posted 05-03-06 06:25 AM EDT (US)
First of all allow me to declare that I am NOT an expert Dutch player. I was simply interested in Dutch banks and explored a few ideas, along with exploiting a few other advantages of Dutch, I came up with this strategy. It may not be the savior for the weak Dutch as it is in 1.07 but I hope it will help you in some way, at the least from my limited experience it is better than most Dutch strategies I have come across, it is a bit similar to the 3 bank FF, but IMHO it is faster and better. --> Unlike most civ, Dutch can take full use of its starting gold, and Dutch has Game starts, put 4 settlers on hunt ASAP, 3 unpack gold crates, select TC and mash V. If you started with if 300 gold, leave all wood alone, if 400 gold, unpack 100 wood also, and build a house. Unpack food too, get everyone to hunt once needed crates are unpacked. Queue 3~4 settlers depend on your starting gold, put all settlers on hunt. Explorer on food treasure hunting, envoy on sheep + cow finding. if you want, you can eat them early, speed is everything here. It should be After clicked aging, move 3 settlers to gold. build a house if you have none, now queue settlers once you have gold. Time is now Generally I get second shipment ready before 700 wood arrives, so should you. Send 4 settlers next, ship 700 gold after that. Keep building banks, you should have 3 banks up by 6:00, then put all settlers on food, leave 1 or 2 unpacking gold crates. At this point you should have near no wood, very low food, and a bit of gold from the banks, how long it takes you to get 1200 food and 1000 gold depends on how many settlers you have, whether you eat herdables, and can your explorer find some food treasure. You will also max your pop at 20settlers, if you were lucky and started with 200 wood, or you found a wood treasure for over 50 wood, you can now build a house and keep settlers pumping, other wise you will be 50 short, it takes too long to chop, you might as well leave it. Use exile prince to get to age3. Time of arrival will be 7:15~7:45. You will have 1 shipment available and 1 more half way. 1, 2, Here is where my Dutch expertise runs out, and my Dutch frustration kicks in, despite having a blast of an economy, Dutch troops are amongst the worst in the game, you will have no option but win through larger army which is supported by superior economy. Fortress game is all about brutal force. At this point, I think apart from mercenaries, the most effective unit combination for Dutch fortress is veteran hussars + veteran pikes + falconets. Pikeman replace both Ruyter and Halberdier for anti-cavalry, cheap, fast, and can do siege if required. while hussars are necessary for raiding and cannon killing. However this combination means a very cool 850 wood require for a barrack, foundry and stable, then another very cool 800 to get hussars and pikes up to veteran. Skirmishers can be used backing up if opponent goes musketeers / janissaries / pikeman heavy, but generally you will face lancers, war wagons, dragoons, cassadores, strelets, longbows and abus-guns, so there isn’t much use for skirmishers. Halberdiers should only be used like a meat shield or anti raiding unit that stays at home. They are too slow for battlefield charge. Siege down all his houses and towers, then siege his town centre. Make skirmishers in between to cover pikes, ship hussars to keep his settlers garrisoned. This rush has been nerfed somewhat since the cover mode nerf. This approach is extremely strong against Portugal, as 90% time they will fail in protecting the building TC. Use that 400 wood on 1 barrack and make 5 pikes, send in 8 pikes, attack with 13 pikes at as early as 4:30. 700 wood next for more banks. Stronger impact on first wave, but likely to run out of breath + very difficult to keep constant settlers production. After hitting fortress, if you think he is accumulating troops, and not attacking early fortress, put most settlers on food and a few on gold, ship in 1000 wood next, build the 4th bank, a barrack and a foundry. You should get enough XP for next shipment. Now if you see him coming with cavalry raiding, send 9 ruyters; if he is still doing his own thing, send in 4 towers(you get 140 build XP from them too). Next shipment is fort. If you have more than 2 shipment accumulated, build a church if you have the wood and get UC, otherwise don’t bother. The point of UC is that you will have to send it at some point anyway, and now you can get instant 5 stridiots, unlike mercenaries that take 1 minute to arrive. Build culverins if you can see him coming in with falconets, build falconets if it is all infantry mercenaries. Build nothing if is cavalries, we have towers for that. Here is the thing, if you managed to not have to build anything, you should ended up with the required food and gold very quickly, Click aging, and wait for industrial. As soon as you clicked aging, start build decent defense, it is no point to get killed in the next 90 seconds. Once you in industrial, if you did not spend your shipments on other things, you should have at the least 1 shipment. You may have a lot of gold at this point, remember I told you to build a church? you can either spend 2000 on 30 guard musketeers(very good deal), or 1500 on mercantilism, mercantilism may only give you 2.5 shipment at this point, but that will still give you both factories and 2 heavy cannon, you decide. What separates this strategy to the rest? - Hit age2 very fast at 3:30, age2 shipments are used very early, provides very strong economy and flexibility The games were played on LAN, my opponent is not great, he did Russian FF and sucks at it :P But then again, this is just to show you how this BO works. I am not that great with Dutch either. Two of these recordings are FF and one of them is a pike rush. [This message has been edited by ultimitsu (edited 02-07-2007 @ 01:02 PM).]
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the fastest Age 1 start with 7 vils.
This game is called
Ship 700 wood and get hunting settlers to unpack the 400 wood crates and build a bank.
Instead of 4 settlers, you could send 600 woods towards TP/4th bank. It is somewhat risky, but useful against booming civilizations such as British. You will hit fortress slower but with more shipments and bigger eco.
In this case send 700 food next instead, because there will be surplus gold and not enough food.
you could just send 700 gold straight after 700 wood. This will give a faster fortress but weaker eco. Ship 600 wood next for foundry and houses. You would do this if you plan for an all-mercenary powered fortress attack.
Build only 2 banks, use the remaining wood from 700 wood shipment on 1 barrack and 1 house. Split 60% settlers on wood and 40% on food, new settlers on wood. Make pikes, ship 8 pikes next, they should arrive around 5:00, start the pike rush.
Upon arriving in age2, build 1 bank with the 400 wood, send in 8 pikes and start taking down houses, next send 3 hussars to raid settlers, then proceed as normal, it can turn into a all out rush or fortress + mercenary attack.
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After number of games going into industrial, I am at a point of wondering if it is a good idea after all.
Because Dutch don’t get immediate benefit from being in industrial, tulip speculation and 30 guard musk are the only good things going for it. after that, Dutch is stuck with 2 of the worst RG units in the game, and one of its best unit - pikeman, cant get the guard upgrade. if you failed to kill your opponent while he is still in fortress, i.e. you let him into industrial as well, then you will experience even further disadvantage through weaker troops and less help from mercenaries.
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- Save about 500~600 gold on the mines, because bank took over settlers production very quickly
- Explorer gains age2 stats earlier, he hunts better.
- 700 wood arrives at 4:10, opens possibility for rush
- Around 30 seconds faster compared to the old 3 bank FF
- Better rush protection compared to the old 3 bank FF
- Equal or better overall eco upon arriving age3 compared to old 3 bank FF
Strategy by Ultimitsu
Guns and Biers
British Anti-FF explosion
For TWC only Ottoman FF on non-water non-TP maps
For Vanilla only Dutch Fast Colonial Uber Bank
. I had the 5 Jans shipment coming in but cancelled it thinking I could advance before my TC is down. Was a bad move, because ~10 more Pikes came in and took down the TC before Fortress.