Hello. My name is Timothy Striker. I thought it might be useful to some of the other APCers out there to see some strategies that they could incorporate into their own games. I've only been playing online ROR for about 3 months now, but in that time I've been able to learn which strats to use and which not to so that I can enjoy every game, no matter who against. I would classify myself as a non-learning above-average (C+) rookie with the occasional stellar performance placing me at basement-intermediate, just so you know where I'm coming from and how I look at competition.
Inevitably, you'll get into games with obvious rookies. Whether someone called you in and then left, or the only game you could find was in Caelian (too afriad of the competition in Quirinal), or you just needed an ego boosting victory, we've all had games where the opponent(s) are rookies. You know, "gogogo", "launch" with only 3 players (3/6), what is "tvb" or "ove", just like in General's top ten list. Usually, the settings will consist of speed 2.0 and reveal (sorry to all who actually use and like those settings), so you should be able to start well, placing your granary next to the visible berry patch, and later your wood pit next to the best forest. A big benefit is to make a dock, maybe even two, and some fishing boats to help bring in more food (this does wonders). I would say 20-25 vils and 10 boats are good before you tool. Now watch the achievements to see whether the rookies stop at 11 or 13 villies, as this will be important later. Once in tool, build the 2 tool buildings and make sure to keep replacing a finished food building with a new one (just pick the next remaining berry/ele/gaz spot), and also start getting some gold, but definitely don't bother with stone as you won't need it. Send two vils and 1 scout off to where the opponent is, which will usually be given away by one of the ruins in his/her color (the beauty of reveal), and start a small forward build, probably stables. Bronze when you get the 800 food, and again check the achievements to see if they've tooled yet. Once in bronze make a couple cav/camels at home for defense of the 18 min tool rush. Also, make cav/camels at your forward base stables, 2 if they have less than 12 villies, 3 otherwise, and add 1 more if they are in tool. This should be adequate to wipe out all the villies and the stray axer/sligner/bowman (of course make more if you have extra resources). Once they are ready, send them off and wipe out the enemy, chasing them when/if they run. After the villies are gone attack the TC, and have those forward builders make a workshop for an ST to speed things up (of course if he/she hasn't resigned already and accused you of using the trainer). Repeat this for any remaining enemies assuming your allies haven't done the same. The victory will be yours, hollow as it is. You'll also play intermediates fairly often, whether checking out Urinal if your ego got too high, or just in the usual forum parties in Palatine. The main difference here is that intermediates actually play well, so that 18 min tool rush will become a 10 min tool rush, and those 3 camels you made to attack will be wiped out by his/her 10 CAs/compies. But don't fear, there are ways that you can look almost decent, and last into Iron, sometimes even winning. First, read up the strats in these web sites, AOEH and GX seem to be good places to start. Things to remember early, keep making villies, and scout around. More villies are just helpful in general(more food, more wood, you know), and scouting can show you where resources and enemies bases are (oh, in case you didn't know, intermediates usually play no reveal, but you'll get more time to guess at what to do since it will be speed 1.0). If you find an enemy next to you early, try a tool rush or bronze rush. Either way, once you get to tool, research and build walls at every shallow to your base. If you're on a map that's all connected, then start praying (or try and wall using forests). The enemy will be coming for you, its just a matter of time, so get those walls to slow them down (you don't want to lose all your villies to 3 camels do you). If you're not rushing, try a boom or semi-boom (or a mega-boom what the hell) with lots of villies and lots and lots of boats (since no one plays hell country anymore). Booms can bring in a ton of resources, so you can defend, and maybe even fuel an attack, and Iron sometime too. Once in bronze or iron, pick a unit and make hordes of them (that's what everybody else does). Doesn't really matter whether you choose CAs, compies, HAs, AEs, cats, helos, schythes, legions, they all work well (even a horde of priests might do something). Just get through their walls and send your schythe horde in and their villies fall (just like people jaws after realizing they had to pay $7-$9 to see "The Phantom Menace"). Oh yeah, and if someone tries to get through your walls, make some decent counter unit (assuming you still have resources and your civ has decent conter units) and get "need help" into that cut-and-paste buffer immediately. If their horde grows beyond what you could handle, let alone ever imagine, then paste that baby and send off a chat to your teammates. If your teammates are actually good, then they'll save you and you can rebuild and get back to simcity, otherwise try and save a few vils (if not more) and run like Oprah to that pork roast accross the hall to your teammates base to rebuild. If you can't stop them at your base, at least you can keep playing at your teammate's base and eat up his resources as well. Sometimes they're your friends, and sometimes they just enter your game looking for an easy win, but either way there will be times when you're up against a bonafide expert. I classify an expert as someone that I will always lose to, no matter how good a start, how unbalanced a map, or how unbalanced the civs are. Once he's in with you at the settings screen in ROR, you can start facing the facts, you won't be winning or even look competitive this game. Why do experts play us lessers? Well, like I said, they may simply be friends who actually learned and got to be better players. But other times they could just be obnoxious, arrogant players looking for an easy win and trying to impress others with their god-like performance. Whatever the reason, there's a few things you should know. If you happen to be lucky enough to be on their team (assuming there aren't multiple experts on opposite teams) then you can simcity and the team will still win. Its probably best if you hold your own should you be attacked, and later make a token iron force and try to make it look like you helped out in the victory (but you were really just watching him march with the writing upgrade). When the games over, don't act like you were one of the star players and actually secured the team's victory, just say "gg" and chat like normal (because they all know who the real stud of the game was). On the other hand, if you are on the opposite team with the expert as the emeny, then prepare to be beaten and just set some weird strat to try out (maybe that priest horde I mentioned earlier), or some goal to try and attain (such as reach bronze/iron, or kill 1 of the experts vills). Don't worry if they stacks the odds against them, such as a 3v2 or 2v1, because it won't matter (just makes your chances of getting to iron that much easier). In this game, walls are even more important, and not just tool walls, but stone walls as well. The expert will tool/bronze/iron before you, and will have a larger, better army quicker than you will, you have to try and stop it as soon as possible. This is where dock blocking and house blocking help out. Dock block any and all shallows; sure you'll drain a lot of wood, but at least you'll know to run sooner when that slinger horde starts taking down your dock. Also, use houses to block paths in forests if possible. Even if you do these things, you will probably still be forward built on, so prepare any defenses and wait for the attack. If your teammates start crying "sheet, loads of sligners" or "whoa, 10 scouts" or "enemy CAs" (at 13 mins), then you've gotten a temporary stay of execution. Use it wisely, either simcity and go for iron (remember those goals), or try and find other enemies that you can actually hurt. At least you can have a small sense of victory if you hit and hurt one of the enemies, until the expert comes and wipes your army into a thin red paste. Eventually, the cats/schythes will roll into your land around 20-25 mins and there will be nowhere to run. For your last stand, pick something fun to try, such as: priest horde against his schythes, slinger horde against his EAs, use those last few villies against his cats, send 1 CA at a time to his base and see how far each gets, surround your last villies in a circle of hoppers and see how long the villies can survive. The more creative the ending the better, at least you have a little story you can tell during the aftermatch chat. Wait, better yet than actually play an expert, just come up with a quick excuse and log off: "my mom needs to use the phone" or "someone just beeped me from work" or "i have to take care of the baby now" or "I just got an ICQ about a Bog-scallion sighting in EverQuest". At least this way you'll have the 30 minutes to do something fun (jus log in as 1 of your 10 other nicks). Well, this turned out a bit longer than I first expected, but it will be worth if at least 1 fellow APCer learns how to whomp on rookies/newbies, or stop underestimating other APCers, or at least ends a game with an expert in a new, creative fashion. P.S. I hope no one took this too seriously, sorry if it wasn't obvious enough. There have been a few games recently that made me think about why I play (or still play) ROR on the zone (gedn, mark, and jim might know what I'm talking about). There are 3 big things I hope to stir up with this post: 1) At least this is a strategy post (sort of). I think I could probably count the number of decent strategy posts in the last month on one hand in this forum (which I read often and occassionaly post in), none of which I can remember right now, even though other posts ring clearly in my head (the ROR DarkLord, religious arguments, how many axers it takes to kill 1 schythe, using HTML and sigs, whining about the trainer, whining about ES not fixing the trainer, etc. just to name a few). 2) Get people to relax a bit more. It is just a game after all, nothing to get upset or ****** about. You win sometimes, and you lose 10 times more. No big deal. Get a few beers, and you'll start playing better in no time. 3) I think we need a remimder of what the APC stands for (even thought most if not all of the members have left or don't care anymore). I joined the APC because it stood for fun, enjoyable games, featuring healthy comptetition and comradery (sp?) over winning and ratings. I play to have fun, part of which comes from playing ROR itself, but also from playing with friendly teammates and opponents. I don't really care whether I win or lose (which is good since that latter thing seems to happen more often), but just play a game, and maybe have something to remember afterwards (pitiful starting spot, wildlife attacks, villie chasing, large indecisive battles, converting at least 1 cat before the rocks fall, finding that sweet spot seconds after placing a pit by gazelle and a few stragglers, etc.). If I wasn't having any fun playing ROR, then I'd spend more time on my other games, many of which have been sorely neglected since AOE/ROR came into the picture. Anyway, it you want a fun game, just look me up, Bearded_Tim, most days between 8 and 12pm CST. P.P.S. I didn't mean to offend anyone. None of the statements are personal (well, maybe that DarkLord comment), and are not meant to be personal attacks. All comments are fictional; any likeness to others whether real or imaginary is purely coincidental. - Bearded_Tim