I’ve been playing AoM a bit lately and every damn time I play online I keep getting rushed. It usually happens once my opponent reaches the second age. Once he does that I’m hit hard with cheap spearman! I can’t do anything because I don’t have an army built.
This is my strategy…
I’m the Egyptians and I worship SET. I’ve been picking SET because…
a) Slingers have more hit points and train faster. I love having the Slingers in the background covering my Myth units and Spearman.
b) Pharaohs can convert wild animals. My strategy is to convert wild animals so I can harass my enemy. I figure if I can get my enemy fighting the animals and not collecting gold, food and wood then I can delay him from advancing to the next stage.
c) You start w/ the hyena. This animal is a good scout. Very fast.
d) You get the Vision God Power. This is good to locate your enemy.
So basically the first thing I do is a build a couple of houses with my one citizen. Then I immediately have the other 2 people collect food. I’m also scouting the map with the hynea and priests. Then i’ll envoke Vision to locate my enemy. Then I build as many people as possible before advancing to the next stage.
I skip collecting wood in the beginning. I collect food and then gold. I haven’t been building walls because it takes to much time. After I get my temple built and about 22 people I’ll go to the next age. By this time I’ll put about 3-6 people on wood while the rest are collecting gold and food. Then I’ll start to build some forts, some more temples, etc…
But then it happens. Before I can even get the first barracks up I’m getting attacked. Then forget it, because it’s over.
Should I change my game plan? I would like to play the Egyptians but I keep getting my assed kicked.
I haven’t played a ton online, mostly just games with my fiance or skirmishes vs the computer, but in my limited experience, egypt is a lot more vulnerable to early rushes because the units are generally weaker. I tend to build extra towers early on to help with defense, but that is of limited effectiveness if you don’t have a very defensable starting position. My solution is to play norse :)
How do you fend off early rushing? By switching to Rise of Nations! No really, maybe it’s just because I suck at RTS games but I was under the impression that AOM was designed specifically to allow for nonstop offensive gameplay, including early rushes. There’s not much in the way of defenses, you have to counter-attack.
I haven’t played much AoM so maybe that’s it? I do play w/ people who have the same abilities as me, but they keep kicking my ass.
I forgot that the Egyptians are more vulnerable to early rushes then the other cultures, but I would like to stick with them. I guess I need to work on my gameplay a bit.
It depends who you are playing against. If you are being attacked by Egyptian spearmen, have axemen ready. Egypt is a tough early game because it gets no really good units until the third age.
Wood is not a high priority for Egypt early on, so put as many workers as you can into gold. One logger should be enough until the second age. Mercenaries don’t last long, so they are good for defense only. As a last ditch holding strategy they are pretty strong. And they cost gold only.
If you are playing only one opponent, and like using Set, don’t underestimate the disruptive powers of your animals. Sure they start pretty puny, but if you throw some hyenas and deer at an undefended mining camp they can slow down production.
As mention earlier, towers are great for Egypt. They upgrade automatically between ages one and two, so surrounding your town with watch towers in the first age can really pay off, provinding you have the gold to do it.
A lot of the AoM fan sites have detailed strategies and are probably more reliable than my ramblings.
If you are playing Set, you want to utilise their creature conversion bonus. This can be used to defend yourself from an attack, but is much better used in an attack of your own. On a good map, you can have a nice little army before your opponent has reached the second age. There’s some good attack strategies around, but here’s the most effective Set strategy I’ve seen (there may be better I stopped playing some months back), the fast heroic.
my main gripe with egypt is having to pull my phaeroh off of economy boosting to go get relics. I feel like I am losing out on a ton of early gold if I send him out to bring a couple of relics in. Egypt has such a good economy that it feels like a shame to not maximize it.
Out curiosity, what myth units of thiers do you favor? I find all the iterations of the sphinxes to be underwhelming. The anubites are okay, mainly for their speed. I really like the Avengers that have the area effect attack. The alligators-with-fricken-laserbeams-on-their-heads are my preferred siege for late game, but often I am cranking out too many other units that require favor to get to them.
Scarabs. Great town wreckers and nearly impervious to arrow damage. Towers fall in no time.
I like Avengers, but the cost…two in army is usually enough thankfully.
Don’t underestimate Sphinxes. The sand blast is good for early combat. Anubite speed is better on the defense, but a Sphinx escort for an assault force can be quite handy.
Once you get to the 2nd age, you should be in OK shape to stop a rush in your town, since your towers automatically upgrade as Egyptian. If you expect Spearmen (which is a pretty good bet against a rushing egyptian player) go for Axemen – they’ll eat 'em alive.
The most important thing is to just not forget to build some military yourself. Your enemy has to build those units too, and in the time it takes them to cross the terrain they have to contend with your extra units in that time, plus your defenses. Usually if you can hold off the initial attacks you can capitalize on that with a stronger economy.
But I’m not a great player by online standards, but that’s what I’ve picked up in my experience playing the game…
In the later game (Heroic and beyond) the defensive structures get weaker to reward offensive play.
In the expansion, the Atlanteans have some nice defensive bonuses but that won’t help you in the short term. :-)
