Rank 1 AOE4 Player Explains his Hotkeys 

This was a complete master class! Thanks a lot. As you mentioned in the end, please keep us updated if you do any changes

I respect you for showing this, very humble! I will give it this a go

I was just telling my wife how cool I was that my hotkeys were almost exactly the same as #1 in world Aoe4 guy, until he got to the 1,2,3 thing and I was like, the fak is this

Thanks for making this video, answers a lot of questions i have when i watch you play

The amount of practice needed for this to become instinctual seems insane.

Never though about using the map position for army hotkeys, but it makes sense. Going to have to give it a try!

You could use the f3 hotkey (default) for blacksmith and other upgrade buildings. And h (cycle through town centers) could free up f4 (might not work with kings palace, pos)

My god, what you're doing with the 1,2,3 for 3 parts of the map, is outstanding. What I do is I move the grid 1 column to the right, so I have Q A Z for myself. A should replace 9 and Z replacr 0, the control group.

Thanks, this video really helped me a lot!

This video is just in time, ive been always a 1 hand causal guy but due to the many times i got clapped in quick match i decided to work my lazy ass and learn some hotkeys, and its from Beasty Pog

Excellent video, it will improve my game greatly 👍

Loved it man thanks again!

“That’s pretty much it” made me feel old af😂

thanks for buying these tips, by the way I would love to see more of Painter the legend and the low ranks, it is pure gold

This looks like differential equations without thinking. cool insight into the thought process. Its a lot like a comp program. as factors change the variables change. the more factors then you get into DE territory.

Great explanations. A good primer on hotkey usage. Look forward to more indepth tutorials like this. For the select-all-idle-army key, I did lose a game bc I assign it to select-all-army and in the heat of a moment I used that key to select a spare “half” of my army to meet raiders on a different part of the map, forgetting to tell the other half to cancel action, and leaving a small part of my reinforcing units and my proxy base to his full army. (An army that was smaller than my main contingent without as much siege support if not for the inadvertent move.) I wish the game has deselection by group: e.g. assign 1 to five lancers, select all, alt+1 to select everyone except the five lancers. But it does not have that feature. For us casual players, it’s hard to always assign hotkeys to all army units. So I am somewhat scared of needing to select unassigned units that are moving.

the new hotkeys that we tried in the PUP are great, especially that there is finally a button for all the Towns centers

@beastyqtsc2 Any chance you can do a video on HOW you do your control groups (not what your control groups are, which you covered in this video)? Basically would like to know what keys you use inside the 'Control Groups' grouping of hotkeys. How you're addingcontrol groups, removing units from all control groups, remove unit from specific control groups, etc. Also, do you have any commands on your mouse? Thanks so much!

This is your best video ever!! Love it

Beasty’s brain works in ways I cannot fathom

This is the best freehand Mouse Maneuvered Art I have ever seen.

I use something slightly different. And I use the same numbers always and if not applicable I keep them empty This way I've taught myself to always react instantly on whatever i need / want. Units 1. Horsemen / Knights OR MAA / Spearmen Special Cases: breakaway harass army 2. Archers 3. Mangos 4. Feudal: specific group of Villagers / Rams , Castle onwards: Springs / Cannons 5 Feudal: Scouts, Castle: Priests Special Cases: Rams / Trebs Buildings 6 Docks / Blacksmith / University / Special Upgrade Buildings such as Rus Age IV 7 Infantry / Archeries 8 Stables / Siege / Monasteries 9 Marketplaces 10 Townhalls

i use a mouse button for cycling through tc, one for cycling through idle villagers (with ctrl + mouse 5 for all idle on screen), one for all eco buildings and one for blacksmith. this way i can keep 1-0 free for the army or villagers i need to use for specific tasks (i.e the 4 that will build the feudal landmark)

Thank you 💯❤️💪

Nice video, thanks for the tips! Do you use hotkeys only on your keyboard or you also have a mouse with numbers?

A bit late to the party, but enjoyed the vid. I really liked splitting the map in 1,2,3 in your mind. When I have three scouts with Rus i always forget which scout is which hotkey. So gonna try that out. I am a Tab guy since i run out of easy to hit hotkeys. Is using 7 and 8 just a matter of practise? I also use a lot of APM making 3 knights if i have 3 stables to optimise resource spending. But using shift and making 5 is way less APM heavy. What do you do? Greetings OpDVlaM

Hey beasty, can you do a video like this on the new hotkeys from the season one update?

Instead of using 4 or 5 for tc etc i have a separate bind on f1 for this f2 for afk vils and so on ending at f6 i have no probs reaching but honestly cant wait for an updateted hotkeys with new patch looking forward to make some changes

Congrats. 👍

Also can you tell if there is another way to drag camera because It feels slower If I have to drag mouse cursor all the way to the right to move camera or left.

I use shift a/s/q/w for military buildings and Spacebar for TC have you ever tried putting hotkeys that are closer to your hand?

does the 1,2,3 section make more sense on a grid? 1 1 2 1 2 3 2 3 3 Looking into hotkeys there is a select all TC, Barracks, ETC does it make sense to make those 4,5,6,7,8? saves you from having to actually put them on hotkeys or does that make it to rigid of a structure for when you are moving monastery's in/out of the control groups?

How do you quickly split the army control groups from 1,2,3 for the army into 1-archers, 2-cav/spearmen, 3- siege for example in under one second? Thanks :)

I was wondering if you could do a video what hot keys do you use or think are worth learning? I often see you pick out 1 individual villager that gets hurt or 5 spearmen will separate from the main group (that one seems really helpful) with out any click or mouse movement. All those hot keys in game were overwhelming so I was wondering if you could trim down that list?

I do the haggard "entire army is one group and tab for different unit types" lol

I'm curious what you hotkey your scout to? Unless there's a default you use, Im still new to using hotkeys but my setup is pretty similar except I do 1st tc is h and scout is j

i still use old EE and AOC hotkeys lol .. im glad we can remap the interface ..and im still a noob !

but with only 3 buttons how do you move the army in more particular situations? Let's suppose that with the vertical map you have to defend zones 1 and 3 of your base and attack zones 1 and 3 of the opposing base but at the same time in the offensive zone 1 (opposing base) you want to divide the army again or because you have different units in the same zone or because you want a larger group to fight and a smaller group of 2, 3 units to attack the villagers. would be 5 groups. 2 in defense (the first in zone 1 and the other in zone 2 of the map), and 3 in attack, two on the left (zone 1) and one on the right (zone 3)

sin hablar ingles y con el traductor de youtube y aun asi lo comprendo ,gracias

Do u have to select every new unit made and put them in a group or can you get it to where they automatically in group when made.. and how to you remove unit from a group?

Very interesting and logic action

As a new player out of the oven, could we could this updated? A few points were left uncovered, for example if you sent 3 different unit types to 1 how do you micro them effectively? (Pushing up troops back archers, and hold sieges or do you try to keep only the same unite type in the groups

Hello guys, is there a way to automatically when starting games it sets groups like tc on Control group 4 ans scout when it comes out to 2 without doing it manually? Thank you in advance gamers!

How do u on hot key or key bind when your n a game I always get those random villagers in my armies and I could never get them out

How do I set the Camerafocus to the currently selected unit(s)? I am giving aoe4 another try and I don't know if I am blind or if it does not exist xD thanks for your help

I use the arrow keys to navigate around . How do you guys do it? It makes it difficult to use wasd and 1234 etc

@BeastyqtSC2 Can you please release the file for all of your hotkey/keybind settings?

Your hotkeys are almost exactly like mine. I put TC on 3 and horsemen/spears on 1. I use an mmo mouse, so all the buttons are under my thumb.

Beasty, I need every video to start with: [Clap] [Clap] "Gamers...". Thank you!

Why don"t you rotate the view to be at the top/bottom every time?

One question: Why I never see you guys garrison relics in castle?

I mean it makes sense, theres method to your madness, not gonna work for everyone but it works perfectly for you

WIll there be an update with the update / patch the game got?

That control f is god tier lol

@beastyqtSC2 I'm curious if you've changed this system at all in the year or so since you made this video

How do you scroll around the map? Do you use arrows on the keyboard? I find pushing the mouse to the edge really ineffective, but the arrows are far from everything else you need on the keyboard.

When are we getting group steal?

Thanks very good advice. One thing I am wondering: How do you reach e.g. pressing Shift + 9 on keyboard? Do you use two hands? Or very long fingers? Or do you bind Shift to Mouse Botton 4 or something like that? I find it hard to reach keys > 7 (8, 9, 0) on the keyboard while pressing shift or ctrl. Any advice? And one more q: do have "double click" bound to an extra mouse key?

What i do not know how to manage is scouts and religious units.

I dont understand how are you setting new keybinds in hte middle of the game?

Does anyone know if Beasty uses mouse hotkeys?

Do you use a normal keyboard or special hotkey keyboard?

hey can you do a guide about the general numbers on how much villagers should you have by minute depending if you are playing agro or playing the long run? i find myself struggling with being consistent on that matter

I usually just select all army and shift+A move.

Ensure to mash each button in rapidly, at least 10 times.

NEW PLAYE RHERE THANK YOU

what about scouts?

the F-keys that you use for mill etc. also work for your smith/market so u really don't need to go all the way to 9-0 or consider it "bad" that you don't because those keys require less movement to get to and are inherent to the game anyway

nice

I wish AOE4 would incorporate AOEO hotkey modifications.

Why not just set standard hotkeys for the buildings and use those every game?

What about if the mouse has left side buttons m4 and m5?

Time to go pro

no mouse hotkeys?

I hotkey my blacksmith and market

How do u clear control groups to reset them and is it even possible ?

i struggle enough getting to 4 and 5 i have no idea how id hit 6-9 on hotkeys lol

lol, why is using number 1 to 0 suddenly so complicated

still slightly confuse. you said you map your keys 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 to certain things a the beginning of the video. later you said you map your army to 1,2,3 for left, center and right. this would override the bombards, mongos, archers, mma, etc .. right? This would also map all your slower units with your faster unit? is is the left, center, right army thing a different set of keys? thx. also, is your hand on home row when playing? i find it very odd to play ctrl + (whatever) when hand is on home row.

Press ( H ) for Town center

Another tutle for you:"This video will increase your ELO instantly!")

Welcome to starcraft 101 😁

What I don’t understand is the 123 hot keys at start with your villagers and scout

So complicated. I'm too dumb. I'll never get out of the gold tier. 🙂

This is actually genius because it incentivizes you to harass and be more active around the map providing good vision

ITs actually not that hard to do this if you have a mouse with 12 keys on the side.

Is it even fun anymore when it becomes a job to sweat?

F1 - Militarry F2 - Resource Gathering F3 - Research F4 - Rest Using these helps

Glad you’ve moved on from that trash game where you need 600 million apm if and only if you play Terran