posted 23 October 2003 12:45 PM EDT (US)
I’m just gonna tell you some raiding tactics and I’m not gonna explain about all the other things that are important when raiding. You all know you have to scout well when you’re raiding so there’s no need for me to go on about that. Here’s a short summary though of things you shouldn’t forget while raiding:
-manage economy, keep creating villagers, keep checking for idle villagers
-keep creating military, build some extra military buildings as you econ is expanding
-get economic and military upgrades
-scout, set military gather points, divide your military in several groups
So I assume you have a decent economy and 1 or more groups of RC/hippikons/turmas/etc so now you have to raid. Here’s what you can do.
The idea is simple and probably the most obvious thing to do with 2 groups. Just have 2 groups of cavalry attack 2 different sites (for example his woodies and goldies), but be aware, there’s 1 thing you should keep in mind. Your raid will only be most effective with the right coordination. If there's 4 or more seconds difference between both attacks your opponent will have enough time to react so you must try to attack on 2 spots at the same time. By attacking simultaneously your opponent will have to react to 2 different attacks, when he is not even attacking yet himself. When you control 2 different groups you have to switch between them all the time. That means you shouldn't be focused on one group more than a couple of seconds. This way you will achieve ideal control of 2 (or more) groups at the same time and will it be easier to attack on 2 places at the same time. If one group approaches the spot faster than the other you have to delay them to synchronize both attacks. It requires a little micro from you but you force your opponent to micro too. Plus he’s the one risking to lose villagers, not you. If he’s not paying attention he might even notice one of the attacks too late and you’d be able to kill a whole lot of villagers. If you attack a mining site you can expect it to be well defended the next time you want to attack it. Even though your opponent should not use his troops to guard his villagers all the time instead of attacking you still see it happen very often. Hitting him on a different place is an option, but if you want to attack that gold mine anyway you can sometimes try to fool him. You need only 1 group initially, but you need a 2nd group to be created soon and collected somewhere not far from his gold mine. What you do is attack the gold mine and retreat when his defence army arrives. Now you must fake you want to attack on a different place with your group so there must be another weak spot nearby (wood cutters, hunters, another gold mine). If your opponent does what you want him to do he will have his defence squad follow your initial group to make sure it doesn’t strike succesfully and he will forget about his gold miners. Now have the second raiding party attack them and hopefully kill some vills. If the previous tactic doesn’t work because he keeps his defence squad near his gold miners and you’re determined to attack that spot instead of hitting somewhere else then you still have an option. So far I've never seen anyone else do this but I have found it very succesful. This tactic is very hard to execute well because it requires a lot of micro but it can be extremely annoying to your opponent. Have 2 groups of cavalry on 2 different sides of an enemy gold mine. Approach the mine with one group and retreat before the enemy force is able to deal damage to your group. His army will follow you a little bit when you run away, but he won’t follow you all the way not giving you a chance to attack them. However, there’s always 2 or 3 seconds his miners are left alone and if you’re fast it’s indeed possible to make use of it. Put your second group between his vills and his army and attack the vills so they will run away from his army. When his army is back to defend do the same with the first group. You can repeat this a couple of times, but you can also surprise him by having a third group attack somewhere else. Like I said you need to be able to micro fast and accurate but it’s the most annoying thing that can happen to an aom player, seeing his vills being harrassed while they are well protected. If you’re not able to kill any vills you’re garanteed he has a hard time putting his vills back to work all the time. I’ve also done this tactic with 3 groups on one gold mine and it was a mess for both of us, but his vills were in the middle of it while my vills were somewhere else gathering resources in peace. Many people don’t have more than 2 groups so raiding with more groups will give you a huge advantage, particularly against people who are somewhat defensive (many are). They have 2 groups for raiding but if you send one group of yours to their base they will send back one of theirs with you and keep it close to your group. If you send your second group to the other side of his base he will even send back his second group to watch yours. Now if you have a 3rd group you can attack him wherever he has villagers while both of his groups are somewhere else. Even if your opponent isn’t that defensive you will always have one group more than him so there’s always an unprotected spot where you can strike. Apart from microing several groups this tactic comes along with an extra difficulty, it’s hard to find any more places to attack as you have more groups. If you can’t think of enough places to hit you can attack his buildings as well with one or two of your groups. It may not be hurting his economy but anything is fine as long as you draw his attention. Most of the times he won’t ignore it and send forces to defend. All you need is one more group to hit his villagers while his other groups have been distracted. There's a couple other tactics and many variations but they all have in common being an attempt to hit the opponent's economy on an unexpected place. Whatever you do, make sure your military are doing something all the time, preferably attacking. Doing one of these tactics once or twice during a game won't win you a game. You must do them all the time in order to be succesful. If you still lose your opponent is either a better raider or you forgot about one of the things I mentioned in the beginning of this post (economy etc). I hope you find this information useful and I also hope at least a few people learned something new. Let me know what you think or add some more tactics or discuss btw when i talk about a gold mine, it could also be a lumbersite or hunting party.
Member of NoFx
ESO: NoFx__Cymophane from now on
My website: www.cymophane.tk with Odin recordings and some more
NoFx site: www.nofx.clans.cc
I'm trying to at least.
I agree that psychology matters a lot. Then when I watch the rec game I understand that I could even beat him easily and he had a poor economy etc etc.
