Yes, you read that correctly, I strongly believe in the new PUP Delhi!! And I’ve flirted with this BO, on paper and in a few practices vs similar skilled OPPS,
and it is exceptionally strong vs BOOM civs!
Idea is FC into WAR Elephants and archers. This comp will eat ANY, yes ANNNYYYY feudal based army, PERIOD. Obviously you need right number of units, but if you can get 8 archers and 2+ Elephants out vs a Boomer civ around the 10-12min Mark, they will NOT likely have the counter mass to contend. Once you have them reacting to your WAR + archers, NOW you’ll be capturing sites, snatching up relics, meanwhile your castle age techs are researching. By the time you switch 8 or so to stone, your TC keep tech should be done, meaning you turn a full FC aggression into eco momentum, no stop!! AND keep in mind this still falls in line with Delhi’s natural power spike at around the 15-20min.
BO:
I make an extra scout first… I know normally Delhi doesn’t need it, but I think both having extra sheep for emergency AND scouting vision for all relics and pulse at all times of what your opponent is doing that might mess up your FC is critical, and more important than that 15-20s later age up. I’ll put more vils on the landmark anyways.
5 on straggler, 1 build mill
pull the 5 off straggler at 50w;
from there semi standard 9 food 3 gold then I go 3 on straggler for house then lumber camp
Age up with DOF, I use 6 vils to keep a 4:25 ish age up (why? b/c I want my castle eco techs ready to que when I hit castle, so that means my feudal’s need to get started asap)
next I want 5 on GOLD, 3 on wood and all the rest on berries; heck try to sneak off 1 or so vils to a far berries.
I make 2 scholars from DOF for sneak sacred site captured if I can, otherwise just to speed up tech and grab relics immediately on age up the HRE/Delhi way.
For castle landmark I don’t rush it up with several villagers unless I will have the resources to make a WAR elephant on age up OR my eco techs will be ready to go OR I can safely sneak relics back to base.
Oh? I make an archer range in transition to castle and a stable last since I can’t make War elephants yet in transition; I skip the BSM until I have a respectable War/archer mass; what good are military techs with zero units?
In summary (IMO)
The strengths of this BO is taking advantages of Delhi’s free techs back to back into stronger than feudal comp then into relics, sites, KEEP boom!! This will put boomer civs and even some FC civs on notice!!