Population

Population

Unless you are playing as the Huns, your population should be the primary focus within your first five minutes of the game, this means building houses and making infantry to defend your base and to attack. For this, you should place one of your starting three villagers on a house. Never place two, as placing two does not build the house twice as fast (this is true, contrary to popular belief). It's best off to build a house almost exactly at where you peasant is standing. Never build far from where your villager stands as that will gain the enemy valuable time. I personally have destroyed people who tried to build their houses nice and neatly next to each other simply because I made an army in the time that they took on their house. I can't stress enough that building close to where your villager stands is important. Also, don't stop building houses. You will want to have a population of 200 at the 8 minute mark, 6 minute mark for experts. The best way to do this is have every new villager that comes from your town center build a house.