How do you make a TP and house at the outset as dutch?

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Wtf?

Some of this isn't making much sense to me, perhaps you could explain a bit?

And isn't stadhouder 2000 coin?

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Get my point, lol? Too many ifs.

You gather coin in age 1...thats bad. It slows you down too much.

As Dutch, you either need constant vil production throughout+1 bank before hitting colonial (without mining coin), or vils from coin crates, not constant, but more banks after hitting colonial. (IE instead of two or three, three or four.)

I recommend building a bank before a TP. Once you get good at it, you can get a bank up during the transition to Colonial, a TP and another bank in Colonial, and a 3rd bank in the transition to fortress/early fortress. I'd then get another bank up as I was about to hit Industrial around 10 minutes.

I always find food to be a bigger problem than wood during a dutch FI. You need 5450 food for 3 banks and Age IV. That is a lot of herding, since you have almost NO map control for the first 10-11 minutes.

stadhouders are 2000 coin yes, but you need 3000 because of the stradiots. You can always skip them if you don't need them.

Yeah your colonial time will be slow at the start because you need some tps (2 recommended)

Also, no strategy is flawless, as I'm sure you know, and every strategy has its own disadvantages. If you win with the Stadhouders... Imagine if I had said When, wouldn't I receive a lot more criticism? Every strategy has its own 'ifs'.

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Yeah, but who attacks at 12+ minutes?

With this, I think you'd be getting stadhouders around 13 minutes...and Stradiots another minute or so.

IMO, if you're attacked before 12 minutes, you'll never get the coin out. 30 muskets won't save you from falcs.

And really, the bane of this would be ranged cavalry with massed LI.

Think about it, you only have 2 HC, and 15+ dragoons eat HC alive. The skirms? You have nothing to effectively counter the skirms, your own skirms merely break even with his, ruyters simply run around aimlessly when trying to kill skirms, and muskets are just slaughtered by skirms. You're counting on a shipment of 2 HC to combat skirms, thats not good. Especially if he has a couple culvs, or a lot of ranged cavalry (ranged cavalry is common nowadays)

30 GUARD musketeers won't save you from falcs? What avout the 5 Balkan Stradiots, I'm almost certain they can. What about 22 ruyters? I just told you, no strategy is flawless. Does Ender_wards FI attack before 13 min? I can have my geezers ready for -13. 2 Heavy Cannon would also pwn falcs. I But if I was rushed then yeah, I would die, but i would't be stupid enough to use it if I slightly supsected a rush. As soon as you hit Industial you should have 2000 coin which acts as insurance, you can instantly summon up 20 guard musks and any colonel militia if you sent it.

I have a picture but I couldn't get it on because I'm crap.

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Dragoons. Dragoons kill ruyters, stradiots, and HC. Skirms and falcs kill muskets. Culvs, if there are any, kill HC as well.

How do muskets save you from falcs?

Whatever, you can play your strategy. You ignore half my post and reply to one sentence, lol...

your not gonna be able to stop those cannons if he uses them, he'll just meatshield them

ok then skirms wtf pwn musks and dragoons pwn HC. I'm so stupid I just wouldn't think of putting my musks right next to my HC. And as im so nooby I wont get my ruyters to attack the goons as well. 2 blasts from a heavy cannon would kill a lot of his skirms, but it all depends on how well people micro. If you don't like it then don't use it, you can have it for breakfast for all I care, the only thing i can say to you and all your statements is that not every strategy is flawless. And I'm pretty certain I know what your next thread will be, so don't bother if its more of the same.

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Yes.

But don't mind Mist. He loooooves playing armchair general.

no strategy is without flaws, but some has less and some has more, some has minor ones and some has majors ones...

your strat:

1, rather slow and inefficient age1.
2, rather slow age2 as well, 2 shipment required, which means you will be there for 1:30+, meaning a fortress time of...8:30+ ?
3, with such slow fortress time, lets say you only do it to opp who doesnt rush in age2, although counting on such is a risk, but lets say we take it. however you can not expect him not to attack in age3 either - you have zero defense in age3.
4, after clicking aging to age4, you trying to gather a whooping 4500 gold and you have to wait for a few shipments to come in, with your BO, on a normal map, i dont think you will pull everything togather by 14 minute.

but of course I would love to be proven wrong if you can show us a replay that demostrate the described speed.

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Right, thats why I have a level 42ish Dutch HC and I created a strategy for them.

Right.

yeah, maybe it isn't great. It has a few too many flaws

I can assure you Ultimitsi, it CAN be done, because I have a picture of it, but I don't how to get it on, so sorry, you will just have to take my word for it. :P

This strategy in a nutshell: if you can survive that long then I am almost certain you've won.

What's an armchair general?

I would like some criticism in favour of it at least, I'm feeling EVERYONE doesn't like it (which they probably don't)

Playing armchair general is basically when you talk without any experience in it. For example, if I went into a russian strat thread and critiqued it, and said "this could be better" etc. without having any experience as russia, I would be playing armchair general.

I will settle if you can provide a replay against AI - I just want to see if you can do it int he time you describe.

on a normal map, new england for example.

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Yes, putting you right up there with the OP

Constructive criticism:

1) 2 TP's pre-fortress?? You'll either be very slow to fortress or won't have banks up quickly, which is absolutely key to Dutch success. There's no way to gather 500W for 2 TP's+1050W for 3 banks+200W for 2 houses+2000F+2000G for aging+vils and make it to fortress at a reasonable time.

2) Use the fort as your first fortress shipment. That way you at least make them pull back and get cannons (more than the 2 shipped), giving you some time to pull this off.

3) Take out shipments you aren't planning to send. 4 villagers is a great shipment, but if you aren't going to send it in colonial, other shipments later on (fort, factories, HC, mercs) take priority.

4) Take the 1k food card instead of the 1k coin card to help you make the jump to industrial. It's much faster for a Dutch to gather 1200 coin than 2000F

5) If you're going to FI, mercs and merc armies are VERY helpful, and affordable with a gold-run economy. You don't have any merc cards listed at all.

Overall, I think a Dutch FI strategy has some potential. However, the Dutch strength is in mid fortress, after the shipment wars have stopped. A proper Dutch strategy can have a 10-15 villager econ advantage over (non-British) opponents when banks are counted in. The longer the Dutch player doesn't capitalize on this, the longer they let the other player catch up and surpass them economically by booming from multiple TC's.

Quoted from jaafit:

LOL

note: OP means Original Poster.

Machiavelli_IUB, maybe mercenary armies would be better.

I think maybe a more realistic version of that strat is to only send 2 HC in age 4, so you dont have to wait for the other shipment, but you can still get the Stadhouders and the Stradiots out for -12 min. You will als have aging up military.

Ultimitsu, sorry, but I can't get a picture on.

im still a noob, but i always like reading and trying out new strats so i dont think your strat is terrible.

JArnick, if you were to do my strat do a normal FI with the Stadhouders and ship 2 HC, I'm thinking that would be better now

I think in most games ppl drool when they see that they get matched up vs dutch. Right now, they are a bit UP and can be a easy victim to a well executed rush. With this build order, I think most people will rush/raid you early. Without any defense, I don't think this would work on most games.

Currently, the best dutch strategy I've found is doing a very early age II (less than 4min). I think both Ender and Ultimitsu have posted variations on this (The FCUK stategey I believe?).

I love sending in 8 pikmen to tear down a few houses, or the Port's 2nd TC. It just isn't what people expect from the dutch, and thus I find it puts people on their heals and then gives you time to build a few banks and get off to fortress with a strong economy.

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I would also recommend taking out the Bank of Rotterdam and Bank of Amsterdam cards. The unique church card (which will give you 2 banks, albit at a very steap price of -10% speed) is the way to go. This frees up a slot (or two if you have the unique church card already in your deck) for a more powerful card (mercs, 1000 gold, 2 heavy cannon, etc).

[This message has been edited by TjRome (edited 07-15-2006 @ 02:43 PM).]

SO WHAT IF HE'S A GODDAMN ARMCHAIR GENERAL sheesh. at least he knows what he's talking about

[This message has been edited by LO12DS_Frylock (edited 07-15-2006 @ 02:56 PM).]

You think Ender_ward doesn't know what he's talking about? :P

Lolz, that's almost as funny as when someone said TGE was a noob because he used a livestock pen

To sum it up i think this strat would work "IF" u dont get rushed or heavely attacked b4 12mins.

And to other people talking about 'this counters that and then this runs round and kills that' it depends on who has better micro, but u are probally somewhat right as goons are quite effective i rekon and would probally take out the cannons, but i havent tried the strat and am not sure on how effective musks and ruyters would be in stopping the HC from being killed.