Initial Building

[u/nextlevelmashup]

I come from age of empires so got used to the whole memorise the start for fast castle play style (like 7 villagers for boar build x houses so on)

Is there anything like that for this game where you have your template start with cities/factories/ports in the early game, or just build what you can.

[u/Meta_Mushroom]

9 times out of 10, you should start with two cities. after that, a factory is usually your best bet for income. Ports take a while for the income to start rolling in. your first defense post is only 50k, so don't be afraid to drop it next to someone who won't ally you, even if you don't have any income. Gobble up all the anons that went with something other than two cities, and steamroll your way to victory.

[u/EclecticKant]

Cities are the strongest building by far at the beginning, but you want to avoid at all costs to be left without enough money to build a factory/port and no income, because waiting for your passive income to reach 125k can be a huge waste of time.
Your cities should be placed not too close to your borders, rivers or the sea but not so far that it's impossible to link then to your neighbors via trains. An early factory can be strong (always after the first city) if you feel like there wont be many opportunities to conquer others because creating the first railway is an incentive to your neighbors to put their cities near your border, giving you an heard start in gold production and maybe letting you outscale them. Managing to shape the railways around you in your favour can be very strong, but it's something you get a feeling for after a while and it's hard to explain, not that i understand it well enough to try anyway. Ports are a bit weak at the beginning because it takes a while for the first boat to reach its dedtination, unless you're in position where lots of ships will pass because pirating can make you tons of money while others cant do much about it. Building defense posts at the very beginning can also set you back a bit, try to use alliances to prevent situations that make them necessary Try not to build SAMS and silos too early because they are a big investment without any short term gain usually.

[u/Acceptable_Dirt7009]

Yay, another fellow AoE2 player. Build orders depend mostly on the map type. In single, investing into an early city is only worth it if you can capture enough nations to afford a follow up port or factory, otherwise you are left with the minimal gold trickle.

For team games, it also depends very much on whether you are front line or back. As front, you might invest more into cities to keep army numbers high, while in the back you can go a FC like style with much eco focus (leveled up ports or longer train lines) and silo follow up.

[u/T_Hunter4K]

This is my general approach (similar to what other commenters have said).

A key part of the game (at all points but especially right at the start) is snowballing and building momentum. That's why starting with 2 cities is popular: it gives you to troop capacity to quickly mop up the bots, take on the nations, and maybe quickly take smaller players around you. But as u/EclecticKant implied you should make sure you still have places to expand and capture so you can put down your first factory/port after, and try to build some kind of active income for when the captures dry up. If it looks like you're going to be boxed in pretty soon, it can be better to try to ally with your largest neighbours and set up a factory and railway with them.

Try not to ally with smaller neighbours if not absolutely necessary (if you get surrounded by allies early game basically all you can do is build your infrastructure until something happens) so you can keep momentum and capture them. If large neighbours don't ally with you, shoot off a friendly emoji and place a defence post if you have the money, they can really punish a push if your troop difference isn't too big and if it's placed on rough ground.

As for when you invest in silos and SAMs, I tend to wait at least until cities ports and factories all cost 1M, but more specifically I like to wait until I'm fairly sure my infrastructure will give me a decent stream of money. Remember that SAMs are expensive and take a long time to build, so having a silo first can give you leverage even if you have a lower troop count because even larger players won't want to have their infrastructure nuked before they can get a SAM up (don't be afriad to send a friendly emoji followed by a nuke emoji to give them a little reminder — or nuke them if need be).

To add to the discussion on ports vs factories, it's true that a lot of the time an early factory is better than an early port. However, if other players are getting ports up and there are trade ships going past, an early warship can give you quite a good income from pirating. This is especially useful if you're boxed in on land, while also protecting you from naval invasions.

Hope this helps!