For starters let me say that I am no expert at AOE, and I don’t have ROR. (I feel why go to the next stage when I haven’t mastered the Original?) I have played for about 8 months and the last two online.
Now one aspect of AOE that I feel that I am very good at is Sea battles. When I started AOE/Trail version, I used the sea a lot to beat the Computer (yes I knew the limitations but it was good practice.) When I got AOE and started to play online I found that the same techniques that work against the computer work against most players. Why? I haven’t given it much thought, so I don’t know.
Let me say that a ship, that’s all ships when left to themselves, fire at whatever unit has the least amount of hit points left first. Now if you attack an enemy ship with more than one ship, it will return fire at the one with the least hit points first. If all your ships have the same hp’s then it will attack the one that fired first (or the one that hit it first). Then it will turn and attack the other. So when you attack your enemy you really do not need an “overwhelming force”, just an attack plan. When you are fighting scout ships against galleys then YES a 4:1 ratio is needed. But galleys against triremes or jugs a 2:1 ratio is ok. (Just look at the hp’s) The real trick is to attack from at least three different directions. This technique will work better with galleys.
Let’s say that you have 10 galleys and the enemy has 15 galleys. Ok that may not be an actual encounter for most of us, but it will work. If your enemy is good then he will have them in-groups. If you approach with 3 galleys from the bottom of the screen then his ships will automatically attack this group but will fire at all three. What you need to do is concentrate on only one the lead (the one closes to your ships.) Then, with 3 more ships, attack from the left the same ship. Next, again with 3 ships, attack from the right, but attack the second ship. Once your other two groups finish the lead then they will attach the next ship the one with less hp’s. Yes I know you will get a beating form the others. Continue with the attack in this form. When you have 6 ship attacking one of his turn 3 others to the next closes to your ships. The reason that you can ignore the other ships is that generally they will not concentrate on only one of your ships. This will let you destroy more of his.(A word of caution is that it will require a lot of micro-management, since you ships must always be in the LOS of the enemy ship) One thing about how a ship fires is that they will not continually fire at one unit until it is destroyed. They tend to fire at as many units as they can. Always going back to the one with less hps. If you want to test this, just go into a scenario and attack one galley with three form different directions. Once you have destroyed the enemy ship look at the total damage to your ships it will be less than if you attack with two or one. Hey! that works with all units you say. Well not quite most units will attack one enemy unit until it is dead then go to the next. Try the same test with another unit three on one and then one on one the total damage will be the same. Somehow when a ship is out numbered it will not be able to fire as many time as when it is in a one on one situation(that is in the same amount of time, not just because it is destroyed faster). The key is to make each ship turning continuously. If your enemy decides to do the same he must attack first, otherwise you will have the upper hand. By attacking first you make his ships fire. When he goes and tries to control their fire he loses time. With this technique you can destroy 3 ships for every one you lose. When attacking jugs or triremes with galleys it’s only 2 ship for every one you lose, since they make more damage per hit. Galleys are faster and that helps.
Now what if the enemy has his ships all together. Well attack with 1 or 2 ships far away to distract him and make him separate his group. Seems like I left out one ship, out of my 10. That one is for his fb’s. As for the fact that he will automatically reload more ship thus out numbering you. Before you attack que up more ship from your 5 or 6 docks and you must make sure to disrupt his woodies somehow. A great tactic is to trannie over a group of Compys to his shore. Never attack with out mix units even in sea battles. While he kills your Compys your other ships will have arrived, thus you can gain a foothold. If you can keep this up with about three waves you can probably destroy his docks, but I like to attack other units that are close to the shore.
When I am trying to control the sea I usually attack where the enemy has no docks first. Then go toward the docks. But one other thing which really helps is that if you leave your fleet away form the shores and close to where there are fish, you can control the seas better. One thing I have learned is that you never try to control the seas without having some sort of land army near your enemies base.
When you are committed to rule the seas build most of your town close to the shore so you can defend it with the best part of your army. Having a large navy is not helpful if it cannot defend your main base. Well it isn’t fool proof but so far I have had great success with this. In AOE most people don’t want to play sea battles. We can all agree that they get boring quickly. So now I’m looking for a great land army technique that I can master.
Again all this from just a newbie,
AOERANA.