How To Do Fast Silver Age

Mid level player here, i don't think there is such a thing as fast silver age. You rarely get enough benefits to justify that and even if you do you will be far behind eco with your enemy. (aka no civ has answers in age 3 that they do not have already in age 2).

I think you have this concept from AoE2 or AoE1, however here so far, the meta is not fast age 3 , but either barracks opening with age 2 into town centre , or greedy age 2 into 2nd towncentre with each civ going for their military strengths. Most games are about how you set yourself out to reach age 2 and how you transition your army in age 2. Age 3 is only after you manage to get map control/ stabilise or are ahead of your enemy.

I could be wrong and maybe some of the more elite players could step in and correct me.

 

In pve, you start in age 3 in over 75% of the missions so you don't have to worry about that.

 

At least for PvP, I do not know of any current popular strategies that involve getting to Age 3 as fast as possible without creating a strong Age 2 army. There was once a really fun naked 3 TC Fort strategy for Egypt that was design to get War Elephants. However, with recent PvP balance patches, this strategy lost its heat and has been abandoned, except when I do it and lose.

I describe it in the PvP Guide. I'll dig out the language below, but here is the link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L8_iTDHqrj-HH6yJUWMfOHZJyYSesEy9wZQXsfE2Ey8/edit?usp=sharing

It's on Page 35. Again, this strategy is bad advice, but it does get Egypt to Age 3 ASAP.

Here it is:

Fast 3 TC Fort. Make a triangle with your three TCs to protect your local resources. In the middle you build your temples and Fort.


· Follow the Temple First build order

· While going Age 2, leave 3-4 vils on stone, and reassign 1 to Gold and rally to Stone.

· Upon Age 2, (1) get the handsaw tech and (2) chisel tech

· Make 1 Priestess of Ra (so you have 2). Put her on the Stone storehouse

· Build your 2nd TC within range of both your 1st TC and the resource that is most vulnerable.

· Move your Priestess from stone to empower the 2nd TC while it is being built. Keep her there afterwards.

· Balance your resources to go Age 3.

· While aging, reassign all vils on Gold onto Stone

· Make 2 guard towers in your base.

· Make a 3rd Priestess of Ra. Put her on stone.

· At Age 3, get the Pull Saw tech.

· With 3 vils, build a 3rd TC in your base near a vulnerable resource.

· Move your Priestess from stone to empower the 2nd TC while it is being built. Keep her there afterwards.

· Get the conversion range upgrade

· Spam Priests of Set to defend raids

· With 2 vils, build a Fort in the middle of the 3 TCs.

· Spam elephants.

· Reassign vils to focus on food (for elephants)

· Build stables and spam Chariot Archers to raid alongside Elephants.

· Raid. Do not fight his army unless you will absolutely win.

· Keep spamming Priests of Set to defend. Consider upgrading to reduce cost of Priests.

· Get armory upgrades.

· Upgrade stone.

· Build forts all over the map to secure gold.

· Start walling everywhere for map control.

· Stampede.

 

Fast age 3 would be something like this:

1) 3 - villagers gather wood
2) find hunts
3) you should have 4 villagers in total by now , make a storehouse on hunts , and gather food ONLY from hunted animals with 4 villagers
4) 5th villagers goes on wood , make sure to make a storehouse on wood
5) you should have 4 villagers on food and 4 on wood by now
5.5) get the hunting rate tech
6) make the 9th makes a storehouse on gold and with 1 villager from hunt you move to your seconds hunts and build a storage there as well
6.6) make any other build requirements you need to age up (celtic houses as an example)
7) you should not still have 4 villagers on food, 4 on wood and 4 on gold
8) add one more on food , one more wood and one more on gold
9) age up to age 2
10) age up to age 3 (do any age 2 techs you can as you tech up , the wood gathering one is very useful)

You should now have gold and food for military units and wood to make a military unit building. HOWEVER !

Because you age 2 you have not made any military you will loose to any of the unstoppable or fierce level AI, because they spend their entire age 2 making army that you won't be able to stop. This will only work against the first 2 AI levels and MAYBE , if you are lucky against the the level 3 AI.

In pvp you will probably loose to any opponent that made army during age 1 and age 2 as you won't be able to defend yourself.

 

Arguably one reason is that unlike AoE1 and AoE2, AoEO is designed to allow for a more vibrant Age 1 and Age 2. The earlier titles have a serious wood-farm-food bottleneck caused by a lack of good ways to get much food before farms and then the farms themselves expire. This results in players having to task tons of players on wood in Age 2 rather than build an army.

 

I've only had a handful of games where we've both opted to be any greedier than fast tc + up to 3 docks before starting to trade blows. The most recent was a game vs ZeuZ on Inland, where he did fast 3tc and I didn't. What you'd want to do is basically do the standard fast tc build (4-5 on hunt, 4-5 food, 4-5 stone, 0 gold, keep splitting workers evenly then-on across f/w), and when you scout your opponent opening the same, you know you have the only real opportunity to do it. As your 2nd tc finishes, start gathering gold for age 3 and to get a tiny amount of army to raid/defend, and stone for tc 3 (Remember to not over gather. only have a couple villagers, or delay gathering for now until after a production facility). Take 1 of hunting dogs or pickers gloves if you haven't already by now, plus the age 2 wood and gold gathering upgrades as soon as you can (skip chisel til you're actually ready to attack/defend and take your armory upgrades). Throw down 1-2 production facilities (stables preferrably) as soon as you can after starting age 2 tc. Age 3 as soon as you can after these things, follow up with the 3rd tc, and add production facilities, a defensive fort, and army upgrades ASAP. You have the eco lead to now turtle up for a minute and make sure nothing dies (but be active with raiding as soon as you can, heck work it in earlier!), cause if you do, you have won the game unless your opponent has been as greedy, or spotted it and pushed your shit in.

 

Pure fast Age 3 i difficult imo, since you will be harrassed and maybe even lost against a strong age 2 army. I would recommend to do a semi age 3. Usual strat is to do a lot in age 2 but eg. as celts you may need horseman and bowman in certain situation, this is where i get your point in going faster in age 3 then you would if you max out everything in age 2.

I would go 2. tc or you lose, its the meta, even spear rush lost me games and the opponent was so far in eco. If you go age 3 with 1 tc i think you need to do major damage on the enemy to keep up with the eco.

Use semi fast age 3. Get Hunting dogs right away, go age 2 a little bit later but in age 2 instant wood and gold upgrade and an archery or barracs (i recommend slingers first with celts, because many people do archers vs celts) raid and harrass early with slingers and couple of longswords or spears (if enemy has cav). Most player (not pro) will be very defensive then. Thats the opportunity to set up age 3 with defensive base. The point is: 2. tc very defensive on first goldmine, harrass and get the offensive ressources first (hunt). Thats the way to switch from very aggressive harrass first to complete defensive, maybe even get 1-2 towers in your base. If the enemy is very defensive you are age 3 before he attacks and you will be prepared to defend with defensive tc and buildings, which gives you time to use the age 3 units. You can also keep up with eco with a 3. tc or better eco ups.