5 Skills and Training

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5.1 Skills

The skills that you need are:

hit H,C at the birth announcement

Rule number one. Do it.

hot keys

The most important are:

ctrl-1

Assign selected units to unit 1.

alt-1

Select unit 1 and center the screen on them.

1

Select unit 1 but do not center the screen. This is useful for bringing your explorers back to forage berries.

B, E

Build a house.

waypoints

shift-click sets a waypoint. Units don't move until you set the final destination, so don't forget to set the final destination.

find berries quickly

Every second lost here adds a second to your bronze time.

granary and storage pit placement

Granary placement is especially important. 4 Shang villagers is enough if and only if the granary is placed optimally. If you choose not to learn how to place the granary optimally, use 5 Shang villagers.

find food sources and forest

If you can't find the food sources you can't exploit them.

the build sequence

Follow this build sequence until doing so becomes automatic. When it becomes automatic you will have time to think as you go and can modify the build sequence to respond to your starting spot.

keep explorers alive

Don't worry about this until you have the other asects in pretty good shape. You can reach the bronze age in fifteen minutes even if a couple villagers get killed by lions. However, as you get better you can significantly reduce the number of explorers lost to lions.

hunting elephants

Elephants are easier to hunt than gazelles. But, you have to do it right or you will lose villagers.

Don't watch your villagers

One of the habits that I found hardest to break was watching my villagers fight lions. I used to click on the lion dozens of times hoping that would cause my villager to fight harder. It never seemed to help, but I would often miss the birth announcement in the process and would routinely lose ten to twenty seconds as a result. Give your villagers a task, move on and come back later.

Use the diamond shaped map

Know where you are on the diamond shaped map. Use it to give explorers long term instructions. Check what areas to explore further. Look for gold and stone in the diamond shaped map. Look for idle villagers in the diamond shaped map.

Check your computer settings

Make sure that you have the map resolutoin set to 1024 by 760. Set the scroll speed to as high as you find comfortable (I set mine at about 80% of the top speed. (See section 4))

5.2 Training

Practice by playing against against one computer opponent set on the easiest setting. The computer will not attack you within the first 15 minutes (never has for me at least).

I recommend the following training sequence:

Granary placement

Reveal map on. Place a granary next to a berry patch as described in section 7.1. Have four villagers forage. See how much they collect in the first two minutes. You should be able to get 200 food in two minutes

Elephant hunting

Reveal map on. Take 4 villagers build a storage pit 4 squares from an elephant. Save the game at that point. Hunt the elephant. Although you will be using 6 villagers when you are playing, the same technique should work fine with 4 villagers as long as they are nearly equidistant form the elephant. So, practice with four, use six in a game for safety.

Storage pit placement

Reveal map on. Take six villagers and build a storage pit near a forest as described in section 7.2. Have the six villagers chop wood. They should be able to chop 300 wood in two minutes.

Reveal map

Choose a random map with reveal map enabled. Study the map, determine which food sources you are going to use, where and in what order you will build your buildings. Then restart the game and give it a try. You will not need to explore and hence you might be able to achieve a 15 minute bronze time by your second or third try. Stop the game after each minute and write down your status. Compare it against section 3.9. In particular note whether you are able to start the ninth villager before minute 2.

Two minute drill

Play the game for two minutes and pause. Write down your exact status: buildings built (i.e. houses and hopefully a granary), what resources you have and what your villagers are assigned to. Then let the game play for another minute without any help from you. Write down the status again. This third minute will tell you whether you are producing food fast enough (you need 105 per minute).

This drill is designed to test your early exploration skill and your ability to get that first granary and foraging operation started. But, if you are having trouble, do it first with reveal map on a couple times just to reassure yourself that it can be done.

Full sequence

Practice the full sequence against the computer (one easy opponent) using a new random map each time. Stop at each minute, write your status (buildings, wood, food, number of villagers, % of map explored. ) and compare it against section 3.9. If you are behind schedule, try to figure out what went wrong, then start over. If you are on or ahead of schedule, think about what you should be doing in the next minute.