"Champion Army" turtling strategy

[Deicide4u]

Works with: Civilizations with strong and diverse champions such as Seleucids or Persians, but can work with any if done correctly.

Requires: Maps with a lot of metal, choke points desirable.

Start normally by focusing on women, but avoid cavalry unless there is a lot of hunt nearby. In that case, get a few, but no more. You'd want to have two houses and a Barracks as soon as possible. Get the first woodcutting upgrade after Barracks. Our goal for now is to reach 80 population before phasing up, so focus on Citizen Soldiers. Your female count should reflect your needs for food, so try to balance out food and wood production.

If the map is small, send a couple of units to build palisade walls near the choke point. Avoid building walls over trees, build them around the trees, as trees don't block movement in this game. Otherwise, wait for the Town phase and send some CS to stone. By now, you should have already gotten the first farming upgrade and you're now in Town phase. Immediately send a couple of units to build stone walls and defense towers over an area where your next Civic Center or Military Colony should be. Your goal in the Town phase is to get hold of as much of metal as you can. Use other resources to train CS and send them to work.

Build a Market, then a Temple in an area between your walls and second Civic Center. Also, build a Forge to get the first pierce armor upgrade (at least). After that, get 750 stone and metal in order to advance to the City phase, use the Market if necessary. By now, you should have around 130-140 workers, 100 of them CS. That's more than enough, since you won't be sending them to battle...at all. You will send only your champions, any siege weapons and a Hero.

You are now in the City phase, and your first priority is to unlock champions or build several structures that train champions. Focus on the diverse unit composition, as most civilizations get only a couple champion units. If you are Sparta, supplement your Spartiates with Skiritai and either Hoplites or Helots, depending on the hero you went for. Your second priority is to build a Fortress next to that wall you've already fortified with towers before. Your third priority is to get siege, but only if your enemy has a Fortress of his own. Start your push when you feel confident, but don't include any CS. The strategy is to keep your economy booming while you force the enemy to idle his CS. If your army gets pushed back, regroup and heal any survivors. If you have extra food, train some healers and include them in your push. Never waste units by pushing Fortresses without siege, or by fighting in tight choke points.

Micro your units during the battle. While you don't have a numerical advantage, this means you can have unconstrained control over how your units behave in a fight. They won't bump over each other or get lost in a crowd, or suffer AoE damage as much. They will maintain perfect formation, too.

Upgrade your units, but focus on first and second armor levels and only one weapon upgrade. You won't have enough metal, unless you completely dominate the map. But, you won't even need them if that's already the case, right?

If you do lose a lot of units, don't panic. You haven't lost any economy, and you still have your walled city to return to. Re-train and move out as soon as possible. Don't let your opponent breathe in the late game, or he will get champions of his own. As you gain more ground, send some CS to build Fortresses and Civic Centers to claim it. Wall them both off. You don't need towers at this point, the stone is better spent building walls. If you haven't got Murder Holes by now, get it. A Fortress is useless without this tech.

Rinse and repeat until you win the game. Hopefully, you made some cool screenshots by now.

If you get rushed before the first wall is complete, don't panic. Your enemy likely rushed you with cavalry, and his only saving grace is to kill your women. If the rush fails, he will be behind, so let that be your motivation to hold. Get the spearmen near your women on farms and he won't do much with spear cavalry. Flank his retreat points with ranged units if he rushed with javelin cavalry. Keep making infantry CS. 

PS: Rome gets special Siege walls that cost wood and can be built in the neutral areas. However, don't try building them there, as your enemy can still capture them if he builds his CC nearby. Spartans don't have strong walls. Use Spartiates as your walls, or train Agis hero to tank damage.

Edited 1 hour ago by Deicide4u
Added tips for rushes, added PS