China Mercenary Shipment Spam FF
By Marneus Calgar
The premise of this is to bring back one of China’s most OP strats, pre-1.01. It is often acknowledged that with the disciple nerf, an FF is not very conceivable, but china still has many great features which offer aide to its defenseless colonial.

Villages: These things are OP. They are like cheap fast building villie shelters that hold 20 population to boot and can have shipments sent to them. These will be key for the fast fortress.

Disciples: although they were nerfed, look at the facts. 5 disciples can take out those 4 axe riders or 5 Cossacks. They will also stop those 13 strelets in their tracks with TC fire.

Wonders: Who needs a TC when you have wonders to age up with? These will also be a good asset to survive heavy colonial rushes.


Deck:

Must have

Northern Refugees
700 gold
9 iron troops
9 manchu
10 arques
11 chang dao
1000 gold

Optional
9 keshiks
10 steppe riders
1000 food

Ok so here is the basic build order:

Discovery Age

• Collect crates, 3 to hunts. 1 build svillage somewhere behind, near a hunt or second mine.
  
  
• Send 3 or 4 vills to wood, rest to food, depending on if you have a wood treasure.
  
• TC to food.
  
• When enough for another village, switch all to food and build second village behind TC. All vills to food.
  
• Send Northern Refugees as first card.
  
• Build Porcelain tower when 800 food, about 3:30/45 with 16/17 vills.
  
• Build with 6 vills, rest, still on food, keep making vills, but TC waypoint to gold.
  

Colonial Age

• When aged send 700 gold. When 300 gold switch all to food.
  
  
• Set wonder to food.
  
  
• When 1200 food, swith about 10 to gold, 4 on food and rest to wood.
  
  
• Gather shipped gold. Age up with summer palace, put 6 to build it. If you are being attacked, do not call sentries, move your villes to a different mine if mine is up front. Distract with disciples and explorer. Make sure to have 1000 or almost 1000 gold when age up finishes.
  

Fortress Age

Now for some fun.


• Send 9 Iron troops if you don't see a stable, send 9 Manchu if you see a stable. Put up a War academy and start pumping arqu + Chang Dao armies. Set Wonder to whatever army. Throw up an acadamy and prepare for consulate.
  
  
• If he attacked your TC is probably dead, so fight back with first mercs and regroup. Send shipments to counter his army. If he went fort, pressure him. Use flood of shipments and
  
  
• mercs to counter his mercs. China is so versatile with so many troop shipments to send.
  
  
• When rax is up pump those Chang Dao + arque armies. When consulate is up ally with Britain for that 15% land bonus.
  
  
• Get your eco back on track and do whatever you need to win. Ship those mortars and chang dao to rape buildings and your manchu/9 keshiks will own any cuirs/war wagons he might throw at you.
  
  
• Remember to NEVER GET COCKY. Get your economy and barracks up and flood his base with a stream of troops. For all you know he might be regrouping with 13 jaegers/black riders somewhere else, while you forgot to make vills/get housed/stop making armies etc. And always CONSERVE YOUR MERCS. They are strong, but can die fast without proper micro. Take advantage of healers to get them back to full health
  

Misc tips

-If he went fort before you, DO NOT PANIC. This just mean a delayed rush, as you DO NOT NEED YOUR TC FOR SHIPMENTS. So cool eh?

-Usually vs. French, I ship manchu prior to iron ming, and sometimes, not at all. He will usually end up going fort anyway, and if he doesn't hussars rape all 75% of your colonial units. Manchu will be able to counter hussars and cuirs. Iron troops will rarely be used vs. french simply because they rarely mass muskets in age 3(why would they, they have cuirs..).

-Iron troops (skirmisher type mercenaries) are very nice towards a jap shrine boomer/ashi spammer. 9 iron troops can take about 20-25 carded colonial ashis, depending on micro. They also will hold more than their own against Yumi, and with good micro, can take a beating from some nagi before Manchu/ Chang Dao can come rape them.

-It is not necessary to try and take TP's. The amount of XP you get from battle s more than enough, and it's better to use the wood on Town Centers to get your eco back on par.

-Vs. a Jan/abus rush, send iron troops first to distract before so you can get thos 10 steppe riders for those pesky abus. Abus counter Manchu and iron troops, so DO NOT waste them in a battle against an obvious counter. If he goes fortress, send Manchu first to counter the Spahi. Then, if you still don’t see much action, send Chang Dao or mortars ASAP to try to take his TC's before he gets to industrial.

That is pretty much it. Most other civs are fairly obvious in what to ship. Just keep scouting and you should be in a good position to take the game 1 shipment at a time.

China FF vs Japan recording