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Yep! You found it. Welcome to the best Portugal Strategy Guide on the web for AOEIII.

Other top players, along with myself,have put together a collection of well engineered, easy to read strategies. Along with extensive expirience, there are tips'n'tricks here every player should use. The first Thread is divided into 3 main parts: AGE1starting tips, the Portugal FF, and a Fast-industrial age strategy. scroll down to find a specific Build Order or Strategy

    Many players neglect the use of the Portuguese. This article is to show that the Portuguese pwn.(own)
    First, many players are put off by the difficulty of trying out this civ. As with the Ottoman, Chinese, and Germans, this civ takes getting used to.(along with extensive micro-managing )

The big advantages are the 2 unique units with which you play.

Cassadors- Super skirmishers. With 50% ranged armor; this unit pwns skirms and, Lbows. Why they rock.
Organ Guns- Extremely hard hitting guns- capable of taking out 7 lbows in 1 salvo. Reloads every 4 seconds vs the falcs 5 seonds and the muskts 3 seconds.

  The problem with these two is that: even though they are decidedly deadly against ranged units, that increased ranged armor comes at the cost of low hitpoints. That means they die very fast in melee combat. Let any units get close enough, and they are horribly, utterly, doomed.

With these two, you can fend off ANY age II attack behind a simple stretch of walls. There are the 4 most used strategies for Portugal: Basic Muskt rush, Organ Gun rush(FF), Outpost/map control/turtling, and infamous cassador rush(3v3).      (Portugal also has the most infantry units, including Xbows, Pikes, Muskt, Haldb, and Cassadors, along with hussars and the best dragoons in the game)

Here’s a simple order of things to do in AGE 1:

        (italic'd parts aren't for expirienced playered)

(age with 13-14,)
-Start with 7 settlers- two to shoot the nearest animal- herd towards your TC later

-The other 6 should collect the remaining groups of crates by two’s. Only collect all the food and one crate of wood. Then set them to the downed animals. As soon as your settlers begin collecting food, begin clicking the villager button (or hitting V) until you have a villager queued up. Remember to place your TC Gatherpoint at the nearest huntables.

-While all this, use your explorers spyglass ability to click a certain spot on the map, and reveal everything within a 16 unit range circle of it. On the first try, click where the enemy town center is. This ability has to recharge every half-minute, allowing your explorer to explore half the map with out even moving, or explore the full map in half the time. Your explorer is key to all games. The only thing as important that your military is HIS military. With out knowing what he is making, you will lose. Identify his fb (forward base) if he has one, then keep spyglass abilities on his army.

-Queue up villagers until you reach 14 pop or 12 population

-During this time you should be checking in on your explorer, and using him to collect any treasures nearby. After he finishes, explore the map. You really need food, coin, and unit treasures. Only get wood and xp treasures if they are lightly guarded, or as asset denial.

-As soon as you have a shipment available send either improved buildings(vs jans) or wait for an age II shipment.

A settler shipment is almost always better than a resource crate, but since the developers set a town center wagon to spawn everytime you age, they cut out any settler shipments for balance. So instead, here’s a good list of what to ship first for the basic muskteer rush:
AGEI: none
AGEII: 700 wood, 700 gold, 8 xbows, 6 muskt, 600 gold

Basic Muskteer Rush

(10muskts/8xbow+ 24muskts coming)

[this works well against Germans, spainish, french, portugal, and any FF'ers. This will not be effective against any civ with good Light Infantry, such as russian, Britian, and Dutch. There is a modified version of this strategy at the bottom for Ottoman rushes.]

Have all settlers on food always.

 3 houses, one market and two Rax.

Since they are so flexible, it is difficult to predict what a Portuguese player is doing, which makes one that much harder to defeat. 90% of the time, it is better to age up than make more units. This applies especially to Portugal. They get free TC's everytime they age, giving you the equilvelent of 600 wood and 10 population, plus much improved Shipments. Attack with

How to Beat an Jannisary Rush

For a anti-jan semi-rush(half turtleing, half rushing), leave 4settlers on food, put 6 villigers on wood and 2 on gold. MAKE AN OUTPOST as soon as you have 250 wood right infront of your house. Jan's have no ranged armor, just a 20% reduction of all melee attack done to them, and outposts have 30 ranged attack, so 3 outposts will kill one janissary every 3.166 seconds.

SEND: 2 outposts, 6 muskts, 700 (G/F),

Place the 2 outposts on either side of your house. That house should be surrounded by 3 outposts and your TC.

Perhaps you doubt this would work, but have you ever even tried it defending against Ottomans as Portugal? Probly not I have though, and i must tell you, it works. All the outposts do 60 damage together IF he ever makes it as far as your base. I usually let him fight under 3 Towers, he falls quicker, but you can take out his units at his rax, then take out his rax, neglecting your 3 towers. this works especially well if he sent 2 settlers to build it and they are still around (much more likely than you think). Then move on to his tc and kill any settlers that dont make it to the TC in time. (otto dont have many settlers early game.) This is the time to attack them. Early on, before they can boom.

 6 muskts are roughly equal to 5 jans. The 5 jans cost 500 food, and 125 gold. The muskt cost 375 food, and 125 gold. The jans cost 25 more resourses, and train slightly slower.  Belive it or not, the 6 muskt win slightly. Yes, i've tried this in a game too, and they do. Jans train slower than muskt, so as long as you have the resources, and are pumping out muskts nonstop, you WILL have an army bigger than his. The best an ottoman player can do is 15 jans at 6:15. A Portugual player can have 16 at 5:55. seriously, that rocks. That is right. Once you have 16 msukts, go in his rax. If you want to mess with him, shoot him, back off, then shoot again, repeat till he comes too far forward and runs into your 3 outposts. Most players(lamers) actually attack at this point. i don't know why, but many feel they must keep the offensive. You have a larger army AND 3 outposts, so this should be quick works. Like i said, you can also ignore your 3 outposts, and take out his RAX without their help. If you didn't make enough muskts on time, let him engage your outposts. dont forget EVERY building is now 1.40 times stronger. Use the shoot and scoot with your musks, and make him do loops around you tc, losing men from the outpost fire. dont garison villies, unless they are in immediat danger.

From here, you should have a GG. If he has set up more than 2 outposts at his TC, wait until you can age with the 700 (G) shipment, and get one of the super units- cassadors or organ guns. Age with 6 Cassadores. Also: use native Light infantry whenever possible-carib, cherokee, cree, and seminole. keep the villiger balance at 4 6 2, but use the 250 wood from the outpost that is usually built. Send 700 wood if the natives require wood. don't make any till you have 16+10 muskts though.
(Either this or just FF)

The Portuguese Fast Fortress

cards: AGEII: 700 gold

AGEIII: 1000 wood, 8 halb, <attack> 1000 gold, merc. card

Armies: 3 organ guns defended by the 8 halb,            *at 6:45-7 minutes

2 organ guns                                                   *at 7:30

3organ guns defended by 9  muskts(or merc).              *at <9 minutes

              *and when i say LESS THAN, mean it.

_______________________________________________________

Many civ’s simply cannot keep up with Portugal’s Economy in age two. However, AGEIII Portugal has Undisputedly the best economy. Being that when Portugal gets there, the 3 town centers are already built. Portugal recives a town center everytime it ages. This gives the unmatched ability to spawn more settlers than every other civ.  Additionally, the two Super-Troopers that were mentioned earlier aren’t available till the Fortress Age.

The muskteer rush is better for France, Ottoman, Spanish, Germany, and Portugal, but not Britian, Dutch, or a Russian rush.

For these reasons, I find it effective to use a Fast Fortress strategy versus any civ that is Britian, Dutch, and sometimes* Russia(I feel Russia is the bane of the Portugal Empire, so i devised a totally seperate strategy for them. just for Games against russia, but that's later).

       Sometimes I can still FF during a Russian Rush because having two town centers makes it incredibly difficult for them to hurt my economy than theirs. Simply erecting a wall around your two town centers with a herd or 2 in the middle can nullify ANY rush attack for a short time. The Fast Fortress can be extremely effective. Here's the Build Order starting at Age2 for an aging time of 5:55.
This starts off where the first post stopped at AGEI. So does the next thread. So:

-Click AgeII button using 400 wood politician

-Move 3 settlers to Gold (300 gold)

-Leave rest of settlers on food (1600 food) 1200+400

-Queue up 4 settler from TC

-As soon as you age, send the 2nd town center wagon to the far end of of the map, on one side of your enemy (by a herd and a coin-mine), thus to keep him off resources. Your enemy can't kill a TC fast enough for you to age (especially b/c the nomadic Age has no military). Keep out of sight, don't build too close, and don't let him get on to what you are doing. Player skill goes a long way. Also keep in mind both TC's must always be queuing settlers. If you don't do so, you don't take advantage of this civilization's bonus. Since you can queue settlers twice as fast as any other civ now, you can afford to have them gather what food you need to age, instead of using the 500 food politician .

-Use 700 gold Shipment.

-Shortly after your shipment arrives you should hit 1200 food 1000 gold (at approx the same time).

-Click to AgeIII.. Here, you have a couple options:

1. Marksman-Sacrifice super-fast age time for a stronger military in Age2, and use the 6 Cassador politician
2. Exiled prince-Get a super-fast age time (5:55-6:25), which will give you access to Age3 cards more quickly.

3. You need to decide what card you are likely going to send once you hit age3 after sending the 1000 wood.

The fastest AND best army you can have here is:

    -3 organ guns Defended by a shipment of 8 Halb.    --- Need only 1 building: Artillery foundry.

        then send in

      -2 more organ guns

          then send in 

        -3 more organ guns Defended by a shipment of 9 muskt

2 min, 01 sec- how lon it takes 20 settlers all on gold to gather all the resourses needed. 2400 gold.

Use your 2nd TC base to make a Artillery Foundery, make 4-5 more houses ONLY(need the rest for making oragn guns), and set the 2nd TC to the (HomeCityDropOffPoint.) This move is equivelent to taking the long way around your enemies fb(if he has one). Destroy your enemies settlers, and wait for his army to come gallivanting back to his base. Destroy his army; you have a 30-population army. Organ guns destroy everything, and your halb. take melee damage for your low health cannons. Do not forget that if he rebounds from this attack, which he shouldn’t, you have already taken the lead from which he cannot recover. Never forget that, and never give up once you are at this point.

    *all cannons have the 75% resistance, so if a infantry shoots at it with 20 attack damage, the Cannon only loses 5 hit points. The object of the game is to be more cost effective than your enemy, so as long as nothing melee's your cannons, you will most likely win. 

Don't gather ANY wood, which is the slowest gathering resource. All shipments make up for this.
Don’t forget to have a constant settler production from your 3 TC’s, or you neglect your civilization’s bonus.


A lot of times players will make the mistake of trying to keep up with you rush themselves into Fortress Age without making much military in hopes of competing with whatever you throw at them. IF this is the case then you just got very lucky. Where as they will get to the Third Age and have nothing, in the two minutes after you clicked that Exiled Prince Politician, you will have a army greater than anything he can throw at you. Including the 4 mamelmukes. They go down surprising fast, just make sure they don’t reach your cannons. Place them between two of your enemies buildings, and station Halb’s at either side of that “alley”.
 
The other thing that can happen is that they attempt to send whatever military they have at your doorstep and try to take you down before you get your shipments.. this can present a problem, but it is counterable. If this happens, you need to make sure you have 150f and 150g for Minutemen. Your minutemen and TC fire should hold them off for long enough so your army can arrive and wipe out their military, as well as give you enough XP and buy you some time for a 2nd shipment so you can go in and finish them off.

The other possibility here is that you chose to go the Marksman (6 Cassador route). This will ensure that you have a defense when they come, but wont get you the 30 pop army in. The only problem is that you will probably not get your army until 6:45- 7:15 minutes into the game, where you are completely vulnerable to enemy attacks up until that point. Although, it gives you Skirmishers which will counter any Muskets they have, this path only give you 115x6=720 resources, where this game is all about time. This is too long.

You should currently have a 17 villager eco. Make 5 more, then stop. Seeing as 20 villies on gold should give you a sufficient gold income to keep spaming organ guns. The important thing is that you can put enough houses down for your army, and eventually a barracks sometime after you send your army away. Once you have all 8 cannons, 9 muskt, and 8 halbs attacking, start settler prodution up again. Don't forget to, or you will suffer late game.

I would also strongly recommend searching for treasures that help you age, or that can give you enough exp. to set up your fort.

So, 22 villies, and here is a recap on all the shipments for a great FF:

AGEII: 700 gold

AGEIII: 1000 wood, 8 halb, <attack> 1000 gold, 9 muskt

during this, you should have sent in:   

3 organ guns defended by the 8 halb,            *at 6:45-7 minutes

2 organ guns                                                   *at 7:30

3organ guns defended by 9  muskts.              *at <9 minutes

              *and when i say LESS THAN, mean it.

   *also, i send my explorer into the enemy tc b4 my army gets there, to see what units he has. This is one of those tips that you will forget, and then remember and use once you gt really really good. I also send 1 settler into battle to erect a wall right at the edge of the enemy tc FOR my artillery to hide behind. This is a good idea if ur enemy is massing muskt, or calv. Massing Calv take time, and it is a garuntee a Regular civ will have no more than 8 calvary when you arrive. Which, you should already have been in his Town and killing all his settlers. 8 haldb's take care of any calvary numbering less than 18. Calv lose FAST to anti-calv infantry.

   Exceptions- Germany has uhlans that cost 100 gold and 50 food. that's 25% cheaper, so they will have a MAX of 25. Russian suck at calv, but has 2 cards which equal 9 cossacks which die easy, but are really easy to get, so chances are, you will see these more often than the other civs.

if this doesn't works, you have either: utterly failed as a human being or your opponent is really good. Like 1stLeuit+++. IF he is, age again with 10 muskt's and send the Portuguese Expeditionary Force-6 dragoons and 6 cassadors, make a mortar, and send the mortar to take down any defenses he has, which would be towers, or a fort. put the muskt's into defend mode and line the cassadors infront of the must's with dragoons on either side of the 6 cassadores.

AND, if he manages to age and get culvrins or falc's, use the dragoons in MELEE mode. As ranged attacks will take 3 times as long to kill the artillery piece.

PS: you should have 30 villies on food, 20 on gold, and 10 on wood by 14 minutes. Should be GG in less than 10 minutes though.
New strategy for the FF. Zip.

The Portugese 105 Turtle
 

this strategy is not so much a set strategy with build order, but a goal of getting 105 settlers with tips on how to get there.

This focuses on having 105 settlers before 12 minutes. Only having 40 settlers in a 1v1 game by this time is usually unstoppable. Having 105 settlers means you can take on 3 enemy opponents and win. With instantly replace-able troops. (You will if you have enough resources, which 105 settlers will do), this strategy is one of the more beautiful ones. if done properly.
With the 3 settler Politician and the Cree and Cherokee cards (2 of the most common natives on maps), Portugal almost always has 105 villagers within 30minutes.

Although common knowledge, any good Portuguese player CAN have maxed out villies (99) before the age to fortress. Now, this takes time, 12 minutes to be exact, but of the three strategies discussed in the AOEIII manual, Turteling is the only one not widely used. [insert manual link] As the best civ for turtleing, the Portugese are adept at pulling this off, along with the Dutch. Booming beats this strat, and this beats rushing which in turn beats booming. The majority of players rush, as the top 40 players figured out of the 3 strategies, rushing was the fastest, and therefore could get them a higher rank without wasting their time. Lesser players just did what the good ones did, and eventually everyone did so.

Seeing that this is another “obsolete” strat that the game developers have not corrected, this may be another item that gives you an edge.

First, the object is to get to industrial age very fast, and use a small army to harass theirs, with walls and redoubts covering much of the opponent’s path.

     The way I (blowgunner_1) does it:

Start with the Improved Buildings Card: adds 40% health to every buildings, which makes Outposts very hard to take down. Send chp Trading Posts next. make an alliance with the Cree, ONLY use the cheap building upgrade from them. I send the Trading posts card.They now only cost 88 wood and have ranged attack. Build all the TP's and outposts you can to control the map where you need the map and where he needs it(mines and herds close to him). DO NOT RANDOMLY PLACE OUTPOSTS ALL OVER THE MAP. Duh, but you would not believe how many ppl think map control means controling the entire map. You can, but outposts work best if they re-enforce each other. The limit is 7. This should be at 5 minutes.

Next, focus on aging before your opponent, and set an outpost RIGHT next to his Forward base, and  outposts line-ing the route to your Town. You will need a lot of wood, but send the 700 wood instead of the chp outpost card. Now, it is horrible for him to get his army even to your base when everytime he crossed an outpost, he get shot at, slowed down, and loses 1-2 men.

Also, it is EXTRELY possible to set up a outpost next to his Rax. He has no military when he is aging, so find out where his settler is, and build a outpost close to it. And that settler can make the outposts by his surrounding resourses too. I’ve tried this part, and it is extremely possible and actually is really easy.

Now, getting to the industrial while he is trying to take out those outposts surrounding his base) is really hard, but possible using walls and cannons emplacements. FF, like in the previous thread, and post organs guns by outposts. use 3 walls to form an triangle that surrounds just the outpost and the gun. Organs guns rock against ANYthing but culvs, and if you have a culvrin already in bombard mode, it will target the enemy culv. faster than the other can shoot back. 1 shot, 1 kill. Age with 10 muskt.

       Doing so, I would implore you to send the church card, so you can have instant army- 22 xbows or 11 black riders. This part is up to you- if it fits your style to have 22 anti-infantry units instantly pop up for 2000 wood, go ahead. it also upgrades all xbows to guard status.

Once you get to industrial- I wouldn’t recommend using your fishing ability until now, you can do 1 of 3 things:

vs booming---Max villies, and get them a high gathering rate- to counteract booming, which is the only way to beat this Portugese 105 Turtle. (actually, you should place some calv by your Outposts to take care of grenadiers)

vs rushing---(one that is killing ur outposts and threatening map control/// or is failing, but he keeps on sending in wave after wave anyway)Send Fortifications card, which upgrades all buildings in the industrial age. Walls- fully upgraded. Outposts-gives them a 300Seige attack(rocks). This lets you focus on other things than defending your outposts.

vs turtler---(like dutch) Make a mortar, send the PORTUGUESE EXPIDITIONARY FORCE card, and use the 10 muskt to defend it. PS: The Great Card is the Portugese Expeditionary Force: 6 Cassadors and 6 dragoons. This is a 18-population army, and is a force to be reckoned with all by it’s self in 10 minutes into the game. It’s total cost, were you to train it,  assuming you would have already built 2 RAX, and 2 Stables, is 1775 . Very nice.

____________________________________ ___________

 
Now:
Beware Britain. Brits get a max villager eco of 99. Portugese, the same. Ports and Brits will both find their villager max relatively quickly if they keep their TC's active and build a lot of houses. Brits pay a small price (manors are more expensive) for this settler boom ability, while Ports do not. Ports are only challenged by idle TC time and do not get villager cards. Brits do not have to worry about this since Brits not only get villager cards, their units spawn directly from houses when they are built (which must inevitably be built!) .. This means Brits have a slightly better eco than Ports, at least earlier on. Be carful of this. They can out boom you FAST in AGEII

so,

Step 1: Do a semi-Fast Fortress. In other words, build enough military to defend yourself early on and do some raiding. this will set your enemy back and force them into making units to protect themselves to stop their booming. By the time your first goldmine runs out and you start reaching your 99-pop limit you should be aging to 3.

Step 2: Turtle into Age3 with a respectable time, and send the 1000 Wood Card. This will help you get started

Step 3: Age to Industrial, Adv. Fortifications, then 2 factories.. You now have an unstoppable eco.

______________ 

The Armada
Another exerpt to look at is water resourses. As the game delevolpers would have it, the Portuguese have the *supposedly* best navy in the game. However, this is false. They are one of the best, but the British have better warships, and 5 out of 8 civ’s have the schooners card. The only thing that separates Portugal from another water civ is ONE card:
The White Fleet: delivers 4 fishing boats from every dock
Sounds great huh? It not. One- it is in age IV, where the fastest one can get to is 10 min, which by the time one (usually) get to the Industrial Age  ,with schooners, you will (usually)have already sucked the ocean dry of fish, and have no need of population costing boats.

 Two- it take MORE time to train the boats from the docks. Third, every dock costs 200 wood. Even with adv. Dock. EVERY boat on schooners costs 40 wood. 40x4=160. Then why waste resources on a card that actually is LESS cost effective than making them yourselves/
-You have no need for more fishing Boats
-takes time from the ones you have already training
-Waste resources.

This Strat uses the schooners in the Industrial Age though. Just build 10 docks. 1 dock=150 wood. Then send the white fleet, and you will have 40 villagers (in the form of boats) without the need to train them which takes time. set every dock to a seperate whale, for coin. (also dont have to delete them when fish run out. This happens in NR games, but it is unwise to let it happen in SUP)

Use this to get the resourses to help your (perferably russian) allies age and recover from the fighting they were doing at 7 minutes. It helps if your opponents are semi-booming, because then your team has a full boomer(which portugal is the fastest boomer), while their team is taking out outposts that have 100 attack that negelcts ememy ranged resistance.

Last tip: play comp-stomps.  Expert difficulty AI is much more deadlier than most human players, and will show you the best way to excel in your new civ. Do what the comps do. Example: I actually aged with 12 settlers before I did a comp-stomp. the computer aged with 13 settlers, and now i have found out that 13 gives you a much better advantage.

______________________________________________

How derp does it:

Odeton - 7:27

700 gold

1000 food

1000 gold

I dont bother fighting or making units- he'll resign as soon as I tell him too.

Any other Strategies on this would be Welcomed. Just don’t get off topic. The (un)Official Portuguese Strategy Thread.

I know it’s a lot to read, but when I first began AOEIII, the “The (un)Official German Strategy Thread” by EtherImp helped me out a lot. I would hate to see it fall off the face of the forums.

I hope this helps a lot of players out. Leave me a "good job" or someting

I posted this before, and I will post it again here. I have become a much better player over that last few months, thanks to MrMilo's starting game tips and Parfaits Video commentaries.

    Ok guys, I've started up a strategy and I would like to share it. I will change it if I find better solutions and other things. Here it is so far.

Note: I have a Land strat, a Mix strat (water/land) and have a Water Turtle strat (I don't use it as much anymore)

I have a 4-0 streak on 1v1's, and I recommend this strategy for solo playing only.
 

I'll edit this part out. Until I can prove it to these guys, I guess I can't do anything.

    Portuguese Tower Turtle/Boom

    Ok, 1st things first.

Gather 1st food crate, then send 5 vils onto hunts. 1 vil immediatly goes on wood, while the other vil collects the other crates (Be sure NOT to collect coin crates yet). Build a house with the wood crate you get, and if you have an extra wood crate, save it for later. Use your explorer spyglass to look for your 2nd huntable group. 2nd spyglass should look for the opponents TC; 3rd for forward base.

EDIT: I now like to put the vil on the crates onto wood in addition to the other wood cutter.

Build 5 more vils onto food until you get 10, then build 2 more on wood. You should get 13 population worth of vils right now.

First card: 300 wood

    Build 2 more vils on coin (tell one to collect coin crates if you have any), until you have 15 population worth of villagers.

    Once 300 wood arrives, collect it with 2 of the wood cutters, and tell one of them to build an outpost once you have enough wood (you should have 2 (3) wood miners then; 1 on crates, 1 on trees, the other building the outpost).

If you can get XP treasures, that is good; you will need all the XP you can get early on. 

Age up with the Quartermaster (400 wood)

    While doing this, you will want to heard back your 2nd huntable group (it helps if you do it before you start aging as well), so that you will be immune to raids. Also pre-que 4 vils so that you have 19 population. You won't need to build another house right away, because your 2nd TC gives you 10 population on its own. Have the gathering point for your vils put onto gold.

EDIT: If you are facing India, or any other quick rush team on a map like carolina, then create a 2nd outpost before your 2nd card arrives.

Second card: TEAM cheap outposts

    Now this is important: DO NOT build another outpost until you get this card. This makes outposts 175 wood a piece. By the time this arrives, tell your two coin miners to build an outpost, and 1 wood cutter + 1 food miner to build an outpost. If you worry that they won't get done right away, and you are expecting a very fast rush, then tell 1 or 2 more food vils to go on each tower, so that it gets done very quickly. 

    Once you age: Put your 2nd Town Center by the nearest wooded area, preferably in the range of your 1st Town Center. With the 400 wood you get, build two more outposts with 2-3 vils each. This should get done by 6:00 or less (Even I have to work on getting everything right).

    Once your 2nd Town Center is up, que 5 vils (or equivalent to) from it on wood. Build another tower where an area you feel is not protected. Remember to put your towers close together so that you have maximum firepower on a rush; keep them at least a Town Center distance from each other (The space a Town Center takes up). You may need to build them a bit more compact, but you should be able to select 6/7 towers when in the center of your base. Try to max out towers by 7:00 or 7:30.

Third Card: Colonial militia OR 700 wood OR 8 Crossbows.

EDIT: I now prefer ordering 700 wood as my 3rd card, followed by CM, followed by 700 food.

2nd Edit: you actually could go for 700 food, and FF. You should have 5 towers without the 700 wood card. 

    If you know that they are rushing, ship colonial militia. It should arrive at about 6:45, just the right amount of time for them to usually come. The coin that you got from the two early gold miners will give you just the right amount for a colonial militia. But don't call it right away; let your opponent take a TC -33% HP, or -50% HP. If your towers and TCs have not already slaughtered a lot of his army, you can call these guys, so that when he sees the TC less than half HP, he could easily be suckered in to take it down. If you have called minutemen, and he is running away, chase him down and kill as many soldiers as you can (if they are infantry; most people rush with HI). However, most people, when they see your towers, will probably not attack right away. IF they do, however, they are in for a pleasant surprise...

Note: It is best to ship this as 3rd card in 2v2 games (double rush). 

    If your opponent lightens up a bit, 700 wood OR 700 food is a great card. It will give you all the wood you spent on outposts back, plus you can build a mill and a market (be sure to place the mill in between your Town Centers, leaving the towers a bit out of the way for later mills/plantations). I also like to build a barracks (200 wood) after I build 1 mill (400 wood), and a market (100 wood). Train some xbows to fend off his men. Upgrade market (Especially WOOD UPGRADES+COIN MINING UPGRADES).

Note: It is best to ship this as 3rd card in 1v1 games, 4th card in 2v2 games. 

    If you are low on resources and cannot afford colonial militia, ship 8 Crossbowmen or 6 musketeers. If you use these guys right, you can hit and run with the crossbows, using the "ring 'round the rosy" tactic, where you run in circles, utilizing hit and run on his men while your Town centers and outposts mow them down.

    Now the one big advantage you probably have over your opponent is that you can out-produce him in villagers. Always keep a constant stream of villagers unless building military is more important at the moment. This will let you outproduce him, and you will be able to advance before him in everything.

    Your vils should look like this when the opponent comes: 10 on food (12 or 9 sometimes), 9  or 10 on wood, 6-9 on coin. You may have 25 vils, or you may have something like 31 vils. Once your 2nd huntable group runs out (if you heard back 3rd then that's great!) build another mill (you probably should have 1 mill by now) so that you have 2, and that you have a good food gathering rate. Your 2nd Town Center should keep queing villagers on wood, and once the 1st Town Center gets at least 9 people on coin, que vils from it on food - on mills and berries mostly.

4th/5th card: 700 food 

    You will usually be a bit low on food after building so many vils, but you will have 700-800 coin hopefully. Once this arrives you will gather this, and go to age 3. Otherwise, it will give you sufficient money to que 3 vils from each Town Center.

Next step - Go to age 3 with the Exiled Prince (ages up very fast) OR 6 cassadors, or on a water map, I prefer 1 caravel +400 wood. I usually am able to 'tech up' to fortress around 11 minutes.

    Keep queing villagers and upgrades you mills. Once you reach age 3, put your 3rd TC back a bit to protect future mills/plantations. You should have about 15 wood cutters+ by now. Tell the 3rd TC to que some vils on the nearest resource. Upgrade your Towers, I repeat, Upgrade your towers ASAP (if not rushed, you don't need too).

Your 6th/7th card can also be Improved buildings or Treaty of Tordesillas. If you are being rushed, then this card is great.

The Improved buildings card provides 40% more HP for all buildings. That means your TC's get 9100 HP, and Towers get 2800 HP; even your houses get 1680 HP! Just imagine how many soldiers you get to kill!
 

6th/7th card: Treaty of Tordesillas - Bestieros upgrade card + Church techs

    This card is great. 1st thing to do is to build a church and upgrade milling. You may want to buy wood with food and coin to upgrade Bestieros. This is insane if you get this, and will push you far above him; especially if you spam them with dragoons/mercenaries. You can build 10 of these guys for just 400 wood and 400 food...It's just great.

EDIT: Xbows are worthless if you have cassadors + goons. I like that combo 10x better than any other now. 

7th/8th card: Land Grab

    This card is what makes you fly. It makes your mills and plantations relatively cheap, plus they train really fast. This combined with Royal mint (10th), Textile mills (11th) and Refrigeration (9th) makes a super team. Upgrade the rest of your market upgrades.

    Military - Build an artillery foundry and que a couple culverins (2 or 3) You should be able to spam Bestierio+Dragoon with a couple culverins and mercenaries. OR, you can go hussars/petards, a very effective combo(make sure that you make him ring his town bell by trying to attack his vils). It takes 4 petards to bring a TC to 100 HP, and your hussars should be able to burn it down and kill many villagers. In addition, you can come with powerful mercenary armies or a industrial aged army - both very good against a player with no eco.

    I will try to post my current deck so that you can see; You should know what to do from hear, upgrading plantations and building mass villagers. I can usually max out vils in age 3, but I like to go to age 4 relatively quickly, just to get my opponent worried.

EDIT - Excess Cards - Real life savers 

- 5 ronin (Passage to Nippon) 

- 5 mameluke (Hire Egyptian Mamelukes)

- 1000 food

- 1000 wood

- 1000 coin (I don't use this as much, but can be useful if you are building Mercenaries or cannons) 

- 5 dragoons & 4 dragoons OR 8 Cassadors & 7 cassadors OR 9 musks OR 8 halbs. 

 
Here are my decks old decks:

Land, Land Asia, Mix Land Water, Water TurtleWC
 

Just a note: The card order AFTER your 1st 4 cards is just approximate. You may need to ship other shipments in place of them, all depending on the situation (such as 5 mamelukes for example).

Extra Tip -This strategy is weak versus: Dopplesoldner spam, Samurai spam, cannon spam (build 2 culverins then you are fine), petard spam.
 

I am currently striving to improve this strategy.

 
Hope this helped some of you out there!

Past Couple win comments: "Lame game!" "Lame game!" "This is gay!"

Hope this can help! 

from the hand of,