A Basic Guide to British

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Canada Mitoe
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A Basic Guide to British

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Post by Mitoe »

I've enjoyed playing Brit in recent months, and although I can't claim to be as experienced with them as some other players I think many will find this guide helpful regardless. In this guide I will not cover any Virginia Company/Water builds or any similar deviations from what could be considered "standard British play."


Deck

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This is the deck I use for most of my Brit games. If I had to swap out any cards I'd consider swapping out 700f for Hussar Attack, 600c, or 4v in Colonial, or 4 huss/9 musk/1000w for some eco upgrades or different military shipments in Fortress. You could also swap out VC for an eco card or an additional military shipment in Industrial.


Discovery Age

Brits are one of the faster civilizations in the game: they are able to begin aging at around ~2:40 (16 or 17 villager population) in most games, and as early as ~2:15-2:20 (15 or 16 villager population) with a couple of good food treasures, while most civs don't begin aging until 3:00 - 3:05. On a poor start you may not be able to get this age time, but in most games you should be able to get it relatively easily.

For this reason, I would personally discourage players from trying to get extra value out of their starting crates by trying to building extra manors or forcing an early market because that age up time is actually really important for Brit, and you often cannot begin aging before 3:00 if you do. Besides, the extra resources you'll get from that extra villager or market upgrade will easily be compensated by beginning your manor boom ~20-25 seconds earlier and receiving your first Colonial shipment (which is usually an economic shipment) ~20-25 seconds earlier as well.

Food start:
Build 1 manor. If you have a 40w treasure or similar in your base you can chop for a 2nd manor, but only if you get it right away.

Wood start:
Build 2 manors. You will have extra wood leftover but don't chop for a 3rd manor unless you happen to have a really good wood or food treasure (60w+ or 80f+) very close to your base, otherwise you will age late.
- Alternatively, you can build a Trading Post and chop 35w for a manor, but in my experience I usually age late when I do this and I'm not sure it's really worth it anyway. British shipments feel less valuable to me than other civs, mostly because you're already generating a lot of resources from your massive economy so the value of a 700 resource shipment feels less impactful than it would with a civ that has 10 less vills.

Coin start:
Building a market is possible, but I would only recommend it if you have an early coin treasure in or near your base. With 175c you can buy 100w for your manor and grab Hunting Dogs afterward, but mining 75c without a treasure to help supplement the cost will often leave you aging late.

Age with either the Governor (Tower + 200c), or the Philosopher Prince (500f), depending on whether you expect early aggression or not. In games where you expect water to be important, age with the Governor and use the tower to take control of part of the water.


Transition to Colonial

Once you start aging you have to decide if you're going to be spreading your vills out across the map or playing more defensively in your base:


Option 1: Spreading out your Villagers

If you're playing against a civ that is unlikely to be able to raid you or pressure your vills within the first few minutes of Colonial (China or Japan, for example), spread out a few vills to different parts of the map (e.g. 1 north, 1 south, 1 forward, and preferably near hunts and mines). Normally you will want to forward base with this variation—as your fb will grant you more control over those resources and make it easier to respond to threats—so make sure that 1 forward vill is in a good fb location.

You'll want to use these vills to construct the bulk of your manors: try to place them in spots that will give you decent vision if any units approach that area (e.g. choke points), but try not to place them so far from natural resources that you have to walk the newly produced vill very far.

Doing this does a couple of things for you: firstly, it grants you vision of the map and therefore gives you more control over the resources in that area; secondly, it prevents you from over-saturating the resources in your base, and saves you walking time overall. Instead of making manors in your base and cramming all of your vills into 1 or 2 hunts in your base and then walking 25-30 vills across the map toward the next hunt a couple of minutes later, you walk 2-3 vills across the map and then spawn those vills directly on top of those resources as the game progresses, saving you walking time.

Another good way to make use of this sort of vill spreading is to try to use these vills you sent out to herd hunts to nearby gold mines, and then split your vills onto the mines and hunts. This way will also deplete your mines in your base a lot more slowly, and when your hunt runs out inside your base you can transfer those food vills to the mines inside your base and the vills you have on gold outside of your base onto hunts, saving yourself even more walking time.

Macroing this way feels really good and will save you from having to deal with lots of idle/walking time throughout the game while also granting you more control over the map.


Option 2: Staying Home

If you're playing against a civ that IS likely to raid or apply early pressure—civs like Germany or Russia for example—you may want to play it safe and construct your manors at home instead. UNLESS you are aging particularly early or planning to start cavalry. In which case the early age time and the mobility of your hussar may enable you to defend locations outside of your base; however, if you do choose to go for this I would recommend choosing one part of the map to send vills to rather than trying to spread vills all over the map in order to make it easier to control.


Transition Build:
- If you already have a market up, continue gathering food until you can queue Gang Saw, then switch all vills to wood—excepting a 1-2 vills that may be herding with no trees nearby. Decide between Option 1 or Option 2 as described above.


In transition you will have time to build:

- 4 - 5 Manors (60 - 80 population)
OR
- 3 Manors (50 or 60 population) + Market (after manors) + Hunting Dogs and possibly Placer Mines
OR
- 3 Manors (50 or 60 population) + Trading Post (not recommended for most games)

Once you've constructed these buildings, begin saving 200w for a military building upon age up. Switch a few vills to food if you need to in order to queue a vill as soon as or shortly after you age up.


Colonial:
- If you do not need to units immediately and you already have a market and some spare coin, consider researching Steel Traps before constructing a military building.
- Build either a Barracks or a Stable.

If you chose to build a Barracks in order to train Muskets, you should be able to leave a few vills on wood (for more manors) and still be able to get consistent batches of 5 Muskets.

If you chose to build a Stable, you will need to switch all vills to Food/Coin in order to get a full batch of Hussar out, and continue Hussar production afterward. If you aged with coin you will need ~6-8 vills on coin in order to get a batch out, with 10-13 vills on coin after the first batch. If you aged with food you will need 10-13 vills on coin unless you had some solid coin treasures.

Your first shipment should be either 5 Settlers or 700w, unless for some reason you really need the units; in which case you may send 6 Muskets or 6 Longbow if absolutely necessary.


700w:
- Sending 700w first is the the most standard thing you can do with Brit, and for good reason; it's a very flexible shipment. You may choose to add a second military building, a market if you do not have one, finish up your market upgrades if you still need steel traps or placer mines, or simply use it for more manors. If you're ever uncertain of what shipment to send in early Colonial, send 700w and worry about your 2nd shipment.

5 Settlers:
- Sending 5 Settlers first will allow you to maintain military production relatively easily, as you won't have to spend time gathering crates or constructing manors, you can just task them to gathering immediately. This can be especially useful if you plan on spamming a lot of Hussar in early Colonial, and you should be able to get consistent batches of 5 Hussar with careful macro. The downside to sending this card first is that you will be forced into sending 700w as your 2nd Colonial shipment, and will be stuck on 1 military building until it arrives. You will also be stuck without a market or certain market upgrades until 700w arrives if you don't already have a market.


Basic Shipment Orders:
In general you can send your shipments in any order after you've sent 700w, depending on what you need at the time:

- 5 Settlers is a good way to boom a little bit harder if you haven't already sent it before 700w.
- 600w keeps your options open and provides you with more infrastructure.
- 700c/700f can be used to spam units or age up.
- Military Upgrades are a good way to extend your lead if you're ahead, or generate a lead if you're even.

If you opt to send 3 relatively greedy shipments as your first 3 shipments (e.g. 700w 5v 600w), you should in general make sure you always have 3 military buildings to produce from after those 3 shipments have arrived; usually 1 Stable and 2 Barracks, but in specific circumstances (e.g. British mirror) you could also go for a 3rd Barracks.

As a general rule of thumb, if you're planning on aging up relatively early (e.g. by sending 700c as your 3rd Colonial shipment), you should probably avoid sending 5 Settlers and just send 700w & 600w first, in order to get more infrastructure up; otherwise you risk getting housed in early Fortress. If you plan to age later than that, then feel free to send 5 Settlers, but try to make sure you've always sent both wood shipments before you age up.


That's pretty much all there is to it, really. Your build order as British is pretty open-ended; simply make sure you get 700w out as your first or 2nd shipment in Colonial and then go from there. The important thing is not the build order itself, but your macro and unit composition. Whenever possible try to avoid crowding your vills in one or two locations and oversaturating your resources this way, or you will suffer a lot of idle time, and consider walling off parts of the map to make them safer to gather from.

As for unit composition, for the most part you'll want musk/huss to be the backbone of your military early on. Longbow are good as well, but they're more effective in larger numbers and once you've built up something of a meatshield that can tank enough so that the longbow don't need to kite. Also play under the assumption that most civs are either going to try to all-out rush you, or going to try to age up. It's unlikely that most other civs will be willing to play Colonial against you if they're not rushing, as Brit will outboom and their Colonial military will outscale the majority of civs, so if you're not being rushed you should usually try to be fairly aggressive.

Normally you should only try to age to Fortress if you know your opponent is going to be aging as well, and once you've built up a military advantage somehow, otherwise you will be conceding map control and will likely run out of resources in early Fortress and in a position where it's difficult to push out of your base. If you do decide to age, always age with The Marksman (7 Longbow) unless your opponent is on water, in which case The Admiral of the Ocean Sea (400w + Caravel) is also possible.


Fortress
If you do reach Fortress, you'll want send mostly unit shipments until you've stabilized and established enough control over the map to gather safely, at which point you'll want to begin sending military upgrades like Cavalry Combat and Yeomen. Muskets should rarely be the backbone of your Fortress army, so you should avoid sending Musketeer/Grenadier Combat most of the time.

Keep in mind that Brits take a long time to age up (110 seconds) as they don't have access to fast age, which can allow some civs an opportunity to apply pressure before you age up. Depending upon the situation, you'll want to use one of two unit compositions:

1) Musk/Huss/Longbow + Pike (sometimes)
This will be your go-to unit composition in early Fortress most of the time, as all of these units are trainable in transition to Fortress, and goons are relatively ineffective unless you have a decent mass of them, mostly because you'll want to avoid kiting with your longbows, and a small number of goons won't provide enough protection to keep cav off of your longbows. Not to mention you may want to send falcs, which would make it even more difficult to kite.


2) Dragoon/Longbow + Pike/Musk
If you have the time, this composition can be really strong if you manage to build up a large enough mass of Goon/Longbow, especially once you've sent Yeomen and Cav Combat. You'll want mostly Goon/Longbow with just a few musk/pike to ward off cavalry from engaging directly. Keeping a few vills near the army to construct walls on the flanks or in front of your longbow can be a good idea too, but difficult to pull off.


That's pretty much it. I'm sure there are some important details I've left out that aren't coming to mind at the moment, so let me know if you have any questions and let me know what you think!
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by NekoBerk »

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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by HUMMAN »

Great!
Always wondered, why 400 w is not avaiable in colonial? Its probably because you want to pop out units and you chop wood early to get manors earlier. not a brit player but is 400 w + 5 settler enough to pump musk batches?
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Mitoe »

HUMMAN wrote:Great!
Always wondered, why 400 w is not avaiable in colonial? Its probably because you want to pop out units and you chop wood early to get manors earlier. not a brit player but is 400 w + 5 settler enough to pump musk batches?

I'm not really sure what you mean. The 400w politician? Or just saving 400w for 2 military buildings?
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by HUMMAN »

400 w politician.
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by tedere12 »

will only read if @thebritish approves
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by gamevideo113 »

HUMMAN wrote:400 w politician.

Britain is missing that politician.

Anyway this guide is great to get started with brits! The write up format is also impressive!
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by HUMMAN »

gamevideo113 wrote:
HUMMAN wrote:400 w politician.

Britain is missing that politician.

Anyway this guide is great to get started with brits! The write up format is also impressive!

Lol :biggrin:
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Runtius »

Great guide!

I have some questions:
1. Are you sure you can get 5 Manors in transition + 200w for rax/stable? Is this only when you already have a market up + gangsaw?
2. When do you go 3rd age against Germany (ger with ff into skirm/uhlan/br or ww), france (france with semiff into goon/skirm,later curas), china (ff), japan(staying colonial as long as you push and go straight IV age behind)
3. What composition do you use against india, japan and china?
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Mitoe »

Runtius wrote:Great guide!

I have some questions:
1. Are you sure you can get 5 Manors in transition + 200w for rax/stable? Is this only when you already have a market up + gangsaw?
2. When do you go 3rd age against Germany (ger with ff into skirm/uhlan/br or ww), france (france with semiff into goon/skirm,later curas), china (ff), japan(staying colonial as long as you push and go straight IV age behind)
3. What composition do you use against india, japan and china?

1. It is easiest when you have a market + gangsaw already, but otherwise it still should be doable although you may have to delay your military building by ~10 seconds.

2. In general you want to go Fortress once you've established some kind of military advantage; for example, if you manage to kill a lot of Germany's uhlans or win a fight reasonably hard, or kill a lot of villagers early on and don't expect him to be able to recover very quickly.

3. India can be difficult. I've had the most success with trying to either musket-semi or push out around 8:00 with a big mass of longbow/pike. This matchup might be an exception, where you may even want to have Jaegers in your deck if you're in Fortress just so you can actually kite sepoy or urumi effectively.

Against Japan I usually open with 5 pike and then make primarily longbows for a while, and try to harass his vills. Have to scout for an early stable just so you don't get caught off guard, and can add more pikes if you do see one. Add a stable once you've sent 600w, and begin massing longbow/huss with a few pike or musk if you suspect cav. If you win a fight you can age or try to end the game with more units.

As for China, you should have enough time to get a good mass of longbow/goon going, with a few huss/pike/musk to body-block his melee units. Have to be careful he doesn't just FI, however.
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Lunatic_Fringe »

It's been a long time that there has not been a good British guide out there.
Thanks for the post @Mitoe :)
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Runtius »

Mitoe wrote:2. In general you want to go Fortress once you've established some kind of military advantage; for example, if you manage to kill a lot of Germany's uhlans or win a fight reasonably hard, or kill a lot of villagers early on and don't expect him to be able to recover very quickly.


Do you prefer a hus opnening against germany? Normally when i go musk first to protect my hunting vills against uhlan raids, i stay defensive until i have enough musks to protect and raid his vills but then he is already 3rd age and can push me back with skirms. I think at this point its to late to start cav because when i have 10 hus he already have br and enough skirms to roll over me...

Mitoe wrote:3. India can be difficult. I've had the most success with trying to either musket-semi or push out around 8:00 with a big mass of longbow/pike. This matchup might be an exception, where you may even want to have Jaegers in your deck if you're in Fortress just so you can actually kite sepoy or urumi effectively.


I also tried musk semi and it worked really well. I think i have the biggest problem in controlling a 3 unit type army in 3rd age.

Mitoe wrote:Against Japan I usually open with 5 pike and then make primarily longbows for a while, and try to harass his vills. Have to scout for an early stable just so you don't get caught off guard, and can add more pikes if you do see one. Add a stable once you've sent 600w, and begin massing longbow/huss with a few pike or musk if you suspect cav. If you win a fight you can age or try to end the game with more units.

It feels like most of the japan players open now with the wonder where you get more exp + samurai to crush the pike opening. I think in this scenario its the best to open with some musk and add lb+hus later on. But its really hard to fight a big mass of yumi+ashi+daymo.
When he reached this mass would you go 3rd age or do you think its possible to fight him?

Mitoe wrote:As for China, you should have enough time to get a good mass of longbow/goon going, with a few huss/pike/musk to body-block his melee units. Have to be careful he doesn't just FI, however.


ok, thanks
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Goodspeed »

Well at least it's in your deck. That's something I guess :sad:
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by hleung »

Great guide - although some of us prefer greedier builds whenever it is viable. :P

Anyway, the guide has been added to the Strategy Wall. :flowers:
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Runtius »

I tried it today and i think it is not possible to get 5 manors up in transition?
I got hunting dogs + 95wood treasure, gangsaw and only got up to 60pop and 120 wood...
@Mitoe can you show me a replay?
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by ssaraf »

@Runtius i think u r rite, but if u delay a your rax by 10 sec or so as mitoe mentioned in his guide (since u age a bit early , u can collect wood for longer and hence more manors). But yes, by normal play (saving 200w for rax as soon as u hit age2 , u cant get 80 pop). Maybe the master can show sth here :D
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by tedere12 »

I always get 2 manors and market + 125 w for steel traps. For hus start I get 3 manors + market and wait for 700w for steel traps. TP In transition is really decent actually if you are doing a semi because you can have same results as VC with 20-25 unit semi ff and age at 10:30 (700w 600w 5 vill 700c). Thing is you are a bit slow and you might have a hard time spending your resources and managing your vills and hunts. A fast cav semi for euro civs seems very effective against this
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by fei123456 »

Good work! And here are some of my ideas:
1. If british do a 3v start, it may not be wise to spam many manor houses in age 2, as VC can do much better. Train more units in early age 2, then do a timing push/go age 3.
2. China/japan may raid you early too (they're likely to do something "different" because they can't win an eco competition with you). So spamming vills all around the map may be risky.
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Goodspeed »

Runtius wrote:I tried it today and i think it is not possible to get 5 manors up in transition?
I got hunting dogs + 95wood treasure, gangsaw and only got up to 60pop and 120 wood...
@Mitoe can you show me a replay?
Are you chopping with every vill?
5 manors + 200w at age up does sound like a lot.
Though do you really need that 200w right away? :hmm:
What about trading some of that age up coin for wood? Assuming people are still aging with tower.
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Runtius »

I send 2 vills to herd a bit but every other vill is on wood. Against raiding or rushing civs i want to have instant 200w otherwise they could deny my rax.
I didnt even had wood ready for steel traps in the game i mentioned... So 2 houses + wood for steel traps + 200w seems possible (with 3v opening).
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Goodspeed »

2 vills on wood for 90 seconds equals about 90w. So that definitely matters.
You should chop with every vill, unless you aged with tower in which case you need to gather 100f for vill production in colonial. Another reason 500f is almost always better.
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Asateo »

Goodspeed wrote:2 vills on wood for 90 seconds equals about 90w. So that definitely matters.
You should chop with every vill, unless you aged with tower in which case you need to gather 100f for vill production in colonial. Another reason 500f is almost always better.


Won't not herding leave you to vulnerable? Especially on RE?
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Goodspeed »

You can chop wood with vills that are herding in most cases I've found
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by deleted_user0 »

TP+VC should be played in most of the esoc maps. tp+good hunts all you need.
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Re: A Basic Guide to British

Post by Runtius »

also if you have 200w + gold start?

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