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BASIC STRATAGIES 1#: |
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RLF_Misinformed's Basic DM Strat Guide #1 HOT KEYS
I've only been on the Zone about 4 months, so I'm not exactly an expert. But this is what I've learned over the past 4 months. I'll try to keep the articles short and sweet.
HOT KEYS
If you don't use hot keys, you will die. It's really that simple. If you're afraid to touch the keyboard, you are playing the wrong game. DM is a game of speed more than anything else, and without hotkeys, you are just WAY too slow.
My brother, Turrican2rox, refuses to learn the hotkeys also. But he at least uses a few basic ones, which are the most important.
1. SHIFT - Holding down the shift key while building units allows you to queue up 5 at a time rather than 1. Since you almost never make 1 of anything in DM, this key gives you an %80 increase in speed. You MUST use at least this. Or you will simply spend too much time going around to buildings trying to build an army. Also, holding down SHIFT while building a building allows you to build the building multiple times. Without this, you'll spend a good portion of the game building houses and farms.
2. H SHIFT-C-C-C - You start off every game with this combo. 'H' selects your town center (think 'H'ome) and holding down shift lets you build 5 at a time. 'C' creates a villager. You instantly have your TC queued up with 15 vils. You've just saved yourself 4 seconds. And in the beginning, every second counts.
3. 'Z' - The Patrol command. One of the greatest flaws of AoC is that it has no Attack-Move command. Meaning that your army, once given a move order, mindlessly goes to that point, ignoring enemies, castles, and towers on the way. I've seen many a rook lose a giant army simply because it walks right through an enemy army, without attacking back. The 'Z' patrol key tells your army to go to the point you select, and return to its original starting position. BUT on the way they will attack any enemies they find. I'm not sure how you would even attack without it . . .
Basically, you select your army, and 'z' them behind the enemy troops. The problem is that if you kill the army, they return to their original position. But its a lot better than your troops dying because they were too stupid to kill small groups of units on the way.
4. '.' The period key selects idle villagers. Economy is ultimately the key to winning AoC, and keeping those idle vils working helps your economy.
Knowing all the hotkeys for buildings and units and stances and formations will make you much faster, but these are the most important to learn.
If you really enjoy AoC, and plan on playing it awhile and getting better it might be worth your time to redefine your hotkeys. Mine are redefined to keep the most necessary keys within easy reach of my left hand. Trying to hit a right handed key in the middle of a battle can cause you to look down for a sec, and that might be the one sec where his seige onager flattens all your archers. The problem with my setup is that I don't like reaching the arrow keys, which really help in keeping track of large battles and scrolling around quickly.
If you're not using any hotkeys at all, the rest of the articles will be pretty pointless. You just won't be able to get started quick enough, militarily or economically.
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BASIC STRATAGIES 2#: |
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RLF Misinformed's Basic Strat Guide #2
Starting out, the first few minutes.
Your goal in the beginning is always one of two things:rush or defend against a rush. Even in no rush rookie games it's a good idea to plan on defending against a rush because there are so many people who like to ignore rules.
The problem is knowing what to build. Defending against a rush requires you to know what civs you are fighting. If the civs are picked, make a note of any enemy rush civs. If it's random, hit 'alt-d' to bring up the diplomacy window. The diplomacy window shows everone's civ. The 'rush civs' are huns, goths and mayans. These are the hardest rushes to fight off. Chinese and Spanish can also get going pretty quick. For that matter, if you're a non-treadmill crane civ, any treadmill crane civ can screw you up in the beginning, slowing you down, and losing you a lot of early ground. Treadmill crane is the tech that lets vils build 25% faster. You've probally noticed how some civs seem to build a lot faster than others, and this tech is why.
TC civs include: Aztecs, Chinese (not really, but they get 6 vils), Franks, Goths, Huns (plus they dont need houses), Koreans, Mayans (plus they get an extra vil), Saracens, Spanish (actually -30% build time), Teutons, and Turks.
non-TC civs (slow) are: Britons, Byzantines, Japanese, Mongols, Persians, and Vikings.
Trying to rush with one of the slow civs is not a good idea. And if you are a slow civ and there is a Hun, Goth, or Mayan on the other team, you could be in serious trouble.
Basically, if you're expecting a Goth or Mayan rush, build champs. For a Hun rush, build halbs and/or camels.
Aside from this, halbs are usually a good thing to build in the beginning because paladin rushes are so powerful. They also work great against camels.
You scout is very important in this process. When you find the enemy, you need to take note of their civ. In team games it is critical that you know what civ you are closest too. Your scout should also make a note of the military buildings the enemy is working on. For example, if the enemy is Spanish, and his first military buildings are barracks, and he has a halb kill you're scout, you're pretty safe from being rushed. If he has 7 stables being built, and a paladin kills your scout, there could be trouble. He's likely to paladin rush. Your scout should give you the basic idea of what you need to build.
How to build:
To start, you want to queue up vils in tc (H SHIFT-C-C-C), lay down the frames for several military buildings with one vil, get another vil to join him on the first building then get a vil working on houses. You want both vils working on the same military building in the beginning so you can get it up asap to kill the enemy scout cav who is gonna pay you a visit. After this, send you scout cav around the enemy gold mines to find his base and pay him a visit.
Build your intial military buildings in a circle around your tc so your vils can get right to work after popping out of your town center. And keep your vils spread out, with only one vil per building. Each additional vil you add to building only decreases the build time by 25%, not 50% like you might think.
Here's how it works: A barracks takes 50 seconds to build with one vil. Add another, and it will take (50-25%) 37.5 seconds. Add one more, and it will take (37.5-25%) 28.1 seconds. With four vils working on same building, it will take 21.0 seconds. So if you have four vils and want four barracks, building them one at a time will take 4 x 21 = 84 seconds. Spreading them out, the four rax will take 50 seconds. A half minute can make a giant difference in the beginning.
Keep laying down new frames so your vils will automatically go to work on them rather than sitting around idle.
DO NOT build castles with your first few vils. In the time you can build one castle, that same vil could've built you four military buildings. The exception to this is clumping, which I'll cover in another article.
To sum up: Take note of enemy civs. Get first building up fast. Then spread vils out
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