I did not write this, just sharing:
Grush and Island Strategies
The Grush Written by Karl (StorM_Country)
Island Strategies Written by Ralber (THuG_Ralber_mH) &
Formatted, Edited and Added to by Karl (StorM_Country)
The Grush (Galley Rush - Standard time)
Step 1 (Start of Dark Age - Pop 4)
Start by putting the usual 3 starting vils on sheep and put the next 2 vils from your tc onto sheep also. With 6 vils on sheep your Scout needs to find the following.
1. The remaining 4 sheep
2. Both your boars
3. Good shoreline to dock
The most effective way of scouting an island is sticking to the shoreline all the way around the island until you come back and completes a circuit of the island then scout the middle. Its imperative you find your boars/sheep fast, this will seriously effect your feudal time.
With 6 Villagers on sheep put your next 4 villagers on wood and assuming you are Viking or have a Viking ally you should be coming close to 113 wood, so send a villager to the shoreline most favored (select the shoreline depending on where ur allies are docking, where is possibly the best deep sea fishing and your plan. i.e. fast up to feudal, slow up to feudal and fast castle etc).
If your villager reaches the shoreline and you are slightly short on wood have your villager use shore fish while your waiting, never have him idle. Then drop your dock and queue a fishing boat, making sure not to get housed and send your villager back to wood, put the 6th and final vil from your tc on wood, if you are Hun you only need 5 because you don't have to make houses.
Step 2 (Dark Age econ continued - Pop 13)
With no more needed on wood for now concentrate on luring your boars right under your TC to lower Vil walking time between drops to 0 seconds under the TC. This will also impact your feudal time. Keep pumping villagers under your tc onto sheep/boar and pumping fishing boats. When you have around 4 fishing boats, approx 20 villagers (Pop 25) if your food is looking good and you look like you will be able to click up to Feudal in 3 villagers time then put your next 3 villagers from your TC onto wood also. While creating 2 more fishing boats giving you 23 villagers, 6 fishing boats and a scout (Pop 30) for Viking is good for flank, without any delays you should get an early 11 minute feudal.
Step 3 (Clicking up to Feudal and Managing resource allocation - Pop 30)
Now most likely all of a sudden all your food under your TC will finish and you will have about 15 or so villagers to place, quickly send 4 to build a mining camp one square from the longest side of your gold and have them mine between the gold and ur mining camp reducing walking time to 1 tile (the gap). Take 2 villagers and have them chop stragglers at your TC and quick as you can drop your 2nd Lumber camp on your next best wood to your original lumber camp. With 9 (original 6 and 3 extra from TC) on the first wood and possibly 8-9 on your 2nd wood your villagers are well spread between the 2 camps
Now when your wood is getting close to 100 send both villagers from your tc and have them drop 2 more docks and a house (making your pop 30/35), drop the docks wherever you wish, preferably close to your 1st dock. Make sure you have your scout on patrol in the baron regions of your island and from Feudal on regularly check your mini map to see if any other colors appear on your island, discovered by your scout. Keep one of your 2 dock builders at your docks, if he is idle have him shore fish and wait for feudal.
Step 4 (Reaching Feudal)
As soon as you reach Feudal, queue 3 ships, one in each dock!! Get the Double Bit Axe upgrade in your lumber camp and if you have enough food research Town Watch in your TC for +2 LOS on your galleys (very important) and also +2 LOS on buildings/your scout so discovering and stopping landings is made easier. After queuing 3 ships and making a house if you have enough wood left make a 4th dock (very possibly with Viking and most other good civs) and keep pumping ships from all 4. With Viking and 18 woodies you will be able to pump 4 docks and have spare wood left over if you have Double Bit and your villagers are working Efficiently.
Step 5 (Feudal Econ and clicking up to Castle)
While fighting with your galleys, protecting your fish and watching for landings it's important to look after your econ on land. 6 Fishing boats are enough to keep your TC pumping with a little spare food for Fletching (+1 range on galleys etc) but you need to use berry/deers and farm to reach castle age. So firstly make a Mill and your first villager in feudal age built from ur TC put on berry and put 5 more on berry (6 in total more or less, can change if u so wish). When you have around 10+ galleys drop a blacksmith and with spare res get Fletching. If you have close deer use them, if they are on the coast watch for enemy ships, they will kill vils fast. Then every 60 wood you have drop a farm and keep dropping farms until you have around 600 food, then drop a market and prepare to up to Castle age.
Step 6 (The in-betweens)
There are several things you will learn over time ill point out now which you can do to help you win,
- Wall off long peninsulas in stone,
- If you have 2 islands connected by a small piece of land stone wall it and scout the island which ur base resides on, cutting down the chance of being landed.
- If your island is big and has loads of open land in the middle out post the big areas, with town watch outposts will cover a lot of fog.
- If you are close to an enemy and have aggressive drop a 5th dock and put another 3-4 vils on wood and delay all your berry/deer/farmers for that amount of vils, also get a blacksmith sooner and Fletching.
Step 7 (Going Castle age)
Now up to castle age your berry/deer will probably run out. So take the villagers, put an extra 3 on gold, if you don't have at least 8 farms drop enough to cover your tc and an extra one in castle age. Assuming you have all 6 fishing boats left, if not drop 10. Put the remaining vils on wood with a 3rd wood camp and if you don't have drop a 5th/6th dock depending on your situation. Research Horse Collar in the mill in preparation for more farms in castle
Step 8 (In Castle)
If you've done well up to this point this will be easier from now on, Feudal/Dark is the worst on islands. When you reach Castle age get Bodkin Arrow (+2 range on galleys etc in blacksmith), War Galley (in docks), Bow Saw (in wood camp), queue a villager and keep pumping ships, also drop a new TC on wood. At this point with 2 Tc's to manage, 6 docks, a Navy and an econ its up to you what to do next. If you take your enemy off sea, killed his docks etc, surround his isle, annoy his econ, help your ally and either land or boom to imp. 3 tc's are enough to go imp and more later on, although if castle age is drawn out u can drop more. A very very useful upgrade to get if u have spare res and a big navy is Ballistics in the University, getting this in early Castle and save you a lot of res and win you a lot of battles with less ships.
Island Strategies
When deciding how to set up docks I think there are 3 or 4 positions that are most effective:
1) Everyone dock front feudaling as fast as possible. It is good to attack and to do or defend 2v1 and to dominate the sea in Feudal. The key of this strat is killing enemy fishing boats quick, otherwise if the enemy makes slow ups will have economy advantage and therefore faster Castle times.
2) Everyone dock behind with V shape: lets say we attack from south to north, that would be pocket docks towards the south, left player toward the southeast and right player towards the southwest. Wings should have a medium Feudal time covering the access toward the pocket (between the islands and behind them) and the pocket should do a slow Feudal age up but fast to Castle. It is probably weak to landings but effectively beats other kinds of back docking.
3) 2 players together and 1 as far as possible. The player who plays alone should have fast upgrades and dock toward the northeast or something so he can attack fast and can't be easily sandwiched and shouldn't have an economy dependent on fishing. With this kind of strat you have to look at the team as an overall, the solo player will probably get 2v1 or 3v1 but on the other hand his allies can become very powerful.
4) Hybrids: Pocket back dock with slow feudal up and flanks front dock with fast up. Landing: they are probably the riskiest but they can be very effective against certain strategies such as back docking.
Each strat works better or worse depending on the civ distribution and the playstyle of each player. I think it is also very important to have the players focused on different things, especially from Castle age onwards. The reason is for example Huns doesn't have Shipwrights (the cheap galleys upgrade in the Dock) and Persians doesn't have Bracer (the last arrow upgrade +3 range) but instead they have the best raiding unit: Hussar with 4/4 Archer Armor. I think it is most efficient if they trib the wood to the Viking so he can go full Galleons meanwhile they can raid all the players. Civs like Japanese, Saracen or Mayans are good backup civs for everything, they have good galleons as well as good landing and can help wherever is needed at any stage of the game.
Other important factors in islands are the control of the additional resources, the bonus islands and the conquered land, keep them in your possession in mid and long length games. Navy coordination is crucial too and don't forget when Viking and non viking galleys fight 1:1, the Viking saves 20% resources over the enemy because of the Viking Cheap Galley Bonus
Regards and best wishes,
Karl
Karl & Ralber
Grush and Island Strategies
The Grush Written by Karl (StorM_Country)
Island Strategies Written by Ralber (THuG_Ralber_mH) &
Formatted, Edited and Added to by Karl (StorM_Country)
The Grush (Galley Rush - Standard time)
Step 1 (Start of Dark Age - Pop 4)
Start by putting the usual 3 starting vils on sheep and put the next 2 vils from your tc onto sheep also. With 6 vils on sheep your Scout needs to find the following.
1. The remaining 4 sheep
2. Both your boars
3. Good shoreline to dock
The most effective way of scouting an island is sticking to the shoreline all the way around the island until you come back and completes a circuit of the island then scout the middle. Its imperative you find your boars/sheep fast, this will seriously effect your feudal time.
With 6 Villagers on sheep put your next 4 villagers on wood and assuming you are Viking or have a Viking ally you should be coming close to 113 wood, so send a villager to the shoreline most favored (select the shoreline depending on where ur allies are docking, where is possibly the best deep sea fishing and your plan. i.e. fast up to feudal, slow up to feudal and fast castle etc).
If your villager reaches the shoreline and you are slightly short on wood have your villager use shore fish while your waiting, never have him idle. Then drop your dock and queue a fishing boat, making sure not to get housed and send your villager back to wood, put the 6th and final vil from your tc on wood, if you are Hun you only need 5 because you don't have to make houses.
Step 2 (Dark Age econ continued - Pop 13)
With no more needed on wood for now concentrate on luring your boars right under your TC to lower Vil walking time between drops to 0 seconds under the TC. This will also impact your feudal time. Keep pumping villagers under your tc onto sheep/boar and pumping fishing boats. When you have around 4 fishing boats, approx 20 villagers (Pop 25) if your food is looking good and you look like you will be able to click up to Feudal in 3 villagers time then put your next 3 villagers from your TC onto wood also. While creating 2 more fishing boats giving you 23 villagers, 6 fishing boats and a scout (Pop 30) for Viking is good for flank, without any delays you should get an early 11 minute feudal.
Step 3 (Clicking up to Feudal and Managing resource allocation - Pop 30)
Now most likely all of a sudden all your food under your TC will finish and you will have about 15 or so villagers to place, quickly send 4 to build a mining camp one square from the longest side of your gold and have them mine between the gold and ur mining camp reducing walking time to 1 tile (the gap). Take 2 villagers and have them chop stragglers at your TC and quick as you can drop your 2nd Lumber camp on your next best wood to your original lumber camp. With 9 (original 6 and 3 extra from TC) on the first wood and possibly 8-9 on your 2nd wood your villagers are well spread between the 2 camps
Now when your wood is getting close to 100 send both villagers from your tc and have them drop 2 more docks and a house (making your pop 30/35), drop the docks wherever you wish, preferably close to your 1st dock. Make sure you have your scout on patrol in the baron regions of your island and from Feudal on regularly check your mini map to see if any other colors appear on your island, discovered by your scout. Keep one of your 2 dock builders at your docks, if he is idle have him shore fish and wait for feudal.
Step 4 (Reaching Feudal)
As soon as you reach Feudal, queue 3 ships, one in each dock!! Get the Double Bit Axe upgrade in your lumber camp and if you have enough food research Town Watch in your TC for +2 LOS on your galleys (very important) and also +2 LOS on buildings/your scout so discovering and stopping landings is made easier. After queuing 3 ships and making a house if you have enough wood left make a 4th dock (very possibly with Viking and most other good civs) and keep pumping ships from all 4. With Viking and 18 woodies you will be able to pump 4 docks and have spare wood left over if you have Double Bit and your villagers are working Efficiently.
Step 5 (Feudal Econ and clicking up to Castle)
While fighting with your galleys, protecting your fish and watching for landings it's important to look after your econ on land. 6 Fishing boats are enough to keep your TC pumping with a little spare food for Fletching (+1 range on galleys etc) but you need to use berry/deers and farm to reach castle age. So firstly make a Mill and your first villager in feudal age built from ur TC put on berry and put 5 more on berry (6 in total more or less, can change if u so wish). When you have around 10+ galleys drop a blacksmith and with spare res get Fletching. If you have close deer use them, if they are on the coast watch for enemy ships, they will kill vils fast. Then every 60 wood you have drop a farm and keep dropping farms until you have around 600 food, then drop a market and prepare to up to Castle age.
Step 6 (The in-betweens)
There are several things you will learn over time ill point out now which you can do to help you win,
- Wall off long peninsulas in stone,
- If you have 2 islands connected by a small piece of land stone wall it and scout the island which ur base resides on, cutting down the chance of being landed.
- If your island is big and has loads of open land in the middle out post the big areas, with town watch outposts will cover a lot of fog.
- If you are close to an enemy and have aggressive drop a 5th dock and put another 3-4 vils on wood and delay all your berry/deer/farmers for that amount of vils, also get a blacksmith sooner and Fletching.
Step 7 (Going Castle age)
Now up to castle age your berry/deer will probably run out. So take the villagers, put an extra 3 on gold, if you don't have at least 8 farms drop enough to cover your tc and an extra one in castle age. Assuming you have all 6 fishing boats left, if not drop 10. Put the remaining vils on wood with a 3rd wood camp and if you don't have drop a 5th/6th dock depending on your situation. Research Horse Collar in the mill in preparation for more farms in castle
Step 8 (In Castle)
If you've done well up to this point this will be easier from now on, Feudal/Dark is the worst on islands. When you reach Castle age get Bodkin Arrow (+2 range on galleys etc in blacksmith), War Galley (in docks), Bow Saw (in wood camp), queue a villager and keep pumping ships, also drop a new TC on wood. At this point with 2 Tc's to manage, 6 docks, a Navy and an econ its up to you what to do next. If you take your enemy off sea, killed his docks etc, surround his isle, annoy his econ, help your ally and either land or boom to imp. 3 tc's are enough to go imp and more later on, although if castle age is drawn out u can drop more. A very very useful upgrade to get if u have spare res and a big navy is Ballistics in the University, getting this in early Castle and save you a lot of res and win you a lot of battles with less ships.
Island Strategies
When deciding how to set up docks I think there are 3 or 4 positions that are most effective:
1) Everyone dock front feudaling as fast as possible. It is good to attack and to do or defend 2v1 and to dominate the sea in Feudal. The key of this strat is killing enemy fishing boats quick, otherwise if the enemy makes slow ups will have economy advantage and therefore faster Castle times.
2) Everyone dock behind with V shape: lets say we attack from south to north, that would be pocket docks towards the south, left player toward the southeast and right player towards the southwest. Wings should have a medium Feudal time covering the access toward the pocket (between the islands and behind them) and the pocket should do a slow Feudal age up but fast to Castle. It is probably weak to landings but effectively beats other kinds of back docking.
3) 2 players together and 1 as far as possible. The player who plays alone should have fast upgrades and dock toward the northeast or something so he can attack fast and can't be easily sandwiched and shouldn't have an economy dependent on fishing. With this kind of strat you have to look at the team as an overall, the solo player will probably get 2v1 or 3v1 but on the other hand his allies can become very powerful.
4) Hybrids: Pocket back dock with slow feudal up and flanks front dock with fast up. Landing: they are probably the riskiest but they can be very effective against certain strategies such as back docking.
Each strat works better or worse depending on the civ distribution and the playstyle of each player. I think it is also very important to have the players focused on different things, especially from Castle age onwards. The reason is for example Huns doesn't have Shipwrights (the cheap galleys upgrade in the Dock) and Persians doesn't have Bracer (the last arrow upgrade +3 range) but instead they have the best raiding unit: Hussar with 4/4 Archer Armor. I think it is most efficient if they trib the wood to the Viking so he can go full Galleons meanwhile they can raid all the players. Civs like Japanese, Saracen or Mayans are good backup civs for everything, they have good galleons as well as good landing and can help wherever is needed at any stage of the game.
Other important factors in islands are the control of the additional resources, the bonus islands and the conquered land, keep them in your possession in mid and long length games. Navy coordination is crucial too and don't forget when Viking and non viking galleys fight 1:1, the Viking saves 20% resources over the enemy because of the Viking Cheap Galley Bonus
Regards and best wishes,
Karl
Karl & Ralber