N3O Age Of Empires and Starcraft 2 Clan

A long rambling one I'm afraid. I'm getting frustrated by my lack of progress but have at least managed to factor the main issues behind this:

Certainly when playing 1v1 rated games, my main weakness does appear to be knowing when to build a second t/c (Portds excepted) and start to boom properly.

On hitting fortress I tend to have a high wood dependency as I need to upgrade troops at both barracks and stable (200 wood each) and then build an artillery foundry and more housing. My first shipment then tends to be military based - cannons for instance.

I therefore struggle to have 600 wood spare for a new t/c for some time. Now if I go in for the kill immeidatley on aging up this is not a problem, but if the game runs on I tend to then get overrun. This is also reflected in me not having enough barracks and stables in late game to replace troops as quick as my opponent.

I think that on aging up I have three options:

1 send 1000 wood, upgrade troops, build a t/c and boom/turtle
2 send 1000 food and age up for factories, heavy cannon etc
3 send/build some cannon and attack immediately with veteran troops

What I keep doing is having an early battle in colonial which is not decisive. I then probe 1/2 times more before hitting fortress. I then upgrade troops and start massing a good 100 pop army but being very static and not raiding/scouting enough - this is handing the initiative back to my opponents. I also keep forgetting to build arsenal when playing a European!

Main options for me therefore are:

1 learn to play - any hints on how/when to get that second t/c up!
2 play Ports or Dutch - build another t/c? no need ...
3 rush harder!

Any thoughts please Gentlemen ...

I think it depends on what your aims are, when you go to fortress and to some extent the civ you are playing. Some civs like India, Spain and Japan(Ronin spam), I find have very powerful military that you can ship in and I go to fortress to send these and get a decisive victory, I only boom when this fails. Other civs like Brits or Russia I find their military doesn't gain hugely from a jump to fortress and try to get those TCs down asap for a boom. If you find yourself aging just because you can then you are probably better off booming but if you go up with the intent to gain an edge over the other guy build the military. In either case try to gather the resources you need before you age up. I.e. lots of wood for TCs or wood/gold for upgrades.

If you want general rules then try this; if you get into fortress before the other guy ship in the powerful military cards and go on the offensive. If you are aging after the other guy then you need to play a bit more defensive because he should have better units, so you might as well get the TCs out, doing enough to hold them off whilst out booming them.