Tips for a New Player to AOE3?

[Eifersucht18]

Hi All,
By way of Background - I picked up AOE3 - The Complete Edition recently, but am a complete noob to the series so far. I've played through the tutorial but am getting smoked by the Spanish in my first real game (as the British).

I've previously put in over 700+ hours in games like Civ5, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War etc so am comfortable with both TBS and RTS mechanics, but obviously each game's individual units, mechanics and areas of focus are different.

So,...
What would you suggest are key gameplay / building / troops elements to focus on to prevent being overun? It seemed as if I was well ahead of the Spanish in tech (had an Artillery Foundry built etc) but they had a larger army - I was stuck under a population cap and got decimated

Much appreciate the advice!

[=|Lexx|=]

Escrito originalmente por ZyPhr@™:

...

I don't get it. Are you replying to me or are you giving advices to OP?

This is the best advice how to start:

Escrito originalmente por KnightOfAwesome:

Just get food and 1 house with all of your settlers 'till pop get to 14... then wait to reach 800 food and advance to 2nd age. Split your settlers 50/50 for food and wood, when u hit 2nd age do another house+market and barracks. Make settlers everytime (dont forget to mine gold) and use +settlers or resource cards.

And it does not differ from mine much. I give advices without a strict build/play-order.

Escrito originalmente por ZyPhr@™:

From here, the rest of your recomendations are the worhst I read.

So the OP is stuck at population cap and the 15 horse cannons advice is a better one than building houses?

[wowegoo]

Escrito originalmente por =|Lexx|=:

Escrito originalmente por ZyPhr@™:

...

I don't get it. Are you replying to me or are you giving advices to OP?

This is the best advice how to start:

Escrito originalmente por KnightOfAwesome:

Just get food and 1 house with all of your settlers 'till pop get to 14... then wait to reach 800 food and advance to 2nd age. Split your settlers 50/50 for food and wood, when u hit 2nd age do another house+market and barracks. Make settlers everytime (dont forget to mine gold) and use +settlers or resource cards.

And it does not differ from mine much. I give advices without a strict build/play-order.

Escrito originalmente por ZyPhr@™:

From here, the rest of your recomendations are the worhst I read.

So the OP is stuck at population cap and the 15 horse cannons advice is a better one than building houses?

Im talking to you!!!
Who is talking about horse cannons? Who say is bad building houses? Who thing is good "WAIT" to get 800 to up an age? Im not, for sure. One more time you don't read.
Many strategies are good, but this guy talks about how to start properly and no have problems to advance. And you say "- Buld villagers constantly (until you have at least 40, 60 and more are advised).
- watch your population limit and build houses so you are not stuck on cap." Ohhh, what a news!!! Really!!! I never ear something similar (NOTE: Ironic mode on)
And you say "- don't mine gold in the first age (except you want to research the techs in the market). Don't chop wood if you don't need it early in game." MEEEEC...! Fatal fail. You need to wait for everything with this option.
And you say "- Don't build windmills early because they cost much wood and you collect (gather) food slowly." MEEEEC...! Another fatal fail. You need wood, so chop. You need food for people, so build windmill, the building in game specifically designed to get food. I can continue but a don't want cause im watching Formula One, more interesting than your strategy. ;)

[wowegoo]

Escrito originalmente por Inquisitioner:

Age fast fast and screwing your economy are both dumb things to do. Whats the point of that if the enemy got loads of troops while your bankrupt but good good tech? You do know you've also gotta pay for the upgrades and age just unlocks them.

Who is talking about get fast techs? Here are talking about how to start, not how to play and win.

[Inquisitioner]

Escrito originalmente por ZyPhr@™:

Escrito originalmente por Inquisitioner:

Age fast fast and screwing your economy are both dumb things to do. Whats the point of that if the enemy got loads of troops while your bankrupt but good good tech? You do know you've also gotta pay for the upgrades and age just unlocks them.

Who is talking about get fast techs? Here are talking about how to start, not how to play and win.

Guess what slow-witt, I was in no way responding to you - seems rather uninstelligent to assume so. I'll write it in a clear manner so even you can understand: Fast age = No good focus on others :c Hope that helped you out!

[coachk]

I suggest choose the games you want to play first then figure your strategy. 1v1 games you need to go fast to first age up then work on econ and either attack or defend. Treasures can help you up econ before first age up in market then you get advantage on players that wait to age up. I feel this game is like "Rock - Paper - Scissors" if you know what your opponent is going to use then you pick what best kills their fighters. Also Turtle (wall in econ areas near TC) frustrates many players and gives you time to get econ booming. Then you can attack when you have advantage.

[MEOWMEOWMAN]

i Always play extremely defensive. For European Civs i begin with making 3 more settlers inmidiatly. i put 3 settlers on each resource and build 1 extra settler and put in on wood. Then i pick the extra settler i had on wood and use him on building things. For instance, a windmill so when the others are done with those berries they can inmidiatly continue.

Then i age up and build 6 more settlers and put 2 on each resource extra. Then i start building some towers at crucial spots (i begin with one) and build 10 units wich are ranged. When you are attacked by a greater force ring the bells of your town center and let your hero take the hits. focus fire with your ranged units. draw them near your tower/towers. At this points i continue to build settlers in the backgrounds and upgrades. I pick my one extra settler from before and build some walls. And try figuring it on from here. I use this strategy against expert.

Also, dont follow this excactly, since you have played many RTS's like me, you should feel what to do at what moment, what crucial spots are etc.
I hope you enjoy this game as much as i do since i am playing this game from the original disc's since it first came out. :) It was my first Game :D

[76561198152822744]

how to host a game in aoe3 in steam? so that my friend can join my game?

[Eifersucht18]

Lots of great advice! Thanks, lads!

Havent played for a few days, but this gives me a great starting point - I will need to go through each post in detail and figure out commonalities vs. play style differences, but much appreciated !

[JIastHero]

gg

[W1ne-Ton Hammer]

Escrito originalmente por Inquisitioner:

Age fast fast and screwing your economy are both dumb things to do. Whats the point of that if the enemy got loads of troops while your bankrupt but good good tech? You do know you've also gotta pay for the upgrades and age just unlocks them.

Aging fast will get you killed earlier.

You need to do everything at once,

-never stop making settlers, but constantly roam around the map and kill their settlers.
-build walls early, build canon towers all around to protect your settlers on the Windmills, your farm's sheeps and later on, planations(against players, your sellters don't get killed that way)
-Hunt animals very early, go look for gold mines outside, but when you do, make sure you build Canon towers near them. Place your settlers inside the canon towers when the enemy wants to kill your settlers and wait for your army to arrive and protecting them.
-Don't over do it with fishing boats, there's not that many fishes unless there is a fish who can hold an infinit amount of food and in that case, protect it with a lot of battle ships.
-Only focus on aging when you have enough protection in your first age, when you are confident enough that you won't get crushed by your enemies by the time you are done aging. Age of empire is not just about aging anyway, when you are aging, you need to have enough funds for the upgrades as well or there will be no point for that.

The number 1 mistake so many players make: Aging fast. They focus on settlers, they don't make walls and if they do, they only have towers which is not enough. You need some units to protect your base from the grenadiers of age 1 and you need archers or spearman to protect your settlers early coz you never know, your enemy might attack early with horses and infantry that require gold to make early. You have to roam often to kill settlers left and right. Send many scouts. You see some settlers? Bring a small amount of skirmishers and kill them all.

The goal in Age was always to break the economy of your enemy when you raise yours. Best way to do that? Kill settlers.

[iSnack2.0]

Tip 1: Never leave your Town Centre idle. It should constantly be making either settlers/villagers or aging up.

Tip 2: Never leave idle settlers/villagers. Press the "." key to cycle between idle settlers, remember if they are not doing anything then they are not gathering!

Tip 3: Read proper guides and build orders on reputable fansites from people that have been playing this for years. Don't listen to any of these people on the steam forums, most of them haven't been playing for more than 2 years and most only play single player. To truely get good you need to read guides by people with years and years of top-level online play.

Tip 4: Go to proper fansites and download replays of high-skilled players (anyone above PR 25 should do considering you are new). Watch those replays and pay attention to how they grow their economy and micro in battles.

Tip 5: Go on to ESO and play against real people, preferrably people with the same or higher skill level than you. You will never get good by only playing against people that have less skills than you. At the end when you lose (let's face it, you'll probably lose), ask them for tips. Many of the higher ranked players are happy to give advice.

[MEOWMEOWMAN]

Escrito originalmente por Anterior2:

Tip 1: Never leave your Town Centre idle. It should constantly be making either settlers/villagers or aging up.

Tip 2: Never leave idle settlers/villagers. Press the "." key to cycle between idle settlers, remember if they are not doing anything then they are not gathering!

Tip 3: Read proper guides and build orders on reputable fansites from people that have been playing this for years. Don't listen to any of these people on the steam forums, most of them haven't been playing for more than 2 years and most only play single player. To truely get good you need to read guides by people with years and years of top-level online play.

Tip 4: Go to proper fansites and download replays of high-skilled players (anyone above PR 25 should do considering you are new). Watch those replays and pay attention to how they grow their economy and micro in battles.

Tip 5: Go on to ESO and play against real people, preferrably people with the same or higher skill level than you. You will never get good by only playing against people that have less skills than you. At the end when you lose (let's face it, you'll probably lose), ask them for tips. Many of the higher ranked players are happy to give advice.

Tip 3? You dont even know how long they played this game, for instance. I dont play AOEIII on steam but i still have my original disc's. I played AOEIII since 2006 when it first came out

[iSnack2.0]

Escrito originalmente por DarthFoot:

Escrito originalmente por Anterior2:

Tip 1: Never leave your Town Centre idle. It should constantly be making either settlers/villagers or aging up.

Tip 2: Never leave idle settlers/villagers. Press the "." key to cycle between idle settlers, remember if they are not doing anything then they are not gathering!

Tip 3: Read proper guides and build orders on reputable fansites from people that have been playing this for years. Don't listen to any of these people on the steam forums, most of them haven't been playing for more than 2 years and most only play single player. To truely get good you need to read guides by people with years and years of top-level online play.

Tip 4: Go to proper fansites and download replays of high-skilled players (anyone above PR 25 should do considering you are new). Watch those replays and pay attention to how they grow their economy and micro in battles.

Tip 5: Go on to ESO and play against real people, preferrably people with the same or higher skill level than you. You will never get good by only playing against people that have less skills than you. At the end when you lose (let's face it, you'll probably lose), ask them for tips. Many of the higher ranked players are happy to give advice.

Tip 3? You dont even know how long they played this game, for instance. I dont play AOEIII on steam but i still have my original disc's. I played AOEIII since 2006 when it first came out

Same here, I've had my disc copy since late '06. But we are the minority on these forums. I've been comming to these steam forums every now and again, and I'm always amazed at the terrible advice and strategies everyone has. The quality of information and knowledge here is a thousand times worse than any of the established websites (Heavengames, RTSanctuary, AgeCommunity etc).

[mbutton15]

Escrito originalmente por Anterior2:

Escrito originalmente por DarthFoot:

Same here, I've had my disc copy since late '06. But we are the minority on these forums. I've been comming to these steam forums every now and again, and I'm always amazed at the terrible advice and strategies everyone has. The quality of information and knowledge here is a thousand times worse than any of the established websites (Heavengames, RTSanctuary, AgeCommunity etc).

It's certainly been fascinating reading peoples thoughts on strategy in this and other threads. I have prior experience of both AoE1 & 2, but I'm still fairly new to AoE3. I can't say I have developed any strategy for AoE3 yet. But I've not really found myself short of resources, whereas I frequently did in AoE1 & 2. My basic approach is to level up one Age as soon as possible and then I think I usually stay in defensive mode for much longer than the game really expects. The reason I say that is because by the time I feel my base can defend an attack (so I feel safe going on the attack myself) I usually find little resistence. It seems almost as if the AI players have simply run out of resources !!

That's not really a complaint, more just an observation, as I quite enjoy the strategy of resource management & base building. The battles are usually just a case of building a big enough army to overrun the AI opponents. I've only played on the middle difficulty so maybe I should try the hardest level to see how much more of a challenge is thrown my way. I must also check out the websites you mention as I woud like to better understand the subtlties of this game as I remember regularly checking the tech trees on AoE1 & 2 to find out what units I needed to combat War Elephants, or that I needed to research the Wheel before I could make Chariot Archers - Ah, the memories !!

[iSnack2.0]

Escrito originalmente por mbutton15:

Escrito originalmente por Anterior2:

It's certainly been fascinating reading peoples thoughts on strategy in this and other threads. I have prior experience of both AoE1 & 2, but I'm still fairly new to AoE3. I can't say I have developed any strategy for AoE3 yet. But I've not really found myself short of resources, whereas I frequently did in AoE1 & 2. My basic approach is to level up one Age as soon as possible and then I think I usually stay in defensive mode for much longer than the game really expects. The reason I say that is because by the time I feel my base can defend an attack (so I feel safe going on the attack myself) I usually find little resistence. It seems almost as if the AI players have simply run out of resources !!

That's not really a complaint, more just an observation, as I quite enjoy the strategy of resource management & base building. The battles are usually just a case of building a big enough army to overrun the AI opponents. I've only played on the middle difficulty so maybe I should try the hardest level to see how much more of a challenge is thrown my way. I must also check out the websites you mention as I woud like to better understand the subtlties of this game as I remember regularly checking the tech trees on AoE1 & 2 to find out what units I needed to combat War Elephants, or that I needed to research the Wheel before I could make Chariot Archers - Ah, the memories !!

You should play online vs other players; it's much better than fighting the AI.

Also the way you quoted confused me. It's flipped the names of the writers around, and it's quoted your reply.