This hasnt failed me in building a good army and a good economy even while defending myself against rushers. Im not an expert, but I consider myself as an intermediate player.
AGE 1
-keep in mind you need about 15-16 vilis before you age.
-at the beginning of the round i send all but one vili hunting on animals, not berries. That one vili will collect the crates. As soon as I have 100 food, i keep qeueing a vili in for production and send him hunting w/ the others.
-build one house with that one vili (evertime you hit a 100 food, qeue another vili) send the vili gained from building that house hunting. Also, try to force the animals towards youre TC while hunting to shave off time.
-Build a market, not another house. yeah its tempting, because you gain an extra villager, but this works better. you should be left w/ 50 wood. research "hunting dogs" if you can (thats why its important to have your explorer collect treasure w/ gold or wood so you can buy this upgrade).
*try to find the "trap beaver" treasure. looks like a fuzzy green treasure w/ hints of yellow and should be really close to your TC.
-after you build all your vilis need to be hunting food. For your first card shipment, send the 2/3 vili card. Take out that "build manor house faster" card, thats such a worthless card.
-as soon as you have 800 food and start aging, leave 6 vilis on food, 1-2 on gold, and the rest on wood.
-buy the "chop logs faster" upgrade at the market right away. Its only 100 food. -the second card is my 4-5 vili card in which i send to collect gold. AGE 2 -try to pump out at least 10 longbowmen and some pikemen to protect yourself from calvary or ottoman rushers. for my third card i send out 6 longbowmen. Longbowmen are critcal in protecting yourself. Mass enough of them if you suspect a rush, even if it meanse sacrificing time to age faster. -when you have like 16 longbowmen, i usally harass the enemy if he shows no sign of a rush. I micro the longbowmen in taking out the enemies vilis. i retreat to my base if he he has a decent counter attack, if not, own his infantry since you get 2 hits to every 1 hit to you. ^^^ AGE 3 -try to focus your economy to get to industrial age. - Food: -Gold: -Wood: Age 4 -My main goal here it to send both factory cards and have them both producing rockets. when im maxed out on men, i make sure I change my factory settings to make sure i have resources that i plan on building w/. Usally, I would set one on food, and the other on gold. This allows me to build plenty of red coat musketeers if my initial attack force disinegrates. -It is imperative that you have your attacking units on like 1, 2, 3 for better micro killing. (crtl + 1-9) I set my calvary on 1, longbowmen or musketeers on 2, rockets on 3. -I usally have like 10 rockets, 50 longbowmen, and 20 calvary as my attack/defensive force. -my infantry is more of a meatshield for my rockets. -calvary for running behind the enemy and killing his artillary. -rockets for killing infantry. youle be surprised how they can eat up 100+ infantry. Once i dominated two armies with this strat. That was because my teamate left early on in the game, but if I didnt have those rockets I would have lost easily to both those armies. on top of that you have longbowmen raining down thier love on them. lol -it is important to try to protect your rockets! gl, hf, pwn some noobs. [This message has been edited by PinoyPower (edited 11-29-2005 @ 00:42 AM).]
-when i get to age 2, i build the outpost that i recieve close to my TC (rushing protection)and build a barracks right away.
Thats to get you started. It varries from here on for me, depending how good my opponent is. This is desirable for me. Keep in mind that this does not work well against those ******* OP french hvy calvary. Havent figured out how to kill good french players.
- send that fort card, kind of keep the fort semi-close to the first tc. build like 4 barracks or 4 stables, behind that fort depending on what kind of units your building. that should not be a problem, after all you have a lot of vilis collecting wood. By having multiple barrack or stables, it helps build a good second army out if you lose your initial forces protecting your fort.
I usally have 10 vilis always hunting for food. 5-10 at a mill. Try to avoid mills early on because you need the wood for your longbowmen. Mills are last resort if you cannot find any animals.
10-15 collecting gold
15-18 collecting wood. This is to mass up on longbowmen. And build houses to get free vilis.