Post by Kastu on Apr 15, 2012 16:30:24 GMT
The Land Nomad Bible- A Compilation
Main Sources --
Land Nomad Guide Written by Ralber (THuG_Ralber_mH) + Karl - www.salamyhkaiset.org/aoe2/step_5_-_land_nomad
Land Nomad - Article written by Intimatum - aok.heavengames.com/university/strategy/random-map/land-nomad/
Land Nomad - Basic Tips
1) Make the Lumber Camp as quickly as possible - forget finding food.
explanation - "I've played Land Nomad for a good portion of my AOC career and I've come to realize how important the start is. People talk about making a lumber camp where you see food or sending villagers to their center and making a lumber camp there but I disagree. The way I play it is, make the fastest lumber camp possible where your vills can get there fastest. Sometimes this is where they will intersect the fastest but not always. For instance, if 2 vills are near a wood patch, I immediately drop the lumber camp while the 3rd vill walks over. The reason I do this is because I believe the speed advantage is bigger than the hunt advantage. Essentially, whichever way you can gather 275 wood the quickest, then play it that way. Many people will disagree with me, but this is what has made me successful. I would rather be up 2-3 villagers (sometimes more) with just minimal food than be down 2-3 with hunt (in Land Nomad there is always food of some sort i.e. sheep, berries, deer, boar). Exceptions to this can be with Mongols where having hunt serves as a huge incentive because of the hunting bonus." - _Athena_
2) Make a Stable/Market to upgrade to caslte. (Unless fully walled/secure)
"To set up a boom, many Land Nomad players like to make a market and blacksmith as their 2 buildings in feudal age to go up to castle. This is only okay if you have completely walled yourself, but even then I don't recommend it. Making a barracks/stable/market is the best way to go because a scout is critical. Even if you don't make any knights, the stable is worth it because with that scout you can see what the enemy is doing. AOC is like a game of chess - your advantage is based on your counter which is based on your enemy's weakness. If you know what the enemy is doing, you are already one step ahead of him and this is true on any map. _Athena_
3) No more than 4 TCs while booming
"In terms of what a good boom is, with most civs it is best to go 4 TC's. With 4 TC's, you won't overboom and you'll still have a decent economy. Variations to this could be with Mayans or Aztecs which can do a 3 TC boom in order to go Elite Eagle Warriors which are very cost effective. Also, some civs such as Saracens (which are expensive) can do a 5 TC boom in order sustain post-Imperial units. Either way for the most part, a 4 TC boom is sufficient for a full boom." - Athena
Japanese/Brits are an exception - 5-6 TC really works well for them. If u get heavily Raided in castle might be good idea to Add Tcs as well.
4) Boom until you are 800 Pop
Boom vills once you click up to imp too. You Need atleast 140 or so in Imperial age. Yep 800 Pop all your team mates need to be 200 Pop if u wanna win games, make eco for them to till they catch up unless ur sure u can end game yourself.
5) Map Control/Gold is Very Important.
6) LN is a Booming Game
U Must boom in castle. Sure, fight or whatever you have to.. but learn to boom or one enemy that booms will steam roll u if they are untouched.
DauT words -
7) Gather Timings for Fast Ups
- Data Tables and Times
Villager -> Sheep: 50f in 2:30 (2:30 = 2 minutes 30 seconds = 150 seconds) *It doesn't include the time killing the sheep or moving from one to another
Villager -> Berry: 50f in 2:45
Villager -> Tree: 50w in 2:10 *no walk
Villager -> Deer: 50f in 1:25
Villager -> Pig: 300f in 13:55 (835") *villager average counting the time luring and killing it
Villager -> Farm: 50f in 2.51 or 175f in 9:40 (it varies in +/- 20 seconds depending on the position on the farm when farmer reaches max. food to the drop point) *build time included
Villager -> Gold: 100g in 4:30
Villager -> Stone: 100g in 4:40
General Timings to Aim for - 17:xx min Fuedal 21:xx min Castle Pop - 23-25 Feudal - 25-27 Castle
8) Work Together with Allys for Good Army Combos - When u get imp, mass a single type of unit first. Either, champs, eagles or mass archers.. (possibly pals-but this will be 40 min mark ) anyway, once they get on to you, change it up.
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Land Nomad - The Guide
General Map Notations
First thing to do is to define how the map is made. Land Nomad(fixed), the official wcl version is like this:
- There are defined bases for each player with the standard aoc distribution (one side for the allies one for the enemies). Each of which has straggler trees, a pack of 7 or 8 deers (between 11 and 16 squares away), a pack of 4 sheeps (9/11), a pack of 3 pigs (13/30), 4 packs of 3 sheeps (10/50), a lonely pig (14/18) and certain amounts of gold and stone.
- Villagers start at a minimum distance of 8 and a max of 70 from their defined base so they can be nearly everywhere.
- There are other food sources (berries) as well as gold, stone and 5 relics with a random distribution on the map.
The Start
With this in mind it is time to begin. The standard is to send the vills to an intermediate point (central point to all) and it is important to flare the area we are going so we can avoid sharing spots with allies as well as getting a general idea of what is "ally ground" and "enemy ground". It is usually best to build the lumber camp in the meet point of the villagers unless we were lucky enough to walk by a great spot (look for straggler trees / deers / pigs).
It is important that every player has at least some sheep to explore. Once again priority is finding enough food to allow us non-stop vill production. If you get the feeling that is not going to happen it is a good idea to explore with a villager. It is not good to make a very fast tc knowing it will be idle soon. The food our allies can send us is as good as any, it is important to tell them our condition in case it is required to send or receive sheep.
When scouting our goal is the same as in nomad: finding the resources we are going to need for the strat we want to do. When looking for food remember to look for straggler trees / deers / boars since once you find one of them you are certain there are more around that general area. Once we are sure we have enough resources it is a good idea to send a sheep looking for enemy bases.
About how fast to go up it depends on what's our goal as usual. We usually aim for castle age: 23-25 pop to Feudal ---> 25-28 to Castle although it can be faster or slower too depending on how much food we've found.
It is advantageous to build the TC adjacent to forest because:
(a) your vils are already at the forest, so building the TC right there reduces walk time before you start building the TC
(b) with the TC adjacent to forest, you can chop wood efficiently with no need to build a second lumber camp until Castle age, thus you save 100 wood
(c) villagers chopping wood at the TC do not bump so much as villagers chopping wood at a LC (except that occasionally a vil will walk all the way around the 'hard' part of the TC to get to the next tree after finishing a tree - try to prevent that from happening)
(d) newly created woodcutters in Dark and Feudal do not have a long walk to get to the forest
(e) the TC can protect your crucial woodcutters if you get attacked in Feudal.
(g) if you are building the TC with 3 vils, and you don't exactly have the 30 wood needed for a house, you can easily peel off one of the builders to chop a bit more wood
TC build time:
With two vils is 113 seconds
With three vils is 90 seconds
Therefore you save 23 seconds building the TC with 3 vils, which is roughly equivalent to having an extra vil by the time you Feudal.
Good players, especially those with Celts or Spanish, may be able to get away without having 30 wood by the time the TC is built: for example, you could build the TC with vils holding 15 wood, and quickly chop 15 wood after the TC is built, force-drop it, and build a house with all 3 vils.
While doing all of the above (typical TC completion time for a good LN player with a non-bonused civ and an average length villie walk to get to the lumber camp position: 7:00 minutes), you should obviously be scouting with any sheep you found, and then bring at least one sheep to the TC to be slaughtered. Personally I concentrate on scouting the area around my TC, and also the centre of the map and edges and corner of the map. I do not usually try to scout enemy areas with sheep, as that will give the enemy an extra sheep which they may be desperate for at this stage in the game. As a feudal attack in LN is generally unlikely unless an enemy is very close to you, there is no great value to knowing the enemies' precise location at this stage in the game, on the other hand you do obviously want to make sure that the enemy is not in your own back yard.
On the other hand, if you have several sheep, this early stage in the game gives you an ideal opportunity to scout right to the edges and corner of the map, to find those stone piles and relics that people sometimes miss.
The Civilisation Lottery
These are the civs with an early advantage on LN. Obviously if you play it right that advantage can last all game.
(1) Chinese
6 starting vils instead of 3 is a huge advantage:
(a) it means that the additional 225 wood needed for the TC is chopped nearly twice as fast (110 seconds instead of 190 seconds approximately);
(b) it means that the TC can be built in around 65 seconds (5 vils on the job and 1 gathering food, see below);
(c) with your 6 vils starting in different places you should find more sheep, for extra early scoutability (and besides, you are soon going to need that food);
(d) TC supports 10 pop, so there is no need to have the additional 30 wood required for your first house: you can build the TC with all 6 vils if you like;
(e) Not only do Chinese have insane age times, longer lasting farms, and cheaper research, but they also have knights with Bloodlines. Yummy.
The main problem of the Chinese is the -200 starting food penalty, therefore the Chinese player needs to gather the first 50 food as fast as possible, in practice by the time that loom has been researched 25 seconds after the TC is up. The only way to achieve this is to have at least one vil gathering food while the TC is under construction; and you can have two vils doing so. Kill a sheep right next to the TC, and when a vil has scraped 10 food, then reassign that vil to building the TC while holding 10 food. An additional advantage of doing this is that when the TC is built, the builders will be auto-assigned to the sheep instead of to forest.
Therefore once the TC is up, provided the Chinese can get the food in fast enough, they should be up to 7 vils ahead of other civilisations (3 extra starting vils, 75 seconds faster initial wood gathering=3 vils, 25 second faster TC construction=1 vil) - and that advantage lasts all game! That is a phenomenal advantage and can be translated into a very fast (for LN) castle time: the Chinese player can castle a full 3 minutes earlier than most others. Every team hopes that someone on the team will draw Chinese. (But every team member also hopes that it will not be him, as that early micro is very hard to perfect and you are almost certain to get doubled in mid-Castle!)
(2) Mayans
4 starting vils instead of 3 is a great advantage, but not so good as the Chinese:
(a) it means that the 175 wood for the TC is chopped in 130 seconds instead of 195 seconds: that is a 65 second advantage. In practice, the fourth vil will probably be far from the wood so he will have to spend some time walking, so maybe it is a 50 second advantage in practice;
(b) three vils can build the TC (90 second build time) while the fourth chops wood for the first house: for the Mayans, construction of the first house must start shortly before completion of the TC lest the Mayans be housed at 5 pop - on the other hand, if the house is built in time, the Mayans can loom at a normal time (10 or 15 vils) which means they retain the advantage of being 1 vil ahead throughout Dark Age, which is better than they can do in Arabia.
Basically the Mayan player can start a LN game 3 vils ahead of other civs, due to saving 50 seconds wood gathering time. There is a slight saving in TC building time as the Mayans can have 3 vils on the TC throughout its construction; and the Mayans 'resources last longer' bonus is good on LN as there is plenty of hunting, it also means that the super efficient trees adjacent to the TC will last longer. That can translate into a castle time approximately 1-2 minutes earlier than non-bonused civs. The Mayans can also usefully spare a villager at an earlier stage to go looking for unclaimed sheep and enemy sheep (see below).
Mayans are the second best card to draw in the Random Civs deck.
(3) Persians
The 50 wood bonus at the start translates into less wood needing to be chopped and therefore a 55 second speed advantage in getting the TC construction started. The 50 food starting bonus will help to achieve a good fast Castle time. Once in Castle the Persians get Bloodlined knights and also a superb boom. Tied for third place with the Japanese in LN.
(3) Japanese
The Japanese lumbercamp costs only 50 wood, leaving 150 in the bank, so, like the Persians, only 125 wood needs to be chopped for the TC. The three Japanese starting vils will chop 125 wood in roughly 135 seconds, which is 55 seconds faster than other civs. That Japanese TC will be up sooner, and that 55 second speed advantage should soon translate into two extra vils or a 1 minute earlier Feudal and Castle.
The cheaper mill (and cheaper mining camps in due course) will also help the Japanese player to Castle fast, and will be helpful to the boom in due course. The Japanese, tied with the Persians, are the third best early game civ in LN.
(5) Spanish
The 30% increase in builder speed (a bit of maths for you: in practice, that is only a 23% reduction in actual build time) means that that TC goes up in 69 seconds instead of (say) 94 seconds with 3 vils on the job: roughly a 25 second advantage. That is equivalent to a one vil headstart. Because the Spanish build houses in 20 seconds instead of 25 seconds, there is also more leeway in the initial 30 wood requirement which makes an optimal start slighly easier to achieve. With Bloodlined knights, and a powerful UU, and good trade for the whole team in late game, the Spanish are a strong civ in LN and take equal fifth place.
(5) Celts
As everyone knows, Celt villagers gather wood 15% faster than every other kind. That means that the 175 wood needed for the TC will be obtained in 165 seconds compared with most civs' 190 seconds: a 25 second early advantage, which (like the Spanish) is equivalent to being one vil ahead once the TC is up and in continuous production. Again, there is slightly more leeway in the initial 30 wood requirement, making it easier to use all 3 vils to build the TC. With plenty of opportunity to boom to Imperial for great siege, Celts are tied for fifth place with the Spanish. The Celt infantry speed bonus also gives rise to a unique Dark Age strategy, as we shall see.
(7) Mongols
A feature of LN is that the herds of deer are often large (maybe 6 or 8 deer), and also that boars are found in groups of up to five and you can reasonably hope to find at least 3 (your allies may be generous and let you take one of theirs, or you may be cunning and steal boar from your enemy). Hopefully you will have found good hunting with your sheep scouts, in which case you could even consider locating the TC closer to the hunting grounds.
Even more so than in Arabia, on LN the Mongols can achieve a fast (but low pop) Feudal and Castle, alternatively can go for a normal time with more resources in Castle for creating Bloodlined knights. Thus in age advancement times the Mongols can match the Persians and Japanese, perhaps even the Mayans or Chinese if the hunting is really good, although the Mongol economy will not be so strong. Although LN games have no starting scout, in a way the Mongols have a scouting bonus as they are likely to hunt early so allowing most of their sheep can do more scouting before they need to come in to be slaughtered.
Just don't forget to be ready to start farming when the sheep run out, otherwise you will face a nasty food shortage in early castle.
(8) Aztecs
The +5 vil carrying capacity (which equates to 33% less walking for Aztec vils in Dark) will lead to a slight speed advantage in chopping the initial wood requirement that wood, but probably no more than 10 seconds all told. Free Loom equates to being one vil ahead from the time that other civs loom (typically at pop 12-13, on LN maps), although there is accordingly more pressure on the Aztecs to keep ahead with both food production and housing: be alert to force-drop food when required. Together, these economy bonuses are only slightly less advantageous than Celts and Spanish in a LN game. As noted, a feature of LN games is that most players usually make it to Imperial, and Aztecs in Imperial are a surprisingly powerful civ with the best Champions in the game.
(9) Britons
On LN it is possible to find LOTS of sheep (especially if you send a vil in the enemies' direction, he he), so the Briton player is likely to have plenty to keep his food gatherers busy. LN can also be a boomers's map, which suits the Britons just fine.
(10) Koreans
The +2 vil LOS can be useful early in LN, as vil scouting is important - for example, the bonus helps you to find more sheep as the vils walk on their way to the LC. More sheep = more sheepscouts and more free food. It also makes it easier for you to take sheep from the enemies' side of the map. A feature of LN games is that if you are adjacent to an enemy you typically trush instead of flushing, and the Koreans can do an excellent trush; the free tower upgrade upon Castling is particularly pleasing if you are able to both trush and achieve a fast Castle time (it is a good team strategy to ask allies to tribute you some food to help you Castle within a reasonable time despite your trush).
(11) Teutons If you are unlucky enough to find no sheep initially and no hunting, that could mean that you have to build 10 or more farms in the Dark Age. In that case, being Teuton might just save your game and/or Zone reputation. Also, as noted already, LN is often suited to booming, and the Teutons have an outstanding boom; Bloodlined Knights are an alternative. Due to the bonused TCs, Teutons are relatively safe from raids, and therefore if Teutons in the pocket you can consider going for a no-military fast-imp (obviously by agreement with your allies first).
(12) Saracens
The Saracens have no Dark Age bonus, however they can do a surprisingly powerful krush with their Bloodlined knights through using the market skilfully to obtain plenty of food in early Castle. Check out Saracen market strategies elsewhere: essentially, the Saracens' economy is most efficient if they mine stone and gold instead of building farms, until food costs more than 153 gold. (This also means that no farms need be built until farm upgrades have been researched.) The good hunting that is typical on LN will assist this strategy. Even so, you may find it advisable to build 3-5 Saracen farms in Feudal so as to maintain a smooth food income if you forget to visit the market on a sufficiently regular basis.
(12) Turks
The gold mining bonus can help the Turks build plenty of Bloodlined knights, roughly as many as the Saracens; this bonus can also mean you can castle with only two gold miners instead of three, allowing an extra vil to be used elsewhere. Turks are also one of the top Imperial age civs if they can survive that long, which they usually can on LN.
(14) Goths, Byzantines, Franks, Vikings
These civs have no useful early game bonus (the Goth boar bonus does not really count as useful, indeed it can be counter-productive if you shoot the boar off the TC patch).
They are, however, all good in different ways in Castle age and Imperial age. After all, AOK:TC is a very well-balanced game.
Goths have Bloodlined knights.
Franks have something equivalent.
Byzantines have cheap camels.
Vikings have a better-than-average Castle age economy (effectively, +3 vils compared with another civ which has to research wheelbarrow) which means that they can in fact do a good knight rush, despite having no Bloodlines and poor Imperial age cavalry.
(18) Huns
The Huns are in last place on LN because, unlike every other land map, the Huns are the slowest civ in LN. The cause of this is that 100 wood starting penalty, meaning that the poor Hun player has to spend all his wood on a LC and then chop 275 wood in order to build his TC: with 3 vils chopping away, that is a 105 second speed penalty compared with even the slow Byzantines. The Huns can claw back a few precious seconds by virtue of using all three vils to build the TC (build time: 90 seconds) and not worrying about 30 wood, but that will still leave the Huns roughly 100 seconds behind even a non-bonused civ. That is essentially a 3 vil starting disadvantage (3 vils, not 4, because other civs basically have to use 1 vil constantly to chop wood for houses and to build houses (130 vil seconds per house, against 125 seconds for the TC to create 5 vils). At a lower level of play, the Hun disadvantage is less than 3 vils, because the other civs will not build the TC and first house optimally, and the other civs will manage to get themselves housed from time to time. Despite this starting penalty, the Huns are not a total washout, because they are a good civ once they get going, with Bloodlined knights or the Cavalry Archer alternative which probably interferes less with the boom. yet its Possible to do 21 min Castle with Huns with good food and dark age eco management.
Military Strategy
Need to write different 4v4 Strategies.
Specially with Chinese Britons Mongols Huns
it being 3rd game of R2+
Land Nomad: Flush or no flush?
Once you are feudal in LN, the main differences from a normal land map game (e.g. Green Arabia) are as follows:
(a) everyone's age times are 5-7 minutes later than normal (depending on civ);
(b) some civs (especially Chinese) have had a massive speed advantage already, as detailed above;
(c) you only have 100 starting stone, not the usual 200, because you used 100 stone already to build the initial TC;
(d) your TC is probably better located than it would be in an Arabia game i.e. it is directly adjacent to wood and protecting your woodies; it may also be nearby gold or stone;
(e) you should have gathered more food and/or started farming later than on an Arabia map, due to the good hunting on LN;
(f) no player is likely to have scouted any enemy town thoroughly until mid-Feudal at earliest, as sheep scouting of enemies is not very effective!
The consequence of points (b), (d) and (f) (and the Hun starting penalty!) is that a flush is much less likely in LN than in a normal game. Also, LN is generally a team game, often 4v4, which again makes a flush less satisfactory and a fast castle more likely. Point (e) is also in favour of a fast castle. Point (c) is a point against a feudal-age trush.
But ultimately I think it is point (d) which is the real reason why a flush is rare in LN. The principal objective of a flush is to shut down or slow down an enemy's wood, and on LN that is often impossible in Feudal unless the enemy is badly positioned or the forest is so thin that you can put skirmishers and a tower on the far side of it.
The very fact that a flush is rare, and therefore unexpected, can mean that it is a good strategy to adopt. I am including a feudal tower rush as a specific class of flush, by the way.
In particular, I have recently seen good results achieved by towering up a Chinese opponent, as the Chinese player will almost certainly be going for a fast Castle with little or no military at that stage in the game. But your tower rush needs to be very very fast and must ultimately result in 5 or 6 towers preventing him from farming or mining on one whole side of his TC, otherwise you will find that he is in Castle before you know it and ramming down your towers while his knights hit your Feudal Age economy.
In 1v1 LN games a fullscale flush can be very effective (depending on civs), as your opponent might not be expecting it and it will be a while before he even scouts your town.
Some people will do a fast Castle with a small scale Feudal attack, e.g. 2 scouts or 4 spearmen, if they spot an enemy's town at the right sort of time. For example, you can sometimes hit an enemy's gold miners while they are unprotected and far from the TC; or with a few spears built during the Castle transition you can ambush an enemy forward builder or the vils building his second or third TC. A scout rush also has the advantage that through doing it you will be able to scout your enemy's town properly.
If flushing in a LN team game, good communication with your allies is of key importance, as the flush will leave you highly vulnerable to a castle-age attack by the flushee's ally. 'Doubling' (where two players jointly attack one enemy) is very common in LN games, and a player who has flushed an opponent is asking to be doubled or tripled later on. A good ally will station a few pikes in your town and also keep the enemies busy with raids to prevent them from potentially assisting your flushee.
Ultimately, whether or not you decide to flush in LN depends on what civs you and your allies are, what civs the enemies are, and map position - you need to adjust your strategy accordingly. Counter-intuitively, the very fast civs (Chinese, Mayans, Japanese and Persians) should almost always aim to fast castle rather than flush, as a knight or cav archer raid, while the enemy is still in Feudal or in early Castle with no military and no second TC built, is by far the most devastating blow you can strike.
The Sling
Because of the remarkable difference in age times, the sling shot strategy can be very powerful in Land Nomad.
The sling is a very common ln strat. Usually China gets resources from either Mayans or Persians. It is important that the player tribbing is in a favourable position: hidden/walled/well protected. When slinging its most efficient sending wood and food, gold is something the slung player can collect easily by himself (unless weird map conditions). You usually see long slings (loads of resources), which is something that annoys me a lot. I have the theory that the biggest amount of resources a player can tribute without auto erasing himself from the game are 600units in land maps and around 80 0-900units in maps with good fish. Hypothetically a sling of 600 food (bloodlines + 2 armor upgrades) or 300/300 to each ally (bloodlines + one armor) and the addition of a 3rd ally playing is a godly strategy. Not likely we will see it anyway.
When defending sling teamwork is crucial. Monks and camel are usually the best option. It is very important when fighting a slung player to understand that a 1:1 killed / lost unit ratio is no longer acceptable. (Theoretically over 1,5:1 should be good) and therefore it's important to pick fights carefully. Notice slung players usually have a few upgrades so they are stronger
A typical example would be: Teuton player with good farming has food surplus in late Feudal, tributes 300 food to Persian ally who has just fast castled with 3 stables. The Persian can use that food to make 5 extra knights compared to what he otherwise would have made, which can make a devastating difference that early in the game.
The Teuton's tribute, in the form of the food for 5 extra Persian knights, is likely to be more effective in hammering the enemy than if the Teuton player had built 5 later, slower, knights of his own.
Obviously the Persian ally needs to have sufficient gold miners to have enough gold to create those extra knights immediately. This requires excellent communication between the allies. For example, the Teuton player needs to say around 19 minutes, "I am going to sling you 300 food at 23:00", so that the Persian can prepare his build-up appropriately. Obviously the Teuton player then needs to do precisely what he promised (or close enough: no reasonable ally is likely to mind if you tribute 200 food at 23:00 and another 100 at 23:20).
You can take this to greater extremes - the Teuton could stay in Feudal for longer and tribute the full 800 food and 200 gold that he would have otherwise used to castle (probably 600 food and 133 gold after deducting 30% tribute fee) ... just imagine what his Persian ally can do with all that. But it is a shame to do that, because it prevents the Teuton from reaching Imperial within a reasonable time and Teutons are one of the most powerful in Imperial.
I mention the Teutons as the sling, because Teutons are safest from raids with their TC bonus, and also Teutons can easily achieve food surpluses with their cheaper farms.
Vikings can also be a good sling, because they have a powerful Feudal economy (free wheelbarrow) but they are weak militarily on a land map.
Believe it or not, Britons can be a good sling, because they have good early food, and even if they castle late they can rapidly catch up in booming terms due to the cheaper TCs.
"There is another benefit from slinged team that has to be mentioned. The fact that one guy doesnt need to make army adds up too. No barracks, stables, blacksmith, houses needed together with military ups.
Also another thing. It is also a good strat when you have a civ like vikings to just FC and 3 tc boom then not imp. Do tribute ups at market and just sling all to one guy. Paladin civ or meso civ/ goths. You save alot by not going into imperial and one of your allies becomes way more powerfull and has a suprise effect (enemies dont realise its actually 2v1). Also not researching your own military units is a giant resource advantage and because viking units are crap in imp anyway its no loss. " - Imperial God
Some important data:
- Market tribute taxes are 30% raw ---> 20% with Coinage (Feudal upgrade).
- Tributing team usually has 80 0 additional resources in game (slinger's castle upgrade resources become military units resources for the slung player: 1000 - 20% = 80 0)
- When the players reaches Castle Age the slinger is still Feudal and therefore have 7 additional villagers (35/28 =25% additional economy for him, counting the market taxes it becomes a 5% additional military resource available for the slinging team and it decreases as the game goes on: when the rest of the players have 42 villagers (not counting additional tcs) slinger has 49 that is a 17% more -20% of market taxes = -3% of resources. Having this in mind you can deduce:
a) Time benefits the defender: the longer the battle the weaker sling team econ becomes.
B) Slinging team must translate its initial military advantage into damage to the enemy as soon as possible.
Slinging team score increases "virtually" the slung player score increases 100 points each 500units received and the team score increases 100points each 1500units tributed.
That is all that needs to be said on Land Nomad. Karl & Ralber
Monk Rush - by Omega
Best Civs. Aztec, Japs, Saracen, Byz, Teuts.
Basic build order till u have 22 vils, put 3 on gold, go up, add 2 more vils to gold during transition to feud once u have ur wood/food balanced for mkt smith and 1st wood upgrade.
2 more vils to gold during feudal, 2 vils smith 3 vils mkt, 1st wood upgrade. Send 2 vils fwd depending on how close enemy is. Get 1st farm and then 1st gold upgrade if u have extra food. Make up to 5 farms to support ur tc, but try to balance so u have atleast 500 wood on caslte (u should have some food reserves from dark hunt/sheep). Try to wall up a bit if u can.
Fwd vils make houses untill castle.
Castle age. 2nd wood up 1st, then make 2 monasterys with ur fwd vils. Research redemption if u think its going to be really useful and/or pump monks. Make a seige workshop when u have wood. Add some more farms.
Add another tc, normally on gold. But u could tc stone if ur golds safe.
Once u have atleast 4 monks and 2 mangonels. Go destroy his tc. If he begins to make scouts make a barracks and a few spears. You can counter archers with mangonel, kts with ur monks. If u have redemption u can convert his mangonels.
Don't stop booming. U can buy stone with ur gold make more tcs. If ur food eco gets imbalanced (seems to since monks r micro intensive) buy a little food, but keep farming.
Monk speed and hp techs at monastery help.
Once u hit imp its up 2 u, all civs there r different.
Normally azt -> eew rush - japs fast halbs rams - saracens overboom and lc/hussar raid +rams, then mames - byz fast halb rams - teuts fast halb +ram or go heavy stone and transition straight to etks.
Variation - Celtic seige rush. Same but make 2 seige workshops instead of 2 monasterys and a barracks instead of the seige.
Special strategy for Celts in Land Nomad
As noted, Celts have a good start in Land Nomad, being fifth equal in terms of speed of construction of the initial town centre.
Celts also have the advantage of faster moving infantry. This means that Celt swordsman line units move faster than (non-Wheelbarrowed) villagers and Celt pikeman move very nearly as fast as non-upgraded knights.
This means that Dark-Age scouting of the enemy with militia is more viable with Celts. That can be advantageous in four ways:
(a) You can pick up any outlying sheep between you and the enemy, thus keeping your economy strong
(b) You can scout the ground between you and the enemy, and the enemy towns, at a stage when most players will not yet be scouting. If you are an experienced player you should be able to predict what strategies the enemy will ultimately adopt from this scouting in late Dark age. Once your allies (hopefully fast castlers with Bloodlined knights) have researched Cartography, they will benefit from this scouting that you have done so that they can do a better directed raid in early Castle.
(c) You may be able to steal sheep, due to the Celts sheep stealing powers. That kind of thing can really screw up an enemy's carefully laid fast castling plan.
(d) You can attack villagers. Although loomed villagers will easily defeat militia, the point about Celts is that they can run away faster than the villagers can catch them if the villagers do decide to counterattack, and Celt militia also have a chance of evading TC fire. Thus, although you are unlikely to kill anything at this stage, you can cause a major distraction; you may even succeed in making a panicky player garrison all his vils or make some other economic error.
I've never heard of anyone doing a drush in LN, although I suppose it's possible; but what I have in mind instead is a one or two militia scouting, raiding and sheep stealing party.
The infantry speed bonus also means that a flush with Celtic infantry units is a respectable strategy. The Celtic spears are able to kill more enemy vils, because they can walk much faster than the vils, and they are able to retreat from enemy archer, skirmisher, tower and TC fire more easily. They are also able to outrun enemy infantry if the enemy counters with barracks units. Indeed, if one enemy's defences are too strong, it will not take too long for the Celtic feudal infantry raid to walk along to the next enemy. The enemy will probably not have Cartography at this stage so at the very least you can cause confusion by doing this.
The fact that the Celts are the fifth fastest civ to start on LN (equal with Spanish) and have a woodcutting bonus means that there should be plenty of wood available for building a forward barracks, or two, in Dark age.
Main Sources --
Land Nomad Guide Written by Ralber (THuG_Ralber_mH) + Karl - www.salamyhkaiset.org/aoe2/step_5_-_land_nomad
Land Nomad - Article written by Intimatum - aok.heavengames.com/university/strategy/random-map/land-nomad/
Land Nomad - Basic Tips
1) Make the Lumber Camp as quickly as possible - forget finding food.
explanation - "I've played Land Nomad for a good portion of my AOC career and I've come to realize how important the start is. People talk about making a lumber camp where you see food or sending villagers to their center and making a lumber camp there but I disagree. The way I play it is, make the fastest lumber camp possible where your vills can get there fastest. Sometimes this is where they will intersect the fastest but not always. For instance, if 2 vills are near a wood patch, I immediately drop the lumber camp while the 3rd vill walks over. The reason I do this is because I believe the speed advantage is bigger than the hunt advantage. Essentially, whichever way you can gather 275 wood the quickest, then play it that way. Many people will disagree with me, but this is what has made me successful. I would rather be up 2-3 villagers (sometimes more) with just minimal food than be down 2-3 with hunt (in Land Nomad there is always food of some sort i.e. sheep, berries, deer, boar). Exceptions to this can be with Mongols where having hunt serves as a huge incentive because of the hunting bonus." - _Athena_
2) Make a Stable/Market to upgrade to caslte. (Unless fully walled/secure)
"To set up a boom, many Land Nomad players like to make a market and blacksmith as their 2 buildings in feudal age to go up to castle. This is only okay if you have completely walled yourself, but even then I don't recommend it. Making a barracks/stable/market is the best way to go because a scout is critical. Even if you don't make any knights, the stable is worth it because with that scout you can see what the enemy is doing. AOC is like a game of chess - your advantage is based on your counter which is based on your enemy's weakness. If you know what the enemy is doing, you are already one step ahead of him and this is true on any map. _Athena_
3) No more than 4 TCs while booming
"In terms of what a good boom is, with most civs it is best to go 4 TC's. With 4 TC's, you won't overboom and you'll still have a decent economy. Variations to this could be with Mayans or Aztecs which can do a 3 TC boom in order to go Elite Eagle Warriors which are very cost effective. Also, some civs such as Saracens (which are expensive) can do a 5 TC boom in order sustain post-Imperial units. Either way for the most part, a 4 TC boom is sufficient for a full boom." - Athena
Japanese/Brits are an exception - 5-6 TC really works well for them. If u get heavily Raided in castle might be good idea to Add Tcs as well.
4) Boom until you are 800 Pop
Boom vills once you click up to imp too. You Need atleast 140 or so in Imperial age. Yep 800 Pop all your team mates need to be 200 Pop if u wanna win games, make eco for them to till they catch up unless ur sure u can end game yourself.
5) Map Control/Gold is Very Important.
6) LN is a Booming Game
U Must boom in castle. Sure, fight or whatever you have to.. but learn to boom or one enemy that booms will steam roll u if they are untouched.
DauT words -
One doesn't win games by Rushing as its success depends on your opponent making a mistake7) Gather Timings for Fast Ups
- Data Tables and Times
Villager -> Sheep: 50f in 2:30 (2:30 = 2 minutes 30 seconds = 150 seconds) *It doesn't include the time killing the sheep or moving from one to another
Villager -> Berry: 50f in 2:45
Villager -> Tree: 50w in 2:10 *no walk
Villager -> Deer: 50f in 1:25
Villager -> Pig: 300f in 13:55 (835") *villager average counting the time luring and killing it
Villager -> Farm: 50f in 2.51 or 175f in 9:40 (it varies in +/- 20 seconds depending on the position on the farm when farmer reaches max. food to the drop point) *build time included
Villager -> Gold: 100g in 4:30
Villager -> Stone: 100g in 4:40
General Timings to Aim for - 17:xx min Fuedal 21:xx min Castle Pop - 23-25 Feudal - 25-27 Castle
8) Work Together with Allys for Good Army Combos - When u get imp, mass a single type of unit first. Either, champs, eagles or mass archers.. (possibly pals-but this will be 40 min mark ) anyway, once they get on to you, change it up.
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Land Nomad - The Guide
General Map Notations
First thing to do is to define how the map is made. Land Nomad(fixed), the official wcl version is like this:
- There are defined bases for each player with the standard aoc distribution (one side for the allies one for the enemies). Each of which has straggler trees, a pack of 7 or 8 deers (between 11 and 16 squares away), a pack of 4 sheeps (9/11), a pack of 3 pigs (13/30), 4 packs of 3 sheeps (10/50), a lonely pig (14/18) and certain amounts of gold and stone.
- Villagers start at a minimum distance of 8 and a max of 70 from their defined base so they can be nearly everywhere.
- There are other food sources (berries) as well as gold, stone and 5 relics with a random distribution on the map.
The Start
With this in mind it is time to begin. The standard is to send the vills to an intermediate point (central point to all) and it is important to flare the area we are going so we can avoid sharing spots with allies as well as getting a general idea of what is "ally ground" and "enemy ground". It is usually best to build the lumber camp in the meet point of the villagers unless we were lucky enough to walk by a great spot (look for straggler trees / deers / pigs).
It is important that every player has at least some sheep to explore. Once again priority is finding enough food to allow us non-stop vill production. If you get the feeling that is not going to happen it is a good idea to explore with a villager. It is not good to make a very fast tc knowing it will be idle soon. The food our allies can send us is as good as any, it is important to tell them our condition in case it is required to send or receive sheep.
When scouting our goal is the same as in nomad: finding the resources we are going to need for the strat we want to do. When looking for food remember to look for straggler trees / deers / boars since once you find one of them you are certain there are more around that general area. Once we are sure we have enough resources it is a good idea to send a sheep looking for enemy bases.
About how fast to go up it depends on what's our goal as usual. We usually aim for castle age: 23-25 pop to Feudal ---> 25-28 to Castle although it can be faster or slower too depending on how much food we've found.
It is advantageous to build the TC adjacent to forest because:
(a) your vils are already at the forest, so building the TC right there reduces walk time before you start building the TC
(b) with the TC adjacent to forest, you can chop wood efficiently with no need to build a second lumber camp until Castle age, thus you save 100 wood
(c) villagers chopping wood at the TC do not bump so much as villagers chopping wood at a LC (except that occasionally a vil will walk all the way around the 'hard' part of the TC to get to the next tree after finishing a tree - try to prevent that from happening)
(d) newly created woodcutters in Dark and Feudal do not have a long walk to get to the forest
(e) the TC can protect your crucial woodcutters if you get attacked in Feudal.
(g) if you are building the TC with 3 vils, and you don't exactly have the 30 wood needed for a house, you can easily peel off one of the builders to chop a bit more wood
TC build time:
With two vils is 113 seconds
With three vils is 90 seconds
Therefore you save 23 seconds building the TC with 3 vils, which is roughly equivalent to having an extra vil by the time you Feudal.
Good players, especially those with Celts or Spanish, may be able to get away without having 30 wood by the time the TC is built: for example, you could build the TC with vils holding 15 wood, and quickly chop 15 wood after the TC is built, force-drop it, and build a house with all 3 vils.
While doing all of the above (typical TC completion time for a good LN player with a non-bonused civ and an average length villie walk to get to the lumber camp position: 7:00 minutes), you should obviously be scouting with any sheep you found, and then bring at least one sheep to the TC to be slaughtered. Personally I concentrate on scouting the area around my TC, and also the centre of the map and edges and corner of the map. I do not usually try to scout enemy areas with sheep, as that will give the enemy an extra sheep which they may be desperate for at this stage in the game. As a feudal attack in LN is generally unlikely unless an enemy is very close to you, there is no great value to knowing the enemies' precise location at this stage in the game, on the other hand you do obviously want to make sure that the enemy is not in your own back yard.
On the other hand, if you have several sheep, this early stage in the game gives you an ideal opportunity to scout right to the edges and corner of the map, to find those stone piles and relics that people sometimes miss.
The Civilisation Lottery
These are the civs with an early advantage on LN. Obviously if you play it right that advantage can last all game.
(1) Chinese
6 starting vils instead of 3 is a huge advantage:
(a) it means that the additional 225 wood needed for the TC is chopped nearly twice as fast (110 seconds instead of 190 seconds approximately);
(b) it means that the TC can be built in around 65 seconds (5 vils on the job and 1 gathering food, see below);
(c) with your 6 vils starting in different places you should find more sheep, for extra early scoutability (and besides, you are soon going to need that food);
(d) TC supports 10 pop, so there is no need to have the additional 30 wood required for your first house: you can build the TC with all 6 vils if you like;
(e) Not only do Chinese have insane age times, longer lasting farms, and cheaper research, but they also have knights with Bloodlines. Yummy.
The main problem of the Chinese is the -200 starting food penalty, therefore the Chinese player needs to gather the first 50 food as fast as possible, in practice by the time that loom has been researched 25 seconds after the TC is up. The only way to achieve this is to have at least one vil gathering food while the TC is under construction; and you can have two vils doing so. Kill a sheep right next to the TC, and when a vil has scraped 10 food, then reassign that vil to building the TC while holding 10 food. An additional advantage of doing this is that when the TC is built, the builders will be auto-assigned to the sheep instead of to forest.
Therefore once the TC is up, provided the Chinese can get the food in fast enough, they should be up to 7 vils ahead of other civilisations (3 extra starting vils, 75 seconds faster initial wood gathering=3 vils, 25 second faster TC construction=1 vil) - and that advantage lasts all game! That is a phenomenal advantage and can be translated into a very fast (for LN) castle time: the Chinese player can castle a full 3 minutes earlier than most others. Every team hopes that someone on the team will draw Chinese. (But every team member also hopes that it will not be him, as that early micro is very hard to perfect and you are almost certain to get doubled in mid-Castle!)
(2) Mayans
4 starting vils instead of 3 is a great advantage, but not so good as the Chinese:
(a) it means that the 175 wood for the TC is chopped in 130 seconds instead of 195 seconds: that is a 65 second advantage. In practice, the fourth vil will probably be far from the wood so he will have to spend some time walking, so maybe it is a 50 second advantage in practice;
(b) three vils can build the TC (90 second build time) while the fourth chops wood for the first house: for the Mayans, construction of the first house must start shortly before completion of the TC lest the Mayans be housed at 5 pop - on the other hand, if the house is built in time, the Mayans can loom at a normal time (10 or 15 vils) which means they retain the advantage of being 1 vil ahead throughout Dark Age, which is better than they can do in Arabia.
Basically the Mayan player can start a LN game 3 vils ahead of other civs, due to saving 50 seconds wood gathering time. There is a slight saving in TC building time as the Mayans can have 3 vils on the TC throughout its construction; and the Mayans 'resources last longer' bonus is good on LN as there is plenty of hunting, it also means that the super efficient trees adjacent to the TC will last longer. That can translate into a castle time approximately 1-2 minutes earlier than non-bonused civs. The Mayans can also usefully spare a villager at an earlier stage to go looking for unclaimed sheep and enemy sheep (see below).
Mayans are the second best card to draw in the Random Civs deck.
(3) Persians
The 50 wood bonus at the start translates into less wood needing to be chopped and therefore a 55 second speed advantage in getting the TC construction started. The 50 food starting bonus will help to achieve a good fast Castle time. Once in Castle the Persians get Bloodlined knights and also a superb boom. Tied for third place with the Japanese in LN.
(3) Japanese
The Japanese lumbercamp costs only 50 wood, leaving 150 in the bank, so, like the Persians, only 125 wood needs to be chopped for the TC. The three Japanese starting vils will chop 125 wood in roughly 135 seconds, which is 55 seconds faster than other civs. That Japanese TC will be up sooner, and that 55 second speed advantage should soon translate into two extra vils or a 1 minute earlier Feudal and Castle.
The cheaper mill (and cheaper mining camps in due course) will also help the Japanese player to Castle fast, and will be helpful to the boom in due course. The Japanese, tied with the Persians, are the third best early game civ in LN.
(5) Spanish
The 30% increase in builder speed (a bit of maths for you: in practice, that is only a 23% reduction in actual build time) means that that TC goes up in 69 seconds instead of (say) 94 seconds with 3 vils on the job: roughly a 25 second advantage. That is equivalent to a one vil headstart. Because the Spanish build houses in 20 seconds instead of 25 seconds, there is also more leeway in the initial 30 wood requirement which makes an optimal start slighly easier to achieve. With Bloodlined knights, and a powerful UU, and good trade for the whole team in late game, the Spanish are a strong civ in LN and take equal fifth place.
(5) Celts
As everyone knows, Celt villagers gather wood 15% faster than every other kind. That means that the 175 wood needed for the TC will be obtained in 165 seconds compared with most civs' 190 seconds: a 25 second early advantage, which (like the Spanish) is equivalent to being one vil ahead once the TC is up and in continuous production. Again, there is slightly more leeway in the initial 30 wood requirement, making it easier to use all 3 vils to build the TC. With plenty of opportunity to boom to Imperial for great siege, Celts are tied for fifth place with the Spanish. The Celt infantry speed bonus also gives rise to a unique Dark Age strategy, as we shall see.
(7) Mongols
A feature of LN is that the herds of deer are often large (maybe 6 or 8 deer), and also that boars are found in groups of up to five and you can reasonably hope to find at least 3 (your allies may be generous and let you take one of theirs, or you may be cunning and steal boar from your enemy). Hopefully you will have found good hunting with your sheep scouts, in which case you could even consider locating the TC closer to the hunting grounds.
Even more so than in Arabia, on LN the Mongols can achieve a fast (but low pop) Feudal and Castle, alternatively can go for a normal time with more resources in Castle for creating Bloodlined knights. Thus in age advancement times the Mongols can match the Persians and Japanese, perhaps even the Mayans or Chinese if the hunting is really good, although the Mongol economy will not be so strong. Although LN games have no starting scout, in a way the Mongols have a scouting bonus as they are likely to hunt early so allowing most of their sheep can do more scouting before they need to come in to be slaughtered.
Just don't forget to be ready to start farming when the sheep run out, otherwise you will face a nasty food shortage in early castle.
(8) Aztecs
The +5 vil carrying capacity (which equates to 33% less walking for Aztec vils in Dark) will lead to a slight speed advantage in chopping the initial wood requirement that wood, but probably no more than 10 seconds all told. Free Loom equates to being one vil ahead from the time that other civs loom (typically at pop 12-13, on LN maps), although there is accordingly more pressure on the Aztecs to keep ahead with both food production and housing: be alert to force-drop food when required. Together, these economy bonuses are only slightly less advantageous than Celts and Spanish in a LN game. As noted, a feature of LN games is that most players usually make it to Imperial, and Aztecs in Imperial are a surprisingly powerful civ with the best Champions in the game.
(9) Britons
On LN it is possible to find LOTS of sheep (especially if you send a vil in the enemies' direction, he he), so the Briton player is likely to have plenty to keep his food gatherers busy. LN can also be a boomers's map, which suits the Britons just fine.
(10) Koreans
The +2 vil LOS can be useful early in LN, as vil scouting is important - for example, the bonus helps you to find more sheep as the vils walk on their way to the LC. More sheep = more sheepscouts and more free food. It also makes it easier for you to take sheep from the enemies' side of the map. A feature of LN games is that if you are adjacent to an enemy you typically trush instead of flushing, and the Koreans can do an excellent trush; the free tower upgrade upon Castling is particularly pleasing if you are able to both trush and achieve a fast Castle time (it is a good team strategy to ask allies to tribute you some food to help you Castle within a reasonable time despite your trush).
(11) Teutons If you are unlucky enough to find no sheep initially and no hunting, that could mean that you have to build 10 or more farms in the Dark Age. In that case, being Teuton might just save your game and/or Zone reputation. Also, as noted already, LN is often suited to booming, and the Teutons have an outstanding boom; Bloodlined Knights are an alternative. Due to the bonused TCs, Teutons are relatively safe from raids, and therefore if Teutons in the pocket you can consider going for a no-military fast-imp (obviously by agreement with your allies first).
(12) Saracens
The Saracens have no Dark Age bonus, however they can do a surprisingly powerful krush with their Bloodlined knights through using the market skilfully to obtain plenty of food in early Castle. Check out Saracen market strategies elsewhere: essentially, the Saracens' economy is most efficient if they mine stone and gold instead of building farms, until food costs more than 153 gold. (This also means that no farms need be built until farm upgrades have been researched.) The good hunting that is typical on LN will assist this strategy. Even so, you may find it advisable to build 3-5 Saracen farms in Feudal so as to maintain a smooth food income if you forget to visit the market on a sufficiently regular basis.
(12) Turks
The gold mining bonus can help the Turks build plenty of Bloodlined knights, roughly as many as the Saracens; this bonus can also mean you can castle with only two gold miners instead of three, allowing an extra vil to be used elsewhere. Turks are also one of the top Imperial age civs if they can survive that long, which they usually can on LN.
(14) Goths, Byzantines, Franks, Vikings
These civs have no useful early game bonus (the Goth boar bonus does not really count as useful, indeed it can be counter-productive if you shoot the boar off the TC patch).
They are, however, all good in different ways in Castle age and Imperial age. After all, AOK:TC is a very well-balanced game.
Goths have Bloodlined knights.
Franks have something equivalent.
Byzantines have cheap camels.
Vikings have a better-than-average Castle age economy (effectively, +3 vils compared with another civ which has to research wheelbarrow) which means that they can in fact do a good knight rush, despite having no Bloodlines and poor Imperial age cavalry.
(18) Huns
The Huns are in last place on LN because, unlike every other land map, the Huns are the slowest civ in LN. The cause of this is that 100 wood starting penalty, meaning that the poor Hun player has to spend all his wood on a LC and then chop 275 wood in order to build his TC: with 3 vils chopping away, that is a 105 second speed penalty compared with even the slow Byzantines. The Huns can claw back a few precious seconds by virtue of using all three vils to build the TC (build time: 90 seconds) and not worrying about 30 wood, but that will still leave the Huns roughly 100 seconds behind even a non-bonused civ. That is essentially a 3 vil starting disadvantage (3 vils, not 4, because other civs basically have to use 1 vil constantly to chop wood for houses and to build houses (130 vil seconds per house, against 125 seconds for the TC to create 5 vils). At a lower level of play, the Hun disadvantage is less than 3 vils, because the other civs will not build the TC and first house optimally, and the other civs will manage to get themselves housed from time to time. Despite this starting penalty, the Huns are not a total washout, because they are a good civ once they get going, with Bloodlined knights or the Cavalry Archer alternative which probably interferes less with the boom. yet its Possible to do 21 min Castle with Huns with good food and dark age eco management.
Military Strategy
Need to write different 4v4 Strategies.
Specially with Chinese Britons Mongols Huns
it being 3rd game of R2+
Land Nomad: Flush or no flush?
Once you are feudal in LN, the main differences from a normal land map game (e.g. Green Arabia) are as follows:
(a) everyone's age times are 5-7 minutes later than normal (depending on civ);
(b) some civs (especially Chinese) have had a massive speed advantage already, as detailed above;
(c) you only have 100 starting stone, not the usual 200, because you used 100 stone already to build the initial TC;
(d) your TC is probably better located than it would be in an Arabia game i.e. it is directly adjacent to wood and protecting your woodies; it may also be nearby gold or stone;
(e) you should have gathered more food and/or started farming later than on an Arabia map, due to the good hunting on LN;
(f) no player is likely to have scouted any enemy town thoroughly until mid-Feudal at earliest, as sheep scouting of enemies is not very effective!
The consequence of points (b), (d) and (f) (and the Hun starting penalty!) is that a flush is much less likely in LN than in a normal game. Also, LN is generally a team game, often 4v4, which again makes a flush less satisfactory and a fast castle more likely. Point (e) is also in favour of a fast castle. Point (c) is a point against a feudal-age trush.
But ultimately I think it is point (d) which is the real reason why a flush is rare in LN. The principal objective of a flush is to shut down or slow down an enemy's wood, and on LN that is often impossible in Feudal unless the enemy is badly positioned or the forest is so thin that you can put skirmishers and a tower on the far side of it.
The very fact that a flush is rare, and therefore unexpected, can mean that it is a good strategy to adopt. I am including a feudal tower rush as a specific class of flush, by the way.
In particular, I have recently seen good results achieved by towering up a Chinese opponent, as the Chinese player will almost certainly be going for a fast Castle with little or no military at that stage in the game. But your tower rush needs to be very very fast and must ultimately result in 5 or 6 towers preventing him from farming or mining on one whole side of his TC, otherwise you will find that he is in Castle before you know it and ramming down your towers while his knights hit your Feudal Age economy.
In 1v1 LN games a fullscale flush can be very effective (depending on civs), as your opponent might not be expecting it and it will be a while before he even scouts your town.
Some people will do a fast Castle with a small scale Feudal attack, e.g. 2 scouts or 4 spearmen, if they spot an enemy's town at the right sort of time. For example, you can sometimes hit an enemy's gold miners while they are unprotected and far from the TC; or with a few spears built during the Castle transition you can ambush an enemy forward builder or the vils building his second or third TC. A scout rush also has the advantage that through doing it you will be able to scout your enemy's town properly.
If flushing in a LN team game, good communication with your allies is of key importance, as the flush will leave you highly vulnerable to a castle-age attack by the flushee's ally. 'Doubling' (where two players jointly attack one enemy) is very common in LN games, and a player who has flushed an opponent is asking to be doubled or tripled later on. A good ally will station a few pikes in your town and also keep the enemies busy with raids to prevent them from potentially assisting your flushee.
Ultimately, whether or not you decide to flush in LN depends on what civs you and your allies are, what civs the enemies are, and map position - you need to adjust your strategy accordingly. Counter-intuitively, the very fast civs (Chinese, Mayans, Japanese and Persians) should almost always aim to fast castle rather than flush, as a knight or cav archer raid, while the enemy is still in Feudal or in early Castle with no military and no second TC built, is by far the most devastating blow you can strike.
The Sling
Because of the remarkable difference in age times, the sling shot strategy can be very powerful in Land Nomad.
The sling is a very common ln strat. Usually China gets resources from either Mayans or Persians. It is important that the player tribbing is in a favourable position: hidden/walled/well protected. When slinging its most efficient sending wood and food, gold is something the slung player can collect easily by himself (unless weird map conditions). You usually see long slings (loads of resources), which is something that annoys me a lot. I have the theory that the biggest amount of resources a player can tribute without auto erasing himself from the game are 600units in land maps and around 80 0-900units in maps with good fish. Hypothetically a sling of 600 food (bloodlines + 2 armor upgrades) or 300/300 to each ally (bloodlines + one armor) and the addition of a 3rd ally playing is a godly strategy. Not likely we will see it anyway.
When defending sling teamwork is crucial. Monks and camel are usually the best option. It is very important when fighting a slung player to understand that a 1:1 killed / lost unit ratio is no longer acceptable. (Theoretically over 1,5:1 should be good) and therefore it's important to pick fights carefully. Notice slung players usually have a few upgrades so they are stronger
A typical example would be: Teuton player with good farming has food surplus in late Feudal, tributes 300 food to Persian ally who has just fast castled with 3 stables. The Persian can use that food to make 5 extra knights compared to what he otherwise would have made, which can make a devastating difference that early in the game.
The Teuton's tribute, in the form of the food for 5 extra Persian knights, is likely to be more effective in hammering the enemy than if the Teuton player had built 5 later, slower, knights of his own.
Obviously the Persian ally needs to have sufficient gold miners to have enough gold to create those extra knights immediately. This requires excellent communication between the allies. For example, the Teuton player needs to say around 19 minutes, "I am going to sling you 300 food at 23:00", so that the Persian can prepare his build-up appropriately. Obviously the Teuton player then needs to do precisely what he promised (or close enough: no reasonable ally is likely to mind if you tribute 200 food at 23:00 and another 100 at 23:20).
You can take this to greater extremes - the Teuton could stay in Feudal for longer and tribute the full 800 food and 200 gold that he would have otherwise used to castle (probably 600 food and 133 gold after deducting 30% tribute fee) ... just imagine what his Persian ally can do with all that. But it is a shame to do that, because it prevents the Teuton from reaching Imperial within a reasonable time and Teutons are one of the most powerful in Imperial.
I mention the Teutons as the sling, because Teutons are safest from raids with their TC bonus, and also Teutons can easily achieve food surpluses with their cheaper farms.
Vikings can also be a good sling, because they have a powerful Feudal economy (free wheelbarrow) but they are weak militarily on a land map.
Believe it or not, Britons can be a good sling, because they have good early food, and even if they castle late they can rapidly catch up in booming terms due to the cheaper TCs.
"There is another benefit from slinged team that has to be mentioned. The fact that one guy doesnt need to make army adds up too. No barracks, stables, blacksmith, houses needed together with military ups.
Also another thing. It is also a good strat when you have a civ like vikings to just FC and 3 tc boom then not imp. Do tribute ups at market and just sling all to one guy. Paladin civ or meso civ/ goths. You save alot by not going into imperial and one of your allies becomes way more powerfull and has a suprise effect (enemies dont realise its actually 2v1). Also not researching your own military units is a giant resource advantage and because viking units are crap in imp anyway its no loss. " - Imperial God
Some important data:
- Market tribute taxes are 30% raw ---> 20% with Coinage (Feudal upgrade).
- Tributing team usually has 80 0 additional resources in game (slinger's castle upgrade resources become military units resources for the slung player: 1000 - 20% = 80 0)
- When the players reaches Castle Age the slinger is still Feudal and therefore have 7 additional villagers (35/28 =25% additional economy for him, counting the market taxes it becomes a 5% additional military resource available for the slinging team and it decreases as the game goes on: when the rest of the players have 42 villagers (not counting additional tcs) slinger has 49 that is a 17% more -20% of market taxes = -3% of resources. Having this in mind you can deduce:
a) Time benefits the defender: the longer the battle the weaker sling team econ becomes.
B) Slinging team must translate its initial military advantage into damage to the enemy as soon as possible.
Slinging team score increases "virtually" the slung player score increases 100 points each 500units received and the team score increases 100points each 1500units tributed.
That is all that needs to be said on Land Nomad. Karl & Ralber
Monk Rush - by Omega
Best Civs. Aztec, Japs, Saracen, Byz, Teuts.
Basic build order till u have 22 vils, put 3 on gold, go up, add 2 more vils to gold during transition to feud once u have ur wood/food balanced for mkt smith and 1st wood upgrade.
2 more vils to gold during feudal, 2 vils smith 3 vils mkt, 1st wood upgrade. Send 2 vils fwd depending on how close enemy is. Get 1st farm and then 1st gold upgrade if u have extra food. Make up to 5 farms to support ur tc, but try to balance so u have atleast 500 wood on caslte (u should have some food reserves from dark hunt/sheep). Try to wall up a bit if u can.
Fwd vils make houses untill castle.
Castle age. 2nd wood up 1st, then make 2 monasterys with ur fwd vils. Research redemption if u think its going to be really useful and/or pump monks. Make a seige workshop when u have wood. Add some more farms.
Add another tc, normally on gold. But u could tc stone if ur golds safe.
Once u have atleast 4 monks and 2 mangonels. Go destroy his tc. If he begins to make scouts make a barracks and a few spears. You can counter archers with mangonel, kts with ur monks. If u have redemption u can convert his mangonels.
Don't stop booming. U can buy stone with ur gold make more tcs. If ur food eco gets imbalanced (seems to since monks r micro intensive) buy a little food, but keep farming.
Monk speed and hp techs at monastery help.
Once u hit imp its up 2 u, all civs there r different.
Normally azt -> eew rush - japs fast halbs rams - saracens overboom and lc/hussar raid +rams, then mames - byz fast halb rams - teuts fast halb +ram or go heavy stone and transition straight to etks.
Variation - Celtic seige rush. Same but make 2 seige workshops instead of 2 monasterys and a barracks instead of the seige.
Special strategy for Celts in Land Nomad
As noted, Celts have a good start in Land Nomad, being fifth equal in terms of speed of construction of the initial town centre.
Celts also have the advantage of faster moving infantry. This means that Celt swordsman line units move faster than (non-Wheelbarrowed) villagers and Celt pikeman move very nearly as fast as non-upgraded knights.
This means that Dark-Age scouting of the enemy with militia is more viable with Celts. That can be advantageous in four ways:
(a) You can pick up any outlying sheep between you and the enemy, thus keeping your economy strong
(b) You can scout the ground between you and the enemy, and the enemy towns, at a stage when most players will not yet be scouting. If you are an experienced player you should be able to predict what strategies the enemy will ultimately adopt from this scouting in late Dark age. Once your allies (hopefully fast castlers with Bloodlined knights) have researched Cartography, they will benefit from this scouting that you have done so that they can do a better directed raid in early Castle.
(c) You may be able to steal sheep, due to the Celts sheep stealing powers. That kind of thing can really screw up an enemy's carefully laid fast castling plan.
(d) You can attack villagers. Although loomed villagers will easily defeat militia, the point about Celts is that they can run away faster than the villagers can catch them if the villagers do decide to counterattack, and Celt militia also have a chance of evading TC fire. Thus, although you are unlikely to kill anything at this stage, you can cause a major distraction; you may even succeed in making a panicky player garrison all his vils or make some other economic error.
I've never heard of anyone doing a drush in LN, although I suppose it's possible; but what I have in mind instead is a one or two militia scouting, raiding and sheep stealing party.
The infantry speed bonus also means that a flush with Celtic infantry units is a respectable strategy. The Celtic spears are able to kill more enemy vils, because they can walk much faster than the vils, and they are able to retreat from enemy archer, skirmisher, tower and TC fire more easily. They are also able to outrun enemy infantry if the enemy counters with barracks units. Indeed, if one enemy's defences are too strong, it will not take too long for the Celtic feudal infantry raid to walk along to the next enemy. The enemy will probably not have Cartography at this stage so at the very least you can cause confusion by doing this.
The fact that the Celts are the fifth fastest civ to start on LN (equal with Spanish) and have a woodcutting bonus means that there should be plenty of wood available for building a forward barracks, or two, in Dark age.