Tips and tricks.

Soooo many.

I start a few you peeps add to them. I will be despamming this thread to keep it on topic.

When getting Cap sacks use ambush to hold the enemy Capital while you raze things. Your troops suffer no damage and once you are outnumbered leave. 2 Generals upgraded in later game can alternate ambush causing much frustration to any enemy without a scout.

Shift-alt click inserts a waypoint to an existing que. So if you have a villy scouting on many waypoints use shift-alt to a ruin and they get the ruin but don't disturb the existing que of waypoints.

When aiming at multiple targets with multiple spies make your last waypoint to the ground behind your troops or elsewhere so once your spies bribe and reveal themselves they immediately leave the area.

When reinforcing to a position behind enemy lines be aware multiple waypoints with the end destination being your army rarely work. Waypoint your last waypoint to the ground where your army is making it's attack/defense.

In the above scenario ,,, selects all military so you can run away fast if needed.

Planes are effective anti raid units from industrial on so having an airfield central to your economic cities is good security.

Minutemen pawn scout cars.

Don't ever attempt to play sims when stoned P

Always build a tower late in ancient or early classical. Militia will save you when rushed.

On maps like Sahara and Amazon, use your scouting villie to find a corner rare and attack it. Even if you don't kill it, you force your opponent to bring a military unit or villager away from the front for the price of a villie that wasn't really doing anything anyway.

Use flamethrowers in early Industrial to eject garrisoned units if your opponent is still in Enlightenment.

this is really good stuff dance

Use buildings mountains and trees as defensive walls to protect your economy and slow raiders wherever possible.

Generals ambush hides builders and workers.

Always take a scout when raiding Iroquois.

Idle merchants and fishing boats can be assigned to hotkeys in options as can temples forts and towers.

Ctrl-home selects all damaged units.
Shift-home then filters out the units with the most damage.

Set map scrolling speed to maxium from your options, it makes it easier to control many things at the same time (Econ, Raiding, Assaulting etc)

Go to your mouse options and set your mouse sensitivity to maxium, it makes you faster

is there any way of fitting another hotkey to the library & university? everytime i try to assign eg "V" to my university, it cancels ALL other V hotkeys =/

Just copied and pasted my similiar thread on this at the kiwi boards )

- I have noticed quite a few of you don't use shift + click when scouting, this is how it works select your scout, click some place in the map you want it to go first, then press shift while having your scout still selected then click on another place on the map you want it to go after he went to that first place. This way the scout will pick up all ruins he see's on his way AUTOMATICLY! and you can make it move throughout the whole map in just a few clicks, this helps your scouting quite a bit

- Don't build a temple in ancient it will cost you to much money, rather spend that wood on a stable/rax in age II or on another market, when you are korea it is wise to delete your temple after building a 2d city, this will give you +30 gold and when you are pushing you can build it in your 2d city for another extra border bonus.

- Raid defense, some of you build towers in ancient! in ancient towers are way to expensive except when you see he is rushing for sure. Also light horses don't counter everything... They do help to kill the initial ha but if theres a hc or an army raid you won't stand a chance. Research militia. If your raided heavy build a couple of towers, a lh protecting a good rare you might have (he will usually just send a ha there) Also get despotism asap and start building all kinds of units from your rax, if you have an army his army raid will most likely fail because the units in an army raid are based on killing caravans and villagers, so mostely hoplites and hc.
When your being raided yourself the chances are quite big he doesn't have any raid defense himself so you send a lonely ha through his country to kill his villies etc

- When you hit medieval make your city's large, i see many of you don't do this and by not making city's large you keep a weak spot in your defense, a good player will usually take advantage of that weak spot. When you make your city's large he will have less possibillity's to get a quick sack of your city, when he takes one of your city's your trade routes are disturbed, you will have way less gold income. If your city is taken build another one 5 seconds after in a different corner, this helps you to borderpush... When you can then take back the city he just took you have a city extra in which you can build all kinds of stuff

- Defending an asault When your being attacked quite often you notice you don't have enough units to just kill his army, the thing you then want to do is stretch his attack until you do! Build a tower behind your city, maybe even two. Build a temple in which you upgrade the city hp, if you have a lumber mill research the building strenghthening line. When you have archers and he is sieging it is wise to let them shoot to the enemy at times to make him suffer losses, you do that this way Right click your archers and left click your despot outside of your city --> make them shoot, he will then usually send his hc to kill your archers, quickly retreat inside and ungarison some hi to kill his hc. This way you can make his army smaller while yours is groing.

- Lookouts They are usefull, here's an example for great lakes... Lets say your playing gay lakes and the enemy hasn't let anything see of himself for a little time, he can then either be booming or he can be sneaking upon your cap using ambush! When you place a lookout in both sides of your country he won't be able to get passed unnoticed! Also they are usefull quite well as a 5th building in that city you want to be large... You can also build it at the front where the players are fighting, spies will then have no use anymore, no matter how many he has... Lookouts just spot spies, your army will kill the spies

- Terrain Rivers --> if your standing in them your units will move twice as slow and will take damage twice as much.
- Higher grounds When your standing uphill and him downhill your units are twice as accurate and his are less accurate.
- Rocks, when your standing on the rocks in which in later ages oil is to be found you get +20 % defense bonus.

On attacking

Don't fight a battle unless you think you can win it. I am amazed at how many games I win because other ppl fight me age down, without armor upgrades, etc. when they could have easily force marched their way back to a safe base.

Corollary If you are going to invade, make sure you have a way of getting out. Nothing's worse than invading and doing a Napoleon-goes-to-Russia on your troops. This especially applies to army raids on maps like Amazon. I think I win about 50% of Amazon games just because someone made a stupid army raid in which they trapped themselves and lost all their raiders.

Always hit the city with least resistance. Oftentimes your opponent will sit behind his front city waiting for you to come to him. You need to attack somewhere less fortified to get his army to come to you in the open field, where you will probably prevail.

i wish i knew that sooner !

Keep your game going. Change your focus of the game every 10 to 20 seconds (at least). For example, if you are raiding, after micro-ing your raiding forces for 15 seconds or so, you should go work on something different economy, research, building army, etc. If you are raiding with HA only, you can set way-points for them and go do something else.

Always set waypoints anyhow for an army raid 2, in the mean while you can go do something else )

I hope you manage your army raid well, cuz a lost army raid can often = lost game

I'm pretty decent at it ) And my army raids actually have counters for whatever he sents to my army ) So if he has a couple of units i'll hurt those 2 )

You will hurt the econ a bit first with a bit of luck a caravan and some vills and then some units... And ofcourse you can always force march back home if you haven't used ambush yet...

Specific nations have bonuses you can slow down by destroying certain buildings.

British - Rax
Aztecs - Rax
Romans - Rax
Mongols - Stable
Turks - Seige Workshop

By destroying these buildings you force your opponent to make at least two more of same type of building before they get free units again. So if I've taken a Brit town the next target is always the barracks.

french - fort/siege workshop
koreans - cities
germans - airbases, every building which grants completion bonus
americans - airbases, universities
iroquouis - rax

ggnore

Koreans - cities - nice one!

I've played a couple of games with sims and watched some recs of you, what I noticed was that you always build your market at the edge of the city's economic range.

Just a quick question, why do you build it there?

Small things can make a big difference P

It depends

Usually I try to build it next to a woodcamp (HA's can't shoot over a building), or I try to build it as close to all the rares I want to get as possible.

For example, on African Watering Hole, I usually try to build the market at the second city close to the water, because all the rares are close to the water. This shaves a few seconds off walking time for each merchant, although it's probably a pretty insignificant optimization in the long run.

When I remember my market goes as far forward of my first city (inbetween first two) as possible. This gives van somewhere to hide halfway down trade route if needed.

the argument for putting it between the cities is that you can garrison the van mid-run.

selecting a building you want to build then pressing shift before you place the building will allow you to place the building unlimited amount of times without having to go through the building selection process each time.

TGE

Yep, I put it in the middle for that reason as well sometimes. Sometimes I built it right next to a critical rares so that if that rare dies, I can get my merchant back on it hehe

Instead of waiting for resourses for something, use buy/sell often. This saves you micro and also you don't waste the purchasing power of you resourses for waiting. I consider buy prices <150 and sell price >50 as acceptable.

[quote5af988bea8]- Defending an asault When your being attacked quite often you notice you don't have enough units to just kill his army, the thing you then want to do is stretch his attack until you do! Build a tower behind your city, maybe even two. Build a temple in which you upgrade the city hp, if you have a lumber mill research the building strenghthening line. When you have archers and he is sieging it is wise to let them shoot to the enemy at times to make him suffer losses, you do that this way Right click your archers and left click your despot outside of your city --> make them shoot, he will then usually send his hc to kill your archers, quickly retreat inside and ungarison some hi to kill his hc. This way you can make his army smaller while yours is groing.[/quote5af988bea8]

When I send my FA out to shoot, I try to shoot HI. So when my city is reduced and the battle starts, I can readily clean up HI for my HC.

'Right click your archers and left click your despot outside of your city '

I dont understand this, specialy right click your archers? S

When you garrison your units in a city they group themselves. When you right click a group that's garrisoned, they all eject to the waypoint you set. Right click your archers means all your archers pop out of the city. Left click you despot pushes your despot out too (so the archers get the armor bonus)....

I get it, but its little bit hard to do all this things =)

didnt know that -.-
I always kept clicking them one by one

rofl really?

49 wink

[quote6ef981c414]When you garrison your units in a city they group themselves.[/quote6ef981c414]

As I recall, if your PC resolution is low, then you see up to 5 or up 10 groups of different units on lower right side of the screen. I have seen that when I was home. With my PC now here with higher resolution, I can see all garrisoned units individually and I would (or have to; can I shift-right-click to send units of same type out at the same time? ? ) right-click on them individually; but I can see which units are severely damaged and not to send them out.

But I am not sure the difference is of resolution or of game settings. ?

same for me bird, my units dont "group" , no matter how many i have either, i see them all individualy

I have grouped army, then i click hotkeys, but i have all default, can someone post his hotkeys so i can see how he has..

As I remember the setting is Auto-Combine unit types on the Game screen in options. If you have over 2-3 units it will combine them into groups inside your city allowing you to RMC to eject them.

I thought you'd all have this on settings so you can pull cav/seige/whatever you want from your main army using the interface.

[quotef126a1d30f="Beertender"]rofl really?[/quotef126a1d30f]

One can always improve ^^

lol nuuk

we know you ungarrison units by deleting the building you bloody hax!

dance motherfucker dance

(that says dance motherfucker dance a funny beastie boys song)

[quote742d252790="AU_Rambozo"]I thought you'd all have this on settings so you can pull cav/seige/whatever you want from your main army using the interface.[/quote742d252790]

LOLOLOLOL how fucked up is this i play at 1280 x 1024 and my unist dont combine (even with the option selected) i can even garrison the maximun amount of units in cities and forts,25, and they dont outo combine (i just did a test), so then i went in the options/graphics and i lowered the resolution to 1024 x 728..and now it lets me!,, ( but im so used to playing at 1280 x1024 and even sometimes 1600x1200.......is there a way ican fix this?

I don't know. I always just ungarrison them all with with J or click on each little archer one by one...heheh. 1280*1024 is so much better than 1024*768, i dont even know how u can play at the latter resolution...everything is so freaking big.

Run your scout past universities to see what your opponent is up to. You'll be able to deduce whether he has researched any university upgrades, how much knowledge he is gaining from that uni, etc. If you see ur opponent has 10 scholars in early classic, you probably should attack immediately.

How can u tell on upgrades do they hold numbers?

dirty bastard!

lol.

Only smurf when playing sims and hope he underestimates you (didn't work)

hmm, holy shit sims ur a genius @[email protected] how can u know if he has the uni upgrades?

when u run past the uni, it tells u how much knowledge the scholars in the uni are currently gathering, and also how much a full university would gather. so at the beginning of the game if you have 1 scholar in the uni, you see +5/+35 since a base unupgraded scholar gathers 5 knowledge. this is like with every other resource gathering spot on the map (i.e. if you click on a 5 person timber spot with 2 workers at the beginning of the game, you'll see +20/+50 since you're currently gathering +20 wood, but if you filled up the woodcamp, u'd get +50 wood.)

You can deduce what knowledge upgrades ur opponent has by just figuring out how much 1 of his scholars would gather. With 1 scholar upgraded with Literacy, you'll see +7/+49 at his university since a literate scholar produces +7 knowledge. A scholar with Printing Press will gather +10 knowledge, one with Scientific Method gathers +15, one with Institutional Research gathers +20, and one with Supercomputers gathers +25. Yes, I know it's scary I remember the names of all these techs off the top of my head. dance

note that if ur opponent has hanging gardens, u can see their total knowledge income instead of just that uni's knowledge income (it's a bug).

Ehm sims...

Get a life P Anyways don't you think its a bit unhandy to scout all his uni's and then count his scholars to then grab your calculator to figure out what income of knowledge he could have...

I mean i'm not that good at calculating from the top of my head P

lol

go back to skool man

Man, it can't be hard to look at that last number on the uni and divide by 7, can it?

Well, now you know why me and bird are getting engineering degrees dance

58 ...and is why i have one D. div by 7... the pinekle of my skewling.

[quote1d0a8a46da="AU_Rambozo"]lol

go back to skool man[/quote1d0a8a46da]

Lol i'm still on school =P But i'm bad at maths etc...

Never trust your feelings or some weird calculations, that’s what I do. [i9dfdfa3b21]Always play by the force[/i9dfdfa3b21]

One Hundred and Seven!

the real money is in sales 8)...plus no real work just bs'ing with customers all day.

[quote9c942a9919="AU_sims"]Man, it can't be hard to look at that last number on the uni and divide by 7, can it?[/quote9c942a9919]

I know this thread is kinda old, and sorry for bumping it, but doesn't a university by itself generate either +5 or +10 knowledge, PLUS the knowledge with scholars?

I'm not positive, but I can't really check right now, and I like the strategy, so...

Thanks!

Yup, unis w/o scholars give +10 knowledge.

one click garrisoin is a nice option and much better then hitting "g"
and u need it more often then repair for workers which then has to be done by a hotkey.

After Lakota sacks a city in III, you can build lookout and other military buildings to make it large. Good for cap sack.

No wait for assimilation bird?

2. After sacking, it becomes neutral territory. Lakota can build there.

Holy sheit shock. Bird, you bad twisted.

You can? I tried it with temple and tower before but it didn't work... O_O

[quote2f717f2891="AU_bird"]2. After sacking, it becomes neutral territory. Lakota can build there.[/quote2f717f2891]

i tried that with rax & tower, but it doesnt work!!? |

Official confirmation that bird hax. damnit

There are four types of territory in this game

1) Allied/Friendly - All civs can build here.
2) Neutral - Territory that no one's borders claim. Only Lakota can build here.
3) Contested - Territory that is in a state of flux--i.e., territory around a captured city that is still assimilating. This territory is neither yours, nor theirs, it's just being fought over.
4) Enemy - Your enemy's territory.

I am almost sure you can't build in contested territory as Lakota. You can only build in neutral or allied territory. So in summary, when you capture a city, the territory isn't neutral, it's contested--that's why you can't build there with Lakota. Unless you are a haxer like bird. dance

But with AU hax you can @_@ with AU hax you can even garrison Ships into a dock that isn't in your territory

[img1252aa488f]http//img150.echo.cx/img150/4212/hax7tw.png[/img1252aa488f]

[img1252aa488f]http//img150.echo.cx/img150/2428/hax1dw.png[/img1252aa488f]

|

No idea. I tried only once. Maybe a bug then. P

In team games, control your international trade route. On wing, don't like them go to the other wing (go to pocket instead); it probably take an age or two to set trade route that far, and mostly such long route will be raided before set.

[quote7cacf8148e]In team games, control your international trade route. On wing, don't like them go to the other wing (go to pocket instead); it probably take an age or two to set trade route that far, and mostly such long route will be raided before set.[/quote7cacf8148e]
Also, if you're the pocket, pick the wing that's most likely to win to send it to.

[quote7a90589f17]But with AU hax you can @_@ with AU hax you can even garrison Ships into a dock that isn't in your territory [/quote7a90589f17]
You can't garrison them but they don't get automatically expelled as I remember. In your shot above most likely you recently pushed your border & his ships were already in there.

Yeah thats what they all say! Just ban him for hacking allready ;)

OK, Beertender is banned.... shock


Pwned!

i tried to bribe an enemy dock in my territory and it doesnt let me...so i figure it is just that bhg doesnt care about water...like tl who obviously hasnt showered or brushed his teeth in a month or 2.

yeah, i have thtat problem too--even when the dock is clearly in your territory it sometimes disallows bribing the dock.

[quotee3d28cefdb]like tl who obviously hasnt showered or brushed his teeth in a month or 2.[/quotee3d28cefdb]
I only do that cause your fiance likes me to smell bad when I mount her. shock

yeah she doesn't like change... oops

[quote3f008cc961] I only do that cause your fiance likes me to smell bad when I mount her. shock[/quote3f008cc961]
tip or trick ? roll

a bit of both

this is very usefull i post some of this on REV website D 58

ok but she is my wife now so you can only mount her when I am not at home