Dutch Defensive Skirms
A Dutch strategy aiming to hit fortress before 11:00 with a good mass of skirms, and a decent economy.

Summary
The Dutch are a very strong fortress civ, with a superior eco to most civs and a very powerful and massable army. Their core army (ruyters, falcs, and skirms) is all upgraded to vet upon aging up, which is a huge advantage, as not only would your opponent have to spend resources upgrading their units, but they would also have to wait for the upgrades to finish, which can give you enough time to gain the advantage.
However, the Dutch are quite susceptible to a fast age 2 rush, which most players know. Typically, players will either try an xbow contain, or just a straight up HI/LI rush vs. Dutch. This strat counters both of those, and really counters anything but an FF or a turtle. You can use it vs. a turtle, but it's usually a far better idea to FF.
The idea of this strat is to take advantage of the fact that skirms have the highest range of any age 2 unit other than longbowmen, and thus can hit and run anything, even cav, with proper building placement and micro. Then, with your defensive army, you go to fortress and start taking advantage of the Dutch as they were meant to be played.

Cards
Required:
-3 Villes
-Bank Wagon
-700 Wood
-3 Hussars
-8 Pikes
-700 Food
Highly Recommended:
-Bank of Rotterdam/Amsterdam
-Advanced Church
-Tulip Speculation
-9 Ruyters
-7 Ruyters
-Cavalry Combat
-Fort Wagon
-1000 Wood

Other than that, it's up to you.

Build Order
Discovery Age
The goal is to age up with 15 villes, hitting as close to 4:10 as possible. If you have enough gold crates, that is, 6 gold crates (it does happen occasionally), you don't need to mine any gold. In this case, gather all the gold crates, one wood crate, then all the food crates, and every ville goes hunting. Build a house, and queue up 6 villes total (12/20 pop). Note that you should be mashing your ville button as soon as the game starts (after you micro your villes, of course). Your first shipment will be 3 villes. Age with the quartermaster;
If you start with 5 gold crates, put 2 of the starting villes on gold, and as soon as you get the extra 100 gold you need, just move them to food and queue up the last ville. If you start with 4 gold crates, use 3 of the starting villes to mine, and once you get that 200 extra gold, queue 2 more and put all villes on hunting.
If you start with 4 gold crates, you will probably have a bit of idle TC time before you age, but that's fine. Not ideal, obviously, but it's not a tragedy. I'd start herding 2 secondary hunts ASAP, especially because you can't spare the wood to build outposts to protect hunts that you haven't herded properly.
Transition
Split your villes based on your starting wood crates; if you start with 200 wood (you'll have 100 wood left), put 9 villes on wood and 6 on food. Look for wood treasures with your explorer. If you started with 300 wood (200 wood left), split your villes as 7/8/0 (F/W/G). In either case, once you gather 350 wood (you will have 350 food by then), build a bank, then redistribute 6/0/9. Queue up one ville, with the TC waypoint to gold.
Colonial Age
Send the Bank Wagon as your first shipment, and collect the 400 wood ASAP. Put up a rax and 2 houses. Building placement is crucial, and will be talked about later. As soon as you have another 100 coin, queue up a second ville. Queue up as many skirms as possible once the rax is up, your first batch should be of 5.
Keep up constant ville and skirm production, and place your bank wagon once it arrives. Before your second batch of skirms comes out, you should receive another shipment. Send 700 Wood. Once you have 13 villes on gold, switch the TC waypoint to food. When the 700 wood arrives, build a stable, a market, 3 houses, and research placer mines at the market. Remember, you should be able to keep making skirms. Once you have a 10/0/13 split, move the TC waypoint to wood.
Your third card depends on what your opponent is making. If they are going heavy on LI or HI, ship 3 Hussars. If they are making lots of cav, send 8 Pikemen. Keep making skirms, and by the time you have about 30 of them (this may be slightly inaccurate), you should receive your fourth colonial shipment. Send 700 food. At this point, STOP ALL VILLE AND SKIRM PRODUCTION! It will only slow down your fortress. Put 20 villes total on gold, the rest on wood, and buy food until you have 500 food. Once the 700 food arrives, eat it with the wood villes. You should have 1200 food and 1000 gold at the same time. Age up with the Exiled Prince.
Transition and Fortress
I tend to split my villes (you'll have around 26-28 by now) as 5/6/17, and buy wood for a few houses. However, what you do at this point is up to you. Ruyters + falcs works vs. most civs, though I usually mix skirms (in case the opponent goes RC). You've arrived in Fortress with 2 banks, 30 skirms, and approximately 30 villes, not bad for Dutch, and it will repel almost any rush.

Building Placement
With this strategy, building placement is crucial. Typically, you'll hear players saying to create a 'wall with your buildings' as the Dutch, which is usually sound advice. In this case, you just want to make it difficult for your opponent to move around in your base. I'll put my first bank touching my TC, and my second one either in front of my hunts, or in front of my gold mine. Your rax should be in the back of your town, though still rather close to your TC, as you want to build inward, not out.
The plan is to use your skirms to hit and run ANYTHING, even xbows. If they try to advance, simply garrison some villes, move your skirms behind your 'maze' of buildings, and shoot them as they try to navigate through so that they can fire on your army. Usually, it's pretty effective, at least in my experiences.
Make sure though, that your buildings don't block your villes' path to the TC, as the other reason you build your buildings inward is to help you survive raids. You can focus fire with your skirms on the cav, as they, again, try to maneuver through (or out of) your buildings, and they should die relatively quickly, as TC fire + fire from 20 or so skirms can easily take down a cavalry unit, especially an uhlan.

Other Tips
As with any build order, you need to make adaptations based on the situation at hand. Sometimes, when you send the 700 wood, instead of building a stable, 3 houses, a market, and getting placer mines, you should make 2 houses, a market, get placer mines, and put up an outpost to defend a second gold mine, if you run out of your first. You can build the third house shortly after, as you should only need 25 more wood.
CHECK YOUR OPPONENTS DECK! If your opponent is FF'ing or doing a pure cav spam, DON'T DO THIS! Pike rush, or FF yourself vs those. You don't wanna be stuck with colonial skirms vs a fortressed opponent, or a bunch of cav, no matter how well you place buildings.

Good luck, any feedback is appreciated, and I hope this helps

[This message has been edited by Conquerer_MAG (edited 09-21-2009 @ 05:12 PM).]