Smush

Mystic Team Expert Strategies

THE SMUSH

Saracen Monk rUSH

This rush can be very effective as it uses the Saracens' market trading advantage to get 120 gold for only 100 stone. Plus having to only build monks as your army, means you need little food, as monks cost no food and you dont need food for villagers, because you are stealing the enemy villagers by converting them for free!

Plan

First, we Feudal early with only 19 villagers.
Secondly, using the market, we can improve the Saracen’s early economy by trading our initial stone for wood and food, improving our castle time significantly. This is why we use Saracens: their rates are better.
Next we mine stone almost exclusively, trading it away for gold, which we can then use to buy some extra wood for our castle buildings. Again, this is why we use Saracens: their rates are better.
Finally, we use monks, en masse, which have no counter this early in the game, and allow us to focus most of our entire economy on gold.

In team games, having a Byzantine ally makes this strategy amazingly effective. Your monk army is nearly invincible, since the Byzantine team bonus is 3x faster healing

If the enemy defends with tower, we can quickly switch to producing rams.

How can we improve counters to this strategy?

Towers are the only real defensive measure. Monks have a range of 9 and towers have a range of 8. It is possible to keep monks away using a few towers.
The SMUSH economy is very lean and there are no defenses at home. Making a few archers and sending them to the SMUSHers base could devastate him, especially if you do it early enough.
In team games, your ally can castle rush the SMUSHer and crush his economy. In team games it is vitally important that your ally also rush the other opponent to prevent aid from coming and hurting you.

What this means is that against a SMUSH, you will either need to defend with towers, or attack with feudal units. Units defending at home are likely to get converted and used against you. (His monks are a poor target unless you can wipe all of them out. You are better off attacking his base.) Since towers are generally a losing proposition when used at home in defense, attacking with feudal age troops will most likely be the best defense.

Villager 1	Build house, then mill then gather berries	Scout moves around in concentric circles identifying sheep, berries, and 2 boars. Then scout out wood, gold and stone
2 & 3	Build house, slaughter sheep
4 – 6	Slaughter sheep	As many villagers on one sheep as possible
7	gather berries
8 & 9	Slaughter sheep	Move your next sheep closer to the villagers so they can start on the next one immediately
10	Gather berries
11	Build house, gather berries
12 – 14	Chop wood (stragglers)
15	Lure boar #1	We don’t have loom – be very careful
16	Gather berries
	10 villagers slaughter boar	As many villagers on one boar as possible
17	Gather berries
18	Lure boar #2	We don’t have loom – be very careful
	2 choppers go build lumber camp
19	Chop wood (forest)	Scout enemy locations with scout
	10-11 villagers slaughter boar
7:36	Click Feudal Upgrade
	3 boar eaters move to wood – rest go to finish sheep
9:46	Feudal Age
	Immediately begin market	Use one villager (berries) if possible, unless you have enough food
	Sheep villagers move to wood
	Trade 200 stone for gold, then buy 100 food and 100 wood
	Build blacksmith
11:12	Click Castle Upgrade	Note – we have no loom nor any other upgrades
	2 forward villagers move out	Use scout to escort villys (No loom)
12:27	9 villagers move and begin mining stone
		Now we have 2 forward, 2 on berries, 9 on stone and 6 on wood
	Build a couple houses
	Sell stone at market and buy just enough woof to build to monasteries (350 wood)
13:52	Castle Age
	Immediately build 2 monasteries	Watch how he hides and guards his two forward villagers
	Train 2 monks
	Train extra villagers as food allows
	Begins converting enemy villagers
	Train 2 monks
	As berries run out, use some wood to make two farms
	When the sell price of stone drops below 100, move all miners to gold pile
	Research fervor and sanctity	Speed and hitpoints
	Research redemption as swiftly as possible
	Use new peons to mine stone in enemy town
	Build siege workshop to finish off TC