After a game tonight, I was reminded of my short lived twc experiences as a dutch player. Playing dutch, now more than ever, ensures difficult early game as ur opponent takes map control and may even go straight for the throat. One viable strategy which just might have some zing to it is to build your banks without worrying about getting silly skirmishers or what not out early, and making a saloon instead. no matter waht, you will always be able to make strong units as long as u have pop space, and for me, at that very low skill level, i found it to be very cost beneficial in my favor.
i imagine the strat involves cutting lots of wood seeing as you are planning on having your vills in ur tc neways, so you can build houses, banks of course, and maybe even towers if ur lucky. the tower card may be useful. but basically all u need to do is collect a total of 1850 food to age and get 3 banks and a wagon. also make a market, u could buy the food if needed to play cm, or even using the church card to get even more banks.
give it a try, might be fun
