I wrote this about a year ago and thought some people might be interested so here it is, enjoy. Edit: added in some pics to make it more colourful, might add some more too.
CBA TG Tips/Strategies for Inter/Advanced Players
So I've come with a guide. In fact, this certainly isn't a guide but some ideas for expert (19+/2k+) players. This is not really intended for newer CBA players as such, because they should be working on other parts of their game. That said, there is some stuff that will certainly benefit everyone if they don't already know it.
Scouting -
Totally underused by plenty of 2k+ players, including myself! Especially at the beginning of a game, if you have a faster civ, you should send out a few scouts in different directions.
As they say, knowledge is power, and you can work out the mind of the enemy and what their plans (e.g. where they are going to try and set razes etc..) are by their troop movements.
Not only this, you are providing reconnaisance not just for yourself, but also for your allies. Maybe they'll notice how pro you are!
Runners -
If you find yourself in a melee battle with an opponent, there might just be a brilliant opportunity to do some runners. If you ever find yourself as pers vs teut or vice versa, you can easily drag 10-15 teuts away with one elephant, or several elephants with one (or a few if you like) teuts.
Here are some other melee civ matchups where runners would work particularly well.
{First civ is runner civ, Second is civ getting dragged}
Aztec vs Teut
Teut vs Aztec
Jap vs Teut (vice versa doesn't work cos Teut is too slow and Jap kills too fast)
Byz vs Jap (doesn't really work well the other way because Byz is too fast)
Byz vs Teut
Pers vs Jap
Jap vs Pers
And of course, plenty more. Don't underestimate the value of doing this, as it can easily sway the tide of a melee battle or stop you getting pop raped in certain situations. Some picture examples below:
A forward teuton runner luring some eles away:
A few isolated teuts are about to die. But instead of dying in vain, they can be used to lure the eles assailing them away from the battle.
Here a teut is in a good position to lure some tecs out of position.
7 tecs are successfully dragged and the rest of them are chopped to pieces by teuts with minimal losses.
You don't need to be a melee civ to do the running. Here a war wagon is luring some teutons away from their objective. This is quite annoying for your opponent. The standard counter is to simply patrol all your melee units on stand ground so they can't be lured like this.
Going back for some more:
Tip: Practice Celts Wars to get good at doing runners.
Some rushing tips -
I always like to rush castles on No Attack patrol. Why not just send? Well because when you send, your group goes into 'wide' mode about 15 squares before the send location. In patrol, they stay 'streamlined' (i.e. they fit through tiny holes better and more efficiently).
-If you are a ranged civ, backing up a rush with melee allies, your job is to clear out the enemy units. Sometimes though, your units just start shooting at towers and castles which can be really bad for the rush, even causing it to fail. My advice would be to stop(S) the units and then repatrol them on aggressive stance. I'm still experimenting with this so I'm not totally certain, but so far this seems to work quite well.
Underused units -
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Barracks infantry - Halberdiers and Champions. Most people would consider these units as generally useless (outside being Goth) and would prefer to go full cavalry for their melee. But imo there are situations, where these units can truly shine.
Let's look at the two main advantages of these infantry units:
Firstly, faster production times: Cav/Pal (23 game seconds), Halberdier (17gs), Champion (16gs)
Second, and much more subtle. Tell me this. Why can a group of elite TK rape a group of war elephants when 1 vs 1, the war elephant comes out with a 1/3rd of its HP. One reason alone, unit size. The effect here is amplified by the extra large size of the elephants. You can easily have 3 or more teuts slashing at one ele, while the cumbersome beasts are struggling to get attack space. In this sense, smaller melee units (i.e. infantry) have a greater attack surface area potential.
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Halberdiers: If you are up against camels, paladins, cavaliers, adding halbs to your unit combo can be really useful, particularly for ‘cavalier civs’. While cavaliers soak up damage, halbs are getting in the on the action with their small size attacking in the tiny gaps in the battle lines that cavalry are too big to get at.
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Champions: My tests showed that against a Mayan eagle warrior, the cavalier and champ each come out with about 30-40 percent of their health. But the champion killed the eagle over twice as fast! Consider adding champions to your cavaliers for some impressive results, especially if the Mayan is going halbs as well, as he commonly does.
How to stop a goth? Halbs and husks coming out at the speed of light and raping your cav/archer combo =S. Champions can literally save your ass in this situation, but I don’t think many players would consider it. At the worst, you can force him to start making champions as well which won’t be a problem for your cavalry.
It may take some experience and a certain amount of in-game foresight to know when adding barracks is an appropriate move. Obviously many times it won't be. Added to this is the fact that more different buildings and different units is going to require more micro in unit queuing and army control. So you have to be able to handle the extra micro.
That's all for now, feel free to criticise or comment, thanks for reading!
CBA TG Tips/Strategies for Inter/Advanced Players
So I've come with a guide. In fact, this certainly isn't a guide but some ideas for expert (19+/2k+) players. This is not really intended for newer CBA players as such, because they should be working on other parts of their game. That said, there is some stuff that will certainly benefit everyone if they don't already know it.
Scouting -
Totally underused by plenty of 2k+ players, including myself! Especially at the beginning of a game, if you have a faster civ, you should send out a few scouts in different directions.
As they say, knowledge is power, and you can work out the mind of the enemy and what their plans (e.g. where they are going to try and set razes etc..) are by their troop movements.
Not only this, you are providing reconnaisance not just for yourself, but also for your allies. Maybe they'll notice how pro you are!
Runners -
If you find yourself in a melee battle with an opponent, there might just be a brilliant opportunity to do some runners. If you ever find yourself as pers vs teut or vice versa, you can easily drag 10-15 teuts away with one elephant, or several elephants with one (or a few if you like) teuts.
Here are some other melee civ matchups where runners would work particularly well.
{First civ is runner civ, Second is civ getting dragged}
Aztec vs Teut
Teut vs Aztec
Jap vs Teut (vice versa doesn't work cos Teut is too slow and Jap kills too fast)
Byz vs Jap (doesn't really work well the other way because Byz is too fast)
Byz vs Teut
Pers vs Jap
Jap vs Pers
And of course, plenty more. Don't underestimate the value of doing this, as it can easily sway the tide of a melee battle or stop you getting pop raped in certain situations. Some picture examples below:
A forward teuton runner luring some eles away:
A few isolated teuts are about to die. But instead of dying in vain, they can be used to lure the eles assailing them away from the battle.
Here a teut is in a good position to lure some tecs out of position.
7 tecs are successfully dragged and the rest of them are chopped to pieces by teuts with minimal losses.
You don't need to be a melee civ to do the running. Here a war wagon is luring some teutons away from their objective. This is quite annoying for your opponent. The standard counter is to simply patrol all your melee units on stand ground so they can't be lured like this.
Going back for some more:
Tip: Practice Celts Wars to get good at doing runners.
Some rushing tips -
I always like to rush castles on No Attack patrol. Why not just send? Well because when you send, your group goes into 'wide' mode about 15 squares before the send location. In patrol, they stay 'streamlined' (i.e. they fit through tiny holes better and more efficiently).
-If you are a ranged civ, backing up a rush with melee allies, your job is to clear out the enemy units. Sometimes though, your units just start shooting at towers and castles which can be really bad for the rush, even causing it to fail. My advice would be to stop(S) the units and then repatrol them on aggressive stance. I'm still experimenting with this so I'm not totally certain, but so far this seems to work quite well.
Underused units -
Barracks infantry - Halberdiers and Champions. Most people would consider these units as generally useless (outside being Goth) and would prefer to go full cavalry for their melee. But imo there are situations, where these units can truly shine.
Let's look at the two main advantages of these infantry units:
Firstly, faster production times: Cav/Pal (23 game seconds), Halberdier (17gs), Champion (16gs)
Second, and much more subtle. Tell me this. Why can a group of elite TK rape a group of war elephants when 1 vs 1, the war elephant comes out with a 1/3rd of its HP. One reason alone, unit size. The effect here is amplified by the extra large size of the elephants. You can easily have 3 or more teuts slashing at one ele, while the cumbersome beasts are struggling to get attack space. In this sense, smaller melee units (i.e. infantry) have a greater attack surface area potential.
Halberdiers: If you are up against camels, paladins, cavaliers, adding halbs to your unit combo can be really useful, particularly for ‘cavalier civs’. While cavaliers soak up damage, halbs are getting in the on the action with their small size attacking in the tiny gaps in the battle lines that cavalry are too big to get at.
Champions: My tests showed that against a Mayan eagle warrior, the cavalier and champ each come out with about 30-40 percent of their health. But the champion killed the eagle over twice as fast! Consider adding champions to your cavaliers for some impressive results, especially if the Mayan is going halbs as well, as he commonly does.
How to stop a goth? Halbs and husks coming out at the speed of light and raping your cav/archer combo =S. Champions can literally save your ass in this situation, but I don’t think many players would consider it. At the worst, you can force him to start making champions as well which won’t be a problem for your cavalry.
It may take some experience and a certain amount of in-game foresight to know when adding barracks is an appropriate move. Obviously many times it won't be. Added to this is the fact that more different buildings and different units is going to require more micro in unit queuing and army control. So you have to be able to handle the extra micro.
That's all for now, feel free to criticise or comment, thanks for reading!