Age of Empires 3: The Art of Early Attacks

I have played about seventy games of Age of Empires 3. The computer opponent on the Hard setting can easily be attacked early in the game. In the parlance of gamers, the early attack is termed as the 'rush'.

Beating the computer at the 'Hard' setting is rather simple. Of late, I have managed to 'rush' the computer opponent at the 'Hard' settings, finishing them off in 23, 23, 21, 26, 23 minutes.

My sister has even managed to beat them early in 18 minutes!

The lessons in these rushes are:

1. Attack the enemy villagers early. Prevent them from mining for gold and hunting or gathering for food. This can be sent by sending creating five musketeers and sending them separately to various areas of the map. After a barracks is built, five soldiers armed with firearms must be sent. Avoid tangling with the enemy outposts. Watch the troops. Do not let them chase the villagers into the enemy town centre.

2. Disable the enemy explorer. Use the outposts and troops. This is not very important but it can be done easily. So, why not?

3. Continue creating villagers. At no point should one ever stop creating villagers. All villagers must be occupied, doing productive things at all times. My rush depends on ruining their economy and eventually outbuilding them.

4. Continue rushing and sending troops piecemeal. (Not in ones or twos. Five or ten harassing troops would be enough). One may lose several initial battles. The idea is to force the enemy to expend resources. Organise defences. Lose villagers and troops. This way, one would hardly need defences for good reason. For exchanges, ensure that the exchange ratios are close to parity. Losing 5 to 4 is alright. Losing 10 to 3 is not.

5. Send two falconets (light artillery) with about ten troops of various types by the Fortress Age. At that point, one should be able to devastate the town centre. A second wave of reinforcing troops would win the game. Oh, destroy their outposts and town centres using your troops. Leave the falconets against villagers and enemy troops.

6. Two barracks should be built. The first may be built near the town centre. The second should be built near the enemy town centre. If possible, site an outpost by the advance barracks. Have reinforcing shipments of troops delivered there.

7. Never forget to exploit victory. Upon winning a battle, do not stand there and cheer. Go in. Do in their villagers! Bring followup forces and mope-up!

These are generally characteristics of my rush against the computer. I will describe them in detail in future.

I have gone online and fought three opponents, two of which were so-called 'clan' members. I rushed the first player and destroyed him in 25 minutes, I rushed the second and destroyed him in 19 minutes and finally tonight, I played a third, rushing him and forcing his resignation in 16 minutes.

I will write on those in great detail in the coming days.

*Image taken from http://www.ageofempires3.com