Improving Apm and Micro

[Riotcoke]

After playing against Kasier yesterday i've realised that the main aspect of my gameplay that's holding me back is my APM and Micro. Are there any tips that specifically are useful for improving both of these?

[[Armag] diarouga]

Apm and micro are overrated tbh. Fix your macro and you'll get +5pr.

[Riotcoke]

Apm and micro are overrated tbh. Fix your macro and you'll get +5pr.

Even with dogshite micro?

[Kawapasaka]

Are you z-moving properly? I used to use alt-click on an enemy unit until very recently when I came to the revelation that you can just press attack move, then click the ground, and get the same effect for what adds up to a very significant of time saved during fights. Feels like it at least. The best thing is that habits like this don't take long at all to get comfortable with.
Also, what are your control groups and what compositions are you most used to?

[Riotcoke]

Are you z-moving properly? I used to use alt-click on an enemy unit until very recently when I came to the revelation that you can just press attack move, then click the ground, and get the same effect for what adds up to a very significant of time saved during fights. Feels like it at least. The best thing is that habits like this don't take long at all to get used to.
Also, what are your control groups and what compositions are you most used to?

My z move is fine, although it's on mouse 4 on my mouse, which honestly i think causes it to not work correctly sometimes. As for control groups, i'm limited to 2 for Ri, 3 for anti-cav, 4 for Cav and 5 for Art due to playing with esdf for most games instead of wasd. Just makes it more comfortable.

[gamevideo113]

I doubt that micro and apm are the first thing holding you back. I've seen lots of top players in different games that have average micro, but great macro and strategical decision. Ofc having bad micro might lose fights that you'd otherwise win but that's not always the case. APM is just increased with practice i think. The more you play, the more basic actions become simple routine and you'll end up doing them in a split second, leaving you more time for other actions.

[deleted_user]

I think it's less about actual micro and more about unit awareness. You lost lots of units to falc volleys, and your unit positioning was shite in the Baja game which is more like unit positioning (don't push past TC with all LI and your anticav completely separated). You must be cognizant of units when pushing them forward across map, and minimap awareness is critical in aoe.

It's hard to know without watching POV. I'd be interested in helping when I get back to my PC in the states if you're interested.

Mechanics will naturally improve if you spam games without large periods of inactivity and watch better players' streams. You don't need to look like iamturk - Kaiser has some of the cleanest mechanics imo to want to replicate.

As diarouga mentioned, macro is an ez area to improve that nearly everyone pr 35 and below could improve at some level.

[Kawapasaka]

My z move is fine, although it's on mouse 4 on my mouse, which honestly i think causes it to not work correctly sometimes. As for control groups, i'm limited to 2 for Ri, 3 for anti-cav, 4 for Cav and 5 for Art due to playing with esdf for most games instead of wasd. Just makes it more comfortable.

Sounds good to me, although I find a 5th control group can often be useful even for relatively simple composition civs like France. I use my 5th as a dumping ground for miscellaneous units. For example, say I'm in fortress but still have a decent amount of musks, maybe 10-15, left over from colonial and I'm pushing vs a civ with skirms and cav (pretty common situation actually) - I don't want my musks grouped with my skirms because they'll get picked off for free when I'm poking. But I don't want them grouped with my goons either, because of the speed discrepancy and the fact that they should be body blocking vs cav, but goons shouldn't. And on other occasions I'll use it as a raiding group for leftover hussars when I don't have enough to justify vet'ing them and grouping them with my cuirs.

Anyway ultimately that's a pretty small thing. More importantly, when taking a fight, you should do everything to ensure that as much of your screen-time and apm as possible can be dedicated solely to the fight itself. Pre-emptive eco management comes to mind: Have a low mine? Shift-click the gatherers to the next one before engaging. Low hunt? Switch the majority of vills on it to a new one. Gathering wood? Stop. You won't need it after the fight (I think this was a Mitoe tip I read once). I've probably lost a lot of games because two seconds into a fight 17 vills on a mine went idle and completely neutered my reinforcing batches, or, alternatively, made me click away from the fight to re-task them.
Also, how much of your unit production is hotkeyed? Having production facilities control grouped and all unit creation under hotkeys instead of manual clicking is one of the best time-savers to finish batches during a fight.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Also people also often don't make the difference between micro and positioning. Basically micro is focus firing the units during a fight, which requires a high apm and good mouse accuracy. Positioning is more like surrounding your opponent's units or fighting cav in trees and chokes, which requires no apm, just need to be smart.

[Guigs]

Don’t try to improve your micro at first it’s not that useful, pretty sure I have been stuck at the same level because I overmicro and don’t spend ressources or macro or multitask meanwhile.
80% of the time you win a fight on positioning and not by pure micro, unless you skirm goon vs musk huss compo type

[tedere12]

yeah micro and multitasking are super important in aoe3, idk why people downplay their importance all the time.

[Kaiserklein]

I think you could play some time to micro, it would help you with your positioning and kiting

[Jerimuno]

actual micro is not important at all until brigadier imo
as diarouga and callen said, it's more about unit awareness and positioning than actually "micro managing" your units

I'd even go as far to say you should stop trying to micro your units at all during a fight until you get to like major or something, instead you should focus on positioning your units correctly and a moving them.

[flontier]

Improve apm is irrelevant if your apm is badly distributed, a common mistake for many of us is to overmicro while having 20idle vills, at the end we have waste 2/3 of our apm to kill 2 more huss while the opponent maybe micro slighly less but he made 10more military units during the fight cause perfect multitask. Ofc having a high apm help you to do both but better to focus on having a clean multitask than spamming click.

[Kaiserklein]

actual micro is not important at all until brigadier imo
as diarouga and callen said, it's more about unit awareness and positioning than actually "micro managing" your units

I'd even go as far to say you should stop trying to micro your units at all during a fight until you get to like major or something, instead you should focus on positioning your units correctly and a moving them.

I'd like to see anyone beating a bot jan or sepoy rush or something like that without actual micro. Idk why people underrate micro so much. If I can play ttm and have 2/3rds of my army left in a mirror fight, it means micro can be extremely relevant.

Improve apm is irrelevant if your apm is badly distributed, a common mistake for many of us is to overmicro while having 20idle vills, at the end we have waste 2/3 of our apm to kill 2 more huss while the opponent maybe micro slighly less but he made 10more military units during the fight cause perfect multitask. Ofc having a high apm help you to do both but better to focus on having a clean multitask than spamming click.

20 idle vils during 10 seconds would gather less than 1 huss actually. If you split one volley of goons and kill one more huss, it's better than managing your idle vils.
Though overmicroing sucks yes.

[[Armag] diarouga]

actual micro is not important at all until brigadier imo
as diarouga and callen said, it's more about unit awareness and positioning than actually "micro managing" your units

I'd even go as far to say you should stop trying to micro your units at all during a fight until you get to like major or something, instead you should focus on positioning your units correctly and a moving them.

That's interesting, I like that.
It's a bit like taking a handicap (by not focus firing) so you have to compensate with positioning.

[lordraphael]

actual micro is not important at all until brigadier imo
as diarouga and callen said, it's more about unit awareness and positioning than actually "micro managing" your units

I'd even go as far to say you should stop trying to micro your units at all during a fight until you get to like major or something, instead you should focus on positioning your units correctly and a moving them.

I'd like to see anyone beating a bot jan or sepoy rush or something like that without actual micro. Idk why people underrate micro so much. If I can play ttm and have 2/3rds of my army left in a mirror fight, it means micro can be extremely relevant.

Improve apm is irrelevant if your apm is badly distributed, a common mistake for many of us is to overmicro while having 20idle vills, at the end we have waste 2/3 of our apm to kill 2 more huss while the opponent maybe micro slighly less but he made 10more military units during the fight cause perfect multitask. Ofc having a high apm help you to do both but better to focus on having a clean multitask than spamming click.

20 idle vils during 10 seconds would gather less than 1 huss actually. If you split one volley of goons and kill one more huss, it's better than managing your idle vils.
Though overmicroing sucks yes.

kaiser is proving time and time again what micro actually can do. I might even start to play some ttm aswell to improve it a bit. but yea if you mess up your macro while fighting or raiding its not worth it sometimes.

[Ashvin]

I'd say its different for everyone. Some people dominate with their micro, some do the same with macro, some outplay others by just applying more strategy and knowledge. They make their best suit their strength and improve it gradually with time. So if you know your strengths and weaknesses, strengthen your strengths and weaken your weakness you will improve.

[Jerimuno]

I'd like to see anyone beating a bot jan or sepoy rush or something like that without actual micro. Idk why people underrate micro so much. If I can play ttm and have 2/3rds of my army left in a mirror fight, it means micro can be extremely relevant.

I'm pretty sure most of us could beat a 1st lt otto double rax jan rush etc with just a moving and maybe splitting fire once or twice throughout the entire game.

Nobody here is denying that micro is an important aspect of the game and good micro will make you win fights you would otherwise lose, but you all need to keep in mind that we are talking about lieutenants and not pr40s

[Shikari]

Isn't kiting(microing) super important vs strong musk civs (japan india otto). Especially if you have bows instead of skirms in early colonial.

[flontier]

Improve apm is irrelevant if your apm is badly distributed, a common mistake for many of us is to overmicro while having 20idle vills, at the end we have waste 2/3 of our apm to kill 2 more huss while the opponent maybe micro slighly less but he made 10more military units during the fight cause perfect multitask. Ofc having a high apm help you to do both but better to focus on having a clean multitask than spamming click.

20 idle vils during 10 seconds would gather less than 1 huss actually. If you split one volley of goons and kill one more huss, it's better than managing your idle vils.
Though overmicroing sucks yes.

i didnt think about the equivalent, it was just an exemple, but actually sometimes its way more than 10sec lol.(Reminds me the lan game when you got vills waiting for so long into lordraph base cause wrong rally point .)

[Hazza54321]

Yeah micro only feels relevant vs pr38+

[Kaiserklein]

I'd like to see anyone beating a bot jan or sepoy rush or something like that without actual micro. Idk why people underrate micro so much. If I can play ttm and have 2/3rds of my army left in a mirror fight, it means micro can be extremely relevant.

I'm pretty sure most of us could beat a 1st lt otto double rax jan rush etc with just a moving and maybe splitting fire once or twice throughout the entire game.

Nobody here is denying that micro is an important aspect of the game and good micro will make you win fights you would otherwise lose, but you all need to keep in mind that we are talking about lieutenants and not pr40s

Then would a 1 lt beat pure jan with bows without kiting well?

[Kaiserklein]

i didnt think about the equivalent, it was just an exemple, but actually sometimes its way more than 10sec lol.(Reminds me the lan game when you got vills waiting for so long into lordraph base cause wrong rally point .)

I mean, 20 vils idle for 10 secs is a lot already. We don't usually have that I think. And if you do, it means you should still get some good value out of microing for these 10 seconds, more value than the huss you'd get. People just really underestimate the impact of micro, it snowballs really hard in a fight.

[Jerimuno]

no of course not but that's my point. improve positioning and learn kiting before trying to focus on micro managing single units (does kiting a ctrl group really count as micro already? a move, move back, a move, move back?)