In regular AOE, the average fast game consisted of yamato or assyrian, the usual approach was tool or bronze as fast as you can and get bowman, scouts, chariots or cavalry either quickly into large numbers or quickly into the enemy base to attack villagers, usually using bowmen or scouts to try to prevent walling, then simply using either chariots or cavalry in large numbers to overpower the enemy and kill the villagers, if game goes to iron age, the same thing goes on except both civs will generally switch to horse archers and catapaults with some other units mixed in.. the average slow civs games consisted usually of minoa, hittite or egypt or sometimes sumeria.. again the gameplan was usually bowmen to mess with enemy walling and economy early, then hit hard with large groups of chariot archers or composite bowmen if minoan, only combined arms usually is the archers+stone throwers combination, again most games are decided in bronze and you have to fight chariots vs chariots.
Now in ROR the reasons these approaches wont work as often fast or slow civs is first there is slower shore fish collection, second the slingers can protect your villagers who are trying to wall more effectively than making your own bowmen, or if the person is using scouts (expensive if not yamato, and expensive upgrades also), you can use axemen, 50 food yet 100 food to upgrade, so you now in tool have means to wall in much easier.
Now a look at the effect barracks units can have in tool..
Slingers - these things really stop tool bowmen, the big problem with having someone build inside you in AOE was usually that it was a archery range which
was going to make a couple of bowmen which would force you to make an archery range, make your own bowmen and s*****it out, if this was an assyrian or hittite you would lose if you are not assyrian or hittite, so you have a huge problem with these civs in tool, either way you are forced into making an archery range when you might not want to, in ror this isnt the case, you can make slingers from your barrack and have them hang around the archery range and kill the bowmen before they get to the villagers.
Axemen - probably a valuable upgrade now in ROR, they can be made in stone age as clubmen, be placed in certain areas, then be upgraded and cause problems either in your enemies town as axemen with the cheap 75 food infantry armor upgrade by chasing around the slower in general villagers shaking things up and forcing the enemy to do emergency walling or make bowmen or his own axemen to stop you, at your base you can place axemen near walling points and scare off scouts while your villagers make walls.
Ok.. so now you can possibly handle any tool units with a combination of towers and axemen or slingers in your base in tool age, while doing this you can have time to wall up, so.. here is a possible game plan now, since you can secure your base in tool age, then why not feel free to secure water and take food from water and have a second worker output, the defensive tool units cost you no wood, you do not even have to make your archery or stable yet, why not while doing this tool fighting, if there is water then cash in on fishing boats and make scout ships which will later be upgraded to galleys (controls element of surprise and water chokepoints), while doing this all, continuously make lots of villagers in tool age at town center.. if there is no water then settle with berries and things to hunt and then farming as last resort.. a problem with this approach? you'll need stone, and walling in a small area is silly as it really forces farming, so with this game plan it will be necessary to get lots of stone in late stone age and early tool age, the stone mining upgrade will go a long way for you in tool as it gives your slingers +1 attack and range, and helps you bring in enough stone to make an attempt to wall off a sizeable chunk of land at the best scouted chokepoints and make some towers near vital points in your base, if the enemy appears to be aiming for a faster bronze age then just do the best walling you can to make sure you are walled and have enough water control so you dont get transported on easily, if you can get this walling done and establish some kind of water stability and economy, you can aim to hit the upgrade to bronze around the time your enemy arrives at bronze since he decided to go bronze and not take your approach of making some boats or just walling in and making more villagers to bronze with, now the situation will be that he has the superior units, but you have the superior economy, and you have a temporary barrier of walls and possibly some water control.. here are your probable problems at this point.. he makes a stone thrower very fast and busts through fast or transports very quickly using galleys to scare off your scout ships and even mess up your fish, the thing is, by the time he gets up 5 or more chariot archers/cavalry/camels, or upgrades war galley to protect a transport, you should have just about reached bronze with a superior economy, the fact that he has a land army fast usually means he isnt making villagers when he hits bronze, meanwhile at your base, you've bronzed with more villagers so all that time you've collected up resources, meanwhile you've made some slingers.. if he has the type of civ that will come with chariot archers.. since by the time the chariot archers are coming at you, you can upgrade bronze shield, making it so 5 slingers will take down 5 chariot archers usually (if you have stone mining as well), while doing this you can upgrade your towers to sentry for further protection, and you already have axemen upgraded so you can get the swordsmen upgrades quickly, who also benefit from your bronze shield and axer attack/armor uprades and also generate very fast.. better to look at each civ in this situation from this approach if you like this approach.. obviously this whole game plan is based on stopping someone from killing you in tool and early bronze and letting you get a good economy and hopefully to iron.. btw this all presumes population 100 or under (the most common)..
so.. roman.. your situation is you have sentry towers, good slingers, great short or broad swordsmen and a nice economy, your offence is to have a very strong defence and go to iron age where you will hope to have a better economy.. you have to have walled and know where the enemy is coming from be it transport or a hole in your wall, and remember transported armies are usually easy to stop with a army built up at home, as larger armies always win.. so if enemy comes at you with camels or cavalry, you can shut them down with your towers and superior and easily upgraded swordsmen, if chariot archers come, slingers do a wonderful job at stopping chariot archers when they have stone mining upgrade(+1 attack and range) and bronze shield, and at a no wood cost price (buy farms), while doing this research logistics (yes it can be a very useful new technology), roman broad swordsmen kick butt especially in large numbers, great for scaring off enemy, take spare wood also and put it into stone throwers at your base and build up a nice amount, your cheap farms and hopefully fishing boats and all the berries/gazzelle/phants you could find will let you get good food going and bang you should be able to iron around the 25 minute mark with a strong economy since most of your army consisted of those swordsmen which are taking up a small amount of pop limit, leaving you time to go bonkers with woodcutters/farmers/gold and stone miners and even fishing boats or war boats.. go iron with a nice economy, transform stone throwers into catapaults with engineering, make some ballistas, upgrade to long swordsmen or even legion if your economy included alot of fishing boats and bang you can try to from there overwhelm your enemy as you've hopefully ironed before or at a similar time with a superior economy than this person going for faster bronze attack/tool attack.
choson.. just like roman, good towers, not cheap but great range, the broad swordsmen you can get will be very powerful later on when upgraded presuming you get to iron, again you are aiming for iron age hoping that broad swordsmen, slingers and sentry towers and walls will hold off invasions on your villagers and that the wood you arent using on farms can go towards water domination, logistics really helps you make a strong economy with good army, particularly defensive armies of broad swordsmen.. once iron you get one of the best units in the game (choson legions), and excellent priests for 85 gold.. and some of the best towers.
babylon.. again, lots of towers and walls at base, make the stone throwers like roman to be upgraded to catapault later to help you gain back the ground you lost with your game approach, and make the swordsmen who benefit from axer/slinger upgrades... babylon get decent long swordsmen and even legions (who i feel are made useful by logistics).. from there you can use your economy to make a transition to a nice maybe heavy catapault and horse archer combination backed by tower builders, you get great priests for handling armored elephant armies, probably the best elephant handling priests due to their fast rejuvenation.
macedonian.. do this tool approach to get a strong safe bronze economy, you wont be able to apply logistics as theres probably no point making swordsmen with this civ, but if you can get to bronze and have a safe economy you can steamroll just about anyone, even if they are in early iron, 2 stone throwers are almost as good as 1 catapault, and those hoplites(who benefit from slinger/axemen upgrades) will ward off everything stopping your stone throwers and composite bowmen from mashing apart the map palmyran.. its obvious why you'd take this approach, but defend base with those camels once bronze, and send camels on enemy economy harassment missions as much as you can persia.. still the crappiest economy, hunt everything in sight as for greek well.. i'd take minoa any day but hey .. those hoplites actually defend a base good in bronze ok this approach is mostly aimed for a civ like choson babylon or roman, they can actually be defensive civs now and have it be their offense.. problems for this approach.. minoa.. will take you on water, will take out your swordsmen with helepolis or composite bowmen, slingers not so effective against composite bowmen particularly of the minoan type also i must say the macedonian axer rush is scary, they'll see what you're doing easier, know your chokepoints as good as you do, if they do this, try to gain stability and torture their villagers with chariot archers or camels/cavalry all game long, or go iron and make lots of ballistas/helepolis. if you bank on this tool/bronze saftey approach with palmy in a team game you'll be able to trib lots of resources and do nice camel strikes anyways i guess thats all.. bottom line is slingers can have a pretty good effect, axemen in general may become more popular, combined arms in tool also should, using the better chances of walling to make more villagers should also become popular.. i'm just loving the random civ games lately and thinking of ways to be a strong competetor with civs like choson and babylon.. hope some of you found this interesting and hope i didnt babble on needlessly too much l8r
start.. they're a tough civ to use, take alot of micromanagement and economic skills but can be very effective (good on water once iron too.. great fire galley trireme combo).. great horse archers decent catapaults and elephants, nice all round iron age civ..
hittite.. well hittite just totally kick ass, their scout ships/war galleys are scary, their archers have +1 which harms slingers and swordies with their piercing, hittite are just plain out stacked in ror
the problem with shang when doing this approach is they can probably beat you in tool to the point where you cant wall, they can boom better, and strike hard with an early iron, and the ultimate mix of bronze units, but i feel if you get the wall and towers up, you can possibly equal or better their economy using the logistics/towers/more villagers and hopefully iron around the same time where your iron attack should be mightier.. if the shang sees your approach and decides to iron race then so be it, he'll probably mash up your docks with fire galleys and slam you down asap with catapaults and horse archers and maybe scythes, just hope you can keep your walls/slight water control long enough to get to iron with an almost equal economy so that you can let your potentially superior attack fall into place.. but i feel if the player is good enough shang is one of those civs that can solve any of your approaches by doing a similiar thing
and bettering it.. maybe a good idea is to read what the shang is doing and try to push up some more land with swordsmen and slingers and towers.. dealing with shang is a tough one