PVP help please. Free chocolate for everyone ! *Yum Yum*

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Hi Guys

Had about 10 PVP games so far, 8 wins 2 losses. Most people are clearly new/inexperienced and anything works really. However...

I play Greek (lvl 22) and i fought a guy twice who was Egyptian (lvl 18)who beat me both times so im looking for some pointers.

My general tactic is 20 villages, age up, 40 villages age up, 50 villages age up. Or there abouts. As quickly as possible i wall off my area (as small as possible to minimize external defensive area's) Whack up fortresses and towers, and i have upgraded walls except star tech. My army normally consists of mostly those Super tough infantry that apparently excel at killing buildings trainable in the fortress but seem good against elephants and other such tough things.

So first game i did this, he charged in with a mix of elephants and slingers and completely roflstomped my army and my town in the first wave. I noticed he didn't build any walls just fortresses towards me. He attacked before i was 100% ready.

Next game, assuming he would use the same tactic i created an army of those age 3 anti-cavalry cavalry and hoplites. Builtonly a fewwalls, just fortresses and i respecced accordingly to max out these unit types.

He did as predicted and built the same army with the same stuff and i fought off his first 2 waves of assault but he built the army back so fast, i was overwhelmed by the third attempt.

Those elephants seem to tear my village and stuff a new hole so fast and run around so quickly that i cant do anything about them.

Anyone have any advice ? What units do you guys go for generally ? im still experimenting and figuring out what i need to use, i NEED to build anti cavalry cavalry against Egyptians because if they charge with elephants and i have anything other than those im instantly dead in wave 1.

Thanks guys

Adam

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What was happening in the early states of the game?

With greeks, you can age up at 12 villagers (5 food, 7 wood), and start cranking up hypas, Tox or Sarris. If in doubt, do a couple of Sariss, and go harass the hell out of his villagers.

If the game does drag out until age 3, get your rams out while he spends the res on the fortress, and level it down.

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Thanks Jajusha.

Maybe your first sentence probably actually described where i go wrong. The first 3 ages i tend to just gather resources, loads of em from as far away from me as possible (after using the initial deposits next to me) Often i dont even have military units until i have 50 villagers !

Think i need to revise my starting strategy by the looks. I always go 10 food, 10 wood, then age up and build houses while aging. Am i leaving it too late ? My tactic has always been a million villagers and huge defenses to start a game.

Is building defenses and walls not really a valid tactic in this game ? I only come from a background of doing LAN AOE 1+ 2 with friends, who i can defeat 10 out of 10.

Thanks

Adam

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I personaly dont think that walling off the whole base and building tons of fortresses and towers is a good idea. Simply because you give your opponent map control. When your in-base gold rock is expired, you have to harvest another one, but your army is MUCH smaller then your opponent's, just because you harvested these tons of stone and he didnt, it means that he used his workers to gather gold/wood/food while you harvested stone and wood for walls and fortresses. And when you finally start making army, you need lots of gold. By the time you mine out your in-base gold rock, your opponent will have finished at least 2 or 3, it means he has twice or trice more gold then you, and ofc tons of rax to provide spending of this much gold. When you try to expand and harvest another gold rock outside of your "fortress", opponent will do his best to not let you do that. Allright, you might have won the first battle, but then ups - they have the whole army rebuilt while you barely have a half. Sooner or later you simply get overwhelmed because opponent's economy (that was provided by givimng him map control) can mantain 10 rax building non-stop, while you simply have no gold to make an army. That's it.

Edit P. S.: and I think that elephants could be countered by priests, but didnt test it yet.

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Thanks Freelancer

I've never walled myself in and run out of gold, That's usually after the map's resources have gone, i always take furthest away first and have 50-60 villagers. After that the only difference is he has unlimited wood, but i have 30+ farms in my fortress to exchange for gold.I swap both wood and food for gold asap to drive price down to 24 / 100 so he cant benefit too much.

Still it seems i need twice the army and defense to defend against elephants + slingers combo. Maybe i'll try my hippo cavalry if the game goes on that long next time :) 1 and half hour battles are common for me, with me killing the opponent on the counter attack while being turtled up :)

Ta

Adam

|||If you trade resources, you'll lose resources. You have no map control and what you gonna do if you start playing vs lvl30+ players? Catapults, ballistas and palintelons will tear your fortress down in seconds. If you want to play on a higher level, you'll need another strategy :)|||Age up with 14 villagers. It's more economical unless you're doing some saris rush.
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Aging with 20 villagers is way to late when playing vs Egypt, 15 villagers should be max in age 1. Vs Egypt your focus should be get to age 3 so you get the stronger units. Train Hoplites and mass peltasts. The Hoplites have an Anti cavalry bonus and are quite tough and can hold for quite some time, and Egypt has no direct counter to Hoplites(in age 1-3) other than Elephants(which your opponent must have a fort to be able to train them) and possibly chariot archers(due to their high DPS and are very capable of hit and running.)

If Egypt is massing slingers, Hoplites would hold outon their own due to their high Health vs the slingers weak DPS. Suppose the enemy has massed 50 Slingers, each with 10 DPS. Now a Hoplite has well over 500 Health, so it would take the group of slingers to micro all of them onto a single hoplite at a time to kill them, whilst the hoplites tear them apart in melee. Add a shield to the hoplites that gives ranged protection, and you're set to go.

So a Hoplite/Peltast combo would be a good counter to an Egypt army.|||

As the others have mentioned, aging with 20 villagers is way too late. Against Egypt it's especially not recommended, but you shouldn't do this when up against Greeks either.

In high level PvP you'll have 2 sari or 2 camels harassing your villagers even before you start building your first military building if you age too late.

As for age 3, I recommend properly geared Prodromos to counter elephants and mix it up with Peltasts to hit the Chariots. Maybe add in a few priests if your opponent has a lot of elephants.

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Don't worry about with how many villagers you age up to third and fourth. That completely depends on how the game turns out. However, you should have about 15 villagers (+/- 1) on a land map before you age up to 2nd.

After that, I wouldn't suggest going for towers or fortresses. Just go for a mixed army, and try to scout and counter what your opponent has. And try to keep your resources low at all times (whilst constantly pumping out vills), that is the most important thing.

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Thanks alot for your help guys.

I didnt even think about seige type units to be honest but yeah, that would screw me royally over.

So does noone bother with walls and such then later on ?

Rather than Hoplites am i not better off using the troops you build in the fortress from the age 3 advisor ? the ones with like 900 health ? Sorry my memory is awful and the name of them eludes me.

Seems i need to re-evaluate and be more offensive then. Does anyone bother with Hippokins <sp> or are they just too late on to bother with ?

So starting strategy, im still playing around with. If im upgrading on 14 villagers, is that 7 to food and wood, or am i best off dividing between food wood and gold ?

Ta

Adam

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Thanks DeJavanl and Suzido

Free chocolate to everyone as soon as i loot some. Promise !

I take it everyone and their children has the tech ability to build watch towers ?

These bonuses units have against others. Is it a set bonus ? like double dps or does it vary ?

Ta

Adam

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"The Hoplites have an Anti cavalry bonus "

The advice given above gives you some ideas what to do but the quoted statement is in error. Hoplites themselves have no cav bonus, but you can equip them with a spear that does. Hoplites do decently vs cav due to their hi HP, however. The only greek units with an actualanti-cav bonus are spearmen and prodromos.

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4-5 to food, rest on wood (if it's a land map of course). last one or two vills can go to gold.

walls and fortresses can be useful in lategame yes. i'm not too sure about the fortress units (i don't make very many forts). If you like making forts etc, I think they can be quite useful.

Hippikons are very very good, but you can't make them until age 4. You should make them then (along with ballista), unless your opponent spams its counter-units.

Learn the counters - scout what your opponent makes and react.

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So does noone bother with walls and such then later on ?

You don't really need walls when you have map control. Put some military on guarding your resources and the choke points.

Rather than Hoplites am i not better off using the troops you build in
the fortress from the age 3 advisor ? the ones with like 900 health ?
Sorry my memory is awful and the name of them eludes me.

We call them Soma. They are infantry good against buildings and a tank unit. Those are the pretty much the only things Soma is good at. Using them against your opponents stronger (and mass) late game units is usually a bad idea.

Seems i need to re-evaluate and be more offensive then. Does anyone
bother with Hippokins <sp> or are they just too late on to bother
with ?

Hippikon are really late game. If you're up against elephants it's still better to use Prodromos if you have good gear on them. They do much more damage against elephants fully upgraded. If your opponent has any other unit than elephants or camels you can go Hippikon as no other unit can really counter fully ugraded Hippikon.

So starting strategy, im still playing around with. If im
upgrading on
14 villagers, is that 7 to food and wood, or am i best off dividing
between food wood and gold ?

This depends on what starting units you will build in your military buildings. Food units, put more on food. Wood units, put more on wood. You'll have to try out yourself what works best with your build order.

RF Gandalf wrote the following post at 08-22-2011 7:28 AM:

"The Hoplites have an Anti cavalry bonus "

The advice given above gives you some ideas what to do but the quoted
statement is in error. Hoplites themselves have no cav bonus, but you
can equip them with a spear that does. Hoplites do decently vs cav due
to their hi HP, however. The only greek units with an actualanti-cav
bonus are spearmen and prodromos.

I used to think the same in the early beta. But Hoplite does have a very small bonus against Cav. Hoplite is an all-round unit with a slight bonus against Cav. The actual (hard) counters are still Spearmen and Prods.