How do you beat the comp. on moderate?

[splooger]

How do you beat the computer on moderate difficulty? I can beat the computer on easy but I get killed on moderate. The computer always kills me with an early rush. I fall behind from the get-go on resources as well it seems. Anyone have any tips?. Thanks.

[Influenza]

Build walls and towers. Then just wait for it to waste its resources on fruitless attacks. Once it runs out of resouces, you're set.

[Tie Guy]

Just make sure that you get up even a small amount of troops early.

 

I know when i first played AOK i always fell to the rush because i was way to busy managing my resources, and forgot all about troops or units till at least the Fuedal Age.

 

Otehr than taht, as mentioned above, just build towers, and walls if you want.

[Guest IdLe_WorkeR]

Attack the computer player in t2. It can't respond well at moderate. It does better in hard bc got more resources.

[Guest IdLe_WorkeR]

And oh yeah, get to t3 first and attack with fighters.

[Zygomaticus]

the best thing which i use in moderate is i build some planes as early as possible and attack his resource points-hopefully it hasnt built any turrets

 

i just played a game in easy(the second most easiest-harder than easiest) you may fall behind on those little scores at the bottom of the screen but you can always catch up

 

the comp had around 1000 points more than me but still some strategic attacking got me ahead and in the end the comp resigned with me 4000 points ahead of it:D

[Guest Chad Skywalker]

heh Wait till you get up to Hardest Level with multiple opponents hehe

[mariners2001]

Build walls to keep them from coming in. Also make sure you protect yourself from Air because the Moderate Computer goes nuts with Air units. He covered my screen with fighters one time and I almost cried.

[Chessack]

Originally posted by splooger

How do you beat the computer on moderate difficulty? I can beat the computer on easy but I get killed on moderate. The computer always kills me with an early rush. I fall behind from the get-go on resources as well it seems. Anyone have any tips?. Thanks.

 

On Moderate level, which is what I mostly play (since hard requires just too much perfect attention to detail, and I don't usually have the time or patience for that), the computer rushes through the ages ASAP, and doesn't develop techs much. Therefore it does not have the improvements built for most of its units. If you carefully build improvements, you will take longer to get through to later tech levels, but that's OK -- you will win in the long run, because you will have more powerful units. As I have said elsewhere, a very improved Trooper with all the Barracks and War College powerups, will kick butt over a "unique" unit that has 0 improvement.

 

The computer usually will build up a lot of units and sack you early, if it can find you. There are several ways to help prevent this.

 

1. Kill the Computer's Scout: Build some troopers or other ranged units as early as you can. It's even worth delaying getting to Age 2 a little bit, if you can build some troopers first. Not too many, just 3 or 4 is enough. Then position them around your village, at the perimeter. Soon, the computer will find you with his scout. Kill it right away. Do not let it wander around your village. What the computer is doing at this point (I think, since it does it on AoE 1 and 2 both) is scoping you out. If it wanders all over the village and doesn't find any defenses, it knows you are vulnerable, and then it Wwill definitely rush you as fast as it can. If you kill its scout before it can scope you out, often times the computer doesn't come after you... probably the "he's weak, get him" does not get turned on.

 

1a. Use the scout against him: The alternative strategy is to build a bunch of troopers, but hide them far outside your town. Wait for his scout to show up and scope you out. He finds out you have no defenses (or so he thinks, MUH-hahahaha). Then he will build an attack force and rush you. Little does he know, as soon as his scout went away, you moved your troops back into town, and you're now well defended. When he attacks your "defenseless" city, you pounce on him and pull a reverse ambush. Watch his forces scatter and flee.

 

2. Watch for where the computer comes from. On Moderate level, at least, the computer likes to attack from one, or at most two, directions over and over again. Before he makes his first attack, keep your forces scattered around your whole village. Usually I have 1 melee and 1 ranged unit protecting each "group" of workers. So, the food gathering group has 1 pair protecting them, the wood gatherers have a pair, etc. When he attacks, move all your units to defend, and ring the alarm for your town. He might kill all your units and do a little damage to your town before it's over, but you will probably survive the attack. Once your garrisoned villagers shoot the last of his forces, let them back out, and immediately re-build your 6 or 8 military units. Now position most (or all) of them in the place he just attacked from. Nine out of 10 times, he will attack from there again. And this time, you're ready.

 

3. Once you get to level 2, have 1 worker dedicated to constantly, unrelentingly, building walls and towers. Use the woods or other terrain features to help you save ore. Build two towers per gate -- one flanking each gate -- right in the middle of a gap between the trees, then wall up the rest of the gap. Now he has to go through your towers to get to you. Keep ranged units behind the wall, and some melee'ers in case he gets through. Remember to keep the wall-builder working. As you do this, you will need at least 2, preferably 3, ore gatherers working constantly. Buy more ore from your space port if you need it, but be careful, it's expensive there. Because walls and towers are so important to defense, I consider ore/stone to be far and away the most valuable resource in the game (it's also in the shortest supply -- wood and food are endless, and Nova can be gotten by selling them or buy trading, if you run out of patches -- but ore is very scarce). Block the computer's attacks at the choke points on the map. This will save you against the ground assaults that come early.

 

4. As soon as you can, build a good 4 or 5 anti-air units, and scatter them around your town. Use the same strategy as listed above for ground units. Wait to see where he's going to come from. Then position all your subsequent anti-air units at that spot, and they'll nail his fighters and bombers before they can come into your town.

 

5. You won't probably need troopers in Age 1. The computer rarely attacks quite that early (it has to find you, etc). So what you can do (it usually works well) is, build up lots of workers, get lots of food. As soon as you can, level up to Age 2. Now, you're workers will be gathering food like gangbusters still, but you've nothing to spend it on at the town center, since it can't build workers while leveling up. So instead, use that food, as much as possible, to build toopers (both mounted and ranged, with a slight bias toward ranged). If you do it right, you should have about 6 or 8 military units by the time you finish leveling. Build another couple, and that should be enough to hold him off for a while. Then you can get your next worker to start building walls and towers, and once you get that going, you're all set.

 

May the Force be with you.

[mailnride]

The computer is not all that hard on Moderate.

 

One key is to progress quickly. Go for food and carbon first and foremost. You need the food for the T2 upgrade, and the wood is used to build farms.

 

Here's how I start: You start with three builders. Have one of them chop wood, the other two build a house or two.

 

Have the TC make as many builders as you can afford. Set the TC to deploy the new builders to gather carbon. Send one builder to construct the Food Proc. Center. I put it about 8 house-sized squares away from my TC. Once that's built, build farms with the remaining builders with as much wood as you have left. Make sure everyone is working.

 

Send the scout out in a spiraling shift-click path outward from your base. (Have him fly in constantly growing circles around your base.) You want to explore your immedate perimter and identify close resoures.

 

All extra farmers should be chopping wood until you have enough to build them their own farm. I usually go about 5-6 farms, fewer if there are banthas or wild game nearby. (Yes, I'll butcher banthas-nerfs until I get to T2, it usually takes 2 animals to go this way, but it's worth it since it can shave almost a minute off of your t2 time. May not need to if there are berries or wild game NEARby. The rest I put in the nursery later.)

 

I try to top out about 12-15 builders in total , 5-6 of them farmers, the rest chopping wood. I'll wait to build more After I T2. Usually I'll make my first 3 buildings the food Proc, Carbon Camp, and Ore Mining camp, placing the Carbon Camp in a location near a lot of wood, then start sending choppers over to it.

 

Once you click the T2 upgrade, you should start 2-3 ore gatherers working to increase your ore stocks. The second T2 finishes, you should be ready and stocked to start building walls, so plan them out beforehand. Think compact. Make your base big enough that you'll have room to build, but don't go crazy trying to walll off a massive expasive base. I guarantee you won't be able to defend such a large permiter effectively. Expect the first rush just before or just after the computer T2s. If they get into your base, ring the town bell and defend.

 

Also, the second T2 finishes, click your Town Center and queue up however many workers you can afford to build, you should have saved up at least 200 food during the upgrade.

 

I've found the most critical time in the game is right after you & the computer reach T2. It'll send over a fairly heavy rushing party, and if they get inside your base, you'll be seriously hindered. I'll sometimes put 4-5 builders on wall-gate building duty just to get them up quickly. Without walls you'll be toast once the comptuer starts producing Jedi. The second walls are done, start fortifying them with towers. Make a troop center and garrison 5 troopers in each tower. This increases their firepower substantially. 3-4 towers each fully garrisoned with troopers can repulse virtually any T2, even some T3 attacks. If you have the resources to spend, build a small squad of 4-6 troopers, send them over to your enemy's base to try to kills some droids..disrupt building, anything will do to set the computer back in its game.

 

Good luck

[ReaperFett]

build walls and LOTS of turrets. Build airbases. Take him from the air

[splooger]

Some interesting points to ponder there. Now putting it in to practice is the hard part.

[Chessack]

Originally posted by splooger

Some interesting points to ponder there. Now putting it in to practice is the hard part.

 

Note: You can change game speed with the + and - keys. If you're having trouble managing all those units at once and keeping your workers non-idle, try slowing the game down a little. It will take longer to play, but it will help you get a "system" up and running. AoE 2 and GB aren't quite as easy to "systematize" as AoE 1 was (I got to the point on AoE 1 where the computer just could not beat me, even with it cheating, because I had the system down pat -- but there were a lot less variables in that game). But still, certain things are a given, yet putting them into practice is a lot harder than just stating it.

 

Don't forget to use the period (.) key regularly. That will help you track idle workrs.

 

Also, try playing the game with low population sizes. 50 or 75 units are a lot easier to control than 200. In fact, I usually play 100 or 125 unit games, because otherwise things can get quickly out of control. For a relative beginner, 200 units would probably be near impossible to keep track of. Start out with 50 or 75, then move up in small increments as you get used to it. Eventually, some of the management will be second nature.

 

May the Force be with you.