Little mercenary rush
You need The Peasants Rebellion, cause you're going to use the Town Hall building a lot.
The idea is, that as you are going to technicly win before 40 minutes, you dont need the whole food, leather and metal hassle. It probably works only in 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 3 in case the starting troops are not too annoying.
*** THE BUILD
School, inn
2 quarrys as close to the storehouse as possible while still reaching some rock
1 foresters house in the middle of nearest forest. You wont need more, because by the time initial forest is done, you are good to go
1 sawmill on the way from forester to storehouse, close to storehouse.
1 gold mine as close to storehouse as possible, even if it means you mine just a tiny rock of gold.
1 coal mine with same principle as goldmine.
1 mint near the coal or goldmine
By now you have some building material and small but steady flow of gold chests. If you feel like starving, go ahead and plant a fishers house or two. DONT make any farms because they will slow the proccess horribly. I dont reccommend making wine yards either, you are not that starving yet. There are also between 10 and 20 gold chests in bank.
After finishing first mint, you may try to rush with just 1 mint but Id make another set of: 1 goldmine + 1 coal mine + 1 mint.
So now we have 2 mints fully operating, some lumbr, some stone and just a little bit of food left. You have also scouted the opponents town with a single horse or any other unit and found a few places where you can slip units in.
Go make 2 Townhalls as close to storehouse as possible. There cant be more than like 3 squares between each townhall and the storehouse. Watch how the peasants happily carry gold into townhalls.
Now you have quite a few options. Basicly you mass mercenaries from the townhall and then harass the opponent with them, before he ever gets to build additional units. The goal is to either complitely take care of his army or totally ignore the army and go for the civilians.
Lets say the army is too scary. So spamm vagabonds from both town halls. Make sure you train a vagabond right away when 3 gold chets have arrived, this way the gold is being transported into town hall with max speed.
*** THE HARASS
Once you have a comfortable number of vagabonds (like 12), move the entire group next to opponents town. Of course this only works if theres a way to run them into town without fighting the army hand-to-hand.
Spread the group into like 4 groups of 3 vagabonds and send them to seperate places to harass villagers. The most important thing is to spread the groups into single units when opponents military units get close, so they cant trap the entire group by attacking one unit.
So you run around opponents town with 12 single vagabonds taking care of the villagers, farmers, lumberjacks, serves, all the builders etc. Eventually you will probably lose all the vagabonds but that doesnt hurt much, since at home theres 20+ gold waiting for new ones.
Dependig how well the harass went, either repeat or make some other mercenaries to take care of the military units. It isnt likely that you manage to take care of all the serves so you cant really hope that the miltiary is going to starve.
At some point Id turn all the gold into Rebels and try to take care of the remaining resistance with a swarm of pitchforkmen.
By that time, your own civilians are likely starving to death, so hopefully its over soon.
I tried this vs a player who knew I was going to attack early on but still got him unprepeared on 30 minute mark. If theres no troops at start, going with 1 vagabond right away is best bet, later add in rebels if he has some resistance. Most important is to make it clear before the game, that you decide its OK to attack people early on. Otherwise they wont play you anymore in most cases.
The idea is, that as you are going to technicly win before 40 minutes, you dont need the whole food, leather and metal hassle. It probably works only in 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 3 in case the starting troops are not too annoying.
*** THE BUILD
School, inn
2 quarrys as close to the storehouse as possible while still reaching some rock
1 foresters house in the middle of nearest forest. You wont need more, because by the time initial forest is done, you are good to go
1 sawmill on the way from forester to storehouse, close to storehouse.
1 gold mine as close to storehouse as possible, even if it means you mine just a tiny rock of gold.
1 coal mine with same principle as goldmine.
1 mint near the coal or goldmine
By now you have some building material and small but steady flow of gold chests. If you feel like starving, go ahead and plant a fishers house or two. DONT make any farms because they will slow the proccess horribly. I dont reccommend making wine yards either, you are not that starving yet. There are also between 10 and 20 gold chests in bank.
After finishing first mint, you may try to rush with just 1 mint but Id make another set of: 1 goldmine + 1 coal mine + 1 mint.
So now we have 2 mints fully operating, some lumbr, some stone and just a little bit of food left. You have also scouted the opponents town with a single horse or any other unit and found a few places where you can slip units in.
Go make 2 Townhalls as close to storehouse as possible. There cant be more than like 3 squares between each townhall and the storehouse. Watch how the peasants happily carry gold into townhalls.
Now you have quite a few options. Basicly you mass mercenaries from the townhall and then harass the opponent with them, before he ever gets to build additional units. The goal is to either complitely take care of his army or totally ignore the army and go for the civilians.
Lets say the army is too scary. So spamm vagabonds from both town halls. Make sure you train a vagabond right away when 3 gold chets have arrived, this way the gold is being transported into town hall with max speed.
*** THE HARASS
Once you have a comfortable number of vagabonds (like 12), move the entire group next to opponents town. Of course this only works if theres a way to run them into town without fighting the army hand-to-hand.
Spread the group into like 4 groups of 3 vagabonds and send them to seperate places to harass villagers. The most important thing is to spread the groups into single units when opponents military units get close, so they cant trap the entire group by attacking one unit.
So you run around opponents town with 12 single vagabonds taking care of the villagers, farmers, lumberjacks, serves, all the builders etc. Eventually you will probably lose all the vagabonds but that doesnt hurt much, since at home theres 20+ gold waiting for new ones.
Dependig how well the harass went, either repeat or make some other mercenaries to take care of the military units. It isnt likely that you manage to take care of all the serves so you cant really hope that the miltiary is going to starve.
At some point Id turn all the gold into Rebels and try to take care of the remaining resistance with a swarm of pitchforkmen.
By that time, your own civilians are likely starving to death, so hopefully its over soon.
I tried this vs a player who knew I was going to attack early on but still got him unprepeared on 30 minute mark. If theres no troops at start, going with 1 vagabond right away is best bet, later add in rebels if he has some resistance. Most important is to make it clear before the game, that you decide its OK to attack people early on. Otherwise they wont play you anymore in most cases.
