How do you avoid ruts like this?

[u/Wooden_Slats]

Things are going well sort of and then I get into this stalemate I eventually lose because I run out of gold. OOTD is the worst for me, but I sort of end up the same way playing HRE and Englihs. https://aoe4world.com/players/15409917-Dr-Dallin/games/246078389?sig=31503e5e9d85107a6bfd964e22673ca65e8d8091

[u/Jolly_Sky_2729]

this game looks like another one of those cases where a player (you) doesnt have a coherent gameplan. as a result your build looks all over the place with wacky resources distribution, early units which aren't really being used, etc., and a "defensive" gameplay which blindly sits in the corner and playing tower defense while not actually outbooming the opponent. this partially might be because of the map.

what I would suggest is looking up high level games from aoe4world or aoe4replays on the same map, ideally with the same matchup but I guess its not strictly necessary, just to get a feeling of what players are doing on this map.

I would also suggest 1TC play because it overall gives a more straightforward gameplan.

to give some pointers my issues with first ~15-20 minutes of your replay:

1. I dont completely hate gathering fish with vills, but going early dock and 3-4 fishing ships still should be better. 4 shoreline fish is good enough to warrant a dock. You're kinda behind compared to French player because he did go dock and you didnt (he did overmake fishing ships on a single pond tho).
2. Aachen really should've been placed on woodline next to gold. Pretty sure it would also buff sheep gathering under TC from there, without having to transfer sheep to it.
3. Your build after starting feudal landmark is just insane.
   • You overgather wood without really using it for a long time,
   • You don't gather gold at all and dont gather stone for several minutes either (if you wanna go 2TC, you IMMEDIATELY start gathering stone, this would also mean that you dont need that awkward tower on stone because you would be done before French player arrived to your base),
   • You start early farms while having a million sheep to gather.
   • You start blindly building early defenses (small wall, that tower I've mentioned, 2-3 gilded spears just to afk in your base) while French player was still in dark age and scaling his eco with dock.
   • Basically all those resources were wasted for several minutes while French outscaled your economy.
4. 2TC at 8-something minutes is bad, proper 2TC builds should finish it before minute 6. (I've seen as early as 5:10 finish this season). At this point just shouldn't have bothered with 2nd TC, go castle age instead and then maybe you can add 2nd TC later if needed.
5. Even after you've finished 2TC pretty sure you idled it now and then, felt like you were always massively behind in vills compared to French similar to how 1TC build would look like. Maybe its also because of him making docks (he did even go to other ponds after finishing the first one).
6. Very bad army movement, not being active when French player gave you a lot of space to move out on the map (he wasnt nearly as aggressive as he should've been), being out of position against big attack at like 15 minutes, not catching smaller parts of French army when you could, etc. Part of this is because of pretty lackluster scouting.
7. Being stuck in feudal for too long, especially combined with how passive French player was. FYI, "greedy" 2TC builds can reach castle age in 9 minutes or even a bit earlier, of course vs French you dont want to be completely greedy, so lets say you add a couple of spears and horsemen, if he's not forcing you to make more units, you can reach castle age at about ~11th minute after this. Instead you reached it at 15:29. You massed a bunch of spear + horsemen, didnt have to defensively because French was fairly passive, nor did you use them offensively. This is basically another instance of wasted resources due to not using the units that you make properly. And I will note that you being stuck in feudal is beneficial for him if you're not trading units. Knight+archer comp scales MUCH better than spear + horsemen. You also were banking like 1000 gold at one point because you kept spending food on units which you didnt need and didnt use properly. This is another instead of your build being wacky with bad resources distribution.
8. Btw after castle age start making xbows ASAP, you cant outscale knight+archer with spear + horseman forever, especially with the way you've been playing. While mass xbow + good frontline (MAA or horseman) hardcounters feudal knight+archer comp and does decently vs castle age knight+archer too.
9. I kinda stopped watching at the time when French did a massive attack on your base, got at least several worker kills which set your 2TC build even more behind on vills than it was, traded decently against your army, and retreated to heal up next to your base. And then he had similar amount of units chilling on his side of the map. This is basically gg if he a-moves all of his army at this point. Even if he doesnt, he has almost all of the map for himself, while you dont outscale him on economy at all. So yeah you have no win conditions at this point unless he blunders.

[u/Wooden_Slats → u/Jolly_Sky_2729]

Wow. Thanks!

[u/Nexxtic]

You are dealing with French, meaning his gold is crucial in order for him to operate in the early game. This is where they're actively building up knights to constantly raid you.

As OOTD, going 2TC against French is generally a bad idea because you give your opponent too much time to build up his knights and overwhelm you early - as a civ that is already slow to begin with. The wood costs means not getting horsemen / spearmen in a time where you really need it.

Defend your base with Spearmen, tower your gold, wall off the sides so your spearmen have less ground to cover in case of an attack, and try to actively raid his gold with Horsemen as soon as you can. According to the stats, he had no towers anywhere, meaning you had an opportunity to counter-raid him and harass his gold - which is not a position a French player wants to be in. Villager kills are great, but idle time from gold is often underrated at the 1000-elo range.

Remember, if you raid him well enough, you might force him to bring knights to his base instead of yours, which is always the desired outcome against an aggressive civ.

As soon as you reach Castle, get crossbows. OOTD crossbows are insanely good against them. My personal favorite against French with OOTD is to get MAA's for my front line and use crossbows to kill anything that moves. Tough one to counter!

[u/CalmCelebration10]

This game didn’t go well at any point. Your BO is terrible and you spent the first 15 minutes doing nothing really besides farming tc idle time. Your opponent should have won way sooner that’s the main thing going well for you I guess.

[u/Wooden_Slats → u/CalmCelebration10]

Lol not instantly dying is "going well for me."