Quite the discussion. But no obvious solution. My proposal: a Challenge Game to see who can reach the Enlightenment Age first. If someone wants to propose a different victory condition, that's fine too. See which build pattern can achieve the earliest time! The game is posted at Carch's Site o' Fun. You'll need to load it into your saved game directory (default is My documents/My Games/Rise of Nations/ or something like that) Post your best time and upload the film somewhere. (We'll find it.)

UPDATE: The map is all visible, civ bonuses are disabled, and the game is non-violent, so it will be all about which method is the most efficient. You can pause as much as you like (not that it will help much).

May the best strategy win.
posted by Tim at 10:56 PM

Okay. We discussed this earlier a little bit. The "experts" say you should do SCI2 -> COM2 -> CIV2 before CLASSICAL. I'm not so sure. I've run a few tests, and I get better econ and development by going CLASSICAL before any of the level 2 techs. It's only about 8% more (as measured in total resources) but it grows because you'll be almost a full minute ahead of the standard boom. It also enables you to insert an easy MIL1 into your strategy at any point in time. This is partialy dependent on finding good spots (obviously) and more work needs to be done, but I think this works better. Of course, rares and ruins can change all that; we'll see what develops.

More later.
posted by Tim at 9:39 PM

Brendoman linked to us. It's neat getting random links from fellow bloggers; that's how the blogosphere works. Perhaps more people will get hooked on RON.
posted by Tim at 9:31 PM

RON Revolution links to the strategic stagnation over at Apolyton.

Have we reached the end of strategic innovation in RoN? Out4Blood's Apolyton thread on the subject has grown into quite a discussion.

posted by Tim at 6:32 AM

Just took a look at some games of mine and compared the economic performance of my rushes with the economic performance of some "notable" players during the same period to gauge whether the theoretical numbers I posted earlier were accurate. As my base example, I used the
Clash of the Titans: TWC Shadowz vs Mossar Grunt game. At each point in time, I paused the game and viewed achievements to see how they were doing economically. Shadowz's econ numbers looked like this:

Time    Total
1 min    212
2 min    593
3 min    1017
4 min    1577
5 min    2053

Notable points:

• Both players had a second town by 2:02


• Both players had researched MIL1 by 3:48 (Grunt came in at 3:39)


• His library tech order was SCI1, CIV1, COM1, SCI2, MIL1, CLASS, MIL2, COM2, CIV2, SCI3

I then took a look at a few of my games and chose an example rush which demonstrated typical resource levels:

Time    Total
1 min    217
2 min    540
3 min    799
4 min    1073
5 min    1398

Notable points:

• I have 3 HI in or near enemy territory by 2:00


• I'm hitting the capital before 3:00


• Capital is sacked before 4:00


• My library tech order is MIL1, COM1, SC1 (after sack bonus), CIV1

As you can the difference in economies is actually more favorable to the attacker than our theoretical assumption of a straight boomer. This is probably due to the early MIL1 research by these two players. But as you can see, it would not have been early enough to stop the sack. At 4:00, the difference in resources is just over 500. But after sacking the capital, the attacker would be 1000 to the good. Meanwhile, don't forget to add the impact razing the economic buildings will have - attacker gets salvage and defender has to rebuild them. Consider the theoretical case of the 5:00 capital sack. At 5:00, the resource delta is 655. So the attacker is still almost 850 ahead. So the previously posted theory looks pretty solid.

Another interesting note is the possibility of a quick attack on the second town at the 2:00 mark. This is less devastating than going after the capital, but it also has a higher chance of victory. There's no chance of a temple. There's fewer villagers who can garrison or repair the city. And you will be attacking almost a full minute before the capital attack. While it seems absurd to pass up the sack bonus, the possibility of taking and holding this town is pretty high. The opponent will probably still be stuck at +60/60 econ and you can send villagers to repair the town and use it as a forward base. Not to mention that you've created a 240 resource differential. You've gotten a town for free while he's still got to build another and go MIL1 and build a barracks right away.
posted by Tim at 10:04 PM

And there was much rejoicing. Yeeeeaaaa.....
posted by Tim at 7:20 PM

Over at Heaven's Forum, I posted a new article on Resource equalization during early rushes.

It's useful to look at the differences in economy during the rush period. These will be rough because I'm not in front of the game. They can be easily be verified, however, if someone has sharp disagreement.

Let's assume the rusher is able to sack the capital in 5 minutes. We can break apart the first 5 minutes into segments:

• min 0-1


• min 1-4


• min 4-5


• ruin differential


• sack bonus

Min 0-1
Let's assume equal development up to about the 1 min mark. Let's also ignore ruins for the moment. So for the first minute, both civs get max farms and wood (max 5 for the Jap). So we're looking at +70/60 for a Jap and Egypt and +60/60 for other civs (+10 or so for the other civs that have resource bonuses: Romans, Greeks, etc.) So during the first minute, resources are about equal. So ignore this portion.

Min 1-4
During the next 3 minutes (6 econ periods) the rusher is no longer developing his economy, but rather spending resources on troops and walking them to the enemy. His econ stays stagnant at +70/60 or +130 total. The defender continues booming, making a second city, getting a market and maybe some rares and upping his econ. He's likely to be at +120-130 food (10 farms + 2 cities + a rare maybe) and +120-130 wood (10 choppers + 2 cities + a rare maybe) and around +20-40 wealth (a caravan + a rare maybe + Roman bonuses if there). So he'll be on a ramping glide path up to about an econ of +250-300 resources per 30 sec. The incremental difference between the civs will be equal to the area under the line, which is roughly a triangle. Therefore resource delta = 1/2*h*w = 1/2*(250-130)*6 = 360 resources up to a max of 510.

Min 4-5
During minute 4 (2 econ periods), let's assume (for the sake of argument) that the defender doesn't have to sacrifice ANY economy to defend. Let's also assume that the attacker doesn't gear up his econ in anyway. (During this period, I'll usually research SCI1, CIV1, and COM1, to be ready to spend the bonus resources on going classical and getting the level 2 techs.) So the defender will get the full benefit of the differential from 4 min to 5 min. Therefore resource delta = h*w = (250-130)*2 = 240 resources up to a max of 340.

Ruins
This is more complicated, but the defender will get 50-65 for each ruin, while the attacker will get only 25, but will get a few extra ruins from sending troops through the middle of the map. Average extra pickup I've experienced during this is anywhere from 2-4 extra ruins. So let's say 5-7 ruins for the defender, and roughly 5-8 for the attacker. Defender would have 250-350 bonus resources in first 5 minutes and attacker would have 125-200. Total differential could be anywhere from 50 to 225 resources.

Sack bonus
Sacker gets 500 in food, timber and wealth. For +1500 resources.

Adding it all up
So the resource deltas are:

• min 0-1 = 0


• min 1-4 = 360-510 to defender


• min 4-5 = 240-340 to defender


• ruin = 50-225 to defender


• sack bonus = 1500 to attacker

Assuming worst case for defender, attacker ends up with 850 more resources after 5 min. Assuming worst case for attacker (but he still takes capital), attacker ends up with 425 more resources after 5 min.

Conclusion
Even after this, of course, the game is not yet over. A wise attacker will either 1) finish off the other town while holding the capital (difficult) or 2) gear up economy after sending initial wave of troops and slingshot his economy with the sack bonus. The good attackers will also be razing as many enemy econ structures as he can before he loses the capital. This effectively puts post-sack econs at about par. Meanwhile the defender needs to retake the capital and rebuild his economy.

Can an attacker still lose after sacking a capital? Of course. But it seems to be worthwhile given the resource equalization impact. When I get an opportunity, I'll confirm through additional games the resource numbers that I see.
posted by Tim at 10:44 AM

So I have remarked the comments javascript until they get back online.
posted by Tim at 6:55 PM

For those looking for information that will help beat the AI on toughest, there's a lengthy thread at Apolyton titled Beating the Toughest AI. If you're really wanting to see examples of smashing them dead, check out The Quick and the Dead where we see who can kill them the fastest. Fastest time was 52 seconds. Recorded games included.
posted by Tim at 6:46 PM

In a review article from last month's USATODAY, Nick Wadham writes that RON lacks originality.

It's been over 12 years since the world was introduced to so-called 'real-time strategy' games. The premise is this: Little men harvest resources such as timber and gold to pay for buildings, which produce more little men, which go and kill other little men.

The formula hasn't changed much, even after the release of dozens of new titles. And just like faithful old Maggie, gamers still come when called, expecting a bone. More often than not, they don't get one.
So it is with Rise of Nations, a $49.99 title published by Microsoft that looks good and plays smoothly, but offers nothing innovative to the tired real-time strategy genre

I'd say this is pretty inaccurate journalism. It's clear he hasn't doesn't his homework - RON has quite a few innovative features for a RTS game. However, it's also clear, he didn't find the game "fun."

Is RON fun? Are RTS games in general fun? Do RTS games have any real future? If so, what will it look like? Hmmmmmm...
posted by Tim at 12:33 PM

TuF_Astator is the winner of the most recent MFO SMACKDOWN! event

First, the ultimate winner of the tourney itself is Astator aka TuF_Astator. Grats to Ast for playing well and winning all along!

Congratulations. (As the original founder of MFO SMACKDOWN! many years ago, I'm happy to see that it has continued.)
posted by Tim at 11:50 AM

I just stumbled across an electronic version of The Art of Computer Game Design. Written by Chris Crawford back in 1982, it still remains an insightful book on gaming and game design.

The central premise of this book is that computer games constitute a new and as yet poorly developed
art form that holds great promise for both designers and players.

This premise may seem laughable or flippant. How could anybody classify the likes of SPACE INVADERS and PAC MAN as art? How can TEMPEST or MISSILE COMMAND compare with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Michelangelo's Pieta, or Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms? Computer games are too trivial, too frivolous to be called art. They are idle recreation at best. So says the skeptic.

posted by Tim at 9:18 AM

In this thread over at the Heaven's Forum, we're discussing scouting and someone suggested (and was quickly shot down) a 2 scout strategy.

Determing whether to build an early 2nd scout is not that easy. While the cost intially looks pretty steep, there are multiple intangible benefits:

• A second scout brings in additional ruins you might not otherwise get. You'd probably need 4-5 extra ruins to make up the difference. Additionally, a scout heavy start might benefit from an early SCI2, depending on the number of ruins on the map. A third scout might also be cost-effective if you could bring in an extra 3 more ruins


• You can steal ruins from your opponent - giving him less resources (every ruin you get that he didn't get effectively doubles the difference in resources)


• You're safe from the rush - you've already researched MIL1 and have a barracks up


• You'll find rares earlier, which might influence later play (setting up cities, tailoring economy to benefit, using more merchants to capture, etc.)


• Enemy may assume you're rushing and devote resources to defense


• You could pump some HI and actually do a rush, or just feint a rush with a couple HI


• You'll have better scouting of the enemy and can improve strategy planning

Overall, I wouldn't rule it out. It's probably very map specific and less dependable than straight booming.
posted by Tim at 7:00 AM

Buckets makes a good point on the strategic stagnation of RON

The gist of it is that rock-paper-scissors is a very boring and vacuous game because it is too balanced. If all three options are equally viable, there is actually no strategy. So then at least one option must be somehow superior, to start the domino effect of counters.

I think he's right about the economy. It's very hard to really hurt someone's economy. Even if you capture a city and force all the villagers away, they are still likely to be at cap for almost everything, apart from knowledge, of course.
posted by Tim at 10:54 PM

We were reminded by Buckets of this excellent site recently on the Apolyton forum: Sirlin.net -- Your source of shocking insights on game design. David Sirlin tells it like it is about gaming and a bit about game design. His most polarizing article is the infamous Playing to Win.
posted by Tim at 10:38 PM

Some people call RON a very "deep" game, as in strategic depth. But I think they're just confusing depth with complexity. RON is a very complex game. There are a lot of things you have to manage. But if you want to win against good players, you pretty much have to manage them the same way every time. So it's complex, but strategically very limiting; the game structure itself limits what is strategically viable. On top of that, the increasing complexity reduces the array of available strategies. What could be a good strategy under ideal conditions might be impossible to execute tactically at normal speed in competitive play conditions, and thus is discarded as a viable alternative.

This is why most recorded games look the same. There are a lot of differences in micro technique, but there are few differences in chosen strategy.

Chess, on the other hand, is a very simple game, but one that has very deep strategy.
posted by Tim at 4:17 PM

There's a post over at Heaven's Forum by mpastor1 about doing a Japanese Early Rush. It follows on the heals of our discussion on how to defend against the rush. There's been much mudslinging and noob-calling because one side believes rushing is viable and others believe it is not viable. (So why do most rated players choose Mayans, eh?) Regardless of who's right, at least there is some discussion of strategy going on.
posted by Tim at 3:19 PM

We survived Hurricane Isabel with only light damage, thankfully. My car narrowly escaped getting crushed by a large oak which fell across the driveway. An even bigger oak fell in the front yard, but went the other way. Power and water are still on, too. Whew.
posted by Tim at 7:50 PM

HalfLotus writes a decent article on Attacking in the Medieval Age.

Medieval Age is a good time to attack because of supply wagons, and because your economy will be developed enough to give you a large advantage after taking an economic city from the enemy. Also because Medieval Age is cool. Supply wagons prevent attrition and, more importantly, double your siege unit’s rate of fire in enemy territory.

It's a little thin on how the opponent might respond and screw up the nice little plan, but it's definitely worth the read.
posted by Tim at 7:33 PM

If you're looking for recorded games to watch of other people playing, there are several sites that offer these. Watching good players play can be very informative. I highly recommend checking out some of these. MFO probably has the highest quality, so I'd start there and choose the games with either the most downloads or the highest ratings.

• MFO: Recorded Games Library


• RTSUK - Building Your RTS Community! -> Rise of Nations Recorded Games


• Rise of Nations Oracle - recorded games


• Infidels Clan recorded games


• C's Site o' Fun - Rise of Nations game section

If I missed any, let me know in the comments.
posted by Tim at 6:57 AM

Description of each map type
MFO has an old article on map types. Despite it's age, it's a handy reference for checking out the various map types. It's a little thin on real strategy for each map, but it's a decent start.
posted by Tim at 8:59 AM

How quickly can you beat the Toughest AI?
Over at Apolyton, Drachen started thread where he encouraged people to post their quickest winning strategies over the toughest AI. We joined in the fun, of course, and thought a 4:00 rush victory would be sufficient. Drachen beat that with a 3:46 win. I gave up, but then he later followed with a 52 second game over the toughest AI! Follow the link and read the thread to see what happened if you can't guess how he did it.
posted by Tim at 8:28 AM

Countering civs
Backwash asked an interesting question

I know there are sites with strats on how to PLAY the different nations, but can you tell me if there's a site or sites with strats on how to play AGAINST each nation?

No, I haven't seen much written about how to deal with a particular civilization. But now that I think about it, it's not too surprising. I don't vary my play that much from one opponent to the next based on their civ. Mayans are an exception - can't rush against them very well. On the other hand, it might be worth thinking about. Any ideas?
posted by Tim at 7:35 AM

Infinite Queue Redux
Dante Havion asks What is Infinite Queue? We already know I am a big fan of the IQ, but the thread leads into when to use it and when not to use it.

I use it on:

• villagers - keeps 'em coming, but saves food for upgrades in the early days


• scholars - just hit uvq uvq uvq every 2 min or so and soon all your universities will be filled


• troops rallied to a general - reinforcements just keep coming - you just have to balance resources with the market


• caravans - ensures I always stay at caravan limit

Using more than that can get you in trouble. Using it less means you could be losing some efficiency.
posted by Tim at 7:34 AM

Blogger sucks!
Blogger is acting buggy. New posts are not being displayed. GRRR
posted by Tim at 7:34 AM

The 150 Rush
TWC_Tannenbaum writes about the 150 rush.

Find your ancient rushes are becoming worthless these days? You want to rush but don't know a good way to do it? I will do my best to give you one of the best guidelines with delayed rushing..... Assuming you are playing a typical random land match the basis of the 150 is to get your commerce cap as close to 150 as possible.

I don't usually do a 150. I either rush from the start in ancient, or I just boom. After reading this article, I might have to try this strategy out sometime. Unfortunately, once I get my econ shwerve on, I tend to keep rolling.
posted by Tim at 2:10 PM

WOW!
I just started this strategy blog and already I've gotten several links from a few other RON sites (without even soliciting). Thanks! I welcome any new visitors, and I hope that I can add to some of the strategy discussions.
posted by Tim at 1:54 PM

How feasible is rushing in RoN?
Speaking of the Infidels... War has a nice article on rushing, which he was kind enough to point out to us.
posted by Tim at 1:30 PM

Good site
Infidels Clan Site
Most of the articles here are of pretty high quality. It's worth checking out.
posted by Tim at 1:26 PM

Beating 7 random teamed toughest AIs
Some people think the toughest AI is too tough. But I think the AI is terrible. The AI cannot handle any type of early rushing attack. Here's an egregious example where I whip up on seven of them. I could post simple rush victories over 1, 2 or even 4 of them. But beating 7 was actually kind of fun. And pretty hard. Granted, if you let the toughest AI build up for 10 minutes, it can be a bear. But I want an AI that will play rough the whole game, without employing any "no-cheese" rules.
posted by Tim at 3:35 PM

Ramping costs in RON
It's the Cheese!
Carch writes about how much he likes RON, ramping costs being a nice "feature."

Combined with a cost-ramping feature which models economy of scale

Cost ramping doesn't model economy of scale. It models diseconomy of scale. As you approach scale, the next unit produced should be cheaper, not more expensive. This is my fundamental gripe with the game. Cost ramping forces everyone to have the same army. Thus, assuming equal tactical handling, victory goes to the one who can produce the biggest army. I'd like to see greater reward placed on army composition choices, and if we're going to model anything, model reality. The first one is VERY HARD to make, then they get cheaper going on from there, down to some minimum cost. Also, I'd add in declining costs based on the elapsed time since the first unit was made.

Imagine if your first heavy infantry unit cost 200 food and 200 timber. The next was 150/150. The third 100/100 and the next was 75/75. And because you made them earlier, later in the game they are much cheaper, as well. This creates all sorts of interesting strategic questions. Instead RON eliminates those and forces everyone to have the same stuff. Talk about BORING!
posted by Tim at 3:27 PM

How to defend against the rush
I still find that the typical on-line players on gamespy are unable to deal with a quick HI rush. I don't rush all the time, but when I have, I've won. About 50% of the time I rush, I win out right by taking both of their towns, or by them resigning. The other 50% of the time I usually manage to capture the capital and, even though they recapture it, use the sack bonus and the disruption of their economy to gain an early advantage - which has always proved fatal. So far.

Given that, I thought I'd discuss techniques for 1)recognizing the early rush, 2)stopping it, and 3)winning the rest of the game.

Recognizing the rush. If the enemy is both late getting to classical AND late making a second city (based on either scouting or territory score), you can assume he's doing an ancient rush. If you're playing conquest victory only (territory score are not shown), scout the enemy early enough (~2:00) so that you can get a sense for whether he's expanded or not. I wouldn't count on finding his barracks. A good rusher won't have the barracks near his town. He'll want it closer to his borders and it could be easy to miss.

Stopping the rush. If you get a sense that he's rushing you (see above), but no hard evidence (i.e., no sign of troops yet), I'd go ahead and research MIL1 and then build a barracks or a stable. I generally don't bother with a tower that early - they are slow to build and level 1 attrition won't save your capital. If you elect NOT to build a barracks, I'd keep a timber reserve of 120 on hand so you can plop one down in a hurry, but this is risky. A good rusher will bring slingers and even maybe an archer to deal with villagers making defenses. It can be tough to get a building up quickly if he catches you in the act, and a few seconds delay can be the difference between winning and losing.

Once you've gotten a barracks up, you should be pretty safe from an out right loss. You'll have a bigger economy and you'll be able to make counters for his troops, so you can eliminate the attacking force and recover any cities he's managed to capture.

Another trick is to use your villagers to make sure the captured cities stay reduced so you can quickly recapture them if you have more troops or if he wanders off to the next city.

Winning the rest of the game. If he doesn't get your capital, then you should still have a better economy, even despite the disruption to your production. Winning should be fairly straightforward. One option might be to queue up some HI of your own and send them with your other troops to his (soon to be made) second city, or even his capital.

If he did manage to sack your capital (and you recaptured), then he might have more immediate resources than you do, but he'll still be behind in production. Focus on getting back on track and replacing any villager losses you incurred. He'll use that +500 bonus to ramp up very quickly, so you won't have much of an advantage, if any. The key here is to get back into your rhythm and recover as quickly as possible.
posted by Tim at 3:02 PM

What do you do during the first minute in game?
For insta-rushing, I do vqlw - queue up vills and then research mil1 - then 2 woodcutters make farms; 1st new vill walks to make barracks near border; and the rest go on wood-cutting detail. Scout gets corner and then just slightly leads troops before they hit. Scout searches for tower or baracks and slingers hit builders while hops kill capital and expansion.

For normal play, I vq - queue up vills - and make farms with the 2 cutters, while new guys go to wood. When I have 120 wood, I research sci1, then civ1. I like to get the farms going first, because food is going to be the most constraining resource early on. If I find a ruin prior to sci1 completion, I hold off for the couple seconds until its done. I also keep my food low by queueing extra vills as needed. Scout goes to corners and then enemy.
posted by Tim at 2:34 PM

Thoughts on the strategic stagnation in RON
I posted earlier wondering why we don't see more prolific strategy posting on this game. On the surface, this game appears to have marvelous depth, with a variety of civilizations, a multitude of ages, numerous technologies, great RPS interplay of units, and many different victory conditions. On the surface.

But after the playing the game quite a bit, it's become apparent, to me at least, that much of that depth is superficial. There seems to be pretty much one basic strategy for this game. Economy wins. Three main factors for this are:

Defense is very strong
Ages are short
Armies are always the same

Early defense is very strong. Attrition makes attacks before the advent of supply carts a risky venture. Once your opponent gets attrition, a failed attack means the loss of your entire army with no gain other than minor economic disruption. So any attack you make must be enough to completely take out a town. But because of attrition garrisoning troops your opponent only needs a handful of defenders to resist pretty much any early attack. Raiding (except for the Mongols) seems a limited option. A wildly successful raid at best kills an equivalent portion of villagers to compensate for the loss of troops. Even after supply carts are available, it is still easier to defend with smaller numbers of troops who attack and draw out the siege defenders and then garrison back to safety when the enemy responds. So making a small early force of defensive units becomes the dominant strategy.

Ages are short. Because there are so many ages, the time spent in a particular age is usually very short. Players are faced with the choice of upgrading troops NOW for the attack, or to just wait until the next age. At that point, unlike (AOE and AOK) they can upgrade their troops to the new ones without going through all the previous upgrades. Meaning it becomes better to dash through to the ages as efficiently as possible to an age where attacking become more effective. Attacking becomes a lot easier in the gunpowder and industrial ages. So why not wait?

Armies are always the same. Two factors collide to make army composition relatively mindless. First of all, the cost escalation for each additional unit of the same type encourages players to make armies with lots of different units. Secondly, the overwhelming counter abilities of units against certain other units make having a one- or two-unit army rather stupid. This ensures that the best army is one that contains a smattering of all unit types, which oddly enough looks JUST like the army the OTHER guy has. Who wins, largely depends on army size, which goes back to the best economy. (IMO, having cost escalation is a poor way to encourage army composition. In reality, building additional units should be CHEAPER, not more expensive, as a civilization realizes benefits of scale and learning curve. Then you’d see players forced to make strategic choices, specializing in particular units, and encourage better cooperation in team games.)

So despite the huge variety and massive scale, the strategic depth seems to be LESS than that of other RTS games, like Kohan, for example, where with only 4 factions, you have completely different army types and philosophies of playstyle. This may be one reason why there is so little being written about strategy. Just not much there to think about, I guess.
posted by Tim at 1:52 PM

Use the infinite queue!
Being well-versed in AOE and AOK, I have had to unlearn some bad habits to improve my RON game. One specific bad habit was to queue up a bunch of units using shift + or by mashing the hotkey a few times until the resources ran out.

In AOK this works because you pay for units only when they begin to train, but in RON you pay for them as they queue up, making it difficult to sustain production without significant micro-management.

However, I found that the infinite queue button solves this dilemma quite nicely. (This is only for those that are NOT using it. If you use it obviosuly you know this already.) So instead of hitting HCCCCCC imediately at the start of the game (or now VVVVVVV), you can just hit VQ (or whatever you have remapped to).

This becomes an essential tool for playing on the faster speeds and is also useful for larger macro management.

For example: I build an early barracks and queue up one "iteration" of my army: slinger, hoplite, slinger and then hit Q. This will slowly give me an army with a 2:1 ratio of slingers and hoplites, and will contine to grow as long as I have resources and population available. I set my rally point on a likely enemy avenue of approach and things tend to take care of themselves.

In later ages, I can manage both my army and econ by watching the top left info boxes, setting rally points on my hot-keyed generals, and buying/selling resources with clicks on the market boxes in the top left - with little degradation of logistics, even at hyper-speed. (Maneuvering is a little different!)

If you're not using the infinite queue, I'd highly encourage it. It takes a moment of practice for the AOK player, but it's a definite improvement.
posted by Tim at 1:51 PM

Let's talk Forts!
davepy over at the RON Heavens Forum asks about placement of castles and towers. It's an interesting discussion.

In 1on1, I usually place a castle directly behind my 3rd city. Since cities cannot be destroyed by enemy fire, the presence of the city helps protect the castle, while the (garrisoned) castle makes capturing a reduced city next to impossible. Castles might be nice to help push borders, but I find that they become juicy targets for enemy siege weapons.

I don't find towers to be all that effective, other than as an early warning system and to annoy the enemy. Singleton towers can be easily dropped by siege.
posted by Tim at 1:35 PM

Growing your economy efficiently
I've been puzzling over this for awhile, but have not yet decided on a definite answer: What's the most efficient method for expanding your economy? Assume for a moment that there is no real danger of any type of rush (e.g., peace for 10 minutes, or FFA, or something). In this situation, I am currently doing:

1. SCI1
2. CIV1
3. COM1

At this point I have tried all of the different options (in descending order of practice):

-CLASSICAL - adds an extra +200 to economy (+100 for 2 new resources), but you need to spend wood, food, and wealth to get start gathering metal and knowledge. Usually followed by SCI2, COM2, and CIV2

-COM2 - adds an extra +150 to economy (+50 for 3 resources), but really requires a 3rd city to maximize, usually followed by CIV2, to get econ up to +150, or by CLASSICAL.

-SCI2 - increases ruin bonuses and makes subsequent researching cheaper by an extra 10% (plus you are likely to be getting the 10% bonus for researching a later classical) - while not my first choice, I seem to have the best success when using this method

-CIV2 - enables 3rd city, but you can't really make good use of it until you research COM2

-MIL1 - not really used. I don't research mil1 unless I am rushing, and then I don't usually wait this long.

In watching films, I've seen a wide variety in choices.

My best success so far has come with two economic strategies (insert MIL1 somewhere as required based on scouting):

1. Variation on this: SCI2 -> COM2 -> CIV2 -> CLASSICAL -> COM3. This puts you at +180-200 food, based on rares, and it enables military expansion as well as continued booming.

2. CLASSICAL -> SCI2 -> COM2 -> CIV2. The early classical enables me to continue pumping continuous villagers and gathering other resources (metal and knowledge) without regard for cap. Subsequent techs are also cheaper in the other resources - timber & knowledge for COM2 seems better than spending tons of food. Food that can be beter spent making villagers and getting CIV2.

Of course, what I usually do is just rush a MIL1 and hit both of their towns. I either win outright or keep their econ down at +20 for 3-4 minutes. Despite the defensive resoruces available, most players I have seen cannot handle a well-executed ancient rush at all.

posted by Tim at 1:05 PM