seems like an interesting strat, do you have any recs you could share with us?

^ I second the above comment and request.

But what happens if you get attacked in colonial/early fortress before you have the Blackwatch?

And isnt having a 6:00 - 6:30 going to just beg your opponent to rush? Or does your strategy imply small military buildup throughout Colonial and Fortress?

I'm far from a good player yet, and ive only played 10 games or so, and in about 8 of them I was rushed playing as the British.

Also, i think the estates card would be a better choice than the Merc Army - you can pump out settlers really fast and boost your economy even further, which in turn will increase the rate at which you reinforce your small army and let your rockets pawn even more things.

Seems pretty solid. I'll try this strat over the weekend and see how it works for me. Oh, and that was an excellent point about the fort. I had actually stopped using the fort in my decks for awhile and I will now have to reinclude it, just for the cavalry training you mention. I don't know why I didn't think about that in terms of it saving me a quick 300 wood (instead of building that first stable), but I didn't. Thanks for the informative post and strat.

I think it looks very doable and stable.

good job.

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As I said, doing this against an all-out Colonial rush is asking to die. This is really an anti-FF strategy, especially against people who hang back and amass a small army before attacking. Once you're in fortress, Black Watch arrives in 20 seconds, so any attack after 8:30 is going to meet with resistance. From there, you just need to protect your fort as it goes up, and make sure that the fort covers your working villagers so they aren't raided.

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If your opponent isn't committed to rushing from the moment they start aging up at 3:00, trying to reverse course and start a rush once you see that there's a 6:00 Colonial is pretty hard to do. It takes time to gather wood for a barracks, wait for the next shipment to get military, etc. Of course, proper scouting and understanding the ramifications of what you see, i.e. 6-7 houses at 3 minutes could lead to an appropriate adjustment of strategy. It's not a foolproof strategy and can be countered, but it can definately lead to victory if it's not anticipated.

I thought I had a recording, but I think I overwrote it Here's a link to my most recent game with it, even though I screwed up the build somewhat (1 too many vils in Discovery so slow ageups), superior military power won out against an equal opponent.
Game Stats

I'll get some up once I have the chance against decent opponents.

[This message has been edited by Machiavelli_IUB (edited 07-22-2006 @ 08:20 PM).]

Clicky

Almost the exact same strat as above with a few minor details changed. However, it seems quite solid, and I, having alot of experience doing this myself, congratulate you on also comin up with this rather unique british discovery build. I have been doin alot of tests with saving the shipment used for 3 vills in discovery and shipping both 700 wood and the Glorious Revolution in colonial. This lets you put up either 2 more TPs and a rax or gives you your church and a tp and a rax, or even for a forward tower to spawn your units from + the artillery foundry + wood for falcs. The possibilities expand 10 fold with this new addition.

Reading this has reinvigorated my desire to work on the strat! Thanks man.

Good points Machiavelli.

Nice work by the way

Hmmm,Sounds interesting. Once i finally get around to lvling up my brits HC i'll try this strat.

P.S.@Tars, lol, my ESO nick is Fail_Safe. It's one of my favorite movies of all time.

Very nice, i like the use of the 1000 g poli for merchantism.
i used to FI and send 10 musk poli but yours seems betteri will definately try this out.
i would suggest not sending ht merc army but estates, or 14 musk LB's. i will try it out 2morro and maybe post a rec if that is ok to show it in action, and to those people who said that it would lose to a rush, of course it would it isnt mean to counter a rush, its ment to counter FF so if u know u will b rushed just make the appropiate procautions.
once again very nice.

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Credit given where credit deserved. Except for saving the 3 vil shipment in Discovery, the buildup is basically identical, and was my initial inspiration for this strategy. I found that shipping the 3 vils made for faster resource gathering early on, but didn't improve the time to Industrial because I was slow in getting the two Fortress shipments (fort+1000G) I wanted before going Industrial.

Sending VC-700W-Glorious revolution definately opens up some sweet alternatives to your original opening, Matt. One option, of course, would be to use the 700W for manor booming, since you can account for church+foundry+wood for falcs in your original build. The question becomes whether the 7 vils built with manors will have enough time to work to equal or surpass the 3 vils shipped earlier; my initial guess is that they won't pay off as fast since some of them wouldn't come until right before you hit Fortress, but would make mid-fortress stronger. Obviously TP's, dock/boats, a rax/foundry or even slapping down a 2nd TC at the start of Fortress would also be alterantives.

well i say that this seems like a very solid strategy, but only one concern i have...even if you opponent starts aging up by 3:00; with an age up time like that, i think that you as a player should assume that they are going for an all out rush - which rightfully they probably are - i mean name the last time that when someone aged up into colonial at 4:30 and they DIDN'T end up rushing you at 7:00...so my question to you is, if you see your oppponent doing that, is there any quick way to pull out of the FI at about 6:00 or before so that you can try to counter them better? (i hope that makes sense) because your black watch ownt be here till about 8:30-ish, so that leaves a 1 minute 30 second margin of chance of them rushing you - any counter to that?

My guide explains how to transition from FF/FI to rush defense. Click the "FF Smash" link in my sig or the link I provided earlier in the thread to get to it.

After some testing with sending 700 wood, I found that building a church and a tp and 2 houses provides a very powerful foundation for the FI. The tp helps power out shipments and even allows an extra fortress shipment for defense, while the church and 2 houses make up for the lack of 3 vills. I have found that this is a much better option than 3 vills, however, requires even greater economy micro than it did before, which is pretty tough already.

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Um...most everybody going for a FF will age-up between 4:30 and 5:00 if they're doing a "normal" build (i.e. not something like what I'm proposing where you have a late Colonial but skip Colonial very quickly). It'd be the 4:00 Colonial time, or 4:30 from a Russian that'd worry me, although doing this strat against a Russian is suicide anyway because of the risk of rushing. Unfortunately, it's not possible to reverse course easily if you get caught off-guard (like a Port rush) because you're starting your age-up about the time they hit Colonial. Perhaps putting CM in as a card would be useful for this situation-it would buy you a bit of time until you get to Colonial with your stronger econ pumping out Lbows/pikes. Also, building walls to slow down the rusher's units would be very helpful, since you still have a minute+23 vils to respond to the threat. Of course, you still need to scout.

I've been using this as a guideline since I saw it (IE hitting certain goals such as black watch, and the fort), and it's working very well for me. I went from losing every game to an attack, to POWNING most of the players I come across. Usually the attack is enough to wipe out the resistance from both opponatns if you reach it between 13 and 15 mins. There was one game where I managed to defend my base, and march straight in and take over theres while they attempted to destroy me. They got a lot of villys, but thats where estates come in.

So far it's been a really good strat for me at least, thanks for sharing it.

Also, if you add the 26 skirm mercenaries you can get once you hit industrial really helps vs Ottomans that spam out janissaries. I typically get them just as my black watch is starting to die out, and send them to reinforce the rockets.