Rise of the British Empire: A comprehensive guide to the British

by Valckrie

all statistics in TAD 1.01

Foreword

Welcome readers, to my comprehensive guide to the British, which includes everything you need to know about them to become an accomplished British player! I have PR Lieutenant Colonel, 2100~ ELO rating, played over 800 games in vanilla supremacy. The British were my first civilization, and I learnt most of the basics of Age3 gameplay as them.

Overview

The British unique boost is receiving a free settler for every house (manor) built. The cost of a manor house is thus increased from 100 wood to 135 wood. However, taking into account the extra few seconds it takes to build and just 35 wood, a free instant settler is definitely worthwhile. This forms the foundation of the British ability to boom amazingly in the colonial age. Royal guard units the British have are Redcoat Musketeers and King’s Lifeguard Hussars, two of the most commonly used units in the game (musketeer and hussar are in most euro civs). Apart from that, the British have a normal explorer and start of 6 villagers.

Civ Bonus: Building Manor Houses spawns Settlers
Unique unit: Longbowman
Royal guard units: Musketeer & Hussar

Contents

Cards
Units
Settler Allocation & Resource Analysis
General Tips
Strategies & Replays

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Cards



British do not heavily depend on resource cards, because of their great early economy. They tend to survive to mid to late game which means that other civilizations which are powerful in fortress and industrial have units which overpower British. This is the reason why you need upgrade cards. British are great in the way that they have 3 cards that upgrade Muskets and Grenadiers, 3 cards that upgrade all Cavalry, a church card which affects Musket HP, and in TAD an advanced Grenadier card. In Vanilla you won’t be able to include all these, due to limit of 20 cards in deck. However in TAD you have 25 cards, and can easily include additional upgrade cards.

Unique Cards worth mentioning:

Florence Nightingale

Requires level 40 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 2.
Enables all manor houses to slowly heal nearby units.

Yeomen

Requires level 25 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 3.
Increases Longbowman range and line of sight by 4, and enables Guard and Imperial upgrades.

Musketeer and Grenadier Damage

Requires level 10 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 2.
Increases Musketeer and Grenadier all damage actions +15%.

TEAM Musketeer and Grenadier Hitpoints

Requires level 10 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 2.
TEAM increases Musketeer and Grenadier all damage actions +15%. For Indian and Japanese allies, Sepoy and Ashigaru hitpoints are increased. Applies to consulate musketeers too.

Musketeer and Grenadier Combat

Requires level 25 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 3.
Increases Musketeer and Grenadier all damage actions and hitpoints increased by 15%.

Improved Grenades

Requires level 40 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 2.
Grenadiers buildings attack +67% and all damage actions +20%.

TEAM Fast-building houses

Requires level 0 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 1.
TEAM Houses, Manors, Shrines, Villages build 90% faster

Virginia Company

Requires level 10 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 1.
Manors cost 35% cheaper – 88 wood.

Estates

Requires level 10 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 4.
Manors are able to train settlers, but all settlers now train 100% slower.

Royal Decree

Requires level 10 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 2.
Provides Church with unique British improvements:

Age 3 - Black Watch: Costs 1000 food, delivers 8 scottish highlanders, regardless of population, but will take pop once delivered

Age 4 - Rogers Rangers: Costs 2000 gold, delivers 26 rogers rangers (guard skirmishers)

Age 3 - Thin Red Line: Costs free, increases all heavy infantry hitpoits by 10% whilst reducing speed by 25%.

TEAM Cheap Docks

Requires level 10 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 1.
TEAM wood costs for dock and improvements are cheaper. Dock wood cost -25%.

South Sea Bubble
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Requires level 40 Homecity; can be shipped once in age 1.
When this shipment arrives all of your coin is exchanged for a greater amount wood.

Useful Cards (in my opinion) in order of age:









Bad cards:

TC wagon is pointless for British. Why? When you age to fortress you most probably have 40 + settlers. You can easily chop 600 wood for another TC, and most of the time I don’t even put up another one, my constant settler production enables me to get to 80~ settlers relatively quickly anyway, commonly with battles all the time to ensure I keep economic advantage.

Discovery 300 resource cards. Pointless for most civs, 3 settler much better.

Fortress 1000 resource cards. Pointless, you have good eco so send something better. If you must send one of these, 1000 gold is best one because there are less mines on any map than huntables or trees.

Advanced Mill / Plantation. British have a lot of wood, if you are evenly matched with opponent, use some spare wood to guard mines or hunts with towers. This gives you increased map control and resource fields. Even 3 outposts are cheaper than a plantation, so you can “lightly” secure 3 fields.

Age 3 & Age 4 Military Shipments. They are all useless as with most non-ffing civilizations. Only exceptions are 2 falconets in age 3 and rockets in age 4.

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Units

Infantry

Longbowman (1)

HP: 95, Resists 30% Ranged Damage
Train time: 30 seconds
Line of sight: 24
Speed: 4.0
Build / Kill xp: 10
Cost: 60 food, 40 wood

Pikeman (1)

HP: 120, Resists 10% Hand Damage
Train time: 27 seconds
Line of sight: 12
Speed: 5.0
Build / Kill xp: 8
Cost: 40 food, 40 wood

Musketeer (1)

HP: 150, Resists 20% Hand Damage
Train time: 30 seconds
Line of sight: 16
Speed: 4.0
Build / Kill xp: 10
Cost: 75 food, 25 gold

Cavalry

Hussar (2)

HP: 320, Resists 20% Ranged Damage
Train time: 40 seconds
Line of sight: 15
Speed: 6.8
Build / Kill xp: 20
Cost: 120 food, 80 gold

Dragoon (2)

HP: 200, Resists 30% Ranged Damage
Train time: 38 seconds
Line of sight: 15
Speed: 7.3
Build / Kill xp: 18
Cost: 90 food, 90 gold

Artillery



Ships



Miscellaneous



More about units

The Musketeer and Longbow are your main units in colonial age. Pikemen are rather clumsy because they can be sniped at by other LI if the cavalry isn’t attacking you yet. Musketeers, however, are able to shoot back whilst being able to switch to melee mode to effectively destroy cavalry. They also have 30 more health than pikemen, and do 30 damage to all cavalry, compared to 32 damage by pikemen.

I’m not totally sure of the stats of a FU (fully upgraded) imperial Redcoat Musketeer or FU imperia Lifeguard Hussar. Roughly:



Mercenaries





Maximising Efficiency

Longbows deal 21.25 range damage to infantry in TAD, 22.5 to infantry in Vanilla

Muskets deal 23 ranged damage, 20 siege damage, 39 hand damage to cavalry

Hussars deal 30 hand damage

To destroy a barracks (2500hp) it takes 25 musketeers 15 seconds to destroy a barracks. Siege attack has ROF of 3, and if no muskets die during sieging, 500 damage is dealt every 3 seconds, thus 15 seconds deal 2500 damage.

3 hussars kill 1 strelet in 1 strike
4 hussars kill 1 crossbowman in 1 strike
4 hussars kill 1 skirmisher in 1 strike
5 hussars kill 1 abus gun in 1 strike
7 hussars kill 1 falconet in 1 strike

7 musketeers kill 1 musketeer in 1 volley
8 musketeers kill 1 skirmisher in 1 volley
6 musketeers kill 1 pikeman in 1 volley
6 musketeers kill 1 longbowman in 1 volley
6 musketeers kill 1 crossbowman in 1 volley
11 musketeers kill 1 jannisary in 1 volley
6 musketeers kill 1 strelet in 1 volley
7 musketeers kill 1 settler in 1 volley

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Settler Allocation & Resource Analysis

For 5 musketeers 375 food & 125 gold needed.

A settler gathers 0.84 food from huntables every second
A settler gathers 0.60 gold from a mine every second
A musketeer requires 30 seconds to train. Extra units can be added using the queue system
For 125 gold to be gathered in 30 seconds, we need 7 settlers. Explanation: 7 * 0.6 * 30 = 126
For 375 food to be gathered in 30 seconds, we need 15 settlers. Explanation: 15 * 0.84 * 30 = 378

All these are excluding walking times. We can see that we only need double the amount of gold settlers to achieve triple the amount of food in the same time. This is because food gathers faster than gold.

So every 30 seconds, we can train 5 musketeers, but it needs precise timing, because the final 75f and 25g will only arrive roughly 1 second before the batch finishes. Also, to be able to start another batch straight after the previous batch, we need 75f and 25g, which we do not have because we will have to wait a few seconds since we have like 0f and 0g after our last musket was added.

The solution is obvious. We put more settlers on each resource. So let’s say we want constant settler production and constant musketeer production to maximize efficiency. A settler trains in 25 seconds, muskets in 30 seconds. Keep in mind we also need to be able to train another settler and another musket straight after the batch is completed. So roughly, we need 650 (200+450) food and 150 gold every 30 seconds.

For 650 food to be gathered in 30 seconds we need 26 settlers on food.
For 150 gold to be gathered in 30 seconds we need 9 settlers on gold.

This is a total of 35 settlers. So theoretically once we achieve 26 on food and 9 on gold we can direct all new settlers to wood, for constant manor boom. But in early game, this is not the case. Our resources are increased by food treasures, the amount of food we have gathered before our barracks is built, age-up 200 coin or 500 food etc.

Similarly, this can be used to calculate settler allocation for longbowmen. Longbowmen train in 29 seconds and cost 60 food 40 wood. 5 longbows cost 300 food.

For 500 food to be gathered in 29 seconds we need 21 settlers on food.
For 240 wood to be gathered in 29 seconds we need 17 settlers on wood.

This gives a total of 38 settlers. This is more than the musketeer, although their combined cost value is 100, 40 wood gathers much slower than 25 gold. Although this bit of information is useless in most situations because you have to have a dynamic settler allocation, it just might be useful to know.

Wood, the resource the British civilization depend heavily on

Standard wood gather rate is 0.50 wood per second every settler.

First market upgrade (gang saw cost 100f) increases this to 0.55

Second market upgrade (log flume cost 150f 250g) increases this to 0.60

Third market upgrade (circular saw cost 240f 480g) increases this to 0.65

Capital upgrade (deforestation cost 1000f 1000g) increases this to 0.75

HC cards such as Exotic Hardwoods, Lumberyards and Sawmills both increase gather rate by 15%. So you get: current gather rate * 1.15. If you sent both cards, it is basically current gather rate * 1.15 * 1.15. 1.15 squared is 1.3225. Assuming you have fully upgraded wood rate, it would leave you with 0.86 per second (at imperial age after last wood upg), but say if you had no market improvements it would give you 0.66125 per second. However, not many people use this card in normal games and there is good reason not to.

Both cards can be shipped in age 1. However, 3 settlers is much better, because (a) they can be sent to gather food to help you age faster; (b) the wood upgrade card will not be effective till you start gathering wood (in transition obviously). You would also not ship it in age 2, because there are better cards: 5 settler, 700 wood etc.

Manors

A manor house costs 135 wood. As I have discussed earlier, the extra 35 wood and a few seconds more than makes up for a free instant settler. This is why manors can be used to “boom”. Let’s take the scenario that you are building musketeers, which cost no wood.

If you have 6 settlers on wood, you get 3 wood / second. In 45 seconds you end up with 135 wood, enough for a manor house.
If you have 10 settlers on wood, you get 5 wood / second. In 27 seconds you will have enough for a manor house.
If you have 20 settlers on wood, you get 10 wood / second. In 14 seconds you will have enough for a manor house.

Constant settler production is a must for most civilizations. I like to do this as British also, giving me a very good early economy. As mentioned above, once you have 26 on food and 9 on gold for constant musket and settlers, new settlers can go to wood. TC trains settler in 25 seconds, if you have around 12 settlers on wood you could have another settler (manor spawn) in addition to TC trained one in 25 seconds, thus doubling your settler production.

On an ending note to this section, I will share some of my experiences. My advice is that if you are massing longbows (dual barracks late colonial) then have at least 20+ on food, 20+ on wood (if you have reached max houses already then maybe less), and new settlers go to gold. Why gold? Because you need it to age up, for cannons when you do age, and improvements, all for the reason that you don’t suddenly have to gather lots of gold in age 3 because you will have surplus from age 2.

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General Tips

Never clump your manors together. You don’t need to save manor houses, losing them is relatively good because you get another settler for making another manor! However keeping them in a wall / line is a good idea, for blockading early rushes e.g. strelets with horrible siege, or janissaries can be sniped by longbows as they try to infiltrate your base.

Walls should also be utulized. As British you have a lot of wood, don’t be afraid to spend a little amount – each segment costs 5 wood, not a lot. Longbows range should be used so that when enemy is taking down walls, you snipe at them. If cavalry comes, call minutemen. 3 Hussars can do a lot of damage to your 20 longbowmen.

It is best to use 2 or 3 settlers to build any building. For a barracks, 2 settlers take about 25 seconds to build it.

In discovery age with your remaining 65 wood you can take a settler and go to the middle of the map, find a good forward base spot that your opponent will most likely take and plant single wall segments there. Also, you can build a market there if you want. Although walls do not give any LOS in age 1, once in colonial age they can help you identify what your opponent is doing. You could also plant a section at gold mines around the map, hunts aswell, so you know where they are mining. Walls have 3000 hp, and the enemy has no way of stopping you from knowing where their settlers are.

For all native rushes you should scout the native trade post with explorer, and if you judge that your settler can walk there fast enough to be able to trap the explorer inside with a wall box, and then do so. If enemy explore is able to get out after building, that’s still fine as long as units made from TP cant escape. This is especially good for Lakota and Comanche since their siege is bad.

Don’t overboom. You need military as well as a good economy, so the 700 wood shipment can be used for your first batch of longbowmen. Typical card order in colonial age is: 700 wood, 5 settler, 4 settler. Send a military shipment when you need it.

Don’t just make one unit. Good players will adapt to what you are making, so if you make longbows prepare to meet hussars a bit later on. Otto’s do like abus very much, and often do not have enough janissaries to protect them. Hussars will kill abus nicely, providing your longbows target the janissaries first.

Have upgrade cards in your deck, eco and military. 1000 crates are useless for British because they will have a good eco by this time, and almost never FF.

In team games always send 700 wood first, unless you chose to be British even when you are against good rushing civilizations, in which case you should send 6 muskets and 6 lbs to survive. The 700 wood shipment is better than 5 settlers because the 700 wood lets you build 5 manors which spawn 5 settlers, same as 5 settlers, but they give XP so your second shipment arrives faster. It also lets you build your second batch of longbows or put down a stable.

Longbowmen may be a better option to make in team, because you will only have 2 resources to manage. Musketeers are also good because of their team upgrade card. Cavalry will be harder because hussars take 2 population, so you need more houses. Although your houses spawn settlers, they cost 35 wood extra. French are better at doing hussars because their coureurs are 1 population but are equal to 1.25 settlers, thus less population of villagers are really more villagers.

Take water later in the game, taking it at the start isn’t such a great idea. If you are at a better position than your enemies mid-game, then you should send schooners, since you may find that you have shipped all the good cards you have in age 2.

Age with outpost politician, to secure hunts and mines. 500 food can be used sometimes, but most of the time the gold from outpost politician enables you to make your first 10 muskets.

Depending on opponent and start conditions age with 16/17/18 settlers

In NR games send Tudor rose instead of 3 settlers. Staying in colonial and booming to max houses is an option, or going to industrial quickly to use Estates card and having factories. Fishboom is also good since it is no rush.

Longbows have excellent range, walk out of short-range units range/vision and attack again.

Use muskets to melee cavalry, they do a good 33 damage.

Starting base crates for British is 200 f 200 w. You will receive 1 extra random crate (food/coin/wood) every time, but this extra is awarded for your opponent too. You also have a 66% chance of getting another extra crate. This chance is independent of what your opponent gets. On Carolina you get additional resources of [200-300f, 100-300w, 100g] and Hispianola [300-400f, 100w, 100g]

British can be seen as needing more and less economic micro because of more settlers. More micro is needed because of more settlers, so therefore more units. Less micro is needed because the large amount of settlers makes it much more adaptable than civs like Ottoman having only around 15 early on and each of their settler counts.

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Strategies & Replays

Beatnik Joe’s BwKiC
British Musket Sting

Team Game
British colonial vs Dutch 3 bank semi-ff.
British vs Ottoman on Yukon
British vs Ottoman on GP.
British vs French (OP player) on Yucatan
British vs French Semi-FF on Yukon
British rush vs Spain FF on GP
British rush vs French 5 Hussar FF

For more recs, look on the recorded games section in downloads from aoe3h main page. OR AgeSanctuary

Hope my guide helped you and have fun playing British!

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SC2: Valckrie.Incarnate {Add me!}
Fear is only a four-letter word. Why be afraid?

Guides:
BMS | British Guide | BHM | RSFF | Rec Games

[This message has been edited by Valckrie1 (edited 02-17-2009 @ 06:49 AM).]