They're great for quickly raiding a town to take out the enemy's valuable Villagers. Sometimes, you don't have to build a Fishing Ship to gather seaborne food. If there's a square full of fish near to the shore, Villagers can do the harvesting. Developing a civilization is fun in single-player, but can be suicidal in multiplayer games. Most AOE players like to attack quickly.
Military concentration is essential.
If you have the resources and the foresight, an excellent survival technique is to build another town center far enough away from your original location. It can spread the resources pretty thin, but it can provide a surprise element in counterattacks. Don't use cheats in multiplayer games. It's funny once or twice but the cheats seriously unbalance the game. If you absolutely have to fiddle with the cheats in Age of Empires , take a look at our special Cheats List .