Empire Earth - Strategies
_____ _ _____ _ _
| ___| (_) | ___| | | | |
| |__ _ __ ___ _ __ _ _ __ ___ | |__ __ _ _ __| |_| |__
| __| '_ ` _ | '_ | | '__/ _ | __|/ _` | '__| __| '_
| |__| | | | | | |_) | | | | __/ | |__| (_| | | | |_| | | |
____/_| |_| |_| .__/|_|_| ___| ____/__,_|_| __|_| |_|
| |
|_|
____ _ _ _
/ ___|| |_ _ __ __ _| |_ ___ __ _(_) ___ ___
___ | __| '__/ _` | __/ _ / _` | |/ _ / __|
___) | |_| | | (_| | || __/ (_| | | __/__
|____/ __|_| __,_|_____|__, |_|___||___/
|___/
0. WHAT IS THIS FAQ? ............................................. By Oblivion
1. SQUADS .......................................................... by Ueriah
2. EE OVERVIEW ..................................................... by Ueriah
3. SNIPER RUSH ..................................................... by Ueriah
4. RIDERS ON THE STORM ............................................. by Ueriah
5. THE FINE ART OF WAR : A LOOK AT TACTICS ......................... by Ueriah
6. CONTRIBUTION TO MANKIND ...................................... by Buttfreek
7. EE BEGGINERS GUIDE ....................................... by Introspection
8. UNDERSTAND MORALE ........................................ by TheShadowDawn
9. PRE-SPACE CIV* ...................................................... by DJ
10. DM DRAGOON FLOOD .............................................. by EE Talon
11. THE BASIC STARTUP .............................................. by fissh_e
* - EE: Art of Conquest Expansion Pack Only Guide.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0. WHAT IS THIS FAQ? by Oblivion
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is version: 1.0 (11 Guides in Total)
Greetings fellow Empire Earth players and EE:Art of Conquest players,
this FAQ will give you hints and tips for online play for the average player.
It also offers tricks that some experts don't even know. So its useful for
everyone.
These guides were made by some of the BEST players of the EE Community.
So every aspect of them should come as an award to any player.
__________________________
| Authors |
|Ueriah (5 Strats) <--he rocks ;)
|Buttfreek (1 Strats) |
|Introspection (1 Strats) |
|TheShadowDawn (1 Strats) |
|DJ (1 Strats) |
|EE Talon (1 Strats) |
|fishh_e (1 Strats) |
`--------------------------`
If you want your guide added, removed, edited/modified you can email
me I'll get back to you ASAP. All guides have been spell checked to the highest
quality possible. Note, I don't accept poor, vague, non-English, copied/forged,
or any other objectionable content strategy guides.
My Email: Oblivion_ee@hotmail.com (remove ) ;)
o.bliv.i.on
(e-bl1v8-en)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. SQUADS by Ueriah
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: January 29, 2002
-Epoch: Atomic (World War I) through Atomic (Modern)
-Rating: 4.6 out of 5
Ah, the infantry... perhaps one of the most underestimated units in EE once
WWOne hits. I guess that's understandable, once people have the ability to
create tanks and other such several ton metallic devices, why should they worry
about the plain old solider? There's a couple of reasons to give infantry the
time that they deserve. First of all, infantry primarily require gold and food
to create, leaving your metal free for those "backup" weapons to travel with
your squads of infantry. Anti-tank guns, Flak Halftracks, Artillery, and the
occasional tank or howitzer "sprice up" your forces, but it surely shouldn't
define them.
Secondly, infantry are cheap by comparison. A good tank rush in the WW1 epoch
will drop 2 or 3 tanks in a base pretty quickly. In the same amount of time,
you can have either a handful of machine gunners and an AT gun or some other
such combination that will not only throw off the early rush, but allow to
return the favour to an opponent now on the deficient side of the kill:lose
budget.
I started noticing the infantry tend to die rather quickly when you send them
out on a "rush", which is possibly why I don't often see a lot of infantry
rushes. However, if you wait until a small group, or Squad of infantry is
produced, the squad has a much higher lifespan then the individual soldier, is
more prepared to deal with adversity, and is more versatile as well and
therefore able to adapt for various roles "on the fly".
So what separates a "Squad" from sending a couple of doughboys out scouting?
Well, Squads are created according to their needs. Instead of putting all your
eggs in the same basket and wincing when your 3 tanks run into 3 AT guns, you
bring soldiers to fit the needs you feel you will be addressing.
To figure out what to bring, address the function of each soldier according to
his best use:
Machine gunners;
Best suited for shredding infantry and citizens. The staple of a solid infantry
force. You want max damage, max range, and a hit point upgrade, unless you are
a speed freak with your infantry, in which case I'd say take speed over range.
Grenade Launcher/Bazooka;
Best for blowing up armour. Damage isn't too impressive but the rate of fire is
good. The trick to blowing up stuff fast with these guys is having enough of
them to shred something in one volley. The problem is you need a lot to do
that. With max damage upgrade and range upgrade, it' a little more reasonable,
but I feel you are better to bring a AT gun or two along to expedite the
process of destroying armour.
Doughboys/Marines;
Notice that these guys cost Iron instead of gold. If you don't have a Siege
Factory or Tank Yard draining the Iron out of your economy, make HERDS of these
drones instead. Make them bulky in HP use them to control Artillery, Canons, AT
guns, and the like. Be careful about keeping them too close together or a good
volley of artillery will lay your soldiers out.
Snipers;
A good sniper is worth the 150 gold and 150 food you pay for him, and will cost
the enemy many times his cost if you deploy him properly. I like keeping
snipers mobile ahead of the rest of his squad, set on Recon behaviour so he
will observe without being giving away his position with gunfire until I decide
when. Remember that you can still attack with units on Recon, they just won't
autoattack. Scout ahead and pick off the citizens, two things a sniper is
really good at. Put him in a safe place, switch him to Stand Ground or
Defensive, then go move in the rest of the Squad.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trench Mortars/Heavy Mortars;
They are useful in conjunction with Bazookas and Grenade launches in taking out
vehicles. They have splash damage for shelling mining sites and farms. They can
shoot over walls. They are good for shooting areas where your sniper is perched
in recon mode. This is a really underused strat that's sometimes tough for even
an intermediate player to spot right away.
Stinger Soldiers;
In Modern eras, you simply need to have Stingers in with your ground forces or
helicopters and bombers will beat you back every time, regardless of how good
you are at playing your infantry with overlapping zones of fire in small
groupings. Your halftracks are going to be the first targets, Stingers are a
little harder to spot. I keep them behind the main body of the squad alongside
the Medic.
Partisans;
The Stingers of WW1, these guys have the additional advantage of being able to
move through trees. They can also be kept on Recon to not shoot people right
away, therefore making them good scouts as well as being great raiders against
lumberjacks. Might not sound like much, but drop a couple partisans in the
trees where the enemy is cutting down lumber, set them to stand ground, and
engage him with the rest of your scout. Chances are he won't notice until his
'jacks are dead.
Flamethrower;
Burn down buildings. Good for taking down high HP airports. Woosh.
More studies under way...
Medics;
The 2nd most important unit in your squad should is the medic. I never keep
the medic in the front ranks, keep her towards the rear. As units are injured,
pull them back to where she is and let her patch them up. Bringing a Medic
gives you much longer durability. Combining that with more HPs for your troops
through upgrades and you have real staying power for your ground forces.
Citizens;
The most important unit in your squad. Keep your Citizen with your Medic in the
rear. This guy has to stay alive. He creates hospitals, towers, and anti-air
guns when the squad "digs in". He can build Barracks or walls (walls make good
trenches). He can even build a Temple to bring a Prophet along... the role of
the citizen with the squad is sort of as a "combat engineer".
There's also the matter of supportive vehicles.
Halftracks;
Great for keeping the skies friendly. Since I started concentrating on infantry
I don't often bother with the skies. Much cheaper to have good AA then to have
a good air force, which is where it seems the majority of players seem to focus
their money on, and that leaves the gold and iron available for more infantry.
Transport helicopters;
These are the way to travel for ultimate hit-and-run raiding ability. Touch
down in a farm sector with three snipers, three flamethrowers, and four
machine gunners. Shoot everything that moves until defenders appear, then load
back onto the helicopter and pull back to safety. Keep a medic on the copter to
heal units as you go en route to the next raid.
AT guns; The bane of infantry is armour and bombers. You have Stingers and
Halftracks to help with the skies, but the Bazooka guy just doesn't always cut
it, even with the help of a few machine gunners giving supportive fire. So make
life easier on yourself and bring a couple AT guns with. Keep em in the back by
the Medic, the Citizen, and Stingers.
Here's a couple cost comparisons:
4 HE tanks = 400 food, 400 iron
2 AP tanks = 260 food, 260 iron
2 Halftracks = 200 food, 200 iron
----------------------------------
860 food, 860 iron
4 machine gunners = 380 food, 340 gold
1 medic = 75 food, 50 gold
5 doughboys/marines = 200 food , 200 iron
3 stingers = 180 food, 150 gold
---------------------------------
835 food, 200 iron, 640 gold
It's a comparable cost. The difference is that the infantry will kill soft
units much faster, making the squad a preamble approach to raiding as it
impacts damage over a greater number of targets faster. If you replace the
doughboys with 3 AT guns your squad will tear through armour nearly as easy,
and your iron is still available for other applications or tribute to your
partner.
This one gets their tears flowing:
the Aggressive Recon -
1 sniper 150 gold, 150 food
1 medic 75 food, 50 gold
5 marines/doughboys 200 food, 200 iron
1 citizen 50 food
---------
550 food, 200 gold, 200 iron
Makes for an efficient rush. You can usually have this while they are building
the start of their own military. If they have tanks defensively, split up and
use the ensuing confusion that follows (if you are really fast, set waypoints
to have each of your guys reconverge someplace safer)to allow the sniper to
pick off as many citizens as he can while the tank chases your grunts instead.
Meantime, your citizen is happily building a Barracks or Siege Factory ( for AA
guns) nearby while your Medic waits to heal any survivors. You get the idea.
FOX AND HOUNDS
4 Partisans 160 Food, 160 Iron
1 Sniper 150 Food, 150 Gold
1 Medic 75 Food, 50 Gold
-------------------------
385 Food, 160 Iron, 200 Gold
Another nice rush grouping, but lacks the staying power of the group above
since the partisans aren't quite as sturdy as the doughboys. Give the partisans
speed increases ASAP and keep the medic and sniper safely off to a concealed
location. Zig in and out of the trees to ambush lumberjacks and pull out before
any serious damage comes to your troops. The sniper will whittle down soft
targets as they try and chase you.
You might notice that these squads of infantry can be send out one after
another for maximum effect. While the next lot is building, queue up another
lot and use what's out there. Periodically regroup and reassign to new squads
as you fortify the ground that you take.
With infantry, variety is the key. Bring troops for more occasions then the one
that you will be initially going into. Bringing a Hero along with a Squad of
Infantry makes it so much more impressive.
________________,
Religion and War:
----------------`
A lot of people give up on Priests in the later age. That's terrible. Priests
can covert buildings so that you don't need to destroy them.
Prophets are not as devastating as they were earlier, but still remain useful,
particularly with defensively used Malaria, a good Disease, or a Hurricane in a
Naval Battle.
Keep all religious types with the Medic nearby. And preferably some guards...
Happy grunting!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. EE OVERVIEW by Ueriah
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: March 13, 2002
-Epoch: All
-Rating: 4.7 out of 5
Overview
One of the features for Empire Earth that I feel is a welcome change to the RTS
genre is the sheer magnitude of versatility that is available for players in
accordance to their own individual style of tactics and strategy. Or to put it
simply, there is just no one build order that people can follow to insure a
swift victory. For some players, if you hit them with a rush you can expect
almost no resistance. Other players will eat your same rush with a successful
defence, and losing a forward army can be an event that encumbers your economy
and allows your enemy to advance technologically or by methods of territorial
expansion.
This guide is a commentary on various segments of game play, and may serve to
teach newer placers or perhaps even allow more skilled players to compare
notes. As such it's worth noting that I play primarily RM games. I would
imagine that some of what applies to RM would carry over to DM (deathmatch)
games as well.
Economy
One difference between Empire Earth and other RTS games that I'm used to
playing is that the resource allocation spots do not exhaust themselves. (At
least not during an 'average' game...) This is a little different from some
other games, where you build bases until a resource patch is depleted, then
move on in a hunter-forager style.
During warfare, the country with the best economy will generally have the upper
hand. A strong economy allows the construction of a strong army, and a strong,
well-equipped army will generally have an advantage over an army put together
by a civilization that is having a shortage of one or more resources. Also, a
strong economy is essential to advancing through the ages faster then the
opposition, which will ultimately result in your forces having a deciding edge
in technology.
You don't have to be Sun Tzu in order to realize that means that if you have
100 troops in battle and they are an age ahead of the other army's 15 troops,
you will probably win the battle. With this in mind, maintaining a strong
economy and continually expanding your economy should be your number one
priority.
The resources in Empire Earth are as follows:
Food:
It is essential to have a good supply of food. From the copper age forward,
players can construct granaries. Each granary supports eight farms. In
addition, eight people can be populated into a granary to increase the amount
of food that each citizen carries back to the granary. Food can also be found
in 'harvest patches'; or by hunting groups of animals. Food is needed to
advance through the epochs of time. Food is also used in the production of
'soft units' (i.e. citizens and military personal).
Wood:
Wood is used in the creation of buildings, as well as the formation of naval
units and 'supportive' units (cannons, siege weapons, archers, etc.) As a
citizen chops wood, he depletes the forests, but at a very slow rate. Forests
impede movement of troops, though there are some troops that can move through
the forests. Wonders also require a good deal of wood. Wood is taken to
settlements/town centres/capitals where it is stored and added to your
stockpiles.
Stone:
Stone is a very useful resource. It allows the construction of certain
buildings as well as many of the defensive structures in the game. Walls and
towers are essential in controlling the movements of enemies within your
boundaries. Stone is also required for the creation of Wonders, and for the
upgrading of certain unit attributes (such as the range of the towers). Stone
is taken to settlements/town centres/capitals where it is stored and added to
your stockpiles.
Gold:
Gold is a precious metal that is used in the creation of many various troops
types. It is also used to advance through the epochs and research many
technologies. It is also an important resource if one wishes to take advantage
of the production of priests and prophets. Gold is needed for the creation of a
Wonder. Gold is taken to settlements/town centres/capitals where it is stored
and added to your stockpiles.
Iron:
Iron is a precious metal that is useful in the creation of weapons. The value
of Iron goes up as the ages advance, and it's never a good thing to get caught
without ample supplies of iron. Iron is also used in the creation of Wonders.
Iron is taken to settlements/town centres/capitals where it is stored and added
to your stockpiles.
There's really no 'one right way' to proceed, which is another huge improvement
from previous games in the RTS genre. Nor is there really a specified number of
citizens to have in order to have a 'strong' economy. EE has many variables
that depend on which type of game that you are involved in, and what might be a
decent start for an epic game that spans from Pre-History to the Nano age might
turn out to be a poor opening sequence for a game that begins in WWI.
You have a healthy economy when you can queue up large groups of troops while
expanding the defences of your empire, and still manage to stockpile resources
to advance to the next age. Most of the resources in your economy are
controlled by the proximity of said resource to the nearest
Settlement/Town Centre/Capital. A Settlement turns into a Town Centre once it
is populated with 5 people. A Town Centre turns into a Capital when it has 15
people. From there, another 35 people can be crammed into the Capital.
There is a direct correlation with the number of people that you have in your
Settlements to the number of resources that you get from it. When you have 50
people living in a settlement, you double the production of everything within
a two-square radius. If you get really lucky, you might some spots where one
Capital covers two resource patches.
That means that if a miner hauls back 15 iron to a Capital with 50 people
inside of it, the treasury of the kingdom is credited for 30 instead of 15.
If all other aspects of you and your opponents are equal, and you take
advantage of the above fact and fill your Capitals to 50 whereas he leaves his
as Town Centres, you will be out producing your opponent by a ratio of 30 to 16
in stone, iron, and gold.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hunting
Early in the game, particularly if you enjoy playing epic battles that start
from the prehistoric ages, you may find it useful to send out some hunters to
gather meat. This is a pretty good idea, since you won't always have ample
patches of pumpkins nearby. Herds of animals can reproduce if only one animal
in the herd remains alive. Instead of focusing my initial attentions on the
animal herds, I usually dispatch my people to the pumpkin patches. Once I get
six people working a patch, I'll hotkey them to a hunting party and send them
away to kill nearby animals. This has another cool advantage early in the game,
namely, if your opponent sends a lone scout or a very small scouting force,
you can make short work of the scout with a hunting party of six.
Unfortunately, cannibalism doesn't seem to be a permissible game feature, so
your hunters can't go out and grab enemy citizens for stew-meat. Maybe in the
expansion.
Again, there is no 'perfect'start, but I generally try to have a few hunting
parties set up like that. It's also advantageous to sometimes send hunting
parties out to kill the animals that are a little further away to give the ones
that are right by your starting settlement a chance to multiply a little before
getting hunted to extinction. The 'thin' animals, like deer and giraffes and
such, reproduce twice as fast as the smaller herds of larger animals
(i.e. Elephants, Walruses, etc) and the larger animals should be hunting in
parties of at least three or four to make sure that the animal doesn't get
the upper hand with a lone cocky hunter. The 'thin' animals have half the meat
of the larger animals.
Fishing
The seas are another source of food, and for only 50 wood a pop. This is a
great way to establish wood for food in the stone age! However, it's also
worthy of noting that fishing spots last significantly shorter then the
harvesting patches on land, and if you are planning on any amount of fishing,
you will want to make sure that you have a few warships to defend your
fishermen.
If you do plan on creating a fishing fleet, it's best to start with one or two
fishing boats and have them scout about the nearby shores in search of fish.
If you find some suitable fishing waters, you can right click on the fishing
spot with the Dock selected and you will set up a waypoint so that your
fishing ships will be created and head off to the selected area in order to
fish.
Foraging
Foraging is one way to gather food. As with fishing, once you have selected
your Town Centre/Capital you can set up a waypoint and queue up multiple
citizens to be built. Each patch can support up to six gatherers. If more
then six are at the site, the extra gatherers will remain idle until one of
the gatherers gets up to bring the food back to the storage facility.
Farming
The forth, and perhaps most efficient way of maintaining a stable food intake,
is the use of Farming. In order to farm, one must built a Granary first. Eight
fields will be automatically created in a perimeter around the granary.
Granaries can populated in a similar manner to citizens populating Town
Centres. Eight citizens in a granary will increase the size of the loads of
food from the surrounding farms.
Also, it is worth mentioning that various technology improvements become
available throughout the epochs. In order to research these, which increase the
rate of which your farmers collect food, one must check the Granary as the new
epoch is attained.
You can set a waypoint for a farm once the Granary is built and your new
citizens will automatically being constructing farms. You may also set a
waypoint on the granary itself by placing the waypoint directly on the
Granary. When the new citizens arrive, they will automatically populate the
Granary with up to eight citizens.
When farmers are beset by attacking forces, they will usually flee in terror.
Sometimes they only run so far as the next field over, though, and a casual
observation won't always pick up on that It does pay to check your farms after
each enemy raid to make sure that they are still producing at maximum
efficiency, as one single farmer that is not toiling in the fields will reduce
the output of that granary by 12.5% (100/8=12.5%).
Mining
In order to gather iron, gold, and stone, you will have to send citizens out to
mine these resources. A single mine, or 'supply pile', will support up to six
workers. As mentioned above, if you wish to optimize your resources, you will
have to make sure that the supply centre near the mine is within two squares of
the resource and holds as many citizens as possible in order to get the most
out of your mine.
It is also worth noting that, much like fishing and farming, it is possible to
spend food on new citizens and have them head directly for the mines by use of
the hotkeys. By establishing a way point on your resource site, the new
citizens will come into existence and report immediately to work at the mines.
Base Design
Before you begin placing buildings, you need to consider a few things; What are
you looking to accomplish? If you are looking to rush your opponent with
Calvary, it only makes sense to put up a series of Stables instead of one
stable, one archery range, and one barracks. What are your expectations for
base defence? If you want to have a stronghold that is difficult to razed, you
will need to build plenty of towers, good housing coverage and aa guns
(epoch permitting).
-
Good house coverage is defined as having the maximum houses within the radius
of the dotted line that appears when you click on your town centre. In
tournament game play, you will want at least 2 houses territorially for maximum
morale bonus. In standard game variant, you will want to have four houses. The
housing raises morale in the same manner as a Warrior Hero, which is that it
reduces damage taken by X%. Full housing is 40%.
Have a designated farm area. I usually strive for about 6 full granaries, 3x2,
and surround the farmlands with walls, towers, and AA if appropriate, as well
as a few troops.
Undefended farmland will be laid to waste if you are attacked by fast units,
that can rush in, slaughter some farmers, and run back out before other forces
are brought to bear against them.
The more wood you collect, the more military production buildings you can
build. If you have six barracks and double click on one of them, you will
select all six at once, and if you queue up units all six buildings will
produce them. This is a great way to make squads of troops fast so that you
can pay attention to other aspects of gameplay with greater scrutiny. Consider
this:
Double clicking one building in the above example then hitting
Shift-Unit type' will create thirty units (assuming of course your economy can
meet your demands!) in a much faster fashion that building 10 troops in three
barracks. Also, you can easily convert wood to food, whether it's for fishing
ships or farms.
If you are playing the earlier epochs, especially before the invention of
gunpowder units, Temples are essential, if nothing else to make sure that enemy
prophets don't lay you low with calamities. I'd strongly suggest them for any
island board as well, as a well placed hurricane can destroy a navy if it
catches the commanding naval opponent unaware.
Towers are a great way to discourage land units from standing around
slaughtering your people. I try to build a few of them in a triangle around my
farmland area, and a few around the resource sites as well. Towers seem most
useful Pre-Dark, and then they seem to enjoy a comeback from WW1-Nano.
WW1 brings the introduction of AA guns, but by WW2, they are a necessity. Hide
your AA in between buildings, amidst trees, etc. and since AA is so vulnerable
to fast Marine raids, make sure to post either a couple of towers or couple of
guards, or better still, both. Much like troops can be upgraded, so can AA
encampments, for damage, range, and hit points.
If you are going to spend the resources to defend an area with housing, it
might be worth it to build a couple of hospitals so that your troops can last
longer. Having at least one hospital is essential
send the troops back from
the front line and get them healed, as opposed to building new waves and not
having any survivors.
The First Ten Minutes, or "Rush vs. Boom"
One observation of the EE multiplayer community is that the first ten minutes
of game play seem to signal which direction the game will go in. One extremely
useful tool in the first ten minutes of game play is to hit f11 as soon as the
game begins. This will show a timer. Ive found that regardless of your style
of play, the ability to see the timer elapsed helps you meet your goals that
you define for yourself.
The concept of rushing' is to hit your opponent with the intention of damaging
their economy to the point where it costs them more resources to recover then
it cost you in the expenditure of their attack. Simply put, him them fast, hit
them hard, and while they struggle to recover, keep pounding them down.
The concept of booming' is to focus on the defence and growth of your economy,
and to outproduce other players, hopefully culminating in either having a
larger military, a more advanced military, or in some cases, a military with an
epochal advantage.
A good player will do both of these things, finding a balance between fast
attack' as well as territorial defence is one sign of growth as a player in
terms of skill development. Let your intentions dictate your actions,
especially in the first ten minutes of the game. If you are planning on a tank
rush, for example, why devote early attention to harvesting gold or stone?
At the end of ten minutes, evaluate your position. Have you already hit them?
Do you need to really dig in and prepare for the counterattack or do
indications suggest now might be a time to get some military production
buildings placed closer to the enemy?
Are you producing troops steadily?
One good rule of thumb- try to have a military production building up no later
than the 2nd building to facilitate a troop type that your civilization enjoys
at least one natural bonus in.
The Mid-Game
Following the initial skirmishes of the first ten minutes or so of the game,
the roles of each player becomes a bit more defined in terms of aggressor and
victim. A defensive player that resigns himself to playing exclusively
defensive has resigned himself from territorial expansion, and therefore with
all other aspects being equal in terms of skill, will face extinction sooner
or lately. Or, to put it more simply, if you find yourself entering the
mid-game of the defensive, you need to be able to not only defend yourself
against the current attack, but launch a counter attack as well.
Following the opening of the game, territorial expansion begins, based on
resources available. If adequate scouting was available during the opening
phase of the game, you should have no problem advancing to needed resource
sites.
Forward Building' occurs when you build military production closer to the
enemy for purposes of avoiding those long marches, particularly on larger maps.
Some players choose to try and strong arm a resource pile that is unattended
relatively close to enemy land as to deprive them of a resource as well as
expanding your own economy. When you are forward building, it is of the utmost
importance to have a populated settlement and housing. For the cost of 100 wood
and 250 food (or less) you almost double the lifespan of all troops stationed
at the forward lines of battle! A hospital and a few tours makes a great
addition.
Another interesting take on forward building is to pick an area close to their
base with no resources nearby. Even better, do so as a backup in case your
forward base is destroyed; a handful of troops might still be enough to turn an
aggressive army away from your territory and bring them back to the defensive
of their homeland.
One of the most difficult questions is when to advance in epochs during
multi-epoch games. It has been my observation that players who hoard resources
to try and advance rapidly through the ages will find themselves defeated at
the hands of enemies who devoted their resources to the production of military
units instead. The general trend seems to be that the best time to save for the
next epoch is following a successful military conquest, when your opponent is
using his resources to renew production and rebuilt lost troops.
Boomers use the mid-game section to secure their economy, and allow it to
continue to expand. If they are able to continuous produce greater and greater
amounts of wood, that trickles down instead greater food production which can
be used quite easily to fortify iron, gold, and stone deposits to 50 people
each, effectively doubling their production.
Communicate with allied forces regularly! Learning to coordinate attacks with
different groups of available troops is essential to the successful conclusion
of any military advance. Faster units can draw the attention of defending
forces while follow-up forces strike now-exposed targets. Some units, such as
Artillery, Bombards, or Cannons, can be used to lay in wait and dissolve
pursuing enemies.
All players will benefit from upgrading their military units, and will enjoy
the benefits the greatest if they choose their upgrades in accordance with
their personal playing style. Upgrade your units according to their use.
The End-Game
If you are on the offensive, the end-game generally stems from the your
opponents inability to respond to your military advances. If there are other
players remaining on the enemy team, it is a time to regroup your forces and
make a final march on their alliance. It is also a good idea to try and make
your final assaults from multiple directions, as well as leaving a few troops
scattered along the perimeter to pick off citizens that they might be trying to
regroup elsewhere on the board.
If you are on the defensive, try to get a few citizens over to one of your
allies territories. Even if you can only contribute marginally, you have your
attention to devote to the team. One good scouting unit, for example, doesn't
cost a lot, and yet lets you keep track of troop movements for your allies.
There is a certain point where it becomes apparent, particularly in single
player games, when one player is going to win. There is no clear way to say
when is the time to offer to wave the white flag, but I have witnessed
sometimes players will misjudge the situation and surrender when victory was
much closer at hand then they may have realized.
However, if you do surrender, it's generally frowned upon to simply drop out
without at least saying "I surrender"; or "GG"; or something to that effect
that acknowledges that you are opting out. If you win, don't gloat. Each
person having a little bit of self-control goes a long way towards improving
the quality of the EE community.
If you do suspect a player of cheating, as there is currently the possibility
of someone enabling a trainer and giving a large tribute to his allies, it is
probably better to first investigate the final screens and compare tributes
with resources collected and spent. If something is way out of whack, work
from there and take screenshots. Dont just assume that if someone is faster
then you that they are cheating.
Becoming A Better Player
As with anything else in this life, the more one practices and the more new
things one attempts, the better that one will become. Don't limit yourself to
the same old strategy each game, try mixing things up all the time to learn
from a variety of conditions.
Stick out games until you are absolutely done. The longer you are around, the
more you learn about the later parts of the game.
Pay close attention to the resources collected at the end of a game. Take
screenshots and review them to notice trends. Are you finding yourself low on
gold on a regular basis? Or are there aspects of battles that you'd like to
concentrate on, such as a better kill to loss ratio?
Learn from what works. Learn from what doesn't work. Try to play as many games
as you can with people of equal or greater skill so that you can learn from
what they use.
Keep confident, but not cocky.
If you really want to get focused on your game, keep notes on what went
right/wrong during each game. Identify and utilize those trends and apply that
to your own style of game play.
Learn to communicate with your allies. Build a rapport throughout the game. If
you have a surplus of a resource, offer it to an ally who is using that
resource for production. If you have a few extra units, send them to an allies
battle lines. If you need help, make a request. It's much better for an
alliance to have one member ask for help as opposed to remaining silent and
getting defeated early on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. SNIPER RUSH by Ueriah
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: January 25, 2002
-Epoch: Atomic (World War I) through Atomic (Modern)
-Rating: 3.9 out of 5
A word of warning.
This one isn't like my usual "Have Fun with this Strategy!". Nope. This one is,
in my opinion, kind of cheap. I wouldn't advise it if you are looking to play
one of those "let's-have-fun-and-play-EE" games, but it might be appropriate
for that game with the roommate for fifty bucks. Or tourney play.
The Premise: To kill your opponent before they know what the #@*&^ is going on.
My preferred Civ for this strat is France. However, any Civ with good bonuses
for Food and Gold will work equally well. If you have Custom Civs for this...
go for Faster, Longer Range, More Damaging, More Hit Point, Faster Build,
Cheaper Cost ranged infantry. If there's still points for an economic edge,
take it in Gold.
This works best in a small map, but Medium also usually works nicely.
The premise of this strat, quite simply, is to produce a Sniper and kill the
enemy before they have a defence up. This is a WW1 rush. To produce a Sniper,
you will need a Barracks, so if you don't start with enough wood to build a
Barracks, use your Starting Citizens to go get it. Then, you will need 150 Gold
and 150 food to start making your Sniper.
With your Sniper made, send him off towards the enemy. Start with his resource
piles, picking off people. You will do best if you have 1-shot kills, otherwise
you will have some very wounded peasants. One of two things will happen at this
point:
1. You get attacked, either by Peasants, Towers, or Military Units, or...
2. The other guys sits there and takes it.
You'd be amazed how many times 2 happens. In my "testing" games, every time but
one people sat there and took it. If you can wipe out 6 or 7 people that
quickly, you have dealt a CRIPPLING blow to their economy and if you can keep
any kind of pressure on them at all, you should have the game in the bag.
The reason being is simple: at that early stage, if they have less people on
resources, their economy is THAT much weaker.
A good variant is to have a Doughboy or Marine (or two!) produced while Gold
mining for the Sniper. This way, if you really hurt a peon but don't kill it,
the other unit can blast it away.
If they attack, no biggie. It means you are playing someone worthwhile. Hurt
them as much as you can, build defence back at _your_base for the counter rush.
Although this isn't a 100% strategy, and can be stopped quite easily by a
player with very good defensive positioning of towers OR their own sniper rush
(keeping theirs on D until it kills yours, this works good as a counter rush),
it seems to do quite well and makes a competitive start to any WW1-Modern game.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. RIDERS ON THE STORM by Ueriah
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: January 22, 2002
-Epoch: Middle Age
-Rating: N/A
Ah, the proverbial joke about Custard's last words being "Hey, where'd all
those Indians come from?"
THE STRATEGY: I'm talking about the joy that is Calvary Archers. I'm well aware
of the Unit Relationships and how some units seem to be geared for fighting
other units, but I've found that wise Civ picks on the attributes that affect
Ranged Calvary will give ya something to play with right up until the birth of
tanks, and in a game that spans from Pre-Nano, that's a hell of a good edge. I
like the Assyrians for this, with a bonus to Hit Points, Range, and Speed for
Ranged Calvary.
Having thus said, I've been playing around with the concept of Horseback
Archers, and I've found that they seem to have a true lust for carnage. Even
with longswordsmen and their shields don't hold up well to long lines of
Calvary Archers, and with their speed maxed out they can outrun any Calvary
sent at them. This tactic can be used to lull their Calvary into any number
of fun ambushes (i.e., pull your Calvary archers to retreat past trees filled
with barbarians, then have them jump them as they pursue.... or replace barbs
in trees with pikemen and a prophet with enough mana for Malaria... you get
the idea).
A couple of knights and Cataphracts make sure that if they can catch you, you
can still fight as furiously as you can fast. Burst a hole in a wall and outrun
the defenders to that tender farm/ore community, kill 'em all, and pull out
before they can corner you. You will wreck players that don't keep their
farms/ore sites guarded with towers and have housing nearby with your superior
speed.
COUNTER : The easiest counter to the Horde of archers seems to be the clever
placement of defensive structures, having a lot of towers with tight
overlapping ranges, having a solid coverage of your territory with Temples to
avoid having said tower coverage torn asunder by Prophets acting as scouts for
the Hoard. And I do mean a lot of towers. The Horde will kill your
farmers/miners, and the towers will drop the hoard. Fortunately, citizens are
cheaper to replace then Calv Archers. If you happen to have a Prophet of your
own from one of those defensive Temples you have, and you can throw a Malaria
at the Horde, it's another fast way to turn horsemen into softer targets.
Don't waste your time with Pikes, as they will be outrun, unless you can
someone "catch" them at a bottleneck.
Happy hunting!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. THE FINE ART OF WAR : A LOOK AT TACTICS by Ueriah
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: December 16, 2001
-Epoch: N/A
-Rating: N/A
Howdy everyone.
I'd like to take a second before I get started and say a big THANK YOU to the
makers of this wonderful, in depth RTS. This game absolutely blows away the
"old staples" in my collection... Warcraft 2, Starcraft: Brood Wars, Age Of
Empires, etc. As such, I've had to rethink many of the strategies and it took a
while before I could beat the computer AI, even at an easy level. I figured I'd
chime in my two cents worth of strategy based on what I've learned from these
first successful battles against the AI (as well as being a casual wargamer
over the past ten years).
The games against the AI that I usually play are set at Standard with Low
Tournament resources. I begin with Prehistory and end in the Nano Age...
assuming that it takes that long to achieve victory.
PART ONE : THE EARLY GAME
The first portion of the game is a structured race to get food built up so that
you can advance. I don't bother collecting resources such as Gold and Iron and
Stone until I arrive at the Stone Age. I build six peasants on each of my
harvest patches. Then I build two or three guys and have them set cutting wood.
Then I pull the first six guys off the harvest patch and have them go hunt
animals. I repopulate the harvest patch with more workers, and then I do it
again. At this point I have 12 harvesters and 12 hunters, and a few guys
chopping wood. You need to build two buildings, and then your society of
hunter-gathers is ready to begin advancing epochs.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT IN THE EARLY GAME TO USE WAYPOINTS ON YOUR SETTLEMENTS so
that you don't have to worry about running each one of your guys around
individually. If you click the "Make Peasant" button six times with your
waypoint set on a specific resource, you'll send six peasants to gather it and
you can "forget about it" for a while and move on to something else, whether
that happens to be setting another queue or what have you.
You can set a waypoint on a settlement and then click 5 times and that 5
peasants will arrive and AUTOMATICALLY POPULATE the settlement so that you can
bring peasants out two by two. In the Stone Age I usually try get a few
settlements into Town Centres.
Base design is really important. Spend a little bit of time making sure that
your bases are well defended and that effort will be rewarded many times over
should you find yourself under attack by an enemy. The cool thing about tactics
and strategy is that it's totally possible for you to beat back a much larger
attacking force by making use of a good tower architecture that has multiple
overlaps in the range of the tower. This is a concept that is known as
"Turtling". The advantage of being a Turtle is that you can slaughter army
and have minimal casualties. However, defensively, Towers are NOT ENOUGH to
withstand attacks, and a human player can chew through Turtle designs much more
efficiently then the AI.
Instead of placing one tower, for example, place three or four towers. Build
wall between the towers so that you can control the "flow" of the offensive.
Keep your resources safe by having a garrison patrol the grounds. Give Archers
or Ranged Infantry units the order "Hold Ground" (which tells them to stand put
and fire on enemies that come within range) and place them in areas where they
will do some damage to an advancing fort. Try to build a Temple and a
University within the borders of your civilization to keep the opponents from
invoking disasters or converting your peons.
I usually try to construct Fortified Areas, provided I have enough Stone. If
not, it's better to have a piece of wall that they can go around as opposed to
no wall and they go straight through.
Your home base usually has pretty good resources around it. It's worth
defending. Once you hit the Copper Age you can build six or seven granaries,
populate them fully with 8 workers each, and you won't be worrying about food
for quite some time. However, that leaves wood, iron, gold, and stone. Chances
are that if you are to have a truly mighty economy, you will need more of these
resources then are provided near your home base.
PART TWO: EXPANSION
Once you have some semblance of order around your home bases, perhaps during
the construction of the granaries, it's time to get some exploring in. Some
people build a dog right off from the get-go. I used to, but then I switched to
peasants because I felt I got a little faster for it by having one worker
working food earlier.
Anyways. Make five or six dogs. Set them to explore. Sending out one dog just
takes too long. Having scout dogs always running out is a great way to keep
track of enemy movements, as well as being able to find enemy settlements.
The Library of Alexandria is a great wonder to have for that reason. I usually
have anywhere from ten to twenty dogs running around, and I make more to
replace them as they perish. Every so often I stumble across an enemy army, and
the knowledge of the location of that is usually enough to surprise it with an
army of my own.
I send a group of peasants and combat personal out to make little "resource
towns" a good deal away from home base. For each "town" I make sure that they
have a bunch of walls with towers built into them, and a small garrison of
defenders to hold back raids and invasions until your larger armies can arrive.
Here's where some of them-there newfangled tactics come into play.
I have several "Armies" at a time. There is no solid "what is an army" aside to
say that it's not Age of Empires, where a group of 12 horse archers could rein
fiery death upon a castle. Army size is totally dependant on what you can
afford, and once you have established mining sites at five or six areas and
have five or six areas for gold and a few for stone and wood as well, you will
find that it's remarkably fast to build up a GLUTTONOUS economy. It seems to me
that is the key to the game. Even if you are constantly getting beaten back in
open field battles, if you have a really good economy, you will have new
conscripts ready in no time.
Armies vary in tactics from Epoch to Epoch. This is pretty true historically.
When I get beat it's usually by someone who advances faster then me. I used to
think that the AI was always behind you in technology, but that's just sadly
not the case.
Regardless of what Epoch your in, there are some "Must-Know" keys. If you
"lasso" a group of troops, and click on where you want them to go, you will
form a formation facing the direction that you pull to. THAT'S REALLY USEFUL.It
enables you to fight in lines, which is a strategy that works well in ANY
epoch. Another hot key that's really worth knowing is that if you lasso a group
and then click on the boxes in the lower portion of your screen, you will make
a hotkey to that group.
What I usually do is hotkey all of those keys to one given "army" at a time.
I'll have 20 guys with spears or pikes or whatever it happens to be all facing
one direction, and when they advance I keep them all in tight formation, usualy
set to "Guard". I try not to set Melee units to anything other then Guard. I'll
have archers in another macro, and siege equipment in another macro and I'll
advance steadily.
Battle is really nothing more then the organization of your forces against that
of an enemies. If you keep your troops organized and move them in an organized
fashion, you will find yourself doing pretty well in battle. By "organized
fashion" I mean keep your units in formation where they can be most effective,
and don't be afraid to move them to where they can do the most good. Keep
backup units! Set up Barracks waypoints to where you wish to have recruits
deployed to and keep resupplying the lines. It's worth it to build military
bases with five or six barracks, a couple siege towers, some archer ranges,
etc.
If you find that battle is going really poorly, it's much better to order a
retreat then it is to have your army decimated to the last man. Fall back and
get the injured healed. It might mean watching the battlefield very closely,
and whenever a unit is hurt past a point, you send him to the rear and send a
fresh recruit from the back to the front. That's an awful lot of micromanagement
but it's worth it. And when the fighting is done, don't be shy about sending
your troops back to regroup. I've been able to successfully save about 60% of
an army by doing this. This saves you money.
(btw - one thing I'd love to see is "Veteran" units, i.e., units that have been
injured and sent back, or have beaten X other units, etc.)
There is a fine art to Sieging. If you have Siege Equipment, well, that's what
it's there for. Keep a force of fast, mobile units (be it Calvary or armour)
that you can use to zip around the field of battle to guard your siege
equipment. A wall of pikemen in front of your siege gear makes a fine deterrent,
and a long line of archers behind your pikemen will further discourage the
enemy from advancing without fearing heavy losses.
Infantry are best broken into companies. The size of your companies will vary in
accordance to your economy. For me, an average company is fifteen men. I enjoy
being able to field considerable sized armies of including three or four
companies of infantry. I enjoy keeping them in tight formations, although that
seems to work best before the advance of Gunpowder, where a few cannon shots
could tear through half your company.
When you are able to create Medics, make a few of them and send them along with
your army. Keep the medics in the rear of the Army and you can pull units back
to get treated, then back up to continue the efforts on the front lines. Bring
along civilians and build walls and towers and antiaircraft guns, depending
again on the Epoch.
There is a lot of good things to say about Calvary. A Calvary Charge is quite
effective, but take care not to engage spearman/pikemen. Calvary are generally
fast enough to close with Archers, and it is this speed that makes them equally
useful in reducing enemy siege engines to scrap wood.
The custom civilization I've been playing a lot of lately excel in Archers and
Helicopters. Each one has soaped-out armour, attack, range, etc. The Archers are
around all the way until gunpowder, and I find that they are just deadly in
tight formation behind two or three ranks of infantry. I order the infantry to
advance one company at a time, followed by a rank of the Archers.
The "sides" of your "line" are commonly known as your Flanks. It's best to have
highly mobile units along your flanks. Units that are fast. If you get
"flanked" it means you get attacked from the side in such a manner that your
line formation is rendered mostly ineffective . It usually doesn't take two
long to adjust to getting flanked, but be sure that you DO adjust. I've seen
some people who just allow themselves to be flanked and it costs them heavy
casualties.
Part of the ability to win stems from the ability to multitask, or do many
things at the same time. If you are flipping your attention successfully
between setting up resource points, creating and manoeuvring armies in
formation, raiding the peasants in an opponent's iron camp with a group of
raiders and pulling away before he can despatch adequate garrison, fortifying
new areas... you get the idea. YOU SHOULD NEVER BE "BORED". If you are "BORED"
start clicking Tab and going through your idle peasants to make sure that
things are still getting built. If you are still bored, start another resource
camp. You get the idea.
In general, it's better to be on the offensive then it is to be on the
defensive. Sure, defenders dish out heavy casualties, but they don't ALWAYS
win... and when they lose, you sometimes find yourself losing precious ground.
Use TERRAIN TO YOUR ADVANTAGE! For example, keep Archers on Hilltops since
units slow down as they walk uphill. I've some battles with archers on high
ground where they drop LINES of elephants into hamburger. It's also usually
better to "route" your armies then to lose them to the last man.
As for your garrisons for each settlement, again, it's pretty much what you can
afford. You should try to maintain high numbers of troops. It's hard to win
battles without any troops there, so keep those bases defended.
I enjoy keeping a couple companies of Calvary for running around as they are
needed. I've found that the Ponies save the day quite often, which perhaps has
something to do with the old slogan of "Saved by the Calvary!".
PART THREE: THE ENDGAME
If you are battling against the AI, you basically have to push your way
through all of his ground. With players, you will find it much more profitable
to strike at mining camps and starving out their resources as opposed to trying
to push their army back with your army.
The AI is a lot of fun, incredibly challenging. I attack it's resources and try
to push through his armies on open field as much as possible. Fighting human
players is much more challenging, in my opinion. THE BEST WAY TO REALLY LEARN
TACTICS IS TO PLAY THE GAME OFTEN AGAINST OTHER PLAYERS.
Learn from other players. If you find yourself getting owned, think about what
you could have done differently.
Are you finding that your settlements keep getting overrun? Perhaps you are not
having large enough garrisons, or perhaps you are not building your armies
large enough and marching them to the site of the battle. I've had games where
I'll have three "Armies" of 150 troops each. One of them will be a "fast" army,
having only Calvary or something to that effect, and I'll use that to defend
mines and raid the enemy. It's discouraging when 150 calvarias kill every
peasant in the Capital and pull out with 130 left before the defending player
can bring arms to bear!
Try new stuff all the time. Keep an extra rank of forces out of sight behind
some cover. Have what appears to be a line of infantry with archers in the
trees behind them as to not be quite so visible! Learn to use Elephants to
crush the skulls of your enemies.
In the later game, Air Superiority becomes SUCH an issue. If you control the
Skies, well... it's awfully hard to damage a city when they bomb an advancing
army. Make sure that you have a ridiculous amount of Anti-Aircraft guns and
Halftracks. Assign fighters to waypoints in the sky to maintain air superiority
for your bombers.
Above all other things, make sure that you develop a solid sense of
sportsmanship. Always be civil in your messages to other players. Thank them
for having played against you, if you beat them perhaps give them a little
advice on what they might have done, if they beat you, don't consider such
advice to be a personal attack on your ego. Don't accuse someone of cheating
just because they beat you. I usually send a message to either enemy or allies
forces every so often. Allied messages are good to let each other notice
things. I enjoy sending the enemy little messages from time to time, sometimes
just as I am moving into position I'll send a message like "The Emerald Rat
Calvary is on the offensive against you!" just to freak them out. :P
Sometimes I'll forecast actual attacks like that for three or four times in a
row and then I'll forecast a false one to see if I can get him to pull his
defences away from a certain vulnerable point. (I call that "Drawing 'Em Out")
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. CONTRIBUTION TO MANKIND by Buttfreek
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: December 6, 2004
-Epoch: Middle Age
-Rating: N/A
There are many arguments to the best counter of the sword/archer boom strat,
even more troubling is countering a sword/archer rush, which is even more
unstoppable.
To counter a sword archer rush, making houses around your base will be more
valuable to you than towers, but towers WILL buy you time to get out military
units. I'll start off with the big mistakes that many people make early in the
game, then explain what they should do. Then I'll explain the mistakes that
people make later in the game, and explain what they should do.
Early in the game:
Your rushed with swords/archers, you're massing swords. He has an equal amount
of swords as you, and he has just as many archers. You have 1 tower up. Should
you charge him? Hell no... Get up 4 houses, upgrade your sword armour, call for
ally help, and defend your base. If he tries to eco raid you, mix your army
with your cits.
So, now that you've held off his rush, it's time to attack him, however, it's
most likely that he was prepared to be doubled, and has 4 towers up around his
economy, or if he's stupid, his army. Don't worry about being called an eco
raider, he invested 800 stone into protecting his eco, maybe he should have
invested more resources... There's a difference between running away from 5
swords with your 20 to eco raid, and using your 10 swords to damage his
critical economic centres. Target his food, and wood. If you're playing an
advanced player, it might do you well to even leave his mines alone, since most
advanced players have no idea how to convert cits to other tasks. When you
think you've killed as much as possible, don't just stand there watching your
swords get hammered away by his towers, retreat back to your base, build a
hospital, and heal. Prepare for your next attack, this time with a trebuchet.
He won't attack you for the next 5 minutes, he'll be focused on attempting to
rebuild his eco. Put 6-9 cits on gold, make a siege factory, and get 1-3 trebs.
Once you have a sizeable force of trebs and swords (3 and 20), attack his base.
Put your swords on GUARD mode, protecting all of your trebs, and direct your
trebuchets attacks at his towers. When his towers are out, take out some of his
cits with his trebs. He only has four options now: to retreat his cits, and let
you destroy his military buildings slowly, until he's forced to retreat. To
attack you right then, to protect his economy. To use his cits as a distraction
for your trebs while he assaults, or to get an ally to come, but we're assuming
that both of your allies are of perfectly equal skill, cancelling each other
out.
In either of these situations, he's pretty much rendered fucked, but the
smartest choice would be for him to assault you, since the chances that his
army is larger than yours isn't out of the question. Even if he kills your army
though, you should have a sizeable army waiting at your base, and an economy,
something that he doesn't have.
Another Mistake I see is people making Vikings at the first sight of archers.
The beauty of sword/archer is that the swords protect the archers from almost
everything, and the archers protect the swords from almost anything. 2 swords
can take out probably 10 Vikings, making them useless...If you're more skilled
than the player, go ahead and make barbarians, as you can overwhelm him with
numbers, and even beat crossbows.
The Late Game:
If you know that your pocket is going to boom with sword archers, with no
siege, then you should use the most underrated unit in the game: The ballista.
The ballista is a unit that in small groups, added to a support force, can
wipe out ANYTHING except trebs. And in some cases, even trebs. The cataphract
is the unit in the game that can take the most damage. Hence the
Cataphract+ballista combo. At 20 minutes, when your opponent attacks, and you
have 10 ballistas and 30 cataphracts, he's fucked. Because he only has 3
choices: to use the normal sword archer tactic: putting swords near archers
and having archers attack, which will let the ballistas lay him to waste,
charge with the swords, and be obliterated by the ballistas, or to retreat,
but then you can attack and beat him.
The most common mistake I see late in a game versus a sword archer is someone
making trebuchets instead of ballistas. Trebuchets, except in large numbers
(15 or more) are useless later in the game, and especially against
sword/archer, ballistas are 10 times more effective.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. EE BEGGINERS GUIDE by Introspection
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: August 19, 2002
-Epoch: All
-Rating: 4.0
Before you even start a Ran-Nano game, make sure you're armed with at least
four civilizations ("civs") (one for each time the unit relationships get more
complicated [one for pre-middle, one for ren-ind, one for atomic, and one for
digital-nano]). Each civ should have attack, hit points, range, armour, and
more importantly, cost reduction upgrades for the units corresponding to that
era. Focus on cheaper units (e.g., footmen rather than cavalry) as you will be
able to build more of them faster. Some other general recommended civilization
upgrades are building and tower cost reduction, and if possible, although
expensive, citizen cost reduction.
The Importance of Game Settings
Once you are in the game, take note of the settings (is "Reveal Map" on?, Can I
use my custom civs?). Noting what the game settings are beforehand can really
help, as you can plan what you will do when the game begins. Let's quickly go
through the game settings.
The game variant can be set to either tournament or standard and effects only
the quantity of resources required to advance (to the extent of my knowledge,
anyway). Tournament mode will require a smaller quantity of resources to
advance each epoch, while if the game is a "Standard" game, many, many more
resources will be required for you to advance (To advance from Pre to Stone in
standard mode requires 1122 food, while in tournament mode, it requires only
170; to advance to Copper from Stone in standard mode requires 1584 food, and
844 of both iron and gold, while in tournament mode it requires a mere 350 food
and 200 iron and gold).
The map size can make rushing a difficult or easy task for you and/or your
opponent. A small or tiny map means less distance to travel for rushers, and
thus there will likely be more rushing with these size maps - especially if
there are more than two people. A medium or large size map means that you will
probably have to spend a small amount of time finding your opponent before you
can rush him, unless the map is filled with a complete eight players. Rushing
is less likely, although still very possible in these size maps. In huge or
gigantic maps with less than eight people, it is much wiser to focus on a more
economical playing style, as it will days several minutes for your opponents to
get to your base. A good strategy here is to build a small army at your home
base and create a second base closer to your enemies where travel time
decreases for your forces.
Resources and Tournament - Low. If they're not, then don't follow this guide.
This means that you'll start with 200 food, 175 wood, 210 stone, and no gold or
iron. 200 food is enough for four citizens (or five with the civ cost
reduction), which you should start building as soon as youve picked your civ.
175 wood is 50 short of the standard 225 (16 short of the 191 if you have the
civ upgrade, which is a huge help) required to build a barracks or stable,
which you will be doing as soon as possible. 210 stone is enough to build one
tower (again, a civ upgrade can make it cheaper [dont remember
155 or
something]), which you will also be doing. Having no gold or iron means you
will have to mine it (duh!), and lots of it because all military units require
either one or the other, or both.
The map type should be either plains, highlands, or continental. The ending
epoch is the Nano Age. The starting epoch is random, and can be any epoch
including the Nano Age (if theyre not, ignore this guide). The game type
should be random map (if its not, thats weird). The unit limit should be
1200 (if its not, ask the host to change, and if he doesnt, make sure hes
not trying to screw you with it somehow), but as long as its above 400,
youre fine. Ive never had a unit limit problem in one of these games. The
difficulty level does not matter, as it only applies to computer players. The
game speed should be above normal, or else your just wasting time. Very Fast
may seem a little fast, as its two and a half times the normal speed, but if
you play it often, youll get used to it. Wonders for victory should be off.
As youll learn if you plan to read the rest of this guide, Reveal Map is
actually quite important, as it determines how you should begin the game. My
theory is that true experts should play with it off.
If Custom Civs are on, use your custom civ. If theyre not, quickly choose a
civ corresponding to the starting epoch, keeping the game variant in mind (my
recommendations being Byzantine Rome, England, United States, and Rebel
Forces).
Teams and speed should be locked, and there is no cheat codes option if youre
playing online.
The Very, Very Beginning
If "Reveal Map" is off, the second the match begins, grab your citizens, press
"ctrl+1", and hit the "L" key to make them explore while you choose your civ.
When your done choosing your civ, queue up as many citizens as you can at your
Capitol, take three-fifths of your citizens and put them on the nearest forage
patch, and send the other two-fifths to the nearest tree.
TIP: Always take note of what age you started in and what resources are nearest
to you before picking your civ, but don't waste any time doing this, as time is
of the utmost importance.
If "Reveal Map" is on, the second the match starts, take three-fifths of your
citizens and put them on the nearest forage patch, and send the other
two-fifths to the nearest tree, then pick your civ. After you've picked your
civ, queue up five citizens at your Capitol.
Make your Capitol really point the forage patch, and after the first citizen
has been built, switch it to the tree. This way, you dont waste any time
selecting the citizen and telling them where to go. Do this until you have six
foragers and four lumberjacks. As more citizens get built search for an iron or
gold patch and assign them to mine it.. Always keep some citizens queued up at
your capitol. Once youve gathered enough wood to build a barracks, build one
(or an archery range or stable depending on the resources you have available)
with two lumberjacks. One that is complete, take one of them and build a
tower, sending the other back to his former job. Once you have enough resources
to build a military unit, do so, even if it requires cancelling the
construction of a citizen. Once you have three to five units, attack. As more
citizens are constructed, send some to hunt animals, mine, or chop down trees.
When you have enough wood, build a settlement next to your mine, if you think
its necessary. Continue to expand your little town economically while you
rush your opponent.
Attacking
When rushing, aim for your opponents economy and avoid towers like theyre the
plague. Towers are often placed in the front of an enemy base, so going around
the back could be the key to snapping the backbone of their economy. Killing
off three or four of his or her food gatherers can really damage them because
they have now lost three citizens, lost the food they had gathered, and lost
the food the could have gathered. Killing citizens on their way back to the
settlement/town centre/capitol can really be a great feeling, because thats
fifteen to thirty (depending on the population of the structure [when a citizen
brings fifteen of any resource to a full capitol (a settlement populated with
50 citizens) thirty of that resource will be added to your stockpile]) of a
resource gone down the drain.
When you are moving your troops into position, dont just move them,
attack-move them. To do an attack-move, select your army, and hold down the
control key when you move them. Youll know youve done it right when instead
of green, the positions which you told them to go to will be shown in orange.
The advantage of an attack move is that your troops will attack anything that
gets in their line of sight as they move. This way, if your opponent is sending
a rush to you, and you see them on your way to his base, your units will
automatically stop him and get the first shots off.
The idea is not to leave long periods of time between your attacks. Try to make
them frequent and small ones, as opposed to one massive assault. Set your
barracks rally point in their base if you have to! Just be sure to keep up the
pressure and leave no time for recovery.
Economic Growth
I cannot stress how important it is to have a constant flow of citizens working
on the constant expansion of your empire. As you get more citizens, populate
your settlements into town centres so that you can build more than one citizen
at a time. Find, claim, and guard as many mines as you can afford to control.
Gather tons of wood and use it to build farms as your forage patch depletes and
all the animals become extinct. When you can afford to do so, build a second
barracks, or a new military structure and pump out double the units. Get stone,
build towers, and surround your city with walls to prevent infiltration or
surprise attacks from behind. It is these kinds of growth that make a good
player a really, really good player. With a strong economy supporting a large
army, youre virtually unstoppable.
Advancing Epochs
When deciding whether to epoch up or not, I recommend doing so just after a
failed enemy attack when you have at least one and a half times the necessary
resources (standard game variant) or two and a half times the necessary
resources (tournament game variant). This will assure you that you will not be
caught lacking resources to build units required to fend off an enemy attack
while advancing because the enemy is not likely to attack and you have plenty
of leftover resources.
Conclusion
Press F11 to see the game clock. See how quickly you can muster up a decent
army and try to beat that time the next time you play. If you can do it within
five minutes, then you know youre really good. Personally, these RMs are my
favourite type of game to play on Empire Earth as deathmatches seem like the
only strategy involved is military, and not economical. A player who can find
a good balance between economy and military is definitely an expert player and
you just cant learn that by playing a deathmatch. A player who is prepared to
start in any epoch is an expert player (or a player with lots of time to make
custom civs) and again, you just cant learn that in a one epoch deathmatch.
I hope this guide will not only increase your skill level, but increase your
desire to play RMs, too.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. UNDERSTAND MORALE by TheShadowDawn
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: February 01, 2002
-Epoch: All
-Rating: 4.3 out of 5
______
Morale
------
Morale is an attribute of Empire Earth that can allow one player to make his
units significantly more powerful by exploiting houses and warrior heroes. As a
strategic element of the game, it's important to know how it works.
Each morale point a unit has decreases the damage they take from enemy units by
approximately 10%. So a unit with one point of morale being attacked by a unit
with 20 attack takes only 18 damage, one with two points of morale takes 16,
one with three takes 14 and so on.
The morale a unit has is indicated by the green dots at its feet. The number of
green dots indicates the number of morale points, from one to five.
______
Houses
------
As indicated in the manual, morale can be attained in two ways. The first is
building houses.
A single house in the area of influence of this town centre grants all units
within that same area one morale point. You can determine the area of influence
of a town centre of capitol by selecting the building and looking for the green
and blue flashing line that forms a square some distance out. All units in this
area receive the morale bonus the house gives.
Likewise placing two houses will give two morale points. A town centres area
of influence will give a maximum of two morale points on tournament mode, and
four morale points on standard mode. You can build more houses than the game
mode supports, but the morale level will stay the same until you build a
capitol, no matter how many houses you build.
A capitol can support two more houses than a town centre, on tournament mode
that is up to four houses and on standard mode up to six houses. These in turn
distribute up to four or six morale points to all units within it's area of
influence. Additionally, the Capitol has a larger area of influence than the
town centre, and thus affects more units.
If two town centres or capitols have an area of influence that overlaps, houses
will only contribute to both, but the morale of two town centres/capitols near
each other is not cumulative. Nor is a warrior hero's morale cumulative on that
provided by houses.
______
Towers
------
Morale also affects towers, in a way. Towers built within the area of the
influence of a town centre or capitol have the equivalent of 5 morale points,
and thus they take half the damage they would ordinarily. Towers are not
affected by houses but this bonus is in place whether you have houses or not.
______
Heroes
------
The second way to provide units with morale is by using a warrior hero. Heroes
are built at a town centre or capitol from the Copper Age onwards, and come in
two varieties; Strategist heroes heal units around them and have the ability to
temporarily weaken a group of enemies, Warrior heroes are tougher combat units
and give morale to units around them. You can only train one hero at any given
time during the game, and you can't train another until that one meets its
demise.
The Warrior hero has a range of around 6 tiles laterally and four tiles
diagonally. They provide the same amount of morale in both standard and
tournament mode, five points; enough to reduce damage to all surrounding units
by 50%.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. PRE-SPACE CIV (AoC) THIS GUIDE IS FOR AOC ONLY by DJ
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: July 23, 2004
-Epoch: Prehistoric
-Rating: N/A
Special Powers: Expansionism
Cavalry Sword: Cost Reduction
Citizen: Cost Reduction
Buildings: Cost Reduction
Economy: Farming and Hunting and Foraging
Religion-Prophets: Build Time Decrease.
that is the civ. pretty basic and pretty powerful. the starting out strat I use
is...
if the map is not revealed, 1) select cits and put on explore
2) choose civ
3) take 6 cits and make a TC at forage patch #1
4) take another 6 cits and put it on forage patch #2
5) take 6 cits and put on animals (make TC near it)
6) take remaining 2 cits and use 1 cit to make a TC next to a gold mine, and
the other civ to make a TC at an iron mine.
7) create 5 cits for each of the iron and gold mines to mine
using the capitol, forage patch TC #1 and #2, and the TC near the cits
gathering animals, create 8 cits to put on wood.
9) look for animals in the centre/sides of the map and gather from them, the
more food you can get the better.
10) when the forage patches run out of food, move those cits up north (near
enemy base) and make 1 archery range and 1 barracks with 1 tower, 1 TC and
4 houses. create clubmen (shock-hotkey S) and archers (arrow-hotkey A).
make more archery ranges and barracks if you need to, but a small army will
take out an enemy base easily if not met with enemy troops, which in pre
space, is a rare thing to find an army big enough to counter yours at an
enemy base around 30-40 F11.
11) when the animals become extinct from gathering food from them, move all
idle cits to wood gathering.
12) when you get to copper, make cits to make farms, dont pull them off of
surrounding resources.
13) when your army is big enough (20-30 units strong) go ahead and attack the
enemy. avoid towers and go for his resources. yes its ECO-ing, but hes an
enemy you want him to be strong enough to defeat you at some point in time?
14) upgrade iron/gold/wood/farming rate and pop increase (hospitals) from
TCs/capitols/farms.
15) when the enemy is destroyed, and you have enough pop, go into his destroyed
base and start gathering from his mines. build towers, houses, TCs,
barracks, archery ranges, farms (if needed)...constantly build up defences,
but dont do it so much it hurts your economy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. DM DRAGOON FLOOD by EE Talon
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: January 24, 2002
-Epoch: Industrial
-Rating: 4.0 out of 5
Start a Deathmatch in the Industrial Age (preferably on a land map, or at least
not an islands map). Immediately start building a few stables with some
villagers, make a few villagers from your Capital, and select the Ottoman
Empire as your civilization. Continue building stables until you have about 12
stables and 4 siege factories. You should be making dragoons and bombards from
some stables and siege workshops while the others are being built.
Upgrade your dragoon's attack twice, their HP twice, and their range once.
Upgrade your bombards range twice, attack twice, and HP once.
Build lots and lots of towers, and hospitals that you can retreat to near the
front of your base.
Build a Temple of Zeus wonder. Put a lot of villagers on this, as it should be
built before the enemy attacks.
Create whatever Hero you have the resources for, and spend the rest of your
resources on Bombards and Dragoons.
Send an Observation balloon over the enemy army, and pound them with your
bombards from far away (they have 13 range now). Then charge with your cavalry
and hero. Move your bombards closer to help you out with any massed enemy
units.
If your enemy doesn't just resign after they get crushed in a matter of
seconds, just send your bombards and dragoons into their town. They should be
defeated or close to it in a few minutes. If you're having trouble catching
the remaining units with explore mode, build a Library of Alexandria (you
should have been gathering resources since you finished the Temple of Zeus).
There is one good counter to this strategy... but I'm not going to tell you
what it is! You'll have to figure it out for yourself.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. THE BASIC STARTUP by fissh_e
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Date: January 28, 2002
-Epoch: All
-Rating: 3.8 out of 5
Introduction
The purpose of this guide is to help new players distribute their economy in a
more efficient and productive way during the first few minutes of a game of
Empire Earth. The first minutes are crucial in every game, and the right
start-up can determine the outcome of the entire game. This guide will
specifically focus on island vs. land maps, deathmatch vs tournament-low or
tournament-defensive resources, as well as provide a general idea of what an
efficient start-up is for almost any settings.
Note: Iron and Gold are resources which are equally abundant on the map, and
you will need some of either resource to build an army (but usually not both).
Therefore, they will be referred to as iron/gold in this guide.
Startup - the General Concept
The key to a good startup is speed and efficiency. Speed is fairly simple:
click faster, learn and use hotkeys, and never just sit there and watch
passively. With good speed, you can make sure your citizens are not standing
idle, are working at the right resource, and you will be able to better judge
your surroundings and how you should react to them.
Efficiency is more complex, and has many elements to it, which I will discuss
in detail.
Gathering the correct resource. It is of particular importance in the startup
phase of the game to know how much of what resources you will be needing at
what time, which involves a general knowledge of and experience with the game.
Here is a basic rundown of resource allocation over time, assuming the
following settings (which are pretty commonly used, by the way):
tournament-low or tournament-defensive resources, tournament variant, land map
1. Send your initial 5 citizens and citizen #6 on pumpkins (or hunting if it's
closer)
2. Send citizens #7-12-ish to a nearby tree. Basically, you are sending all
newly created citizens on chopping wood, until you have enough wood for the
military building of your choice (after building 1 settlement)
3.a. If you plan on making archers: Take some of your woodcutters and send them
to gold, and leave some for the wood your archer require. Build an Archery
Range with a citizen.
3.b. If you are not making archers or other military units that require wood:
Take ALL of your woodcutters, and distribute them between hunting and
iron/gold. Take one of the woodcutters and build a military building
(usually stable or barracks), and then send that citizen to either hunting
or iron/gold.
4.a. If you are making archers: Every new citizen should be sent to balance out
the wood-gold-food ratio. If you have the required wood and gold to
maintain production of archers, send new citizens on food (hunting). If
you are short on either gold or wood, send new villagers there. If you
begin to accumulate a surplus of wood or gold, remove some citizens. If
you are running short on food, you will want to sacrifice military
production for citizen production.
4.b. If you are not making archers or other military units that require wood:
Every new citizen should be sent to balance out the iron/gold-food ratio.
This is basically balancing between two resources, and should be easier
than 4.a. You should definitely lean toward food here.
5. When you start running out of animals to hunt, send new villagers and
existing hunters over to wood. Don't be afraid to pile up wood at this
point, as it will all be spent on farms when the animals are depleted.
Well, now you've seen a typical, efficient build-up order. Notice how I'm not
going into details too much, as your circumstances WILL require you to make
adaptations on the spot. The importance is to know ahead of time what you will
be making. And another importance is to START MAKING MILITARY AS SOON AS YOU
CAN AFFORD TO. This usually means that you should have a military unit DONE by
7-8 mins game time on tournament setting, low or defensive resources. What you
should remember after that is that the top priority is to keep making citizens,
and the second priority is to keep making military units. And this of course
requires efficient resource allocation.
Maintaining a constant production of citizens. Like I've said, maintaining a
constant production of citizens is your top priority. Citizens are the units
who gather the resources, construct the buildings, and run your economy.
Without them, you are dead. If you don't have enough, you will be dead. If you
don't keep making citizens, your opponent will get an advantage.
To be able to keep making citizens, keep an eye on your food supply. Assign
more citizens on food as necessary, and tell your food gatherers to dump off
their load if you just need a little extra food for the next citizen. Of
course, after a few minutes, maintaining a constant flow at your original
capitol will not be enough. That is why you need to populate your settlements,
turn them into Town Centres (TC), and continue pumping out citizens from both
your original capitol and your newly created TC's.
Knowing when to populate settlements. There is no simple answer to the question
"When do I populate my settlement?", but there are some guidelines and points
you should keep in mind. They are all based on the fact that populated citizens
are not doing anything, just sitting in the Town Centre, and you can't get them
back. They will not gather resources for you, so don't just populate unless it
will help you increase the output of citizens (at least in the startup phase of
the game).
- Don't populate if you can't maintain a constant flow of citizens from the new
TC and other TC's or capitols. That would be wasting precious citizens.
- Don't populate less than, or more than 5 citizens. 5 citizens are required
for TC's, and you don't need to upgrade to a capitol in the startup phase.
Also, populating less than 5 citizens means losing the work power of those
citizens while not gaining anything.
- Populate settlement near a gold/iron site, not ones that only have a forest
or pumpkin patch nearby. This is because pumpkins will run out, and forests
are not as scarce as iron/gold. You must think in the long run, and
populating settlements near iron/gold is beneficial.
Reducing walk distance for citizens. When your citizens are gathering
resources, there is always a certain distance they must walk to the deposit
site and back. Of course, while they are just walking back and forth, they are
not benefiting your economy, and that is why you want to reduce the walking
distance as much as possible. Although this isn't really that much of a crucial
thing, it does make a difference to some extent. There are two ways this guide
will focus on for reducing walk distance: settlement placement and animal
luring.
When placing settlements, you want them to be no more than two tiles away from
an iron/gold mine, as that will give you a gather rate bonus. It is important
both to place settlements so they are close to the greatest variety of
resources, and to build new settlements to reduce the walking distance.
Animal luring is not a major thing, but it will help your economy get on its
feet in the first few minutes. The following animals will attack you, and
therefore can be lured: hippo, walrus, and elephant. Basically, you want to
send one or two citizens to attack the animal, then walk back to the nearest
settlement and let the animal follow. Then use some more citizens to kill it.
This way, you won't have to spend so much time walking back and forth, because
the animal is already close to your settlement.
Finding the correct balance between economy and military. This is a tricky
issue, really, and you can only do it well with experience. However, there are
a few things you should keep in mind. Empire Earth is a fast-paced game, and
you can't just sit back focusing on your economy. You need real troops to
defend your base. Therefore, you want to raise a military building as soon as
possible (this is usually after laying down your first settlement), and then
try to maintain a constant production of military units. This of course must
not delay your citizen production, which is your highest priority. Therefore,
you should only mine resources that you need for citizens and a single
military unit type - at least until about 12-15 minutes into the game. The key
to Empire Earth is BALANCE - I can't stress this enough.
Island vs. Land Maps
There are a few important differences with island maps compared to land maps.
First, the reduced threat of an early attack. Second, the ability to make
fishing boats. Third, ships instead of land units.
Reduced threat of an early attack. This gives you more freedom in the early
game. No longer can the enemy just send its troops into your base, he must now
build both a military building and an extra dock and transport to do it -
unless of course if he uses planes. In any case, you now have more flexibility
and less need to start training your military as early as possible. This is not
to say that you should forget about military, as an early misbalance between
your and your opponent's military can give him an edge, although only somewhat
later in the game. But still, if you are an economy boomer type, you can safely
concentrate on booming from two town centres for a while, and make some ships
to defend your coastline.
The ability to make fishing boats. Fishing is a good source of food and should
definitely be considered in the first few minutes of an island game. If you
decide to do fishing, you better make many fishing boats, at least 8 of them.
Because fishing boats cost wood and get food, you should move some citizens
away from food and to wood in order to maintain fishing boat production. You
will need to figure out how the citizen allocation between food and wood works
best, taking into account your civ choice, the map, your long-term strategy,
and anything that might come up.
Ships instead of land units. Ships generally cost much more than land units,
about twice or three times as much. This means that you will have a smaller
navy than you would have an army of land units for the same price. Ships
usually cannot attack an enemy's base, and thus can't hurt their economy much.
The best you can do with a superior navy is kill off his fishing, and maintain
a blockade so that the opponent can't rebuild his navy. Also, defending with
ships is easier than defending with land units, because docks will heal your
own ships provided they are within range. All this must be taken into
consideration when planning your military strategy on the sea.
Deathmatch vs. Tournament-Low or Tournament-Defensive Resources
Deathmatch is a whole new picture compared to Tournament resource games (the
former are often referred to as DM, the latter, RM - as in Random Map). DM
games give you considerably more resources to start with - so much that in many
games you won't even have to worry about your economy at all!
A typical DM startup will be extremely military-oriented. Start by continuously
laying down a bunch of military buildings, at least 15-20 if them, not too far
from your original Capitol. At some point, perhaps at the very beginning, you
should peel off 5 citizens, have them build a settlement - preferably at a
gold/iron mine, and populate so you get a TC. Now you can produce citizens
twice as fast, or go for he immediate epoch jump while making citizens at the
other TC/Capitol.
Basically, you'll want to keep making military buildings, and keep making
military in those buildings, until you reach your max population or you are
starting to run out of resources. If you are starting to run out of res, start
to establish an economy by making many citizens and settlements, starting up a
farming operation, and mining whatever you need. If you fill up your pop cap,
you should send your forces in search of an enemy while you build up defences,
such as walls, AA guns, and towers at home.
DM is very fast-paced, especially the first few minutes. It's entirely
different from RM, at least the startup, but later you will be making use of
the same tactics and strategies.
Amazing Games. Many Cheats. Such Wow.
