Some observations. - Age of Empires III Heaven Forum

Topic Subject: Some observations.

Jeffrey
Skirmisher
(id: Bosefus zx)

posted 12-01-05 01:50 AM EDT (US)

I would like to make some observations I have made about aoe3 and its strategies so far. I am not proposing this as fact, but rather (as the title and introduction sentence would suggest) my obersvations.

Lets start with the basic strategies: rush, boom, and fast fortress. If you rush against a capable boomer you will lose. If you boom against a fast fortress you will lose. If you fast fortress against a rush you will lose. This is assuming that the players are of equal skill.

Rushing is designed to disrupt economy and win the game without ever getting to age 3 (that is the goal, but not always the case). Sometimes rushes fail and are forced to age three or the rusher is not as committed and goes to age 3. Booming is effective because you have a smaller army designed to counter the rush on defense and most of your resources and home city shipments are economic base so ultimately you can age 3 faster than the rusher and dominate him with your superior units.

A fast fortress is effective against the boom because your age 3 units (or mercs) can destroy defenses and kill villagers very effectively. You sacrifice economy and rush defense for stronger units. I am developing a dutch fast fortress where I can get mercs in ten minutes. Still ironing out the the chinks and flaws, but a detailed post is forthcoming. The fast fortress is beaten by the rush because you generally don't have the defensive ability of boomers. Rushers disrupt your economy and if you get age 3 you won't have the resources to field an effective army against the rusher.

Some Rush Basics:
Here are some basics so you can rush with any civ. Obviously not all civs are meant to rush, but this will give you the ability too.

All you villagers on food untill you can age up. With Dutch you want 4-5 on gold, but the rest on food. How many villagers you actually build depends. Ottomans normally have 8 villagers before they age up. Spanish advance with a low number as well. Russians can go up with 14 and french around 12. British can do 15 or so since they get vills from houses. Germans can get 10-14 with settler wagons. Portuguese can go 12-14. It depends on your strategy, how fast you want to advance, and the units you want to build once colonial. I may be wrong on total counts and there are obviously variations, but the basics again.

All civs normally have time for one card in discovery. You have to decide what it is. I like the 300 food, means you can age up faster. Furior helps a ton, and settler cards have their advantages as well. Call is yours, expirement, see what works best.

You first age 2 card should be military. For ottomans it should be the 5 jannie card. For alot of the civs the 3 hussars (or 5 uhlans or 5 cossacks). That way you can raid fast and possibly kill his forward villager. Other options are pikemen or crossbowmen. I have seen an effective pikemen rush with the spanish where they age up fast and go right for my houses, it sucked. Of course back then I was still doing a 17 settler rush as russians so I don't know how effective it would be against me now.

Keep building your economy and your army. Focus on his settlers, but keep your units alive. Don't fight a battle under tc fire or tower fighter unless you have clear advantage. Attack and retreat, attack and retreat. Keep him guessing and keep massing an army big enough to whipe him out. At one point you may have to back off and age up, but keep the pressure on with small raids. This is the basics.

Basics of booming:

The idea is that you trade military strength for superior economy and then you overrun your enemy with a larger army that you can mass due to your bigger economy. Getting market upgrades and constant villager flow is critical.

At the same time you need some defense, so work for counters. Cav rush, pikemen. Infantry rush, crossbows. Abus guns/grenidiers, cav units. Some may disagree, but I think raiding while you boom is critical to keep his economy steadily weaker. Build towers next to your resource gathers. The idea isn't for your towers to kill units, but rather let you hide your villagers till his army moves on you counter it. Get a big economy focusing on wood and food first, then move to gold and age up. Once up you have an amazing economy and can just run over your opponent with superior age 3 units.

Basics of a fast fortress:

I have little knowledge in this catergory, but I have had limited success with going for a rush age up. Once up build a handful of villagers and focus on food and gold. Use homecity shipments to boost your resources can go up asap. Once up get mercs, the 2 falconents card, or anything else that strikes your fancy. At one point you will want the extra tc card to help improve your weak economy.

I saw an interesting recorded game where an ottoman did a fast fortress. Obviously the opponent suspecting rush and built as such. The ottoman aged up fast and overran him with mercs. It was kind of cool.

A few reminders:

Raid. I think except maybe in the case of the fast fortress you need to raid in regardless of the strategy. Raiding disrupts economy and forces opponents to build counters that may or may not be effective against your main army.

Get trading posts. Not to early, it is a waste of wood, but sometime getting trading posts mean faster homecity shipments and an edge.

Get injuns. Native Americans provide an edge in techonology and some cheap units that don't cost gold.

Scout. Nothing is as critical as good scouting. And continuely scout, be aware of where your enemy expands his economy and builds. This edge means you can effectively raid and dodge fortifications.

Accept all challenges. It is a chance for you to be better. Nothing pisses me off more than when someone is scared off by my high homecity level. This is more a personal thing me telling noobies to accept all challenges so i can beat up on them, but seriously it will improve you game. In AOKH I had an Operation Ladder Champ thing where I spent about a month playing the best players I could find. I lost alot, but then I played my boys and people formerly at my level I dominated.

These are some observations and I may be wrong on some of these accounts. Please, correct me (preferably in a polite manner, but you can be an asshole if you want). Strike up some hearty debate if you want as well. I like you guys, we should be friends.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
-Benjamin Franklin

Author

Replies:

lemuri
Skirmisher

posted 12-02-05 06:39 PM EDT (US) 1 / 12

My limited experience (100 games) has ingrained the habit of using the 4 villies card prior to 5 jans card as first play in colonial as Ottos (and yes, of course you are still rushing). I am convinced of it now. Your rush will suffer far less than your eco would otherwise using the 5 jans

"War does not determine who is right, only who is left" -- B Russell

Miain
Skirmisher

posted 12-02-05 07:02 PM EDT (US) 2 / 12

That extra 30seconds gives away the ottomans ability to advance so quickly,and easily.And gives your opponent the extra time to get their barracks up(or/and outposts built)and get a couple of units out.

hippocrack
Skirmisher

posted 12-02-05 07:36 PM EDT (US) 3 / 12

Miain, A strat you would probably like best

Arguing on the Internet is like competing in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded.

Jeffrey
Skirmisher
(id: Bosefus zx)

posted 12-02-05 08:35 PM EDT (US) 4 / 12

That may be so. I have never played a game AS the ottomans, just against.

What I do know is that the extra time you spend getting the first 5 jannies gives your enemy more time to build a counter army. Of course you could get 5 out of a barracks just as quickly as you could from the homecity it would just take some economic adjustments.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
-Benjamin Franklin

Stophon4
Skirmisher

posted 12-02-05 11:35 PM EDT (US) 5 / 12

My comments in a hopefully a polite manner.

Rush - Only really works well with natives because you can get htem out fast and quicly, russians and ottomans ahve an ok rush, but natives are generally better, especially w/ ottomans.

Boom - Well this strat is very rare really, but only a few civs can do it. Brits can do it, because it is beneficialy for themt to play defensively and turtling in t2 and getting tons of vils out for awsome t3/t2 army. Dutch can do it good because of banks. Portugese can do it, because all they really need is to survive long enough for there economy to overtake the opponents. Other than that, other civs just hsouldn't boom, no beneficial whatsoever.

Fast Fortress - IMHO best strategy, though it depends on strat to strat and civ to civ, but on any given map I like to see that a fast fortress with fast mercs is very hard to stop the first round of mercs from coming out by 8xx, and once there out its very hard to stop them from destroying you.

My opinions.

lemuri
Skirmisher

posted 12-02-05 11:49 PM EDT (US) 6 / 12

i hear u and i played the 5 jans card ad nauseum for 50 games str8. Problem is, you really have to use the tower/gold age-up guy to forward-drop those jans. In which case you screw urself out of that 500 wood that you'll now have to collect...ugh. If you go with the jans and dont use the tower, your slow-ass jans have to march all the way across the map ~ 40 seconds. If you instead use the wood age-up and the four villies, your resources will be huge in comparison and you'll be pumping jannies (AND abus as you now have enough wood for an immediate forward artillery) like nobody's business. But I'm far from an expert, so I advise you to try both playing as Otto against decent opponent so you see what i mean. I owe this to Hippo, otherwise I would've been stuck in a (depressing) rut using that jan card first. You can always play the jans card next, and chances are your rush will still be sustaining (those 4 villies on gold/food amp it up plus the wood you dont have to mess with) and/or you can spawn them at your base if enemy is raiding with cavs

I usually use the 700 wood card after the 4 villies so that all villies but 1-2 can concentrate on food/gold (gather faster than wood) and keep a nice output of jans/abus/grens which dont require wood -- plus you have enough wood for the houses to sustain 50-70 pop during your rush forays and to plop down a mosque and even a market while doing it (and get the hunt and gold gather upgrades which require some wood, in addition to the wood gather upgrade which is a must because that 1200 'free' wood will run out at this time)

This being said, I have yet to try Stophon's NA rush with Ottos, which I'm very anxious to try

"War does not determine who is right, only who is left" -- B Russell

[This message has been edited by lemuri (edited 12-02-2005 @ 11:51 PM).]

Jeffrey
Skirmisher
(id: Bosefus zx)

posted 12-03-05 00:49 AM EDT (US) 7 / 12

Stophon: I would say that the fast fortress is a good strategy, but you sacrifice so much to execute it. You eceonomy is essentially a shell, and if you mercs are repelled then you have lost the game. It works, and works very well, but is far to risky. That is why I cite it as beating a boom, because the boom doesn't have the army to beat the mercs. A rush however hits your economy hard before you get mercs and once you have the mercs a rusher has the army to repell them and win.

Honestly every civ except ottomans can boom because every civ except ottomans has some sort of quality economic bonus lets them do so. I boomed with russians against ottomans. I cite booming as the rush counter and it is. The boom (or turtle) focusses on econ and defense. A well done boom by any civ can beat out the rush.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
-Benjamin Franklin

Joeking14
Skirmisher

posted 12-03-05 04:59 AM EDT (US) 8 / 12

The Ottomans can boom actually, but you have to have a little bit of skill and experience with them.

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Frenchmen
Skirmisher

posted 12-03-05 09:50 AM EDT (US) 9 / 12

Just a couple of things that you might want to add to your post...

About the boom: You might want to also add the fact that when a player is booming, not all boomers will make any defensive units at all within the first few minutes. Usually those resources are dedicated to furthuring(sp?) the boom effort. Usually this type of strategy works well in team games, with one player going total boom, and the other covering for him/her. In the same manner though, i thought it was wise of you to include that some boomers like to have defensive units early on.

Another strategy that you didn't really add to that list was the turtle. While not many do it, it should still be listed in. For that strategy is extremly superior if executed by the right person. Consider the Dutch Offensive Turtle idea that someone ( sorry i can't remember the name...brain fart...) has posted recently.

The turtle strategy in general is THE counter to the rush, though it is not always pulled off effectively. Yes, you are surrendering map countrol. Yes, you are losing access to huntables, natives, and trade. Yes, you are resigning yourself to the mill & plantation. BUT.....you are given the opportunity to strike the enemy without hardly a fear. It is MUCH harder to defend 80% of the map from raids. This strat also gives the turtler the oppertunity to do some "covert" raiding/suicide missions to disrupt the enemys resource collection and harrass them to no end.

Just a couple thoughts...

I apologise if this may have seemed "flamish" to anyone. I did not mean it that way. I'm sorry.

[This message has been edited by Frenchmen (edited 12-03-2005 @ 09:53 AM).]

Jeffrey
Skirmisher
(id: Bosefus zx)

posted 12-03-05 12:42 PM EDT (US) 10 / 12

Well that is true that not all players build a defensive army, but the fashion in which I am citing booming is as a rush defense. You get the counters so you spend less resources defending the rush than your enemy is spending rushing. So those resources saved go into making your economy super.

I think the turtle is bad advice. The good and evil's dutch defensive turtle looks great, but I would of phrased it as a defensive boom just to avoided all the negative connotations that come with turtle. Turtles are in effective in all scenarios because you wasting so many valuable villager seconds building walls and towers. Turtling general uses buildings for defense rather than units. Buildings are worthless on defense. Don't get me wrong, towers are critical, but walling and holing yourself in is not a good strategy. Booming, exanding, and building a defensive army of counters is.

Quote:

The Ottomans can boom actually, but you have to have a little bit of skill and experience with them.

I will believe it when i see it. Even after they get all the settler cards they are still behind the overal in settler production. An ottoman boom is a waste of their talents and not effective.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
-Benjamin Franklin

Frenchmen
Skirmisher

posted 12-03-05 02:26 PM EDT (US) 11 / 12

Quoted from "Jeffrey":

Turtles are in effective in all scenarios because you wasting so many valuable villager seconds building walls and towers.

I wouldn't saythey are inneffective in ALL situations....but, that just me....

Quoted from "Jeffrey":

Turtling general uses buildings for defense rather than units. Buildings are worthless on defense. Don't get me wrong, towers are critical, but walling and holing yourself in is not a good strategy. Booming, exanding, and building a defensive army of counters is.

Let me just say this: I agree with you holeheartedly on the walls. I personally think that walls aren't that effective in MOST situations. They give the person a false sense of security, in which once the walls are breached, they freak out.

Regarding the buildings: this is where the Russians are at their best. They allow you to turtle WITH buildings, AND to make units out of those buildings. It is a very effective strategy in my mind....

Again, i do not mean for my posts to sound flamish. If they do, i apologise, for they were not meant that way.

Jeffrey
Skirmisher
(id: Bosefus zx)

posted 12-03-05 05:11 PM EDT (US) 12 / 12

First off I find you apologizing after each time you post more bothersome than if you were actually flaming me. Just say what you mean, if it is flaming let someone else worry about it. If I am making a total ass of myself call me out for it, you may flame in the process but I will have more respect for you.

Turtle is a concept in Age of Empires as old as as the orignal. And it always involves walls and towers to make you immume to raids. So if building walls is frowned upon so is turtling (by defintion).

You can boom/turtle I suppose with great effectiveness or you can just boom with towers and an army. I find any strategy is horribly flawed if you do not have some sort of defense against early rushes and raids. Whether it is towers, keeping workers near your town center, or having an army, but NOT having some ability to protect your economy will ultimately result in a loss for you. Walls being as ineffective as they are and you "turtle" in any strategy to a certain degree I find the whole concept of turtling outdated. It was obsolete in aok and it still is in aoe3.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
-Benjamin Franklin

[This message has been edited by Jeffrey (edited 12-03-2005 @ 05:13 PM).]

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