posted 04-10-09 00:43 AM EDT (US)
Chinese Confucian Confusion FF
The following is a strategy I developed to counter some strong booming civs in an attempt to work around China's weak colonial units. Don't get me wrong, a Chinese age II rush can be devastating, but it is also expected. This strategy relies heavily on your opponent misreading your intentions, so we want to make every effort to imply a rush, by leaving a few age age II military shipments in your deck, possibly even building a native tp before you age! This is best used against booming/defensive civs, although with some improvisation it can beat back a rush. Definitely not recomended vs. Russians or Germans unless you are positive they will FF too. Some inspiration for this strat came from "The China Mercenary Shipment Spam FF"
http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=15,36538,,all
by Marneus Calgar, but there are some notable differences.
The Concept
The goal here is to exploit China's exceptional age III military shipments in a 'one slow push' attack. Ideally, the main attacking force should consist of:
8-18 arqubusiers (8 from age up wonder, 10 from card)
8+ redcoats/5+ young garde (from intervention/consulate)
4 iron flail (card)
5 meteor hammer (card)
9 iron troop (card)
1 flying crow (wonder)
Realistically, you may want to begin attacking much earlier than this whole force is assembled once a weakness has been detected. I meerly show this list to indicate what type of army I am tying to field.
Here is my deck:
(deck image coming soon)
Required Cards
Trade Empire
Sumptuary Laws
700 Coin
8 Cho Ko Nu
Diplomatic Intrigue
10 Arqubusiers
4 Iron Flails
5 Meteor Hammers
Intervention
9 Ming Iron Troop
Reccomended Cards
Villager Cards; Northern Refugees, etc,
Double Faced Armor
Repelling Volley
1000 Coin
10 Rattan Shields
Customize to your liking...
You will notice the inclusion of a few age II military cards. They are there mostly to contribute to the confusion, although if you experience an unexpected rush/heavy raiding you may have to play one or more of them. If it is an LI*/cav raid, the rattan shields can be useful as they are very fast, good vs archers/skirms, will at least break even with cav and can chase fleeing untis quite effectively. If it is HI/cav or HI/LI* intent on TC/wonder destruction, you will need to get more creative. I would probably send the 8 Cho Ko Nu, sandwich them between some buildings or trees for cav protection, maybe call sentries/irregulars and hold on for dear life. Note that under this circumstance I would have likely already begun construction of my age III wonder, and that its completion is my main concern. When those 8 arq's pop out beside a weakened-from-sieging age II army, they can make quite a mess.
The (ideal) B/O
Discovery age
4 vills to food, rest on crates, build one village DEFENSIVELY (ie, at the side or rear of your town amongst berries or next to a mine). ALL VILLS TO FOOD. Treasure hunt (food, xp, coin are priorities). First card played is Trade Empire. Build on closest trade route site. If there are no trade sites, build on closest native site (for extreme confusion), or send sumptuary laws if you know you will not use the natives or their techs . Maintain constant vill production. Age up with Porcelain Tower wonder (3 or 4 vills building). Build this DEFENSIVELY (ie behind your town, ideally at the edge of the map or adjacent an obstruction to make it harder to siege. Keep cueing villagers. If you can keep constant vill production, you will age a bit slower, but you will break even pop-wise with civs that send 3 vill card. New vills will come out onto the closest mine.
Colonial Age
Leave Porcelain Tower on its default (trickles of all). Continue gathering food with 9-10 vills. Continue cueing vills until you have 17-18. Gather at least 300 coin then switch all vills to food. It is of course important to herd your hunts well. If my second hunt is far off, I will likely send 1 or 2 villagers to begin herding and hunting, but I often just go straight to the berries to save walking time and have less exposure to raiding. First card is 700 coin. Collect the coin, you should have 17-18 vills and close to the age up costs. Don't be afraid to eat your goat if you are just short on food. Age up with The Confucian (confusion?) academy (4-6 vills building). Once you have started aging, cue villagers until there are 21. That means once the 8 arq's arrive you will be at 29/30 pop, therefore able to take your first military shipment. You should have one shipment available thanks to the TP, so save it for your first one in Fortress.
Fortress Age
The enemy is now a little surprised by your age-up time and likely to attack. Keep your arq's in your base, and if an attack comes do not engage immediately, garrison vills as necessary and let the TC do some damage. Decide what shipment would best compliment your arq's based on scouting. If he is HI heavy switch more vills to gold and try to ship 9 Iron Troop first. If he is cav heavy, gather enough wood for a consulate, choose British Allies, buy redcoats, and ship Intervention for more Redcoats. In most situations I would ship 4 iron flails as they are a great LI* counter. You will need to begin wood gathering so that you can build villages to support the influx of military and to make sure you are not housed when the first flying crow is ready. Now, go freestyle it, but be quick about it!
Now for what seems like back-tracking:
Get creative with the consulate! If I had my third shipment available well before I hit fortress, I sometimes send diplomatic intrigue, which gets you 300 export. Build a consulate, ally French, and once the age III wonder is paid for, build a market, research civil cervants, eastern medecine, and one more specific upgrade of your choice, switch export to 10%. This will get you access to the Gendarme/Young Garde for 800 export quite quickly in fortress. Once you have the Gendarmes, end relations, Brit Allies, intervention! You now have HP Boosted French grens and cav and a Redcoat meatshield for the arq's/iron troops.
Or, if he is turtling with walls, towers, castles, etc., ally French as described above, but don't kick them out. Buy the grens for 400 export once you have the arq's, and ship intervention for more grens and start blowing stuff up.
Be aggressive but conservative. Timing is everything with an FF, so make sure you are in the right place at the right time. You will not have the eco or ability to replace troops quickly, so battles must be decisive wins. If all you see is 15 ashi/musks guarding an FB, by all means go pick a few off, but dont be afraid to pull back to the base until you have a more well rounded force. Once you have that flying crow, his cav will be concentrating on it, so you should be able get away with a LI*/Cav combo with the cav acting as anti-cav if necessary. The Iron Flail/Meteor Hammer combo seems to do well against other hand cav, as the flails up front do splash damage, and the meteor hammers at the back can hit the enemy cav from behind the flails without having to try to run around (wasting time with pathing problems) until they can gt a hit.
Once you hit age III and begin spamming shipments, try to stabilize your eco. Consider a market for woodcutting upgrades, so you can start putting villages all over the place once you have map control. Then if you have exhausted your millitary shipments, send the age I vill card, to get a nice boost. You should now have the eco and pop space to start locally producing China's great age III armies. I tend to favour the arq/flail or flail/hammer armies.
If you have really contained the enemy force, stunted his eco, but can't break through, consider aging up with the Temple of Heaven for more villagers, then take the age IV vill/goat card for a huge eco boost.
I have not won a game that got to age IV with this strat, but with it I have beaten Japanese(up to MstSerg), Dutch, a Brit (1st liuet) and even pulled through a couple Sioux rushes (one 2nd lieut) although those had to be improvised extensively!.
Here are a couple of reasons to ship Trade Empire:
The resource value is actually high for an age I shipment. The TP alone is worth 250, plus it builds itself quickly saving villager or monk seconds. Your monk is a very effective treasure gatherer and I don't like tying him up that early, nor do I want to gather the wood required to build it. Plus, tp's have more hp and are cheaper now. The influx of xp from the tp allows me to get my first age III combo quicker in my experience, then our xp dependence can turn to combat once we have a unit combo that is effective.
Here are a couple of reasons to ship trade empire when there are only native sites accessible:
It implies (falsely) a native rush and your opponent will likely produce counters to the units this post could build. Don't build the natives, but ship the counter to their counter first thing in age III (example:Honshu, Zen tp makes Sohei, basically a pike, he likely builds archer/skirm, you don't build Sohei, but ship Iron Flails). Later, if you still have the TP, build the natives when/if it seems that they might effectively round out your force. Sometimes, just the confusion of the native site being up so soon will distract the enemy from your actual intentions (FF). Sometimes just one tech added to this distraction can be quite beneficial if you plan for them (sufi villager hp down gather up tech, zen xp tech, Jesuit gunpowder unit siege tech, carib archer combat tech which affects Cho Ko Nu and Iron Troops).
I hope someone out there can have some fun with this. Any feedback would be much appreciated, I will gladly edit it if anyone finds a way to fine tune it, or make it viable for higher level players than myself.
Here is one rec of me winning with this strat vs a Serg. playing Japanese. Observe my consulate use and comment if you like (sloppy?/creative?).
http://aoe3.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=2400
If you are around my level (not that high), feel free to add me on ESO (ChrisTheMean) and we'll have a game (I won't be able to use this strat though!). My current pr is 18, elo is 1750ish.
Enjoy!
The following is a strategy I developed to counter some strong booming civs in an attempt to work around China's weak colonial units. Don't get me wrong, a Chinese age II rush can be devastating, but it is also expected. This strategy relies heavily on your opponent misreading your intentions, so we want to make every effort to imply a rush, by leaving a few age age II military shipments in your deck, possibly even building a native tp before you age! This is best used against booming/defensive civs, although with some improvisation it can beat back a rush. Definitely not recomended vs. Russians or Germans unless you are positive they will FF too. Some inspiration for this strat came from "The China Mercenary Shipment Spam FF"
by Marneus Calgar, but there are some notable differences.
The Concept
The goal here is to exploit China's exceptional age III military shipments in a 'one slow push' attack. Ideally, the main attacking force should consist of:
8-18 arqubusiers (8 from age up wonder, 10 from card)
8+ redcoats/5+ young garde (from intervention/consulate)
4 iron flail (card)
5 meteor hammer (card)
9 iron troop (card)
1 flying crow (wonder)
Realistically, you may want to begin attacking much earlier than this whole force is assembled once a weakness has been detected. I meerly show this list to indicate what type of army I am tying to field.
Here is my deck:
(deck image coming soon)
Required Cards
Trade Empire
Sumptuary Laws
700 Coin
8 Cho Ko Nu
Diplomatic Intrigue
10 Arqubusiers
4 Iron Flails
5 Meteor Hammers
Intervention
9 Ming Iron Troop
Reccomended Cards
Villager Cards; Northern Refugees, etc,
Double Faced Armor
Repelling Volley
1000 Coin
10 Rattan Shields
Customize to your liking...
You will notice the inclusion of a few age II military cards. They are there mostly to contribute to the confusion, although if you experience an unexpected rush/heavy raiding you may have to play one or more of them. If it is an LI*/cav raid, the rattan shields can be useful as they are very fast, good vs archers/skirms, will at least break even with cav and can chase fleeing untis quite effectively. If it is HI/cav or HI/LI* intent on TC/wonder destruction, you will need to get more creative. I would probably send the 8 Cho Ko Nu, sandwich them between some buildings or trees for cav protection, maybe call sentries/irregulars and hold on for dear life. Note that under this circumstance I would have likely already begun construction of my age III wonder, and that its completion is my main concern. When those 8 arq's pop out beside a weakened-from-sieging age II army, they can make quite a mess.
The (ideal) B/O
Discovery age
4 vills to food, rest on crates, build one village DEFENSIVELY (ie, at the side or rear of your town amongst berries or next to a mine). ALL VILLS TO FOOD. Treasure hunt (food, xp, coin are priorities). First card played is Trade Empire. Build on closest trade route site. If there are no trade sites, build on closest native site (for extreme confusion), or send sumptuary laws if you know you will not use the natives or their techs . Maintain constant vill production. Age up with Porcelain Tower wonder (3 or 4 vills building). Build this DEFENSIVELY (ie behind your town, ideally at the edge of the map or adjacent an obstruction to make it harder to siege. Keep cueing villagers. If you can keep constant vill production, you will age a bit slower, but you will break even pop-wise with civs that send 3 vill card. New vills will come out onto the closest mine.
Colonial Age
Leave Porcelain Tower on its default (trickles of all). Continue gathering food with 9-10 vills. Continue cueing vills until you have 17-18. Gather at least 300 coin then switch all vills to food. It is of course important to herd your hunts well. If my second hunt is far off, I will likely send 1 or 2 villagers to begin herding and hunting, but I often just go straight to the berries to save walking time and have less exposure to raiding. First card is 700 coin. Collect the coin, you should have 17-18 vills and close to the age up costs. Don't be afraid to eat your goat if you are just short on food. Age up with The Confucian (confusion?) academy (4-6 vills building). Once you have started aging, cue villagers until there are 21. That means once the 8 arq's arrive you will be at 29/30 pop, therefore able to take your first military shipment. You should have one shipment available thanks to the TP, so save it for your first one in Fortress.
Fortress Age
The enemy is now a little surprised by your age-up time and likely to attack. Keep your arq's in your base, and if an attack comes do not engage immediately, garrison vills as necessary and let the TC do some damage. Decide what shipment would best compliment your arq's based on scouting. If he is HI heavy switch more vills to gold and try to ship 9 Iron Troop first. If he is cav heavy, gather enough wood for a consulate, choose British Allies, buy redcoats, and ship Intervention for more Redcoats. In most situations I would ship 4 iron flails as they are a great LI* counter. You will need to begin wood gathering so that you can build villages to support the influx of military and to make sure you are not housed when the first flying crow is ready. Now, go freestyle it, but be quick about it!
Now for what seems like back-tracking:
Get creative with the consulate! If I had my third shipment available well before I hit fortress, I sometimes send diplomatic intrigue, which gets you 300 export. Build a consulate, ally French, and once the age III wonder is paid for, build a market, research civil cervants, eastern medecine, and one more specific upgrade of your choice, switch export to 10%. This will get you access to the Gendarme/Young Garde for 800 export quite quickly in fortress. Once you have the Gendarmes, end relations, Brit Allies, intervention! You now have HP Boosted French grens and cav and a Redcoat meatshield for the arq's/iron troops.
Or, if he is turtling with walls, towers, castles, etc., ally French as described above, but don't kick them out. Buy the grens for 400 export once you have the arq's, and ship intervention for more grens and start blowing stuff up.
Be aggressive but conservative. Timing is everything with an FF, so make sure you are in the right place at the right time. You will not have the eco or ability to replace troops quickly, so battles must be decisive wins. If all you see is 15 ashi/musks guarding an FB, by all means go pick a few off, but dont be afraid to pull back to the base until you have a more well rounded force. Once you have that flying crow, his cav will be concentrating on it, so you should be able get away with a LI*/Cav combo with the cav acting as anti-cav if necessary. The Iron Flail/Meteor Hammer combo seems to do well against other hand cav, as the flails up front do splash damage, and the meteor hammers at the back can hit the enemy cav from behind the flails without having to try to run around (wasting time with pathing problems) until they can gt a hit.
Once you hit age III and begin spamming shipments, try to stabilize your eco. Consider a market for woodcutting upgrades, so you can start putting villages all over the place once you have map control. Then if you have exhausted your millitary shipments, send the age I vill card, to get a nice boost. You should now have the eco and pop space to start locally producing China's great age III armies. I tend to favour the arq/flail or flail/hammer armies.
If you have really contained the enemy force, stunted his eco, but can't break through, consider aging up with the Temple of Heaven for more villagers, then take the age IV vill/goat card for a huge eco boost.
I have not won a game that got to age IV with this strat, but with it I have beaten Japanese(up to MstSerg), Dutch, a Brit (1st liuet) and even pulled through a couple Sioux rushes (one 2nd lieut) although those had to be improvised extensively!.
Here are a couple of reasons to ship Trade Empire:
The resource value is actually high for an age I shipment. The TP alone is worth 250, plus it builds itself quickly saving villager or monk seconds. Your monk is a very effective treasure gatherer and I don't like tying him up that early, nor do I want to gather the wood required to build it. Plus, tp's have more hp and are cheaper now. The influx of xp from the tp allows me to get my first age III combo quicker in my experience, then our xp dependence can turn to combat once we have a unit combo that is effective.
Here are a couple of reasons to ship trade empire when there are only native sites accessible:
It implies (falsely) a native rush and your opponent will likely produce counters to the units this post could build. Don't build the natives, but ship the counter to their counter first thing in age III (example:Honshu, Zen tp makes Sohei, basically a pike, he likely builds archer/skirm, you don't build Sohei, but ship Iron Flails). Later, if you still have the TP, build the natives when/if it seems that they might effectively round out your force. Sometimes, just the confusion of the native site being up so soon will distract the enemy from your actual intentions (FF). Sometimes just one tech added to this distraction can be quite beneficial if you plan for them (sufi villager hp down gather up tech, zen xp tech, Jesuit gunpowder unit siege tech, carib archer combat tech which affects Cho Ko Nu and Iron Troops).
I hope someone out there can have some fun with this. Any feedback would be much appreciated, I will gladly edit it if anyone finds a way to fine tune it, or make it viable for higher level players than myself.
Here is one rec of me winning with this strat vs a Serg. playing Japanese. Observe my consulate use and comment if you like (sloppy?/creative?).
If you are around my level (not that high), feel free to add me on ESO (ChrisTheMean) and we'll have a game (I won't be able to use this strat though!). My current pr is 18, elo is 1750ish.
Enjoy!
[This message has been edited by christhemean (edited 04-10-2009 @ 08:02 PM).]
