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Boat Booming - The Comprehensive Guide In Rise of Rome (ROR), the predecessor of AOK boat booming was an essential ingredient in most any water based map. The ability to use a dock to produce more "villagers" allowed for a massive economy at an alarming rate. AOK put a damper on the boat boom with 3 major changes: More expensive boats 75W vs the 50W in ROR More expensive docks 150W vs 100W in ROR Slower build time (BT) for boats (:40 vs :27) and an effective slow down in dock BT (ie. 2 vils don't halve the BT) Additionally, with farming made both easier and more productive there is a big push for a large land based economy even in the dark age as evidenced by Lord_Capn_Kidd's recent article on dark age farming. (continued at bottom of page)      A guide to learning the art of war... "Know the enemy and know yourself and in a hundred battles you will never put yourself in peril" SunTzu  Strategy Articles: SunTzu: A guide to the art of war MACHIAVELLI: ON WAR

Boat Booming - The Comprehensive Guide

Despite the costs of fishing, the one fact that hasn't changed is the ability to have a second building generating "villagers" (fishing boats act as villagers as they can collect resources) before the castle age. This can be a valuable feature for someone trying to boom up a large population, but does it really make that much of a difference? Lets look at some numbers

Trial - boat boom vs no boats with the Chinese civ. Trials were run on slow by DaRq_FX. Thanks to FX for this information.

For the no boat scenario, FX reached the feudal age at 11:48 with 27 real villagers. Two villagers were built during the feudal age and the castle age was reached at 15:32. For the boat scenario, FX reached the feudal age at 12:32 with 27 real villagers and 14 boats. Two villagers were built during the feudal age and the castle age was reached at 16:07. No stone was collected in either trial

Here is a table of the total resources collected at 16:10 min

As you can see, there was a significantly larger amount of resources gathered by the additional villager workforce. Although less gold was collected in the no boat trial, it was not that significant of a difference as the emphasis was on collecting food and wood during the early game.

Are the numbers the only story? No. Clearly when you look at all the wood that was gathered you have to take into account that a great deal of that wood was spent to make the fishing boats. However, if you subtract the wood from the construction of 14 boats and 2 docks (1350W) from the 3783W collected, you still end up with 2433W which is an extra 439W or a 20% gain. Also factor in all the farms that the non boat-boomer had to or will have to build and you will see that the boat-boomer comes out well ahead.

That isn't the end of the story either, because right when the boat boomer hits the castle age they have a work force of 43 villagers bringing in the resources. The non boatboomer will have to use multiple TC's to reach that population and they will still be far behind.

So how do I do it? This guide is broken down into two sections, the first of which will take you through some of the more popular variations of the boat boom. Section II is to be sort of a smorgasbord of various facts about the boat boom and some discussion about various techniques. Some of the tenative projects include a discussion on whether or not to build boats in castle, the most efficent wood cutting techniques, and a look at how each civ stacks up as a boat boomer. Also, I intend to keep this document growing as the boat strategy develops, so there may be several additions made as the strategies progress.

I hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

blue_myriddn

Castle Age Fishing

To build or not to build, that is the questions. Should you start to transfer your economy over to farming or keep going with your fishing operation. The advantages to continued fishing allow you to continue producing "villagers" from a second building, but what are some of the disadvantages? Here's a few:

1. "Scarcity" of wood: There is a demand for wood in hte castle age that isn't seen in the previous ages. Most noticable this is for Town Center (TC) construction. Wood is also needed for upgrades, building military buildings, as well as several military units the biggest consumer being the battering ram. All in all, for the first few minutes in the Castle age most players are spending their wood just as fast as they can get their hands on it leaving little to spend on the expensive 75W fishing boats

2. Farming becomes more attractive: Not only do the castle age upgrades increase the gathering rate of farming while bringing down the cost, but the powerful TC provides a potent defense for the vulnerable villagers.

3. Fire Ships hit the seas: Fire Ships destroy a fishing fleet at an alarming rate. While it takes a galley roughly 10.8 seconds and a war galley roughly 8.8 seconds to knock down a fishing boat, a fire ship does the job in a mere 3.2 seconds (thanks to __Aphex__ for those numbers). A pair of fire ships can be at your doorstep very soon and quickly burn your fishing fleet to the waveline.

4. Depletion of fish: If you did a heavy boat boom in the Dark and Feudal ages, odds are you will have scooped up all your local seas have to offer. Traveling farther away means constructing a new dock and also added danger to protect your fleet.

All in all it seems to me that building fishing boats is a bad idea once you hit the Castle age. In my opinion there are often much better ways to spend your precious wood supply. However, there are probably a few exceptions, namely:

1. The seas are safe, but the land isn't: It may be that your front yard has turned into a battle zone. You have a nice wood operation tucked away in the corner, but there just isn't that much free real estate to drop down some nice farms.

2. You have a strong naval presence and a wood surplus: It is real easy to get a pile of wood when you are focusing on a castle attack. Sometimes rather than clicking on villagers to drop wood and build farms, it is easier (and quicker) to simply, crtl-d, "f". This is only a good idea if there is safe and plentiful fishing grounds.

3. You are a civ that gets a fishing boat bonus: Japanese boats are amazingly effective with their +15% work rate it is hard to pass them up. With the Persian's faster dock fbs come out in a blazing :35 seconds as opposed to the normal :40 seconds. It doesn't sound like much, but it really does let you get those boats out there faster.

So in summary, there are certain situations where it is real handy to pump out some more fishing boats to beef up your econ, but it is probably not the wisest way to feed your castle age boom, rather it is a good way to stock up to get to the Imperial Age.

Here are some games where I used castle age fishing to my advantage:

As the Brits I used a horde of fishing boats to clean out a corner section of fish on a continental map after beating back a Viking navy. Notice how few farms I have in this game. The land was kinda weird and not that farm conducive, plus I wanted to keep my econ wood based as brits.

As the Persians I use fishing boats to spend some of the wood that piled up during my castle age attack on Fisher_X. Notice that my fireships had already cleared the seas and also notice that despite having few farms, I still managed to have a sizable amount of food income, even for a food hungry civ like Persia.

- blue_myriddn

Section I: How to do the boat boom

There are several different variations to booming with boats that are largely a matter of how big you boom. Here is a listing of various options:

A. Fast Castle Boat Boom - goal is a sub 18 minute castle time with a pretty large economy (roughly 40-45 "villagers" - about 26 or so are real).

B. Slow Boat Boom - some where around a 20 minute castle, but with an enormous early economy (roughly 50-60 "villagers").

C. Boats as a supplement - Mill or lumber camp first and boats later to supplement your economy

D. Feudal Age Boat Boom - after optimizing to a flush, catch up on the villager count using a dock

There are advantages and disadvantages to all the various techniques, so sometimes it is wise to chose one technique over another.

Part A: Fast Castle Boat Boom

The goal here is to get a castle time that is below 18 minutes with a powerful enough economy. You can then take advantage of that speed and launch a strong attack, start a large scale castle boom, or even sprint to the Imperial age. Being able to start a 2nd TC around 17:30 and add a 3rd right after and pump vils from all 3 (or use one for WB/HC upgrades) will generally allow you to catch up or overtake a slower, larger boomer economically. Your TC's also defend you and you don't have to worry about towering or making a great wall or other things that aren't economic or offensive in nature. Off course with a really good food intake and some gold you may be able to do all this while sending a few knights to hit the slower boomer just as he's castled and before he has more TC's up. This won't likely crush him , but it will surely hassle him and slow him down further, while you can decide to either imp ahead of him or stronger than him or make more army and roll up some rams for a full scale castle assault. Another side benefit of being in castle quickly is that you can make rams and take down an early forward enemy base. Your castle time can vary from mid 16 minutes anywhere to 18 minutes depending on how big you want to boom and how often you practice.

Start - Standard startup. Build houses, find sheep, but don't build a mill. First 6 vils go onto your sheep. When the population hits seven, change your gather point for the TC to the nearest strag and send the next few villagers there.

The scout is looking for: forest, large body of water, more sheep (you will need at least 6 total), and boars. Although the first 200W will allow you to immediately build a lumber camp, hold off until you've had a look at the forest. AOK gives you several strags to keep your villagers working. Generally you don't need to loom for a while so I tend to wait because early villager flow is VERY critical for your wood levels.

3 min - Lumber camp should be up or going up at this time. If possible place it between 2 forests because you are going to be having alot of villagers on wood. Your population should be around 11 with 6 on food and 5 on wood.

4-5 min - Dock should be going up at about this time. Worry more about getting a dock up than finding a "perfect" location for it. As soon as you have 150W, go build it, the boats can be moved to a better dock later. Your wood should start building up really fast now, so not to use it by this time is simply wasting the resources (remember you want to keep all your resources close to 0 in the early game if at all possible). It always seems to me that I need a house at this time so make sure you don't short yourself on wood by instantly building a boat if you only have 75W.

Also the sheep at home tend to be running out at this time (or earlier) so start going for that boar. Whether or not you get the loom before this is up to you. If you have quick fingers and can avoid losing the villager to boar luring, then go for it. However, the safe bet is to get the loom before this. You are going to want the loom soon for that dock builder anyways since he is going to start wandering.

Tip - There may be times when you need 50F to make a villager, but don't have the food in the bank. This will happen most often when you are eating the boar. Since hunters "carry" a great deal of food on them while "eating", you can simply click on one of the hunters and then click on the TC to make him "dump" the food. If you are real sharp, you can even make sure that you pick the right hunter. It is often a good idea to make the "dump" before you actually need the food, but that takes some practice

7 min - If you haven't gotten the boar yet, get it ASAP because your sheep are bound to be running out and you don't want to have to put a mill down by your berries. Even though you will have boats on the seas at this point, they won't be enough to support your villager flow.

The villager that built the first dock should start wandering down the coastline building houses as he goes (only build them if the population needs them, otherwise spend that early wood to make sure you have a constant flow of boats from your dock).

Tip - keep an eye on your housing! For those unfamiliar with boat booms, your population increases very rapidly, especially when you have two docks cranking. Also with wood being eaten up by boats it is easy to short yourself on wood for house

Keep an eye on your boats to make sure they are gathering from the deep sea fish, there is a big difference in food collection rates (take a look at this post from Neilkaz ). If you let your boats collect from shorefish, you won't have the 800F you need to hit castle.

9 min - Your wood inflow should be enough to support a second dock, so get one up with that wandering builder preferably in the corner of the map as this is where fish congregate on coastal and continental maps. Start on that second boar if you haven't already so that the food arrives at your drop off center by 11 minutes into the game. You might want to build a second lumbercamp as your first one is bound to be getting crowded. Pop should be around 24-27 with about 15 lumberjacks, 6 vils on food and a few boats.

Tip - don't que up a lot of boats in the dock early on. It is more labor intensive but limit the que to one boat building and maybe a second one waiting. Stay away from 3 boats in one que as 225W is a great deal of wood to have tied up in the early game

11 min - If things are going right you should be ready to click on the feudal upgrade. You can either assign your last few villagers to the gold mine or send over some of your boar hunters. You will easily get 800F from your fishing boats as long as you keep them on the deep sea fishing, so you can send the other boar hunters either as forward builders or to the lumbercamp. You should also either build a mill (if you haven't already) or a barracks. I like to go with the barracks so that I can make some troops, but you can just go with a mill.

During the feudal transition you want to keep on producing boats. Don't stop making them until you have reached about 80% of the feudal upgrade. With about 22 villagers bringing in wood your wood inflow will be able to build up enough for the two buildings without a problem.

13 min - A little after 13 minutes (or maybe 14 min depending on when you did the feudal upgrade) you will hit the feudal age. If you already haveor are close to having 200G, then have one of your gold miners build the blacksmith. If you didn't build a barracks, then have two villagers build the market, otherwise go for an archery or stable. Produce 2 villagers from your TC and send them where you want/need to. Alot of times you will have the food to grab the wood upgrade and gold upgrade and still have the 800F to hit castle.

15 min - Both buildings are built and you should hit the castle upgrade if you haven't already. If you haven't already grab the wood and gold upgrades as well as fletching and any other military upgrades you want, although I recommend the infantry armor. Depending on how the fishing is, you may want to crank our some more boats. This will get you more castle age food, but you will have less wood for TC's and you will most likely have to defend these boats.

17 min - You should hit the castle age at this point with a pop = 40-50 With around 28-29 real villagers and 12-20 boats. Go out there and wreak some havoc!

Sample Game

Here's a game that I recently played. It is a 3v3 Continental and all the players are skilled. I took Persia and had a Viking ally, so that helped alot. 4 of the other players also boat boomed in one way or another, so you can check out their techniques and see how they compare. Download it here: fast_castle_boatboom.zip

Special Economic Considerations for various Civs:

Britons because the Brits get a shepherd advantage you can keep steady villager flow off of 4 villagers (although 5 is a little safer). This means that when your pop = 5, you can change the waypoint to the stragglers and start chopping wood. This translates onto more early villagers on wood and a better dock time. The only thing to watch out for is that if you are going to go after a boar, 4 villagers is too few, so you will eventually have to add another 2 villagers to your food collecters. If you happen to find 8 or more sheep and your are the Britons, it is going to be a very, very good game for you.

Chinese having those extra 3 villagers at the start means several things. First off, you can start chopping wood instantly with 6 villagers while waiting for the sheep to come in. Also you don't have to worry about when to get the loom since there is a lull between villagers 7 and 8.

Japanese The cheap lumbercamp will allow you to build up the extra wood for a dock really fast. The 200W from the start, minus 50W for the lumber camp and 60W for 2 houses leaves you with 90W. Now you only have to collect 60W and if you are lucky to have a Viking teammate, that is only 20W to get the dock up. In other words you can almost build the dock and lumbercamp at the same time. But the benefits don't stop there because the Japanese fishing boats collect food faster. In my opinion, Japan was made to be a boat boom civ.

Persia The extra 50W gives you a similar edge on dock time as the Japanese cheap lumbercamp. The extra 50F can be a nice cushion since this strategy will run your food supply on a razor's edge. The quicker dock production gives you more boats while on your way to the castle age, but the time when you really need it (during the dark-feudal transition) the bonus hasn't kicked in. It does come in handy for defending your fishing fleet during the feudal age though. Also the quicker TC will get you to the castle age :15 seconds faster.

Vikings Everyone wants a viking teammate for those cheap docks. Also getting the wheelbarrow in feudal makes for slightly quicker gathering rates on your wood supply. Additionally the wheelbarrow will give you a stronger castle age as this strategy doesn't provide for researching the wheel during the feudal age.

Things that can go wrong

1. You only find 4 sheep. Ouch, this one really hurts. If you are feeling really daring, you can put an extra villager on the sheep and start luring a boar almost right from the start and then get the vils onto the boar. However all this micro-management and extra villager time generally means a delayed dock time anyways. The safer bet is probably to go with a mill right after the lumbercamp rather than a dock. If possible, put it out near boars, deer or shorefish. Getting a slower dock time is a lesser evil then having a break in villager flow.

2. No boars to be found. Another big bad. Even if the boars are far away or tucked around a corner it can still be worth luring them. But if you simply can't find them, then you are going to have to go lumbercamp, mill, dock.

3. The place you dock first has no deep sea fish. As long as the water is connected to the main body of water (ie. it isn't a puddle), then keep producing boats from this dock.

Conclusion

This strategy is alot of fun to use and leaves you with alot of options when you hit castle. It is also a great strategy because there is alot of flexibility involved. You can cut back on producing boats and save up wood and quickly relocate your operation should you get attacked. If you lose some land you can always keep up villager flow with your fishing operation as well. All in all, this strategy is about as general purpose as it gets. Additionally, it is pretty easy to run once you do it a few times. I hope that it provides you with alot of good games and that this article, in addition to the future articles in this series, will provide you for a great appreciation of the power of the boat boom.

Good luck gaming!

blue_myriddn

Newbie Guides Newbie Guide to AOK Newbie-Expert Guides "On The Road to Expert" Other lists of strategies http://www.AoE2.net The Boom by VG_Ranger and VG_Messiah Rushing 101 by VG_Ranger and VG_Messiah http://aok.heavengames.com Unique Weaknesses by Vaidency http://www.aokza.co.za/ Economy by Glowworm Return of the Castle Rush - the Britons   If you still searching i believe the best site for a general strategy is: www.mrfixitonline.com/

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