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This Strategy makes Howdahs Look OP! India Elefant FF AOE 3

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The Idea of this build is to go for a ff with india and produce Howdahs. It is a very strong, fun and micro intensive build and requires a very specific answer to beat. Have fun watching. If you have any questions, just post them in the comments (I played this 5 times on ladder and only lost once, so it is also viable in competitive).

Howdas: Basically the AOE 3 equivalent of a Tank. Medium Speed, hard to kill, puts out tons of damage, looks cool!

I got inspired by H2O, who did this build in a tournament once.

So the start is pretty regular. You'll send 5 to wood and the rest to food. Then go for a karna mata FF. Try to get 2 mines in the range of the karni mata. 
During Age up: Send 2 new villagers to gold. All the other new villager get to food.

Once in Age 2:
Send 700 gold (ASAP)
Once that arrives, age up with the Agra fort (3-4 Vills). If the enemy is going aggressive, do it save at the front of your base. If he's going for ff, go in the middle.
Variant: Use taj mahal to age up (seen in this Video).
For me Aging up with fort works out better, because: You have something to fall back on and you are more safe. Also the Ghurkas complement your early age 3 really well.

Late Age 2 to early age 3: 
Use the 700 wood to build:
Consulate, market, houses. You wont need a stable, since you can train in the agra fort (if you use taj mahal, build a stable). Your elefants cost much population, so keep that in mind and dont forget to regularly build houses.
Send all new vills to gold, retask some of food to gold (Keep 6 on food, still)
Get the british allies. Get the surgeons as soon as you have the export to get them (Should be able to get them at aroun 7 to 8 mins). Keep them save! British allies give your units more HP, so that s another really good bonus (British and India working together was also allways very strong!)

Once in Age 3: Start your howdah production. After that send your 2 howdas. Try to get out 3 howdas with first batch. Attack with those howdas. Trade and be annoying to the enemy, attack hunts, gold mines or other exposed stuff. DONT Loose them! Send them back when they are at 30 % HP (use surgeons or explorers to heal)!  Dont commit on the TC YET! When your Siege elefants arrive, you can apply the real pressure. Siege elefants are your most important units, dont loose them.
in a nutshell: Attack -- low hp? -- send back and heal up -- attack again

Thoughts and how to counter this strategy.
This strategy is very fun to play and also very annoying to play against. Since it is so frustrating to not kill any Units.
How do you play against this strategy? I ve lost to mass pikes (If someone does that, send URUMIS first!), elefants cant kite the pikes like goons and so they loose hard to this.
Usually the best way is to get dragoons. Get a mass so that you can 2 shot elefants and finish them off when they are running back. You can also slow down the push immensly by sniping the siege elefants, as the howdas itself arent too good vs buildings.
Skirmisher is not the best choice, because you wont be able to finish of elefants.

Card Progression & Deck
Mercantilism , 700g, 700 wood, 2 howdah, elefant combat, 2 siege elefant, adapt (mahout, urumis, ghurka, second elefant card)

Core Cards: Mercantilism , 700g, 700 wood, 2 howdah, elefant combat, 2 siege elefant. Rest build as you feel like!

00:00 - Intro
00:54 - Build Order
04:23 - Decks
04:44 - How to Counter

Patch: December 2020
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition© Microsoft Corporation. This Video was created under Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules" ( https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/rules ) using assets from Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, and it is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft.

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