Cuirs are cool

Hard to believe that there isn't a guide to the famed 5 Hussar Semi-FF. Since you guys are cute and I have come to like HeavenGames (even if I seem mean it's ok right?), I'm going to write one. It won't be easy to read, I have no clue how to use colours and underlines here (if someone will tell me how to make this look better I'll edit).

Now here's the thing, this is a strategy, not a game winning build order. This means that if you follow everything said here to the letter, your strat won't work as well as it could, and believe me, this strat works well. This means you have to know what your enemy is doing and act accordingly. It is called ADAPTing. Now that I've made that clear, I'll go into detail.

The Goal:

What is the point of this strat? You want to get to Fortress with a decent (upgraded) economy and put your strongest units, this would have to be Cuirs, Dragoons and Skirms, into play. These three auto-veteran units will effectively beat a colonial army, if micro'd correctly. In Fortress you have many more options, upgrades and home city shipments, which are all stronger than their colonial counterparts. The goal is to get access to these assets and effectively employ them to win. A strong FF'er is a very tough opponent.

Homecity:

Now, first of all your deck should look something like this:



Feel free to make your own deck, this is the deck I use, I'm just showing this as an example. It fits me and my play style, so if yours is different and you think another card could serve you better, change it. Each card however, is there for a reason, and I'll explain the essential ones.

Why I chose these cards:

*700 coin - Very important card, it's the shipment that lets you jump to fortress by gathering mostly food and just 300 coin. I really only use this to get to Fortress, though with other civs it can be useful to spend the coin into units.


*700 wood - This card is a must. It's your trump card, the one shipment that lets you ADAPT. ADAPTation is something very important in Age Of Empires III, and the French are one of the most versatile civs. That's where their real bonus lies (Although CdB are cool anyway).


*3 & 4 Coureurs des Bois (or "Runner of the Woods") - The 3 Cdb shipment being a classic and your first card every game, the 4 Cdb is a 5 villager shipment (1.25 x 4 = 5). It gives your econ a decent boost early on, and there is really no better second shipment for this strat, as a straight FF is plausible, but it is riskier and weaker (econ wise)(and you leave your opponent alone for nearly 9 minutes, which sucks).


*8 Xbows and 3 Hussars - Safety cards, they're good if you have to stay in colonial a bit longer because your enemy is being mean. Use these carefully.


*Cav Upgrades & AA - French Cavalry is strong, these shipments make them stronger. Great cards for Cuirs, very great cards. Goons are only boosted by the Fortress Attack/HP card however. AA just has some great upgrades.


*Economic Theory and the other Econ Shipments - In case the game goes late game or you have nothing else to send, these cards get the resources in faster, quite useful.


*Others - Black Riders are simply sick in Fortress, a very good card to have, they complement goons extremely well. Factories are no brainers. Cheaper Cuirs, good card for the late game. 1000 wood is used to build TC's in Fortress and gives a nice boom and map control (as towers also cost wood). Land Grab (cheaper mills & plantations) is a good card once your mines & hunts run out, it's easier and faster to switch to agriculture.

Start:


*Standard start, age up with 14 Cdb and use the 3 Cdb first. Nothing special. Age up with the 400 wood. Scout the map with your explorer and scout. Get treasures. Those are a very strong asset. Start herding as soon as you scout the herds.


*If you started with 200 wood, you might want to consider a Discovery market start. Start by building a market instead of a house. Gather 50 wood (2 Cdb should do) and 50 coin (1 Cdb should do). As soon as you've gathered 50 & 50, put the Cdb immediately back on food. Research the first hunting upgrade asap, and build your house asap as well. This start can be tricky and timing is important, you have to be fast or you'll get idle TC time, and that sucks. The trade off is that you'll get your market upgrades much faster during the transition (your market is already built and you can get the wood upgrade VERY fast), and your CdB have already been gathering 10% faster much earlier than normal. This is tricky, but it is worth it, especially for a semi-FF.

Transition:

*Allocate your vills to get market ups. I put 3 vills on coin, 6 or 7 on wood, and the rest on food. Get the first hunting, wood, and mining upgrades. As soon as you queue the last upgrade (leave the villager attack/hp for now), put 4 villies on coin, 1 on wood and 9 on food. The wood villie is an extra house you get just before ageing to fort. It's kewl, and is more flexible (since you have to ADAPT, and you can't ADAPT if you're not flexible, and the house lets you be more flexible). Getting market upgrades are a good and cheap boost for your economy, Cdb are especially better with them.

*While you're doing this, you should scout the enemy's base. What is he doing? Gathering? Where are his hunts? What did he build? What the fruit is he up to? You'll want to find the hunts especially. When he ages see if he builds a rax or a stable. The usual. OMG YOUR SCOUT! It can stealth. That my friends, is amazing. Stealth him around his rax and see what he's making. Keep him away from the TC and the explorer though. It is most important to scout. Most.

Colonial:

Cool Colonial

*You should have aged by now (hopefully you didn't forget to age and you don't have 2k food stockpiled). Now, use the 400 wood to build a stable and 2 houses. Keep your vills allocated food/coin.

*Send 4 Cdb immediately. Once they arrive put 2 on food and 2 on coin.

*Queue 5 hussars and don't stop making villagers. Once the 5 hussar are out, go harass the enemy. Careful to keep your hussar alive, they're essential. Also, once the hussar are out, put some coin vills on food and gather enough resources to age to Fortress.

*Look for dead hunts, and go there. Try to kill villies, if you can't kill them at least shove them back into your TC. Your goal is to harass your opponent's econ, and distract him. Yeah, you're buying yourself time here. BE CAREFUL! You don't want your hussar to die. Pay very close attention near the enemy town, particularly next to enemy military buildings. The one thing you want to avoid above all is other Heavy Cav. These are fast enough to catch your huss and slow them down. After that, watch out for HI. RI is ok, but be careful anyway since a good player will have anti-cav not too far from RI. I would suggest using control groups. As soon as you see something not kewl, quickly press the control group you've assigned your hussar to, and gtfo. Fast. Control groups are really something you want to start using, and using these on your 5 hussars will help with that.

*Your third card is 700 coin. Gather 300 coin and use the 700 coin for 1k coin. Keep a lot on food. With practice, you should be able to get 1200f and 1000c almost at the same time, which is what you're aiming at.

*Age with 6 skirm politician. These will be essential for defending a push in your base. A push in your base is a mistake. Don't ever push someone who's FF'ing. Harass your opponent, house him in, but don't go into his town. If he's decent he'll run your army over and get the initiative. Since we're playing as the FF'er, that's our goal.

*At this point put a roughly equal amount of vills on each resource. Get the second hunting upgrade and the attack/Hp upgrades from the market. Get some houses, you're going to need all the extra pop space you can get. Let food and coin accumulate, once you hit Fortress those resources will evaporate. Queue no more than 2 Cdb. Try to have as much coin as food when you're in Fortress. Practice.

Mean Colonial

*If you're being rushed or harassed, or the other guy has too much dudes for your comfort, you'll want to play this differently. Instead of the 700c shipment, go for the 700w one. With that get a rax (or two) and some houses up.

*Make Musketdudes. Why musks? Because Musk/Huss is one of the best colonial combos, and your economy is already set up on food/coin. Nothing to change. This is where that extra house mentioned in the beginning can be very helpful.

*That's one of the advantages of playing France, they're versatile, they can change strats or combo's really fast. They have a very diverse unit choice and a really decent econ to back it all up. Market upgrades are better as France as well (as cdb base gathering is better than villie base gathering). This is where France's true civ bonus lies.

*Anyway, make some muskets and maybe another batch of hussars. Stay defensive. I didn't mention this earlier, but try to build your buildings in a manner that makes it difficult for the enemy to move his troops around (place them close together and in front of your mine if possible). Keep your stable in the back of your town however. Don't push out, your goal isn't to own his army, it's to get to Fortress in as good a shape as possible. Use the musks, TC fire, Hussar, and Minute men. Use your minute men when they're sure to cause a maximum amount of damage. The 6 skirms are great once you age and he's in your town. If played correctly, the attrition of your town will hit his army so hard he'll have to retreat. To be frank, each time I FF, I secretly hope that he'll come into my town and start siegeing my TC. If he does that, his army will get btch-slapped (especially cost effectively, as TC Fire and Skirms are free, Minute Men are cost-effectively amazing..). The trick is to get your MM/Skirms/Musks/Hussar to attack all at once. Don't attack with just hussar or just minute men, make sure all of your force defends TOGETHER. Else you'll fail. You can also use Cdb, though you have to be extra careful. They're your econ, they're valuable. And keep at least 10 in the TC for maximum effect. It is often effective to attack the siege force just as you age up, be sure to call MM just before you reach Fortress. MinuteMen and Skirms are especially good vs HI and siege units (pikes) respectively. The TC has a bonus vs Cav. Your hussar might be best used as temporary anti cav. If he doesn't have cav you can go in for the RI.

*Which politician should you chose? I use 6 skirms in almost every game I play. I can't think of a situation where I go 4 hussars, but if that suits you it is quite a valid choice as well. If you have been delayed ageing up after some colonial fighting, it is best however to go with the Fast Age up.

Fortress:
Luckily you made to Fortress! If not, well either continue fighting in colonial and age when you get the chance, or ofc try again.

*If you have defended correctly then you, being in Fortress, have an advantage, however slight it may be. You have access to three auto-veteran units, Cuirs, Dragoons and Skirms. Use them. All three are excellent units, the Cav especially (Many upgrades for Cuirs). Your economy is already set up for these units (food/coin), getting a batch of any one of these units shouldn't be too hard.

*What to do from now really depends on your enemy, his civ and what he has left in his army. Cuirs are usually a pretty good choice in most cases, vs a civ like Russia, Cuirs can be devastating. You can make Cuirs from your stable and ship skirms. 14 Skirms (or 23, if you keep the first 14 alive and have the 7 skirm shipment) and a lot of cuir can take on most colonial armies. Remember to use attack move, which is to say, press "Alt" and right click the an enemy unit. Your cuirs will automatically attack the closest unit to them. Be sure that your cuirs are in a good position before attack moving with them (close to RI, preferably away from HI).

*You can also go Dragoons, which is definitely a good idea if your opponent has cav. If you plan to use the 2 Falconet Shipment, going goons is a very good idea. Goon/Falc is a very strong combo, in colonial it is nigh uncounterable. The best thing to do in such a situation is to group your entire army right on top of the falcs and attack anything you feel like attacking. Prime targets are Barracks and stables. If you can get a few shots on some infantry, get some easy kills, by all means go for it. A mistake a lot of players tend to do is to kamikaze their army (Kamikaze means "divine wind" in Japanese btw, it is actually a rather nice word, I shouldn't use this term, "suicide" would have been better, but if I could teach you noobs something it is all well worth it no?) to kill the falcs. They'll throw everything they have on them. Cost effectively, that's great, because even if they kill the falcs (1K resources), they will have sacrificed (if you defended properly) too many units. Which favours you. This game is all about losing the least amount of units and killing the most of his, per cost. The 2 Falc shipment is a great one, use it wisely.

* Or pop up a rax and go skirm (good idea vs a very infantry heavy army). Your econ is already set up for food/coin units, so why not? Chop the wood you need and get some skirm. It's your call. Generally a skirm will outclass most colonial infantry, but be careful, colonial cav can and will counter fortress skirms (as they SHOULD). If you go skirm, get goons as well. Remember, whatever combo you chose to go, make sure it is counter-safe. Meaning you should be able to counter every unit type in the game. Cuir/Goon/Skirm is a good example. The Cavalry will counter artillery, Cuirs will counter RI, Goons will counter Cav and skirms will counter HI and weak RI. You're safe from any unit type, as long as your micro doesn't suck. Keep in mind that if the other play is half decent, he'll have a counter-safe army as well. Practice micro.

*Being in Fortress means that you can build a second and third Town Center. If you feel that the game may prolong itself, send 1000 wood and build TC's, start booming asap. Develop your econ. You can also do this if you have a (slight) advantage. For example, if you have just won a battle, but don't have quite the force to storm his town, go a bit more econ heavy and reinforce your army.

*I personally love going Cuir, with skirms they can be devastating vs most colonial armies. I have used Cuirs with skirm back up to tank infantry. Cuirassier HP and Splash Damage with Skirm support will quite effectively beat most infantry armies, unless the HI is upgraded or there is quite a lot. Attack move is very useful with Cuirs. Be careful not to lose your Cuirs to Ranged Cav though, and stay away from Heavy-HI (doppels, upgraded rods, etc). Musks are iffy, with experience you can tell whether it is safe to attack musks with Cuirs, it depends on how many there are and the other units in play.
Just remember to ADAPT and allocate your vills to gather what you need. If you need a rax put a few more vills on wood until you have what you need and then put them back to food/coin. Practice!

*DON'T GET GREEDY!! I'm not talking about cookies here, I mean be careful to not get too aggressive. If you have an advantage (better army, just won a fight, so and so), by all means press it, but don't get too hasty. Don't go into his town and lose your army, that's just stupid. Harass, contain, but don't go in for the kill until you're sure that he can't stop you. That's how people who know how to FF win games 30 seconds after they fort'd. Don't ever consider the game over until your opponent resigns either. Play hard till the game stops (some people say "gg" and continue playing ).


Here ends the guide for now. It isn't perfect, and I will most certainly edit it in the future (colour, something I could have forgotten, good questions or points brought up afterwards, etc..). There are a number of things that I haven't mentioned that could also be added. Ask questions!

I may take the time to find some recs later if people ask, in the mean time I heavily suggest watching DAMNIT's VOD, which features the strat I have just described. DAMNIT is one of top players as of today, and his demonstration is excellent. This is for AgeSanctuary's FanPatch 1.1. Good luck & Hf.

VOD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzO-1_o5r9o

[This message has been edited by Incognoto (edited 05-15-2009 @ 04:56 PM).]