How to beat the computer players?

[Mark A Gregory]

Hi,

I have been playing empire for 10 years, empire, you know the real one...

Anyway, my question is this.

I start a game with four players, myself and a computer ally against
two other computer players.

I set coastal and hardest level with huge land mass.

I start by building a new civ and and house.
I move two civs to the berry trees, build a granary next to the berry trees
and then pick berries.
I put the next onto berries and the house builder onto getting wood.
I build another two civs and put them onto berries.

When I have enough wood I build either a barracks or a dock.
Then I put the sixth civ onto getting wood.

Thus in summary I have five civs on berries and one on wood.

I have never come even close to getting to the next level before the
computer
players. Normally by the timeline I'm about two minutes after the computer
players. This seems quite ridiculous, given they have the same number of
civs, I have looked at the achievements and they have at least one out
searching the
world...

After going to the next level I make two more civs and put them onto wood.
I keep getting berries and build two buildings from the next level.

When the buildings are built I go for berries or deer, whichever is closer.
The key is
food, so I go for food.

Again, I am normally five minutes later than the slowest computer player
getting to the next level.

Just after this I get attacked by normally about 5 to 8 cav. The computer
must
have been getting a lot of gold for this...

This is a reproduceable pattern, even if I stop and restart AOE.

What is going on? Why is it that I have no chance of competing?

I would appreciate some advice here.

thank you
Mark

[Brian Chau]

First off, make a lot of villigers. That is the key to advancing quickly.

[John S. Crouch]

Mark A Gregory wrote in message ...

>Again, I am normally five minutes later than the slowest computer player
>getting to the next level.
>
>Just after this I get attacked by normally about 5 to 8 cav. The computer
>must
>have been getting a lot of gold for this...
>
>This is a reproduceable pattern, even if I stop and restart AOE.
>
>What is going on? Why is it that I have no chance of competing?

Mark:

If you want a fair game I suggest you play against the "Hard" setting.
With "Hardest" the computer players get more resources than you to start
with, and so have an unfair advantage (thus, "Hardest"!). According to Dave
P., "Hard" and "Hardest" are exactly the same except for that resource
boost.

-jsc

[Scott Robert Ladd]

Mark A Gregory <m.gr...@rmit.edu.au> wrote:
> Thus in summary I have five civs on berries and one on wood.

There's your problem - you don't have enough workers! Build 12 to 20
villagers; I often have 25 gathers, cutters, and miners. If you look at the
end-game screen under "Economy", you'll find that the computer players
build 20-30 villagers.

AoE is a game of production and resource control. The rest is window
dressing.

Also, play on "Hard", not "Hardest", if you want a "fair" game. The only
difference between Hard and Hardest is that the computer players get extra
resources (and humans don't) on Hardest.

--
<Scott Robert Ladd>
srl...@frontier.net
http://www.frontier.net/~srladd (see Insight/Java and ALife Central)

[Dave C. Pottinger]

John S. Crouch <j...@infonet.isl.net> wrote in article
<eyimUju...@uppssnewspub04.moswest.msn.net>...

That's correct (about the diff between Hard and Hardest).

I'd suggest that you drop down a diff level or two if possible; our
experience has shown that most people who start at easiest are playing at
the moderate level within 10 to 15 hours (which was pretty close to exactly
what we were shooting for:).

BTW, build more villagers:)

dave

--
Dave C. Pottinger
Engine Lead
Ensemble Studios Corp.