I watched recording number 2 and that was pretty impressive.

My only critique is that at the end of the game you had 4 shipments. If you were to use those on food/gold shipments this strategy would be much more powerful. I also think it is good because nobody expects a dutch rush.

All around i think it is a very good strategy.

Are you sending 5 grens at 5:45?

If there is a chance the cossacks or hussars could be waiting or arriving soon on the other end then it may be better to wait for the pikes as chaperons.

What civs don't normally have cavalry as colonial shipments? Spain, france, ports, brits, ?

[This message has been edited by rpcman (edited 05-20-2006 @ 08:01 PM).]

you should watch a replay.
as he says the pikes are seconds behind the grens. in the game i watched some ulans were there but the pikes arrived before even one gren died. also hardly any ppl send hussars as a default age 2 shipment to counter a rush. if they were to send it it would be only after seeing the grens, when the pikes are already there.

Someone tried that on me Friday, I belive, I was brits. He had pikes and grenadiers at 6 mins in my town, but they were no match for my 10 longbows and tc. I repealed wave after wave for about 20 mins, whilst raiding him with archers and he eventually resigned.

Game stats

[This message has been edited by George_III (edited 05-20-2006 @ 09:58 PM).]

dunno why he wasted all his res trying to beat you in age 2.

Yea this rush is too soft to surive, muskets, minutemen and TC, or calvary if you are germans. Maybe if you had help from an ally, then it coud be pretty effective.

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Ok well he's 1740 and you're 1900, so it's no surprise he lost.

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lol no it's not. recording 1 shows that 13 strelets, 7 cossacks and minutmen is no match. recording 2 shows that 4 uhlans, 9 xbows and minutemen is no match. Too soft? This rush hits so early that you can take each military shipment as it comes!

But guess what, I did finally lose against a Port Brigadier. I got one of his TCs down but he had natives and the Maya got me good. So while it's not soft, it's also not invicible. It just takes a much better player to counter it.

*applauds Jaafit's continued attempts to make Dutch competitive*

How's the recovery if it fails, by the way? Also, do you run into problems with housing? Lastly, you don't specify how many Grenadiers you train, 5, 10, even more than that?

Hm the key question for me is, what makes this gren rush so special for the dutch? Can't the british, russians and ottomans do it too, with better results at that?

this start is very effective, i used to do it pre 1.06(even pre 1.05 i think) and it worked for me, i high ranking ducth player beat me with it and i asked him to teach me it and he did, i won many games with it. this strat is a bit harder to pull of against a german because he will just ship 8 xbows to take out the pikes and then the uhlans from the shipments will kill the gren once the pikes are gone, but its still possible.

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yes they can but u dont expect a rush from a dutch player. so it makes it more effective.

am i wrong or get MM and vils a bonus against naders?

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MM, yes
Vils, not

Interesting strat btw. I may try it with my new Dutch HC

I use to grenaider rush more often. Most of the time i'd do it on a map like saguenay and send a fluyt instead.

A pure pike rush is 10 times more effective than any gren rush a Dutch can perform.

I had a Spaniard's TC down in 6:30 on Carolina. On normal maps that would probably mean 7:30-8:00, but its way faster than a gren rush.

Think about it, you have more flexibility because, if you encounter trouble, you can halt one wave of pikes and substitute it with a wave of skirms to combat whatever is thrown at you, and use the hussar shipment to wreak havoc among his vils. Gren rush=innefficient.

Wow, pretty good. That good because it rushes them probaly right when they build a barracks. 6 villagers? Wouldn't I need to gather 300 more coin to make them?

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Almost hopeless. It's rarely failed for me though. I've had wins where I didn't get the TC but messed up his eco so bad it didn't matter. In that case I ship 700w for a rax and continue harrassing.

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Nope, that's what the 400w is for.

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Just keep making them until the TC is down, or it's clear that you won't be able to get the TC down.

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Dutch get the ideal unit shipments to complement this: 8 pike and 3 hussars. 8 pike is needed for cav, and 3 hussars is needed to hunt vils. Only Otto can do this better with their 5 jan/3 hussar shipments.

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This may be true, but I would think that an xbow shipment would wipe out the pikes and while you might still get the TC, your entire army is then gone and what then?

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Dutch need gold to make vils so yes.

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Someone did this rush to me when I was Russia. I was able to counter it by sending 13 strelets and making MM, killing all his pikes then sending 5 cossacks to finish off the nadiers.

Game stats: http://www.agecommunity.com/stats/GameStats.aspx?loc=en-US&GameID=5c3fc1ef-a6a8-684c-bbe7-49d3ac00ee98&md=ZS_Supremacy

out of curiousity

why nadiers when you can have pikeman?

just tried it vs a fellow dutchy.

when you said no recovery, yeah...

i have a lvl 12 HC and no 700 wood in my deck so iw as screwed. this guy got hsi abnks up and just corraled me around my tc, thank god for colonial milita one shot killing pikeman. he beat me and at oen time he had only 3 vills D'OH, he jsut had a never ending stream of skrims, and i couldnt get to a get to age three, everytime i had the resoucrces he attacked, like he knew, and i had to get skrims and hussars.

good start though, worked on a spanish kid too(he was a corporal, im a major, but you dont find many good players while leveling up)

but aLl in all, a very good strat.

Quoted from ultimitsu:

i'm assuming to try to find a use for grenaiders.

I use grenadiers to finish up a base instead of falcs, why?
because I kinda hate ART and its kinda cool to see settlers flying hehehe

[This message has been edited by Kloza (edited 05-21-2006 @ 06:48 PM).]

I did some math on gren vs pikes and it turns out that thanks to cover mode, pikes are way better for their cost. They get 27% more siege per vil second, 53% more hit points per vil second, and while 5 grens and 8 pike @ 6min can deliver 186 siege dmg per second, 23 pikes (also possible at 6 min) can deliver 270 siege per second.

However, there are some pretty big advantages to using grens:

(edited for mistakes)
* You get 1500hp worth in one batch of 5 grens, while pikes only get 1200hp. (note: i'm using gren's ranged resist and pike's cover mode to calculate those).
* They don't have to get as close to a building to seige it, making running away from surprises easier.
* They do a lot more damage to enemy units, and they do this at range with an area of effect.
* A gren rush at sub-6 min can be done with a 13 vil eco, while a 23 pike rush only allows you 10-11 vils.

[This message has been edited by jaafit (edited 05-21-2006 @ 09:15 PM).]

* You get 3000hp worth in one batch of 5 grens, while pikes need 2 barracks to do that (200w extra) and only get 2400hp. (note: i'm using gren's ranged resist and pike's cover mode to calculate those).

- 3000 HP against TC fire, but 2000 against normal ranged units, 1000 against melee units, 500 against melee MM! covered pikeman is consistant.

* They don't have to get as close to a building to seige it, making running away from surprises easier.

- i give you that. but again pikes are faster.

* They do a lot more damage to enemy units, and they do this at range with an area of effect.

- they are only truly effective against xbow, skirms / longbow out range them too much, all melee units close in, cavalry slaughter them.

* A gren rush at sub-6 min can be done with a 13 vil eco, while a 23 pike rush only allows you 10-11 vils.

- it shouldnt be 23 pike VS 5 nadier + 8 pike, it should be 18 pike VS 5 nadier and 8 pike.

the way I see it, the only real advantage of them is the ablity to make 5 of them in one batch, but whether 13 vil can keep up is another issue. 900 res every 30 seconds is a lot to ask even with crates.

perheps make a bank with the aging wood and use that gold towards gold and then use more vils on food would help.

like an old argument agaisnt curs.

"the french can put 1500 resoruces into units in 30 seconds, i cant do that to coutner them"

and ina rush, every second matters, since a batch of grens>a batch of pikes, it helps. plsu in those tests you need to factor int he 8 pikes thata re helping the grens. because i beleive your using thsoe 8 pikes when you say "23 pikes".

I'm not saying that grens are better than pikes, but I do think people underestimate them as a rushing unit:

Grens are a siege unit and have 50% range resist, which means a town centre with 20 settlers will do a pathetic 45 damage per shot. Pikes have to use cover mode to get it to 90, but this makes them very vulnerable to melee attacks, it's also very annoying to get them in and out of cover mode.

Their siege range is nearly twice that of a pikemen, making it easy to run away from minutemen (which are really effective vs them)

They do much better against infantry than pikes, which is made a lot more than cavalry is in age 2. Cavalry is only a problem with russia.

They are pretty effective vs vills, certainly a lot better than pikes.