Dammit!!
Wrong post...
Bah, here's a French Pikeman rush strat:
I tried a few pikemen - Xbow rushes :D
And now that Xbows are even better against HI, wel you'll just own:
All Coureurs on food, (hunt), build 1 house, and train 6 Coureurs. Send the 3 Coureurs card. Everyone on food till you hit the Age-up button. Try to pick up Food/Wood treasures with your explo. Age-up with the 400 Wood guy.
While aging, put 6 on Wood near your town, and send 2 coureurs VERY near your enem'y base to cut wood. (Well as near as possible for building buildings) Build 1 house when you get ~250 Wood.Queue up 2-3 Coureurs
When you're done aging up, pick up the wood with 2 villies. Build 1 barracks ASAP with the foward coureurs, send 700 wood, and start training 1 pikeman. build 2nd Barracks, build 1 house, and ad 4 pikemen to the 1 pikeman. When the 700 Wood arrives, pick it up with 2 villlies, build 2 houses, and train 10 pikemen. All newly trained coureurs should be sent on food.
The 15 pikemen should be done at ~5:40. Go burn your eney's base, aiming at houses, military buildings, and kill enemy units and villies. Only burn the enemy's TC when you got nothing more to take out. Depending on your enemy's reaction,:
-Send 600 wood if you're winning. Send 8 Xbows if you're losing. Send 4 Coureurs if you're still struggling.
-Train pikes if you just take out the barracks/stable and all enemy villies are in TC. Train 5 Pikes/5 Xbows if you're struggling, and train 10 Xbows if you just died.
Don't forget to:
- Balance coureurs on wood/food to keep mkaing coureurs and pikes/Xbows
- Scout with explo to see if enemy is raiding
- Keep your cool if you just got owned.
- Never send in pikes alone (unless 1st wave) if you're losing. Try to micro with Xbows if you face full HI spams
- Keep an economic advantage
- Run if minutemen come out. Come back 30 secs later.
Good vs.: Dutch (Pikes pwn skrims), German (usually FF. You'll kill him before that), British (Pikes own lbs), Portuguese (2 TC's, but FF, so you'll have no enemy units to kill)
Bad vs.: Russia (Never try; Strelets pwnage), Ottomans (You're joking - Pikes vs. Jans??),