Age of Empires Forums

1. The game starts, and everyone says, "gl hf" or something similar. If you notice that one kind of player that is staying completely silent and has picked a laming civ, rush that player as soon as possible. Do not let him boom in hiding and kill everyone lategame.

2. Never make agreements or deals with other players, especially ones that supposedly "keep the peace".

3. Players who complain a lot generally aren't much of a head-on threat. However, they are likely to employ surprise attacks on your factories or other important buildings.

4. Don't bother attacking weak or bad players unless they control a strategic part of the map or are harassing you. Focus on taking out more potent threats first.

5. If facing multiple opponents at once, do not try to convince other players to team up with you, as you will usually only get an opposite response. Instead, make it as inconvenient as possible for your attackers in order to make them look elsewhere.

6. In addition, avoid playing in a FFA match in which multiple players are in the same clan- especially if the host is part of the group. Most likely the clan-mates will gang up on individual players and have a major advantage. Of course, this does not apply if everyone in the game is in the same clan (including you).

7. If someone uses Revolution in a FFA, they are either very good or very bad. Be wary.

8. And finally, in a King of the Hill FFA, if someone deletes the hill, all other players are required by law to destroy the offending player.

Some of this is logical, but I don't know many people that play FFA :S Let alone host the lobbies.

Who knows it may help someone though. The first point is funny... I don't think that's a favorable tip, most people say a word of acknowledgement when there's that starting game set up "lag" at the beginning and at this point some players may have loaded (although clock has not started) while others are still looking at the loading bar.

LordStefanIII:

gs played mostly FFA, I remember him saying.

he most likely meant 1v1 FFA which equals 1v1 unrated. 

Maropolo:

1. The game starts, and everyone says, "gl hf" or something similar. If you notice that one kind of player that is staying completely silent and has picked a laming civ, rush that player as soon as possible. Do not let him boom in hiding and kill everyone lategame.

2. Never make agreements or deals with other players, especially ones that supposedly "keep the peace".

3. Players who complain a lot generally aren't much of a head-on threat. However, they are likely to employ surprise attacks on your factories or other important buildings.

4. Don't bother attacking weak or bad players unless they control a strategic part of the map or are harassing you. Focus on taking out more potent threats first.

5. If facing multiple opponents at once, do not try to convince other players to team up with you, as you will usually only get an opposite response. Instead, make it as inconvenient as possible for your attackers in order to make them look elsewhere.

6. In addition, avoid playing in a FFA match in which multiple players are in the same clan- especially if the host is part of the group. Most likely the clan-mates will gang up on individual players and have a major advantage. Of course, this does not apply if everyone in the game is in the same clan (including you).

7. If someone uses Revolution in a FFA, they are either very good or very bad. Be wary.

8. And finally, in a King of the Hill FFA, if someone deletes the hill, all other players are required by law to destroy the offending player.

9. If Jab is playing kill him before he starts to spam FU gendarmes. 

After the game has started say as few things as possible so that people forget that you are in the game.

Take map control by expanding your base. 

12. Trade Monopoly is a wildcard in FFA games. In some cases, all players will immediately turn on the player attempting such a victory. However, in other cases, some players may be too stupid to try to stop the monopoly, often choosing to attack other players instead. Many FFA games will have the option.

13. Keep an eye on the scores- they tell you which players are present and how powerful they are.

14. Counter aggressive attacks with even more aggressive attacks.

15. If you've got the strength to do so, do whatever it takes to pull booming bystanders into a fight.

16. Make use of cannon ambient sounds. While relatively useless in team games and 1v1, they serve as good indicators of enemy battles and artillery numbers in FFA games. (E.g. if you hear a lot of booming noises, you know that your enemies have a lot of artillery).

17. Researching Blockade WILL draw people to attack you. There's little use in researching it in FFA games anyway.

Grandevous:

Dog box

LordStefanIII:

gs played mostly FFA, I remember him saying.

ive been known to play ffas every once in a while. but i mostly played 1v1s, obviously