Recently, I have developed a ruthless scotched earth strategy.Here's how it works
Firstly, it can work with early rushing or a late surprise sneak attack on the enemy capital.
I will go with 6 HI or 4 Siege + other supoport troops and flank past the other enemy cities. The key here is to capture either the capital or the 2nd city quickly before his main army realises what happens.
WHY??
Capital is the place where the enemy has his bulk of famrs and woodcutter camps.
2nd city is where he builts his other 5 farms and maybe woodcutter camps( except bantu who may use the 2nd city as a jumping off point).
Our goal is to capture either the capital or the 2nd city quickly.
While assimilating, here's where my main strategy will apply. Quickly select a farm and press delete to raze it(you can raze all economical buildings while assimilating). If there is a woodcutter camp, raze it first(cos they can produce more resources per camp as compared to per farm). Raxe in this order:
1)Woodcutter camps( raze early if enemy is French)
2)Farms(raze as first priority if enemy is Egyptians)
3)Libraries(you might want to raze this earlier if the enemy does not have a 2nd library)
4)Univeristies(Raze earlier if enemy is Greeks).
5)Mines(raze early if enemy is Inca but not over farms and camps)
6)Granaries, Lumber mills, Etc( depend on race.
The farms are the easiest to raze, followed by woodcutter camps.
Normally, I wouldnt raze temples unless the city is useless to me. Every farm raze generates +20 food and woodcutter camps + 30 wood.
This strategy is useful as when the enemy recaptures the city, he will have to start all over again to build all the lost famrs and camps, wasting resources in the process. in the meantime, his economy is hurt as he cannot generate resources from the city he retook. Meanwhile, you can get bonus resources from razing. In late game, this strategy is very painful to the enemy as each farm and woodcutter will generate more than +10 resources every 30 sec.
Questions????