0 A.D. Strategy Guide

[Alekusu]

Yeah. It is much easier to grow your economy in the early game if you just invest in female villagers. Soldiers and other types of units often take twice as many resources as women to train, why can slow the time it takes for you to get to the town phase.

It is important to get to the town phase, because it will allow you to make more civic centers or military colonies, which will allow you to gain map control. The more map control you have, the more resources you have and the more time you can save on not having to build trade carts.

I start to have a good experience online and in my opinion, any good player will punish a fast transition to phase 2. I explain.

Most of the player, when they see an ennemy fast phasing, they will stop doing their build order and start stocking ressources to phase (in order not to fall to much behind) BUT anygood player would scout at around 5/6min and will see that you are fast phasing. He will punish you very easily by going all in.

I don't say that fast phasing is always bad but in my opinion it is too risky and it is very easy to counter.

[greenknight32]

The problem with making women in order to phase up faster is the women provide no defense. Helpless against an early rush.

[Panando]

The advantage of women is they provide significantly more income than men, as women cost about half as much.

I am experimenting with a build where you get about 50 women then build two barracks as the wood accumulates (that is, in excess to that required for building houses and fields), even after the barracks are complete the CC continues to produce women while both barracks pump out skirmishers which are set to woodcutting - once 800 wood has accumulated Town phase research is initiated (of course if the enemy attacks you can produce citizen-soldiers from the CC too).

In principle this women-heavy start will tend to significantly out-produce a player who goes a more modest number of women and gets a single barracks. It's probably one of those things where attack timing is everything. But if you can complete the two barracks - which will be remarkably quickly considering you haven't spent a single wood on soldiers - then you can produce citizen-soldiers from 3 buildings, which will probably be enough to drive out an attack when combined with the firepower of the CC. If a player gets few women and attacks early, and the attack fails, the women-heavy player will have dramatically more income and will win. If they get few women and don't attack early they'll also lose to superior income. In order for women-light to beat women-heavy therefore *requires* effectively timed harassment which is successful in seriously hampering resource income and better still killing a lot of women. The harassment must be so successful that it completely offsets the resources lost from sending the citizen-soldiers across the map instead of having them gather - which is quite a big ask. And there are a number of ways to keep women alive, such as garrisoning them in houses or just running them around.

I think 0ad early game might be kind of like Starcraft II, where players often get 1 or 2 expansions, full of workers, before investing in any fighting units, the balance of the game is such that it's possible to get a lot of workers and still fight off a rush by a player who goes military-heavy from the start, as the player with a lot of productive workers just has so much more income to work with, that the attack can be defeated due to the time lost by the attackers, crossing the map, giving the defenders time to build a big enough force to win, despite starting later.

0ad early game optimal strategy is definitely going to involve getting a lot of women before citizen-soldiers, the question is whether "a lot" is around 25 or around 50, and it'll depend on civ as well. But I suspect that this strategy where you just crank out women until you can afford a barracks, then build 2 or more barracks (while continuing to crank out women, as they are the most resource-efficient gatherer), is going to be a big one, and maybe the equilibrium strategy which is hard or impossible to beat and the most reliable way to win will just be to perform this build even if you know the opponent is doing it.

For reference, at the moment in the time a man cuts 10 wood, a woman has cut 8 wood. This still leaves women at least 50% more cost-effective than men for woodcutting. Even if women only cut at half the rate of men you'd still considering getting them because they don't cost any wood. So presently women provide a huge income advantage over men.

[greenknight32]

I'm well aware of the advantage of women, it's just that if you build nothing but women you have no defense against an early rush. This was a problem with the AI in earlier versions - you could make 5 ranged units, send them + the 2 you start with, and it was game over. They'd kill the workers, the you could park them just out of range of the CC and kill any units that emerged.

Making mostly women early makes sense, but you do need a few soldiers to counter that tactic.

[Alekusu]

I am experimenting with a build where you get about 50 women then build two barracks as the wood accumulates (that is, in excess to that required for building houses and fields), even after the barracks are complete the CC continues to produce women while both barracks pump out skirmishers which are set to woodcutting - once 800 wood has accumulated Town phase research is initiated (of course if the enemy attacks you can produce citizen-soldiers from the CC too).

In principle this women-heavy start will tend to significantly out-produce a player who goes a more modest number of women and gets a single barracks. It's probably one of those things where attack timing is everything. But if you can complete the two barracks - which will be remarkably quickly considering you haven't spent a single wood on soldiers - then you can produce citizen-soldiers from 3 buildings, which will probably be enough to drive out an attack when combined with the firepower of the CC. If a player gets few women and attacks early, and the attack fails, the women-heavy player will have dramatically more income and will win. If they get few women and don't attack early they'll also lose to superior income. In order for women-light to beat women-heavy therefore *requires* effectively timed harassment which is successful in seriously hampering resource income and better still killing a lot of women. The harassment must be so successful that it completely offsets the resources lost from sending the citizen-soldiers across the map instead of having them gather - which is quite a big ask. And there are a number of ways to keep women alive, such as garrisoning them in houses or just running them around.

I think 0ad early game might be kind of like Starcraft II, where players often get 1 or 2 expansions, full of workers, before investing in any fighting units, the balance of the game is such that it's possible to get a lot of workers and still fight off a rush by a player who goes military-heavy from the start, as the player with a lot of productive workers just has so much more income to work with, that the attack can be defeated due to the time lost by the attackers, crossing the map, giving the defenders time to build a big enough force to win, despite starting later.

Hey Panando,

I use to play like this, with a heavy women start because it is actually very logical; you spend your food on women and your extra wood on upgrades/barracks/houses. BUT, after a few games, I started to invest early in the game my food+ my wood on soldiers. And I can tell you that you feel much safer than with a women heavy start, you'll be the one who is agressive and you'll be able to push back any rush.

I disagree on the fact than 0AD early can be like stracraft for a few reasons. In starcraft 2 you expand fast to be able to produce more worker, in 0AD soldiers are workers and you can produce them in barracks and you can produce female in houses. In starcraft 2, a expansion is much more easy to defend than in 0AD. In starcraft 2 you expand fast for ressrouces, in 0AD you expand fast for territory.

In my opinion, there is a general strategic balance problem on 0AD. In every strategy game there is a rule that is a good start for tactical balance:

Offensive startegies win against economic strategies

Economic strategies win against defense strategies

Defense strategies win agasint Offensive strategies

But in 0AD, I think that, at the moment, there is no viable defense strategie. Therefore Offensive strategies has no counter and economic strategies become weak.

Edited January 5, 2015 by Alekusu

[agentx]

> there is no viable defense strategie...

It depends, if there are more than 10,000 stone available early I tend to build (double) walls and about 12-15 siege just to defend the village. I call it cocooning. However, if all players choose a defensive strategy there is not much of a game.

[Alekusu]

> there is no viable defense strategie...

It depends, if there are more than 10,000 stone available early I tend to build (double) walls and about 12-15 siege just to defend the village. I call it cocooning. However, if all players choose a defensive strategy there is not much of a game.

Hum I'd like to play against your cocooning strategy, I've never seen this among the top 10 players

[Peregriino]

The womans are good in early game, but have good and bad points.

The main point are talking here, about early attacks. The other is about late game attacks, generaly I see the players puting all your attention in the frontlines. With a good cav, like swordmen cav., you can destroy the economy of your oponent easy, I make this several times in a16, and it's works very well.

[simongeorges]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to the game (shame on me, I discovered it only a month ago). I've see some posts starting to detailed pros and cons of each civ, especially http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14926, but it's not complete (maybe we should start by completing it ?).

So, to better see how everything worked, I started a libreoffice spreadsheet with each unit and every capability of the unit (following the idea of http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19462). It's in fact a nightmare to organize, since for each unit, you may have bonuses for civs, and the spreadsheet become fast unreadable...

First try, first failure

So I'd be interested in a wiki page identifying key points of each civ ("gaul buildings only cost wood", "this unit is cheaper in this civ than this civ", "this unit is available at stage 1 for this civ whereas it's only stage 2 for other civs, ...") as well as key concept of the game (women bonus for farming, hack damage is good for building (?), ...). This would allow faster idea generation for beginners, I think. For example, a post than I find clearly "wiki-strategy-oriented" is http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19426&p=302828 (mentioning Romans as "the only civ with a Phase I hack unit").

Maybe the best way to start the page is, for each civ, to ask ourselves "what is the first thing we think about this civ", with all our resources combined, we should quickly have something exploitable. For me, it would be, for example : "Elephants" for Mauryans, "Free building" for [i don't remember the name of the civ right now], ... This facts may be the start of build orders (even if I think several build orders are available depending on your play style (aggressive, defensive, ...) or the map (few or a lot of resources) or your enemy, or if you're playing teams, but hey, that's a start).

Maybe we can start by contributing on this topic, and as soon as we have enough data, I'm willing to reformat it as a wiki Strategy page.

Anyway, what do you think?

[agentx]

I like the idea of ranking the most outstanding features of the civs. Probably the most useful information is hidden in the design documents. I've consulted them often, but still fail to memorize their content. Also, with random civs the first click is usually the diplomacy dialog to find out which civ I actually have. Well, except Mauryans, their blue colors + unique architecture + mobile dropsites make them easily identifiable.

A feature rank would help me to easily make a quick plan, because it avoids selecting units and find out what they actually can build. The upcoming structure tree will definitely help in this regard. Even better would be a cheat sheet with all the relevant information on a single page ready to print out and put next to the keyboard. Out of thin air I'd suggest the civ name, a visual indicator to link to the screen and the top three unique features, if exist. The elephants are a good example because there is nothing to counter that feature. Many civs have specials which can neutralized with some other trick. I think, this kind of information is useful later in the game and once a player has some experience.

Since a structured civ feature table will help me to make my bot project more interesting, count me in.

PS: Another line of thought at game start is: Wow, lots of stone here. Does it help me with this civ?

Edited January 21, 2015 by agentx

[simongeorges]

Ok, the (blank) strategy guide is http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Strategy_Guide. Let's contribue !

[Panando]

Presently civs are arranged alphabetically. But gauls and britons are both Celts, and much of their strategy, such as build order, pertains to Celts, rather than Gauls or Britons. For example, as Celts they enjoy the bonus housing for many structures, most their buildings build quite a bit faster, they have a farming bonus, have small houses (good for walls), and Phase I skirmisher cavalry, phase II sword cavalry. They suffer from purely wooden barracks (I consider a partly stone barracks a bonus as it relieves wood pressure) and fairly abysmal Phase III which mean it's probably better to win the game in Phase II, although the ram is not a bad addition to their phase II units as it permits breaking open turtles.

They basically have one huge difference. Britons get the Celtic Slinger which costs stone, and Gauls get the Skirmisher which costs wood. This allows Britons to use their starting stone to train a few slingers without increasing wood pressure, this is ideal for teching as fast as possible. Gauls on the other hand can train skirmishers in abundance on a purely wood and food income which is good if you want to spend longer at Phase I. At Phase II this difference disappears as they both have access to both units.

They have some trifling differences as well, Britons which get war dogs and Gauls get naked fanatics. I'm not sure though if either of those units are of any great value. For Britons puppies can be produced using food alone and don't eat into housing - that's interesting, but do they change the outcome of a battle? Naked fanatics are a more normal unit. Neither unit contributes to economy so are really just things to dump resources into once you no longer care about cost-effectiveness. I imagine the Celtic cavalry will be game-deciding in competitive matches anyway, the only thing Celts could wish for is a cavalry archer, but their cavalry options are nearly as good as it gets and they can produce them quicker than anyone thanks to their great economy.

[simongeorges]

I've added a "Celts" headline to Brits and Gauls, following your suggestion. I'm trying to think how to best organize what you said (what is a decisive fact of the civ, opposed to, for example, the minimal addition (strategically speaking) of war dogs and fanatics).

[Alekusu]

Hey guys,

when i was younger and played AOM, I bought a very usefull strategy guide (http://www.amazon.com/Age-Mythology-Official-Strategies-Secrets/dp/0782141668) and I think we could use the same kind of content.

Here is what I think could be good for content:

1. Basic Economy

a. Food

b. Wood

c. Stone

d. Metal

e. Population

2. Basic Military

a. Type of units

b. Cost of units

c. Upgrades

d. Counter

3. Civilisations

a. Athenians

b...

c...

....

4. Advanced Economy

a. tips for hunting

b. when do you transition to farms

c. multiple deposit

etc...

5. Advanced Military

a. Micro management

b. Best mix of units

c. Harassing

etc...

6. Example of Build orders

a. Sword cav Rush

b. Fast expansion

c. Booming

etc...

What do you think ?

Edited January 26, 2015 by Alekusu

[simongeorges]

Hey, thanks!

I'm going to rewrite the strategy guide page following what you're suggesting (and adding content while I'm at it).

[simongeorges]

Done. Please note that as I'm new to the game, I'm not the best one to fill in the content, but I'm willing to write / reorganize it following your posts ;-)

[Alekusu]

Hey, a few things to add on the strategy guide

Basic Economy, Food

--> Fish

Basic Economy, Wood, Stone, Metal

--> Soldier has a bonus when gathering wood, stone and metal

Basic Economy, Metal

--> Metal is used for most of the upgrades (economic upgrades, armory upgrades...)

Basic Economy, Population

--> There are two types of houses in 0 A.D., houses that cost 75 wood and give you an extra 5 pop and houses that cost 150 wood and give you 10 pop. Ptolemies are the exception, it doesn't cost anything and give an extra 5 pop.
Basic Military, Types of units
-->
Infantry Spearman, Swordsman, Slingers, Archer, Skirmisher
Cavalry Spearman Swordsman, Archers, Skirmisher
Chariots
Siege
Elephants
Support (healing units from temple)
Dog (only for Britons)

Advanced Economy, Tips for hunting (sorry for my bad explanation...)
--> when hunting an animal that will try to escape (giraffe), firstly click behind the animal and use shift click to attack him, in that way it will escape in your CC's direction.
--> when hunting an animal that will attack you (like elephant), just attack, he will attack back in your CC's direction
Advanced Economy, multiple deposit
--> Multiple deposit has two meaning:

first, it means whenever it is possible, try to use one deposit for a forest + a mine (stone or Metal)
Secondly, it means you should try to have 3 or 4 areas where you are gathering wood. In this way, if one of your deposit is under attack, you'll be gathering at your other areas

Advanced Military, Harassing

--> When harassing, make group of units (For example CTRL 1,2 and 3), group of barracks (For example CTRL 4), If you do that and practice, you'll be able to harass and manage your city (economy mainly) at the same time.

[niektb]

As for the Unit Summary Table, it is automatically generated and thus up-to-date.

[simongeorges]

@Alekusu, your suggestions have been integrated.

@niektb, I though some civs were missing last time I checked, but it indeed appears up-to-date, sorry about the noise.

[Alekusu]

@Simon,

I'm sorry but seems we'll have a lot to change for a18 (which is a good thing actually, much more interesting imo)

Lot's of new strategies coming imo, I'll upload some new videos when a18 will be official.

[simongeorges]

No problem. I was thinking eventually adding something like "(only for A17 version)" nearby the videos I already linked, so people know it's not the current one, or even better create a dedicated page for each (recent) version of the game. So no worries, just focus on your new videos / strategies, I'll update the strategy guide accordingly.

[auron2401]

--> Soldier has a bonus when gathering wood, stone and metal

I haven't seen this as a tool-tip, anywhere, is it true?

as far as I know, only females have a bonus, and that's to gathering food.

I've also done some focus tests and not noticed females gathering wood metal or stone any slower than males.

can a dev confirm?

Edited March 9, 2015 by auron2401

[niektb]

In fact it is true what Alekusu says.

I made a table of the gathering speeds from the templates in SVN (in amounts / sec):

Edited March 9, 2015 by niektb

[rmhibbs]

In fact it is true what Alekusu says.

I made a table of the gathering speeds from the templates in SVN (in amounts / sec):

Before I saw niektb's table, I did some focus testing and came up with basically the same numbers as in niektb's table. The citizen soldier without a female close by gathers 7% than a female. With a female close by the soldier gathers 10% faster. Overall, a citizen soldier with a female close by gathers 17.9% faster than a female.

My testing was in the Roman civ and I noticed that not only did the citizen soldiers gather wood, stone, and metal faster than the female, the skirmisher walked faster (11.5 vs. 9.5 for female and swordsman) and therefore delivered (produced) the resources faster. The farther the distance, the greater the production rate of a skirmisher over a female.

More tradeoffs and nothing is simple. Where does the advantage of only a food cost for a female lose out to the increased productivity for a ranged citizen soldier who can also garrison in the CC and defend against early attacks.

My investigations also showed that the CC garrisoned with 20 ranged soldiers has the same firepower (23 arrows / 2 seconds) as a fortress garrisoned with the same 20 ranged soldiers.

I struggle with deciding where and how to best utilize food and wood.

Another point I noticed from niektb's table is the high food productivity of cavalry. I need to consider that in my startup.

[niektb]

Definitely, you can really use cavalry for a high food income early on. Also I often task a corral to produce batches (first research the training time tech for sheep's) of 5 sheeps nonstop and task 1 cav on these sheeps.