Strategy & Tactics

[Burzum]

I know it's a wee early, but all RTS forums need a thread like this

Here we can discuss and share strategies and tactics and also offer help to new members requiring assitance.

What would be nice is if someone can compilie a list of unit vs. unit spectrum and provide their strengths and weaknesses.

Also, looking at the new AIs coming soon, we can compile a list of tactics on how to defeat them.

[Burzum]

Now for starters I'm sure many that have played EE's expansion The Art of Conquest would know how annoying the AI is with Ptolemy in the Roman campaign.

I chose in favour of Cleopatra and had to stop wave after wave after wave of Egyptian assault on her city. And when you even come into close quaters with one of Ptolemy's three bases it floods you with massives of troops and you need a good amount to lay a successful assault, but even then all your forces of the same number will be killed off like flies.

How I managed to preserve my infantry was just taking a little time in organizing them into a lovely formation called the wedge formation.

But what's actually unique with my tactic here is, I use cavalry as a heavy thrust in the wing of the Egyptian assault and my pilum behind locked in the gap of my wedges pluck off enemy units very effectivly. They keep throwing a shower of pilum on the Egyptians causing them to lose way more than me.

The results show that this tactic for every 10 Egyptian units dead to my 1 Roman unit.

Quite effective.

This tactic in 0 AD is the same and I only used once to mitigate a greek assault only having 4 swordmen die to their 30.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Burzum

[alpha123]

#1 most effective strategy: tower pushes. Get the crenellations upgrade, it's highly effective. Particularly as Iberians (who have very strong towers), tower pushing is a very difficult strategy to counter in this game.

Also, just spamming ranged units tends to be quite effective (although not as much as it used to be, and these days you'll want to have some spearmen in front to protect from enemy melee cavalry).

As for tactics, kiting tends to be pretty effective with skirmishers (particularly Macedonian ones, but really all of them) as they can outrun most non-cavalry units pretty easily. If you have a high APM, assign 5 or so of your ranged units to every one of the enemy's. 5 is usually enough to take out an enemy unit pretty quickly, and once you outnumber the enemy they'll be forced to retreat (having an advantage in numbers is very important in this game). This mainly relies on simply being faster than your opponent, but it works excellently against the AI which has no battle-level rules (it just marches units into your base ).

As for elephant civs, I'm starting to learn you need to back your elephants up with ~10 priests, otherwise they go down quickly. Be sure to take out any enemy skirmishers quicky, as those things just murder elephants.

Last tactic: try to only fight where you're likely to win. Namely, under cover of friendly garrisoned towers and fortresses, or when you have a clear advantage. Try not to fight near enemy towers or fortresses until you can use siege to take them down.

Those are just the things that popped into my head (I play multiplayer pretty often and reasonably competitively). I'll think of some more later.

[Enrique]

Garrisoning 5 spearmen on each ram. In case you cannot move other spearmen quicker than enemy cavalry to defend the rams, you can always pop out the garrisoned spearmen to avoid losing your siege.

[Sighvatr]

Always keep cavalry in reserve to take out siege weapons, archers, and other pansy units that like to throw stuff.

[av93]

#1 most effective strategy: tower pushes. Get the crenellations upgrade, it's highly effective. Particularly as Iberians (who have very strong towers), tower pushing is a very difficult strategy to counter in this game.

So, there's a need of nerfing towers or make military units more able to deal with them! That's a question for the devs, what will happen?

[Burzum]

and other pansy units that like to throw stuff.

LOL

Those pansy units do annoy the hell out of me.

Cavalry are such a diverse contingent to use for practically any circumstance with great haste.

I have a habbit of preserving my cavalry in way that is opposite to the old way of throwing them in first.

Throwing cavalry at your enemy is guaranteed to destroy all your cavalry units. But rather, I have adopted a more Roman stance and exploiting terrain to dig in and let the enemy come to you. A barbaric suicidal charge often leads to a total annihilation of your force. It's a disiplined army that wedges infront of a hill or forest, cliff, anything that's a corner and let's the enemy attack without flanking you.

What I do is, that once the enemy engages my lines, I then throw the cavalry directly behind enemy line claming them in a lethal vise of infantry and cavalry with the enemy in the center getting cut to pieces.

Or, heavy cavalry can win the day once the enemy as taken root and winning against your lines of infantry. A brutal charge of cavalry into them will often lead to their doom.

But throwing cavalry in first for me is stupid mistake, and a meaningless loss of a potent tool on the battlefield. Where in the beginning the enemies infantry are ready in waiting for a charge, and they are already piked for a cavalry assault. And in the distance, your cavalry are charging forwar, gives them enough time, to dig in and show a bristling wall of pikes at them.

I would keep the pansy units behind my main infantry to hurl their stuff at the enemy when they engage. Also depends, you can use them in masses to lure the enemy in a trapped situation where you can cut them with cavalry... Depends.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Burzum

[Burzum]

In AoE II I used the elite skirmisher as my primary infantry unit, as a type of legionnaire.

Sounds very stupid, but in actualy fact they exceptional in numbers.

Deployed the Roman way, behind a palisade, they devastating. You need lots villagers to keep buildings and that repaired and rebuilt but in 0 A.D. we see again the creators have been clever to make your army do the building

However this is AoE the same principle applys universaly, however in 0 A.D. it's much better without having stupid villagers getting killed and a place to make them on the battlefield.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Burzum

[alpha123]

So, there's a need of nerfing towers or make military units more able to deal with them! That's a question for the devs, what will happen?

Most likely we're going to reduce their range and change the crenellations upgrade to something like 1.4x arrows instead of 2x.

Oh, and also foundations will probably be unattackable or hidden until they start being built. Currently you have to build towers very far back to prevent enemy towers from shooting down their foundations before you start building.

Edited March 7, 2013 by alpha123

[Sanguivorant]

I found out that the best counter to a Roman rush is a Ptolemian Nubian Archer rush.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I found out that the best counter to a Roman rush is a Ptolemian Nubian Archer rush.

SVN?

[Sanguivorant]

How do I get the SVN version. This is for Alpha 15 Osiris by the way.

Also, if I get the SVN version, will that remove my ability to play multiplayer?

Edited May 2, 2014 by Sanguivorant

[Romulus]

The best rush against the Romans is to surrender

[Mythos_Ruler]

Most likely we're going to reduce their range and change the crenellations upgrade to something like 1.4x arrows instead of 2x.

Oh, and also foundations will probably be unattackable or hidden until they start being built. Currently you have to build towers very far back to prevent enemy towers from shooting down their foundations before you start building.

We can also make towers weak initially and require tech research to make them as strong as they currently are.

[TriplicariusDEN]

The best rush against the Romans is to surrender

No, actually, General Crassus lost to Persia due to cavalry skirmishers.

Apparently, Persia with ranged cav and a heavy cav core utterly PWNED the heavy infantry of rome.

[Pariahbass222]

I made a topic of it but figured it would be good here too

Herding hunts

Anyone familiar with AOE3 has heard of erding (hopefully) Basically the idea is to herd as many huntables as possible to your base so as to not only commit resource denial but also to protect your citizens from being to close to enemy territory and open for attack. So.

In the beginning micro your starting mounted unit to find herds close by and attack a huntable from te opposite you want it to go

huntable moves this way<--------(Huntable)X<-Attack from here

So by doing this you can direct huntables to your base, Now it takes some good microing but more food before hitting farms always helps. I advise using archery/skirmisher units to take down the hints since one your villager REATHES on the things they go flying away and all that effort is loss. Where as 3-4 ranged units can bring them down in a single volley. Well. There you go

[FeXoR]

So, there's a need of nerfing towers or make military units more able to deal with them! That's a question for the devs, what will happen?

Most likely we're going to reduce their range and change the crenellations upgrade to something like 1.4x arrows instead of 2x.

Oh, and also foundations will probably be unattackable or hidden until they start being built. Currently you have to build towers very far back to prevent enemy towers from shooting down their foundations before you start building.

Reducing the towers range is extremely unreasonable since that's what towers are for:

The higher point of projectile release enhances both, the range and velocity of the projectile on impact (at ground level).

Towers SHOULD be strong at the beginning but should not get as much upgrades (especially offensive) as other units (and be weak against siege at city age) so they get less powerful (relative to other units then accessible) with the advancing game.

Edited September 11, 2014 by FeXoR

[zzippy]

Gravedigging?

Btw, in svn (a17) tower range is reduced and can be upgraded via tech. Great solution, imho.