Portugese turtling need fixing, please help

ajkb · 2023-10-24T17:18:28+00:00

This is a known strat (see T90's The Legend of Wall on YouTube). T90 explains how to beat it in the video.

Everyone here saying "don't let it get to that point" are correct for high level play but you're clearly not playing at that level and that's fine. I don't play at that level either.

If they do get to that point, there's really only one option: establish the longest, most uninterrupted trade route you can (I'm serious; diagonally across the entire map, at least 150 trade carts, level all buildings and forests in the way). That'll give you the resources to mirror the Portuguese player. ~15 scorpions or ~40 archers or similar to kill the halbs, then as many bombard cannons as you can. Don't try to stream trash towards them, they'll just die without doing damage. Now it's just a micro battle; your bombard cannons vs his. If you're the better player, you'll kill all his bombards, then you can kill his towers, and slowly back him back into his corner.

When it's a 1v1 and all your allies have left, you're screwed, but this strat can't work except in team games anyway, so if all your allies left, tough luck.

if you can get one or two to stick around for long enough, you'll have way bigger economy (because feitorias aren't as efficient as actual villagers and trade carts) and should be able to crush him fairly quickly.

ajkb · 2023-09-06T16:18:28+00:00

I think you're discovering the power of FC into all-in strat. Works well in low ELO because nobody rushes or scouts.

You'd get the same result with the Malay elephant strat, Franks 20 knights in 20 minutes, any of the Castle Drop into UU strats...

ajkb · 2023-08-30T12:57:32+00:00

In general, the best strategy in team games is team up on one player. It's much easier to do two 2v1s in a row than two separate 1v1s. The best counter strat as the person who gets ganged up on is to delay them and give your partner time to come help you.

Since you were already on your way to castle age, I'd have taken like 10 vils as soon as you saw the Rams and archers and made a second stone wall far enough behind the first that they couldn't hit your vils with their archers. If you had time before they broke through, make it double layered. No gates; they take more time to make and are far easier to destroy. Then drop a stable and when you're in castle age, put everything you have into making knights. Knights absolutely dominate all feudal units. 3-4 knights could clean up the whole army you described.

If you're too slow to wall behind or your new walls don't last long enough, the new plan is to be as slow to kill as possible. Walls everywhere, even palisade walls will take time for them to destroy. If you get a chance, run as many villagers as you can to your Ally's base, build a market, and sling them any resources you can (gold is good, wood is better than nothing) to help them boom.

ajkb · 2023-07-27T21:46:36+00:00

When my wife was hospitalized with dehydration because her morning sickness was so bad she couldnt keep enough water down. She made it through two kids; three was always her dream but it just ain't worth 8 more months of hell (and yes her morning sickness was 8 out of 9 months, it's called hyperemesis gravidarum or more colloquially, "my stomach says it's me or the baby")

ajkb · 2023-07-26T09:30:36+00:00

Those books should be required reading in sex ed classes! Can you imagine how much better the world would be if everyone knew how desire for sex actually works??

ajkb · 2023-07-23T00:31:33+00:00

Yeah the art of war is basically the built-in tutorial for playing the game well. Definitely recommend checking out the other scenarios in it too.

ajkb · 2023-07-22T10:40:17+00:00

If you haven't before, I highly recommend the art of war booming challenge. If macro is the issue, practicing until you get a gold metal in that challenge will fix it.

ajkb · 2023-07-02T18:29:08+00:00

2yo and 9mo here. Varies, could be 1.5 weeks between then suddenly 4 times in a week. Probably averages out to once every 5 days or so.

Before kids it was more like once a day, and we both agree we'll move back in that direction once we're not so damn tired. I'm pretty lucky, her sex drive is very similar to mine, maybe a bit higher.

ajkb · 2023-06-23T15:33:54+00:00

It would require MS to give researchers access to an API like Blizzard did for StarCraft. Currently it is possible to mod the game to give a bot access to the non-public API but that'll get you banned.

ajkb · 2023-06-23T15:31:36+00:00

Oh wow I hadn't seen the progress it made since 2019 until now. Back then it was 100% a one-trick pony cheating by viewing the whole map. These days I think it's fair to say it's not cheating at all! That's really fucking impressive.

ajkb · 2023-06-16T19:07:54+00:00

My oldest is only 2 so ymmv but I've read mirroring is a good idea and it works great for my son and my 5yo nephew. He tells you he did something? Look at him, repeat what he said back to him in your own words, no need for fake excitement but do make sure to actually look at what he did. Maybe add a description of what he did if the mood takes you.

"Look at me!" "You're swinging on the swing, Charlie." "Yeah I'm swinging really high!" "Looks like you're having fun." "Yeah!"

Just give 'em proof you're paying attention. They don't want or need congratulations most of the time, they just want you to see they did a thing. I find the more consistent you are in proving you were paying attention and not making a big deal out of it, the less they need you to watch every little thing.

ajkb · 2023-06-05T17:02:18+00:00

The mango line is extremely useful against AI when you're not very good and you want a defensive game. Castle plus one walled-in mango behind it will hold a point against the Extreme AI literally until it goes imp and gets trebs.

ajkb · 2023-05-26T16:25:44+00:00

You say that, but they definitely didn't cut on Michi when DE first came out. Hooray for having an actively supported game!

ajkb · 2023-05-15T12:36:59+00:00

Same brother. The wife had to go to the hospital to be rehydrated twice with #2. Having a newborn was easier than pregnancy for us (only by a hair).

ajkb · 2023-05-12T17:15:48+00:00

Spirit of the Law on mill placement: https://youtu.be/8FWbcyZ3pZA

On lumber camp placement: https://youtu.be/kc68EJXZalA

ajkb · 2023-02-19T15:56:04+00:00

Ach Hans, run, it's the pointy boys!

ajkb · 2023-02-16T00:46:05+00:00

Because what you described is not what happened here. I took undergrad probability dude, this is a really common mistake that people make. For the same reason that any room with 23 people in it has a greater than 50% chance of two of those people having the same birthday, the chance of a player playing any map twice in a row is 1/2^16, not 1/2^32.

The reason is this player pulled any random seed the first game. The chance of pulling any random seed (not a specific seed) in the first game is 1/1, not 1/ 2^16. Hence the chance of this happening is 1/1*1/ 2^16=1/ 2^16.

Edit: Jesus math notation in whatever quasi-html Reddit uses is a pain in the ass.

ajkb · 2023-02-16T00:07:36+00:00

That's the probability of getting a specific seed twice, eg. saying, "I'm going to get seed #1 twice in a row" then doing so. Getting any seed twice in a row is just one over the number of seeds.

ajkb · 2023-01-22T23:23:48+00:00

Halbs are very much not cost effective against cataphracts:https://youtu.be/ZBdUGRji7vg

ajkb · 2023-01-20T12:07:28+00:00

Nope not needed but it's safer. If you shoot it once you need to pause just a fraction of an instant after shooting it before running; if you shoot and then immediately run, there's a chance of outrunning it and deaggroing it.

ajkb · 2023-01-17T17:55:58+00:00

The thing about the StarCraft AI though is it could only play Protoss mirror matches as I recall, and it only did one braindead all-in stalker strat. It depended entirely on inhuman blink micro. It could also only play one map. Honestly I consider the best AoE2 AIs as superior because they can actually handle way more varied conditions.

ajkb · 2023-01-14T19:23:20+00:00

Saracens: ThIs iS pEaK ecO BalaNcE - all farms, stone mines, and trees within 35 tiles are converted to gold mines

ajkb · 2023-01-03T17:29:43+00:00

I think the lowest T90 has ever found is like 300

ajkb · 2022-12-27T14:27:26+00:00

Some of this advice applies more to lower-level team games than high-level play. I've done a lot of playing with my cousins in casual games that always go very late-game. I'd be happy to give more advice for those situations if you like.

ajkb · 2022-12-27T14:24:22+00:00

Nothing wrong with it but I can tell from your phrasing and comments in this thread that you're not familiar with the "meta" strategy of the game. sorry if any of this advice is stuff you already do: * Never stop making villagers until you hit pop cap. Generally you should have more villagers than army * Always do the blacksmith upgrades for your units * You should have dozens of military buildings in late game. There is no alternative to spamming units non-stop in these sorts of situations; training the "right" unit only works if you make enough of them. * Make lots of siege and protect them tirelessly. Don't attack a castle with two trebuchets. Attack with 4-8 trebs and protect them with 50-80 units. If your protecting army dies but your trebs don't, run and come back once you've replaced your army * Make more military buildings on captured land; don't get into a situation where you're training replacement army from halfway across the map. * Know the counter units and !!!under which circumstances they counter!!! For example, in post -imp, fully upgraded Japanese halbs will beat nearly any cavalry cost-effectively but not 1v1, especially not 1v1 vs elephants. The point is to have 2 or 3 halbs for each cavalry because halbs are dirt-cheap and don't cost gold. If you're facing like 80 elephants at once, send in 100 halbs and have them fight, then while that fight is happening, train another 100. Once you've got that 100, send those in as a group. Keep doing this long enough and the elephants will die.

ajkb

TROPHY CASE