New players, pick Germans as your faction

[VEF215]

They are the most beginner friendly faction to play as in multiplayer.

Food management is a huge issue for new players. Germans have low food upkeep for units (except for Panzer Cavalry) and have two prayers at the Church which boost food. Pray for Persistence is very cheap to activate and helps food.

Your greatest weakness is enemy ranged units, particularly Anglo Sax longbows and Slav archers. Use intimidation on your spearmen to stop the retreat of enemy ranged units, to wipe them completely so they don't get level 2 boosts. Use cavalry as well to charge enemy ranged units, and crossbows to fire back. Even though Rudolf is a shield unit hero, he does not have Raise Shield ability so he's not as protected as you might think. Stay in stealth bushes for protection and use night time / rain / snow to your advantage, since ranged units cannot fire optimally in those conditions. Mud traps are also great to catch ranged units.

Use your hero Rudolf to boost morale of friendly units and to tank damage. He is very slow so you might want to give him the speed upgrade at level 2.

Use your cleavers as your offensive infantry to charge enemy melee units from side/rear, they have a huge charge since they are axe infantry. At tier 3 they get Frighten which is great crowd control, but only works on enemy units that are in offensive formation, and if you have 5 or more units in your squad. You can use it to make enemy squads that are giving you trouble get out of the fight for a short time.

Use your spearmen in spearwall for great durability in melee fights and as your flytrap to grab and hold units with intimidation so you can wipe them. These guys will be your main infantry unit. You can activate abilities on the charge, so if you need to apply intimidation quickly so a unit doesn't get away, you can charge in and apply it while charging.

Spearwall and defensive formation blocks charges from the front, so they won't hurt your squad, and also detects traps on the ground. Face your units appropriately by right clicking and dragging on the ground, and watch your flanks.

Use your crossbows as your ranged units. German Archers are not very good, don't use them. Crossbows have Chase to help run away from melee units without having to use retreat, to reposition for flank shots, and Chase will also help you win ranged fights since it gives ranged defense. Press Q (hotkey for stop) to have your crossbows stop immediately to reload.

You have access to catapults, don't use the ballista. Having line of sight and firing directly is better than area attack. Use units to spot for your catapult, it can fire farther than it can see by itself.

Panzer Cavalry are great melee cav, but they have high food upkeep, so watch out for that. Use them to charge down enemy ranged units and to attack shield units, which might be giving your spears trouble. Cleavers can also help your spears against shields. Use Panzer cav to run down retreating enemy units, click through/ahead of them so they attack as they go by. To heal your cavalry, retreat them to your base (double click retreat.)

If an enemy is defending a gold village, use crossbows to force the melee units off the cap, and catapults to fire at the village to bring it down. Don't fight enemy units within the radius of the gold village, if you aren't actively destroying the gold village at the same time, you will take very high losses from the gold village's arrows.

Solid Constructions upgrade will give you very cheap towers to help defend villages, and will make your traps cheaper as well. It will also make rebuilding any burnt down buildings at your base cheaper.

Stamina Training upgrade will make your troops faster, since Germans start out somewhat slow. This is a very good upgrade once you have the resources for it.

Drill Training is a super late game upgrade for when you have tons of iron to burn. Use the iron on armor and other unit upgrades first. You can unlock armor upgrades at your Blacksmith. Drill Training will make it cheaper to recruit new squads, and cheaper to replenish current squads. It's a good upgrade if you get around to it.

Be careful of your retreat path. If enemy units get behind you or put traps behind you, your squads might be wiped as they retreat. Retreating units only get a few seconds of invulnerabity to escape melee fights before they can be hit in melee range again.

If you are outnumbered, use defensive formation / spearwall. Don't committ all your troops at once in one big charge, blobbing is very easily countered by defensive formation / spearwall, and flanking. Watch your flanks. Your spearmen should usually be fighting in spearwall.

You can see what stance a unit is in by looking at the bottom left of the unit UI, a black sword is offensive formation (no protection from charges) and a black shield/spears is defensive or spearwall (frontal charge protection.)

If you notice enemy units getting close to your base, or catapults are getting close, be sure you have a Well built at your base, and some nearby units to help defend. Towers by themselves cannot stop three or more full health enemy squads (enemy shield units are particularly dangerous since your tower arrows will bounce off their shields.)

Hope these tips help out the new players

[Sulphur]

Thanks. I am currently downloading the demo. If I like it and buy it, I try the germans first.
And yes, I did read your opinion about the demo. I am mentally prepared for being overwhelmed. Though, I expect your explanation eased it preliminary.

[VEF215]

Originally posted by Sulphur:

Thanks. I am currently downloading the demo. If I like it and buy it, I try the germans first.
And yes, I did read your opinion about the demo. I am mentally prepared for being overwhelmed. Though, I expect your explanation eased it preliminary.

I hope you like it. :)

If you have previous RTS experience I don't think you will be overwhelmed, there's just a lot going on mechanics wise that hasn't been done in other RTS games (to my knowledge,) and isn't explained in that mission, so there's definitely a learning curve.

Pressing P will activate tactical pause

[QUANTUM MECHANICS c000021a]

Anglosaxons are pretty easy too, worst faction to handle is probably slavs...

[Grand Hazzard]

Is it ever possible to find a multiplayer match?

[Vlambulance-YouTube]

Originally posted by Grand Hazzard:

Is it ever possible to find a multiplayer match?

i had games friday evening the whole evening, now im searching for 30min already

[QUANTUM MECHANICS c000021a]

Germans are pretty interesting against slavs, try to play as them vs hard AI slavs :D Not sure why but with vikings, anglo saxons seems like its a lot easier to beat slavs.

[Romka94]

Originally posted by QUANTUM MECHANICS c000021a:

Germans are pretty interesting against slavs, try to play as them vs hard AI slavs :D Not sure why but with vikings, anglo saxons seems like its a lot easier to beat slavs.

Because first german unit counters first slavic unit, and first viking unit counters first german unit. But first slavic unit counters first viking unit. Rock-paper-scissors.