Age of Empires Forums

whenever i play and i try to make a big push on the enemy they never work, no matter what civ i use. usually even if im spain i cant make that hard of a push. i always have to go really slowly and wall as i go, etc but when it comes to making the final push in to their base, i just cant do it. Can someone give me some tips on how to be better at being aggresive? also when do u recommend to start pushing the enemy after uve drained them? like drain them 100 points and push or what?

I tried to write a few tips out, but it seems to be too difficult to write and hard to explain... Maybe Milky will help you.

This is a good thread. One of the hardest parts of the game imo is making a successful push.

Army composition is easy. Skirm, Goon, Culv, Mort. But too many times I will have an army and defeat everything they throw at me, move up to attack their base, and they will run around and attack my town walls, fkin lame if you ask me, but I guess it's the way the game is. Theoretically yeah you're supposed to wall the whole map to contain them, but it's just tedious and boring to build walls, imo. It's the main reason that I prefer DM to TR.

i just played a 1hr 45min long game where i was sieging his walls the whole game but couldnt get in. i was brits he germans and neither of us was draining just cuz of the nature of the civs. but it annoys me because i was fighting him for that long and i couldnt get in although i was sieging the whole time. but stephan when do u think the right time to push is? like how many points do u think u should drain someone before pushing?

Well, some civs should always be pushing regardless of score (unless you're drained and need to regroup) but there's no set amount you should drain someone. I usually just base my strat on what the other player does. If he's trying really hard to push, I'll sit back and let him waste res spamming units. If he's playing very defensively, I'll attack but make sure I'm forcing him away from his strategy and don't just let him try to drain me. If he plays a more moderate strat, I'll do whatever my civ is best at in that matchup. So, if I'm playing defensively trying to drain someone, I'll do that until they back off even for just a minute. Doing that means they're either low on resources (in which case you want to attack and keep them low) or realized their strat isn't working and will probably attack in a way that's hard to beat effectively if I give them time.

 

To answer the question about pushing into a base. I used to have a ton of problems with this. The first thing is lots of cannon. Once you're in mortar range of his walls, use 3+ morts to start clearing them, with 6-8 culvs out (depending on how many art he's making) Then you want the rest of your army pop countering whatever he's making, but focus on keeping your cannon alive (and not draining) not so much on pushing his army back. Let your mortars clear out some walls. Then start to push more aggressively once you get a hole in the walls. But still use ranged units, don't switch to melee units yet, one gap in the walls is way to small for them to be effective, this is the mistake that's really easy to make, thinking you're ready to just spam cav/hand inf into one hole in the walls, and it usually results in getting pushed back enough for him to rebuild walls.

Next, you want to keep clearing walls with morts. Just because you have one path through isn't enough, keep taking walls out. This makes it slower and harder to rebuild them later if you get pushed back temporarily, and also gives your melee units space to work. Once you have enough of a gap that there's space to manuever, send melee units in, assuming your civ has good ones. In general, his army is optimized to be fighting behind a wall and he won't have a meatshield, resulting in lots of kills for you, and a chance to get 20 huss in to kill vills. Other than that, kill military buildings, and just counter effectively. A common problem is thinking that the fight is drastically different when you're attacking their base. There are different factors, but he still has the same unit choices available to build, so don't get too far away from what you used to push him that far back.

And a disclaimer to all of this, I'm pretty good at this game, but not as good as several other people here, so if someone like Milky disagrees, he's almost certainly right. I also broke this down very step-by-step, increasing the chances that I made a mistake either in what I do or my explanation of it :P

 EDIT: And I just realized that was entirely about pushing into a base and you wanted something more general for aggression too. Always keep 1-2 morts out whenever you're even considering pushing, 8 pop spend on units that can destroy an entire fb in 30 seconds is well worth it. And maybe use more fb vills? One thing that helps me push is rather than walling all the time, constantly putting more mili buildings down as I push. If it takes 5 seconds instead of 10 for your new wave of huss to reach the fight, its a lot easier to sustain a push. Also, use attack move (don't know if you do) to make sure you don't have 20 pop standing back not helping with the push. A lot of generating a good push is just out countering the opponent, when he loses units, move forward and don't give that ground back. If he's spamming enough that you can't push even if you're killing his units quickly, he'll drain and you'll start pushing as soon as he realizes he's killing his eco.

One other thing is maybe map awareness. If you're having problems with getting flanked whenever you try to push, walls can help, but more importantly, watch the map for where your opponent is trying to build and send cav to kill his vills. So more than spamming walls everywhere, you should ensure you have walls in enough places to have LOS for wherever your opp tries to go, and keep him from setting up in a postion to flank you. If he just sends his army around to the side before attacking, leave half your army back to fight it, you can rebuild them as the fight continues, while the rest kills his fb. You'll win the exchange and take out his fb.

A note on clearing out more then one section of wall, i completely agree. It annoys me so much when my teamates clear the width of 1 gate and then spam flares telling me their wall is open. also if the enemy didnt delete the pillars of their wall you should target the pillars right? since that way it takes down 2 segments at once. and what would u say are the top tier aggressive civs? like civs with the hardest and best push. besides spain, ofc

CANONS!

Are the best thing vs those hard push.  Just seat back and keep your army in a close spot, and your enemy gona drain fast if he dont have culverins and try to push harder with natives+inf+cav. 

So when u gona be agressive remember to make some culvs too

@Jayve, yes, that destroys 2 wall sections instead of one, as the wall "section" (including posts) adjacent to what you attack is damaged at the same rate. Its hard to say which civ overall is best at pushing, german is good, as civs with good melee units tend to have an easier time pushing, because once you get into melee, the fight snowballs pretty well. Dutch can be good at pushing given their higher pop, but you need to manage cannon effectively, and they're not as good overall. Oh, and Iro is at least as good at pushing as Spain (even without great melee units) because of light cannon and their firepit bonuses.

And listen to fuher. You absolutely need culvs because anybody smart will have plenty of art whenever they're behind a wall, and you need to keep your morts alive. 

Secure position.  When you are trying to push into your opponent's base, try to surround him with walls.  in lot of 3v3s, when you are trying to finish your opponent you will get doubled.  That's when it gets the hardest.  All you can do is hope your teammate breaks through in their areas.  On andes you have to get all the native and trade posts and use that to your advantage.  If it ends up being a stalemate build everywhere and try to have vision on map where ever u can.

do u have any tips on when u get doubled?

pray for your teammates.

If youre pushing into ure opponents base and get doubled, move back and micro. and make sure your teammates take advantage of u getting doubled. 

is it even possible to be aggressive as azzies after the first fight? because i just played a game and i got completely smacked although iwas playing againt japs and he was laming...so that might be why

jayve98:

whenever i play and i try to make a big push on the enemy they never work, no matter what civ i use. usually even if im spain i cant make that hard of a push. i always have to go really slowly and wall as i go, etc but when it comes to making the final push in to their base, i just cant do it. Can someone give me some tips on how to be better at being aggresive? also when do u recommend to start pushing the enemy after uve drained them? like drain them 100 points and push or what?

What Thranduil81 said was pretty good...I would just add in that most of the time when someone breaks in on me, it is because a team mate came over to help him.  The defender just has the advantage, so even if an opponent is better, lots of times I can hold them at my town pretty easy.  So if you have someone up against their walls and you are clearly beating them, tell teammates to start building up behind you.  As long as they are not getting beaten themselves, they can stand to give you rather large bursts of army or morts (or whatever their strength is)... this will assuredly get you in team style.  If you are solo... then yeah, just be patient and keep clearing walls.

When your up against their wall, use mortars to finish opening up there wall then send in hussars and kill there villagers

if you're getting doubled and think you can hold then tell your team to push super hard. if you don't think you can hold (as in you will drain too fast) then back up and call for help (extra art is amazing)