Age of Mythology : the Titans Expansion: Sybex Official Strategies
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SYBEX Sample Chapter Age of Mythology®: The Titans Expansion: Sybex Official Strategies & Secrets™ Doug Radcliffe and Michael Rymaszewski Chapter 2: The Game Economy Copyright © 2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. World rights reserved. No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or reproduced in any way, including but not limited to photocopy, photograph, magnetic or other record, without the prior agreement and written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 0-7821-4303-2 SYBEX and the SYBEX logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of SYBEX Inc. in the USA and other countries. TRADEMARKS: Sybex has attempted throughout this book to distinguish proprietary trademarks from descriptive terms by following the capitalization style used by the manufacturer. Copyrights and trademarks of all products and services listed or described herein are property of their respective owners and companies. All rules and laws pertaining to said copyrights and trademarks are inferred. This document may contain images, text, trademarks, logos, and/or other material owned by third parties. All rights reserved. Such material may not be copied, distributed, transmitted, or stored without the express, prior, written consent of the owner. The author and publisher have made their best efforts to prepare this book, and the content is based upon final release software whenever possible. Portions of the manuscript may be based upon pre-release versions supplied by software manufacturers. The author and the publisher make no representation or warranties of any kind with regard to the completeness or accuracy of the contents herein and accept no liability of any kind including but not limited to performance, merchantability, fitness for any particular purpose, or any losses or damages of any kind caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly from this book. Sybex Inc. 1151 Marina Village Parkway Alameda, CA 94501 U.S.A. Phone: 510-523-8233 www.sybex.com 4303_ch02_final.qxd 9/15/03 8:40 AM Page 9 The Game C Economy H he economy in Age of Mythology: The Titans exists for just one purpose: to let you win the game. It is a means to an end, and T you’ll focus your attention on different resources depending on A game circumstances. Optimizing the economy may involve 20 workers gathering food in one game, but just 10 in another—finding the right balance for your strategic goals is crucial to success. P Fortunately, there are still some general rules that will let you stay on top of your economy at all times. This chapter discusses how game specifics (choice of mythology, map, etc.) affect those rules. It also T examines in detail all of the game’s economic notions (game resources, labor force, etc.). Most importantly, this chapter explains how to combine economic flexibility with prompt E attainment of long-term economic goals. R 2 4303_ch02_final.qxd 9/15/03 8:40 AM Page 10 Making Things Work for You The economy in AoM:The Titans is a tool: it serves you, and not the other way around. Building up the work force to an imposing size does not guarantee victory, particulary against the computer. If you don’t believe this, win a solo game against the AI at higher difficulty level and check the postgame economic TIP data. No human player can expand the The economic balance in AoM: The Titans is economy as swiftly and efficiently as the AI slightly different than in the original AoM does at higher difficulty levels, and you’ll release. The six patches since AoM’s debut include tweaks that have big economic implica- see that having a labor force twice as big as tions even when they do not directly concern the economy the enemy’s doesn’t guarantee victory—you (such as lowering the cost of Greek hoplites). have to know how to use that labor force to outproduce your enemies. Remember that each worker counts toward the population limit! More workers may mean fewer military units, so if you’re not using those workers effec- tively it’ll hurt you in the long run.This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a large economy; expert players state that one of the biggest shortcomings of players new to multiplayer is a weak economy. The distinguishing characteristic of a well-run economy is this: it always delivers the resources you need when you need them.This is very easy to achieve if you set about it as the AI does, and simply pile workers on resources until you reach a saturation point. However, workers don’t come free of charge, and the hidden cost is especially heavy in the beginning of a game. Each extra worker delays your advance into the Classical Age, and thereby the devel- opment of your military forces—which means missing a chance to hit the enemy at a time when any damage inflicted will really hurt. But if you’re preparing for a strong late-game economy, those extra Archaic Age workers will pay off in the end. Killing a single enemy worker in the opening stages of a game has a greater impact than killing 10 workers a little while later. It has such big consequences that many experienced players will use a one-time god power such as Lightning Bolt (Zeus) to eliminate one of a competitor’s workers right at the start of the game.This does not mean you should sacrifice economic progress on the military altar. But when you see stocks of resources increasing even though you’re continuously spending them, it’s time to stop creating workers even though you’re still well short of the magic 50 or so that most winners end up with. To manage your economy well, you must excel in two areas: * Worker management. This begins with creating exactly as many workers as you need— no less and no more. Assigning them to the right task at the right time is vital. At a given point in the game, an economy that employs 20 well-managed workers can be more appropriate than one that has 40; you’ll find more details in “Putting People to Work” later on in this chapter. * Resource management. This doesn't always mean spending all resources as soon as you get them. It means not wasting resources; being wasteful is very easy to do and instantly erases any gains you made through good worker management. Your economy should be 10 Chapter 2: The Game Economy 4303_ch02_final.qxd 9/15/03 8:40 AM Page 11 TIP balanced: do you have too many workers on gold and not enough gathering food? In the This chapter assumes you have read the final analysis, resource management is even game manual, and that you take more important than worker management. advantage of the excellent in-game help (right-clicking a unit or building icon The first step to mastering resource and brings up a detailed and beautifully illustrated infor- worker management is to use hotkeys (see mation panel). Figure 2.1). If you don’t, you’ll fall behind despite using the minimap to navigate the game world quickly. Hotkeys will let you micromanage your economy to peak efficiency; their usefulness isn’t limited to controlling multiple groups of military units. Want to create a new lumberjack? Hit the H key (default) to jump to the Town Center, press C (default) to begin creating a worker, move the assembly point to the trees you want him to work on, and that’s it—on to the next task. You can get everything done at least three times faster if you use hotkeys at every opportunity. Players who use the mouse for everything have very slim chances of advancing beyond intermediate level in multiplayer games. TIP If you’re having trouble managing your workforce, a tool that keeps track of your workers might help. You’ll find it at http://www.mrfixitonline.com/readTopic. asp?PostingId=1090519. (Note that if you reassign a worker from one resource Figure 2.1: Make a point of learning (and perhaps to another, the tool might count that customizing) hotkeys that can help you micromanage your worker as working on both resources, economy. effectively counting the worker twice.) Putting People to Work The Greeks have villagers; the Egyptians have laborers; the Atlanteans have citizens, the Norse have gatherers and Dwarves. All these characters serve the same purpose: they gather resources, and—the Norse excepted—build structures (Norse structures are built by military units, which makes forward-building, placing structures near the front line, a snap.) In spite of their shared purpose, there are meaningful differences between worker units of different mythologies.The list below reviews these differences, and the roles they play in the game. Making Things Work for You 11 4303_ch02_final.qxd 9/15/03 8:40 AM Page 12 Note that while Fishing Boats cost the same from mythology to mythology, Egyptian Fishing Boats gather fish at a slightly slower rate than the others. * Greek villagers cost 50 food each and have 65 hit points.They’re excellent construction workers, erecting buildings and defensive structures in record time.This is a handy ability, because the Greeks need to build drop-off facilities next to resource-gathering sites.This costs 50 wood per facility, which is not much but still hurts in the initial stages of a game. * Egyptian laborers cost the same as Greek villagers, and also have 65 hit points.They build structures much more slowly than other workers.They require a dedicated facility for each resource (Granary for food, Lumber Camp for wood, Mining Camp for gold), which results in a meaningful time handicap that is not quite balanced by the fact the facilities are free.