Managing Moderate AI’s Spamming of Warships
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When I’m playing Age of Empires II HD on a map with any kind of body of water separating me from the AI, I always find that no matter how quickly I build ships, the AI seems to have more and better upgrades, with fireships already prepared.
I have tried rushing docks with four docks building Galleons and then upgrading to eight docks and putting all my resources into gold and wood, while also spamming workers and using fishing boats for food.
Despite my efforts, the AI still has more ships and appears to be microing much better than I am.
Is there any good strategy to beat the Moderate AI’s ships?
It seems impossible to me, as I have to expend a lot of effort trying to counter them while also building an army to land on their island and defeat them.
Water maps do have quite a different early game than other maps.
Once you get used to this timing you will have your warships out in time to do battle.
Generally instead of building a mill and then farms like most maps, to get your food on a water map you can make a dock and use fishing ships.
This will require sending more vils to wood early, as the wood they gather will be used to make the dock and fishing ships.
You might make 1 or 2 docks in the dark age, or even a 3rd dock on the way up to Feudal.
Once you get to Feudal and you unlock the fire galley, galley, and demo raft, then you can produce them out of all of your docks and build a navy capable of destroying your opponent.
Remember also that warships cost gold, so you will need a few villagers collecting gold while you’re advancing to Feudal Age.
One important point to mention here is the nature of naval battles.
Each of the 3 warships serve an important purpose.
Fire galleys have high pierce armor and once they get close to galleys, their damage is massive.
Galleys have high range which can be increased with fletching at the blacksmith, and these ships are good for eliminating demo ships before they can get close enough to damage you.
They also eliminate villagers and fishing ships easily.
Lastly is the demolition rafts, these are very effective at eliminating groups of fire galleys due to the fire galley’s low range and mobility, in addition to the area of effect from the demolition ship’s attack.
Understanding the trio of warships is essential to mastering naval warfare.
Lastly, when your navy gets to the opponent’s waters you’ll want to use it to eliminate exposed villagers, fishing ships, and isolated warships.
If your opponent has more navy numbers than you, or units that counter your units, you’ll want to back up and build up your forces before engaging.
Be careful around enemy towers, as they can do quite a lot of damage to ships.
If the opponent has you in a corner, sometimes a tower defending your dock can help you regain momentum on the water.
Remember also that you can have newly recruited ships stay garrisoned in the dock at first, and then you can ungarrison them all at once to surprise your opponent with greater numbers.
Hope this helps.
Good luck out there!
Towers with archers garrisoned at the corner of land before your docks helps, 4 tiles away from the waters edge, so then fire and demo ships can’t grief you, but you can meet the enemy navy at that corner.
Works out in your favour.
As long as there’s no cannon galleons
There’s already good answer regarding changing your build order to focus on collecting wood and building early fishing ships over the normal berries and farms.
So here’s a little tip that actually helps beginners a lot with this strategy: **You can drop off fish at a dock with a villager.**
Fishing ships collect *deep sea fish* (the big square fish tiles) faster than they collect *shore fish* (the small square fish tiles next to the shore).
Villagers collect *shore fish* faster than fishing ships do.
For this reason, make sure you set your fishing ships to gather fish from the big fish tiles nearby first.
Also, when you task a villager to build a dock, make sure you build it right next to a shore fish (or between two close shore fish).
Immediately after clicking to place the dock, hold *shift* and right-click the nearby shore fish.
Now, as soon as your villager finishes building the dock, they will immediately start fishing and drop the food off at the dock.
There’s lots more water map optimizations you can make, but this one is really easy, and can make a big difference in making sure you have enough food to sustain villagers and put them on wood, without having to panic and build a mill on your berries too soon (which will delay wood for fishing ships).
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