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[Drinky Crow]

Alright, RTS whizzes, help me out here. My Age 3 game for the Russians in AoE3 is sucking, the strategy guide is worthless, and I need some pro advice from you crazy bastards.

Here's my build order (roughly) for the Ages as Russians:

Age 1:

- All villagers go food.
- Build a batch of 3 villagers.
- first home city shipment, I play the 300 food card.
- I go Age 2, pick 2 settlers.

Here's where the troubles begin. I know Russian villagers rock when hunting, but I fuckin' HATE HATE HATE microing villagers to hunt and would rather have them use mills. I tend to wall up early and telling the livestock farms to make sheep/cows and then telling my dipshit villagers to NOT tool around and harvest is a distraction I don't need when I've got 10 hussars pounding on my gates when someone plays an early elite merc card.

Age 2:
- Two settlers go wood.
- play Advanced mill card, dropping Mills to 200 wood.
- build a mill, put all food villagers on 'em.
- knock out 2 more batches of villagers, put 'em on wood
- play 700 gold card
- knock out one last set of villagers for the Age, stick 'em on mining
- co-op a wood villager for WALLS WALLS WALLS
- play 13 strel card, build blockhouse, prepare for rush.
- Age 3 up.

see the problem here? There's TWO card cycles where I'm not building a blockhouse or troops, and that ensures that the RUSHMASTERS kill my ass, cuz 13 strels ain't gonna hold off fuck even if they're decent aginst cav. Problem is, Russian shit builds in batch and is slow + expensive, especially settlers. Should I switch to hunting for food and play a gathering increase card instead of Advanced Mill and just learn to cope with the extra micro, and then put the extra settlers I need for mill gathering onto wood? I have to Age 2 up as fast as I do or I'm fucked. I usually have extra food when I'm ready to build my first blockhouse, so I feel like I'm missing a big efficiency gain somewhere. Should I put some settlers on wood earlier, especially if I'm hunting?

Note that this problem is even WORSE when I don't get a tradepost. How do I get a competitive early Russian game to beat off Age 2 merc fuckers? Is Russia doomed to be competitive only in Age 3 (they suck in boom, since they have no real uber units, and Age 4 cannons hose zerg armies)? HELP MY COMMIE FRIENDS!

In Age 3, I usually play a strel upgrade card first, then a 2 free blockhouse card, then I build my church and do all the line-of-sight upgrades. Then a fort, and then all the free resource cards I need. I'm okay at that point, and if I don't attack hard in Age 3, I'm fucked if my opponent Age 4 booms because my troops suck (unless he's a moron).

Thoughts?

 

[MrAngryFace]

Russians are too different from french for me to give much advice. Yer early game is great, so is whiteman's. Im still trying to eek out a viable early game from the french. With the French you go all rush, or go all age advancement, but doing both is sorta hard. My rush for example, the only good one, involves an Age 2, Hussar/Crossbow and 14 settler rush which DOES work in age 2, but of course using my strong french settlers (pioneer card, musket, coat upgrades) in a rush sinks my econ advancement.

However if I turtle im able to hit Age 3 grab my free skirmishers and send them out with the hussars n crossbows, but since huss and cross are cards it limits my ability to use the 700/1000 gold/food cards that let me age up fast.

However with trade posts im ok since cards fall in rather quickly. Late game however its all curiaisisisiers n hussars since I have 3 cards that buff cav. Hussars hit like 400-500 hp and curs hit 850 hp, both with boosted attack and defense ratings.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Yeah, but that French rush sounds like murder. If you cripple their econ early, you can leisurely hit 3 and be ready for MAYHEM, while they're busy paying for replacement settlers and waiting for recovery shipments.

BTW, the treasures SUCK. OH BOY 40 FOOD WORTH OF MUSKRATS. They're just something to do with your explorer after recon.

 

[Teknopathetic]

I wish my sleep cycle hadn't been so borked that I've been too tired to play with you guys when you're up for it.

Do russians need to up fast? I'm used to playing Ports who *definitely* need to get to Age III fast (or so I feel), but do Russians get any artillery in Age II? Perhaps you don't *have* to get to Age III as fast as you think?

 

[Drinky Crow]

Russians can build Blockhouses (a barracks plus outpost) in Age 1 although they can't build troops (!!); that's their so-called early benefit. It sounds awesome, but 250 wood isn't something you can afford in Age 1, especially if you hafta snatch a tradepost.

Commies don't get artillery until Age 3, and it's expensive. The Russkies are the "zerg" race; lots and lots and lots of cheap disposable troops to throw into the breach. I use Age 3/4 merc cards for my tough-ass units, I play Reformist Tsar at the end of Age 3 to start building the Bashkar elites when Age 4 starts, and I PRAY TO KARL MARX HIMSELF THAT I CAN MICRO MY FORCES TO SUCCESSFULLY FLANK CANNONS.

I need to hit Age 3 to play my best cards, and to get the upgrades necessary to make my forces tough enough to actually raid a well-defended settlement without getting turned into ground RED MEAT.

 

[MrAngryFace]

ive given up on treasures, ill just build lots of houses

 

[Teknopathetic]

Hmm. Have you tried playing a wood card for the blockhouses and setting up for a majority of the game to be played in Age II? At least until you're comfortable aging up?

 

[Drinky Crow]

Haha, that would be a bad idea. The Russian game depends on getting the infantry upgrades for each Age before your opponents upgrade their troops, so you can remain competitive. Un-upgraded Russian strels/muskets/hussars versus upgraded enemy ones would be a terrible, sad sight.

 

[MrAngryFace]

French luv to upgrade too

 

[Teknopathetic]

"Un-upgraded Russian strels/muskets/hussars versus upgraded enemy ones would be a terrible, sad sight."

Well, I'm not talking about booming with Russians, though, I'm talking about defending rush/rushing early enough so that they can't get Age III to get better upgrades to said troops. Unless you're getting rushed by people who've already gone Age III (that's nuts).

 

[Nanta]

Gather rates for Settler-

ResourceCrate: 8

Tree: 0.5

Mill: 0.67

Mine: 0.6

Plantation: 0.5

Herdable: 2

Huntable: 0.84

Berry Bush: 0.67

Study on livestock

: Link

Study on Russian economic anaylsis

: Link

You have to hunt. Only when you think hunting is too far and risky should you go Mills.

The study on livestock is a good one, very long though. But basically it means that sheep suck. Don't bother. If you don't get fulling mills or aren't British then building the pen to build sheep is absolutely useless. (Heck, even if you find a bunch of sheep on the map, don't waste the wood on the livestock pen. Just use it as you would.)

Read the Russian economic anaylsis. Russians aren't so underpowered as it seems. (Well, at around the 8min mark)

Walling is a preference..but since units are ranged when they attack buildings, I'm guessing walls are more useful in blocking choke points, rather protecting your base from buildings

 

[Mojojo]

I mostly play the freedom-hating Ottomans, so not sure my comments will be any help, but aren't your problems coming from an obsession of putting walls around your city, wasting wood for something more important?

Age 2:
- co-op a wood villager for WALLS WALLS WALLS

I was kind of a wall freak when I started playing, giving me a false sense of security, and I kept loosing, until I discovered my opponents didnt wall at all .
I was clustering all my important buildings with my wall addiction, in fact making it easier for my opponents to wipe me out.
I wall only on a few select maps now, when there is a clear line of separation between players(amazonian and carribean maps come to mind)
And I don't understand either your problem with hunting, there is no micromanagement involved, you put a worker on a herd, and dont have to care about it, until the herd is done with..

 

[MrAngryFace]

Tek: Not so nuts, I can age III real fast.

Walls are only good against AI, cause the AI is programmed to attack them first for some reason. Against people its sorta meh.

 

[Teknopathetic]

"Tek: Not so nuts, I can age III real fast."

Yeah, but I've never seen you full on rush. You harass a bit early on, but I haven't noticed you go total balls to the wall.

 

[MrAngryFace]

you havent seen my scary new age 2 rush. Im toying with the idea of just making a huge army of french settlers with the pioneer card bonus and food resource cards.

 

[Teknopathetic]

That's true, I haven't played in awhile. But! that's also an Age II rush

Check!

Also, you need to work on The Coot Gambit, Esquire.

 

[MrAngryFace]

I can age III rush with exiled prince who ages to III oh so fast.

 

[Nanta]

Courers do .5x less damage to other vills. So a vill rush isn't a great idea.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Walls are stupid cheap. There's no reason not to make 'em, IMHO.

Looks like it's gotta be hunting. Dammit. I fuckin' hate it when my settlers range too far or worse, can't find new animals to hunt and just sit on their thumbs while I'm trying to stage and micro attack waves in Age 3.

 

[Pachinko]

I should play this again with you guys, I got a bit turned off when we had to end our last game becuase player drops cause horrible crashing. There a patch out to fix that yet ?

 

[Nanta]

A patch is coming out soon..more maps and other fixes I heard.

About walls, very useful if your opponent is building a indian settlement..just block it off.

 

[Sinatar]

As it seems right now, Russians just flat out aren't good. My best friend played them for awhile and we kept getting smoked. He switched and we started winning handily. Their unique units just aren't all that hot and the unit cluster thing is as much a curse as a blessing.

 

[Teknopathetic]

Pfft, try playing Portuguese!

 

[Drinky Crow]

According to that site Nanto linked, nobody is good except the French and the Ottomans, and the ranked players don't play anyone else. Hopefully the patch will address balance issues, but given how poorly ES handled AOE2's balance issues, I suspect it won't.

 

[Nanta]

Well AOE2 didn't have any after game teams..hopefully since aoe3 has one they can look at the reasons why French is being used so much.

 

[VALIS]

Walls is my favorite thing about AoE. Some of my most memorable games have come when I managed to fight off a few rogue attacks from the CPU enemies while building a labyrinth system of stone walls and gates 5 rows deep! Fuck yeah walls!!