Overview
Basic tips for how to play multiplayer with an agressive mindset. It is more focused on one on one, but is applicable to any scale game or single player.
Flush
If you plan to do multiplayer, and especially one-on-one games, this is a strategy thet you need to be aware of. For those who do not know, a rush is a quick attack at your opponent based on your scouting info aimed at killing as many villagers as possible.
A Flush is the basic rush, which is based around advancing to feudal then startng you flush almost instantly. During this time, you should have at least a general idea of your opponent’s base. The main weak points to look out for are Lumber and Mining Camps, as well as Mills or outlying deer and berry patches. Avoid anything within range of his TC on principle.
Choosing your Civ
Choosing a civilization is hard, because everyone has personal preferences. These are just my personal recomendations:
Britons
A Britons player can get a nice, easygoing start to their game. While their economy is only mediocre, their archery bonus can be very helpful and, unlike Mayans, they have knights (See “Krush”).
Mayans
Mayans are much like the Britons: Amazing for a fast Archer Flush, and terribly handicapped at everything else. This makes them easy to play, but somewhat predictable. If your opponent is Mayan, it’s a safe bet he’ll Flush.
Mongols
Mongols don’t usually feature on a top Civs list, mostly because of their hard-to-master unique unit. However, that hunting bonus can get them the extra food needed to spam Scouts early on.
Koreans
Koreans have a good trush and a decent economy. If you get the first three towers down, you’re on a roll.
Goths
The Goths are featured here as a learning civ. Many new players, upon first picking up the game, develop an unfortunate turtling policy. The Goths, with no stone walls, force these players to practice agressive play.
Byzantines
Byzantines are not a true rushing civ. Rather, they are the fallback if your opponent is better than you or has an insane civ like the Huns. With their trash unit bonus, Byzantines are able to efficiently counter an enemy rush with relative ease.
Notice I have not included Huns. In my experience, players who get used to not needing houses become lazy and have trouble transitioning to other civs. Otherwise, they can make for an insanely fast Scout rush.
Archer
The archer Flush is in my mind the simplest and most effective, and if playing as Mayans or Britons it is absolutely devastating. Immediately after going feudal, toss up two Archery Ranges and a Blacksmith (Note you will need more surplus wood than you would typically have otherwise). Once your first range is up, start training archers. Do not queue up many, as you do not have the surplus to pull that off. Only have one or two training at any given time (While your army is building, upgrade to Fletching at the Blacksmith) and once you reach a critical mass of, say, six, send them across the map to your opponent’s wood pile (Wood generally has the most villagers far from the town center) and wreak havoc on villagers. With Fletching, you should be able to one-or-two shot anything in your way. Circle the enemy town, picking off any stray villagers, and for heavens’ sake STAY AWAY from the town center. Archers, no matter what the upgrade, will die like flies when confronted by building fire.
If the enemy is able to put together any sort of response (Archers or Skirms) retreat to a nearby hill and pick them off from the top. Keep going, and eventually you will be Castle while he is starting to lag behind. Job done.
Note: You may want to mark good hills nearby for this purpose. With the newer graphics, it may be more difficult to mark elevation, but archer fire downhill gets a damage bonus and is therefore more effective and worth exploiting.
Scout
The Scout Rush has a buildup much like the Archer, but with the crucial difference that you have a bare minimum of villagers on gold and wood. Instead, farm and take boar as fast as you can. Scouts cost 80 food, and keeping a Scout Rush going can tax an unprepared player’s economy considerably. I’d recommend Huns or Mongols for this, especially due to the Mongol hunting bonus.
Once you have three or four Scouts, repeat the same process as with the archers. Be aware you have to move fast, because a good player quick on the hotkeys can toss up a palisade around his wood in a blink of an eye and the Scouts lack the power to knock it down again. You can also harass farms with scouts, as their speed and higher pierce armor (compared to the Archers) allow them to take a few TC hits here and there. The response to Scouts will be spearmen, but you can with a little luck outrun these and continue harassment tactics.
A quick note: If you run out of food during a Scout Rush, your economy wasn’t ideally suited to the tactic. Drop all of your queued military. They are secondary to continued villager production.
“Trushing”
The Trush (Tower Rush) can be a little tricky, because the main instigators are villagers and therefore vulnerable to just about any response.
For the purpose for this article, Koreans are the best and easiest civ to Trush with. First off, you need to scout your opponent’s base even more thoroughly than usual. Locate a spot on the other side of his wood spot from where he is taking wood, or a thin section of forest next to his gold… you get the idea. By the time you Feudal, have some stone surplus ready and up to five villagers building houses and generally making themselves useful outside your bases. The moment you age, drop a watch tower JUST outside your opponent’s line of sight covering his wood pile. The moment it is done, garrison all your villagers inside. If you timed and placed it right, you should get up to three or four kills. After this, you have the make a choice: Palisade in your tower and transition to a different rush, or alternately start marching towers (Each covered by at least one and usually two of the others) towards tour opponent. This technique is hard to beat if the towers are spaced right, the common responses being an infantry or cavalry rush to bring down a tower or trying to drop a wall between your villagers and his town. By the time Koreans hit Castle, you should have fletching and anywhere between 4-10 towers dotted around his base. This strains your economy, admittedly, but Korean towers automatically upgrade upon aging and by Castle outrange your opponents TC.
However, if this backfires you have no military production buildings and are therefore in deep trouble.
Krush
This isn’t really a Feudal Rush, it’s the follow up. So let’s say you have been rushing your opponent, he’s fallen behind (if he’s still close to you in score, you aren’t putting on enough pressure) and you are on your way to Castle. So far so good.
This works best if you have been Scout Rushing. If not, build two Stables. If you are truly in control of the game at this point, build them forward. If not, you may want to hang back in a more defensive setting. Once you hit castle, queue up Knights and send them out in waves of four. If your opponent is still in Feudal, Knights will clean up any army he has left at this point. Also, they are far less susceptible to arrow fire and can range all across the opponents base, even around his TC. At this point, many players will just GG and leave.
The point of this is, knights have no counter until your opponent is Castle as well. Pikemen have to be massed, as do crossbows. Monks are perhaps the most efficient counter, but require some sort of high-HP unit as a meat shield. In theory, you can kill off a few dozen exposed villagers or just stop them from gathering. If your opponent doesn’t GG, build a Siege Workshop and procceed to knock down a few buildings. At this point, you’ve as good as won.
Countering
There are several counters to a Flush, and some begin early in the game. When starting out, find the wood pile closest to your TC and place your lumber camp there.
Later, when building houses, AR, stables etc., build them into a wall. Don’t close off your base, but build it as a funnel that focuses all attacking units towards your TC and into potential arrow fire.
Once you feel comfortable with your defensive building (practice in random map or campaign), memorize the counters to basic flushing units (Archer vs. Skirm, Scout vs. Spear, etc.). That being said, often the best tactic to stop an ongoing rush is to rush him yourself. If you can disrupt his economy enough, he may not be able to keep a true flush going. At the very least, you will even the score and give you a fighting chance.
When countering any sort of Archer or Skirm based rush, remember to make use of elevation. Try to get between him and his base, onto a hill, and shoot him down.
FAQ
Q: If skirmishers are arrow resistant, cheap, and counter archers, then why not rush with them?
A: Skirmishers don’t have much bang for the buck, as they say. However, in a Mayan war or situation where you feel confident the opponent has to use archers, feel free to build up a few skirmishers as a deterrent.
Q: If I lose units on a Flush, how will this affect my gameplan?
A: The point of a Flush is to make the opponent waste time and resources chasing you as well as harm his economy. If you lose significant portions of your army, you may have hurt your economy more than his. That being said, if the game is too laggy you may not be able to avoid casualties.
Q: Can I switch unit type midway through a rush? Say, going from Archers to Scouts?
A: I wouldn’t recommend it. Once you start going with archers, you will have invested heavily into upgrades and buildings that benefit or compliment your unit choice. To switch mid-Rush is to lose that investment. If you feel your opponent is countering effectively, you can for example switch from Archers to Skirms as they use the same basic upgrades.
Q: My opponent’s Castled and his Crossbows are killing my skirmishers. How do I counter?
A: One word for you: Onagers. If your opponent is bad at micromanagment or the game lags enough, you ought to kill at least half of his archers.
Please keep in mind that this is only scratching the surface. Everyone has a different game style and favorite civ, and has to find some variation on rushing or booming that works for them. If anyone has any questions, comments, or suggestions, I’d appreciate any and all feedback.
Zrut