Newbie Questions - I can't beat Easy AI as Romans

[Satevis]

I actually have trouble with Easy AI despite playing other RTS games. My point of reference is Zero-K (Total Annihilation) and War for the Overworld (Dungeon Keeper). I'm a mid-ranked player for ZK's online multiplayer, but it's an extremely different RTS.

So far I'm trying to figure...

1. What is the advantage if any of raising livestock in a Corral vs building more Fields?

2. If I cancel or destroy a building, how much of the cost is recovered?

3. How much better do my units perform given the different formations?

4. How does the Trader unit affect prices on the Market?

I didn't spend any effort building walls while playing as Gauls or Britons.

5. Are walls important for defensive play as Romans?

6. How do I handle extremely long ranged archers (vs Seleucid?)?

Edited May 11 by Satevis

[Gurken Khan]

This game does have a learning curve, don't give up! You could reduce the game speed to ease you into this difficulty. All I'm gonna say is AFAIK, personal opinion and not thoroughly calculated.

5 hours ago, Satevis said:

1. What is the advantage if any of raising livestock in a Corral vs building more Fields?

None. The investment slows my progress and it's additional micro. (Sometimes I keep cattle in my corrals to produce a trickle of food, but I don't know if it's actually worth the effort.)

5 hours ago, Satevis said:

2. If I cancel or destroy a building, how much of the cost is recovered?

The part not build. (Workers didn't start yet = full refund, deleting existing building = all is lost.)

5 hours ago, Satevis said:

3. How much better do my units perform given the different formations?

I hate formations with a passion so I wouldn't know.

5 hours ago, Satevis said:

4. How does the Trader unit affect prices on the Market?

Not at all; only bartering from the players affect the prices.

5 hours ago, Satevis said:

5. Are walls important for defensive play as Romans?

I believe the consensus is that walls largely aren't worth the effort.

5 hours ago, Satevis said:

6. How do I handle extremely long ranged archers (vs Seleucid?)?

Melee cav?

[Deicide4u]

8 hours ago, Satevis said:

What is the advantage if any of raising livestock in a Corral vs building more Fields?

As said, none. Don't even bother, unless you have extreme excess food in the late game. In which case, there is no reason to improve the income, anyway. 

8 hours ago, Satevis said:

How much better do my units perform given the different formations?

Your units can assume better positioning, especially ranged units. It reduces the empty walk time for archers to get into position. It also allows you to better micro the army. Otherwise, no other benefits and formations don't give bonuses in the base game. 

8 hours ago, Satevis said:

Are walls important for defensive play as Romans?

Walls can delay the AI, but they are not good against other players. There are some bugs that need to be fixed, mostly around wall snapping. 

Just practice and try to get familiar with the game. No shame in playing against Sandbox AI in your first matches. 

Edited Monday at 14:38 by Deicide4u
Typo

[guerringuerrin]

Hi, @Satevis. Welcome to 0 A.D.! I'll try to answer some of your questions.:

1. What is the advantage, if any, of raising livestock in a Corral vs building more Fields?

Economically, Fields are still generally more efficient than Corrals. However, Corrals have a harder-to-measure advantage: they allow you to replace some Civilians with Cavalry, since cavalry gathers food faster while also giving you defensive units in your base that can help protect against raids. In addition, you can garrison livestock inside Corrals and get a small constant food trickle.

At competitive level, the standard is usually around 45 to 60 Civilians distributed across 9 to 12 Fields. A strategy that is becoming increasingly common is replacing around 20–25 of those Civilians with Cavalry.

 

3. How much better do my units perform given the different formations?

The repositioning that @Deicide4u  mentioned is key. An army deployed in a proper formation will have a much better chance of winning than a disorganized army attacking in a straight line or with ranged units (which are weaker) exposed on the front line. Units also run while repositioning, which gives you a mobility advantage that can be enormous if used correctly. In addition, units in formation can overlap slightly more. This allows melee units to attack enemies without needing to move around to find an empty spot.

 

4. How does the Trader unit affect prices on the Market?

Traders are only used to establish trade routes between Markets. Every time a Trader reaches or leaves its destination, you receive some amount of the resource you selected. They are especially useful on maps where certain resources are scarce.

 

5. Are walls important for defensive play as Romans?

Walls are not used very often because of their weakness and high cost. If used properly they can still help with defense, although many players consider them too weak at the moment.

 

6. How do I handle extremely long ranged archers (vs Seleucid?)?

Spear cavalry is probably the best option. They are faster and have a damage multiplier against cavalry. Gaul Naked Fanatics are also an excellent option against all kinds of cavalry.

 

As for struggling against the AI, I recommend watching this video. It explains the basics of economy management while also giving many valuable insights that can help you improve your gameplay.

ValhirAnt is one of the best — if not the best — 0 A.D. players. I highly recommend watching many of his videos, from beginner guides on beating the AI to highly competitive 1v1 matches against top players.

 

 

[Gurken Khan]

34 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

6. How do I handle extremely long ranged archers (vs Seleucid?)?

Spear cavalry is probably the best option. They are faster and have a damage multiplier against cavalry. Gaul Naked Fanatics are also an excellent option against all kinds of cavalry.

Methinks you got units mixed up.

[Deicide4u]

11 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

Methinks you got units mixed up.

Seleucids have long ranged cavalry archers, but the AI doesn't train many of them.

However, they do train a lot of infantry archer mercenaries.

Best way to counter them is melee cavalry, yes. Make sure you flank the archers from a side where their spearmen and pikemen won't touch you. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

18 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

Seleucids have long ranged cavalry archers, but the AI doesn't train many of them.

Methinks it would be interesting if the AI mixed it up a bit and tried different mixes of units in its attacks more than it currently does. Perhaps we can add more personalities to the mix beyond Aggressive, Defensive, Balanced, which try specific types of units for different strategies or tactics. 

[Satevis]

Thanks for the tips posted in the thread.
I beat my first game solo vs Medium AI (Random/Iberians) as the Romans.

I still emptied the berry bushes around spawn before building Fields. (They lasted until the Town Phase.) Not sure how berry bushes compare to Fields.

Add:

I have a tough time building calvalry because they don't contribute to the economy much beyond hunting.

 

Edited Thursday at 06:58 by Satevis
add

[Deicide4u]

3 hours ago, Satevis said:

Not sure how berry bushes compare to Fields.

Civilians gather food faster from berries and bushes, when compared to the fields.

3 hours ago, Satevis said:

I have a tough time building calvalry

As Romans, you didn't need cavalry against the AI. Cavalry is only useful for hunting and rushes. You need good micro skills for the rushes. Ranged cavalry is much more useful for hunting difficult animals (elephants, bears, etc.)

[Thalatta]

2 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

Civilians gather food faster from berries and bushes, when compared to the fields.

I wonder if I make a big mistake by never researching the fruit basket tech (basically the only one I don't), given that sources near the CC will be spent fairly fast, I prefer to put my resources anywhere else, and by the time I'm ready to gather other fruit sources I'm already drowning in food from fields... Haven’t tested if the speed difference you mention makes a big difference at the beginning.

[Gurken Khan]

1 hour ago, Thalatta said:

I wonder if I make a big mistake by never researching the fruit basket tech

I only research it if there are more berries than just the starting batch.

[Outis]

1 hour ago, Thalatta said:

I wonder if I make a big mistake by never researching the fruit basket tech (basically the only one I don't), given that sources near the CC will be spent fairly fast, I prefer to put my resources anywhere else, and by the time I'm ready to gather other fruit sources I'm already drowning in food from fields... Haven’t tested if the speed difference you mention makes a big difference at the beginning.

It generally pays off in biomes with higher fruit yield like desert or when you have multipe fruit patches

[guerringuerrin]

3 hours ago, Thalatta said:

I wonder if I make a big mistake by never researching the fruit basket tech (basically the only one I don't),

In MP, some say it's always recommended. I do it if I have at least one extra fruit tree or berry patch.

It's always recommended to assign only one gatherer per berry bush. On 5-berry patches, you'll get:

Without Wicker Baskets: ~150 extra food
With Wicker Baskets: ~100 extra food. (There are 40 seconds without Wicker Baskets while the technology is being researched.)
You can easily distribute the gatherers using the "Order one unit" command.

My conclusion is that it's always best to spread out the gatherers. After that, the choice is whether you want food faster or more food in the long run.

 

9 hours ago, Satevis said:

I still emptied the berry bushes around spawn before building Fields. (They lasted until the Town Phase.) Not sure how berry bushes compare to Fields.

That's a good practice. You'll save quite a bit of wood that can instead be used for buildings and technologies. Just make sure to have a smooth transition: anticipate when the berries will run out and start researching Iron Plow (the first farm upgrade) before or during farm construction, so the farms start producing at maximum efficiency right away.
 

9 hours ago, Satevis said:

I have a tough time building calvalry because they don't contribute to the economy much beyond hunting.

Depending on the playstyle you choose, if you want to go for early cavalry, it's best to scout the map to see whether there's plenty of hunt or not before deciding; otherwise, you'll run into food problems. If you're going for late cavalry, aim to have 10–12 farms and your food income should be enough.

Edited Thursday at 13:43 by guerringuerrin

[Satevis]

Having an easier time vs Medium AI but I still get out-econned early game and have to beat down the AI. (This match was Romans again vs Britons.) Any suggestions?

I am thinking it's because the AI builds clusters of Fields around the Civic Center early game while I try to make things look nice.

On 14/05/2026 at 6:34 AM, guerringuerrin said:

In MP, some say it's always recommended. I do it if I have at least one extra fruit tree or berry patch.

It's always recommended to assign only one gatherer per berry bush. On 5-berry patches, you'll get:

Going to try this out. I've been assigning 10 villagers to a berry bush cluster and just emptying them out without picking any upgrades.

I've been trying to get to town phase as soon as possible by building 3-5 houses and a Storehouse. Would like to hear about better build orders.

[Gurken Khan]

1 hour ago, Satevis said:

I try to make things look nice

1 hour ago, Satevis said:

Any suggestions?

Yeah, stop prioritizing looks. If you wanna be effective follow fff ("form follows function") or live with the downsides. I always put a ring of fields around my CC and a ring of houses around that.

In general: get the gathering tecs and keep the ways your workers have to walk short (build new storehouses etc). There are plenty of build order and eco guides out there, both as text and video.

[Grautvornix]

In Single player mode, I typically start assigning my civilians to building a farm behind the berries and after that assign them to harvest the berries. The farm is initially used as a food dropsite only, but in the future (when the berries are depleted) I can build fields around the farm (up to 8). While doing that I let the CC produce 1 + 5 more civilians and assign them to the berries. When the berries are almost empty, I assign 5 of my civiclians to building one or two fields for the 10 civilians to work on. As soon as you have enough supplies research teh framing upgrade in the farmhouse ( I typically ignore the whisker basket for gathering as this technology will be researched only after the berries are depleted).

Meanwhile, the cavalry scout is sent to hunting chicken and sheep or goats (whatever is avaliable that does not run away so fast) to keep up initial food supply. Later on the scout is sent hunting deer, camels, horses etc.

The initial citizen soldiers are sent to cut wood, potentially also with a dropsite next to the forest, ideally such that it can be reused for stone or metal as well in case there is a mine or quarry next to the trees. try keeping walking distances short and upgrade woodcutting (in the dropsite) technology early.

With the initial food supply (that needs to be keept continuously flowing) I keep spawning civilians and send them for wood cutting next to the storehouse (wood supply needs to be continuous as well). When I have reached the initial population limit (20), I use a few of the wood cutters for building one house either next to the CC or next to the planned array of fields (later on, this is intended to from a closed ring of houses around the array of fields protecting farming civilians in case of an attack when an alarm is raised.

Meanwhile we can produce three pikemen that can build and man a small tower next to the CC providing some extra protection. Ideally such, that the defense coverage of the tower also covers some other buildings or the field(s).

Later on more ranged infantry and civilians can be produced for woodcutting. Don't forget to build a few more fields and put civilians on them for farming. Also produce more houses. 

If possible, try arranging woddcutting with citizen soldiers such that they operate next to the potential direction of attack so they can delay an incoming attack and provide the necessary time to ring the alarm in the CC and teh farmers and civilians can seek cover in the houses and the CC.