Beginner’s Questions

Article written by Aloha Clan
Published on 11-10-1999
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Ok, so I finally broke down and bought AoK this weekend. Now for some quick questions:
1) When do you get the loom? This upgrade seems really important. Do you get it right away?

2) How important is walling? I can see walling early at river crossing since dock blocking is out, but with the early defense of the TC, is walling important?

3) Am I right to assume the all out boat booming works pretty well? You’d still need to go feudal to protect the boats but would have little fear of any early attacks on your villagers.

4) Which civs are considered the best at this point? Is speed important?

5) What’s the best units and upgrades for a “newbie” like me to go for? Should you harass your opponents in early ages or just wait for Imperial and hope to trounce him?

I’m sure I’ll have many more questions. Hope all of you guys will respond. I’d like many different ideas

1

M) If I am playing chinese, who start with 6 vills, but -150 food, after I create my 7th vill, I research loom. Typically with any other civ, I get loom right after I fuedal.

R). Loom is vital. With Chinese I get immediately after peon 1. With normal civs I get it after my first 4 peons are built. As someone else mentioned they are essential for surviving wolves and for safe boar hunting. They also tend to take forever to die when loomed.

2

M) I like to palisade crossings early. It stops those pesky forward builders. Once feudal, I try to stone wall where I can.

R) I agree with what someone else mentioned about not sacrificing economy for walls but when possible walling is important. Pallisading is only a good early measure. It doesn’t take much effort to bust thru so i recommend backing it up with stone walls ASAP.

3

M)Fishing boats, and docks also, cost more in AoK than in RoR. Make some boats, but not too many before fuedal. I would say make 6-8. Farming rules in this game, and you will need lots of wood in fuedal for farms, not to mention buildings are more expensive than RoR.

R) All out boat booming DOES NOT work well. It can sometimes be pulled off with the right civ and the right map and while in RoR u had a 80% chance to do one successfully on ANY water map. Your chances of successfully executing an all out boat boom here is about 15% (I am being optimistic). Since boats are so expensive it is not worth having them unless u build a hefty EARLY naval defense too. I use boats to supplement my economy. I dock, and I build approximately one boat for every deep fish spot I find. Try not to boat fish the shore fish because it is over TWICE as slow as deep sea fish. Fish traps are just as bad so I wouldn’t recommend them either

4

M) Most experts I see play vikings, celts, chinese, mongols, teuts, but teuts are mostly banned in ladder games because of the overpowered TC.

R) Speed is getting more and more important in top 50 cases games. I am not sure about the teams situation. Chinese works well with raw speed and efficiency but about 95% of players use Vikings now. They have free wheel and handcart which makes them a strong econ force and their buffed up infantry packs a strong punch. Teuton TC rush was the way to go until they have been banned recently from most ladder games. There are other worthwhile civs too but these are the “yam” of the times.

5

M) Trying to take down a good player in castle is risky, with the power of garrisoning TC’s, this game has become more a rush to Imperial so they can get trebs. I see a lot of good players using mass champs, especially with goths, japanese, and vikings since they get bonuses. Champs are cheap, and produce fast. I have been playing mostly chinese lately, and I like the CKU and champ combo guarding trebs. Any civ can be used really. They all have their advantages. Byz are a good overall civ. Hope some of this helps.

R)The best upgrades and units to get are those that kills your opponent. If you consider yourself a newbie then maybe u should use Vikings or Chinese. First level econ upgrades are important and I get those while castling. Second level econ upgrades can wait til u r established or got that extra bit of res to spare.
Back to the units. Take Viking and Chinese they got strong econ. With Vikings make knights for harrassment and a nice group of spears to protect u from the same. Then when you get a new TC up and your food is flowing you can take one of two options. Quickly put up a castle while harrasing your opponent and hit imperial and then go with champions (legions of AOK). The other more popular option is to make masses of longswords in castle age and make 4 or 5 rams and charge the enemy. Good army handling is required but if you catch him trying to imperial faster than you then he is in for a nice shock. If he does succeed in doing so dont be detterred. Just launch that attack and keep expanding ur econ. You will find urself able to keep a constant flow of swords and rams and STILL imperial 5 mins later than your opponent at most. He will be on the defensive and his trebuchets and expensive upgrades will be of no use against your horde of longswordsmen (UPGRADED at blackmith I hope). You will then imp shortly after with a superior econ being on the offensive and all. You can then get champions and flood his ass back to the stone age. No matter what the pop limit I make only 100 peons max and fill up the rest of my pop with army. My armies have exceeded 100 strong on many occasions.

With the Chinese I do the same except I mix Chukonu from my castles with the swords. If you are sword flooding in Castle though you cannot afford to do too much simcitying and you must attack before or JUST as he hits imperial at latest. I make my Castle very late so that my castle attack is full strength.

Notes From Ranger:

Priests are very useful for healing and a group of 5 of them protected by pikes and crossbow can really steal a hell of a lot of enemy knights. Enough to make your opponent stop making knights altogether.

I am sure I do not need to mention that a group of 3-5 trebs will decimate everything within its range in under a few mins. PROTECT your trebs well!!!
Farming is the ultimate food source. A fully upgraded farm with wheel and handcart upgrade is the undisputed king of fast food. When water is available early, shore fish and deer are worth getting since they save u wood. As mentioned before boat fishing deep sea fish helps give ur econ that extra boost. However, as soon as you hit castle age one should farm like crazy to get the food flowing like water. When you find yourself short on natural food in the dark age on land maps the silliest thing you can do is NOT farm. Dark age farming may not seem like a good idea but most good Arabian players swear by it.

Wheel and handcart increase villager speed and carry capacity effectively turning them into palmyran like villagers. Franks only upgrade farming which is ONE upgrade and it can be done at any mill. Wheel and handcart are TC upgrades which add to their value. Others have to sacrifice TC time AND resources to get them. Don’t overestimate longbowmen. They are just crossbow with +1 attack and identical range to the stock standard british archer. As we all know they can be ripped apart by either massed knights/cavs or massed skirms to buffer arrows while u send a main strike force such as champs or swords to go kill the bow. The archers MUST engage either the swordsman or the skirm and if they attack the sword, skirm will get in range and use their attack bonus. If they attack the skirm, it will take forever to kill an upgraded skirm with all that piercing armour. To quote CD, the longbow weilder will simply be choosing how he wishes to die.

Try not to use single unit type in armies. If you do then use infantry. But its always good to back them up with mass skirms or arbalests or in the case of chinese the all powerful chukonu. Steady flow of villagers is necessary but so is loom so u compromise. After all, tell me you are ALWAYS gonna be able to have constant villager flow. There will be a time when you can’t and you can either loom then or just do it early and get it over with. The accumulated food will make sure you never have to stop the villie flow again.

Questions by: Aloha_Dash

Answers by: aloha_Misery (M) and aloha_Ranger (R)