Stophon4 is the first I've seen do this I think.

Link-1?
Link-2?

Never watched the recs but if thats true hopefulyl stophon and mokon will be able to help improve this even more

Look forward to trying this out

sounds pretty interesting.

time on getting the grens?
it sounds like it would take a while to get them if you need to ship wood, then gather from crates, then build the church, then research the techs+make sure you have pop...

Actually I had a set build order and then changed it when writing, last time I built a market and used it so I had perfect amounts of wood to build everything in time but flammifer advised agaibst it and said I find a new way, I've yet to test it, but its almost 5:00 so I need to go revise for a bit and I'll test it properly tonight and edit it k.

This is an excellent strat. I haven't had chance to try it online because I don't have the required cards but expert AI went down straight away.

This is to make this strat more aggressive and IMO more effective: (which I got from watching stophons recording), build a church while aging. When aging move ALL CbDs to food. You should have enough for when you age you can send off for young guard straight away. After thats finished if done well you should be able to send off for the medium guard straight away. I did anyway against expert. Don't build any CbDs in fort until you have enough for the naders. The wait isn't usually took long. You only need two cbds on gold as soon as you age for age 2 to get 300 in time. All you need to gather is 50 wood. Do so just before you age to 3. Build 2 houses and a church WHILE aging not after. It makes the attack so much quicker and effective. It really works. Instead of building a TP with the 400 wood, I build 2 houses, gather 50 wood and then build a church. Aim for age 3 from 7:15 - 7:30. Send your grens and your age up skirms and should be there around 8:30. Don't bother taking down outposts, just go straight for the TC. It gets taken down very quickly! You'll be able to take out any troops they have really when you get there, it'll be mostly infantry, they fly when they get hit, its class. I love this strat. Thankyou and stophon.

[This message has been edited by MoNo Ager (edited 06-01-2006 @ 01:10 PM).]

Thanks anger I'll edit the build a bit to do that

I like it especially because this is one of the few things the French CAN do but the Germans CANT :d

lol yeah, with good micro this could just beat the german merc ff and if done well you could damage enough to prevent ww spam , as raiding germans can be done.

You don't need free pop space to research the Grenadier techs.

Yeah but they do take up pop space, if your going to keep an attack alive, you need to build other military.

Against civs with good cav ships such as lancers I would not play this aggressively. In that case it is much better to defend or else you are committing suicide as the grens and skirms will die very fast to heavy cav with no anti-cav support. Otherwise, I really like the strat. Simple and effective

Would it be possible to get some good anti-cav earlier to help when the attack is launched? Like maybe ship 5 goons?

I don't play French very often, but I'm kind of curious about a couple of the cards in your deck.

I assmue that the early skirms there to fight off a rush. Do you have a different deck for when you play typically non-rushing civs (ie Ports, Dutch)?

The other one that I might change is the 3 Hussar card. Do you find you use it very often?

All the others seem okay, although I might be inclined to drop one of the mercs, but then again I don't claim to be some deck building genius either.

I'd use the 3 hussar card as defense against rush as most rushes are killed with simple raiding plus 3 hussars = dead nadier rush if anyone is stupid enough to try one against someone with that card.

Also remember that is just a basic all round deck you can always make other ones for specific civs such as the formentioned cav heavy civs or against defensive civs.

[This message has been edited by Destiny_Devil (edited 06-01-2006 @ 03:45 PM).]

I like this because if it doesnt completely finish them off it usually leaves them in a much worse position than you are.

whats the point of early skirms?

I tried shipping 5 dragoons and building some kuskets and owned a Spanish major.

-age up with the 400 wood politian and use it to build a tp and housing.
- Just before aging put 4 cdb on wood and then build 2 houses and a church before reaching fort, then put them back onto food

You won't have enough wood to do both. Maybe for different versions an aggressive and defensive version. I really recommend watching Stophons recording. It's very helpful.

Yeah I'm gonna test this out thouroughly now, and early skirms is to fend off rushes, I know I'd never rush someone with that card in their deck because it would get fought off too easy.

Iv lost to one of these recently

I was port and generally FF/boomed so I was ready to go to Industrial relatively soon. He FF as well but then the grens showed up in my base with some skirms :|

They destroyed my original TC and houses and barracks but i shipped Mamulukes but they wer a little late to save my TC and then i thought i would beable to bring the game round as i still had a decent amount of vils.

I went to advance to Industrial after gettin some goons but as i went to advance he was in industrial. After that he shipped mortars and heavy cannon and built some goons.

I held off the first attack but another followed straight away

So basically i think this strat managed to put me bak enough for him to get to Insutrial and overwhelm me.

I think it is a decent strat seems to work well enough but i have to say i wasnt really expecting it.

Actually, I've had the strat since December 5th, I just went back and used it since they made me play french. I'll post more about it later.

[This message has been edited by Stophon4 (edited 06-02-2006 @ 08:24 AM).]

Destiny_Devil,

About the Skirms, I don't have that card yet, but from the description, it looks like all it does is let you train skirms in Colonial. Is that correct? If that's the case, won't it take a little too long to really help vs a rush since you'd have to wait 40s to get it, plus the build time for the skirms, by which time your rax/houses/etc may be down anyway?

Maybe the other MM card or improved buildings or towers is better?

Just a thought.

hm might be a better idea caboto, but really you should see the rush is coming therefore have time to use it effectivley. but whatever flies your kite . Anyway stophon I'd really like your thoughts on my version of the strat seeing as you invented it before me.

Right i have 2 recordings now but don't know how to post them

It's good to see a French strat with the church tech! I don't think that'd widely used these days, so this is good. How do the timings generally stack up on this? Is it an ultra-FF? It'd be interesting to find out how quickly you can gather up that food and get those grenadiers out.

The one thing I'd look out for is anyone creating a large number of melee cavalry. An army of skirmishers and grenadiers would suffer against a decent contingent of hussars, uhlans, or (God forbid) lancers. Is there any way to work some anti-cav into this build to preserve your grens?

For recordings, I've used www.savefile.com in the past and it seems to work pretty well.