Initial RoN strategy tips

[Sky Dog]

I'm moving up to Tough as well. I've now dominated the AI in a four-player Survival-Of-The-Fittest the past three or four games on Moderate (without pausing other than to go to the bathroom). I'm usually attacking in Medieval or Gunpowder, and am getting to the Info age. One thing I'm noticing is that no matter what nation I use on Moderate (I play random Civ), I'm able to out-expand the AI pretty early on. I tend to take a noticeable lead in land territory by the Medieval Age (before attacking at all), and from there on it becomes an exercise in leveraging my territorial lead into an economic lead and then into military dominance. In the game I finished just a few moments ago, I got my military really rolling in the Enlightenment Age, and managed to finish the game with all four super-techs researched, while no other nation could make it past Industrial because they were under military assault.

Some thoughts/observations/strategies (particular on water maps....I think they are VERY strategy-oriented):

• Slowly building up my Navy over time with a ship here and a ship there has worked well for me on water maps. As with any resource management game, unless you're saving up for something specific, do SOMETHING with those extra resources, whether it is research, a naval unit, or a land unit.
• Again on water maps, I build a dock ASAP. Fishing provides a cheap and easy bonus to food and wealth.
• In the early going, simply churning out a steady stream of citizens (as in other RTS's) is NOT the most effective resource management. This is particularly true since wood-cutting camps cost food. In other games, those "extra" villies can always chop wood if nothing else. Not true here. Early on, they can end up standing around because there's no room in the resource gathering areas, and not enough food and/or timber to build anything. When it comes time to build that second lumber camp, don't queue up five citizens. Queue up no more than two, and start building the lumber camp as soon as you have enough food to do so.
• On water maps, build a city near your forward coastline ASAP. I won a British Isle Survival-Of-The Fittest game online yesterday by doing just this. My territory extended JUST far enough onto my opponents island to put a fortress on his coast. From there I was able to leverage the extra territory to eventually build a full-blown city, complete with military buildings, on the coast of his island. That extra city gave me the econ boost to put me over the edge. The flip side of this is that building that coastal city will prevent another player from doing what I did.
• Coastal fortresses are a WONDERFUL thing. They occupy an opponents bombarding navy for a LONG time, and they do damage themselves. They also help weaken any amphibious landing force when there's no navy around. I try to build a fortresses in every coastal city near the front lines, as well as at key coastal choke points.

[Whitra]

Not as easy as it seems. I tried that, but Supply Wagons will rarely go to the front of it, staying in behind, so spies have to move past the rest of troops... possible with their cloaking, but not that easy.

Is it possible to put them with the general and use the Forced March to get them past the enemy quickly?

I lose way too many generals in my game.. My special forces always have a general with them so they can force march to good sniping/sabotaging positions, and my generals often find themselves heroically leading from the front...

[Carch]

Originally posted by Eusic Use spies to bribe supply wagons (if possible).

Not possible--at least I wasn't able to do it. I did get a general once though.

On the subject of russian attrition, I played a good ol' Russia vs. Germany game on Tough last night. The AI got Germany, and they didn't fare much better than historically

One thing the AI did that I could NOT figure out -- I had a fortress forward of my cities, and the AI kept running small groups of troops back and forth through the area near my fortress, and letting them die. REALLY weird.

I was able to make good use of general abilities, commandos and spies this game too, check it out.

Replay available here.

[albiedamned]

I watched your replay, and you did very well. I noticed the suicidal AI behavior you mentioned when he kept running guys across the field of fire of your fort - didn't make sense to me either. There was one point in either Gunpowder or Enlightenment when he came down on your fort from the north with a sizable force while your forces were all south of the fort and facing east. He actually could have flanked you pretty badly there, but he didn't bring along a supply wagon and that was a fatal mistake. Your light cav finished off what was left of him while your main line never budged. I did like what you did with using massed commandoes to blow up buildings - I'll have to try that. One question - how come you didn't attack sooner? It sure looked like you could have built a few more bombards in gunpowder, moved your army up to the border, and started pounding him. And one piece of constructive criticism from your early game - it's probably not worthwhile to research commerce unless you are in a position take advantage of the raised commerce cap, ie, you can build enough new farms or woodcutter camps. I think you researched the second commerce advance (to raise the cap to 150) well before you had a third city, thus you couldn't take advantage of the food.

[Carch]

Thanks for the comments! I'm still learning the game, so any tips are very appreciated.

I sort of intentionally made the game last longer than it should have. I wanted to try out the entrenchment and commando raids after I noticed the weird behavior. Plus I was just having fun expanding and building stuff.

I'm still learning what bits to research when, and getting better at it -- I can beat the Tough AI about half the time now. Gonna try some new types of games this weekend.

Quick Battle 1 v 1 is a great way to learn and try new stuff. I've been surprised by how much fun I'm having without even trying out half the features of the game!

[albiedamned]

Believe me I'm still learning the game myself. I'm playing on Tough and I've gotten quite good at booming, but I haven't tried a rush yet. I did however successfully fend off an AI classical age rush, and I didn't even have a barracks when the attack started! I was proud of myself for not panicking in that situation. My next game is going to be my first using the Assassin game type.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Solver

I'm sure someone will enlighten you on the early rush thing in your first mp games

It's not that I suck at rushing, I have won games in below 10 minutes in Age of Mythology, but it's not as fun as a good 1 hour game . And I *think* that I will be playing RoN more for SP... at least for now it seems well suited to that.

One more note, I'm really bad at math but the n*(n-1) seems wrong. With 3 cities that would imply 6 possible traderoutes , while it's only 3 imo. A-B, A-C, B-C (B-A would be the same as A-B I think, or do two cities support 2 traderoutes between them?).

I'm pretty positive that A-B and B-A are different trade routes, therefore the formula is correct.

Nope, they're different. The formula is n(n+1)/2 (sum from k=1 to n of k).

[Metaliturtle]

too much math = pain in head :-(

[Solver]

too much math = pain in head :-(

Meh, it rules.

Just did this today - build two cities, and caravans. I was only able to establish one route between them. So YES, this is FINAL - ONE trade route between two cities.

[Flayer]

whatever cute little formulas u wanna use you can only have 1 Caravan between 2 cities.

[Ctulu]

My CURRENT opening strat(as it should be 4 every1):
HIT THE PAUSE
(or set the option accordingly to start paused , be4 I get any smart remarks )

-science lvl 1
-1 farm, 3/4 civ's according to new farm/ lumber camp shortage
-civic's lvl 1,
-2 civ, 1 build city, 1 farm
-2 civ, 3 farms
*-eco ->market/1 caravan (merch if rare near)
-clasic age
*-military lvl 1 ->baracks/inf
-.... rest seems obvious

legend
* switch according to your play style

[Solver]

Well, well, it's not nearly as easy as you're putting it. The only two easy things are - get wood, get food. Nothing else is nearly as easy. You got to look... sometimes I want mil level 1 and barracks in the first age... come on, I will soon write on the start of games.

[Flayer]

If you dont have military tech in the Ancient Age and you get rushed with a few heavy infantry its gg

[Solver]

Yeah, mostly. Sometimes you can get lucky though... in this game, not everyone rushes you. But getting mil level 1 should be in Ancient - besides, you need 5 researches to go Classical.

[albiedamned]

I agree - you have to research Military 1 in ancient to be able to handle a rush. However that is all you have to do - you don't necessarily need a barracks or a tower. But if you see the rush coming, you need to start a barracks immediately.