Imo the 10/10 and 12/10 openers died once they nerfed the hausa rush and economically died when they moved the cheaper tp shipment to age 2.
Now if you 12/10 or 10/10, yes you age 20sec or much sooner but you sacrificed TC idle time and villagers to do so AND what do you get in return for being in age 2 sooner?
Itâs a good point, Iâve been thinking about this too. The only thing is if I age up at 14 that means I wonât get as early a tp, but maybe more vill is worth idk.
I think youâre probably right tho, gonna try it.
African palace cost more because it can create more units than an asian castle, and also generates influence when placed near a university. The tech for three additional TCs is very expensive, but if your opponent is not rushing you, you need that for booming and additional protection. TCâs also boost influence gathering when placed near universities so, while it is a expensive thing to do in age ii, it will definitely boost your eco. Aging up to second age with hausa is mandatory, because you can pay the tcâs with influence with hausa builder. Then you put some griots to work in the tc speed up vill production. If your opponent is playing agressive, you can make it to age iii without the tech and build two additional tcâs for 800 influence with hausa builders.
I havenât test extensively this build order, but at least for now, it seems to me as the most reasonable thing to do. Maxing tcâs, universities and palaces is the hausaâs equivalent to maxing manor houses for the british, kanchas for inca or banks for dutch.
Iâm glad you mentioned these tech and costs and boom potential that hausa has.
The first one we can agree to is aging up with the hausa builder is extremely cost efficient when expanding to several TC since the tc cost 400 influence then builds itself as oppose to 500 wood and require a builder. And since you can que as many as allowed all at once it offers a benefit.
The palace doesnât contribute significant influence/xp when you consider its cost compared to a standard church or a tradepost; while the building is multi functional, outside from artillery and the African mm you canât be sure the random units you get will be useful to you in the matchup.
Back to the age 2 church tech that allows you to build tcs earlier than age 3. Had the tech cost 300 influence or maybe 400 influence then IMO those costs would be reasonable. However at 800 influence thatâs more than the influence cost of 2 TC?? JUST to unlock the ability to build TCS now. So 800 influence plus 500wood is 1300 resources for a single TC added?? Where are you gonna find 1300 early age 2 resources?
If you found 1300 resources then your opponent had also âfoundâ the same amount. And if they are a boom civ then they will have a more eifficent use of said resources.
Imo there isnât enough ways to generate influence early or you can look at it this way, things that cost influence are way to expensive generally (Tcs and tps* are the only cost efficient influence prices).
Starting resources: FIVE vil, one 400f cow , three 250f cows, and a market.
Standard 15 vil age up takes about 3mins. You can shave a villager if you eat an additional cow and get up 20+sec sooner.
Itâs not uncommon to get a tp moments after your first cow appreciates for 200w. Youâd build a house then sell another cow for coin and buy the 100w to build a tp. A tp that early allows you send an additional age 1 shipment in transition or have an extra for age 2.
4mins and 30 sec is the standard age 2 timing.
All this to say: a standard age up with 1 tp is pretty safe vs normal non OP civs.
Personally Iâve had the most success with a FF using the start mentioned above. 15vil age up, barracks plus coin. Since youâre not going to making army until age 3 transition you can hold the hausa builder to help scout the rush then decide if you want to go tower for defense or if itâs safe to go barracks. Assuming not getting rushed youâll send 700c first followed by 700 influence. Youâll use the market to get most the wood you need for infrastructure to make up for not sending 700w. In transition to age 3 youâll start making anti cav to protect the cannoners youâll send as your first age 3 card.
IMO the matchup and scouting will dictate what units you make in transition to support your cannoners.
I personally favor the native musk for the splash dmg and the shadow tech, but that will cost an additional shipment and 250 influence⊠if you age 3 with the musk age up then you can have 20 to 25 upgraded musk to compliment your 14 cannoners. A 9min push with 34+ age 3 units is a good start to a fight. And the xp generated thru trades fuels your age 3 future shipmentsâŠit kinda plays like Spain. Lastly you can open cannoners then quickly switch into cannons by using resources gathered during the fight to build a Palace and tech cannons then send 1k influence as your 2nd age 3 shipment. If you can remass enough anti cav you can swing back to the enemy base with 2+ cannons.
If your plan is to age up at 3min with 15 vil and a tp before age 2 I want to suggest using your cows in a nonstandard way. I think the typical macro is wait for the fist cow to worth about 200 wood on the market then convert. Then if you have immediate plans to make a tp you convert a second cow. However if you do the macro above you only start to build your first tp at 75 sec into the game which means you at least missed 1 pass.
Imo why not at the very start of the game run your fast explore to the first pass tp on the map and convert 2 wood cows immediately to build your first tp AND still have 50w left over? Then go look around the map for lil scraps of wood treasures or coin to buy wood. Worst comes to worst youâll have to convert your final cow for coin and buy wood.
Both macros have their respective perks but if you have a xp sensitive build order I think the immediate tp really stands out over the former.
to be more precise the standard start is to sell the cow the moment ur 1st granary is created to drop a house and get the food upgrade from the grannary, which i think falls around 160-170
Rush is still too strong. While they donât address it directly I feel quite annoyed by th fact there was no balance in this latest PUP
nani??? the tower musks lost 30 hp and cost 5 more coin? also they start with less cows and the 4 cow shipment sends less food which means it converts into less influence. So much less that itâs almost impossible to get 1000k influence that early to convert to 5 emergency raiders AND send a 500 influence first shipment. Now its EITHER the 500 influence shipment or its the 5 emergency raiders.
Defensive tower and build a few walls that force the enemy to walk around. It not at all unbeatable.
I have been experimenting with a variation of this, trade the first cow when granary is ready and buy hunting upgrade, and a second cow immediately after to get a trading post and age up with 13/10. I find a 15 age up is too late. I gather what the remaining wood is needed for a house in the transition.
By the time age2 is achieved, I have another shipment ready for villies or even gold for fast fortress.
You can still do that strat, but imo it is an all-in now, very difficult to recover if you donât do enough damage.
I agree it wasnât to get rid of the strat but now it would absolutely be similar to an aztec all in sacrificing all follow up.
you mean 12/10 right cause you canât overpop at the pop cap.
I find my personal favoured way to ff is to go normal start and then sell a cow during transition to build a university ( you chop for the wood required) while aging with beber for age 2. once having the university go mine 300 gold
then just send 700 coin once you get to age 2 while all your vils on food and you should have enough resources to go to age 3 and also get the fast age up tech in the university with the 400 influence you get from the berbers. you should also have some influence left over which is usually enough for a berber camel to defend or a beber vil for some extra eco
with some luck i have managed an 6:30 ff with this which combined with the griots and vils shipment in age 3 can be kinda of devastating
Yeah, 12/10 lol. I like this cow trade thing. It allow for so much diversity in openings. Top notch idea from dev team.
I donât see how you can get up at 6:30 unless you had 2 400 food cows to eat in transition to age 2 but then you lose 500 villager seconds gathering up 300 coin and another 200 villager seconds gathering up at least 100 wood for the church? And if you convert one of your starting cows for the 200 coin for the church then you wonât have 2 400 food cows to eatâŠ
However overall I doing your build order for the FF. I would do something slightly different.
Age up berbers with 15 villagers no food upgrade convert first cow for 200+ wood. IFFFFF you can find a wood treasure I would cut for a tp in transition to age 2 and build the tp in the 2nd slot (assuming a 3+ tp map, alternatively I would build one that would require enemy army to walk away from my tc to kill). During the transition to age 2, 40 seconds from aging (once the aging bar crosses the âiâ) I would send the age 1 church card. Meanwhile Iâd macro for 1200 food then rest of my villagers on gold making cows constantly. The purpose of the cow boom is DEFENSE. Since you get the one time conversion of all livestock into influence each cow is at minimum worth 50 influence. Also keep in mind that they generate influence passively and appreciate in value to be worth even more!!
Iâd send in 700 coin as my 3rd shipment (first age 2 shipment) and sell a cow if need be to insure once I pick up the 700 gold I can click up to age 3.
Now letâs recap for a sec. You should have 2 tps and a church and at least 500 influence banked and sitting on your 4th homecity shipment by the time you click up to age 3. Also should at least have 7 cows preferably one that is fully fatten.
Scenario 1: the enemy comes in full attack during transition.
Depending on the enemy composition I would use the 500 influence to ship either the 5 lifidi knights or the 12 skirms or use 250 influence to send the akon musks. If the push is so aggressive that it would destroy your TC before you age I would sell all cows for influence and either age up faster(assuming there is timeâŠ) or use the influence to que minutemen mass and go for a counter timing of shipment pop TC fire and villager melee (upgrade villagers you should have 200f).
Assuming your native embassy is still alive and berber cavs would benefit being in the fight Iâd swap out some minutemen to make a batch of berber cavs to hit with the timed shipment pop plus villagers plus tc and minutemen.
Scenario 2: enemy letâs you age up with disruption.
If there is low aggression you should sell your 500 food cow for 400+ wood and can sell the next one soon after for 200+ wood which combines for more than a 700 wood shipment!!! From there itâs your standard FF build order: house, rax, tier 1 upgrades.
Again I would sit on at least 500 influence until I had about 60 secs until age 3. At which point I would get the church upgrade to age faster.
Lastly based on the game you could afford to make 1 or 3 berber villagers throughout the FF macro.
Youâll get up to age 3 between 7:30-7:45 which isnât a horrible FF timing. Only standard yet faster FF come in at 6:50-7:20 and that still puts their shipment arriving at your base some 50+ seconds later.
it does require some luck i find to get the 6:30 timing( a food treasure here and there and like great herding) but around 6:40-6:50 seems to be the more consistent timing.
this is very much a naked ff. the hausa buider option is without a doubt an option but from my experience it slows you down too much and the chances of getting hit by a timing in transition is much greater the more you stay in age 2. once you get to age 3 your options open up much more and in this build you always want to age up with morrocan for age 3 so you will be able to maximise shipments in age 3.
just for an example, there is a kinda busted variant on livestock map you can do where the first shipment you send at age 3 is the 14 cannoneers shipment which can just wipe any timing your opponent may try
also griots are just op so getting that 5 griots shipment faster is just better imo
It is surely possible, and both Hausa and EthiOPia can do it. It is all about macroing the 3rd cow into reducing the gold you need to gather. Iâd say it is easier for ethiopia to do it since they have better age1 and can farm many treasures with the abun.
At my level of play, people assume I will be able to hold any rush so they donât rush, works very well many times. OFC, you need to scout before doing this kind of naked ff.
Since the rush has been nerfed hausa are really quite a mediocre civ, they can become strong with all the age up bonuses and max universities but the chance of you pulling that off is slim.
Ethiopia always had the stronger FF and itâs still ok but with the various nerfs to the mortar and gascenya itâs certainly not that great anymore.
Gonna talk to SoldieR, the veteran AOE3 player, in the top 20 currently,that has been playing at top level since AOE2 that everytime he loses a match to Hausa, that always starts with 15 enemies in the first 5 min of game, and his struggles are worthless after 10-15 min even by being forced to turtle is just bad play.
Gonna talk that to KaizerKlein, GUA and the whole ESO, who kept the game alive with balance patches, that isnât even using African civs due sharp lack of balance too that they should be happy. Because they are all wrong.
Probably a âGovernor politicianâ that gives more 50% more coin and 100% more buildings on top of free âcredit card resourceâ with a while army at 6min (not even considering exclusive techs ) is balanced. Unit with 700hp, 7.5 speed and continuous stun is probably quite balanced.
that was before the current patch was it not?