The Horde

[Archon]

Lade is full of surprises. Last night it beated many good scripts in a raw, including The Horde twice (Huns/Teutons). Impressive was the first victory (51'), after a perfect early scouting and some luck.

Anything that plays halfway agressive and uses many pikes will beat the Horde's two stable fast castle age build order. The Huns use the cheap cavalry archers in imperial age, so don't let them get there.
The teutons build some castles and train TKs when they find your spearmans, but this only helps if they find your early enough. If you have any suggestions then I'll try them.

[marathon]

The only thing that comes in my mind is related to the military superiority.
The Horde had equally numerous army with Lade until ~35'. But Lade's early castle-age units were very weak, while The Horde's ones were knights. Soon, Lade's booming allowed it to outnumber The Horde, and the usual late castle attack hit in both cases.
I think that 10 knights are stronger than 20 skirms/spears. I don't know how you could script this. A single 10-knight attack in early castle-age would make the difference imo.

Your kamikaze scouting was unlucky in both games, since pikes would kill these knights before they see too much. Monks helped, too.
I believe that it is possible to make kamikaze scouting with cheaper units. Simply, set a goal to 1 and train 1 scout. When you have 1 scout, immediately sent a kamikaze. Quite possibly, it will be this scout, if what Leif told me was true.

[Leif Ericson]

- With Byz, it never researched the 2nd cavalry armor upgrade, or the cataphract ones, although it had some cataphracts, plus a ton of resources.

Probably it didn't had enough cats to meet the prerequists for upgrade.

Would it be a good idea to let the AI research it as long as it has cataphracts and a huge number of resources, say 2400F and 1200G? Perhaps this would be good for all upgrades.

Personally, I really like Turkish and Mongol militias in imperial. I prefer them as main melee unit.

Champions rock in Imperial, in my opinion. They're also the best unit in the late game when gold runs out because of their low gold cost.

[scripter64]

Downloaded 2.11, thanks Archon

[marathon]

A spy-test against mine (you --> Vikings) was impressive: good scouting, fast age-times, incredible booming (80 villagers and 35 knights by 30'), and resulted in an easy victory. Some early good luck (a fish place, some rather close deer) might have helped in stabilisation.

I replayed this match, watching my script this time, after having made a couple of changes in my script according to your suggestions, on a new map. This time, the opposite happened: some idle TC time (I detected possible flush), 16:xx and 20.xx age-times, only 1 relic, outboomed and defeated. The game lasted slightly longer.
Probably due to bad luck/scouting. This happens. But:
- I saw 5 rams when you were outnumbered. To me, this is a waste of resources. I prefer to mass my TSA near perimeter buildings and then send rams. I only train 2 of them when armies are equal and numerous, I train more only when the battle seems to go well. Personal preference. Those 5 rams helped in the 1st game, but I already had enough buildings and houses, so they were not that critical anyway.
- The unit/upgrade selection was good and interesting, but I think that knights should be restricted: they are excellent in early castle-age, but they start losing their usefulness later for civs with good infantry and bad knights, and especially for Vikings. Maybe you should either use those knights for a raid, or switch to infantry early on. 15 early knights are a good idea, 35 not, imo.

For some reason, the forced hunting didn't work in the first game (I know that it doesn't work always). There were deer, they were revealed and they were close, but no hunters. It seems that this wasn't bad at all, maybe thanks to that fist pot. Those deer helped during castle-age.

When The Horde proceeds without problems, it is the most impressive script. Even when it has bad luck, it reaches imperial, it fights well and often it wins. I wish there were some tricks to reduce even more the effect of bad luck.

[Archon]

I replayed this match, watching my script this time, after having made a couple of changes in my script according to your suggestions, on a new map. This time, the opposite happened: some idle TC time (I detected possible flush), 16:xx and 20.xx age-times, only 1 relic, outboomed and defeated.

No idea what happened. I gues it either missed berries or lost several villagers to wolves.

If it misses sheep and deer, it usually has too much wood and too little food but it should change its strategy to some skirmisher and xbow mix. Also it would train 32 villagers, then loom and then leave its tc idle so it wouldn't trigger your flush conditions.

- The unit/upgrade selection was good and interesting, but I think that knights should be restricted: they are excellent in early castle-age, but they start losing their usefulness later for civs with good infantry and bad knights, and especially for Vikings.

Actually they should change it knights to militia if they either have more food than gold in late castle age or when they're advancing to imperial. Probably the vikings were already dead by then so you haven't noticed that.

- I saw 5 rams when you were outnumbered.

It should train more than 3 only when it has > 350 wood, if its already in imperial age and by that time it should have most buildings that require wood or when has enemy-buildings in town or a military advantage.

Anyways it seems my ai does terrible against yours.

[marathon]

Anyways it seems my ai does terrible against yours.

Probably. I don't know what's going on, the difference in power is so obvious, that one would expect > 90% victories for you. Instead, it's only 60%. Of course, I don't test with Aztecs, but neither with Koreans. I prefer civs with some infantry, because cavalry/archers are countered rather easily by Byz.

Actually they should change it knights to militia if they either have more food than gold in late castle age or when they're advancing to imperial. Probably the vikings were already dead by then so you haven't noticed that.

They changed the army, but a little too late imo. They only started training something else but knights by 30'. Instead of 35 knights, they could have 15 knights, 20 militia and 20 archers with the same money.

Rams are correctly trained late, but I believe that you should block them (maybe have a couple as arrow magnets) when you have lost your advandage.

As for the bad dark age in that game, probably the reason was berries. It didn't lose villagers to wolves, maybe only one (by viewing the chart in the end). I think that this 1 villager difference was due to loom (later it got lost when Lade loomed too).
I only highlighted the dark age because I believe that it was some bad luck the reason that those 2 games were so much different. So impressive in the first, rather pale in the 2nd, same civ/map/opponent. Simply a matter of luck, but maybe the ability to adopt played some role. It adopts well in strange situations, but maybe you could boost it a little more.

IMO, cheap units help adopting. ATE, VNS_Halen and No Limits use them pretty well, imo.

[THE RULER]

I wish there were some tricks to reduce even more the effect of bad luck.

Oh yeah !! I would always win then.lol

[Archon]

Version 2.11b
It has just a few changes:
- changed the condition to train battering rams from imperial-age to pop > 180; the other conditions remain the same
- gothic enemys are always consider to be flushers
- when the enemy trains many unit late in feudal age or has > 8 skirmishers found, it will launch an attack with knights even when equal in military

[marathon]

when the enemy trains many unit late in feudal age or has > 8 skirmishers found, it will launch an attack with knights even when equal in military

Smart and elegant. So, no major knight/eagle threat if the enemy trains units before hitting castle-age, thus pop-ineffective army. I may copy it, but it is useless for my byz script, since its biggest fear is militias. It will be useful for other civs/tactics in the future.