OK soddo. First i should let you know, I play with my sister over a LAN. In one game, we used the instant build cheat, and after a while, i built walls up half way across the map. Then wanted to discover where her kingdom was (the map size was like on giant). She had multiple ones, and i found one. A little aways away, i set up a castle, siege camp, barracks, and a town center. I put attracts on her, and three or four times, my pop. limit was reached. I had elite longbowmen, and she careaphate. I plowed her down every time. she would be attacts me here at my three castels, while i took 20 seige rams around a clump of trees and attacts her. Then when she was attacting me there, i took trebs around this wayand attacts her. want to see screenshots? That was a great game.

Oh, when she and me are allyed, we can beat three bad guys on hardest.

[This message has been edited by King Phillip (edited 01-06-2007 @ 08:26 AM).]

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...With cheats, you mean? (;-_-)

yes, we used cheats.

lol

The war storie I am about to tell you is one I played on Gamespy before my membership went down the drain. Well, I was playing against 2 enemies, one Hun, one Mayan.(They were allied!) I had one ally, the Celts.(I don't remember their gametags.) I was a Mongol.(I love those guys!) Well I made about 20 Magundai. I sent 5 to go look after a enemy. One squad of ten two-handedswordsmen found my Magundai. Then I gathered my 5 UU's and "retreated" back to my bigger pack of UU's. Then those TWH's were devastated! Cool, huh?

[This message has been edited by soddo (edited 01-06-2007 @ 12:19 PM).]

that's pretty neat. You played against humans or computer players?

Well, I was playing with my friend on LAN and we are practically equal. The difference was made that I was byzzies and he was vikings. It was a highland map, so I had cataphract against infantry. The battle was still really tough, but the numbers were huge. We exhausted all the resources on a 8 player map, but he did it first, so in total, I won. The numbers were 2300 or something kills for me and 1700 smth kills for him.

WOW! That's truly amazing. cool.

I can beat 7 computers on hardest, at Death match, team islands.

haha, I get it. I've tryed it on pilgrames, all they do is farm, or build some keeps IF they have room. []

Quote:

Then try 7 computers on hardest at Death match on Arabia or any land map. (That's still pretty easy)

After that... try 7 hardest on Random Map, any map setting. (difficulty goes way up) ~~ Just remember to keep resource settings on low.

After that... try 7 hard VNS_Halens on Super Mode. (VNS_Halen is a custom-made AI to replace the default computer, which has outdated tactics compared with nowadays strategies; a rookie can beat a hardest computer with ease)

Great practice at going defensive.

Other than that... go play online... I'm sure you've done that already. Lol

Edit: And no cheats.

[This message has been edited by rashiner (edited 01-06-2007 @ 11:04 PM).]

I played against human players. I thought they would be smarter!

lol... I have too... it only depends who you're playing against. I mean... I probably always was a rook... even if people have called me rook+ on zone... ah those old days...

Against a typical 1.4k-1.6k on zone... that would be against a rook. (I'm way outdated when it comes to gamepark since I've heard 1.8k on gp = 2k on zone.)

So...yeah.

I would share some stories if I could watch some recorded games of mine... some 2 years of recorded games. Unfortunatly one half got deleted becuase my comp crashed and the other half is in my comp on the other side of the world.

... Perhaps I could share one story of a somewhat hilarious and memorable game of mine. That was back when zone was on and I was in a clan. It was RM 2v2, and I believe the map was arabia. My teamate was the clan leader... he wasn't very good at RM, I doubt he was around decent in DM either...

let's just simplify it this way. The teams:

Me, Clan Leader vs 2 other ppl from the same clan

Anyway, I was just rushing for castle age, concentrating mainly on stone for an all-or-nothing plan and the opponents doubled on the clan leader. One of the oppoenents was going for a flush (really late though), and the other went for a fast castle with monks and rams as backup to the flusher. The Clan Leader's Town Center was razed in seconds, but thankfully the attack did not effect his economy and so he was able to rebuild.

Meanwhile, when I reached castle (around 16-17 min... I know I'm slow compared with some other guy who said he can get 14 min castle with decent eco), I immediately sent around 15 villagers to the flusher's base and built a castle next to his gold res and wood res. I believe that the flusher did not notice me build it or else he would've tried stopping me (it was all-or-nothing ). With the castle built, his gold production stopped and his wood production was hindered. Seconds later I sent some more villagers to build a castle in the clan leader's base to protect him and fend off the attackers. the flusher resigned a little later after he realized I built the castle, and the other guy was left to work on his economy because his attack failed. So, all that was left for me to do was to attack, and he soon resigned (because he had to go... oh well, I supposed he would've defended well against me because he had 2-3 castles in his base).

Loved that game since it was one of those times when castle dropping worked.

It's been about 2 years after that incident, and I know that the flusher guy has definitely gotten way better (1680 on gp).

Well, that's all I'm sharing. Hopefully it would be worth your time reading.

[This message has been edited by rashiner (edited 01-06-2007 @ 09:25 PM).]

Until further notice I want Magundai calvary archers talken about in the forum!

[This message has been edited by soddo (edited 01-06-2007 @ 09:12 PM).]

I have game that I remember in particular. It is an old game. Played back when I could play on the zone.

The game was a Free for all. I believe that a few players had been dropped during the launch so we ended up with a 1v1v1. It was a post-Imperial Deathmatch. I don't remember what the map reveal settings were at. The races were the Spanish, the Huns, and the Tuetons. I was the Spanish, my brother who made it in was the Huns, and another freind was the Tuetons.

Anyways I found where they were before they had found my location. So I decided to try some deceit. I made it appear to my brother as if I was directly below him. At the same time I pretended that my Town was located directly east of the Tuetons. The charade didn't last very long, but it lasted long enough for my villagers to get up some walls and bombard towers.

My brother hit me hard as soon as he had a massed army(my walls and towers weren't quite finished as of yet so his plan was to try and take me down before I got my defenses up). However I did manage to hold, and fortunately for me the Tuetons decided that my walls and towers made me a less than easy prey and attacked my brother's base(which had no walls or tower). This relieved pressure off of me long enough to finish up my defenses. At the same time I built a foward trench on the Tueton side(since his attention was on the huns).

Anyways after the first clash I had nearly half the map cut off from the others. However, at this time both decided that I needed some humbling and hit me nearly consecutively. My defenses were thick(I literally build trenches, many many of them) and I was sure they would hold against at least one such wave. So I jokely said, "am I too big for you to handle individually?". You see I was fairly certian they hadn't planned a joint attack. I was trying to draw one to take thier focus off me and hit the other. Sure enough my brother decided it was pay back for when the tuetons had hit his blindside. In addition the Tueton didn't have anywhere near the fortifications I did.

Once again thanks to relieved pressure I had a chance to further dig myself in. For about 3 hours we constantly hit one another like that. I had managed to advance maybe one screen width on each of them(by building more forward trenches. However, due to all the trenches and bombard towers(repairs and building/rebuilding) as well as maintaining a standing army I ran out of gold first despite my larger reservers(that and I took many dual attacks throughout).

My brother finally said screw it to attacking my trenches. It got quite. Both the tuetons and myself got nervous the huns didn't appear to be doing anything. And then I remembered the way my brother had beat several people on the zone. If he fails on a frontal assault he uses his massed trebs to cut a path through the forest(if one is being used as a wall). And I had so much area that I couldn't easily keep soldiers in every area. So I studied my area and took what I knew he knew of my area and base location. And I took a guess. I began to build a slew of bombards as well as to redirect some of my army to a particular location, keeping in mind to stay out of his trebs visibility range. I was slightly off he came out about half a screen away. He Shouted out "gotcha!" the moment he came out. And then when he ran into my bombard tower forest he said, "damn".

Unfortunately I hadn't fully finished my preparations nor was he stupid enough to stay in my bombard forest. He still did some damage to my economy. However, I quickly trenched that path before he could send reinforcements down it. Further stalling the match.

The other bad part was, the tuetons decided to take this chance to try and break my trench on thier side(further info is that on the hun side as a thin path, so more easily defended. The tueton path was nearly as wide as a whole screen and was less easily defended). They broke through my foward trench and one of my reserve trenches before I pushed them back. Then quickly rebuilt my forward trench before they could attack again.

I definately made use of the fast build time here. My brother was constantly shocked by how fast I could put up defenses after he broke them. Spanish villagers Rock!

*cough* anyways we decided to call it a draw. None of us was getting anywhere. We had by that time(about 4 and a half hours) used up all the gold and stone on the map and the market was trading at insane values.

I still remember my brother's shock when he saw just how thick my trenches were. He thought it was only 2 or 3 layers. Oh no, I had trenched nearly 2 and a half screens of land by that time. He took one look at the map at the end game and told me I should have kept going because there was no way he could break my fortifications by himself(I had also nearly 1 full screen of fortifications on the path he cut, and he had just cut that path not even 10 minutes before the draw was called).

That game was really fun for me. I managed to pull of some good raids(trenching wasn't all that I was doing, I managed to nearly completely destroy the tuetons economy. See all they had done was built a bombard forest(to keep me from easily advancing on them. Well I said screw that and built a lot of hussars and ran right past the towers. he really thought that was a cheap trick . But he learned from it fast and made sure I couldn't do it again).

Wow. That sure sounds like an intense game, Hunnuli. 2 and a half screens of trenches?!? God, I can't imagine even trying to break through one screen.

Anyways, now I will share my war story:

I can't remember exactly how it went, because I had to get my hard drive formatted and lost the rec, but it was the first time I had beaten a hardest computer (it seemed like a formidable accomplishment at the time.)

It was 2v2, me and my friend vs 2 CPUs, on a real world map that was similar to team islands. Anyways, the CPUs launched an enormous navy attack, and wiped out all of our docks, and captured pretty much the border of the entire island. Without any chance of us resisting they sent wave after wave of Fully Upgraded imperial troops, while we were still in the castle age.

I was forced out of my town 3 times. We finally retreated to the northern point of our island, while the CPU was busy trying to destroy houses and walls. I had 5 villagers, my friend had 1. I built a TC, then he hid in it while I got the ressources to build a market and send him enough to build a TC. Then we sent all of our vills on wood and got about 15 docks and at least that many towers established and we slowly retook our land. I was byzantines and the CPUs both used huge armies of infantry, so we won the island back with minimal casualties.

After reestablishing ourselves on our island, we attacked theirs, and blew their buildings to pieces. After we established a base on their island, we easily defeated them. I remember telling my friend not to destroy the last villager, because I wanted to destroy every last building they had. It was the most incredible game I have ever played.

[This message has been edited by Flamesfan07 (edited 01-07-2007 @ 03:42 PM).]

here's a good one. I think ive told this one before, but anyways...

one time my brother and i were playing "arena" in tc. he had just attacked me with a large army, which i finally managed to repel, but with great losses. he had an army of about seventy long swordsmen and berserks. I only had 35 hussars in my base, but i put them on the staggared formation so it looked like there was a ton of them. I sent them towards him not really intending to do any damage. Since we had reveal map all visible on, he saw them coming and retreated to his base. while this was happening i was creating a bunch of cavalrey and more hussars. and as he was retreating, (he must have had a monk or something, he was going really slow) and i decimated his army. i then moved on to his base with my army, and made sure nothing exited his walls (he must have set gather points near the walls, because for some reason his guys were coming at me one at a time) while i waited for some petards, trebs and rams. then i decimated him with my army. and that was the game.

this is a bit off topic butive been away for a while and i probably seem like a noob to all of you at RM

a small question but wtf is trenching? is it just making a layer of walls and putting towers behind it? thanks for the co-operation

also where do all of you guys play now and im looking for an expert RM teacher (hard to find i know but ive got aoe3 experience)

Never heard of trenching. I don't think that term even exists for aoc, simply becuase experts don't trench.

Well, yes, I guess you can say there is such a strategy as trenching... but I don't think trenching has ever been a term... unless, I am totally mistaken somewhere.

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Most that I know of is gamepark and gamespy.

And here's one tip: Don't trench...

[This message has been edited by rashiner (edited 01-09-2007 @ 07:51 PM).]

Trenching is what I call it(namely after trenches in the World War).

The point is to dig in hard enough that you can't be shaked. However, unlike the similar turtling trenching(or at least how I do it) is an offensive strategy. Rather than walling yourself in you try to wall the opponents in and choke them out.

In addition it requires you to have good anti-seige and a defensible position.

The basic premise is to build a defense where you can afford to lose a battle or two and not lose much land(sort of like how in the world war you got no where fast with the trenches).

How I do it is I either trick my opponents to focus elsewhere and let me build up my first set of walls(either by making it look like I am turtling myself into a small area, or by convincing them that my bite is worse than the other guy by them and so they take him out first to use the cummulitive resources against me) or I do a type of rush with builders behind it to try and build up while the armies are engaged. I am not quite foolish enough to have my villagers unprotected during this. Anyways the usual response I have one into is for them to divert some calvary towards my villagers(so I usually have anti-calv as the escorts), try and use seige on them(Though generally I am very aggressive towards seige so it should be occupied elsewhere), or they focus on erradicating my army as fast as possible in the convidence that they can take down the buildings as fast as I can build them. Since I use spanish with this(building speed comes in handy) I can usually throw up a good number of defenses. Anyways, once my first line is built I then procede to battle as most would expect in a normal game, I just use my walls as a fall back(I retreat back inside where I got monks/missionaries to heal my army, this why I lose minimal units). In addition if I feel my army has confidently pushed the army back long enough to build another line of defenses I do so. This way I can afford to lose a 'trench' and still be in a good defensible position.

The drawbacks are obvious. A) Set up time is long. Doesn't work on rush maps or those who wish to rush you. You must adapt for that with another strategy. B) It takes someone who can effectively counter seige. After all they are in general your building's worst fear in this type of setup. C) It is REALLY expensive in stone. D) and probably the second worst part(or maybe worst part depending on your skill level/opponent)is that it requires a map with many defensible positions. Back when I played on the zone just about the most defensible map was black forest. But due to seige onagers even it isn't super defensible(though since not all races get them it can be somewhat more defensible).

Anyways the thing with trenching is that you should always be advancing on the enemy, even if it is only a little(such as the 3 steps forward one step backwards thing).

My not work on experts and the type of maps they play but I find rushing to be boring as can be. I prefer when there is a defense to break/get-around. I also prefer the games to last a while, you really get to know your opponent if you are constantly fighting over land for about 2-3 hours(any longer than that and it might be too drawn out :/). I definately made more freinds on defensive maps than on maps where the game was up in under an hour.

As for it not being a standard term it may not be.... I think I have heard of 'offensive turtling' or 'turtling your enemy' or something along those lines that is at least similar(I don't really read guides too often unless I have trouble in that area), but I much prefer the term 'trenching' for this method.

Also for defenses it doesn't just mean a wall with towers. Sometimes my forward 'trench' may just be a wall of gates with an assortment of units behind it that I think can hold it. Sometimes if I am being a cheapo it is just a bunch of wooden palisides with a small hole in them to let my a small stream of troops through. All the 'trench' is for is to slow/distract the enemy enough to give you the advantage. Heck you can just build a wall of houses if you want. Anyways I don't build too many towers on my trenches. I build some, but towers can't hold it themselves. Trebs, Cannons, ranged troops and even boats[cannon galleys for example] if there is a lake just behind your wall can all make a good addition. If you just build some walls and towers your trench won't hold worth a darn and that would sort of defeat the point. Plus if you just hide behind the wall that is defeating the point. You should always be trying to engage someone with this, or at least be preparing to engage someone with this.

Thinking back on my 'war story' I may have wanted to take the gambit that he had taken the troops with him when he went tunneling and attacked his base(heck even if he didn't with him microing his trebs his army could be easier to take down). Or maybe I should have left the defense of my base to my failsaves and attacked his base with my army when he broke into mine to attack me. I could really have recked him like that. But I was too paranoid that he would cause serious damage to my economy.

Quoted from Flamesfan07:

Well if you are faced with that the general idea would be to go *around* them.

If you try to take them head on it will get costly(just like trench warfare was in real life).

And cataphracts are fun

I have a war story to share, too.
I was playing as mongols (mangudai rock!) in a LAN connection with one Byzantine ally against two, Turk and Frank, allied enemies (all human). It was regicide in baltic map. They were at north and we at south. AOK.
They attacked first using lots of Jannisaries and camels from the turk and pallies, throwing axeman and elite skirmishers from the frank. I had walled up their entrance to my territory, which was very narrow, so they had a lot of trouble getting all of those soldiers into battle.
Then, my ally and I took a decision. While I tried to repel the attack by myself he would attack them by the other side, trying to corner their kings. So I did the job by using Camels (for the pallies) and Mangudai. I had made several wall lines, so they had a hard job breaking in. I destroyed their trebuchets quickly, and after a tough battle I defeated them (with reinforcements coming regularly). In the meantime my ally used cataphracts, pallies and camels and pushed their kings out of their fortress to one corner of the map, which was adjacent to my territory. So, I took my last remaining soldiers, a group of elite skirmishers, and skirmished them.
We played at a population limit of 200, reached.

That's amazing! I wish I couls hook up four computers to a LAN and play, but the only one who want to play is my sister. So we do, but it's better with more humans.

I said if anybody wants to stay in this forum, talk about Magundai's!!!!!!!

Whatever

I had an a Magundai's horse dude and got killed by a pike man in two hits! Kind a funny, but their attact is pretty high.

I have some amazing stories to tell!

Im not a fantastic player but when I get a good half hour start against humans I can get a big army. I tend to focus on rescources to much. Anyway at a LAN we had 8 players. We had a random map - black forrest. After about 45 mins. We had some serious wars happening. They had huge armies of archers I dont remember what type, at my allies gates. So he built heaps of elite skirmishers. I was byzantines so I started creating small armies of cataphracts to hold of the early attacks that started at about 20 min. attacks of battering rams and long swordsman or something like that. So i protected my allie with the cataphracts (My ally was way better than me but he got attacked early) But anyway after about 1 hour 20 mins We were seriously attacking and one of our major attacks I had 5 trebuchets and about 60 paladin. My ally that got attacked early had longbowmen. One ally was wiped out I think and the other had a small army of something.

But it was a major game it was, It was awesome. My final score was 20 - 25,000 points. This was AOK:TC