Hotkeys
The first thing I must cover is my setup. I run off of an ancient
P2 300, so its not required that you have a p4 to be an expert.
There are basically 2 schools of thought when it comes to AOC.
There are the mouse clickers and then there are the Hotkey
players. I am through and through a hotkey player, so that is what
I will discuss. For the most part I use default hotkeys. I moved a
couple of keys as it became apparent that they were better
elsewhere. I moved one of the idle vil keys to Tab, its a nice big
button that I can hit with my ring or middle finger of my left
hand. I moved the delete key from delete to pg up, and I no longer
accidentally delete my TC. If you have a wheel on your mouse, use
it. I set my 2nd idle vil to wheel down, and my 2nd idle military
to wheel up. I tend not to use those as much, but some people like
to use it more than others(Malice for instance, I think uses those
almost exclusively). That is pretty much it for hotkeys. Basically
use what is comfortable to you, if you hate a certain key then
move it to a better place. My hands are big enough that I can hit
any key on the keyboard. Some people with smaller hands might want
to clump their hotkeys together so they dont have to reposition
their hand. The bottom line is only use something if it will save
you time. There are players who dont use ANY hotkeys and still
kick ass, Winds, Rising and Front are some that come to mind. Btw,
because of my hotkey use my typing skills have increased several
times over.

Applying Hotkey use to AOC
Ok, so I told you that hotkeys can save time if you use them
correctly. Right now some of you are thinking "I know what my
hotkeys are, but how can I use them to make me a better player?"
Ill tell you how. In this section ill share with you exactly how I
use hotkeys in the game.

Dark Age
First thing I do when the game starts is click on the TC with my
mouse and hit c-c-c-c. Then I take my scout and 1 vil and look for
sheep, the other 2 either build a house, or if I am huns they chop
wood. That takes about 6 seconds, after that I click on my TC and
hit ctrl+1, that sets your TC to the number 1 hotkey. I cannot
tell you how important it is to use your numbers to keep track of
things. They are without a doubt the most important application of
Hotkeys. Ill tell you why it is important to number your
TC's(rather than using H to center on it) in a little bit. For now
just accept my word in faith. After I set my TC to 1, I put my
scout on number 9 my hitting ctrl+9. If I use sheep for scouting
they get assigned to 5 and 6 respectively. When I go to lure a
boar, my boar lurer gets assigned to #8 and the ones who shoot the
boar(they are also my sheep gatherers) get assigned to #7. As soon
as I have 6 sheep gatherers, they get assigned to #7, it makes it
easier to use them when you start luring boars. That sums up the
Dark Age use of hotkeys.

Feudal Age:
In feudal age I am going to split it up into Grush or Flush, as my
hotkey use seperates when doing one or the other.

Flush:
So far you have your TC assigned to #1 and your scout assigned to
#9. I assign my Barracks to #4, and any Ranges get assigned to 2
and 3. Any Feudal Stables get assigned to #5 and #6. I group all
of my skirms to #7, all of my spears to #8 and all of my scouts to
#9. Its soooo much easier to select all of a certain unit by
hitting the number instead of selecting your entire army and
hitting shift while you click on the type of unit you wish to
isolate. 
            
Grush:
My grush not much different than my flush setup. Usually I grush
with 4 docks since the patch, so I hotkey each of my docks using
5-8 as the numbers. I usually hotkey my galleys to 9. That is
about it, not much else to hotkey in a grush.

Castle Age:
Ill split these up into land and water once again.

Land:
Following the flush I change things up a bit. I keep my TC on 1,
and I select a scout to be #9 again. What changes are the military
buildings. I usually go 3 stables and hotkey them 6-8, each
getting their own number. If I only go 2 stables I use 6 and 7.
Whatever you do just try to leave numbers 1-5 open. When I build
new tcs, I assign them to a number 1-5. This is very important.
Some people tell me that numebring TC's is stupid, but ill tell
you why it isnt, in fact its one of the best time savers. Everyone
knows that microing battles is what seperates players, its a given
fact. My reasoning was that I could do both my econ and military
at the same time. When you hit H, it centers on the TC, and it
cycles through so it means that you might not get the one you
want. If you number your town centers, you can select which exact
TC you want to build villagers at. Most importantly, when you hit
the number it doesnt center on it, so you can still keep you eye on the battle while still making villagers.

Water:
Keep your docks numbered(assuming you are still fighting on water,
if you are fighting on land now use numbers 6-8 for military
buildings). Same as on land use 1-5 for your TCs.

Imperial Age:
In imperial you condense your numbering system. Since you arent
using your TCs to boom anymore you can use 1-9 for military
buildings, in any way you like. I dont see the need to use 1-9 for
units, as you arent likely to lose track of a group of 60 military
units.