Placing your Military Buildings (“Map Control”)
I have yet to see anyone The obvious danger of a forward base is that your barracks and units can't fall back to the protection of the TC and your towers. This is the danger of rushing. What you gain is temporary map control of the area that you placed your base in. The key is holding it. Since the opponent has his TC and possible towers (if upgraded) he has an advantage. Your advantage is that you are hopefully disrupting his villagers, thereby slowing him from creating enough units to stop you. Theoretically, if he can create as many units as you (basically – I wont get into discussing how units fare vs each other etc) he should win, as he has his TC and possibly towers to add additional damage to your units. If you can contain the opponent long enough, though, he will eventually run out of resources because he will eventually have to leave the safety of his base to gather more (especially gold). With the way AOM and AOMTT are currently setup, it is easier to defend a base than it is to rush one. Whereas a few months ago (and when I was at lower levels) you saw almost everyone building their initial base in the middle of the map, or right next to the opponents base, you don’t see that as often anymore. The Kronos rush is probably the only rush currently in favor, and it is really based on Turmas (they can raid/disrupt econ through trees, and over buildings…), the free myth unit, and abusing 3 semi free units in Archaic (oracles). For a civ that has to really pay for all of the units attacking, it is harder. The closer your base is to their TC (if you do plan on rushing) the faster you will get 4 –6 units together to begin raiding/attacking. If you base is near your TC, then you run into the theory above – instead of the 6th unit (or whatever you feel is enough units to begin raiding/rushing) being created and instantly being ready to raid, it has to cross the map to join the rest of the units. These 20 seconds lets the opponent create more defenders, and even 2 units more could tip the balance in the opponents favor. Again your reinforcements are going to take longer to arrive. This is why ‘raiding’ is different than rushing. With raiding you don’t want to lose units (as reinforcements are vitural ‘miles’ away) you just want to harass units. If you try to really attack him, the fact that your barracks are at home is a big disadvantage. Putting barracks near your opponent does allow you to raid or rush very quickly, but is hard to pull off as you open yourself to raiding (at home) and don’t have the extra benefit of having towers and your TC to hold your base. So this isn’t really a guide on how to play, and whether or not to rush its just an explanation on how your military building placement affects your gameplay. If you keep the above statements in mind and watch a rec game you will see that if each person builds in their home base initially, they are both asserting map control in their base (your initial TC and Towers provide some map control, the barracks add to it by making reinforcements immediately available. Now many times you will see newer players have a big army just outside of an opponents base and not build barracks in that spot. Personally 3 barracks will provide more map control than a fortress/midgol (depending on the civ, greek fortresses and midgols provide a lot, Hill Forts do not, due to their respective strengths) and I like to drop at least 3 barracks and a Fort myself. If you don’t make barracks where the battle will be, then your reinforcements are going to have to wait to travel the map etc etc. This also brings up the biggest mistake I have seen new players make. One player will attack, and then retreat when the opponent shows his army, the defending player, thinking it is weakness, follows and tries to counter-attack. The problem is that it is like your army and barracks are tied together with an invisible tether and by following the opponent into his territory, you lengthen your tether (your ‘supply’ line), and shorten his. (another side note of following a retreating opponent, he is making reinforcements for his army and shortening the time it takes for his reinforcements to get to his army. Even if you attack him right away and are chasing with a superior force, just the 15 seconds of chasing him can get him a few units made, depending on how many military buildings he has in his base) So my point is – building helps you control that area of a map. Having barracks in an area ready to make units is more important that 2 towers in that spot, as the two towers are just 2 units firing arrows, where the 3 barracks can have 6 units out in 30-40 seconds depending on the type of unit you are making. The most important part is that when you get your army there to defend, that you have a quick supply of reinforcements. I wrote this because I just beat a 1750 (AOM) player Odin vs Odin in AOMTT rated play, and he lost due to having less villagers than I did and that he tried to put 3 barracks right in front of my base at about the 9 minute mark. I had 6 or so barracks at home. He had the edge initially, and even went heroic (I didn’t ever hit heroic) but couldn’t hold his forward base. Even with Walking Woods and his army. Once I took it down, he sent his army to attack *again*, even though he only had one longhouse left on the front. He conceded right after that as he ended up with no army and hadn’t hurt my base at all. The guy was good, have to give him props, in case he reads this. Hope this helps people starting out. I try not to make ‘do this’ statements as its tough to state anything as fact, when most of the game is theory, and there are so many factors involved that no advice or statement is ever completely right. I am just hoping this helps some new players understand some theories on how things work, and they can make their own conclusions. We need 5000 people on ESO at all times (that’s the dream) and we need to help new players from getting frustrated and quitting to do that. Proud Member of the Orion Clan! "makes sense because if your running a race against a monkey and you die from a heart attack i don't think it should be a draw. the monkey actaully wins by default" - Sirgrayhorn [This message has been edited by Zorn_Ot (edited 11-10-2003 @ 06:29 PM).]
ESO: Orion_Zorn