Strategies
Border Flank Strategy

This strategy is designed to apply military pressure on your opponent's weak point (his Capital City or another large economic City). While it leaves your own Cities somewhat vulnerable, you will be striking at the heart of the opponent's nation whereas your opponent will only do slight damage if he takes one of your vulnerable Cities. It doesn't have to be started in Medieval/Gunpowder Age, although it tends to work best around those times. It also works best against players who build their Cities in a straight line toward you. If they build Cities sideways, it makes flanking much more difficult.

Setup your economy mostly as normal, but ensure you'll have enough Metal income to afford building 2 Forts. You'll also need a lot of Food to afford 2 Civic techs and 2 new Cities - as well as at least 3 Citizens to fast build those Cities. You'll know the time is right to initiate this strategy when each player has created 2-3 Cities and the borders are squashed in the center. This strategy works best against opponents who are trying to aggressively advance in ages.

The first step is to research a Civic tech and construct an additional City on the far corner of your territory. Your aim here is to circle around your opponent's territory. Construct a Temple as soon as that City is completed, then send the Citizens forward to build a Fort. By the time your Fort is finished, hopefully you have collected enough Food for the next Civic tech because you will want to immediately construct an additional City that flanks the opponent's territory even more.

While constructing the 2nd City, it's usually very helpful to send out some distracting attacks. Any of these three distraction attacks can work, and you'll probably want to use a couple of them:

• Horse Archer Raiding: Raid the opponent with a horse archer attack on the far side (the side of his territory without your border push). This will focus his concentration away from your insidious border flank.
  
  
• Create a small skirmish attack force: This force will focus your opponent's attention on your Fort. You create a small, fast army of a few Light Cavalry and run in to raid the City nearest to your Fort. When the opposing player brings his army to defend, fall back to the Fort to let him know it's there. Oftentimes after seeing this Fort, the enemy will spend a lot of time and resources sieging that Fort. He will probably take it down, but by that time his Capital will be in serious trouble.
  
  
• Spies: Best used in conjunction with the small skirmish force, have your Spies bribe any siege he uses to attack your Fort. Spies in general are a great way to harass someone who doesn't have Scouts or other forms of detection.

Once that second City is finished, construct another Fort as close as possible to your opponent's capital City. If everything has gone well to this point, you won't even be able to place this Fort at the edge of your borders - you'll receive the message saying that you can't build Forts that close to enemy Cities. As you start your Fort, you'll want to also create a Temple at the nearby City and a bunch of Military buildings (Barracks, Stables, and the like). Start training an army as fast as possible, and then begin sieging his capital City. If he tries to launch an attack on your vulnerable rear Cities, he will probably succeed in taking one - however your advantageous position will allow you to capture his capital! At that point, all you'll have to do is wait out the timer and win the game while fortifying your position there. If he doesn't attack your rear Cities, then you've succeeded in spending very little on their defense, while each of them is booming nicely. At the same time, you'll be sieging his capital and doing some significant economic damage to him if you manage to get him to garrison his capital long enough.

Counter Strategies

This section explains ways to counter strategies that players have a hard time against.

Russian Attrition

Attrition can reduce glorious armies to shambles if you're not careful, especially in the case of Russian Attrition. The first step in dealing with Russian Attrition is to realize it exists and don't make any attack unless you're aware of the consequences. It's possible to raid a Russian without supply wagons, but it usually doesn't last that long.

Second, Russians don't receive any economic bonuses until Industrial Age. You'll probably have an economic bonus that will give you a better economy than the Russian player, so don't be afraid to use this to gain an early lead. You probably won't be able to tech un-harassed, but just avoid feeling obligated to run right into Russian territory - it hurts and should be entered only when you're prepared.

So how do you prepare? Well, first of all you'll want to make sure you have multiple Supply Wagons. Don't expect 1 supply wagon to last a long time in Russian Territory because your Russian opponent will no doubt attempt to intercept it. Build 2-3 and immediately begin construction on more if your supply wagons at the battle begin to die off. Of course, any extra time you spend saving your supply wagons during battle will pay off in avoiding a lot of attrition damage later on.

Make sure your army has a strong counter to Light Cavalry (either Heavy Infantry or Heavy Cavalry will work). You're almost guaranteed to see some Russian unique Light Cavalry (Rusiny Lancers) charging towards your supply wagons. Creative players will surround their Supply Wagons with pikemen or create strategic walls of pikemen to block off the path the Russian player will use to flank you.

Lastly, don't be intimidated by Russian border push. Get 3 cities up in a timely manner and ensure that each is next to resources that you want to control. A 4th city is a good idea if you can afford it. At some point during the game, it's likely the Russian's border will begin pressing heavily against your territory, but since each of your cities is right next to the resources you want to control, you probably won't be pushed off of many mountains or forests! Don't be intimidated and rush into an attack you're not prepared for it.

Russian Attrition is powerful, but predictable. When something is predictable, you can take steps to counter it effectively.

Cavalry Archers

Building 1-2 Light Cavalry early in the game can save you a lot of pain if you know your opponent will raid with Cavalry Archers. In particular, when you're facing a Mongol player you should always amass a sizable amount of Light Cavalry early in the game. Light Cavalry does very well against Cavalry Archers and is also one of the only units fast enough to catch them. It's often useful to simply send a single Light Horse to the center of your territory so he can respond rapidly to attacks no matter which direction they come from (add him to a control group if it helps you react quicker).

Archers are also rather effective against Cavalry Archers, though Archers are much slower and so you don't have the ability to chase down the Cavalry Archers. Archers will soundly defeat Cavalry Archers though, so if you only have a Barracks up, you can make them in a pinch.

Attrition techs make raiding easier to deal with, though they won't rid you of the threat entirely. It will mean your opponent's Cavalry Archers will be weaker by the time your Light Cavalry reaches them, allowing you to finish them off much quicker. Unless your opponent researches the secondary Smelter technology Forage, his units will constantly be

Remember to garrison your Citizens when Cavalry Archers are near. Better players learn to garrison only the Citizens that are threatened by the Cavalry Archers. If the Cavalry Archer is on one side of your City, there's usually not much reason to garrison the Citizens on the safer side. This prevents raiding from doing as much damage to you.

• Garrison Citizens rapidly.
  
  
• Build towers at strategic locations, but not more than 2-3 overall.
  
  
• Try to build strategically (buildings should be in range of towers/cities).

Spies

If your opponent is investing heavily into Spies, you should immediately begin training Scouts at your Barracks. The Scout line is extremely good against Spies, not only having Counterintelligence (which instantly kills enemy Spies) but also being immune to Bribery. Just be careful the player using spies doesn't counter with some creative strategy of his own. For example, he may try to send his army to kill all of your Scouts first, and then move his Spies in to grab your units. You can counter this counter strategy by keeping a close eye on your own Scouts and only bringing them into battle when they're needed to prevent Bribing.

The Scout himself spots invisible units, so Spies will end up being shot by your army anyway (if he has an army nearby, you'll have to specifically order your troops to attack the spies if you want to make sure they die early).

In the rare situation where your opponent goes entirely for Spies, simply stop making normal military units and create only Scouts.

Heavy Infantry rush

One of the most aggressive early attacks a player can make is a Heavy Infantry Rush. This involves about 5 Heavy Infantry usually with mild Light Infantry support. To counter this strategy, try to get a Tower up behind your City if you have time and ensure you have a Barracks up. If you haven't researched Military I already, ensure that you train yourself to immediately research it if you see this rush approaching, since you need it to construct Towers and Barracks.

Garrison any Citizens who aren't working on the Tower and train a few Archers to begin attacking his Hoplites. Archers do very well against Hoplites, but generally players who do this type of rush also bring a few Light Infantry to counter your Archers, so be prepared to garrison them in the Tower or City if they are low on hitpoints. Ungarrison when they've healed or if you think the enemy is no longer watching (often you can pop out, sneak in a few extra hits, and pop back in. It's also wise to command your City or Tower to shoot the Light Infantry - they take more damage from City and Tower arrows than Heavy Infantry does.

When a City is reduced to 0 hitpoints, your opponent still has to outnumber the amount of troops you have at that City in order to capture it. It's important to know that Towers and Forts built right next to Cities count as units in this situation. Towers count as about 2 units and Forts as about 5. This means that for your opponent to capture a City that has a Tower near it, he has to bring 3 units to that City.

Aztecs (Aztec rushes and in general)

Countering the Aztec bonus can be tricky at times, since Aztec players like to design strategies that force their opponent to battle them with units. Probably the most important thing to do is to actively realize that your opponent will receive resources for every kill his units make and avoid sending your units to their deaths. To this end, the first thing you should do is utilize healing more often. Garrison your wounded troops inside Barracks and Stables and pop them back out when they're healed (researching Herbal Lore techs is a good idea if you have the spare resources).

Stable units tend to work better against Aztecs, particularly Heavy Cavalry if you can afford it. Primarily because of the speed of these units, you're able to retreat them to heal faster and prevent them from dying.

Overall, your strategy against Aztecs should be designed to try to avoid as many casualties as possible. One method of doing this is to utilize the economic bonuses your nation has in order to tech ahead of the Aztecs (who have no economic bonus) so that when you do encounter them you have military units an age higher in technology level. By doing this, you'll suffer fewer losses and give fewer resources away. Certainly, building more Towers and Forts than usual can help you accomplish this (just don't go overboard).

Note that intentionally disbanding your own unit with the Del key won't rob the Aztec player of the resources he would earn. However, if you absolutely know a unit will die you can disband them prior to the unit getting attacked and avoid giving away the resources. An example of this is if you see Aztec cavalry closing on the position of one of your Merchants or another very slow unit that isn't likely to make it to safety in time. Just be reasonable: winning a battle is much more important than saving one or two units from dying.

» Strategy Index