Phonter
Member
posted 03-16-14 04:52 AM EDT (US)
When I am playing against a moderate computer, they always get massive armies and crush me before I am able to have a good army to fight with. I like to focus on my economy the first 2 ages and at the 3rd age I start making military, so shall I start making military more early? if yes then what to do with my economy?
I like to play with Chinese and Egyptians.
PalaceGuard
Member
posted 04-15-14 07:05 AM
EDT (US)
2 / 2
An Age I raid is high risk, because you're diverting crucial economy into a military. The military HAS TO PAY OFF or you've handicapped yourself for the rest of the game. So an Age I attack is likely to go for the plunder of capturing entire cities rather than just disrupt the enemy's economy. Only certain nations can pull this off - those with inherent bonuses against buildings, such as the Japanese, or those with early Age 1 UUs in the Heavy Infantry (HI) category. Interestingly, the Bantu's UU Light Infantry (LI) are all able to run, which means they can actually play the part of improvised cavalry to raid enemies too.
By Age 2, the availability of cavalry means you can send Horse Archers (HA) and Light Cavalry (LC) to harass your enemy's Citizens. With the Thrones and Patriots addon, you can even earn a handsome income this way, by sending a Despot with your raiders to collect plunder from enemy units.
This is what a human player tends to do. A computer player rarely raids - they're much more likely to send in a full army group, with siege wagons, a light cavalry screen, and infantry line, all guarding one or two siege weapons to reduce your city.
If you're expecting an attack of this sort, and if you're dead set against diverting economic resources to build a defense force, you can often counteract a computer invasion by fielding a defensive line of spies. Send the spy in to bribe the enemy's siege engines, and that will usually stop the invasion long enough for you to raise a counter-force. If you're playing as the Chinese, who have Large Cities able to withstand early raids, then this may even stop the invasion cold: the computer will throw its infantry and cavalry at your (hopefully heavily-garrisoned) city and die through simple attrition.
This technique is trivial to guard against, by including a simple scout or two with your invasion force, so don't count on humans falling for it. But the computer seems to have a 50/50 chance of not including a scout. If they do include a scout, there will be only one of them, and a small directed attack force sent from the enemy's flank or rear can usually take out the scout and allow you to spy away the siege engines.
There's more but I'll leave that for another time.