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by Gumbo@Zone
Man, oh man! Talk about the thrill of victory and the sheer agony of defeat! Here on the Zone, we enjoy an occasional Age II challenge and of course, the better you are the more you get to gloat. Well, I can tell you first hand that I'm on the losing end after a humbling experience of having my civilization literally bulldozed off the map. I might as well be walking around with a big “L” stamped across my forehead because the loss was just that tragic. And you all know what I'm talking about -- been there done that -- right? But on the flip side, what better way to improve in Age, than by losing to the best and learning from your mistakes.
In this continuing series, we'll look at tried and true Age II game settings, civilization choices and map types and see where mistakes were made, and how to successfully defend and hopefully walk away as the victor!
Game One -- The Loss and Possible Come Back
Here were the game settings:
- Gumbo@Zone: Celts
- Opponent: Chinese
- Map Type: Highlands
- Population Limit: 150
- All other game settings were set to default.
Before the start of the game, I knew my opponent was going to be Chinese with Chu Ko Nu as its unique unit. So the best counterattack unit could either be the Celt's Woad Raider or the Goth's Huskarl. I went with the Celts.
One of the benefits of going with the Celts over the Goths is the Celts' lumberjack units work 15% faster. And playing on a highland map, you want to gain control of the strip of water between you and your opponents -- which means you need a lot of ships patrolling the water. Celts are excellent at gathering wood.
At the start of the game, I immediately sent my scout in search of the little land bridge over the water -- usually there's one or two in Highlands. Once I found it, I had a villager build a palisade wall on my opponent's side, preventing them from leaving their land. Later in the Feudal Age, I'd build a gate with a stone wall. That's one of the common mistakes in Age II; players build walls first and gates afterwards, which is a complete waste of time and resources.
Between the Feudal and Castle Age, I strategically built two docks on either side of the land bridge and created a couple of war galleys, just in case any Chinese opponents started trickling across. But remember, when you create war galleys, you need to protect them with a few fire ships because your opponent's fire ships can cut through war galleys like butter. I also started building my military units near the land bridge -- barracks, archery ranges, cavalry, siege workshops and castles (two castles to be exact).
Then I started cranking out a bunch of skirmishers, knights, trebuchets, and Woad Raiders and started going across the land bridge to meet the enemy. No sooner had I made it half way across the land bridge, then my men saw a huge garrisoned castle defended by trebuchets! “Good golly all mighty!” I thought to myself, as my men started moving back across the land bridge. OK, so the thing to do was to take down the castle with trebuchets and launch war galleys to support the attack. This worked really well, because each time my opponent sent military units across to take out my trebuchets, my ships would be on hand to take them out at the land bridge.
Little did I know that this was only a distraction, because my opponent was building his summer getaway in my backyard! That's right, I had just noticed a different color on my side of the map, and I went to attack it immediately! But lo and behold, he already had a castle, town center and loads of archers. FYI, Woad Raiders are no good against archers. A bunch of my lumberjacks were gone, and most of my men were caught in the fight at the land bridge. This was a huge mistake on my part, not being protective enough of my own land.
Before I knew it, he had slowly started crawling and conquering my turf and there was nothing to do but surrender.
So the moral of the story is this, when on Highlands:
- Protect yourself by building a wall on the land bridge.
- Control the water with war galleys and have fire ships to protect.
- Make sure your opponent is not on your turf, by either building houses or towers at various places on the map.
- Try to transport over and build in their backyard.
- Try mining your opponent's other gold source.
- When attacking with trebuchets, have military standing close by to protect your trebuchets. Make sure your trebuchets are in range of the target. If not, hit P to pack up the trebuchets and relocate them.
- When in battle against the Chinese Chu Ko Nu, go head-to-head with either a Woad Raider, Huskarls, or skirmishers.
- If you can break through to your opponent's town, send a combination of cavalry archers and knights to scout ahead to find and take out as many villagers as possible. Be careful of garrisons, towers, town centers and castles!
If you'd like to share any lost battles and lessons learned, e-mail your story to zmaster@Microsoft.com.
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