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Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors Tactics & Guides -> Random Map -> The Smush -> Page 1

The Smush

As castle times get faster and faster we begin bumping up into the theoretical limit at how fast you can be and still have sufficient resources to attack your enemy. As was demonstrated in the castle time challenge, practical castle times can be as 12:00 or lower, given sufficient time to micromanage events. However castling too fast leaves weak and unable to develop sufficient military to take advantage of your speed.

It makes sense that there is some optimal time for castling that allows speed but also sufficient economy. So far that optimal time was around 15:30 or so.

However, while puttering around at Microsoft, Sheriff has been working on some killer new strategies to whomp on his fellow testers. One of those strategies is his Saracen monk rush - which we now reveal to the rest of the AOK world. This new strategy seems to lower the boom on the old thoughts of size of economy necessary to support an offensive, especially when castle times are now two full minutes below the old times. In real games, defeating real opponents, Sheriff has achieved castle times of under 13:30!

This article explains the general concept, contains a recorded game example in action (against real opponents), and the follows with some broader implications for AOK strategy. Sheriff's step-by-step actions are presented at the end for those that cannot review the game or want more detail.

The concept is basically four-fold:

At first, we Feudal early with only 19 villagers.

Secondly, using the market, we can improve the Saracen's early economy by trading our initial stone for wood and food, improving our castle time significantly. This is why we use Saracens: their rates are better.

Next we mine stone almost exclusively, trading it away for gold, which we can then use to buy some extra wood for our castle buildings. Again, this is why we use Saracens: their rates are better.

Finally, we use monks, en masse, which have no counter this early in the game, and allow us to focus most of our entire economy on gold.

How can we improve this strategy?

Fewer or more villagers do not seem to improve performance significantly. Fewer villagers do not lower time to castle and more villagers delays the assault.

Other civilizations are possible choices for this strategy, but it would have to be modified to account for poorer market-trading performance. For example, Chinese should be able to get to castle very early and they could also make only monks. It is important to have both sanctity and redemption, however. Using other civilizations - we might call this the MUSH (for Monk rUSH)

In team games, having a Byzantine ally makes this strategy amazingly effective. Your monk army is nearly invincible, since the Byzantine team bonus is 3x faster healing

If the enemy defends with tower, we can quickly switch to producing rams.

How can we improve counters to this strategy?

Towers are the only real defensive measure. Monks have a range of 9 and towers have a range of 8. It is possible to keep monks away using a few towers.

The SMUSH economy is very lean and there are no defenses at home. Making a few archers and sending them to the SMUSHers base could devastate him, especially if you do it early enough.

In team games, your ally can castle rush the SMUSHer and crush his economy. In team games it is vitally important that your ally also rush the other opponent to prevent aid FROM coming and hurting you.

What this means is that against a SMUSH, you will either need to defend with towers, or attack with feudal units. Units defending at home are likely to get converted and used against you. His monks are a poor target unless you can wipe all of them out. You are better off attacking his base.) Since towers are generally a losing proposition when used at home in defense, attacking with feudal age troops will most likely be the best defense.

Sheriff's step-by-step plan is very simple and can be executed by almost anyone. Your performance may vary based on the map, number of resources, your opponent, and other evils that befall you. Note that this is not against a computer; this is a real game with real opponents with real lag. You will notice many mistakes and areas where he could have improved.