Arena - AOE2 Guide

Arena is one of the most iconic closed maps in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. Known for its defensive nature and strategic focus on building a powerful late-game economy, it offers unique gameplay unlike that of open maps like Arabia. Here’s a detailed breakdown to help you out in your next Arena match!

Map Layout

General Setup:

Player Placement: Players start on opposite sides of the map, each player enclosed within stone walls.
Stone Walls: Given you are surrounded by stone walls from the beginning of the match, early rushes are less effective.
Town Center: Each player begins with a Town Center, and three villagers as usual.
Map Size: The map size varies depending on the number of players, but the enclosed nature makes space an issue, particularly in the late-game.
Terrain: The map does not feature any elevation or hills; all Arena maps are flat.
Resources:
- Gold & Stone: Every player typically has two large gold piles and one large stone pile inside their walls, with some additional gold and stone just outside the player’s walls.
- Food: Players have the standard 8 sheep, 3 or 4 deer, 2 boar, and berries.
- Wood: There is ample wood on the sides and back of your base. Where a wood line splits a wall from the front to the back of your base, the back walls are useless and may be deleted for extra space.

Neutral Areas:

Relics: There are usually 5 relics scattered around the map in the middle or outer regions. You should regularly prioritize the relics, as they provide crucial Gold income in the commonly reached late-game.
No Cliffs in the Middle: The central area outside the walls tends to be open, making it a potential battleground for post-Imperial Age fights of varying army compositions.
Neutral Gold and Stone Piles: Arena also features various gold and stone piles in neutral areas across the map.

Strategic Considerations

Defensive Play:

Early Game Defense: Arena’s stone walls mean early-game aggression like scout rushes or archers are largely ineffective. This often results in players focusing more on booming rather than rushing.
Booming Potential: With the protection of walls, players often go for fast Castle Age strategies, allowing them to quickly establish a strong economy (3-4 Town Centers) while being protected from early raids.

Castle Age Power-Spike:

Siege and Monks: One of the common strategies in Castle Age is a combination of siege weapons (like mangonels or rams) and monks. Monks are particularly powerful in Arena due to the high number of relics and the ability to convert strong but expensive units often featured in Arena, such as siege (with Redemption), monks (with Atonement), heavy cavalry, or unique units.
Unique Unit Play: Arena can see strong unique units being utilized, as players often reach the Castle Age without much pressure, or in turn place forward castles. Civs with powerful unique units, such as Conquistador, Mangudai, War Wagon, or Janissary, can perform well.

Imperial Age Aggression:

Trebuchets or Bombard Cannons: Breaking down enemy fortifications and production buildings essential in the Imperial Age. Trebuchets and Bombard Cannons (if available) are generally used for that purpose. Bombard Cannons should be prioritized if available, as they are effective at sniping monks, siege, or archers.
Late-Game Compositions: The slower pacing of Arena usually results in battles with large, upgraded armies of various strong army compositions. A deep knowledge of your civilization and your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses should aid your composition of choice, but generally, players use infantry, siege, and monks.

Economy Considerations:

Relics Before Third Town Center: Generally, players will add a monastery and Town Center upon hitting the Castle Age, and defer building a third and fourth Town Center until it is affordable. Given there is usually a fight over the relics, the faster monastery will aid you to take the upper hand, while securing an endless trickle to an otherwise finite resource.
Map Control: Once the walls start coming down in the late game, controlling the central area of the map becomes vital. Placing forward castles, production buildings, or siege workshops to maintain pressure upon your opponent’s base can give you the upper hand in securing more neutral resources, and establishing more farm space (or trade in a team game), while your opponent’s space is restricted for crucial farms and production buildings.
Booming: Given the game often becomes late, to maintain sufficient champions or trash in late-game trash-wars, it is recommended that you establish a healthy boom with some 60 to 80 farms.

Common Opening Strategies on Arena

Scouts and Spearmen for Relic Control

Goal: Reach Feudal Age quickly and produce scouts and spearmen to counter an opponent’s fast castle into monks for relics.
Execution: Players gain early map control and protect the relics with a scout build order. Produce scouts to snipe enemy monks, and spearmen to kill enemy scouts (if they take the same approach).

Fast Castle into Boom

Goal: Reach Castle Age quickly and build 3-4 Town Centers to boost your economy.
Execution: Players often delay military production until they have established a strong economic foundation. This strategy is relatively safe at lower elo’s or in the pocket position so that you may out-sustain your opponents.

Fast Castle into Monk + Siege Push

Goal: Reach Castle Age quickly and push aggressively with monks (for conversion) and siege units (to tear down walls or attack low-hp units).
Execution: This strategy relies on leveraging monks to convert key enemy units while using siege weapons like mangonels to break the enemy walls or attack archers, infantry, and light cavalry.

Fast Castle into Unique Unit

Goal: Take advantage of Arena’s defensive nature to mass your unique unit.
Execution: Some civilizations, such as Turks (with Janissaries) or the Ethiopians (with Shotel Warriors), excel at getting their unique units out early. A forward castle can help apply pressure or serve as a defensive tool.

Civilizations That Excel on Arena

Top Arena Civs:

Teutons: With powerful infantry and cavalry, additional armored siege and resistance against conversions, cheap farms to assist in a healthy boom, and Crenelation fortifications, Teutons are a powerful Arena civilization.
Turks: With strong gunpowder units, free scout-line upgrades and faster gold-mining, Turks are a strong Arena civilization. Turks will either fast-imp with free chemistry, and mass hand cannoneers and bombard cannons before their opponent can respond with sufficient military or defenses, whereas the other option is that they make scouts, play for the relics, mass Jannissaries and boom. Both approaches are strong, and the opponent must prepare very differently for either approach.
Aztecs: With extra hit points on their monks, additional gold trickle from relics, access to above-average siege, and a strong economy, Aztecs can pull off overwhelming monk, siege and infantry pushes.
Bohemians: Known for their strong monk play and gunpowder units, Bohemians are a strong choice for Arena. Houfnice, hand cannoneers (capable of being massed as early as Castle Age), and Halberdiers which deal 25% additional bonus damage create a difficult army composition to counter. Bohemians can also field exceptional monks, useful in Arena.
Byzantines: Extra hitpoints on their buildings, bombard cannons, Cataphracts, and redemption monks result in Byzantines becoming a natural choice for Arena.
Portuguese: Cheaper gold units (useful for monks and siege) faster Castle Age times on account of foragers also generating wood, faster technology research time (useful in fast monastery technologies), strong unique units and gunpowder with access to Arquebus (Ballistics for gunpowder units) and access to Feitorias in the late game can provide Portuguese with the upper-hand in many Arena games.
Burgundians: Burgundians are a top-tier Arena civilization on account of their eco upgrades being available an age earlier at a discount, relics and farmers both capable of providing food and gold, a strong unique unit in the Coustillier, and more attack on their gunpowder.

Arena FAQ’s

Forward Castle or Defensive Castle?

Generally, you should only forward castle if:
– you have map control;
– you consider you have a power spike caused by the forward castle, or the castle denies crucial resources;
– you are in a position to fast imp and produce trebuchets; or
– you are in the flank position and will apply forward pressure alongside the castle, and your pocket can capitalize on the delay you are providing.

Defensive castles are better suited:
– when you are booming;
– when you have a unique unit you need to mass; or
– to shut down a monk-siege push.

Should I Sell Stone?

If you are intending to be extremely aggressive, say with an extremely fast castle into a siege-monk push, selling stone will usually enable you to fast castle about half a minute to a minute faster than if you were not to sell your stone.

If you intend to take an economic approach and boom in Castle Age, you should not sell your stone, as it will enable you to place two Town Centers without mining stone.

What do I do where there is no more Gold?

In Arena, games can often go late. In those circumstances, you should consider the following:

1. Do not hesitate to use the market. You can accomplish more with fewer gold units than you can with trash units.
2. Check if you have guilds to ensure you can sell resources more efficiently.
3. Look for neutral stones. Stone can often be sold for better value than wood or food.
4. Determine where the opponent’s relics are. Even momentarily destroying an opponent’s monastery containing their relics can affect the opponent’s production. Even better if you can steal those relics.
5. Maintain production and build more production buildings. You should, at all times in the late game, have no less than 190 units.
6. Where gold is scarce, even with the market, gold should be prioritized for siege over other military which cost gold.
7. Look for raids, particularly on farmers. Food is less often stockpiled in the late-game than wood. The opponent will need to create additional villagers to keep up with the raids, impacting production.