vs Brit
vs China
If enemy is all in, it is critical to use villagers in defense of base, along with a colonial militia and a minimal amount of skirmishers.
This build is particularly good against semi-ff builds because the small amount of units they have means that the towncenter attacks kills all of their unit quickly. and you age up about the same time as them but with a much better economy.
This build is also good against age 2 boom because your eco is much faster and you will age before them and can timing attack if they try to age as well.
This build is also good against very fast age 2 all in builds because you can quickly kill all their siege units with TC fire and villager micro.
This build can struggle against delayed all in age 2 build because the mass of units can be too much to deal without very good micro.
Why using villagers to defend is key:
Here is some important information for this discussion.
The primary unit used in colonial play will be musketeer.
Musketeers have 150 Hp with 30% melee resist, so they resist zero ranged damage
Musketeer has 25 ranged attack, 12 range, and 4.0 speed
Towncenter with Colonial militia does 135 ranged damage
Villager with blunderbuss has 6 ranged attack, 16 range, and 4.0 speed
Why is this all significant?
So using the towncenter and 3 villagers you can 1 shot a musketeer. (135 + 18 = 153 ranged damage)
the villagers have 16 range which means they out range musketeers significantly
villagers have the same speed as musketeers so they can never be caught by musketeers, unless the enemy has cav, in which case you focus down cav with TC and minutemen
Build order:
Age1:
-start with market
-get hunting dogs ASAP
-look for 50 wood treasure ASAP, you will need this to build your first house
-if you cannot find wood treasure trade 125 gold for 100w, (presumably if you are not finding wood treasures at least you are finding food or coin treasures, all of which will help speeding up age up, and the excess 50 wood will be used on first bank)
-age with 15 vils
-herd ATLEAST 2 hunts under your TC (3 if possible, not necessary if you have berries)
-Note All banks and house should be build to keep villagers safe near TC, keep houses and barracks away from front of base.
-bank in transition (1st bank)
Age2:
-transition all vils to food
-trade 100f for 75 coin if you do not have enough coin for first vil
-bank with 400w (2nd bank)
-ship 700w use it to build 2 banks (3rd and 4th bank)
-ship 600w use it to build 1 bank (5th bank) a house and a barracks and a house (alternatively you can build a stable at this point and harass, but barracks play is more "safe")
-Ship colonial militia blindly unless you scout no aggression. If you didnât scout, well then CM is blanket protection because you are not building units.
-research great coats and blunderbuss in market
-build walls around chokes in your base
-if you scout a large mass of enemy heavy infantry or a forward barracks build 5-10 skirms
-save resources for age up
-build stable in transition
Age3:
-just spam skirm ruyter constant production
-play normal game out with decent economical advantage (hopefully!)