Ulimate guide on how to get very good with Britons really fast

[amadeus]

In 1v1 the Briton civilization has:

- one huge advantage = you can get to max pop (build your full army) sooner than any other civ

- one huge disadvantage = poorer units, if you build your army and do not immediately attack, your opponent will be able to build his own full army and will defeat you as he has better units

Because of this, Britons are very much like zerg in startcraft.

 

So this is the strategy when playing Britons: build a lot more units a lot faster than your enemy, and when reaching 150 population urgently attack. If you fail that attack you lose, if you delay that attack you lose, if you are not the first to reach max pop you lose, if you do not know how to use many but weak units in combat you lose, and so on.

Note: if you are a beginner today, follow this guide and you will reach a high score simple because there are also a lot of beginners that make huge mistakes.

 

You need to memorize this build order, and always play it on normal Mainland map and configure your building batch size to 2:

1 - with your initial 4 women build granary near berries

1 - with your initial 4 soldiers build warehouse near wood

1 - put your horseman to collect food from chickens/sheeps near cc

1 - put your cc  to train 6 women and set rally point to berries

2 - send your dog to go near the enemy base

3 - make the 100 wood upgrade from granary, that upgrades the berry gathering rate

4 - keep building women and send them to gather wood, your cc should be constantly training

5 - when your pop is 21 build a house

5 - use your dog to find an enemy woman ans harras him. Try to kill one woman, sacrifice your dog without regrets

6 - when you reach 24 pop now build slingers instead of women, pay attention to build a house whenever you are getting close to your pop limit

6 - build a tower near your berries, you need to defend against enemy harrass

7 - when your horseman has finished collecting all chickens send him to scout (see opponent building location) and then harass opponent (killed a villager)

7 - when your stone is depleted, train again women instead of slingers

 

Since a 1v1  game should take somewhere between 20 and 25 minutes, the steps above are roughly your first 7-8 minutes, that makes it about a 3rd of the game. It should be memorized.

Now comes the second third of the game:

In these 7 minutes you need to achieve these goals:

- have 9 full farms, meaning 45 women

- advance age (500 food and 500 wood)

- reach 150 population, out of which 45 are women and 105 soldier

- have at least 3 barracks

 

The third and last part of the game is your attack: you leave 10 soldiers to collect wood, and your 45 women to collect food. Thus you have 95 soldiers with which to attack.

1 - your goal is to ruin his economy = capture houses, kill women, capture unguarded barracks. What does it mean:

1.a - avoid towers of fortress (he will not have one at this moment if you played correctly)

1.b - it is very useful to know where his buildings are, thus you can attack form behind, where ha has houses or farms or barracks/blacksmith/marketplace without towers nearby, you gain this info in stage one, with your horse

1.c - he will pull his soldiers form collecting resources and use them to defend. Thus he has no more economy this is why this attack is so powerful

1.d - you have 150 units, out of which you attack with 95 soldiers. If you play it correctly, since any other civ does not get bonus population from his warehouses/etc, he will only have 110 population, out of which half are women, effectively you outnumber his soldiers 2 to 1 (or maybe just 3 to 2)

1.e - you keep your army together, while he has to pull his soldiers from different spread out places. If only a part of his army attacks you at one point, you have effectively a 5 to 1 superiority

1.f - your army composition is 3 ranged units (slingers or skirmishers) for each spearman

2 - your barracks and cc must keep training soldiers, so that you get reinforcements in combat

3 - proud opponents cannot believe they have lost so they will try some weak attack on your base with a few troops. Use those 10 soldiers gathering wood to defend

4 - if game drags on, advance last age and build yourself a fortress -  if it gets into an attrition war, you have lost

 

Most important notes on combat (this is what happens in the third part of your game):

- your army should be 1 spear for every 3 ranged, so a 75% ranged units ratio

- range units battles end up very quickly and you should devote your entire  attention to them

- the moment you need to pay most attention to is this combat moment, when your army engages his

- the one who has his ranged units close together wins against the one with dispersed units, worse even, the one whose units move in a line and attack one by one

- do not let your units run towards your enemy, as his ranged soldiers will kill your units one by one

- put spearman in front of slinger, as spearman move slower they will spend most of the battle moving instead of doing damage

- slingers do the most damage per second

- in the heat of combat, moving instead of doing damage is wasteful

- attacker will lose if he sends his army to an equally large army that is standing together still

- put your units to most aggressive stance (they will engage any enemy), just to avoid useless movement during combat

- never fight combats where your opponent has the same amount of army as you. Always attack only when you outnumber him. Retreat when he has the same or more.

- the ideal situation when your army stands still grouped together, on aggressive stance, and he attacks you with his smaller army. Many people will attack you with roughly equal (slightly smaller) armies composed of better units. This is a psychological defect of the human brain that is very hard to resist. Easy win as moving close to you will kill 15% of his army before doing any damage.

- never fight in range of towers or fortress

 

 

If you follow this build order (I will  update with timers and exact builds, maybe make a 1v1 commented match to explain) there is nothing he can do to mediate your advantage, thus you will only lose if you make some combat/late game/get greedy  mistakes.

 

Stay tuned for more, I will be adding and editing this post.

 

 

Edited October 1, 2018 by amadeus

[dmzerocold]

Hi Amadeus,

Thank you for sharing this guide  i really use it

Would be better players comment on this and not me , but i think aggressive players can counter it

for example i do remember in a game FeldFeld attacked Vilhart with 21 light indian cavalry at minute 6  ... i think its before you start training soldiers and you have mostly women workers ... or you can see a short game between borg and feldfeld (final , last game or a game before)

You can find this replay here, for reference 

 

Edited September 30, 2018 by dmzerocold

[amadeus]

2 hours ago, dmzerocold said:

for example i do remember in a game FeldFeld attacked Vilhart with 21 light indian cavalry at minute 6  ... i think its before you start training soldiers and you have mostly women workers ... or you can see a short game between borg and feldfeld (final , last game or a game before)

 

Very good observation. I will improve my strategy to take into account this.

However, borg is like the first ranked player. so even without any changes, this build will still do great against most players. Plus, I do not think FeldFeld usually attacks with 21 cav at minute 6, as he risks it all then and there.

What else can you add to my strategy, and advice is helpful.

Edited September 30, 2018 by amadeus

[thankforpie]

Nice but all play gauls now

[dmzerocold]

 

9 hours ago, amadeus said:

However, borg is like the first ranked player. so even without any changes, this build will still do great against most players. Plus, I do not think FeldFeld usually attacks with 21 cav at minute 6, as he risks it all then and there.

 

Actually , its not uncommon to build Cavalry early games to hunt and punish those players who build women early game  alot , similar to 3 early expand concept in SC2 HOTS or WOL (opponent can counter you)

Also there are more strategy to counter you , like 10 slinger rush ... maybe at min 3 if i remember correctly 

9 hours ago, amadeus said:

 What else can you add to my strategy, and advice is helpful.

Instead of skirmisher you may need Spear-man, because your army is vulnerable against hack attack and Roman cavalry is very good  and they can reach your army very fast   ... Roman swordsman also is good

[amadeus]

39 minutes ago, dmzerocold said:

 

Actually , its not uncommon to build Cavalry early games to hunt and punish those players who build women early game  alot , similar to 3 early expand concept in SC2 HOTS or WOL (opponent can counter you)

Also there are more strategy to counter you , like 10 slinger rush ... maybe at min 3 if i remember correctly 

Instead of skirmisher you may need Spear-man, because your army is vulnerable against hack attack and Roman cavalry is very good  and they can reach your army very fast   ... Roman swordsman also is good

Than you for your thoughts. You are starting to think about counters to this build and this strategy, these will be vital for refining and improving it.

However, while your counters have merit, they are doomed to fall as they inevitably make the advantage of the Britons even bigger: you can get to max pop much faster than any other civ.

 

[thankforpie]

yes a lot of players rush you early with cavand thats hella annoying

[dmzerocold]

3 minutes ago, amadeus said:

you can get to max pop much faster than any other civ.

May i know fundamental of this ? what they have that others dont ?

[thankforpie]

5 minutes ago, dmzerocold said:

May i know fundamental of this ? what they have that others dont ?

you get pop bonus (like from houses) from barracks and other buildings and your barracks cost wood only.

[amadeus]

9 minutes ago, dmzerocold said:

May i know fundamental of this ? what they have that others dont ?

Very good question, these is what Britons have that others do not:

- warehouses increase your pop limit

- you can build slingers from the start, they cost less wood. Your initial stone is enough for a few and on top of that even later it is less demand on your wood

- houses cost half price than usual, but increase pop limit by 5 instead of 10

 

Note on warehouses: since one unit costs population, the price of a woman is not 50 food but actually 50 food and 15 wood. Every unit using one population costs actually 15 wood more if you compute housing. There are limits however, as in how many warehouses you actually need.

 

Note on half priced/half pop houses: when you loose a house it is less of a loss, when you have only 75 wood you can already build and not wait for 150, and you will end with double many small house that can be better placed near your workers so they retreat.

[borg-]

5 hours ago, amadeus said:

Than you for your thoughts. You are starting to think about counters to this build and this strategy, these will be vital for refining and improving it.

However, while your counters have merit, they are doomed to fall as they inevitably make the advantage of the Britons even bigger: you can get to max pop much faster than any other civ.

 

No!!

I get faster to full pop with gauls for example than brit.

[Jofursloft]

Hi Amadeus, I would like to share my opinion about the strategy you propose:

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

- one huge disadvantage = poorer units, if you build your army and do not immediately attack, your opponent will be able to build his own full army and will defeat you as he has better units

I don't agree at all with this: britons have one of the strongest army composition in game: mass pikes + slingers + rams

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

1 - put your cc  to train 6 women and set rally point to berries

Set rally point to wood it's much better, then you train 3 women to go on berries (total is 7 women on berries and 6 on wood)

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

5 - use your dog to find an enemy woman ans harras him. Try to kill one woman, sacrifice your dog without regrets

Mistake: the dog is a very important unit. You can use him to scout much the enemy base and also to slow enemy economy. If you keep going/run away from enemy berries you produce a bigger damage in economy for the player (1 women is practically nothing)

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

 6 - build a tower near your berries, you need to defend against enemy harrass

This will make you waste wood for an unuseful building: 1) berries are already in cc range, so you don't need to protect them so much (the women take a little time to run away) 2) a tower deals not much damage if not garrisoned, and remember that the men are taking wood, not berries

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

- have 9 full farms, meaning 45 women

I would say that 9 fields are too many for your strategy game: they are good if you project a long game with more than 400/500 unit for player lost. If you want a quite early game don't make more than 8 fields (if upgraded they can be more than enough for all your game)

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

 - have at least 3 barracks

3-4 barracks are useful for a long game. If you want this type of strategy use just 1-2 barracks or you will finish your resources too fast

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

you leave 10 soldiers to collect wood

I would leave at least 20 to mantain a good wood economy

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

he will only have 110 population, out of which half are women, effectively you outnumber his soldiers 2 to 1 (or maybe just 3 to 2)

This is your project: if you are talking about the third part of the game (14-15 mins) calculate that a good player can have something like 250 pop + fort, and he can counter you very very easily

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

if it gets into an attrition war, you have lost

Maybe the attrition war is what will make you win with a strong civilization like britons xd

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

- slingers do the most damage per second

Slinger attack: 9.5 every 1 second. Skirmisher attack: 16 every 1.25 seconds 

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

 - in the heat of combat, moving instead of doing damage is wasteful

If you don't consider dancing, that is very useful

22 hours ago, amadeus said:

 - never fight combats where your opponent has the same amount of army as you. Always attack only when you outnumber him. Retreat when he has the same or more.

Never fight combats where your opponent has more upgrades than you. The number of soldiers is not what makes you win (a player can win a 2v1 even with dancing

 

Also, you forgot the most important thing to say: fight and do economy with upgrades. If you have upgrades and the enemy not you can win a fight with really less soldiers than the enemy

 

CONCLUSION: 

If you like to attack in the early game to win, I wouldn't advise you to attack around minute 14-15, cause the enemy can have P3 full pop. Maybe try to use a strategy (that I usually copy from borg- xd) for a 8-9 minute heavy attack with britons. This because there are many ways to counter your strategy

Edited October 1, 2018 by Jofursloft

[Jofursloft]

5 minutes ago, borg- said:

I get faster to full pop with gauls for example than brit.

True, Ptolemies or Gauls are a really faster civ than britons in booming

[amadeus]

1 hour ago, borg- said:

I get faster to full pop with gauls for example than brit.

Why is that (they have same advantages as Britons minus the initial slingers) ?

1 hour ago, Jofursloft said:

True, Ptolemies or Gauls are a really faster civ than britons in booming

Is there a replay you can link to how you got to max pop in 15 minutes ? People here seem to think you are able to do so.

[Jofursloft]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYhu8jha0js

This is the one I already did. If you want I can make others with other civilizations. In this one for example I make some mistakes like do only skirmishers, but they are things that are really little, and the boom would be pretty the same

 

[Altrine]

Thanks, Amadus that was really Helpful Guide if playing British , i will also like to know what upgrades in blacksmiths and barracks you should do. . But Gauls are more faster than British if someone could do the same with Gauls it would be more helpful.

Edited October 1, 2018 by Altrine

[borg-]

4 hours ago, amadeus said:

Why is that (they have same advantages as Britons minus the initial slingers) ?

Is there a replay you can link to how you got to max pop in 15 minutes ? People here seem to think you are able to do so.

skirmishers have a better speed of movement, bonuses in the collection of wood for example

Edited October 1, 2018 by borg-

[Jofursloft]

3 hours ago, amadeus said:

Is there a replay you can link to how you got to max pop in 15 minutes ? People here seem to think you are able to do so.

 

[Altrine]

Thanks Jofursloft , it was nice video . It showed practically how to boom with Britons . If someone could show a same video like this in Gauls, it would be more nice

[amadeus]

14 hours ago, borg- said:

skirmishers have a better speed of movement, bonuses in the collection of wood for example

I have looked at the skirmisher description in game: 0.8 wood gather rate, same as slingers.

Do skirmishers have a better movement speed in general, this is why they gather anything better than slingers, as they move faster to the drop point ?

Maybe because the tavern building gives 10 pop bonus, could it be that this is why people believe you can expand faster with gauls ?

[Altrine]

I would say Amadeus that the Gauls have faster speed infantry (Skirmishers)  and the Naked fantasy ( Sorry for spelling)  for attacking  .which are more faster which give you faster gathering of wood. So it would be easy to Boom with Gauls rather than Briton. 

[amadeus]

11 hours ago, Altrine said:

I would say Amadeus that the Gauls have faster speed infantry (Skirmishers)  and the Naked fantasy ( Sorry for spelling)  for attacking  .which are more faster which give you faster gathering of wood. So it would be easy to Boom with Gauls rather than Briton. 

The naked fanatics cannot gather wood, they are elite.

As of skirmishers have the exact gather rate, but more movement speed than slingers, they do have an advantage when gathering anything. However, it kind of seems like a small advantage.

[macemen]

I wanted to ask this for some time, and this looks like a good place to ask it. Why are the Celtic civilizations considered to be the best? It seems like (after watching some of the videos posted on this forum, I don't play MP myself) that in 90% of the matches one of the parties is either Briton or Gaul, but often both. Sometimes you also see Ptolemies but other Civs are truly rare to be seen.

So why are the Celts considered superior for competitive play? Is it the spear + slinger + skirmisher combo that is so effective? (The Ptolemies also have this combo, maybe that is why they are also considered good).  Are slingers really the key to victory? According to my limited historic knowledge, slingers are supposed to be cheap auxiliary troops, not a battle deciding factor.

AFAIK the Successors have a much more diverse army, both the Seleucids and the Ptolemies have almost every unit kind available. But I have not seen even a single match with Seleucids played.

[thankforpie]

1 hour ago, macemen said:

I wanted to ask this for some time, and this looks like a good place to ask it. Why are the Celtic civilizations considered to be the best? It seems like (after watching some of the videos posted on this forum, I don't play MP myself) that in 90% of the matches one of the parties is either Briton or Gaul, but often both. Sometimes you also see Ptolemies but other Civs are truly rare to be seen.

So why are the Celts considered superior for competitive play? Is it the spear + slinger + skirmisher combo that is so effective? (The Ptolemies also have this combo, maybe that is why they are also considered good).  Are slingers really the key to victory? According to my limited historic knowledge, slingers are supposed to be cheap auxiliary troops, not a battle deciding factor.

AFAIK the Successors have a much more diverse army, both the Seleucids and the Ptolemies have almost every unit kind available. But I have not seen even a single match with Seleucids played.

i played 90% of MP games as seleucids  they are not underpowered, just slower eco than celtic civs

+ no sword cav (best siege killer)

+ no rams (annoying because anyone can select sword cav and rightclick on your catapult and they will die in few hit, rams have much bigger defense, and its hard to kill 30 sword cav BEFORE they kill all your catapults even if you have 50 units around catapults),

+ no slingers which seem to have advantage over archers and javelins

 

ptolemies are ok but you have to pay iron for horse javelin >.> while 99% civs have it iron-free, and iron is most desired resource in game usually

Edited October 3, 2018 by thankforpie

[Jofursloft]

6 hours ago, macemen said:

I wanted to ask this for some time, and this looks like a good place to ask it. Why are the Celtic civilizations considered to be the best? It seems like (after watching some of the videos posted on this forum, I don't play MP myself) that in 90% of the matches one of the parties is either Briton or Gaul, but often both. Sometimes you also see Ptolemies but other Civs are truly rare to be seen.

So why are the Celts considered superior for competitive play? Is it the spear + slinger + skirmisher combo that is so effective? (The Ptolemies also have this combo, maybe that is why they are also considered good).  Are slingers really the key to victory? According to my limited historic knowledge, slingers are supposed to be cheap auxiliary troops, not a battle deciding factor.

 AFAIK the Successors have a much more diverse army, both the Seleucids and the Ptolemies have almost every unit kind available. But I have not seen even a single match with Seleucids played.

Celts are without any doubt the best civilizations in 0ad (with ptolemies). Why? Here are the answers:

1. Every building gives a population limit boost (very useful in P1)
2. Buildings are really fast to build 
3. Houses cost 75 wood 
4. They can train slingers and they don't need stone for other building that is not fort: this allows you to have more stone during the game (mace and ptolemies for example have stone cost for barracks)
5. They have a boost 
6. Better gather rate for food
7. Good heroes
8. Rams, that are better than catapults for a 1v1 game
9. Most buildings cost wood

Slingers are a very good unit, but celts are not op only because they have slingers

Edited October 3, 2018 by Jofursloft