The dutch pike slam - Age of Empires III Heaven Forum

Topic Subject: The dutch pike slam

CrazyLunatic
Veteran Musketeer

posted 07-24-08 04:23 PM EDT (US)

This strategy is a dutch pike rush that is compatible with vanilla(possible TWC and TAD also). NOTE this strat should never be attempted against an ottoman player(fast age up) or french (CdB own pikes

).

"WHAT? a dutch player is rushing?"

yes. dutch like ottomans have an advantage over other civs due to the fact that their villagers don't cost food thus giving them the quickest age up times. On great plains w/ treasures I can press age up button a couple secs BEFORE 2 minutes.

"so what's so good with dutch why not just IOR with ottos?"

dutch rushing is also psychological... I mean how many dutch players rush you? people are not expecting a rush making it even more deadly. Also dutch have something that ottomans do not... banks. A bank is about 5 villagers thus giving dutch great early booming capabilities.

"yawn yawn so where's the strategy"
One more thing. This strategy besides hopefully destroying the enemy base also sets you up for something else dutch get... hmm... what costs food and wood right you are: banks. So after the rush with your food/wood vill ratios you can get some banks up which will boost your econ for age 3 rutyer/falconet combo...

over here:

DUTCH PIKE RUSH:

Required cards: 3 villagers, 8 pikemen, 700 wood
Recommended cards: Pikemen/skirm/halbierder damage increase card, 4 villager, church card, 3 hussar, bank increase cards, age 3 rutyer card, 1 falconet, 1000 wood.

AGE 1

1. Send 4 villagers to nearest hunt and shoot so it comes toward TC.
2. With other 3 villagers get starting crates gold, wood, then food.
3. Que up as many villagers as possible. And set TC waypoint on hunts.
4. Shift click your envoy so it scouts the entire map for enemies base and treasures.
5. Treasure hunt with explorer. Aim for coin treasures for extra villagers and food treasures for quick age up. XP treasures are also great.. Hold on the wood ones though.
6. After 3 villagers finish crates build a house with one of them and send the other 2 to the hunt.
7. Send 3 villagers card as first card.
8. With good treasures depending on starting crates you should age up at 1:50-2:10 with 11-15 villagers (depends on starting gold and treasures)
9. Age up with 400 wood guy

Transition from age 1 to age 2
1. Send 2 villagers to coin and split food villagers and wood so that there is 1 more on food than on wood.
2. keep treasure hunting with explorer now get wood treasures for a quick barracks.
3. Send 2 wood villagers to a forest near the opponent to make a fb. (Try to hide the fb to the side or behind the opponents base to help the suprise element)
4. Que up 1 villager w/ waypoint on coin

Age 2:
Note: during this process keep constant villager production(or as close as you can get to it) let the first villager go to coin (making a total of 3 on coin) and put the others accordingly based on what resources you are running lower on.

1. Gather 400 wood with 2 wood settlers shift click so each gets 2 crates and then goes back to a tree.
2. 2 forward wood villagers build a barracks(immediately after construction of house que 5 pikes) and then go back to wood. Shift click the other one so after barracks it builds 1 house and then goes to wood.
3. Send 8 pike card and set tc military way point right next to your hidden fb.
***4. Send your newly created 5 pikes to start attacking the tc. Immediately que more pikes. When minute men are called run away and harass some vills(or blow some houses down) away from the tc. Then later come back(que up a couple skirms) and kill the mm. You can put your pikes in cover mode so they take less damage, but will still be able to kill minute men in 1 hit each, put pikes back in melee and attack tc again.
5. If all goes well you should have 5 pikes attacking enemy at about 5 min with 8 running there from your tc and 5 more qued at barracks close to enemy.
6. Keep queing as many pikes as possible
7. Send all the pikes to the tc.
9. The tc should be down around 6 minutes. I don't know about you but having no tc at 6 min hurts really bad.
10. Go and round up villagers/ houses wiht your pikes.
11. Send 700 wood and build as many banks as you can should be able to make 2 with the 700 wood and your wood villies should get enough wood for third.
12. Start making skirmishers since your 3 banks will be pumping out about 15 villagers worth of coin.
13. Set tc waypoint to food and keep up the constant villager production.
14. Either go fortress and do rutyers/falconets or just make some more pikes/skirmishers and wipe him up.

Have fun with this strategy. Wipe up some tc's quickly.

Note: I know someone is going to say: "but what if they age up quickly and made xbows" well first off they don't think you are rushing so i assume they won't have xbows before 5 minutes.

constructive critism is always welcome...

*** alternate strategy

not for use against a british player)

instead of sending your first 5 pikes for the tc go ahead and get some houses. pikes take down houses extremely fast that it will seriously irritate your opponent. After houses go for other econ buildings such as market and military buildings (barracks/foundry/stable) and then go for tc. Que up some skirmishers for a mixed army that is harder to beat.

kk here's the first recording me vs comp : http://aoe3.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=2134

[This message has been edited by CrazyLunatic (edited 07-24-2008 @ 09:42 PM).]

Author

Replies:

Maffia
AoE3H Seraph
(id: fred_ernie)

posted 07-24-08 05:04 PM EDT (US) 1 / 26

you upload recorded games to here and link to it

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/downloads/lister.php?category=rec

This month I have mostly been playing Zelda Breath of the Wild
Steam - Maffia GFWL - Maffia01 YouTube - HGMaffia Twitter - @HGMaffia
Age of Empires 3 Heaven Seraph

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
[This message hasn't been edited by fred_ernie (or Maffia) (not edited 12-29-2005 @ 09:57 AM).]

Arcane Ranger
Skirmisher

posted 07-24-08 05:52 PM EDT (US) 2 / 26

So... when/if they send in minutemen, you should run or try to kill them (which you won't)? Because pikes are slow, and they'll easily be microed (yes, probably by minutemen too). Also, you should have around 3-4 vills on gold, that should keep you with a constant vill production. Also, in 6 min, they could easily set up a rax you can't see, and then make xbows. 13 pikes is around 200 seige I think, and a tc has around 6000 (or was it 4000? whatever) so it'll take a while too. I guess that the pike rush could be used as a distraction to get more skirms+banks+vills up.

RESIGNED FROM AGE OF EMPIRES until further notice
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Shogun_Sushi
Skirmisher

posted 07-24-08 06:16 PM EDT (US) 3 / 26

Wasn't there a strategy about 1 year old that was 30 pike at 5:30 mark attacking tc.

Unless patches made it a lot slower, i would get the 15 pikes attacking before your 5, and then you have 15 more 30 secs later

Anyways its really good vs natives, since they don't have minuteman (just a tip)

CrazyLunatic
Veteran Musketeer

posted 07-24-08 06:55 PM EDT (US) 4 / 26

when minute men come run away try to harass villagers away from tc/minute men and then come back and then minute men are weak.
thanks for saying that arcane ranger completely forgot to put it in the strat now it's in there.

BTW there are 3 vills on gold during transition put 2 after transition build one on to mine.

"Also, in 6 min, they could easily set up a rax you can't see, and then make xbows."

yeah definately they should have a rax up but at 6 min the tc will almost be dead so even when they beat your pikes they don't have a tc giving you a huge econ advantage also your 3 banks should be up soon giving you a WAY stronger eco then a civ without a tc.

also if you notice they are massing xbows send the 3 hussar card. After the tc is down there is not much need for pikes and your banks should produce enough coin for a decent amount of skirmishers.

I prefer after the pike rush making banks and going fortress for the kill unless you can easily kill them in age 2.

" Wasn't there a strategy about 1 year old that was 30 pike at 5:30 mark attacking tc."

i wasn't here a year ago but i would want to read that strat. (maybe with spain's fast archaic infantry that might be possible)

[This message has been edited by CrazyLunatic (edited 07-24-2008 @ 07:04 PM).]

Arcane Ranger
Skirmisher

posted 07-24-08 07:52 PM EDT (US) 5 / 26

Yeah... kill vills with pikes that have 8 attack... What's with the wierd face btw? Also, they could ship in 8 xbow at any time your attacking. I think you should have around 20-30 pikes in his base by 6:00-7:00 and then start making banks to switch to skirms and maybe hussars (build banks and then everyone on food). 25 pikes should take down a tc fast enough, and should be able to defeat a small army of xbows (if he doesn't micro them really well).

Also, the problem with minutemen is that they're faster (I think) than your pikes. They also have around 26 attack (that's slaughter in colonial) which willl murder any pikes that are trying to escape. So what to do? Maybe you could send in 3 hussars or a couple skirms or something.

CrazyLunatic
Veteran Musketeer

posted 07-24-08 08:42 PM EDT (US) 6 / 26

yeah when you get the banks up i said to make skirmishers because they will have xbows/whatever.

instead of going for villagers w/ pikes can go for houses instead.

Arcane Ranger
Skirmisher

posted 07-24-08 10:01 PM EDT (US) 7 / 26

Alright, but you still haven't answered the wierdest question of all. Why the f is a gigantic purple clown/evil face in the middle of your guide? O, and keep the pike that's getting attacked (most likely he's gonna garrison his vill(s)) by the tc or/and tower(s) in cover mode. It'll let your pikes last longer and therefore have more seige effect.

O, and btw, congratz on keeping up with your time schedule (the "schedule" you posted on James' Otto ff thread). *claps*

[This message has been edited by Arcane Ranger (edited 07-24-2008 @ 10:04 PM).]

adamh43524
Skirmisher

posted 07-25-08 05:58 AM EDT (US) 8 / 26

i think this sound quite good on paper (or on computer screen lol) but i think that mm and ANY sent units from the tc could make mincemeat of this strat. First off you seem to discount tc fire as a problem this alone would seriously weaken your 5 pikes and it seems to me if you lose your first 5pikes that this start is foiled, as your only going to have 8 sent pike left for seige.

the other problem with this is that you also seem to discount minuet men, when they are sent your oponant is not going to make them sit there doing nothing he is going to chase your pike down, you will lose them imo. MM in combination with a unit card i think will stop this strat dead. mm + 8xbows (or like units) + tc fire your dead.

Having said this if instead of 5 pike your made 5skirms and harrased vills you could have much better results and waited till your pike force was large enough to take out somthing of importance. I had this sort of thing done vs me recently and i got pwned. i was playing french tho and i am not good with them.

hope this helps, im not trying to tear your strat down for the hell of it! i hate it when people do that! good luck.

Ultimitsu : james, can you please understand the counter system first before making comments on the "what counters what" subject?

Lordkivlov : Do you just like to see your own posts? Because 90% of them are pretty much useless.

"Generall every civilisation has it easy time with British." - James246
ESO: retribution1423

Arcane Ranger
Skirmisher

posted 07-25-08 07:48 AM EDT (US) 9 / 26

Maybe you could send in the skirms card and then makes pikes? Attack at around 6:30 with 20-25 pikes and some skirms? That'll greatly weaken their defenses.

mathemagician
Skirmisher

posted 07-25-08 08:31 AM EDT (US) 10 / 26

"" Wasn't there a strategy about 1 year old that was 30 pike at 5:30 mark attacking tc."

i wasn't here a year ago but i would want to read that strat. (maybe with spain's fast archaic infantry that might be possible)"

I just copied and pasted it from age community. I remember reading it on these forums too though, I just can't seem to find the topic anymore. Credits go to the inventor.

Basically it's an all out rush, but you are extremely dead if it fails.

STRAT

I have made a dutch stratigty, i call it the 30 pikes at 5:30 dutch strat.

This requires a very specific environment and is only to be attempted on crate heavy maps (hispanyola is my favorite).

The idea is sheer blinding speed of you're age 2 time depending on you're treasures and other things you should be in colonial around when you're first card comes.

In age 1 you make no vils.
Send most starting vils to gather crates have one make a market

Buy food sell wood buy more food it all depends but you should never have to gather more then 100 food from hunt if you do then this will not work.

Age up with wood and have you're vils gather food with 1-2 vils going to make a forward base as soon as you hit age up get crates and make a house and a barracks. You're 1st card should be played now it should be 8 pikes or resorces depending on you're opponent, his score, and how his city looks. when you're barracks is up make pikes like there's no tomorrow, you should be able to get a good number in before he hits age 2 (depending on the civ you're against).

Try to keep you're explorer around his city if you see a tower or barracks going up and you have a few pikes by all means charge on in, ruin his day and run back out before tc fire or min men can do alot of damage.

It takes some pratice but if you did it all right you should have 30 pikes a 5:30!

there are a few notes

-ottos are a bad civ to do this to, they have fast age up times

-Do not chop wood, buy it with the market.

-If you have to gather more then 100 food from hunts because of lack of crates then this WILL fail.

CrazyLunatic
Veteran Musketeer

posted 07-25-08 12:00 PM EDT (US) 11 / 26

yeah maybe it's possible on hispanola but not on gp where i experimented.

"Maybe you could send in the skirms card and then makes pikes? Attack at around 6:30 with 20-25 pikes and some skirms? That'll greatly weaken their defenses."

yeah sounds good might experiment w/ that some time.

Actually w/ a 18 pikes the tc fire kills a lot but the tc still goes down (because there are 5 more in que) in ideal conditions w/ out minute men i have 16 after i blow the tc

"skirms card" i don't think there is a n age 2 skirm card on vanilla.

i just felt like putting the smilie...

that's how I look when I blow someone's tc at 6 min mark LOL.

with the minute men thing... I am thinking that run away w/ pikes then come back. chase the mm which have 1 health w/ 2/3 pikes in cover mode and keep attacking tc with others... Yes true the mm could hit and run but the cover mode pikes have like 40% ranged resistance or something.

KenjiCXT
Skirmisher

posted 07-25-08 02:01 PM EDT (US) 12 / 26

First of all, add Ports to civs that you shouldnt use this against. Two TCs with double Minutemen-possiblity + TC-fire x2 + Coverage of resourses will decrease the effectiveness of this strat greatly.

The way you execute this strat isnt very good.

First off, for this type of strat to work, you'll need to SUPRISE your enemy. By sending those first 5 pikes on a suicide mission attacking the TC is just plain stupid.

Any decent opponent knowing you have quickly set up a barracks somewhere and is currently training units WILL immediatly throw up a Rax of his own, assumingly a bit away from the TC to avoid having it piked before completion and of course put some villagers on wood.

When calling minutemen he WILL kill the 5 pikes unless he's a horribly bad player. I mean, seriously hit and running isnt a new strat. They wont make it when running away, not even in cover mode.

You gotta send a bunch of pikes at the same time to gain some effectiveness, and even then, unless the opponent is FFing he should have a force strong enough to deal with you, especially if he's scouting like he should.

Q: How do I get veteran skirms as the dutch?
- you have to buy the upgrade in the the barracks lol it should be under the skimiser logo. -you have to be in age3 to get veteran and age 4 to get guard.
After realizing they get automatically upgraded:
- o right i play brits so i just guessed.....thats slighly embarrasing lol

"Ah, the wonderful smell of failure!" - George_III on a full-capslocked topic.

ingin_burner
Skirmisher

posted 07-25-08 03:58 PM EDT (US) 13 / 26

This is a good premise, but is not quite good enough CrazyLunatic.

This strategy will work against players that are, lets say, inexperianced. Now the problem is not minutemen, which many people have pointed out.

''When calling minutemen he WILL kill the 5 pikes unless he's a horribly bad player. I mean, seriously hit and running isnt a new strat. They wont make it when running away, not even in cover mode.''

No, I'm sorry, this just is not true. Pikes are way faster than minutemen, they will get out of there with only 2 dieing.

Eg. 5 pike attacking, mm pop out, pick off one pike. The pikes start running, the last pike in the line gets picked off. MM chase, but are unable to pop another pike dead due to speed of pike.

Now back to why this strat will not work against an experianced player. MM are not your worry, it is the light inf shipment that every civ has.
russia- 13 skr
brit-6 musk (6 longbow would not be smart vs pike in the face)
german-9xbow + 2 free raiders
french-8xbow
otto-5 jans (i know u said dont do vs otto)
port-6musk/8xbow
spain-8xbow

All of these shipments, even without the help of minutemen, will smash your solely pike army. The MM would just seal the deal, but most good players will realize the MM are not needed, and better to save them/not waste res on them.

These shipments will also protect vills, allowing them to throw up a barracks+gather uninterupted, and have the res to make the counters they need.

Now one thing i will add to your strat (even though i dont recommend using it in general), is that while your pikes are attacking, make sure to have the explorer and envoy searching around the opposite side of the TC (the side u are not attacking from). You have to watch for vills sneaking out to gather/build rax. If you see this rax going up u must take it down. Now here is where the skilled player can get u again.... He pops out a vill to start building a rax near your envoy/explorer (so u see it). He immediately sends MM out coming in behind the pikes that u just sent to the rax. Many players will try to take down that rax before it is complete, and not care the the MM will wipe them all out. Or he will do the same thing right before his counter shipment comes in (xbow/musk/etc).

I used to do a strat with dutch that ships 8 pike the second u hit colonial, has a rax on the way, 10 vills+bank before age up. I was as fast or faster than you are, clicking age up around 1:55-2:10 on great plains. Your economy is set up to produce skirms solely from the rax. The 8 pike shipment arrives earlier than your 8 pike(due to XP from bank built in transition), and can be used for a variety of things, such as smash a house, smash a rax before its built, etc. The key is to keep those 8 pike alive so that your skirms are protected from a 3 cav shipment for example. The skirms can harass vills and keep them completely contained. (skirms have a great range, can pop a vill and withdrawl with taking maximum of 1 tc shot. The next shipment is 700w, allowing you to start producing pikes, mass them up to 18-23, and go in for the kill with 15-20 skirms, 18-23 pike, while ur enemy has been harassed the entire game.

I would be happy to show this to u, because this strat is effective, the 10-15 skirms can kill the shipment they sent to deal with ur pike (xbow/musk), and the skirms can continute to harass vills.

My ESO name is: ingin_burner

msg me sometime and ill be happy to show u this strat.

I'm sorry if I was too negative, but the truth is this just won't work. But hey, at least i'm offering some help directly on ESO!! lol

[This message has been edited by ingin_burner (edited 07-25-2008 @ 04:02 PM).]

CrazyLunatic
Veteran Musketeer

posted 07-25-08 04:54 PM EDT (US) 14 / 26

wow big reply.... thanks for the advice ingin burner... I will try the skirm thing you talked about some time. yeah good point though the german 9 xbow shipment will kill the pikes pretty quick.

wow you're a lvl 28 captain... lol... i'm scared

[This message has been edited by CrazyLunatic (edited 07-25-2008 @ 05:02 PM).]

Arcane Ranger
Skirmisher

posted 07-25-08 05:38 PM EDT (US) 15 / 26

CrazyLunatic
Veteran Musketeer

posted 07-25-08 08:15 PM EDT (US) 16 / 26

1:55-2:10? That's REALLY good age up time. How'd you get the bank up btw, a couple vills to wood, a couple to hunts and no vills to gold? Or get treasures. I'm confused on that one. Mind helping out a measly corporal understand the secret to your awesome age up?

yeah that's my question also... i got the same age up range and that's without building a bank lol. we get same age up time just you spend 700 more resources on a bank? wow...

Arcane Ranger
Skirmisher

posted 07-25-08 09:44 PM EDT (US) 17 / 26

O, btw, WHAT'S WITH THE PURPLE EVIL FACE IN YOUR STRATEGY??? Or am I just seeing things... O.o

Shogun_Sushi
Skirmisher

posted 07-26-08 08:45 AM EDT (US) 18 / 26

How he gets the bank up is by choping wood and getting food (350 of each) and building it...

This is done during his age 2 transition. Of course treasures help getting it up faster.

I don't know about his thing, but for the 3rd card, i would send 600 wood and build 2 more banks, or if you're really into the fight and can't spend 700 food, then bank wagon.

Of course by doing his strat, he can contain the guy with his 20 pikes and 20 skirms, and totally rape the guy, who will have a lot of trouble at defeating the army, unless it is going extremely well (in which case you continue making units to pwn him in colonial), i would keep harassing with the army I have left and then start booming, get �ll the banks up and get to fortress. U will have a crazy eco, while the guy will probably just be trying to get his eco back in place.

Then you rape him with cannnons and ruyters

CrazyLunatic
Veteran Musketeer

posted 07-26-08 12:04 PM EDT (US) 19 / 26

O, btw, WHAT'S WITH THE PURPLE EVIL FACE IN YOUR STRATEGY??? Or am I just seeing things... O.o

what are you talking about? you're hallucinating lol...

yeah sounds interesting... might try that some time... (I find it hard to believe that you can chop 350 wood and gather 350 food while aging?)

Arcane Ranger
Skirmisher

posted 07-26-08 02:02 PM EDT (US) 20 / 26

Hm... you probably could. Get a bank up with 4-6 vills on food and wood during age up. And no I'm pretty sure I'm not halluciating because I can download it onto my desktop. o.o

CrazyLunatic
Veteran Musketeer

posted 07-26-08 07:16 PM EDT (US) 21 / 26

Get a bank up with 4-6 vills on food and wood during age up

but he said it was a 10 vill age up 10 vills can't get 350 food/350 wood in age up can they?

"And no I'm pretty sure I'm not halluciating because I can download it onto my desktop. o.o"

yeah you are... no one else sees it lol

shhhhh everyone else.....

Arcane Ranger
Skirmisher

posted 07-27-08 05:33 PM EDT (US) 22 / 26

Woo, he just explained it in another thread. First card is 300 wood instead of 3 vills so you can get up that bank easily. No vills on gold, everyone on food, so you age up at around 2:00. Then you get the bank up to compensate for your loss of vills with the 300 wood. 10 vills on food is definately enough to get 350 food for the bank.

Very funny Crazy Lunatic, can you just explain it?

CrazyLunatic
Veteran Musketeer

posted 07-27-08 07:31 PM EDT (US) 23 / 26

hmm... ok that sounds like it works... I'll try that out..

Quoted from arcane ranger:
Very funny Crazy Lunatic, can you just explain it?

I really have no idea of what you're talking about... no one else is complaining about some gigantic purple smilie right?

P.S: i already said why the purple smilie is there... I just felt like it ok? lol

Arcane Ranger
Skirmisher

posted 07-27-08 10:13 PM EDT (US) 24 / 26

O, my bad, I didn't see it lol. I tried it out, and it did work. The bank provides your villy production so you can have vills go to food/wood until your ready for skirms. I tried it on a expert (hard with 50% handicap) AI and it worked well. Of course, the expert AI made a lot of towers early game so it was harder than normal, but it still worked.

CrazyLunatic
Veteran Musketeer

posted 07-28-08 05:48 PM EDT (US) 25 / 26

yeah i tried it out also... very viable... really pisses people off when you 1 shot kill villies w/ your skirms lol.

A_US_James246
Scenario Reviewer
(id: James246)

posted 07-29-08 02:00 AM EDT (US) 26 / 26

Quoted from Arcane Ranger:
O, and btw, congratz on keeping up with your time schedule (the "schedule" you posted on James' Otto ff thread). *claps*

WTF?

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