AOE3 Forums

hello everyone,

         I'm ranked 2nd lieutenant and i play french. I've been beating other 2nd lts rather easily, hence decided to try few matches against 1st lts. Unfortunately I end up losing. Those opponents do complement me on my game and say i'm very good for my 2nd lt rank but the bottom line is i'm not good enough. (I would confess that i do have a weakness i..e.. against ottomans i struggle but leaving that for now...) As i don't have a specific problem i'll share my gameplan with you and brief account of my last game with 1st lt and hope you guys can help me improve on it.

I'm a good boomer. I don't rush or ff but play defensively in the starting.

• I start off with 14 villies (13 against russia) and advance with 400 wood. Simultaneously i send 2-3 villies to start herding, while use my native scout to locate nice treasures.
• I advance not later than 4:45 (since it depends on starting crates and treasures, herds in proximity).I quickly send 4 villies to wood until i have a market up and 50 wood to research faster food production.then i send these to coin.
• In age2, i have barracks up and start creating musks. Usually i send 700 wood card 1st (except against russia = 8xbow 1st).This alongwith 400 wood from advancing helps me have rax, stable, 4 houses, age 2 food production upgrade and age1 coin upgrade. (against russia, instead of stable i have outpost and focus more on wood to get more outpost) 
• Soon. i start creating hussars as well...so i basically use musk+hussar combo. Exception is russia,  where i make musk alone and once i have about 30 i use hc card which lets me make skirms as well in age2. (remember that i'm not considering ottoman opponents right now) .I've learnt to micro well and it gives me edge over other 2nd lts during match. Either the game gets over while i'm in age2 itself or sometimes it goes  in age3 which basically puts game in my favour as french is best for long games.

Now,brief account of my last encounter with 1st lt:

He was also playing french, map gp...I did as mentioned above, got army of musk+hussar. Initially i microed well to take down his xbow+pike. but he soon advanced to age3 while it took me atleast a minute more even with fast advance option, since i'd spend lots of food and coin on army. As he advanced i quickly sent hussars to raid his villies but he had two outpost surrounding his villies and they killed as many hussars as i killed his villies. I started advancing and created few more horses. Then i went straight for his base. Meanwhile he created skirms+dragoons = perfect counter army and i had to retreat. Once in age3 i started creating skirms and few cuirs.But i just couldn't beat his army of skirm+dragoons+2 cannons when he eventually came to attack me. Then GAME OVER.

When i quit i had 46 villies while he had 49 (i probably forgot about my villie production when i was focusing on beating his army in age3). He also told me that skirm+dragoon is best french combo to start with in age3. Is there a way to beat it with any other combo? or should i create the same and let micro decide the victor? .

I often get a remark that i should press more towards their base to get map control. But the problem is if i make fb instead of defensive base, i can't send my musk in time, to protect my villies when his cav raids.If i send few musks to guard my base then meanwhile i won't have army to guard my fb(and 1st lts are pretty fast so can't leave anything ungaurded). With a defensive base i can use the same army to drive away cavs as well as any other attacks. So don't know what to do to have map control.

I've rencently switched from mostly french to mostly port to deal with some of the problems of which you speak. I build my tc often at my fb, allowing me to use an aggressive shipment strategy. I also like the psychological edge you get with ports because when you have so much spatial control, your opponent might be slightly paniky about what to attack.

Something I've learned is that vs. higher rated players, map-conrol and micro are key to winning the game (because it less likely to be decided by the first battle). YOu have to change the way you think to accomplish it. That said, I'm only about your rank anyway, but I also usually beat 2nd lieus in 1v1s, but vs 1sts it is like a different ball game.