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AdminGroup: Staff AlumniPosts: 3,015AOM Replays: 110 Submissions:Joined: 3-September 04Member No.: 9,636









Part 1



Complete Guide to Ra



I wasn't satified with my contribution to the community or the site so I wrote this guide for the hell of it :P Iâ€™m writing this guide late at night so excuse any typoâ€™s, obvious mistakes or stupid comments because Iâ€™m finding it hard to put all my knowledge into words, Iâ€™ve never wrote a guide before, but anyway, try to enjoy :P



Introduction

When I started out as a AoM/TT player I played Hades or Oranos at 1650+ level, it was only when I joined â€˜StRâ€™S Cavalryâ€™ :P where I was introduced to the secrets and strengths behind Ra, I owe my appreciation to StR_Monte, StR_Mania and StR_Darklight for taking the time to invest in a noob. I still canâ€™t believe I was accepted into StR as a 1700er, but I owe everything I have achieved to them.



General Economic things to remember

These go for all civs:

â€¢ Always spread your sheep out around your TC to avoid villager bumping

â€¢ Remember to build your mining camp on the largest side of the mine

â€¢ Always build farms with 1 vill per farm

â€¢ keep re-building lumber camps as you cut trees down

â€¢ Get your pharoah/priest to move on the opposite side to your vills gathering rescources

â€¢ Decrease ideal villager time as long as possible

â€¢ If you are hunting around your tc and you need to garrison food and return your villagers to work, simply ring the town bell really fast.



All these insignificant things add up and really help kick off your economy.



Raâ€™s Bonuses

(IMG:



â€¢ Pharaoh empowers at +25% rate

â€¢ Priests can empower

â€¢ Chariot Archers and Camels have 20% more hit points, and move 10% faster

â€¢ Monuments cost 25% less and have +20% hit points.



When the game starts we have a pharaoh, vill, priest, ect.

The pharaoh will be your most important unit and you are going to use this dude like there is no tomorrow. Accompanying him are many helpful benefits such as:



â€¢ 25% empower rate

â€¢ Increase gather rate

â€¢ Increase military production speed

â€¢ Decreases technology build time

â€¢ Decreased the construction time of buildings

â€¢ Allows you to shoot double arrows from your TC when empowered.



An empowered laborer (Pharoah empowerment) gathers rescources faster then any other villager in the game.



Collecting Rescources -



Hunt Herd Farm Wood Gold

Egypt laborer === 0.76 === 0.65 === 0.63 === 0.98 === 0.82

Empowered laborer === 0.91 === 0.65 === 0.76 === 1.18 === 0.98



The extra pharaoh empower rate is a real positive vs eggy in particular so you can take the early economical advantage, then on top of that, you can have your priests empower as well to really give your eco a head-start. At the beginning of the game I tend to get my Pharaoh to do a lap around my TC just to get an idea of your side of the map, donâ€™t worry about scouting large amounts of the map at this stage because you can get your sphinx to scout most of it before you actually need to fight or raid anyway. If you choose to go up with Ptah i wouldnâ€™t recommend scouting to deep with the wadget but using him to find some un-scouted areas around your base is safe.



The pharaoh also gives you extra favour when empowering monuments, although you need to remember that empowering the first monument (Monument to the villagers) will produce more favour then any of the other monuments, when empowered.

Probably one of the most significant benefits of empowering is the defensive bonus it gives, while empowering a TC it will shoot double arrows which is very important when defending, this also works with priests.



The chariot and camel bonus is very important in an eggy war, it makes the Ra f/h very strong and camel raids can really own norse :P



The monuments bonus isnâ€™t very crucial, it helps a little bit early game to get a monument up asap but it doesnâ€™t have a real effect or contribute to the game until youâ€™ve build most of them.



Raâ€™s unique god power â€“ Rain



(IMG:



Rain gives a huge economy boost which gives 300% boost to your farming, 200% to your allies farming and 200% to your enemies. I find rain start to be most effective as it sets your eco up fairly well for a good f/h and you donâ€™t have to worry about villager management. This gp is also a very good GP blocker but I hate using a good gp like that unless itâ€™s a last resort. (Donâ€™t save it like Xanthor :P)

Hint: When laying down farms, get 1 villager to create 1 farm rather then all on a farm, this will save you some really important time.



Raâ€™s unique technology â€“ Skin of Rhino

(IMG:



This tech is incredibly cheap (50 food, 5 favour) and is a really effective tech. A standard villager has 8 attack, 25% hack, 34% piece but with the skin of rhino tech it turns your villagers into a decent military unit which is able to fend for itself against such early threats as raiding cavalry etc. Skin of Rhino gives your vills 9 attack, 47% hack and 54 % pierce. For all you illiterates out there, thatâ€™s 1+ attack, + 22% hack armor and + 20 pierce armor. One thing that has to be taken into consideration is the build time for this tech, it takes 40 seconds (un-empowered) so I tend to get it when I have just hit heroic or getting it from your second tc. A must get tech in the build up to a successful defense.



Vs Atlantean

I am definately no atty killer :P But the most efficient way to beat an atlantean is to defend your initial gold and villagers, analyze the gold from the beginning of the game and lay down your second monument in the first age. Advance with Bast, once you've hit classic you need to build 2-3 rax and spam slingers (Axemen and spearmen are good in small numbers, these things can really hurt your eco vs atty). Now once the rax are built it's time for you to sphinx spam. Sphinx spam allows you to claim a second goldmine, atty heroes are very easy to micro on and will most likely run from a pack of 3-4 eclipsed sphinx.



Watch the JJ rec I posted - At the very bottom of this gude.



Another strat that i've seen FOX_EliteX do pretty succcesfully is getting a 2nd tc in classical (which could possibly secure a goldmine) and then fighting with rax units. He also puts Skin of Rhino to good use allowing his vills to bash down the weak atlantean TC's.



Vs Egyptian

Eggy wars are always fun for me. I recommend always F/H or 2tc semi f/h vs eggy, they are far to weak to play in classic. Scarab rush, if done well is probably the main eggy killer, but there are ways to own eggy without the help from scarabs. Eggy wars are a matter of pushing the enemy back and denying him of gold. Eggy are nothing without gold so the most important thing is to cut off his gold supply or constantly raid.

Don't be a lame booming eggy that relies on mercs to survive ;) Eggy are an aggressive civ also.



Vs Norse

I find Norse one of the easiest civs to play against because eggy are fairly op vs them. Let's say your opponent is thor. The main threat with Thor is either their flaming weapons, or as a last resort, lamearok (Sometimes used together by ultra lame fdp's)

Vs norse an f/h is fairly easy to do, as soon as you hit heroic the best way is to mass myth units, spam wadgets like crazy. Then lay a mig down, and raid with heavy camels. You have locust as well to really hit on his eco. One thing you have to take into consideration is what rescource he can't live without. For example, if he is massing raiding cav, what's the point of hitting on his wood? You better off raiding his food hard or cutting off his gold. What i mean is, if you spot some wood vills ,you don't just walk straight past them :lol: by all means, kill whatever you can. But your initial raids should be focused on the hunt and gold on the map.



Flaming weapons is a challenge for most people, all it takes is shifting sands, a good unit combo and hack armour tech imo. Your rax units and mass mu should own their units. I like to shift alot of their army into my base or onto a cliff to even out the military advantage f/w gives him.



Lamearok. Probably the most op tech in the game, but if he is completely out of the game he will use this as a last resort, if you've played well all game it's pretty easy to defeat. You need to know what's coming at you, you need to be able to sense a rag coming and then mass rax, upgrade, tower anything! rather then procrastinating and then getting owned.



Vs Greek



I use almost the same play-style vs norse on greek except I prefer sphinx instead of wadgets. Why? because wadgets are to slow and get raped by the greek ranged hero. Heavy raiding on a greeks eco is really effective, again with locust in hand.



Some people struggle playing against f/m's, I myself had some trouble with it at one stage, unless you expect it you are probably screwed, that is why scouting is so important. When I was playing heaps of games vs chappolini I had alot of practise vs f/m's, the best ways to beat f/h are either a really fast scarab rush (8 min) or an f/m yourself with SoO and mummies to take down collosus. The main benefit of the f/m is the 'almost free' armoury techs, so probably a scarab rush is your best option.



Ra and Water?

On maps like medit, Ra can be very strong. I'' give you a BO for a 4:20 grush. (might take some practise)



Medit BO -



1 villager - Build Dock

1 villager - build granary (preferably hunt first) With pharoah empowerment

Auto fishing ships, 1 house with your dock building vill.

After you have 6 vills on food (8 food vills including fish ships) Put 3 vills to wood, you probably wondering why only 3 vills on a map where wood is so important, but 3 wood vills is enough to have 6-7 fishing ships up.

2 villagers to gold

Rest on food, don't forget a second house.

Try garrison all your food quick enough for a 4:20 (or less) advance.

Now during the transition to classical, put all your food vills onto wood (10-11) with pharoh empowerment and put some food vills to gold (5-6)

Also have 1 villager building houses and 1 villager building a second dock.



This sets you up for a agressive grush. Watch some Hellfire recs



Ra rain start f/h BO



I use this start in 95% of my games :P Here is a bo to help you-



DO NOT get hunting dogs when using rain start.

1 villager - build monument (pharoah empowering)

1 villager - build granary (pharoh empowering)

do a lap around your tc with your pharoah

7 vills on food in total

2 villagers to wood

1 villager to build mining camp

Research pickaxe asap

1 villager to build houses + temlple + second monument

another 4 villagers on gold (depending on the state of your food eco)

Research husbandary asap

Then the rest of your vills hunting (preferably cows or sheep around your tc so you quickly garrison, I split my food into 2 groups so I don't run fall short of food.

Once you've advance, put some villagers on gold and lay down 11 farms during the transition to classical.

Once you hit classical, rain.



I do this in most of my games so you can get some visual examples there.



Classical Age â€“



Some Possible classical strats?



Classic fight -



Itâ€™s possible to classic fight, apparently Skipper does it a lot vs Norse but I always tend to f.h vs every civ except Atlantean. If you were to classic fight, always accompany your rax units with mass myth unit.



2tc Semi f/h â€“

Pretty effective vs eggy or norse on a closed map, the best way to use this strat is advance with Ptah at around 4:40-5 mins and either shift some vills +pharaoh to a forward tc or a nearby tc and build it, then research shaduf and start laying down about 15 farms.

A very easy strat to use, just get a lot of food early and during the transition to classical get half your food vills onto gold. If done correct youâ€™ll end up with a monster economy.



3 tc boom â€“

Monte almost mastered this strat, Iâ€™ve tried it a few times and never really liked the strat but if itâ€™s used effective (Shaduf + rain) owâ€¦â€¦â€¦.



And more!



Ptah



(IMG:



improvement- Scalloped Axe (100 food, 10 favor)

(IMG:

This tech is researched at the armoury and offers a 10% boost to the attack of Axemen. Unless you are playing vs an aggressive loki or zeus this tech isnâ€™t really worth it.



improvement - Leather Framed Shield (200 wood, 20 favor)

(IMG:

This tech is researched at the armoury and offers 10% pierce armor to spearmen, this tech is only worth it if you are planning on massing Horus spears late game.



improvement - Electum Balls (150 gold, 10 favor)

(IMG:

This tech gives a 10% boost to the attack of slingers, Iâ€™d make this a priority vs atlantean.



improvement - Shaduf (200 wood, 10 favor)

(IMG:

Arguably the best tech Ptah offers, this decreases the cost of farms from 70 gold â€“ 47 gold which is very useful on maps such as oasis or ghost lake. I love using shaduf to2tc semi f/h (watch some TOAO_ChronoJJ recs, he does it best.



Shifting Sands

(IMG:



A pretty r0x0r gp which can be used a few different ways



some ways to use shifting sands



â€¢ Shift some scarabs into their tc early (works great on maps like Mediterranean where they are pouring all their efforts and resources into the water)

â€¢ Making a little square made from walls in your base. I use it to shift their heroes (particularly priests) in their while my MU do some damage.

â€¢ Or, my favourite, shifting sands their units onto cliffs so they are forced to delete them. This works great during such gp as flaming weapons



Wadget (150 wood, 15 favor)

(IMG:

This is an awesome defensive unit, Though it is very slow so I wouldn't recommend using it against civs like atlantean, greek or eggy :P The wadget will get raped by the ranged heroes where as norse have really slow heroes up until jarls and even then they can be easily micro'd on.



This post has been edited by [StR]Bish: Jan 23 2006, 05:53 AM I wasn't satified with my contribution to the community or the site so I wrote this guide for the hell of it :P Iâ€™m writing this guide late at night so excuse any typoâ€™s, obvious mistakes or stupid comments because Iâ€™m finding it hard to put all my knowledge into words, Iâ€™ve never wrote a guide before, but anyway, try to enjoy :PWhen I started out as a AoM/TT player I played Hades or Oranos at 1650+ level, it was only when I joined â€˜StRâ€™S Cavalryâ€™ :P where I was introduced to the secrets and strengths behind Ra, I owe my appreciation to StR_Monte, StR_Mania and StR_Darklight for taking the time to invest in a noob. I still canâ€™t believe I was accepted into StR as a 1700er, but I owe everything I have achieved to them.These go for all civs:â€¢ Always spread your sheep out around your TC to avoid villager bumpingâ€¢ Remember to build your mining camp on the largest side of the mineâ€¢ Always build farms with 1 vill per farmâ€¢ keep re-building lumber camps as you cut trees downâ€¢ Get your pharoah/priest to move on the opposite side to your vills gathering rescourcesâ€¢ Decrease ideal villager time as long as possibleâ€¢ If you are hunting around your tc and you need to garrison food and return your villagers to work, simply ring the town bell really fast.All these insignificant things add up and really help kick off your economy.(IMG: http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/8362/ra3bi.jpg â€¢ Pharaoh empowers at +25% rateâ€¢ Priests can empowerâ€¢ Chariot Archers and Camels have 20% more hit points, and move 10% fasterâ€¢ Monuments cost 25% less and have +20% hit points.When the game starts we have a pharaoh, vill, priest, ect.The pharaoh will be your most important unit and you are going to use this dude like there is no tomorrow. Accompanying him are many helpful benefits such as:â€¢ 25% empower rateâ€¢ Increase gather rateâ€¢ Increase military production speedâ€¢ Decreases technology build timeâ€¢ Decreased the construction time of buildingsâ€¢ Allows you to shoot double arrows from your TC when empowered.An empowered laborer (Pharoah empowerment) gathers rescources faster then any other villager in the game.Collecting Rescources -Egypt laborer === 0.76 === 0.65 === 0.63 === 0.98 === 0.82Empowered laborer === 0.91 === 0.65 === 0.76 === 1.18 === 0.98The extra pharaoh empower rate is a real positive vs eggy in particular so you can take the early economical advantage, then on top of that, you can have your priests empower as well to really give your eco a head-start. At the beginning of the game I tend to get my Pharaoh to do a lap around my TC just to get an idea of your side of the map, donâ€™t worry about scouting large amounts of the map at this stage because you can get your sphinx to scout most of it before you actually need to fight or raid anyway. If you choose to go up with Ptah i wouldnâ€™t recommend scouting to deep with the wadget but using him to find some un-scouted areas around your base is safe.The pharaoh also gives you extra favour when empowering monuments, although you need to remember that empowering the first monument (Monument to the villagers) will produce more favour then any of the other monuments, when empowered.Probably one of the most significant benefits of empowering is the defensive bonus it gives, while empowering a TC it will shoot double arrows which is very important when defending, this also works with priests.The chariot and camel bonus is very important in an eggy war, it makes the Ra f/h very strong and camel raids can really own norse :PThe monuments bonus isnâ€™t very crucial, it helps a little bit early game to get a monument up asap but it doesnâ€™t have a real effect or contribute to the game until youâ€™ve build most of them.(IMG: http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/9254/rain7jk.jpg Rain gives a huge economy boost which gives 300% boost to your farming, 200% to your allies farming and 200% to your enemies. I find rain start to be most effective as it sets your eco up fairly well for a good f/h and you donâ€™t have to worry about villager management. This gp is also a very good GP blocker but I hate using a good gp like that unless itâ€™s a last resort. (Donâ€™t save it like Xanthor :P)Hint: When laying down farms, get 1 villager to create 1 farm rather then all on a farm, this will save you some really important time.(IMG: http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/898/skinoftherhino0zi.jpg This tech is incredibly cheap (50 food, 5 favour) and is a really effective tech. A standard villager has 8 attack, 25% hack, 34% piece but with the skin of rhino tech it turns your villagers into a decent military unit which is able to fend for itself against such early threats as raiding cavalry etc. Skin of Rhino gives your vills 9 attack, 47% hack and 54 % pierce. For all you illiterates out there, thatâ€™s 1+ attack, + 22% hack armor and + 20 pierce armor. One thing that has to be taken into consideration is the build time for this tech, it takes 40 seconds (un-empowered) so I tend to get it when I have just hit heroic or getting it from your second tc. A must get tech in the build up to a successful defense.I am definately no atty killer :P But the most efficient way to beat an atlantean is to defend your initial gold and villagers, analyze the gold from the beginning of the game and lay down your second monument in the first age. Advance with Bast, once you've hit classic you need to build 2-3 rax and spam slingers (Axemen and spearmen are good in small numbers, these things can really hurt your eco vs atty). Now once the rax are built it's time for you to sphinx spam. Sphinx spam allows you to claim a second goldmine, atty heroes are very easy to micro on and will most likely run from a pack of 3-4 eclipsed sphinx.Watch the JJ rec I posted - At the very bottom of this gude.Another strat that i've seen FOX_EliteX do pretty succcesfully is getting a 2nd tc in classical (which could possibly secure a goldmine) and then fighting with rax units. He also puts Skin of Rhino to good use allowing his vills to bash down the weak atlantean TC's.Eggy wars are always fun for me. I recommend always F/H or 2tc semi f/h vs eggy, they are far to weak to play in classic. Scarab rush, if done well is probably the main eggy killer, but there are ways to own eggy without the help from scarabs. Eggy wars are a matter of pushing the enemy back and denying him of gold. Eggy are nothing without gold so the most important thing is to cut off his gold supply or constantly raid.Don't be a lame booming eggy that relies on mercs to survive ;) Eggy are an aggressive civ also.I find Norse one of the easiest civs to play against because eggy are fairly op vs them. Let's say your opponent is thor. The main threat with Thor is either their flaming weapons, or as a last resort, lamearok (Sometimes used together by ultra lame fdp's)Vs norse an f/h is fairly easy to do, as soon as you hit heroic the best way is to mass myth units, spam wadgets like crazy. Then lay a mig down, and raid with heavy camels. You have locust as well to really hit on his eco. One thing you have to take into consideration is what rescource he can't live without. For example, if he is massing raiding cav, what's the point of hitting on his wood? You better off raiding his food hard or cutting off his gold. What i mean is, if you spot some wood vills ,you don't just walk straight past them :lol: by all means, kill whatever you can. But your initial raids should be focused on the hunt and gold on the map.Flaming weapons is a challenge for most people, all it takes is shifting sands, a good unit combo and hack armour tech imo. Your rax units and mass mu should own their units. I like to shift alot of their army into my base or onto a cliff to even out the military advantage f/w gives him.Lamearok. Probably the most op tech in the game, but if he is completely out of the game he will use this as a last resort, if you've played well all game it's pretty easy to defeat. You need to know what's coming at you, you need to be able to sense a rag coming and then mass rax, upgrade, tower anything! rather then procrastinating and then getting owned.I use almost the same play-style vs norse on greek except I prefer sphinx instead of wadgets. Why? because wadgets are to slow and get raped by the greek ranged hero. Heavy raiding on a greeks eco is really effective, again with locust in hand.Some people struggle playing against f/m's, I myself had some trouble with it at one stage, unless you expect it you are probably screwed, that is why scouting is so important. When I was playing heaps of games vs chappolini I had alot of practise vs f/m's, the best ways to beat f/h are either a really fast scarab rush (8 min) or an f/m yourself with SoO and mummies to take down collosus. The main benefit of the f/m is the 'almost free' armoury techs, so probably a scarab rush is your best option.On maps like medit, Ra can be very strong. I'' give you a BO for a 4:20 grush. (might take some practise)Medit BO -1 villager - Build Dock1 villager - build granary (preferably hunt first) With pharoah empowermentAuto fishing ships, 1 house with your dock building vill.After you have 6 vills on food (8 food vills including fish ships) Put 3 vills to wood, you probably wondering why only 3 vills on a map where wood is so important, but 3 wood vills is enough to have 6-7 fishing ships up.2 villagers to goldRest on food, don't forget a second house.Try garrison all your food quick enough for a 4:20 (or less) advance.Now during the transition to classical, put all your food vills onto wood (10-11) with pharoh empowerment and put some food vills to gold (5-6)Also have 1 villager building houses and 1 villager building a second dock.This sets you up for a agressive grush. Watch some Hellfire recsI use this start in 95% of my games :P Here is a bo to help you-DO NOT get hunting dogs when using rain start.1 villager - build monument (pharoah empowering)1 villager - build granary (pharoh empowering)do a lap around your tc with your pharoah7 vills on food in total2 villagers to wood1 villager to build mining campResearch pickaxe asap1 villager to build houses + temlple + second monumentanother 4 villagers on gold (depending on the state of your food eco)Research husbandary asapThen the rest of your vills hunting (preferably cows or sheep around your tc so you quickly garrison, I split my food into 2 groups so I don't run fall short of food.Once you've advance, put some villagers on gold and lay down 11 farms during the transition to classical.Once you hit classical, rain.I do this in most of my games so you can get some visual examples there.Itâ€™s possible to classic fight, apparently Skipper does it a lot vs Norse but I always tend to f.h vs every civ except Atlantean. If you were to classic fight, always accompany your rax units with mass myth unit.Pretty effective vs eggy or norse on a closed map, the best way to use this strat is advance with Ptah at around 4:40-5 mins and either shift some vills +pharaoh to a forward tc or a nearby tc and build it, then research shaduf and start laying down about 15 farms.A very easy strat to use, just get a lot of food early and during the transition to classical get half your food vills onto gold. If done correct youâ€™ll end up with a monster economy.Monte almost mastered this strat, Iâ€™ve tried it a few times and never really liked the strat but if itâ€™s used effective (Shaduf + rain) owâ€¦â€¦â€¦.And more!(IMG: http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/5695/ptah2og.jpg - Scalloped Axe (100 food, 10 favor)(IMG: http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/8096/scallopedaxe2up.jpg This tech is researched at the armoury and offers a 10% boost to the attack of Axemen. Unless you are playing vs an aggressive loki or zeus this tech isnâ€™t really worth it.- Leather Framed Shield (200 wood, 20 favor)(IMG: http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/3790/leatherframedshield8cd.jpg This tech is researched at the armoury and offers 10% pierce armor to spearmen, this tech is only worth it if you are planning on massing Horus spears late game.- Electum Balls (150 gold, 10 favor)(IMG: http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/9882/electrumbullets5jg.jpg This tech gives a 10% boost to the attack of slingers, Iâ€™d make this a priority vs atlantean.- Shaduf (200 wood, 10 favor)(IMG: http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/6156/shaduf6oe.jpg Arguably the best tech Ptah offers, this decreases the cost of farms from 70 gold â€“ 47 gold which is very useful on maps such as oasis or ghost lake. I love using shaduf to2tc semi f/h (watch some TOAO_ChronoJJ recs, he does it best.(IMG: http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/7406/shiftingsands6yz.jpg A pretty r0x0r gp which can be used a few different waysâ€¢ Shift some scarabs into their tc early (works great on maps like Mediterranean where they are pouring all their efforts and resources into the water)â€¢ Making a little square made from walls in your base. I use it to shift their heroes (particularly priests) in their while my MU do some damage.â€¢ Or, my favourite, shifting sands their units onto cliffs so they are forced to delete them. This works great during such gp as flaming weapons(150 wood, 15 favor)(IMG: http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/5148/wadjeticon8oo.jpg This is an awesome defensive unit, Though it is very slow so I wouldn't recommend using it against civs like atlantean, greek or eggy :P The wadget will get raped by the ranged heroes where as norse have really slow heroes up until jarls and even then they can be easily micro'd on.

