Dutch Strategies {work in progress}

[dutchdude117]

Currently this is a text document on my desktop that I use to take notes.
This is a work in progress, it may never get finished.
This is for my own personal use but I decided to upload to share for any other noobs that might benefit.
My PR is quite low.

AGE 1:
2 vils on 1 coin create, 1 vil on another coin create, 3 vils on mine (or on hunt if 5 coin start)
Gather coin for 12 vils usually
however on a 5coin 1food start you can go for 11 vil age up
Gather coin for 12th vil slowly, because if we find a gold treasure it will still be very useful to us (its as if its a food treasure)
*Ship 3 vils always

Almost any treasure is strong, because they help get our first bank up faster, Wood > Food > Gold

Harrasing Enemy Explorer: If they are a civ that commonly goes for trade post (e.g. Germany France) send your envoy/explorer to the middle trade post to harras while he builds.
Keep scouting for enemy explorer, with envoy you will beat him in any fight, be prepared to micro alot, but it is worth it.
Use envoy to walk infront of him to stun him if he tries to run while getting in punches.

Keep an eye on their age up time, it can indicate their intentions
*10 vil age up (india) indicates 10/10 all in
14 vil age up (~3:40) indicates an aggressive play
15 vil age up (~4:05) indicates standard play ( could try to fight it out in colonial or age up )
16 vil age up (~4:30) indicates fortress play with greedy age 1 and age 2

*if you some how scout that they are doing an all in, such as India 10/10 consider building a trade post and shipping Colonial Militia, the trade post makes sure you still have the
the exp needed for your age 2 shipments

AGE 2:
scout for aggression: depending on the level of aggression many ways to respond
Sign:
-Enemy Barracks (Agra Fort) + unit shipment
Indicates an Infantry Rush All In (india sepoy rush)
[1] Barracks and 5 skirms (7 skirms vs inida). Use explorer to pull units with his 4.5 speed. Minutemen to defend against cav shipment
*You must build walls if you are going barracks first
*keep an eye on how many houses he has, this can help indicate if he is sending a shipment or not
*keep an eye out for a stable in case he tries to add cav into his composition, you will need to save your skirmishers somehow if he does.
You can build pikes, or possibly send your skirms away from your base until you age up and can get adequate anti cav up

-Enemy More than 1 houses in early age 2
Indicates some sort of colonial play:
[1] if you havent scouted it already, its most likey a proxxy production building, try to find if possible
[2] Building walls is a good idea to prevent a surprise attack

-Enemy Stable
Indicates a Huss Semi FF: Multiple options
[1] No Unit 3 bank FF: if you manage to get enough hunts under you towncenter you can safely gather and defend with Minute Men if he tries to idle you
Punish by aging and getting Ruyters out as soon as possible. Building walls is good to limit his hurrass potiential, make chokes and deny access to your hunts/mine
*keep shipping 8 pikes and canceling incase he builds 10 hussar

[2] Stable and 5 Hussar: keep your hussar in base until you start aging up, defend you vilagers
*Always keep 1 hussar in queue incase you need to boost production (he goes for 10 hussar).

[3] Barracks and pikes: keep pikes in base to protect vils, keep scouting diligently to make sure he is not adding infantry into his composition.
if he adds infantry you will need to produce skirms to protect your pikes.
*You must build walls if you are going barracks first

-Enemy No Production building and heavy economic inventment (market, trade post) with very few houses
Indicates a naked FF with economic greedy:
[1] No Units Eco Greed: go for maximum amount of banks and then age up
[2] Stable and 5 huss: bell up his eco and pick off any vils
[3] No Units 3 bank FF: allows you to get to age 3 first with strong eco
[4] 2 Forward Barracks Pike All in: punish greedy play and end the game right there and then *not usually recomended*

-Enemy No Production buidling and no economic investment (no market, but maybe 1 tp)
Indicates a naked FF, with agenda to rush you in age 3 (i.e. spain ff)
[1] No Unit 3 bank FF: make sure you build all your building behind your town center to protect them from fast 2 falconet shipment
mass up dragoons as soon as you can, build a stable as you age up
[2] Stable 5 Huss: Use your hussar to raid and slow down his eco as much as possible. After he is age 3, if he goes stable bring hussar home,
if he goes barracks, keep hussar on his side of map to delay push as much as possible

Age 3:
Mass up Ruyters, they are by far your best unit, they will trade well into anything that he can produce in early fortress.
*If you have enough ruyters you can even trade into skirms
Start Skirm production, especially if they started with barracks type units
If the enemy does not instantly start applying pressure, finish off your banks if not already

Important Strategies:
[1]Huss Switch: if your enemy is going too much into skirm type units, a strong tactic is to do a huss switch, mass hussar secretly and ship cav combat with veteran upgrade
[2]Cannons: against TAD and TWC civs especially, many of their units are more effective than yours in combat, especially their infantry, so cannons will become the a
strong option. Consider building halberdiers if you are going for cannons, they make excellent "Stand Your Ground" units vs all in attacks.
Consider building culverins if you scout that they built an artillary foundry or you see that they shiped 2 falconets.
*If you go cannons you must win the cannon war or the game is lost, so make sure you micro cannons with full attention.
[3]Use Ruyter to keep map pressure, use their superior mobility to avoid taking any bad trades. If they chase with their own dragoons, set up ambushes with your own skirmishers.
Idle their villagers as much as possible and deny coin gathering as much as possible
[4]Siege Units: If the enemy has building out on the map (forward base/ China Villages/ Japanese Shrines/ Tradepost) you need to build a small group of seige units.
Any pikemen left over from colonial will be good, if not build 5-10 halbadiers and protect them well with the skrirm ruyter composition. They will still be useful for
a cannon switch or if the enemy builds more hussar.

Arsenal:
Very important building for dutch if you ever have time to build
*[1] Ruyter Range + damage upgrade "this is the main one we are building this building for"
[2] Skirm anti infantry upgrade
[3] Huss HP upgrade
[4] Halb HP upgrade

Spies:
Build Church and make 2-4 spies over time
These units are critical for our win condition for 2 main parts
[1] they scout the coin mines for us to make sure the enemy is not gathering, and if they are that we are punishing them
[2] they scout the position and composition of the enemy army allowing us to adapt of composition to counter theirs and to make sure we dont lose map control to a bad fight
that we should not have taken

**Dutch Win Condition: Gain Map Control (especially control of coin mines)
Wait for them to run out of coin, and win with your advanced units (that cost coin)

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Specific Matchups:
Aztec:
-FI with Skull Knight and Mace and super War Chief
[1]Possible counter: Age your own FI and get out heavy cannons
[2]Halbs to deal with skull knights
[3]Spies to deal with War Chief
[3]Heavy Cannons to deal with Arrow Knights
[4]Hussar to get on top of Mace

[dutchdude117]

Aztec:
-FI with Skull Knight and Mace and super War Chief:
Early Game Counters
Late Game Counters:
[1]Possible counter: Age your own FI and get out heavy cannons
[2]Halbs to deal with skull knights
[3]Spies to deal with War Chief
[3]Heavy Cannons to deal with Arrow Knights
[4]Hussar to get on top of Mace
-Colonial All in with Mace and Puma:
[1]Barracks with 400 age up wood and skirms
[2]Vilagers to fight sieging pikemen (take great coats and maybe blunderbuss)
[3]Send several vilagers away from base to gather from coin mine around the map, if he is all in at your base he cannot be denying resources around the map
and it is critical that you continue to gather (build a market out of base so you can trade coin for food and wood, and make sure to buy coin upgrades)
[4]If you scout it early or have a strong feeling he will do it, ship CM (colonial militia)
Also you may want to consider building a TP (trade post) so you do not fall behind in shipments
[5]consider building envoys if you have extra food to fight the pikemen and tank shots from mace
[6]consider sending 700 coin or 700 food as your first shipment to get more units out faster
[7]make sure to keep explorer in base to help defend

[dutchdude117]

British:

[dutchdude117]

Useful Posts and Links:
Mitoe's advice in India Matchup
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=9030&p=195032&hilit=dutch#p196888

[dansil92]

If you wish to counter the azzy fi as Dutch i would highly recommend the church card fi with the stadhouder guard musk and stradiots with heavy cannon shipment

[Challenger_Marco]

I would never make spies

[dutchdude117]

I would never make spies

Right now i think they are the most under utilized unit in the game. I think when the Church xp change comes around they will be one of the biggest changes to the meta, as people will naturally start building them.

[dutchdude117]

Sioux:
Failed to record game, but here is analysis anyways.
-Colonial Play with early bow riders with a axe rider switch:
Early Game Counters:
[1] stable start with ship 8 pike
huss for raiding and keeping him on his side of map
8 pike can siege down trade post or any forward building and also protect your huss from bow riders for a small time
while aging keep units in base on standground mode so they cannot be picked off by bow riders
try to herd next to towncenter so bow riders cannot starve you from hunts
[2] barracks start with skirm pike

[dutchdude117]

French:

[dutchdude117]

Portuguese:

[Plantinator]

Just give me a text if you want to test any mu besides germany and china (;

[dutchdude117]

Just give me a text if you want to test any mu besides germany and china (;

21, sounds good mate

[dutchdude117]

Japan:

[dutchdude117]

Ottoman:

[dutchdude117]

German:

[dutchdude117]

Spain:

[dutchdude117]

China:

[horsedancingwithcrow]

This guide has aha moments.
I am gonna start using words and expressions I read here or i will never learn, but this guide really has those eureka moments. Other abbreviations like "QS" or "RE" .. still a mystery for me.
Anyway thanks a lot really. Some stuff you wrote makes me understand also the basics... it's incredible how sometime one can be lost at grasping the basic elements of a game, it's not meta learning, it's having a method...
They say Dutch isn't good right now in DE (where I play), I don't know about that at least in low ranks where I am.
Regarding the games I wish the recordings were online on youtube so over there they would be visible. I notice that you mostly have lost games and that is interesting too.
(a good thing I see for example with the (ex) Sioux now Lakota, would be offering a short 200-500 words review as you did so that one can still know what has happened and learn from not watching the video (due to version broken rec viewing system or other game development issues or simply not willing to reinstall the legacy game... having now DE).

[dutchdude117]

I forgot I wrote this... some good stuff in here. (but also some very bad stuff too xD)