Staffa wrote:
> In an attempt to create the longest post ever, an
> accomplishment that will likely result in only
> replacing a previous post of mine, I have decided to
> spend the next 6 hours writing in general about
> strategy in RoR, someday my job might actually
> entail work, but that seems unlikely. I don't
> expect their to be much new content raised in this
> post, but there are ever new readers who can take
> advantage of having old content re assembled in one
> post. Most of this is unstructered thoughts on
> esoteric concepts behind why I tend to win more
> often the lose against opponents who seem to know as
> much as I about the strategies behind this game.
>
> To begin with, I suppose one most realize a
> statement of intent, such as, the intent of this
> game is to dominate your opponent in such a manner
> that you arrive at a victory condition before they
> do. The key here is that you arrive there first,
> which in essence is the key to the entire game,
> timing. Timing is perhaps the most misunderstood
> aspect of the game, it is the underlying principle
> of any strategy. To understand why timing is
> important, you must understand the source of its
> importance, I shall do that by example.
>
> In a default game, you start with 3 villagers and a
> towncenter(TC). The villagers have an innate
> military usefulness granted by their ability to
> fight, 3 damage and 25 hitpoints(hp). Therefor the
> first and simplest strategy would be to build a
> villager and send your villagers(peons) immediately
> to the residence of your opponent. If your opponent
> started right next to you, this would in fact be the
> winning strategy(assuming his peons had no innate
> advantage such as summerian/assy/yam/palm would).
> As your opponent does not start right next to you,
> by the time your 4 villagers arrived at his home,
> you would be out numbered and villager fights are
> easily decided by numbers and you would lose
> horribly. The concept here is the timing of it, you
> start off equal, but in traveling to your opponent,
> the time it takes to get there affords your opponent
> the chance to grow stronger, thus your TC would
> almost have to be in sight of your opponents TC to
> afford this strategy any hope of success, else the
> timing of it will kill you.
>
> The next step would be to first build a house and a
> barracks and attack with 4 clubbers and 3 peons,
> this strategy would also work if the distance
> involved was not to great. Again, if to much time
> is taken up traveling to the opponent the attack
> will fail as your opponent will be larger, and due
> to your raising military score, expecting the
> clubbers and likely prepared for it. With him not
> having to waste the usefulness of his own villagers
> through walking, he will naturally be stronger then
> you when you arrive.
>
> This element of timing applies to any strategy and
> is largely dependant on the map. The longer it
> would take to travel to the opponent to launch an
> attack, the longer it will take before you can
> launch an effective attack. Thus the more time one
> should invest in building their economy before
> attacking. On the other hand, if your TC were for
> instance touching your opponents TC, it wouldn't
> even pay to attempt to build a house as the peon
> fight will start instantly, thus any attempt to
> improve one's economy will result in a loss.
>
> The point is this, the size you should build your
> economy to is map dependant, the more distance
> between you and your opponent, the bigger you should
> build your economy before launching an attack. In
> fact, many maps such as contential/Mediterranean
> vary so little, that the size one should build their
> economy to is well known. For example, on a large
> Mediterranean 1v1, I hold that the size varies
> between 32-34, if you attempt to build less and
> attack sooner, you will find that by the time your
> forces arrive at the opponents home they will have
> achieved more economic strength and will be able to
> absorb your attack and retain their economic lead.
> If you attempt to build a larger economy, you will
> find that the opponents attack will arrive while you
> are still unprepared for it, and more importantly,
> arrive with enough strength to set your economy
> below their own.
>
> Timing is everything, another way of demonstrating
> that is by looking at when you launch your attack.
> As anyone who has sent a lone unarmed clubber
> against an opponent's villager has learned, a lone
> clubber is no match for a hoard of villagers, on the
> other hand, waiting until you have 10 fully upgraded
> axers can also be flawed, as your opponent might by
> then have 8 tool archers, or simply enough wood
> saved up in the bank to relocate to some safe spot
> easily walled under cover of scout ships. Timing is
> everything, sending in 2 upgraded camels can
> devastate an economy if it occurs early enough, if
> instead they run into walls, by the time your
> transport dumps them off your opponents economy,
> which was twice as big, will now have 4 camels and
> some chariots of his own lying in wait. The secret
> to beating someone when their economy is just as
> well built as your own is in knowing when to attack.
> The concept of timing an attack is more complicated
> then simply knowing when to send your troops forth,
> it lies in knowing when to build the buildings, what
> buildings to build, and where to build the
> buildings. It lies in knowing when to bronze and
> get war gallies, or when to stay in tool and get
> tons of scout ships. 12 scout ships will beat the
> *****out of war gallies 1 or even 2 at a time with
> almost no losses on their part. You should also
> note how your opponent is playing, and realize that
> the ideal time for him to attack you may be
> different, if for instance he is going with a
> smaller economy, then you should prepare defenses
> while moving on with your bigger economy. Even if
> it turns out he doesn't attack you, thus your tool
> age defensive units are wasted, you are still ahead
> econ wise, the mistake here was not you in preparing
> a defense against a weaker economy, but in your
> opponent not taking advantage of having arrived more
> quickly at a critical attack point. A point were
> his military gains a significant advantage over your
> inferior military, such as armed clubbers vs stone
> age civs.
>
>
> One of the primary reason a clubber rush is so
> effective is because the military units can be built
> while tooling, then upgraded with tool age upgrades
> while being sent forth. Thus two economies, both
> run pretty much the same, one builds 10 clubbers
> while upgrading to tool, the other does not. At
> tool, arrived with an equal econ and an equal time,
> the clubbers are sent in with armor and perhaps
> attack upgrades, while the defender lays down an
> archery, the clubbers arrive upgraded and the
> defender finds himself unable to build enough tool
> archers to fend off the attack, even though he
> arrived at tool just as quick as his opponent. The
> timing here is critical, if the attack is even a
> minute later, the defender could have 5 armored tool
> archers, which will slow down 10 axers enough to
> prevent them from doing much damage. The peons are
> fairly safe from the axers for awhile, as if the
> axers concentrate on the fleeing peons, they will
> die rather swifty to the archers, if the axers
> concentrate on the archers, the archers will die,
> but new ones will appear, and the peons will be able
> to build more archeries and the battle will quickly
> turn in favor of the defender. Obviously the attack
> might mix slingers in, but the defender can counter
> slingers fairly easy with peons/axers of his own.
>
> Being the first to bronze means nothing if you are
> the last to attack, I once had a partner in a team
> game who, upon my informing him of my resigning due
> to my imminent death pointed out to me that I had
> bronzed last, and he had in fact bronzed first, thus
> I must suck and he must rule. That I had wiped
> someone out totally in tool, and he as yet had not
> achieved a single kill with his iron age 2 hour long
> sim city exercise deterred him not at all in
> thinking his fastest bronze time was of some use.
> The point being here, if you are rushing towards
> something, you need to realize that the opportunity
> presented by achieving something first is limited to
> your ability to do something with it. If you are in
> tool a good 2 minutes faster then your opponent,
> your economy will be so much weaker that if you do
> not do significant damage to them quickly, you will
> soon be fighting a lost cause.
>
>
> Another big topic is resource management. Managing
> your resources so you have what you need to do what
> you want. Ideally you should never have a large
> amount of resources stored in the bank, the concept
> being that its better to have 10 more fishing boats
> bring in food, then to have 500 wood doing nothing.
> On the same line, its better to have 5 more scout
> ships then to have 600 wood sitting idle as your 10
> fishing boats are sunk. The thing to consider here
> is that you need enough docks to produce the boats
> to defend your fishing, if you have only 2 docks and
> your making enough wood to produce 4 boats at the
> same time, then you are limited by the number of
> docks, not your wood, and you will acquire an excess
> amount of wood that is being wasted. Any time you
> have significant spare resources, then you are not
> utilizing your resources effectively, this even
> applies when you have 100 peons and 60 military
> units, and your pushing the 200 pop limit, obviously
> its not really humanely possible to make better use
> of your resources and your econ will likely produce
> massive overflows, but that doesn't mean its not
> theroticly possible. You do need some spare
> resources to deal with the unexpected, when 5
> chariot archers appear in your supposed safe home,
> you perhaps need to quickly lay down a couple ranges
> to build some horse archers and some stone to wall
> quickly wall off your peons safely. Reserves are
> good if they are minimal, they also allow for a more
> fluid game play, rather then waiting for the
> resources for a minor upgrade, you just click on it
> and move on, not wasting time waiting. An obvious
> example of resource management is with a gold
> dependant civ such as yamato or minoan. When you
> intend to fight early in bronze on land with these
> civs, you need to manage your resource gathering to
> include gold pretty early else your land attack will
> be delayed by the lack there of. Less obvious
> examples include being in a pitched fight with your
> opponent, beating them back slowly on the sea,
> having 5000 spare wood due to your massive wood
> based econ to win the sea fight, when suddenly your
> opponent irons and the game is quickly lost as his
> tiremes make quick work of your wood reserve. The
> problem here is that your opponent took 2000 of that
> wood you had gathered and turned it into food/gold
> and ironed. Sure you were winning the ship fight,
> but he managed his resources better and while having
> a much smaller reserve of resources, made better use
> of them. When you think about the need to start
> ironing when you have 3000 wood and 800 food, then
> well, you could have ironed quite some time ago with
> no effect on your military output if you had managed
> your resources better. Your ironing, and intend to
> use scythe chariots in iron, you should perhaps
> attempt to gather a fairly massive reserve of wood
> while ironing to prepare for the upgrade and
> resulting need to build lots of stables/chariots.
> Nothing like research scythe chariots to run out of
> wood and have tons of gold food just sitting idle
> while your 3 scythe chariots per minute get
> massacred by the enemies horse archers.
>
>
>
> Another topic, concentrated fire, which is the
> notion that 10 units can kill a 55 units of the same
> type, if they kill them one at a time. This means
> that if your dock is under fire from 10 ships, you
> will need to build 55 ships from that dock to remove
> them, if you attempt to remove them via this, your a
> lunatic. This method of concentrated fire caries
> over into many aspects of the game, its the reason
> that 50 chariot archers will defeat 50 cavalry, even
> though 1 cavalry will defeat 2 chariots. The
> chariot archers can concentrate their firepower,
> thus killing one cavalry off while the cavalry have
> to spread their fire power out over many chariots.
> Its the reason 15 slingers can massacre 30 villagers
> with no losses, even though 1 villager can kill 1
> slinger easily. This simply means that it tends not
> to pay to fight an opponent when they have a bigger
> army, it would be preferable to run and gather the
> larger army before re-engaging. Such on water, when
> the opponent has 3 scout ships hitting your dock,
> and your dock builds a scout ship, it is far better
> to run the scout ship away and gather an equal or
> preferably a bigger force before fighting. If the
> number of ships hitting your dock is such that you
> cant run away before it is sunk, then it would be
> better not to build ships there at all, and rebuild
> docks elsewhere to raise a competing force. And
> likewise, when on the other side, its wise to
> attempt to prevent your opponent from building docks
> elsewhere to prevent them from raising another
> force.
>
> Unit counters, as most people know, every unit tends
> to dominate one unit, and is dominated by another
> unit. Catapults massacre towers, towers massacre
> archers, archers(in large numbers) massacre stable
> units, stable units massacre catapults. Or the best
> example, priests own elephants, elephants own
> chariots, chariots own priests. Helopis in large
> enough numbers own EVERYTHING but catapults, which
> own helopis worse then priests own elephants. The
> point here is that a single unit army is always
> beatable, usually by a cheaper army composed of that
> units counter. Even scythe chariots are owned by
> academy units, and they are the closet unit to being
> a single unit unkillable army. One would point out
> helopis own scythes, which is true, but not in cost.
> Mixed unit armies are the way to go, they have a
> stronger ability to deal with different types of
> opponent, and are harder to counter. Also, they
> tend to compliment each other, as earlier pointed
> out a cavalry as a single unit is stronger then a
> chariot archer, but massed chariot archers will
> defeat massed cavalry due to concentrated fire.
> Mixing the two units together allows you to take
> advantage of both their strengths, and cover each
> others weakness, you can still concentrate your fire
> power with 5 chariots and 15 chariots archers vs 20
> chariot archers, the 5 chariots are stronger then
> the 5 chariot archers, and the opposing 20 chariot
> archers will die rather easily to the cheaper, and
> stronger mixed army. Some might point out that the
> mixed army requires more upgrades, but that notion
> isn't really true, as 5 + 15 only requires the
> attack upgrade which costs the same as the archer
> armor required by the non mixed army. If both sides
> mix armies, then you require more upgrades, but then
> its balanced thus irrelevant.
>
>
> Some civs also counter other civs, if you don't
> believe me, try playing Egypt against Macedonia in
> an iron dm. Both civs are considered strong dm
> civs, with more Egyptians played in dm then
> Macedonia, but Macedonia was created to wreak havoc
> with Egypt and the fight is no contest.
>
> It is hard to believe how vulnerable non chariot
> civs are to priests, as most civs played have
> chariots, this weakness is not well known, but if
> your in a random civ game and your opponents lack
> chariots, consider priests as a powerful counter to
> anything they have.
>
> Most know the importance of keeping up with
> villager flow at the start of the game, its the
> first lesson most newbies learn when starting out.
> How to keep building villagers continously from your
> tc at the start of the game, the need to locate and
> quickly find a food source and place enough
> villagers on the food source have enough food coming
> in to never need to wait to build villagers. Most
> know that in general you shouldn't have more then
> the minimum number needed on food to maintain
> villager flow, the reason being that the more you
> have on wood, the faster you will have your pit and
> then dock built, the faster you will then get
> fishing boats, and the sooner they will gather food
> for you, and the sooner you will have an even bigger
> economy capable of doing even more. The idea of
> expanding your econ in tool and bronze and even iron
> seems lost on many people, though the reason for it
> is based on the same concept, the sooner you build
> your econ big, the sooner you will reap the rewards
> of having a bigger econ with a larger and better
> army. This idea has to be balanced with the notion
> that over booming to say 100 peons in stone won't
> work, as for one thing, it would probley have been
> faster to get to 100 peons by bronzing getting gov
> center and building 10 tcs to get to the 100 peons,
> but more importantly, because you will cross a
> certain point in building your econ where it is now
> better for your opponent to stop building his and
> attack yours, and you will be illprepared for this.
> Having discussed this early, I will no get to the
> point. The point is that you should continue
> improving your economy in tool + by getting upgrades
> building more peons/boats, building the gov center
> and more tc, and even more peons while balancing the
> needs of your military to keep your economy safe and
> wreak havoc on your opponents economy. Many players
> build their 30- 40 economy bronze and stop, they
> fight fierly for the first 5 minutes of bronze, but
> then are overwelmed by their opponents expanding
> economy. Certaintly they have the advantage in the
> early fight as the resources their opponent spent to
> improve their economy is instead funneled into their
> military, but this advantage is quickly erased by
> time, and overwelmed by the opponents larger
> economy. The problem here is that the difference
> spent in the bigger military is not enough to
> overcome the enemies military. It is in essence the
> same concept as discussed earlier. For instance,
> sending 3 clubbers to the opponent early in stone
> does not pay because by the time the 3 clubbers
> arrive the opponents 10 villagers have no trouble
> boning them to death. To take the example to water,
> it does not pay to not get the wood upgrade, build
> an extra scout ship, and attack with 4 scout ships
> instead of 3, by the time the 4 scout ship actually
> travels to the enemy, the enemy will have 3 scout
> ships in defense, and 2 more on the way(you also
> have 2 on the way, but back at your own docks, thus
> for a few seconds you have the advantage, which
> disappears quickly as the enemies new ships pop out,
> thus the fight is rather evenly matched, with you
> have more total ships, but the ships actually
> fighting being about equal. The extra wood cutting
> is starting to provide extra wood, his extra wood
> will soon allow him to build more ships faster then
> you, and your advantage will disappear and soon turn
> into a disadvantage. The travel time between the two
> forces affords the defender the ability to move some
> of his resources into economy while fielding an
> equivalent force, the extra resources fielded to
> economy will eventually allow the defender to field
> a larger force, while still providing some resources
> to econ improvement, which will soon eclipse the
> smaller economy on all fronts.
>
> Thus we come to positional war fare, the fight for
> control of land, raiding, the idea of keeping your
> opponents military in check while disrupting their
> economy. Tis ok to fight a losing fight against the
> opponents military if you are disrupting their
> economy with raids on a second front. Tis ok to
> attack the opponents fishing fleet and run away when
> their larger fleet, comes, chasing you back to your
> own docks where your new ships returns the advantage
> of the fight to you, thus back and forth does the
> sea battle wage, with the winner being the one who
> keeps the fight competitive while improving their
> econ the most.
>
> Ah tis a fine balance between military and economy
> needed to win, and a good sense of the tempo of the
> game, and the timing to take advantage of the tempo.
>
>
> In an attempt to create the longest post ever, an
> accomplishment that will likely result in only
> replacing a previous post of mine, I have decided to
> spend the next 6 hours writing in general about
> strategy in RoR, someday my job might actually
> entail work, but that seems unlikely. I don't
> expect their to be much new content raised in this
> post, but there are ever new readers who can take
> advantage of having old content re assembled in one
> post. Most of this is unstructered thoughts on
> esoteric concepts behind why I tend to win more
> often the lose against opponents who seem to know as
> much as I about the strategies behind this game.
>
> To begin with, I suppose one most realize a
> statement of intent, such as, the intent of this
> game is to dominate your opponent in such a manner
> that you arrive at a victory condition before they
> do. The key here is that you arrive there first,
> which in essence is the key to the entire game,
> timing. Timing is perhaps the most misunderstood
> aspect of the game, it is the underlying principle
> of any strategy. To understand why timing is
> important, you must understand the source of its
> importance, I shall do that by example.
>
> In a default game, you start with 3 villagers and a
> towncenter(TC). The villagers have an innate
> military usefulness granted by their ability to
> fight, 3 damage and 25 hitpoints(hp). Therefor the
> first and simplest strategy would be to build a
> villager and send your villagers(peons) immediately
> to the residence of your opponent. If your opponent
> started right next to you, this would in fact be the
> winning strategy(assuming his peons had no innate
> advantage such as summerian/assy/yam/palm would).
> As your opponent does not start right next to you,
> by the time your 4 villagers arrived at his home,
> you would be out numbered and villager fights are
> easily decided by numbers and you would lose
> horribly. The concept here is the timing of it, you
> start off equal, but in traveling to your opponent,
> the time it takes to get there affords your opponent
> the chance to grow stronger, thus your TC would
> almost have to be in sight of your opponents TC to
> afford this strategy any hope of success, else the
> timing of it will kill you.
>
> The next step would be to first build a house and a
> barracks and attack with 4 clubbers and 3 peons,
> this strategy would also work if the distance
> involved was not to great. Again, if to much time
> is taken up traveling to the opponent the attack
> will fail as your opponent will be larger, and due
> to your raising military score, expecting the
> clubbers and likely prepared for it. With him not
> having to waste the usefulness of his own villagers
> through walking, he will naturally be stronger then
> you when you arrive.
>
> This element of timing applies to any strategy and
> is largely dependant on the map. The longer it
> would take to travel to the opponent to launch an
> attack, the longer it will take before you can
> launch an effective attack. Thus the more time one
> should invest in building their economy before
> attacking. On the other hand, if your TC were for
> instance touching your opponents TC, it wouldn't
> even pay to attempt to build a house as the peon
> fight will start instantly, thus any attempt to
> improve one's economy will result in a loss.
>
> The point is this, the size you should build your
> economy to is map dependant, the more distance
> between you and your opponent, the bigger you should
> build your economy before launching an attack. In
> fact, many maps such as contential/Mediterranean
> vary so little, that the size one should build their
> economy to is well known. For example, on a large
> Mediterranean 1v1, I hold that the size varies
> between 32-34, if you attempt to build less and
> attack sooner, you will find that by the time your
> forces arrive at the opponents home they will have
> achieved more economic strength and will be able to
> absorb your attack and retain their economic lead.
> If you attempt to build a larger economy, you will
> find that the opponents attack will arrive while you
> are still unprepared for it, and more importantly,
> arrive with enough strength to set your economy
> below their own.
>
> Timing is everything, another way of demonstrating
> that is by looking at when you launch your attack.
> As anyone who has sent a lone unarmed clubber
> against an opponent's villager has learned, a lone
> clubber is no match for a hoard of villagers, on the
> other hand, waiting until you have 10 fully upgraded
> axers can also be flawed, as your opponent might by
> then have 8 tool archers, or simply enough wood
> saved up in the bank to relocate to some safe spot
> easily walled under cover of scout ships. Timing is
> everything, sending in 2 upgraded camels can
> devastate an economy if it occurs early enough, if
> instead they run into walls, by the time your
> transport dumps them off your opponents economy,
> which was twice as big, will now have 4 camels and
> some chariots of his own lying in wait. The secret
> to beating someone when their economy is just as
> well built as your own is in knowing when to attack.
> The concept of timing an attack is more complicated
> then simply knowing when to send your troops forth,
> it lies in knowing when to build the buildings, what
> buildings to build, and where to build the
> buildings. It lies in knowing when to bronze and
> get war gallies, or when to stay in tool and get
> tons of scout ships. 12 scout ships will beat the
> *****out of war gallies 1 or even 2 at a time with
> almost no losses on their part. You should also
> note how your opponent is playing, and realize that
> the ideal time for him to attack you may be
> different, if for instance he is going with a
> smaller economy, then you should prepare defenses
> while moving on with your bigger economy. Even if
> it turns out he doesn't attack you, thus your tool
> age defensive units are wasted, you are still ahead
> econ wise, the mistake here was not you in preparing
> a defense against a weaker economy, but in your
> opponent not taking advantage of having arrived more
> quickly at a critical attack point. A point were
> his military gains a significant advantage over your
> inferior military, such as armed clubbers vs stone
> age civs.
>
>
> One of the primary reason a clubber rush is so
> effective is because the military units can be built
> while tooling, then upgraded with tool age upgrades
> while being sent forth. Thus two economies, both
> run pretty much the same, one builds 10 clubbers
> while upgrading to tool, the other does not. At
> tool, arrived with an equal econ and an equal time,
> the clubbers are sent in with armor and perhaps
> attack upgrades, while the defender lays down an
> archery, the clubbers arrive upgraded and the
> defender finds himself unable to build enough tool
> archers to fend off the attack, even though he
> arrived at tool just as quick as his opponent. The
> timing here is critical, if the attack is even a
> minute later, the defender could have 5 armored tool
> archers, which will slow down 10 axers enough to
> prevent them from doing much damage. The peons are
> fairly safe from the axers for awhile, as if the
> axers concentrate on the fleeing peons, they will
> die rather swifty to the archers, if the axers
> concentrate on the archers, the archers will die,
> but new ones will appear, and the peons will be able
> to build more archeries and the battle will quickly
> turn in favor of the defender. Obviously the attack
> might mix slingers in, but the defender can counter
> slingers fairly easy with peons/axers of his own.
>
> Being the first to bronze means nothing if you are
> the last to attack, I once had a partner in a team
> game who, upon my informing him of my resigning due
> to my imminent death pointed out to me that I had
> bronzed last, and he had in fact bronzed first, thus
> I must suck and he must rule. That I had wiped
> someone out totally in tool, and he as yet had not
> achieved a single kill with his iron age 2 hour long
> sim city exercise deterred him not at all in
> thinking his fastest bronze time was of some use.
> The point being here, if you are rushing towards
> something, you need to realize that the opportunity
> presented by achieving something first is limited to
> your ability to do something with it. If you are in
> tool a good 2 minutes faster then your opponent,
> your economy will be so much weaker that if you do
> not do significant damage to them quickly, you will
> soon be fighting a lost cause.
>
>
> Another big topic is resource management. Managing
> your resources so you have what you need to do what
> you want. Ideally you should never have a large
> amount of resources stored in the bank, the concept
> being that its better to have 10 more fishing boats
> bring in food, then to have 500 wood doing nothing.
> On the same line, its better to have 5 more scout
> ships then to have 600 wood sitting idle as your 10
> fishing boats are sunk. The thing to consider here
> is that you need enough docks to produce the boats
> to defend your fishing, if you have only 2 docks and
> your making enough wood to produce 4 boats at the
> same time, then you are limited by the number of
> docks, not your wood, and you will acquire an excess
> amount of wood that is being wasted. Any time you
> have significant spare resources, then you are not
> utilizing your resources effectively, this even
> applies when you have 100 peons and 60 military
> units, and your pushing the 200 pop limit, obviously
> its not really humanely possible to make better use
> of your resources and your econ will likely produce
> massive overflows, but that doesn't mean its not
> theroticly possible. You do need some spare
> resources to deal with the unexpected, when 5
> chariot archers appear in your supposed safe home,
> you perhaps need to quickly lay down a couple ranges
> to build some horse archers and some stone to wall
> quickly wall off your peons safely. Reserves are
> good if they are minimal, they also allow for a more
> fluid game play, rather then waiting for the
> resources for a minor upgrade, you just click on it
> and move on, not wasting time waiting. An obvious
> example of resource management is with a gold
> dependant civ such as yamato or minoan. When you
> intend to fight early in bronze on land with these
> civs, you need to manage your resource gathering to
> include gold pretty early else your land attack will
> be delayed by the lack there of. Less obvious
> examples include being in a pitched fight with your
> opponent, beating them back slowly on the sea,
> having 5000 spare wood due to your massive wood
> based econ to win the sea fight, when suddenly your
> opponent irons and the game is quickly lost as his
> tiremes make quick work of your wood reserve. The
> problem here is that your opponent took 2000 of that
> wood you had gathered and turned it into food/gold
> and ironed. Sure you were winning the ship fight,
> but he managed his resources better and while having
> a much smaller reserve of resources, made better use
> of them. When you think about the need to start
> ironing when you have 3000 wood and 800 food, then
> well, you could have ironed quite some time ago with
> no effect on your military output if you had managed
> your resources better. Your ironing, and intend to
> use scythe chariots in iron, you should perhaps
> attempt to gather a fairly massive reserve of wood
> while ironing to prepare for the upgrade and
> resulting need to build lots of stables/chariots.
> Nothing like research scythe chariots to run out of
> wood and have tons of gold food just sitting idle
> while your 3 scythe chariots per minute get
> massacred by the enemies horse archers.
>
>
>
> Another topic, concentrated fire, which is the
> notion that 10 units can kill a 55 units of the same
> type, if they kill them one at a time. This means
> that if your dock is under fire from 10 ships, you
> will need to build 55 ships from that dock to remove
> them, if you attempt to remove them via this, your a
> lunatic. This method of concentrated fire caries
> over into many aspects of the game, its the reason
> that 50 chariot archers will defeat 50 cavalry, even
> though 1 cavalry will defeat 2 chariots. The
> chariot archers can concentrate their firepower,
> thus killing one cavalry off while the cavalry have
> to spread their fire power out over many chariots.
> Its the reason 15 slingers can massacre 30 villagers
> with no losses, even though 1 villager can kill 1
> slinger easily. This simply means that it tends not
> to pay to fight an opponent when they have a bigger
> army, it would be preferable to run and gather the
> larger army before re-engaging. Such on water, when
> the opponent has 3 scout ships hitting your dock,
> and your dock builds a scout ship, it is far better
> to run the scout ship away and gather an equal or
> preferably a bigger force before fighting. If the
> number of ships hitting your dock is such that you
> cant run away before it is sunk, then it would be
> better not to build ships there at all, and rebuild
> docks elsewhere to raise a competing force. And
> likewise, when on the other side, its wise to
> attempt to prevent your opponent from building docks
> elsewhere to prevent them from raising another
> force.
>
> Unit counters, as most people know, every unit tends
> to dominate one unit, and is dominated by another
> unit. Catapults massacre towers, towers massacre
> archers, archers(in large numbers) massacre stable
> units, stable units massacre catapults. Or the best
> example, priests own elephants, elephants own
> chariots, chariots own priests. Helopis in large
> enough numbers own EVERYTHING but catapults, which
> own helopis worse then priests own elephants. The
> point here is that a single unit army is always
> beatable, usually by a cheaper army composed of that
> units counter. Even scythe chariots are owned by
> academy units, and they are the closet unit to being
> a single unit unkillable army. One would point out
> helopis own scythes, which is true, but not in cost.
> Mixed unit armies are the way to go, they have a
> stronger ability to deal with different types of
> opponent, and are harder to counter. Also, they
> tend to compliment each other, as earlier pointed
> out a cavalry as a single unit is stronger then a
> chariot archer, but massed chariot archers will
> defeat massed cavalry due to concentrated fire.
> Mixing the two units together allows you to take
> advantage of both their strengths, and cover each
> others weakness, you can still concentrate your fire
> power with 5 chariots and 15 chariots archers vs 20
> chariot archers, the 5 chariots are stronger then
> the 5 chariot archers, and the opposing 20 chariot
> archers will die rather easily to the cheaper, and
> stronger mixed army. Some might point out that the
> mixed army requires more upgrades, but that notion
> isn't really true, as 5 + 15 only requires the
> attack upgrade which costs the same as the archer
> armor required by the non mixed army. If both sides
> mix armies, then you require more upgrades, but then
> its balanced thus irrelevant.
>
>
> Some civs also counter other civs, if you don't
> believe me, try playing Egypt against Macedonia in
> an iron dm. Both civs are considered strong dm
> civs, with more Egyptians played in dm then
> Macedonia, but Macedonia was created to wreak havoc
> with Egypt and the fight is no contest.
>
> It is hard to believe how vulnerable non chariot
> civs are to priests, as most civs played have
> chariots, this weakness is not well known, but if
> your in a random civ game and your opponents lack
> chariots, consider priests as a powerful counter to
> anything they have.
>
> Most know the importance of keeping up with
> villager flow at the start of the game, its the
> first lesson most newbies learn when starting out.
> How to keep building villagers continously from your
> tc at the start of the game, the need to locate and
> quickly find a food source and place enough
> villagers on the food source have enough food coming
> in to never need to wait to build villagers. Most
> know that in general you shouldn't have more then
> the minimum number needed on food to maintain
> villager flow, the reason being that the more you
> have on wood, the faster you will have your pit and
> then dock built, the faster you will then get
> fishing boats, and the sooner they will gather food
> for you, and the sooner you will have an even bigger
> economy capable of doing even more. The idea of
> expanding your econ in tool and bronze and even iron
> seems lost on many people, though the reason for it
> is based on the same concept, the sooner you build
> your econ big, the sooner you will reap the rewards
> of having a bigger econ with a larger and better
> army. This idea has to be balanced with the notion
> that over booming to say 100 peons in stone won't
> work, as for one thing, it would probley have been
> faster to get to 100 peons by bronzing getting gov
> center and building 10 tcs to get to the 100 peons,
> but more importantly, because you will cross a
> certain point in building your econ where it is now
> better for your opponent to stop building his and
> attack yours, and you will be illprepared for this.
> Having discussed this early, I will no get to the
> point. The point is that you should continue
> improving your economy in tool + by getting upgrades
> building more peons/boats, building the gov center
> and more tc, and even more peons while balancing the
> needs of your military to keep your economy safe and
> wreak havoc on your opponents economy. Many players
> build their 30- 40 economy bronze and stop, they
> fight fierly for the first 5 minutes of bronze, but
> then are overwelmed by their opponents expanding
> economy. Certaintly they have the advantage in the
> early fight as the resources their opponent spent to
> improve their economy is instead funneled into their
> military, but this advantage is quickly erased by
> time, and overwelmed by the opponents larger
> economy. The problem here is that the difference
> spent in the bigger military is not enough to
> overcome the enemies military. It is in essence the
> same concept as discussed earlier. For instance,
> sending 3 clubbers to the opponent early in stone
> does not pay because by the time the 3 clubbers
> arrive the opponents 10 villagers have no trouble
> boning them to death. To take the example to water,
> it does not pay to not get the wood upgrade, build
> an extra scout ship, and attack with 4 scout ships
> instead of 3, by the time the 4 scout ship actually
> travels to the enemy, the enemy will have 3 scout
> ships in defense, and 2 more on the way(you also
> have 2 on the way, but back at your own docks, thus
> for a few seconds you have the advantage, which
> disappears quickly as the enemies new ships pop out,
> thus the fight is rather evenly matched, with you
> have more total ships, but the ships actually
> fighting being about equal. The extra wood cutting
> is starting to provide extra wood, his extra wood
> will soon allow him to build more ships faster then
> you, and your advantage will disappear and soon turn
> into a disadvantage. The travel time between the two
> forces affords the defender the ability to move some
> of his resources into economy while fielding an
> equivalent force, the extra resources fielded to
> economy will eventually allow the defender to field
> a larger force, while still providing some resources
> to econ improvement, which will soon eclipse the
> smaller economy on all fronts.
>
> Thus we come to positional war fare, the fight for
> control of land, raiding, the idea of keeping your
> opponents military in check while disrupting their
> economy. Tis ok to fight a losing fight against the
> opponents military if you are disrupting their
> economy with raids on a second front. Tis ok to
> attack the opponents fishing fleet and run away when
> their larger fleet, comes, chasing you back to your
> own docks where your new ships returns the advantage
> of the fight to you, thus back and forth does the
> sea battle wage, with the winner being the one who
> keeps the fight competitive while improving their
> econ the most.
>
> Ah tis a fine balance between military and economy
> needed to win, and a good sense of the tempo of the
> game, and the timing to take advantage of the tempo.
>
>