How do you get ahead in this game?

iNcog · Post by **iNcog** » 16 Apr 2015, 18:16

In Starcraft it's pretty straightforward to get ahead:

If you kill workers, you're ahead. If you trade well against the other guy's army, you're ahead. If you take an expansion and it gets up and running, you're ahead. If you upgrade your units, you get ahead.

It's very simple understanding what decisions you have to make, or things you have to do, if you want to get ahead in Starcraft. It's very easy to gauge the state of the game as well since it's easier to get a general idea of what's going on: number of enemy bases, his unit comp, mineral saturation and so on. Sure it's hard to find proxies and stuff but that doesn't mean you can't check.

I'm not sure how to get ahead in AoE3, nor do I know how to gauge the game. Score is nice and all but it's a general indicator, it's not impossible for the outcome of the game to swing away from the current score.

What do I need to do? Hit market timings perfectly? Perfect villager allocation? Pass villagers through TC? Raid? Micro better in fights? What else?

These are all obvious answers but they aren't answers which lead to game-winning leads.

giveuanxiety · Post by **giveuanxiety** » 16 Apr 2015, 18:44

imo this game is 95 % knowledge. You have to know what strategy to do vs each civ on each map. A bad player can beat a good and probably a great player if he does the right strategy and build and the other doesn't.

bpdscolony123 · Post by **bpdscolony123** » 16 Apr 2015, 18:49

Two words : micro,macro

Mitoe · Post by **Mitoe** » 16 Apr 2015, 18:54

It's more complicated than that. A build order does not win games, it's the decisions behind it that actually win the games. You can not assume that you will win because you do the perfect build order on the perfect map and execute it perfectly. That's not how it goes. It's more about how you adapt to what you see and experience. Of course you must know how to play the civ to it's full extent but that does not mean that you will win since you must always adapt to the map, the other persons build order, your own mistakes, etc..

Jaeger · Post by **Jaeger** » 16 Apr 2015, 18:55

Some things to improve your game: macro and micro ofc, but also scouting is SUUUPER important. I've only started doing it better recently and I think I have improved a lot. You can use low hp cheap/useless units to scout around, or you can scout around with cav. Don't worry too much about raiding, it's really not that good to raid until late in the game. If you both have you army in your base and are just massing up, don't raid. You will just loose your cav. It's only good to raid after you won a big fight to prevent your enemy from remassing, to scout, or when you know your enemy's army is far away from your raiding spot. When you do raid, try to raid with low hp cav.

To be able to gauge the game a specific game you have to have a decent understanding of the civs involved. For example, let's say you are playing Germany vs China. What you have to know is that it's easy for Germany to mass cav while it's hard for China to mass anticav. So if you have a fight when you lost most of your skirms but he lost most of his anticav, then you're ahead' you can just ship all of you uhlan shipments and mass uhlans and destroy the rest of his army.

DivineFire · Post by **DivineFire** » 16 Apr 2015, 19:31

I'd have to agree with anxiety here, knowing the right build orders and having the proper knowledge is probably the best way to get better. Micro and macro and clicking faster and hotkeys and all that help but knowledge of the game is probably the biggest thing.

Garja · Post by **Garja** » 16 Apr 2015, 19:41

AOE3 compared to SC2 is less forgiving on mistakes early on. Often you get an advantage from age1 war or BO and you're able to ride it to the win.
Then again it's not that easy, especially vs opponents who are risk seeker so they cause unbalanced positions. You need to know how to give something to get more to be always marginally ahead.
Play to not lose and you win.

iNcog · Post by **iNcog** » 16 Apr 2015, 19:56

garja wrote:AOE3 compared to SC2 is less forgiving on mistakes early on. Often you get an advantage from age1 war or BO and you''re able to ride it to the win.
Then again it''s not that easy, especially vs opponents who are risk seeker so they cause unbalanced positions. You need to know how to give something to get more to be always marginally ahead.
Play to not lose and you win.

I dislike the idea of playing to not lose, I always like to force wins out of opponent [when I play SC2].

e.g. looking for openings in opponent''s play and exploiting those openings to get wins. It''s possible to do so in SC2, if you''re careful you can make sure you execute your build perfectly in the first 10 minutes and generally everyone has openings which can be used to get wins. Similarly, if your own play isn''t safe where it needs to be, you can lose easily.

I''m not sure where those openings are in a game like AoE3. It''s not like it''s possible to find a way to slip in hellions, ling runbys or you have this perfected hellbat/banshee timing.

There''s nothing like that in aoe3.

Goodspeed · Post by **Goodspeed** » 16 Apr 2015, 20:09

giveuanxiety wrote:imo this game is 95 % knowledge. You have to know what strategy to do vs each civ on each map. A bad player can beat a good and probably a great player if he does the right strategy and build and the other doesn''t.

How are they a great player if they did the wrong build?

Goodspeed · Post by **Goodspeed** » 16 Apr 2015, 20:13

incog wrote:
garja wrote:AOE3 compared to SC2 is less forgiving on mistakes early on. Often you get an advantage from age1 war or BO and youre able to ride it to the win.
Then again its not that easy, especially vs opponents who are risk seeker so they cause unbalanced positions. You need to know how to give something to get more to be always marginally ahead.
Play to not lose and you win.
I dislike the idea of playing to not lose, I always like to force wins out of opponent [when I play SC2].

e.g. looking for openings in opponents play and exploiting those openings to get wins. Its possible to do so in SC2, if youre careful you can make sure you execute your build perfectly in the first 10 minutes and generally everyone has openings which can be used to get wins. Similarly, if your own play isnt safe where it needs to be, you can lose easily.

Im not sure where those openings are in a game like AoE3. Its not like its possible to find a way to slip in hellions, ling runbys or you have this perfected hellbat/banshee timing.

Theres nothing like that in aoe3.

Yes there is. Timings are just as big a deal here as in plebcraft 2. But obviously if youre not good at the game youre not going to see the openings.

iNcog · Post by **iNcog** » 16 Apr 2015, 20:15

I already know I'm a trash tier player, I'd just like to understand what I'm supposed to be even looking at.

Goodspeed · Post by **Goodspeed** » 16 Apr 2015, 20:19

It's all about squeezing in those eco plays when you can and going for timings when your opponent is at their weakest (much like plebcraft). You know when they're at their weakest by scouting their build and looking ahead and you can then tailor your build to be at its strongest at that time.
Maybe read the part in my guide about timings, it goes into how to play with a clock.
In the end it's just a matter of knowing each civ's strengths and weaknesses and applying RTS principles and logic.

iNcog · Post by **iNcog** » 16 Apr 2015, 20:23

Nah there's nothing about this game that makes sense at all

The fact that you can get 5 rifles from saloon and like 9 bows in your base at 5:xx something is fucking stupid and it's also unbeatable if you decided to open musk because you were afraid of some sort of HI

fucking stupid

bart331 · Post by **bart331** » 16 Apr 2015, 21:01

Scouting is pretty important in this games cause there are a lot of jokers with unique playstyles. Also i always found that drawing up your own plan at the begin of the game and make other play according to your plan is a solid approach. Also it doesnt matter how crazy a strategy is , if you execute it thoroughly and do everything according to the strategy it is often succesfull. Thats why i like aoe3.

Generally in game score is a good advisor in what kind of position you are. But ur problem is just that u didnt play for long time and need some experience.

Post by **_H2O** » 16 Apr 2015, 21:37

How to get ahead is something that you do in small steps. Winning age 1 is the first chance you have to get ahead. From there you can get ahead by making small trades that are favorable. All of these advantages create cushion.

You still have big decisions to make which is the point anxiety was trying to make. You can have all these small advantages erased by a big enough tactical mistake. When you have gotten a lead you need to know that your opponent will try to force you to make those mistakes. This is where garjas idea of not losing the game comes into the picture. When you have the lead you want to be thinking about how to prevent the comeback rather than how to close out the game now.

Bart331 has a great point about scouting, but there is also an element of feeling that comes from playing the game so much that you know what is possible and what is not.

Also if you play the victim when you describe aoe3 as a game, you won't ever start winning. You are avoiding the problem. I am able to consistently win games I play and try in vs anyone. That includes age 1 treasuring, age 2 trades, and broader tactics. We all have room to grow and improve, stay focused on how you can do better at each phase of the game

.

That would be my advice in a short forum post.

iNcog · Post by **iNcog** » 16 Apr 2015, 22:34

incog wrote:I already know I''m a trash tier player, I''d just like to understand what I''m supposed to be even looking at.

But yeah I guess it comes down to playing a lot and figuring out what works and what doesn''t. Some of the stuff you encounter is really counter-intuitive though, like wtf are you going for FI though, or even "why do you have all that stuff / eco whereas I don''t?"

it''s kind of confusing i guess.

We all have room to grow and improve, stay focused on how you can do better at each phase of the game .

I''m not even sure what I''m doing wrong, but I''m guessing "huge tactical blunders" is probably in there in all of my games.

So let''s discuss huge tactical blunders, I suppose? Sieging a TC like a scrub seems like one. over-extension is a constant problem of mine. so I guess the right thing to do would be to extend when the time is "right". the problem is making sure that the time is "right" for you and not "good" for the other guy.

Post by **_H2O** » 16 Apr 2015, 22:46

Think about what will happen if you DON'T extend. Are you ahead in eco? ahead in tech? Then what are you afraid of?

If you are ahead in military have you done damage yet? If you have done damage are you now even in eco / tech with a bigger army? You can go boom and make him respond to what you have.

Just play games trying to win without attacking a tc early game.

iNcog · Post by **iNcog** » 17 Apr 2015, 05:18

I never go for the TC and lately I've been playing Japan which is actually on the defending end (unless it's mirrors and that's the match up I've been losing a lot).

I generally avoid the TC and tend to focus on going for units / villagers / pushing for the map. I do it regardless of any civ I play though because I feel like idle military units are a waste - of course if I'm playing the civ outside it's timing zone (so to speak) then it's normal that I get burned for it...

I'll just need to play more, focus on doing builds properly, focus having a reason to be aggressive, etc.

Jaeger · Post by **Jaeger** » 17 Apr 2015, 06:19

If you're trying to improve the best advice I can give is for you to watch veni's casting, especially of the pk clan tournament where he analyzes everything in detail. I learned probably 90% of how this game works from those videos.

Another super good caster is zutazuta, but veni explains things in more detail in those pk clan tournament videos.

SoldieR · Post by **SoldieR** » 17 Apr 2015, 07:10

I think this game can be summarized quite well with one simple idea (up to a certain skill lvl) and that is:
Play as greedy (economy wise) as you can while still holding any military pushes. By that i mean: send vil cards, 700w, market ups, etc.
So simply scout the opponents deck, and buildings, see And KNOW what should be coming your way...if you hold off vs someone sending military shipments and you went Eco, after the first fight if u just trade even, you won

PS. I'd love to cast finals somehow, it sometimes annoys me when they don't looks at stuff like when each player got steel traps, Eco builds..they tend to focus on miltary

deleted_user0 · Post by **deleted_user0** » 21 Apr 2015, 00:07

Ye i prefer this style too, but it is vulnerable to people whi do allins. Ive been caught with my pants down many times because i went greedy and my opponent went like unit unit unit rush. But most of this can be avoided by good scouting, getting a few walls etc can go a long way.

Also military ups is a way to get ahead, specially in mirrors i think i prefer map dominance with mili ups over greedy play with eco cards. You can usually grind them down because as gs said in his guide, eco cards take somw time to pay off in which window you can take a lead

_venox_ · Post by **_venox_** » 23 Apr 2015, 14:03

I like the concept of shortterm/longterm in conbination with advantages/disadvantages:
the map, the civs, the card decks chosen and mistakes by you or your enemy give advantages/disadvantages that are mostly temporary/time dependent. When one civ has the economic advantage early on the other civ will have it later on. Same like the "scaling" part of GS' guide. Now you have to manipulate those advantages and disadvantages with your knowledge, your experience from past games, your micro and macro to get a good result. If the enemy makes a mistake and you don't take advantage of it, it's not really a mistake.
Another part is knowing what really makes a player win and lose' ask yourself many times during a game what exactly is important right now? Sometimes it is tactical decisions that can decide the outcome (raids for example or positioning, having falcs unguarded) and sometimes it's quite short-lived things you have to decide quickly, like when your tc is being sieged every second counts, or sending mm in time to help out, filling the musk batches or pulling back a ship in time to be repaired. When to focus on your macro and when on your micro. In macro and micro small changes can have a great effect on the outcome, like 500 resources in a mirror or 5 lost musketeers. These decisions there are far more important than getting a 90 wood treasure, imo. Take micro as an opportunity to get treasures with free units, like regard the 5 otherwise lost musketeer as a free 5 musk treasure.

Or you can divide the game into smaller aspects that you might want to focus improving on, or general concepts like map control, army composition, ecomony, mobility, flexibility, etc...
Or just spam game after game and change small things until you notice differences and see for yourself.

_Tomahawk_ · Post by **_Tomahawk_** » 13 May 2015, 22:43

Very cool conversation. I see it like Garja says: often it is your choice to lose and not the other guy choice to win.
So this can be converted: know when hitting with the hammer know when instead receiving and increase the window for error for the opponent.
That is why you raid, you keep your vills coming out while you make hisher die under your swords.
If you raid and kill and in your TC nothing is queued... well .. you are practically wasting energy unless you aren't using that as a distracting move.
Advantage depends on what you do and how you respond to him.
Play against the computer offline with a chronometer too.
Scouting is the base and for the rest there are too many details to be better in this game that can be accounted in a post. you need a good guide a mentor for at least 1 game that explains what are your errors ... and then you need a good couple of rec games to watch.

Your question will be answered.

deleted_user0 · Post by **deleted_user0** » 13 May 2015, 23:23

When garja loses, the other guy never won, garja just lost cuz of his mistakes. When garja wins, garja didnt win because the other guy lost due to his mistakes, but garja won amyway despite his own mistakes.

This is the first and fundamental principle of aoe3

SoldieR · Post by **SoldieR** » 14 May 2015, 01:45

ESOC

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