Build Better Decks! A Deckbuilding Guide

This Guide will be about building decks in Age of empires 3:DE. I will talk about Supremacy, treaty and DM. It is mainly targeted to those, who struggle to make decks on their own and provides some rule of thumbs and guidelines. If you have any Questions, just ask in the Comments! :)

Supremacy 1v1

Generally:

• Usually you only send one card in age one and you safe your next shipment for age 2 and send the age 2 power cards.
  
• Most games get decided in fortress and comerce age. That means you want to have cards for every situation in those Ages.
  
• Most supremacy Games wont reach industrial and if they do, you usually want your factories as fast as possible.

Adjust your deck to the strategy you are doing:
If you are going ff, you wont need as many age 2 cards and can put in more age 4 cards.
But also, your deck shouldnt be to one dimensional because:
- you are not flexible and cant react to the things the enemy is doing
- the enemy might know your complete gameplan just by looking at your deck

Diaruga pro tip: Only have 2 decks for 1v1 land and 1v1 water each. So you wont be predictable.

Land

Age 1 Cards:
Age 1 you allmost allways send vills. If your civ doesnt have vills, you send your wood trickle or some other economy card. Sometimes you can also justify 300w.
If you want to tp boom or fishboom your second card is advanced tp or schooners. Usually you have 1 to 4 age 1 cards (vills, economic theory +...)

Age 2 Cards:
Good cards to start age 2 are usually vills, 700w or if you want to be aggressive units.
For cards:
you want to have Crates (allways wood and gold), units, and vills/banks. You allways want to get a boost to your tempo or have choices to react to the enemy.
Getting rushed early? you want to be able to send 8 crossbow. Enemy overcommiting on light infantry? 3 huss. Enemy is going for a ff? Send 700 g and advance too.
rule of the thumb is you want 7 "immediate" cards (crates, units, vills) and 3 can be upgrades of your choice (cav HP, musk HP, advanced arsenal)

Age 3 Cards:
Good cards to send when you just reached age 3: 2 falcs, other units
The rest of the Age 3 Cards look like this:
7 Immediate Cards: crates (1000 wood for buildings/tcs, 1000 gold), + units. Best unit cards are: 2 falcs, 8 skirm, 5 huss/3 cuirass, 5 goons, maybe some mercenaries
3 economic cards/ unit upgrades (usually 3): Refridgeration, royal Mint and a strong unit upgrade (as french: Cav upgrade)

Diaruga pro tip: Dont use royal mint or refridgeration, they take too long to pay off. He uses more unit upgrades and up to 8 unit/crates cards

Age 4 Cards
Factories, 2 heavy canons, 10 vills, Strong unit upgrades (usually you have 2-5 age 4 cards)

Summary:
few age 1 cards (vills + advanced tp/shooners)
All Age 2 cards (7 crates/units/eco, 3 long term Economic / Unit upgrades)
All Age 3 cards (7 units/crates/eco, 3 long term Economic / Unit upgrades)
Age 4 cards: Factories, 2 heavy canons (or other unit shipment)/ Power unit upgrades maybe: 10 vills

Supremacy 1v1 Water

Water
IF your Civ is good for a water boom (= have shooners) you can put in Schooners and the Fishboom upgrades.
If your civ is not good for water: take the most important cards (water combat, 2 caravels, 1 frigate), so you can atleast contest water
you'll need all the wood cards and gold cards. You can swap out upgrade cards and a unit shipment.

Supremacy Teamgames

Teamgame is usually not as aggressive as 1v1 and you often make only one unit type.
That means you put in all your upgrades for one unit type (as french, all cav upgrades) and can swap out some age 2 cards (crossbows, maybe one crates card) for more age 4 cards
You also probably wont need that many unit shipment in age 3. For french I take: 2 falcs and 3 cuirs, 5 goons (8 skirms and 1000 gold is also a good choice, replace goons or cuirs if you like those). Test around in games how many you end up needing and adjust.
This means: you have more space for Age 4 Cards. Add some Unit upgrades, boom cards and maybe 1 unit card. You can also put in one endless card.

Treaty

You dont need units/ crates or vills!
Put in advanced arsenal, fencing/riding school, Factories.
For some civs advanced church is good (port, brit, dutch, german, swede, spain)
Fill the rest of your deck with Economic upgrade cards (for estates and mills) and with unit upgrade cards. You can also put in some Building upgrades, if you like them.
Some other good cards for treaty: The endless natives cards or/ and some other endless cards (1 heavy canon, 2 rockets, urumis, flying crows)

Apparently one got offendes because i play french treaty without fur trade. So fur trade is pretty good, i personally just dont like it

Deathmatch

Looks like treaty. The only difference is that you swap some economic cards and weak unit upgrade cards for Age 4 units and for boom cards (2 tcs, vills)
Some cards are useless (advanced arsenal)

Closing thoughts

Those are just my thoughts and deck suggestions. If you feel like your deck is missing something, just adjust. The main point is to give some general ideas!

Link to Video Guide:
https://youtu.be/VV9t3sML1Hg

Disclaimer:
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition© Microsoft Corporation. This Guide was created under Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules" ( https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/rules ) using assets from Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, and it is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft.

[K R I $$ A]

[Angel-Crow]

a

[okay]

Just furtrade. I see your note about it now. Fair enough. But it's a huge eco boost, although France is still very strong without it.

[Andi]

what would you change (expect fur trade)?

[Andi]

You can leave your thoughts in a civilised manner, if you mix in bad language I'll just delete your comments though (without reading further).