Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

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Great Britain oats13
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by oats13 »

milku3459 wrote:
ListlessSalmon wrote:
ListlessSalmon wrote:Good timing on this! I started playing a few days ago and this seems like it will helpful, thanks :)


3am yesterday: am PR 12
4am yesterday: read Site's guide
now: Am 2nd Lt.

Guide works confirmed.



but...but...how?!?!


At low hc lvls and with less games it is easy to inflate an account, you can lame up to captain in 12-14 games- http://aoe3.jpcommunity.com/rating2/pla ... 875&page=6 but then you have to learn how to play- all in all better to start at the start.

But I digress, what I was wondering was as the topic is generally on the subject of low-mid level play then would it be possible to have a section for that kind of content? i.e recs etc. perhaps some mentoring programs? more people actually play the game at this level (including myself) and I don't know if esoc wants to be a 'pr30+' site or to cater for all? perhaps some kind of demarcation would be a good idea?
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by pecelot »

You can always submit recs, ask questions and discuss reasonably, regardless of your PR — for a bit looser talks I would recommend our Discord channel :flowers:
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by site »

Well, the Studio will be putting out some AoE3 101 videos in the near future.
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by sdsanft »

oats13 wrote:
milku3459 wrote:
Show hidden quotes



but...but...how?!?!


At low hc lvls and with less games it is easy to inflate an account, you can lame up to captain in 12-14 games- http://aoe3.jpcommunity.com/rating2/pla ... 875&page=6 but then you have to learn how to play- all in all better to start at the start.

But I digress, what I was wondering was as the topic is generally on the subject of low-mid level play then would it be possible to have a section for that kind of content? i.e recs etc. perhaps some mentoring programs? more people actually play the game at this level (including myself) and I don't know if esoc wants to be a 'pr30+' site or to cater for all? perhaps some kind of demarcation would be a good idea?

You can always just post this kind of content, I dont think a separate subforum is necessary tho, would probably just lead to lots of flaming. Also, like pecelot said, discord is great for quick questions and stuff like that.
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by abbadan »

First, I REALLY want to thank you for this guide. I've been a sergeant with THREE accts and can't seem to get over the hump; maybe now I have a chance. I posted a possible "curriculum" to teach AoE on an earlier thread, but now I know WHO should be teaching...
One thing, though. Sometimes you need to tell us dum-dums HOW to do things. For example:
Set a hotkey for your Town Center and Train Villager commands. Make sure that you have your settings so that when you toggle your Town Center it does not snap to it!
I wish I knew how to do that. Or the trick of deleting pillars from my walls. Or the trick to make Oprichiks form an ultra-violent square...
Can you fill in details for the tech-challenged?
Thanks,
AbbaDan
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by wardyb1 »

abbadan wrote:First, I REALLY want to thank you for this guide. I've been a sergeant with THREE accts and can't seem to get over the hump; maybe now I have a chance. I posted a possible "curriculum" to teach AoE on an earlier thread, but now I know WHO should be teaching...
One thing, though. Sometimes you need to tell us dum-dums HOW to do things. For example:
Set a hotkey for your Town Center and Train Villager commands. Make sure that you have your settings so that when you toggle your Town Center it does not snap to it!
I wish I knew how to do that. Or the trick of deleting pillars from my walls. Or the trick to make Oprichiks form an ultra-violent square...
Can you fill in details for the tech-challenged?
Thanks,
AbbaDan


I'd suggest going into options, then clicking hotkeys and finding the ones that are important. However the hotkey for town centre should be "t". Once in the town centre, the hotkey for building a villager is "v". As how to delete pillars, I've changed mine so I can't say it off the top of my head, but in the hotkey section, there is a hotkey that essentially says "select all of one unit". So you click the pillar, then hit the "select all of one unit" hotkey. Then hit delete.
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by site »

If I recall correctly, the default hotkey to select Town Center is, "T." The default hotkey to train a villager is, "V." These can be changed by going to Options>Hotkeys.

To change it so that it does not move your camera when you press a hotkey, go to Options>UI Options, scroll down and uncheck the "Find" Hotkeys center camera on units.

To delete wall pillars you click a wall pillar and then the select all of unit type hotkey and then the delete button. I do not know the default for this one, I have set mine to the number 10 on my 12 button mouse.

To form a "Cav Box" you must put one ranged cav unit into the same control group as some hand cav units. Then you will select the defensive stance in the advanced formations on both the hand cav and the ranged cav. You will need advanced formations toggled.

I would suggest you toggle the following on in Options>UI Settings
Enable Minimized UI (Lets you see more of the map, big plus.)
Enable Minimized Chat UI (Same as above)
Show Unit Training Queue (Important one, this allows you to visually see when you need to train another settler or batch of military.)
Game Time (Not necessary, but useful.)
Show Gatherers per resource (VERY USEFUL for settler distribution.)
Show Advanced Formations
Show Advanced Unit Type (Useful info)
Alt key shows unit hitpoint bar

I'm going to talk a little about that last one. This is extremely useful and can quickly turn the tide of small skirmishes where your opponent is not doing the same. As a matter of fact, at the Sergeant level I would be very impressed to find a player doing this. As it is, I see several Lieutenants and Captains still not doing this. When you press the alt key a hitpoint bar will appear over all units in your LOS. This allows you to target your units onto the low HP units to kill them first, instead of shooting full HP units and allowing the damaged ones to continue to shoot when they could have been killed.

You can use this in defense as well, to manually target units with your Town Center. You may have damaged some of them in your last skirmish and can focus them down first.
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by CurassierAndCurassier »

lemmings121 wrote:
CurassierAndCurassier wrote:Any advice for someone stuck at Master Serg? I've got the Samwise and 5 cav semi builds down for France but I often blow games after starting out with an early lead and am stuck in the 16-18 PR range.


Imo when you feel stuck in a lower level, it might be a good time to start exploring new civs. What civ you have more trouble against? lets say is japan as an example. start playing japan for a week to get the feel of the civ, in the future when you are back to fre, you will notice its a bit easier to play vs jap, since now you better understand the civ. you dont even have to go back to fre, you might start liking germans, then you practice with it for a while... not saying that you have to learn all civs in game, but imo its a requirement to play a lest a bit with each one to better understand how to play against it.

Or you could just keep practicing 100% fre. other people prefer this approach, idk if mine is more efficient, but sure is more fun xD


I have a weakness in general against Asian civs because i never play them since they're all level 10 for me haha. But I can try this out.
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by milku3459 »

Should we have a tips and tricks thread where only tips are allowed? A conscript browsing through it will turn into a 2nd LT by the end. Cause as it is all the T&Ts are scattered far and wide.
Then another thread to discuss.

EDIT: thinking with site and sdsanft about an online AOE course
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by oats13 »

milku3459 wrote:Should we have a tips and tricks thread where only tips are allowed? A conscript browsing through it will turn into a 2nd LT by the end. Cause as it is all the T&Ts are scattered far and wide.
Then another thread to discuss.

EDIT: thinking with site and sdsanft about an online AOE course


This is the essence of what I was getting at before- ideally any player of any level should be able to access this site as a resource and quickly find the information that is relevant- builds, recs, advice etc. currently most things seem quite 'linear' and hard to find whereas perhaps they could be 'windowed' in a more user friendly way?
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by pecelot »

Players of any rank can always access this site, we have a couple of guides for beginners, lower-skilled people can at any times ask a question and it's our duty to guide them to glory! :flowers:

Also I added the thread to the strategy wall :)
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by site »

pecelot wrote:Players of any rank can always access this site, we have a couple of guides for beginners, lower-skilled people can at any times ask a question and it's our duty to guide them to glory! :flowers:

Also I added the thread to the strategy wall :)


Thanks man. :)
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by Lunatic_Fringe »

Very well written Site! Would be beneficial to everyone in general!
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

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Post by oats13 »

pecelot wrote:Players of any rank can always access this site, we have a couple of guides for beginners, lower-skilled people can at any times ask a question and it's our duty to guide them to glory! :flowers:

Also I added the thread to the strategy wall :)


Hi, what i'm driving at is that even though the site is good it can be even better, I think that the strategy section should have subsections based on civs so that rather than scroll through 4 pages to get a decent build for, for example, a jan abus tp build, one could more easily find that and any relavent discussions or rec's of said builds.

The strategy wall contains no guide for iro's, only a spahi/rev build for otto's and H20's jap guide which is mainly for mirrors.

Perhaps there even could be a starred or percentage system where people could rate each guide for strength/difficulty?

Just trying to be constructive- :wood: :smile:
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by pecelot »

Sure, I have no problem with constructive criticism, I find your advice really helpful and interestingly enough very on point. Our basis for strategies is the wall, on which there are many guides. Although there is currently no content of such kind in terms of Iroquois or Spanish, first — there's the big GoodSpeed's guide, second — I've talked with site about that recently and you may see something new coming in the near past.
Making a summary of strategy threads is something I have in mind, but it requires some time and dedication, which I unfortunately not always possess due to real-life activities and duties. Though I think I'll do that one day!
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by fearfuloatmeal »

Wow! Thanks for the very in-depth post. Tons of great information on how to improve.
Just one more game of AoE then I'll go to bed.
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

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Post by princeofkabul »

how to become good is to play alot, everything else should come to your gamestyle eventually.
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by deleted_user0 »

princeofkabul wrote:how to become good is to play alot, everything else should come to your gamestyle eventually.


some people play alot or have played alot and don't get good tho, such as a certain frog i know :roll:

[spoiler=spoiler]:love:[/spoiler]
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by pecelot »

princeofkabul wrote:how to become good is to play alot, everything else should come to your gamestyle eventually.

yesh, play 3v3 Deccans all day and you'll eventually become an awesome player!! :flowers:
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by princeofkabul »

pecelot wrote:
princeofkabul wrote:how to become good is to play alot, everything else should come to your gamestyle eventually.

yesh, play 3v3 Deccans all day and you'll eventually become an awesome player!! :flowers:


worked for me.
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by EscalonOne »

princeofkabul wrote:
pecelot wrote:
princeofkabul wrote:how to become good is to play alot, everything else should come to your gamestyle eventually.

yesh, play 3v3 Deccans all day and you'll eventually become an awesome player!! :flowers:


worked for me.


Wouldn't advice that, theres a huge powergap within the group of lieutenants playing that. Many times i did that there was just an enormous noob in one of the teams deciding the outcome - also since 90% of those lt-3v3-deccan games goes age4 at least.
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by princeofkabul »

EscalonOne wrote:
princeofkabul wrote:
Show hidden quotes


worked for me.


Wouldn't advice that, theres a huge powergap within the group of lieutenants playing that. Many times i did that there was just an enormous noob in one of the teams deciding the outcome - also since 90% of those lt-3v3-deccan games goes age4 at least.


If you have any potential as an rts player you should be able to take the next step further from those deccan games to next level.
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by pecelot »

The thing is, that's not always the case... :hmm:
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant — A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by gibson »

Well if you're intelligent at all and know anything about the meta a point comes were you can carry any 3v3 lt deccan game regardless of teams
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Re: Conscript to Lieutenant - A Beginner's Guide to Basics

Post by ListlessSalmon »

Rikikipu wrote:Great guide site! It's cool because it helps a lot new players!
A guide for being captain and major is not hard really :
A guide for being captain : Pick otto, go FF
A guide for being major : Pick germany, go renegados rush
And I swear I'm not even joking


Site getting close to accomplishing the Major guide here :ohmy:

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