Okay, so I finally decided to write an actual strategy guide. I bet you just want to read the strategy, but first, this is both a Vanilla and a TAD strategy.

The RUssian Mostly Musketeer Rush
By Arcane Ranger

This Musketeer Rush utilizes the good resource based musketeer, combined with the spammibility of Russian units. It starts with just some harassing to keep them contained, followed by map control by blockhouses, and finally, musketeers to bring any opposition down.

Deck
Discovery - 300w
Colonial - 700f, 700w, 5 cossacks, Boyars, Fencing School, Reformist Tsar, Advanced Arsenal
Fortress - 1000w, 2 falconets, Royal Mint, Refrigiration
Industrial - Factory

Optional Cards
Discovery - Team Scout Cavalry
Colonial - 600f, 600w, 700g, Team Dueling School, 13 strelets
Fortress - 6 oprinicks, Strelet Combat, Cavalry Combat, 11 musketeers, Ransack, 1000f, 1000g (mercantilism)
Industrial - Nothing Much Here, Add Whatever You Want

Discovery Age
All 5 villagers to the crates, food first. Use your explorer to scout for treasures, food and wood are the most important ones. After collecting enough to que up one batch of villagers, send 1-2 villagers (depends on crate start) to the wood crate, and 3 villagers to herd/hunts. After your (1) wood crate is gathered, build a house with one villager. You should now have 1 villager buildings a house, 1 batch of villagers qued, 3 villagers on hunts, and 1 villager on the food crates. After building the house, that villager goes to herd another hunt, while the villager who's gathering the food crates goes to the nearest hunt. Set the tc gather point to food, the closest hunt depending on how well you've herded. Send 300w when you get your first shipment.

When the 3rd batch of villagers (14 villagers) is made, check how much food you have. Generally if you have above 700f by the time the villagers are made, leave some idle tc time and go colonial. If you have below around 650f, then que up another batch of villagers. Your 300w should've arrived around now, send 2 villagers to gather it. Age with the 400w politician.

Transition Discovery-Colonial

After the 2 villagers that are gathering crates are done, send them to a forward location to build a blockhouse, preferably near hunts or mines. Depending on how many villagers you aged with, your villager split should be around this:
9f/3w (If you started with 2 wood crates) - 14 villager age up
7-8f/4-5w (If you started with 1 wood crate) - 14 villager age up
10f/5w - 17 villager age up

Depending on your age up and starting crates, you may or may not need food/wood treasures. If you started with 1 wood
crate, you will probably need treasures. Now, once you hit 100w, build a house with a villager (food villager if you started with 100w, wood villager if you started with 200w). By the time you hit colonial, you should have 645+ food and 100+ wood (if you do not have this, wait a couple of seconds for it, although it will delay your rush).

Colonial Age
Now comes a bit of micro, que up a batch of villagers, que up a batch of strelets, send 5 cossacks, and re-organize your villagers. If you do not have 645+ food by this time don't create a batch of villagers. Your probably thinking, 'But constant villager production is important!', well, not in this rush. Your re-organized economy should be around this:

10f/1w/3g - 14 villagers
11f/2w/4g - 17 villagers

Also, send 1 villager to collect the 400w, you'll need this for housing and maybe a batch of strelets. Once this villager is done gathering 100w of the 400w, send him to make a house.

Remember to make the home city gather point your blockhouse before the 5 cossack shipment comes in. 10 strelets and 5 cossacks should be made at around the same time. Send this 15 man army to raid. Keep him contained. No large assaults yet, if possible, find his fb location and destroy it. You should start creating muskets now, along with vills. Send in 700f as your next card, this will help villager and military production. If somehow, your army has been destroyed along with your blockhouse, send 13 strelets instead.

When you have 10-20 musketeers, go in. Your strelets and cav should still be harassing them, the less damage to them, the better. Your musketeers will beat cav cost wise, while your strelets beat any xbows, pikes, musketeers, or skirms cost-wise. Your cossacks should be raiding if he's massing on HI, or defending if he masses on LI and/or cav. Your combined army should be enough to take down any opposition, along with their tc. By this time, you should have another shipment, send in 700w. This will help you create a stable (if you want), a blockhouse, houses (again, if you want), and strelets. Create the blockhouse in a strategical spot, hunts, mines, another fb. You should have around 20-29 villagers by now, and your villager split should be around this:
15f/4-5w/6-7g

If your rush has been defeated, he should at least be crippled. If you haven't already, make a market and research the techs there, you'll need most of them. Make 5 cossacks from your new stable, along with musketeers, and maybe 1-2 batches of strelets. Send the 5 cossacks in to raid, and when you feel confident, depending on your/opponent's military, go in again. This time, he should be defeated. If he is somehow not defeated by now, go fortress, along with sending the Reformist Tsar card. Age with 5 cossacks or 17 strelets depending on your military position.

Transition Colonial-Fortress
Not much to do here, make some military, but have 10+ vills on wood, this will help to get you the Reformist Tsar tech.

Fortress Age
Usually games don't get to here unless you are playing the rare turtler or a person equally skilled. Upon reaching fortress, send in the 2 falcs, 1000w, 1000f, or the 11 musketeers card, depending on your situation. Get the Reformist Tsar tech, and put your villager split back to normal. No you have veteran units, along with the choice of more of them. Your army should consist of at least 30-60 men depending on how well you and your opponent fared against each other. Add oprinicks to your army, use them to raid. Look for dead hunts, mills, plantations, falling trees, mines, ect. for your oprinicks to raid with. Occasionally, you might be able to get down a stray house or rax somewhere. Again, attack when you feel ready, use your oprinicks to siege, and your falcs will also come in handy. Ransack is a good card to boost your infantry's siege too. This should generally end the game, oprinicks and falcs will siege down the strongest buildings, while your massed infantry can kill most armies.

Recordings:
http://aoe3.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=2193 - This is the first one, me against a French turtle. Although I did not follow the BO strictly, you can get a good sense of the rush, along with my horrid micro >.<

TAD Version

Deck
Discovery – Distributivism
Colonial - 700f, 700w, 5 Cossacks, Boyars, Fencing School, Reformist Tsar, Advanced Arsenal
Fortress - 1000w, 2 falconets, Royal Mint, Refrigeration
Industrial - Factory

Recommended Cards
Discovery - Team Scout Cavalry, 300w
Colonial - 600f, 600w, 700g, Team Dueling School, 13 Strelets
Fortress - 6 Oprinicks, Strelet Combat, Cavalry Combat, 11 Musketeers, Ransack, 1000f, 1000g (mercantilism)
Industrial – Factory, Industrial Revolution, National Redoubt, Castramentation.

Discovery Age
-All 5 Settlers to crates, start clicking the settler button like crazy
-Treasure hunt with your explorer, prioritizing Food and Wood treasures
-Queue up batch of settlers
-3 Settlers on hunts, 1 vill building house, 1 vill on rest of crates
-Set Town Center gather point to food
-Send Distributivism
-Age with 14 Settlers, and the QuarterMaster (400 wood)

Transition Discovery-Colonial
-Two settlers to a forward location to build blockhouse, preferably near huntables
-Split settlers so that it’s 9f/5w (2 wood crates) or 7-8f/6-7w (1 wood crate)
-Continue gathering resources, and then build a house

Colonial Age
-Queue up batch of settlers
-Queue up batch of Strelets
-Send 5 Cossacks
-Make home city gather point your blockhouse
-Re-organized eco should be 10f/1w/3g (approximately)
-Send 10 Strelets+5 Cossacks to raid and only RAID Killing unguarded Light Infantry is also acceptable
-Keep raiding until you have around 10-20 Musketeers (or what you find suitable enough for the final push)
-Second card in colonial should be 700f or 13 Strelets if your 5 cossacks+10 strelets have been severely damaged or killed.
-You should be harassing and raiding until you have sufficient musketeers to effectively take out any military and also effectively siege buildings
-If your rush has been defeated, go to Fortress, you generally want to age with 5 Cossacks or 17 Strelets politician, or you can stay in colonial and continue battering him with more waves of Musketeers and some Strelets


And that's the RUMM Rush, feel free to comment, criticize, question, or compliment this strat. It took me 35 minutes to write this whole thing, so any comment (except flaming) is appreciated. There might be some mistakes here and there, I'll fix them later.

[This message has been edited by Arcane Ranger (edited 10-30-2008 @ 08:17 PM).]