Tactics in Through The Ages

[@DJParson]

What is your favorite tactic? Do you like to stay at Age II tactics or do you try to be at maximum efficiency and go for Age III tactics? Also, would you be interested in a closer, mathematical look at all of the tactics and how they compare for a future video?

[@mustafaduymus3379]

Hi, I am surprised you did not mention positional army. It is one of my favorites and easy to transition. You have 2 knights and 2 cannons (as you mentioned for med and fort/mobile art), and in age 3 what you need is just modern inf and two upgrades. Even an air force can be added for 24/5=4.8, thanks for the video was helpful for every level of play :)

[@DJParson]

Hi Mustafa, I could have talked for hours about all the tactics since it´s such an interesting topic, but I wanted to keep this video relativly short so i could not cover everything. But yes, Positional Army is really great as well. It is only 1 Strength less than Modern Army but you need one less technology for it. One problem though is, that there in only one Riflemen and one Modern Infantry in 1v1 games, so that is somthing that makes it harder to consistently gor for it.

[@nguyenbach5430]

This is the interesting Topic. I like stay on age II tactic just because age III is easily outdated, and i must save the science for Stratergy or Military Theory and Air Force to go for the WoC in Age III. The greatest about this strategy is you can keep the Age II tactic until the WoC, because no one can copy that tactic.This could make opponents surprised. Keeping the tactics can bait someone declared war on you.

[@mustafaduymus3379]

@@DJParson Definitely and I would like to watch your follow-up/detailed video. I didn't think about the lack of cards sorry, I mainly play 3player and it is less of a concern but you are right, I remember on occasions I'm denied rifleman in 2player by an opponent who has swordsman already. One last thing to note, positional army and those armies consisting of only inf+artillery have a nice combo with Great Wall, meaning you can skip cavalry completely. What you think about this comment? And do you think this argument can be made for Collesium and inf+cav?

[@DJParson]

@@mustafaduymus3379 Yes, in 3 players games it is much more likely to get the necessary Infantry for Positional Army. But there is only one copy of that tactic, so planing for it can be a gamble. At least there is always Entrenchments to fall back on, so the Expansion adding Positional Army was a big boost for skipping Cavalrymen. Great Wall is definitely something to keep in mind, although most big armies from Age 3 are pretty good for that since they rely heavily on cannons. Putting the colosseun into this makes it even harder to judge, but I guess you can say that it can make it easier to go for tactics with more different types of units. I still would not recommend skipping artillery though.

[@guitarakademiet546]

Awesome video. Thanks for making it. Don't be afraid to make longer videos. People who are playing this are nerds anyways would listen for hours if it meant upping their game :)

[@DJParson]

Haha, thanks.

[@SilentSamba]

This is very helpful! I never thought about strength per unit before. I will be thinking more about that as I play now.

[@beloooop]

for a vodeo like this you could add timestamps for the various subtopics in the video description - like a table of content. it would be very helpful to gauge the general ground covered in the video and people could maybe jump to segments they are most interested in. it would also generally structure the content for better comprehension. great content as always!!! i would not have minded to watch an hour long video of this, if i knew ahead of time what you are going to talk about 😉

[@DJParson]

That is a really great idea, I will be adding those to this video tomorrow and for gute videos of this sort. There seems to be a lot of interest in this topic, so I think I might do an additional video and then let loose of all of my thoughts. Could definitely be more than an hour :D

[@kostasch5686]

Hey my man! Thank you for the upload. I see you covered a wide section of things regarding tactics. I am not 100% sure about your explanation of the air force. Even though it is correct, it sounds like it doubles the sum of the units's strength, could be only me that got it wrong though. For anyone reading, the air forces double the strength given by your tactic, once per army per air force, if that helps. Something else that could be said about efficiency, even though you are talking about tactics not military units in general, is resources (r) cost per strength (s). Meaning Age A: 1s/2r, 0.5 s/r Age I: 2s/3r, 0.66 s/r Age II: 3s/5r, 0.6 s/r Age III: 5s/7r, 0.714 s/r By this I mean that it might be cheap to fulfill Age III tactic with Age II units but its not great cost wise. But fulfilling classic army with Age I units looks very efficient. Btw I dont know about favourite tactic, but I know about least favourite. Shock troops. I never go fo for that. May I ask, is this a sandbox for TTA? I have never seen that. (Love the addition of Machu Piccu)

[@DJParson]

Hi, you are welcome! I tried my best with the Airforce and I hope most people understand it. If not then they maybe will get intrigued and look it up :D There are some blogs and posts on boardgamegeek where people go down the rabbit hole of efficiency of tactics with regards to ressources, science and population and I might do a follow up video and go into more detail there. But that is a very tricky and math-heavy subject, so I would need to do a lot of preperation for that. Agreed on Shock troops. I can count on one hand how often i have used that, I think... There is no sandbox for TTA, but you can play a local hotseat match and then control all 4 players and get basically whatever you want. (Machu Piccu was there to jump-start my production and give extra blue cubes, since I needed so mayn ressources)

[@pororoaukita]

Love this videos. Great material por beginners. Keep this coming pleaseee¡

[@iyakhoop]

Nice and clear! I like how you prepare your civilization just for this video. How many outtakes you did?. Also, Marlene Dietrich is up there, explaining how she works with the tactics would be helpful for the new players.

[@DJParson]

Thanks! Not 100% sure what you mean by outtakes. I did prepare this game in a local hotseat game playing all 4 players and giving me all the time I needed (most important was getting enough MA to be able to build two Classic Armies with AF). I knew I would miss some things, Marlene and Hussars would have been very easy to include.

[@iyakhoop]

@@DJParson Oh, I get it now. The game is prepared using hotseat mode. I thought the other opponents are AIs and you have to make several attempts to get to this point.

[@pmyraje]

Tactics is probably the area of the game my play still lags most in. Often I tend to just be having a 'make do' strategy and even found myself with nothing but 6 infantry in my last game. Thankfully I did at least get Riflemen to make it more respectable and it wasn't a heavy military game, but still, it was ugly! It is one of the most satisfying aspects of the game though when a good tactic slots into place and suddenly your strength shoots up from weakest to strongest (esp. in a 3/4 player game) and all the more so if it is in response to someone declaring war on you and not factoring in tactics you may have or techs you could grab from the card row and develop to make them work.

[@1punkonly]

I had a 4p game which i won recently in which i played barbarosa and had 2 heavy cavalry armies as early as turn 8 where 5 of the knights were made with his ability. How i got there, it was luck, because having the resources(usually coming from age A events), knights already developed, barbarosa for cheap in the track and the tactic in hand at the same time is not easy. There is no good transition for 2 heavy cavalry tactics unless you are willing and somehow have the capacity to do 3 conquistador armies, the only good tactic is shock troops yet it is very luck dependant, but at least you have a free warrior for a colony if you don't ever need it for a tactic. The other players could simply not keep up with the strength(24, 2 tactics,1 warrior, warfare, 2 bread and circus), and thus after turn 8 i played aggression after aggression on everyone until late age II when everyone spent too much time and resources on military. That is somewhat an example of how i would like you to look at tactics, yes a bit more mathematical but focused on transitions, with tactic "life expectancy" and perhaps if the transitions allow colonization.

[@DJParson]

It is ture. Heavy Cavalry can sometimes just give you such a big advantage early that you can win the game in Age I basically. But, as you said, it has really bad transitions, so it is nicely balanced in most games.

[@michaelsolomon8871]

Great video thanks. FME: 1) Do you wait to play a tactic until you need it (e.g. to defend against a war), or as soon as you get it? 2) Do you grab the tech and hope to get the tactics, or wait until you see what you get?

[@DJParson]

Thanks! To 1) I usually wait to reveal it but it also depends a lot. If I can get stronger by playing it and am afraid of the events deck I often do it. You also have to consider how easily your opponent can copy the tactic. 2) Usually I try to draw the tactic before deciding on the techs I grab. But sometimes when you don't draw any tactics you will just have to take the a lot of techs to keep your options open.

[@LdapTv1969]

Great Video - Can you do a video on how to Wage War efficiently?

[@DJParson]

Thank you. Sounds like an interesting idea, anything specific you would like to hear about? I will put it on my list for possible future videos.

[@LdapTv1969]

@@DJParson much like the tactics video, outlines the various wars, aggressions, and discuss how to avoid war but also leverage it for wins.

[@jdtyler7]

Curious what kind of buff you think Hussars and Shock Troops would need if there was ever another expansion/rebalance? I never see those tactics used.

[@DJParson]

I think Hussars is a very good tactic and I see it used regularly. It only needs one type of unit an can give up to 2.5 Strength per unit so I think it is a very nicely balanced tactic with an interesting gimmick. Shock troops is another story. I definitely think it should be made stronger. But how, I am not sure. Just adding strength probably would not change much, the problem with it is that it relies in Cacalrymen when usually you want to go for Cannons in age 2. So maybe either add another tactic to Age3 that can use a lot of Cavalry, or give it another buff. Maybe that you only need the Cavalry from age 2 or 3 to fulfill Shock Troops and the infantry can be from Age 1 too or something like that.

[@davedahan]

Frage: Wie können die Festungsanlagen aus dem Zeitalter II eine reduzierte Stärke (hier 3) besitzen, wenn es im Zeitalter A noch gar keine Kanonen gibt? M.E. wäre die Aufschrift 5 und nicht 5 (3) richtig.

[@DJParson]

Das ist eine sehr gute Frage, die ich mir auch gestellt habe, als ich das Spiel gelernt habe. Hat mich damals etwas verwirrt und mich hinterfragen lassen, ob ich die Regeln richtig verstanden habe. ABER: Die Lösung heißt Jan Zizka. Mit seiner Fähigkeit kann man Farmen so nutzen, als wären es Kanonen aus dem Zeitalter A, also zu alt für Festungsanlagen. Zizka gab es vor der Erweiterung natürlich nicht, deswegen war das wohl gut vorrausgeplant, von den Entwicklern.

[@davedahan]

@@DJParson Ah - OK. Die Erweiterung besitze ich nicht. Ich habe einmal meine Erstausgabe von 2006 herausgekramt. Damals hießen die Festungsanlagen noch "Befestigungen" und haben eine glatte 4 in der Stärke - ohne Reduzierung für veraltetes Gerät.

[@nguyenbach5430]

Can you explain the Tactics Hussars?

[@DJParson]

Oh damn, forgot about that one. Hussars gives Strength relative to the level of your units. It gives +3 Strength if you have 2 Knights, +4 if you have 2 Cavalrymen and +5 if you have 2 Tanks. If you have a knight and a Tank it still only gives +3 Strength.

[@beloooop]

What is the 500 sub special??? 😃

[@DJParson]

Haha, just reached that like an hour ago, I am really, really excited and happy about that. I don't know yet, but I have some ideas for a special. Do you have any good suggestions?

[@pajadacz]

@@DJParson Trying to reach 500 science at the end of the game against easy AI.

[@DJParson]

@@pajadacz My idea was 500 Strength, but that seems unlikely :D

[@kla92th]

No more game play videos?

[@DJParson]

Don't worry, more are coming. It just takes a while for tournament games to finish. But the first games of the next season of the International Championship will be coming soon.