The Cossack And Musketeer Rush
By Arcane Ranger



Summary

We all know the Russians have a legacy of being prone to cavalry. We also know that if you go purely musketeer to counter cavalry, those pesky crossbows just pick your weak musketeers off. So what about a way to counter both Ranged Infantry AND Cavalry? Well I give you the CAM Rush. TAD Version.

Deck

Everyone needs a basic deck, here is a basic deck layout for the CAM Rush:



And of course, no deck is the same, so here are some other reccomended cards you can put in:



Discovery

- 5 settlers to food crates, assign one to each crate
- Queue up first batch of settlers ASAP
- After queuing settlers, send 3 of your crate gathering settlers to hunts
- Gather 1 wood crate, leave the extra wood/gold crate for later
- Build a house with 1 settler
- Other settler goes to herd secondary hunts
- Keep queuing settlers
- Send in Distributivism (1.25 Wood Trickle)
- Age with 17 villagers, and the Quartermaster (400 wood)
- Your explorer should look for wood-food-gold-XP treasures

Discovery-Colonial Transition

- Collect your extra wood/gold crate
- If it was gold, send 8 villagers to cut trees, and 2 villagers to a mine
- If it was wood, send 6-7 villagers to cut trees, and 3-4 villagers to mine coin
- Send 3 villagers (usually from hunts) to a forward position (preferably near hunts)
- Build a blockhouse once you have 250 wood (at the forward position)
- Once the blockhouse is built, send those 3 villagers to hunts (near blockhouse)
- Build a house once you have an additional 100w

Colonial Age

- Send 2 villagers to gather the wood crates
- Queue up 5 musketeers
- Set the gather point to your forward blockhouse
- Send in 5 cossacks
- Queue up a batch of villagers
- Use 2 of your forward villagers to build a stable once you have sufficient wood
- Make 2 houses with your other 200 wood from the crates
- Arrange your villagers so that you have around 12f/1w/4g (after gathering crates and making stables)
- Send in 700 food next
- Keep queuing musketeers and cossacks
- Raid with cossacks, scout for what military your opponent has, and where their economy is
- Harass until you feel ready (usually when your units outnumber their by at least 5-10), then attack
- You should usually have a market up by now, and research the food/gold upgrades
- Send in 700g for your military, 700w for buildings, or 13 strelets for the final push
- Your split should be around 20f/2w/7g or so
- From there on, you can go fortress, or continue a colonial battle

Pros & Cons

Pros:
- Catches an opponent off guard
- Sets you up to go to fortress
- More pop than Strelet+Cossack, because of less usage of wood
- Versatile, you can switch to strelets at will
- More siege compared to that of Strelet+Cossack

Cons:
- Prone to raids if you do not herd well
- Lack of wood if you pile up your army forces you to attack or harass (usually)
- Loses to massed Heavy Infantry
- Loses to Ranged Infantry if your cossacks are not around

Strategies/Civilizations to Use/Not Use Against

Strategies:
Turtle - Okay against turtles, as higher siege lets you take down buildings easier
Rush - Good against rushes, as xbows are cavalry fodder with good micro, and so are pikes to musketeers
Semi-FF - Not great against these, as you'll be harassed while the opponent goes to fortress
FF - Okay against these, as higher siege will let you try and take the TC down quicker

Civilizations:
French - Good - Rushes will be destroyed, while FFs shall provide an equal match
Germans - Good - Rushes will be destroyed, while FFs shall provide an equal match
Dutch - Poor - A hussar and skirmisher combo will do well against this combo, while a dutch FF is fairly strong
Ottomans - Poor - Pure Jannisaries work well against this combo, while the Ottoman FF can be devastating
Spanish - Fair - A spanish rush will be destroyed, while an FF will provide an equal-hard match
Russians - Poor - Strelet and Cossacks will 4/5 beat this combo if resources are around equal
Portuguese - Good - A rush will be destroyed, while a FF will provide for an equal match
British - Fair - Pure musketeers shall be hard for this combo, while the british can out boom you too
Iroquois - Fair - The Iroquois FF shall provide for an equal match, while rushes will be fairly evened
Sioux - Fair - Cavalry based rushes will win/lose against this depending on micro
Aztecs - Fair - Coyotes and Maces, along with pumas can be disposed of, although you may consider aging with 14 settlers
Japanese - Poor - Ashigarus can be hard to beat
Indians - Poor - Sepoys can put a dent in this strategy
Chinese - Good - Qiang Pikes are absolutely destroyed, while so are Chu Ko Nus

There really is no civilization the CAM is bad against, as the cossack+musketeer is a solid combo. However, watch for Semi-FFs and pure Heavy Infantry rushes, as they can get you. In general, crossbows+pikemen lose to this combo, as the cossacks do well against the crossbows, and the musketeers pick off the pikemen.

Recordings

Yeah, I actually got off my chair and got you guys a recording, here's the list (or well, first one):
Russians vs. Germans

There it is, like it, hate it? All comments are welcome.

[This message has been edited by Arcane Ranger (edited 02-16-2009 @ 05:19 PM).]