This is what I do. I play dutch usually so it can differ a bit, but I put 5 of the starting villagers on food and one on a mine and produce three villagers putting them on the mine until I have 5 farming coin. Then I start putting the next villagers on wood. As soon as I’m at 800 food I’m going to AGE II and I always beat the AI there. Score and resources is always higher on timeline as well. I will have made a second house and a marketplace and trained wood cutting by the time I get to AGE II. For cards, I will have gotten the food trickle first then wood cutting 15% plus trees last longer. I then get 20% faster wood next. Main issue with dutch is always wood. I always have plenty of food and coin, although coin can get low when I’m pumping out military quickly at some points. I get banks going and get the cards to increase bank cap. Faster food production, faster military queue times, military buffs, all the improved resource cards that the dutch can make use of. I have been messing around with the 4 workers card in AGE II to get ahead on workers. Soon as I’m in AGE II I’m making two barracks and two stables soon as possible and making houses and banks as the wood is available depending on which I need more.
I start pumping out as much army as possible, 5 of each. I make a farm, keep putting more and more on wood and food and banks + factories keeps my coin coming in fast enough that I don’t usually need to make anything that produces any other coin after my two mines are finsihed.
I never stop making villagers and putting them on some resource until I hit the pop cap.
In the timeline I am always #1 in every stat. Score, units, WAY ahead in resources, military units, etc… I’m ahead in all aspects.
Age III I make a forge and get my units buffed and get a full pop army before I buff them from the barracks or stables or before I go to AGE IV. I’m usually defending hard by this point and in most games have walls and outposts surrounding my town.
Now, I used to beat hard like this no problem. I still have the highest everything in the timeline even when I’m losing now. They are hitting me from all sides with massive armies and their units are twice as strong as mine. I will have more units but by the time I get to where they are attacking my walls they are breaking through. Then by the time I wipe out that attack they are already through on two other places on my walls. I have my army split up into 3 or 4 hotkeys trying to defend all sides and have 8 outposts. They are usually beating me before I make it to AGE III now though so the walls and outposts are weak. If I don’t use walls they really clean out my villagers or at least make me put everyone in the town center and then destroy my houses so I have no pop so I can’t make any more miliary as they chop them down. They will have artillary in AGE II sometimes, which I don’t know how that is possible. Sometimes 5-10 artillary is the first thing they send. Then about 20-30 calvary will come in and about 30-40 regular units will follow, all attacking from different sides. Then there will be constant 5-10 pop waves of various units coming every 10-20 seconds until I die.
I think the map might be the main thing I wasn’t thinking of. When beating them I was playing on a large map, I forget the main one we kept playing on. Then my nephew swiched up the map and it’s a much smaller map now and resources are more scarce, especially starting animals and wood.
I read all your steps and for the most part I do them. I used to send the resource shipments but got away from that and been sending villagers instead. I might go back to the shipments. I don’t know all of the counter unit system yet but know the obiovus ones but some of the unique units they are sending I’m unsure of. Like they send tons of guys that throw fire sometimes. Or other units I’m unfamiliar with.
So that is how my opening is, not saying it’s the best or that I’m not doing something wrong, but it was working just fine for me and I do beat the AI according to end game timeline. The one area I know I can greatly improve in is when I’m being attacks and I’m having to control my militray going around and stopping their randomly angled attacks, I’m not spending my resources and they build up to quite a bit while I’m trying to fend them off. Then when I’m losing militray I will produce more military with the resources but not doing much else at that time. They keep attacking and will advance ages and buff their units while I am just trying to survive their attacks and never have time to do anything but defend and produce military units. At least that is what is happening latetly. Their 30 man army will beat my 60 man army, but in AGE II I can only make 2 normal units and 1 calvary with the dutch so it’s not like I have a lot of choices on what to make. I usually select both barracks and make 10 of each unit and the click on both stables and make 10 of that unit.
I will never have the resources to get out of AGE II as they continually attack and beat down my units despite my greater numbers and resources.
This was not happening before. I could beat 1v1 on hard and easily beat 1v4 on moderate. Now I get crushed vs even 2 moderate. It’s so much more difficult. They attack much much sooner with a much larger army and much tougher units and never ever let up. They have never done that before. The only thing that is different is the map and map size.
Anyway, I really appreciate the feedback. Any improvements to what I said I do would be appreciated. If there is something that could be improved in my early steps or if some of the cards I mentioned are weak and I shouldn’t get them, please let me know.
Sorry I made this so long and appreciate your time in reading all this and helping me. I’m thinking maybe the map is what is making it harder but would it make THIS much of a difference? Or did they improve the AI this much recently? I’m confused at why the game got so much more difficult. It really seems damn near impossible all of a sudden. I could always record a game and post it on YouTube for more clarity as to what is going on.
Thanks again!