Community Forums > Voobly General > Strategy Guides > [●] CBA Guide , Basics and Advanced techniques

[●] CBA Guide , Basics and Advanced techniques

 [I3acI]__eT__


Edited 25 July 2016 - 11:37 pm by mich
unled1vvn.png


You can also view this page in the following Languages :
englishn.pngspanishg.png


CBA Gᴜɪᴅᴇ , Bᴀsɪᴄs ᴀɴᴅ Aᴅᴠᴀɴᴄᴇᴅ Tᴇᴄʜɴɪǫᴜᴇs

Full CBA Map Preview



Introduction


How to become a better player or maybe a 2k player?.
To answer this question we will try to explain a variety of different techniques and basics about CBA.
Following this guide you too could become an expert player, although it will take some effort, but if you are dedicated and focused I can promise you following this guide will improve your CBA game and enjoyment.
Unfortunately, many players do NOT know or use most of these skills and basics needed for CBA, and they can lose while make mistakes.

This Guide is all about team games. It does not cover 1v1 games specifically but good skill and technique will help in all the games you play.


Skills


First we will be explaining one of the most important skills in CBA.

Razing

There are many different ways to take a raze , most of the time you will need an cavalry civilization like Huns , Persians etc,. (or) a strong ranged civilization like Turks , Spanish or Chinese etc,. to help you raze a building.

Here are some very important techniques that you will need to practice until successful, once learned they will become second nature.

- Multi-Hit.
How to make most of your units hit a Gate?
Importantly this is about the correct moment / timing and fast response to catch the gate while it is open.
Get most of your men Under the gate while it is open and click on the centre of the gate



This method should get 30-40 units hitting the gate at once, which is a much faster way to raze and obviously MUCH less feeding ( spending less time attacking the gate = less units you lose ).

If you are attacking an archer civ you can hit the gate once, run back with your units and this will drag your enemy units - if he wasnt looking - to open the gate. Then sneak back in to the gates but be fast though, the gates dont wait for you.

- If gates are closed. This is a very clever method to hit a gate with the maximum amount of units actually attacking.

Try to get your units to align perpendicular on the Gate (at an angle).

Most expert players can do this in a maximum of 2 clicks so practice makes perfect.
You will certainly need multiple clicks at the beginning to get this correct.

If you attack the gate in the normal manner ( depending on the civ - except for Huns ) you can do a maximum of 80-100 HP damage per hit with the amount of units actually hitting.
Using this method you can do at least 200-300 HP damage per hit ( 2x , 3x Faster ).

With archers. Get close 1st and Hit . Hitting from far is a Big mistake. ( [You must login to view link])
hitting from far makes them clumsy and they spread out and much vulnerable to being killed

Speed , Reinforcement and Support

This is one of the most important skills in CBA.
Most players will wait for 20 - 30 or a full group of units before sending.
This is a really big mistake most of the time , in most games your allies could be in a bad position and end up fighting 4v1, so you need to send your units out as soon as you get 4-8 spawned. This will avoid your allies being left 1v4 etc and could give you the advantage of 4v1 in your favour.

This is really important and will determine who is going to control the game play.
Send out units while patrolling ( we will discuss this later ) and not just to a map position - you could lose all of your units if you just send them to a spot and there are enemy units in your way.

Same goes with reinforcement , you have to keep sending the 4-8 units asap as IDLE units kill your team.



Support your allies / Team mates by team work ( we will cover this later - [You must login to view link] )
A very important factor in battles is using a shield ( another player's units) and controlling your army, don't allow units to run all over the battle, KEEP CONTROL.
Shield example :If you are an archer civ try to always be behind another strong shield civ Persian , Byzantines, or Teutons or just any infantry civ because all inf/cav civs have higher armour and higher hit points than most archers and you definitely need to use that advantage but make sure you dont get Flanked!

Like this.


Flanked is being surrounded from both sides by enemy units while trying to hit and run. Try to avoid that as much as possible, or Patrol your units very tight and click S ( Stop ) so they dont patrol any more , Stand Ground is preferred with this as well.
captureqah.png
This is approx 40 units that will hardly be touched

Scouting and Sneaking

Scouting and sneaking are very distinctive skills.
They are mostly Offensive / Edge skills.

Scouting is basically constant map exploration, with proper scouting you will always know where your enemy is going / building and predict their next move (know your enemy 1st rule)

A good tip is to scout while walling your gates.
Put 3 - 5 units on the sides of your gates on defensive stance to make sure it's safe for your vills to wall.



Also make sure your villagers are on the inside of your gate. When they are building from the inside they are much safer and easier to hide.



You can use ( or any ally with good view range .. like brits or Turks .. ) 4 - 5 units to patrol on no attack stance ( o button ) in the middle of the map , you can put them randomly. but it will give u great view of the map.. specially if you are against many rushing civs. like viks / celts / huns / japs. . if they are coming for you. you will know it and will be ready !


Sneaking.
Celts , byz or Maya are really the best civs for this job.
Try to keep your enemy on their toes when they have villagers . They will always feel insecure about their villagers knowing they might die any second. Although you may fail killing the villagers it really buys you a lot of time and stops his build speed. Making him run for the castles every time to evade your attack means he is not building and will give you some advantage or time.

Run in with your Celts units for example. on NO attack stance ( o button ) . run past the vill, then click S and attack it. not to give it a chance to run



Kills and Patrolling

Kills are much more important than razes. It's not just about villagers, CBA is also about knowing what civ to kill and how to target your enemy and patrolling plays a huge part in this....
For example.. some people, when they get huns.. they have their mind set on rushing.. which is totally wrong
huns are very good civ for kills 2.. they beat many other civs if u know how to use them. you need to have to have kills.. for example.. if you are vs mainly archers .. you can get a lot of kills and be the 1st to Imp.. and you can give your mates the game much easier than if you only rushed and fed the opponent team.
You have to learn how to micro. how to hit and run.. how to make ur enemy SO confused, make unexpected moves.. open everyone . make them agitated , they will be confused and you can get as many kills as you want because they wont be able to play in team.


With regards to patrolling I cannot do a better job than what Geen did with his amazing guide.
Read it here
for Patrolling information ( Which is Crucial guide) Without patrolling you are 13xx , 14xx player. with patrolling you are at least 16++ player.

Imp war

There are many things to learn with this stage of the game.
You can read more about it here.
NEW GUIDE COMING SOON!
This will include what units each civ should make.
Guides to Civ bonuses.
What would you do if you got countered. etc etc.

Team work

This cannot be stressed enough.
Without good team work even if you have a HUGE civ advantage, I can guarantee you it's easy to lose if your enemy is playing as a team.
I can show you many examples but I don't need to, I'm sure you have lost many games that you thought you had civ advantage in, so you all know exactly what I am saying here.

Never play solo. Try to follow - or be a leader ( if you are good enough ) , lead your team to win. Do what you think is best but remember 3v1 or 4v1 is much better than going solo against another player.. 1v1 can be lost or won.. but 3v1 you should always win. " But make sure the guys on edges next to dangerous civs gets protected as well.

Your team ( all players ) should play as one unit.
Communicate with them, make sure everyone knows WHO is taking the first or next raze , make sure that the right people get walled first and units are always guarding the right base.



Game Play


Buildings and Organizing

You need to use the most of your base to maximize your production and speed without units getting stuck.

An example would be Chinese and you need 50% camels and 50% heavy cav archer.
You need to make your base look like this.

This will give you 8 archery's and 8 stables.

You can put a blacksmith for faster upgrades and this could even prevent / stop units from rushing you from this side and also earn some time if you are walled.



When you build outside your gates try to be careful not to expose your villagers.
Remember always build fully inside your base before going outside.



Always keep your buildings stacked together not to lose build space ( this is very important in imp wars - [You must login to view link]- and to be able to reach them much easier.



Quote:
[Eot_]ForgiveMe_ : If your base is secure and there is hardly a chance of anyone going to rush your vills ( Sneak )
Here is the best way to maximize the usage / speed of your vill



The more the villager moves around to build , the slower you get your buildings up
Keep your buildings stacked ( as shown above ) and put your villager in the middle and let it build.
This saves you 10 - 20 seconds ( aoc time ) with each building and trust me.. it makes a difference :P

That's all about your buildings and about organizing and optimizing your production


Walling and Weak points

I will use 2 scenarios here to elaborate how to wall fast and keep

Scenario 1.

If you are rushing the player who has walled perfectly.



Of course you wont be the only one rushing.
The first weak point that most players do not notice is this.



Aim for it . You can use the same technique explained earlier about razing.
( [You must login to view link])
Stack your units on the side with a couple of clicks to make them look like this.



Then hit the wall.
( with any archer unit behind you - Spanish. Turks , Koreans , China or Sara ) hitting that piece of wall , once it is down you will have a huge space to attack and kill castles. Use this method instead of fighting over and over trying to go through the middle gate, which is very hard due to the enemy spawn blocking that gate. In a few moments your enemy can die once you take down this piece of wall and you can fully rush his castles ( the back up units in your team are now fighting the units of the player you are rushing to give you as much space as possible and to save your units )


Scenario 2.

If you are the one being rushed and you don't have much time to wall.
Side walling is the safest - pushing bit by bit with support of your allies you can safely wall



If you are being heavily rushed you can wall piece by piece, just trying to use as much space as poss.
Walling on an angle until you can safely gain enough space to wall.
Here are some good screen shots on a fast wall.




One villager keeps transporting from the front of the castles and the back of your castle. Push your units up a little bit by bit until you can safely wall fully but don't forget to secure your weak point.



Sometimes you dont even need to Wall! sometimes you need only to build.
Walls slow you down and waste your time and blocks you ! all in the same time. You have to understand WHEN to wall and when you DONT need walls
Just few examples on when you dont need to wall
  • If you are safe between strong allies
  • If you didnt lose any of your gates and there is NO need to wall
  • If all your enemies are Archer civs
Rushing and Blocking spawns

Blocking an enemy spawn while rushing is very important, especially when attacking a strong enemy and you have weak units.



By attacking the front of the castle your enemy would be losing population without creating new units. This is a very good chance for you to kill their castles.
Spread your units.. block all his 4 spawns and take him down as soon as possible
If you have killed one of the middle castles, defending the rest would be VERY difficult for your enemy. He would be totally open and very vulnerable to your rushes.

Use the razing method mentioned earlier ( [You must login to view link] )
This only applies if a player is blocking both sides of his castles ( like pers )
Sometimes it's not the best idea to block his spawn, as all 4 of the casles can hit you, sometimes it is just best to go to one of the sides and rush the castles, because until they research murder holes the castle you are attacking can't hit you and the one on the end usaully can't, so only 2 out of 4 castles can shoot you. This also depends on how strong your unit is and how strong the enemy units.
e.g: Huns cant do that to japs unless! japs base is totally empty then you can kill him in 2 mins.




Misc


Bloodlines and Thumb Ring

This is really very simple
If you are Mongols / Spanish / Sara Make a Stable and upgrade your Bloodline first.
Bloodlines is an icon that looks like this.
12.jpg
This adds 20 HP to your units and can make a big difference.

If you are Turks / Spanish / Mongols or almost any other archer civ make an Archery range ( with the bloodline ) and upgrade your Thumb Ring.
Thumb ring is an icon that looks like this
13.jpg
This adds accuracy to your archers.

Common Mistakes

1- The most common mistake players do is when trying to raze they click the gate from too far away. This is very bad with any infantry civ and most short ranged units like Franks or Sara.



2- Focusing too much on the raze and ignoring the units. For example
If Celts are attacking the Gate of Britons and you have Turks supporting the Celts from behind. The Turks is preferred to attack the units rather than attacking the gates and let the Celt hit the gate.

3- Idle units is another very common mistake. As previously stated keep reinforcing.

4- Forgetting to upgrade ( CTRL + S is the shortcut for the Blacksmith ) ( CTRL + U is the shortcut for the University ) ( CTRL + V is the shortcut for Castle ) ( Those are the standered shortcuts )

5- Feeding due to rushing the wrong person or bad unit control, no patrol etc

6- Making the wrong buildings. If you are Britons vs Goth , you cannot make 8 archery ranges and 8 stables.. it should be more like 12 stables and 4 archery ranges or none even. It depends on how good your enemy is.

7- Castle targeting : when a player is being rushed he does not control his castles to shoot at specific units. Most of the time you need to target the archer / ranged covering civ as they can harm your vills ( if you have razed ).
Your allies will probably already be by your castles, they can kill the rushing civ,
you should target your castles to hit the weakest units and let the men fight the others, archers have very low hp and armour compared to other units (Also they eat your pop so you can't fight off the others attacking your castle.)

Hint : name your castles + your 4 Towers with CTRL + 1 so when you are being rushed. hit 1 and target on your enemy unit.

8- Walling when you are against all NON rush civs.. or weak ones. so for example you are vs , maya kors franks and spanish..
You definitely dont need to wall. non of these units can kill you. they would be just food for you.. so dont waste your time walling and start building your buildings


About this Guide
This Guide was written by [I3acI]__eT__

This guide was reviewed by several of the top CBA players
( Not in order of skill but who was first to review it )
Along with some of my friends who helped me develop this guide to make it in the best shape possible for our players :)
I'm sorry if i forgot anyone! but Thank you!

Each and every one of those players listed above have reviewed this Guide and Added something to it.
So a huge thanks to them for taking the time and showing interest to help others.


Please comment on this guide if you find it useful :)
I spent quite some time on this so a "Thank you" would be enough for me ^^

Regards,

[I3acI]__eT__
- (Guide Author)



Related Articles :
Link | Reply | Quote
 [I3acI]__eT__


Edited 28 September 2011 - 2:42 pm by [I3acI]__eT__
I took the liberty to pin this topic since it took so much time and effort by so many people!


Note :
This doesnt Cover EVERYTHING in CBA.
This is just the MOST common Techniques that you need to start off your Pro career in CBA :P
Link | Reply | Quote
 Ubiquitous


Posted 28 September 2011 - 2:45 pm
Seems like my razing trick has become well known now ;good
Good job on the guide eT.
Link | Reply | Quote
 [I3acI]__eT__


Posted 28 September 2011 - 2:53 pm
Ubiquitous wrote:
Seems like my razing trick has become well known now ;good
Good job on the guide eT.
if i only know who you are ;lol

Thank you :)
Link | Reply | Quote
 RIP_TridenT__


Posted 28 September 2011 - 3:02 pm
good job john :) let's hope the cba community take something from this !!
Link | Reply | Quote
 Hashy


Posted 28 September 2011 - 3:12 pm
Superb <3 lovely!!
Link | Reply | Quote
 shelby1


Posted 28 September 2011 - 3:15 pm
Just read and learn something.
Gj John.
Link | Reply | Quote
 [dv8]Burberry_


Edited 28 September 2011 - 3:31 pm by [dv8]Burberry_
really good teaching post
later can add some advanced teaching in details like :
1. sg patrol for mong sars kor etc;
2. sg patrol then A for non range civ vs range civ like celt vs mayan;
3. wall vill sides when building but non range enemy is coming;
4. beside castle space should always make stables to anti ram
etc, etc...


GJ. really happy to see this kind of post again after geen's
Link | Reply | Quote
 [DZ]_HERACLES_


Posted 28 September 2011 - 3:35 pm
best eva guide thanX
Link | Reply | Quote
 [DZ]deadlydeo


Posted 28 September 2011 - 5:24 pm
Congrats to everyone who contributed to this guide...

@eT,
Where is my name?? I taught you all this stuff <3
Link | Reply | Quote
 [I3acI]__eT__


Posted 28 September 2011 - 5:26 pm
Quote:
1. sg patrol for mong sars kor etc;
2. sg patrol then A for non range civ vs range civ like celt vs mayan;

I left all patrol guides to Geen's post :)
altho to think about it i might go ahead and make Patrols Guide for CBA only
Quote:
3. wall vill sides when building but non range enemy is coming;
LOL forgot to add that screen shot :) i will add it when home
ty for reminding me
Quote:
4. beside castle space should always make stables to anti ram
Gd point 2 :) altho if u are that beat to the point that rams are raping ur castles i dont think it would do gd ;lol but definitely better than archs lol
Going to add

TY All for the comments :) glad about the Positive feedback :)
Link | Reply | Quote
 TravancoreTitan


Posted 28 September 2011 - 6:26 pm
Much Needed one. Thanks a lot. Came in right time.
Link | Reply | Quote
 [DZ]deadlydeo


Posted 28 September 2011 - 7:23 pm
Quote:
Hint : name your castles + your 4 Towers with CTRL + 1 so when you are being rushed. hit 1 and target on your enemy unit.

Actually u need to use two numbers. I mean Crtl+1 for two castles+two towers on one side and Crtl+2 for two castles and towers on the other side. Except for teutons, other civs dont have that much range. Only three castles are gonna shoot at the units that you choose. While the 4th castle will be out of range and hits random units. :)
Link | Reply | Quote
 _aEy_


Posted 28 September 2011 - 7:57 pm
;flowers ;thumbup ;thumbup ;thumbup ;thumbup ;thumbup ;thumbup ;thumbup ;thumbup

That's all for your gj dear <3
Link | Reply | Quote
 [dv8]Burberry_


Posted 28 September 2011 - 8:04 pm
u are welcome, let me try to continue my pov
(my english is not good so please try to understand what i mean)

5. For outcived game : try to make a plan for the most in-danger ally to get vill first (or vik to raze because vik can create cage units since start). the player who got vill after walled inside then should try to send 1 vill (only) to wall every ally outside / the second most in-danger ally inside / sneak vill to the ally base who is being hard rushed (use army to scout so the sneaking vill will be safe). if the ally is willing to die but your first vill died, try to send the second vill to him, but at this point its the last hope.

6. similar to point 4, when u are maya/brit, never build FULL archery range but at least 4 stable/barrack. FULL base of archery range is always dangerous because if it becomes imp vill war, u would die by emeny siege ram or pals easily. (even ur ally beside u and he is pals civ, u still need several stable/barrack because sometimes ur ally would be blocked by enemy on imp war ) however, if u are pal civ, its very simply just build full stable and can add some archery range outside in vill war.

7. sometimes when enemy has persi and its a hard game, try to make some monks to convert elephants might be a good try (not a joke)

8. when its 3v3, should always use 1 + 1 army to patrol on p7 + p8 base to avoid enemy to make base at p7 p8 space. if u want to make base on p7 p8 then should at least use army to scout around first.

9. please tell ally when u reach cage/imp. the first imp ally should tell the no-vill ally where are the easy razes and always try to sneak units to kill enemy vills asap.

10. change the spawn distance to short when u are being heavy attacked. change it to normal when ally is walling u, because short = block vill to wall inside for u.

11. give a number for all barrack/stable/archery range. give another number for all siege building. siege gather point should always be near enemy most-outside building / enemy castle ( if he has no vill )

12. watch ur gather point. many players always never change the point. for example, player usually make gather point outside their gate, its very normal right? but when enemy hit u near there and u are losing, change it back to inside or inside every building. on the other hand, never set gather point too close to battle place because u need to patrol to power up ur units first. But when ally has only 1 castle or in a very big danger, then set gather point near his castle is a good choice.

13. when u are range and ally being heavy rushed, dont just blind patrol (or sg patrol) to ally. units might fight outside ally base and it might be useless for ally. Instead focus on killing the units that are attacking his castles, block his sides, and focus your whole attention on protecting your ally.


Link | Reply | Quote
[1]23456
Displaying 1 - 15 out of 79 posts
Forum Jump:
1 User(s) are reading this topic (in the past 30 minutes)
0 members, 1 guests

Most active threads in past week: