BlitzkreigComin:
Because they never saw anyone do it right. )
 
I came up with a minoan pit start boat boom strat in AoE trial, back in the assy CA rush days. I hadn't seen anyone do any boat boom before, and GX AoE still proclaimed minoan as having great compies... but being too slow to use them. Celestial_Dawn's forwards met their first dock block... mine. Doesn't it fit better in a minoan pit-first fastboom than in an assyrian berry-first fastbronze?
 
Things I suggest you try:
1. with minoan stop at 12 land villies (11 woodies 1 builder/explorer), make only 2-3 more in tool, see how fast you can bronze. Tip: stop making boats a bit before you hit tool, you'll need the wood to build your market and archery (or stable).
2. w/palmy, berries first but move into a light boat boom instead of a 2nd berry patch. Again, stop at 12 villies and see how fast you can tool.
3. w/persian, do a forest+hunting (4 gazelles or 2 elephants) pit start and see how fast you can bronze. I've had good success with 16 villies before tooling, but I'm not very good with land econs so ymmv.
 
I guess that's it for now, but please do comment and ask questions. )

NOO NOOO NOOO wedsaz NOT YOUR 12 VILLAGERS THING AGAIN. You will NEVER get enough wood to protect your fbs in tool. Then your puny 12 villagers econ get squashed by a tool or brz army. End of game.

BTW Mino and Rome do this best.

Pit starts are nice and I see a lot of ppl doing it now (in fact, I haven't played someone who hasn't used a pit start in a while). But the problem is your villager/fb distribution is all off in comparison to the other guy. So maybe ur opponent has 24 villagers (all chopping wood) and 12 fbs (all gathering food) vs. your 20 choppers and 20 fbs. Besides the fact that you've sunk more wood into ur fbs, you also have 25% less wood than your opponent when tool age boat wars roll around. But you have a lot more food because of those fbs. Use that food to rush him on land. Scouts, axer flood, whatever...

You have to do damage with your land army because he just has a lot more wood than you and will probably sink all your fbs before you know it. But if you can use the huge axer army to take out his woodies, after which you shouldn't have a hard time taking the seas back.

My 2 cents about pit starts anyway...I usually to try to tool fast, wall in, and hit hard with bad boats against them. I don't know if that is the best approach, maybe some better player can enlighten me...

RomanGladius:
Keep in mind that with 12 woodies, you can reach tool at 9 mins with enough food to bronze.
So:
1. Enemy also does a pit-start, but makes more villies. He'll tool later, and before he can get a decent army together you're in bronze w/ cavs and war galleys.
2. Enemy picks berries to tool fast with many villies. He'll get there a bit faster, but not by very much and with less woodies because his extra villies are *picking berries*. If he continues doing so, you have more woodies and more docks so you'll win the sea war.
3. Enemy picks berries to tool fast with many villies, then turns everyone to wood to overwhelm your fleets. Let him have the sea, you have enough food to bronze anyway. By the time he's done killing your FBs, you're in bronze cav rushing him and possibly booming from multiple TCs. (using your untouched berry patches if needed)
 
The best approach vs pit starts, based on what I hate being faced with, is to first hit his woodies and *then* his boats. You'll want to send a forward builder *very* early and build a barracks in his town, otherwise a dock-block or house-wall can screw your plans. Hit him with a few armored clubbers, just to interrupt his wood supply, and once they're scattered hit his boats. Boat boomers usually spend their wood as it comes in, so with wood income reduced to nothing he'll have little defense. Also, no wood = no market/archery = no bronze. Nonetheless, after you kill his fleet try and get to bronze quickly just in case.
 
Weaknesses of the pit start:
1. totally dependant on the sea for food, so if they get hit before the 9 min mark or so, the plan goes down the drain
2. boat boom is slow to start up, so you can't tool faster than about 9 mins with a pit start (except persian with a meat+forest pit)
 
Strengths of the pit start:
1. all the villies (except the explorer/builder) are on wood, so lots of wood coming in
2. tons of FBs, so by 9 mins they can be in tool with enough food to bronze
3. Umm, did I mention kick-assy economy?

A pit start by forest only sux...sux and re-sux. You end up with a delay in your real villies production:therefore, less real villies on wood so less navy: you lost your first medit game vs a real player.

Pit start needs sf to work...or hunting if you really want to start with a pit. I get to 50 in 9:10 with shangs on conti as pit by sf start: so don't really see what's your point of using a simple strat that is dedicated to the newbies who begins to boom.

SuN_Cam_Popov:
If you go for land food first, you get a delay in wood production which means a slower boom and less food for aging fast and land military.
 
Every second your villies spend gathering food, they aren't chopping wood. I used to (arrive in) tool in 9 mins with 40 pop and already enough food to bronze (with nothing but a forest and sea fish) with this. I assume with your 50 pop @ 9:10 w/shang and SF (which are far on HUGE MEDIT which is what blitz mentioned as the settings) you were still in stone?
 
Meanwhile, the pit-starter already has 40 pop and enough food to bronze, tons more coming in every second. He can tool-rush you to stop your wood production, or he can bronze and let you cover the sea with scout ships while he bronzes and gets galleys, cavs, STs and compies... he has plenty of viable options.
 
I don't use this speed as well as it could be used, because I'm not aggessive enough to rush early effectively. I'm sure you could do better, if you just *try*. Think about it, tooling at 9 mins with 800 food and another 200 every minute... just imagine the tool rush you could do with that... or, bronze fast and cav/camel rush, or go a little further and crank out a horde of fearsome minoan compies before overboomers can even bronze!
 
Don't give up on a possibly great strat so easily. Imagine if the first yam cav rushers had given up so easily, we'd still be in tool rushing each other with assy bowmen!
 
If you really think this can't work, propose something better. Or, if there's nothing better than the overboom, whine about it in the balance thread. Just don't be so negative!

Wedsaz, I thought we settled this. Stop posting your bullshit. I destroyed you once, get another night off and I'll destroy you again and again and again. You're strat won't work, period. It never would, it never will. Stop posting it already

Hyper:
My comment to stop being so negative goes for you, too.
 
I hate all this overbooming, it's gotten to the point of madness. If you have a better alternative do tell us, but if not then SHUT UP and let us theorize. Who knows? Maybe we'll come up with something useable, and this overbooming madness will finally end! Don't you want that? Or are you so stuck on the "classic strats" that you can't believe anything else could possibly work?
 
So, please either spew forth your own wild ideas, or shut up and let us be.

Wedsaw: get the game...practice and practice for a while...then comeback and we play 1v2 1v3 anything u want. You win one game only and I tell ya all your strats are better than mine. All your strats are pure BS: I win over 90% of my games on conti-medit vs all good players on the zone: I think my ratio is better than what yours when you logged on a few weeks ago ;P

BTW, speaking of boom: I've never seen someone getting to 100 villies in 15:35 and being already in brz. I've done it once (for fun only and as a demo for few friends) and I can do it again: don't come here and say we are all wrong: especially when it's 'bout water maps and booming...PLZ!

SuN_Cam_Popov:
You can't make a comment without being purely negative?
 
You're an inter, not an expert. Sure you win a lot of games, but who cares? You're not making anything new, the real experts are those who developed the strats you're using, losing game after game to fine-tune them. All you are is a copycat, incapable of any creative thought.

I have been testing pretty much all of the strats that I have seen posted on this forum. Among them:

1) the pit first, vil till 40, boat boom strat
2) the granary first, vil till 40, boat boom strat
3) the pit first, vil till 12, boat boom strat

Since I didn't know better, I gave each one a fair shake, i.e. at least 2 weeks for each strat, 1-2 computer games a day. Here and there a human game, but, er, let's not talk about that hehehe ...

My findings are that all three strats give pretty close tool times around 10 minutes. But ...

I found, however, that with strat 3), you tend to come out with a small econ and it is hard to keep up the wood supply for boat wars and making the buildings necessary for bronze.

Strat 1) does work well but there are a couple of minutes where your TC is idle since your food doesn't come in regularly at first. As well, the docks take time to build so the food is delayed even more. And it is hard to spare more than 1 vil to build the docks since you really need vils on wood. So I think that this is a good strat, but a little tricky to manage.

I found that with the granary start, you get pretty much everything - lots of wood, lots of food, lots of vils and pretty much the same tool time. Right after tooling, I take 2 or 3 vils and build the bronze buildings and then hit the bronze button, usually with still another 300-400 food to spare and about 400 wood.

Maybe I need to execute the pit strats better but if a newcommer can follow that granary strat and get good results with little effort I think that that says something about the strat. After all, even experts would want to use the easier strat, no? (easier in the sense of giving good stability with less management headache and risk of screw up)

Well, just my 2 cents.

But please, keep on offering strats. I am anxious to try them all out!

Dave:
Which strats work best depends heavily on which civ you use.
 
1. For the pit-first 40-villie boom, which civ were you using?
2. For the granary-first 40-villie boom, which civ were you using?
3. For the 12-villie fastboom, were you using minoan?
 
I suspect that may have been the problem.
 
Oh, one more thing: sometimes, the easier strat is not the best strat.

> Which strats work best depends heavily on which civ you use.

Well, I'm not able to make a statement about that. Maybe someone else can. I suspect that you are right here, but to a certain degree.

Anyway, I use mainly mino and hittite. I use mino about 80% of the time because of the cheaper boats - I try to build tons of FB. The maps are also either conti or medit. I build at least 2 docks, 3 if I can manage the wood. I try to stop making vils at 8 minutes but until then I pump out vils non-stop and also FB non-stop.

The 12 vil strat *will* get you a fast tool time - I was able to do this consistently. But then what? Once in tool, you have to rush to pump out more vils to keep up your econ - for war boats, bronze buildings and maybe some army.

And please note that I was careful to qualify what I meant by "easier" - I meant getting stable results relatively reliably without too much chance that you mess up.

wedsaz, maybe you can give suggestions as to what to do once in tool with 12 vils. Tooling fast is not necessarily enough. I am open to trying suggestions.

Dave:
The 12-villie fastboom doesn't give you much wood, but after the fast tool you should have an awful lot of food.
 
Some options:
1. Rush for bronze. I used to do 12 min bronze with exactly this strat vs assy, minoan compies are great CA-killers... especially if you have them before assy gets the wheel. However, nowadays you may want to instead hit hard and early with a small cav rush backed by STs or maybe hoplites to take out buildings.
2. Tool rush AND bronze fast. You have a lot of spare food and a bit of a head start, so use that to your advantage. Send in armored clubbers trained while tooling, while you build a market and stable to bronze. Once there, hit him *again* with cavs.
 
However, I still wouldn't use this in RoR. Why? Although this strat can handle a boat war vs assy, it can't do it vs another minoan.
 
One strat I've been thinking about is a super-early ship rush. Make only 12 villies with a granary start, and in tool go all out for warboat production. Keep each enemy dock covered with 2 scout ships, and he's spending twice as much wood as you are. Until he tools, which from what I hear is something like 12 mins, you're killing his FBs. You can also send some armored clubbers to scatter his land villies. In a 2v2 with your ally bronzing to cav or CA rush, this could be devastating. Best civs include minoan, shang, roman, and possibly palmy.
 
Note that most of the strats I've been proposing lately are still in early development and are probably unstable. However, I think that with a bit of polishing they can become good enough to stop this overbooming madness. Thanx for helping.

wedsaz,

I read all posts with respect because every person deserves it no matter what. But lets think a little about what you are proposing. 12 villagers with super boat boom and super early boat tool rush? comon, nobody cares about the sea in a such case. What you call "booming madness" is in fact creating of strong and stable economy, which includes ability to build war buildings fast and in large quantities. If you have 12 villies and some fishing boats and couple scouts -- sure, u can win sea, but nobody cares in this case. Your opponent with 30 real villagers and 2 minutes behind you in tool time will bronze 5 minutes ahead of you and crash you on land while your 2 boat scouts hunting his dosen of fbs. I like to do it like this -- play hittie, fb boom first (with granary first scenario as described by dave), then peon boom, bronze in 15-16 with strong land economy, then give up the sea and hit on land with STs and some CAs. fbs make great bait for the opponent. It does not work always, I am just an inter, but I am sure it will work against your strategy. Better spend all that wood on STs if you know what I mean.

Regards.

Actually, I'm not entirely convinced that against an opponent with a 12 vil econ, you will lose the sea for too long. With the boom, you will have a lot of wood - enough to make several docks away from your original 2 or 3 which he is attacking with 4 or maybe 5 scout ships. You can pump out new FB's and make several war ships and send them back to the original docks before he is able to destroy them. You should be able to wipe out his scout fleet. Then you can proceed to take back the sea. Those 12 vils will not be able to keep up the wood supply for a sea battle.

Absolutely agree. In real game though you rarely meet a person having just 12 real villagers. Probably I was describing scenario for the case then your opponent has say 20 real villies and 20 fbs and you have say 30 villies and 10 fbs (numbers are purely abstract just to show the ratio).

Back to the topic -- I would say that:
1) granary first
2) wood pit
3) couple docks
4) fishing boats moderate boom
5) moderate villies boom
6) bronzing in 15 min
works the best for the beginning of the game. I tried to do pit by wood/eles first but food does not get fast enough for first mins and its rare case to have 2 fish/wood pit for super fast start.

Hope this helps,
Regards.

Vmay:
Those are 2 different strats.
1. minoan fastboom - 12 villies all on wood, don't collect *any* food with them. Tools in 9 mins, bronzes in 12 mins. You have 3-4 cavs killing off his 20-30 villies faster than you can imagine, and his camels are still 3 minutes away. (maybe further since his economy is in shambles)
2. boat blitz - granary first, but stopping at 12 villies yields a 7 minute tool. It's amazing how much a 12-villie economy produces: about half as much as a 24-villie economy. Since most people now tool in 10-12, that gives you 3-5 minutes to kill off his FBs and build up your navy. You also make villagers again, and maybe send in a few armored clubbers to bother his villies, which doesn't cost much: 75f for armor and 50f per clubber. Would you want to have enemy soldiers in your economy and not be able to do anything about it for 3-5 minutes? You might not have enough of an economy left by then. Also, this is meant as a team strat - you can probably hit 2 of them at once, and your ally will bronze first by far, and will easily kill off whatever villies remain since the enemy will probably still be in tool.
 
Dave:
12 villies on wood chop half as much as 24 vilies on wood. You have 3-5 minutes before he even gets to tool, so by then you can probably have what 10-12 warboats? Also you can send in armored clubbers (cheap) the whole time to disturb his woodcutters, and you're making villies again. By the time he tools he has: maybe a few FBs left, scattered villies, very little food or wood collected while tooling. You have: 16-20 villies, 2 scout ships at each enemy dock with a half-dozen more patrolling the shores, some armored clubbers in the enemy town, and maybe even a scout looking for the survivors. Not bad, hmm?
 
Try 2 scout ships against 1 scout ship. At worst one of them is half-damaged, and the other unharmed. That means you can kill 3 scout ships with 2, if you take them one by one. Replace the damaged one before the 3rd boat comes, and you keep that 2 to 1 ratio. If you cover the enemy docks, he has to build a navy elsewhere to retake the area at a decent price, which means moving some builders over, spending another 300-400 wood to build docks, moving his FBs, etc.
 
I'm not *sure* this would work, but it looks good on paper. I really wish I could try it right now.
 
Vmay:
I don't think there is a best. However, a granary start followed by a boat boom is definitely large and stable.
 
Wood+eles? Hmm, if you were trying to do the minoan fastboom then forget all land food - it doesn't exist. Just focus on wood and boats.
 
Also, just for fun, you may want to try a wood+eles or wood+gazelles start with persian. It can do interesting things, especially if you stop at 16 land villies in stone.

I think Storage Pits are better because:
-You can store both food and wood.(Not to mention
gold and stone, but you need those later in the game)
-You can build a Pit between a forest and a herd of
gazelles and carry out both tasks at one time.
OR
You can build a Pit between the coast and a forest, or the
coast and deer, as shore fishing is faster than
hunting/gathering.

On the other hand, granaries are useful for research and also, of course, when you have to go with berries.

Well I agree with Popov and will just ignore wedsaz's stupid theory (sorry, 12/16 vills gets u killed by anyone who builds scout ships)...but I think that pit first if you use it right can lead to an awesome land tool attack on the enemy because of the enormous food you haul in, but usually losing the sea outweighs that.

Although 12 villager tool is a possibility, if you're close to shore and have a handful of sf nearby then it can work. But not with granary starts, no way: you need sf+forest for it to work very well.

Hmm, wedsaz, you really *should* try what you are proposing.
I did. Here is the summary:

Conditions: medit, minoan, good wood spot (wood within 6-8 tiles of TC), good food spot for boats, reveal.

I made 12 villies, 21 boats, 1 pit and 2 docks. Tool at 10, bronze at 13:40. It's not actually bad on paper, but:
-- I was in constant need for wood: never had it enough
-- no resources for army: no wood for scouts, no food for tool army: I had to wait over 1 min before I got enough food to bronze

I could not allocate villies for gold because they had to get wood for bronze buildings. I had about 800 extra food when bronzed, but they were of no use: I dont need a tool army at that point, and I dont have a gold to build a bronze one. I could use it just for villie boom in bronze, nothing else.

Bottom line: I am not going to use this strategy. I admit that resources can be managed more properly and that with some tuning you can get 9:30 tool and 13:00 bronze but you are *absolutely* defensless. You cannot afford scout ships and you cannot afford tool army neither for attack nor for defense, you dont have gold to build bronze army fast, and you do not have enough wood to build goverment center and another TC to do fast villie boom.

Regards.

Hmm, that's odd. There must be some trick to the resource management, because I used this strat hundreds of times in AoE with excellent results.
 
By about 14:00 I had 40 compies out, 20 more on the way.
 
I usually build a house, then the pit, and build the 2nd house only *after* the dock is built. Also, after the storage pit is made I use only 1 dedicated builder and the rest stay on wood.
 
The very early part is probably very important, so you can get food coming in again earlier to make villies 8-12 and get extra wood. The sooner you get that first dock up, the sooner you can make FBs and get food, so that's why I keep the 30w from the 2nd house. Also, even at its best yes this strat is very tight on wood. I stop producing FBs as soon as I hit tool, otherwise I don't have enough wood for other things.
 
Although this strat is very tight, with some micromanagement you can get the bronze time down to a standard 12 mins, with enough resources to make a serious bronze army.
 
Another thing you may want to try, is to build to 14 villies in stone. You'll have a bit more wood, so it'll be easier in tool.
 
It's a tricky strat, so don't get discouraged. It took me at least a week of regular play to get it right. Keep posting your results and problems, I'll help as much as I can.

quote:

---

By 14:00 I had 40 compies out.

---

BS. You wouldn't even have had composites researched by then.

Also can you please tell me how the heck you are going to build 40 compies with only 12 villagers, because you aren't going to have any fbs after I kill them all with bad boats.

quote:

---

I usually house-pit-house

---

Yes this is the standard SP first build order, but no one is stupid enough to go with only 12 villagers, because it doesn't work. As vmay says you barely have enough wood to bronze, forget about defending your fbs.

quote:

---

I stop producing fbs as soon as I hit tool

---

I hope you're not implying you're making boats DURING the tool transition...

quote:

---

You might want to try 14 villagers...

---

Actually you can go with 20 and not be too much slower.

quote:

---

I used this strat in AoE hundreds of times with excellent results

---

What map are you playing? I don't remember any AoE map that consistently had enough fish to go to tool and bronze from. Coastal is the only one that comes close, but on coastal Assy and Yam gets 10:xx bronze times because of the amt of sf.

I'm gonna rain on my own parade for a minute. After Popov basically said I was a dumb rook idiot, and that he could outboom minoan by doing a granary start as Shang I tried it. I hate to be a person to agree with someone just to agree - but he is right.

I have been playing Shang now for 4 days. They can outboom a Minoan pit start any day of the week. I am getting incredibe villa numbers (50+) and still have wood for a navy, hit Tool button around 10:00-10:30 and Bronze under 16 mins -- easy.

Difference is in Bronze I now throw down insane numbers of Archery Ranges (6-8 once sea is won) and boom from them for the rest of the game ---which isn't long. This is done as I boom villas from 3-4 T.C.s until I have 100-110 villas.

RomanGladius:
Look, I beat a supposedly "expert" assy player in AoE 2 weeks ago with this strat, even though I'm insanely out of practice. Yes, we even had a boat war in tool, and my 12 villies econ fought his 20 villie econ to a draw until iron, then I gained ground very fast with triremes. Anyway, most players in AoE don't even build FBs nevermind warboats.
 
Yes, I'm making FBs before and during the tool transition. I'm certainly not making villies, so how else am I going to increase my econ while tooling?
 
In AoE, I had/have enough wood to bronze and/or defend my FBs. Unless the assy gets off the berries and goes all out for wood, I can still bronze fast enough to greet his CAs with compies. If he does go all out, he's not going to bronze fast either and my woodcutting power is growing faster than his. (1/12 > 1/20)
 
Going with 20 would slow down my tool time by 2:40, which would slow my bronze by nearly as much, and assy would have CAs in my town before I can get compies.
 
Yes I was playing coastal, and no yassy doesn't bronze in 10 mins. Maybe it's possible, but what I've seen is about 14 mins among good players, sometimes 13 mins if they had a lot of SF.
 
So, let's sum it up:
1. If you don't have compies before the CAs reach you (14:30-15:00), you're dead.
2. Few people get into boat wars, and assy has no naval bonuses anyway, so your FBs are pretty safe with a minimal navy.
3. Many villies with a pit start slows down your tool time, which in turn slows down your bronze time. A granary start produces a faster tool, but less early FBs so less food, and a later bronze time.
4. Compies defeat CAs, and minoan has the best ones. They also happen to have a great boat bonus, which I use as much as possible.
 
So, this strat is effective vs AoE assy, which is what it was designed for. However, considering people play minoan or hittite in RoR, I agree it would be difficult at best to beat the granary-first overboom with it. I haven't seen many other suggestions, though.

wedsaz,

You need to be more moderate in your exaggerations.
Think: 40 compies == 1600 food + 800 gold. Why not to start iron then? Imagine: iron in 15:00, and start pumping cats and helos from all those siege buildings you build instead of archeries. You will have 20 cats + 40 helos by 17:10 -- imagine that! And all that with just 12 villies ....

No, seriously, I agree that 12 villies / 20 fbs can make bronze 12:00, but it will be wasted by 35 villies / 15 fbs and 15:00 bronze economy easily in real game. You will need to spend 10 more minutes to recover from a such fast start.

Of course, that's just my speculative opinion. I am too lazy to check this strat further especially when I don't believe it's valid. As I said before granary -> pit -> dock boom is appropriate for most setings (might not be the best, but does give decent games) and I play it most. I do fast bronze -- fast attack in the 2-3 shore fish / wood pit case only, and I do some tool rushes occasionally.

I just re-read the original Blitzkreig's post and it makes more sense -- he'll probably have 20 real villies and lots of fbs, which seems more stable. I guess I'll try that.

Also, wedsaz, it looks like you do talk about AOE and everybody else here talks about ROR. My opinion and experience is that because of huge assy bonuses in AOE you cant beat a good assy player. If you can it means your opponent is not good . ROR is more balanced in this sence.

Regards