do you ever raze your own buildings?

[Chunbeard]

one thing i do that seems to work on a limited degree is razing my barracks/auto plants/siege factories and continually relocating them closer and closer to the front.

dumb?

[dearmad]

Why raze them? It's not like you save that much in resources.

I do raze farms and stuff on cities I take over if I kno I'm never going to be farming there. I don't want the AI to have farms if it retakes the town. I mostly only do this on one front where I can't afford all the men and equipment I know I need to ensure success, during multi front wars.

But then I find difficulty level defines a lot about hw a person plays the game- they really vary, I play on tough (which I renamed King).

[Bridger]

I raize them because if i have a barracks way back at my base, and i have a barracks at the front lines, when i hit shift+K to select all barracks and have them build units, the ones from the main base will get there much later, and so if i have fallen back they may walk into the rally point that i had placed but now it's enemy territory.

That kind of thing.

[Jaybe]

Ah, but the barracks at the capital is used for research.

[albiedamned]

Yup. You're probably going to build your first barracks near your capital. Keep that one the whole game for upgrades. Use control groups to mark the barracks that you want to produce units, that way you don't have to worry about pressing K and getting a barracks very far from the front. You use the control group hotkey to select the correct barracks instead. And set your rally points on your generals so that the new troops will always enter the fight instead of hanging out at a fixed rally point.

[vootguy]

You can set building rally points on units? i.e. you can actually have a barracks drop new units on a general, no matter where that general has moved?

[albiedamned]

Yup. Not only that, the new units will join whatever control groups the rally point unit is in.

[Inverse Icarus]

but you'll have 3 pikemen walking across the map for no reason.

also, note that more barracks = more expensive new barracks.

as your front moves on, you might want to build new barracks, especially if your civ ability is 3 free infantry. razing the old one gives you cheaper barracks, and therefore cheaper troops (ie, 120 timber for 3 heavy infs as rome, as opposed to 240 if you had a few barracks lying randomly around)

[Madine]

If you raze and rebuild you don't get the bonus, at least you're not supposed to.

[albiedamned]

Madine is correct. At least he is supposed to be.

[vootguy]

Originally posted by albiedamned
Yup. Not only that, the new units will join whatever control groups the rally point unit is in.

Hot damn, its like Brian Reynolds plays and likes games or something This is a great feature that I had no idea about.

[albiedamned]

In order to keep things coordinated during hectic battles, I will usually get set up ahead of time as follows. I will generally have 3 control groups: one for infantry (usually a mix of archer/gunpowder and heavy), one for cavalry, and one for seige. Ideally all 3 groups get a general, but sometimes the cavalry does not. Infantry and siege also get supply wagons. I set up the closest barracks, stable, and seige factories to the front to be on F1, F2, and F3, and I set their rally points on the generals of the infantry, cavalry, and siege groups respectively. If the cavalry group has no general, then I just pick an arbitrary cavalry unit in the group for the rally point, but you have to keep checking because if that unit dies the rally point goes away and new units just stand there by the stable.

Anyway, with this configuration, things are very easy to manage during the battle. Need more infantry? Just press F1 and produce the needed units. More siege? Just press F3. As long as my generals are still alive, I know the new units will join the front as soon as they are ready. I never have to scroll my map off the battle with this approach.

[Chunbeard]

great stuff - ? for albiedamned

you indicate F1, F2, F3...

is it possible to assign a hotkey to a build que.

for instance.


I hit F1 and without even needing to select a barrack, a machine gunner is spat out?

something on those lines?

can i also find a definitive list of hotkeys?


can we make macros? in the options it has an screen for hotkeys. possible to chain up commands.

ie. F2 = one archer+one pikeman+one knight?

if not, would that be useful suggestions for the next patch?
thanks all!

[albiedamned]

I don't think macros as you describe are possible. F1-F8 are just additional control groups you can use (besides 1-9). To put a barracks on F1, select the barracks and press ctrl-F1. From then on, pressing F1 will select the barracks. To create a machine gunner, just press F1 and then whatever the hotkey is for machine gunner ("A" I think). I usually still click the buttons for creating units rather than using hotkeys since I don't know all the unit creation hotkeys.

[KenR7A]

Originally posted by albiedamned
In order to keep things coordinated during hectic battles, I will usually get set up ahead of time as follows. I will generally have 3 control groups: one for infantry (usually a mix of archer/gunpowder and heavy), one for cavalry, and one for seige. Ideally all 3 groups get a general, but sometimes the cavalry does not. Infantry and siege also get supply wagons. I set up the closest barracks, stable, and seige factories to the front to be on F1, F2, and F3, and I set their rally points on the generals of the infantry, cavalry, and siege groups respectively. If the cavalry group has no general, then I just pick an arbitrary cavalry unit in the group for the rally point, but you have to keep checking because if that unit dies the rally point goes away and new units just stand there by the stable.

Anyway, with this configuration, things are very easy to manage during the battle. Need more infantry? Just press F1 and produce the needed units. More siege? Just press F3. As long as my generals are still alive, I know the new units will join the front as soon as they are ready. I never have to scroll my map off the battle with this approach.

excellent strat! thank you very much for this info. I will try to incorporate this into my playing. Im always running into organization issues with my army.