New player strategy guide

[Dninde]

So I recently found 0 A.D. and I absolutely love it. I've been trying to get better but still get destroyed by the AI a fair amount, I was wondering if anyone has put together a strategy guide for new players yet, or had any tips

[mimo]

There are several AI levels of difficulty. Have you tried them ?

[Dninde]

Yes, I can win about half the time on easy, I'm just having trouble balancing my economy and troops, they always have more than I but I can use what I have more effectively.

Edited December 9, 2014 by Dninde

[Lion.Kanzen]

New alpha 18 have new level of difficulty. try to create units to collect wood and food and expand pop capacity before reach second phase, in second phase create an army to hold on the first AI attack.

[iNcog]

maybe watch this:

follow a few rules of thumb as well:

-never stop making units

-never get population capped (so make houses ahead of time)

-make sure you have very little idle units (none is the best)

follow those rules and your win-rate vs the AI should go up

really, the best thing to do is to invest resources you gather as quickly as possible. don't stockpile resources and you should be set; if you stockpile resources it should be to save up to get something expensive, like transitioning to town phase

Edited December 10, 2014 by iNcog

[Alekusu]

Hey Dninde,

Another small tip againt AI:

AI's first 3-4 attacks will always come at the same location so after the first attack, put a few defense tower in this location, it will help you defend the next attacks !

Have fun and good luck !

[Panando]

The basic starting strategy I use is to put all starting units on wood, except the cavalry which should be put on animals, then I construct about 10 women and put them on berries. Also construct a barracks, houses and stuff. Now the important thing is to train lots and lots of infantry for harvesting wood, and later stone and metal. Once the berries run out, construct 3 or 4 farms and fill them with women, but otherwise just train infantry for harvesting (don't spend anything on upgrades at this point, the resources are better spend on more units which will both increase your income and help you defend yourself). Try to have your fighting units harvesting resources in the attack path the AI will take - not possible on all maps, but most will have some useful resources out front.

When the AI attacks, try to distract the attack, scout towers and horse scouts are very good for this so try to have one or two out front, as the enemy attack will split up to deal with the perceived threat. When the AI units come in, mob them with all your infantry. Don't worry about the lost income, the AI is also losing income by sending all their infantry to fight. Your infantry should prevail because the AI has had to cross the map, and if you succeeded in splitting their attack group by having half of it chase a horse around the map, then you should win convincingly.

Once you've beaten off the first attack (or if the AI doesn't attack, once you've got about 50 population), start teching up. Keep building lots of units and get a few upgrades, but don't bother with towers. Completely harvest the initial 5000 stone and 5000 metal and once it runs out it's time to go on the offensive. Take your army and wipe out the AI's efforts at expansion (because the AI has invested in expanding and in towers - and you haven't -, they won't have enough units to win), and if your army is still capable of fighting, run into their town and kill all the women and as many unit producing buildings as you can. Their towers and fortresses will probably finish off your army, but they'll be so hopelessly crippled it won't matter. Rebuild your army and win.

The essence of this strategy is to have enough units to beat off the AI's early attacks, and to go on the offensive in a timely fashion so the AI can't expand all over the map and out-resource you.

[SkyMind]

My battering ram strategy:

The Alpha 17 version has greatly strengthened units and battering rams. In previous alpha versions of 0AD I used to build walls and use catapults to clobber the attacking waves till the AI exhausted its resources, repairing the walls in between waves of attack. Now the walls are weaker and the soldiers and battering rams are stronger and the battering rams can also attack soldiers now. This strategy doesn't work any more. After the AI sends out a few token attacks of 20 to 30 infantry that you can weather by building one tower and putting your infantry in the civ center till the AI infantry is done in by arrows, it builds up an army of about 50 infantry and 50 cavalry. This huge wave overwhelms any defense. 2 or 3 fortresses and several defense towers and walls offer almost no defense against the strengthened cavalry and batering rams.

My new strategy is to build a civ center near the center of the map, fairly close to the AI. On the hard setting, you need to build it at about the 7 to 8 minute mark so that your builders won't be attacked before they can complete the civ center. Occupying the center of the map is important, like in chess. You can radiate power in all directions and the AI will cross your territory to respond to attacks you launch on the other side of the map, and will get clobbered by your fortresses and towers. Be the first to attack with battering rams and keep attacking. Don't let it organize a wave attack. Keep the AI under pressure.

To start, put about 5 women on berries if available and everyone else on wood. Build the storehouse close to the wood stone and metal so that less time is wasted going back and forth. Build a barracks so that when you transition to the town phase you can keep producing soldiers. Produce mostly women in the early minutes since they take less time to create. Once you get about 25 women and 7 or so infantry, and you've transitioned to the town phase, put most on stone and some on metal. Also activate the technology to increase stone mining. Once you have 500 metal, 800 stone, and 500 wood, send about 20, a mix of female and infantry, to build the civ center near the center of the map, not far from the AI border but no too close either so that you won't trigger an AI attack. This should be around the 7 to 8 minute mark. Keep churning out women and soldiers in your original civ center and barracks. Keep a mix of wood, metal, and stone, but more on stone so that you can can build 4 towers to transition to the city phase. Two farms should be enough to supply food. Build 3 towers in a line in front of your new civ center and one near the original civ center. While you're building your 2nd civ center, the AI will launch an attack on your original civ center. Pull everyone inside the civ center and wait till the AI attackers are killed by arrows from your defense tower and civ center. You'll have to rebuild a storehouse or two but that should be all. In the meantime, you should keep churning out personnel in the new civ center and concentrating on metal and stone.

You'll need to get to 1000 metal and 1000 stone to transition to the city stage. It's critical to build your first fortress before the AI does. This will take about 800 stone just for one fortress. So at this point you'll concentrate on stone, metal, and wood in that order of priority till you get enough to transition to the city stage and build your fortress. You might be attacked again while you're building your fortress but fortresses build faster than civ centers so with 20 builders you should be able to complete it. Build it in between the defense towers and in front of the civ center for defense.

From this point, use your original civ center as your main supply base. Put most of your workers back on wood and metal after your first fortress is complete so that you can start creating battering rams. Create 2 or 3 and put your soldiers in your fortress to increase the firing rate of the fortress. 3 battering rams will take a lot of resources but is important. Activate armor for siege engines after you create a few as soon as you have enough metal. Also activate the metal saving technology for siege engines. You need to trigger a response by the AI so that it can't send an organized wave against you. Attack the nearest defense towers, store houses, etc so that you can retreat back into your fortress. When the AI counterattacks pull the battering rams back into the fortress after inflicting a bit of damage. While the AI attacks your fortress, send out your battering rams to attack the AI attackers. The AI will ignore the battering rams for the most part while it attacks the fortress. Kill the attackers with the battering rams to prevent too much damage to the fortress. Combined with the arrows it should kill off the AI attackers. In the mean time, your workers in your original civ center should be gathering wood and metal and there should be enough to create 3 or 4 more battering rams. Send them out quickly. Keep up the pressure and don't let the AI rebuild. Make sure the AI doesn't build a fortress. The AI is significantly weaker without fortresses. It is of the highest priority to attack the AI fortresses before they are completed. When the AI respond to your battering rams, pull them back in to the fortress again. After the AI attempt to destroy your fortress fails, build another fortress close to the first one for mutual protection. Your original civ center will probably not be attacked because the AI is responding to your battering ram attacks. Repair some damage to your fortresses between responses to your battering ram attacks. Keep churning out battering rams, concentrating on barracks and fortresses. Pull back into the fortresses when the AI counterattack is too great. Build another fortress near your original civ center when you get enough stone. Start churning out battering rams there too. Activate the technology to strengthen the attack of siege engines after you have 6 or 7 battering rams going. After several attacks, the AI should be significantly weakened. Attacks launched from your new fortress near your original civ center should cause the AI to send soldiers heedlessly through your territory in response, right past your other fortresses and towers. This is where your central location breaks the back of the AI. Most will not survive, and those that do will be weakened. Keep attacking with and producing battering rams. At the 45 minute mark or so you should be destroying AI civ centers. Build more fortresses to keep close to the receding boundary of the AI. Keep launching attacks on houses, civ centers, and barracks. At the 1 hour mark, the AI should be near death.

The great strength of the battering rams, now at 500 health instead of the previous 200, makes all the other units redundant. Now that they can defend themselves they're even more powerful. Projectile throwers have almost no effect on them, especially with the armor technology activated. Only when huge numbers of ranged units are ammassed can they damage battering rams significantly. Attack spearmen and swordsmen with the battering rams. Don't worry about the ranged units. Keep churning out battering rams and relentlessly attack. At the end of the game you should have about 10 remaining battering rams.

Perhaps this is not the best strategy, but with a bit of practice it works agains the AI.

[Servo]

Been playing hardest AI lately and they are easy to beat 1V1 I guess in any skirmish maps especially with treasures. If you want to practice more or become oriented to the gameplay better set it to very low resources and slower speed to keep pace with the AIs fast gathering. It may sound cheating but my style is:

1. Familiarize with the map. Launch the game, resign but don't quit and examine the map. The treasures loacations and plan your strategy. 

2. Start at the very lowest speed so you can assign initial units what to do. 

3. Scout and gather treasure but avoid getting spotted too early. AIs don't scout until later so they don't pick up farther treasures from their base. Don't build barracks until close to advancing and make sure it finishes almost same, before or close to advance phase. 

4. Once all possible treasures taken begin raiding the AI. Lure them to your base and destroy them without losses or very minimal. Heal units if necessary coz couple more attacks of the same units will come. If it's hard to micromanage at your set speed lower it quickly to lowest possible to avoid casualty. Units become promoted once they gain experience. Continue raid/lure and immediately begin heavy raids if you sensed AI stop attacking. By this time AI is already neutralized especially in closer maps  

5. Phase 2 I build monks as priority and continue raiding with healers upgrade unit (note most of them are promoted already and AI has not) then beautify your base and enjoy toying with the AI. You can do anything you want from then on.

Im not sure if there is AI that's very aggressive militarily and will find out later. I only tried against Persians and Romans but they are the same. 

I like to play with AI that's why i rely mostly on battle with monks. AOE2 pros seldom use monks especially in multiplayer but I love monks. 

 

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

The ai don't need scout. They see all explored.

[Servo]

I know some or all of my suggestions are hard or maybe not possible for consideration but will keep suggesting. 

1. The "flee stance" is I think unnecessary but instead replace with "raid" targeting women and or merchants first before any other unit or buildings. 

2. Women should be upgraded to militias if a technology is researched. They are not necessary powerful but it could add to better gameplay in either multiplayer or single player mode. Maybe 5 women can kill light armored units but probably have no fighting chance against heavily armored ones  

3. Game option setting to deselect women/merchants from combat units unless they are militias (if militia is implemented) when you highlight group of units in an area.

4. Hotkey to select heavily wounded units (maybe below 50% HP) from highlighted ones for saving and healing. 

5. If random maps can be size adjusted why not the skirmish map. 

6. Shouldn't we include all maps with treasures? Most if not all skirmish maps have treasures but not random maps except Bahrain with all this exciting warriors guarding it. 

Anyhow so far soo good and enjoying the game and running it thru highest resolution on windows. I might try running it on apple in the nearest future and find out workability and comfortability on bigger screen. Slowing the game speed while playing and without pausing is really cool! 

[Servo]

Lion.Kanzen I know but playing explored diminishes excitement, thrill and challenge. Once in phase 2 a single melee cavalry can even explore the enemy in a land map because the attack damage of firing fixed structures are very low. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

No, I mean, The ai see everything.

-women becomes militia, I don't see that in mostly our factions. 

[Servo]

Yeah AI probably has map explored but AI has no ability to scout for treasures or programmed not to scout since there is no scout description alone. 

Theres no militia for women here probably they increase his points or attack when you upgrade in the house but still 5 upgraded women can't kill a hoplite which I wish we can have in order for at least a number of them but not significant to kill an armored unit.

Faster units can be used by humans to scout and cavalry is quick enough to do the job. In every war though there are scouts. In games where there are plenty of treasures or "ruin" bonuses and maps are considerably big enough for humans to explore it easily and remove the fog of war, it adds up to better game strategy.

Every RTS has each own gameplay so we really have no control about that.