Pushing out of base

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Korea South jj0823
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Pushing out of base

Post by jj0823 »

Hi ESOC,
I am looking for pointers or help with what the thread title states, pushing out of your base. I am at PR 17 (this is concerning RE patch and default maps) and have been trying to learn Brits, but I'm running into some issues. When I -inevitably- run out of resources in my base, I can't seem to make a convincing enough push out of my base to stabilize. If I encounter a rush too early, I seem to lose map control instantly and it is impossible to recover. Looking at some of the worst case scenarios: I am playing against a Japanese player and he has shrines across the map, I can't afford Pike production because my base is already running out of food and he has LOS of my units when I try to push outside of my base, making it very difficult to hunt or siege his shrines. How do I deal with this? Should I have a different unit comp than Musk/Huss, and instead go for Musk/LB, or even Pike/LB? A similar situation; the Indian player 10/10's, puts an Agra in the middle of the map, and booms behind a contain. Against Gurkha and Zamburaks, I don't see how I'm supposed to break that control without aging up and risking complete disaster. Of course, this doesn't have to apply to just Brits.
Side question: Is there any hope of beating Iro/Otto lamers with a undertiered civ? Seems nigh impossible when massed Abus and Aenna tear through their supposed counters...
Please comment if you can help me out with some tips. I am still learning this game and definitely need them.
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Re: Pushing out of base

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Post by deleted_user »

This is all about the philosophy of "timings" in age of empires. If we look at another one of my patented microsoft paint graphs (this time made with the line creator) we can see, sort of, what two civs might look like in terms of "power" vs "time" (which I suppose is something like the military pop graph). For arguments sake let's say this graph represents Russia (red) who has sent back to back to back unit shi(t)ments and the British player (blue) who has done a 700w 600w build.

Image

Now players want to push when their strength is relatively stronger than their opponent's. This is called hitting a "timing." But note defenders advantage, at both the tc and the blockhouse forward base, can help artificially shift the graph either way to help a player hold timings.

Now onto your question, specifically. You should never lose the map to Japan as Brit. Japan has the worst early game eco in the game, you age way before him, you should fb, go lbow/pike/huss and apply pressure. Something like 700w, 600w, 700c (for huss).

Versus civs like India and Russia, it's all about finding that sweet timing push that will differ from game to game. For instance, a Russian player might fb but will instead take 3 tps and go stagecoach, meaning that your timing to push his fb is sooner rather than later. Against an all in rush, you want to use defenders advantage to efficiently hold it while setting yourself up to peak before your hunts run out to push his fb. However, it is difficult pushing that forward base often on RE maps because they are notoriously hunt deficient especially for the British player such that it makes civs like Russia and India quite good on certain maps.

P.S. Refer to Goodspeed's TAD Guide 3.0 for more information on this. I'm really not well versed in this in practice in game; it's a difficult concept to properly envision in the thick of it but this (among many other things) is what separates the great players from someone like me.

P.P.S. Fuck RE Iro/Otto
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by jj0823 »

Thanks a lot Callen, this helps me tremendously. I've never really thought about it that way, really only applied it to fortress timings with China, Dutch, and Spain. You are right, I shouldn't be losing map to Japan, but I've encountered opponents who age faster than me? Say, I get a 200w start, I just make one manor, send 3v and make more until I hit about 15 and then age up when 800 is available. Should I be cutting vils and make up for it later with manor boom? My last couple games vs. Japan as Brits saw them harassing forward vils with Ashi and Nagi.
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by lemmings121 »

Even without you cutting vills, should be impossible to jap have ashis on your vills before you get your units out, unless he is doing some extreme all in, but in that case, your eco should be twice as big as his.. The standard brit bo against jap is aging up with 500f, saving 200w during transition to get one rax up imediatelly after you age up, and start with 5pikes, meanwhile build a second rax, then get 10lbs out. card order should be 3v 700w 600w 700g. Players might do a slight variation depending on personal preference, but thats the core of the bo.
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by jj0823 »

Thanks again. I guess it was a little bit of both and bad execution, probably need to work on my micro/macro a bit. I will try this matchup again later, will likely have more questions with it
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by Jaeger »

jj0823 wrote:Thanks a lot Callen, this helps me tremendously. I've never really thought about it that way, really only applied it to fortress timings with China, Dutch, and Spain. You are right, I shouldn't be losing map to Japan, but I've encountered opponents who age faster than me? Say, I get a 200w start, I just make one manor, send 3v and make more until I hit about 15 and then age up when 800 is available. Should I be cutting vils and make up for it later with manor boom? My last couple games vs. Japan as Brits saw them harassing forward vils with Ashi and Nagi.

With brit you should always be able to age at 2:40-2:45 witouth cutting any vills
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by Snuden »

I usually dragbox the remainder of my army and "attack move" my way across the map.
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by jj0823 »

Thanks for all of the replies again. I will make sure to incorporate all of the above into my upcoming games if I can remember. I feel pretty comfortable with a lot of the other aspects of the game but I seem to panic and forget everything when a stressful situation pops up.
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by pecelot »

jj0823 wrote:Thanks a lot Callen, this helps me tremendously. I've never really thought about it that way, really only applied it to fortress timings with China, Dutch, and Spain. You are right, I shouldn't be losing map to Japan, but I've encountered opponents who age faster than me? Say, I get a 200w start, I just make one manor, send 3v and make more until I hit about 15 and then age up when 800 is available. Should I be cutting vils and make up for it later with manor boom? My last couple games vs. Japan as Brits saw them harassing forward vils with Ashi and Nagi.

I think the Japanese player usually ages up around the same time as the British player, but mainly because they expect early aggression and don't want to fall behind on that — perhaps then they put additional vills on the wonder. What's more important, though, is that it takes significantly more time for Japan to field any significant army, as they're mainly disturbed by the shrine boom.
If you run out of food so early, you have to work on your herding — ideally after clicking up to the Colonial Age you want to secure two hunts, versus Japan I'd even one extra as your villager will not be raided (at least not early enough) and you can prevent your opponent from shrining them up.

India is one of the toughest match-ups for the British, as one of the biggest strength's of the latter is matched by the former — India can boom well on their own and additionally have a way superior military composition. Gurkhas tear musketeers into pieces, so do zamburaks to hussars when massed (add to that the ability to kite), and upgraded sowars need only two swings to kill longbowmen. India's power can be nullified by a Fast Fortress strategy, though it's hard to pull of as the British — you can always die to an early timing, of which India is very well capable. I'm not that successful in this particular MU, though I think your best bet would be to have a large number of longbowmen and protect them by all cost with pikemen/musketeers and hussars to body-block, while at the same time adding some more hussars — though again, they are annihilated by sepoys and the aforementioned zamburaks.

Iroquois and Ottomans are historically overpowered, though with some wall-focused play, especially on RE, you can protect your base well with longbowmen. The scary part, however, seems to be the follow-up: both of these civs can age up nicely and form a brutal response to your early defense. The latter, for instance, can have a scary timing push with falconets, veteran janissaries and later on mamelukes. Although I'm fully aware that neither of the players maximised their potential, you can watch my game vs britishmusketeer in the recent Diplomunion tournament series for the 3rd place: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=9262&start=175#p221077 , game 6 on Hudson Bay — British vs Ottomans. I'm personally also quite successful vs Iroquios, having won some games vs even higher-rated opponents, with a building being something like 700w -> 6 musks -> 700c (for mass)/6 lb — try to defend well and catch your enemy with minutemen to then push with your fuelled production while going heavy on hussars.
Generally, though, try to abuse longbowmen range and walls' tankiness. :flowers:
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by Darwin_ »

Push out after you get your most consequential shipment i.e 5 sepoy, 3 cuirs(+5 made), 2 falcs, mercs, crates etc... Try to send that shipment at the point when your opponent is realistically the weakest relative to you.
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by pecelot »

That's also why good scouting is rewarding — try to know what your opponent is sending (explorer, stealth scout, converted treasure guardians, spyglass etc.), what cards he even has in his deck, whether he's about to take the trading route and so on. :smile:
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by momuuu »

To be fair, failing to push out of your base is more a sympthom of something in a much earlier stage going wrong than it is that you don't know how to push out. Almost any sort of strategy that isn't a hard rush is aimed at being able to push out of your base when your hunts run out. You've clearly experienced yourself that you lose the game if you can't control hunts anymore, that's basically the win condition in this game. If you play defensively then you must make sure your mass is big enough to push out when you are out of hunts. If you can't, maybe your build order is wrong or maybe your opponent's rush did too much damage.
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by jj0823 »

Thanks for the new wave of replies. I was making a pretty big mistake; I looked back at some of my replays and saw a problem in my BO. I was making my stable/barracks really late, but didn't start with a very boom-flexible BO, so it transitioned really poorly. Instead of a barracks/stable, I used my transition wood on manors and unnecessary market upgrades. After starting off a little more aggressively and then transitioning into an eco build, I found it much easier to defend against other aggressive civs, and then quickly out-eco them, sometimes to the point where they just resign because of the difference in score between a no-eco Russian push and a semi-booming British eco. Still, I feel on many maps I just lose because of the total lack of hunts as British. Just a feature of vanilla maps, I guess.
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Re: Pushing out of base

Post by pecelot »

Ideally as Brits you would like to have 200 wood gathered upon the age-up to lay down a military building immediately. In comparison with aggressive civs you have a vastly superior economy, hence sometimes there's no point in booming any longer if you aren't able to defend yourself — be careful, therefore, not to overboom; try to find a proper balance between military and economy production based on your opponent's actions (scouting!). :smile:

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