Extensive Black Forest Guide

This is an extensive guide on how to play the map Black Forest. It includes general gameplay advice, short civilisation overviews considering their strength on Black Forest, strategies, build orders as well as tips and tricks to improve your gameplay.

I. Introduction

[NOTE: Some information in this guide became outdated as new updates were released, especially the slinging strategies. All the big ideas and the general strategies still work as described. If I find time to review the material, I will most likely turn it into a new guide for the Definitive Edition of AoE2, which will also include the new civs and updated strategies.]

This is a guide on how to play the map Black Forest. It's aimed at new and intermediate players who want to improve their gameplay.

Most of the information is about 4vs4 team games since that is the most popular game mode. Nevertheless most of the concepts can be applied to other maps and game modes as well.

Since the guide is very long and contains a lot of information you might not want to read everything. In this case just use the table of contents to jump to a specific section.

If you spot a mistake, have further questions or ideas what I could change, add or remove then let me know in the comment section.

Let's go!

II. The Map and Player Positions

As the name suggests most of the map is covered with trees and has some open space for the players and extra resources. Those open spaces are connected with narrow paths which is why Black Forest is classified as a closed map (opposite to open maps like Arabia). It is easy to wall and most of the fighting happens around those choke points. Usually there is also not much action until every player reaches the Imperial Age.

Many times there are several extra resources like boars, lakes with shore fish, berries and extra gold/stone patches which you should use to get an advantage.

2 examples of a Black Forest Map with 4vs4 settings


Black Forest is played with explored map visibility. That means you can see the layout of the map, all the resources and the position of the enemy team (each Town Center in a team is connected with a road).

Tip: The explored setting also allows you to see chopped trees, so you can see where your opponent has built his lumbercamps which is very useful if you do an early game rush with Scouts, Militia or Man-at-Arms. In the late game you will be able to see if your opponent cuts through the trees with Onagers (you can also hear the Onager sound).

There are two player positions that you need to know if you are playing multiplayer against other people: flank and pocket. Both have different roles and tasks and knowing your role will make you a much better team player.

In 4vs4 team games there are two flanks and two pockets. The flanks are on the outside closer to the enemy and the pocket players are in the back behind the flanks. Usually you can spot within a second if you are flank or pocket. If the road that connects your team goes through your Town Center then you are pocket, if it ends in your Town Center you are flank. Sometimes you get weird map generations where it's not that obvious but after a look on the mini map you will be sure.



The flank is responsible for walling most of the time, i.e. he sends villagers in Dark Age to build palisade walls at all the choke points that lead to the enemy team. Sometimes the pocket is in a better position to wall so flank and pocket have to communicate and tell each other who is walling what point. In Feudal Age the flank player adds stone walls for extra protection (if he is Goths he has to ask another player to build stone walls for him). Depending on the map and the civilisations the flank might want to rush (=build military and attack before Imperial Age). The target is usually the flank player of the enemy team.

The pocket player has to support his flank right from the beginning of the game. After he got his sheep he sends his scout to the flank to help with early fights for good walls or get his flank's sheep if he lost his Scout. Most of the time the pocket player just booms (see strategy section) and sends military to the flank since most of the fighting happens there. As a pocket you can also rush but you have to consider that if your rush fails the enemy pocket will have a better economy and will be able to get a significant military lead over you. As a pocket you are also responsible to help your flank if he is getting rushed. First you have to identify the rush to decide what units to send. If your flank is in a Feudal war with the other flank you should make knights as support. Rams and Mangonals work well against a tower rush. If your flank is getting rushed with Monks make Light Cavalry (for more information on how to counter specific rushes see the strategy section). If your flank is far behind in economy you should send him resources (especially wood and stone to build more Town Centers) and sometimes you have to defend 1vs2 to buy some time for your flank to recover.

Depending on the civ matchup the two pocket players might decide to switch sides which means each pocket player supports the other flank. This is done to get an advantage over the enemy team. Good civ matchups would be for example Goths against Mayans, Persians against Vikings, Turks against Goths etc.



Another situation where the players change positions is when both pockets attack on one side. This can be done if the flank player who will be alone can defend against two players (for example with Koreans, Byzantines, Celts, Teutons). On the other side there will be a 3vs2 situation which should allow your team to take out the enemy flank fast and win the game this way.

III. Communication

Communication is key in team games. If a team communicates well it can still win against a 'technically better' team (with better individual players). Also the communication defines most of the multiplayer experience which is for me the main reason why I play Aoe2.

Let's start with some general rules and etiquette. When you write something in chat always remember that you are talking with another human being even if you are not face to face. So don't write anything that you don't want to hear from someone else. A good portion of mutual respect never hurt anybody. AoE2 is still an RTS game and most likely you won't have much time to chat but you will always find time for a 'please' (pls) or 'thank you' (thx/ty). Just try it, you will see it will make the general atmosphere much more positive. Also you should say gl hf (good luck have fun) at the start of a game and gg (good game) at the end no matter if you have lost or won. It's a part of good manners just like saying hello or goodbye in real life.

Another thing I consider very important is: stop calling other people noobs. This is so common and I've seen it countless times. Yes, Age of Empires is about skill. The more skilled player wins (most of the time). This also applies to team games. Sometimes (or often) your team might lose because of 'that one player who sucks so hard' and you really want to tell him your opinion. BUT hang on a second. If you judge another player's skill you are very likely to miss a lot of important things. First of all who gives you the right to insult someone based on his skills? If you are such a better player then you should be able to compensate for his skill and help him getting better because that's the point of team games. Second you are most likely wrong. You might be thinking that he would have done better if he did ... (insert anything here). Well, either he doesn't know that (and you didn't tell him) or he wasn't able to do it (which can have many reasons) and you didn't help him. Third thing to mention is that a player's skill fluctuates and on a bad day even a 2k player might play like 1700 and make a ton of mistakes. Don't be that person who makes his day worse. Say gg and go on to the next game. And finally the last thing: there is always a better player. If you call someone noob you might feel superior and think you know the game and everything better but reality is that there are tons of other players who play better than you and make better decisions. For this simple reason you will never see a pro player call someone else a noob.

Let's go on to some specific communication issues. In a team game you need to know what your team mates are doing and tell them what you are doing. Most of the time it's just a short 'i will do...', for example 'i boom' or 'i go knights'. Since there isn't much time for chatting people have invented certain abbreviations to tell your team what you are doing. In the following there is a short list with terms that you might encounter:

• boom (=focussing on economy and making no early army)
  
• vil / vils (=Villager / Villagers)
  
• fc (=Fast Castle)
  
• fi (=Fast Imp)
  
• mush / smush (=Monk Rush / Siege Monk Rush)
  
• trush (=Tower Rush)
  
• cd (=Castle Drop)
  
• sc (=Scout / Scouts; can be used to talk about the starting Scouts in early game or Scout Rush in Feudal Age)
  
• dr (=Dark Age Rush / Militia Rush)
  
• kts / knts (=Knights)
  
• m@a (=Men-at-Arms)
  
• arch (=Archers)
  
• xbow (=Crossbows)
  
• mango (=Mangonal)
  
• tc (=Town Center)
  
• st / stbl (=Stable)
  
• rax (=Barracks)
  
• range (=Archery Range)
  
• lc / mc (=Lumbercamp / Mining camp)
  
• x (=means that a player asks for a flare signal, e.g. where to send scout or army)
  
• m / mkt (=Market; usually comes with a flare signal to indicate where a player wants an allied Market)
  
• sw (=Siege Workshop)
  
• cut (=Onager cut; usually comes with a flare signal to show where a team mate will cut or where enemies are cutting through the trees)
  
• p1-p8 (=referring to the player colours; p1=blue, p2=red, p3=green, p4=yellow, p5=teal, p6=purple, p7=grey, p8=orange)

How to use flare signals:

You can send a flare signal by holding Alt + F and clicking somewhere. This will trigger a sound and show an X on the minimap. It's a very useful communication tool. Usually you want to give some more infos. e.g. 'sc pls' + flare means that someone asks for a Scout early on. It is also useful to show where to build stuff or where to send units. Sometimes there are extra resources like boars / lakes. If you want to take them just flare and ask 'can i take?' so you avoid that two players will use the same resource. It is also important to show the position of enemy units and where they are going, e.g. flare + '8 arch to u' will inform a team mate that 8 Archers are heading in his direction.

How NOT to use flare signals:

From time to time you see someone spamming the flare signal which is unbelievably annoying. Usually one or two flares and a short chat message are enough to inform your team about something. The one and only (!) situation to spam the flare signal is when you are 100% sure that a team mate fell asleep and needs a short wakeup call. But seriously, just don't do it.

Taunts:

Another important communication tool are taunts. Taunts are short audio messages triggered by writing specific numbers in the chat. The most important are:

1 = yes
2 = no
3 = food please
4 = wood please
5 = gold please
6 = stone please
11 = *laughing*
14 = start the game already
31 = attack an enemy now
38 = give me your extra resources

Here as well: don't spam taunts in chat. If there is a player who spams taunts you can simply write !mute in the chat to disable the audio messages. With !nomute you can enable them again.

How to tell your team that you are in trouble and need help:

On a certain level it's common to rush and fight in early stages of the game. Sometimes you get rushed and you won't be able to deal with it yourself. In that situation you have to ask your team for help (because that's what teams are for). If you get attacked you will hear the alarm clock but your team mates won't. So you should look where you get attacked and send a flare signal and tell that you are being rushed. The next step is analyzing your situation. If you can't deal with the rush then a 'need help' will inform your team about your situation, a good team mate might even ask if you need help after the initial flare. Now it's important to keep calm. You might feel the urge to enable your caps lock and ask for help every second. Apparently that's not the way to go. After you have asked for help try to help yourself first, e.g. by building walls / defensive towers and making your own military. Then you need to identify the rush and tell your team what is coming, e.g. 'p1 smush' means that player 1 (=blue) is rushing with Monks / Siege. It is very important to inform your team what units are coming to make the respective counter units. Don't expect your team mates to have Cartography researched (!). Also be careful not to spam the flare signal. You might be under stress but that won't make it better. If you are getting owned and have to run your villagers then ask for resources to rebuild your economy fast, but be aware that your team mates might not have any resources to share at a certain point of the game. In this case try to get things going on your own and ask again later.

IV. Short civilisation overviews - Part 1

In this section I will quickly go through all the civilisations (including the expansions) considering their use on Black Forest. Each civ will be rated between 1 and 4 where 1 means the civ performs very well on Black Forest and 4 means the civ is bottom tier on Black Forest (note that the rating is based on my personal opinion). Additionally I will give examples for some strategies that work well with a certain civ and units (even though I will not analyze the whole tech tree for each civ).

Aztecs

• Rating: 1
  
• strong economy, best Monks of all civs, very good infantry, Siege Onager and Siege Ram
  
• Strategies: any Monk Rush, 3 TC Boom into Elite Eagle Warriors (and Siege Onager if necessary), Drush or Feudal War on open maps

Berbers

• Rating: 2
  
• good economy, very good Cavalry tech tree, strong unique unit, very useful unique tech (Kasbah)
  
• Strategies: Knight Rush, Castle Drop, standard Boom

Britons

• Rating: 1
  
• good Dark Age economy, very strong Boom due to the cheaper Town Centers, very strong Archers
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, any Archer Rush

Burmese

• Rating: 1
  
• good economy due to free lumbercamp upgrades, very strong unique unit, strong infantry, cheaper Monastery Techs, strong Battle Elephants
  
• Strategies: Castle Drop, Monk Rush, Boom into Battle Elephants

Byzantines

• Rating: 2
  
• broad tech tree, very cheap Imperial Age research, Bombard Towers, cheap trash and counter units
  
• Strategies: Monk Rush, any Fast Imperial strat (into Monks or Gunpowder units), standard boom

Celts

• Rating: 1
  
• strong economy, very good Siege units, good infantry, one of the best late game civs on Black Forest
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Drush or Feudal War on open maps

Chinese

• Rating: 2
  
• strong economy, can be 1-2 vils ahead of other civs in early game, very broad tech tree, strong unique unit, vulnerable to Onagers though
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Monk Rush, Knight Rush, Feudal War on open maps

Ethiopians

• Rating: 1
  
• very strong Archers and Siege, extra gold and food allows to advance faster through the ages and get important upgrades faster (e.g. Crossbow upgrade when rushing with Archers), good infantry
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, any Archer Rush

Franks

• Rating: 3
  
• best Paladins of all civs, good infantry, not very good at fighting in narrow choke points tho, good option would be to let your flank/pocket research Onager/Siege Onager and cut a way for your Paladins to raid
  
• Strategies: Knight Rush, Scout Rush (in the expansions), standard Boom

Goths

• Rating: 2
  
• good late game economy, no stone walls (which means you either have to rush or let a team mate wall for you), very cheap infantry which is created fast, trouble to fight narrow choke points (a good way to counter Goths is with Heavy Scorpions and Champions), Huskarls as very strong counter for any kind of Archer unit
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Castle Drop, Drush or Rush with M@A

Huns

• Rating: 3-4
  
• very strong Boom, limited tech tree, heavily countered by Halb / Onager combination, best option is to rush or attack fast in early Imperial Age
  
• Strategies: Feudal Rush, Knight Rush, Cavalry Archer Rush, 3 TC Boom, Sling (if very bad civ matchup)

Incas

• Rating: 2-3
  
• strong infantry, very good early Imperial Age with Elite Eagle Warriors, kind of weak in the late game tho
  
• Strategies: 3 TC Boom into Elite Eagle Warriors (and Onagers if necessary), Monk Rush, Tower Rush (with early Blacksmith to upgrade vils)

Indians

• Rating: 1
  
• very strong Boom and late game economy, Imperial Camels heavily counter any kind of Cavalry unit (Paladins, Elephants, Cav Archers) while still having good stats to fight other units, open tech tree, kind of weak against Archers tho
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Feudal Rush, Monk Rush

Italians

• Rating: 1
  
• very strong Boom, open tech tree, very good team mate for infantry civs like Aztecs, Goths, Incas or Malians who can use Condottiero to counter Hand Cannoneers, the Silk Road tech allows to set up trade with much less resources (which is crucial on Black Forest where games tend to take longer)
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Fast Imperial Gunpowder Rush, Monk Rush

Japanese

• Rating: 2
  
• very strong infantry, unique unit that counters unique units can help in many situations, very good trebuchets which can be secured easily on close maps and which can attack buildings and units from a long range
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Feudal Rush, Monk Rush

Khmer

• Rating: 1-2
  
• very strong late game civ with good Battle Elephants and overpowered Heavy Scorpions, unique unit can cut through trees (!), can go up with more vils because no buildings are required to advance to the next age
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Knight Rush, Scout Rush, Castle Drop and cut through trees

Koreans

• Rating: 1
  
• one of the best late game civs on Black Forest with high range Siege Onagers, Bombard Towers and a strong unique unit
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Tower Rush

Magyars

• Rating: 2-3
  
• another civ that performs better on open maps, above average Cavalry Archers in the late game, Magyar Huszar is very useful to deal with strong siege civs like Celts, Teutons or Koreans
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Scout Rush, Knight Rush

Malay

• Rating: 2
  
• civ that allows for some very unique strategies and playstyles, faster advancing to the next age means that you can either go up with more vils than usual or get much faster uptimes than your opponents when rushing, cheap Fish Traps with unlimited food gives Malay by far the best Fish Boom on Black Forest (see strategy section) and saves a lot of wood and space, 'high quality trash units' (2-handed Swordsmen that cost no gold, cheap Battle Elephants that lack most of the cavalry upgrades, fragile unique unit that can be massed easily), only (!) civ that has Elephants and the Heresy tech (imo very underrated since Monks are the only reliable counter to Elephants)
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Monk Rush, Fast Imperial Monk Rush, Fast Feudal Fish Boom

Malians

• Rating: 1-2
  
• very strong economy, Huskarl-like Champions which are useful on Black Forest where ranged units tend to dominate, strong unique unit, team bonus makes universities research faster which basically only matters for Chemistry (normally takes 100 seconds to research) and allows 'slow' civs like Saracens to execute a Fast Imperial Gunpowder Rush
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Feudal Rush, Castle Drop

Mayans

• Rating: 2
  
• strong economy, strong early Imperial Age with Elite Eagle Warriors, rather weak late game against 'power units' like Onagers, Paladins, Elephants etc, Plumed Archers are one of the best units to rush in Castle Age (fast ranged unit with short creation time plus the Mayan economy can support a mini Boom behind the rush)
  
• Strategies: 3 TC Boom into Elite Eagle Warriors, any Archer Rush, Castle Drop

Mongols

• Rating: 1
  
• another top-tier Black Forest civ, strong early game due to the hunting bonus and very good boom if there are extra patches with boars, Elite Mangudai are one of the best late game units, very good Siege Tech Tree while also access to a strong anti Siege unit
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Feudal Rush

Persians

• Rating: 1-2
  
• very good Boom and economy, broad tech tree with access to gunpowder units, team bonus allows to counter Archer or Crossbow Rush easily with Knights, very strong late game with War Elephants, Heavy Scorpions and gunpowder units, not very good at fighting in narrow choke points
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Feudal Rush, Knight Rush

V. Short civilisation overviews - Part 2

Portugese

• Rating: 1-2
  
• broad tech tree, very strong Gunpowder units which are affected by Ballistics (allows to snipe Onagers with Bombard Cannons and eliminate the main thread for Hand Cannoneers), Feitoria as an alternative method to get the rare resources gold and stone, Organ Gun as a useful counter for huge trash armies, free Cartography from the Dark Age allows to coordinate Scouts early on
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Monk Rush, Fast Imperial Gunpowder Rush, Knight Rush

Saracens

• Rating: 1-2
  
• a 'slow civ' without any economy bonusses, broad tech tree, very strong in the late game with Elite Mamelukes, Siege Onager, Siege Ram, Arbalests and Gunpowder Units, can use the market to support a rush (e.g. selling stone for a very fast Monk Rush) and to get better selling prices for wood/food in the late game if trade is not available for some reason
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Monk Rush

Slavs

• Rating: 1
  
• strong economy, very good late game civ with strong siege units and infantry
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Feudal Rush, Monk Rush

Spanish

• Rating: 1
  
• broad tech tree, good economy, very useful team bonus since trade is highly important on Black Forest, very strong unique unit for a Castle Age Rush (fast and high damage)
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Tower Rush, Castle Drop, Knight Rush, Monk Rush

Teutons

• Rating: 1
  
• very strong Boom and economy, broad tech tree, useful team bonus to defend against Monk Rush and to support Elephant civs (which are vulnerable to wololo), good late game civ with strong siege, Gunpowder units, Bombard Towers, Paladins and Elite Teutonic Knights to counter any melee unit (including ranged melee units like Mamelukes, Gbetos or Throwing Axemen)
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Feudal Rush, Monk Rush, Knight Rush

Turks

• Rating: 1
  
• very strong late game civ with extra range Bombard Towers, Bombard Cannons and above average Hand Cannoneers, good cavalry which helps to fight Siege Rams (one of the main counters for Turks), free Chemistry allows to execute the famous Turkish Fast Imperial Gunpowder Rush, heavily relies on gold units, apart from Hussars no useful trash unit
  
• Strategies: standard Boom, Scout Rush, Knight Rush, Fast Imperial Gunpowder Rush, Monk Rush

Vietnamese

• Rating: 1-2
  
• very strong Archer civ that offers a lot of anti-Archer units (Rattan Archers, Imperial Skirms, Battle Elephants), also highly useful in team games (can see position of each enemy which allows to plan unit choices, Paper Money tech which should be researched asap to support each team member, access to Imperial Skirms for the whole team)
  
• Strategies: standard Boom into Battle Elephants, any Archer Rush, Knight Rush

Vikings

• Rating: 3
  
• very strong Boom and economy, very weak against 'power civs' in the late game, best option is to rush or attack fast in the early Imperial Age
  
• Strategies: Feudal Rush, Rush with Crossbows, 3 TC Boom into Arbalests or Champions and Rams, Sling (if very unfavourable civ matchup)

some notes on the civilisation section:

• with many civs you will find a plain Feudal Rush or Monk Rush as a suggested strategy, this means the civ has any kind of civ bonus that gives an advantage in Feudal Age (like economy or early military bonusses), criteria for a Monk Rush civ are the key techs Sanctity (more HP for Monks) and Redemption (convert buildings and siege units), very good Monk civs have some extra notes in the description
  
• on Black Forest it's important to analyze the civ matchup, i.e. know if you or the opponent has the better civ, good Black Forest civs all have strong late game units, so if you have an unfavourable civ you should play different from the current meta game (Boom to Imperial Age) and try different strategies
  
• pretty much all of the civs have more options than I mentioned above, e.g. many of the civs have fully upgraded Champions or Arbalests, so I recommend that you get familiar with the whole tech tree of each civ if you really want to become a good player

VI. Strategies and Build Orders

Age of Empires 2 is a Real Time Strategy game (RTS). Strategy in general describes a plan to reach a certain goal which is for AoE2 building up a strong economy, train military and defeat your opponents. Real time means that the game goes on without break and you have to make fast decisions (unlike round-based games like chess) depending on your strategy but also be flexible and adapt to certain situations. This all makes AoE2 a fun and challenging game which is on the other hand difficult to get used to and hard to master.

Age of Empires 2 has been around for decades. Over the years countless players have developed new strategies, improved existing strategies and disposed old strategies that have become impractical. Updates and patches have changed a lot over time and forced the players to adapt.

On the way to a good AoE2 player you should learn as many strategies as possible, know how they work and how they are executed.

This is the point where build orders come to play. A build order is pretty much a cooking recipe for a specific strategy. It contains information on what to do when, e.g. sending villagers to a certain resource at a specific point of time or building a specific building at a certain time.

There is no standard that defines how a build order has to be written. Nevertheless I have developed a format that is (imo) clear, free of redundant information and easy to understand and follow. To avoid any confusion I will use this format through the entire guide.

Some notes on the format:

• The build orders are described as a descending list of actions, for example pretty much all of the build orders will start with the instruction '6 vils on sheep' which means the first 6 villagers gather food from sheep.
  
• For the purpose of readability I will leave out actions like building houses or getting your sheep with your Scout; nevertheless I have created a specific Dark Age build order which includes such actions and much more information for new players to practice and get familiar with the concept of build orders.
  
• Tasks for a single villager start with a '#' followed by a number and a task, e.g. '#11 lure first boar' means that you send your 11th villager to lure the first boar to your Town Center.
  
• You can find out the number of villagers by looking at the population count in the top left corner. Important (!) is that your Scout takes up one population slot, so if the population count shows 13/20 you have 12 villagers and one Scout. If your Scout is dead 13/20 means that you have 13 villagers. If a build order says '#7 build lumbercamp' you set the gather point of your Town Center on a tree of the closest forest when the population shows 7/15 (6/15 if your Scout is dead) and build a lumbercamp with the next villager that is created. Another method (which is inefficient imo) would be counting your vils as they come out of the Town Center (so with 3 starting vils the first one that comes out would be number 4 and so on). It might be a bit tricky to get used to but it is necessary to know your villager count to properly execute build orders.
  
• Other instructions are given between brackets [], e.g. '[use one vil from TC food to build a Barracks]'. Most of the time these instructions tell to build a specific building or move villagers from one resource to another.
  
• Tips or further information stand between normal brackets ( ).
  
• I won't use any time references like 'do this at minute 12' because it makes it very hard to follow and learn a build order imo. Especially as a beginner you might have a lot of idle time on your Town Center where you don't make new vils. In such a case an instruction like 'do this at minute 12' would be impractical and confusing.
  
• Nevertheless time is very useful if you want to perfectionate a build order and from a certain skill level on you will be able to guess what strategy your opponent is using based on the time when he reaches a certain age for example. You can turn on the in-game timer by pressing F11 (the timer will appear in the top left corner, note that it's slightly faster than the real time).

In the following each strategy will have its own section and contain general information on the strategy, a build order and tips how to counter it when it's used against you.

Dark Age Build Order for Beginners

This build order is for the purpose of practise only. It will only cover the actions until reaching the Feudal Age. Also it contains much more information than the other build orders so if you are new to AoE2 you should definitely check it out. Most of the other build orders are executed the same way or slightly different so once you have mastered this one it should be easy to try new build orders. For this build order I assume that the map visibility is set to explored so you don't have to scout and find all the resources. To practise it create a single player game with the standard settings and set opponents to 0 so that you can totally focus on the build itself.

Tip: In single player games you can still perform actions when the game is paused (which is not possible in multiplayer). So if you feel that everything is going too fast and you want to look up the next step just press the Pause key on your keyboard. When the game is paused you can still select vils and give them tasks, e.g. if you select a vil and right-click on a tree when the game is paused he will go and chop the tree once the game is unpaused. The same applies to building stuff and attacking units.

Build Order:

[select your Town Center and queue up as many vils as possible]
[select 2 of your starting vils and build a house, select the 3rd starting vil and build another house]
[select your Scout and send it to the 4 sheep that are closest to your Town Center, once the sheep are converted send them under your Town Center]
[send your 3 starting vils to gather food from one sheep after they have finished the houses]

[use your Scout to collect the 4 remaining sheep and send them to your Town Center as well]

#4 sheep
#5 sheep
#6 sheep
#7 sheep
(6 vils on sheep is the minimum number to get enough food to keep creating new vils, 7 vils will ensure that you get enough food)

#8 build a lumbercamp next to a forest near your Town Center
#9 wood
#10 wood
#11 build a house then send to wood

[set the gather point of your Town Center on one of the 2 boars nearby]
#12 lure 1st boar

[after the 12th vil was created research Loom at the Town Center]
[attack the boar twice then send your vil back to the Town Center]
[when the boar is under your Town Center select all vils from there and attack the boar]

[queue up vils after Loom has been researched]

#13 build a mill next to the berries
#14 berries
#15 berries
#16 build a house then send to berries

(if your vils have gathered all the meat from the first boar let them collect food from the sheep)

#17 lure 2nd boar (same procedure as with the first boar)

#18 TC food (TC food = any animal that you have killed under your Town Center like sheep and boar)
#19 TC food

[build 2 farms next to your Town Center, use villagers that have been hurt by the boar]

#20 build a second lumbercamp a bit away from the first one (or at another forest)

[build more farms next to your Town Center everytime you have enough wood until you have a total of 5 farms]

#21 wood (at the 2nd lumbercamp)
#22 wood
#23 wood
#24 build a house then send to wood

[select your Town Center and research Feudal Age]


Some more information:

• All the other build orders will not contain instructions when to build houses. Therefore you should try to keep an eye on your population count and your maximum population. With your Town Center and the 2 starting houses you will have a maximum population of 15. One vil needs 25 seconds to build a house which is exactly the time your Town Center needs to create a new vil. So you have to start building a house before vil number 14 is created (i.e. the population counter shows 13/15) because if you build it later vil number 15 will be created before the house is finished (15/15) and you get population blocked (aka 'housed'). So with one Town Center working you have to build a house everytime the current counter is 2 below the current maximum population (given that you only create villagers and no Militias or Fishing Boats). If you have more production buildings you need to build houses more frequently.
  
• Animals will decay after being killed, i.e. they lose food over time. For that reason it's most efficient in the early game to gather food from one animal at a time.
  
• One of the most important things is to always keep your Town Center working (by creating vils or researching technologies). In a standard game more than half of your maximum population should be villagers, e.g. in a game with a maximum population of 200 you should make 120-130 vils.

Fast Castle for Beginners

Fast Castle is one of the basic strategies. The purpose of a Fast Castle is to reach the Castle Age as fast as possible to get access to better military units like Knights, Siege and Monks but also to be able to build more Town Centers which are absolutely necessary to build up a strong economy.

The idea behind a Fast Castle is to create more vils in Dark Age (even though you would be able to research Feudal Age earlier) and spend as little time in the Feudal Age as possible. This is done by building the 2 necessary buildings asap when you reach Feudal Age and once they are build you click up to Castle Age.

The following build order is for beginners as well, i.e. more vils are created to ensure that you have enough resources to build the necessary buildings and research the necessary technologies.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

7 vils on sheep

#8 build a lumbercamp
3 vils on wood

#12 lure 1st boar
[research loom after the 12th vil was created]

#13 build a mill on berries

[build a farm with a hurt vil]

3 vils on berries

#17 lure 2nd boar

3 vils on TC food

[build a farm with a hurt vil]

#21 build a 2nd lumbercamp

3 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 2 more farms with vils from TC food]

#25 build a mining camp on gold

2 vils on gold

[click up to Feudal Age with 27 vils]

[build 2 more farms with vils from TC food]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on wood

[build a Market with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with one vil]

[click up to Castle Age]

[research Double-bit Axe and Horse-collar as soon as you have enough resources]

Notes:

• If you have no idle time on your Town Center you will reach Castle Age in 16:05 minutes (in-game time) with this build.

Generic Fast Castle Build Order

This is the advanced build order for a Fast Castle on which all other Fast Castle strategies are based on.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[push deer to your TC with your Scout or use 4 vils from TC food to build a mill on the deer]

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

4 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 2 more farms with vils from TC food]

#25 build mining camp on gold

[click up to Feudal Age]

[send 1 vil from TC food on gold or 2 if you have researched Loom]

Feudal Age:

2 vils to whatever resource is needed

[build a Market with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with 1 vil]
[click up to Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar as soon as you have the resources]
[after TC food is gone relocate the vils to whatever resource is needed]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Castle Age in 15:15 minutes with Loom and 14:50 minutes without loom.

Generic Boom Build Order

Booming is the most common strategy on Black Forest. The idea behind it is to build a strong economy and spend no resources on military until you reach the Imperial Age. In the Imperial Age you research all the necessary technologies and train military.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

[push deer to your TC with your Scout or send 4 vils from TC food to hunt deer]

4 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 2 more farms]

#25 build a mining camp on gold

[send 1 vil from TC food on gold or 2 if you have researched Loom]

[click up to Feudal Age]

[build a farm with a vil from TC food]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on wood

[build a Market with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with 1 vil]

[click up to Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[build 2 farms with vils from berries for a total of 7 farms]

[send the vils from TC food to wood when they are finished]

Castle Age:

[build 2 Town Centers with 4 vils each]

[research Bow Saw]

[send all new vils to wood and make farms whenever possible]

[buy 100 stone once you have enough gold]

[save wood for a 4th TC once you have a total of 18 farms]

[start sending new vils on gold]

[build a 4th TC and more farms until you have about 30 farms in total]

[research Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart]

[save wood and build a University and a Monastery / Siege Workshop]

[research Gold Mining and Heavy Plow]

[balance your economy, focus on getting 1000 food and 800 gold to advance to the Imperial Age]

[click up to the Imperial Age]

[research Caravan and build Markets on one side of the trade line, start trade as soon as possible]

[research all the necessary updates for your military units]

Imperial Age:

[get all the remaining upgrades, build more military buildings and create military units until you have reached the population limit]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Castle Age in 14:50 mins without Loom and 15:15 mins with Loom.
  
• Depending on your civ and possible economy bonusses you should be able to reach Imperial Age between 26 and 30 mins.
  
• Build your Town Centers next to important resources like wood, gold and stone. Don't build them too close together so that you have enough place for farms.

Counter strategy:

Booming can be countered with any kind of rush. When you decide to rush you have to consider that you sacrifice resources on military instead on your economy. Therefore you want to do enough damage to your opponent to offset this disadvantage, either by killing his vils or by destroying his Town Centers, farms etc before he is able to create military on his own and fight back.

3 TC Boom

The 3 TC Boom is a variation of the standard Boom where you only build 3 Town Centers instead of 4 (or more). This strategy is very useful for fast civs that either have cheap units and can attack fast in the early Imperial Age or have a strong Boom that allows to invest less resources in economy, e.g. Japanese, Byzantines, Aztecs, Maya, Incas, Vikings, Britons, Goths, Malians or Italians.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

2 vils on berries

#14 lure 2nd boar

2 vils on berries

#17 on wood (1st lumbercamp)

[push deer to your TC with your Scout]

2 vils on TC food

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

#20 on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#21 build mining camp on gold

2 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#24 on gold

[click up to Feudal Age]

[send one vil from TC food on gold if you have researched Loom]

[build a farm with a vil from TC food]
[send one vil fom TC food on wood]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on wood

[build a Market with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with 1 vil]

[click up to Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

Castle Age:

[build 2 Town Centers with 4 vils each]

[research Bow Saw]

[send all new vils to wood and make farms whenever possible]

[start sending vils on gold when you have about 20 farms]

[research Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart]

[save up wood and build a University and Monastery / Siege Workshop]

[balance economy and focus on getting 1000 food and 800 gold]

[click up to Imperial Age]

[research all the necessary updates for your military units]

[if your opponent is walled you should make some Rams while you advance to the Imperial Age so that you can quickly destroy his walls]

Imperial Age:

[get all the remaining upgrades, build more military buildings, create military units and try to attack as soon as possible]

(when you break through try to send small groups to raid your opponents economy and to keep him from building military buildings)

Notes:

• With no idle time on your Town Center you should reach Castle Age in 14:25 mins without Loom and 14:50 with Loom.
  
• In the expansions it's very useful to research Onager as soon as you reach Imperial Age so that you can cut anywhere and don't have to waste time on destroying walls.

Counter strategy:

Same as with the normal Boom a 3 TC Boom can be countered with any kind of rush. If you go for a 4 TC Boom you should buy time until your economic advantage comes to play. Do this buy building more walls, making Mangonals to defend against Rams and by building defensive Castles to defend against raiding (if your opponent manages to break through). After a while your better economy will kick in and you will be able to fight back with more / better units.

Boom Build Order with Fish

Sometimes there will be lakes with shore fish on Black Forest. Each tile of shore fish gives 200 food so it can really boost your early economy. There are 2 ways of using lakes, either by building a mill next to the shore fish and gathering it with vils or by building a dock and making fishing ships. If there are 2 or more tiles of shore fish close to each other you should build a mill. If they are spread out or if there are more than 3 you should build a dock. Having a dock in Dark Age is really beneficial since you have 2 production buildings to improve your economy (dock and TC instead of TC only) but on the other hand it will slow you down. This is because you use more vils to gather wood in the early game and less vils on food and fishing ships are pretty slow gathering food from shore fish. So in a nutshell if you use a lake with shore fish you will have a stronger economy but you will also be slower to advance to the next age.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
5 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#12 build a dock then send to wood

[make 3-4 fishing ships if there are 3-4 tiles of shore fish, 4-5 fishing ships if there are more than 4]

#13 on wood

#14 lure 1st boar

3 vils on TC food

#18 lure 2nd boar

[push deer with your Scout or send 4 vils to hunt deer]

2 vils on TC food

4 vils on berries

3 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[move 2 vils from wood to gold, 3 if you have researched Loom]

[click up to Feudal Age]

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on wood

[build a Market with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with 1 vil]

[click up to Castle Age]

[rest like standard Boom]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Castle Age in 16:05 mins with Loom and 15:40 mins without Loom.
  
• You can dock more than one lake, it will slow you down more but it will also give you an enourmous early economic advantage. If you want to build more than one dock you need to put more vils on wood early on. If your first lumbercamp becomes to crowded (vils blocking each other) use the straggler trees around your TC before building a second lumbercamp.

Counter strategy:

(see standard Boom)

Malay Fish Boom

This is a special build order which only works if you are Malay and have at least one lake that you can use. If executed properly you will have an incredibly strong Boom and be 20 or more population ahead of someone booming normally. It makes use of 3 features that only Malay have: ability to advance very fast to the next age, cheap fish traps and fish traps with unlimited food. Malay fish traps are incredibly overpowered since they only cost 67 wood and you will save big amounts of wood, space and reseed time compared to a farm economy.

90 population at 23 minutes and a huge food / wood economy

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep

#7 build mill on berries

#8 lure 1st boar

2 vils on wood (straggler trees around TC)
(build a lumbercamp as soon as you have 100 wood)

#11 lure 2nd boar

7 vils on TC food

[click up to Feudal Age with 18 vils]

[move all vils except 4 from food to wood, use straggler trees as well to avoid crowding]

[send one vil to build a dock]

Feudal Age:

[research Double-Bit Axe]

3 vils on food

[keep making fishing ships and fish traps, all new vils on wood]

[depending on the size of the lake you should build 3-4 docks per lake]

[try to leave some space between the fish traps otherwise the ships will block each other]

[start mining gold when you can make fishing ships from all docks]

[build a Market and a Blacksmith]

[click up to Castle Age]

[send more vils from wood to gold]

Castle Age:

[research Bow Saw and Gillnets]

[depending on your population add a 2nd TC to create more vils]

[build a University and a Monastery / Siege Workshop]

[click up to the Imperial Age]

[build Markets and set up trade]

[do research and build military]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Feudal Age in 7:33 mins without Loom.
  
• Don't make too many fishing ships because at some point they will block each other and it's practically impossible to get them working again without deleting some.
  
• Fishing Ships can't be garrisoned in danger so you might want to secure them with Towers / Castles, otherwise you might lose your entire food economy with one big attack.

Counter strategy:

(see standard Boom)

Fast Castle Knight Rush (1 Stable)

This is more a defensive than an offensive strategy. Most of the time it's used by a pocket player to support his flank in a Feudal or Castle Age War. The goal is to create Knights from one stable while still working on a good economy and reaching the Imperial Age in a reasonable time.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[push deer to your TC with your Scout or use 4 vils from TC food to build a mill on the deer]

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

5 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 2 more farms with vils from TC food]

#26 build mining camp on gold

[click up to Feudal Age]

[send 1 vil from TC food on gold or 2 if you have researched Loom]

[build a Barracks]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on gold

[build a Stable with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with 1 vil]
[click up to Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar as soon as you have the resources]

[build a total of 10 farms]

Castle Age:

[research Bow Saw, train Knights from your Stable]

[add more Town Centers and boom as good as possible]

[if you plan to make Paladins or Chevaliers in Imperial you can add more Stables and train more Knights otherwise just focus on getting to the Imperial Age]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Castle Age in 15:40 minutes with Loom and 15:15 minutes without loom.

Counter Strategy:

A few Knights can be countered by Camels or Monks. Try to keep your Monks safe so that you can get more than one conversion with one Monk. Pikes can work if you only face Knights but they are not optimal since they easily get killed by Archers, Scorpions or any kind of ranged unit.

Another option would be to make Knights yourself, but from more Stables. You will be able to win more early fights because of the bigger numbers but in the long run your economy will be worse so you should push fast if you go for it.

Fast Castle Knight Rush (2 Stables)

This is a very aggressive version of the Knight Rush where you sacrifice on economy to get a huge army of Knights. Since Knights are pretty expensive you stay in the Dark Age a bit longer to have a strong economy when reaching the Castle Age to be able to train Knights from 2 stables. This strategy is mostly used by a pocket player.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[push deer to your TC with your Scout or use 4 vils from TC food to build a mill on the deer]

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

6 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build a total of 6 farms with vils from TC food]

#27 build mining camp on gold
#28 on gold

[send 1 vil from TC food on gold if you have researched Loom]

[click up to Feudal Age]

[build a Barracks]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on gold

[build a Stable with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with 1 vil]

[click up to Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar as soon as you have the resources]

[build a 2nd Stable, send vils to gold until you have a total of 10]

Castle Age:

[research Wheelbarrow and Bow Saw]

[train Knights from both Stables]

[send all new vils on wood but build a farm everytime you have enough wood]

[get the defense upgrades for your Knights and Bloodlines if it's available]

[add some Monks to heal your Knights and Scorpions if your opponent makes Pikeman]

[add more Town Centers when you start to stockpile a big amount of food, focus on getting to the Imperial Age]

Training Knights from two Stables.

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Castle Age in 16:05 mins without Loom and 16:30 with Loom.
  
• Once you got enough Knights (15+) and both defense upgrades you can destroy your opponent's Town Centers.
  
• Avoid unfavourable fights against mass Pikeman or Camels. Instead add some counter units yourself. Also if your opponent has mass Pikeman you can send one Knight as a bait and lure them away before you attack again. This works well since Knights are faster than Pikeman.
  
• The enemy pocket player will most likely have a better economy than you so it's important to do as much damage as possible before his economic advantage kicks in.

Counter Strategy:

Knights are one of the strongest Castle Age units so it's important to pick good fights. Good counter units are Camels, Monks and to some extent Pikeman. If your opponent goes for a 2 Stable Knight Rush you need to make a lot of units yourself or you will get overwhelmed very fast. If you go for Pike defense make sure you have a lot because even with the anti-cavalry bonus they will get destroyed by Knights due to the much weaker stats. Also you should wall yourself as good as possible to avoid being raided.

Fast Castle Monk Rush (1 TC)

This is another effective Castle Age Rush. The goal is to make Siege units (Mangonals and/or Rams) to destroy your opponent's TCs and Monks to convert enemy units.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[push deer to your TC with your Scout or use 4 vils from TC food to build a mill on the deer]

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

4 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 2 more farms with vils from TC food]

#25 build mining camp on gold

[click up to Feudal Age]

[send 1 vil from TC food on gold or 2 if you have researched Loom]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on gold

[build a Market with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with 1 vil]
[click up to Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar as soon as you have the resources]
[sell 200 stone]

[send 6 more vils from food to gold]

Castle Age:

[build a Siege Workshop and a Monastery]

[queue up a Ram / Mangonal, then build more Monasteries]

[make more Monks and Siege units, destroy your opponent's TCs and convert any military unit he throws at you]

[don't waste conversions on vils (unless you have a lot of Monks)]

[add some Pikemen if your opponent makes Scouts / Light Cav as counter]

[research Monk techs as you need them, e.g. Sancity if your Monks get attacked or Redemption to convert military buildings and siege units]

[focus on gettting to the Imperial Age to get more useful Monk techs like Block Printing (extra range)]

Each Monk is assigned to a control group for efficient converting.

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Castle Age in 14:50 mins without Loom and 15:15 mins with Loom.
  
• If your opponent sends a lot of vils to attack your Monks / Siege then only convert some to repair your siege units and to attack the other vils (he might have Scouts or Light Cav in the back to attack when you used all your conversions).

Counter Strategy:

There are different ways to counter a Monk Rush. The standard way is to mass Light Cavalry in the back, get the attack upgrades (and Husbandry if possible) and then attack once you got a critical mass (you can try to bait him by attacking with some vils so that he loses conversions on some of his Monks). If your opponent has Pikeman as well you should add Scorpions (be careful if your opponent has Mangonals or Redemption though). Crossbows can work too if you are able to dodge the Mangonal shots. The most important rule to counter a Monk Rush is to engage with a big number of units, otherwise he will be able to convert them one by one which puts you on a serious disadvantage. Towers are useful to protect certain areas (make sure to get Fletching and Bodkin Arrow). If he has a very big number of Monks you should consider getting Heresy (converted units die) if you have access to it. But still the best way to shut down a Monk Rush is with a Castle (high HP, high range and high attack). Just make sure you don't titanic and lose all your vils to Mangonals while building it.

Castle Drop (1 TC)

The purpose of a Castle Drop is to reach Castle Age and build a Castle as soon as possible. It's a very strong structure with high HP, attack and range and apart from mass Rams there is no real way to destroy a Castle with Castle Age units. A Castle Drop can be used to push (offensive) or to defend (defensive). The 1 TC version is very offensive since you invest most of your resources into military and you will have a rather weak economy in the long run.

Good civs for an offensive Castle Drop have a unique unit that is fast, has a ranged attack and does a lot of damage. Additionally you want to add siege (Rams or Mangonals) to destroy your opponents Town Centers fast.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[push deer to your TC with your Scout or use 4 vils from TC food to build a mill on the deer]

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

4 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 2 more farms with vils from TC food]

#25 build mining camp on stone

2 vils on stone

[send 2 vils from TC food on gold or 3 if you have researched Loom]

[click up to Feudal Age]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on stone

[build a Market with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with 1 vil]
[click up to Castle Age]

[send more vils to gold, you need more vils on gold if the unique unit is either expensive or created very fast]

[balance your economy according to what resources you need for your unique unit]

[research Double-Bit Axe,Horse Collar and Gold Mining as soon as you have the resources]

Castle Age:

[research Bow Saw]

[build a Castle with 6 vils and a Siege Workshop with one vil]

[attack and try to do as much damage as possible]

[keep mining stone to build a 2nd offensive Castle later]

[add some Monks to heal your units or to convert enemy units (especially Knights) ]

[focus on getting to the Imperial Age to be able to make Trebuchets and uprade your unique unit]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Castle Age in 15:40 without Loom and 16:05 with Loom.
  
• Before you build your Castle check if you have a forward wall. If not it might be smarter to build the Castle in the back, make Petards (2 Petards per layer of stone wall) and surprise attack your opponent before he can wall more.
  
• Depending on your unique unit you might want to go up with a Stable / Archery Range to get Bloodlines / Husbandry or Thumb Ring early on. In this case you simply go up to Feudal Age with one more vil on wood and build a Barracks while advancing.

Counter Strategy:

First it's important to check if your opponent has a good civ for a Castle Drop like Mayans, Spanish or Burmese. If he additionally has a forward wall you should expect a Castle Drop. To be sure you can place palisade wall foundations around his stone piles to see if he takes a lot of stone for a Castle Drop.

If you know early enough that a Castle Drop is coming you can drop a Castle yourself and go for a Fast Imperial to make Trebuchets, counter his Castle Drop and push back (or just drop a defensive Castle and Boom). Depending on your map you can also just mass walls, research fortified walls and boom normally until you have a big economic advantage to fight back, but this is kind of risky because if your opponent manages to break through you will have no military to defend.

Another way would be to let him in and fight his units. Depending on the unit there are different 'standard' units to counter unique units in Castle Age: Monks against expensive units like War Waggons or Conquistadors and Knights against low HP ranged units like Plumed Archers, Janissaries, Longbowmen (also against infantry like Huskarls). If you use Knights make sure to research the defense upgrades which makes them much more effective against ranged units. Mangonals are a good addition if he hides his ranged units in small corners (which is a very effective way to fight Knights with ranged units).

Castle Drop with Mini Boom

This is a defensive strategy where you build a Castle to defend you from any Castle Age Rush while you still Boom and work on your economy in the back. It works very well against a Monk Rush or a Castle Drop.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[push deer to your TC with your Scout or use 4 vils from TC food to build a mill on the deer]

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

6 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 2 more farms with vils from TC food]

#27 build mining camp on stone

2 vils on stone

[send 2 vils from TC food on gold or 3 if you have researched Loom]

[click up to Feudal Age]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on stone

[build a Market with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with 1 vil]
[click up to Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar as soon as you have the resources]

Castle Age:

[research Bow Saw, build 2 Town Centers, but keep your vils mining stone]

[build a defensive Castle as soon as you have enough stone, otherwise just Boom normally and focus to get to the Imperial Age]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Castle Age in 16:30 mins without Loom and 16:55 mins with Loom.
  
• Depending on the situation you might want to build the Castle before the TC's (if your opponent pushes fast).

Counter Strategy:

If you rush and your opponent drops a defensive Castle you have different options. If the map allows it try to push at another point (given that your opponent doesn't have the chance to make 50 layers of fortified walls). If you have a Castle yourself you should transition into a Fast Imperial and push with Trebuchets. Another option would be to fall back and mass Rams (at least 5) and then push again in a later stage of the Castle Age (don't wait too long though or the other pocket will already be there to help). The last option is to cancel your rush and try to Boom as good as possible to catch up on economy. This is not ideal if you have a forward Castle which is very vulnerable to Trebuchets and Bombard Cannons (while you are still in Castle Age and won't be able to save it).

Castle Drop into Fast Imperial

This is a counter strategy against a Castle Drop. The goal is to build a Castle in Castle Age and then advance to the Imperial Age asap to make Trebuchets.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[build 2 farms]

4 vils on TC food

[send 4 vils from TC food to hunt deer or push it with your Scout]

4 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build a total of 7 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on gold

#29 build mining camp on stone

[send 2 vils from TC food on stone]

[click up to the Feudal Age]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on stone

#32 build a farm

[build a Market and a Blacksmith]

[click up to the Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[balance eco: 6 on wood, 12 on farms, 5 on stone, 4 on berries, 5 on gold]

Castle Age:

[build a Castle with 6 vils]

[send new vils to wood]

[click up to the Imperial Age after the Castle is finished]

[research Bow Saw]

[keep some vils on stone and build more TCs]

Imperial Age:

[make Trebuchets from your Castle and push forward]

[try to catch up on economy]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Imperial Age in 21:45 mins without Loom and 22:10 mins with Loom.
  
• Use some vils to build walls / gates in front of your Trebuchets so that they can't be destroyed by melee units.

Counter Strategy:

If you have enough resources you can go Imperial Age and make Trebuchets yourself. If you can't advance fast enough then your Castle is most likely lost. Just try to Boom as good as possible to get a better economy. If your opponent has only Trebuchets you can make some Rams (which are very good to kill Trebuchets).

Drush into Fast Castle

A Drush (Dark Age Rush) is a fast rush where you make Militia in Dark Age to annoy your opponent. If you are lucky you will be able to kill vils as well but that's not the main goal.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

#17 build a Barracks, then send to wood

[train 3 Militia and attack your opponent, go for berries / woodline first and always target one vil, if he attacks your Militia with vils go back and attack again when he sends them back to work, try to force as much idle time as possible, if he is walled go to another player]

#18 mine 10 gold (without building a mining camp)

#19 on wood

2 vils on TC food

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

6 vils on straggler trees (build a farm whenever possible until you have 8 in total)

#27 build mining camp on gold

[send 3 vils from TC food to gold]

[click up to Feudal Age]

Feudal Age:

[build a Market / Stable / Archery Range with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with 1 vil]

2 vils to whatever resource is needed

[click up to the Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Castle Age in 16:05 mins with Loom.
  
• Assign your Militia to a control group so you can quickly jump there and avoid losing them to TC fire.
  
• A Drush has the purpose to annoy and cause idle time, so if your opponent fights back just run away and attack after a short time again.

Counter Strategy:

Just wall in your resources with palisade walls. If you have enough villagers you can also fight the Militia, just make sure you don't chase them forever (which is the purpose of a Drush). If a vil gets low HP send him back to your Town Center. When you are fully walled make sure to tell your team because your opponent will most likely target another player now.

Eternal Drush

This is a troll strategy where you stay in the Dark Age and just spam Militia.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

#17 build forward Barracks then houses

#18 on wood (1st lumbercamp)

2 vils on gold (3 with a Goth ally)

[make Militia nonstop and try to kill as many vils as possible, make sure you don't lose Militia to TC fire]

[new vils on farms, when you start stockpiling food build more barracks]

[you need 2 (3 with Goth ally) vils on gold to spam Militia from one Barracks]

[let an ally wall your opponent off with stone walls]

[advance to the Feudal Age when you have about 100 Militia]

Feudal Age:

[research Wheelbarrow, Double-Bit axe and Horse Collar]

[upgrade your Militia to Man-at-Arms, build a Blacksmith and get infantry upgrades]

[kill your opponent]

How to Drush.

Notes:

• Don't try to kill a TC too early. You need many (much more than you would expect) Militia to kill a fully garrisoned Town Center. Better wait for the M@A upgrade. Just run around and be annoying.
  
• Spread out. Send some patrols around to see if your opponent is running vils or tries to take resources. A huge bulk of Militia isn't very useful.

Counter Strategy:

The most important thing is to secure your resources with walls because you can't fight this drush with vils. Try to get to Feudal Age asap then secure your gold with a Tower. From there you can either make Feudal Archers or go for a Fast Castle and make Scorpions. If you get the chance lure his Militia into your TC fire. If he tries to kill your TC keep reparing it and garrison the vils if he attacks them. If he reaches Feudal Age with more than 30 Militia you should secure your TC with walls or extra towers.

Feudal Age Sling

Slinging means that you send most of your resources to an ally and don't make any military yourself. The player who receives the extra resources will be able to advance faster, make more military and get upgrades faster than other players. Also he should attack rather fast to maintain his huge advantage. It's a rather common strategy on Black Forest because it's easy to wall and the player who slings doesn't have to fear early attacks.

There are 2 versions of the Sling: Feudal and Castle Age Sling. The Feudal Age Sling is the more common version where a player advances to the Feudal Age quickly to get the Coinage technology and starts sending resources to an ally

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
3 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#10 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#15 lure 2nd boar

4 vils on TC food

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

3 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

[click up to the Feudal Age]

[send 2 vils from TC food to gold]

Feudal Age:

[build a Market with 3 vils then research Coinage]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[after Coinage has been researched start sending resources to an ally while still creating more villagers, farms etc.]

Coinage research.

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Feudal Age in 9:40 mins without Loom and 10:05 with Loom.
  
• It's important to talk with the player who gets the Sling what resources he needs and if necessary adapt your own economy.
  
• Usually slinging lasts for about 40-50 mins game time. After that time the slung player will have enough economy on his own to support military and you should focus on getting to the Imperial Age and make military on your own.

Counter Strategy:

First it's important to identify which player is slinging and which player gets the sling plus where they are and what civs they have. That is rather easy because one player will be in the Feudal Age forever and one player's score will be much higher than anyone else's. After that it's important to buy as much time as possible. Build walls, research Fortified Walls, build outposts to notice Onager cutting (and wall the forest as well if necessary) and make Mangonals to defend against Rams. The important thing about slinging is that the player who gets the sling sits on a timer and as the time goes on his advantage shrinks as the enemy population is growing. Also he is on his own because the slinging player won't be able to make military for a long time.

Another option would be to make a strong push in Castle Age and try to kill the player who slings and the player who gets the sling.

If that is not possible there is a last option: let the flank die slowly. This will at least buy his pocket enough time to make enough counter units to push back. Don't engage too early though because the slung player will have more upgrades and more military.

Castle Age Sling

The Castle Age sling is another form of slinging that works a bit different. You basically go for a standard 3 TC boom but after 23-25 minutes you research Coinage (and Banking if you plan to send a lot of resources) and send resources to an ally. With a Feudal Age Sling you will be able to send much more resources but with a Castle Age Sling you will be able to join the fight early as you already have a good economy. It's very useful to boost a power civ that has to get a lot of (expensive) upgrades in early Imperial Age like Celts, Koreans, Persians (Elephants!) or Mongols.

I won't give a concrete build order here. Just check the 3 TC Boom build order and adapt it in a way that you switch to slinging instead of going to the Imperial Age.

Counter Strategy:

This strategy is rather hard to counter. Try to attack as soon as possible (which you should do anyways if you are against one of the civs mentioned above) before the slinging player joins the fight and the other player gets a critical mass of overpowered units.

Generic Flush Build

This is a general build order for a Feudal Rush (Flush).

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
3 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#10 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#15 lure 2nd boar

3 vils on TC food

3 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

[research Loom, click up to the Feudal Age]

[for Stable/Range: send 4 vils from TC food on wood (2nd lumbercamp);
for double Range: send 6 vils from TC food on wood (2nd lumbercamp)]

[build a Barracks]

Feudal Age:

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[build Stable / Range and make military]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Feudal Age in 10:05 mins.
  
• Civs with a strong Dark Age economy (e.g. Mongols, Indians) can go up with less vils whereas 'slow' civs like Saracens should go up with one or two more vils to be able to support military production.
  
• One vil needs 50 seconds to build a Barracks so you have to start to build it before Feudal Age is on 60% research. Otherwise it won't be finished when you reach Feudal Age and you can't build a Stable / Archery Range.

Scout Rush

A Scout Rush can be a very effective early game rush on Black Forest if the enemy team isn't fully walled. Scouts are fast and get +2 attack in Feudal Age which makes them ideal for raiding.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
3 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#10 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#15 lure 2nd boar

3 vils on TC food

2 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

[click up to the Feudal Age]

[send 4 vils from TC food on wood (2nd lumbercamp)]

[build a Barracks]
[build a farm with a vil from TC food]

Feudal Age:

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[build a Stable and train Scouts]

[if you have 3 or more Scouts send them out to raid (you can see the woodlines on the map where the trees are chopped]

[add more Scouts if your opponent has exposed resources like a far woodline]
[if you can't do more damage to a player move on to the next one]

[build farms with all new vils and decide how you want to proceed, you can either go for a full Feudal War and follow up with Archers to counter spearmen or you just advance to the Castle Age]

[research Wheelbarrow when you have 12-13 farms]
[balance your economy depending on your strategy]

Raiding with Scouts.

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Feudal Age in 9:15 without Loom and 9:40 with Loom.
  
• Assign your Scouts to a control group so you can jump to them quickly and don't lose them to TC fire.
  
• Don't fight spearman.

Counter Strategy:

The best way to counter a Scout Rush on Black Forest is to wall all choke points. If that is not possible wall your resources so that the Scouts don't get a chance to raid. If you have a bad map or your opponent a lot of Scouts you should make some Spearmen for defense.

Archer Flush

A Feudal Archer Rush can be very effective because Archers can prevent an enemy from walling and due to their range and attack they are very good at killing vils.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
3 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#10 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#15 lure 2nd boar

3 vils on TC food

4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

[click up to the Feudal Age]

[send 6 vils from TC food on wood (2nd lumbercamp)]

[send 2 vils from TC food on gold]

[build a Barracks]

Feudal Age:

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[build 2 Archery Ranges and train Archers]

2 vils on food

6 vils on gold (8 in total)

[all new vils build farms]

[build a Blacksmith and research Fletching]

[research Wheelbarrow when you have 12-13 farms]

[focus on getting to the Castle Age]

Castle Age:

[research Bow Saw, Crossbow and Bodkin Arrow]
[build more TCs or push with Siege]

Archer Rush.

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Feudal Age in 10:05 mins without Loom and 10:30 with Loom.
  
• Keep your Archers on the stand ground attack stance so that they will shoot enemy units but not follow them.

Counter Strategy:

Try not to get rushed in the first place by walling all choke points. Two layers of palisade walls will give you enough time to reach Feudal Age and drop a defensive tower to keep your opponent from breaking in. If he gets in wall your resources so that the Archers can't reach your vils. Build an Archery Range and train Skirmishers as defense. Make sure that you have enough before engaging and don't send them one by one. Also check if the Archers have any Blacksmith upgrades. Send some vils to stone and build defensive towers. If you are in Castle Age build a Siege Workshop and make 1-2 Scorpions (if only few Archers) or 1-2 Mangonals and Scorpions (if many Archers). Make sure to send vils to repair them.

M@A into Archers

Men-at-Arms are a strong unit in the early Feudal Age that can easily kill vils with their high attack. Therefore they are perfect to start a Feudal War.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
3 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#10 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#15 lure 2nd boar

2 vils on TC food

3 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

[build a Barracks]

#21 build a mining camp on gold
#22 on gold

[click up to the Feudal Age]

[train 3-4 Militia]

Feudal Age:

[research Men-at-Arms, Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[try to kill vils but don't lose your M@A to TC fire]

2 vils on gold

[build an Archery Range and make Archers]

[balance your economy, add another Archery Range or focus on getting to the Castle Age]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Feudal Age in 9:40 without Loom and 10:05 with Loom.
  
• Keep your M@A on defensive attack stance so that they will only follow enemy units for a short distance. This way you can avoid that they run into an enemy TC when you don't pay attention.
  
• M@A are a decent unit to take out buildings. If your opponent makes military buildings just add some more M@A and destroy them.

Counter Strategy:

It's not advised to fight M@A with villagers. Try to wall your important resources. Secure a gold with a defensive tower and make Archers / Skirmishers as defense.

M@A Tower Rush

This is a variation of the normal Tower Rush where you make Men-at-Arms as a support. On the one hand it's slower than a normal Tower Rush but you will be able to avoid vil fights since M@A are so strong in the early Feudal Age.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
3 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#10 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#15 lure 2nd boar

3 vils on TC food

2 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

[build a Barracks]

#21 build a mining camp on gold
#22 on gold

[research Loom]

[click up to the Feudal Age]

[train 3-4 Militia]

[send 5 vils to stone and send 5 vils forward]

Feudal Age:

[research Men-at-Arms, Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[rest like a standard Tower Rush]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Feudal Age in 10:05 mins.
  
• You can add more M@A to destroy enemy towers or military buildings.

Counter Strategy:

(same as normal Tower Rush with the exception that you shouldn't fight with vils unless you have a much bigger number)

Tower Rush

The Tower Rush is a fast agressive Feudal Rush. The goal is to get map control by building towers on your opponent's resources. It's viable on Black Forest when your opponent hasn't walled or only walled with one layer of palisades (which can easily be destroyed with vils). If your opponent goes for a Fast Castle he will be up to the Feudal Age 1-2 minutes later than you which gives you enough time to build towers on his main resources (and keep him from advancing to the Castle Age entirely or at least keep him from mining gold for siege units).

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep

#7 build mill on berries

#8 lure 1st boar

2 vils on wood (straggler trees around TC)
(build a lumbercamp as soon as you have 100 wood)

#11 lure 2nd boar

7 vils on TC food

[click up to Feudal Age with 18 vils]

[send 5 vils from TC food on stone and 5 vils forward to build towers]

Feudal Age:

[start building towers, if he is walled with a palisade wall build a tower and then use your vils to destroy the palisade]

[make sure that your towers cover each other so that they can't be destroyed by vils]

[after you have built a tower immediately garrison your vils if there are any enemy vils to kill, then build palisade walls around the tower since it can't attack units that are right next to it]

[try to tower up his stone first so he can't make defensive towers]

[if he doesn't attack your vils you can build multiple towers at the same time, also you should attack different spots to do as much damage as possible]

[build a Blacksmith as soon as you have 150 wood]

[your economy will be really bad so try to keep your Town Center working all the time]

[when you can't do more damage start focussing to get to the Castle Age]

Towers covering each other.

Building two towers at the same time.

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach Feudal Age in 8:50 mins with Loom.
  
• Make sure you are walled in case the enemy pocket makes Knights to raid your economy.
  
• This is a good strategy to take out a player if your pocket goes for a Castle Age Rush. Make sure that you wall your opponent off so that he can't run his vils and his pocket can't send support.

Counter strategy:

The best way to counter a Tower Rush is by walling so that your opponent doesn't even get a chance to hit your resources. Two Layers of palisade walls buy you enough time to build a defensive tower which keeps your opponent from getting any further.

If the map is too open or your opponent already broke through then you should send about 10 vils to attack him. If he only has one tower you can destroy it with your vils since towers can't attack units at their foundation. If he already made some cover towers you should send 5-6 vils to stone and make defensive towers. Also try to build walls to prevent your opponent from gaining too much map control. If you see that your opponent is open then you could make 3 or more scouts in the back and then send them forward to raid. Try to get to Castle Age as soon as possible so that you can make Rams / Mangonals to destroy his Towers.

If you have trouble defending ask your pocket to make some siege as support. If you see that you get doubled send some vils (not all if you are still alive) to your pocket for the case that you get walled off.

Generic Fast Imperial

This is the general build order on which most of the Fast Imperial strategies are based on.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

[send 4 vils to hunt deer or push it with your Scout]

4 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 4 more farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on gold

[click up to the Feudal Age]

Feudal Age:

3 vils on gold

[build a Market and a Blacksmith]

[click up to the Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[build a total of 14 farms with vils from TC food and berries (once they are gone)]

Castle Age:

3 vils to whatever resource is needed

[build a Monastery / University and a Siege Workshop]

[click up to the Imperial Age]

[research Bow Saw]

Imperial Age:

[do stuff]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach the Imperial Age in 20:55 mins without Loom and 21:20 mins with Loom.

Fast Imperial Gunpowder Rush with Turks

Turks get free Chemistry which means they have access to Hand Cannoneers and Bombard Cannons once they reach the Imperial Age. For this reason the Turk Fast Imperial is a very effective strategy on closed maps like Black Forest where a player can easily avoid early game pressure.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

[send 4 vils to hunt deer or push it with your Scout]

6 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 4 more farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on gold

[click up to the Feudal Age]

[build a Barracks, then send one more vil to gold]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on gold

[build an Archery Range with 2 vils and a Blacksmith with one vil]

[click up to the Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[build a total of 14 farms with vils from TC food and berries (once they are gone)]

Castle Age:

2 vils on gold

[build a Monastery with one vil and a Siege Workshop with 2 vils]

[click up to the Imperial Age]

[research Bow Saw]
[build a 2nd Archery Range]

Imperial Age:

[train Hand Cannoneers and Bombard Cannons and attack your opponent]
[add more Archery Ranges]

[send new vils on gold]

Turk Fast Imperial with Knight support from pocket.

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach the Imperial Age in 20:55 mins without Loom and 21:20 mins with Loom.
  
• Keep your Hand Cannoneers on the stand ground attack stance so that they will attack enemy units but not follow them.
  
• Hand Cannoneers are affected by the Archer defense upgrades from the Blacksmith.
  
• Assign your Hand Cannoneers and your Bombard Cannons to 2 control groups which makes it easier to handle them.
  
• Always keep your Hand Cannoneers around your Bombard Cannons so that they don't get picked off by Cavalry units.
  
• Try to keep your Scout at full HP because he will become a Hussar in Imperial Age.
  
• Add some Monks to heal your army and convert enemy units.

Counter Strategy:

If you play against Turks you should always expect a Fast Imperial. Use palisade walls to check how many vils he has on gold. If he goes for a Fast Imperial build more stone walls (and research Fortified Walls at the University). Build at least two Stables in the back, train Knights and get as many upgrades as possible (defense upgrades first). Once you got a decent number of Knights you can engage the fight. Spread them out and try to surround the Hand Cannoneers so that they can't move into a corner. If there is a chance you should send some Knights to pick off the Bombard Cannons. Be careful though because Hand Cannoneers have a high attack and can kill a Knight in one shot when they reach a critical mass. If you play a Meso civ (Aztecs, Mayans, Incas) you should make Crossbows / Elite Skirmishers and Mangonals but take care of the Bombard Cannons which can be used very effectively against ranged units and Mangonals.

Fast Imperial Monk Rush

This is a version of the standard Monk Rush where you advance to the Imperial Age as fast as possible to get access to stronger Monk techs (Illumination - faster recovery rate for Monks, Block Printing - more range for Monks, Theocracy - only one Monk affected by group conversion).

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

[send 4 vils to hunt deer or push it with your Scout]

4 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 4 more farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on gold

[click up to the Feudal Age]

Feudal Age:

3 vils on gold

[build a Market and a Blacksmith]

[click up to the Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[move 2 vils from wood to gold]

[build a total of 14 farms with vils from TC food and berries (once they are gone)]

Castle Age:

3 vils on gold

[build a Monastery and a Siege Workshop]

[click up to the Imperial Age]

[research Bow Saw]

[queue up 2 Rams]

[send 5 vils from food to wood and 5 vils from food to gold]

[build more Monasteries]

Imperial Age:

[new vils on food]

[research Capped Ram]

[get Monk techs and proceed like a normal Monk Rush]

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach the Imperial Age in 20:55 mins without Loom and 21:20 mins with Loom.
  
• Theocracy is a very useful tech once you have more than 15 Monks.

Counter Strategy:

(see standard Monk Rush)

Fast Imperial Monks and Trebs

And another Monk Rush variation but this time with Trebuchets and Monks. It's very effective to kill defensive Castles which normally shut down any Monk Rush.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

#16 lure 2nd boar

[build 2 farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on TC food

[send 4 vils to hunt deer or push it with your Scout]

4 vils on wood (2nd lumbercamp)

[build 4 more farms with vils from TC food]

4 vils on gold

[send 2 vils from TC food on stone]

#29 one stone

[click up to the Feudal Age]

[move one vil from wood to gold]

Feudal Age:

2 vils on stone
#32 on gold

[build a Market and a Blacksmith]

[click up to the Castle Age]

[research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar]

[build a total of 14 farms with vils from wood, TC food and berries (once they are gone)]

Castle Age:

[build a Castle with 6 vils]

4 vils on gold

[click up to the Imperial Age]

[research Bow Saw]

[build Monasteries and train Monks]

[move 5 vils from food to gold and 5 vils from food to wood]

Imperial Age:

[build Trebuchets and proceed like a normal Monk Rush]

Monks and Trebuchets.

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach the Imperial Age in 21:45 mins without Loom and 22:10 mins with Loom.
  
• You can cut trees with Trebuchets so if there is an area with very few trees you might be able to get in undetected.

Counter Strategy:

(see standard Monk Rush)

Super duper Fast Imperial with Byzantines

I wasn't quite sure if i should classify this as a troll strategy. It only works with Byzantines and the goal is to reach the Imperial Age in less than 20 minutes. I guess it's only really effective with sling because without sling you won't have enough economy to support a big push. In Imperial Age you basically have the choice between Monks and siege or gunpowder units.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
4 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#11 lure 1st boar

4 vils on berries

[build a farm with a vil from TC food]

#16 lure 2nd boar

[push deer to your TC with your Scout]

2 vils on TC food

#18 on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#19 build a farm

2 vils on wood (1st lumbercamp)

#22 build a farm

#23 on TC food

[click up to Feudal Age]

Feudal Age:

[build a Market with 2 lumberjacks and a Blacksmith with 1 lumberjack]
[don't make new vils]
[sell 200 stone and click up to the Castle Age]

[send 6 vils from TC food on gold and 1 from wood to gold]
[send 2 more vils from TC food on gold]

Castle Age:

[build a Siege Workshop with 2 vils and a University / Monastery with 1 vil]
[don't make new vils]

[click up to the Imperial Age]

[shortly before you reach the Imperial Age write '42' in chat]

Imperial Age:

[do stuff]

.

Notes:

• With no idle time on your TC you should reach the Imperial Age in 18:00 mins without Loom.
  
• This is an incredibly close build so everything has to be executed perfectly.
  
• Without sling you will most likely die or not be able to do any damage at all.

Counter Strategy:

The first thing you should do is to send some vils to wall. With every minute your opponent wastes on destroying your walls your economic advantage gets bigger. Then you have to check what units he is making. If he is going for gunpowder units make Knights. If he makes Monks use Light Cavalry as counter (don't forget to get the attack upgrade before engaging). If you have a decent amount of cavalry you should have no problem to kill his rush (just don't send them one by one).

Persian TC Rush

This strategy is more commonly known as Persian Douche but since the word gets censored I needed a different name for the title. It's pretty much a troll strategy and there won't be many opportunities where you can successfully pull it off. It only works with Persians since Persian TC's have more HP. The goal is to start off normally by making a small Dark Age economy, then sending almost all vils forward, deleting your TC and rebuilding it in range of your opponent's TC. After it has been built you garrison vils and try to kill your opponent's TC and some vils if possible.

Build Order:

Dark Age:

6 vils on sheep
5 vils on wood

4 vils on TC food

[research Loom]
[send all vils forward, make one new vil and send him to wood]

[delete your TC and rebuild it about 4 tiles away from your opponents TC]

[quick wall your vils with houses / palisade walls]

[once your TC is up garrison 10 vils and send the other vils back to work]

[shoot your opponents TC, repair your own if necessary]

[rebuild your economy and try not to die]


Notes:

• This is probably the number one yolo strategy. If it fails you are out of the game.
  
• It can work out if your pocket goes for a full Castle Age Rush with Knights, Monks or Castle Drop for example (you can try to defeat the enemy flank by dropping Castle between him and his pocket or walling him off) to win your side fast.
  
• Try to build your TC in range of your opponent's berries or woodline so that you can do some more economy damage.

Counter strategy:

As a first reaction you should try to force a vil fight. Send all your vils and try to keep him from building his TC. You can easily reinforce your vils since your TC is very close. If he is committing to the vil fight try to lure some vils into your TC to kill them fast. If he keeps clicking on his TC (so that the vils build and don't run around when being attacked) you should try to kill as many vils as possible. If you see that he will get his TC up then move your vils out of range and send them back to work. Send some vils to stone and try to get to Feudal Age as soon as possible. Keep repairing your TC. In Feudal Age make some towers to secure important resources and keep him from taking them (remember that he has basically no economy). There is no real early game counter to this strategy. You just have to make sure that you have more economy and don't lose any vils to his TC so even if you have to rebuild your TC you will have a better position in the long run. Also you can ask your pocket to make some siege in Castle Age.

Extra: Reading your opponent

Reading your opponent basically means that you try to predict what your opponent is going to do next and adapt your own strategy accordingly. This skill is incredibly useful when playing in multiplayer against other people and it's absolutely necessary if you want to play AoE2 on a high level. There are a lot of indicators that will give you valuable information. Let's take a look through them.

Civilisations

This is the most basic source of information. Check what civ your opponent has and then try to imagine what you would do in his position. Let's say you are Britons and your opponent is Goths. If you were him you would probably expect Archers and therefore make Huskarls as a counter. With this thought in mind you should surprise him and go full Champions (Britons have fully upgraded Champions) which are a perfect counter to Huskarls. The civilisations might also give hints if your opponent is going to rush. Some civs are well-known as rushing civs, e.g. Turk Fast Imp, Aztec Monk Rush, Spanish / Maya Castle Drop, Mongol Scout Rush etc. Together with the other indicators you are able to react early and counter his rush before he gets an advantage over you.

Uptimes

On a higher level (I would say 1750+) the time when a player reaches a new age (specifically the Feudal Age) tells a lot about his strategy. A fast uptime (reaching Feudal Age in less than 11 minutes) most of the time means that your opponent is going for a Feudal Rush. If you notice that a player reaches the Feudal Age much faster than everyone else you should automatically ask yourself some important questions. What civ does he have? Are there any spots that haven't been walled yet? Is there a chance that he might have a sneak? Is he building a Tower next to a wall? The answers to those questions should determine your next actions. Apart from the civ you should also have an eye on his score. If he has a fast uptime and his score increases rapidly then he is most certainly investing into military units (unlike a Fast Castle where the score drops after clicking up to the Castle Age).

On the other hand if he stays in the Dark Age for a long time and reaches Feudal Age after everyone else (assuming that he didn't have a vil fight) he might go for a Fast Imperial or a resource-intensive Castle Age Rush (e.g. big Knight Rush, Castle Drop and Siege). Here again check his civ to see what options he has.

Villager distribution

The best way to identify a strategy is by checking what resources your opponent is taking (and how many vils he has on each resource). For example 3 vils on gold in Dark Age most of the time means standard Fast Castle, a lot of vils on stone either means Tower Rush or Castle Drop. Check his gold piles. If one gold pile only has 790 gold then he already mined 10 and is going for a Dark Age Rush.

But many times you won't be able to use your Scout because everythig is walled already. There is still a nice trick to find out how many vils your opponent is using to take gold / stone. Just place some palisade walls around his gold / stone piles (no need to build them). With those you will be able to see how many vils are taking that resource. It's important though that you place the palisades early because once your opponent has vils gathering gold / stone you won't be able to place them anymore.

Extra: How to lame

I know this is a controversial topic but since it's part of the gameplay and rather common I decided to add this section as well.

Laming is a method to get an early advantage over your opponent either by stealing his boar / sheep or by walling in his resources with palisade walls (or influence him in any way that can be considered 'unfair').

Stealing boars / sheep:

Send your Scout asap after you got your first 4 sheep. If you get some enemy sheep don't send them straight to your TC because your opponent will most likely send his Scout there to get them back. Instead send them through the middle of the map (which should still be open this early in the game).

To steal a boar hit it twice with your Scout (you can hit it once but then there is a chance that it will lose aggro and go back) and then move it to your TC. As your Scout is faster than the boar you have to move in a zigzag pattern to maintain aggro. It's easier to steal a boar with an Eagle Scout because they are slower than normal Scouts. You also have to consider that boars do more damage to Scouts in the expansions.

Stealing a boar with your Scout.

To counter a boar steal you either have to block the boar with your Scout until it loses aggro (don't attack it though) and goes back or if it's an Eagle Scout block the Eagle until it got killed by the boar. Alternatively you can send your Scout and steal a boar from your opponent.

Wall in resources:

Research Loom asap and send one vil forward after the game has started. Don't send your vil in a straight line and send your Scout first so you can avoid being spotted by your opponent. Start by walling in his far gold / stone mines and later his main gold. If you are fast enough you can try to wall in his berries which is risky though because you can be spotted easily. Also if the map allows it you should wall him off from his pocket. While doing so try to hide your vil as good as possible. If you have to kill a wolve place a house foundation on his corpse asap to remove it (don't build the house though).

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Other ways to lame:

You can use your Scout to block a vil that is luring a boar. Just keep moving in front of him (also use the stop key) until he got killed by the boar. This works well against pocket players who are too cool to research Loom :p

If the 2 boars of your opponent are close together you can use one vil to kill them both. Just send a vil and build 4 palisade walls around him. Then shoot at the boars until they are dead. If you have your Scout around make sure he gets the last hit because if a boar gets killed by a military unit it will automatically lose all its food.

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Extra: How to substitute missing Sheep / Boar

In a standard game you start with 2 boars (each 340 food), 8 sheep (each 100 food), 6 forage bushes (each 125 food) and 3-4 deer (each 120 food). Under certain circumstances (getting lamed, bugged map generation) you might have to get along with less. At first it seems that you will be far behind in early economy compared to a player who has all his Dark Age food resources (especially if your opponent stole your sheep / boar and now has even more food). Don't worry, you just need to adapt your build order and you will be fine. So the next time you see your boar running away to an enemy TC don't freak out, just relax and let it go.

Bugged sheep (aka Turkeys).

Before we look at concrete scenarios it's important to understand how missing food affects you in the Dark Age / early Feudal Age. At the start you use all your food to create villagers from your Town Center. Therefore you need to collect enough food to constantly produce them (which is 6-7 vils on food). Secondly you stockpile food to advance to the Feudal Age. This is a bit more complicated since you want to keep your TC working all the time and if you don't have enough vils on food you will create more vils but won't have enough food to click up to the Feudal Age and spend much more time in the Dark Age than necessary. Most of the time you will still have enough food to keep your TC working and only need to make small adjustments to get enough food to advance to the Feudal Age. Only in some extreme cases you might not be able to keep your villager production up. So in a nutshell: if you can't use some of your starting food sources you have to substitute it with farms and try to save wood (e.g. by not building a 2nd lumbercamp or a mill on deer).

-2 Sheep

Just send one more vil to berries (5 in total) and make one extra farm. The difference won't be noticable.

-4 Sheep / -1 Boar

Send 2 extra vils to berries (6 in total). Make 4 extra farms after you killed the first boar (one after another, not all at once) and don't build a 2nd lumbercamp in Dark Age. After your sheep are gone send your vils on wood and build more farms depending on your strategy (e.g. a total of 8 farms for a Fast Castle)

-2 boars

Send 2 extra vils to berries (6 in total). Start to build farms when you would lure your first boar until you have a total of 6 and don't build a 2nd lumbercamp in Dark Age. After your sheep are gone send your TC food vils on wood and build more farms if necessary.

-2 boars and -4 sheep

Send 2 extra vils to berries (6 in total). Start to build farms when you would lure your first boar until you have a total of 10 and don't build a 2nd lumbercamp in Dark Age. After your sheep are gone send your TC food vils on wood and build more farms if necessary.

no Dark Age food source at all

This will most likely never happen and if it does you are probably the unluckiest person of the year.
Use 1 vil to build a lumbercamp and the other vils to chop straggler trees around your TC. Build a mill as soon as you have 100 wood. Send all new vils on wood and build a farm whenever you have enough wood for a total of 14 farms. Try to keep your TC working as good as possible (but it will still be idle for a long time). Later balance your economy according to your strategy.

Notes:

• If you go for a Fast Castle Boom send some vils from farms to wood (drop off the food first) because otherwise you won't have enough wood for new Town Centers.
  
• If your map is really bugged (e.g. no access to gold / stone either) you might consider slinging one of your team mates (see strategy section) to offset this disadvantage.
  
• If you use extra food resources (extra boars, lakes etc.) make sure you have enough vils gathering food to keep up vil production. If you use extra boars send vils one by one (with Loom) to lure them to your Town Center instead of sending a lot of vils at once. Sometimes there will be wolves, just kill them with your Scout or bring them to your TC and kill them with TC arrows (usually wolves will run between the vil and the boar and block the boar which saves a lot of HP on your vil).

[robo warrior 1000]

Amazing guide.

[prijindal]

It is mentioned that Frank's you should pave your way with onager/siege onager. There are no siege onager in franks

[BigChavix]

Great stuff! Thank you for sharing!

[Alec_the_Great]

Great guide, thoroughly enjoyed Persian TC rushing against the AI. Planning on giving the Eternal Drush a crack too before going over the more useful content in here

[Zero]

@Cattlesquat: There are two things to consider with early walling. If you wall early you gain map control, but your Dark Age economy suffers (because the walling vils don't gather resources and you might get distracted with vil fights). Having map control is very important if you want to rush or for military action in general (includes defending a rush too). A good Dark Age economy helps a lot in standard BF games where fighting only starts in Imperial Age. As a rule of thumb I would suggest that you go for an early wall if you play 1650+ elo games. In that case always research loom (or wolves and enemy scouts will eat your vils in no time). With a standard civ use one vil to build a house and send two vils to wall.

[Cattlesquat]

Oh and one area I'd be interested in more discussion since this is a Black Forest guide, is the initial "walling wars" strategies. Do you send 2 villagers? ALL villagers? Loom immediately or after a vill or two? Tradeoff between trying for a "safe" wall and an aggressive forward wall? Double-palisades vs. using houses? Etc Etc. Thanks again for the guide!

[Cattlesquat]

Very useful and comprehensive article! If you happen to have a chance, you could global replace "Mangonal" with the correct "Mangonel" :D

[Zero]

You're welcome. I'm glad I could help out :)

[Runeicorns]

@Ryuk Thanks for clearing that up. That makes a lot more sense :) Thanks for puttin in the effort to make this guide!

[Zero]

@Retarded Unicorns: With the 3 TC boom you ideally only build one lumbercamp in Dark Age. This way you save 100 wood (=1 lumbercamp) for the Feudal Age buildings (which allows you to put more vils on food and go up faster). But in the later stages of the game you want to distribute your lumberjacks on many camps, so that they don't block each other.