Here is a new one I devised. You guessed it: It's for the Germans. Now, we all know that Germans are quite versatile. They can boom superbly with market upgrades and massive settler shipments. They can apply excellent colonial pressure with xbows, pikes and uhlans. And of course they can do FF-style strats (my personal fav since 2007). We do not really view the Germans as a super-rush civ like the Aztecs, Iros or Russians, but I think there are ways to use the Germans in this manner. And because people do not expect a go-for-broke early German rush (ie, you can't really siege-rush with 14 xbows and a few uhlans), the surprise factor could be worth it.
Germany has some potent high-siege early siege options. They can send 4 Landsknechts (430 HP each, with 72 siege and 104 attack against cav) or 3 doppels (230 HP each, with 60 siege and 60 attack against cav with 2 area). Of course, they do not have blockhouses or war huts to stuff units right in your face from the get-go, but there is a way to get around this problem: BUILD AN OUTPOST IN DISCOVERY.
Rather than building an early market during the transition to colonial, gather 250 wood with all your SWs and 3-4 villagers. Send an SW to a hunting ground/mine and put up the outpost. Then get enough for a house. Once you put up the house, switch all your wood gatherers to coin and mass 400 coin ASAP if you want to do Landsknechts. Once you get the 400 coin, take a few vils off the mine and put them on food for vil production and uhlans. Age with 16 vils (Q-master, of course), so that should put you in colonial pre-4:30. Once you get to colonial, build either a barracks or stable at your outpost/FB, set your HC arrival point on the outpost and ship in the Landsknechts. If you get it right, they should arrive about 5:15. Meanwhile, use your remaining age-up wood for 2 houses (50 pop). Build uhlans from your stable, or doppels if you really want to punch them hard. Personally I like having uhlans to knock out any RI or MM they might have on hand. Charge into their base with your Landsknechts, siege any military buildings, then just try to pressure them to death. Send in 3 doppels or 8 xbows next, and keep building uhlans. Ultimately, this is an all-out rush strat. Don't use it against a musket heavy civ, since they can handle hand inf and cav. Still, don't underestimate Landsknechts--no other unit in colonial has so many HP. They are tanks. If the other guys goes cav, it will probably be GG. Landknechts can kill hussars with 3 hits, plus they resist 30% against hand damage.
People rarely expect an all-out German rush. I mention all this because it is a handy addition to my strat-book. I foresee that it would work well against Spain, Sioux and maybe the Dutch. But don't use it against Japan, Brits, India or the Ottos.
In team games, you can vary this strat a little bit. Rather than sending Landsknechts or doppels to your forward outpost, send 5 uhlans and build 5 more. Getting a raiding force together pre-5:00 really helps throw the other team off balance; you might even be able to kill their FB vils before they build any buildings....and we all know what that does to your game
Or you can send the 5 uhlans directly into their bases extremely early. Those 30 secs between 5 and 5:30 make all the difference in the world; if your cav can save time by arriving at the outpost, they can cause a lot more early havoc.I am thinking that this strat could be really dangerous with an Aztec or Iro ally. A 2 skull knight/14 mace/4 landsknecht/4 uhlan rush at 5:40 would be extremely hard to stop.
I generally don't do rated anymore, but feel free to use my builds as much as you like!
