Sergeant Replays on RE as Aztec, Brit, and German, looking to rank up

[BeanYak]

Hi friends,

As of right now, I have a thing for Brits, Germans, and Aztecs, so I think I'm gonna try to stick to these civs. This is a handful of replays from the past few days. I would have had more but I forgot to record a few of them... Also, I think that in half of them, I'm against PhiBrain. I met him on discord, and we've practiced quite a bit together.

Right now I'm just trying to rank up so that I'm worthy to play on EP, those maps look super dank, I want to play as and against more balanced civs, and I'm just trying to get into this game for fun. Could people help me identify glaring flaws in my style? Some of the flaws in the games are super obvious and they're easy fixes in hindsight, like having villagers out of position or not making outposts for them. However, I'm still confused about things like when to age up, how to scout for opponent attacks, maybe building positioning, etc.

IGN: Alexyo234. Is it worth it to make a new account and have to get my HC levels up just to have a consistent name?

[pecelot]

I watched that Brit mirror on Indonesia.
First off, you split your vills nicely at the beginning, but didn't queue a vill until like 13th sec, which you could easily do at 6th sec. Don't be afraid to use crackshots, even on smaller treasures, as you save a lot of time, effort and explorer's HP, and you'll gain that ability later on again, too. Split your vills on hunts a bit better, they're all clumped on one animal, which causes awkward pathing and causes a loss of VS.
In terms of deck, have one prepared for water. Even if you're not planning to build fishing ships, schooners in age 1 doesn't hurt anyone and it may actually become quite handy in some cases. Also, on a map like Indochina it's even riskier, as you're somewhat put on the clock to do the damage, as your opponent may pick a water deck and the time passing may be beneficial to him due to having more upgrades in his deck. Moreover, get rid of that 2 falcs card in age IV, it's pretty bad, games rarely go up to Industrial, you should have 10 cards in both age 2 and 3.
Going 3v->VC when no TP is very slow, you need 700w as your first card as the British. You didn't even send it first in colo, just went for 6 musks straight. 2nd outpost is totally unnecessary, especially if you construct it with one vill in early colo, when you need a lot of wood. Your 6 musks didn't even come there, but to your TC, which is something to avoid.
Always have a villager in queue, that's a rule of thumb. Especially when you have plenty of food, which was the case here. Sometimes you want to finish a batch quickly, then you may wait with settlers, but generally the more you delay it the less eco you'll have, as simple as that.
You didn't build a market in transition, which is crucial. If you don't start with it right at the start, you have to build it when advancing to colo, get hunting dogs and later, quickly after the age-up, research steel traps and placer mines. You also shipped VC and sat on 300 unspent wood with 6 manors at the 8th minute. You have to spend the wood.
You went for two military shipments in colonial, it's not the best of choices, but nevertheless you have to be aggressive when choosing such a strategy. You had 21 musks + 6 lb vs your opponent's 10 musks, and yet you didn't take his FB. This is essential, don't destroy his houses, he's British, go for the rax so that he can't produce more units or raid his vills. That's the most productive usage of your military.
You were constantly sitting on a huge bank of resources, 1—2k. You have to spend it as soon as possible to get more units or vills. The only time you should save some of them is for potential upgrades, including age-ups.
Even if you don't have the LOS, you can still see dead animals on the ground, which is a clear indication that there are enemy vills gathering food, which on the other hand you can easily raid.
Get a proper build order and try to train executing it. For Brit mirrors the most common one is: 3v->700w->5v->600w->musk upgrades, sometimes 600w is sent before 5 vill.
Always try to be active with your army, if you can't advance — just raid.
At the 20th minute you have 4k of unspent res :/
I don't know who even won, but yeah, these are my thoughts.

[KINGofOsmane]

@gibson

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guess what this is

[gibson]

Ego rec

[BeanYak]

@pecelot

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First, thanks for watching the game.

Based on what you said, I think I need to work on resource management, in terms of how much I'm gathering and how much I'm spending. In terms of gathering, I'm never sure how many villagers I should have on what. Obviously, based on what you're producing, you need certain ratios of each resource to produce the units without floating too much of one resource. In SC2, this felt very easy because there were only 2 resources, and it never really felt like that big of a deal to float a bit of one thing anyway (although maybe I didn't play at a high enough level to feel the effects). However, in the Age-of games, there are several resources, and only a few are necessary in certain situations, i.e. outside of colonial, you probably won't need wood for units. Outside of just having a game sense, how do you suggest that I find out how many villagers to put onto what?

Sort of tangentially related: I think that, in that game (and I'm sure people do it often), I threw some villagers on another resource to catch up with some demand for a resource. However, I think I forgot to switch them back and then floated a lot of what I had needed.

Floating resources is also sort of a macro thing that's hard for people to keep up with, but I also need a sense of when to build that extra rax, when I really should invest that wood and when it's too early.

[BeanYak]

Ego rec

@gibson

notification

guess what this is

I don't understand...

[sdsanft]

Ego rec

@gibson

notification

guess what this is

I don't understand...

Lol just a joke.

Anyways, I'm about you're level (18 I believe) but I haven't been on ESO for a while (a month and a half or so) because I haven't had a mouse. Anyways, I just got one and I want to get back into playing more often. Just add me on ESO (sdsanft) and message me when I'm on. I can even play EP with you if you want. I usually try to get on during the weekends during American afternoons or evenings. I'm pretty sure I can get on on Sunday, but tomorrow and Saturday I'm busy all day.

[pecelot]

@pecelot

notification

First, thanks for watching the game.

Based on what you said, I think I need to work on resource management, in terms of how much I'm gathering and how much I'm spending. In terms of gathering, I'm never sure how many villagers I should have on what. Obviously, based on what you're producing, you need certain ratios of each resource to produce the units without floating too much of one resource. In SC2, this felt very easy because there were only 2 resources, and it never really felt like that big of a deal to float a bit of one thing anyway (although maybe I didn't play at a high enough level to feel the effects). However, in the Age-of games, there are several resources, and only a few are necessary in certain situations, i.e. outside of colonial, you probably won't need wood for units. Outside of just having a game sense, how do you suggest that I find out how many villagers to put onto what?

Sort of tangentially related: I think that, in that game (and I'm sure people do it often), I threw some villagers on another resource to catch up with some demand for a resource. However, I think I forgot to switch them back and then floated a lot of what I had needed.

Floating resources is also sort of a macro thing that's hard for people to keep up with, but I also need a sense of when to build that extra rax, when I really should invest that wood and when it's too early.

In terms of resource distribution, you can go as far as counting villager seconds (VS) necessary to produce units you want. Check out this guide:
http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/for ... 32509,0,10
bearing in mind all the upgrades (above all hunting dogs, steel traps, placer mines), you can count how many vills you need on each resource to sustain production from 1 rax, 2 raxes, 1 rax & 1 stable etc. Another way, easier and a bit less accurate, is to make educated guess. I personally have never done such calculations, but based on my game experience I know I need about 4 vills on coin to constantly train musk and around 8/9 for huss.
It's also related to build orders. I can describe you one I think it's good for Brit mirrors:
on coin start build a market, buy wood, build one manor and research hunting dogs; on wood start build 1/2 manors. In transition: on coin start make 2 manors and gather 200w for a rax; on wood start build a market, 50w for HD, 1/2 manors and 200w for rax. Make sure to gather 125w additionally for steel traps, ideally before 700w comes out.
Age up to colonial with the Governor politician. Send a vill forward in transition and build a manor with him, so that you save some VS. As soon as you hit age 2, build a rax and a tower forward, send 700w and start producing musk. The distribution I find optimal is 4/5 on coin, 2/3 on wood and the rest on food for 1 rax. Your priority is military production, but it's always nice to have that wood trickling for more manors, which is always nice. If you go 700w->600w, I think you can delay 2nd rax until 600w, otherwise (700w->5v) build the 2nd rax from 700w.
Mask musks, don't really bother yourself with other units, as mass musk in early colonial at least is very powerful and you're gonna send their upgrades, which make them even stronger. Generally, the timing window for you is when the musk upgrades arrive, as you can have an edge over your opponent. Be sure to scout his musks whether they have any upgrades rolling (tower's LOS is nice here) and retreat if he has the tech advantage. If you have an overall military edge, push him, if not, try to pick some of his musks and raid his vills with little musk groups (around 5 is enough).
Of course it's also the matter of your APM, which you can increase by just practicing and playing. The best training partners are like 2—3 PR higher, as they're still in your range, but rather better and can give you some nice tips. Try contacting @sdsanft

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, then!

[KINGofOsmane]

Ego rec

yesssss