Prerequisites
Completion of the learning campaign, knowledge of hotkeys.
Who should read this
Anyone who hasn’t seen the original Yamato cavalry rush strategy,
newbies, rookies, or experienced players who want to review basics.
What you'll learn
Solid opening technique so you won't fall behind early, offensive
mindset, raiding techniques, and much more.
Settings
Game type: 1v1
Difficulty: Hard
Map size: Small
Map type: Arabia
Population: 200
My civ: Franks
Computer civ: Turks
The recorded game (optional)
You may wish to download
the recorded game that was use to make this lesson. I recommend
viewing with fog of war on. You'll notice signals early on in the game:
I signaled when I found something interesting such as stone, gold,
boars, the enemy, etc.
Before we begin
If you have never been exposed to any “fast bronze” or “fast
castle” strategy, this technique will take some practice to master.
Practice against the computer with the settings above until you can
consistently make successful cavalry attacks in less than 25 minutes.
The first few minutes
At the start of the game,
your goal is to gather food and build houses so that you can produce a
constant stream of villagers.
1.) Begin by queuing 4 villagers, using the hotkey sequence H-C-C-C-C.
2.) Now select two villagers and build a house about a farm's distance from your town center (abbreviated TC). The hotkey sequence B-E builds a house.
3.) Select the third villager and build another house, also away from your TC.
4.) Select your scout. Press Ctrl-1 to give him a control number. This will allow you to select him by pressing 1. If you wish to center view on your scout, press 1-spacebar.
5.) Now right click a spot in the blackness, opposite from your TC. Your scout's mission is to find your first 4 sheep ASAP.
6.) Press F4 to view the scores of all players, followed by Alt+R to view the economic minimap. You'll want to keep track of how many villagers you have on different tasks. Press F11 to view the game clock so you can track your progress.
7.) Send your scout in a circular pattern around your TC to find your first 4 sheep. If you cannot find sheep, build a mill (hotkey B-I) next to your berries and use them as your first food source.
8.) As you can see in the screenshot above, I found my sheep right away (look in the top center, see the sheep outline?). Double click on any sheep to select them all, then right click on your TC.
9.) Set your TC to send villagers to gather food as they are created. Hotkey H-I, then click on any sheep (or berry bush).
10.) Continue monitoring your scout's progress throughout the game. If he's still on course and you don't want to reassign him, use the minimap to jump back to your base (or use hotkey H to select & center view on your
TC).
11.) Whenever you have 50 food, press H-C to queue another villager. You must maintain
constant villager production until you reach your target of 30 villagers.
Let's get some wood
Your goals at this stage
are to maintain constant villager production, begin chopping wood and
mining gold, and continue scouting.
1.) Your goals at this stage are to maintain constant villager production, begin chopping wood and mining gold, and continue scouting.
2.) Once you're sure that you have enough villagers on food to maintain villager production (usually when your population is at 10/15), set your town center's gather point to a nearby tree using the hotkeys H-I.
3.) When your pop is at 13, grab a woodcutter and build a house using B-E.
4.) When your sheep start to run out, build a mill next to the berries. Try to get the mill close to the berries without being adjacent. Your villagers will need some walking room, but you don't want them to have to walk too far.
5.) Once you have 130 wood with a mill or 230 wood without a mill, grab all of your woodcutters and build a lumber camp. I usually build it adjacent to the forest, as close to my TC as possible.
6.) Set your TC's gathering point to berries.
7.) Build a house when your population is 18/20.
8.) At this point, I had deer nearby my mill, so I sent a group of villagers to kill them, and then build a mill in the area. This is the best way to hunt deer: kill them all while they're close to
each other, and then build a mill in the center.
9.) Build a house on 23/25. In this game, I didn't notice the pop until it was at 24/25. When you're in this position, grab several villagers to build a house quickly
10.) Press ctrl-N (view normal minimap). Send your scout around the edges of the map looking for the enemy's base. An easy way to move your scout is to right click on the minimap in the area that you want him to go.
11.) When you find your opponent, scout out the area surrounding his TC. You need to figure out where his gold mine, stone mine, and woodcutters are, so that you can find a good attack point.
12.) When you're at 28/30, build a house.
13.) Start building a gold mine. You'll want your last 3 or 4 villagers to mine gold.
Time to rush through the ages
Now that you have a good
number of villagers, you must to advance to the Castle age ASAP.
1.) Now that you have a good number of villagers, you must to advance to the Castle age ASAP.
2.) Once you have 30 villagers (pop 31/35) and 500 food, press H and then click on the "Advance to the Feudal Age button."
3.) Shift some more villager to wood. I had 10 when I clicked on the feudal button.
4.) When you've exhausted your other food sources, send a group of villagers to hunt boars. Try to avoid farming if possible.
5.) If you had a decent starting spot, you should be ready to farm as you hit feudal. Build a few farms, but make sure your wood amount doesn't drop below 175
6.) Build a market.
7.) Research loom at your TC.
8.) Build a blacksmith. If you don't have enough wood, buy 100 wood from your market.
9.) When both buildings are done, hit the "Advance to Castle age button." If you are short food or gold, use the market to obtain the correct amounts. If you need to trade more than twice, you need to work on your villager allocation next time.
10.) I started advancing at 15:44, which will make for a decent castle time.
11.) Build a Barracks (hotkey B-B).
12.) Research Scale Barding Armour.
13.) When the Barracks finishes, build two stables (hotkey B-L).
14.) When you hit Castle, immediately start training Knights from both stables (Ctrl-L to cycle through your stables, N to train a knight).
15.) Continue sending your scout around the enemy's base. If you haven't already, be sure to switch back to Normal minimap mode
(Alt+N).
16.) When you get extra wood, grab a bunch of woodcutters and build a TC (hotkey B-N) by your stone.
The knockout punch
You're in the Castle age
with an army of Knights. Now you must inflict a crushing blow to your
enemy.
1.) You're in the Castle age with an army of Knights. Now you must inflict a crushing blow to your enemy.
2.) When the TC finishes, start mining stone.
3.) Once you have a good number of knights (4-8, I went with 7) double click on the group and use Ctrl+2 to control group them.
4.) Choose a target. The woodcutters working outside the lumber camp is usually the best place to attack. Gold/stone mines are easier targets but they have less villagers to kill.
5.) Press 2 + Right click on a spot not far outside of the your target; this moves your knights there.
6.) Press 1 + spacebar to center view on your scout. Move your scout to an area
opposite of where your knights plan to attack.
7.) Research Wheelbarrow.
8.) Use your scout to create a distraction. This doesn't work on computers, but it's an excellent tactic to use against human opponents.
9.) Attack the enemy's villagers! (important to take out their
economy if you don't win the battle)
10.) At this point, you opponent will run his/her villagers into the TC. It's important to keep your Knights away from the TC. Circle around the enemy's base looking for stray villagers.
11.) Time for a base check. Make sure you have no idle villagers. If you have too many of certain resource types and too few of others, shift villagers around to obtain a better balance
12.) Research Hand Cart.
13.) Build a Siege Workshop near enemy territory (hotkey B-K).
14.) When you have 488 stone, build a castle (hotkey B-V) in the enemy's base (your knights will cover for your villagers).
15.) Eventually, any human opponent will respond with pike men or camels. When you see these units, withdraw your knights.
Conclusion
Your enemy has suffered
many casualties; it's time to knock him out of the game.
1.) While you continue your attack, be sure to expand your own economy by building town centers (hotkey T-C), villagers (H-C), houses (B-E), and researching the economic technologies (woodcutting, mining).
2.) Make battering rams at your siege workshop.
3.) Build another castle when you get the stone.
4.) Pump out Throwing Axe men (Ctrl-V to cycle through your castles, T to make an
axe man).
5.) Keep upgrading your units.
6.) Destroy the enemy TC.
7.) Make knights or scouts to scour the map and find any attempts to rebuild.
8.) Go to Imperial if necessary (I didn't need to in this game).
9.) Then kill / destroy there economical buildings (farm, mining camp,
etc...) and villagers / calvary / soldiers
That's
it you have just successfully done a Frankish Calvary Rush!
Click here to return to the Warlord's
Advice page.
