On the Rise of Nations Heaven Forum, jedianakinsolo asks a great question: When to research taxation?

When is a good time to do it? I usually research it about early medieval. But I'm trying to squeeze it in before classical so I can have that much more gold for the knowlege boom.

For the immediate growth in wealth income, it's not worth it. It's usually better to build another market, until you have more territory. However... it also improves your income from rare resources. Which could be a pretty big deal depending on how many you have. So yea, get it as soon as you can afford it.

On the other hand, you don't want it to slow down your raiding when you are playing 1on1. So, do not get it before classical, and do not get it before researching MIL2 and putting up a stable. After that, you can afford the food because horse archers don't need it.

HL points out that it's not good to be predictable, so sometimes you'll want to skip the raiding.

He's right of course. Don't be predictable. Not every game involves raiding. However, I have yet to see someone raid effectively and lose the game. So if I were teaching someone to play, or giving someone advice, I'd say it's better to raid than to get taxation. In general.

UPDATE: Be sure and check out the comments. El_Capitan has posted some good stuff.
posted by Tim at 11:17 PM

From the Big Huge Ratings page -- updated O4B rankings. Only 34 players in top 100 are established and active. This does NOT mean people are not playing, as there are 35 players who are active but have not yet played at least 10 games. As we mentioned last time, the current system has some flaws which are highlighted by the list below. One player has (at least) 3 different active nicks in the top 100. Also you can see the spam clan ... errr ... TuF clan is doing their level best to ensure the rating system is as meaningless as possible -- do they even have 5 total members who play RON?

On a good note: Out4Blood has finally broken into The List! Just goes to show what you can do by only playing newbies.

Anyway, here are the latest:

O4B Rank	Rank	Name               	Rating	Win	Loss	Games	Date

1	1	I_aM_AnDy          	2690	76	20	96	11/21

2	4	PCA_Frogman        	2302	35	0	35	11/29

3	6	AS_REVENGER        	2220	19	2	21	11/29

4	9	TWC_Mulfar         	2215	33	6	39	11/29

5	13	Apolonius          	2200	27	2	29	11/23

6	16	TuF_Astator        	2158	52	13	65	11/29

7	17	PCA_newty          	2156	51	18	69	11/29

8	18	ESPerItou          	2155	10	0	10	11/18

9	21	TWC_ShaDowZ        	2148	35	8	43	11/29

10	22	Udon_Bomber        	2148	31	5	36	11/10

11	26	TuF_Owns_The_Top100	2132	26	8	34	11/28

12	32	Astator_I_loVe_you 	2122	24	2	26	11/14

13	36	PCA_mayupu         	2115	9	1	10	11/19

14	38	DaRq_Vorfidus      	2111	18	7	25	11/18

15	44	TuF_PoWer          	2103	15	5	20	11/28

16	47	_RedruM_           	2096	21	4	25	11/26

17	48	DaRq_xYz           	2095	11	2	13	11/21

18	52	TuF_for_President  	2087	23	5	28	11/15

19	53	PCA_konkon         	2087	14	4	18	11/26

20	55	camel              	2086	9	4	13	11/16

21	59	AKoH_NiGhtMaRe_    	2079	14	2	16	11/24

22	61	Silvery_Dragon[ms] 	2079	14	5	19	11/25

23	64	PCA_Mell           	2075	25	5	30	11/29

24	65	Gigi               	2075	19	5	24	11/29

25	67	PCA_yuu_rerise     	2075	22	3	25	11/20

26	79	wown               	2059	10	2	12	11/28

27	80	El_Capitan         	2058	77	15	92	11/29

28	81	UD_Renegade        	2056	34	16	50	11/21

29	86	AU_MeMeNTo         	2051	33	10	43	11/29

30	88	Out4Blood          	2043	13	1	14	11/29

31	93	SolituS            	2037	13	1	14	11/27

32	94	GM_KouTousoV       	2036	9	2	11	11/24

33	96	PCA_MATUURA_AYA    	2032	35	10	45	11/25

34	100	smurfkiller        	2030	13	2	15	11/23

posted by Tim at 10:56 PM

At the Rise of Nations Heaven Forum, Rohag posted this tidbit about airbases.

When you build planes (fighters/bombers) at an airfield they remain inside the airfield until you give orders. You have your choice of issuing orders to individual aircraft assigned to an airbase or to the airbase as a whole – in fact, you can give orders to the airbase even before the construction of any aircraft and they will go to the spot or on the assigned mission once they are created. One tricky thing is the “repeat orders” stance button for airbases; you’ll find it in the options box in the lower left of the user interface – the default is ‘on’ and can be toggled ‘on/off.’ While ‘on’ the aircraft to which it applies (individual or base group) will automatically return time and again to the mission or spot to which you’ve ordered it after each refueling. For a poor micromanager like me, ‘on’ is good. ‘Off’ makes the aircraft perform the one mission and then it's back for refueling and waiting on your next orders.

Useful info. Be sure to read his entire post.

I must add that I have gone from making mostly helicopters, to now making fighters. Helicopters were weakened in patch 3, while fighters are more difficult for ground troops to handle. Also, fighters tear up helos, so if your enemy makes helos, you'll want fighters, and if they make bombers, you'll want fighters, and if they make fighters, you'll want more fighters. Looks like a dominant strategy to me. So just make fighters first! Also, most people don't make enough mobile air defense (whereas the AI makes too much).
posted by Tim at 9:10 PM

The brackets for the Big Huge Smackdown are up. Looking at the brackets - they did some good seeding, and it looks like we'll have some good matchups to look forward to. I'm hoping that all the matches will get posted for viewing.

UPDATE: It's El_Capitan (winner of the recent BLuT Gangbang Tourney) vs. PCA_Frogman (currently #2 on the O4B rankings and #4 on the BHG rating list). We haven't seen any final results yet, but I'll note them once the post comes up. Remember folks, this was a money tournament, so most of the best players competed. (Yours truly could not, of course, because of Wifey.)

UPDATE 2: Tann informed me that El_Capitan won. Congrats!
posted by Tim at 12:15 PM

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Enjoy the holidays. :-)
posted by Tim at 10:09 AM

Intersting read - gaming industry stuff from the perspective of a female: game girl advance
posted by Tim at 7:39 PM

From the Big Huge Ratings page -- updated O4B rankings. Only 33 players in top 100 are established and active. This does NOT mean people are not playing, as there are 42 players who are active but have not yet played at least 10 games. One player has a 2200+ rating after only 3 games. This exposes one of the weaknesses of the BHG system: it's really easy to get an established high rating. Unlike the U.S. Chess system, after which this is modeled, you can never smurf or play as an "unrated" once you've established a rating. So the system has no need to prevent smurfing. But this system doesn't translate well to an on-line environment where smurfing is common.

One suggestion for BHG: make it more difficult to create an established rating, not easier. Right now it's 8 games. Chess uses 20. BHG ought to use 25 or more, just to reduce the incentive players might have to flood the board with high-level nicks. If you're a 2300 rated player. You're a 2300 rated player. All the nicks you creat will quickly get to that high level. So if you were to smurf and play 8 games with 10 different accounts, you could easily have the top 10 listings. Another option they have is to screen names using IP addresses, or at least identify which names might be common IPs. These don't solve the problem, but they make it slightly tougher.

Anyway, here are the latest:

O4BRank	Rank	Player                   	Rating	W	L	#	Date

1	1	I_aM_AnDy                	2690	76	20	96	11/21

2	4	PCA_Frogman              	2302	35	0	35	11/22

3	6	AS_REVENGER              	2220	19	2	21	11/23

4	11	Apolonius                	2200	27	2	29	11/23

5	13	Mulfar                   	2179	22	4	26	11/26

6	15	PCA_newty                	2156	51	18	69	11/25

7	16	ESPerItou                	2155	10	0	10	11/18

8	20	TWC_ShaDowZ              	2148	35	8	43	11/25

9	21	Udon_Bomber              	2148	31	5	36	11/10

10	22	TuF_Astator              	2146	51	12	63	11/25

11	30	Ma_ARes_rS               	2122	24	2	26	11/14

12	31	#ICON40Strife            	2122	25	8	33	11/25

13	35	PCA_mayupu               	2115	9	1	10	11/19

14	37	DaRq_Vorfidus            	2111	18	7	25	11/18

15	44	_RedruM_                 	2096	21	4	25	11/25

16	45	DaRq_xYz                 	2095	11	2	13	11/21

17	48	PCA_Mell                 	2087	25	4	29	11/25

18	49	G_DoG_                   	2087	23	5	28	11/15

19	50	PCA_konkon               	2087	14	4	18	11/26

20	52	camel                    	2086	9	4	13	11/16

21	55	AKoH_NiGhtMaRe_          	2079	14	2	16	11/24

22	57	Silvery_Dragon[ms]       	2079	14	5	19	11/25

23	60	Gigi                     	2075	19	5	24	11/24

24	62	PCA_yuu_rerise           	2075	22	3	25	11/20

25	63	NaturalCoCaiNe           	2073	8	4	12	11/25

26	74	UD_Renegade              	2056	34	16	50	11/21

27	80	AU_MeMeNTo               	2051	33	10	43	11/25

28	83	I_HoSt_1oN1              	2040	77	20	97	10/26

29	87	SolituS                  	2037	13	1	14	11/17

30	88	GM_KouTousoV             	2036	9	2	11	11/24

31	89	PCA_MATUURA_AYA          	2032	35	10	45	11/25

32	91	El_Capitan               	2031	57	13	70	11/23

33	94	smurfkiller              	2030	13	2	15	11/23

posted by Tim at 7:53 AM

As most of you are aware, expert level rated games tend to be dominated by Mayans. Or, to a lesser extent, Spain. One feature that would exceedingly cool would be a setting that would enable you to prohibit your opponent playing with certain civs, perhaps 1, 3 or 5. Of course, both players would have this feature and it would be an optional mix in just like the other settings. Now, this isn't just newbie whining about "over-powered civs" or "boring games." This would actually enable another level of strategy.

Suppose you wanted to play Mayans. You would then prohibit the civs that might be competitive against them: Turks, French, Koreans. But of course, your opponent might prohibit Mayans, which would mean you'd end up as a different civ anyway. Or if you wanted to play Nubians, but wanted to reduce the chance of your opponent getting a raiding civ. If you picked a civ and that one was prohibited by your opponent, then the computer would select you as random. So there would be some strategic choosing and picking right from the start. This might improve the chances that someone would be pick random econ or random offensive, because they are likely to still get something they'll be good at, but maybe not have the single most dominant civ.

This would make rated games have a bit more variety as you couldn't climb the ladder just by playing once civ.
posted by Tim at 7:27 AM

WhiskeyPete asks some good questions over at the Rise of Nations Heaven Forum.

Ok, so lately I've been seeing some variants of early classical raiding. Normally I expect a couple CA'(Cavalry Archer)s to come tearing through and causing some havoc. Lately, I've been seeing a few more HC's doing the raiding or one Cavalry archer with one Heavy Cavalry for support. Or the 1HC, 1LC, 1HA raid. So I have a couple questions:

1. Is it better to raid with one or two CA's if you decide to raid with CA's?
2. What are the Pros/Cons of using HC vs CA for early classical raiding?

ceohammer responds with:

Whiskey, there is only one counter to the early Horse Archer raid - and that is to get to classical just as fast as you can. Without classical and your opponent is already there you are doomed. The ranged cav can just sit outside your cities firing radius and bring your economy to a complete halt.

I generally agree. If your economy is compact, archers are an excellent stationary counter to horse archers. Which is one reason why heavy cav is usually the next unit to show up. You could make some pikes to guard against HC, but then you've gotta have both archers AND pikes there JUST IN CASE they show up. That means you've gotta have 2-3 units for every one of theirs, because you can't be everywhere at once and you don't know which type of unit he'll hit you with.

So even though you can make counters from the barracks, speed kills, so stable units are much better for responding to raids. Light cav is the best option, but then that is the main reason heavy cav is the next unit to show up. Heavy cav beats light cav 1on1.

As G0dSpiral added:

LC is definitely what you want against HAs. The point of bringing along HCs isn't for additional raiding, but to deal with the LCs that pop up against your HAs. 3 LCs will beat 2 HCs, so if you can't match opponent HCs right away, some supporting LCs can help. HCs don't do any real damage so if there are no HAs left you can tuck your LCs away for healing.

posted by Tim at 11:08 AM

Having apparently given up on the Romans, the French are now HL's favorite nation. Here he has written up an excellent strategy article that takes advantage of the French bonuses to conduct an early attack. French 150 Attack.

This is a strategy for my new favorite nation, the French. I like all of the French bonuses, they allow for aggressive play from the start. Lumber bonuses are awesome, great for booming, and you can go offensive early with raiding or siege and still have plenty of lumber for Unis, Mines, Markets, etc. Their siege bonuses (cheaper, faster, faster to build), free early wagon, and UUs are great. And the free general, what a fun nation. This is basically a modified 150...there are dozens of ways to do a 150 and this is one of them.

HL has a recorded game of the basic strategy here. Richter syas, "Good strat, but don't try it on maya." So HL later goes on to post a recorded game of him doing this strategy against a 2000+ rated Mayan player. (That'll show him!) He includes some good analysis of the game from his perspective.

Regarding the game vs Mayan opponent, he didn't handle the rush particularly well, and I made several mistakes too. This isn't an ideal game for knowing how to defeat maya, but we'll analyze what happened and what could have happened.

posted by Tim at 11:00 AM

Along the lines of ramping costs, someone posted at the TWC this article awhile back on the best time to upgrade units.

If i decide to attack with 20 light inf in my army it will cost me approximately 1550 food and wood for the units themselves and 740 food 520 wood for the upgrade if i build before i upgrade.. total cost will be 2290 food and 1970 wood. Now if I upgrade and then build it will cost me 2620 food and 2250 wood for the units and 140 food and 120 wood for the upgrades. so 2740 food and 2370 wood. total these up to make it 1 number and you are looking at 4260 total resources if you wait on upgrades and 4870 if you upgrade first. you save 610 resources by waiting.

How important is that? I dunno. that's 30-45 seconds worth of food/wood at that point in the game. also the more you make the more you would save obviously. not going to run the #'s on that though. If you are uber booming and no one is touching you, it's definetly better to wait until right before you attack.

I really should devote some time to test all this ramping stuff out in more detail. I've noticed that the cost to upgrade units changes rather dramatically. I've also noticed that it sure seems cheaper to upgrade in enlightenment age than in gunpowder age. I'm wondering if that's because I tend not to make too many archers (why, when I can make fire lances instead?) Since the enlightenment age upgrade also upgrades the archer line, it may have a reduced cost if you don't have any archers. Anyway, more research to do :-(
posted by Tim at 12:24 PM

Spad posted 2v2 game over at RON Universe featuring 3 top 25 players. This was a rated game so more than just braggin rights were on the line.

Great game, Montana holds off Momento just long enough for me to finish off Mulfar with my French medieval attack - that i had tweaked to fit the raiding style of RoN, the original strat was developed by TWC_Strata_G_. Lots of action from start to finish, constant fighting. BTW, this game was meant to be Mulfar and me vs the AU's(Momento and Montana), but apparently when you try to do a 2v2 in quickmatch it always randomizes the teams, you can only decide who plays in the group, not who's on who's team.

posted by Tim at 11:55 AM

At this Monty Python fansite, I stumbled across an MP3 of I like Chinese. This is what I was referring to in this previous post.
posted by Tim at 11:08 AM

WhiskeyPete brings up an issue on how team games get organized. Do you play team games for the challenge or the ego boost?

You see a 3v3 or a 4v4 game advertised. You enter the game, all the settings look fine and sit back and read a book till the required number of players are in the staging area. While waiting for the host to click in, the first 3 or 4 players all switch to team 1. They then proceed to whup up on the opposing team.

I've encountered this - here are my thoughts:

• Random teams are cool if everyone is a random entrant. Everyone has equal chances of being on a the good or bad team. However random teams don't ensure fairness in a particular game, they just ensure some equal distribution of unfairness over a longer period.


• Use ratings to help balance out the teams. Take the top two rated guys and put them on opposite teams. Put the rest of the players on random.


• You could also pick teams, which might be a useful even if people don't know each other. The rating and number of games played woul dtend to give some additional information about skill level. I mean if the guy has played over 100 games he's probably not a newbie. If he's rated over 2000, he's probably pretty good. This is a better method for ensuring you have fair teams in a particular game.


• Offer skill points to balance out against set teams. If some folks absolutely want to play set teams, particularly against random opponents, then they should offer up some skill level points to the opposing players. BUD_Fustercluck and I played a set team 2on2 where we gave a +10 skill handicap. (Even though we won, +10 is probably a little too much.) I don't see enough usage of the skill handicap, and I think that team balancing is exactly what this is useful for. And I don't think this would get abused. I mean, who wants to brag about beating someone who had a +5 handicap.


• I think team strategy would be improved if clans played more clan vs. clan matches. Too often I see pick up games where it's random teams and random nations. This does not inspire good team coordination and good development of team strategy. There's a lot left untouched in the game of RON, particularly with regard to team play. Example: Team strategy using Bantu + Mayan partners. The Bantu spams toward the center, where the Mayan drops an early heavily fortified city. Taking vital space away from their opponents. You don't see stuff like this because there hasn't been much call for good team play.

posted by Tim at 10:37 AM

There are a couple new members of the top 5: Apolonius & Mulfar, and there are now 34 "established actives" in the top 100. (O4B is sitting at #35, but I'm not yet in the top 100, so it doesn't get shown here.) PCA has a whopping 7 members in the top 34. No other clan has more than 2. Of course, smurfs don't count, unless I know about them.

O4BRank	Rank	Player                   	Rating	W	L	#	Date

1	1	I_aM_AnDy                	2690	76	20	96	11/21

2	4	PCA_Frogman              	2302	35	0	35	11/22

3	6	AS_REVENGER              	2220	19	2	21	11/23

4	11	Apolonius                	2200	27	2	29	11/23

5	14	Mulfar                   	2164	15	2	17	11/24

6	15	PCA_newty                	2163	51	17	68	11/23

7	16	ESPerItou                	2155	10	0	10	11/18

8	19	TWC_ShaDowZ              	2148	35	8	43	11/23

9	20	Udon_Bomber              	2148	31	5	36	11/10

10	21	TuF_Astator              	2146	51	12	63	11/23

11	28	Ma_ARes_rS               	2122	24	2	26	11/14

12	32	PCA_mayupu               	2115	9	1	10	11/19

13	33	DaRq_Vorfidus            	2111	18	7	25	11/18

14	39	_RedruM_                 	2096	21	4	25	11/13

15	40	DaRq_xYz                 	2095	11	2	13	11/21

16	41	PCA_Mell                 	2093	24	3	27	11/24

17	43	G_DoG_                   	2087	23	5	28	11/15

18	44	PCA_konkon               	2087	14	4	18	11/22

19	46	camel                    	2086	9	4	13	11/16

20	54	Gigi                     	2075	19	5	24	11/23

21	56	PCA_yuu_rerise           	2075	22	3	25	11/20

22	57	AU_MeMeNTo               	2073	30	8	38	11/24

23	66	AU_MoNTaNa               	2060	17	6	23	11/24

24	67	UD_Renegade              	2056	34	16	50	11/21

25	72	Silvery_Dragon[ms]       	2048	9	4	13	11/13

26	76	I_HoSt_1oN1              	2040	77	20	97	10/26

27	80	SolituS                  	2037	13	1	14	11/17

28	81	TWC_LoKatZiS             	2036	15	10	25	11/23

29	82	PCA_MATUURA_AYA          	2032	35	10	45	11/21

30	84	El_Capitan               	2031	57	13	70	11/23

31	87	smurfkiller              	2030	13	2	15	11/23

32	93	UWF--FoLeY--UWF          	2021	13	2	15	11/23

33	94	zunko                    	2021	20	5	25	11/21

34	96	ert                      	2017	50	6	56	11/23

posted by Tim at 8:47 AM

Polly pointed out a potential bug where decoy units impact ramping cost calculations. Spad comments:

When i tested with with polly i had 4 muskets, then used the general and made 4 decoys. The price to make a 5th musket with 4 muskets already made was around, 76/66. After i decoyed the price jumped up to 96/88. Decoys count as units as far as price, so beware!!!

When I tested this, there was no impact, but Polly says:

You may be at price cap when you used them. Try again. (after a certain about of units produced the price does not increase).

LOL. I never noticed that there was a cap on ramping costs after a certain number of units. So what is the cap number for each unit type? Might be worth knowing. Looks like we have some additional testing to do on a couple of topics.
posted by Tim at 8:30 AM

Tann posted a link to this old article on the TWC boards On Caravans.

In team games if players trade with their allies, the caravan that is trading between them will do double bonus: it will give the gold income to that person's caravan who is trading and to the ally who is being traded to. Basically, it doubles the gold for the ally one is trading to.

Good stuff! Thanks for the link.
posted by Tim at 9:55 PM

You can add comments to each of these posts. If you don't like what I've written, you can make a rebuttal. If you have a different take, add your perspective. Just click the comments link at the bottom of each post.
posted by Tim at 10:53 AM