posted 04-22-99 01:20 PM ET (US)
Most of the time I can tool in 11-12 and bronze in 14-16 with 40 with phony or minoa, however, sometimes I get no berries or have like 3 straggler trees on the screen. My no berry solution is to try to dock first, but on gig med this can be difficult and I might not get a dock up until the 3 minute mark (and it might not be the best fishing spot either.) With no trees I have been bronze rushing with cav/camels because most people on the zone these days seem to expect to fight with ships and make few walls other than across the shallows or military until late. Tool rushing seems pretty useless in team games now unless everyone does it because a boomer has twice your economy and can just run his peons to an ally's place and still be much better off than you. Making more vills and then docking is tough if they have close wood because they'll be making scout ships from their docks while you're still trying to pump fishboats out. My standard plan is granary with 5 peons, 1 explorer, and the rest chopping wood. I'll send another peon off trying to time it so I get the dock built by 2 vills just as I get 100 wood. Usually followed by another dock then a pit and probably a 3rd dock. This usually is better than my opponents start, what I really am curious to know is what do people do when they have no berries or close wood.
posted 04-22-99 02:38 PM
ET (US)
1 / 8
Tool rushing against a boomer is actually a good idea if you can pull it off right, if I am tooling in 9-10, I can have a good number of archers and 2 scout ships eating your boats, and what are you going to do when you are not even tool. Tool warfare almost always has a place ESPECIALLY in a boom where often you hit the bronze transition button with 2 or 300 food left over, meaning a couple of equalisation upgraded clubbers combined with the wood upgrade immediately after you hit the bronze button. The clubbers won't take your opponent out, you just want to stop walls from going up and generally disrupt the guy for a little while, it also helps if you send a couple of scout ships to annoy him as well....
posted 04-22-99 02:57 PM
ET (US)
3 / 8
I like to throw a couple of armored archers/clubbers at my enemy when upgrading to bronze when i got the res. I will however devlop walls first if I can wall off my woodies easilly. I am often lazy tough and i rarely mine stone and wall myself which is the major reason when I loose. On the other hand i will never boom as hard as what u describe (40pop). At most ill go 35 population and usually 32 (with slowciv or fastciv). I prefer to produce lotsa scoutships when i arrive at tool and try to stop any fishing apart from mine. Sometime ill build a 2nd pit along a forest and gazelles before beeing tool to have better wood intake on wood if my first pit is not that good.
posted 04-23-99 07:47 AM
ET (US)
8 / 8
Directly addressing the original posts last point: what to do if you have no berries or close wood on a med or cont map.
What I do is wood pit first and then go for multiple docks. This is a 2nd best option granted and will leave you with a slow tool and a slowish bronze. However by 18 minutes with any kind of break you can be on a par with the guy who has tooled and bronzed fast.
Exactly this situation keeps happening to me on med maps. I also seem to get in the corner furthest from the sea with precious few stragglers, no berries in sight, and a forest on a hill. Under these circumstance I send one peon carefully to the sea and the others have to find a good flat place to drop that pit. This makes for a terribly slow start, but if you boom hard, wall as soon as you tool, and be prepared to run to your ally you may be able to get back on level terms in bronze.
On cont maps I find the berries can nearly always be found and the fishing is inferior to med so this strategy is even more desperate. And of course on cont you run a finite risk of being completely woodless.