Community Forums > Voobly General > Strategy Guides > Patrols and Patrolling: By Geenberry.

Patrols and Patrolling: By Geenberry.

 ScreaMo


Posted 14 February 2011 - 8:53 am
Entire guide created and tested by Geenberry/Ares/Lawliet (whatever you know him as). I take no credit for any of this, just posting what he likes to share. I have included a huge game pack of his showing his patrols being used in a simple map like CBA, so you'll be able to get a good grasp of it.

Patrols:

Patrolling is accomplished via pressing the “patrol” button in unit commands, and then left clicking on the location you want your units to patrol to.
The default hotkey for patrolling is ‘Z’.

Why patrol?

To begin this it’s best by asking this question:
Q. What’s the main difference between 40 ranged and 40 close combat units?
A. The 40 ranged all attack at the same time.

On the other hand, the 40 close combat units will all wander and try to attack, but only those that are next to their enemy will be able to.

What patrolling does is make units go “on top” of each other. That way on the same space you can have 3, 4, even 5 close combat units, attacking the same 1 enemy unit. Put simply, using patrol makes your close combat units much more effective.

Patrolling in practice:

Patrolled units will generally “target” the first enemy unit that “attacks” them. That’s why sometimes you will see patrols go by each other – the units simply did not detect the enemy, and therefore did not target anyone.

There are 4 stances that units have – Aggressive, Defensive, Stand Ground, and No Attack.
You can patrol units using any stance.

In order of strength, patrolling goes like this:
Aggressive > Defensive > Stand Ground > and last is obviously, No Attack.

Therefore, aggressive is the main stance that you will use in most of your gaming.

Defensive patrolling you can use when you want your units to stay around 1 general spot.. BUT if they see an enemy, they will chase after him anyway, so this one is not pointless… just hard to explain and takes practice to know when to use.

Stand Ground patrolling is how I first discovered patrols. I thought it was the only way you can patrol until I accidentally changed stances haha.
When I was beginning 1v1 CBA wars, I started to think that it was useless: Every time I used it vs any other stance I would get raped. Later however, I found a really cool way in which to use it.

Finer points of patrolling:

And now, we reach the finer aspects of patrolling, of which I think there are only two. The first, and possibly foremost point of which (and for which I am both loved AND hated among the CS community) is…. (drum roll please): runners.

Runners are units used solely for the purpose of distraction. In close combat wars, they “lure” enemy units away to give you a numbers advantage. In ranged wars, they are used by taking advantage of the bad accuracy of ranged units. A few runners are patrolled in between your army and the enemy, and are replaced when they die. All runners use No Attack stance.

No Attack patrolling was also my COUNTER to runners, when they started being used against me.
I would use No Attack stance, patrol with all my men, and when I got past the runner, and close to enemy, I would switch to aggressive stance.

This still remains as one very effective way in which you can use it.

The second point is the cool part I mentioned earlier – Stand Ground patrolling, which has three uses.

a) Instead of No Attack, I later began using Stand Ground stance. The reason for this is – in stand ground, your units still “target” the enemy units. So when you change them to aggressive, they already KNOW who to attack, where as in No Attack stance they must first target something.

b) Since they don’t attack until you tell them to, you can get more units closer to the enemy before you switch stances. This is just advanced micro; with time most should begin to see it.

c) This is a continuation of b, but here goes:
If my ally needs help, I will send my units(close combat) to him on stand ground patrol. This way they don’t get distracted by every single enemy unit along the way, AND if they get ambushed, they are already on patrol, so it’s simple to switch to just switch to aggressive and get the most effective use out of them, even in a situation where they will die anyway.


Navy Patrolling:

Attacking:

When chasing enemy, but your units on stand ground stance, and constantly re patrol. This will make the units even more clumped, and they will move more smoothly (WITHOUT REGROUPING WHICH SLOWS YOUR CHASE DOWN).

Stand ground stance is for them noticing/attacking less things such as docks (which keeps them more ordered), and every time they DO attack something meaningless, or even say 1 enemy ship, re patrol right away to keep them moving forward.

The anti-ballistics trick I showed you works here too.
Another anti-ballistics trick is: Micro one boat on the side. When the enemy boats fire, RIGHT AWAY you move the boat into a different direction, causing them to miss.

The reason why ballistics can be countered is: it predicts where the unit will go based on it's current path. Next it sends a arrow/cannon ball TO THE PREDICTED point. If you move your unit back, when they shoot 2 tiles forward, you'll make the arrows miss.

Defending:

When defending do really tight close patrols, by patrolling units close together. Do 15 re-patrols like so: (U = units, X = re patrol point)

UUUU
X (this kind of distance, in game)

When you do this, move them so that they will be facing the most likely enemy attack front. Ie, don't do something like this: (E = enemy)

||| EEEEEEEEEEEE |||
VV EEEEEEEEEEEE VV



_______UU
_______UU
_______UU
_______UU
_______UU
_______UU
_______UU

In the above situation, your units will get raped as he will have more vs less, EVEN THOUGH you have the same starting #'s.

Retreating:
Brahma asked this question, and I can't believe I did not address it-
You retreat in two simple, but VITAL steps:
1. STOP your units (X hotkey for me)
2. put units on NO ATTACK STANCE (O hotkey for me)

Then just click wherever you wanna go.

Reasons for this:
Patrolled units go to the point you PATROLLED them to. Stopping them releases the units from this "obligation". They no longer do anything and wait for next order.
No Attack Stance - Sometimes units will fight back if attacked. Probably a bug in AoC. No Attack Stance prevents that.

Here's the main guideline for all fights by which I play: (Not only navy, but everything)
1. Make all your battles More vs Less.

if you have 40 champs vs enemy 30 champs, and you fight, you will have 20 CHAMPS REMAINING, NOT 10. Numbers are EVERYTHING.

say you have 20 boats. he has 10 boats by your 20, and another 30 coming in support a screen away, FIGHT THE 10, then gb as soon as you see the larger army.

in big fights, try to come in from a front, like shown above. 40 vs 40, make it 40 vs 20. IF only for 5 seconds. that will give you the win.

2. If you think you lost, GB.

NEVER fight losing battles. ALWAYS save units. Each unit you save can then be later used to outnumber enemy.

Keep this in mind: When enemy is fighting you, it's because of (a) he thinks he won or (b) he has no other choice [protecting his and pockets fish; his vills, etc] IF it's A, think about GB. UNLESS you think you won the fight.


Geen's CBA Teaching pack = [You must login to view link]

Enjoy!
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 RIP_TridenT__


Posted 25 August 2011 - 10:24 am
i disagree with most of this
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 T3nchy


Posted 25 August 2011 - 12:22 pm
I dont, this is the guy i learn to patrol from many years ago and hes 100% correct
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 diablomasta


Posted 25 August 2011 - 4:38 pm
Things have moved on a bit but not much.

For beginners:
Its all well and good looking at recs and reading a tutorial but really its all in the practise, play as much as you can and try new strategies.

Now that I've played for a few months again, I look at this and say: OH thats what he meant duhhh.
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 Slenderblood


Posted 26 August 2011 - 4:26 pm
Maybe include some small .gifs to help explain but otherwise it is a fairly good guide.
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 [UT]Fareith


Posted 26 August 2011 - 11:50 pm
I learned patrol 5 years ago. Can't believe how much it helped. This has been a much needed guide for many players.
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 BMyers_


Posted 13 September 2011 - 10:00 am
melee units vs ranged units patrol really dont work as you said for example knight vs xbow i would rarely use patrol becuase the knight will not attack unless fired at by xbows and he will use the back shoot technique. what you want to do is try to run into the xbow as he is using the manual back shoot technique, kind of like you click in front of the direction the xbow move and when ur knight gets in the middle u attack. much more affective than patrol. and also never put your units on no attack stance there is no reason for this.
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 king_vanthom


Posted 13 September 2011 - 10:46 pm
Quote:
I learned patrol 5 years ago. Can't believe how much it helped. This has been a much needed guide for many players.
I taught you >_< and not by that stuff ,i taught you gsa style ;1st
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 _LC_Red


Posted 22 October 2011 - 10:16 am
Quote:
For beginners:
Its all well and good looking at recs and reading a tutorial but really its all in the practise, play as much as you can and try new strategies.
+1000
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 HulkHogan__


Posted 13 January 2012 - 10:37 pm
id make a guide to counter all of what he said, but then i wouldnt be unique xd
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 HulkHogan__


Posted 29 January 2012 - 2:05 am
I've always said I disagree with most of this, here's a few pointers why:


In order of strength, patrolling goes like this:
Aggressive > Defensive > Stand Ground > and last is obviously, No Attack.
- not for ANY RANGED UNITS

'All runners use No Attack stance.'
- Actually with civs like mongol,
koreans, spanish.. no, the best runners
you must control, no attack is useless 90% of the
time, as soon as you go back on yourself that is.
It's best to send your runner(s) alongside
your main army then keep changing directions diagonally
to mess up your enemys straight line attack, which in turn
for ranged units, enables you to flank your enemy on one side
and or use a numbers game, kind of.

'No Attack patrolling was also my COUNTER to runners, when they started being used against me.
I would use No Attack stance, patrol with all my men, and when I got past the runner, and close to enemy, I would switch to aggressive stance.'
- It's actually a massive fail, one mistake, one **** up and it's GG in an intense
match, I use stand ground vs runners, but I rarely need to because repatrolling
and stance changes are the key to perfect patrolling.

'a) Instead of No Attack, I later began using Stand Ground stance. The reason for this is – in stand ground, your units still “target” the enemy units. So when you change them to aggressive, they already KNOW who to attack, where as in No Attack stance they must first target something.'
- For the most part, I'm talking every civ practically, range wise, stand is better then aggressive,
unless some extreme flanking going on, you're entirely giving the wrong ideas here.

'b) Since they don’t attack until you tell them to, you can get more units closer to the enemy before you switch stances. This is just advanced micro; with time most should begin to see it.'
- Ranged units, changing stances last minute = fail,
Infantry/Cav units, changing last minutes is still a mistake,
the later you change the stances, the more likely the army is to freeze up and a patrol freeze = GG.

The navy patrolling attacking section is fine,
though i should add about flanking, if you're in a fair battle,
repatrolling on stand ground won't give you any good advantage, unless you totally
out patrol the other guy, in a GG id try for flanks to sides, change to aggressive on sides
and keep stand ground stop patrol in mid for a strong core.

Defending:

You never mentioned stop patrolling, this is a great
defence technique even for navy, only on stand , and very tite.

Retreating:
Well that's fine, but you failed to mention THE KEY TO RETREATING,
- Which is smaller groups, when you retreat if you have say 40
units spread out in the battle, they will be in 3 diff places, dont highlight them all
as 1 group and get back, have them get back seperaely, in 3 diff groups, that way they wont
regroup and you will save units, time and frustration.


I have played AoC CS at a top level for a long time, I have learnt , sadly, that micro is very specific to not only each civ, but each unit, yes, each unit. Patrols which work best for woads are different then samurais......... same as manguadis and mayans... by a BIG amount, I know the best for everything and in every situation with a huge experience in 1v1 CBA and micro maps, if you'd like some tips or practise, just message me when im online or inbox me. It's about time you guys learnt the truth about micro!!!!

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 [ A ]lVl0NsT3lZ


Posted 19 September 2012 - 8:38 pm
<3<3<3 but thanks i learned patrolling by others :(
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 17_King420


Edited 5 November 2014 - 12:21 am by kitt
The dude is correct and people that use this trick to me are "glitching" the game. I do not believe it was intended for people that just happen to know this trick but no one else to use it and be fair. The same point he makes about melee classes alot of you gays use for ranged units too. So if you have 5 melee stacked into 1 "space" and 5 ranged stacked into 1 "space" it ends up being the exact same fight. And pity the melee who doesn't use the trick but goes against a range who does.... Even less of a chance to win than playing straight up. This stupid trick can be used by melee or range for the same advantage so posting as if it's a melee solution against range is well....

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 DoMo_x


Posted 19 October 2012 - 5:11 pm
Huh i am 1700+ and I dont eve know all of this :O!
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 lucaspreviato10


Posted 16 February 2013 - 12:25 am
;spartan :@



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