AOE3 Forums

You may remember reading earlier in the year about my participation in the World Cyber Games (WCG) United States Open tournament in New York. In that tournament, I qualified for the WCG US Final, which was held this past weekend (October 2nd-5th) in Los Angeles. The Age3 tournament featured ten players, including some of the best in the world, Parfait (who finished 2nd at the WCG international Grand Final last year),  _H2O (currently ranked 4th in the world on the Power Rating ladder), HAzArdrOxS (5th), among other top players, including me, Soul_, ReVoLuTioN, and Realn.

The WCG is an international video game competition, this year featuring 14 games. It’s like the Olympics of video games; players qualify to represent their countries and then face off at the international final, this year to be held in Cologne, Germany. Sixteen players will compete in Age3 for prizes of $10,000 (1st), $5,000 (2nd), $2,500 (3rd), and $2,000 worth of products going to the fourth through eight place finishers.

At the WCG US Final, only the top place finisher would advance to the final in Germany, so the stakes were high. The prizes were substantial too, $3,000 for first , $1,500 for second, and $700 for third. The tournament was broken into two stages: group play and the final bracket, in a double elimination format. Five players are placed in each group and in round-robin fashion play all of the other players in their group. The top two finishers from each group advance to the final four to duke it out for the big prizes.

I arrived on Friday morning, along with Raghav (that’s Parfait on ESO), at the tournament venue – the Los Angeles Convention Center, which is across the street from the Staples Center, for you sports fans. We were both eager to find out who else was in our respective groups. With so many really good players in the tournament, drawing a group with other top players could spell an early exit. After finding our way to the tournament area, we found the brackets. Aha! I was placed in a very lucky bracket. The three best players, other than myself, were Soul_, Realn, and ReVoLuTioN. Raghav’s group was, by contrast, a nightmare: in his group were both _H2O and  HAzArdrOxS. One of the top players in the world would not be advancing out of the group round.

As we were looking at the groups, the other Age3 players started to trickle in. As I wrote in my post about the US Open, it’s always cool to meet those in real life whom you know online. Some people, such as Raghav, _H2O (Ryan), Realn (Stephen), allerahk (Amber), I’d met before, and others, HAzArdrOxS (John), Soul_ (James: he’s John’s brother), ReVoLuTioN (Noel), and Jagster (Jesus) were new to me. We all stood around and talked a bit with the referee, David “Mokon” Bond (who did an absolutely fantastic job as a ref), as players in the first group set up for their matches.

I was in that first group and prepared to play Soul_ in my first match. Each match in the group round is a best of three games. To determine the maps – selected from the WCG map pool: Yukon, Saguenay, New England, Siberia, Painted Desert, and Patagonia – a coin is flipped. The player who wins the coin toss picks the first map, the player who loses it picks the second, and the referee picks the third map, if a third game is necessary. Soul_ won the coin toss and chose Siberia. I chose Japan – the one civ that I practiced for the tournament, and probably the best of all the civs for Siberia anyway – and he did too.

One of the biggest keys to playing well in tournaments is to be prepared for the matchups – civilization and map – that you will face. To train for tournaments, I (and I’m by no means alone in doing this) play these matchups as much as possible to get a feel for what is most effective in each situation. In doing this, not only do I know that when I play I’ll be doing one of the best strategies possible, but I won’t have to – in a pressure situation – work out all of the strategy as the game unfolds. Here is a relatively in-depth look at my thinking on the Japan vs. Japan matchup on Siberia, which I developed leading up to the tournament.

The trick to playing this map in a Japan mirror match, as many of you probably know, is to boom as quickly as possible while not falling too far behind in military production that you can’t make a comeback. Once you’ve got your eco nice and big, it’s a game of spamming ashigaru musketeers (from at least two barracks), making decisions about when to attack and when not to, and then making sure your eco is running smoothly.

Setting up that initial boom is trickier than it might seem. You have some crucial decisions to make: what is your card order? Heavenly kami (which reduces shrine cost and boosts shrine gather rate) makes sense as a first card, but what should you send as your second? Four villagers or six hundred wood? When do you start building your military buildings and army? If you build them too early, the military advantage you gain by getting a head start on your opponent will be quickly eclipsed as he will have focused more on eco and therefore will be able to overwhelm you with an even larger army. If you build too late, you won’t be able to catch up to your opponent’s military advantage. These questions, and others (such as when to build a market and what upgrades to get when), are hopefully answered by trial and error in practice before the tournament. After you get your eco up and running, it’s time to spam ashis!

Once you’ve got an army, when to attack? Japan mirrors provide for a unique problem: because both players’ economies are so strong, gaining a slight military advantage isn’t nearly as big a boost as in other matchups. If you fight too close to your enemy’s base, even with a bigger army, you will often lose the battle because his reinforcements will arrive to the fight more quickly than yours. On the other hand, if you’re not regularly attacking your opponent, whether by pushing his base or attacking shrines, you run the risk that he’ll go to the third age for extra ashigaru upgrades. If he manages to do this and you haven’t exercised your military lead (the cost of aging to the third age is roughly equivalent, in villager seconds, to twenty ashigarus), the game is likely lost.

Finally, managing your eco is crucial. You must, playing at a high level, be spending your resources as quickly as they come in. This means that your resource income must match your cost needs. For example, if you’ve got extra gold piling up that you can’t spend (say, because you don’t have enough food to make more ashis) and your opponent is spending his resources as quickly as they come in, his army will soon be bigger than yours. Generally, this balance isn’t too difficult to achieve, but when gold mines or cherry orchards run out and you haven’t anticipated it, your eco can go out of whack and the game will soon be lost.
Will all of these things in mind, I played Soul_ in that first match. I managed my early boom well, better than him, and had an early advantage. I was able to push his base and get his army smaller than mine, but not to the point where I felt safe staying and fighting in his base. I retreated and aged to fortress. He wasn’t able to push me effectively as I aged and my upgraded army soon overwhelmed his. 

For the second game, I picked Saguenay. I assumed that he would play Japan again, and I was confident in my booming/attacking combination for this map. To my surprise, he picked Ottoman! I was seriously thrown off. I hadn’t practiced this matchup and had to think on the spot about what I should do. I scouted him early and identified a fish boom, as he walled up his base and played defensively. I decided that a hard push against a walled base would not be a good idea, so I elected to boom a bit and then go to the third age, where I could perhaps take control of the water and then easily push him over on land, where his economy would not be a strong as mine. Alas, my execution of this plan was not as good as it could have been. I lost the fight on the water, and although I was able to gain a military advantage on land at some points in the game, Soul_’s janissary/abus plus artillery combo was too much for me to handle. I’d recommend checking out the recorded game of that match, it should be an entertaining watch.

The final map, picked by the referee, was New England. Soul_ again played defensively and fish boomed. The game was very close, but ultimately I prevailed. My next match was against Realn. It went much more smoothly, as I won 2-0. Next, I faced ReVoLuTioN, who was the surprise player of the tournament. Currently ranked #60 on the elo 1v1 ladder, and just outside of the top 200 on the Power Ranking ladder, he had surprised Soul_ by winning 2-0 earlier in the group round. He then proceeded to beat me, 2-1, in three very close games, and take first place in our group. I won my last match, against Jagster, 2-0, and advanced out of the group round!  The second group started their play Friday evening, with Parfait squaring off against HAzArdrOxS. Parfait won, 2-0, surprising Hazard by building behind his base in the first game, on New England, and then catching Hazard’s army venturing too deep into his base in the second, on Siberia.

Saturday saw the conclusion of group play and the beginning of the final four round. _H2O cruised through the second group, dropping only one game – to Parfait – and beating Hazard 2-0. It was clear that _H2O was very prepared, executing very strong (that is, well tested and thought out) builds and making very few mistakes. One of his games against Hazard showed, I think, that he had studied Hazard’s previous play and adapted accordingly. Their first match against each other was on Saguenay. Hazard played India and _H2O played Japan. In recently posted recorded games, Hazard had shown a very strong strategy on this map with India, building his Agra fort between the big pond and the smaller pond that often abuts the trade route on that map. He then plays relatively defensively, shipping two caravels into the little pond, and upgrades their range with another card,  further buffing his stranglehold on the middle part of the map.

_H2O’s choices responded to this very well. Knowing that Hazard would not play aggressively (he also scouted as the game went on), he built up a lot of shrines and sent villager cards. Perhaps more importantly, however, he didn’t bother attacking Hazard head-on in the second age, as trying to fight an army (even if it’s a smaller army) next to an Agra fort and two caravels would not end well. Instead, he went to fortress, upgraded army, and when he was ready to attack, circumvented the middle of the map, and therefore Hazard’s defenses, moving straight to his base. This didn’t give _H2O the win right away, but it helped him greatly, giving him space to build his economy and making the most of his army by attacking Hazard where he was weakest.

With the group rounds completed – check out the final standings – the final four was set: 1st in Group A, ReVoLuTioN, against 2nd in Group B, Parfait; and 1st in Group B, _H2O, against second in Group A, me! I played relatively well in two games against _H2O, both Japan against Japan, but he outplayed me and won both. I didn’t see the other match, in which Parfait beat ReVoLuTioN 2-1, again with both players playing Japan. Next up was Parfait against _H2O in the winners bracket. Three relatively close games were played on Siberia, with _H2O prevailing.

Because the final round was double elimination, both ReVoLuTioN and I were still in the hunt not just for third place, but for second or first. Before we got to that, however, one of us had to be knocked out by the other. The last match of the day was an epic one. Our first game, on New England, was almost forty-five minutes long, as we skirmished early, I gained a lead, but then was barely able to hold on to it as the game went on, and only securing the win when I was able to push into his base and defeat his army. The second game was close too, about twenty minutes, on Siberia, as ReVoLuTioN prevailed. The last match was another roughly twenty minute game, and very, very close. The map was Yukon. I gained an early lead but quickly lost it. Things then went back and forth as we both vied for the middle of the map with ashigaru armies, killing each other’s shrines and then being pushed back into our bases as the other rebuilt his shrines, only to be destroyed again. Ultimately, ReVoLuTioN lost the upper hand he had gained by fighting too long near my town, as his generally superior army couldn’t maintain its advantage with my reinforcements coming so quickly. After I was able to turn the tide once again in my favor, I continued to push him, building forward barracks to keep my reinforcements close, and winning the game! I was assured of at least third place and a chance for more. 

I’m sorry to report that the final day, and the final two matches, were rather anti-climactic. I quickly lost two sloppily played games to Parfait, cementing my third place finish, and Parfait was dispatched by _H2O, who played very well in those final two games and took first place, $3,000, and a trip to Germany! You can check out the bracket from the final round here.

Once WCG releases more of the recorded games, I will provide links to them in this post. Pics also to be added soon. : )

Very good. I watched a few games of the previous qualify and I learned a lot but by any chance could you post the demo for the mirror game jp vs jp?

Thanks. 

how long did it take to write all that??

it would take hours for me i dont know my keyboard that good.

deadhanddan:

at the tournaments, would you consider china a poor match up vs japan or india?

Dark_diggle17:

umm, cant some1 play 1 contender, lose and tell the next person his/her strat?

they already know each other's start, and as Milo said, some times they change it

congrats on 3rd Milo (although 1st would have been nice), maybe you can commentate on this years WCG final as well, I say a youtube vid on last years dutch wars WCG final, and I must say you commentated quite well, I expect you there this year Milo

also, any idea who else made it to the finals??

Marlonsm:

Dark_diggle17:

umm, cant some1 play 1 contender, lose and tell the next person his/her strat?

they already know each other's start, and as Milo said, some times they change it

Nubish Japan lamer

vancebla:

Nubish Japan lamer

Everyone there have to play Japan most of the times, if Milo didn't do it too, he'd have a much smaller chance.

and every year's WCG is like that.

All Dutch, All Iro, All Germ...