Oh, and finally. AoE2 is played on "Random Map". This means that scouting has a degree of importance. In general, you should scout on chickens maps, and you sh

Oh, and finally. AoE2 is played on "Random Map". This means that scouting has a degree of importance. In general, you should scout on chickens maps, and you should mix up scouting vs luring on deer maps. Chickens cannot be lured, so scouting is your only option. Deer can be lured, meaning micro-ing your Scout to push a deer into your base and capture an early source of food. Luring is necessary for some builds (ie: rushes which need more food than other builds). It also means that "SimCity" is based on map layout. Arabia (most common map generator) sometimes spawns "closed" (long woodlines that act as walls), which sometimes makes walling cheaper/easier. Or sometimes Arabia spawns "open", or fat tree lines spaced far apart. In these, large "base walls" are impossible and people tend to favor "small walls" (maybe a few to protect farms, and like 8 tiles of walls max to protect gold). Top tier pros prefer "quick walls", only walling after the opponent's attack arrives. This is very difficult / micro/APM-intensive, so feel free to just small-wall by default and/or large base wall if the map generates something useful. If you "large wall", integrate necessary buildings (ex: blacksmith, market, barracks) into your walls. Full scale buildings tend to have ~2000 HP or so, while palisade walls only have 250 or so HP. In fact, most players use "house walls" (the AoE2 equivalent to Supply Depos), because you need tons of houses ANYWAY, and because Houses have 900 HP, its usually better to defend with houses.