Hera Strategy Guide 2024 06

Strategy Guide
Hera
June, 2024
Contents
16 Vils Georgians Healing Scout Rush 3
17 Vils Japanese Man-at-Arms Rush 5
18 Vils Cuman 2 TC Boom 6
18 Vils Generic Modern Man-at-Arms Rush 7
18 Vils Ethiopian 2-Range Archers for Team Games 8
18 Vils Feudal Drush 10
18 Vils Korean Spear Skirm Rush 11
18 Vils 1-Stable Scouts 12
19 Vils Eagle and Range Feudal Rush 13
19 Vils 1-Range Archers 15
19 Vils + 3 Fishing Ship Build 16
20 Vils Chinese Fast Feudal 17
21 Vils Malay Flexible Opening 18
23+2 Vils Fast Castle Boom 19
25+2 Vils Fast Castle into Unique Unit 20
25+2 Vils Fast Castle Light Cav Relic Control 21
26+2 Vils Vils Armenian Spear Rush Into Fast Castle Relic Control 23
28+2+2 Vils Turk Fast Imperial 25

16 Vils Georgians Healing Scout Rush
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
7 Send 7 villagers to sheep 7 7
1 Send 1 villager to boar 8 8
3 Send 3 more vils to boar under TC 11 11
- [Highly Recommended] Lure deer with scout and use mule cart to explore
1 Send 1 vil to make house then mill on berries 12 12
1 Send 1 vil to get second boar 13 13
3 Send 3 more vils to hunt under TC 16 16
- Either get loom or make one more villager and send to hunt under TC
- Research Feudal Age (perfect landing time: 8:00) 0 16 0 0 16
Right away send 8 vils from hunt to woodline where you position your mule
- 8 8 0 0 16
cart
- Send 3 more vils from hunt to berries for 4 total on berries
- Send 2 villagers to make a barracks once you are 50-60 percent up to Feudal
- Queue up loom if you opted for an extra vil in Dark Age
- Make a stable
- Research Double-Bit Axe
Start walling both sides of your base using the stable builders (one to each
-
side of the base, wall with a mix of houses and palisade walls)
- Make 3 scouts and harass your opponent
- Research Horse Collar
Seed farms with all new vils. If you lack the wood, keep the vils on straggler
-
trees and make a farm as soon as you have 60 wood
- Once you have 13-14 farms, send the next 7 vils to gold and make a mule cart
- Make a blacksmith
Click up to Castle as soon as you can (if you make extra vils send them to
-
wood)
Decide what you want to do, usual plan is either 2 stable knights or castle
-
and Monaspa spam
- When your berries run out, make farms with the berry vils around the mill
- Research Bloodlines, Forging, and Scale Barding Armor
- Research Gold Mining upgrade
- Spam either knights or Monaspas
- Research Bow Saw
- Make a fortified church in the best location for your vils
- Make monks for relics
- Make a second TC on another woodline

16 Vils Georgians Healing Scout Rush continued...
Introduction
• Georgians have an insane early game, where they get access to a free mule cart at the cost of -50 food
• We will abuse this bonus by scouting with the mule cart and using our scout to lure deer (optional but highly recommended)
• We don’t need to gather a single wood in the early game and so the build is super simple and easy to follow
• Cavalry healing bonus is the main thing we will use to survive Feudal Age. We will make exactly 3 scouts (+1 initial) to rush our
opponent, then wall up as shown in the video tutorial
• The idea is to spend as little time as possible in Feudal Age, and get max value with those few scouts as we hit then run around and
heal then hit again. If needed we can tower or make some more scouts or even a range for skirms to defend, but we will never do
anything just for the sake of attacking
• We either get loom or make an extra villager and up with no loom. I choose to take a risk and go no loom. Since we’re going up
fast I’d rather get the extra 50 res that villager would gather on the way up, and simply pick up loom first thing in Feudal before any
threat comes our way
What’s next?
• From here we try to control the game with our cavalry, our knights heal 10hp/min so if they are weak just run them around and wait
before fighting, can use monk healing to speed it up
• Add siege if needed for either defense or offense
• You can go for more TCs and more churches to expand economy, and you can go heavy on stone for big Castle Age plays
• The usual Imperial composition is going to be cavalry + skirm/hand cannoneer
17 Vils Japanese Man-at-Arms Rush
Introduction
• Many civs can do a good man-at-arms rush, but few can do one as quickly as the Japanese.
• The objective of this build is to put immense pressure on our opponent as early as possible
• We want our first punch to be the quick man-at-arms, and we want to follow up as fast as possible with archers + fletching
• This build is tight and leaves very little room for walling or adaptation, so we have to make sure we always have the initiative
• After our initial push with men-at-arms + archers, we can wall and go to castle age if we are ahead or try to stabalize if we are behind
• Immediately after luring deer, we’ll try to find the opponent fast. Check this video for tips: How To Find Your Opponent FAST
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
2 Send 2 villagers to wood 2 8
1 Send 1 more vil to boar under TC 8 10
- [Mandatory] Lure at least 2 deer
1 Send 1 vil to make house then go back to the hunt under TC 9 11
2 Next 2 vils to hunt under TC (get the second boar during this time) 11 13
1 Send 1 vil to make a barracks in the front of our base
2 Send 2 more vils to food under TC 13 16
1 Send 1 villager to wood 3 17
- Research loom
- Immediately send 2 vils from hunt to gold and make a mining camp 3 11 2 0 17
- Make 3 militia then send them across the map to the enemy asap
- Send 4 vils from under TC to the initial lumber camp 7 7 2 0 17
- Make an archery range right away and start producing archers
- Research Man-at-arms. Target enemy vils with the men-at-arms + scout
- Make a blacksmith as soon as you can afford it
- Research Double-Bit Axe (may need to idle TC for 10 seconds to afford)
2 Send 2 villagers to gold 4 19
1 Send 1 vil to berries and make a mill 8 20
- Slowly add vils to farms/berries before sheep run out completely
Research fletching as soon as you can afford it

-
(Idling TC for 15-20 seconds is okay to prioritize fletching)
Send your archers across the map and group with remaining MAA.
-
This army can kill vils behind palisade walls + break buildings
- Keep making archers at home for defense + follow up
What’s next?
• After all this aggression, it’s a good time to slowly set up some defenses:
– Against scouts, add a few spears when you can afford them and wall up
– Against archers, just wall up asap and if they attack you, defend with archers + a tower if needed
• If your early aggression did a lot of damage, feel free to just wall up and defend until Castle Age once your forward army is gone
• If your early aggression didn’t do much then you’ll need to try to adapt and find another win condition, since we invested a lot into it
• Once you get to Castle Age, play it like any archer build and follow the same principles
18 Vils Cuman 2 TC Boom
Introduction
• The objective of this build order is to get a huge economy lead early on in the game, before your opponent can match you
• This is by far the best way to play Cumans, and usually leads to auto wins if it goes unpunished
• The downsides are that if you do get punished it can be hard to react
• There are a few things you can do to mix up the follow up after 2 TC booming, will be covering those at the end of the build
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
- [Optional] Lure deer once you’ve found both boars
2 Next 2 vils to hunt under TC (get the second boar when needed) 9 11
1 1 to make a house then mill 10 12
3 Next 3 vils to hunt under TC 13 15
3 Send 3 villagers to berries 16 18
On closed map like arena, you can skip loom and either make another villager
-
or go up earlier
- Move 6 vils from hunt to wood, stay on 1 lumbercamp 8 10 0 0 18
Make second TC on another woodline. If that is not possible then second

-
best is to make it on a gold/stone
- Research double bit axe
Note: On open maps id skip horse collar if you were scared of aggression. On
-
closed maps you should always get it
Villagers coming out of the TCs should be going to wood/stragglers/farms,
-
whatever you need
Note: Our main goal is to stabilize 2 TC vil production before moving on to
-
other steps
What’s next?
• Okay, at this point we’re at mid feudal age you have a few options on how to continue the game, depending on what you want to do
and what opponent is doing
• If opponent is tower rushing you, you should look to secure a stone ASAP and use defensive towers. Don’t be afraid to fight with
villagers if it’ll help deter aggression
• If opponent has regular army like scouts or archers on open map, then I recommend just getting the counter right after stabilizing 2
TC vil production (usually 12 farms)
• If opponent is FC + pushing you or castle dropping you on open map, you should add army like archers or scouts as soon as you
know they are fast castling. This way you prevent him from building things forward on you, and it buys you more time. Remember,
all in feudal with a lot of army + 2 TC eco CAN beat a fast castle all in push
• If no aggression is coming in, or if its a closed map where you are safe, then simply get a good amount of farms then go to gold,
get your feudal buildings down and go for as fast of a castle age time as possible. Undisturbed you should be hitting 19-20 mins IN
castle age. GLHF!
18 Vils Generic Modern Man-at-Arms Rush
Introduction
• This is the modern version of the Man-at-Arms rush, that aims to do it more consistently and attack faster than before
• This build order can be done with any civ, but will require you to lure at least 2 deer to execute correctly
• The goal of the build is to put a lot of pressure on your opponent with men-at-arms, then follow up with archers to either defend
their retaliation, or to continue putting pressure yourself
• Can’t transition to anything except archers since we don’t have much food income in early feudal
• Feel free to make a defensive tower if you get pressured before you are ready for it, it can save you
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
3 3 vils to wood and make a house as part of a wall near the lumber camp 3 9
- [Mandatory] Lure at least 2 deer once you’ve found both boars
5 Next 5 vils to hunt under TC (get the second boar when needed) 12 15
1 1 to make barracks then a house at the front of the base
After luring deer make sure to find the rest of your sheep, then find your
-
opponent with your scout
- Research loom
- Move 5 vils from hunt to wood 8 9 0 0 18
Send 2 vils from hunt and/or the barracks builder to build a mining camp on
- 8 7 2 0 18
gold
- Make 3 militia then send them out
- Make a mill on berries with 1 vil 8 7 2 0 18
- Research Man-at-Arms
5 Send 5 more vils to berries and start seeding farms when hunt runs out 12 23
- Make an archery range when you can afford it
NOTE: make sure you can produce vils before making the range, otherwise
-
add a couple more farms
2 After range is up send 2 more vils to gold 4 25
- Keep walling your base while adding archers, spears or tower if needed
- Get a blacksmith when you can afford it, and get fletching
- Keep seeding farms and developing naturally
Attack with your archers if you still have the man at arms alive, otherwise
-
defend until fully walled then move out
What’s next?
• Ok at this point we’re at mid feudal age you have a few options on how to continue the game:
• The best option is to wall up get to castle age first and go crossbows
• If you need to make more army in feudal or your map is very open, consider adding a 2nd range or a stable. Rebalance your economy
• When the berries run out you can send them to more farms/gold or make a 2nd lumber camp with them on another woodline, since
original woodline is probably pretty inefficient at this point
• In castle age you have tons of options, go for whatever feels right with your civ matchup and position. Its a regular game from here.
18 Vils Ethiopian 2-Range Archers for Team Games
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
2 Send 2 vils to wood and make a house with one of them 2 8
- [Recommended] Lure 1-3 deer with your scout once you found all your sheep
1 Send 1 vil to make a mining camp on gold 1 16
- Research loom
- Move 7 vils from under TC to your lumber camp 9 8 1 0 18
- Move 2 vils from under TC and send them to make a barracks and a house 9 6 1 0 18
- Move 2 vils from under TC to collect stragglers 11 4 1 0 18
- Make 2 archery ranges and start producing archers
- Use one of the range vils to make a blacksmith and send the other to food 11 5 1 0 18
- Use the blacksmith villager to make houses and small walls
- Send 2 villagers from straggler trees to food under tc 9 7 8 0 25
- Get fletching and start attacking with archers
- When sheep run out, slowly add farms until you have 7-8 farms
- Make a market and sell stone to go up to castle
- If you are short food, continue adding villagers to whatever resource you need
- Try to be fully walled around this point or at least well defended
- Research Castle Age (perfect landing time: 19:00)
- Research gold mining
- [OPTIONAL] Get horse collar
- Make a second lumber camp and send 6 vils to another woodline
- Continue attacking with your archers, but DON’T lose them
- Get crossbow and bodkin arrow
- Research bow saw

18 Vils Ethiopian 2-Range Archers for Team Games continued...
Introduction
• Easiest with the Ethiopians but it works for other strong archer civs too. Slower civs usually have to go up 20 pop instead
• The objective of this build is to get as many archers as possible right away
• We sacrifice economy in favor of army to be able to gain an early game advantage
• We use the market to get up to castle age faster by selling stone
• Our goal is to win either in feudal or early castle, or get such a lead that we can fall back and add economy until we can eventually
win
• This build is a lot stronger for a team game flank player because your pocket’s scouts can cover your weakness to skirms
What’s next?
• Get university right away to go for ballistics and all-in to end the game
• Add some siege to help push or defend against their archers and skirms
• Add a monastery and collect relics or convert knights
• Alternatively simply just buy back 100 stone when you wanna add another TC and play it out normally!
18 Vils Feudal Drush
Recommended Civs Malians, Lithuanians, Japanese, Britons, Vikings
Introduction
• The objective of this build is to go up quickly, but ensure we get the first punch by making 2 militia while we are on the way to feudal
• 2 militia + a feudal scout has the potential to do a lot of damage, we are mainly looking to harass villagers
• You can use your scout to block villagers as they run back to the tc, or to prevent quick walls, while your militia do the main damage
• Another advantage is that we can see exactly what our opponent is doing before having to commit to our feudal age followup. This
way we can properly react to what they are doing
• It is difficult to afford more than 2 militia initially, but we can optionally add more militia or even man at arms upgrade once we are
in feudal
• Compared to a pre-mill drush, this build exerts more pressure with the stronger scout and allows a faster followup
• This build is best executed with civs that have early game economy/infantry bonuses, since it can be hard to afford it without those
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
1 Send 1 vil to make house then go back to the hunt 8 11
- [Recommended] Lure deer with your scout once you found all your sheep
1 1 vil to make a barracks in the front of our base and a house next to it
1 Add 1 more vil to hunt under TC 13 17
1 Send 1 villager to wood 4 18
- Research loom
- Make sure you find where your opponent is asap with your scout
- Make 2 militia right away then send them to your opponent’s base
- Send 4 vils from under TC to the initial lumber camp 8 9 0 0 18
- Move 1 vil from under TC to berries and make a mill 8 9 0 0 18
- Use your feudal scout and militia to harass opponent and pick off villagers
- If they fight back with vils, simply run away if they have more than 2
- [Optional] Get horse collar
- Make your follow up based on what your opponent is going for
- Start to slowly wall up your base with 1-2 villagers using houses and walls
What’s next?
• Based on your scouting, you can do thet following:
1. If you see a stable, make 1-3 spears at home, look to go archers for yourself, and make fully walling a priority
2. If you see a range, either follow up with scouts to maintain map control or go for a range yourself and make defensive skirmishers
while walling and going up to Castle Age
3. If you see them adding a lot of militia/man at arms themselves, you can either add more militia to match or add a range and
play into archers
• Make sure to adjust your economy to whichever follow up you go for. If you follow up with scouts/skirms, add a few more vils to
berries and start seeding farms, whereas if you go archers you should send 3-4 vils to gold
• If your drush finds a lot of damage you should plan an aggressive followup, if not you should play more defensively until you can wall
• From here you can either commit to more military, add monks/siege, or simply drop 1-2 more TCs and continue developing. Try to
be flexible and really consider your options to find the best approach
18 Vils Korean Spear Skirm Rush
Recommended Civs Koreans, Byzantines, Lithuanians
Introduction
• The objective of this strategy is to harass your opponent with cheap yet effective units as soon as possible
• Allows you to be flexible by either adding a lot of spears vs scout rush, or a lot of skirms vs maa or archer play
• You can transition into alot of things since you dont commit to gold early, you aren’t spread as thin compared to an archer build
• Amazing for lower elos because trash units are very effective there
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
- [Optional] Lure deer
2 Send 2 more vils to hunt under TC 13 15
3 Send 3 more vils to berries 16 18
- Research loom
Send 3 vils to initial lumber camp and make a second lumber camp with 5
- 10 8 0 0 18
more vils
- Make a barracks when you can afford it
- If needed, move a few from sheep to straggler tree temporarily for extra wood
- Make an archery range
- Make spears ASAP and send them forward
- Research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar
- Make skrims ASAP and send them forward
- Make farms until you have 14-16
- Harass opponent and mix spears/skirms as you see fit
- After that send 7 vils to gold and make mining camp
- Make a blacksmith during that time and get fletching
- Finish walling your map with houses and palisades
- After 7 to gold, send vils to wood until you can click up
- When berries run out, send them to either gold/wood/farms as you see fit
What’s next?
• That’s the end of the build. Here’s a few options to continue the game:
– Send 2 more to gold and play 2-range crossbows if opponent is going longswords or heavy knights
– Stay on skirm/spear and get the elite skirm and the pikemen upgrade. Also recommend getting armor for infantry in this case
– Switch to knights (or camels if you are Byzantines) if opponent is super open or if he’s going mainly siege
– Simply add 2 more TCs and get a monastery to pick up relics if nothing crazy is happening
– Send 8 vils to stone on the way up to castle age and go for a guard tower rush or a castle drop
18 Vils 1-Stable Scouts
Recommended Civs Franks, Huns, Lithuanians, Magyars, Malians
Introduction
• The objective of this build is to go up quickly and start putting pressure with scouts
• Our goal is to use our mobility and be the first to attack our opponent
• After the initial few scouts, if the opponent is mainly on archers/spearmen, we will make a tech switch into skirms to have scouts
and skirms on the field
• Once we secure map control, we should look to fully wall our base to stay safe from counter attacks
• If the opponent goes for militia/maa aggression, make it a priority to clean their army before attacking them. Do this by using your
vils and scouts and 1 spear to take their infantry out
• This build is best executed with a civilization that has bloodlines, because ideally we want to go into knights in castle age, and we
want to have the option to go heavy scouts in feudal
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
- Research loom
Either send 4 vils to the initial lumber camp (8 total, more aggressive) or 5
- 8 10 0 0 18
vils to make a new lumber camp (9 total, more defensive)
- Move 4 vils from under TC to berries 8 10 0 0 18
- Move 1 vil from under TC to make a barracks 60% of the way to feudal 8 9 0 0 18
- Make a stable with 2 vils 8 7 0 0 18
- Research horse collar
- Use the 2 vils that build the stable to wall opposite sides of your base
- Start seeding farms as soon as you have extra wood in the bank
- Keep adding scouts and use them to attack your opponent or defend
- [Optional] Make 1-4 spears if you are scared of enemy scouts
What’s next?
• If opponent is on mainly arch/spear, we can add a range and make skirms
• If opponent is on scouts, then we can continue adding scouts and a couple more spears until we are fully walled, once fully walled
take all your military units and attack them
• We will naturally want a blacksmith, so pick that up when you can
• If game is hectic in feudal age, pick up bloodlines once you have 7-8 scouts, then pick up armor/attack on them
• Pick up horse collar (if you skipped it) and gold mining upgrade after you click up to castle age
• Once in castle age we have a ton of options, I recommend going 2 stable knights as a default, but also going elite skirm from 1 range
if they has a huge mass of xbow
• Light cav is a great option if you have a bunch of left over scouts or if you want to counter their monks
• Prioritize blacksmith upgrades depending on the situation
• Get bow saw
• From here you can either commit to more military, add monks/siege, or simply drop 1-2 more TCs and continue developing. Try to
be flexible and really consider your options to find the best approach
19 Vils Eagle and Range Feudal Rush
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
- [Recommended] Lure 3 deer with your eagle scout once all sheep are found
1 Send 1 vil to make house then make a mill 10 12
1 Send 1 villager to berries 15 17
- Research loom
- Send 5 vils from hunt to make a second lumber camp 9 10 0 0 19
- Move 1 vil from hunt to initial woodline 10 9 0 0 19
- Move 2 vils from hunt to berries 10 9 0 0 19
- Send 1 vil from hunt to make a barracks when you’re around 50% up
- Send 3 from hunt to make a mining camp on gold 10 6 3 0 19
- Research double bit axe (skip horse collar for now)
- Start making eagles
Make an archery range with 2 villagers and use those to wall your base with
-
houses and palisades (1 to each side and wall slowly but consistently)
DECISION: If you want archers, send your first 4 vils that come out of tc to
-
gold, if you want skirms then send the first 4 villagers to straggler trees
- Start seeding farms as soon as you have extra wood in the bank
- Keep pumping eagles + archer/skirm and start to develop farm eco
- Make a blacksmith when you can
- Research Fletching
19 Vils Eagle and Range Feudal Rush continued...
Introduction
• The objective of this build is to put pressure with 2 different units, making it hard for your opponent to have a counter
• We will start making eagles right away in feudal and also make a range for archers or skirms
• Once you make 2 eagles (+1 initial) and 3 ranged units, you can attack your opponent with an army he basically cant stop at this
point
• The hard part is deciding what you want to make, we can either make archers vs man at arms/scouts, or you make skirms if up
against archers
• This way we always win the early fights, archer + eagle should beat scouts (mix in 1 spear if needed) and skirm eagle will destroy
archers
• With this build we are also building up alot of eagles, so if you dont lose many of them you can keep them until castle age for a
dangerous eagle warrior all in
What’s next?
• Thats the end of the build order, but i will leave you with a few options on how to proceed with the game from here:
– If you still have alot of eagles left, you can get infantry armor and/or forging if you still wanna pressure hard in feudal
– If needed make 1-2 spears to attack or defend against scouts
– Make a market if needed (since it’s a hard build it’s okay to go early market + it can let you sell stone for all in eagles in Castle
Age)
• Pick up horse collar + gold mining upgrade after you click up to castle age
• Once in castle age you can either go all in eagles + monk/siege or you can go for range unit upgrade + bodkin arrow and play a
regular game
• Get bow saw early castle no matter what
• Left over eagles are great to break into enemy base with ranged option, or to scout map and play for relics. Can also snipe enemy
monks and siege very easily
• Going into late game try to secure extra golds or relics since meso is not amazing without gold
19 Vils 1-Range Archers
Recommended Civs Britons, Mayans, Ethiopians, Tatars, Vikings
Introduction
• The objective of this build is to go up rather quickly and start massing archers right away
• We commit to just 1 range because we value the faster Fletching more than the second range and more army
• This allows for a faster Castle time, or transition into scouts as a response to our opponent having a lot of skirms
• This build is best executed with a civilization that has both Arbalest and Bracer because that is what we are scaling into
• It can also be done with a cavalry based civ, however, we will have to transition in mid Castle/Imp into a completely different unit
class, which could make things awkward
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
- Research loom
- Move 5 vils from under TC and make a lumber camp on a second woodline 10 9 0 0 19
- Move 2 vils from under TC and send them to straggler trees 12 7 0 0 19
- Move 1 vil from under TC and make a house >barracks >back to food 12 7 0 0 19
- Move 2 vils from under TC and make a mining camp on the gold 12 5 2 0 19
- Get Double-Bit Axe (we will skip Horse Collar for now)
- Make a range and start producing archers asap
- Make a blacksmith and get Fletching when you can afford it
- [Optional] Make 1-4 spears if you are scared of enemy scouts
- Move 4 more vils from TC to berries (5 total on berries) 12 5 4 0 21
- Start making farms as soon as you have the wood for it
- Start walling with 2-3 vils using a mix of houses and palisades
What’s next?
• The goal from here is to get up to Castle Age with a healthy mass of 10-15 archers and simply get Crossbowman/Bodkin
• However, if your opponent is attacking you with many skirms and your walls aren’t up yet, you can add a stable and use a few scouts
to defend alongside your archers
• When you click up to Castle Age, you can add another production building (either a 2nd range or a stable)
• When you get to Castle Age you have a ton of options, you start by getting bow Bow Saw/Bodkin/Crossbowman then you can either
add TCs for your economy, or invest more into military by adding a monastery/university/siege workshop
• The choices are many and depend a lot on your personal style, on the civ matchup, and on the position in the game. Try to be
flexible and really consider your options to find the best approach
19 Vils + 3 Fishing Ship Build
Recommended Civs Italians, Japanese, Vikings, Lithuanians, Malians
Introduction
• The objective of this build is to setup a strong early game economy with prescence on water
• By adding 3 fishing ships in Dark Age, we are gathering more resources per second, and the longer they stay alive the more advantage
we get
• This build also sets us up nicely with a dock, which lets us fight for water more easily
• Very adaptable build, can be used for any hybrid or water map with deep sea fish
• Leads to a variety of strategies in Feudal Age
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
1 Send 1 vil to make a house then a dock (then take shorefish usually) 8 13
1 Add 1 vil to boar under TC 9 14

1 Send 1 vil to get the second boar 10 15
Make fishing ships (up to 3) as soon as your dock is up, usually you also have
-
to make a house right after your first fishing ship
4 Add 4 more vils to food under TC 14 19
- Research loom
Right away take 7 vils from sheep under TC and make a 2nd lumber camp on
- 12 7 0 0 19
another woodline
What’s next?
• That’s actually the end of the build, not because I can’t go further, but rather because there are way too many variations of this build
• I will give you some tips for the most common variations
• For galley/fire galley rushes, take the rest of your sheep villagers and send them to stragglers initially, then send 3 to gold for galleys,
or 5 to gold for fire galleys. Make 1-2 extra docks and get ready to fight for the water as soon as feudal kicks in
• For maps like Four Lakes where you want to fight on land while having a dock, I recommend adding a barracks on the way up, and
then if you go archers, send 3 of the remaining sheep vils to gold. If you want skirms or scouts just keep them on sheep
• General tip for water maps is to always add in fishing ships if you have control of the water and there are plenty of deep sea fish
remaining
• Avoid fish trapping unless your water is super super safe
• In big water go galleys and micro, in smaller ponds go for fires/demos
• Using the market to sell stone and buy food is a good way to get to Castle Age fast without needing a ton of farms on water maps
• In Castle Age onwards demo ships are crazy OP so take advantage of them as much as possible
20 Vils Chinese Fast Feudal
Introduction
• The objective of this build is to get you familiar with the most awkward start in aoe2, the chinese
• We will do a fast feudal so you can easily go for scouts or archers using this opening, and can also adapt it to fit man at arm rush,
and even a tower rush
• Chinese opening seems difficult, but once you get the hang of it, its actually quite simple
• The goal of the civ is to be up 2 villagers once feudal kicks in, so as long as nothing bad happens, were basically ahead by default vs
the average civ
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
6 Send 6 vils to sheep right away (no houses needed) 6 6
- Research loom
1 Send 1 villager to sheep 7 7
1 Send 1 vil to make 2 houses then mill on berries 9 12
- [Highly Recommended] Lure deer - food runs out quickly with Chinese
- Move 2 vils from under TC to first lumber camp 5 15 0 0 20
- Move 5 vils from under TC and send them to make a second lumber mill 10 10 0 0 20
- Build a barracks when you can afford it
What’s next?
• If going scouts then simply make a stable in feudal and get both eco upgrades
• If going archers then on the way up send 2-3 vils to gold and make mining camp, might be worth taking straggler trees with remaining
vils on hunt. get both eco upgrades
• If you wanna do man at arms, then make 3 militia when barracks is up and send them forward. get man at arms upgrade soon as u
hit feudal, plus bit axe
• If you wanna tower rush then you can send 4-5 vils forward and make the barracks close to enemy base, so you can reinforce with
spears + range for skirms. Man at arms tower rush wont work with chinese, not enough res to afford it early on
• After you stabilize in feudal its a regular game and were up 2 vils, so if nothing bad happens were in the lead, and thats why chinese
are insane on land maps!
21 Vils Malay Flexible Opening
Introduction
• The objective of this build is to go up at a similar time compared to other civs, but to have an extra 2 villagers giving us advantage
over time
• We will be fragile early on in this build, since the 2 extra villagers take time to pay off, therefore we want to play safe early game
• Can either go archers, spear skirms, or scout rush with this same dark age build order. Giving u insane flexibility
• We could opt to go militia or man at arms with free armor which sounds good on paper, but honestly it doesn’t fit what the Malay
really want to do early game, which is to buy time and play safe until they hit a faster castle age
• Therefore I recommend sticking with feudal play, using this flexible build order, and then going for the right strategy in feudal age
based on enemy civ, your map, and what your good at
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
1 Send 1 vil to make house then make a mill 8 11
- Research loom
- Send 5 vils from hunt to make a second lumber camp 10 11 0 0 21
Send 1 vil from hunt to make a barracks so it is ready when you hit feudal
-
(earlier than other civs!)
What’s next?
• Ok so I left it open ended on purpose, this is because the build order is flexible and from that position you can do 3 openings, all of
which are strong
1. We can open 1 range archers. For this we simply send 4 vils from hunt to gold when we hit feudal age and go on the regular
archer build
2. If you see a range, either follow up with scouts to maintain map control or go for a range yourself and make defensive skirmishers
while walling and going up to Castle Age
3. If you see them adding a lot of militia/man at arms themselves, you can either add more militia to match or add a range and
play into archers
4. We can open spear skirms. Just make a range and start making spears right away, spear skirm with free infantry armor is a very
deadly opening with Malay
• NOTE: In every opening we get double bit axe, horse collar is optional if you want to play more defensive and passive
• In every opening we don’t want to go for the kill right away, remember we just wanna be safe and put a little pressure early to allow
us time to wall, or we wanna just stay defensive and wall up, giving opponent the initiative on purpose so we can have defenders
advantage
• In every opening you can make as many spears as u think is necessary. The free armor makes them very effective early
• Our goal is to hit castle age first and look to do some damage with our timing advantage
• Afterwards we can develop normally and our next big spike is with our faster imperial, trying to time that with a forward or middle of
the map castle is a great way to end the game with the faster imp timing. Malay late game is ok but awkward, so avoiding a hyper
late game is essential in my opinion
23+2 Vils Fast Castle Boom
Recommended Civs Burgundians, Poles, Bohemians, Portuguese, Bengalis
Introduction
• The plan is to get to castle age as fast as possible with enough resources to start booming with extra TCs and eco upgrades
• ONLY do this if you will be safe from early pressure (arena/hideout/walls, etc), this is the best way to develop for late game
• We want to be as efficient as possible in dark age when it comes to resources gathered and try to have 0 idle TC time
• Pro tip: farming around the stone/gold TC first is ideal because we want more wood/food than minerals in early castle age
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
- [Highly Recommended] Lure 3 deer with your scout into your tc
2 Add 2 more to hunt under TC and grab second boar 10 13
- Seed 4 farms with sheep villagers when the boars run out 3 14 0 0 17
4 Send 4 more villagers to wood (only 1 lumber camp) 7 21
- When food under tc runs out, send remaining vils to straggler trees
- Send 1 villager to make a blacksmith
- Send 2 villager to make a market (usually the ones on straggler trees)
- Send 1 villager from a straggler tree to the main lumber camp 9 14 2 0 25
- Seed farms with remaining straggler vils 9 14 2 0 25
- Make 1 TC on a woodline away from your lumber camp
- Research bow saw
- Make another TC on secondary gold or main stone if possible
- Use market to buy food or wood whenever you can afford it
- [Optional] Get heavy plow
What’s next?
• We want to continue booming and prioritizing economy for a few more minutes
• Get wheelbarrow around 18 farms, get handcart whenever you can afford it afterwards
• Feel free to start mining stone and adding a 4th TC whenever you want
• Ideally we go for imp after booming, however feel free to add in military if your opponent is pushing or if you want to push
• Once you finish booming, pick a good composition and commit to it (general rule is 1 gold unit, 1 trash unit, 1 siege unit)
• Pro tip: keep making vils until you reach 200 pop (not 200 vils!), you can always delete them or use them to make risky castles.
Don’t slack on creating military!
25+2 Vils Fast Castle into Unique Unit
Recommended Civs Spanish, Turks, Mayans, Burgundians, Mongols
Introduction
• The objective of this build is to get to castle age and drop a castle right away
• A castle is one of the strongest buildings in the game, offering excellent defense and the ability to create your unique unit
• The goal is to play safe early on, and then look to attack once we mass a few of our unique unit, and we can attack with all of them
since we have the castle as defense
• This build works best when we have a unique unit that’s great even without many upgrades, such as conquistador, coustillier,
mangudai, janissary, the list goes on there’s a bunch. Check out this unique unit tierlist: The BEST Unique Units - Tierlist
• This build is also excellent on nomadic maps, as you usually go for a fast castle on those since we stock up alot of res early on
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
- [Highly Recommended] Lure deer to your tc if any are nearby
- Seed 3 farms with hunt villagers so we dont eat our sheep too fast 3 15 0 0 18
- When sheep runs out, send 4 vils to stone to make a mining camp 8 11 2 4 25
- Send the other 3 vils to straggler trees and then make the feudal buildings 11 8 2 4 25
2 Send 2 villagers to stone 6 27
- Drop the castle with stone villagers and play from there
- Research bow saw
- When berry villagers go idle, send them to whatever resource you need
What’s next?
• Now that you have a castle and are in the castle age, you have a few options
• First option: we can make our unique unit then slowly add in town centers, in this case send 2-3 vils back to stone but the rest send
to mainly farms/wood
• Second option: continue mining stone with all 9 vils, make your unique unit to gain map control, and then 2-3 mins later you can go
forward and drop a second castle in his face to easily win the game early on
• Third option is to go off stone entirely and 1 tc push with unique unit and siege, in this case after the vils build the castle send them
to wood/gold/farms
• Regardless what you go for, make sure you get some value from your unique unit, or at least make sure the defensive castle accomplishes
something, or else we just fall behind as we delay our town centers by going for that castle drop early
25+2 Vils Fast Castle Light Cav Relic Control
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
- [Highly Recommended] Lure 3 deer with your scout into your tc
4 Send 4 more vils to berries and make another house 15 18
- Seed 3 farms with sheep villagers when the boars run out 3 15 0 0 18
- When food under tc runs out, send remaining vils to straggler trees
- Build a barracks
- Send 2 villagers to make a stable
- Send 2 villagers to make a market
- Send the 4 villagers who made the buildings back to straggler trees 10 15 2 0 27
- Seed a few more farms after horse collar finishes
- Make 2-3 more scouts
- Add a monastery right away
- Research bow saw
- Make a TC when you can afford it
- [Optional] Get light cav if opponent is also contesting relics

25+2 Vils Fast Castle Light Cav Relic Control continued...
Introduction
• This build order is excellent for arena, but can also be used in other maps that are a bit more slow paced and defensive, like hideout,
gold rush, yucatan, etc
• The goal of this build is to get control of the relics asap, and then also keep an eye on your opponent
• The very minimal investment into light cav + monks lets u match enemy boom pretty well, while also having map control
• Those units are also really effective at small skirmishes, which is what you are looking for
What’s next?
• Add more light cav + monks if opponent is contesting relics, otherwise just add a 3rd tc and boom up while taking all 5 relics
• Patrol light cav around the map, to keep an eye on your opponent once youve won the relic war. On arena this means patrolling their
walls to see what they move out with
• Add a 4th tc if needed, and just boom till imperial age
• Pro tip, if you get pushed and they are going faster to imp, move your relics to the back so you dont lose them, then try to hold their
push. If you succeed, you auto win late game cuz of the 5 relics in your control
26+2 Vils Vils Armenian Spear Rush Into Fast Castle Relic Control
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
1 Send 1 vil to build house>barracks>house in front and start walling slowly
- [Optional] Lure deer
- Make 2-3 spears from barracks and send them to harass with your scout
6 Send 6 vils to berries and build a mill 18 23
- Move 2 vils from hunt to wall (3 total, make sure opponent can’t get in) 4 16 0 0 23
- Send 5 vils from food to wood (9 total) 9 11 3 0 26
- Start making farms as sheep run out
- Research loom
- Send walling vils to straggler trees when they are done 12 11 3 0 26
- Make sure to micro mule cart to keep the woodline as efficient as possible
- Feudal buildings with 3 straggler vils (Recommend to do market + blacksmith)
- NOTE: If you can’t afford Castle Age, make 1-2 more vils or use the market
- Make fortified church in a great defensive location
- Spam warrior priests to get relics ASAP
- Research bow saw

26+2 Vils Vils Armenian Spear Rush Into Fast Castle Relic Control continued...
Introduction
• Goal of this build is to harass the opponent in dark age with a unit that outruns vils and destroys scouts
• Wall up behind it and stay safe until Castle Age
• We immediately get a defensive building and one that can create a strong army to defend ourselves in Castle Age
• Warrior priest is insane vs any feudal army so its going to be easy to defend with the church
• Then we grab up to 6 relics and coast to an easy late game
What’s next?
• Place your church in the position that best defends your base. Remember it shoots arrows right away with the 1 relic
• If under heavy pressure consider getting armor upgrades for your warrior priests, and definitely pick up squires asap
• Once you have dealt with enemy army go pick up all the relics on the map and start developing your eco
• Start adding TCs and develop your economy
• Harass enemy with whatever leftover priests after you get the relics, or use them to defend
• Don’t overcommit to attacking early castle age, our main goal is to out boom and win in late castle/early imp and we always have
relic advantage for super late imp
28+2+2 Vils Turk Fast Imperial
Vil
Age Vils Task Note
Pop
- [Required] Lure 3 deer with your scout into your TC
1 Send 1 vil to make house then go to berries (4 total) 12 16
3 Send next 3 vils to gather food under TC 15 19
- Make farms with your sheep vils gradually as your sheep start to run out
- As hunt finishes, move 1 vil to berries and 3 vils to straggler trees 11 12 5 0 28
- Send the vils that made the feudal buildings to farms 8 15 7 0 30
- Research gold mining
- Sell 200 stone
- Send 3 vils from wood to make a siege workshop and monastery
- Research Imperial Age (perfect landing time: 20:05)
- As berries expire, move the vils to a second mining camp 8 11 13 0 32
- Use the market to get enough wood to make a barracks and 2 ranges
- Get the first archer armor upgrade
- [Optional] Make a monk and pick up relics
- Keep making villagers and send them to whichever resources you need
- Make hand cannoneers from 2 ranges and make 1-2 bombard cannons
28+2+2 Vils Turk Fast Imperial continued...
Introduction
• The objective of this build is to get to Imperial Age as fast as possible and start making gunpowder units, which are the strongest
units you can make that require few upgrades
• We get chemistry free with Turks, so there’s no waiting time before pumping them out
• Even though we will have low economy, our units will be very strong, and our opponent likely isn’t ready to deal with heavy army
• Really good strat if you’re not an arena player, and just want a cheesy strategy to get free wins
What’s next?
• Getting armor on hand cannons is amazing when up against enemy range units
• If enemy is going knights then you should add monks to help out with conversions and healing
• Push as fast as possible, but if you see your opponent has a lot of army trying to defend in castle age, then make sure you group up
your army well before pushing, we don’t want to lose any stray units
• Don’t bother adding economy until way later, I’d recommend to spend the first 10 minutes in imp on 1 TC, simply adding in more
army will always be best
• If opponent is trying to go imp himself, try to enter his base and target his town centers first, you never know when you can kill the
one that is researching Imperial Age ;)

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Strategy Guide

17 Vils Japanese Man-at-Arms Rush 5

18 Vils Cuman 2 TC Boom 6

18 Vils Generic Modern Man-at-Arms Rush 7

18 Vils Ethiopian 2-Range Archers for Team Games 8

18 Vils Feudal Drush 10

18 Vils Korean Spear Skirm Rush 11

18 Vils 1-Stable Scouts 12

19 Vils Eagle and Range Feudal Rush 13

19 Vils 1-Range Archers 15

19 Vils + 3 Fishing Ship Build 16

20 Vils Chinese Fast Feudal 17

21 Vils Malay Flexible Opening 18

23+2 Vils Fast Castle Boom 19

25+2 Vils Fast Castle into Unique Unit 20

25+2 Vils Fast Castle Light Cav Relic Control 21

28+2+2 Vils Turk Fast Imperial 25

3 Send 3 more vils to boar under TC 11 11

1 Send 1 vil to make house then mill on berries 12 12

1 Send 1 vil to get second boar 13 13

3 Send 3 more vils to hunt under TC 16 16

- Research Feudal Age (perfect landing time: 8:00) 0 16 0 0 16

- Queue up loom if you opted for an extra vil in Dark Age

- Research Double-Bit Axe

- Research Horse Collar

- Research Bloodlines, Forging, and Scale Barding Armor

- Research Gold Mining upgrade

- Spam either knights or Monaspas

- Research Bow Saw

- Make a fortified church in the best location for your vils

- Make monks for relics

- Make a second TC on another woodline

2 Send 2 villagers to wood 2 8

1 Send 1 villager to boar 7 9

1 Send 1 more vil to boar under TC 8 10

- [Mandatory] Lure at least 2 deer

1 Send 1 vil to make house then go back to the hunt under TC 9 11

1 Send 1 vil to make a barracks in the front of our base

2 Send 2 more vils to food under TC 13 16

1 Send 1 villager to wood 3 17

- Research Feudal Age (perfect landing time: 8:25) 3 13 0 0 17

- Send 4 vils from under TC to the initial lumber camp 7 7 2 0 17

- Make an archery range right away and start producing archers

- Research Man-at-arms. Target enemy vils with the men-at-arms + scout

- Make a blacksmith as soon as you can afford it

- Research Double-Bit Axe (may need to idle TC for 10 seconds to afford)

2 Send 2 villagers to gold 4 19

1 Send 1 vil to berries and make a mill 8 20

- Slowly add vils to farms/berries before sheep run out completely

Research fletching as soon as you can afford it

2 Send 2 villagers to wood 2 8

1 Send 1 villager to boar 7 9

- [Optional] Lure deer once you’ve found both boars

1 1 to make a house then mill 10 12

3 Next 3 vils to hunt under TC 13 15

3 Send 3 villagers to berries 16 18

- Move 6 vils from hunt to wood, stay on 1 lumbercamp 8 10 0 0 18

Make second TC on another woodline. If that is not possible then second

1 Send 1 villager to boar 7 10