really nice. My production buildings are on there, my unit tactics are on there, and my explorer and alt key (hitpoints) is on there. Might be a suggestion if you play a lot of aoe and have $60 to spare.

I used to box so my manual dexterity is impaired. To get around that I did the same but added the tartarus to which I mapped the selection panel (or whatever it's called) using autohotkey.

So for example, to queue a vill I hit mouse thumb button 6 for Find TC, then the top left button on the tartarus.

To queue a huss I hit mouse thumb button 5 for Find stable then the top left button on the tartarus again, as it is in the same position.

The best thing about this setup is having shift and alt on the left thumb while your hand rests on the tartarus.



Anyone wants help with this setup pm me

[thakronickid420]

so you use control groups to micro units as well right? how do you do that and micro properly?

[iNcog]

Well basically you attach units to a control group by type. All Ranged Infantry in one group, all anti-cav in another, all cav in another.

You use the control groups to quickly and easily select each group type so that you can position them quickly and easily during a fight. Positioning is key to winning fights in aoe3. for instance, you want your anti-cav to be fighting vs the enemy cav, but you don't want your ranged infantry to be taking hits from cavalry.

so, if enemy cav is on top of your ranged inf, you use the control group attached to anti-cav to bring them forward to attack the cav and then use the control group attached to RI to have them go back towards your anti-cav. this allows you to easily adjust the positioning of your units. you should check out player streams to see this in action in actual games!

[momuuu]

Imo remapping say, control group 8 and 9 to q and w, or other buttons on the left side of the keyboard, is better than using the find unit hotkeys. Find unit hotkeys give more control over what exactly you do, but imo its just a hassle when you have multiple barracks or stables, more so than that the added control is worth.

I liked changing the control button to shift for control groups. Makes it easier on your hand.

[iNcog]

Imo remapping say, control group 8 and 9 to q and w, or other buttons on the left side of the keyboard, is better than using the find unit hotkeys. Find unit hotkeys give more control over what exactly you do, but imo its just a hassle when you have multiple barracks or stables, more so than that the added control is worth.

In the end it comes down to what you are comfortable with. If you can't go over 60 apm then maybe you're right.

[momuuu]

Imo remapping say, control group 8 and 9 to q and w, or other buttons on the left side of the keyboard, is better than using the find unit hotkeys. Find unit hotkeys give more control over what exactly you do, but imo its just a hassle when you have multiple barracks or stables, more so than that the added control is worth.

In the end it comes down to what you are comfortable with. If you can't go over 60 apm then maybe you're right.

The lower you can get your apm the more brainpower there is to make correct decisions. You dont want to have to have a higher apm to basically do the same as someone with a lower apm. Also why do you even want to select individual raxes.

[iNcog]

Imo remapping say, control group 8 and 9 to q and w, or other buttons on the left side of the keyboard, is better than using the find unit hotkeys. Find unit hotkeys give more control over what exactly you do, but imo its just a hassle when you have multiple barracks or stables, more so than that the added control is worth.

In the end it comes down to what you are comfortable with. If you can't go over 60 apm then maybe you're right.

The lower you can get your apm the more brainpower there is to make correct decisions. You dont want to have to have a higher apm to basically do the same as someone with a lower apm. Also why do you even want to select individual raxes.

<_<

I do not agree. There's difference between useless and useful apm. I would say a have a lot of useless APM > actions which don't actually add anything. Then there's useful APM > actions which contribute to the game. Let's call it EPM if you want.

You have EPM / APM ratio, and APM will always be higher than EPM. I will admit that my EPM is low and my APM is a hit higher than average. You argue that I should lower APM so that my EPM / APM ratio gets closer to 1. I do not agree. I argue that EPM should be higher so that you can actually physically do more. There's a difference and even in TAD having good mechanics can make a lot of difference. My personal goal right now is to raise both EPM and APM.

Mechanics influence macro, raiding, efficient gathering, herding, executing the build well and tightly, shipping things immediately, micro, etc.

Now, having good mechanics but also making the right decisions will make you a brigadier. I like to refer to aiz, who makes good decisions only, and who also has excellent mechanics. Combine those two together and you get a player who can get away with wonky, strange builds even if he's playing versus a good player. Boneng is an example of a player who will often put the game into a position where his opponent has difficulty making the right decision.

I would say that decision-making would influence things such as:
- what strat should i use in this match-up? what is my opponent doing?
- should i push?
- should i sit back?
- should i age?
- where should i gather now that my in-base resources are running out?
- should fight that, or pull back?
- what type of shipments should i be sending now?
- where should i push with my army right now?

There are lot of different aspects in aoE3 which it takes to become a good player. personally i suck at almost all of them, mostly due to inexperience. even back in 2010, mechanics were my only asset.


What does this have to do with controlling individual barracks? well, if you CAN do it and you're comfortable doing so, then there's no reason not to. hotkey set-ups aren't objectively better than one another since it differs from one player to another. i know H2O personally hates the idea of controlling individual barracks, but I like it and don't have trouble producing out them if my villager allocation is on point.

[momuuu]

Having to do more makes you worse at thinking. Making the apm you play at lower, while basically performing equally well in most games, is not worth it. It absolutely affects your decision making since you are more occupied with mechanics. Do what you need to do with as little effort as possible, thats best.

You can get used to find building hotkeys instead of control groups for sure, but if you are at the start of choosing for one of the two systems, I think the control group one is better. Although its probably best to try both out for a few days and then go for the one that feels best to you.

[[Armag] diarouga]

People who watch my stream know that I spam a lot and I think it helps. When you start to play with like 100 apm for 1 week or so, you have hard time to do more actions even when you need to micro.