Advanced Treaty Tips

Quarantine’s got me bored in isolation. Earlier, I wrote a basic guide earlier to help people stop looking like a noob in treaty (I’m joking, but there’s a tint of truth too. Here’s the link - Basic Treaty Guide)

Now in this guide, I assume you’re not gonna take a rush deck into a treaty game and that you’re ready to win. Hopefully this’ll take your playing to the next level. It’s pretty beefy but it’s the product of my 9 years playing consistently in treaty.

I’m actually tired of losing treaty games due to inexperienced teammates (https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/continuing-issue-uneven-skill-disparity-in-custom-team-games-beating-a-dead-horse/122215t). But I do sincerely want to help others succeed as well.

Oh, and also since I main Russia in treaty, I’ll share some special, hard-learned tips for Russia as well. Look for them!


This guide is mainly focus on giving you some more tips on winning stalemates -

I. It's all a numbers game and about who does it better.

Look at your armies statistically as a wholehave a very rough idea of their total DPS, total HP, their multipliers, and what kind of resistance they have (melee or ranged resist). For example, “Hmm, I have 30 skirms at ~300 HP with 108 attack (36 x 3) and 0.30 ranged resist. My enemy has 50 musks at 57 attack and ~375 HP each no ranged resist. Will I win with just that?”

Nobody’s got the time to do all this math, but with experience you should know at some point a mass of musketeers can overwhelm a smaller mass of skirms. I’ll tell you that although 30 skirms still make more damage than 50 musks and even though the skirms have ranged resistance, the skirms will lose because they are sheerly outnumbered. But they don’t lose by that much.

If you think about the entirety of your units as a whole (total HP, total DPS), then you can use these insights to take seemingly unfavorable trades that work in your favor, confusing your opponent

Your constant goal is to use the LEAST amount of less population to create the MOST DPS you can, and produce the MOST HP possible.

40 goons take up 80 population space, and roughly has 52 ranged attack each with 0.20 ranged resistance and roughly 450 HP. Together, they can only shoot a maximum of 2080 damage per shot as whole, and altogether have 18,000 HP.

60 musketeers take up 60 population space, 375 HP a pop, and 57 ranged attack. 60 of them have 22500 HP and altogether can produce so much more damage at 3420 per shot, but the 0.20 ranged resistance makes it so the dragoons receive 2736 per blast. With more HP and more DPS, the 60 musks win over 40 goons. And the musks did it using less pop (60 used instead of 80 for goons). It’s knowing these little winning trades that will help you fight efficiently in war.

Obviously nobody in their right mind would do such a thing, but just know that if you have rough working estimates of how much of one unit will beat another, you will be able to strategically utilize your military pop space more efficiently towin fights. And if you really, really, really know how to use your civ, you can then split pop effectively and dedicate some military population to help your teammates without worry.

Russian tip: This is why Russian Cossacks are SO effective and powerful for flanking/swarming. Their 1-pop cost for 575 HP and decent attack is underrated. With 30 pop space, you can have up to 30 Cossacks composing 17,250 HP to tank with. France can only make 10 Gendarmes with that amount of space at like ~1050 HP each (10,500 HP). Other civs use 15 hussar at that pop space at ~800 HP each (12,000 HP). This means for 30 population, you have a much better tank to soak skirmisher shots. And not only that, Cossacks have 0.30 ranged resistance instead of 0.20 for hussar or Gendarme, meaning the total HP is even MORE effective than the other cav. It is costly, so do not abuse, but do know that you have the a powerful option via Cossacks. Flanking Cossacks wins fights for Russia.

II. Artillery wins wars. Stop throwing men out in the battlefield without artillery support.

These wars aren’t being won simply because you aren’t killing fast enough. You will yawn and grow a beard waiting for masses of infantry to wear each other down. You’ll always people throwing masses of infantry at each other, people hoping they win. But it’s not the most efficient way to kill everything. Stop relying just on unit masses. Have a mass of units, but use artillery.

Artillery wins fights and enables offensive pushes. Fully upgraded horse cannons have 218 x 3 damage against infantry. That means it can 1-shot any infantry with less than ~650 HP. So instead of waiting for skirmishers to shoot each other down, 3 seconds per shot, needing multiple shots to kill someone, just shoot them with a cannonball that will kill him and his other friends and get it over with. It doesn’t matter if the enemy has the best musketeers/skirms, super strong sepoys, or Ashigaru with all the perks, 3-4 will die with 1 shot, much better than waiting 10-15 seconds for someone to die. 4-5 horse cannons in the back is a horrible sight for an enemy commander to see.

Tip: You MUST micro your artillery and pick your shots, because they will often target nearby melee units, standalone infantry away from the pack, and flanking cav. You have to consistently micro your horse gun shots into the heart of the enemy’s mass, otherwise you’re wasting artillery potential. If you get fast with hotkeys, 4-5 of them will absolutely obliterate masses in a few shots.

Russian tip: With that being said, don’t be discouraged if your Russian infantry are noticeably and intrinsically weaker than the enemy’s infatry. With good micro on artillery production and artillery aiming, let the artillery do all the killing. Then once you get a numerical advantage, insta-spam more infantry on the battlefield and press on that numerical advantage before the opponent can fully mass up again (no one can beat you at production). It will force the opponent to send units in a stream to the battlefield, and your mass of units and will easily pick them off. Once I see this turning point, I build forward bases and walls while the enemy is in a panic, and send some Cossack far into the military buildings where their units are produced to cause even more panic. In spite of all this disorganization, you can safely build your FB and walls, and with time, you can get your APM faster in doing so. Russian snowball.

III. Melee units are tider-turners. In a gunpowder standoff where both sides are equal, the one with the tankier melee units has the advantage.

I learned this by playing Portugal. The best skirms, best goons, and decent artillery. You’re untouchable, right? No. Cassadors are strong, but against incoming masses of halberdiers and native units, even they couldn’t kill them fast enough before they closed in and rendered my entire army ineffective. Melee units ■■■■ ■■■■ up if they finally get the chance. My artillery automatically targeted those melee units (still didn’t kill them fast enough), and they therefore neglected shooting the enemy skirms in the process. All my gunpowder units focused as well onto the enemy’s melee units, leaving enemy skirmishers free to fire. And while this was going on, the enemy had untouched skirmishers and free-floating cannons that decimated my cassadors who were hand-fighting halberdiers. Melee units are extremely effective in breaking these stalemates.

Use natives from the trade posts because they take no pop space and can be buffed to be very good, high-HP tanks. Never send melee units in alone without backup, or they will die. Always have some kind of gunpowder or artillery backing them up. And always think about redirecting enemy gunpowder to negate multipliers, like sending cav to a mass of skirmishers to negate the infantry multiplier. You are always trying to put your army at an advantage, with the enemy’s at disadvantage.

IV. Chokepoints: the formula for success = melee units + cannons, with some supporting gunpowder and maybe culverins.

With the above points, utilize everything you’ve got. Big emphasis on the melee units and cannons. Chokepoint fighting is common when the enemy busts through walls and is trying to pour units into your base or your friend’s. You literally have to stuff the gap, and what better way to do that than to send your tankiest, melee units and a butt load of cannons to support them? I don’t know why, but people just spam normal gunpowder units there but don’t really think about using artillery or melee units. Gunpowder units can barely hold off heavy cavalry, rushing through the broken wall. The melee units will cause a sticky mess for any units to pass through, and tank all the firepower. Cannons will do the killing of the enemy on the other side. Everything else is extra.

V. Culverin wars: first to shoot, first to win -

Don’t overproduce culverins, or else your mass will suffer without the cannon support. I’d say 3 is ideal and 4 is pushing it, because any less and you won’t be able to snipe other artillery quickly, but over 4, and you’re wasting pop space for other units or cannons to fill. Don’t get so locked in to the main fight that you forget to see the sneaky culverins in the back. Stay aware of artillery behind the enemy’s front lines. Culverins want to be the first one to snipe the other culverins. And even though it’s tempting to shoot the horse cannons or falconets and stop your units from dying, target enemy culverins first, then you may freely target the other cannons. With the enemy culverins gone, there will be nothing to challenge your artillery superiority (except flanking heavy cavalry) and you can have the DPS advantage from your own cannons. Also, culverins are #1 threat against artillery superiority, so kill them first and fast.

Note: if you lose the culverin war, you’re gonna end up spending LOTS more resources than your opponent to replenish your destroyed artillery, and to replenish tons of units because the enemy artillery wrecked yours. That’s how important you need to know winning the culverin war is.

Russia tip: Have the Engineering Card in your treaty deck. It is a must to keep up with the big boys. And try to get the Swedes your team… that team -15% artillery is a blessing.

VI. Consistent pressure through periodic flanking cav – powerful

If your eco permits, do this to force the continual redirection of enemy gunpowder onto your cavalry, and to force the enemy to use goons and take up unnecessary pop space. Remember, goons are inefficient in a gunpowder stand off. They take up 2 pop space when you could be using that space for 2 skirmishers instead, to kill infantry. Note that this is a temporary strat done in spurts since it can be resource-intensive, but you have to do it with purpose. This works very well as a temporary mask strategy while you’re getting your own artillery set up. Then when your pop is free again after the cav have died, now you have a max pop of infantry, horse cannons, and culverins if needed. And they’re stuck with goons, less skirms, and their remaining artillery. They want to now put musks in their army to prevent more cav swarming, but it doesn’t matter if your artillery is present and being used effectively. I’ve noticed it is effective to counter the enemy cavalry with my own, cause after I’ve done ridding them of their cavalry, I can follow-up and immediately use them to pressure enemy artillery or swarm the enemy skirms.

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