What the strategy is all about:
Basically I came up with this strategy to create a chance for Hades players vs. Poseidon players by performing a FH, it’s rather simple in theory and a great asset for all Hades players I feel. As the game is now if a Hades and a Poseidon player meet each other in a 1v1 and both players are of equal strength I think that the Poseidon player has a great advantage in classic age wars. This strategy is meant only for Hades to use as he is easily the most well suited civ to pull this off, however you might want to try it in Poseidon vs. Poseidon battles as well, it could work quite well.
I think this strategy is viable for Hades for a couple of reasons. First off Hades has a great first age GP in Sentinels, as well they get the best delaying tactic in the game with Pestilence in classical. What these two GP do for you is create a safe area to conduct your economy as well as giving you the time necessary to advance to the Heroic age much faster than your opponent.
How it works:
Go with a normal starting making sure to find as much hunting as possible close to your base. Even if you build a mill by your chickens/berries, once you find a good spot of hunting outside of your base move your villagers out to hunt that right away. You want to use any food sources outside of your base as early as possible, so that if needed you can always fall back to the food inside your base after your opponent hits classical. Your goal in Archaic is to end up with 11 or so villagers on food, 6 or so on gold, and 4+ on wood. Remember you must remain flexible on this, if you are forced to use sheep/berries early on instead of pure hunting you will likely need more villagers on food. You don’t have to aim for a particularly fast Classic time, but you probably don’t want to be much later than 5:40. Make sure you have scouted out where your enemies base is, try to determine where he is likely to put up his stables.
Upon hitting the Classic age you should have enough wood to start building in this order, a blacksmith in the back of your base, an archery range near the front of your base, and a stable near the front of your base. Try to keep the blacksmith somewhere out of site, hopefully not too close to your wood/gold economy so that it won’t be scouted out too early. Once you hit classical, make sure your scout is near your opponents base. When he hits classical scout out his base a bit more and use pestilence on his stables after they are completely built, don’t waste it by using pestilence before the stables are actually up. If you think you can pull it off wait about 15 seconds after his stables are up and then use pestilence for maximum effectiveness. All this should buy you enough time to hit Heroic safely. Once the archery range is up, if you have the gold start building toxotes, do not build any hippokin however as you will need the gold/food to go Heroic. As soon as your blacksmith is completed you should have enough resources to go Heroic, I personally prefer to choose Aphrodite in 1v1 because of her economic advantages as well as a better GP for 1v1.
On your way up to heroic build another stable, keep building archers as you can but don’t forget to have some extra houses up for when you hit heroic. Try to keep a fair amount of villagers on food, but you will also need some extra villagers on wood, either your new villagers from Classical or taking a couple off of wood should do the trick. If you feel you have a lot more gold than you do food you might consider building some hippikon or if you have a lot of food and gold, upgrading to medium cavalry, but don’t do so if you won’t have much food left over for new villagers as well as Prodomos in Heroic. You will likely start to get raided a little by this point, if you feel the need you can use your sentinels as cover, however if you can save them without losing many villagers, try to hold off.
You should hit the Heroic age anywhere from 7:00 minutes up to 8:30, you definitely don’t want to be any later than this. I have hit as fast as 6:40 with Hades however chances are you won’t be able to maintain military flow if you are this fast unless your economy is spot on. Once you hit Heroic start pumping out Prodomos, your opponent will likely avoid encounters with you, but will continue to try and raid you. Your Prodomos combined with toxotes should be plenty of protection from his raids if you play it correctly. At this point you will likely run in to a problem. Prodomos aren’t all that good at raiding, they have low pierce armour as well as very low attack. Don’t be afraid to start making Hippokin, in all likelyhood this will be a good idea anyways because you will start to run in to enemy toxotes mixed in with his cavalry. If your opponent continues to fight you while in classical you gain all the advantage you need as he will be spending more resources to kill your troops than you should have to spend to kill his troops. As you can start to take over settlements starting with the ones furthest away from your base, hopefully having a settlement advantage will be all you need to defeat him. Also you should be able to put up a forward Fortress, try to put it up close to his base and force him to fight you on your terms. Hopefully your counter units will wipe the floor with his units, however if you find yourself in trouble don’t hesitate to use Curse on his army. Getting up a Fortress close enough to his base could buy you a big advantage.
Beyond this play it as a normal game, you should have the advantage so long as you don’t let your economy suffer too much. I’ve been guilty of this a couple of times and it really makes things more difficult than they should be.
Check out these example games:
1v1 vs. L_Clan_Sauron Not the best of examples due to the fact my pestilence never went off when I clicked it, but overall it shows a decent start to the strategy.
1v1 vs. Sesami Not a bad game, I manage to hit heroic before he’s mounted any sort of attack.
1v1 vs. L_Clan_Schmeker I let my economy go a little bit too much in this one or it would have been a much easier win.
