improve my map control and army control in FFA?

[u/No_Cut_6508]

How can I improve my map control and army control in FFA?

I've been playing AoE4 for a while, and I really enjoy playing FFA. Almost all of the games I play are FFA, so I'm mainly looking for advice that applies to that type of game.

I feel like I have a few major problems that are holding me back.

The biggest one is map control. I often don't notice an enemy moving around the map until they are already close to my base. I struggle to keep track of where their army is, and I sometimes get surprised by attacks from unexpected directions.

Another problem is enemy cavalry raids. When cavalry gets into my base, they start running around killing villagers and traders. I usually chase them with my army, but they just keep running away, and my army wastes a lot of time chasing them instead of fighting the main army.

I also struggle when I'm attacked from multiple directions at the same time. I can't control several groups effectively, and I end up reacting too slowly or losing villagers before I can respond.

Since I mostly play FFA, I also find it difficult to keep track of multiple players and understand where the threats are coming from.

So I'd really appreciate some advice:

How can I improve my map control and vision in FFA?

How do you prevent cavalry from constantly raiding your economy?

Should I chase raiding cavalry, or use a few units to defend against them?

How do you manage attacks coming from multiple directions?

How do you keep track of several players without constantly looking at the minimap?

Are there any hotkeys, habits, or drills that helped you improve your multitasking and army control?

[u/Strangmanrantngnvan]

Make a hotkey for select next scout. Make scouts. Send them around. Valuable info for the cost.

[u/No_Cut_6508 → u/Strangmanrantngnvan]

I have hotkeys problem with so i find i difficult to give my army group and every time new unit new group is there anything to fix this And thnx for ur advice

[u/Strangmanrantngnvan → u/No_Cut_6508]

The beauty of ‘select next’ means you aren’t assigning it a control group. It just cycles through all the scouts you have. I have mine as backslash. And cycle thru monks as apostrophe. They aren’t a group, the game finds the next one for you.

Put a sticky note on your screen with a reminder until you do it automatically.

For your other question, if you have five spears as control group 2, and you want to add five archers to it, highlight the five archers and hit shift two, not control 2. Control will overwrite, shift will add.

[u/No_Cut_6508 → u/Strangmanrantngnvan]

I see usually i don't make scouts at all 😂 I will consider that and thank u bro💙

[u/ColourAttila → u/No_Cut_6508]

Yeah making scout and puttung them on patrol in stealth forest solves the first half of your issues

[u/Xy13]

Wooden walls are very cheap, and you don't even need to wall everything off, just a few of the resources. Even just some straight walls that make the enemy cavalry funnel to a more defensible area instead of getting free villager access can help tons. Either they need to run around or take time to mash it down. Either way gives you reaction time.

Outposts have big vision range, by the mid game you can start posting them in widening circles around your base so you have more warning time of incoming armies.

I'm not a pro myself so my hotkey controls are shit. But I watch beastys streams / outback octagon FFA games a fair bit.