I have watched most of the games posted by Soccerman and Sporting, and they seem to get very good age times of 4:15 and less with China. If I ship 300F, I usually hit Age 2 at 4:35. Would anyone be able to provide some basic tips on helping me age faster? I assume my problem is with my micro of the villagers.

I have attached a recording of my basic steps when aging. I usually do:
-3 vills to hunts, 3 on crates
-1 vil to build a village
-1-2 vils to herd a hunt toward the TC
-300F as first card shipped
-4 vils to build the wonder which finishes at 4:35

Thank you,
~Vint

I will watch when I get home. Herding can be a HUGE part of age up time reductions since villagers loose less seconds from walking to gather their next hunt. Not sure if that's your problem, but it's something that gets me sometimes.

I can tell where you went wrong in the first 60 seconds.

Couple of tips and stuff you can fix easily, IMO.

Three to hunts - pop them through your TC if you're going to use the three furthest from the hunts. It's what I usually do.

1 vil per crate to collect. Keeps them from bumping into each other. I advise you shift-click 2 of them to keep them from going idle and going straight to your hunts. After all the food crates are collected, only have 1 collect the wood crates and then have that same one build the village if you are going to go 300 food card age-up.

Collect that 90 food treasure. That's at least 10-20 seconds shaved off alone.

No need to herd on this map or at least not the elephant. Doesn't really do much for you since you can make villages anyway. Fast age-up/rush isn't about herding (at least not prominently).

Once an animal comes closer to your TC (on asian maps for sure), kill that animal and make that your way-point for your TC.

Last but definitely not least - move your goat to the village and eat him as soon as the 300 food crates ship.

Psst - keep your monk active. He's a treasure hunting dude

Thanks for the help with the villager micro; it shaved about 10 seconds off of the age time.

I probably should of mentioned it, but I don't collect the food treasures when testing my age time so I don't mess up the average values.

Once again, I appreciate the help.

~Vint

China should make a point of looking for food treasures early - and eat that goat!

Ruminator has no love for goats

I__CHAOS__I wrote:

Ruminator has no love for goats

Too right - they have beady eyes and look at you funny - bloody evil if you ask me!

I tend to save the goat for later, I find that it doesn't make that much of a difference...

task goat to a village, ship 300 food, take 2 vills task to goat when 300 food is halfway sent, when have 800 food task 4-5 vills to build wonder ( usually summer palace for both nice rush start of ff ) altho the 4-5 vills may be a bit overkill, you will certainly age faster and with left over food from first card, you can que more vills, i'm waiting for this fanpatch to arrive, china and the ability to train banner armies out of the block house from consulate will be a nice start, not have to use a village as a fb for shipments and 200 wood saved by not having to building a war acadamey will be great

Maybe I have missed this somewhere along the line...

But why the heck does China start with a goat????

LMAO!!!!!

Drew - So they can use their villages early on, basically.