Autumn Dynasty Advance Strategy

Here are some strategic and tactical tips, by ohmypapa on the AutumnDynasty.com forums:

Quote:
I have been playing this and owning online players lol, except my only loss on my first game.

Probably because of my experience with computer RTS games.

Basically my strategy:
Start off by building Swordsmen, and Horsemen.
If on maps where there are many forests/camp is close, build Archers instead of Swordsmen.
Build 3 farms and 1 camp, then proceed with 2 more farms, then build according to situation
Research Econs 1 and 2 asap. You dont need Econs 3, because it gives farm alot more value, but by then, you should already have more than enough farms to support.
Then research the Horse 1.
Horse 1 is by far the best because of Fire ability.
And later on, Horse 2 gives Charge, another ridiculously overpowered ability.

Basically Horsemen are the best units, most mobility, can reach far away places to capture quickly. Can retreat easily.

Worse unit is Swordsmen, because they pretty much suck. And their researched abilities are nothing good, avalanche is great damage, but too situational to use effectively.
However, having 1 early on for building stuff and tanking is great.

Archers are awesome, because once you researched Horse 1, you get Arrow Storm, which when coupled with Fire is ridiculously powerful.
I am able to use 2 units to defend and stall while my economy build up.

Pikemen provides the best defense and when coupled with Archers can stall very effectively, even without research.

Basically, 1 pikemen and 2 archers units can stall 4-5 units for a very long time.

Towers are awesome too, and on some maps, they literally mean victory if you get down the first tower controlling the middle ground.

Catapults are the most effective counter to tower, without catapult, dont bother attacking towers, you risk losing a lot of units and time doing so.


Other Tips:
Always scout with your first horsemen, use it to interrupt buildings and harass.
You dont necessarily have to kill anything with it. Just interrupt buildings.
Your starting 3 or 4 units are extremely important and costly. Try to save them and do not lose them.
Units can heal at forts, slowly, but worth it.


How to build:
Now most of the maps have multiple ways to expand and multiple ways to attack.
So how do you build?
Aside from the starting build, you must recognise 2 other important buildings.
1) Tower, when to build these?
The answer is simple, wherever enemy will go through or be forced to go through.
Remember that 1 Tower is the equivalent of 2 Archer units with more range.
However, they cannot move, which means they are useless if they have nothing to shoot at.
You build these at the front line or guarding an important walkway.
Do not spam these, because Catapults can make quick work of them and they are expensive.

2) Fort, where to build these?
Typically, you do not need to build Towers beside Forts, because Fort can produce units to defend anyway.
You build Forts at places you intend to make a second army with.
By attacking at 2 or 3 places at once, you can easily overwhelm your opponent.


Lastly, ALWAYS keep expanding. ALWAYS.
For example, if you see 3 units attacking your farm, and your only unit available is an archer, dont defend it.
Farm takes time to destroy, and they are cheap anyway, defend at the next farm/building behind that farm.
You only need to buy time to assemble a force to defend. Let your economy overpower him.
And here's a list of abilities (aka "strategems") from Knightbeard, who I believe is one of the devs:
Quote:
By pairing any two abilities together, 2 units is more than enough to take down multiple units given the right time and terrain positioning.

So here is a brief summary of the current 10 abilities we have in the game.

< Flare > opens up the fog of war to reveal enemies actions.
< Bombard > area being bombarded takes constant massive damage through time while remain channeling.

< Fire > standing on a fire takes damage through time. spread wildly on forest.
< Charge > any unit caught in the path of charge takes damage and gets knock back, splashing damage to other units behind the knocked back unit.

< Arrowstorm > super slow and damage any units caught in the radius while remain channeling. If move after casting, will drop the channeling of damage but super slow still remains on enemies.
< Deploy > entrench to a spot with increase range and reduced angle of fire. Further increases range on dunes and steppes.

< Ambush > entrench to a spot while becoming invisible and set up a radius where enemies are slowed and take damage over time.
< Shield > pikeman take little damage from arrows but greatly reduced own movement speed.

< Avalanche > cast on an area near a mountain where enemies take constant damage over time.
< Smoke > cast on an area where friendly units within the smoke radius
take little damage from arrows.

So by combining any two abilities, you can get devastating effects over multiple enemy units.

So for example, < Arrowstorm > and < Fire > can be cast to multiple enemy units in a forest, pinning them down to take burning damage.


*Update: Here's my own. Fiddling for fun on Hard mode at last stage. Computer actually build Forts around you and started sending troops followed by Catapults. I almost fell off my chair when Computer actually can use Horsemen to set Fire on my troops and Towers/Buildings without Forest. I will never figure that out!

I watched quite a number of replays and I realized the Pikemen's (Ambush) seemed to be key in winning games. When the ambush is set, the only way to counter it is to use Catapult's (Flare/Bombard) which likely you will not build it in early stages, or triggering it with Pikemen and using Archers (Deploy). Archers alone may be caught in the Pikemen's (Ambush) and be killed. Another not so effective way is the Swordsmen (Smoke) as it still suffers high damage before reaching the Pikemen (Ambush) although they are not slowed in the Smoke. Besides, Swordsmen numbers are lower than Pikemen and I almost always escort my Pikemen with Archers and Horsemen.

My assault force usually consists of 2 types of units each and a Catapult. I do not usually deploy 2 Catapults as they will usually be hunted down at all cost. They are also too slow to retreat from the battle.