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Age of Empires : Strategy guide

Guide To The Races

Assyrian

The extra speed possessed by Assyrian villagers gives a very good advantage early on in the game, and this makes them a great choice on smaller maps where a strong economy can be developed quickly and easily.  This is backed up by the high fire rate of their archers.

To succeed with the Assyrians, you need to use your amphetamine-abusing villagers to advance you to the Tool Age as soon as possible.  From here, you can build a barracks and an archery range to produce bowman.  This is a good time for the Assyrians to attack, or you can push on toward the Bronze Age and research the improved bow, then upgrade to composite bowman.  If you wait much longer to attack, you are likely to struggle, as other races will overtake you in the endgame when more powerful units become available.


Babylonian

The Babylonians come into their own in situations where you need to build and hold a Wonder.  Their dwarf-like abilities at mining mean you can acquire the necessary stone much more quickly than other races.  With stronger walls and towers than the opposition, they are in a very good position to repel the onslaughts that occur when construction of a Wonder commences.  By sticking a couple of priests inside your city defenses, you can make quick conversions of the enemy.  The Babylonians are vulnerable early in the game.


Choson

The Choson need to get to the Iron Age as soon as possible.  Once this has been achieved, they can start producing some very durable, high-quality infantry.  This, combined with cheap priests, can make them a formidable foe if used correctly.

Use the long swordsmen and legion as a screen to soak up enemy punishment.  Behind them, form a group of at least five priests, if possible, to both heal your infantry and convert some of the enemy to your cause.  Until the Iron Age is reached, the only asset of the Choson is the range of their towers, so defense is the order of the day.


Egyptian

The Egyptians can win any religious war.  Advance to the Bronze Age as quickly as possible.  From here on in, they are in a strong position.  Egyptian chariots, and especially chariot archers, are the ideal priest hunters, combining good speed with high resistance to conversion and attack bonuses.  This makes the wheel one of their primary objectives.  With a good eye for gold, they can create fair number of their own priests, and with the additional conversion range, most opponents will soon be rushing to join their ranks.


Greek

Speed is the key with the Greeks.  In the latter stages of a game, they can produce some of the quickest and most powerful infantry units.  They also have the quickest warships.  Hit-and-run tactics provide the best way for the Greeks to achieve any military goals.  At sea they can attack at will, then outrun the enemy retreating to a home coast when they are severely damaged.

Use a villager to quickly repair the boat, then return to the fray.  A similar principle can be used on land, using your phalanx and centurion units to inflict heavy casualties.  Keep priests well to the rear, and retreat your infantry to be healed by the priests before the enemy catches up with them.


Hittite

Sturdy siege engines are the Hittites' claim to fame, and the secret to their success.  With this in mind, they have to focus on taking out enemy buildings rather than merely concentrating on enemy forces.  It is often well worth sacrificing groups of stone throwers by sending them toward enemy villages unaccompanied.  You can use them to take out economic targets, so that the Hittites can then establish an economic advantage.

Once this advantage has been achieved, you can employ large forces of missile troops, as all units produced at the archery range have an attack bonus.  They should then be able to advance, raining down arrows on an already diminished opponent.  If you accompany this with more catapults, and this time take out military installations, success should be swift and certain.


Minoan

As any good Englishman knows, to build a successful empire, you need to rule the waves.  The Minoans knew it as well.  Their cheap production of boats means that they can easily dominate in any coastal or island-based scenario.  Build warships to control all the trade routes, then build merchant vessels to trade food for gold.  The increased production from farms means they can stand the loss of food, and the gold can be used to develop a powerful religious or military force.  Never trade wood - all you do is supply your opponent with the means to build a bigger fleet than you.


Persian

Stone Age Persians are in an extremely good position because of their hunting ability.  This food bonus turns to disadvantage in the Tool Age, as their farms have poor production.  Try and hold your own at sea so that you can fish in safety to supplement your food supply.  You should concentrate on surviving until you reach the Iron Age.  From here, you need to try to plough all of your resources into producing war elephants and elephant archers.  With the Persian bonus for speed, these units become amongst the most formidable on the battlefield.


Phoenician

This is another race that needs to bide its time.  None of its advantages come into play until the Iron Age.  But fortunately, the Phoenicians suffer from no disadvantages early on to hamper their progress through the ages.  Like the Persians, they should focus on elephants as soon as they become available.  Lacking the pace of the Persian beasts, they make up for it with sheer weight of numbers.  Add to this quick-firing Juggernauts at sea, and it should be apparent that if you are going to defeat the Phoenicians, you need to make a quick kill.


Shang

Cheap villagers and strong walls - not the most inspiring or exciting race to play, but the Shang can make dangerous opponents.  They are most effective in defensive situations, such as constructing a Wonder, or defending artifacts.  Their cheap villagers give them an edge early on, and they can build a solid economic base from which to progress.  This race is one of the few where the priests should consider researching Jihad.  Often fighting off enemy hordes, they find themselves in a position where cheap expendable fighting villagers are an asset and usually operate from a sound supply base, so they can tolerate the drawbacks that go with Jihad.


Sumerian

There are no runts in Sumerian litters.  The high constitution of their villagers assists with survival in the Stone Age.  Once they reach the Tool Age they have but a single objective: to build a market, then farm for all their worth.

The huge farming bonus will ensure massive stockpiles of food, which can be employed any way you choose to good effect.  They can accentuate this advantage by using their quick-firing siege engines to demolish enemy supply sources.  Once economic superiority has been established, use weight of numbers to overwhelm the enemy.


Yamato

One of the most powerful and impressive all-round races, the Yamato have strength in depth.  Quick villagers ensure economic success.  Stoutly built ships enable you to compete at sea.  Military encounters can usually succeed due to a full range of cheap cavalry from scout to cataphract.  Develop a well-balanced civilization using all these assets, and the Yamato are sure to do well.


General Strategies

Building Wonders

Though there are many different paths to success in Age of Empires, one of the surest routes to world domination in a single or multi-player game is to build a wonder.  If built and held for 2000 years, a wonder will result in an automatic victory for your civilization, but a few prerequisites must be satisfied before you're able to begin construction: You must be in the Iron Age (the last of the four ages), and you must have completed construction of a government center.  Once both of these feats have been accomplished, a wonder is available for building.  But just like the seven wonders of the ancient world, they prove to be a costly enterprise.  You must have 1,000 wood, 1,000 gold, and 1,000 stone in your inventory to pay for construction.  If all of those conditions are met, you can set your civilians to the task of building a wonder.

There are some immediate hazards you should be aware of.  As soon as you begin constructing a wonder, a notification message is sent to everyone in the game, and the location of your construction site will be revealed to every player.  If you are able to complete the wonder, another message is sent out to everyone declaring that your civilization will win the game if the wonder stands for 2000 years.  A countdown clock is displayed in the upper right corner of the game screen to show how much time is left for each player's wonder.

To ensure that this monument to your civilization's greatness remains intact long enough to win the game, you'll need to choose a secure location.  Remember that catapults can fire volleys great distances, and trireme catapults can attack inland targets from the water, so use the natural defenses afforded by the surrounding landscape to your advantage.


The more civilians, the better!

Once you've selected a site, be sure you have the resources and manpower to see it through to the end - wonders take a very long time to construct.  Make sure you have a steady flow of resources available for a defensive buildup and a lot of free civilians to build the wonder and your defenses faster.  Architecture is a key research item when building a wonder because it decreases the build time.  Be warned: some civilizations do not get an Architecture upgrade.

It's not uncommon to construct a wonder with more than 40 civilians (the Shang have a great advantage in this area due to their reduced-cost civilians).  Make sure you have enough civilians to build your wonder quickly.  If you are in a multi-player team game, coordinate your decision to build a wonder with your teammates so that they can move units over to defend your civilians.

Once a notification of a enemy wonder has been received, don't wait too long to mount an assault against it; those 2,000 years will pass in a hurry (approximately 12 minutes).  It's usually a good idea to destroy an enemy wonder as soon as the first notification goes out, and if you are playing on one of the larger map sizes, it's imperative to launch your major assault with at least 1,500 years left in the game.

If you are defending a wonder, use a lot of towers and walls to create passive defenses.  It's almost always a good idea to completely wall yourself in when protecting a wonder, but you may want to place a few buildings outside of your walls for foraging and offensive actions against enemy capitols.

For defense, place your towers in intelligent groupings (multiple towers in close proximity can concentrate massive firepower on the enemy) and place them close to your walls to fend off attackers.

Large fortified walls and towers will force your enemies to divert their resources to large numbers of hand-to-hand forces or siege weapons in order to breach your defenses, and if you plan properly with a mix of heavily armored ranged units, you can pick them off before they beat their way through your walls.

If your resources allow for additional construction or upgrades after you've begun your wonder, upgrade to ballista towers if possible.  It is difficult to pull off, but games have been won with just ballista towers and cavalry defending wonders; the ballista towers demolish anything that tries to walk by, and small groups of cavalry can be used as siege weapon strike teams to destroy any catapults attacking your towers.  Just be sure you select a civilization that can research ballista towers before you attempt to implement this type of defense.


The Power of Persuasion

With the ability to convert enemy forces into friendly units, priests are also a very effective (and sneaky) defense against invading armies.  Standing behind a good set of walls, a well-trained priest can easily convert enemy troops and give you forces outside your walls.  But certain differences between civilizations can give these units an extra edge.  Egypt has a great bonus for priests (+3 range), making them an excellent wonder-defending race.  The Choson are also very good because they get reduced-cost priests (allowing you to pump out a ton of priests very quickly).


Random Games

When selecting a civilization for a randomly generated game, choose a civilization that is suited for the map type since certain civilizations have advantages and disadvantages depending on terrain.  For example, the Shang do not get any of the triremes, so they're at a disadvantage in a game with a lot of water.  You'll need to experiment to find all of these subtle differences, but it will prove to be worth it.

When exploring a random map, players don't need to venture too far away to get up and running.  You can always expect to find at least one berry site within approximately 15 tiles of your starting town center, so you might want to explore enough of the map to find that site before placing your granary down.  Other resources have similar generalities that you can always count on.

The random map generator does not always place players on opposite ends of the map; if you are in one corner, that does not necessarily mean that your opponent is in the reciprocal position.  So, it's always a good idea to explore early to find out where your opponents' towns are located.

More importantly, understand how the map types are defined: Highland means the map is generated entirely of land or land with a small river cutting through it (the land masses will always be connected by several shallows areas).  An inland map will always have some water in it, but will still always have a single, unified land mass (though the number of shallows connections will be fewer than in a Highland map).  Coastal maps can have separate continents, so you should always plan on having some method of transporting units across the oceans and use fishing boats as an alternative source of food.

A large island map will have a slim chance of being connected by a shallows bridge, but more often, large islands make up different continents for multiple players.  In many instances, players may share an island.  Small island maps create different islands for each player and are never connected by shallows or land bridges.  As you become familiar with the advantages and disadvantages for each civilization, you'll be more effective on each terrain type.
