Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome Strategies
Mastering Hittite
Posted by _JaGuAr_LeaDeR on September 6, 2002.
Hittite is the most popular and most versatile civilization in my opinion. There are many ways to play Hittite and if you want to win you have to play differently versus different civilizations. In this article I will just be explaining what to make when playing against the most popular DM civilizations. I will be assuming the game is 1vs1 on Hill country with a population limit of 200. I will not explain how to start or how to build. If you are playing 2vs2 or 3vs3 with Hittite, one of your partners should be another civilization such as Choson, Roman, or Carthaginian. This way they can help you by giving you helepolis'.
Weaknesses:
- Choson legions can be overwhelming.
- Roman legions and support with siege can also be overwhelming.
- Egyptian can get annoying and usually become long games
Hittite vs. Persian:
I just want to get this one out of the way first. Persian is a joke of a civilization, I laugh when people say "no Persian". About the only time Persian is good, is when the map is small or tiny.
Beating Persian is very simple, all you have to do is make centurions as fast as possible. If you don't know, centurions own elephants. If you have never upgraded to centurions before, the upgrade for them is the first thing in the government center (I don't remember the actual name).
When you are building, do not build out like a normal game, build close to your town center. Play like the map is tiny. Your opponent will start off making lots of elephants thinking you will be making elephants. Soon he will realize he's getting owned and will probably attempt to make horse archers, catapults, and towers. Do not fear, centurions can kill horse archers, catapults, and towers semi-easily as long as there not in masses. You can tower yourself if you want but don't do it too early on, his elephants will kill them easy.
Normally centurions work very well and you don't even have to get an economy. Beware if the person knows your strategy, they will probably start off by making horse archers, then you could run into problems.
Hittite vs. Hittite:
When playing Hittite vs. Hittite, you will want to start off by making elephants and eventually getting heavy elephants. Towering heavily is not needed unless the game starts to get kind of long. Though towering is never a bad idea and always helps. After your elephant supply starts running out you'll want to bring out the heavy catapults. Also make good use of Hittite priests, even though they have no upgrades, they still are great for converting elephants and can help you quite a lot at the start.
Of course if game starts to get long, make scythes and chariot archers. Hopefully you will see a long game coming and will have upgraded your scythes fully. If the game is really long try to save 1 priest, hide him well, he can end up saving your units when resource get scarce.
Hittite vs. Choson:
I would suggest against playing Hittite vs. Choson. I would switch to Roman to play Choson, even if that does make you cheap for countering. The best Choson player vs. the best Hittite, the Choson usually wins. The only way the Hittite will have a chance is if the Hittite gets the extra gold pit and stone pit.
Anyway, if you feel the need to play Hittite vs. Choson, you will be playing defense most of the game. At the start make elephants and horse archers, and immediately start towering. Another thing to do at the start is to try and get the extra gold and stone pit. If you can actually gain control of the extra stone and gold pits you will have a much better chance of winning.
Towering heavily and getting Ballista towers (upgrade them quick as possible) is needed when you play versus Choson. You may also want to wall your back areas since Choson players will almost always try to hit on your weakest points (remember this). You do not have to get heavy elephants, but it wouldn't hurt. Getting heavy horse archers and scythes on the other hand is a must.
It is very difficult to play Choson, you will need to make a combination of units. Your opponent will more than likely make priests early on and convert most of your elephants, so do not make too many elephants. Instead concentrate more on towering and keeping your horse archers in with your towers.
Hopefully you will be able to hold them off and now things will settle a little. If it does, bring out heavy catapults which you should have gotten. You can begin to move your way out and start killing some of your opponents towers which have probably been built near you. Be sure to support your catapults with towers and/or horse archers.
Hittite vs. Carthaginian:
This probably won't happen a lot in a 1vs1 but you never know. The thing you have to know when playing Carthaginian is that they will be making lots of elephants and trying to find and kill your siege before you can get a large mass of heavy catapults. Once you get a large group of heavy catapults, the game is over.
Pretty much you just have to play like you would vs. Hittite (scroll up). The only difference is that you need to hide your siege shops good. This is very important, if you are unable to get heavy catapults, you're done. Towering more is also a good idea when playing Carthaginian. I cannot stress enough, as long as you get a lot of catapults you should win.
Hittite vs. Roman:
There's nothing more I hate than Roman, they are the most annoying civilization to play. They are actually the strongest 1vs1 civilization in my opinion but they are rarely played. I personally have only played this a couple times, and it is difficult to say what to make because Roman is such a great civilization 1vs1. In team games on the other hand Roman loses there advantage since Hittite is usually supported by Carthaginian or Choson, which have helepolis' and can keep Roman legions and scythes at bay.
Since I'm not totally convinced on any method on how to beat Roman, I would say just read the Hittite vs. Choson strategy, the only thing you will have to do different is get siege earlier. You won't have to worry about priests when playing Roman but rather helepolis' instead.
Hittite vs. Egyptian:
Playing this is just annoying, the games are usually quite long. I recommend not playing on a bigger than medium for 1vs1 if you're playing against Egpytian. If the map is large or huge, they can get a huge amounts of wood and you cannot cover it all and will develop weak spots. Me and 2FaSt played a four hour game once where I was Hittite and he was Egyptian. Neither of us could kill one another, it was really a draw but he was too stubborn to officially say it was a draw and I ended up just resigning to go to sleep.
Okay enough about me, playing Egyptian is semi-simple. Start off by towering and making horse archers and work your way up to heavy horse archers and ballista towers. Scythes, chariot archers, and heavy catapults will also be needed later. Also attempt to take your opponents wood
After you have secured some land, start integrating chariot archers with your heavy horse archers, this will help conserve resources since more than likely it will be a long game. Scythes are good for offensive and killing Egyptian priests. When its quiet, move out a couple of your catapults out to kill towers since they have probably towered have. Make sure your catapults are supported in the back with archers and have scythes in the front to kill the priests that are sure to be coming to convert. Be careful and don't take too many archers away from your base area.
Most of the game you should be on the defensive but you should use your cats to try and slowly wear your opponent down.