British Hussar Musket Combo ^{TAD 1.01, Vanilla 1.12}

By Valckrie

::::::::::::::::::::
Foreword
::::::::::::::::::::

This strategy aims to start early with hussars and mix in muskets quickly after. This is especially useful versus civilizations that can easily amass light infantry.

::::::::::::::::::::
Deck
::::::::::::::::::::

General Card Order:



Some people like to upgrade their units early on; others like to have more resources. In the end it’s your choice.

Also, 6 muskets can be shipped before 5 settlers, for faster military.

Deck:



::::::::::::::::::::
Main Units
::::::::::::::::::::

Hussar

Cost: 120f, 80g
Train time: 40 seconds
Build EXP: 20
Population: 2
HP: 320
Hand Attack: 30 (1.5 ROF)
Siege Attack: 20 (3.0 ROF)
Resist: 20% hand
Speed: 6.8
LOS: 15

The most basic cavalry unit in the game, however as British you have two colonial upgrades for them, which makes them worthwhile to make. They are the only cavalry you can make in colonial, and being general cavalry they are decent raiders.

Musketeer

Cost: 75f, 25g
Train time: 30 seconds
Build EXP: 10
Poulation: 1
HP: 150
Ranged Attack: 23 (12 range, 3.0 ROF)
Hand Attack: 13 (3x against Heavy Cavalry, 2.25x against *Light Infantry, 1.5 ROF)
Siege Attack: 20 (3.0 ROF)
Resist: 20% hand
Speed: 4
LOS: 16

The most basic heavy infantry in the game which most European civilizations have. They are good all-rounders with decent range, melee and siege damage.

::::::::::::::::::::
Build Order
::::::::::::::::::::

Discovery Age:

3 settlers go to nearest huntable. If on non-asian maps e.g. Great Plains you must herd your starting herd.

Assign each other settler to separate food crates. After two food crates deplete move those two settlers to huntables.

Build a settler ASAP

Do not collect gold crates. Build as many manors as possible (with 1 settler), if you have 95 wood left you can consider chopping 40 wood for the extra manor.

Explorer does the usual, scout around base for obvious herds and mines, then get some treasures. Wood are best, then food then gold.

Upon finding second herd task a settler to herd it if it is near, if it is too far don’t bother yet, instead use the time to age up 2 or 3 seconds quicker

Ship 3 Settlers

By that time if you have >650 food, wait a few seconds till you hit 800. If you have less than 600 food, build another settler – but if your timing is really late don’t bother. Age with Outpost + 200 coin politician.

Transition:

Re-arrange your settler allocation to 1 gold, 3 food, rest wood.

Build a manor house. Place some wall segments strategically if needed.

Explorer tries to scout for opponents FB and hunts.

Queue a settler from TC, set waypoint to someone strategic, e.g. by a mine or herd.

When you are nearly aged, and you have 200 wood, switch settler allocation to: 4 gold, 5 wood, rest food.

Colonial Age:

Gather 200 coin from age up with a settler. Build a stable with another settler.

Ship 700 wood.

Place tower, and as soon as stable goes up queue a hussar. Ensure you can build 5 hussars within the first batch queue, if it means rearranging settlers for a short while.

Queue another hussar, typically stay at 22 villagers to get your first 10 hussars out. Then start villager production again.

Collect 700 wood with 2 or 3 settlers. Build some manors, a market and a barracks.

Once you have 10 hussars you can start making a few muskets.

Arrange settlers as necessary. This all depends on your common sense, and your ability to adapt to the situation. You need most of your settlers on gold and food for military production, since your manors have already given you a boost to your economy. Keep 1 or 2 on wood, then split 2:1 ratio of food to gold.

If rushed, ship 6 muskets, if not, ship 5 settlers.

Keep building muskets and hussars now, try to have 10 hussars always. Raid with the hussars when you are not expecting any fights.

Further Notes:

You must sacrifice idle TC time for a good military, or else your additional settlers are of no use.

Keep your hussars alive, it makes a lot of difference to future battles.

As you get better as a player in general, you will start to vary your build orders yourself, and only need the general outline of a strategy to perform it. Looking back at the BO, you don’t necessarily have to follow it strictly, but here is the outline.

You need to be able to train a hussar as soon as your stable is up, and finish 5 hussars with queue system. So you need 600 food and 400 gold by that time. All you need to do is time it.

You need to train another batch of 5. Ok, figure how to get your resources.

Build the barracks shortly after you have 5 hussars. So once you have put 5 into second batch, switch settlers to get that 200 wood, or if you have built it from the 700 wood sent.

Now you need to train muskets, so either train muskets + settlers or leave TC idle for a while and get both muskets and hussars.

Do all the things you do, e.g. raid, attack when necessary, get some big treasures while your army is idle.

Target settlers first, then military, then military buildings, then houses. Refer to the list of shots / strikes below for how many times it takes to kill a unit. Remember roughly how many muskets or hussars you need, so you can be efficient and not “overkill” (e.g. 20 muskets shoot at a strelet, but strelet only takes 6 shots to die, so 14 muskets have wasted a shot when they could have taken out 2 more strelets). Not many civilizations will have outpost, and if they do try to stay out of range, if not able to then raze it when you have 20+ muskets so you don’t end up losing the musket to other forces and the opponent being able to repair outpost.

Crossbow Pike Combo

Use hussars to kill crossbows, and run away from pikes. Muskets target the pikes – the pikes will die easily, and then your hussars can reign free while xbows are vulnerable.

Muskets are better in melee vs xbows than in range. So put around 1/3 of your force into melee and attack them.

A crossbowman can be killed in 6 shots by a musket, 4 strikes by a hussar.

A pikeman can be killed in 6 shots by a musket, 5 strikes by a hussar.

Strelets, Muskets and Cossacks

Hussars can take Cossacks with the aid of muskets, but 5 cossacks can kill 4 hussar (I think), so be sure to reinforce with muskets. Try to lure Cossacks to outpost and TC fire, they will be damaged by TC fire quite a lot which will make it a lot easier. Typically as British you want to play defensive anyway, so while the enemy is seiging your outpost or TC, get rid of most Cossacks.

Shoot muskets with your own muskets, they are weaker than yours and so die much easily. Losing your muskets isn’t that bad, as you want to keep as many of the hussars alive as you can.

A Cossack can be killed in 13 shots by a musket, 8 strikes by a hussar.

A Strelet can be killed in 6 shots by a musket, 3 strikes by a hussar.

A Russian Musketeer can be killed in 6 shots by a musket, 5 strikes by a hussar.

If you discover the enemy is trying to go fortress, do a hard manor boom and make some walls to distract him, while you either stay in colonial and spam a giant army, or age up and get falconets or culverins. You need good micro to kill his age 3 units if you are staying in age 2. Be sure to flank skirmishers and cannons. Be sure to raid him all the time, to minimize his resource gathering with his few settlers while ageing and kill ageup skirmishers or whatever.

Number of Muskets to kill the unit in one volley range attack (HP in brackets)

Musketeer (150)--------7 
Crossbowman (100)------6 / 8 melee
Pikeman (120)----------6 
Longbowman (95)--------6 / 8
Strelet (90)-----------5 / 6 melee
Settler (150)----------7 / 15 melee
Hussar (320)-----------18 / 9 melee  
Uhlan (190)------------12 / 5 melee  
Cossack (225)----------14 / 6 melee  
Coureur des bois(180)--14 / 14 melee
Skirmisher (120)-------8 / 10 melee

These are in colonial, including skirmishers (Dutch or French card).

::::::::::::::::::::
Strengths and Weaknesses
::::::::::::::::::::

Effective civilizations to use against:

Iroquois: Hussars can survive vs Tomahawks, and they beat Aenna’s and Kanya Riders. You will need to make muskets a bit earlier than normal, to counter a lot of Tomahawks because Hussars will eventually lose to them. Otherwise, British aren’t that bad vs them.

Russia: Russia does not have any decent cavalry counters in age 2, apart from their 4 and 5 cossack shipment. With the use of your TC, outpost, and durable Hussars, you can counter their early push. Then you will need to make muskets to counter their muskets or locally made Cossacks – you obviously cannot do a pure hussar build

British: Normally a mirror matchup, with similar units being produced. So it all depends on micro against a fellow British player.

Viable civilizations to use against:

French: If they go musket rush, your hussars will fail, but if they start with xbow then your early hussars can easily kill their first batch. As your musket arrives, kill their pikes.

Dutch: Dutch do not have a musketeer type unit which makes them a good civilization to use this against. Their skirmishers are susceptible to Hussars, but pikes will also be present. You must avoid pikes and kill them with your muskets; otherwise your hussars will fall easily.

German: 5 Uhlans and the occasional 2 Uhlans that are shipped can be a threat to your hussars, but muskets kill them pretty nicely. If they go for an FF, be sure to kill their early army and not let them amass large quantities of fortress units. They lack the 2 cannon shipment so the only threat to your muskets is skirmishers; and they lack dragoons, instead having costy WW’s

Aztec: Bit vague here, I don’t know much about Aztec matchups – someone contribute to this section.

China: If they ship 7 steppes, your hussars are in good shape to take care of them. Obviously muskets are needed to counter pikes, and chu ko nus will die easily to hussars.

Portuguese: Hussars can kill the early cassadores from ageup and combined muskets take down their 3rd TC? Also ability to keep up with ports boom.

Difficult civilizations to use against:

Ottoman: Fast rushing Janissaries will absolutely kill hussars, and your considerable later muskets will be overwhelmed. Longbow + Musket is a better combo.

Spain: An FF will consist of many pikes and rodeleroes, which will easily drop your hussars, and your muskets die to cannonfire.

Japan: Japan is OP, and this strat doesn’t particularly target any of their weaker aspects.

India: Sepoys are like Janissaries, so the same threat occurs here.

Sioux is the least civ I know about, someone else needs to give some details with their knowledge.

::::::::::::::::::::
Recorded Games
::::::::::::::::::::

AoE3 1.12

Valckrie vs chuGGy0r__
- British PR33 vs French PR40, Saguenay, Colonial Warfare
- Got pwned.

TAD 1.01

Valckrie vs Heer
- British PR33 vs French PR30, Indochina, Colonial vs 5 Hussar Semi-FF
- Got 100+ settlers.
Valckrie vs Greeny12
- British PR33 vs Russia PR29, Great Plains, Colonial Warfare
- Lol I walled his blockhouse, an interesting watch!
Valckrie vs T__N__T
- British PR33 vs Iroquois PR26, Great Plains, Colonial Warfare
- Iro didn’t rush me?

I had one vs Lord_Sami… but he messed up in the game with slow age up with Russia. I don’t think he would’ve wanted us to see that so there you go.

Disclaimer:Like all strategies there may be flaws and it will not be 100% effective; it is your own decision whether to use this strategy and your own judgment will affect the chances of you winning. This is merely a guide, notice the word “guide”.

Have fun

---

SC2: Valckrie.Incarnate {Add me!}
Fear is only a four-letter word. Why be afraid?

Guides:
BMS | British Guide | BHM | RSFF | Rec Games

[This message has been edited by Valckrie1 (edited 02-16-2009 @ 04:06 AM).]