Summary
During Season 13, our team climbed from Gold to Diamond II in ranked 3v3s while using exclusively one strategy. We finished our 28-game run with a 23–5 record and went 20–1 before reaching Diamond.
The basic idea is simple: two players send resources (slinging) to a Holy Roman Empire player, enabling a ~6:00 Castle Age followed by an immediate flood of upgraded Men-at-Arms from the Burgrave Palace.
It is a highly committed timing attack with counters, and our sample size is limited. However, we found it surprisingly consistent and mechanically forgiving at Gold and Platinum level, and still very competitive at Diamond level.
In this post, I briefly describe the strategy, discuss why it works and how it’s different from MAA Rush in 1v1, and provide details like build orders later in the post.
You can check our games here: https://aoe4world.com/players/261663-Corvo/games
The strategy at a glance
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2 players go Feudal, build a market immediately, collect mostly Food and a bit of Gold, build nothing except vils, houses, and maybe a few towers and walls, and send all their remaining ressources (res) to the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) player
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The HRE player goes Fast Castle (FC) with Meinwerk and Burgrave, also “naked”, without units or other buildings except maybe 1 tower at the gold
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Because of the sling, the HRE reaches Castle at ~6:00, can buy military upgrades cheaply and quickly, spams Man-at-Arms (MAA) extremely fast from the Burgrave, and attacks at ~7:00
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Both Slingers continue slinging for a few minutes, after which one or two can stop slinging and start building units (most often horsemen or archers to counter MAA-counters: crossbows, serjeants, musofadis, and mounted ranged units).
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Maps: Can be played on almost any map, but save starting res and a close distance to opponents is an advantage. Water maps might be problematic.
Our results
We had a 23:5 winrate with this strat (20:1 until Diamond), going from Gold to Diamond II. We are Gold/early Plat players in 1v1, were also Gold/early Plat in team games before we used this strategy. I played the HRE role and usually had only around 100–150 APM.
I started this strat with 783 points and 985 elo, and ended the season after 28 games with 1270 points and 1195 elo (highest: 1341 and 1237).
Most games end or are decided after 10-15 min, often without a significant number of military units from the other team.
We haven’t played it perfectly or chose the best sling civs with optimal builds, and we played only a few games at Diamond II before the season ended, so I think with better execusion or better micro, Conqueror is possible even for players who are normally 300-400 points lower.
Why does it work?
Slinging has a 30% tax, but for a critical time window, only one player has to buy Castle Age and upgrades (which are also cheaper and faster for HRE with Meinwerk).
Timing window: The HRE player has the advantage of many castle units extremely early, before players without sling can be in Castle or mass a big feudal army. This makes it different from a MAA rush in 1v1.
MAA have almost no strong counters in feudal, are easy to manage and can lock down a base and burn buildings due to their high ranged armor and health, even without much micro management
HRE is particularly well suited to this approach:
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Meinwerk Palace provides cheaper and faster military technologies.
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Burgrave Palace equals 5 barracks (or 6.67 with Military Academy), no investment needed
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HRE Men-at-Arms have powerful unique technologies, like 10% movement speed buff, better charge, and especially Heavy Maces against heavy units.
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The landmark combination saves a large amount of ressources and production time.
This strategy also has psychological and mental load advantages (important for non-pros):
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You attack early and dictate the game (this makes it easier to track what opponents are doing and where armies are, which is normally hard in 3v3)
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You don’t need to coordinate armies (because you have only one)
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You only have one unit type which is effective at disrupting opponents even if your units are forgotten in the opponents base for 30 sec (easy to handle)
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the slingers have not that much to do and can focus on scouting/calling out important events that the stressed HRE player might be missing
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It is a “shock and awe” strategy, having one player’s main TC destroyed after 9 minutes with and endless stream of castle age units might break the spirit of the opponent’s team
Strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths:
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This strategy is especially strong if opponents invest early in economy or fast castle and you can attack them fast: If they build a second TC or go Castle, they have just invested ~1000-1800 res without getting a return yet when your MAA arrive in their base at minute 7: You may be able to stop an HRE or Japan player from going fast castle, or burn a second TC at minute 8 that was completed at minute 6
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15-20 MAA (which you can have in an enemy base at minute 8) can burn a main TC without too much losses
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If they build the normal feudal units like archers, spearmen, horsemen, they do almost nothing against upgraded castle MAAs
Weaknesses/Counter:
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The only games we lost was against early anti-MAA counters: 2-3 players massing serjeants or musofadis or knights early, so they were able to defend against the first attacks and stopping a MAA mass from forming. I think this is the counter against this strategy: At least 2 players need to build many units that are decent against MAA in Feudal: They can kill MAAs before they get to a big mass, or raid or kill a slinger (especially knights)
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Opponents getting to castle relatively undamaged and massing crossbows is a danger, then one ally has to switch to horsemen or some other counter to stop them
Good civs for this strategy
MAA is the best unit for this rush strategy in my opinion, because it is durable, strong against feudal units and buildings, has no strong counter in feudal, does not need much micro to be effective (the HRE player has to fight 3 opponents after all). Knights or elephants could be good, but they are to easily countered by spears, and they are not as easy to pump out fast.
HRE is the best attacking civ because of Meinwerk for faster and cheaper upgrades, Burgrave for fast production, 10% movement speed buff from the civ bonus, and unique upgrades for MAA (most notably Heavy Maces with +6 against Heavy, which makes them cost effective against knights and most other heavy units like other MAA: https://aoe4units.com/). The landmarks save ~1500 res and valuable time.
Good sling civs are civs that have early eco boni, can send res fast, are defensive or have more res in their base, and maybe have good horsemen or archer to help later.
Ayyubids with advancement wing can sling the fastet/get the fastest castle age timing and have a berry bonus and gather rate bonus from Golden Age I.
Lancasters have a sheep bonus from the start of the game (most of what you need to collect is food) and a defensive feudal landmark und stronger vils.
Many sling civs are possible, the most important thing is that they have early boni (preferably starting in Dark Age), because the sling until ~5:00 determines the castle timing, the sling from 5-10 minutes is still important, and after 10 minutes it gets less useful.
Build orders:
HRE
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3 sheep (+ 1 house), 3 gold (+ mining camp), rally sheep, prelate inspires gold vils once, then goes to sheep
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~2:15: 3 food vils build Meinwerk (and rally to gold afterwards), 2 food vils go to straggler trees (+ 2. house).
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As soon as you have enough wood, build a tower at the gold, then a lumber camp at the woodline.
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~5:00: Burgrave with ~10 Food vils, 1. ranged armor upgrade, 2. prelate (you allies should send you at least 400F 200G each until 5:00)
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~6:00: MAA upgrade, 2. ranged upgrade, pump MAA, 3-4 food vils to wood (5-6 total), don’t get housed!
After that, prioritise MMA spam, military upgrades from Meinwerk (Military Academy if you are floating res, Heavy Maces if the opponent has heavy units) before eco upgrades. Depending on the situation you can attack with the first 3-5 MAA or wait until you have ~15 to overwhelm a defensive building.
Slinger
Depends on the civ. Focus on food and a bit of gold, have a market until 4:30, aim for 400F 200G sent until 5:00, earlier if you can (e.g. as Ayyubid or Lancaster). Do upgrades only after 5:00 or even later.
Build a few defenses if needed, but send mostly res until ~10:00, then one player can go into horsemen and the other can continue slinging until 15:00, or also make units.
Tactical decisions:
One of the most important decisions is which player to attack first. Good targets are:
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close opponents
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Fast castle (you have to scout what they are doing!)
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2 TC (especially if the 2. TC is out of range of the first, and they don’t have an extra defensive landmark)
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Civs who can produce dangerous units, like French knights
Another decision is when to end the sling, if the first ~10 minutes don’t decide the game: Most of the time you need one player the build counters to crossbows (normally horsemen), if a relatively undamaged opponent gets to castle: 30 crossbows can kill all your MAA
Theory and interesting numbers:
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Sling has a 30% tax (sending 100 res costs 130 res), so a team of 3 has 85% the res of a team without sling, but they are all concentrated in one player, who has 2.5 times the normal res (this is simplified of course)
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Burgrave is equivalent to 5 barracks, or 6.67 with military academy. It can produce 1 MAA every 4.4 / 3.3 sec, or 13.6 / 18.2 per minute
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With 2 slingers, you are roughly able to use the Burgrave to its full potential from the start, and you need support until minute ~15, at least from one slinger
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With generic slinger civs, the HRE can reach castle at ~6:00, with 2 Ayyubids ~5:30 is possible (assuming 10 builders)
Conclusion
I would be interested to hear how other teams would optimize or counter this strategy.
It might be possible to reach Conqueror with this strategy for average players (at the moment at least).
If anyone tries it—or has already faced something similar—please share your results or replays.