The basis of this strategy is to effectively double your opponents’ economy by the 7 minute mark, this is tweak-able to have an army with fewer villagers, but it is still very safe regardless of your opponents’ aggressiveness.
There are three cards you will need for this strategy (in this order):
· 3 Settlers (age 1)
· Exotic Hardwoods (age 1)
· 5 Settlers (age 2)
1) First you will want to put two villagers onto wood/house duty, and the other 4 onto crates ? hunting. Gather all of your crates, except for the gold ones; you will not need those until much later.
2) Every villager that comes out of your Town Center (TC) will go to hunting, the two villagers you put on trees will provide enough wood for a few houses and a decent colonial time.
3) Send the 3 settler card when you receive your first shipment.
4) Continue to build houses with your wood villagers only and keep your hunting as close to your TC as possible, as soon as you get 800 food pick The Philosopher Prince for the 2nd age and put every villager but 3 onto wood, leave the 3 on hunting – they will gather the food for your market upgrade and your first villager upon reaching the colonial age.
5) Build a market and get gang saw; exotic hardwoods should be arriving around the same time for an overall 30% faster wood gather rate.
6) Continue to build houses as soon as you have enough wood, all manor-spawned villagers go to wood.
7) As soon as you reach the colonial age send the 5 settler shipment and gather your 500 food crate; once you reach 20 houses, you can move a lot of your wood villagers to food/gold to balance out your economy, I would highly recommend getting the villager attack/hp upgrades at the market, and putting down a couple outposts.
If your opponent rushes you, you can fight back with villagers while you make longbows.
You should be able to get 47 villagers around the 7 minute mark.
Build order breakdown:
· 2 out of your starting villagers go to wood collection.
· The other 4 villagers go to crates (avoid gold crates on the map), then hunting.
· Send the 3 settlers as your first card.
· All villagers made from your TC go to hunting.
· All villagers spawned from houses go to wood.
· Send exotic hardwoods as your second card.
· Send 5 settlers as your third card.
Ideas for continuation strategies:
· Make a saloon and use your 200 pop for outlaw units.
· Wall up and go 3rd age very quickly, flip your economy to food/gold as soon as you hit 40+ vills.
· Mass musketeers and longbows, push opponents’ base.
Record game is attached for example.
http://Forum.agecommunity.com/recordedgames/British Villager Swarm.zip