The Asian Dynasties

Definitely the better of the two matches, even though I only do rated French in vanilla (Japs eat us in AD ). My bad eco ruins me as usual, but you know I won't go without a fight....or 10.

Both battles are unrated, I've played something like 3-4 matches lately after 5 weeks doing nothing. This way I can play without fear of total humiliation.

There's a second game that's more of a washout, I'll be posting that soon.

GG Cerby. This was a fun one. A battle of mirco against eco

It's amazing how the other game gets more attention, seemingly because I said I made much more of a mess of it...

Would u like a reveiw? I see no "!"

!'s don't exist any more. It's a free choice if anyone fancies reviewing it. But I'll give you a hint...it went wrong right about the time I decided to stay on 1 TC and spend on other parts of military and economy instead.

First up, goes without saying, thanks for the review.

The muskets not guarding the vills....I'd never even considered it. I'm used to the policy where basically the whole army stands on the likely attack vector, or at least - somewhere where they can respond to an attack from most angles (unless someone is mad enough to attack from a totally obscure angle, and risk their -own- safety tryng it). I was undeniably sluggish early game regardless and I ended up chasing the Hussars as best I could, when really I should have got a pop at them while they were coming in. There seems to be no real fix for a brain that sometimes just chooses rest.

Villagers to crates....that's a familiar tale. I'm sure I remember being criticised for use of two villagers before. Realistically I'm not sure how much a super efficient start can really change the outcome of a match although obviously some parts are more important than others (e.g. herding can save a loss by thwarting a raid). On one hand it's good to pursue high standards where-ever you see the chance, on the other some people (usually me among them) are stretched as it is and need to focus on the stuff that's REALLY crucial, like not forgetting shipments or queueing at all This isn't really a debate I have the evidence, rank or even really experience to see through, although it's an interesting topic for whoever wants to pick it up. For the true experts, I imagine the game seems so sluggish it's not a big deal to them anyway, just one more refinement they can put in.

2 outposts has a use that 700 wood does not, although I never got to use it here. 2 outposts can typically be played when you want to deploy them somewhere where you cannot guarantee the vill(s) sent to build them will be able to finish the job, or that the post will not go up fast enough otherwise (I suspect autobuild will be marginally faster than getting vills to build them). The plan WAS to put an outpost not far from his TC on the left to keep track of affairs there and one on the right at the edge of the trade route to make it impossible to either sneak Hussars past again or at least force him to give me time to group up and prep to fight off any attack on that side (as stated earlier, initiative is important right? ). Reality, he caught the wagons coming out and that was the end of that.
So WAS the plan, anyway.

The TC crime was unforgivable. See earlier comments on struggling to remember to do all that needs to be done. The longer the game goes on, the more of these will slip through. I can try and force the mind to watch for these problems, but inevitably at least a couple will get by, hence my need to try and push for an early win if possible. I'm nowhere near as bad as I used to be (originally anything after the initial rush was chaos) but I'm still hardly in a fit shape to operate. I would say, at least 5 if not more PR below my level for this problem, but it's not a problem I can fix with a devious scheme...

As it happens, I tried a petard raid against someone else not long back and it badly badly backfired. Since I had no idea where his army was positioned I had no idea where to attack, in any case siege was rather low and I had the problem of ensuring his army could be fought off if I had to do it. Again, the leaky mind and deteriorating econ eventually put paid to that.

The review does give me some extra areas to look at, so thanks again for that.

No Problem

Well, as a general rule you keep your army together, but it is always good to cover villagers that are at risk. As I say, only 5 muskets and raiding becomes fairly unprofitable. Chasing away raiders is usually futile.



Well, with regards to the early game, if you can shave 10 secs off the time for the first vil to start, you also save 10 secs for the second third and so on. You save ten secs for every villager from that town centre. That does add up.



For that, there is a trick I like. Building wall posts. Basically, you send one villager out and make him build just posts of walls accross the map. He will finish them faster, they are cheaper and you get better map vision. Again it is a bit micro intensive, but using the hotkey ("-" is standard) and shift that is minimised. Plus, if the opponent decides to destroy it, it buys you alot of time/knowledge.



Thats why you scout



Well, I suggest getting a piece of paper, and writing down a set of key things that you want to improve on doing. Stuff like, second TC, market upgrades, idle villagers and scouting. Then play a game with improving those aspects in mind. Continue to think about them and they eventually become habit.

Chasing raiders is useless, totally agreed. But that's what I meant by having a total lapse - had I been clued-in, it wouldn't have even got to that.

Vills...well, a vill takes 30s to make (I think), 10s is 1/3 of a vill, so the issue becomes how much can that 1/3 vill do. Best case, I think, you might get a single unit's worth of resources every few minutes. I'm not usually one to throw away small benefits but it seems like an unusual amount ot go to for a 1/3 vill.
I would rather be more concerned about not losing the ones I have. Although I made a bit of a mess of that here... Credit to Rokk on his raiding, the good French players are invariably good early Hussar raiders too.

I like the wall posts concept, I've seen it in play. But it does seem to take a lot to make it work well. It does get better the longer the game goes on, as LOS improves with church and age-ups. The problem being as you say, the micro but also the inability to shoot the enemy as they go past. It's not just the wall posts concept idea either, it looks like there's a lot to be had out of walls in general. Mostly the issue is getting something out of it I can't get elsewhere. Wall posts are cheap but I lose firepower and vill garrison too. Anyone fancy writing a wall guide for GR?

Late game scouting can get very expensive. I like the balloons for this but card space is very very precious. Some folks send single units in but that has a blink-and-miss-it effect, also you can lose the game doing that indirectly if you tip the balance doing it, even by only a couple of units in a close match. Late scouting seems to have no ideal answer...

Targetted improvement as you've described it has worked well for me in the past, especially over at king where in a mahjong type game it's eventually won me nearly £200 - but the game in question was a lot smaller, a few minutes tops per game and for something big like Age there's a big risk of, as others have reported in the past, you shove one idea in and another falls out of your head. Only practice will tell this one, I guess. It's got me far enough that this replay was not utter humilation, so it looks like the slow road of gradual improvement for me.
I have had situations in the past where I've learnt strats and forgot about them, thankfully at this stage it's still in the minority.

Thanks for the review!

I think the review called for some more credit to cerby. Even though my eco was miles ahead, his OP micro kept him in the game. Other than that, I really enjoyed the review Thanks again

Good game. French mirrors are my favorite type of mirror. There are so many strategies and options available. Hussar semi-ff seems to be the most popular but I personally prefer the 15 musket semi-ff.

Cerby you lost this game for 2 reasons. The first one was bad strat choice. it was creative, I'll give you that but it really wasn't the best choice. The other reason is lack of economy which I think you already know. Also good micro around 30 minutes at the battle at your fort. You caught his Cuirs in your Dragoons.

Rokk you could have won this game a few minutes after hitting fortress. You knew he was going musketeers and hussars why did you go cuirs and skirms. Skirms and Dragoons would have been a much better option and you would have probably won quickly after hitting fortress. Also your micro was shaky at best. And lastly use your resources! You had so much floating gold and food throughout the game.

Good game guys.