AOE3 Forums

I'm hoping I can get some help overcoming a "plateau" I seem to have reached.  First, let me start with a little background:

I've been playing consistently for a couple of weeks...  after a hiatus of about 2 years.  I am a PVT level 4, with a win percentage near 30%.  I typically play French in NO RUSH games.

I have reached what appears to be a plateau.  I tend to age properly and develop my econ fairly well.  I typically have my score as high as, or higher than, other players through the first two ages.  Then something happens.  People keep climbing up, and I tend to plateau somewhere between the 500-800 point range.  No matter what I build, what units, what shipments, I seem to get stuck in that range.

What am I doing wrong?  How can I overcome this plateau?  I need to get into the 1000-1200 score range so I can be more competitive.

Thanks!


 

Taken from TRT Forum at http://trtclan.withme.us/french-f33/french-land-complete-strat-t174.htm provided by TomoTanker.

 The French strat is one of the easiest, IMO.

Age 1:
If you start with 100 wood/100 coin, put 3 vills on wood. If you start with 200 wood, put 2 vills wood, 1 vill gold. All vills food, 1 vill gets crates, then builds a house and a market. Build hunt tech. Put the wood/coin vill on food. Spam vills on food till you can age, around 14 vills. Age up with 500 food. While aging, put 8-9 vills coin, 5-6 vills food.

Age 2:
Make sure you age straight away to 3. 2 vills collect the age-up resources.
While aging, put coin vills on wood. Build wood market tech.

Age 3:
Build 3 tc's ASAP. Meanwhile, spam vills on food. When the tc's are done, put wood vills on coin. Make sure you get 10-12 vills on coin for aging.
Now just keep spamming vills on food and also build 10-15 on wood.

Age when you can and only build mills when all the huntables is exhausted. Some people rather do 75 vills on food, and 5 on wood, but i'd like to do 65 on food and 15 on wood, cause then you can actually build a normal base. When i have 65 on food, i can easily get over 100k coin with fur trade, while still having a great base, not like when you only have 5 on wood.

Card Order:
Economic Theory
Refrigetarion
Factory
Factory
Food Cards
Fur Trade, somewhere around here.
Military Cards.

Don't forget to put 10 vills from food to coin, right after you send Fur Trade, since the French need more coin than food. Otherwise, you'll coin will drop faster than your food is coming in, so you will still lose eco.

Hope this helps!! One of the easiest and overpowered civs in the game

from age 3 onward can only be done in the expansions, if not still get 3 tcs as fast as you can, but also balance gold/food vills, and be sure to make 80 vills as fast as you possibly can (never stop making vills in the tc unless you age)

Age 1:

Let's see... this is fairly similar to what I do.  Normally, I take all but one CDB to food and let one CDB pick up crates.  Then one house and if enough wood, market.  Else back to gather wood.  By this time I usually get my first card, and request 3 more CDB's.  By the time the 3 CDB's arrive, I've got 1-2 more CDB's I created, and move all but one of them from wood to food.  The one remaining builds market and/or second house.  I keep generating CDB's until I have about 16-17 (since it's a no rush game), and then I usually age up as soon as I get to 800 food, selecting the 400 WOOD politician.

Age 2:

Not really sure what you mean.  But I spend Age 2 creating Church, and other econ buildings.  I usually wait until I have about 25-30 CDB to age up to 3.  I usually end up with about 12 on food, 7-8 on wood and 7-8 on gold.  Then I select my politician and build up. I continue hunting throughout. 

Age 3:

This might be the LARGEST difference.  I don't usually build a second/third TC until age 4/5.  I didn't realize this could generate better econ/scores.  I usually have about 15 on gold at this time, in addition to about 18 on food and about 10 on wood.

CARDS are also a huge difference.  I don't recall my cards off hand... but I don't have the economic theory one or the refrigeration.  I used to have fur trade but I discontinued it, as I didn't understand its purpose very well.  I usually do send 2 fort cards, 2-3 mercenaries, and team improvement cards whenever possible.  I'm beginning to wonder if that is a reasonable selection.  I don't really get a chance to use all the cards in the NR 30 and 40 games.  So the fort seems almost a counterproductive card.

tank_:

from age 3 onward can only be done in the expansions, if not still get 3 tcs as fast as you can, but also balance gold/food vills, and be sure to make 80 vills as fast as you possibly can (never stop making vills in the tc unless you age)

 

My bad when I posted this I saw the message under the unanswered column and forgot about the Vanilla setbacks. 

So.. how exactly does the 3 TC strategy help?  I know it uses 600 wood per...  so how am I using the 1200 wood better by doing this than... say building more barracks and/or stables?

more TCs=faster settlers=more resources. always max out vills, and if you want a lame way to win every time, when you get to late game, spam inperial gendarmes

I sounds like you stop making villies at a certain point in the game and this is a big no no until you have maxed out your villie count. The problem with an imperial gendarmes spam is that a combo of pikes and dragoons will counter this, plus you need a very very very strong eco to continue to spam imperial gendarmes.

OK...  so I played another game yesterday...  and I got up to about 1000 points.

Changes I made included adding the second and third town centers, villager count at about 60.  I ended up with a fairly decent econ.  and somehow I even had a huge surplus of wood, which leads me to believe more vils to gold and food and less to wood for next game.

I still have to work on my cards.  I couldn't find one of the cards that someone mentioned.  But thanks for the help so far.
 

I think since this is my strat... i'll give a little help... Your question about the tc's. Already answered -> More tc's -> faster vill production -> more resources.

Your cards, from what i've read... Lose the mercenary card, lose the 2 Forts, very useless in Treaty games. Always use ALL the econ cards... except 15% wood, cause you can get a 20% card in age 1 too. My nickname ingame is Tomo_Tanker. I suggest you just take a look at my deck(s) or at some other players.. but i think my deck is fine. I didn't know you play on vanilla... so Fur Trade is not an option. Just never think about it again. Always max vills to 80. Never just 60. If you still have any questions, just ask ;)

at the very end i would think 35 food 15 wood 30 gold plus factories on gold, move some wood vills to food/gold as the game moves on and you accumulate food/gold. I don't play treaty at all and rarely does a rush game get to late ages like that, and if it does I usually have better score, eco, and military than the opponent so I don't
really care about balancing vills.