Need help with Russia 800 ELO player

[Veer_84]

Hi,

I'm an 800 ELO player looking to reach at least the 1200 ELO level. I began playing as Russia because I like aggressive play. I played two matches against Japan and France, both of which I lost. I do the standard FB build. The recordings are attached.

Russia vs Japan (first match): I thought I had completely idled him by 14 minutes but then he hit Fortress Age and it was a downward spiral from there.

Russia vs France (second match): I thought age 2 went well but the problems began when he hit Age 3. Also, I struggle with playing mid and late game (that's my suspicion). Also, don't know what to do when someone starts walling up protected by musketeers, cuirassiers and falconets.

I feel lost playing fortress age wars. But I would appreciate any feedback which helps me improve my gameplay.

[DoctorSulla]

The recordings are attached.

Are you sure?

[iron_turtle]

I feel like at 800elo, making vills constantly and using few basic hotkeys can give you an edge.
Will need the recordings to see what you are doing wrong, or if you have wrong cards etc.

[Veer_84]

Don't know why the recordings didn't attach? It says http error. Tried a number of times. Is there any other way I can send you the recordings? E-mail maybe?

[miggo1999_]

Don't know why the recordings didn't attach? It says http error. Tried a number of times. Is there any other way I can send you the recordings? E-mail maybe?

send them to [email protected] he'll coach you for free too!

[Veer_84]

Thank you so much. Will do. Big smile.

[Squamiger]

I dont need to see recordings really at 800 ELO. there's a few things it's very likely you aren't doing that you can do to improve pretty dramatically if you really follow through:

1. you think you're doing the "standard FB build order", but you're not. I almost guarantee you are not hitting the correct timings you need to age up, get units out, and be in their base pressuring them, with the proper eco behind. You should look up and watch recorded games of pros playing Russia and mark the exact game times they are doing things like clicking up to age 2, sending their first age 2 shipment, and training their first units. Then, practice and replicate that. There's no reason you can't get out 5 cossacks and 5 muskets the same time Kaiserklein does; the difference between us and him is what he does with them after. But if you can do that for starters and then also play the right cards after, you will jump way past 800 elo and probably end up in the 1200 range, because other people at your level will not be anywhere close to hitting those timings.
Here, see if you can replicate the first 6 minutes of this game, with LordRaphael playing Russia:

he has 5 cossacks and 5 muskets out and in the opponents base between 5:20 and 5:30. If you can copy that, every other 800 ELO shitter you face will just insta-resign.


2. you think you're managing idle time, but you're not. I'm around 1400 ELO and I still will watch recs of my gameplay and realize I wasn't training villagers for a moment or I was letting villagers idle sometimes, so I absolutely guarantee you are doing the same. You TC should NEVER be idle, it should always be either producing villagers or aging, as a general rule. This is a little trickier as Russia though, because sometimes you do actually need to idle your TC early in the game in order to get units out to pressure, since your early game is so food heavy. But if you're asking about how to play in Fortress, then you definitely need to make sure you're macroed correctly for constant villager production. And make sure your gathering villagers aren't just standing around.

3. you think you're macroing correctly, but you're not. You need to also study the pros to see how they distribute villagers in order to keep the appropriate ratios of resources at hand, and then you need to SPEND those resources. As Russia, this means making a second blockhouse or a stable with your 700w shipment to keep production rolling. If you go into a fight with 1k resources in the bank, that's 1k resources that is not turned into units that you could have had. At your level, no one is microing fights, they are just smashing their units together, so having as many units as possible at any time is always going to benefit you.

If you can improve these three things, you can definitely hit 1200 ELO. Once you're there, you will start hitting another skill cap where you will start losing games because of things like unit composition, positioning, scouting, or getting hit with a counter-strategy, but don't worry about those things as much for now, imo.

[Snuden]

What does 800 ELO correspond to in AoE3 RE?

[duckzilla]

Something around sergeant, I guess. If power ranking is what you mean.

[Snuden]

Ah... at the risk of sounding harsh, you pretty much do everything wrong.

I was stuck there for a while as well. What I did in order to reach 2LT was a few simple things, yet highly effective at that level...

1. Constant vill production.
2. Pick 2-3 cav units and raid during battles.
3. Constantly forcing myself to look at the mini map (for incoming raids)

Point 2 probably was the most effective.

[Squamiger]

2. Pick 2-3 cav units and raid during battles.

this is kind of like one of those ads, "This one pr 15 invented this ONE EASY TRICK to win ANY GAME, shitters HATE HIM!!"

it will make lowbies ragequit and you should absolutely do it, but also, its sort of a crutch that can compensate for slacking on more basic things, like perfecting the build order so you have units out at the right time

[musketeer925]

Don't know why the recordings didn't attach? It says http error. Tried a number of times. Is there any other way I can send you the recordings? E-mail maybe?

uh-oh. Do you have Discord? I'd like a copy of the recs to test with. It's possible I broke the rec upload feature.

If you don't have discord, try renaming them and delete the ".age3Yrec" file extension and upload again, so the forum doesn't try to parse them. (See here for how to delete the extension: https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch0 ... tm#windows)

[musketeer925]

test posting a rec

[musketeer925]

test posting a rec

it failed to parse it

[Zutazuta]

@Hazza54321

[aaryngend]

Something around sergeant, I guess. If power ranking is what you mean.

Even lower I would say. Something like Lance Corporal.

[Veer_84]

Removed the file extensions and tried to re-upload but still get an error.

[Veer_84]

I dont need to see recordings really at 800 ELO. there's a few things it's very likely you aren't doing that you can do to improve pretty dramatically if you really follow through:

1. you think you're doing the "standard FB build order", but you're not. I almost guarantee you are not hitting the correct timings you need to age up, get units out, and be in their base pressuring them, with the proper eco behind. You should look up and watch recorded games of pros playing Russia and mark the exact game times they are doing things like clicking up to age 2, sending their first age 2 shipment, and training their first units. Then, practice and replicate that. There's no reason you can't get out 5 cossacks and 5 muskets the same time Kaiserklein does; the difference between us and him is what he does with them after. But if you can do that for starters and then also play the right cards after, you will jump way past 800 elo and probably end up in the 1200 range, because other people at your level will not be anywhere close to hitting those timings.
Here, see if you can replicate the first 6 minutes of this game, with LordRaphael playing Russia:

he has 5 cossacks and 5 muskets out and in the opponents base between 5:20 and 5:30. If you can copy that, every other 800 ELO shitter you face will just insta-resign.


2. you think you're managing idle time, but you're not. I'm around 1400 ELO and I still will watch recs of my gameplay and realize I wasn't training villagers for a moment or I was letting villagers idle sometimes, so I absolutely guarantee you are doing the same. You TC should NEVER be idle, it should always be either producing villagers or aging, as a general rule. This is a little trickier as Russia though, because sometimes you do actually need to idle your TC early in the game in order to get units out to pressure, since your early game is so food heavy. But if you're asking about how to play in Fortress, then you definitely need to make sure you're macroed correctly for constant villager production. And make sure your gathering villagers aren't just standing around.

3. you think you're macroing correctly, but you're not. You need to also study the pros to see how they distribute villagers in order to keep the appropriate ratios of resources at hand, and then you need to SPEND those resources. As Russia, this means making a second blockhouse or a stable with your 700w shipment to keep production rolling. If you go into a fight with 1k resources in the bank, that's 1k resources that is not turned into units that you could have had. At your level, no one is microing fights, they are just smashing their units together, so having as many units as possible at any time is always going to benefit you.

If you can improve these three things, you can definitely hit 1200 ELO. Once you're there, you will start hitting another skill cap where you will start losing games because of things like unit composition, positioning, scouting, or getting hit with a counter-strategy, but don't worry about those things as much for now, imo.

Thank you so much for such a detailed reply. As you said, I didn't have problems with the first point. I was at his base by around 5:30 with 5 cossacks and 5 muskets but your second and third points could be a problem for me. :) Even though by 20 minutes, I had around 60 villagers and had built multiple blockhouses all over the map and two stables, all on hotkeys with constant production. It's funny that when I looked at the post-game graph, I had gathered more resources and (more military units) than the Japanese guy but still lost.

It's true my macro is far from perfect but the Japanese player too hadn't shrine boomed so I find it a little ironical that I lost lol!

I love watching how pros play and replicating those build orders against AI. It's strange that I'm able to crush the hardest and the extreme AI using the same strategies but struggle online.

I tried to re-upload the recordings but failed again. If you want, I can email you the recordings so that you can have a look and let me know where I went wrong. Would be much appreciated. :)

[CR_Joops]

I dont need to see recordings really at 800 ELO. there's a few things it's very likely you aren't doing that you can do to improve pretty dramatically if you really follow through:

1. you think you're doing the "standard FB build order", but you're not. I almost guarantee you are not hitting the correct timings you need to age up, get units out, and be in their base pressuring them, with the proper eco behind. You should look up and watch recorded games of pros playing Russia and mark the exact game times they are doing things like clicking up to age 2, sending their first age 2 shipment, and training their first units. Then, practice and replicate that. There's no reason you can't get out 5 cossacks and 5 muskets the same time Kaiserklein does; the difference between us and him is what he does with them after. But if you can do that for starters and then also play the right cards after, you will jump way past 800 elo and probably end up in the 1200 range, because other people at your level will not be anywhere close to hitting those timings.
Here, see if you can replicate the first 6 minutes of this game, with LordRaphael playing Russia:

he has 5 cossacks and 5 muskets out and in the opponents base between 5:20 and 5:30. If you can copy that, every other 800 ELO shitter you face will just insta-resign.


2. you think you're managing idle time, but you're not. I'm around 1400 ELO and I still will watch recs of my gameplay and realize I wasn't training villagers for a moment or I was letting villagers idle sometimes, so I absolutely guarantee you are doing the same. You TC should NEVER be idle, it should always be either producing villagers or aging, as a general rule. This is a little trickier as Russia though, because sometimes you do actually need to idle your TC early in the game in order to get units out to pressure, since your early game is so food heavy. But if you're asking about how to play in Fortress, then you definitely need to make sure you're macroed correctly for constant villager production. And make sure your gathering villagers aren't just standing around.

3. you think you're macroing correctly, but you're not. You need to also study the pros to see how they distribute villagers in order to keep the appropriate ratios of resources at hand, and then you need to SPEND those resources. As Russia, this means making a second blockhouse or a stable with your 700w shipment to keep production rolling. If you go into a fight with 1k resources in the bank, that's 1k resources that is not turned into units that you could have had. At your level, no one is microing fights, they are just smashing their units together, so having as many units as possible at any time is always going to benefit you.

If you can improve these three things, you can definitely hit 1200 ELO. Once you're there, you will start hitting another skill cap where you will start losing games because of things like unit composition, positioning, scouting, or getting hit with a counter-strategy, but don't worry about those things as much for now, imo.

Thank you so much for such a detailed reply. As you said, I didn't have problems with the first point. I was at his base by around 5:30 with 5 cossacks and 5 muskets but your second and third points could be a problem for me. :) Even though by 20 minutes, I had around 60 villagers and had built multiple blockhouses all over the map and two stables, all on hotkeys with constant production. It's funny that when I looked at the post-game graph, I had gathered more resources and (more military units) than the Japanese guy but still lost.

It's true my macro is far from perfect but the Japanese player too hadn't shrine boomed so I find it a little ironical that I lost lol!

I love watching how pros play and replicating those build orders against AI. It's strange that I'm able to crush the hardest and the extreme AI using the same strategies but struggle online.

I tried to re-upload the recordings but failed again. If you want, I can email you the recordings so that you can have a look and let me know where I went wrong. Would be much appreciated. :)

Email them to me: [email protected]

I'm no pro but should be able to help

[Veer_84]

Email them to me: [email protected]

I'm no pro but should be able to help

E-mailed you the recordings. My e-mail address is [email protected]. :)

[Challenger_Marco]

You guys should share e-mails in DM and not here & @Veer_84 join discord i can help you out.

[CR_Joops]

I got an out of sync message on the recordings he sent. very annoying