Multi Player Strategies

Persia DeathMatch Guide

by FanatiC_KaBaN

Introduction

Persia is a popular civ in DM. They are used for rushing because of their fast eles, but many times these rushes don't work well due to a slow or an incorrect start. In this guide I will discuss how to have a successful start with Persia and how to continue to fight if something goes wrong. Enjoy!

First Steps

I have two starts that I use. I will start with the one that I used the most, it works best for 1v1 games with a Tiny-Large map. The second one works better for bigger maps and teams games.

1st start.

When the games starts either hit H-C-C-C to build vills or click on the Town Center to build them. After that grab your three villagers and build a house. Don't worry about the second TC for now, remember that you have to rush as fast as possible. Once the house is complete start building a Storage Pit. By this time you will get the 4th villager, send it to help build the Storage Pit. While you wait build more vills queue up to 20 vills. (You will of course need all of them). Once the Storage Pit is complete start researching Iron Shield and send the four villagers to build Stables near the enemy. You can tell where the enemy by looking at where there is 2 gold mines and 2 stone mines close together. Don't build too close to the enemy but a bit away so that he wouldn't know where you are building. Find an open area and build about 15-20 stables, depends on the area where you are building the stables. With your 5th villager build another TC if map is large and you are building far away, or send it to help the other 4 vills for a faster rush. Once your stables are complete queue eles in them. When you finally get Iron Shield find the stable where you haven't queued eles and research Armored Eles. Other newly build villagers can be used by choice, however don't forget to start building houses and build a granary to upgrade towers. And of course don't forget to farm! You have to start farming as early as you can and do it all over the free space that there is. Send some more vills to the front-line to build towers. Build towers all over the map so that the enemy can't run and you will have an idea of what is going on across the entire map.
Back to the rush… Once you start getting eles send them over to where the enemy is (toward gold/stone). You will most likely find the enemies beginning base. Attack the villagers and the base, and keep sending in eles. They should upgrade to AE shortly and you will have an unstoppable army, especially when the enemy is already hurt. If everything goes well the enemy should be dead within 10 minutes.

2nd start

Second start is similar. Instead of a house, this time build a second Town Center. This slows down your rush, but it gives you a very good economy and many more villagers to build the stables. This is best used on Large-Gigantic maps in team games, of course it also works well in 1v1's, but sometimes the enemy can build up and be ready for the rush. When using this start you should build more towers and more stables to have a massive rush which would be hard to stop. With this rush you will most likely encounter priests, cats, other eles, heles, or Horse Archers. Don't hesitate to attack them, AE destroys everything very fast, especially Persia elephants. Only problem is massed Priests hidden behind massed towers or other missile units. Which leads us into the next section on what to do if something goes wrong…

If the rush doesn't kill the enemy...

Well, with a good rush you should have already killed the enemy town and taken over his resources. If not, you already control most of the map.

Units Persia has troubles with...

There are only 3 units that Persia can't handle too well, Priests, Helopolis, and Heavy Horse Archers.
Helopolis.
Heles can be stopped due to the speed of the eles, but massed heles (20+) are impossible to stop with just eles. That is why you always need to be ready to build Archer Ranges, Stables, or Siege Workshops. From my experience, I noticed that mixing in different units with eles allows them to kill heles more successfully. Elephant Archers and Armored Eles work very well against heles on flat ground. When going up hill some cats would certainly help. Now if the enemy also mixes units the result of battles can be very interesting and unpredictable.
Priests.
 There is nothing much that you can do vs. Priests. Priests alone could be easily stopped with Horse Archers or Heavy Horse Archers, but a good player will always build walls and towers around his priests so that archers can't touch them (especially Persia one who have very poor range). Only other answer is catapults, but catapults can also be easily stopped. So basically this leads into a stalemate type game where no one dares to launch a large attack and if they do they don't get far. This is good if you already taken over his land and have more gold mines than the enemy, and you have left him in a small corner of the map and the victory will be yours. Just a matter of time.
Heavy Horse Archers.
Encountering these is deadly. If they are massed together 25+ you have almost no chance of beating them. The civs that are played in DM and have HHA will usually have siege and other units. So there is nothing much you can do. Against the Ele Archer and Armored Elephant combo will probably be your best choice. Maybe some priests to convert HHA or Cats could be used.
Other Eles
Against other eles build massive priests and convert the enemy eles. There is only 1 other civ that has eles that are better then Persian. That civs is Carthage.

Stopping a Persia Rush.

Stopping a well done rush is very difficult. You must be ready in advance and you need to use the same starting as for a rush. Only this time build a base very close to your town. Build massive towers and hele/priests/other eles. Build other hand-to-hand units to engage in combat with eles. While your missile units attack the eles. Persia eles are very fast and should be taken very seriously. When playing vs. Persia you should take civs like Hittite, Carthage, Babylon, Greece and other civs that have good priests, heles, or towers. Remember to build massed towers so that eles will be slowed down, also centurions are great in slowing down eles. Remember that a combination of units can always beat a single unit massed. It is also a good idea to build far away from your town and build more houses then need. This allows you to build up a good army to stop those eles. Once you have a good army and the Persia enemy wasted his eles/food on you, you can start the finishing offense. Horse Archer/ Scythe raids are also very good in slowing the Persia food production.

Points to Remember.

  • Build fast and spread out over the map.
  • Build towers over the entire map.
  • Farm as soon as you can, hunt, gather bushes. In other words GET FOOD.
  • Get as much gold mines and stone mines as you can.
  • In difficult battles mix other units in to confuse enemy units.
  • Keep building houses so that the production of your eles won't be stopped.

Conclusion. I hope you enjoyed my first strategy guide, I wish you many great games and may the map gods be fair to you!

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