[Heals] Teutonic Fortress Guide: 2021 September Edition

[HealFortress]

While I am not the best player and I have much room to improve as well as I am always testing and adjusting the build orders to help optimize my play style, here is Poop Lord’s playlist of mine and other’s gameplay which is casted by ‘Poop Lord’ and contains me and others that may try out variations of the general strategy. He has many other strategies casted, I suggest checking them out and sending in your own games for fun.

Favorite unit formations:

29 Teutonic Knights, 20 Hand Cannoneers and 11 monks, square formation, stand ground.

29 Kamayuks, 20 Arbs/Slingers, 11 monks, square formation, stand ground.

29 Berserks, 20 Arbs, 11 monks, square formation, stand ground.

29 Genoese Crossbowman, 20 Hand Canoneers, 11 monks, square formation, stand ground.

29 Champions/Pikes, 20 Longbows, 11 monks, square formation, stand ground.

29 Paladins, 20 Conquistadors, 11 Missionaries, square formation, stand ground.

• additional surrounding unit compositions - the formation in general depends on if the user sees fit to use it for an optimal situation.

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Defensive eco:

Note that houses are built with the garrison and ungarrison feature in mind; they won’t have a gap where the villagers may ungarrison outside of the wall thanks to either being only one tile further away from the intended resource as the camp to allow space while not leaving an open gap, or, in the case of sicilians, a good layer starting from behind the camp. House walls may have gaps where one will need to use the villager with the alt-click function to squeeze into such a corner to build a blacksmith market if wanted on an area where the tower isn’t present.

It is preferable to place camps initially 1 tile away from the intended resources for easy building of early house walls.

Used in Dark to Feudal Age

Used in Dark to Feudal Age

Used in Castle Age with outer castles or tcs added as needed. I suggest starting with 2-3 tcs around the castle and either the 3rd or fourth going towards a treeline before increasing farms/tc numbers

Used in Dark to Feudal age(Sicilians require more space for their tower so the houses start from the back of the mine instead of on the side one one tile away further.

It’s useable by every civ in the game, even Goths. (Except huns since they lack houses - use palisades there alongside other buildings.)

Feel free to watch the playlist for references. Make sure to double check if there are HD options in some of them, others may simply be videos from the early days of the channel, the newer videos have increased in quality.
Here is Poop Lord’s Discord server

Join the The Toilet Bowl Discord Server!

And feel free to come join the clan Discord

Join the [Heals] Healing Discord Server!

This thread is being built due to my other guides being deleted and will be remade completely upon reaching its edit limit.

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Favorites: Top 10 (to be edited over time)

4-Civ Team Compositions

1. Teutons x Goths x Byzantines x Britons

2. Teutons x Goths x Italians x Portuguese

3. Teutons x Goths x Vietnamese x Persians

4. Teutons x Goths x Sicilians x Tatars

5. Teutons x Goths x Poles x Malay

6. Teutons x Goths x Franks x Magyars

7. Teutons x Goths x Mongols x Celts

8. Teutons x Goths x Turks x Bohemians

9. Teutons x Goths x Indians x Khmer

10. Teutons x Goths x Incas x Vikings

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Possible Build Orders:

1. Experimental Offensive Defense Build

For resource camp walls, keep an eye out for any possible holes in the making and build additional structures as needed. The best defense in this regard is to ensure that they’re consistently closed off until they’re not needed anymore.

(6)6 villagers → 4 sheep or 3 cows → 2 boar → 1 pushed deer → farms

(10)4 villagers → wood -stragglers within 1 farms distance → preferred wood line
(Reason for these stragglers is to both make space for said farms but also to ensure the wood isn’t lost and so your scout and scout sheep have time to find a preferable outlying woodline(likely not the 3 closest woodlines to save those for later))

(16)6 villagers → berries → remaining herdables → gold with house walls + tower

(20)4 villagers → wood line same as previous with house walls+gate+tower when able

(25)5 villagers → outlying home stone with house walls+tower → farms

8 wood, 12 food, 0 gold, 5 stone
Click up to Feudal Age

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Feudal Age

Research stone and lumber upgrades.

May replace secondary sheep herders’ duties with new villagers to send 4 to the lumber camp all at once rather than one by one to minimize risk.

(29)4 villagers → (12)woodline

Build blacksmith

Build Market

(32)3 villagers → (9)farms

(35)3 villagers - > remaining tree stragglers(15 wood) → help with building castle + tcs → farms

15 wood, 9 food, 6 gold, 5 stone
Sheep vills go to gold as soon as they’re done, or, if Poles, start on a second stone pile.

Click up to Castle Age

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Research gold upgrade

Research mill upgrade

Build barracks

Build 2 stables or preferred military building

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Castle Age

Build a Monastery as soon as reasonable to fetch relics

Build a siege workshop for mangonels if needed or for rams if wanted, the other option is to use petards from the castle depending on the situation.

Research lumber and mill upgrades

Start knight or general military production alongside villager production, attempt to keep both up consistently however you can.

Build 1 castle on one of the corners of the original tc and 1 town center on a preferred corner

Aim for 20 farms and a third tc for 1 nearby woodline for as much wood vills as needed for keeping up with new farms and upon reaching 20 farms → wheel barrel → 30 farms → Hand cart → 20/30 villagers woodline with a third tc → previous woodline villagers to outlying stone piles once home woodlines are stable → beyond that new villagers to farms and gold. 115 villagers goal while maintaining military production and upgrades as needed before choosing to age up to Imperial Age.
add 2 tcs more around the castle(4 total) to create 48 farms in a perfect double square as wanted.

Click up to Imperial Age
(May click up upon if you deem it needed before or after reaching 115 villagers)

Suggestion: get Herbal meds and heal your knights often while utilizing hit and run tactics to minimize losses and increase gains over the enemy losses.

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Experimental Build no.2

6 villagers → 3-4 sheep → 2 boar → 1-4 pushed deer → farms

4 villagers → 1-2 straggler trees within farm distance of the tc → preferred woodline

5 villagers → berries → remaining sheep → second stone mine

4 villagers → woodline

5 villagers → first stone mine → gold, farms or woodline depending on resource needs at the time

Feudal Age

Research stone and lumber upgrades

4 villagers → woodline

3 villagers → farms

3 villagers → remaining stragglers → help with building tcs, castles and then go to either wood or farms

Castle Age

Research lumber and mill upgrades

You may experience wood difficulties, so I suggest starting with 2-3 tcs, the second or third tc being set to a nearby woodline. Within short manner you will be able to afford a second castle to defend the woodline followed by a third to defend the later gold-line.

The main difference for this build vs the first is the focus on stone and the ability to build further defensive structures.

The rest is similar to the first build order. Tho you might choose to focus on booming and go for Imperial Aggression.

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3rd experimental build order(to be added)

[Jackbrick]

Such a formation can easily be wiped out by siege onagers. Since they basically one shot kill nearly everything.

I don’t see this being viable by pro players.

[HealFortress]

Like any formation, it depends heavily on the skill of the player using it. Whether or not it’s useful depends on the player and the conditions they choose to use it in. Another factor being how to move to around the battlefield; when to advance, when to retreat, when to change formation and attack stance, as well as when to rely on it or to rely on the surrounding formation to take on certain unit composition or when to combine said compositions, etc.

[Jackbrick]

The game is balanced around pro players. These niche things belong in scenario or whatever.

You need a lot of resources to create such a formation. I’m not sure if it would be viable even in a team game where you have access to trade.

Even if you somehow made it, a bunch of high damage ranged units will lay waste to it.

[HealFortress]

That’s a challenge I fully intend to take on.

That being said, the formation itself is mostly used for anti melee types. For archers one should utilize surrounding formations and onagers, etc.

The intended composition is very flexible and should remain so, it is up to the player whether or not to use/build the centerpiece.
Herbal Meds may sometimes be the optimal play for instance.

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Added further pictures monday sept 13th for the defensive eco section.

[Nheltarion]

Dude, please, stop. This is both spam and egopost, I think everyone here knows how you play by now

[SwaggyOP]

Why do you have no bombard towers to protect your lumberjacks?

This looks like a clear weak point to me

[HealFortress]

@Nheltarion : I am remaking my guides into one, not just to remake them but to replace them all (most, if not all of note, were deleted because I updated them from time to time). I will not spam, I will update and post what was updated like any normal guide thread followed by a recreation of the thread entirely when it can no longer be edited on my own to stay away from ‘bumping’ the thread 4 months later with new info via an update post.

[Morgathor]

Now do one with Bohemians

[HealFortress]

If you’re worried about maneuverability/escape ability - perhaps the Spanish formation is for you - 29 Paladins, 20 Conquistadors, 11 Missionaries, square formation, stand ground -

Works well for conversions on the fly and generally quick well rounded battle tactics.

@Morgathor Bohemians is going to be tricky, either adding villagers to the formation or giving in to the point of no heals for the wagons - I’ll work on it this week and post it for you

[Julix3748]

Please don’t call this RPG Sim City thing a strategy, it’s not viable and you’ll confuse new players that want to learn how to be good
If you like to play like this it’s fine, have fun, but don’t spread misinformation to new players trying to learn
For any new players that might be reading: build your town centers near resources, not all bunched up in the middle of nowhere, that way you won’t need towers and house walls to protect them
Also box formation is not really good (since units at the back take way to long to engage) using attack move and keeping the default formation is the best

[Jackbrick]

Such a strategy does not work most of the time. You know what sometimes works? An all in men-at-arms rush. I will rush you, long before you could make so many units/fancy looking town on a very open map.

Don’t get me wrong, I like slow booming games of 4v4 michi/black forest, Europe Diplomacy. But even there, this strategy not very viable. I am not a pro at the game. I just okay at the game overall.

I played a game as the Goths (I was the better player) yesterday and all I did was spam men-at-arms (and tower rushed him) once I reached the feudal age on Arabia. I denied him his resources to prevent him from going to castle age. I went to the castle age and brought some stone and was preparing to drop a castle near his town center. But he quit before I could do that.

I censored the player’s name I was fighting. Game ended in 30.25 minutes. The point? Your strategy takes far too long to come into play. Since a pro player will rush you, stopping you dead in your tracks long before you could make such a nice town.

The game is not Sim City. You are meant to rush not turtle boom. Unless it black forest/michi perhaps. Or some scenario where you already have good defences.

[JokerPenguin593]

@BomberGriffin

Such a strategy does not work most of the time.

I partially disagree. The strategy work in two settings at not-high elos, where players are predictable:

• against boomy players in closed maps like arena, blackforest or even hideout. In low elos, a lot of players tend to go imp before attacking. If you have bombard cannons by then, the opponent cannot attack you freely under crenellations castle fire.
• against standard apertures in open maps (!). To make this work, you need to be reactive and try to economize your engagements. In low elos, you can defend against scout rush or m@a by walling your resources, and against archers with towers. Some opponents will try to age up to castle and attack. Use a couple of monks or mangonels to defend against knights or crossbows while you set up the fortress. Once you have the fortress (castle+4TC), if the enemy try to attack you with lots of units, he surely will lose them. Then, in imperial age you will have superior eco and so you should win most engagements (square formation not needed). If this works in low elos is because the opponent is used to attack a standard walled base, not a fortress like this, and they don’t know what to do.

The difficulty of pulling this in open maps is the monk/mangonel defense. One failure, and you lose. But if you can do it well, then it will work against most opponents, with some exceptions such as tati rush or goths-all-in-man-of-arms .

At higher elos, of course, this strategy doesn’t work (no pros use it), because games are more aggressive and flexible to respond weird strategies.

[Jackbrick]

I come came across this sort of thing before. All I was able to boom myself when it became clear he was not going to attack me on Arena. I captured all the relics, gold, stone mines. I was able to attack him with overwhelming force then. His defenses meant nothing. It was a relaxing game. I didn’t have to worry about rushing.

[JokerPenguin593]

@BomberGriffin

I come came across this sort of thing before. All I was was boom myself when it became clear he was not going to attack me on Arena.

As I said, the strategy doesn’t work against players like you that are not predictable. In that case, the player should abandon this strategy as well because he may lose after a very long game…
But in low elos this is rare.

[HealFortress]

Like any strategy, being flexible in changing your approach and knowing when to switch compositions is key. A player who is skilled at rushing would pull it off much better than I can.
My elo currently fluctuates between 1000-1080, currently it works at the average player level.
There is much room for me to personally improve as well as for the strategy itself to improve; the timing for everything can be changed up to provide certain advantages, and other strategies can be mingled into it.

[Jackbrick]

Besides your fortress is somewhat weak. Here’s something I did. Near unstoppable fortress, if the player your fighting is bad at the game.

Game went on for 3 hours. I bored my enemy to death wtih Feitoria spam. Feitoria Turtling Strategy?

[HealFortress]

Defensively, perhaps, offensively however - part of the point of having an open-air fortress is the potential that the enemy will attempt to raid and lose units because of it and waste valuable unit time raiding rather than defending.

[Jackbrick]

You can make your walls bigger and bigger, and creep bombard towers toward your enemy.

[HealFortress]

And as a sometimes user of ports, I love to do that too - unlimited walls, bombard towers and repairers of ally castles and siege/navy. It’s a wonderful ally civ in that context alone.

Sept 17th: added experimental offensive defense build to main post