Boot Camp

Are you sick of getting sand kicked in your face? Sick of watching your mini map flash red in despair as yet another enemy assault begins against your wounded and depleted forces?

Do you toss and turn at night wondering how that guy had so many damn troops so fast? How he managed to be everywhere at once? Like a God? shock

Do you have what it takes to make a stand? To bandage your wounded and bury your dying then fight on!

Or are you gonna host noob games all your life? lol

We aint interested in your homework assignments. We don't care if your wife is angry or your dog is hungry. There is no school on the battlefield. It's you and the enemy and if you're not prepared, you're dead. So read on....

Basic rules for not sucking too horribly online.

1. Play The Tutorials, Noob.

2. Turn your help up in-game and read it until you know the lot. (Ctrl-Z)

3. Play standard settings and get used to them.

4. Learn the different nations powers and how to utilise them.

5. Learn to defend from raiding.

6. Learn to raid.

7. Communicate in teams.

8. Practise Practise Practise!

9. PRACTISE SOME MORE!

Micro Drills.

Play tough/er/est AI on slow speed and learn to win battles by microing your troops to their counters. This is known as slow drill and enables you to begin utilising your movements efficiently by giving you a larger reaction time to the map/situation. Eventually a lot of these movements become instinctive. Now micro your battles online properly you'll see the difference immediately.


Set up Barbarians At the Gates vs 2 or 3 AI and attempt not only to defend yourself but expand at the same time. This helps give you the ability to Build and Destroy at the same time, a fundamental concept you need to understand in order to really get good at RTS games.

Play above your weight. Play better players than you. This helps a great deal too. Take some hidings, watch the recs, find out why you died. That's right, it's not enough to know you sucked, you need to know why you sucked as well P

Practise MORE!

If you do this all repeatedly and are still awful, go to the top of the page and repeat.

i never played the tutorials and still play on max help lol

Yeah I got to stage I thought i had it all remembered but still turn help on now and then there's a lot to it. Thing is to get people reading it so they see just what kind of depth they're getting into.

I never needed the tutorials (probably did ;) ) but had to beat all the times etc on them. I had RTS experience (AOE) beforehand but only single player till RoN.

AU_RaMBoZo <- noob

k ive tried playing against toughest AI wiht game speed slow. and its pretty easy. then i played agianst some other ppl with normal speed and the game felt alot faster.
Wt i mean is dose playing at slow speed actually good?
I was thinking maybe playing at a faster speed to help me speed up. becuase my averge speed in a game i think its 48. oh and is that a good speed?

Mine is about 90-120
Playing on normal speed is what you should practice, everyone plays normal speed and you won't reach anything if you can't play that ^^

Just try practicing at fast game speed and then normal, you'll find normal slower and therefore easier to play )

Mine is usually 100-125, but it won't get instantly that fast, you need to practise a lot.
I_aM_AnDy practised with fast speed, maybe it's better that way?

Slow drills are used because they work. Fast Drills work too, they do make game seem slower on normal. I've not noticed fast drill improve my micro at all. But it must improve something.

I'll repeat myself...

"begin utilising your movements efficiently by giving you a larger reaction time to the map/situation."

Once you can do everything for a PERFECT start cos you've done it on slow, switch to normal you can still do it all. How? WTF? I don't know. But slow drill works.

Don't let people with player speed 120 get you down. Mine is about 40 average now and I win plenty. I'm sure in some way speed helps. Hotkeys is another way to rapidly improve your efficiency (and lower your player speed ;) )

I did a little Tai Chi and thought it was lame as it was so slow and repetitive. I did one hour a week for four months. 2 months after I stopped this 'lamo' exercise I sparred with a friend I have always found my match. He couldn't touch me.

And honestly, I have had the same with RoN. (not the couldn't touch me bit I get PWNZED) Without slow drills my micro suffers. If I do a few every month or so and then get online I'm much more effective in battle.

I constantly have excellent kill ratios.

again...

"utilising your movements efficiently".

If you suck, I suggest you try slow drills. If you're good without em, why fix something that aint broken. Unless you're ambitious, and then you'll try anything )

The most important thing for a noob is to know what units to build in each age. Doesn't matter how fast you click if you're fighting with the wrong units. For example, dont' build light infantry before gunpowder age. El_Capitan had a good article on this, but I dug through every article on his blog and couldn't find it...damn.

No wonder I couldn't find it--somehow, that week was deleted from the archives. I eventually dug up the post via another link.

reference
http//o4brons.blogspot.com/2003_12_28_o4brons_archive.html

Wednesday, December 31, 2003
A Standard Army Guide for Early Aggressive Assaults - El_Capitan
For those that are wondering what an early army should consist of (like when using siege to take cities), here's a decent guide

Classical Age Foot Archers (Timber and Wealth) and Heavy Infantry (Food and Metal). Strongest Nations French, Inca, and Koreans. See the early spread in resources? You'll have a good army, and quick, because of it. You'll be using Timber and Metal for Siege, but that's okay, that gives you Wealth for Scholars and Food for going up an Age. Most likely your enemy will be using Horse Archers and Heavy Cavalry to raid you with, and an early Cavalry army for defense is much more costly for your opponent... but if you set up an early assault, you want to mainly consist of these units, with a few Light Horse or Heavy Cavalry when you can afford it.

Exception 1 Inca. With the Inca, you can start massing Heavy Cavalry more than any other nation, even the Mongols. You can just build Foot Archers and Heavy Cavalry, and use the extra Food to go up an Age and keep filling any economical needs, or build a few Heavy Infantry for a very aggressive Classical Army.

Exception 2 French. With the French, you can get enough Heavy Cavalry that will serve to protect your Siege, and use Foot Archers to defend against any enemy Heavy Infantry. With a Healing Supply Wagon and cheap Siege, it's very difficult to stop a Classical French army with them just those 2 units.

Medieval Age Heavy Infantry (Food and Metal) and Heavy Cavalry (Metal and Wealth).
Strongest Nations Chinese and Romans. You're going Metal heavy at this point, and hopefully you had decent enough micro to save your Siege from being destroyed. With the saved Timber, you can upgrade your University research for more Knowledge, and usually 5 or 6 Heavy Infantry upgraded is enough, as long as you're focusing mainly on Heavy Cavalry. Hopefully you still have Foot Archers still alive.

Exception Chinese. With the Chinese, you can start making Light Infantry and Heavy Cavalry at this point instead, Foot Archers become useless for them since their UU Light Infantry become the best anti-Infantry unit.

Gunpowder Age Light Infantry (Food and Timber) and Heavy Cavalry (Metal and Wealth). Strongest Nations Spanish, Turks, and Aztecs. In Gunpowder Age, the main difference is that Bombard Siege are much more powerful Siege, and your Light Infantry become the anti-Infantry for all the Nations.

Exception 1 Spanish. With the Spanish, you can start making Heavy Infantry that are ranged, and because of this, you can go 2 different ways. You can go Light Infantry and Heavy Infantry, or go Heavy Infantry and Heavy Cavalry. It may not be a good resource spread at this point, but no Gunpowder Age army is going to withstand such an attack.

Exception 2 Aztecs. If the Aztecs survive to this point, it's basically over. The Aztecs use all their Timber just to make 3 free Light Infantry. With 1200 Timber, you can amass nearly 15 free Arquebusiers, and use the extra Food and Metal for Heavy Infantry, the Wealth you're not using for Scholars, and try going up to Enlightenment Age. With such a large army, and quickly, the free resources you get from killing the enemy just feeds you enough to keep your army rolling slowly through all your opponent's cities.

Enlightenment Age Light Infantry (Food and Timber) and Heavy Infantry (Food and Metal). Strongest Nations British and Turks. This is where most assaults end, and for good reason. Heavy Infantry become ranged, and Cavalry become less useful. Siege are quick to take down buildings, and less micro is needed to protect them. It's a numbers game at this point.
posted by El_Capitan at 525 PM -- Click here to comment

Note that in standard T&P play, you will want more HCs and HAs in classical age.

Very nice article. Thanks for making effort to find it.