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Howdah-FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 14:50
by _RDX_
Disclaimer: I hereby say, I am not any kind of owner to this strategy. It belongs to _H2O & co. My part is some refinement to this build.

Introduction:
For a long time, The Indian goon type unit- The Howdah was pretty underrated. Indian players loved to play with their strong infantry- Sepoys, Gurkhas, Urmis and with their tanky mahouts in age 3. Then people started use Howdahs a bit. I don't think how this idea popped up into his mind. But this strategy is all about Howdahs and their domination in the game. As you see Howdahs are very tanky. They have decent range in age 3 itself unlike any other goon types. Their attack is also an important factor. They seem to be too cost efficient sometimes. They do wonderful with +10% HP from the brits consulate. They act like heavy battle tanks with an insane range and attack for India.

The Deck:
https://imgur.com/a/MRbKC

Build Order:
There are two variations to age up: The normal 14 villie age up and the 10/10.

Age 1:

Variation 1 (The Normal 14 villie Age up):
1. With any type of crate start, Put 3 villies on wood crates first then food crates and 3 villies to chop wood, start queuing villies . No need of collecting gold crates(It delays your age up time). You can collect it during transition.
2. After your Food and wood crates deplete, Follow the Kami_Ryu's rule of thumb, " it takes 1 villager 25 seconds to train. It takes 7 villagers 25s to gather 100w. With wood trickle, it takes 5 villagers 25s to gather 100w. If you have 0-10w in stock after you queue up a new villager, then you can task either 5 or 7 villagers on wood to get 100w for the next one." Build a house.
3. Your first shipment will be the Distributivism- the wood trickle card.
4. Queue villies until you have 13, You gain +1 villie from the card. Then put all villies on food to gather 800 f for your age up.
5. Age with Karni, put 1-3 villies on wonder depending upon the time you age up. I used to remember this: 1 villie on wonder if you start aging at ~2.45-3.00, 2 villies if you start aging at ~3.10, 3 villies if you start aging at ~3.20+. Your standard age up time is at 3.00, so try to herd well as much as possible. Don't let your villagers walk a long distance from your TC.
6. Put 2-3 villies on food, the rest on wood.
7. Start the villager production going continuously from now on.
8. Build houses. A TP if possible.
9. ~4.40-5.10 is a decent time to get aged up.
10. This is the standard variation that can be followed on all maps.

Variation 2 (The 10/10):

1.If you have 400 w at start, just gather only food and wood crates and Queue up 4 villies and put all villies on food. Age with karni mata. Put only one villie on the wonder. Your monks are good treasure gatherers, Use them wisely.
2. If you have 300 w or less than that at start, just put ~4-5 villies to chop wood to queue 1-2 villies. Make sure you are aging with the 10/10 population bar.
3. Your first shipment will be the Distributivism- the wood trickle card.
4. You should start aging at ~1.50 - 2.30
5. Gather the gold crates that you have near your TC now. Put all villies on wood except ~1-2 villies on food. Build houses.
6. Keep the villie production going continuously from now on.
7. You should have aged up at ~3.40 - 4.20.
8. This is possible on maps like Deccan, Carolina and Yellow River, not much viable on other maps.

Tip 1: Drop the wonder where you have more resources in your base like near mines, trees and hunts.
Tip 2: (If you go with 10/10 variation) You can just take off the villie to gather resources after the wonder foundation has started. You will automatically age up without a villie on the wonder.

Age 2:

1. Collect the resources crates which received from age up using only 2 villies.
2. Your 2nd shipment will be 600 w
3. Quickly build TP's that you can find in the map, upgrade Stage Coach for the TP route, Use them as a resource trickling generator. Depending upon what you need. Food/Wood/Gold. Like you can use them to train batch of Howdahs using food and gold that you receive from TP's
4. Get a Consulate, ship your 3rd card- 300 exp and ally with Otto, get 4 villies and queue up end relations.
5. Ally with french, then get 500 gold crate. 500 wood or 500 food crates, if you have enough exp or just queue up end relations after 500 gold crate. And ally with brits.
6. Age with the Tower of Victory, get a caravanserai, a rax etc. You should start aging at ~7.00 depending upon the map.
7. Build a Market and start doing all market ups during transition.
8. You can send Foreign Logging as your 4th card or save it for age 3 to get better ones.

Age 3:

1. You must ship units card after you age up. It depends upon what your opponent does - 2 howdahs/2 mahouts/2 siege eles/ 8 gurks/ 7 urmis are in the option.
2. Spam 7-9 Howdahs.
3. The first 5 batch of Howdah can be used to harass, raid him, if he's still in age 2 that makes things even worse. He can't do anything without a goon type unit.
3. Few Gurkhas, if its necessary and if you are forced to make it. Urmi is a good option too.
3. The brits Surgeon healing is possible when your opponent kites well with goons and skirms, Surgeons build Field Hospitals which can heal Howdahs and other units in a faster rate than creating them after losing. You can get those monks around to heal them instantly. It takes 14 villagers to produce the 600 resources to spawn one howdah. Surgeons cost only 200 exp. Make use of them.
4. Keep sending eco upgrade cards/ military upgrade cards, The elephant combat card increases stats of all elephant typed units of the civ.
5. If he still troubles, ship 1000 w build some infrastructure like TC's, Castles and take the map control to win the game.
6. You can try even better combinations after you go age 4 like 16 urmi or 16 Urmi + 1 Mansabdar urmi and 7-9 howdahs.
Tip 3: Kiting and Microing with Howdahs: a. pull trick quite heavily to pull low hp out of the way
b. Shoot with back row and let front row keep running, then pull back row so they are always sprinting (prevents you from ever being shot by low ranged units).
Use the Cover mode for urmis when they are kited by skirms.
Recorded Games:

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 15:40
by _RDX_
All of the people in this forum for hate me :sad: I just get flamed up or receive no comments

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 15:44
by Gendarme
Sarir mar sakta hai, par atma amar hai.

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 15:58
by _RDX_
Gendarme wrote:Sarir mar sakta hai, par atma amar hai.

Are you kidding me?

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 16:02
by Gendarme
No. I am pretty bad at keeping my monks alive.

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 16:03
by Lukas_L99
_RDX_ wrote:3. The brits Surgeon healing seemed to be lame and as no one can do that now in EP, Imo. 6 Redcoats would do well or 5 petards to kill his important buildings instantly.


Really? How can't you do that on EP?

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 16:15
by _RDX_
There was a nerf given to brits surgeons on the earlier patches, you can still do that but it isn't viable anymore.

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 16:47
by pecelot
_RDX_ wrote:All of the people in this forum for hate me :sad: I just get flamed up or receive no comments

I guess just be more patient? :?

_RDX_ wrote:There was a nerf given to brits surgeons on the earlier patches, you can still do that but it isn't viable anymore.

Can you enlighten me where? The only part about Indian Surgeons was that they were made able to build Field Hospitals, which is actually a buff ;)
Indian, Chinese and Sioux Surgeons can now construct Field Hospitals.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BU_ ... 4p8k/edit#

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 16:59
by saksham
The build looks very nice

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 17:27
by aligator92
I think H2O skips the market and goes for tps and stagecoach first. Market off 600w or even during transition to Fortress

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 19:25
by DaRkNiTe1698
Here it is, h2o used this build vs mongo10 in the autumn tournament

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 19:29
by dietschlander
@_RDX_ I thank you and respect you for your efforts in thish nicely drawn up post

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 21:10
by _H2O
Great write up. Here's areas I would like to see more detail in. I stubbed out the thinking. I am sure there is more. This was a continuous 5 minute brain dump and I haven't done the build in a while.

1. Make seperate guides for when to market and when you stagecoach. On the stagecoach version market ups happen largely in transition. (only if you can't stagecoach)

2. Generally add more detail to some of the timings here and explain when to transition villagers. (For example, once you get the gold for your 2nd Howdah batch then switch to wood and food for mahouts usually)

3. Explain when and why to make Gurka. Answer is only if forced to because gurka are slow and hurt your kite value. You need them if the opponent knows to make a lot of goons then mix skirms.

4. The surgeon comment is wrong. They are not nerfed. They actually heal at the rate of a factory producing a howdah, so 200 export for 14 villagers if continuously healing. Add explanation for where surgeons should be standing, when to have your elephants help heal, when to stop healing.


5. Explain how to control your army in big fights. How to use urumi (when to cover mode)
How to control mahouts without patching issues
How to kite properly with howdah.

6. Section on the value of explorer elephants. Age1 and in fights.

7. Explain when to move out and what to aim for with your first 5 howdah.

8. Section on how to control howdah when kiting a. pull trick quite heavily to pull low hp out of the way (Kamchatka game on stream)
b. Shoot with back row and let front row keep running, then pull back row so they are always sprinting (prevents you from ever being shot by low ranged units). Add picture to explain.

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 21:14
by pecelot
Thanks! An a-bit-improved version may find its place on the Strategy Wall... ;)

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 22:21
by _H2O
Mitoe pointed out something really massive.

You don't 10/10 with this build ever. Probably need to fact check this a bit more.

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 23:52
by fei123456
_H2O wrote:Great write up. Here's areas I would like to see more detail in. I stubbed out the thinking. I am sure there is more. This was a continuous 5 minute brain dump and I haven't done the build in a while.

1. Make seperate guides for when to market and when you stagecoach. On the stagecoach version market ups happen largely in transition. (only if you can't stagecoach)

2. Generally add more detail to some of the timings here and explain when to transition villagers. (For example, once you get the gold for your 2nd Howdah batch then switch to wood and food for mahouts usually)

3. Explain when and why to make Gurka. Answer is only if forced to because gurka are slow and hurt your kite value. You need them if the opponent knows to make a lot of goons then mix skirms.

4. The surgeon comment is wrong. They are not nerfed. They actually heal at the rate of a factory producing a howdah, so 200 export for 14 villagers if continuously healing. Add explanation for where surgeons should be standing, when to have your elephants help heal, when to stop healing.


5. Explain how to control your army in big fights. How to use urumi (when to cover mode)
How to control mahouts without patching issues
How to kite properly with howdah.

6. Section on the value of explorer elephants. Age1 and in fights.

7. Explain when to move out and what to aim for with your first 5 howdah.

8. Section on how to control howdah when kiting a. pull trick quite heavily to pull low hp out of the way (Kamchatka game on stream)
b. Shoot with back row and let front row keep running, then pull back row so they are always sprinting (prevents you from ever being shot by low ranged units). Add picture to explain.

Why dont you write a guide yourself, instead of typing a lot of words here?

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 18 May 2017, 23:54
by _H2O
Took me 5 minutes to type that on my phone on a plane vs 2-3 hours of writing screenshots and finding replays.

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 19 May 2017, 00:37
by fei123456
_H2O wrote:Took me 5 minutes to type that on my phone on a plane vs 2-3 hours of writing screenshots and finding replays.

But you promised to write a complete howdah FF guide after the 2016 tournament. Now the 2017 tournament is about to end :smile:

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 19 May 2017, 14:20
by pecelot
Technically, it's still after the tournament :!:

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 19 May 2017, 20:28
by JakeyBoyTH
pecelot wrote:Technically, it's still after the tournament :!:

CoupRider is emphasising the amount of time after the tournament :!:

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 19 May 2017, 20:54
by pecelot
That one I noticed, on the other hand, I emphasised the term technically :idea:

Nonetheless, the build is already on the Strategy Wall! :flowers:

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 19 May 2017, 20:56
by AOEisLOVE_AOEisLIFE
"This build is fucking sexy, its a real 10. You know it, i know it, everybody knows it. It's just like, i tell you what, i tell you what it is, its just fucking sexy. A total 10."
-Donald Trump

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 20 May 2017, 07:42
by _RDX_
_H2O wrote:Mitoe pointed out something really massive.

You don't 10/10 with this build ever. Probably need to fact check this a bit more.

I saw with my two eyes, you did do 10/10. With the account "Howdah_Bout_That". What you did was to queue 4 villies, chop wood for a house and put all villies on food. I thought getting the house late is even better. But there was a lot of variations, the normal 14 villie age up slows down the FF time, imo.

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 20 May 2017, 07:44
by _RDX_
dietschlander wrote:@_RDX_ I thank you and respect you for your efforts in thish nicely drawn up post

Thank you! I hope it works for you well. It now does feel better than getting flammed up.

Re: Howdah FF Build

Posted: 20 May 2017, 13:46
by _H2O
_RDX_ wrote:
_H2O wrote:Mitoe pointed out something really massive.

You don't 10/10 with this build ever. Probably need to fact check this a bit more.

I saw with my two eyes, you did do 10/10. With the account "Howdah_Bout_That". What you did was to queue 4 villies, chop wood for a house and put all villies on food. I thought getting the house late is even better. But there was a lot of variations, the normal 14 villie age up slows down the FF time, imo.


What map? May have been yellow river or deccan where you can age straight without chopping wood. You cannot idle your tc to 10/10.