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Really Fun Lakota Build Order that can raid and have a STRONG eco:

Summary: Lakota Semi FF with Hunting Boom + Adoption Boom + Raiding

Updated Build Order (Thanks to Doppelsoldna and FitzBro):
4vills,
age with 400W,
TP and Market and HD in transition (12 vills to wood in transition; collect gold crate),
Collect 400W and make Stable and 2nd TP.
Make a set of Axe Riders to raid (150 gold is needed and u have 50 of it from the start),
Ship 5 vills
Ship Great Hunter,
Ship Spice Trade
Add in Bowriders to keep raiding, 700 Coin to age with 15 Bison and 20% to hunting,
20 vills to wood and ship Adoption, 8 vills on fertility dance (add 5 later) and rest to hunt.
Build a Farm and get upgrades and another TC and stable. Boom but make enough military to have a presence.

Old Build Order: 4vills, age fast, TP in transition, 700W (Farm and Great Feast upgrade, Market and HD, Stable/Warhut (if vs musket or rush civ)), Make a set of Axe Riders to raid (easy on gold), Great Hunter, Spice Trade, 10 vills on, Add in Bowriders to keep raiding, 700 Coin to age with 800W (Double TC), 10 vills to wood and get Harvest Ceremony and Community Plaza, 18 vills on fertility dance (add 5 later) and 12 to hunt, Ship Adoption and all vills to hunting, Boom from 30 vills to 99 vills in 3 min off of 3 TCs.

If Rushed: Ship 6 cetan or 9 wakina when appropriate. using ranged infantry with Axe huge. Bowrider kiting in Age 2 with clubs and cetans are key to holding a heavy musk rush. If vs Otto/India/Azzy/Inca and they are rushing - warhut and abandoning this boom plan for 5 min and making units is key.

The Math:
Hunting Dogs: Hunting +10%
Farm: Great Feast: Hunting +10% (and others)
Farm: Harvest Ceremony: Hunting +15% (and others)
Spice Trade: Hunting +20% and 10% yield of animals
Great Hunter: Hunting +25% and 10% yield of animals

Overall its a 80% up on hunting and with 1.51F/second its enough Food to boom off of three TCs at 12 min.

With the early 5 AxeRider and later 5 BowRider and your TP should buy 8-10 min for you to boom. Would love to have some people try it out! :)

I am open to criticism on this btw! I want it to be awesome!

seems nice, thats a really insane hunting bonus. I feel like this would work as a counter strat against water, since you can get away with it if your opponent plays passively, and then you can match their boom pretty nicely as long as you have stuff to hunt.

Here is my first attempt at it with @GKShaman leading me through it. I made a few mistakes here and was able to pull off a win. Going to keep working on it!

Just tried Team Lakota and it worked quite well even while a teammate was getting rushed.

I SHOULD note an improvement to the build by Doppelsoldna (a fellow clanmate and extraordinary Australian who likes vegemite over his parrots):

Build Order:
4vills, Age with 400 W (Farm)
Chop 350 W in transition (Market and HD, Stable)
Collect 80 coin in transition (Que and Axe Immediately and HD)
Que 5 Axe Riders
Ship 5 Vills first card in Age 2
(Leave 4 vills on wood to slowly gather 100W and 225 W for Great Feast and Harvest Ceremony)
Great Hunter
Spice Trade
Add in Bowriders to keep raiding,
700 Coin to age fast
Ship 1000W
Build 2 TCs and Community Plaza and BR Upgrade
12 vills on fertility dance (add 13 more later)
Ship Adoption
Boom 35 vills to 99 vills in 3 min off of 3 TCs.

This avoids shipping 700W and allows to get to the hunting ups a bit more gradually but ships Great Hunter earlier.

That's a lot of wood to gather in Doppeldoldna's build, all to skip the most valueable age 2 card in terms of villager seconds. I'd suggest aging 400w, chopping a TP and skipping the farm until you can send 700w after spice trade. The payback time on the farm is slower than great hunter and arguably spice trade as it costs 725w, 200c in total for the 10+15% upgrades. Using 700w to get stagecoach is better than getting farm+upgrades as it allows you to transfer villagers to food from other res.

Adoption seems like a bad card for 1v1. With 3 tc, it increases vil training rate similarly to adding 2 tc, but you don't get two tc for map control. The main benefit is you spend less time fertility dancing, so this card is only good for a longer eco focused game, but this isn't Lakota's strength. You'll also be behind one upgrade card for the remainder of the game. Similarly you want to use the bison politician to age 3 because you don't want a prolonged age 4, so won't get much value from the faster rate.

Anyway I wanted to comment that the transform card becomes increasingly valuable as your food gather rate increases. It's worth 28vs (19c) per unit before upgrades, rising to 45vs (30c) in late age 2 with GH+ST+HD, and 52vs (36c) in late age 3 aging with bison and getting farm techs.

Fun idea, but do you have enough units to defend etc? Sure, if the opponent just bots and defends vs Sioux like some do, it might work.

But if the opponent scouts and adapts, sees no 4 AR, no early age3 mass, and little units, he could just go for some sort of yolo age2 push. And 6 cetan or 9 wakina dont do much vs mass bow/musk or 2rax musk, 8 bow, 3 huss etc.

Also, even in age3, some civs like to play aggro vs Sioux, eg Spain sometimes. Or maybe Iro. I recently saw Fitbro (I think) FI as Sioux (a similarly greedy strat), and his Dutch opponent just sent like 50 ruyters into his base.

May I recommend adding the infinite bison card for Age4 instead of 18 Wakina? this strat relies on constant hunting for long-term success and provided you fight actively, it's easy to sustain your economy with Bison, having as little as 15-20 vils working on them.

ShinkuroYukinari wrote:May I recommend adding the infinite bison card for Age4 instead of 18 Wakina? this strat relies on constant hunting for long-term success and provided you fight actively, it's easy to sustain your economy with Bison, having as little as 15-20 vils working on them.

Totally agree. I find in 1v1 rated most games stick to Age 3 but 18 wakina or explorer card can be subbed out for 15 Bison.