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picking a proper starting woodline and properly positioning storehouses and other buildings is vital for optimal economy growth and security. proper woodline(s) management is vital for proper men and women positioning early,mid and late game. 1.everything about first 0-5 min. 2.middgame(after first few min) to till u reach p3. 3.endgame(after p3) 1.to start with your first woodline will significantly impact your economy and security. usually you will want to pick a patch of wood around the border instead of opting for placing your first storehouse near cc wood but exceptions apply.ill note thoes later. prioritize following factors listed from most important first: 1.how close the wood patch is to your cc 2.the size of the wood patch 3.the position of the wood patch 4.i forgot something while scrolling up to add hope i remember. 5.properly rotate and position the storehouse to be close to as many trees on the surface as possible. now of course you must pay attention to all 3 of these factors and alot of point 3 is better than a slight bit of point 1 but the significance based listing still applies. woodline.png shows several options. here based on 6 total options including the cc wood option 1 is the best as it is the closest to the cc and has a large amount of wood. its most important to pick a woodline that is as close to cc as possible.while these factors may not cause significant difference to less expirienced players its best to learn the most optimal ways from the begining.closer the woodline is to cc the less distance your units will have to walk to security if you get rushed and choose to retreat.many times if you pick the incorrect woodline you lose by default if you get cavrushed assuming both sides play without making any errors you just wont have the time to reach security. i recomend placing house(s) next to but not in the line the new spawned units have to walk form cc to the wood.if you were to place it on the line you would hurt your eco by hindering your units from quickly going to the woodline.also do place the houses within your cc arrow range so that if the enemy tries taking the houses your cc will damage their units.if this happens also consider trying to garrison the house under threat with women but only if enemy units are that of a low range type and only if your women can safely garrison.you place your houses like this so that you can do the garrisson>ungarrison trick with wood women if enemy rushes to decrease the distance you need to travel to cc and to increase the security.also the buildings will block the enemy from taking the shortest route to your women when he is rushing as you can see with the pink start representing enemy rush units and the red line representing the detour they have to take. for a barack you can use it as a blockade same as the upper house in that picture or you can place it above or around the woodline as barack can be a powerful defensive tool.it is quite difficult to take assuming you at least have a small part of the mencount of the enemy rush army.dont know the exact proportions but with barack garison>ungarison trick as a threat enemy will think twice before getting close to your baracks as you can quickly ungarison your units onto the enemy units gaining the advantage in certain scenarios. the size of the wood patch is self explanatory its value is that you can load it with more men and itll last longer before you have to switch lines compared to a smaller wood patch and by this it gives an economy advantage as you have to pay the toll of switching woodlines later than you would have otherwise. the positioning implies that you want to have the woodline as far away form the enemys potential line of travel as possible which basically means you want it at the back.the enemys line of travel is : assuming your enemy is competent:first he will know where your woodline is before atacking you.then he will engage inbetween your cc vision range(larger than attack range ccvision:blue) and your woodline mens vision range(pink) from either side of the 2 circles intercepting. this will allow the enemy to get as close as possible before you see him and to be as close to cutting off your wood units from security as possible. as the enemy will come from his cc the shortest route will be if you have your woodlines on the sides where he can intercept them by just taking a direct line and they are quite close as they are somewhat upfront. the front woodline is slightly better but pretty much the same as enemy has to go around it and to the side which wastes slightly more time as they have to walk around a circle that is slightly larger than your potential vision so they wont get spotted by the rule of thumb of not seeing any of the wood on that line>you cant see them.still these 2 options are near identical. the best one is the back wood as it takes the enemy far longer as the distance is longer and every second counts in 0ad especially in higher level games. last bit for the early positioning is the cc wood.if conditions are abysmal and you have no close woodlines(lets say overlaping the teritory by atleast the width of one 10 pop house) and your cc wood is large enough(atleast 5 trees (1k wood) or more) you might choose to place a storehouse at the start on the cc wood but this is horrible as your cc wood is your lifeline in case you get rushed of secure wood to cut and if you deplete it form the start and get rushed you will have nothing.just remember to keep scouting and stay vigilant if you use up ur cc wood as if you get rushed youll be in a bad position.otherwise as well cc wood storehouse hurts eco as youll ahve to get an another storehosue quite quickly in few min after the few trees near ur cc run out. 2.midgame woodlines. this is where youll most likely start to need second,third and maybe even fourth (if you are really unlucky) patches of wood utilized by your woodcutters. basically you shouldnt overcrowd a woodline as units will need to walk to a single storehouse and if overcrowded will be bumping into eachother ruining efficiency.optimal limit depends on specific civ storehosue size,woodline size and specific wood layout. a good rule of thumb is to literally never put more than 30 units on a single woodline or atleast depositing on a single storehouse. its best to start a new woodline after 20-25 units are on the first one.this may vary mainly depending on woodline size but also on storehouse size. when picking a second woodline make sure to place it with a path in mind. both woodliners must as game progresses emigrate to the front slowly but surely as you want your units as close to the enemy as possible during the late game for a variety of reasons.for example in this case: if your first woodline 1 is at the back you wanna imagine future migration paths forboth woodlines.had you placed your second storehosue closest to the first one the first line would have to walk longer to a nearest lone and this is especially bad if your first woodline isnt at the back and you block the front adjacent line forcing ur first line to move back upon exausting the wood patch.but i wont draw that i just wanna finish at this point. also make sure to have proper map awareness and secure the awareness of the p3 woodlines by patrolling and placing watch towers not to get denied proper woodline positionging late game (see the late game section for more) this is especially important against colony civs as they can very quickly build leaving you little time to prevent and this is one of the reasons you must have front placed men even during a large part of the middle game so they reach intime to defend you phase 3 reachable woodlines,place baracks at the front not the back at this stage. also dont be afraid ot get baskets if you have overcrowded woodlines and no better options. 600 res is often worth it to reduce the walktime.im gonna guess that you can place proportionally more units so if max was 30 and u boosted capacity by 50% u can place 45. 3.endgame at this point the relevance of mapcontroll skyrockets as you are going through woodlines like one of thoes advanced deforestation machines.you have alot of woodcutters and the 50% efficiency upgrade so you can easily run out of not only properly positioned wood(where placing men is good as if enemy atacks you an respond well where your men arent out of line of defending your key points cc,baracks,caslte ect/) anyway at this point you wanan make sure that you will have proper woodlines by also patroll and outposts so enemy wont palce a civic building or tower your woodlines.you can ofcourse do these thigns to hurt your opponent as well.here its a good idea to have some units preferably largely women for total eco viability as back then it wouldve cost far less to get women and now you can send most of your men to atack instead of having men cut wood while other men fight or having to move women from farms.anyway its a good idea to have a group of units cutting wood from the back,out of position as this boosts your total wood avalibility by you spending less of the well positioned wood and as this little group consisting partly of women being out of position wont hurt your security in any significant manner. if you see that in the future you wont have optimal woodlines either reach for some by palcing buildings on the edge and building to the woodline over time or place a civic building if you think thats the right move.most importantly you must decide and notice in advance as if you run out when the time comes withotu any prep you will be in a bad position disadvantaged by having either no woodline or a bad one at the back.and when enemey atacks your units wont make it in time and youll lose :p. hope this helps heres my donation adresses bitcoin- bc1qhp8xa956p2veyd0mmf328tp2rmmuuvez5cnxlz monero - 84iSSAx1H6mWG7z49sgcBe7ZWfLHoQp4TCMcpnq94KZpGPKqRehMZ8LeKMpADRaiCEMSJKmcueLU1HLtPTqu6nDQRQDNU9o