Japanese M@A Rush

Article written by John_Mendl
Published on 09-24-2010; updated on 11-21-2011
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23 Pop Jap m@a Rush:

This strategy is usable on any open or semi-open land map, but works best on arabia. On arabia if you follow this guide well, you can hit the enemy economy with 4-6 men-at-arms (m@a) at around 11.45 – 12.45, with the option of getting scale mail armor while maintaining almost continuous villager production. Japanese have two bonuses which help this strategy very much – Cheap lumber camps/mills/mining camps from the start and faster attack rate of infantry from feudal onwards.

Dark Age:

Build one house with two vils at start while the third vil explores/kills sheep.

∙ Vils 1-6 on sheep

∙ V 7 Build 2 houses on way to wood

∙ V 8 Build a lumber camp (LC) at wood (V 7 helps build LC/chops wood there))

∙ V 9 Wood at LC

∙ V 10 Build house on way to boar (Dont build it now if you havent found sheeps 5 and 6 yet) and lure it to your Town Center (TC)

Get Loom

∙ V 11-12 Forage bush (build a mill with first forager)

∙ V 13-14 Gather boar at TC (Make farm with 1 injured villager)
     – Go Lure the second boar with a full health vil when food on first boar hits 170-190
     – Make another farm with an injured villager once you lured your second boar
∙ V 15-16 Forage bush

∙ V 17-19 Wood at LC

∙ V 20-21 Gold (build a mining camp with first miner)

     – When you get 175 wood after placing your mining camp, build a barracks with one sheep vil at your base facing the enemy base
∙ V 22 Wood at LC

Click Feudal Age. Make sure you build houses whenever needed and in time.

You will want to build a few pieces of palisades on the sides of your mining camp if enemy is going to drush (militia rush). This helps against scout rushes too.

When you finish the Barracks, start training militia as continuous as possible.

Move 4 vils from sheep to deer (move them to forage and make an extra farm if enemy is gonna drush). Build a mill near deer with one vil. At a time kill only one deer and gather it with 4 vils.

Build 2 more farms after placing your barracks (preferrably with injured vils). When the remaining villagers gathering sheep at TC become idle, remember to task them too.

When you finish training 4/5/6 militia (depends on what the enemy is doing), send them to attack enemy vils preferably at his wood or gold and get m@a upgrade on the way. If he is doing a forward rush, try to find out where his forward vils are, and attack them with your m@a. If he is towering/towered any of your resources, use a bunch of your own vils to beat down the tower while your m@a helps to fight enemy villagers/army. If your m@a arent nearby on this occasion, its safer to relocate the reource. If his tower is fully walled or protected by another tower(s), dont fight, just relocate your resource, even if you have your m@a nearby.

Feudal Age:

Keep making vils as continuously as possible. If you have 10 seconds of TC idle time in dark youll reach feudal at 10:40.

You should make the decision whether to get armor for m@a or not. If he is full-walled, there is no point in getting armor. If you need to, build a blacksmith immediately and get scale mail armor when you get food, after clicking m@a upgrade. Else, get double-bit axe as soon as you reach feudal.

Avoid getting under TC fire with m@a as much as you can (use defensive stance and in some cases stand ground with micro if need be) while damaging his economy to the maximum extent. If he is palisaded, strike at the most vulnerable spot and try to break in. Use forward tower(s) to attack his vills if hes walled up neatly that you cant break in. Mine stone if you made a tower or more, so that you have enough stone to build TCs in castle age, or even to put up more towers in feudal.

If the enemy has skirms at his base, just ignore them and attack his vils. If he fights your m@a with scouts and vils, attack the scouts first and target vils after killing scouts, or if they run away.

Make more farms whenever suitable.

Build an archery range soon and make skirms to counter archers (archers are the only units that beat m@a before late feudal). Get double-bit axe (if you havent already) and then fletching and then padded archer armor (get this tech later if opponent is fully walled and has no army). Mix in archers to conserve food for eco/military upgrdes. Keep making m@a if opponent is massing skirms/scouts or both. Make only a few otherwise. When you get food, get wheelbarrow. Get horse collar before or after wheel. In case you have many m@a that are usable, consider getting forging. Otherwise just avoid that tech until castle age. If he is still making scouts, make ample amount of spears to counter them. If he gets bloodlines/scale barding, that indicates that he is going to make more scouts.

Check for idle vils especially on forage and deer. Build new lumber camps on wood whenever suitable. Remember, Japanese need to spend less for this (and mining camps when needed).

If your opponent castles early, make units depending on what buildings he has. Stables indicate knights, ranges indicate crossbows/cav archers. Go spear + archer to counter knights and skirms to counter crossbows/CA. If he is playing Aztecs or Mayans and have multiple barracks, he is likely to go Eagles – counter them with m@a. If he has a siege workshop, he would probably make mangonels – to deal with them, use staggered formation for your ranged units and use your non-ranged units to attack them too, but dont get under his TC’s range to kill them. If he has more than 2 mangonels, you need many m@a/spear to take them down.

Make more ranges when you can and depending on what the enemy is doing, make 2 or 3 ranges in total (sometimes even 4). Go to castle age when you can and make units depending on what the enemy is making.

Later Ages:

Crossbows, pikes, eskirms and mangonels are what you usually want to make in Castle age. Make Lswords instead of pikes if you are playing vs Aztecs/Mayans likely to make eagles. In Imperial, halbs, eskirms, esamurai, onagers, trebs, champs, arbalests (If you have a lot of xbows left) are some good units. Dont get both ESamurai and Champ upgrades in the same game.

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