First of all, bear in mind to use your Catamaran efficiently from the start. Use it to scout the shores of the main island, as you can find some valuable treasures. If you need to do so, transport your explorer from your base to the spots you need them in, like aforementioned treasure locations. Gathering yaks inside of it is very handy as well, as you don't have to take the risk of losing them to opponent's explorer units.
Moreover, you can use the Catamaran to kill land treasure guardians. The method is pretty much identical to the widely known one, as you just have to move outside of guardians' range and keep shooting them with your little boat. When the last animal/thuggee/some other shit is nearly dead, bring your explorer to gather the goods. Either move him just in time not to have your treasure stolen or garrison him into the boat before the beginning of this creeping process and unload him after the end to grab it.
Later on, when the biggest treasures on the main island have already been gathered, move your explorer units to the smaller, medium portions of land either in the north or in the south (or, ideally, to both directions). Usually there are pretty valuable gifts from Garja (or Gaia?), as you can find nice treasures like 90 wood, 90 XP, 90 food or 85 coin (these numbers probably aren't so exact, but it's this kind of tier), which are placed near the shore, which obviously means you can use your Catamaran to get them much more easily. You can always find additional yaks there, too.
These are the ways in which you can use the boat you start with effectively. Don't waste your time fighting with opponent's one, as you most likely won't be able to kill it entirely because it will just flee away. Fishing rates are also quite low, I believe they are the same as canoes, so: Fish: .22; Whale .17.
The second part of this particular tip set I want to share with you is about migration. On both of the medium islands there is a hunt, a few trees and a 2000 coin mine. If you are heavily pressured in your base because of an aggressive approach from your enemy, you can sneak some villagers over to the islands to gather resources there entirely safely. Players usually don't expect such a move from their opponents, so you may catch them off guard and actually prevent their rush efectiveness by not having your hunts denied.
The main point of this post, though, is to show you how crucial can a map awareness be. Adjust your gameplay and game plan to the map you play: consider building a livestock pen for your herdables on maps like ESOC Manchuria or Mongolia, think of sending Spice Trade card on high-berries map, like Cascade Range.
I hope it will help you when you will find youself playing on this great map. If you already find it useful, let me know by hitting the like button above!
Also, check out @forgrin
's awesome Water Treasure Hunting Guide for Indonesia! It may become pretty useful if you find enough time and APM to ,,creep" and eventually grab these water goods!forgrin wrote:notification