Here are the multiplayer tips, these I hope will help in the conquest of the Zone!! Also these tips contain the tips from Ensemble Studios and Microsoft. Hope they help....

Weapons of Choice:

Being able to choose your favourite combat unit is a function of game experience, style of play preferances, and knowlage of the Unit Attribute Table, found on the back of the fold-out Technology Chart. Expirienced players often find that being successful with a particular unit in the past makes it a favourite in the future.

I would just like to include a few of my favorite tips and strategies I use on the Zone. I have been playing since about March, 1998. I am certainly not the best player on the net, but I usually can hold my own against Intermediate players. I use primarily one strategy, the fast bronze rush. I find that it is much harder to defeat a player after they have had the time to upgrade and build a defense.

I am using the Shang civ right now, as they are the fastest due to the lower villager cost. I concentrate on a heavy rush of cavalry, the sooner the better. Sometimes I will throw in a few chariot archers, but cavalry are the best units to use for a bronze rush in my book. A mixture of both is good.

Iron age is a different story. I do not play with the same units in iron age all the time. You have to see what the opponents are using and come up with the best way to defeat them. If they are using catapults, do not try to attack with archery units. You WILL loose that battle. Against cats or helepolis, you must use either an Infantry unit, such as hoplites or swordsman, or a cav unit, to get up there fast and be inside of the minimun range those seige weapons need. On the other hand, if you face slow moving units such as elephants or academy units, hit them with helepolis or horse archers. When the enemy gets close, run away. The horse archer is the fastes unit in the game, bar none. stay close enough to shoot, but far enough away that they can't hurt you. As you can see, there are many different angles of approach here.