I just tried a strategy as the Cumans that I’m not sure anyone has tried before. I’ve only done it against the Moderate AI, but if someone who is a lot better than me can take it and do well with it online, we may have a new Youpudding strat on our hands.
Here’s how it goes:
Go six on food like usual. Then send the next several villagers to wood, then a few on berries. Then send three or four to gold. Adjust food or wood economy as needed, but there should be at least 9 villagers on wood before you advance at around 25 pop.
Then, you use your wood villagers and place the second TC straddling both wood and gold. This should be easy on most maps. Continue to boom, prioritizing wood and food, as you should have an abundance of gold by now if you have at least 5 gold miners. Place down a Blacksmith, Archery Range, and Stable. The latter two are easier to place than any other civ, as they only cost 100 wood. This is useful, because wood is essential for both rams and their archer backup. Then, place one or two Siege Workshops, depending on your excess wood, and begin pumping out rams, archers, and scouts, continuing to boom to fund your growing army.
Once you have at least 10 archers, 5 scouts, and 5 rams (placing extra Archery Ranges can help expedite this process), attack the enemy. If you do it quickly enough, there is no counter, as archers counter enemy spears, scouts counter skirms, and rams can just generally distract ranged units and take out production buildings. Once you have taken out a sufficient number of production buildings, target the TC. Even if the opponent is an age up, there is little they can do it to stop it at this point, as even individual knights will die to the mass of archers and scouts you have trained.
Enjoy your opponent’s suffering!