AOE3 Forums

Hey all, new member here and I just thought I'd start my membership by asking help with a problem I seem to have. I'm not new to the AoE series but I am fairly new online RTS play and tactics. Right now I'm using the French with some success in 1v1 games (rushing) but when I play either NR or Treaty games (which I'm fond of) I always seem to get left behind at around age 3 even if I'm playing well. I've been in so many situations where I'll be matching with my allie(s) and opponent(s) and then they'll just explode ahead of me even though I'm still building villagers and upping my econ. I know this is one of those vague nooby questions but I'm just wondering if I'm doing some of the normal pitfalls and what ways I can get out of this stall streak I have.

Thanks for reading...

Hello, and welcome to the AgeComm forums.

 

Since your using French, you get good eco. Try getting the upgrades at the market, on mills and plantations. Use Home City cards to help get troops and resources, as well as upgrades. Get some of the church cards and upgrade your troops from their buildings. Build outposts, walls, fort and more to defend. Get falconets for taking out infantry. Don't stop training villagers till you have around 65...Still continue production, but not as fast, if you wish. At the start of a game, use animals and NOT berry bushes or a MILL. Huntables are much quicker to gather from. Good luck!

 

Add me: Todd_Lang

 

Whats your ESO username? 

my ESO is SergentBash...

 and I do usually start my economy with what you mentioned but for some reason I just seem to run out of steam score wise in age 3 and I'm not sure why...

Right, Ive examined one of ur recent games, and by the looks of it u didnt produce nearly enough villies. With ur first TC, it should be either training villies or aging up all of the time, with no exceptions. The best way to maximise ur villies is during the advance to Fortess (u should have 25-35 coureurs at this point), switch enough villies onto wood to get 600 wood once u have aged (it is a good idea to get 1400 wood if possible, so two mills can be constructed) . Then, immediately use ur explorer to build a TC and send a Covered Wagon ASAP. Then, put about 30-40 on food so u can maintain a constant stream of villagers until u max out. At this point, these villies should be pouring onto mills and plantations, as it wastes too much time at this stage looking for hunts and mines, and berries arent upgradable. It may be advisable to stop villie production on one TC to advance to industrial nice and early, so u can get the two factories quickly. meanwhile, the other two TCs still produce villies. Also...

• Never revolt in a treaty game. With no villagers once the opponent has defeated ur initial army, they can just walk right in and pwn u. Also, colonial militia and gatling guns suck badly.
• Never build up any military until 5 minutes left. All of those wasted resources could be spent on improving ur eco, and thus getting more military units later when u need them.

Just a few things I'd like to point out.

1000 wood card is better than covered wagon.

Chopping wood is better than wasting a shipment on 1000 wood or covered wagon, it just requires good management of your eco to keep booming and poppping up TC (NR 40).

Always grab a tradepost on a trade route if you can.

The first thing you do when hitting 3rd age is start a triple TC boom (depends on Treaty length you're playing on how long you keep this up if its 30 or 40 max those villies).

Use mercantalism so you can send both factories and possibly royal mint or refrigeration the moment you hit 4th age.

A very very very small military (for french a few skirms or maybe some horses) can be useful as it gets you some experience and you can treasure hunt the map faster which means more exp flowing in for eco shipments.

Put up a market while going into 2nd age and get the upgrades.

Your CDB will gather faster the fewer of them are on a mill or plantation (less pathfinding issues). So if playing a longer Treaty lower the CDB per mill/plantation number if you can. 

Eco shipments over military shipments during the treaty period always. Unit upgrades over unit shipments after treaty ends AND after you send all your military.

Don't forget Fencing School and Riding School, those resources go to waste if you can't spend them fast enough.

 

So I'm hoping this helped. 

I dont play treaty avidly, so I didnt know about all of these things. What are pathfinding issues?

yea, thanks for the help although i do still do a lot of the things mentioned, with the small army, factories (i get 2), upgrades, etc etc.... and matt, I've tried several different things just messing around which is why my recent games doesn't say anything about my style (just fyi there). I seem to hit this plateau doing just about anything, including making the max amount of villagers and booming.

GuitarHeroMatt:

I dont play treaty avidly, so I didnt know about all of these things. What are pathfinding issues?

When all your villagers are gathering on a mill/plantaton/farm/whatever there are always times where they'll bump or hit each other for a fraction of a second when moving around completing thier animation. Even though it is a very short when you consider that you'll have 100 villagers or so working on them with (since it's treaty) like 10 upgrades each and the length some games can go on you'll be surprised how many resources you can save over time by spredding out your villagers on them. I usually have either 6 or 7 on each but it's your choice in the end ...  

Lol, thats more of a glitch than a strategy...

It can't be ignored though

is this really true?

is it worth the extra wood spent on mills/plantatinns?