Darius asked about my minoan fastboom strat, and I couldn't find it anywhere (ok, so I'm lazy), so here goes.
Forget the whole land food idea. Build one house not two, then a wood pit in (and I mean *in* - no spacing) a good forest. Start chopping with all your villies, but send your 5th one or so (map dependant) to look for water. If the map has passes between your land and the enemy's, you'll want to block those with your docks, otherwise dock any non-puddle. When your dock is done, build a house near it while you make your first FB. Now go a little ways (maybe 20 tiles or so) and build a second dock. Keep using this builder to make houses and explore while you make FBs from your docks. As soon as you have enough food, make more villies and put them on wood but stop making villies after 12, keep your food for a decent tool time. When you have enough food, advance to tool, stop making FBs, have your builder build a granary (near berries if you found them, otherwise in an empty area), and take 3-4 villies off wood to build a defensive barracks near your wood pit.
&nbps;
As soon as you're in tool, research small wall and wall in asap. Then train 4 goldies, build a market and either a stable or an archery range. It shouldn't be long before you have enough food to advance to bronze, I usually have it before I'm done making the tool buildings and my 4 goldies. When you have all the required buildings, advance to bronze, and research woodworking and either cav or archer armor (depending on whether you built a stable or an archery range) while you advance, and build extra archeries as resources allow. At the moment you reach bronze, start training villies again and research impie, artisanship, build a govt center, and research war galleys in that order of importance. Next turn around you'll want compies, writing, toolworking (if you have a stable), and start making extra TCs near any resources so you can build up your "real" villie pop. Make sure you have plenty of military buildings, like 20 archeries, 5 stables and 5 workshops and maybe even 2-3 academies.
From here you can either make 20-30 compies and a dozen camels to go beat on the nearest opponent, or continue to build your econ towards a quick iron only making an army if you get attacked (but make sure you're properly walled in and have all the techs researched for your units).
This is highly vulnerable to a ship rush by a civ with a decent ship bonus, such as another minoan, a hittite, or yammy. It's also vulnerable to hittite if they're allowed to bronze, since their warboats crush minoan's when massed and their STs literally crush minoan's compies even more. It's amazingly effective vs an assy CA rush however, and possibly a few other situations.
If anyone wants to write this up nicely for HM's site, feel free to do so. Make sure you don't give me proper credit for this strat nor dock-blocking. (j/k)
Forget the whole land food idea. Build one house not two, then a wood pit in (and I mean *in* - no spacing) a good forest. Start chopping with all your villies, but send your 5th one or so (map dependant) to look for water. If the map has passes between your land and the enemy's, you'll want to block those with your docks, otherwise dock any non-puddle. When your dock is done, build a house near it while you make your first FB. Now go a little ways (maybe 20 tiles or so) and build a second dock. Keep using this builder to make houses and explore while you make FBs from your docks. As soon as you have enough food, make more villies and put them on wood but stop making villies after 12, keep your food for a decent tool time. When you have enough food, advance to tool, stop making FBs, have your builder build a granary (near berries if you found them, otherwise in an empty area), and take 3-4 villies off wood to build a defensive barracks near your wood pit.
&nbps;
As soon as you're in tool, research small wall and wall in asap. Then train 4 goldies, build a market and either a stable or an archery range. It shouldn't be long before you have enough food to advance to bronze, I usually have it before I'm done making the tool buildings and my 4 goldies. When you have all the required buildings, advance to bronze, and research woodworking and either cav or archer armor (depending on whether you built a stable or an archery range) while you advance, and build extra archeries as resources allow. At the moment you reach bronze, start training villies again and research impie, artisanship, build a govt center, and research war galleys in that order of importance. Next turn around you'll want compies, writing, toolworking (if you have a stable), and start making extra TCs near any resources so you can build up your "real" villie pop. Make sure you have plenty of military buildings, like 20 archeries, 5 stables and 5 workshops and maybe even 2-3 academies.
From here you can either make 20-30 compies and a dozen camels to go beat on the nearest opponent, or continue to build your econ towards a quick iron only making an army if you get attacked (but make sure you're properly walled in and have all the techs researched for your units).
This is highly vulnerable to a ship rush by a civ with a decent ship bonus, such as another minoan, a hittite, or yammy. It's also vulnerable to hittite if they're allowed to bronze, since their warboats crush minoan's when massed and their STs literally crush minoan's compies even more. It's amazingly effective vs an assy CA rush however, and possibly a few other situations.
If anyone wants to write this up nicely for HM's site, feel free to do so. Make sure you don't give me proper credit for this strat nor dock-blocking. (j/k)