Just like old times

[RascalJones]

Logged on late last night because I was awake, and had just finished a cup of coffee at midnight. Cyclo was on. He invited me to a 1v1, I accepted. He had his level 95 Aztecs, I had my level 53 Ports.

Completely forgot that I had deleted all of my decks as Port, and only rebuilt 2 decks that were for "special" games (ie, played a 1v1 on Plymouth vs a pal, and I wanted to go water boom). Anyway, I had no "good" deck to use, not that it woulda helped. I think Cyclo merely toyed with me for 24 minutes. I never stood a chance. At least I knew I wouldn't get tlaloc'ed....the map was Mongolia.

Of course, one thing that killed me was getting my build icons mixed up and accidentally built a saloon instead of rax upon reaching colonial.

Oh well. gg cylo.

I believe the official term for this game is a good old fashioned @$$ kickin'.

Sure wish I knew how to have an army and an economy in age 2 around the 7 minute mark.

[ZoRPrimE]

Yeah Cyclo can go midevil on your arse pretty good, even if he's been on a break. I haven't seen Cyclo online since I've been back in Texas. Of course his laughably low Aztec HC (Think mine is 111 haha JK you know)
should be no problem for you Rascal!

KingKaz has just been clobbering me left and right the same way. I still lake the level of intesity to be anywhere near him or Nav in 1v1 or Cyclo for that matter. I've at least given cyclo very close games back when I was one of the few Aztec players.

[RascalJones]

I've had a couple games where I almost did something right, but it never pans out.

[KingKaramazov]

Try watching some recs and paying close attention to what they do in the first 5-10 minutes of the game.

If you are really having so much trouble getting a decent eco and some military out by 7 minutes, then focusing on your early game should be a top priority, and shouldn't be too difficult to see some marked improvement.

[I__CHAOS__I]

and don't use ports if you need an army at 7min

[RascalJones]

^ I agree, I was pretty much talking in general. I read all these "double rax x-bow spam", "early chinese rush", "7:30 uber-powerful FF", etc... And, I just have no idea HOW to do that.

[ZoRPrimE]

I can tell you first hand that if you haven't spent a decent amount of time practicing your start you're not going to get it without multiple sessions of timed practice.

I first learned with spain(in vanilla AOE3) by doing 50+ games where if I didn't have an army of X size ready by X time amount I immediately did a restart (single player allows you to restart with one click) and tried all over again. You do have to pick a civ, a build order and the associated time to have X or greater troops and stick with it until you start to nail it.

I think at first I practiced at fast game speed (fast game speed will get you used to multitasking under more time pressure) then later brought it back down to normal game speed to get a better feel and more accurate times (fast will give illusions that can't happen in other game speeds.) I also modified my HomeCity with hack in single player mode as leveling it up would be a colosal waste of time.

I did this same procedure again for French, Dutch, Aztec, Sioux, Otto's, Japan, and now China. Depending on how long since I played AOE3 last it takes far less time than the first time I got it down. I've taken 3 month break before and it probably took me 15+ times again when I switched from Aztec to Otto's.

Once you can do it consistantly you can apply that speedy start to more and more civs and more and more unplanned scenario's with less practice time. After a while your start will be so second nature you can start varying the next phase of your build order/attack plan. Nav does it all the time to me!! I can pretty much expect minor variances based on his scouting that completely counter whatever I'm going to do. When starting out it's best to stick to a specific unit build plan and move on to varying the specific troops and villager resources needed.

Some people have there own ways but ultimately if you can't get your army ready in a singleplayer mode practice game you'll probably never get an army by that time online.

A few other things.

Once I got my time trial down I tried to actually win the game against the AI on Hard then Expert. Don't try to do this at first because you'll never get the repeat attempts you need to make your X number of troops by X minutes.
If you're having trouble hitting the time you're expected to have an army try maps with really great starting resources like hispaniola. Don't spoil yourself by starting out on them, try Sonora, Siberia, or other resource light maps.

Sorry if this was too long and you are not really looking to play at that level. I just remember that before I figured that out I spent a lot of time frustrated as to why people showed up with massive armies when I had my first 5-10 troops or none at all.

In fact if one of our experts IE someone that knows all the various shortest first military times of each civ that might be a great sticky post.

You'd think I'd know but alas... If this post gets responses I'll Post up a thread where everyone can post the fast times they are aware of for various Civs to have viable rush armies.

[Cyclohexane]

I am actually pretty sick of the Aztecs. I am only playing them to get them up to 100 and then I'm changing back to Iro (I want to be able to have all my civs at lvl 100). Well I'll throw in some Sioux, Spanish, and Japan as well. All of those upper tier civs have one thing in common, versatility. They can rush, FF, play the water, go defensive FF, etc.

I'm tired of losing with the Aztecs because I did not use rush (although they do have various ways to rush). Thyloc canoes work in team games but not so much in 1v1 and they are generally considered cheap so I limit my use of them to water maps only I have ideas that would make Aztec more versatile without being OP but Wacko seemed to have ignored them completely and going more towards the increased usage of maces (boring).

Anyhow, I wasn't toying with you, I was just defensive booming with a little raiding to gather XP. If it makes you feel any better, King and I also had a late night game last night where he ended up chasing me all over the map with a ton of little Oscar De La Hoyas (a.k.a. advanced scouts).

Sure I owned the water, but I could not manage to get those villagers to swim. If it had been another map with an island, I could have drug it out for ages. Aztecs just do not have a good counter to millions of scouts (or disciples for that matter). I sent all 3 upgrade cards for coyotes and they just got slaughtered and wasn’t able to keep up in production. Looking back on it, I am going to include the Aztec WC card in all my decks to build Jaguars. I did send the 35% Jaguar card but no way to replenish them. I had tons of food and gold from the sea but couldn't spend it when I was cornered in a small section or land.

I am so frustrated with the Aztecs. If you do not rush, you have to defensive boom. If you survive, most players will then resign. So you never really get to stomp the enemy...

[KingKaramazov]

Aztecs are awesome at rushing but they are pretty broken at everything else.

IMO if they are going to get a boost their rush needs to be toned down in some way, for some civs it's just too damn hard to contend with.

If nothing else a boost to Aztec must not make their rush any stronger.


Anyways, Zorprime's idea of practicing your start in single player is a good one, although I must say that there is no substitute for playing against a real person in a real do-or-die situation. Things are a lot different when you're under pressure to win. I think the best way to get better is to play repeatedly against people that are better than you and try consistently to find ways to beat them or at least give them some good competition. That's what I try to do when I play against 36drew or Nav.

[RascalJones]

or just play treaty?

I played Aztecs for awhile and loved the ZAP rush, I won a few games with it. I just found them hard economically in age 2....kind of like my other "favorite" civs.....Port & India. HA!

I sure hope India gets boosted a little soon, I like them a lot. I wish they'd just make villies cost 90 wood instead of 100. THAT would help a bunch.

[ZoRPrimE]

My suggestion is only for getting your build order straight.
I'm pretty sure it'll always hold true if you can't get your military on timein practice vs. AI you won't be likely to do it vs. a player.

And for the love of GOD don't play treaty. LOL JK treaty has it's entertaining value. It is interesting how it really changes which civ is strong based on the treaty time.

[lordandcount]

Well how more I play India how better they seem, Sowar are really good for their price and having a good dragoon unit in age 2 helps too. I can only play them in team games, but when you got solid eco (the wonder that let's you gather faster and 80 settlers) you can spam mahout. Then the enemy have a problem

[I__CHAOS__I]

I fully agree with Zorprime, that's how I practise as well.

about the aztecs, I use em differently. Booming is rarely a safe thing.
What I do is keep em boxed and under pressure all the time, maces rock at that. Meanwhile, you can grow a strong eco, take over the water, get the trade route, dance out WPs etc etc Might not be better than those all out rushes, but it's fun and gives nice games imho. Any boost to maces is fine for me

[MNBob]

I've said it before but 7:00 should be your magic number.

Play against Expert for 7:00 just because there is an increased chance that you might get attacked which better simulates a 1v1.

Your goal should be to maximize military and villager population with whichever civ you are using. Nail down your build order so that you can do it relatively easy every game.

Playing any longer than 7:00 against the CPU isn't going to provide you any semblance of playing other people.

[I__CHAOS__I]

expert AI has sometimes 5 towers up before the 7:00, but still, it's a good challenge if you wanna test rush strats.