Booming = Go slow through the ages and concentrate on your economy by getting upgrades and many vills before advancing. Turtle = Build walls and towers and defend yourself early then in the end turn the tables on him. Rushing = Advance fast and send millitary over asap. Fh = Fast Heroic - Can be preformed by any god but right now is interested in the Isis, Odin, Kronos fh - Excuse me if I forgot some Fm = Fast Mythic - Get to mythical age as fast as possible. I've seen done well with Isis and Zeus. Ft = Fast Titan - Get a titan as fast as possible to beat the enemy under the 15 minute line. Raiding = Sending fast millitary units to the enemy base and killing villagers and sometimes buildings such as houses. Btw. Doesn't have to be in his base. Could be a goldmine or food gathering source or anything outside his base. It is meant to give him a worse economy. KRush = Kronos Rush - Usually advancing way before you are supposed to with 5 villagers. To do this be Kronos and send 5 vills to food. Make the second guy make a house then a temple then put him to food again. Advance with prometheus. When you start advancing send two guys to wood and 2 to gold. Timeshift your temple to his base ( don't let him see it ) Make sure ur tc isn't idle also. Valor ur oracles and make about 5 Prometheus. Timeshift counter barracks to his base and make turmas. Raid him very quick and don't allow him to advance or ruin his eco when he advances. Micro = Micromanagement - Using counters. For example. Send tox to hops and hippokins to tox and hops to hippokins. GRush = Galley Rush ( Longboat rush ) - When you advance switch your food guys to wood. * Build houses around towers - You do not have to do this but it is very helpful and when your eggy or have upgraded towers as a different civ you will kill many more of the enemy warriors when they are attacking because they have to kill the house first then the tower and you will kill 5 more guys then you would have if they are taxmen for example. * Never have idle warriors or soilders watch you fight - Idle warriors means that you are allowing the enemy to expand and have a better economy than you. If you are waiting for warriors to train and have only trained 6 ulfs so far then just raid with those. Then later bring in the 8 more and raid at different spots at the same time confusing the enemy and making he feel choked and then he won't raid you because he'll be afraid your coming to raid him. Soilders watching the fight is very bad. If he is coming to attack you with 30 warriors and u just fight back with 22 and have 8 scattered around the map you will most likely loose the game and possibly loose the game. * Don't go under town center fire - I see many noob loki rushers and other ( god name here ) rushers do this. Player 1 is hades with upgraded towers and sentinal and some tox and the loki player goes straight in to try to kill the tox and has about 22 hersirs slaughtered when he killed about 3 of his tox giving player 1 the advantage and player 1 will most likely win. * Don't be lured out of your millitary standing position - Sometimes in a game where everything is mostly still the enemy will send a axeman over to where your warriors are and then back to his base. Your millitary units will follow him to his fortresses and millitary buildings and u will most likely loose those warriors. To avoid this make the units go in defensive position. * Micro - Which stands for micromangement means to use counters. Suppose you are going with 12 tox, 12 hops, 12 hippokins against 12 tox, 12 hops, 12 hippokins. The only way to beat this is to micro. Make the toxotes attack the hoplites. Have your hippokins come in from behind the tox in back and kill them. Make the hoplites to come in from the sides to the middle to get the hippokins. Try to practice this concept as much as possible. * Speed - Speed is everything in a game of aom. Try to start building ur temple at 3:30 - 4:00 and start advancing at 4:30 or lower. Use the highest scroll speed as possible. Hotkeys are also helpful instead of clicking on the minimap or dragging the mouse to your destination. For example, if you need to use the armory and can't find it just press "r" on the keyboard ( instead of scrollng around for seconds ) if that is the armory hotkey ( it is default - change hotkeys in options ) Also use the minimap to get to places on the map instead of scrolling there as I said above. It will save time and time is everything. * RETREAT! - Don't be afraid to. If you cannot win a battle you might as well save 15 warriors and then heal them at your base. With Odin this is very helpful since his units heal by themselves. If you continue when losing the battle you are helping the enemy more than yourself. * Don't go into a battle you will loose - If you are charging 15 hoplites with 15 hippokins then.. well... just don't!! No doubt he will win. * Adjust for counters - send in a ulf to the enemys base or a raven if your odin or a pegasus if your greek or just anything. See what the enemy is making so when you fighting those 25 hoplites later with your 25 taxmen you may have a chance of winning the game because you will beat his long spent on army. * Run for 5 seconds then take em! - If he has 20 slingers and you have 12 then start going backwards behind your rax and have slingers train in the meantime. When you have more about 15 seconds later then surprise him and you'll have em. If you watch xpert recorded games then u will see this done a lot. * Raid!!! - This is a hard concept for most beginners but when your norse or any other civ just raid the hell outa ur enemy. If you are thor then make ten rc and raid him. There are only so many gold mines and forests on the map. Put something by a gold mine such as a house or wall so u will know when he goes to that mine. Remember. No gold means no warriors and no warriors means your chance for victory. Raiding gives him a awful economy so do it often! * Balance your resources - If you have 30 food, 8000 wood and 504 gold something has got to change. Start sending more guys to food and move some wood guys to food and gold. It is better to have 800 food, gold, and wood than 5000 food and wood and 20 gold. * Build rax AS SOON AS POSSIBLE WHEN YOU ADVANCE - Right when you advance and that thing says classical age make about 4 rax right in front of your town and make a warrior and put it on auto queue so it keeps training. You should not do this if you are booming or turtling. It is a waste of resources. Btw.. Turtling means to wall urself in until you have a very good economy. Rushing is what I said above ( Building rax asap when you advance ) Booming means many things such as these quotes from the forums: "To expand a bit , there are a few ways to boom. 2 Hit classical in a decent time, still build 2 barracks, take a second tc asap (by 6 min) and create vills from both. Make minimal defenses. Get like 50 vills before you start to focus on military. But them spam military buildings. 3 you can even do a 3 tc boom and have 80 vills by 12 min. You just have to be ready and able to defend yourself if necessary. Upgrading towers isnt a bad idea." Thanks Pug * Never be at your pop limit - If you are 35/35 and start making a house then you are wasting time. Usually you should start making the house when you are at 32/35. * START CLAIMING TCs!! - When you claim a towncenter next to the enemy town or even just claim one the enemy gets freaked and starts to choke. You have him exactly where you want him. You have extra population. Start making warriors and outnumber him and destroy him. A good time for claiming tcs is right when you advance or at your pop limit ( 115/115 or 118/118 ) * Spamming - When fighting in a huge battle in late game it is a good idea to spam which means keep sending warriors to that spot over and over and over till the battle changes in your favor. By this I mean when u have like 12 rax in late game and so many resources and ur making 12 warriors every 10 seconds. Don't do this in the beginning of the game or u may risk losing so many resources you may have to resign. * Expand!! - Don't build buildings right next to each other. Expand your empire. Don't build farms around only one town center. Build them around each one. Don't only have 24 gold mines at one mine. Put 8 at 3 different mines. * Treat your forward base as your home base - Build a tc there. Have people gather resources there and set up millitary buildings there. Sorta like a second empire which means more income and population. * Scout around your base - I see most people scout straight out to the enemy. You don't want to do this. With your scout, go around your base over and over clearing more fog each time. Why? Do this so when your first food source is gone you can go to the next huntables. This is also good for scouting out gold for later and relics if your that kind of guy. * Fake him out - If he sees me making ulfs I would immediately switch to rc so when he comes with 20 ta I send my rc above and kill em. * Don't be raided, raid him - There are ways not to be raided - First, raid him. Then he most likely won't raid you because he's afraid he'll be raided. Second, make towers at gathering sites so when raiders come you can shove you gatherers into the towers until help comes. Third, for Atties you can build manors and when raiders come you can hide in the manors. Fourth, Wall ur resources in. This means when you mining gold or anything else you can wall in the gold mine and the villagers. Then while the raiders destroy the wall, help comes. Fifth, keep infantry by the sides of your base so when raiders come u can kill them. Houses = Around Towers Rax = In front of city - In back if being rushed Strongholds = Next to gold mines and in front of city Market = Far away from towncenter for maximum gold income from trade caravans Temple = In front of city - In back if being rushed If you don't choose one god when a noob you will never get better. Go to the god choosing panel and click on each one and read it all. At the end pick the one that interests you most and practice him and find strategys and build orders for him. Also watch expert recorded games of your god and practice that god till ur eyes fall out from staring at the screen so much. Watching your recorded games after you play the game to see what you did wrong is very helpful. Someone went from 1800 to 2000 by doing this. Also watch expert recorded games of your chosen god. Some good places to watch expert recorded games are... That's pretty much all you will probably need in your lifetime.. lol I will be glad to help you. As you read above you can contact me and I will help you. I live in gmt -5 so you can take a guess at when I will be on aom. [This message has been edited by Mythical_King (edited 08-17-2004 @ 10:55 AM).]
Terminology...
* Never have an idle towncenter - Make a villager then click the curved green arrow at the towncenter so each time a vill is trained another will be training without you having to click the villager button again.
1 stay in archaic a bit longer and do an archaic boom, advance later than usual but have a very good econ set up.
* Rock, paper, sissor... SHOOT! - Have one rax autoqueue ta, one autoqueue rc, one autoqueue ulfs, and have the fourth one for upgrades and have your temple autoqueue hersirs and mus. DO the same thing for different civs. It is better to have infantry, archers, and cavalry then just one so if he is coming with you with archers then you can have the other two groups stay back. When the cavalry are done then send the 2 groups in and keep going. Also when fighting in big battles it is better to have rock, paper, sissor rather than just rock or paper or sissor.
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Amory = Back of city
If you look above and think you can see why they should be there. All buildings that produce units in front so they can get to the battle quick and armory in back so it is not harmed and the houses around towers so towers aren't harmed and market far from tcs for max gold income. Try to place buildings like this is games to come.