N3O Age Of Empires and Starcraft 2 Clan

Essentially, I am wondering when to push forward to attack the FB and when to sit back and boom in team games. This isn't really a topic that can be easily explained, hence I really appreciate the experts making VODs detailing why and when they plan to push or boom.

In my experience, losing a forward base can be devastating in team games; thus, it would appear you would want to put all of your effort into creating a massive army for the initial push. Yet, I have also seen the benefits of having one player boom to the next age quickly. So here are a few questions I am hoping people can answer in an insightful way or point me to some VODs and games on other sites (I have already watched all of the VODs and team games recorded on this site). I understand answers may depend on if your teammates have rushing or booming civs as well as the type of civs your enemy has. Lastly, China is the only civ I play, so any comments tailored to that civ will be exceptionally helpful.

-In most team games people plan on rushing. When should you stop massing units at the front and concentrate more on your eco or going to age 3?

-If the enemy FB falls, do you push all the way into one of their bases if units are sufficient or hold off and get age 3?

-Lastly, why don't many people build walls right after reaching age 2? After reviewing games with Nitroz, Drew, and Kazer raiding, one can see quite how deadly this can be. Raids usually mean distractions, vills in the TC, and loss of eco. I have been told walls are a waste of wood that should go into buildings and market upgrades.

For those who take the time to shed some insight, you have my thanks.
-Vint

A lot of questions.... I'll give a better answer later when I have more time. Here's a few points though:

If you take down their FB, push if you outnumber them. If you get their FB down, you normaly are outnumbering them, don't give them time to rebuild and regroup. Push and you should take a big advantage.
FF is always pretty risky in a team game but can be safer on a map like Texas. Generaly I don't think it's a good idea for a member of a team to FF unless it is a well orginised plan that has been practiced. In team games rush ASAP is the winner 90% of the time.
Team games are fast and macro/micro is fast. Building walls or segments can be good, but your concetration should be put into the rush. You won't need walls if you rush, because you don't rush to fail. Building walls can just perlong a game into a treaty style game which isn't a good thing.
Most importantly, FB's and bases need to be scouted thoroughly, if you know what they are doing, and what units they are making, there is no reason you shouldn't win.

A little off the top of my head here, but hope it helps.

Thanks for that shout-out, Vint! I wrote a long piece about 2v2 in particular in the Asian Dynasty section, as I recall. That might be helpful. Otherwise, here's what I have to say about your questions:

If you beat their FB, by all means push! Strokey is right; if you beat their FB, you have the numerical advantage. You can cripple a player's econ if you march into his base while they are still reeling from the FB loss. Don't wait. Seize the intitiative. That's what team games are all about.

Another thing about team games, especially 3v3: Figure out a build for creating the maximum number of a single type of unit fast. In 3v3s, your team needs one of the the rock, paper, scissors elements. Know how to create that element, and be part of the team where it needs you. My motto is: United we stand; divided we fall. You can't win a team game if one player decides to just ignore everyone and do his own thing. You need to concentrate your armies and fight as one. Learning how to spam a certain unit will let you do that.

Walls work in certain situations. In a stalemate midgame, they are essential to give you boom time to move into the next phase. They are also handy on bottleneck maps like Indochina, and even Sonora with the mesas and valleys.

Raiding is also essential. I have two schools of thought about this. You can have one player who masses cav and sort of goes it alone, just raising hell in the enemy's bases. That distracts your enemy and gives your allies a chance to build up awesome econs/armies. The downside is that the enemy could attack you with all three armies while your raiding army is off across the map. That's the risk. The other alternative is to just send small parties of raiders at the enemy just as a harassment. This keeps your army concentrated and strong. Both approaches can work. It all depends on the situation, and whether the other side has a lot of strong anti-raiding defenses (ie, India is good at that).

As a general rule, you should not FF in a team game. There are exceptions if you plan it right. For example, if you agree beforehand to mount a defense for a Port ally who FF's, it can work. But you need to plan it out. You might be on the ropes for the first few mins, but organ guns and goons can really turn things around fast!

Hope this provided some answers!

Cool questions but its late and so I not going to answer them just yet but I am in the process of making a VOD of a 3v3 team game which involvs soe of the points raised here, such as raiding, ffing and most importantly co-ordinating attacks. Hopefully it will show good examples of how to raid, how not to raid and why you should know what units you are making and always attack as one.

[quote=""Kaiser_von_Nuben""]
Raiding is also essential. I have two schools of thought about this. You can have one player who masses cav and sort of goes it alone, just raising hell in the enemy's bases. That distracts your enemy and gives your allies a chance to build up awesome econs/armies. The downside is that the enemy could attack you with all three armies while your raiding army is off across the map. That's the risk[/quote]

so treu kaiser, every time i see enemy cav trying to raid us, i think "that's 20pop down there which isn't at their fb" so get the fb

I would just add - if you win the FB, know why you won the FB before you push. If you won the FB because it was 2v3, and the one missing was Drew/Tatl/other-nightmarish-player, then you should be very wary on the push. Likely they went FF and you are going to walk into a mass of cannons or skirms, or they have a mass of raiders already in your town and you weren't looking. However, a coordinated push at that point of the game is often the key to victory.

FFs can be very effective in team games. However, the two people should fight to lose the FB as slowly as possible (hopefully never) and the FF player should be a strong Fortress player. Often, it's your best player who should FF (however, making holding the FB less likely), but some players excel at age III that are really not that strong age II. Warlord is such a guy - try to find a rec with him (not saying he's weak age II, but his age III is exceptionally better than his age II). If a guy is going to be late and have few age II troops, he's not going to help hold the FB anyway, and if he happens to have a good plan age III then the FF can be very good substitute.

FF is a poor idea where you will lose the FB too quickly without the third player, or where your FF-ing player is going to mill about age III and never show up with the special age III troops that were the reason for FF-ing in the first place.

I'm good in age three but suck in age two. Like most of you realized, I can textbook spam xbows or musks but really you can own them. I can throw resources at you but I don't really think that does much good. I can continue to play Portugal and FF in team games or I can do something else. It's really not an option I have contemplated. I can do the Portuguese merchantalism FF which I guess would get my team some cool units. I just need some recs on it so I can do it so can someone post some recs of Portuguese FF so I can learn off of it? I really tried to play another civ but I guess I just can't quite do it. I'm destined to play Portugal.

it depends on the unit combo, and what nations r on ur team.

Either Spain, Russia, France, England, or Portugal. I can play Germany fine too. I just really never played a lot of team games in three years so I suck at them.

I would like to thank everyone for the responses. They have given me some clear guidance on how to operate and be beneficial to my teammates.

As for the VOD coming out on this subject, I can't wait

-Vint

as ports, u should do cav/hussars in age 2.

as spain, muskets, rods, and some hussars in later on.

I'm going to do ottos now because I can never really decide who i'm going to play so i'll just go play a civ that is actually in my heritage. I find that when I play them I always have loads of extra resources and I can FF easily for some reason. I don't know if this is because they are just easier to play but eh, what do I have to lose. Does anyone have any strats for me?

spam jans.

abus ftw

About Saphi ff? How or what is the bo for that?