How many civ should you play.

[Shikari]

So from kaiser interview he said. People should only play 2 civ till they reach pr 30. That are others opinion on that. I found that rather interesting am also thinking about doing that.

[Tim010]

Well i play them all and as a result i'm terrible at the game, so he might have a point.

[Mitoe]

I think there's a good deal of truth in that advice. That's what I did when I started playing as well (except there were no ranks on Mac haha), but I do think that at least playing the other civs enough to understand their basic build order and stuff can be useful for scouting and adapting against those civs with your 1-3 civs of choice as well.

[Hazza54321]

play all

[Shikari]

I think there's a good deal of truth in that advice. That's what I did when I started playing as well (except there were no ranks on Mac haha), but I do think that at least playing the other civs enough to understand their basic build order and stuff can be useful for scouting and adapting against those civs with your 1-3 civs of choice as well.

Why though when their is a guide made by you so that i dont have to understand each civ.

[jesus3]

I had an extended post in mind but it was essentially what Mitoe already said in fewer sentences, so I won't post redundant stuff and just tell you that I share his opinion (which should be enough to boost my credibility in future discussion)

Thanks

[HUMMAN]

Yea focus is what improves further in most subjects. I think doing same civ and same bo's will make you focus on little details and improvements more; since you do main things easily when you repeat them.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Yea, I agree with this.

To be honest, if you aren't pr30, it's because you don't master the basics. I'm not saying that mastering the basics of the game is easy (in fact it took me about 3 years to reach pr30), but playing all the civs will just make it harder.

If you want to become pr30 you need :

1) A decent macro. I've already said it hundred of times, but when I watch pr25 recs, they miss batches, they stack ressources, have iddled vills, don't herd well...
To improve your macro, you need to play a lot and it will come with time. If you only play one civ, you will improve your macro faster because you will have precise build orders and you will be familiar with the civilisation.

2) A "good" game knowledge, ie you need to have a game plan for each MU. If you focus on one civ, you need to know 14 MUs, if you play two civs you need to know 28 and so on.

3) An acceptable micro.

[Qosashvili93]

I was playing with almost all civs and was 24_25 pr, even almost 2nd lt

Than started play with one civ and in one month waas almost 30 pr

Than it was boring and again started with other civs too and going and going down after every day

Soo seems its true that u should play with 2_3 civs, untill u will be really good

[princeofkabul]

play all except shitgal.

[Kaiserklein]

Yeah playing only a couple civs helps you focus a lot more on your mechanics than on the build orders and strats. I'm saying that from personal experience, just like Mitoe. I personally spammed tower rush in nilla qs like a bot for a while and quickly got roughly tad pr30 mechanics because of microing these bows all the time. Then after that I got stuck, and had to start doing other build orders and play other civs.
I said pr30 off the top of my head, but I guess it's roughly around that rank that you can stop focusing as much on mechanics and start playing more civs to improve your strategy, game knowledge, adaptation, etc. Then obviously everyone is different and what worked for some might not work for others.

Another tip would be to spam 1v1s. Team is too chill at mid level, I don't think it helps improving a lot, or at least not quickly.

[dansil92]

I think you should play all civs at least until you have a build order with each one solid, then pick a civ, maybe 2 or 3, and get really really good with that one. I say this because if you havent even played aztec once, how the heck are you going to know what you are up against? What shipments, big button techs, units or clever exploits they have access to...

Honestly the only matchups i ever struggle with at my pr are the civs i play the very least, namely ports and germans amd france. Any other matchup i do pretty much just fine regardless of what civ i am playing since I know them better and can adapt accordingly

[Snuden]

2-3.

[Kaiserklein]

I think you should play all civs at least until you have a build order with each one solid, then pick a civ, maybe 2 or 3, and get really really good with that one. I say this because if you havent even played aztec once, how the heck are you going to know what you are up against? What shipments, big button techs, units or clever exploits they have access to...

Honestly the only matchups i ever struggle with at my pr are the civs i play the very least, namely ports and germans amd france. Any other matchup i do pretty much just fine regardless of what civ i am playing since I know them better and can adapt accordingly

The point is that when you're under pr 30 ish, you don't need to know the match ups perfectly well, because people don't play super accurately. It's more important at this level to spend your resources and control your units. Say you're france and do musk/huss or semi-ff, you'll beat pretty much anyone under pr 30 if you have solid mechanics, regardless of the match-up.

When you get to higher level, strats become much more important. That's when you have to start playing more civs.

[Mr_Bramboy]

There are two sides to this discussion. I started playing other civilizations because I wanted to understand their weaknesses. I had trouble with beating Aztecs for example so I started playing Aztecs more. I don't play enough to even consider becoming good at this game so I can't give you advice about that but I do feel like the game is more fun if you play multiple civilizations and understand each civilization well.

As others have said, in this game strategies don't win the match on a lower level (~<pr30). You can literally play a civilization and train musketeers and get to captain that way. As long as you're spending your resources effectively and as long as your macro is better, you can get away with a lot of things on a lower level.

[deleted_user]

Ye 2 civs to PR 30 is fine.

But there is value to playing others to discern weaknesses and timings because people naturally learn better/more efficiently through experience.

For instance Japan seems OP until you play as them then you're like "fuck I lose to every rush."

Then you play aggro Japan and you're like "wow this civ is broken I cannot lose." And it's true.

[lemmings121]

I've always played all civs, just took me quick 10 years to get to pr30, and I couldn't get further. ez. would do it again.

[vividlyplain]

Some people aspire to be pr30+, some people aspire to have fun, and some people aspire to play 3v3 Deccan.

[Mosx]

I play this game from years now and I still learning i do very good in 1v1 but I find the way for become pr 30 to hard because u ll find every time some India player that stop ur run or someone simply better of u like greatsht11 unbeatable with German I can suggest u that the best way for win a match at our level is learn how control the map and learn how counter units and learn a good rush

[gamevideo113]

One or two civs at most is the way to go. Playing all the civs gives you a decent idea about how the game works, and you should play all the civs until 2nd-1st lieutenant. After that you sould focus on one civ because it becomes a lot about game knowledge and not just general and coarse game sense. Playing only one civ might be boring, true, but if you don't you might get stuck because as long as you keep playing all the civs you'll never put much effort into really starting to polish all the different aspects of your gameplay. It's kinda like playing a different sport in every day of the week. You might get in shape and become decent at sports in general and very versatile, but you'll never be able to compete with people who have focused on one sport, learning it really well. You'll keep doing random stuff hoping it works, sometimes it will and sometimes it won't.
Becoming good (PR 30+) is objectively a grind and requires both skill and knowledge, and it's a lot easier to work on a restricted set of skills and a restricted amount of knowledge at a time.
As a matter of fact, most top players have a somewhat restricted civ pool. They perform well with every civ because they have improved their mechanics a lot while playing only a few civs, but they might lack the experience and knowledge about non-main civs (e.g. yesterday in his stream kaiser forgot to switch the summer palace army with china).

All this to say i'm a skrub and should start playing a single civ 24/7, until i become decent.

[deleted_user]

The only reason to "main" one civ is to practice good macro and executing tight build orders, and become familiar with the philosophy of timings by keeping one variable static. The principles of the game don't change between civs.

So much of aoe is just macro and executing a game plan well of timings based on the MU and information gained through scouting. It's hard to execute tight builds without repitition, repitition, repitition. And you can't be good without good builds. Use it lose it!

[tedere12]

all

[RefluxSemantic]

Play as many civs as you enjoy. I always liked sticking to one civ to try to really get to the point were you start understanding stuff. If you stick to one civ you can actually get to the point where you have very specific strategies for different situations and match ups. For me trying to solve stuff was and is the most fun and you spend the most time going in depth if you really stick to one civ. Playing multiple civs can be fun too. You generally rely on a bit of a broader sort of game knowledge and you can then reach a point where you basically broadly understand the civs and their strengths and weaknesses. Using that knowledge you can basically jump into any match up and do a strategy that is pretty good. It kinda misses the extreme depth where you try to really solve one match up for all possible scenarios, but it has a much more broader scope. Whatever is most fun to you is what you should go for imo, because you should play to have fun. Improvement will come with time regardless of how many civs you play.

[deleted_user0]

Play 1 to master basics. Then play 1 for 200 games until you figure the civ out. Then play another for 200 etc. Then repeat until you know which civs youre good at and how to beat other civs. Then counterciv the fuck out of everyone who joins your lobby and feast on the salt.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_lick

[Amsel_]

I wouldn't consider this a rule someone should try to consciously abide by. I think most people are just naturally good at two civs, so those civs tend to be the "tip of the spear" whenever a player is improving.