As posted on agecomm by GoodSpeed
Dutch:
Pros: fastest boom, early skirmishers makes them hard to rush..
Cons: pretty weak rush, and they might have the fastest boom, this doesn’t make them the best boomers. Their maxed eco of 50 vils and 8 banks (for which you need 3 cards) can’t match the 99 villagers british and ports can get in short time.
Difficulty: Hard
Best strategy: 3 bank FF.
Dutch counters:
Vs Portuguese: 4 bank FF, cannon/skirm spam.
Vs Spanish: 3 bank FF or pike rush ‘em
Vs French: 3 bank FF
Vs Ottomans: Colonial Skirm spam
Vs Russians: Colonial Skirm spam (you can at least TRY)
Vs Dutch: 3 bank FF
Vs British: 4 bank FF, cannon/skirm spam.
Vs Germans: 3 bank FF
Civs Dutch are best against: Ottomans, Portuguese, Spanish, and British.
Notes:
- The Dutch are the most special civ in this game imo. They also, imo, require the most skill to handle. The amount of banks to FF with go from 2 to 4, and imo the 3 bank FF is the strongest.it can be done in 7.40 with the fast age politician with both rax and stable or rax and art foundry up. Your eco can’t be worse than that of your opponent at that time, and if he leaves you alone for too long, you will get the win.
- As for Dutch being hard to rush, that is initially true. Although, because hardly anyone dares to rush Dutch, they can perform their strong bank FF’s. If bank FF’s get rushed upon they’re in trouble.
- If you’re expecting a rush as Dutch, stay in colonial. If you’re not sure what he’s doing but he could possibly rush, go with the 2 bank FF.
- 4 bank FF is 3 bank FF but slower, it includes the 600 wood card and no 700 gold. Fill it in the BO and you’ll know how it works.
BO’s:
Colonial skirm spam (anti-rush):
Age1: 16 vil age-up; 4 or 5 vils on gold until you have queued up to 13 vils, then all on food. 1st card 3 vils. Dutch will age 20 seconds earlier than other civs (with 400 wood politician), at +- the same time as ottos. Allocation: 8 gold 8 food.
Age2 (4.10 to 4.20): from the age-up wood build a rax and 2 houses. Send 700 wood. Start spamming skirms and build 2 banks from the 700 wood. Send 600 wood. Build another bank. Start chopping wood for a 4th bank if you have a lot of vils on food (and always keep like 10 on gold), age, win.
3 bank FF:
Age1: 16 vil age-up, allocation 10 food 4 gold (to keep up vil production)
Age2: build a bank from the 400 age-up wood, build another 2 banks from the 700 wood shipment. 3rd shipment 700 gold (all ur vils are on food). If you have 1200 food and are waiting for the gold shipment, allocation: 5 food rest wood. Age at 6.40 to 7.20 with fast age politician, while aging build rax and stable and houses.
Age3: (7.30 to 8.00): put some wood vils on gold, say 7/8, keep the rest on wood for housing. Spam skirms and ruyters, boom on building more banks and keep ur town standing until your eco is so uber that he’d just resign without even a struggle.
2 bank FF:
I’m sorry, I don’t know from the back of my head how this goes, but in this expert replay here it’s demonstrated:
http://s3.internetfiles.org/download.php?id=OZH4Fve4MsgW0rDI8WPy
If you’re too lazy, it goes something like this: don’t send anything in age1, send 700 wood and right after that 700 gold in age2. you’ll age at 6.00 with 2 banks, you can be in age3 by 7.30 with both rax and stable up and 2 banks pumping coin. Without all the allocations (that I didn’t remember from the few times I’ve performed this FF) I cant put up a decent BO, so just watch that rec.
BY HeatedForce:
I found and pasted this strat. Its a dutch boom strat from SupremeOverlord.
This is a strat i found out about the hard way (it was used on me!) I was scouting the enemy's base, when at 5:15, he had 3 BANKS UP!!! I said "WTF??" and looked at his deck. I saw SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. When he eco-raped me, I saw the ending stats- his gold diminished at 4 minutes and his wood skyrocketed. I tried this myself, and it is a very good strat. It will own any delayed rush or FF. I present you:
THE SOUTH SEA SLAM (or SSS)
Cards-
3 Vils
SSB
Bank Wagon
700 Food
Ok, so here is the BO-
DISCOVERY
1. 4 vils to mine, DONT MOVE THEM! 3 unpack gold
2. 2 herd after unpacking gold, other gathers rest of the crates and builds a house.
3. All new vils to food, as first card (this may shock you, are you ready for it?) - 3 vils
4. Age with 16-17 vils, and Philosipher Prince (500 food) *If you arent going to get the vil out before 800 food, dont make it. Speed is key!
TRANSITION
1. 11 vils to gold if you have 16, 12 if you have 17
2. Build another house if you have the wood
3. DONT MAKE ANY VILS!! Save as much gold as possible
4. depending on treasures, you will send SSB at ~ 2/3 of the way to colonial.
COLONIAL
1. 2 vils to unpack crates
2. NO VILS TIL SSB ARIVES!
3. When SSB arives, you should get ~1.5 k wood, probably a little less. use the 2 vils to lay down 3 banks.
4. When you order a vil, move ~5 of your miners to wood and food. When all banks are up, keep 2-3 on gold.
5. Buld housing/rax with leftover wood
6. If you are being rushed hard, i recommend laying some outposts behind your TC, sending out minutemen as necessary.
7. EXP will pour in thanks to banks, so send a bank wagon for your fourth bank.
8. I STRONGLY reccomend, to push your advantage, researching market techs. (You can igore the Gold ones!); if you're being rushed get greatcoat or blunderbuss ASAP.
9. 4th card is up to you, You are set up for a Skirm spam or a pike spam and send fencing school, but you could sent a +1 bank card and out-eco him(which you've already done). I DONT RECOMMEND FORTRESSING. This is slower than a FF or semi-FF, and you should do fine with skirms, hussars, and pikes. You may want to fort against a boomer, but i find a Skirm/Pike with flanking Hussars combo extremely effective. If he FF's, you need to raid him or set up a FB and spam units into his base. Or continue booming and set up good defenses.
NOTE- this can be used as a sling for another wood-havy teammate. If you do this and then tribute a russian, for example, he can set up some BH's. Or, you could do this and periodically send coin to a civ like germans who are very gold dependant.
Enjoy Dutch-Users!
