⚔️ Tactics

The eight combat skills that decide CBA games, each in a few lines — with a video where one exists.

Ask the Expert

The fastest way to get an answer for YOUR game: ask the AI expert — e.g. "how do I fight Chakrams with Britons?"

🖱️ Patrol vs attack-move vs right-click

• Right-click — every unit paths to one target, clumps, and stops firing while repositioning. Use only to focus a single high-value target (siege, Monk, low-HP UU).
• Attack-move (A + click) — units march to a point and engage anything in range; in DE it has a shorter engage delay than patrol. The default for advancing under fire.
• Patrol (Z / grid .) — widest engage arc, keeps formation, keeps firing while re-adjusting. Best for holding a line and re-spacing.

Rules of thumb: advancing → attack-move; holding/re-spacing → short patrol; one target → right-click; kiting → patrol backward in Aggressive.

▶ Watch: When Attack Move is better than Patrol in DE — Spirit of the Law · Beginner Guide to Patrol and Attack Move — Resonance22

🔁 Short-patrol clump fix

The single biggest habit separating amateurs from pros: select your ranged blob, hit patrol, click 10–20 tiles ahead. Units re-space instantly into a firing line — everyone in range, everyone shooting. Repeat every 1–2 seconds during a fight.

Pitfalls: patrol segments under ~3 tiles make units clump harder (DE quirk); patrolling through a chokepoint bunches units on the gap; a right-click cancels the spread.

Advanced (the 2024 "no-attack" micro): set No Attack stance → patrol backward through your own line → flip back to Aggressive. Re-spaces with zero engagement delay. Bind stance toggles to comfortable keys.

▶ Watch: Top 5 Army Control Tips — Hera

📐 Formations cheat-sheet

The four formations and when to use each in CBA.

Formation	Use when	Avoid when
Line	Default — max frontage and DPS for ranged blobs	Facing pass-through units
Staggered	Mandatory vs Chakram / Ballista Elephant / Scorpion / Kipchak / Onager splash	Under focused arrow fire
Box	Escorting siege, vills, or a hero	Any actual engagement
Flank	Attacking buildings from two angles	Everything else — fragments your DPS

Default stance combo: Line + Aggressive + short patrol. Swap to Staggered the instant you see a pass-through unit.

▶ Watch: How to Micro #4 — Unit Formations — Survivalist

🏹 The kiting loop

The hit-and-run loop for Mangudai, Kipchak and other cavalry archers.

1. Patrol forward into range — CA fire on the move.
2. As the first arrows land, patrol backward a short distance.
3. Repeat. Aggressive stance is mandatory so they auto-fire between orders.
4. Never right-click enemy units while kiting — you lose the clean break-off.

Notes: Mangudai can kite closer than any CA (high pierce armor); Chu Ko Nu should kite at max range (their secondary shots are short); against Elite Skirmishers kite laterally, not straight back.

▶ Watch: How to Hit-n-Run using Attack Move in 69 seconds

🎯 Spread vs pass-through units

Pass-through projectiles damage every unit along their path — split and stagger.

Against Scorpions, Ballista Elephants (Khmer), Chakram Throwers (Gurjaras), Kipchaks, Organ Guns and Ghulams:

• Always Staggered formation.
• Split into two blobs attacking from different angles — only one eats the shaft.
• Flank with fast units (Hussar, Eagle, Steppe Lancer) and focus-fire the source with a small squad.
• Specifics: BBEs have no minimum range, so scorpion-style dodging fails; Chakrams damage on throw and return — move perpendicular to the line.

▶ Watch: The Most Complex Calculation in AoE2 — Spirit of the Law — how bonus damage actually stacks when these units hit.

🚧 Chokepoints

Chokepoints single-file your army into the defender's fire — never patrol through one.

Chokepoints multiply the value of ranged units and pass-through, and punish melee blobs.

• Never patrol through a choke — units single-file and die in sequence. Patrol laterally on your side, then advance as a line.
• Holding a choke: ranged blob in Line just behind it, melee plug in the gap; short-patrol to keep everyone firing.
• Breaking a choke: don't. Force a fight elsewhere, or bring pass-through/siege of your own to punish their stack.
• Villager foundation walls (houses placed mid-fight) create instant chokes — 3–5 extra seconds of defender fire is often the fight.

🔨 Attacking buildings

Maximize units-in-contact when razing.

Razing is a geometry check, not a DPS check — a gate has only ~8–10 melee contact tiles, so 30 Champions on one right-click means 20 stand idle.

• Shift + right-click multiple building tiles to spread the load across faces.
• For melee blobs on a Castle, patrol through the Castle — units wrap the perimeter and all hit.
• Approach perpendicular to a defended wall, not parallel along it — minimal exposure to defender fire.
• The killing blow gives the raze credit — if a teammate needs the vill, let them land it.

▶ Watch: AoE2 DE CBA 4v4 — Malians — EternalPrince — a raze-heavy civ applying building pressure all game.

🎯 Which gates break fastest

Everyone's starting perimeter is the same (Fortified Gate, 4,000 HP) — the gap appears after a breach, because rebuilds differ by civ:

Durability	Who	Why
Softest rebuilds	Goths, Huns, Magyars, Malay, Persians, Bulgarians, Cumans, Mapuche, Muisca, Sicilians, Spartans, Tupi, Wu	No Fortified Wall in Requiem v294 — rebuilt gates are Stone-tier (2,750 HP vs 4,000)
Soft buildings (not gates)	Aztecs, Tupi, Vietnamese (no Masonry); Huns, Teutons, Slavs + 23 others (no Architecture)	Their Castles/ranges miss up to +21% HP — note Masonry/Architecture never affect gates
Toughest	Byzantines	+10/20/30/40% HP by age on buildings and walls/gates (~5,600 HP Imperial Fortified Gate)

Doctrine: pick your first raze target by (1) softest effective gates, (2) map position/exposure, (3) which enemy is most dangerous left alone. Raw HP is the tiebreaker, not the whole answer.

🚫 Spawn-block

Win the fight, park on the spawn tiles, raze at leisure — the cleanest way to close out a lane.

After winning a lane, stand your units on the enemy's Castle spawn tiles: new units can't spawn while the tiles are occupied, starving them completely.

• Best blockers: durable civs (Koreans, Persians, Teutons). Most vulnerable victim: Turks and other squishy-spawn civs.
• Combine with building attack: block spawns with part of the army while the rest razes.
• If you are being spawn-blocked: use your towers and Castle fire, and call a teammate dive immediately — you cannot break it alone.

▶ Watch it all applied: CBA Requiem Tournament Grand Finals — EternalPrince

⌨️ Hotkeys worth binding

Action	Why
Attack-Move on a single key	Used 200+ times per game
Patrol on a home-row key	The most-pressed non-selection key in CBA
Stance toggles (Aggressive / No Attack)	Enables the no-attack micro chain
Line / Staggered formation toggles	One-tap answer to pass-through
Select All Military + Idle Military	You have no eco to manage — army keys are everything

Pro presets (TheViper, Hera, TwentyGrid) are importable from aokhotkeys.appspot.com.

▶ Watch: How To Setup Hotkeys In AoE2 — Hera