I decided to post this guide here after reading the Palmy guide. I dont have enough time to revise it for RoR right now, but look for the revisions sometime (hopefully) soon.
Ok, here it is. The Sumerians are not all that specialized of a civ. Their catapults are ok in deathmatches, but Hittite catapults are better and Hittites get other better units too. This is not to say Sumer cannot win a deathmatch, but it’s probably not anyone’s first choice. On random maps, they do not show any more promise. They are ok, but they cannot rush other than in Stone and they only have a middling Iron. So what would make you ever want to play them?
First, while the Sumerians are not all that good at Tool/Bronze rushing, they are not bad either, and their Stone rush is probably the best in the game. (Unless you are playing a very good Shang.) They can pull off a decent chariot archer attack. Their centurions could use metallurgy (and iron/tower shields), but otherwise do not lack for anything. And their double farm production means lots and lots of elephants. (No e.a.’s, sorry) Lastly, they are probably the civ to play if you get rushed a lot, due to their extra villager hit points.Let’s say you want to do a Stone Age rush. The trick is to build exactly 12 houses, no more or less, and get to Tool as quickly as possible. Use your villagers to scout for wood and berries, and elephants if possible. Have one build six houses, and when he is done another six. Once a house is up start training vils. Meanwhile you should have found wood and food by now. Use three villagers to scout for the enemy. The waypoint system works wonders here. Have about four villagers on wood for the houses and granary, and the rest on food. Do not bother hunting gazelles, they take too much time for too little food. Elephants are ok, but your main source should be berries. (If you can manage it fish are good too but do not bother if they are too far away.) You should not, for any reason, build more than one storage pit. Time is of the essence here, and storage pits take too much. If your opponent is Tool for more than one minute before you attack then you are probably screwed.
By now you should have found the enemy. If you can, try to find his houses. Now that you have 12 houses, you should be collecting only food, and lots of it. You need exactly 2350 food if nothing happens to any of your vils. So start sending all your vils up to the enemy as soon as you have enough food gatherers to make your total population 50 real villagers (about 20 attacking villagers, 10 or so on food, which will be put on military duty once you have the required food). Once you get there, go for enemy vils. If you kill them all or some escape, it is time to attack their houses. Also buildings that let them advance to the next age should be high on your hit list. Afterwards, kill any villager that pops out of the town center, and send about half the survivors back to your base to get your economy going again. This works best with small maps. Also recommended is to either have at least two good allies or only be playing one person. Even if you are successful, this strategy means death in an ffa with 3+ players.
If you wish to play a normal game with Sumer, then the normal starting out procedure. When you are Tool, build one market, one stable, and three archery ranges, in that order. If you do not have enough wood, then do as many as possible. Research Woodworking, this is a very high priority with Sumerians, who need lots of trees. My suggestion is for Sumerians to have 6 or 7 villagers on wood. Also needed are cavalry armor, toolworking, and if you can manage it archer armor. When you have the wood and are out of fish/berries/elephants, start building farms. Bronze ASAP. When you are Bronze, research the wheel as soon as you get it. My suggestion is to assign a temporary number to your market, check on your bronze completion rate, and when it gets near hit the # and put your mouse on the wheel spot and click until you see it starting. Build the ranges if you have not already, and start building c.a.’s as soon as you have the wheel. The other useful techs are Artisanship and Nobility. If/when you have the wood, feel free to plunk down more ranges.
When you have six c.a.’s, send them to your enemy to kill his villagers and houses. Ignore towers for now, and keep building c.a.’s. You need to build a government center, academy, and siege workshop, in that order. Train about three hoplites for town defense. Once your biggest/nearest threat has ceased to be one, you have a choice. You can either totally cripple or maybe even destroy them for the rest of the game, or you can move on to another and repeat the process. What to do depends on the # of enemies and allies and their power, as well as your economic situation. Every situation is different, and I cannot possibly cover them all. Therefore, my only advice is to use your own judgment and listen to any allies you might have. Your first farms may or may not be exhausted by now; you should try to watch this and rectify the situation as it occurs. You should have enough food to Iron by now, if you do not keep getting it until you do.
Once you are Iron, you have a lot of choices. While Sumer does not have the best Iron in the game, it has a good enough one to let you decide what you want to do. My suggestions are the following four. You can build up a massive force of centurions, fully upgrade them, and send them on a rampage. Due to your probable excess of food, you can either mine, take, or trade for gold, and build a nice big force of elephants. The key here is big force. A few elephants will probably get slaughtered. A lot of them will crush anything in their path. The third is more docile, but requires partners. You can either wall in yourself or let them do it, put up a few towers, and have 50, 100, or 200 villagers all farming and tributing it to your allies. If your neighbor is Palmyran, Greek, or Minoan (actually any civ with coinage will work but these are the best) you can do a nice trade off: give them food, they use part of it to trade for gold, they give some of it to you, and the process repeats. The last strategy is to train horse archers, give them all possible upgrades, and send them off to kill any enemy mobile units. These guys are the fastest unit in the game, so they can take on any unit except for e.a.’s and win, or even those if you have enough. Just hit and run, and no one will ever be able to touch you. They take too long to destroy any buildings besides houses, however, so use catapults to help you with those and any boats or e.a.’s you might encounter. Once you are sure that all land forces are dead, build a few triremes to search out any transports that might exist.
Some miscellaneous advice about Sumer follows. First, unless you are playing 1v1, do not build priests even to heal your own guys. Yours suck, so just have the ones belonging to your allies heal you so some real use can actually come out of them. Also, do not bother building towers. Walls are all right, if you really need them, but unless you are doing the farm thing you will have enough fast archer units to come to your rescue if you are attacked. And if you build even a few hoplites your safety is all but assured. This goes double if you have any allies, and triple if they are Babylonian, Shang, Choson, or Roman. Once you get to Bronze, you can delete your barracks as you will not need any slingers anymore and you get sucky units from it otherwise.
Last, this guide is just that: a guide. If you think that you have a better idea for a particular situation, or even any situation, use it. I may or may not like it, but if it works for you, that’s all that matters. Even if it does not work, at least you learned something. This was never intended for anyone to follow it exactly. Improvisations are good. I would appreciate you emailing any you have to me. Who knows, maybe I might think that they are a good idea and revise this to include them. Remember, Age of Empires is only a game. It was meant to be enjoyed, and if you play it to impress or for any other reason you cheat yourself. Good luck and good gaming to all!
pHrEaKdAdDyyDdAd