BREAK THE META; 20 Elephants in 20 Minutes

HumzaCrumza's 20 Elephants in 20 minutes, take advantage of the Malay bonus reducing the cost of their Battle Elephants by 30% making them cheaper than your average Knight!

Introduction

Greetings Furor_Teutonicus here, leader of the AOE 2 DE FavsT Clan. I'm back once again this time we are doing a write up of HumzaCrumza's The Malay Stampede - 20 Elephants in 20 Minutes. This strategy was created entirely by HumzaCrumza, most images in the guide are from HumzaCrumaza's video of the strategy which is linked directly below.

You can view the original video of the The Malay Stampede - 20 Elephants in 20 Minutes here;

Without further adieu if you prefer text format, would simply like it as a written help to accompany the video, or as a refresher, what is the Malay Stampede?

The Malay Stampede is primarily geared towards a pocket player in a team game and may be used in 1vs1 on certain maps. Malay bonuses that make this strategy possible;

• Malay Battle Elephants are 30% cheaper to produce.
  
  
  
  This makes Malay Elephants cost even less resources than your average Knight.
  
  
  
  
• Advancing to the next Age is significantly faster with Malay, allowing you to remain in the Dark Age longer, strengthening your economy without delaying your fast Castle Age time.
  
  
  
  
• If this Build Order is executed properly and the strategy is undetected, it is a very hard strategy to react to. For example, it takes 20 Elephants approximately 10 seconds to destroy a Town Center, an assault that quick is difficult to react to appropriately.
  
  
  
  It takes Knight about twice as long, Knights may be faster, but, the damage output is significantly different.

This is not the most sustainable attack, this is meant to strike first, strike hard, strike fast. With this strategy the goal is to Rush the Enemy and finish them off decisively and quickly.

If your opponent opts for quick Feudal Aggression that can be difficult for this strategy to deal with since you are spending a prolonged period of time in the Dark Age compared to what is typically the norm for the meta.

Build Order

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Dark Age;

Queue the maximum amount of Villagers you are able to in your Town Center.

Build two houses.

Send your first 6 Villagers to Sheep.

Remember to try and keep your Scout healthy.

Villagers 7-10 Build a lumbercamp and chop wood.

During this time we want to be luring our Deer to our Town Center and keep those 6 Villagers gathering food whether that be from Sheep or from Deer.

Villager 11 gathers food or if need be lures the first Boar.

Villager 12 builds two houses and then constructs a Mill next to the Berry Bushes.

Villagers 13-18 go to food.

Villagers 19-23 go to wood.



Don't forget to build houses to prevent being population capped. Typically in the Dark Age you want to build a house 3 population before you will be pop capped. So if you are 22/25 population space, it is a good time to begin constructing an additional house.

Villagers 24-29 go to gold and build a mining camp.

Queue up Feudal Age at the Town Center.
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Feudal Age Research in Progress;
Game Time Approximately: 10-11 Minutes
Pop; 29 Villagers + 1 Scout = 30 Population.



Remember Malay advance faster, at this time take one Forager and have that Villager build a Barracks. Build the Barracks in a spot the enemy either can not see or is unlikely to Scout. This Rush works best as a surprise, any signs of aggression may give your strategy away.

Keep your Scout safe, your opponent is probably Feudal or closer to being in the Feudal Age than you. This is important since in the Feudal Age Scouts receive a movement speed increase and +2 Attack. You do not want to attempt engaging the enemy Scout with your own at this time, avoid altercations during this transition period.


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Feudal Age;
Game Time Approximately: 12 Minutes

Build a Stable & Blacksmith.

With idle Villagers from sheep build Farms. Do not create any extra Villagers.

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Castle Age Research in Progress;
Game Time Approximately: 13 Minutes
Pop; 29 Villagers + 1 Scout = 30 Population.

Try to keep the enemy from Scouting your strategy.

Build a 2nd Stable.

When your Berries expire have the Villagers who were gathering berries build Farms. When you run out of wood to build Farms with those Villagers have the remaining ones collect wood from Straggler trees close to the Town Center. Every 60 wood, have those Villagers who were tasked to gather wood from Straggler trees then build a Farm every 60 wood once the wood becomes available.

Be sure to build another house.
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Castle Age;
Game Time Approximately: 14 Minutes 30 Seconds



Create Elephants from both Stables nonstop, do not create any extra Villagers, cease creating Villagers.

Wait until you have 20 Elephants to go forward, do not tip your hand. Keep the Elephants hidden until then. This is an all in strategy you need to essentially end the game with your initial push, it must strike hard, fast, and first.

Once you have 20 Elephants get Husbandry and the first Cavalry armor line upgrade and while those are researching begin the march towards the enemy base.



Husbandry will help chase down any Monks that may be in the enemies base already or that may be made in response to the stampede.

Focus down enemy Town Centers and slaughter any remaining Villagers. Then consider which production buildings are priority for razing. At this point you will also want to decide whether to continue making Elephants or consider expanding your economy if the Rush did not put the final nail in your opponents coffin.

User Guanfranco created this reference guide for the Build Order;

Conclusion

The element of surprise is especially important in a strategy like this, the strategy is not unbeatable, but, the Malay Stampede's power level increases if your opponent is unaware of what is heading their way, so discretion is key to pulling off this strategy successfully.

If you would like to see more of HumzaCrumza's strategies or YouTube game tutorials check out his YouTube channel here; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHgjuvs1eqjdS0pyxMh00Sw/videos

BREAK THE META Series

Other Guides in the BREAK THE META Series;

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

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

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2005456265

Further Study

Battle Elephants

Malay Overview

[renehvac]

I would try it, but Malay winrate is currently above 50%. I don't like playing as civs that go higher than 50%.

[Ulysses]

Thank you! This strategy is amazing!

[Gen_Cadorna☕🥛]

Very nice strategy, i will try it.
If you do not consider the idea of making a second tc, you can try to make the market for sell the stone, so you can have less people on gold and you can to balance better the economy.

[Furor_Teutonicus]

it will be slower until they fix Malay @Alejandro

[Jean de Carrouges]

very good contenct! thanks! I will definitely try out next time I get Malay (I always go random). Will this work too with the malay broken aging times?

[DDR]

good