Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh cool, I'm at similar level in AoE2. I've found that if you consistently make vills & army you can compete pretty easily at this level. For the most part I play random civ, don't use hotkeys, and don't use build orders and it hasn't been too rough. Lately I've been playing more teamgames and spending more time watching streamers play (shout out to survivalist!).
Nice! It really is amazing watching the community over time. Techniques like house walling, archer kiting, scout rushes, hit+run vil attacks with starting scout, boar luring, deer pushing etc went from being rare/high-level play, to something everyone (above 800 ELO at least) does!
Definitely! When I was younger I didn't even realize you could consume boars or deers