in aoe4 chance of winning is heavily based on who can find more sheeps it seems? From what i see if you can find more sheeps it is a heavy advantage that is enough for game winning, because you don’t need to send vills far out to hunt early and die, and farms are costly early. If i get 5 sheeps opponent find 10 it is impossible for me to win
No it doesn’t matter that much. Previously it did but now you start with more sheep. It is more important for civs that go to castle age quickly but it is very civ dependent. English for example don’t need any sheep.
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It has a significant impact on the game for the first 8 or so minutes. It also really depends on the civilization that you are playing as, and what your strategy is.
For berry civs, such as Abbasid/Ayyubid and Delhi (and Japan, with upgrades), sheep act as a bank of food you can harvest while being attacked. You would still want to focus on berries first, as they gather faster and are more vulnerable than sheep. English has cheaper farms, and harvest quickly from them, so they rely less on sheep.
Some civs also get landmarks that grant them safe food in base, such as Ottoman and Japan.
The civs that need sheep the most in dark age is HRE (Zhu Xi and Ayyubid to a lesser extent), and that’s only if they plan on going for a naked Fast Castle (as in, they are putting all of their resources to aging up… so they are very vulnerable).
The most recent patch reduced the food on sheep from 250 to 200. Also, they used to spawn in tight groups of 3 (+/- 1), but after the patch are more likely to spawn alone and are spread evenly around the map.
You are on the right track with map food (Deer and boar specifically) being more vulnerable. It is also the food you gather most quickly, making it more efficient.
While sheep are the safest food, it is inevitable for your opponent to go for deer or boar. They are especially likely to do this if they have map control. 2-3 horsemen, or 1 knight, can be an effective counterattack when in a defensive position. Forcing them back onto sheep, or pressuring them into a farm transition in mid/late game, is a good way to regain tempo.
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Well, you don’t really depend on the sheep, but it’s also an important part of the beginning to make sure you have some extra food before you move on to the farm transition or search for Hunting animals and berries.
About some tips for catching sheeps
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Early Age Free Time to expend in exploration: Just set your villagers to get sheep meat and a few to get gold to move on to the next age, the Feudal (II). In the meantime, try to direct the explorer as efficiently as possible to get sheep.
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Explorer Route.- Choose a route that captures as much visible space as possible. If you’re going to send him to the center of the map, choose to have him come back to the right or left, and then send him on the route you didn’t explore. Think of those games where you have to fill a map with a line without the line reaching the first point again.
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Geographical Features.- On land maps, remember that your explorer has to go around cliffs and mountains, so choose an exploration route that takes into account the geographical features, so as not to get stuck between them, or repeat an entire route.
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Blocked View: Unlike Aoe2 and Aoe3, the explorer cannot cross his view of forests or mountains, so sending him to explore around these features is not recommended, always keep him about 6 or 7 spaces from each forest or mountain so that his exploration area is more complete.
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GAIA sheep change their position after 2 minutes of starting the game, so if you haven’t explored the whole map in that time, some sheep may be in already explored areas of the map. - Maps with rivers or streams, many sheep gather near bodies of fresh water, sometimes it’s best to send your scout to the middle and then go along the river to see how many sheep are there.
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Sea maps: There are more sheep on land maps than on sea, so 2 scouts for a sea map is a waste of resources.
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2nd Scout.- You can build a 2nd scout in your town center to increase your confidence of getting more sheep from your opponent. It’s quite useful in 1vs1, but it can also be counterproductive, because you could build an extra villager. I would recommend:
– Only on land maps: There are fewer fish on sea, and it’s better to save resources to build the initial dock and fishing boats.
– Only if your civ is worth it: There are civs that don’t depend much on sheep, like the English and Japanese, the former because they transition to farms quickly, and the latter because they prefer to get berries. For defensive civs like HRE and Order of the Dragon, it’s ultra vital.
– Old RUS combo: When playing with Rus or Against Rus: It was ALWAYS vital to create a 2nd scout to kill all the deer on the map. With the August 2024 patch, it’s not any longer. In fact, they still don’t quite know how to counter the new Rus, hehe.
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Both are right, but the idea is not to travel all over the map for a sheep… explore the area closest to the base and if not, focus on deer or berries in the case of Muslim civs… more than the nearby sheep, you should explore the relics, markets and nearby ruins…
There was a tournament game 2 days ago where the player that only found 2 sheep won the game. And that’s probably worst case scenario. 2 sheep vs 18 sheep.
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