British Livestock Opening

[_Arrow_]

Hey Guys!

What I always loved most about this game is to fiddle about new strategies and guess what, I came up with something.

British Livestock Opening

- Gather crates and some additional wood so you can build 3 houses
- Rest on food until you age up, which should be after building 7 vils, for a 4:30 Age II time
- 1st card: Ship 7 sheep+livestock pen
- 2nd card: Fulling Mills (+300% gathering time means livestock is gathered at the speed of crates)
- Use 2 vils + 2 cow politician

In transition between AgeI and Age II:
- Put all vils on wood, except 1 who should go herd the 2nd hunt towards TC.
- Build 2 manors and gather 400w. (optional) If you plan to build forward send 1 vil and build a manor there.
- Shortly before you age up, send 3 vils to eat sheep (shift-click all of them)

In Age II (at 4:30, you should have 18 vils):
- Build 2 rax in most situations, or 1 rax and 1 stable if you expect significant amounts of light inf (like vs russia)
- Send about 10 vils to gather coin
- Gather wood for market asap, research, gold upgrade, dont shy away from selling food for gold when needed, it is actually cost-effective for a few clicks. Then research hunting upgrades.
- If your food operation runs smoothly you actually need 13 vils on coin to maintain 2 barracks, rest can go on wood for a while as long as you have livestock to eat.
- First shipment in Age II: 7 cows (equals to 1.4k food crates without fattening, but its much more since you already have a livestock pen), start eating them with 3 vils right away unless you have other plans and are not under pressure
- when cows run out you have plenty of hunt left, with both hunting upgrades researched and close to 30 vils (needles to say you never top making them) you should be able to keep military and economy going
- if done correctly, it is possible to keep the 2 rax fully busy from the start, afaik there exists currently no other opening that allows to do that.
- after that I usually go for 700w for stable and houses, and then 700g for hussars or age up.

Thats about it, please let me know what you think! Although I am still refining it, it seems to be decently successful in the present form.
Lastly, a few words about me:

Arrow .... who?

I used to be a decent player in Vanilla aoe3 back in 2006-2008, probably very few people here are old enough to still remember my name (it increases the chances if you remember agesanctuary, later rts-sanctuary, which is where I posted most of my recorded games and strategies. I was also proud wearer of the Aoe3 Expert badge there). Thing is I never really came to terms with TWC and TAD, so I played less and less, and now im far away from expert level with respect to micro/apm. Still, as I said I love strategizing and have decent experience about the game.
So, in case we have met more than a decade ago, I shout out a big "Hi again!"
By the way, in Steam I go by the name "wickerman" in case our paths should cross... :)

[[Armag] diarouga]

Sounds decent for a all in. Would be interesting to compare it to the Aklak build (700c first) to see which build can mass more units/have a better eco.

[louis293]

Welcom back !, funny because one of the first strategy article i have read when i start to play back 8 months ago (during first corona lock down) playing with russia was a strelet rush guide written by you but translated to french (http://www.ageofempires3-alliance.com/s ... h-strelet/ but i discovered that it's completelly outdated as cav do better vs strelets on TAD than on vanilla).

Seems nice strat, i let better players give advice wether it is viable or not and pros and cons

[_Arrow_]

In my experience, it only turned out to be an allin against FF/semi FF strats. In other cases, you just crush enemy rushes or outplay AgeII play with both, stronger eco and stronger army (like vs japanese).
Can you maybe send a link to the Aklak build? I was actually thinking the same, it would be really interesting to compare with a traditional double rax build. As I just came back to the game after many years absence Im not familiar with much of current meta. I actually tried it on my own and never managed to pop out a full third 10-musk batch out of 2 raxes with a 4:30 AgeII time, but maybe I am not doing it optimally.

[[Armag] diarouga]

In my experience, it only turned out to be an allin against FF/semi FF strats. In other cases, you just crush enemy rushes or outplay AgeII play with both, stronger eco and stronger army (like vs japanese).
Can you maybe send a link to the Aklak build? I was actually thinking the same, it would be really interesting to compare with a traditional double rax build. As I just came back to the game after many years absence Im not familiar with much of current meta. I actually tried it on my own and never managed to pop out a full third 10-musk batch out of 2 raxes with a 4:30 AgeII time, but maybe I am not doing it optimally.

Age 1 : Chop 3 manors, age at 4:30 (same) with 500f politician
While aging : I think you gather for 2 manors and save 400w (you might have to build your 2nd manor after you build the 2 raxes, I don't remember), gather 50c
Age 2 : Send 700c and spam musks from 2 raxes. After that, you can either build an extra manor and send 700f for more musks or switch to eco play with 700w.

[_Arrow_]

Welcom back !, funny because one of the first strategy article i have read when i start to play back 8 months ago (during first corona lock down) playing with russia was a strelet rush guide written by you but translated to french (http://www.ageofempires3-alliance.com/s ... h-strelet/ but i discovered that it's completelly outdated as cav do better vs strelets on TAD than on vanilla).

Hehe, wow nice that people still find my old guide, it used to be very popular!
Well, its mostly outdated since they patched villager training time, it used to be a few seconds less back when I wrote the guide, which really makes a difference.

[Snuden]

In my experience, it only turned out to be an allin against FF/semi FF strats. In other cases, you just crush enemy rushes or outplay AgeII play with both, stronger eco and stronger army (like vs japanese).
Can you maybe send a link to the Aklak build? I was actually thinking the same, it would be really interesting to compare with a traditional double rax build. As I just came back to the game after many years absence Im not familiar with much of current meta. I actually tried it on my own and never managed to pop out a full third 10-musk batch out of 2 raxes with a 4:30 AgeII time, but maybe I am not doing it optimally.

Age 1 : Chop 3 manors, age at 4:30 (same) with 500f politician
While aging : I think you gather for 2 manors and save 400w (you might have to build your 2nd manor after you build the 2 raxes, I don't remember), gather 50c
Age 2 : Send 700c and spam musks from 2 raxes. After that, you can either build an extra manor and send 700f for more musks or switch to eco play with 700w.

This looks powerful enough for me to advance from MS to low 1lt.

[Challenger_Marco]

Yeah since this a new card added ,so 7sheeps+1 livestock is viable now? it kinda feels broken because of the value you are getting out of it lol (and the card value itself..) feel like might get nerfed,but ppl bringing out all the moves forward here.

[_Arrow_]

Age 1 : Chop 3 manors, age at 4:30 (same) with 500f politician
While aging : I think you gather for 2 manors and save 400w (you might have to build your 2nd manor after you build the 2 raxes, I don't remember), gather 50c
Age 2 : Send 700c and spam musks from 2 raxes. After that, you can either build an extra manor and send 700f for more musks or switch to eco play with 700w.

Im pretty sure the livestock opening outompetes this. Also bear in mind that many maps have free livestock which makes this start even more crazy, although you need to adapt a bit. I would go so far to agree with Marco that it will likely be nerfed soon. But hey, it was always a hobby of mine to create strats that are so strong that they need to be nerfed

[[Armag] diarouga]

Ye true. Never bothered to make builds with the livestock+7 sheep shipment but the shipment is ridiculously op lol. It's 250w+200f, and 250w+1300f (including gather time), which is a joke for an age 1 shipment. Should be something like livestock+2 sheep.

[klonko]

I would go so far to agree with Marco that it will likely be nerfed soon. But hey, it was always a hobby of mine to create strats that are so strong that they need to be nerfed

Do it for aztec, now! haha

[scarm]

Well is it so op though? Sure the nominal value is insane, but thats also the case fo the old 7 sheep shipment. And the 250w really aren't 250w for the case at question, because you wouldn't need a pen otherwise. You also forgo 3 Settlers. The main new thing here is that instead of 1 useless thing you get 2 useless things which enable each other to not be useless anymore, i.e. technically the lifestock pen should imo not be considered as 250w, but instead as away to actually get the food the sheep provide in theory.

Like imagine the nerf you suggested with a pen + 2 sheep. I don't know which numbers you used to adjust the foodgain from a nominal to a real value considering gathering time, but assuming your numbers of 1300/2100, that leaves us with about 400 late food from 2 sheep and a useless building. Compare that to 300 imemdiate food which already is a mostly useless shipment.

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

Well is it so op though? Sure the nominal value is insane, but thats also the case fo the old 7 sheep shipment. And the 250w really aren't 250w for the case at question, because you wouldn't need a pen otherwise. You also forgo 3 Settlers. The main new thing here is that instead of 1 useless thing you get 2 useless things which enable each other to not be useless anymore, i.e. technically the lifestock pen should imo not be considered as 250w, but instead as away to actually get the food the sheep provide in theory.

Like imagine the nerf you suggested with a pen + 2 sheep. I don't know which numbers you used to adjust the foodgain from a nominal to a real value considering gathering time, but assuming your numbers of 1300/2100, that leaves us with about 400 late food from 2 sheep and a useless building. Compare that to 300 imemdiate food which already is a mostly useless shipment.

It's even worse since you also send fulling mills, so you need 2 shipment to really use the lifestock pen.

[harcha]

You definitely don't need to spend a shipment on fulling mills. You never need to send that card in supremacy, it's totally not viable to spend it.

[_Arrow_]

Yes, its really not about 1 card, its the full package. Also the politician basically turns into 500-600f+ 2vil in this build order.

edit: so to be a bit more specific, consider it that way: you spend 3 shipments (sheep, fulling mills, cows) and get about 800 food from sheep plus some 1.7k food from cows. Plus you get 2 vils back from politician mitigating the missing 3 vil shipment, the 2 cows can be considered equivalent to 500f poli.

On most maps you need all 3 to pull it off, but on some maps you can build the livestock pen and gather existing livestock. So the sheep shipment, despite being the most resource intense is actually the weakest and the most expendable. Cows, yaks and lamas are actually way better than sheep.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Well is it so op though? Sure the nominal value is insane, but thats also the case fo the old 7 sheep shipment. And the 250w really aren't 250w for the case at question, because you wouldn't need a pen otherwise. You also forgo 3 Settlers. The main new thing here is that instead of 1 useless thing you get 2 useless things which enable each other to not be useless anymore, i.e. technically the lifestock pen should imo not be considered as 250w, but instead as away to actually get the food the sheep provide in theory.

Like imagine the nerf you suggested with a pen + 2 sheep. I don't know which numbers you used to adjust the foodgain from a nominal to a real value considering gathering time, but assuming your numbers of 1300/2100, that leaves us with about 400 late food from 2 sheep and a useless building. Compare that to 300 imemdiate food which already is a mostly useless shipment.

I don't know the maths but from experience, the food you get from herdable is worth food available/2. The pen is not useless at all since you have herdable. There's a general rule stating that if you have more than 8 cows, it's worth to build the pen, so pen+2 sheep would be an alternative to 3vills if you get an insane amount of cows and want to hit a timing.

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

You definitely don't need to spend a shipment on fulling mills. You never need to send that card in supremacy, it's totally not viable to spend it.

Well he uses it in the BO...

[scarm]

Well yeah, but the point is that you have herdables because you send them. If the pen only comes with 2 sheep, you get that +2 cows from ageup, and then would have to send 7 cows for it to be worth it. At that point you spent 2 shipments (3 if considering fulling mills). Can that really be considered op anymore?

You might well be right, i just think it is important to actually test it and not jump to conclusions based on a bloated nominal value, that always was bloated.

[chris1089]

You definitely don't need to spend a shipment on fulling mills. You never need to send that card in supremacy, it's totally not viable to spend it.

Well he uses it in the BO...

Is it worth it though? Could you not send another shipment and just start eating the sheep/cows a bit earlier or something?

[musketeer925]

Added to the Strategy Wall

[scarm]

Well you have to gather up about 2100f+4500f/2 so about 3000f, since you don't let the animals fatten fully. With fulling mills that takes 375 VS, without, 1500. Thats about 900f of villseconds saved, plus i think with this build it might be worth it to invest some of your excess food back into sheep afterwards.

[chris1089]

Well you have to gather up about 2100f+4500f/2 so about 3000f, since you don't let the animals fatten fully. With fulling mills that takes 375 VS, without, 1500. Thats about 900f of villseconds saved, plus i think with this build it might be worth it to invest some of your excess food back into sheep afterwards.

So is it just too greedy in competitive play normally? Why does @harcha say it's no good as a card?

[_Arrow_]

Is it worth it though? Could you not send another shipment and just start eating the sheep/cows a bit earlier or something?

I am pretty convinced it is neccessery in 1v1 because livestock sitting there is useless, u need food, which you translate into military asap.
But if you come up with a build without fulling mills that can survive early Age II pressure, that would be great - it would make livestock starts available to many other civs.

[harcha]

You can't translate it into military asap, military takes time to train. Thus getting an insane food bank that you cannot spend is almost useless (good in niche situations), so you'd rather spend that card on something else.

[scarm]

well that is true to some extent, but firstly you can translate the food pretty quickly if you have enough training facilities, secondly you can invest some of that food back into sheep for an extended eco bonus, and thirdly and most importantly you save VS, since you are going to eat the food either way. 1100 VS equates to an amount X of whatever resource you need, although you can#t compare it 1:1 to crate shipments since you have to plan ahead with gathered resources while crates can be sent on a whim. Still 1100 VS are 550 worth of wood, + more early military mass + the potential long term eco bonus.

Also you could always just eat the amount of lifestock you need to keep production out of double rax, and use your cows as crates so to speak, whenever you need more food, while letting the others fatten up more. I think with these new changes and more options to get livestock, fulling mills could actually be a usable card.