Goths, the "No rush civilization"

Goths civilization:
                Getting pierced by the arrows of long bowman? wanna get rid of them? Here is the best anti unit for them , the mighty "Huskarals".The Gothic unique unit with high pierce armor can slaughter the long bowman and other archers by their attack bonus against them and they are immune even to the castle arrows. The unique technology of the Goths "ANARCHY" enables us to create Huskarals in Barracks. Unlike the other civilizations Goths have two unique technologies, the other one is "perfusion".This helps us to create barrack units 50% faster.

No rush civilization:
                           Goths is basically an infantry civilization.The infantry costs will get cheaper when we upgrade to every age.While playing No rush games Goths are one of the best civilizations to prefer. The team bonus of Goths makes the barracks to work 20% faster. The "perfusion" research makes the barracks to work  50 % faster and the consricption research in castle helps the military units to create even faster. Thus in No Rush games the barrack units of Goths are created in lighting speed to destroy the enemy. If you are running out of Gold create Halberdiers in large mass to destroy the enemy . Since infantries are cheaper,we can create even more army and when we reach Imperial age , the Goths has extra 10 population. Hence in late Games we can make the enemy bleed by using Goths civilization.

The mixture of army:
                    The Goths Barrack units mixture can tackle mostly all the units in the game

1) Goths Halberdier can take down all the mounted units except Cataphract.
2) Goths Champions can destroy all the buildings and in addition Goths' infantry have +1 attack vs buildings.
3) Goths Huskarals can kill all the archers.
The mighty Goths infantry army can only be stopped by the fully upgraded cataphract and The japanese Samurai with the help of siege units like scorpion and mangonals.

Mental Strategies

1. Taking advantage of civilization stereotypes: Most players are rather stubborn in that they will focus on one strategy and will not stop, you must use this to your advantage. Usually the opponent will be this stubborn when he/she realizes that you are a civ that specializes in a certain line of units(Viking: Infantry, Persians: Cavalry, etc.) He/she will mainly only use the counter to the unit that he/she expects you to employ in battles(Persian: Pikemen, Viking: Archers), so you already know what he/she will build. What you need to do is build a complete opposite to the units that your opponent expects you to use(Viking: Heavy Cavalry, Mongol: Heavy Infantry). Usually the opposite to the stereotypical unit is the counter to the counter of the steriotypical unit, so you will easily destroy your enemy's army.

Although powerful if pulled off, using this strategy is rather risky, because your opponent may anticipate your strategy and build the counter to the radical unit that you are planning of creating.

2. When approaching your enemy, set your army to staggered formation: Along with protecting yourself from scorpion and magnonel fire, when your army is in staggered formation, it looks much larger than it really is. When you have large units like cavalry, the army's size is exaggerated even more. The use of your looking larger than it really is, is that your enemy might get frightened and may run away. Even if they do fight, they may be in a frenzy to fight off your army, which means that the amount of extra troops that your enemy might train could severly slow down his/her economy.

3. Attack your enemy on two fronts: (Note: This strategy is best used with an ally, so you will not have to switch from one part of the map to another.) Accumulate 2 armies, and situate them on either side of an enemy. First attack with one army, and when a large portion of your enemy's army is defending against your first army, attack with your second army. Most likely, your enemy will have sent all of his/her army to the other side of his/her territory, so one half will be nearly completely unguarded. This will make it much easier for your second army to break into the city. Eventually, your enemy will be forced to send his/her army to defend against your second army, allowing your 1st army to break through the city much easier. Just with the time your enemy's army takes to get across his/her territory will make it much easier for you, but it may also greatly confuse your enemy, giving you even more time.

4. Distract your enemy from his/her economy: This strategy is rather useful in the start of the game, using your scout. Although it takes a bit of micromanagement, you can use gather points on your town center, in order to save you some time. Using the scout, attack one of your opponent's villager. If it attacks, run away. Most likely, your enemy will have to send villagers out to kill your scout, in order to stop your harassments. Because he will be focused on your scout, some of his villagers may be idle. Another economic problem that the enemy will have is that the villagers that are trying to kill your scout cavalry will not be gathering resources. 

5. Houses look like unpacking trebuchets: When you have reached the imperial age, you will have access to trebuchets. Just that fact will frighten your enemy. When your army has reached the outside of your city, lay down several houses, but don't build them. By some strange quirk, unbuilt houses look like trebuchets unpacking. In a frenzy, your enemy will send Cavalry, so kill them with pikemen. With the enemy's cavalry decimated for, pull out your real trebuchets, as it will be easier to hack away at the defenses. If you are lucky, your enemy will think that your real unpacking trebuchets are houses, so he/she might not attack. If he/she does attack, simply defend with your army. This strategy will save you some time, which is vital for RTS games.

6. Villagers can be very power vs. buildings: In the Imperial Age, research sappers, which will give your villagers a +15 attack vs. buildings. Keeping them fairly guarded, these sappers can demolish building rather quickly. If your enemy is generally an "angry" player, the fact that lowly villagers are razing his/her city may infuriate him/her, making him/her think less clearly. Although this doesn't always work, it works well when it does.

7. Verbally confuse your enemy: This is the "strangest" of these strategies, but it works rather well. There is several ways to confuse an enemy, be it saying gibberish, etc. If you say something like "Am I you for me seven turtle", your enemy might be confused greatly, there is no need for me to say why. You can also tell your enemy what you are "planning" to do. This will get your enemy to think if you are insane to tell him your strategy, and if what you said is true. Because he/she will be thinking about what you are going to do, his/her economy and military might slow down.

8. Distract your enemy with buildings: If your enemy is about to attack you on land, quickly build several cheap, relatively strong but quickly built buildings, such as houses, all over the area of land between your enemy and you. When your enemy reaches your "distraction" buildings, most likely he/she will attack them, moving from building to building destroying them. (Be sure not to have 1 type of building, because your enemy might figure out your strategy.) Since the enemy has been busy razing your buildings, you will have saved time to strengthen your defenses and reinforced your army. Another good use for the "distraction" buildings, is that they can "tell" you how far away your enemy's army is, and what the army is comprised of, which allows you to defend much easier, telling you the counters of their army.

Patrolling

Patrolling is accomplished via pressing the “patrol” button in unit commands, and then left clicking on the location you want your units to patrol to.
The default hotkey for patrolling is ‘Z’.

Why Patrol?

To begin this it’s best by asking this question:
Q. What’s the main difference between 40 ranged and 40 close combat units?
A. The 40 ranged all attack at the same time. 

On the other hand, the 40 close combat units will all wander and try to attack, but only those that are next to their enemy will be able to.

What patrolling does is make units go “on top” of each other. That way on the same space you can have 3, 4, even 5 close combat units, attacking the same 1 enemy unit. Put simply, using patrol makes your close combat units much more effective.

Patrolling in practice :
Patrolled units will generally “target” the first enemy unit that “attacks” them. That’s why sometimes you will see patrols go by each other – the units simply did not detect the enemy, and therefore did not target anyone.

There are 4 stances that units have – Aggressive, Defensive, Stand Ground, and No Attack.
You can patrol units using any stance.

In order of strength, patrolling goes like this:
Aggressive > Defensive > Stand Ground > and last is obviously, No Attack.

Therefore, aggressive is the main stance that you will use in most of your gaming.

Defensive patrolling you can use when you want your units to stay around 1 general spot.. BUT if they see an enemy, they will chase after him anyway, so this one is not pointless… just hard to explain and takes practice to know when to use.

Stand Ground patrolling is how I first discovered patrols. I thought it was the only way you can patrol until I accidentally changed stances haha. 
When I was beginning 1v1 CBA wars, I started to think that it was useless: Every time I used it vs any other stance I would get raped. Later however, I found a really cool way in which to use it. 

Finer points of patrolling :

And now, we reach the finer aspects of patrolling, of which I think there are only two. The first, and possibly foremost point of which (and for which I am both loved AND hated among the CS community) is…. (drum roll please): runners.

Runners are units used solely for the purpose of distraction. In close combat wars, they “lure” enemy units away to give you a numbers advantage. In ranged wars, they are used by taking advantage of the bad accuracy of ranged units. A few runners are patrolled in between your army and the enemy, and are replaced when they die. All runners use No Attack stance. 

No Attack patrolling was also my COUNTER to runners, when they started being used against me.
I would use No Attack stance, patrol with all my men, and when I got past the runner, and close to enemy, I would switch to aggressive stance.

This still remains as one very effective way in which you can use it.

The second point is the cool part I mentioned earlier – Stand Ground patrolling, which has three uses.

a) Instead of No Attack, I later began using Stand Ground stance. The reason for this is – in stand ground, your units still “target” the enemy units. So when you change them to aggressive, they already KNOW who to attack, where as in No Attack stance they must first target something.

b) Since they don’t attack until you tell them to, you can get more units closer to the enemy before you switch stances. This is just advanced micro; with time most should begin to see it. 

c) This is a continuation of b, but here goes:
If my ally needs help, I will send my units(close combat) to him on stand ground patrol. This way they don’t get distracted by every single enemy unit along the way, AND if they get ambushed, they are already on patrol, so it’s simple to switch to just switch to aggressive and get the most effective use out of them, even in a situation where they will die anyway.

Navy Patrolling: 
When chasing enemy, but your units on stand ground stance, and constantly re patrol. This will make the units even more clumped, and they will move more smoothly (WITHOUT REGROUPING WHICH SLOWS YOUR CHASE DOWN).

Stand ground stance is for them noticing/attacking less things such as docks (which keeps them more ordered), and every time they DO attack something meaningless, or even say 1 enemy ship, re patrol right away to keep them moving forward.

The anti-ballistics trick I showed you works here too.
Another anti-ballistics trick is: Micro one boat on the side. When the enemy boats fire, RIGHT AWAY you move the boat into a different direction, causing them to miss.

The reason why ballistics can be countered is: it predicts where the unit will go based on it's current path. Next it sends a arrow/cannon ball TO THE PREDICTED point. If you move your unit back, when they shoot 2 tiles forward, you'll make the arrows miss.

Death Match

1.To win a deathmatch in age of empires 2 conquerors edition you must be on your toes. First thing to do when the game starts is create 15 villagers and put them to work on gold, stone and food and lumber. The villagers you are given at the start of the game should be building houses, castles, monastery, towers around your camp, stables, siege and barracks. In other words anything military. If you have elephants you will need a lot of food so consider building farms. Do all of this quickly. The computer or your opponent will be doing the same.

2.The key is to have a supply of all things needed to survive a long and hard battle. I always send off a few villagers in different directions to build new town centers and camps in far away locations in case your home city is weakened by a relentless attack.

3.Build up your military as fast as you can and place them at strategic locations on the map for confrontations. Be prepared to build siege buildings and castles at these same locations if needed to protect your walk across or walk through. Cut you enemy off at any and all locations so they cannot get to you. This seems to be the best policy.

4. Select different locations of the enemies camp to attack at the same time. Do not forget about the seas and the possibility of ships bombing you from the water. So build a dock if needed. Build up your military and attack. Kill all the villagers you can to win the game that is the key to winning a deathmatch. Keep the attack coming until you get through their walls.

5.Knights and camels seem to be the fastest at arriving at a location, so make lots of them. Destroy all the military buildings you can and their town centers. Station solders at the walls of the enemy so they cannot rebuild the walls. Keep a close eye out on your home camp for a sneak attack. KILL THE VILLAGERS is the fastest way to win.

20 Eagle Warriors in 20 mins

Mainly aimed for team games. It's not very useful in duels as a flush will kill this with ease. But if you were in the pocket of a 3v3, this strategy is very ful (similar to my mass knight rush). The eagle warriors get both armor upgrades, forging and tracking, which makes them nearly invincible against arrows with 4 pierce armor.

• Villagers 1-6) Sheep
• Villager 7) House, and then lumber camp
• Villagers 8-11) Wood
• Villager 12) Sheep
• Build House with anyone.
• Villager 13) Lure boar
• Once boar is dead, all shepherds move to boar, but if theres still sheep, keep 1 villager on the sheep.
• Villager 14) Boar
• Villager 15) Lure second boar
• Villager 16 goes to build mill near deer.
• Build House with anyone
• Villager 16-18) Goes to hunt deer
• Villager 19) Sheep or Boar
• Villager 20) Wood
• Build House.
• Villager 21) Build mill near berries
• Villager 22) Wood
• If theres too much crowd in the town centre, use some shepherds to make some farms around the town centre.
• Villager 23) Wood
• Villager 24) Wood
• Villager 25) Build mining camp near gold
• After all sheep has been consumed, send the shepherds to gold - use 1 to make a farm.
• Villager 26) Gold
• Villager 27) Farm
• Villager 28) Wood

~ Click Feudal ~

Recap on what we have so far:

* 10 lumberjacks

* 4 foragers

* 5 farmers

* 6 miners

* 3 hunters (on deer)

• Make a barracks and a house.

~ During Feudal ~

• As soon as you hit feudal, queue 3 villagers and use 2 lumberjacks to make an archery, and 1 to make a blacksmith.
• Villager 29) Wood
• Villager 30) Wood
• Make a farm with one of the builders.

~ Click Castle ~

• Once the deer hunters have finished, send them to mine gold.
• Use the 2 builders to make more barracks.

Recap again:

* 6 farmers

* 2 foragers

* 12 lumberjacks

* 9 miners

* 2 builders

Research scale mail armor.

Build more houses. 

 

~ During Castle ~

Queue as much eagle warriors as possible from each barrack. Research chain mail armor. Research forging. Once you are running low on gold and can\'t make any more eagles, research tracking. After you have your 25 upgraded eagles in 20 minutes, go kill the enemy.

20 Knights in 20 mins

Basically, my aim is to get 20 knights in 20 minutes. It sounds impossible, but is not. This strategy involves using the Teutons because of their cheaper farms. Many other civs are viable also but because of the teutons farm bonus, it enables you to have less woodcutters, or more farmers. This strategy is specifically for pocket players only. You can risk using this strategy if you were on the sides, but that would be a big risk.

What you need:

• 4 sheep + bonus 2 sheep, don''t really need the other bonus sheep but you can if you want
• 2 boars.
• Don''t need to hunt deer, but if they are close, you can hunt them.
• Berry bush.

The build up:

Well, its just like most build ups;

• 6 on sheep, 1 forager, 2 woodcutters and 1 house builder/boar lurer are the first set of villagers
• By 10 minutes, you should have achieved the following: 
  * 26/30 population 
  * 14 villagers on food 
  * 11 villagers on wood 
  * + scout 
  (or something like that)

You want to mine gold after the 10 minute mark too... trust me, you will need it. I have tested this strategy over 10 times and found that you will need LOTS of gold, repeat, LOTS of gold

• Transfer 2 FROM food to gold and make town centre gathering point to gold
• Now you can look at your resources and see do you need more food, if you do, make some villagers to go to food instead
• With a population of 32, click feudal
• By now, you should have: 
  * 32/50 
  * 11 villagers on wood still 
  * about 12 on food 
  * 7 gold miners 
  * and 1 builder building barracks while feudaling 
  * + scout
• As soon as you get to feudal, build blacksmith with 3 woodcutters and a stable with 1- 2 miners and queue 3 villagers at town center
• With the 3 villagers who built the blacksmith, make another mining camp at a different gold mine
• The 3 villagers you made FROM the town centre go to the new gold mine

Advance to Castle Age

• Meanwhile, DON'T do any upgrades because it is impossible to achieve 20 knights in 20 minutes if you did do upgrades
• Using the same builder who built the stables, build 3 more stables, in total of 4
• Make more houses
• As soon as you hit castle, train knights... do NOT make villagers FROM the town centre, it won''t work
• Queue knights is top priority (queue farms at the mill to save some time)
• You should have 12 miners and only 8 woodcutters
• By 20 minutes, you should have queued (non-stop) 20 knights AND more coming.
• Now go kill your enemy.

when Unique units fights alone

Aztecs
Win - Goths
Lose -

Britons 
Win -
Lose - Goths

Byzantines
Win - Aztecs, Celts, Goths, Japanese, Teutons, Vikings
Lose -

Celts 
Win - Goths
Lose -

Chinese
Win - Persian
Lose - Goths

Franks
Win -
Lose -

Goths
Win - Britons, Chinese, Koreans, Mayans, Mongols
Lose - Byzantine, Celts, Aztec, Japanese, Persians, Teutons

Huns
Win -
Lose -

Japanese
Win - Goths
Lose -

Koreans
Win -
Lose - Goths

Mayans
Win -
Lose - Goths

Mongols
Win - Turks
Lose - Goths

Persians
Win - Huns, Goths, Byzantine
Lose - Saracen

Saracens
Win - Persian, Turks, Huns
Lose - Japanese

Spanish
Win - Vikings, Turks
Lose - Goths

Teutons
Win - Goths, Celts, Vikings, Aztec
Lose - Britons, Mayans, Spanish, Turks

Turks
Win - Goths, Turks
Lose - Saracen, Spanish

Vikings
Win - Goths
Lose - Teutons