I've learned a lot in 3 years of playing this game, and for my 1000th post I decided to write some of these things down. This will probably end up as a long post, and you will forgive me for making a few inevitable errors. I picked up this game the Christmas after it was released, and due to my past experience with RTS, soon got into the 1600-1700 class. there I stayed for a very long time, not really playing the game competitively, until Titans came out. then I really got hooked and worked my way up to steady 1750 skill level, acheiving 1800 twice. Enough about me. Hunting dogs is 3. 4. Hotkeys. Pretty simple, if you want to be the best, you need to learn at least some hotkeys. A good configuartion is Q-W-E-R-(T)-(Y), as your left hand is more likely to be hotkeying. use Q-W-E for your main mil buildings and the units they produce. For example, with Greek, I have: Q - Military Acadamy A-S-D are right underneath these, so secondary units work well as: A - Hypaspist Norse are even easier: Q - Longhouse Q - Ulfsark/Jarl (I'm pretty sure that's the correct unit order). Pick a hotkey combination that suits you. Economic units/buildings can go on the lower rows of your keyboard. A very important tool you should always have hotkeyed is Idle Vill finder. I find spacebar works for me, but 3rd mouse button is also a good choice. Hit this every now and then while playing to keep your villies moving. Train yourself to use hotkeys. I like to keep 3rd mouse button as go to last action. This has some nice uses. If you hear your enemy cast a God power (i.e. Spider Lair/Underworld Passage) and you don't know where, hit 3rd mouse quickly and your screen will move exactly over where your enemy just casted it. The first wood/gold upgrades should be researched either in transition to classical, or if you are going for heavy early pressure, they should be top priority once you have resources early classical. Economic upgrades are nearly always worth it to get once you have a decent classical army (unless you are FH-ing/on medit etc, in which case you can get them before). They pay themselves back quickly and getting 2nd tier wood/gold ups pretty early is essential for a good economy. If you notice you have the res for one of these ups, I would seriously consider researching it. Keeping your eye on the resource panel at all times is a good habit of a top player. Keep note of exactly how many resources you have and picture in your mind what that amount of resources will get you. For example, you have 300 food and 300 gold in mid-classical and a full army. Your options are Bow Saw, a medium upgrade, a copper hack armour/attack upgrade at the armoury. Immediately you should know that line upgrades are a priority to armoury upgrades, so that leaves you with a decision between bow saw and medium (or saving for heroic, which we won't include just yet). Base your decision on your needs, it takes practice, of course, but ask yourself some quick questions: Is the enemy putting heavy pressure on me? Yes = Medium Am I putting heavy pressure on the enemy/is he weak enough to consider trying to finish the game now? Yes = Medium No = economic boom time and Bow Saw, whilst raiding his econ. What kind of shape is my wood econ in/Will I need increased wood in the future (farms/heavy wood units)? Yes = Bow Saw In reality you will probably be able to get both these upgrades pretty soon after eachother. Sometimes you will only have a short time to decide before you lose the money in troop production (AQ), so remember to spend it. Armoury upgrades give you an important edge, don't wait until mythic to get them!. there is no need to max out on all available armoury ups in each age before age-up. Shield ups are more easy to get, as they don't affect the food needed to age up. If you think you can grab copper weapons and/or copper armour in classical and still get a decent heroic time (say 13-15 minutes), go for it! However, if your opponent has already gone heroic, it gives them a lot of advantages if you trail behind, so don't dawdle in classical getting armoury ups. Sometimes (for example with Norse/Bragi), going Heroic can win you back the game, so you need to know when it is worth saving up and jumping to Heroic. Greek -- You have beaten your opponent back and have map control, but they have stopped you with their massed buildings. (petroboli) Eggy FH'd, broken out and beaten your classical army guarding forward gold and migged. (petros + counter units) You think your strong counters woul really help you win (e.g. Norse) Egyptian -- Not doing FH?? I'd still suggest an early heroic all the time of 9-12-14 minutes. Norse -- You are rushing (Loki) and have been beaten back. Going heroic through bragi for flaming weapons and battle boars can be your last gasp at victory. Against Eggy also a fairly early (12 minute?) heroic is in order to help balance things out and win you the game. Atlantean -- Put on the early pressure until you win or your opponent gains some control over the game, in which case you can, with attie eco, EASILY jump to heroic and often mythic/titan. There are, obviously, other situations in which going heroic quickly could help you out, but never be afraid of getting armoury ups in the heat of battle in classical. Another important up is fortified TC which increase pop slots, and will be a priority over, for example, shields in heroic. Another economic error I often see is an imbalanced eco. Having, say, 1000 wood, 100 food and 200 gold. Even if you have the same amount of villies on each resource in this situation, MOVE them. For example, send some wood villies to go build farms and pump vills to gold/wood. Which brings me on to my next point. If you have straggler trees left, send some of your herders to chop them and then set them to farming one by one whilst pumping more vills to wood --> If you are being the aggressor I can't stree enough the importance of this. Keep line of sight of ALL gold mines on the entire map. This is easier than you think. Norse can get an Ulf to build double-click wall sections next to every mine, kronos can timeshift, oranos will have to use oracles/turma. Gaia has it easy, just take one vill and build next to all forward mines, they won't be able to build camps either. If all else fails cast Gaia Forest over a mine. For example, when kronos rushing, Oranos 4:30-ing, Loki Rushing etc, pushing him off gold is the MOST effective way to win and should be top priority. Towers around his gold should be the first to be neutralised. If you notice he is NOT mining in his home TC, know that either he has given up :P, or he is mining somewhere else. If you've kept LOS of all GMs, you will know exactly when and where he has gone, and can go massacre some vills. If it's early on and you haven't scouted completely, send turmas etc on waypoints through the black until you find him. Never concentrate on destroying base buildings when he is minig gold. You can never have enough docks as Egyptian. Zeus: I don't know why, but I am just plain Against Thor/Odin, Athena mass Minos with hop or tox backup is the famously OP one. Against Atlantean, a cnetaur rush can work if you have good micro, but beating them otherwise is a VERY difficult matter. Against Eggy, either FH/2-TC FH to get counter units and mass catapults, or go mass hops and cntrol the gold/map, using restoration at a key point. Against Greek/Loki, I wouldn't like to pretend I know what the best course of action is. Hades: Ah, Hades is much more to my taste. Considered UP by some and OP by others, I'd guess he lies somehwere inbetween. In reality, your best bet is to lame boom/buildings/tox with Hades. Greek overall often have longer games on average, and it takes a while to break down your opponent. I like trying more interesting strats like FH with nemean lions or Hades/Ares rush. I'll even throw in a great 6 min 2TC boom build: Vills to hunt + HD Oranos: See previous. But he is bettter overall, and you'll be going up a minute earlier. Shockwave IS OP. Gaia: don't defend with her unless you are sure to be rushed. Use Oceanus Caladria to scout the entire map, and use mass turma and gold control with buildings and trees. Whew, that's all for tonight, at least. Please discuss any points I have made, or make some new suggestions. I guess it is more aimed at helping rooks/inters but it's all the tips I could think of whilst writing. We'll finish with a picture of my puppy.
In the meantime, don't have your villies waiting around, build a granary by berries/chickens but trust me, HD will be worth your while even if you only get a couple zebra, lions and giraffes. It will pay itself back.
Taking husbanry first thing is silly, it gives a bonus in herded animals, and you don't want to be touching them until you are just about to advance at the earliest. Sure, it gives you a capacity bonus, but this will leave you short on food for constant vill production in early archaic unless you have the micro to manually drop off food yourself. It is much better to get husbandry in early classical if you have res spare, and definitely when you start farming.
Any random map is designed to give the player a source of food in LOS at the start of the game. There is sometimes a small bug when you have NO food source at all in your LOS. A lot of players panic at this and send vills off in different directions in the black to find food. This isn't necessary if you follow this tip. The food
Q - Train Hoplite
W - Stables
W - Train Hippikon
E - Archery Range
E - Toxotes
S - Prodromos
D - Peltast
W - Hill Fort
W - Raiding Cavalry/Huskarl
E - Throwing Axeman/Ram
R - Hersir/Ballista
1.5k of all resources in heroic but not going mythic/getting armoury or eco ups. A bit extreme, but always remember
Have no idle military. Ever. Raid.
Now some of my ramblings about the different Gods.
2 vills to hunt
4 vills to wood
1 vill build house + mine gold
2 vills to food
3 vills to gold
3-5 vills to food (build temple with 1 wood vill when you have res)
4 vills to wood
Adv Athena
Get eco ups in transitions, queue up Ajax and the Chiron immediately. Grab 2nd TC upon hitting classical. Build 2/3 rax and 2/3 archer ranges and start building up a hop/tox force. Works with any Greek.
Poseidon: I've never seriously played Poseidon, but having played random so many times, I know how to play him. In reality, he is pretty weak and has few bonuses going for him. 3 stable 5 minute advance and raid raid raid is your cookie cutter Poseidon, and mass hips are a pretty tough force. With Possy and with Hades against Kronos/Oranos rushes, I like to go up at 5-5:30 minutes through Ares and Pestilence their military using my scout. This gives me times to build up a 1-1-1 force, which I can micro to counter his turm/murm.
Ra: I do love playing Ra, against any civ. I rarely use the Hathor FH strategy, even though it is extremely effective to Roc-raid Norse with locust swarm + pets.
Against Greek and Egyptian, I use the Scarab Rush, building two monuments early, farming in archaic/early classical, casting rain on 15 or so farms, going heroic through Sekhmet and getting an extra two Scarabs which will decimate an FB with eclipse.
Against Norse and Atl, I enjoy using Sphinx/Sling/Priest (Atl) or Sphinx/Axeman (Norse). Basically you build 2 monuments in archaic, up at 5:30-6:00, cast rain on around 10 farms and build 3 extra Sphinx, then amass a rax army. You can keep the Sphinx alive forever with priests if you are good.
Isis: The famously OP god, I don't play her often, I used to stink with her, but after putting my mind to learning her, I found her to be exceedingly powerful. I'm not really the person to talk about in-depth Isis play though.
Set: Love him. I Only do an FH against other egyptians, in which case I will mass priest + animal in classical and push him off hunt, and take away his herdables with SS, then push in with a seige tower/ele spam.
Against other civs, I LOVE to anubite raid witha around 3 upgraded anubites early, and mass a rax army at home. With micro, anubites are fantastic raiders with their jump ability. For example, if a hersir or two come to stop you raiding a mine, you can avoid them (because of their speed) by repeatedly jumping to the miners furthest awayt from the hersirs, on the other side of the mine for example. This forces the enemy to withdraw or die. It might not be the BEST strat, but it sure is fun.
Thor: Very versatile indeed, and pretty close to a counter to Isis, especially on water, where Thor excels. I acheived my first 1700 rating with Thor. To win with him, you have to effectively use his cheap armoury, his dwarfs and his rag/FW. But you can ask DeathAndPain about Thor, because he plays nothing else!
Odin: I played Odin for a long time in the 1700-1750 level on TT, using a 7 min Odin FH against the slower civs, which I found VERY effective. I might post the BO later. Against aggressive civs, odin needs to raid to succeed. Against a Loki rush, I find, on high hunt, 2 aq of hersir and 1 aq of TA to work, whereas on low hunt, 2 aq of TA and 1 aq of hersir is better. Zeus is more difficult, and you need to mix in some RC for raiding and for tox. He is much stronger than people like to think.
Loki: I don't play him much outside random, and whne I do I just do the cookie cutter rush, or use gold control as mentioned previously. I have also tried massing Forseti hersir in classical, massing gold + favour and getting a fast FH through Bragi for battle boars, which is effective against Greek and Eggy.
Kronos: A very easy god imo, just rush and control gold, it builds character, unlike TC archaic BS.