posted 09-25-09 07:08 PM EDT (US)
For my third strategy on HG, I'd like to post two of the most useful strats, and most versatile, a Dutch player can have. More than 75% percent of my games, I use one of these two strats, just because of their effectiveness at countering what they are intended to counter, and their versatility in case your opponent catches you off guard.
This guide consists of two semi fast fortresses, the 5 hussar semi, and the 10 skirm semi. For those of you who are unfamiliar with semi - FF's (probably very few of you, but nonetheless), a semi - FF consists of prolonging your time spent in age 2 to achieve some goal, then going right up to age 3. Usually, this means making a few units to either defend against raids, or sending something like a villager shipment.
Your deck can be more or less the same for both of these, and really, for the Dutch, I recommend having two decks: 'land' and 'water.' Scouting is so essential, as is adapting to your opponents, that trying to pigeonhole yourself into a strat as early as your discovery shipment is pretty much always a mistake.
Essential Cards
-3 Villes
-Bank Wagon
-700 Gold
-700 Wood
-Bank of Rotterdam/Amsterdam
-Religious Freedom (Advanced Church)
-Tulip Speculation
Highly Recommended
-4 Villes
-700 Food
-600 Wood
-Refrigeration
-Royal Mint
-9 Ruyters
-7 Ruyters
-Improved Cavalry Combat
-8 Pikemen
-3 Hussars
-1000 Wood
-Fort Wagon
-----------------------------------------------------------
The 5 Hussar Semi - FF
Thanks to Ha_Luke, who gave me the idea of sending 700 gold as the first colonial shipment in a previous topic of mine.
Discovery Age
Collect your starting crates, gold first (with 3 villes, the other three go to mine right away), then once those are gone, move 2 of them to hunting your initial hunt, then have the remaining ville collect one wood crate, then your food crate if you started with one, and herd your second hunt. All subsequent villes hunt, and start herding a third hunt fairly quickly. Once you have made 12 villes (6 starting villes + 6 from TC), move all gold villes onto food. Send 3 villes ASAP. Obviously, explore, and try to scout your opponent's strat. Age with the Quartermaster.
Age 1 - Age 2 transition
Move 8-10 (depending on starting crates and treasures) villes to wood, rest stay on food. Once 350 wood, move 7 villes total to gold, rest on food, and build a bank. Queue a ville when possible, TC to hunts. Keep herding.
Colonial Age
Collect the 400 wood quickly. With the first 200 wood, build a stable with 4-5 villes; it needs to go up ASAP. Ship 700 gold, and queue 1 huss, as soon as that stable is up. Build 2 houses with the other 200 wood. Once the 700 gold arrives, immediately queue up the rest of the hussars as the food comes in, while keeping constant villes. You should be able to get 5 hussars out. Send 700 wood. Raid with the 5 hussars.
What to do now
If your opponent is not pressuring you, eg, he/she is playing defensively in age 2 (though I don't know who does that vs. the Dutch), or is fast fortressing, build 2 banks with the 700 wood, then distribute your villes in a manner that lets you age as fast as possible. Constant ville production stops at this point, as you want to get to age 3 ASAP. Send the Bank Wagon next.
If you ARE under pressure, queue up a few more huss, and use the 700 wood for a bank, a rax, and a house, maybe chop 50 wood to get another house. Start producing skirms, and once again, try to get to fortress in a reasonable time, but don't let that give your opponent the opportunity to just barrel you over with military. Keep constant ville production until you are about to age.
When to use this
DO use this strat against any civ that may or may not fast fortress, and if they don't, they probably won't be doing an extremely early rush, like France, Germany, or Ports.
DON'T use this against primarily rushing civs. They will just make a few HI, and you won't be able to react fast enough to stop his rush, even with a rax from the 700 wood shipment.
DON'T use this against a civ that is likely to build HI. If you can't raid, there is no reason to do this.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The 10 Skirm Semi - FF
Discovery Age
See above.
Age 1 - Age 2 Transition
Move 8-10 (depending on starting crates and treasures) villes to wood, rest stay on food. Once 350 wood, move 9 villes total to gold, rest on food, and build a bank. Queue a ville when possible, TC to mine. Keep herding.
Colonial Age
Collect the 400 wood quickly; with the first 200 wood, build a rax with 4-5 villes. It needs to go up ASAP. Queue a skirm as soon as that rax is up. Build 2 houses with the other 200 wood. Send the Bank Wagon. Keep constant villes, while making sure that your first batch of skirms comes out as 5, and a second is made that has 5 as well. Once they are out, go raid villes with them. Ship 700 wood.
What to do now
If you are not under pressure, or your opponent is only lightly pressuring you and showing no signs of being close to attacking (that is, they are booming), then use the 700 wood to make two banks. Configure your villes in a way that lets you age as fast as possible, and start cranking out either skirm/ruyter, or ruyter/falc. Keep harassing with those skirms. Also, check to see if your opponent is FFing himself; if he is, then just harass more aggressively, as he will not have anything to follow you with (in the case of a pure FF).
If you ARE under pressure, simply put up a stable and a house, along with either a market, hunting dogs, and another house, or a bank, I haven’t decided which is better. I usually go with the former, it just is smoother. Ship 8 pikes next, maybe 3 huss if your opponent really isn’t making any cav or HI, but that’s unlikely. Try to get to fortress before 11:00, since staying in age 2 as Dutch means only ‘surviving’ rather than being aggressive and taking control.
When to use this
DO use this strat vs. civs that could either do an FF themselves, or an HI based rush, such as Ottos, Iros, and India.
DO use this strat vs. civs that have the potential to do an LI contain, but most likely won’t be going too heavy on cav, such as Spain.
DON’T use this strat vs. civs that has a good chance of using cav early in age 2, because if your 10 skirms die, you have wasted your semi - FF, such as France, Germany, or Sioux.
DON’T use this strat vs. hard rushing civs; while this can turn into a rush defense, it’s much better to just use a full-on defensive boom than to use this. Iro’s are a special case, since if they are doing a hard rush, it’ll probably be pure tomas.
DON’T use this strat vs. French or Japs - in the case of the former, their villes have huge RR, so it is pretty ineffective to raid CDB with skirms. As far as japs go, those cherry orchards pretty much make a good Jap player immune from raids until they run out.
Scouting
Scouting is absolutely imperative with these strats; if you KNOW your opponent will FF, then 5 huss semi. It takes down your opponent’s time considerably if you raid properly, and you can hit age 3 at around the same time with a FAR better eco. In pretty much any other case that is not a) a hard rush or b) a cav start or a cav semi - FF, you should use the 10 skirm semi. It’s more versatile, and can turn into a turtle more easily if you scout incorrectly.
Feedback is appreciated, as long as you don’t put use numbers for letters every time you can
-Ultraviolet
GR acc name: Ultraviolet [£eg¡øn]
'hey l0bst0r3r!! r u j3w!sH ?? c@n U t3LL m3 wH3r3 t0 g3t s0m3 k0sH0r r3c!p3s?
i l!k3 k0sh0r f00d th3r3's a j00ish r3st4ur4nt 4r0uNd t3h c0rn0r but it's s0 3xp3ns!v3'
-l33th4x0r
This guide consists of two semi fast fortresses, the 5 hussar semi, and the 10 skirm semi. For those of you who are unfamiliar with semi - FF's (probably very few of you, but nonetheless), a semi - FF consists of prolonging your time spent in age 2 to achieve some goal, then going right up to age 3. Usually, this means making a few units to either defend against raids, or sending something like a villager shipment.
Your deck can be more or less the same for both of these, and really, for the Dutch, I recommend having two decks: 'land' and 'water.' Scouting is so essential, as is adapting to your opponents, that trying to pigeonhole yourself into a strat as early as your discovery shipment is pretty much always a mistake.
-3 Villes
-Bank Wagon
-700 Gold
-700 Wood
-Bank of Rotterdam/Amsterdam
-Religious Freedom (Advanced Church)
-Tulip Speculation
-4 Villes
-700 Food
-600 Wood
-Refrigeration
-Royal Mint
-9 Ruyters
-7 Ruyters
-Improved Cavalry Combat
-8 Pikemen
-3 Hussars
-1000 Wood
-Fort Wagon
-----------------------------------------------------------
Collect your starting crates, gold first (with 3 villes, the other three go to mine right away), then once those are gone, move 2 of them to hunting your initial hunt, then have the remaining ville collect one wood crate, then your food crate if you started with one, and herd your second hunt. All subsequent villes hunt, and start herding a third hunt fairly quickly. Once you have made 12 villes (6 starting villes + 6 from TC), move all gold villes onto food. Send 3 villes ASAP. Obviously, explore, and try to scout your opponent's strat. Age with the Quartermaster.
Move 8-10 (depending on starting crates and treasures) villes to wood, rest stay on food. Once 350 wood, move 7 villes total to gold, rest on food, and build a bank. Queue a ville when possible, TC to hunts. Keep herding.
Collect the 400 wood quickly. With the first 200 wood, build a stable with 4-5 villes; it needs to go up ASAP. Ship 700 gold, and queue 1 huss, as soon as that stable is up. Build 2 houses with the other 200 wood. Once the 700 gold arrives, immediately queue up the rest of the hussars as the food comes in, while keeping constant villes. You should be able to get 5 hussars out. Send 700 wood. Raid with the 5 hussars.
If your opponent is not pressuring you, eg, he/she is playing defensively in age 2 (though I don't know who does that vs. the Dutch), or is fast fortressing, build 2 banks with the 700 wood, then distribute your villes in a manner that lets you age as fast as possible. Constant ville production stops at this point, as you want to get to age 3 ASAP. Send the Bank Wagon next.
If you ARE under pressure, queue up a few more huss, and use the 700 wood for a bank, a rax, and a house, maybe chop 50 wood to get another house. Start producing skirms, and once again, try to get to fortress in a reasonable time, but don't let that give your opponent the opportunity to just barrel you over with military. Keep constant ville production until you are about to age.
DO use this strat against any civ that may or may not fast fortress, and if they don't, they probably won't be doing an extremely early rush, like France, Germany, or Ports.
DON'T use this against primarily rushing civs. They will just make a few HI, and you won't be able to react fast enough to stop his rush, even with a rax from the 700 wood shipment.
DON'T use this against a civ that is likely to build HI. If you can't raid, there is no reason to do this.
-----------------------------------------------------------
See above.
Move 8-10 (depending on starting crates and treasures) villes to wood, rest stay on food. Once 350 wood, move 9 villes total to gold, rest on food, and build a bank. Queue a ville when possible, TC to mine. Keep herding.
Collect the 400 wood quickly; with the first 200 wood, build a rax with 4-5 villes. It needs to go up ASAP. Queue a skirm as soon as that rax is up. Build 2 houses with the other 200 wood. Send the Bank Wagon. Keep constant villes, while making sure that your first batch of skirms comes out as 5, and a second is made that has 5 as well. Once they are out, go raid villes with them. Ship 700 wood.
If you are not under pressure, or your opponent is only lightly pressuring you and showing no signs of being close to attacking (that is, they are booming), then use the 700 wood to make two banks. Configure your villes in a way that lets you age as fast as possible, and start cranking out either skirm/ruyter, or ruyter/falc. Keep harassing with those skirms. Also, check to see if your opponent is FFing himself; if he is, then just harass more aggressively, as he will not have anything to follow you with (in the case of a pure FF).
If you ARE under pressure, simply put up a stable and a house, along with either a market, hunting dogs, and another house, or a bank, I haven’t decided which is better. I usually go with the former, it just is smoother. Ship 8 pikes next, maybe 3 huss if your opponent really isn’t making any cav or HI, but that’s unlikely. Try to get to fortress before 11:00, since staying in age 2 as Dutch means only ‘surviving’ rather than being aggressive and taking control.
DO use this strat vs. civs that could either do an FF themselves, or an HI based rush, such as Ottos, Iros, and India.
DO use this strat vs. civs that have the potential to do an LI contain, but most likely won’t be going too heavy on cav, such as Spain.
DON’T use this strat vs. civs that has a good chance of using cav early in age 2, because if your 10 skirms die, you have wasted your semi - FF, such as France, Germany, or Sioux.
DON’T use this strat vs. hard rushing civs; while this can turn into a rush defense, it’s much better to just use a full-on defensive boom than to use this. Iro’s are a special case, since if they are doing a hard rush, it’ll probably be pure tomas.
DON’T use this strat vs. French or Japs - in the case of the former, their villes have huge RR, so it is pretty ineffective to raid CDB with skirms. As far as japs go, those cherry orchards pretty much make a good Jap player immune from raids until they run out.
Scouting is absolutely imperative with these strats; if you KNOW your opponent will FF, then 5 huss semi. It takes down your opponent’s time considerably if you raid properly, and you can hit age 3 at around the same time with a FAR better eco. In pretty much any other case that is not a) a hard rush or b) a cav start or a cav semi - FF, you should use the 10 skirm semi. It’s more versatile, and can turn into a turtle more easily if you scout incorrectly.
Feedback is appreciated, as long as you don’t put use numbers for letters every time you can
-Ultraviolet
GR acc name: Ultraviolet [£eg¡øn]
'hey l0bst0r3r!! r u j3w!sH ?? c@n U t3LL m3 wH3r3 t0 g3t s0m3 k0sH0r r3c!p3s?
i l!k3 k0sh0r f00d th3r3's a j00ish r3st4ur4nt 4r0uNd t3h c0rn0r but it's s0 3xp3ns!v3'
-l33th4x0r
[This message has been edited by Conquerer_MAG (edited 09-25-2009 @ 07:09 PM).]
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