Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome Strategies
The Popular Three Town Center Start
Posted by _JaGuAr_LeaDeR on September 10, 2002.
This is the start I currently use for Hittite. I find I get a better economy while using it but I also do not get the land as quick as my old start. I will not be explaining what units to make, how to build, or how to get an economy.By now hopefully you know you start with three villagers and one town center. Immediately at the start make/queue 20~ villagers in your town center. After that select all of your villagers and make a row right next to your first town center consisting of a town center, then a storage pit, and then another town center. So now you should have in one straight line, one already built town center, another town center, a storage pit and then another town center. It gets tricky now, your villagers will try to make that last town center which is furthest from where they are standing. Don't let them built it! Order them to build the town center that is nearest your original town center.
Quickly now! Select just one of your villagers and send him off to start building your stables and such around the map. Now you'll have two villagers building.
Not to worry, another villager will soon appear, since you should have queued up 20~ in your first town center. As soon as he appears, send him to help your other two villagers build. Around this time your villagers will just be finishing your second town center. As soon as they do finish building it, queue up another 20~ villagers. Now you should have 20~ villagers queued in both town centers.
Now you will be working on building the ever important storage pit to upgrade heavy elephants. Obviously once the storage pit is built, research Iron Shield.
Soon the third and final Town Center will be built and guess what make another 20~ villagers in it! Once the third town center is complete, send your all three villagers to go help build your stables you should have been making with your first villager. Very soon you will have 2 more villagers will pop out, take one of them and make a temple near your town centers. When the temple is complete, make a couple priests. The priests come in handy for stopping rushes toward your town centers. With the other villager, take him and make houses.
At this point, I do not really have a set routine and you do not have to read any further if you already know what things to upgrade. You should have 20~ villagers queued in all your town centers, a temple with priests being built, and Iron Shield upgrading. After Iron Shield is done upgrading don't forget to research Chain Mail in the storage pit.
With the some of the next villagers that come out, send them to go help build, maybe make some siege shops or towers with them. If you're having a problem with the population limit, you can send some to help make houses.
The final thing you will want to do is make a Granary, Siege Workshop, Government Center(s), and Market.
My order of upgrades:
Siege Workshop:
1. Catapult
2. Heavy Catapult
Granary:
1. Guard Tower
2. Ballista Tower
Government Center:
1. Ballistics
2. Engineering
3. Alchemy
Market:
1. Siege Craft
2. Craftsmanship
3. Coinage
4. Irrigation (if I predict it will be a long game)
Here is the completed picture (it doesn't have to be this pretty and symmetrical).
Hopefully you understood all that. If not, you can probably just look at the pictures and figure it out.