N3O Age Of Empires and Starcraft 2 Clan

You can pretty much predict the points in a team game when you will likely be raided, namely: (1) During the initial colonial massing at the FB, your opponent sends his cav shipment (Germans, Russians, Iroquois usually; sometimes Otto) to bug you while you focus on building your units and tweaking your econ; (2) After the initial FB skirmish, which does not produce a decisive result, you sit back and boom--soon enough your opponent tries to make your life difficult and hamper your economy; (3) During battles, your opponent takes a small group of cav, puts it out of LOS at map's edge, then raids your town or hunters/miners while you are focused on the fight; (4) During a stalemated late game with walls and such, your opponent tries to divert your attention by coming at you from multiple directions, hoping you will be too overwhelmed to catch him; (5) Against lategame Russia and France, you will face special "lame mass raiding" by oprichniks and cuirs: These raids demand your maximum attention because they can vaporize even a full econ in less than a minute; these are actually less raids than full-out attacks designed to make you quit; and (6) Against the Sioux, you can count on some kind of WC-assisted raiding at all times, but especially during the post-FB skirmish and later in the game, when they mass a huge cav army, use the firepit and lame you to death with siege/attack dances.

Good raiding decides games. It has a demoralizing effect. It keep vils from doing their jobs. It costs you resources and throws you into confusion. It prevents you from watching your troops. In sum, raids make your life hell. They test your patience and determine whether you have 20 fingers, 6 eyes and a separate computer screen to watch different parts of the map at the same time. If a raid has at some time in your AOE career made you throw up your hands in exasperation, you are not alone.

So what do you do to stop them? It is easier said than done, I but I think it is possible to apply the above "raid clock categories" to predict when you will face a raid, then stop it. If your opponent is raiding, he is not helping his allies' armies on the main battlefield. Plus, he is risking a lot of resources by committing his cav somewhere else. It is worth the risk, of course, because it might cripple your econ and knock you out of the game. But if he loses his raid force AND you attack along the main front, you could very well break through a weak defense.

We've all been here. We dutifully mass our troops with the main force by the FB, we try to boom and then WHAM, 10 7.76 speed axe riders tear down across your towns. Who goes to stop them? Who stays? Can you grab your vils in time? Did you get Great Coat? You know the feeling.

Fight back by knowing what's coming. When you mass your armies, assign someone to build a dedicated anticav/antiraid force to watch the homefront. This does not cost that much, especially if you are doing well economically. The Germans, for instance, might assign 3-5 doppels to watch a hunting ground or mine far from your bases. If a raider sees doppels, he will definitely think twice about killing your vils. As the game progresses, you will need to expand your anti-raid force. Five pikes might work at 9:30, but they will not do the job against 30 veteran hussars at 20:00. Add troops to your anti-raid force as needed. Build outposts. Build a church and get the LOS upgrades. They are cheap and they can help you spot trouble in time. Use up the resources and go home for mills. During late game situations, you do not want your econ to be too far away from home because your enemy will have much larger armies with upgrades. Those large armies can kill your economy in seconds.

In sum, get a feel for the "raid clock." After FB battles and during mid-game booms, be alert. If you're playing a civ with cav shipments, watch yourself during the transition from discovery to colonial. There are ways to foil a raider, and it is very satisfying when you do. And once you pwn a raider, you can attack the main front and probably win.

This is coming from an inveterate raider. I know what stops my raids, and I felt it would help to share my experiences with you The bottom line is that no one likes being raided, and it feels good to stuff it to a raider. It is all part of the game, and it's an important part to know how to handle.

Nice write-up Ben. I'm with you on everything you said there.

In team games, I'm always the one to be assigned cavalry, simply because of the way I play with them. (Pssst, don't tell Bodet I told you this, but I once reduced his villager count from 28, to 6 in a matter of three minutes before he realised what was going on...)

So, to me (and probably a whole load of other players), raiding really does decide whether or not you win or lose a game.

Quite ironic I think, because I am constantly raiding other people, usually with great amounts of success, yet myself I am highly suceptable to raids myself...

Ask LaZy...

One thing I learned the hard way from Harley was to use the minimap at all times. It will give you the benefit of all the available LOS in getting the earliest possible warning. Then communicate with your team.

So true, Hydro. Many times I have suffered terrible raids while off raiding myself. If only I had six hands and 12 eyes... like Drew

Walls cost 5 wood per segment...

Nice write up, Ben. Poor responsiveness to raiding is definitely one of my main weaknesses. Good things to think about there.

very well written kaiser, i especially like the clock, it's mostly always at the same times when raiding occurs

i wanted to create a topic like this, but you were faster ;-)

i really like the following point you mentioned, i think that many ppl raid just WRONG, instead of using a few cav units, they take someitmes up to 20, i always say to my allies "get their main army/fb" and we win most of the times by doing this, till their cav comes back, most of their army is annhilated
another point of defending against raids is herding properly, i always shot my hunts always once or twice to move them back and forgot about it later, which wrong, always herd as much as possibleeraly game, treesa re always near and you got a mine, so with properly herded hunts he shouldn't be too successful in raiding

make sure you read this people
i've come up wit this tactic recently:
all of you know the ALT+F hotkey to toggle between friend&foe colours and the standard colours which every player choses. so what i like to do is to sometimes just perss alt+f and get friend/foe colours, when i see yellow(my mates) and blue (myself) everything is fine, when i see a tiny bit or masses of red my mind says -> DANGER!!!
it's so much more easy to keep track of the minimap and you will notice it way faster and react accordingly.
some ppll like to take those damn light colours (turquoise or light pink) to make their raids "invisbile", which is really a bummer but alt+f will save you here if done right

the reason why i just don't leave friend&foe colours and switch all the time now is that i want to know, to which player a blob on the minimap belongs, with freinds&foe colours, every enemy is red, and every ally is yellow

That's an awesome tip about friend and foe colors, however is there a load time between it given your computer isn't godly like some peoples?

I never knew the ALT + F trick - I shall use this going forwards.

Kaiser, you've made a very excellent post. The nature of it reminds me of the good old days of reading university texts and reading scholarly articles.

The only things I want to say (since it was so thoroughly and well covered by you) are:
1. Watching the mini-map is crucial.
2. Market ups for villagers are crucial.

[quote=""36drew""]Kaiser, you've made a very excellent post. The nature of it reminds me of the good old days of reading university texts and reading scholarly articles.

The only things I want to say (since it was so thoroughly and well covered by you) are:
1. Watching the mini-map is crucial.
2. Market ups for villagers are crucial.[/quote]

Thanks, Drew. When it comes to organizing my knowledge and experience, I break out the categories and start making lists, as here. If I don't, my brain drifts in 10 directions at once, dreamer that I am.

[quote=""blayzer13""]That's an awesome tip about friend and foe colors, however is there a load time between it given your computer isn't godly like some peoples?[/quote]

i dunno, since my computer is good

on my comp it switches immediately, i think it should on every comp, since the only things that changes is the colour, no better or worse graphics