BREAK THE META; How to be Cavalier while Rocking the Kasbah ft. TrebsAtTheGate

The Berbers Fast Imperial Cavalier/Trebuchet rush is designed to break the meta and try something different by taking advantage of the The Berbers discount of 20% on stable units in the Imperial Age and the Kasbah unique tech that allows castles on the Berber team to work 25% faster by fielding trebuchets frighteningly quickly. Rocking the Kasbah may not become a viable strategy in expert games, but, one thing is for sure the Shareef don't like it. The strategy takes advantage of the strength of having early tech & trebuchets on closed in maps like Arena, Black Forest. & Fortress. Your quick Imperial Age as a civilization other than the Turks will surely catch your opponent by surprise and if the stream of cheap early Cavalier aren't enough, your Kasbafied castle will be able to back those Cavalier up with Camel Archers the bane of Mangudai everywhere! The meta is boring especially on maps like Arena and BF, let's break it together while rocking the Kasbah.

Introduction

Greetings this is Furor_Teutonicus, leader of the AOE 2 DE FavsT Clan, you can join our discord server and get in touch with us here https://discord.gg/h3E52Bz I'm back once again to help you break the meta with another strategy. Last time we looked at the Vietnamese Palisade Rush or Prush, that took advantage of the unique Vietnamese Dark Age bonus of all enemy starting Town Center locations being revealed, we made use of this bonus on open maps such as Arabia. In case you missed that strategy it can be found here; https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2001783528

BREAK THE META; How to be Cavalier while Rocking the Kasbah ft. TrebsAtTheGate



In today's strategy guide we'll be undertaking the opposite approach of the aforementioned Vietnamese Dark Age strategy and instead be taking advantage of an Imperial Age bonus and focusing on closed off easily wallable maps like Arena, Black Forest, and Fortress which are ideal for a Fast Imperial Age strategy. The Imperial Age bonus of the Berbers which discounts any stable units produced in the Imperial Age by 20% will allow us to quickly field an army of cheap Cavalier while still having the resources to simultaneously take advantage of the Berber unique Castle Age technology, Kasbah, which allows all of the castles on their team to work 25% faster. Kasbah will be essential in fielding Trebuchets as early as possible.
The aforementioned civilization bonuses are especially well suited to closed off maps since a quick Imperial usually requires either a walled or easily walled map.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ9r8LMU9bQ

If possible we will delay Knight line production until the Imperial Age, saving 27 resources for every Knight line unit produced. In Imperial Age the Berber discount increases an additional %5 percent to 20% off the Knight line, saving 27 resources for each Knight produced; 12 Food +15 Gold for a total of 27 resources. Every Knight you can wait to produce in Imperial saves you resources and helps us have even more efficient trades. If the pressure is on sooner you may be forced to start Knight line production before the Imperial Age.

The strategy is to quickly advance through the ages achieving a relatively fast Imperial Age time somewhere between 21 and 23 minutes while also having Kasbah researched. Once in the Imperial Age 3 things should happen simultaneously; the Cavalier upgrade at the stable, Trebuchet production, Knight production. Your 2 Stables should keep producing the Knight line without missing a beat so you are able to mass an army large enough to defend your Trebuchets from an attack, we want to be aggressive with them and push our early advantage, hopefully scaring our enemy with how quickly they see the Cavalier tech has been researched and how quickly you are in the Imperial Age with Trebuchets. Once we have 3-4 Trebuchets instead of adding more Trebuchets to our army we now want Camel Archer production to begin so we have a more varied unit composition and so that our Cavaliers are not as easily countered.

Early Trebuchets are especially effective early on when on maps like Arena, Black Forest, Fortress which encourage booming, we want to catch our enemy off guard by advanced tech cost efficient trades and early siege pressure.


On closed maps many players have a sense of security given to them by their walls. Players will often choose to boom because of this sense of security foregoing an army altogether many times until the late 20s or 30s of in game time minutes. When players do a full boom all of their resources are tied up in their economy for a great long term investment, this strategy makes it hard to quickly respond however and we hope to catch the enemy with their pants down. We will have a great chance at doing this in part because a Fast Imperial is an unexpected strategy from the Berbers and is something the Turks are more known for with their Fast Imperial Hand Cannoneer and Bombard Cannon rush.


Targeting the opponents walls to allow Cavalier raids, followed by Trebbing down Castles, Town Centers, and military production buildings preventing a military response could be a decisive path to victory.

Scouting or the Art of Being Back in the Saddle Again

Arena;

When scouting your Arena map finding your extra starting herdables is priority number one.


The dark patches inside your walls should be scouted with sheep so your Scout can be free to do the following;

• First, send your Scout to the enemy location, which is a much more fixed and easily guessed position than on a map like Arabia. Sending your Scout to the enemy starting position is potentially important because sometimes herdables (cows, goats, sheep) spawn outside of the starting walls allowing the opportunity for thievery.
  
  
• Second, You can easily push deer toward your Town Center or the Mill by your berries on Arena, especially if the deer spawn inside the walls of your base. I will cover how to push deer in two different situations if they spawn outside of your starting walls.
  
  
  
• If your deer spawn outside the walls, but, are near a gate there is an easy fix for this.
  
  Use a sheep to keep the gate open while pushing the deer to the Town Center or inside of the base.
  
  If the deer spawn is too far away from your gates, deleting two tiles of wall will make it possible to push the deer closer to a Mill or a Town Center, once done pushing deer rebuild the wall in this fashion with the use of 1 house and two palisade walls.
  
  

After pushing deer, the Scout on Arena remains an important unit for contesting relic control & gaining information.

• Keep your Scout's HP as high as possible while continuing to scout the map, avoid engagements that you will lose.
  
• When scouting the enemy's base, use your Scout to attack sections of the enemy wall momentarily, this will cause the Scout to get as close as possible to the wall allowing the Scout's LOS (Line of Sight) to be maximal in the enemy's base. Doing this strategy in your scouting may mean the difference between seeing a military building and not, giving you crucial intel allowing for educated guesses to the potential schemes of the enemy.
  
• Even if you don't plan on collecting your relics, your enemy might and letting your enemy have what they want is usually a bad decision. Use the Scout to contest relics that you anticipate the enemy may send their monk to, keep an eye on the Scout having it hotkeyed while consistently checking the Scout and minimap in intervals. If it nets you a Monk kill it was worth the effort.
  

Black Forest;

When scouting Black Forest finding your extra 4 starting sheep for a total of 8, should be your immediate focus then the following;

• The Scout needs to be set to either Aggressive or Defensive, do not keep the Scout on Stand Ground on Black Forest.
  
• Once the sheep have been found if your enemy is slow now is the time to steal their extra sheep. In most cases Black Forest is played on Explored, making this rather difficult.
  
• Pay close attention to terrain elevation, abuse the hill bonus by always attacking from higher ground.
  
  
• If the Villager you send to wall your opening has to walk a relatively far distance, chances are a wolf or two may attack. You may want to escort this villager and assist it in defeating any predators. If micromanaging this is difficult for you, use the guard function by selecting your Scout, clicking guard and then clicking the villager and the Scout will automatically help defend the Villager so they can reach the choke point and wall it off.
  
• If you notice the enemy is building a wall and you would like to stop it, there is an easy way with a unit. If you can deduce the path of the wall, simply have a unit stand on the invisible unbuilt foundation or build over it yourself (if building over it yourself do not forget you could later potentially delete this portion of the wall if it is one tile and clever enough you may be able to sneak in)

Build Order

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Dark Age;


Two Villagers build a house, the other Villager builds another house
Send at least one Sheep underneath the Town Center
Select the two Villagers building the first house, shift click them to gather from the Sheep under the Town Center so that they will automatically go there when construction is complete, do the same for the other Villager building a house

Villagers 1-6 Sheep then to Boar when Boar has been lured to the Town Center

Villager 7 Builds a Lumbercamp then to Wood
(If map is Black Forest now may be the time to research Loom and go forward to wall off the choke points. If the map is not Black Forest disregard this.)
Villagers 8-10 Wood

Villager 11 Builds 4 Houses adjacent to Arena Walls if on Arena, if not then Villager 11 may only build one House. This 11th Villager then goes to collect wood.

Villager 12 Boar Lurer Heads to First Boar
Begin Researching Loom (if you are a pro boar lurer can delay loom)
Villager 12 Lures Boar
Villagers 13-14 Harvest Boar
Keep watch on your Boar and decide when to lure the next Boar so that there is no idle time, it is better to have lured your Boar a little too early rather than too late
Villagers 15-16 Mill then gather Berries
Villagers 17-19 Hunt Deer (if you feel confident pushing deer & your scout is free you may, it is not necessary for the strategy to work)

Villager 20 Builds a 2nd Lumbercamp near first Lumbercamp if possible
Villagers 21-22 to Wood
Split 4 Villagers between each Lumbercamp, no Lumbercamp should have more than 4 Villagers at a time gathering wood at it

Villagers 23-24 Mining Camp then to Gold

Villagers 25-29 Mining Camp then to Stone

Go to the Feudal Age, Queue up 2 additional Villagers

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Feudal Age Research in Progress;
Game Time Approximately: 11-12 Minutes

Make sure you end up with the following distribution for your economy;
8 on Wood, 2 on Gold, 5 on Stone, 14 on Food; 5 on Berries, 3 on Deer, 6 on Farms

Set the gather point for the Town Center to Gold
Use Stone Miners to build any buildings
Start building a Barracks when Feudal research is at %50 complete



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Feudal Age;
Game Time Approximately: 13-14 Minutes

When arriving in the Feudal Age have 2 Stone Miners build a Market and 1 other Stone Miner build a Stable and after that an additional House.

Villagers 30-31 Gold
Once the Market and Stable are built immediately begin researching Castle Age and Queue two additional Villagers in the Town Center.


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Castle Age Research in Progress;
Game Time Approximately: 14-15 Minutes

When Deer are exhausted send those Villagers to gather Gold.
Research the wood upgrade Double-Bit Axe at the Lumbercamp.
Research the Farm upgrade Horse Collar at the Mill.

Once you have 650 Stone, move Stone Miners to another resource.
Make sure you end up with the following distribution for your economy;
8 on Wood, 11 on Gold, 11 on Farms/finishing Berries


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Castle Age;
Game Time Approximately: 17-18 Minutes

Use at least 3 Villagers to build a Castle in a spot which if possible defends your wood, Farms, and Gold.


If this is not feasible, have the Castle in a position defending your Farms and Gold.
Villagers 32-33 Gold

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Imperial Age Research in Progress;
Game Time Approximately: 19-20 Minutes

Build a 2nd Stable.
Research Gold Mining.
Now if you are in a team game where Kasbah will be used by your teammates and/or you want the Trebuchets to be produced as quickly as possible go ahead and research Kasbah on the way to Imperial. On the other hand; If you are in a 1vs1, your teammates won't be producing their Unique Unit, and/or you do not need lightning fast Trebuchet production delay researching Kasbah until later in Imperial and research Bloodlines at this time instead.
Don't overdo it with the Farms on the way to Imperial, you want to have some wood in the bank so you can produce Trebuchets upon reaching Imperial.


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Imperial Age;
Game Time Approximately: 22-23 Minutes

Keep Villager production constant and send new Villagers to Food/Gold, more to Gold than to Food.
If your scouting has revealed your enemy is going Knights or you expect him to go heavily into Knights, Camels and the Heavy Camel upgrade may be a better option. If so replace the Cavalier Upgrade with Heavy Camel and produce Heavy Camels from each Stable.

Research Cavalier at the Stable.
Produce Trebuchets at the Castle.

Begin Knight production, when Cavalier research is complete make Cavaliers from both Stables.

Scout with your Cavalier, when the coast is clear head out with Cavalier defending your Trebuchets and begin the assault.

3-4 Trebuchets should do the job, any more than that is probably overkill. Once you have 3-4 Trebuchets switch to Camel Archer production from the Castle.

If you do not have Bloodlines yet, research it.
If you do not have a Blacksmith yet, build one. I prefer to usually get the armor upgrades first since I do not want to lose these expensive units after researching armor research attack upgrades.
Research Husbandry. Research Archer upgrades, attack first usually then followed by armor.

Research Bow Saw, Wheelbarrow, Gold Shaft Mining etc... keep researching other economic technologies, gather Stone to begin Town Center production soon if booming becomes necessary.

Research Conscription.
Build a University, research Ballistics, Chemistry, & Siege Engineers (+20% attack against buildings). Prioritize these technologies based on which are most needed at the time, if your Trebuchets are still trying to take down a Castle/Town being repaired and defending Siege Engineers may be the top priority. If your Camel Archers are seeing a lot of action and need upgrades then prioritize Ballistics & Chemistry.
When your Trebuchets are attacking don't let your army go too far away, consider putting the Cavaliers on defensive stance and your Camel Archers to Stand Ground.

Research Thumb Ring, Camel Regeneration at Castle.
Eventually you will probably need more military production buildings than 2 Stables and 1 Castle.

Question: In Feudal why are we building a Market instead of a Blacksmith? Since this build order is very tight and getting to the Imperial Age quickly is the strategy, the Market being available is crucial in case we need to buy or sell some resources to quickly get to Imperial or to quickly produce a unit, Market abuse can be very strong. Also the build order is so tight that there is not enough excess resources to get the armor upgrades until Imperial so it makes sense to delay Blacksmith production until Imperial Age.

Example Game

Furor_Teutonicus (myself, the author) executing this strategy on Arena

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/558131242

Tips

On Arena making an extra Scout from your first Stable and building an earlier Monastery + a Monk, may make sense especially in a 1vs1 as the Relics are more valuable in that setting. Even if you were to only collect 2-3 of them, it puts you on pretty even footing with the enemy. If it nets you all 5 you are at a great advantage even if it slightly slows down your strategy.

Consider sending at least one villager forward with your Trebuchets to repair damage and potentially protect them with well placed gates.

If playing on Black Forest remember that Trebuchets can destroy trees if necessary.

Double layering your pallisade walls and then adding stone wall behind it on Black Forest is effective.


If your food collection is slow in Imperial, make sure you have researched wheelbarrow/handcart.

On Arena delete the unnecessary walls at the back of your base so that you have more room to build and are less confined.


On Black Forest milling and harvesting the neutral Boar can be a big positive in Food column, you will have to be versatile with the build order to take advantage of them though.


Also on Black Forest if there is a pond by your spawn you may want to collect the shore fish or even dock the pond.

In certain situations it may make sense to research Kasbah as soon as possible, before beginning your Imperial Age Research, if all of your teammates are producing Unique Units it may be so beneficial that it should not be delayed. Just be aware it will slow down your Imperial Age time.
(thank you to newtoncharr for the suggestion!)

Team Games

If your Allies will be doing a Unique Unit Rush you will most likely want to prioritize the research of Kasbah. Be sure to communicate in the chat asking your teammates their strategy while also communicating your own, perhaps inform them that you have the option of researching Kasbah and explain what the technology does to perhaps incentivize a Unique Unit Rush from a teammate. If no teammates plan on utilizing their Unique Unit in the Castle Age then it may make sense to delay Kasbah.

Generally the Relics matter, but, less so in team games because of the ability to set up a trade route for late game gold gathering. This strategy may actually fair better in team games since your teammates can help stall for you in the early minutes of you reaching Imperial Age.

Beneficial Team Bonuses

• Huns; Team Bonus: Stables work 20% faster, allowing your Cavaliers to be created that much more efficiently.
  
• Teutons; Team Bonus: Units resist conversion, this could be useful as Monks are common on Arena.
  
• Persians; Team Bonus: Knights +2 attack vs. Archers, while not the best bonus for this strategy it is still potentially beneficial.
  
• Spanish; Team Bonus: Trade units generate +25% gold, one of the best team bonuses in the game. Although the Spanish bonus doesn't help with the strategy, if the Spaniard were to produce Conquistadors they would be a strong complimentary force to your Cavaliers with the trade bonus helping if the game were to go long.
  
• Turks; Team Bonus: Gunpowder units created 20% faster, at first glance not a very beneficial ally for this strategy, but, let's look again. If the Turk ally were to go for a strong Castle Age with Janissaries or the more traditional Fast Imperial into Hand Cannoneer & Bombard Cannons you could double team one enemy and potentially overwhelm them rather quickly if the attack were coordinated well, causing the game to become a 2vs1. The Hand Cannoneers & Bombard Cannons also compliment the Cavaliers and few Trebuchets exceptionally well.
  
  Turks also benefit the most from the Berbers Team Bonus: Genitour available in the Archery Range starting in the Castle Age, since Turks lack the Elite Skirmisher upgrade and have arguably the best Genitour in the game thanks to their Sipahi tech available at the Castle Sipahi (Cavalry Archers +20 HP), combine that with Turks also having access to Bloodlines, Parthian Tactics, free Chemistry, Ballistics, all of the blacksmith upgrades and Husbandy. What is there not to like about Turkish Genitours?
  
  Berbers do have access to Hand Cannoneers so they are able to make use of the Turks team bonus, it just may be a less likely scenario while performing this strategy in team games.

Conclusion

When you choose random or mirror and get Berbers on a closed map like Arena, BF, or Fortress now there is one more strategy you can opt for, and since this strategy is pretty civilization specific and outside of the meta you may now crack a slight smirk at seeing the Berbers as a pleasant surprise in these situations, forcing both you and your opponent to play the game in a new and creative way.

If you have any questions regarding the strategy or are just looking for people to play with consider joining the FavsT Clan discord server; https://discord.gg/h3E52Bz we are always looking for new people to play with and potentially join our clan it is also an easy way to contact me.

Any constructive criticism is welcome that does not change the theme of the strategy, please keep it constructive though, cheers.

Further Study

Other guides by this Author
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2057767874

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2072860123

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2052126517

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2001783528

Berbers Overview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82O6nDiYcxI

Genitours; video slightly outdated with new balance update Genitours have +1 pierce armor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AdA-Vcg5O0&t

Is Paladin Upgrade Worth it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpJd6RN0VwA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocKZzY89BLQ&t