JAMBOREE JOURNAL, Volume 1
Hello Reader!
As one should be aware, last week we witnessed the beginning of the second official Wars of Liberty tournament! So far we've seen some pretty interesting games, whether they be strange matchups, crazy outcomes, unconventional strategies, or simply OOS's at the most opportune times! Gotta love them OOS's. I want to use this opportunity to showcase a few matches that are interesting from a strategic or analytical perspective, some things that generally can‘t be paid enough attention to when live-broadcasting. So don’t worry, Daedy still has his spot for live commentary. I’m just a guy that likes crunching numbers and telling people their favourite unit is actually pretty bad using mathematics (coughgreatbombardcough)!
A wise man once said that “Strategy without tactics is the slow road to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”. This statement easily applies to many RTS games today, which includes our beloved Age of Empires 3 (& Wars of Liberty). If you have a solid game plan and understanding of what you can do, you can do a lot more than you can imagine. I want to use these Journals to help people understand this idea and help them improve at the game (and its most ambitious and fleshed out mod) by looking at the numbers and perhaps winning from the moment the map loads and you frantically start clicking away at your villagers, seeking to gather the crates as fast as possible...
ROUND OF 64 - SEPTAFOLIA VS UNSTOPPABLESTRELETSY
Brazil vs Paraguay, ESOC Gran Chaco
This match was the talk of the town in the WoL Discord server considering Septa's developer status and Streletsy's tenuous membership. The match itself raised some interesting questions about the Paraguayan civilization as well as the game plans of both Streletsy and Septa.
[spoiler=For the uninitiated, a quick description of Paraguay and Brazil!]Paraguay is based on Works, buildings similar to Dutch Banks that cost half the resources, take 5 population each, and can be built to generate any of the three resources - food, wood, or coin. The player also starts with a Master Engineer, the civiilization's Hero-type unit who is tasked with constructing most of their buildings and gathers wood at the same rate as 5 villagers! To balance this out, their villager (the Koygua) is half as good at gathering as a normal economic unit and may only construct economic buildings. The second unique aspect of Paraguay is their free trickle of military units. Paraguayan Barracks, Stables and Heavy Works (a factory that produces cheap but solid artillery pieces, plus a few upgrades) trickle free units. To compensate, these units tend to be fairly weak, with Paraguay additionally being limited to a maximum of 3 Barracks and 3 Stables in Age 2.
On the other hand we have Brazil, a civilization that shines in the economy department, gaining free Mills/Plantations per Age up and having access to additional Mill Upgrades. They also have a special big button technology for 300 gold that grants them 5 villagers up front, is available from Age 1, and is recursive, although costlier after each use. Speaking mathematics, this immediately saves you 200 resources and allows you to age up much earlier with 13 villagers, or even aging up at the normal time of 3:30-4:00, with 17-18 villagers! What makes this an even sweeter deal is that Brazil tends to start with 200 gold in crates, meaning their access to the tech is just a hop and a skip away from town-center spawn. However, one must be mindful that, similar to Ottoman, Brazil has a cap on the amount of villagers they can have before having to invest in technologies to raise the cap via the Town Hall.
A star in the Brazilian roster, and one that reared its energetic face in this match, is the Voluntario da Patria. At first glance he might seems abysmal, with Strelet-tier attack and HP for almost twice the cost, but importantly one must note that this is an Age 2 skirmisher with high range and 5 speed. With good micro, the Voluntario will mow down infantry armies without a scratch and is easy to train into or switch production from, given that Brazil also has access to standard Musketeers. Septafolia showcased how solid they can be at distracting the opponent’s armies with killer hit-and-run tactics in the match.
Sadly for Septa, by that point Streletsy had the superiority and was able to close out the match shortly after...
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Streletsy utilised a Stable rush and the Paraguayan trickle of free cavalry in order to win, mostly forgoing standard economy which, by the end of the match, was about as good as if he had 15 normal villagers. The perfect all-in. Had Septa prepared a quicker defense and utilised the Big Button Tech from an earlier point, he stood a good chance at beating the initial wave of Aca Yboty's with an extra batch of Musketeers. Septa’s deck was also ill-prepared for the match, most likely anticipating a slower grind as opposed to a rush, as one might anticipate from a civ with such economic potential as Paraguay.
If you decide to watch the replay or Daedralus’ stream, you will most likely notice that Streletsy didn’t train a single Koygua in Age 1. This is because Koygua need twice as long to repay their cost as a normal villager. To cement how all-in he went, he even elected to send 300f as his first shipment, eager to reach Age 2 A-S-A-P. Generally, training Koygua Age 1 is inefficient unless you expect to get rushed, in which case Koygua can scale to 160HP and 21 attack with 18 range with Market upgrades in Age 2. That being said, sending 300f on top of that just screams “let’s get this done quickly”.
ROUND OF 64 - CAPERBR VS OUTLAW0125
Argentina vs Greece, ESOC Indonesia
Entering this game, it was anticipated for Caper to close out the series with a 2:1, due to locking into a civilization matchup that was seemingly in his favour. Argentina is considered to be a powerful civ with its herd economy and a Horse Grenadier known to cause terror in late-game matches. Greece, in contrast, is often looked at as an underdog civilization, barring a few players who swear by it on water maps. Luckily for Outlaw, this was just the map. A modest island in the center, and a LOT of fishes and whales around. The perfect opportunity!
[spoiler=As mentioned before, Argentina is regarded as a strong civilization]. Its Villagers and Explorer are mounted on horses, allowing for much greater mobility around the map in securing resource-gathering locations, treasures and for escaping incoming raids. Argentinian Herdables also apparently have the ability to clone themselves, allowing one to generate free herdables and have a reliably safe food economy. This is especially pertinent in team games, for slinging teammates!
Unit-wise, a showcase of two unique Argentinian units that appeared in this match:The Lassador is a unique Argentinian Infantry unit and similar to the Incan Bolas Native in vanilla AoE3 by way of function. This is also the only Infantry Argentina gets in Age 2.
There seem to be 2 camps regarding this unit:
1. Wow, watch me mow down enemy units with my effectively tripled DPS thanks to this AOE!
2. Wow, 10 range and having to hit multiple units at once to make it work… (Argentina does have a Wagon that lets them transport units quicker, but that is from the Stable and is thereby a large investment early on, plus is susceptible to getting sniped before it reaches its destination)
I personally belong in the second camp, and would rely on it mainly in case I am fighting Paraguay, Egypt or Tupi, from which I can expect a ton of heavy infantry to mow down. Otherwise, in age 2 I would rely on…
The Montonera, who might seem fairly weak at face value with only 200 HP and 15 damage. But all is not what it seems. First, the Montonera attacks at almost twice the rate of normal melee units, with 0.8 ROF compared to 1.5 for traditional melee combatants. Second, it counters Hand Cavalry thanks to its multipliers, doing effectively 60 dmg in 2 hits, usually unmitigated since Hand Cavalry generally have Ranged Armour. Third, the 0.30 Melee Armour the unit boasts that does a fantastic job of absorbing damage in cavalry-on-cavalry engagements. And lastly its cheap cost, one easy to build an economy around, since you have to invest in houses and villagers regardless. Just be mindful of the 200 HP.
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[spoiler=Ah Greece, everyone’s favourite Underdog…]Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Greece is the absolute king of the Water Boom, no two questions about it. This is for a few reasons.
1. Greek docks train Fishing Ships for free, basically making them the Ottoman of the Sea. Accordingly, Greece is also limited with a 2 dock cap at the start of the game.
2. Greeks have access to their own Fish Traps. This allows them to have an infinite source of food on water, similar to Mills. They also have access to additional fishing upgrades as a cherry on top!
On land, Greece is generally considered weak, with a seemingly questionable array of units and poor Age 2 military shipments. The Seimen, a unit with a funny name, is a Musketeer-type unit available to both Greece and Serbia. A frail little Musketeer, it is pretty cheap and does particularly well in Melee with Hand Cavalry. Other than that, he isn't much to write home about. Greece also gets a reliable skirmisher in Age 2 which should give them at least some credit. With 21 range and 30 more HP than a Dutch skirmisher, the Klepht can reliably fight on and win engagements with a few Seimen or Macemen in front to hold the lines against enemy Hand Cavalry, against which the Klepht deservedly has a x0.8 modifier. However, the unit does end up being quite costly to produce since Greeks aren't known for their fast start.
Even so, it was neither of these units that took the main stage in this game, but rather, it was the trump card of Greece. One type of unit that dominates the coasts...
The Sailor, a Naval Infantry unit and an archetype totally unique to Wars of Liberty, and one that should be feared at all times in a sea-faring match. The Greek Sailor may only be trained from the Pyrpolikon, a beefy Galleon-class flame ship…
But for a civ like Greece, you better watch out because these guys counter Heavy infantry and trade evenly with Ranged Infantry, while sporting a sick x5 multiplier against opposing ships.[/spoiler]
During the game, Outlaw mostly relied on the 2 Pyrpolikon shipment to train Sailors from behind the Argentinian base, maintaining constant pressure on Caper. A major key to Outlaw's victory was in denying Caper's defensive walling at just the right moment, and never letting him get it back up again. At the same time, Outlaw fought on two fronts with a forward base on land producing Seimen. Outlaw secured a clean victory for himself by pressuring early and preventing Caper from moving out of his base, all while having total control of the sea. To the surprise of most, Outlaw won the game of attrition, winning the match in a spectacular comeback!
But alas, Outlaw would move on to face the one and only @Mitoe in the Round of 32… R.I.P!
