Age of Empires Strategy:Army Control

Controlling the army is a very important aspect in Age of Empires.If you are not alert while attacking and looking elsewhere, your opponent may exploit this opportunity and they will die away cheaply. You should try out different stances and formations that suit the army. I prefer keeping each army numbered and making them attack on their counters only. Moving back is also effective when the opponent is not alert at the moment. His army will follow yours to the base where you can take on them with your greater number.

In feudal age while flushing you have 4 units; spearman, skirmisher, scout and maybe archer later on. These units are comparatively weak and are vulnerable to even vils when alone. So don’t attack unless you have a group (at least 7-8).The counters for this age are

1. Spearman for scouts,

2. Scouts for skirmisher and

3. Skirmisher for archers

4. Skirmishers are effective against spearman from a distance. For example keep scouts on
skirmishers and spearman on scouts.

If you don’t have a counter for a particular unit at that time, then moving back your army would be a wise choice.

If you are not so confident, you can defend your base first by making army at the base and then taking them for attack. The advantage is that in case of an attack on your base, you can still defend but the disadvantage is that it will take you more time to attack in which case the opponent may protect himself with pallaside.

If you want to play aggressive then make your military buildings in the opponent's base(make sure he doesn’t see you).You may improvise by pallasiding his buildings and even gold mines.
What happens if you have your army in his base and he has his in yours?You might want to bring yours back to your base. I would prefer to keep mine in his base,at the same time keep defend myself with vils. While defending attack one unit with one vil(because they stop attacking after they have killed their target) and keep making army at your base. Take care that the vils don’t follow up to a very large distance.

In castle age, the most powerful unit is knight. The meso civs(Aztecs and mayans) are at loss here though they have the option of the eagle warrior. You may use archers or cavalry archers in combination with knights. Again, guard your knights and cavalry archers from pikeman and raid continuously.You may also go for rams to raze his town center.

If the game stretches up to imperial age then you must look for special units. Assuming that you have boomed well, play at pop limit, make many military buildings etc. The good units in imperial age are the castle units, BBCs, Paladins, Elite EWs. The use of trebs is restricted in open maps and rams are advised in such a case.Dont stop raiding even at this stage .

The Smithy researches required depend on the type of units you are making. For cavalry most important ones are cavalry armor and attack. For archers armor and range researches are important and same thing holds for infantry also.

This is just a basic guide for army control.You want to improvise on the strategies enumerated above.Please pour in your suggestions.

By
[DZ]Blitzkreig