A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

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Post by momuuu »

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Introduction
There's no other Dutch content in the strategy section yet, so I decided to write this guide. I'm by no means a great player, but I have a couple of thousand games played as the Dutch and feel pretty confident at the civ. Most of what I'll write is going to be correct, but there are always a few mistakes, so take what I say with a little grain of salt. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions feel free to post them.

In this guide, I'll try to thoroughly explain all the possible variations of the Dutch semi FF. Dutch has these amazing skirms which allow them to do a (semi) FF in alost every situation, so you might consider this to be a full Dutch guide. I'm planning to add a match up section later, but as of now, I think this is plenty.

Ill explain the builds in detail, including vill allocations and other small details. Better players will probably want to skip these parts, but I think it can still be an interesting read even for pretty good players. If any of those guys care to read it, Id be very interested in your comments on it. Mostly this guide is meant for players trying to figure out how to play Dutch however, so it's written with those people in mind.

I'll describe the discovery age build, the two main variations (Bank wagon first vs 700 wood first), how to play it in colonial and fortress and the deck. Hopefully I'll soon add the match up section aswell.

I hope you'll enjoy it

Discovery age
At the start of the game, I like to pop 3 vills through the TC to kill the first animal of the first hunt. I split the other 3 vills (if I can manage to do so) between the gold crates. If you start with 200 wood, leave 100 wood as you won't need it yet. But be sure to remember collecting it when you start aging up. With a 500 coin start, or a 400 coin start and good beaver treasures, you'll only need 2 vills on coin, oherwise put 3 on coin. Gather enouh coin to queue up to 12 pop, and send your villagers to food. First shipment is going to be 3 vills, so that you age up with 15 vills. Age up with the quartermaster. I like to send a vill out in early discovery to start herding, since herding is important. But if you haven't already, you really should send one out when you start aging.

In transition, you'll want to build a bank and collect enough coin to queue up the next villager. To do so, put 5 vills on food and 10 on wood (it can be 4/11 depending on treasures) to gather for a bank. After you have enough resources for the bank, put vills on coin to gather for the villager. It's really nice to get the bank up before you age because it'll give you enough experience to ship your colonial shipment right away. It's not the worst if you can't manage to do so however.

Once you hit colonial, the first, and possibly most important decision of the game is going to be made: Do you ship the Bank wagon or 700 wood?

Bank wagon
The bank wagon option is generally considered to be the standard play. The Bank wagon is a really good card' 700 resources that don't need to be gathered and that don't need to be built by a villager. The downside is that it'll give you only 1 bank, whereas 700 wood is enough to build 2 banks. That means that the Bank wagon is the less greedy variant of the two, and that it should mostly be used in match ups where your opponent can put on the pressure early.

The bank wagon build is quite simple. You'll want 7-8 vills on coin. I usually put 7 on coin when going for huss, and 8 when going for skirms, and then put the rest of your vills (including all the trained ones) on food. It's possible to put 1-2 vills on wood for a little bit to get the wood for some wall segments. This allocation will generally allow you to make 5 hussars or 10 skirms, and get the resources to age up pretty perfectly. Of course flexibility is required' if you are garrisoning vills on food/coin, you'll want to adjust for that, and you'll also want to adjust for big treasures or messy hunts.

Use the 400w you get from aging up to build 2 houses, and a military building. Which one you choose is going to determine the rest of your game. Either go for a stable to try a hussar semi, or go for a barracks to do a skirm semi. Usually, you'll want to do hussars when you don't expect to be pressured too much, while skirms are nice if you feel like your opponent is going to push you. The problem with going skirms is that you can't really raid your opponent, and that you are most likely going to need pikes aswell.

If you went for hussars, the next shipment is always going to be 700w. Use it to build another bank, a barracks, and a house/market. You could also build two banks from it, but if you have that luxury, I'd normally advise going for the greedier 700w start. From the rax, you might have to build skirms if you are getting pressured too much to age up. If you do that, you'll want to consider shipping 8 pikes or shipping 600w and building pikes with that. I personally prefer shipping the pikes there, 600w is going to be a little bit too slow to defend your skirms. If you don't have to build skirms, ship 600w and use that for houses, market upgrades or another bank, depending on how greedy you want to get.

If you started skirms, things are generally going to get a little bit iffy. You're going to need pikes really soon to defend your skirms. Otherwise you might aswell not make skirms. But if you ship 8 pikes right after the bank wagon, the build is going to be really awkward. Because you won't be making another bank, you won't get the xp to ship your third shipment for a while. So you are going to be stuck with a rax, 2 banks and 2 houses. I'd advise shipping 700w , and try to make a batch of pikes with that after your first skirm batch. That's going to be a little bit less awkward, but the production from the rax won't be smooth. If it is at all possible to delay the 8 pikes, and deal with the cav using walls, TC fire or minutemen, then that'd be a more attractive option.

If you shipped 8 pikes, you'll want to ship 700w, if you shipped 700w, ship 600w to get up the needed infrastructure. That's where the build ends. Age up and abuse the fact that you got to fortress age with 3-4 Banks.

700 wood
The 700w build isn't really the standard and is more greedy, but I tend to use it more often than the bank wagon build. If you have to start skirm and ship pike or make pike, the build's going to get really awkward. That's where this build shines. The idea is that you turn the 400w from aging up, and the 700w, into 3 banks, a military building and two houses in that order. Because you are getting 3 banks from the first shipment, shipping pikes after that is going to be less awkward.

The build is a little bit tougher than the bank wagon build. It requires you to really focus on your macro and switch around vill allocations a bit more. You'll want to have 3 vills on coin after you've managed to get enough gold for the first vill in colonial. 3 vills will just barely allow you to constantly produce villagers. Put all the other villagers on food for the first part. Gather the crates with 1-2 villagers, and use the wood you get to build 2 more banks. After you've built those banks, build a military building and 2 houses. Again, whether you start with a stable or a rax is going to affect the rest of the build. After that, put 7-8 vills on gold again, and the rest on food like you do with the bank wagon build. That works out just as well as it does with the bank wagon build.

If you did this greedy build and started out with hussars, that means you are generally not facing any pressure. The best follow up would be bank wagon - 600 wood then. This will allow you to age with 4 banks and a good infrastructure in an optimal ordering (slightly better than bank wagon - 700 wood imo). Since that means you are not facing any pressure, consider sending 1000w as first card in age 3, to add even more infrastructure. This is the greediest you can go, so be careful with doing that.

Sometimes though, you'll want to start hussars but add skirms after that (this is what I do vs british for example). That means you'll want to ship 600w rather than the bank wagon, so that you can add a rax. After that you'll most likely want to ship 8 pikes to defend your skirms from cav. If there's no cav to be seen, or so few cav that you can defend your skirm with 5 huss + TC fire + mm, you can ship the bank wagon after that.

If you are starting with a rax rather than a stable, you'll almost always want to ship 8 pikes after that. The rax isn't up long enough to produce skirms and pikes out of it, so you basically have to ship the 8 pikes. The timing of it works out nicely' the 5 skirms come out basically at the same time the 8 pikes do, so there's no risk losing your skirms to a batch of cav or losing your pikes to musks. The next shipment is always going to be 600w' you need it for the stable. Use the rest of the wood for additional infrastructure.

Occasionally, you won't want to make any units at all and do a straight FF. You can go for a fast 3 bank FF (700w 700f) with only one military building, a normal 3 bank FF (700w 600w) with decent infrastructure. It's sometimes also possible to do a 4 bank FF. I'm not quite sure what would be optimal then, but I think it's Bank wagon - 700w - 1000w, where you build a bank from the 400 wood, and then another one from the 700w + a military building and two houses. Add the needed infrastructure with the 1000w. I haven't tested this one too thoroughly though.

Colonial gameplay
Going to fortress after having invested 2100-2800 resources in economy is quite greedy. You're going to need a few tricks to survive.

The first, and most important one is scouting. A lot of different strategies require you to take a different approach, so scouting is a must. I don't know many other civs where scouting is as important as it is with Dutch. Fortunately you have an envoy and an explorer, so you're almost guaranteed to get good scouting information. Look for his vill allocation, the age up politician and his first shipment. Generally, you can scout what he is doing in time and adjust. Sometimes your builds might be a little bit suboptimal because your opponent is doing an unexpected strategy, but don't be afraid to change it up according to what your opponent is doing.

The other important trick is base building. Your skirms outrange every single unit in colonial, so you'll want to find a way to abuse that. Use your banks and wall segments to prevent your opponent from getting into your base. That way, you can zone his ranged units with your skirms and easily abuse their range. Your opponent will have to think twice about pushing into your base, and if he does, he'll sustain heavy losses. Sometimes a little wall segment with a gate in it will allow your skirms to stay out of reach of the opponents cav, allowing them to destroy his infantry. Try to find as many free pick off with your skirms as possible, and enjoy your walled off base while you are aging up to age 3 with a great eco.
Below are two images of a decently constructed base.

ImageImage

It's going to be tough, and it requires a lot of pressure. But eventually you'll be able to defend about everything your opponents throw at you. It's even possible to hit and run abus guns if you are on top of your micro. If you are afraid of a push, you can always heavily invest into walls and hold it that way, but preferably invest as little in walls as possible without dieing.

Fortress gameplay
In the fortress age, I generally go for 12 vills on food and 9 on coin, rest on wood. This will allow you to spam perfect batches of 5 skirms and 5 ruyters. The vills on wood will gather exactly enough wood to get enough houses out, and allow for some more market upgrades. Eventually you'll want to create a 3rd military building and move some vills from wood to food/coin. The general food/coin distribution is about 55/45. With 3 banks it's a little bit closer to 50/50, while with 4 banks it get closer to 60/40.

In fortress the rest is adaptation. I've hinted at sending 1000w early already. If you feel like you can get away with it, go for it. Otherwise, ship any combination of 8/7 skirms and 9/7 ruyters. Try to win in early to mid fortress. Late fortress, your opponents will often outboom and outmass you. If you can't win by mid fortress, try to take map control and abuse the fact that you generally don't need as many hunts. If you can force him to switch to mills and plantations before you do, you'll win.

The deck
A lot of cards in the deck are arguable, but imo there's a set core: 3 vills, 700w, 600w, bank wagon, 8 pikes, 1000w, 8/7 skirms, 9/7 ruyters, the skirm attack and hp, the cav attack and hp and the church card. That results in this deck:

Image

In discovery I like colonial militia over bank of Amsterdam/bank of Rotterdam. Those cards don't really give you much value (it allows you to spend more resources to get more eco, not the greatest really), while colonial militia might win you that one scrappy game where your opponent went for some crazy all in.

In colonial, I like 700f. Sometimes you are stuck in your TC and need the extra food to age up. Skirm attack and hp are decent when the game goes on longer, and so is advanced arsenal. 4 vills is the most arguable one, but it's still a vill shipment if you are stuck in colonial unable to age up. Other cards to consider are 700 coin (great when you are stuck in colonial) and 3 hussars (useful vs some rushes like the Russian one or an Aztec rush).

In fortress I really like the fort card. As I explained, one of the core ways for Dutch to win is to get map control and starve your opponent. The fort is really useful for this, so I think it suits your gameplan. 1000 coin is decent to fuel your spam some more, but I haven't tested it out to much. Refrigeration is kinda meh, at most you'll have 30 vills on food, which makes it a 6 vill shipment. Other cards to consider are 4 huss (not the best, but still decent), 1000 food (probably inferior to 1000 coin), royal mint (same problem as refrigeration), and 7 Black riders.

The 7 Black riders deserve a special mention. Dutch often faces strong musk huss timings. It's likely that these will destroy your army and get you stuck in your TC with all your vills. Fortunately, your banks will still gather gold, so you can ship these 7 Black riders and put your gold to good use. 7 Black riders can decimate musk huss armies single handedly, and bring you back into the game. If there's any chance of a musk huss timing, or anything similar to that, I'd put this card in over refrigeration.

In age 4 I have 2 factories (obviously) and tulip speculation. The latter isn't the greatest, but it does give you 1.5 banks. There might be better cards, but I honestly don't really know because I rarely get to industrial. You probably want to finish the game before that.

The match ups
Soon to be added.

Recs
I added a bunch of recs that show off the way I play Dutch in a bunch of match ups. The games vs Bart's French and Yemshi's India show off how to handle some colonial pressure, the games vs umeu, bram and lzscky should be useful to learn how to play against other semi ffs, and then there's a replay showing how to deal with a China FI. Not the greatest games but I thought I'd just add some.
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Netherlands momuuu
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by momuuu »

deleted_user wrote:I''ll do the MU against brits for you: resign.

Dutch is a cool civ and I wish they were more viable but the reality is in the majority of MUs they really aren''t.

yeah, unfortunately its true. But that makes them even more fun to play.
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by adderbrain5 »

Ahh my all time main from way back when I was a white kid in the suburbs on the computer after schoo. I've found Dutch to be hard to make viable in rush but isn't the Intense Micro Eco and troop both what we love most about it? Nice guide thanks. Lit would just kill me to have a deck without discovery banks but ur right '(
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Great!
I also like to send 700w 1st vs france/brit/ger, it gives you more eco and you'll still be able to def.
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by fei123456 »

the key point is: you should never build more than 3 banks before age 3.
banks costs too much resource.
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Post by _DB_ »

Great write-up! Should be there on strategy wall. I love playing Dutch, but I'm not confident to make them my sticky civ in 1v1. You helped me out there, thanks :)
You understand Dutch well. :)

I guess it's worth vs India/Otto/Russia
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by Mr_Bramboy »

Very nice guide :happytomato:

@Incog Add this to strategy wall?
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Post by Balthazar »

nicely put together, I play dutch alot and theres some useful pointers here, will await some recs :-)
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by momuuu »

diarouga wrote:Great!
I also like to send 700w 1st vs france/brit/ger, it gives you more eco and you''ll still be able to def.
I''m unsure about doing it vs germany though. If they rush their uhlans towards your base, you''ll probably lose more res due to having to garrison vills, than what you will gain from it.
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Post by pyrgos »

Thanks, I've been thinking of using the Dutch, this is great help!
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by _venox_ »

Against germans could a huss ruyter based combo, starting double ruyter then sending 1k food for 10 huss and 4 huss for the timing work? Everytime I've seen an art foundry the dutch player lost, and rax stable is really hard to pull off aswell imo due to just having less army out in early fort. Maybe if dutch players abuse walls like kynesie or a japan player then dutch skirm ruyter will be way stronger imo.
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Post by _venox_ »

I only have AA in my deck because skirm hp is of less importance than skirm damage and to make up for the huge ass slow infantry you will have after getting the 2 additional banks from the church card. What do you guys think? skirm hp or AA (for water maps I have 2 caravels and ship combat, so need space)??
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Post by Mimsy for President »

AA
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Post by momuuu »

I'm leaning towards AA aswell, but I'm not actually sure.
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Post by iNcog »

added to wall

this was a siick write up
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by Marco1698 »

Thanks man btw you can also add a replay to show when this is effective and when not
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Post by momuuu »

incog wrote:added to wall

this was a siick write up
Yay! Thanks!


marco1698 wrote:Thanks man btw you can also add a replay to show when this is effective and when not
Well, I personally believe its basically always the most effective start for Dutch to do. Im working on the replays, havent really gotten games in where it was somewhat close (either got stomped or just lost). Id prefarably get some replays against hard colonial pushes, as thats the toughest thing to learn to play against I think. The semi FF wars just come down to general micro I think.
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Post by _DB_ »

I want to ask something.
When exactly must you send colonel militia card if you honestly going to need it?
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by Hazza54321 »

nice guide jerome!
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Post by momuuu »

subzero wrote:I want to ask something.
When exactly must you send colonel militia card if you honestly going to need it?

After the first two cards generally. Kinda depends really on the situation, but sending it super early is going to hurt you more than your opponent really. Id never send it in discovery, and also never first in colonial, second maybe but preferably as third shipment.

Theres a lot of match ups where your opponent can also follow you to age 3 and do pretty well, so you dont want to send it there, because youll lose in age 3 then. I like it against otto jan abus though, because you dont need the 8 pikes, and dont really need the boost from 600w. Cm can really helpbyou against their final timing push with 3 hussars from the home city.

Really, this card is in the deck for the weird games. When someone does some crazy all in and you have all your vills stuck in your TC. Then cm can win you that one game in a hundred that youd normally lose. Thats why it is in the deck.
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Post by _DB_ »

jerom wrote:
subzero wrote:I want to ask something.
When exactly must you send colonel militia card if you honestly going to need it?
After the first two cards generally. Kinda depends really on the situation, but sending it super early is going to hurt you more than your opponent really. Id never send it in discovery, and also never first in colonial, second maybe but preferably as third shipment.

Theres a lot of match ups where your opponent can also follow you to age 3 and do pretty well, so you dont want to send it there, because youll lose in age 3 then. I like it against otto jan abus though, because you dont need the 8 pikes, and dont really need the boost from 600w. Cm can really helpbyou against their final timing push with 3 hussars from the home city.

Really, this card is in the deck for the weird games. When someone does some crazy all in and you have all your vills stuck in your TC. Then cm can win you that one game in a hundred that youd normally lose. Thats why it is in the deck.
Alright. Thanks!
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by pecelot »

jerom wrote:Your skirms outrange every single unit in colonial

Image
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by _venox_ »

Caravels and galeons with offshore support.
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A guide to the Dutch semi-FF

Post by momuuu »

pecelot wrote:
jerom wrote:Your skirms outrange every single unit in colonial
[img]http://i.imgur.com/pIsskqW.png"]

rip.

Deleting guide now.

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