I just played against a military academy dark age opener and just did it myself. Im here to tell you this building has potential in the dark age!!!
Let me first compare this idea to something else. Mongols is notorious for dark age aggression. They build ovoo for 150w then chop for typically barracks (another 150w), build it on ovoo or have it move to ovoo. Then pull 1 to 2 villagers to tower rush after making 2 to 4 spearman assuming the enemy isnt aggressively defending.
MONGOLS
Well in my humble experience and in watching some top level players; it’s not uncommon to have the the 2 spearsmen pop out the barracks by the 1min 40sec ish mark and be in the enemy woodlines around the 2min 40s ish towering something. So let’s count the cost of this strat.
- 150 starting wood on ovoo
- 150w chopped for barracks
- 60f, 20w and 80 stone (free) for first 2 spears
- 100w for tower (we will ignore this for now)
- Vil walk and build time" 60s tower, 60s walk across map, 20s ovoo walking, 15s ovoo build, 30s barrack build . (We will ignore for now costs associated specifically to towering)
- Not needing houses we’ll discount 50w per house not needed up to the point of strat execution (100w). (Factoring this on later).
So total NON feudal age up resources spent is 380 net resources plus 65s not gathering assuming a 2res/3sec gathering rate valued at bout 43 resources not gathered and not going toward feudal age up. We can argue about the ovoo cost, how mongols more or less has to make it pre feudal, so JUST to make my argument ill discount the cost of the ovoo but not the build time since it’s still time NOT gathering age up resources (new totals net 230 resources + 43 res worth of walk time/build time).
One last thing, assuming you’re just making the 2 spears and 1 tower then transitioning to feudal age up gathering, what has to be done to accomplish that? As mongols you get a free ger so you dont need to gather for one. This means mongols need do NOTHING additional to transition from tower rush to age up gathering.
OTTOMANS
NEXT LET’S take a close look at Ottomans. The military Academy cost 150 wood and 100 stone. You start with 150w (essential for age up prep) and 50 stone (non-essential and otherwise cannot be used until feudal).
If at the start of the game you pull 5 villagers to stone which is typically 9s walking time (one way); mine 50 stone (assuming 2/3 resources per sec gathering rate), walk back!! 9s to TC then take 30s to have 1 villager build the academy. All this should take about 62 seconds. But it would have cost you:
- 150w, 100st (50st was effectively free)
- 18s walk time with 5! Vils
- 30s build time
For an adjust net total of 200 resources plus 120s build/walk time valued at 80 resources.
In a perfect world your first spearman would be trained at 2min 12s ish.
Similar to what we considered with mongols. You WILL NEED AT LEAST 100 WOOD for a house and a mining camp to transition from drush to feudal age up gathering. So effectively net is 300 resources plus 80 resources required to execute this opener prior to age up macro.
All this to say as a defensive strat delaying your age up by 50s maybe 60s??? But have 4 spears at home by the 5:41 mark to defend from french or Rus raids? Or having 2 spears at the 3min20s to help defend against mongol tower rush?
Untapped potential here!!