Overview
This strategy is indeed a powerful one, being used around the world for years by even the best of AoE players. The aim of this tactic is to harass the enemy with scouts forcing them to hide their villagers, effectively making their economy useless. After this you transition into making archers as they effectively kill spearmen, and spearmen are the only things that kill scouts in feudal age. This strategy is done with the Huns as they are the best feudal and castle age civilisation. This guide is very micro-management intensive so don’t be discourage if you can’t do it first go.Only works on Arabia/Random Land Map or other really open mapsCheck out my other guide “defending the rush”, to stop you from becoming a victim of these sorts of attackshttp://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=138099830#43977 ^^Also join this group http://steamcommunity.com/groups/VooblyCommunity, this is where Aoe was played before steam, and i guarantee if you give them a chance they can provide good Aoe gaming, as they have done for many years. If you want to get really good at this game, check them out.
How/What to Scout
I will cover scouting: as soon as the game starts locate the four sheep near your town centre before sending your scout in a spiraling circle so that you explore everything in a circle around your base. You can ONLY and i say ONLY scout the enemy base once you find the resources i state below:
>2 boars
>8 sheeps
>berries
>two gold mines
>stone
>2 big forests
This is all to ensure that you can carry out the strategy properly
Remember NEVER EVER let your scout stand idle
Dark Age Buildup
Here is a general build order for you to follow
Villagers: (remember it is villager number NOT population number as you have your original scout as well)
1-6 gather sheep under the town centre
7 builds a lumbercamp touching your nearest forest
8-9 gather wood from that forest
10 goes and “lures” your boar| this is when you attack it TWICE and then run your villager back to the towncentre, while you are doing this your sheep gatherers “drop” their food at the towncentre before attacking the boar as a group. When the boar is at the towncentre garrison the man who lured the boar so that it doesnt die
Research Loom at the Towncentre (must do this while your lurer is going to the boar!!!!)
11 Builds mill at the berrie bushes(once boar lurer is garrisoned release him and make him build a farm, no more than 1 for now)
12-14 berries (when villager 13 is just created make a person on boar drop off their food and go lure the second boar, and after that guy is finished luring his boar release him from tc and make a farm with him)
15-17 go to sheep/boar (both should be under the town centre, once boar villagers finish up they should go onto sheep)
18-19 goto wood at the lumber camp
20-21 build a lumbercamp at a different forest and chop wood there
`Click Feudal Age button`
Whilst going to feudal build a barracks facing the enemy with a villager on berries
Also switch 3 from sheep to your second wood camp (make sure to drop off the food first!!)
Feudal Age and Actual harrassing
Do these three things quickly in this order:
1. build a stable
2. research double bit axe at your lumbercamp (faster wood which is very important)
3. research horse collar at your mill (farms have more food)
After you have done this keep making villagers nonstop and queue about 3 extra scouts
your next 3 villagers go to new farms
then the next 8 go to gold
After those 8 research wheelbarrow
(once you have 3 on gold build 2 archery ranges and queue archers non stop. Once those two ranges are made make a blacksmith and research fletchings and padded archer armour)
Make your buildings in the following sort of style so that they act as a wall, because if you are going to make those buildings anyways, why not make them so they are defending your town from rushes
`Mean while as you are making more villagers use your 4,5 or even 6 scouts to attack enemy villagers that are a far distance from the towncentre e.g. woodcutters, gold/stone miners. If the enemy sends any spearmen run at once! Spearmen are the counter to scouts and deal ridiculous damage to them`
`If i forgot to mention all the original people you had on food (minus the ones you moved to wood) must end up on farms, this is the berry pickers, sheep people and boar people, but no more than 2 farms until you have done those 3 crucial steps i mentioned before`
Guide Overview
If you request so in the comments i might further add general tips and tricks to get the best out of your games e.g. effective walling, how to determine what strategy your enemy is doing/ how to counter it
This strategy if learnt properly can really put a dent in an enemy with no military or with slow units
Most of all the four things to remember are:
>your towncentre must never be idle(this is researching something or making villagers)
>never fight spearmen with scouts let your archers you add later do that
>fight like a coward (this is hitting and running his villagers and if enemy military comes run and hit somewhere else)
>economy is as important as military so dont lose villagers!