Containing an enemy and controlling the map
By sword_master_1 · vanilla
A classic explanation of containment, scouting and denying an opponent access to new resources.
I can’t say how many games I’ve won by simply containing the opponent. Say two evenly matched players are playing. Its classical age and both players have managed to keep up army production and the battles are ending in stalemate and retreats. You raid his econ but he fights back and takes measures to prevent raiding. The economies of both players are probably pretty similar or if your raiding has been sucessful you will be slightly ahead.
It’s sometimes kind of hard to raid because at this point or earlier villigers have started to farm and either towers are upgraded or they have an army big enough to make a raid useless.
How does one end the stalemate? How does one get the initiative and the upper hand? There are several things you should do.
- Know the map
- Continue to raid
- Control the map
- Prevent gold mine expansion
- Destroy houses and buildings
Know the map.
As Greek, this one is easy, as Egypt and Norse it may not be as much. Scout around the map and note gold mines – both those near the enemy town and those in the neutral areas of the map. Know where their villagers are gathering and where they have built houses and military buildings. On maps like Alfheim and Mediterranian look for spots to wall off to contain the fighting where you want it. Build the walls closer to their base than to yours if they are in the defensive. You can prevent sneaky villigers from wandering away to a far-off gold mine or your opponent from flanking your town with a suprise raid.
Continue to raid.
If you were the first to attack, you should have already hit their resource gathering operations. If you were attacked and repelled the attack, don’t sit on the defensive – go for their economy. Focus on gold which is often far from the town center, or failing that, wood. If your opponent does not have farms, look for hunters and attack those. Making your opponent farm early on can be put a lot of strain on their economy. Retreat if they have towers or have military protecting econ spots – look for somewhere more lightly defended to attack.
Control the map
Force your opponent’s army to remain in their town by constantly harassing his economy. He won’t be able to attack you for fear you’ll slaughter his undefended villagers. Force him to waste resources on towers because of fear of your raiding, rather than on units and upgrades to attack you. Build more production buildings to maintain army production so you can continue to pump military nonstop – place these offensively to further force him on the defensive.
Attacking an enemy town from two sides can be very effective. While they face one of your armies, the other is killing villagers, or forcing villagers to stop their work and hide in towers and the Town Center. Have your other army retreat to your forward buildings where units are being produced and to gain the added support of towers or a healing spring, and wait for the enemy to repel your other army, then resume attacking. Repeat this process as necessary.
Prevent expansion to other gold mines
This is the most important element of containing an enemy.
All military units and most upgrades cost gold. No gold = no military. The simplest way to tell whether your enemy’s first gold mine has run out is that yours will probably go about the same time – when this happens, look for enemy attempts to expand to new gold mines. Scout the mines near his town constantly to see if he has moved his gold mining. A lot of people just send their villagers alone to a mine and expect to remain unharmed. Chances are they won’t even protect their mine. When you find a gold mining operation, aggressively force an enemy off it, disrupting his economy and forcing him to try and find another safe gold mine. Be prepared to fight over the mine, your opponent is likely to try and defend it.
Deny your opponent of gold and you have denied them the game. If they send their main force to defend a gold mine, send your main force to attack. Since your opponent is starved of gold, chances are his army will be inferior to yours. If you’re, Norse building structures by unclaimed gold mines is quick and effective way to maintain constant line of sight to it. As Egypt try building obelisks near mines. (Don’t build them too obviously – they’ll just get knocked down.)
Destroy any houses and buildings you can find
Its very frustrating when you have military units at 99% at several military buildings because the enemy just destroyed your houses. Norse have a tendency to build houses with their forward bases. When destroying buildings, go for houses before you destroy the actual production buildings. They go down much faster than the production buildings, and production buildings are useless if you are at the population limit. (Greek and Norse players will also suffer the loss of wood, Egyptian players suffer a less obviously loss to their economy – villagers erecting houses are villagers not working.) Take the initiative by proceeding to destroy their military buildings, or attacking their economy. (Keep in mind villagers are easier to destroy than houses, so always harass your opponent’s economy if you have the chance.)
When an enemy army retreats to the safety of its town, and there are buildings around, take advantage of the absence of defenders and destroy his buildings.
Culture guidelines
As Greeks: Scouting is easy – you start with a free, fast and tough scout unit, but don’t neglect Pegasi. Building one or two can be a useful way to keep tabs on whether your enemy is trying anything sneaky. The Norse especially have a tendency to be very nomadic. They can build longhouses right under your nose, or have over half their villagers halfway across the map from their town gathering from mobile ox carts. Since you know where the good hunting spots are take advantage of the ones in the middle. After you advance build your initial military buildings there and protect the area there. If there are gold mines or a settlement there, all the better.
As Egypt: Egypt has unfortunately the poorest scouting, so they may find things hardest. Take the initative by scouting with your first few military units and then attacking. Build obelisks all over the map to keep them from hiding villager movements. Even if they destroy your obelisks, it can often be a beacon – he may be clearing out an obelisk so he can mine gold somewhere. When obelisks go down, make sure you see what the reason was. Was it just convenient, or are they hiding something?
As Norse: Foward building is easy but make sure you scout as much as possible with your ulfsark. Don’t build houses in areas where they will get destroyed if you can help it. (Or you can try building a house next to a gold mine – this works a little like the Egyptian obelisks.) Towering gold mines is sometimes helpful but not all powerful. Unprotected they are easily taken out, even by villagers. Instead use them with military to keep enemy villagers from taking over new gold mines.
Keeping yourself from being contained
After you advance classical switch your villies to a secondary gold mine further from your TC. If you lose control of this mine, you still have a safe gold mine close to your TC. (Thor can use his god power too when he’s stuck in this situation.) Protect mines that are away from your town with your army. If necessary, move your villager force around the map – this will thwart any attempts to raid your resource gathering. If an enemy attacks your wood gatherers, then attacks them again, take a hint. Move your wood gatherers. Your opponent can’t disrupt your econ if he doesn’t know where your villies are. If your enemy looks like they have discovered a gold gathering operation outside your town move it straight away. This keeps your miners safe and keeps them guessing.
This recorded game shows me as Ra. My opponent goes Posiedon cav early in the game but I beat him back and force him on the defensive. His several towers thwart my raiders but I manage to scare him away from gold mines outside his town. I force his military to stay at his town so I (with a stronger econ) can advance. While his towers might do a good amount of damage to my military he condemned himself when he had to go defensive. When he can’t reclaim a gold mine the game is mine. Notice also the use of the god powers. I use eclipse to prevent a ceasefire as I am raiding at his base and I force him to ring town bell before I use rain to reduce the benefit he gets from it.
That’s all the basic info you need to know about containing an enemy and controlling a map, two of the basic principles you need to learn in order to improve your play.
-sword_master_1
Source: sword_master_1 · HeavenGames