Expert Strategies

We recommend doing it often on Coastal and Continental maps as it has the benefit of reaching castle age at a respectable sub- 20 minutes, but with a thriving economy capable of taking on virtually any assault.

We recommend a strong water civ for this strat, like Vikings, or Japanese, but it can also be done with any other civ almost as well.

So what is the build up for this?

Build two houses first off

First 6 villagers go on sheep

Villager 7 builds a lumber camp, and after that, every single villager goes on wood, with a few exceptions.

Points to remember

When villager 11 comes out, build a house near the wild boar and while this is building research loom (if you havent already),

When house is done, lure the boar and eat him with most of your sheep villys, timing is important with boar luring, make sure your next boar arrives JUST as the other one is running out, but not after. Best to have the boar there too early than too late.

Build a shipyard with a lumber villy as soon as you have enough wood, and start pumping out fishing boats. Make sure you have scouted the coast well early, so you don't end up putting a shipyard in a river or pond.

Don't queue fishing boats, instead use the extra wood to build another dock further up the coast, working towards the corner of the map which is where the major fish are. Build houses non-stop with one or maybe two villys.

When you have 500 food and at least population 35 (you'll probably have about 50 population) then upgrade feudal. While upgrading build a Mill by the berries and start building palisade wall to prevent enemy forward building attacking you too early. Keep building boats and docks - but leave 300 or so wood spare.

At feudal build smith and market immediately and trade 200 stone for gold, immediately go castle age - you will have ample food.

While upgrading to castle age, move 5 or 6 choppers to gold with a mining camp.

When you get to castle age stop building boats and start building town centres near to essential resources, what you do after that is up to you, but the booming will have worked as you will probably have population of 50+ in a time of less than 20 minutes, plus you'll have over 1000 food and over 1000 wood, plenty of resources for almost any strat!

Also consider

You may scout your enemy and find they are fishing too, fairly close to you, you may want to put your guys onto gold a bit earlier so that at feudal age you can get some galleys and take out their fishing - this can really slow them down if done early!