As British, I can have that army at 9 mins, no earlier... how can you do that?

Advanced Church. You probably have 11 Highlanders in your version. You also likely aren't building any tradeposts (which I've noticed of most British players)

Hummm that's a wonderful idead... I'll check it out, thanks.

[This message has been edited by George_III (edited 04-11-2006 @ 09:55 PM).]

Wow, someone else uses this too? I like this build order a lot -- it's now my primary play with the Brits. Among friends, I've been calling it BWKiC for short (for "Black Watch Kick in the Crotch.")

You've listed the two civs that are the most difficult to use it against, with Spain being by far the worst. Germans are a pain because of the 7-skirmisher politician, but this is less of a factor if you hang back at your base.

If your build is the same as the one that I came up with, it requires one single trading post. Therefore I've found that this doesn't work at all on bayou for me. If you've found a good way to pull this off on bayou, we'd love to learn about it.

Great Plains was also rough and I avoid this strat there. I simply can't stand not taking a Lakota TP, and this falls apart when I do so. I find that otherwise my tail's really hanging out to the wind trying to get all of the food and wood this strat requires.

At my level of play (quite mediocre) this is sufficient to hold off a hard-charging Spanish FF's initial push. After that, good play is of course a must! I'd love to hear your experiences.

The "experimenting" part means I'm developing it offline. I normally like to have practice with a strat long before I face a human opponent with it.
I'm normally an Ottoman (62), Dutch (47) and Portuguese (30) player on ESO, you see . But I just looove those British Highlanders, their ability to have 19 of them pretty fast, and the Hessiah Jaeger division (did everyone know that its cost drops from 1500 to 900 gold when using the cheaper mercs card?) plust Hessiah Jaegers for 27 of them. However the only times I've played British was against friends on a LAN, where I normally did a colonial manour boom/turtle.

But I decided to see if a FF is actually workable.

Yes, I must've stumbled on your build order, 'cause mine too requires building a trade post during the age up to Colonial. The 500 food politician helps quite abit as well.

In regards to Great Plains, that's where I actually got my best result, with all of the above forces being ready at 7:58 (Falconets arrived last). Without the Falconets I have my 2 Pikes, 8 Highlanders and 5 Longbows by 7:30 tops.

So anyone have any idea what's the best way to proceed from there? I have about 700-1000 food usually at that point, only enough wood to build Barracks, Stable or Foundry and start training troops, taking advantage of the queue training. I only have about 50-100 gold at this point as well. So far I see my option as:

1. Put 1/2 villagers on gold, set up a barracks and start training Muskets (upgrading them when the wood is available).

2. Put 2/3 villagers on gold, build a couple manours, wait for the 11 Highlanders.

3. Put 1/2 villagers on gold, build stable, start training Hussars.

4. Leave 5 villagers on food, the rest to wood and gold, build artillery foundary, start training Culverins (2) or more Falconets.

Going with option 2, I would send the cheaper Mercs card while gathering the 900 gold. This card ends up saving 1100 gold if I just send 11 Highlanders, 12 Jaegers, 15 Jaegers. If the game goes to Industrial and I send a Merc Army, that saves me another 500 gold (1600 total). I believe it's worth it.

But where do you find all the wood for a TP, church, stables, foundry...?

Ender, the trouble I ran into on Great Plains was generally the native rush or raids. With a very limited amount of close food and close wood on this map, I found myself having to spread out more than I'd like. Lakota \ Uhlan raids made me very nervous. As Brits on this map, I have a strong tendency to flip out and play like crap.

George, it appears that Ender's ideas about what to do after fortress could be a bit different from mine, as he's looking to build military buildings fairly quickly (which I have typically not done.) As for wood, the trading post is the most painful part. This has to be chopped during discovery age unless you are on a turbo map such as Carolina. The wood for the church comes during the transition to colonial and therefore does not slow down your time.

I personally lean toward going heavy on wood production and house booming once I hit fortress in order to accelerate my shipments. Unless Ender's build is a bit different, you're likely to find yourself housed after shipping falconets and highlanders.

I've been meaning to write this strat up for a little while now in the hopes that it can benefit more highly-skilled players than myself. I've got a few recorded games that go with it... I'll try to dig those up and maybe post a BWKiC thread with all of the details.

By 8:00 you ONLY have one Trade Post and Church built, you should just be getting enough wood for a Stable OR Foundary OR Barracks. You won't be able to build all three, or even two of them.

Hmm interesting FF build, I never thought of that!

By that time it depends on who you're playing versus. Also scout.

Assuming that your scouting is crap (which I sure hope not) against spain bring out Hussars, they will come out faster than culvs and stand a better chance against lancers. But be sure to have falcs knock out pikes. If you're desperate, landers for the pikes too (and rods if he has any).

The 7-skirm shipment from germans... again, stable for hussars.

When you talk about the cheaper mercs card saving you gold, it really doesn't matter versus spain or germans. Remember, this is more like thinking in the long run sorta thing and you can't afford to think in the long run... You want the fastest army possible, and I believe that stable and hussars is the way to go. Actually you can merge the two tactics and just send highlanders a bit later, but I haven't tried that.

Either of these can be replaced with a TP on a lakota settlement to help mitigate the Great Plains problem... in exchange for having bad settler placements, you get better cav, and assuming that you played ATP some more wood saved.

Speaking of ATP do you use it in this particular build? The problem would be finding a time to slot it in though...

[This message has been edited by Twinleaders (edited 04-10-2006 @ 09:19 PM).]

When fighting Germans with this strat on Great Plains, my first Colonial shipment will be 6 Muskets (can affort the later time, since German FF isn't as fast as Spanish). Having 3 Muskets in two food gather sites should discourage those 2 Uhlan raiders. If they're stupid enough to attack anyway, 3 Muskets + the Settlers do short work of them.

5-7 Uhlan raiders will pose a pretty big problem, though. One would have to upgrade villagers with Great Coat and have all the 6 Muskets in a single hunt site. Actually, now that I think about it, it's probably safer to go with 6 Muskets in a single site just incase.

I don't actually chop any wood at all in Discovery. I put 10 villagers on wood right after I press age up to Colonial. I get a Trade Post pretty fast this way.
I then repeat the same thing during the age up to Fortress and build a Church. It's usually ready just as I hit Fortress so I ship Black Watch ASAP (Advanced Church card is sent after the 700 gold).

Basically the card order goes:

3 Villagers
700 gold
Advanced Church
2 Falconets

I don't get housed by the Falconets 'cause I have a pretty weak economy of 17 villagers. But you gave me an interesting idea. I just might be able to house boom with the protection of the Longbows, Highlanders and Falconets if I send a Fort as the next card ...
Something to try anyway.

Now my only problem is getting the required cards online. My British HC on ESO is a whopping level ... 2 .

Haven't been able to work in ATP, but don't think its worth it anyway, since it saves me about 300-400 wood at most. If I could afford to send another card, I'd probably send 700 wood or Virginia Company (early, probably while stil in Discovery).

Early scouting I find to be a problem. I need the explorer back in my base the second I have 250 wood for that Trade Post . Later on the explorer is free though.

I think you're right, Twinleaders, with regards to Hussars against Spanish. God help me if the Spanish guy gets Highlanders or Swiss Pikes before he attacks ...
Against Germans I'll probably wait for the Highlanders, since either Landsknecht or Black Riders are guaranteed to be present.

Maybe more Falconets is the best option overall. No way of knowing until I can practice this online.

This strat seems really interesting... good job Ender!

I can't wait to try it tomorrow...

[This message has been edited by George_III (edited 04-10-2006 @ 09:51 PM).]

Ender, when I'm facing the Spanish FF I do indeed drop my fort ASAP. The fort buys you quite a bit of time while you get things cranked up. When you're against Spain, time is the only thing you can really hope for.

So you're thinking 6 musketeers on Great Plains? That could be. I generally really hate that shipment, but it's worth a thought.

You ou take your wood during colonial? That sounds interesting. I do it a bit differently. I rely very heavily on shipments so I like to have my TP up as soon as I can. Also keep in mind that the Spanish player will probably be looking to eat your explorer with his dogs. Having your explorer get turned into Puppy Chow at the wrong time can ruin the entire plan.

I play Brits all the time and I would love to see your build order for this if you don't mind sharing your secrets. Also what you set your vils on IE 5 wood, 12 food....that kind of thing.

After that army is set up by the 8ish minute mark, I would send the 1000 wood card to either make a lot of manors to catch up with vill production or even plop down another TC for vills and a bit of map control. Heck, if its the right map, you could even crank out some fishing. Keep your army on defense and stretch the game out. Throw in a few culvs if need be. As for the level 2 brit thing, whisper me in eso (heystopthat) and we can play some XP games.
P.S. Damn, this makes me want to go back to Brits. XD

Caius, I posted a full write-up of my BWKiC build order here. It sounds like Ender might do things a bit differently, and I'd be interested in how he's approaching it.

This strategy is awesome I've used it three times after reading joes thread earlier today and it pwns mine is a little slow I need to try fix my speed. I'll be using it a tournament pretty soon too. any general tips on how to speed it up. (my fortress time is only about 8 minutes) any help appreciated

Damn, I find it impossible to do this before 8:30 without using the 500 food politician . Which I won't get until my Brit HC on ESO is level 40 (!).

Also, getting that army by 8:00 highly depends on the tradepost XP amount. The maps where XP trickles in by 40-52 points tend to make you wait for that Falconet shipment, delaying their arrival by as long as 9:00. However on the maps where you get 100+ XP from a single "drop" you tend to already have the shipment right upon reaching Fortress.

Hi Ender, maybe give the BWKiC build order a shot and see if it helps your times at all. You should be able to hit times around 8:00 on reasonable maps (if you're just playing single-player without the pressure of combat.)

lol my brit hc is lv 80. ender just have some exp games with a friend until its lv 40.

Also joe and ender any advice to improve using my version of the bwkitc I hit at roughly 8 minutes, what time should I be hitting fort at and how can I improve my time to do so. thanks