posted 03-17-07 02:21 AM EDT (US)
First of all I would like to say that I am fully aware of the lameness of this strategy but it is meant as a guide to quickly level your HC. Some people, like myself, cannot play endless games to level your HC to try new strategies, meet the minimum level requirements for a tournament, etc. This is a method that works on any civilization to level your HC extremely fast (even faster than Comp Stomps) with no cheating involved although it is rather boring until the end game (optional) battle. While this is not cheating, it does involve playing the game in a manner it is not intended. Well, who really is to say how it is intended? There are rules, and none are being broken. There, that is my disclaimer. I just recently leaned how to do this, and while I know how to, I usually do a comp stomp instead to level because it is more fun, but no one can deny the awesome ability and speed at which you can level.
I know many people know how to do this, but many do not, and this guide will provide additional tips to people who enjoy having access to each civilization without having to invest months into them to get the really juicy cards. If you do not work, have kids, and can invest 80% + of your time into this game, then stop reading, this guide is not for you. Otherwise, here is the basics..
One more thing before I begin, I need to mention one important prerequisite, you need a friend. If you are on ESO without friends, stop calling people noobs and perhaps you will make one. Playing with a clan mate will ensure there will be no battles until maximum villagers is achieved and both players will max out at 45K XP + award bonuses. Which brings me to my first point and the beauty behind the guide.
Game Type: 1v1 FFA
You will want an unrated game because you will be helping your friend until the end of the game, when you have 1 huge battle. The game requires a 1v1 because when you build, 20% XP of the cost of an economic building is awarded, 10% XP of the cost of an military building is awarded, and 14% XP of the cost of an outpost is awarded. When you destroy these buildings (by pressing delete – no military required), your opponent / friend receives double this XP amount (40% economic, 20% military, and 28% outpost). Therefore, you need only 1 opponent so the deleted building XP will go to him. You will be building a lot of plantations since they are the highest cost economic building in the game (grants 160XP when built and opponent gets 320XP when destroyed). This is the theory behind the strategy, everything else in the guide makes it faster.
Map: Great Lakes, Patagonia, or Saguenay
These maps are desired because each player will have 3 trading posts each. You first goal in the game is to obtain 3 trading posts and upgrade them to Iron Horse (the train). This will constantly supply you with XP the entire game. Great Lakes has the advantage over Patagonia in that minor natives will spawn (more on minor native technologies later) and the trade route is upgraded for both players. This translates into one player chopping more wood (instead of gathering gold) and creating more shipments for each player. If one of the players is Dutch, he will obviously need gold anyway. Work it out between yourselves and remember the one the most technologies researched gets an additional +500 award XP at the end of the game (not many techs will be available starting in Post Imperial). If you are tired of the scenery, use Patagonia, otherwise, stick with Great Lakes.
Large Saguenay has guaranteed Cree (-25% building technology - more information below) and the starting random economic building can be a plantation that each player can delete for an instant 1st shipment. There is plenty of wood and the map can spawn large if you like to have some extra building space. However, the drawback on this map is that it only spawns 3 to 5 TPs. At best case, one player is short 1 TP but at least the upgrades on the trade route are shared. I haven’t done the time test comparisons but it seems having 3 upgraded TPs is more important than the extra space available on large Saguenay. However, it is a scenery change.
Game Speed: Fast
The reasons for this is obvious, you want to get maximum XP to get the cards you desire or politician bonus you need. In a fast speed game, time is halved. For example, if the game clock states 20 minutes, 10 minutes have actually passed. I have achieved maximum XP in a game in ~8 minutes using this strategy.
Starting Age: Post Imperial.
The reason you start in post imperial is because all of the important market and capitol upgrades (as well as military upgrades) have been researched prior to the game beginning. This means you will chop wood at an amazing pace right from the beginning and never need to make a market or houses (unless desired for an optional end game battle). This also means that farming will be just as fast as hunting (if not faster due to the walk time involved in hunting). Therefore, you will want a few farms up ASAP.
Your explorer will be a treasure killing machine. Go ahead and grab those expensive treasures to jump start your economy and those huge XP treasures.
In addition, you will start with 110 population space since Immigrants from the Capitol (a almost useless upgrade) has already been researched. Therefore, do not worry about houses for awhile and save that wood.
Suggestions
Collect crates and start hunting to get constant villager production. Your first shipment should be 1000 (or 1600) wood to build a farm and another TC (or possibly 2 TCs). You want to quickly max villagers and have them all chopping wood for the majority of the game. If you are very low level, send the TC card.
After you have a constant supply of villagers, either switch a few to gold, or set your factory to gold until you have 1,500. Then research Mercantilism in the church for a fast 2000 XP. For Natives, save 500 of each resource, build a Market, and research New Years Festival for the same 2K bonus.
Gift Dance The gift dance is awesome for generating XP when you have 25 villagers on it. It even generates XP faster than the travois dance can spawn travois and build plantations (check out my Quick Reference Guide in signature for more information and the calculations). However, as Iroquois, you will want to use the travois dance because you are helping your friend. When you destroy a plantation, he gets shipments faster which will help him get max villagers and help him build more plantations which he will delete (making your shipments faster). The goal is max XP for both, not just yourself. By working together, you can easily level a level 1 HC to around 20 in 1 hour. After that, things start to slow down but 2 levels every 10 minutes is very achievable for any mid ranged HC, even without a specialized deck (see below).
Fertility Dance This dance will help you quickly boom to maximum villagers. Once you have 3 TC and enough on food to produce out of 3 TC simultaneously, then go ahead and put as many as possible on this dance. Once maxed out, then proceed to clearing the forest.
Do not neglect the natives. While Patagonia has no natives, Great Lakes can spawn the mighty Cree. Cree have Textile Craftsmanship which reduced building wood cost by 25%. I do not need to explain how useful this is. Cree can also spawn Coureur des Bois which will help you boom. Cheyenne have hunting grounds (delivers 12 Bison) but this technology is not really worth the trouble in this deck. Hurons have Fish Wedding (+20% Fish & Whale gathering rate) but unless you send schooners (which will cost wood and slow down the plantation spam), is not worth it. The only thing these natives are useful for is researching the technologies just to get the +500 XP award bonus at the end of the game.
Whenever wood is available, build a plantation and delete it. This will make shipments come at an alarmingly fast rate for you and your opponent. Remember, as he follows this strategy, he will be building and deleting causing your shipments to increase as well. So what should you be shipping?
Specialized XP Deck
Each civilization will have a different first HC shipment. French can send 10 villagers, Ottoman should send 2 TCs (to speed up the villager production), Dutch should send factories for gold, Aztec or Sioux should send 3 trading posts to speed up initial shipments, etc. Use you common since here, you obviously do not need military shipments in this deck. Any deck can be used to follow this strategy but some will make leveling your friend (or yourself) much faster. You will be getting a lot of shipments very fast if your friend is doing his job correctly and sending the right shipments will make this even faster. Here are some of the cards that are excellent to play (not necessarily in this order):
Large villager shipments to quickly boost economy (the French 10 Coureur de Bois is an excellent first shipment as well as the 8 British settlers). Remember, you are not starting out in Discovery. If your civilization does not have a large villager shipment ship a large wood shipment or factories to help get 3 TCs up.
Land Grab Definitely the best card for this deck and should be played if possible (get the card, and then level up for your “real” decks). This card grants -40% wood cost for mills, plantations, and livestock pens. In addition, it cuts the training time 75% (5 second plantations opposed to 20). Plantations will only cost 480 Wood but grant the same amount of XP (Farms will cost 240 wood). While this is a great card for this deck available to every single civilization, do not send it until you are ready to start spamming plantations. Send other economic cards first such as factories.
Factory
Robber Barons
1 Covered Wagon
2 Covered Wagons (Ottoman and Portuguese only)
1000 Wood
1600 Wood
Northwest Passage (French only, indirectly increases gathering rate by increasing villager speed)
Medicine (increases villager production but must send it early to take advantage of it)
Germantown Farmers (German only, allows settler wagons to be produced from mills).
Stonemasons (All Europeans and Aztecs) This card allows you to build all buildings, including plantations 65% faster (in 7 seconds instead of 20). This card in conjunction with Land Grab allows instant build plantations allowing you more time to chop wood, build, and delete more (remember to shift click when building plantations to avoid collecting unnecessary gold).
Advanced Plantation. (All Europeans and Sioux) This card reduces plantation cost by 31% and increases their hit points by 100% (not important in this strategy). If you want to create a deck to level your friends HC, go ahead and include it but do not send it until after you send Land Grab since it is orders of magnitude more useful.
Economic Theory (all but the Natives, British, and Dutch). A small boost to wood chopping, but a boost is a boost, in these games you will be able to ship all cards.
Sawmills (+15% wood production rate)
Exotic Hardwoods (+20% wood production rate)
Woodcrafting (Sioux only: +20% wood production rate)
Schooners (40 Wood Boats). I’m not to sure on this one. You can gather food quickly, but spending your plantation wood on boats is not the intention. It may slow you down more than it helps. The main reason I mention it is just to address the card.
3 Trading Post Travois. (Aztec or Sioux only) This is another excellent first shipment to quickly establish your trading route and speed up further shipments.
Great House (300W TC will help get started).
Stadhouder (Dutch only, allows 200W TC from explorer, may help in getting economy rolling but not to sure on this one)
End Game
After both parties have achieved maximum XP, build a 200 population army, delete everything, and practice your micro. This is an excellent opportunity to use maxed out units and battle for that 2000 win award XP at the end of the game.
While all civilizations can perform this, if you want to create a deck to level your friends HC quickly, the French, Iroquois (travois dance), and Sioux (all great cards), really stand out. It is difficult to say if the French or Iroquois is better but I would bet French due to the availability of more cards, better settlers (super settle shipment), and factories. With 2 French HC leveling in this manner, I bet you could get max XP in around 6-7 minutes if done properly (never tried but seems reasonable, especially if Cree spawn).
I hope you enjoy and I do not get to much flaming for a lame but highly effective way to level. I just found this thread, another reason to quickly level your HC.
http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=1&tn=33326&st=recent&f=1,33326,0,10
Lead, Follow, or Get the Hell out of the way!................CYCLOHEXANE'S FREE GUIDES:
-TAD GUIDE: AOE3 TWC TAD Quick Reference -or view online: On-line
AOE3 TWC TAD UNIT COMPARISON SPREADSHEET: Unit Comparison Spreadsheet
See other guides, technological advancements, interviewing tips, and more at my website All Things Miscellaneous
I know many people know how to do this, but many do not, and this guide will provide additional tips to people who enjoy having access to each civilization without having to invest months into them to get the really juicy cards.
One more thing before I begin, I need to mention one important prerequisite, you need a friend. If you are on ESO without friends, stop calling people noobs and perhaps you will make one. Playing with a clan mate will ensure there will be no battles until maximum villagers is achieved and both players will max out at 45K XP + award bonuses. Which brings me to my first point and the beauty behind the guide.
You will want an unrated game because you will be helping your friend until the end of the game, when you have 1 huge battle. The game requires a 1v1 because when you build, 20% XP of the cost of an economic building is awarded, 10% XP of the cost of an military building is awarded, and 14% XP of the cost of an outpost is awarded. When you destroy these buildings (by pressing delete – no military required), your opponent / friend receives double this XP amount (40% economic, 20% military, and 28% outpost). Therefore, you need only 1 opponent so the deleted building XP will go to him. You will be building a lot of plantations since they are the highest cost economic building in the game (grants 160XP when built and opponent gets 320XP when destroyed). This is the theory behind the strategy, everything else in the guide makes it faster.
These maps are desired because each player will have 3 trading posts each. You first goal in the game is to obtain 3 trading posts and upgrade them to Iron Horse (the train). This will constantly supply you with XP the entire game. Great Lakes has the advantage over Patagonia in that minor natives will spawn (more on minor native technologies later) and the trade route is upgraded for both players. This translates into one player chopping more wood (instead of gathering gold) and creating more shipments for each player. If one of the players is Dutch, he will obviously need gold anyway. Work it out between yourselves and remember the one the most technologies researched gets an additional +500 award XP at the end of the game (not many techs will be available starting in Post Imperial). If you are tired of the scenery, use Patagonia, otherwise, stick with Great Lakes.
Large Saguenay has guaranteed Cree (-25% building technology - more information below) and the starting random economic building can be a plantation that each player can delete for an instant 1st shipment. There is plenty of wood and the map can spawn large if you like to have some extra building space. However, the drawback on this map is that it only spawns 3 to 5 TPs. At best case, one player is short 1 TP but at least the upgrades on the trade route are shared. I haven’t done the time test comparisons but it seems having 3 upgraded TPs is more important than the extra space available on large Saguenay. However, it is a scenery change.
The reasons for this is obvious, you want to get maximum XP to get the cards you desire or politician bonus you need. In a fast speed game, time is halved. For example, if the game clock states 20 minutes, 10 minutes have actually passed. I have achieved maximum XP in a game in ~8 minutes using this strategy.
The reason you start in post imperial is because all of the important market and capitol upgrades (as well as military upgrades) have been researched prior to the game beginning. This means you will chop wood at an amazing pace right from the beginning and never need to make a market or houses (unless desired for an optional end game battle). This also means that farming will be just as fast as hunting (if not faster due to the walk time involved in hunting). Therefore, you will want a few farms up ASAP.
Your explorer will be a treasure killing machine. Go ahead and grab those expensive treasures to jump start your economy and those huge XP treasures.
In addition, you will start with 110 population space since Immigrants from the Capitol (a almost useless upgrade) has already been researched. Therefore, do not worry about houses for awhile and save that wood.
Collect crates and start hunting to get constant villager production. Your first shipment should be 1000 (or 1600) wood to build a farm and another TC (or possibly 2 TCs). You want to quickly max villagers and have them all chopping wood for the majority of the game. If you are very low level, send the TC card.
After you have a constant supply of villagers, either switch a few to gold, or set your factory to gold until you have 1,500. Then research Mercantilism in the church for a fast 2000 XP. For Natives, save 500 of each resource, build a Market, and research New Years Festival for the same 2K bonus.
Do not neglect the natives. While Patagonia has no natives, Great Lakes can spawn the mighty Cree. Cree have Textile Craftsmanship which reduced building wood cost by 25%. I do not need to explain how useful this is. Cree can also spawn Coureur des Bois which will help you boom. Cheyenne have hunting grounds (delivers 12 Bison) but this technology is not really worth the trouble in this deck. Hurons have Fish Wedding (+20% Fish & Whale gathering rate) but unless you send schooners (which will cost wood and slow down the plantation spam), is not worth it. The only thing these natives are useful for is researching the technologies just to get the +500 XP award bonus at the end of the game.
Whenever wood is available, build a plantation and delete it. This will make shipments come at an alarmingly fast rate for you and your opponent. Remember, as he follows this strategy, he will be building and deleting causing your shipments to increase as well. So what should you be shipping?
Each civilization will have a different first HC shipment. French can send 10 villagers, Ottoman should send 2 TCs (to speed up the villager production), Dutch should send factories for gold, Aztec or Sioux should send 3 trading posts to speed up initial shipments, etc. Use you common since here, you obviously do not need military shipments in this deck. Any deck can be used to follow this strategy but some will make leveling your friend (or yourself) much faster. You will be getting a lot of shipments very fast if your friend is doing his job correctly and sending the right shipments will make this even faster. Here are some of the cards that are excellent to play (not necessarily in this order):
Large villager shipments to quickly boost economy (the French 10 Coureur de Bois is an excellent first shipment as well as the 8 British settlers). Remember, you are not starting out in Discovery. If your civilization does not have a large villager shipment ship a large wood shipment or factories to help get 3 TCs up.
Factory
Robber Barons
1 Covered Wagon
2 Covered Wagons (Ottoman and Portuguese only)
1000 Wood
1600 Wood
Northwest Passage (French only, indirectly increases gathering rate by increasing villager speed)
Medicine (increases villager production but must send it early to take advantage of it)
Germantown Farmers (German only, allows settler wagons to be produced from mills).
Advanced Plantation. (All Europeans and Sioux) This card reduces plantation cost by 31% and increases their hit points by 100% (not important in this strategy). If you want to create a deck to level your friends HC, go ahead and include it but do not send it until after you send Land Grab since it is orders of magnitude more useful.
Economic Theory (all but the Natives, British, and Dutch). A small boost to wood chopping, but a boost is a boost, in these games you will be able to ship all cards.
Sawmills (+15% wood production rate)
Exotic Hardwoods (+20% wood production rate)
Woodcrafting (Sioux only: +20% wood production rate)
Schooners (40 Wood Boats). I’m not to sure on this one. You can gather food quickly, but spending your plantation wood on boats is not the intention. It may slow you down more than it helps. The main reason I mention it is just to address the card.
3 Trading Post Travois. (Aztec or Sioux only) This is another excellent first shipment to quickly establish your trading route and speed up further shipments.
Great House (300W TC will help get started).
Stadhouder (Dutch only, allows 200W TC from explorer, may help in getting economy rolling but not to sure on this one)
After both parties have achieved maximum XP, build a 200 population army, delete everything, and practice your micro. This is an excellent opportunity to use maxed out units and battle for that 2000 win award XP at the end of the game.
While all civilizations can perform this, if you want to create a deck to level your friends HC quickly, the French, Iroquois (travois dance), and Sioux (all great cards), really stand out. It is difficult to say if the French or Iroquois is better but I would bet French due to the availability of more cards, better settlers (super settle shipment), and factories. With 2 French HC leveling in this manner, I bet you could get max XP in around 6-7 minutes if done properly (never tried but seems reasonable, especially if Cree spawn).
I hope you enjoy and I do not get to much flaming for a lame but highly effective way to level. I just found this thread, another reason to quickly level your HC.
Lead, Follow, or Get the Hell out of the way!................CYCLOHEXANE'S FREE GUIDES:
-TAD GUIDE: AOE3 TWC TAD Quick Reference -or view online: On-line
AOE3 TWC TAD UNIT COMPARISON SPREADSHEET: Unit Comparison Spreadsheet
See other guides, technological advancements, interviewing tips, and more at my website All Things Miscellaneous
[This message has been edited by Cyclohexane (edited 07-05-2007 @ 06:30 PM).]
In any game with XP and levels, people will always power-game it. And when leveling is not even the "fun part" (which it no longer really is for me) people will be looking for the quickest way forward. Suffice to say, I care much, much more about the RTS side of AoE than I do the level-grinding part. 
