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ok, so in two days of sheer boredom, I sat down with Rise of Nations to play a CtW game, which as most/all of you know looks like a glorified version of the boardgame RISK...initially. Anyway, I don't know why I said that... on to the strategies.
First of all, some of these are EXTREMELY BASIC if you read this and are like "duh" then you have had some experience with RTS games or RoN. These are meant for the person who has played 1-4 times, and is getting their rear handed to them quickly.
STEP 1: Difficulty Level
First, you must assess things like s difficulty level. I do this by starting at the lowest setting ("easiest") Now if you are consistently winning within 1-30 minutes, increase the difficulty and repeat, when your fights are going close to the 90 minute limit set by most CtW battles, you've found your difficulty.
Keep playing at your same difficulty level until you are no longer cutting it close (15 min improvement in times), then move up one. Once you've moved up, you may win by a slim margin, or you will lose. Either way, stay at this difficulty, if you move down, you will dominate and the game will quickly lose challenge.
STEP 2: Basic Starting Strategies
I'm in agreement with the other people who've posted their initial buildup strategies, food and wood are key. I've been building whichever I have the lower income of. I usually find myself losing resources because of the commerce cap, but the first few commerce levels are relatively cheap.
The "city rush" seems to be the best strategy for me, or at least it has been working, (I've been using China btw) the key theme in this is "aggressive defense." I make a work crew of 6 peasants and have 1 build a stockade (attack tower, whatever, you know what it is) the next 4 build a city, and if I can afford it, the 6th one will build another stockade, otherwise I have him work on the city until the resources are available. Once my city and 2 towers are up, I use the peasants to gather more resources, or build buildings that extend my borders.
RESEARCH IS KEY with this strategy, you must continuously be upgrading at the library or you become stagnated in the expansion. This strategy gives a bit more emphasis on military, and works much better if you research attrition as soon as possible. The chinese are also better able to handle this as they get large cities off the bat.
STEP 3: If you are just beginning, extensive use of the pause button is OK in singleplayer games. Just remember a few things:
1. When using the pause button, make sure you figure out what the hotkey is for what you want to do. I use pause just until I have a majority of the hotkeys memorized, because once that has happened, you are saving game time rather than scrolling around, finding a building, clicking on a building, then a unit, etc.
2. Pause can save your rear in a battle, or at least calm you down. on tough and above, the AI is at an advantage in that it has no delay, it will just pull it's troops out of battle if they look like they will lose, whereas it is more difficult for you because of the delay of selecting and clicking etc. Pausing during battle is also good for improving your stance, by pairing strengths against weaknesses, you can shift the flow of battle, (i.e. tell a pikeman to attack a light cavalry).
STEP 4: Wonders OWN. I try to check the cards for free wonders immediately, then put them on territorie that are on an enemy border. This gives major advantages in defense, and some useful ones in offence (Terra Cotta army saved my arse LOL). Figure out what the wonders do, or read solver's thread for the advantages of each one, none are worth passing up though.
You guys feel the need to add more, please do. I don't play MP except on LAN, so if you have MP strats they would do well here.
First of all, some of these are EXTREMELY BASIC if you read this and are like "duh" then you have had some experience with RTS games or RoN. These are meant for the person who has played 1-4 times, and is getting their rear handed to them quickly.
STEP 1: Difficulty Level
First, you must assess things like s difficulty level. I do this by starting at the lowest setting ("easiest") Now if you are consistently winning within 1-30 minutes, increase the difficulty and repeat, when your fights are going close to the 90 minute limit set by most CtW battles, you've found your difficulty.
Keep playing at your same difficulty level until you are no longer cutting it close (15 min improvement in times), then move up one. Once you've moved up, you may win by a slim margin, or you will lose. Either way, stay at this difficulty, if you move down, you will dominate and the game will quickly lose challenge.
STEP 2: Basic Starting Strategies
I'm in agreement with the other people who've posted their initial buildup strategies, food and wood are key. I've been building whichever I have the lower income of. I usually find myself losing resources because of the commerce cap, but the first few commerce levels are relatively cheap.
The "city rush" seems to be the best strategy for me, or at least it has been working, (I've been using China btw) the key theme in this is "aggressive defense." I make a work crew of 6 peasants and have 1 build a stockade (attack tower, whatever, you know what it is) the next 4 build a city, and if I can afford it, the 6th one will build another stockade, otherwise I have him work on the city until the resources are available. Once my city and 2 towers are up, I use the peasants to gather more resources, or build buildings that extend my borders.
RESEARCH IS KEY with this strategy, you must continuously be upgrading at the library or you become stagnated in the expansion. This strategy gives a bit more emphasis on military, and works much better if you research attrition as soon as possible. The chinese are also better able to handle this as they get large cities off the bat.
STEP 3: If you are just beginning, extensive use of the pause button is OK in singleplayer games. Just remember a few things:
1. When using the pause button, make sure you figure out what the hotkey is for what you want to do. I use pause just until I have a majority of the hotkeys memorized, because once that has happened, you are saving game time rather than scrolling around, finding a building, clicking on a building, then a unit, etc.
2. Pause can save your rear in a battle, or at least calm you down. on tough and above, the AI is at an advantage in that it has no delay, it will just pull it's troops out of battle if they look like they will lose, whereas it is more difficult for you because of the delay of selecting and clicking etc. Pausing during battle is also good for improving your stance, by pairing strengths against weaknesses, you can shift the flow of battle, (i.e. tell a pikeman to attack a light cavalry).
STEP 4: Wonders OWN. I try to check the cards for free wonders immediately, then put them on territorie that are on an enemy border. This gives major advantages in defense, and some useful ones in offence (Terra Cotta army saved my arse LOL). Figure out what the wonders do, or read solver's thread for the advantages of each one, none are worth passing up though.
You guys feel the need to add more, please do. I don't play MP except on LAN, so if you have MP strats they would do well here.
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