No comments whatsoever? Not even flames?

thanks a lot! I'll have to try it sometime after I get my fast/bronze strats down. After reading all those articles a GX, there is A LOT MORE I need to KNOW and practice then I thought. That is an awesome site, strat/tip wise. Its way better then AoEH in that area. MUCH more helpful for players then AoEH. No offense AoEH, I still love ya tons.

darius:
Yup, GX has good strat articles (although the race strats suck), AoEH has a good forum, MrFixit's has accurate stats, and HM's has a good petition + lots of potential.

NO kidding. That Kladias guy thinks Persia's only good on hills. HA! Now they are good FOR hills, but are decent on coastal and island maps too. He also thinks Phonie is bar far the strongest civ in AoE.

darius:
Persian is good on any map, as long as you use their *speed*. The first minute of each age is the one that counts with persian. Also their iron is still good after the first minute.
 
As for phoenie, his comments were probably pre-patch... shang is still fast, but phoenie is... well, not fast. You simply don't get as much from +9% woodcutting as from +50% woodcutting. Before the patch though, phoenie was, well, think of palmy without the extra villie cost.

THats what I meant. Persia is good on any map, just as long as you know how to use them. I never player Phonie pre-patch, I wouldn't know. geez +50%? Holy crap. No wonder he got a 11:20 bronze. Hey wedsaz, whats the fastest bronze time you ever got? Any civ, default res,age any map type?

darius:
Bronze time: 10:56 huge medit w/persian. (seen 10:30 a few times though)
Iron time: 16 mins huge medit w/phoenie. (pre-patch, enough econ to make EAs from 10 archeries and scythes from 20 stables nonstop...)

10:56? Wholly CRAP! I can't get under 12! well I guess that's what comes from non-stop analysis and knowing in the fishings boats gathering rate if the serial # is higher then 146 in the bays of Irland.(high sarcasim alarms going off)

darius:
And lots of "field tests".
 
What I do with persian is this: after my pack of gazelles or pair of eles is dead, I put only 4 guys on them and use the rest to cut wood and feed a boat boom. By the time those gazelles are gone, I don't need to hunt anymore and put those 4 guys on wood with the rest.
 
Then I stop at 16 villies (real ones not boats) and *wait* for the food to tool, it's usually not a long wait.
 
Other than that it's pretty much the same as a minoan fastboom, except I always cav rush and TC booming (making a TC near every resource and pumping out villies) is the highest priority in early bronze. If you have twice as many villies, who cares if theirs chop wood 10% faster?

That's a good strat wedsaz. I tried the minoan fastboom and got a 12:45 and was pumping compies and villies like mad in bronze.

About the persian water map strat-

Very good idea with persian. Since gazelle or elephants are usually near wood, that strat could work very well. About how many FB's do you make?

RageOMatic:
How many FBs? Dunno, I usually stop making them while tooling. If I can be reasonably sure there won't be a ship war, like if my allies own the sea, I'll start making them again once I have the buildings I need to bronze. Persian can always use extra food in iron.

Hey, Mr. Fixit has good stats, but has no one checked out my stat pages? I use them all the time now.

For ur info: you can make 10:30 brz with 19 villas as Shangs and maknig another right beforee you click brz button for a 20 villas econ and 10:30: this is on a good map ;P but as you prolly know, this strat sux cuz you'd die to a tool rush. On the other hand, 10:30 means you reach tool at 7:50 and you could tool rush with that econ tho ...which is WAY better (imagine, at 8:10, you got the econ to brz=> use that to tool rush with clubs by the ennemy while you tool and you're rocking ;P

popov:
You may not know this, but tool rushes are pretty risky in huge/gigantic map 3v3s, which is what most inters play. The time it takes to either get your army to the enemy, or the lost econ from walking a bunch of builders over, means the enemy can have enough cavs to crush your army and retaliate quickly. As if that wasn't enough, if one gets hit badly his allies can help him, and teams can divide work between them so one tools fast and defends the other who booms.
 
In other words, ok so you reach tool in 8 mins... the armor upgrade won't be done before 9 mins, plus if you use any bowmen or scouts you have to make the buildings before you train them, by then there's a wall. If you're going to make a horde of slingers, you'll need many barracks to train them fast enough, which means a lot of wood and especially build time.
 
The same thing that makes villie rushes fail on large maps makes tool rushes fail on huge or gigantic maps. Expert tool rushers are only unbeatable because they choose the settings.

darius:
Here's the minoan fastboom strat, you can adjust it for palmy. My guess would be anywhere between 8 and 10 villies with palmy.
 
You get a repeat of my persian strat, too!

I would go with 12 actually...they may work 50% faster, but that bonus doesn't translate accurately into the game.

HonoredMule:
My best guess would be around 10 actually, like old phoenie, but only testing can tell for sure.

Sorry wedsaz, tool rushes still win games even for intermediates...please get on the Zone. This is not the RoR of 12 months ago where it was "how many villagers can I boom to and bronze in 14:xx" it's "how hard can I hit my opponent with a decent time with scout ships or axemen/slings".

As for darius, klietus kicked some serious butt, he knew what he was talking about for sure. I think we can all agree that Persia has zero flexibility: they HAVE to get the upper edge in tool, or they lose. Now if you get screwed over with a hunting-unfriendly map, you're in a really really really bad situation. In contrast a Rome or Shang is a ton more consistent...

And finally the fastboom, well I guess enough has been said about it, enemy make scout ships = you lose.

[This message has been edited by RomanGladius (edited 11-07-2000).]

It is nice to have you back RG. We have been needing another voice of reason in here.

RomanGladius:
That's not what blitz has been telling me. According to him, popov, and the other people who have been posting here, nothing can stop a boom. Personally I agree that a tool rush (or very early cav rush) would shatter a boom, but I *must* be wrong if blitz and popov say that's not the case right?
 
Anyway the palmy thing I was talking about would be to see if they can do something similar to what old phoenie could with this strat, namely tool in 8 mins then bronze in 12 mins with a huge econ. That can make an awful big axer rush if you forfeit bronze, and a lot of scout ships too. I'm thinking that would be fit nicely in the current zone landscape, if it works. The others tell me it wouldn't, that I'm obviously out of touch, since on the zone you *must* have a 1000 villie econ before tooling to win.
 
Persia can do just fine with a cav rush (because of their speed), but of course that only works well while the opponent is still in tool, so I guess that would count as a tool rush. I've never seen a hunting-unfriendly map in RoR, but I've seen plenty of hillberries and forestberries.
 
The minoan fastboom has beaten many shang and assy players who thought making a few scout ships would stop it. You don't understand its weaknesses. You're half-right though, at least your attack is in the right age, but the fastboom falls easiest to *land* attacks in tool not sea attacks. Kill a few FBs, big deal we already have tons of food stocked up by tool age, enough to bronze and make our choice of cavs, camels or compies. This worked in AoE, and still works in AoE. What makes it iffy is that in RoR people do tool rush on land a lot more than in AoE. So you're right but for the wrong reasons.

wedsaz:

Here is how 99% of water maps are played today:

Vills 1-5 = berries
Vills 6-23 to 27 = woodies
Build 2-4 Docks
Stop making real vills around 8:30-9:30
Stop making Fishing Boats around 9:30-10:00
Hit Tool button 9:30-10:30 with a pop between 38-50

Forwards wander to or close to enemy base and place barracks
Upon Tool make Scout Ships at all docks and attack (12:30-13:00)

Barracks could be making clubbers=>axers or Slingers
Forwards make Stable and Scout, then Archery Ranges till Bronze

Bronze times are around 14:30-15:00 with sea usually already decided and losing team having no fishing boats.

I am critical of this strat and I won't use it because I can't see the risk paying off. Unguarded fishing boats, unprotected woodies, all in small numbers. I think an average player on the Zone would EASILY crush this small econ.

I always come back to the "strat" of booming the most villas achieving rush-like to average times. I can't possibly see how you can win with your proposed strat.

Questions that have to be answered about this strat:
1) How much food will be massed before all fishing boats are lost by 13:30 max.
2) What will be the ttl villa pop and ratio of the econ between woodies, gold miners, and farmers be upon 13:30.
3) What damage will be done to opponent's econ before 15:00 on the land before your rush-time is swallowed up by boomer's econ.

I think the best alternative to this strat, wedsaz, is to do this pit start and dock boom, followed by a massive "do or die" Tool Rush. The econ is small, and I would rather have the extra 2:30-3:00 earlier being in Tool rather than Bronze to kill all of opponent's woodies. Your Bronze rush you propose isn't gonna kill a good boomer, this Tool war alternative will have better success I think.

I think this strat is best for 1v1, never a 3v3. In a 3v3 you won't be able to help on sea so it will be a 3v2 on sea and your team will lose sea. You might get the opponent's econ pretty good, only to get ran over in a couple minutes by his partner's.

Good boomers also spread out real fast even before bronze when they can start to make additional TC's. The boom strat brings in so much food and wood that two problems arise for the tool rusher:

1) the boomer's woodies are likely spread out so you might get a few but only a fraction

2) once in bronze, the boomer's population goes up exponentially. And he has tons of res even if you managed to clip a few of his woodies.

So you wind up having to tool real fast and then you have a small window of opportunity to kill the boomer. But the damage has to be really complete. Simply hurting him won't do. You will wind up spent on res and his retaliation will simply run over you.

That's why the rush is so risky.

BlitzkreigComin:
Questions! I like questions, keep them coming. Your post gets 3 out of 5 smilies for friendliness (you jumped to early conclusions a lot, and your post could use a few smilies), 4 out of 5 smilies for information content and good questions (thanx for the zone intel btw, I can't exactly check myself lately), and 2 out of 5 for creativity (tool rush idea is good but it's been mentioned several times, and you didn't expand on it much). That's 9 out of 15 or an average of 3/5, not at all bad.
 
1. About 1k food by the time you reach your 9 mins tool, probably another 1-2k before your 13:30 mark if the FBs are left untouched. Hell by then you can be in bronze with 30 impies halfway or fully trained. Don't get me wrong, in the RoR zone landscape I agree completely that a tool rush (or at least a cav rush) would be the best way to use the speed advantage, I'm just stating where the original anti-assy plan would be at that moment.
2a. If you keep making villies in tool rather than bronzing, and stop making FBs at 24, by 13:30 you'd have about 24 villies and 24 FBs for a total pop of 48. The villies would probably be mostly on wood, with maybe some (4-6) on gold if you're planning on bronzing someday.
2b. If you go for the fast bronze, you'd have 12:00 bronze with a side order of 16 villies (12-14 on wood 2-4 on gold) and 24 boats for a total of 40 pop. With a TC boom, I don't have a clue where you could be by 13:30, but I think you could have as many as above with a nice little pack of cavs (plus a scout to lead them) in the enemy town just for kicks.
3. I killed about 30 fleeing assy villies with 3-4 cavs and a scout in about 2 mins once, a few STs or a pack of slingers could take out the buildings nicely. As an alternative, a half-dozen upgraded scouts could take down someone's villies pretty fast, add a few slingers to mop up buildings at (relative) leisure and you can do a lot of damage. Also since your tool time should be about 9:00, could a few scout ships kill a lot of FBs in that time?
 
I'd see it work in a team setting if you can hit two or more opponents simultaneously. By the time they get rid of your attack, they're behind and your allies are starting their (more standard) assault. I had some fun with a roman/minoan/hittite combo terrorizing the enemy in all timeframes, once we started attacking they didn't have a second to think until it was time for them to say "gg".
 
Dave:
1. Enemy spreading out - That's why I'd use scouts or cavs, which can cover the distance quickly and can chase villies easily.
2. Enemy growing exponentially - We can bronze much faster with large food reserves, they don't have a monopoly on TCs you know.
3. Enemy has tons of spare resources - We have tons of spare food too. I can't say the same for wood, but then all our villies are working on that.
4. "you wind up having to tool real fast and then you have a small window of opportunity" - What's tooling "real fast"? They used to tell me 9 mins with 40 pop was too slow and too much! Considering people claim to be tooling in 11 mins, that looks like a 2 min window for a tool rush to me, how about you?
5. "the damage has to be really complete" - Not necessarily, the damage only has to be enough so you'll will be bigger, stronger and ready to defeat their attempt at retaliation.
 
Can you try doing like blitz, asking questions instead of making statements? Wouldn't it sounds a lot less aggressive, and more likely to create new alternatives rather than flame wars? I think opinions are ok too, and that smilies make things look brighter.
 
btw, your post's rating is 3 out of 5 for friendliness (like blitz, you jump to conclusions and didn't even show us one smilie), 2 out of 5 for information and questions (you didn't provide much info, your questions looked like statements, and you failed to look for obvious answers), and 1 out of 5 for creativity (I didn't see any creative solutions or alternatives from you, only a statement of some of the major problems). That's an average of two smilies out of 5, so here they are.

wedsaz:

Where does foreward building fit into all of this? I'm going to presume to be spreading with this strat, since that is what I would do...but the enemy is spreading too, and you have to identify a good spot to foreward build, because you can't afford to lose time walking, even with mounted units...your best case scenario here gives you only a 2 min window on a widespread econ. Besides, foreward building is convenient and efficient, since it is spreading at the same time. The biggest concern to me, is being found out, but the best solution against that is not to go out there until you are nearly ready to start producing, but timing is important there, because you need to have the place well scouted out, and this is before you get scouts (don't waste wood or villie time on a stable at home...the barracks will be sufficient.)

Speaking of middle man toolrushes (in a 3v3), You might consider building two stables on one side, and two archeries on the other, then hit two civs with two different strats, and one just after the other...that can be confusing to a team that communicates, and it gives your allies time to gain the advantage, which can after that be protecting you so you can recover. If you do it right, they wouldn't even need a tool army, and that would free up more resources and villie time can go over to wood, allowing them a little extra to progect your FB until you catch up.

Does this sound reasonable to the zone players here? I'm giving mostly conjecture here.

wedsaz:

Nobody is flaming you. Re-read my last post and you will see that it is only arguing in favor of the boom strat and concentrates on the game, not on how many smilies were posted.

As for bringing up questions instead of statements, you are the individual who posts more broad and unsupported statements than anyone here. The responses that you receive are in fact questions: they question your strats and also offer alternatives that prove to be effective on the zone where the game is played.

So I think that your condescending attempt to use smilies to rate me is way out of line and a rather childish display.

HonoredMule:
1. I normally don't spread with this strat until bronze, one of the strengths of it is that all your villies can work effectively *without* spreading, which means greater efficiencyearly on. Sometimes I do split to two wood pits in tool though, because by then it's getting inefficient.
2. I would probably use my dock builder to seek out the enemy and build the military buildings, building houses every so often same as usual.
3. You don't need to sell me on forward building, it's often the most efficient way to tool rush.
4. (In 3v3s which is what I used to play mostly,) I'd probably try 2 stables at the near end of the nearest enemy's econ, and systematically sweep through with scouts once they're made. By attacking all three opponents in such a short time, killing as many villies as possible and displacing most of their economy, the slowdown would give my allies a rather large advantage. Also, I would prefer scouts to bowmen because of the short window of opportunity, there's probably not much to oppose us until that window closes and scouts can cover the ground much faster. I find that spreading doesn't seem to help as much vs scouts.
5. Hmm, intersting about attacking with different armies. I'd build everything close to the nearest opponent and just run my scouts through to the farthest to attack him, then attack the closest one with slingers+clubbers. That means you don't need archeries, the clubbers+slingers can take out houses nicely, and the scouts can get to the farthest opponent rather quickly while causing panic in the middle town and not needing your forward(s) to walk through enemy territory. How's that?
6. Quite right, if you keep the opponents busy enough on land, they won't be attacking on land and your allies can concentrate on the sea. I hadn't thought of it that way, that's pretty good.
 
4/5 for friendliness (no smilies, but otherwise very positive), 4/5 for information and questions (a few questions, and good info), and 4/5 for creativity (very good thinking there mule). That's an average of 4 out of 5 smilies, good post!
 
Dave:
I never said anyone was flaming me, but an odd thought struck me while writing up my post. I was pleasantly surprised by blitz's unusually positive post, and I wanted to compliment him on it. Since I've been looking at a lot of movie ratings lately the smilie thing just sorta popped up. I've been told I was polite and wrote *very* complete posts (I think the exact words were something like "long and boring", but anyway), I decided maybe I could improve the friendliness, information/question and creativity content of people's posts by rating them. If you were offended, I humbly apologize. That was definitely not my intention.
 
I won't rate your post since you seem to be offended by it, but feel free to rate *my* posts using the same system as I used to rate yours. I could use a bit of objective criticism, and I'm obviously too biased to rate *myself*.

I think I'm still having problems with things adding up here wedsaz. Please Help. (Damn why I am nice these last two days)

Lets assume (we both do a lot of that) that the Minoan fast-boom accomplished a 13:00 Bronze, meanwhile lost all FB's and is left with say 12 original villas made in Stone, and 2 made in Tool/Bronze. I will "assume" that 1 is the forward and you will assign 3-4 to gold. That leaves 8-9 woodies upon Bronzing and some might/will have to farm.

Lets also assume you are playing Dave. I have played with Dave several times in the past week, as well as many times over the past six months. He has grasped the booming concept incredibly well. Dave's average when I play with him is Hittite 38-42 villa boom in Stone with a ratio of 23-25 woodies, 2 forwards, and 12-16 fbs. He Tools between 12:00 and 13:00. He is very aggressive on the sea and will have your fb's gone guarenteed by 14:00 latest. Most common for him is to do a stable and 3 archery ranges in Tool/early Bronze. He will have Tool Archer protection, along with a Scout or two for exploring your forward base.

Also assume at 13:00 you begin impie upgrade as you are losing your sea econ. You are left with 800-1000 food. I will also assume your one forward builder will build a barracks, stable, and archery range at a forward base. I think that you will need 3-4 archery ranges immediately booming compies. You will need goldmining and an extra 2-3 villas on gold.

Now I am having a hard time seeing a good scenerio for the Minoan here. Very few woodies and gold miners specifically. You need wood for archery ranges to mass a fast army of impies/compies. You will need wood also for the compie upgrades, a Gov Center, and more TC's. I don't think you can mass enough wood to build a decent forward base and boom from more TC's immediately. Your window of opportunity is slammed shut at 16:00 when his CA's will definately be in all over your villies.

I really see a best case scenerio of him losing 12-15 woodies before 15:00, just in time for you to lose the same. I have attacked Dave's woodies on more than one occassion and know he will send them running upon the first hint of danger. He is left with 12-15 real villagers, 12-15 fbs, 6-8 Scout Ships/War Galleys to protect coast, 1000+ food and wood. I think you would be lucky to have 3-4 villagers live, and be left with an army of 8-10 compies max, no gold miners or gold, and very little wood to rebuild.

From here Dave will spread with 3-4 TC's, build several Seige Workshops and more stables and archery ranges. His econ woud simply run you over.

Questions:

1) How are you going to deal with the wood shortage in early Bronze? What are the priorities - Econ or Army? Do you do 3 ranges and no gov center/TC? Are you going to begin farming when your FB's are dead or rely on your stockpile of food to win the game?

2) In your estimation how many gold miners do you need to feed an army of compies or compies/cavalry?

3) Do you feel you are working against this "window" that the Zone players feel you will be "ran over" by 15:00-16:00.

4) How many Compies and/or Cav can be massed by 14:00-15:00?

5) Will you try to attack his forward base if you find it before he Bronzes? If so, is it a priority over stopping his land econ?

6) Do you have any good "run and hide" strats for Minoan players when they haven't defeated their opponent by 15:00?

BlitzkreigComin:
Good questions, and it seems my posts have been rather confusing. I'll try to talk about one variation at a time now.
 
I'd see a RoR-adapted minoan fastboom / cav rush going about like this from tool time onward:
1. 9:00 - You arrive in tool with 12 villies and 24 FBs, forward barracks already built. You queue training of 6 new villies.
2. 9:20 - Villie 13 is out, send him to wood. You build a market as soon as you have enough wood, start the woodworking upgrade, then build a forward stable.
3. 9:40 - Villie 14 is out, send him to build a gold pit and start mining.
4. 10:00 - Villie 15 is out, send him to gold.
5. 10:20 - Villie 16 is out, send him to gold.
6. 10:40 - Your market and stable complete, you advance to bronze. You also start researching cav armor, gold mining, and train a scout and a slinger at your forward base. You build a 2nd forward stable, and if you have wood left you could dump it into making scout ships and send them to "equalize" the enemy FB fleet.
7. 11:10 - Your scout, slinger and the cav armor upgrade are done. You could start looking for good targets with the scout, but don't let them see you yet. Keep the slinger hidden. You start researching toolworking, train another slinger and another scout.
8. 11:40 - Your 2nd slinger is out, you keep training more.
9. 12:00 - You arrive in bronze with 16 villies (14 on wood 2 on gold - I did some tough calculations to decide how many were needed on gold for cav rushing) and 24 FBs (dave doesn't have scout ships yet), so you start training your two first cavs and make more villies. You should have enough wood for a govt center, so make one asap. You can also start the war galley upgrade, it costs mostly food and you'll have your dock long enough to complete it - that makes your warships about twice as strong overall, which may not win the sea war right away but it can give your FBs time, and more seafood means more villies later.
10. 12:40 - You have two new villies by now, I'd assume you had them help with the govt center then head out to make more TCs near food and/or wood. Your first two cavs are out, group one of your 2 scouts with them and send them a-hunting. You train 2 new cavs. The war galley upgrade complete, you can make war galleys but making new TCs (near wood...) is a priority for wood use.
11. 13:20 - You now have 2 groups composed of a scout and 2 cavs each, which are keeping the enemy villies a bit too busy to work, and 5 slingers which could go work on his buildings. At this point either your entire econ is working on increasing itself, or you're doing well on the sea. IF you lose the sea, you can pick your berries (which you didn't use in stone and tool) before having to farm.
 
Wow, looks better than I thought... who knows? It might even have a chance.

wedsaz:

I did a few tests tonight on a Medit map, huge, No Reveal. I replicated your villa count in Stone and Tool, as well as FB's. I was not able to get the results you have projected. One reason is the wildlife on a Medit map. One villa early to the shore is always fighting a gator or two.

I have a hard time getting a dock up before 2:00 on a huge Medit map. So at 2:00 I have a pop of 7. Upon completing the dock my forward builds a house and then dock #2 about a half-screen from first dock. The second dock gets completed around 4:00, and once again is avoiding/killing gators. Once real villa #8 is born, he had to build a house along with the forward to avoid getting housed.

By the time the food starts to get massed, I have a hard time gathering enough food to get 12 real villas and hit the Tool button before 9:00. Upon finishing houses, docks, and wandering to the enemy land my single villa never had more than 5 HP's left.

When I arrived in Tool I never had more than 300 wood after building a granary and barracks once Tooling. I made 3 villies, put them on gold, and upgraded to Bronze.

To sum it up:

Did fishing boat gathering rates get changed between RoR and AoE? Did woodcutting gathering rates change also? I have an easy time getting a 14:00 and less Bronze time, but it was with nothing.

I can't see how this strat could work against a boomer. If a boomer can constantly get times within a minute of these with 3-4 times the wood and the same amount or more food, what is the point of this strat?

You are sacrificing 8-10 woodies by pitting first. The gain in the time just isn't enough, especially when you can't build one single Scout Ship. This strat would have to be a Tool Rush strat only.

Several players have experimented with pitting first on water maps, but all the good players come back to the reality of you can't afford the loss of woodies. Sure you might beat someone to Bronze, but so what.

I will coop on the Zone with anyone that wants me to show them the difference between this fast-boom strat and a basic "berry-first" boom strat. The results are very lop-sided.

BlitzkreigComin:
This still gave about the same 12:00 time in RoR as in AoE, back when I was playing. The patch wasn't out yet though, and that's about when villie-heavy booms started taking over, so maybe the patch changed the fishing or woodcutting rates, which would affect mostly boat booming. If someone could try it in pre-patch and compare, maybe that would tell us something about the game that we didn't know already.
 
I'm a bit surprised you couldn't tool before 9 mins. When do you have enough food for villie #8? I usually have enough around the 5 min mark, so if by then you don't have enough you might want to look at the startup pattern and the way you place your boats. It's been an awful long time, I might have left out something important.
 
Also you might want to talk to darius and rageomatic, they reported better results than you did ("I tried the minoan fastboom and got a 12:45 and was pumping compies and villies like mad in bronze." - RageOMatic, in this very thread). Maybe you can coop with them so you can see things I might have forgotten.
 
There's got to be something we're missing here, people are getting two different sets of results.