Mantlet Rush for Iro/Haud

[fei123456]

In DE Haud's age II shipment 600 resources has been buffed to 800 resources, one of the best age II shipments in the game; and 6 huron mantlets become 7. This shield rush build takes use of these 2 buffed shipments together, thus becoming a "meta-friendly" build.

Haud rush is still scary in DE, but they don't have pikemen. Even though they can have mass units in early game, it takes 2000 years to destroy a TC/Agra Fort, and dozen of units die to TC fire. Usually they still can't burn it down, and a failure is not far away. That's how the Huron mantlets work here: with 7 high range-resistant units burning his TC, your opponent can not buy a lot of time with a sole TC, training no units and keep spamming torps/shrines outside.

Another thing is that if you gathered some gold treasures early, you can't take use of them because all your units cost food/wood. Market and hunting dog doesn't help too much, and you still waste some resources if you gathered more than 50 gold. But within this build, every coin should be used properly.

Build Order
You don't need a special deck for this. just put 7 shields in it.

Do a standard start, chop 100w for a TP, send 3 vills, age up fast with 15p. during transition, gather 25 wood for a mine, and put 7-8 vills on it. Build a front war hut with your travois. Send 800 resources first.

You're about to have 250 gold before crates arrive. Stop mining and put all your vills on food. When 800 resources arrive, gather the 2 gold crates first, and send 450 gold 7 Huron mantlets a.s.a.p.

Now you have extra 400 food and 200w, call the big button 5 tomahawks (make sure they come out from war hut), build a house, and start training units. To train aenna you just put all vills on food, as shields are native units who cost 0 pop; with toma you put 3-4 vills on wood.

You'll have about 10 units and 7 mantlets at around 6:00. Rush into his base, kill his military buildings with shields first, then the TC. Use your toma/aenna to deal with his units and minutemen. The next shipment is usually 4 Kanya, 6 toma etc.

Tips
This build works well vs those slow civs, Japan/Dutch/Sweden etc. I'm not sure if it counters Port. But if your opponent knows you'll do this, train units early and send unit shipments (leather cannon is a disaster), you'll be in trouble. Your first 2 shipments are not units (mantlets don't help much in fights), and you don't necessarily have more units than your opponent. So scouting is important here. Bless that he doesn't find your front war hut too early. Instead if he scouts your base, finds your vills working on the mine, he may think you'll do an eco semiFF.

As you don't have tons of units early, you should scout and adapt well for the right unit composition. Does he have a stable or cavalry shipments (3 hussar, 4 sowar)? You'll need some tomahawk to counter this. Instead if he trains range infantry, you'll need 4 kanya and full aenna, and toma are useless here. But toma can snipe his vills easier if he likes vill fights.

Don't do this on no TP maps! It's extremely important that the first 3 shipments (800 res, 7 mantlet, 4 Kanya) arrives in a row. I'd say this build is not available if you don't have enough XP for constant shipments early.

[n0el]

PLOP

[chronique]

I think it's better to age 16 vills because you can't send back to back 800 res and 7 huron and you don't need to be super super fast in age 2. Aging 16 vills mean you are sure to have zero idle time and a smoothest macro behind (even with a 16 vills age up, you have 450g before your third shipment), and your opponenet is not afraid by your age up time (as aging 16 fast is close to slow 14) . You should have 10 toma + 7 huron in 5.50 max and 5 toma in prod behind.

You can do the same with cree/cherok, but don't abuse too much of this kind of build it's not healty at all, trust me

[Squamiger]

works good fun build