Old Han Age 2 defense

A simple build order for the Chinese geared for age 2 early agression/contain. This build handles rushes well, does not require TP, and is flexible.

Game plan :

After a 2 village opening, keep a war academy producing old han army alongside the summer palace. Pressure the ennemy while you grow your deathball and adapt to the situation.

Age I :

Perform a 2 villager opening. Collect the food crates first. Once they are banked, send 4 villagers on hunts while the others collect the wood crates. Place one village close to a mine and/or woodline, then chop wood for a 2nd village. Once the 2nd village is up, all villagers go on food. Do not forget to put the goat on the village to fatten it.

Explorer priority on wood (as long as the 2nd village is not placed down), then food. Your first shipment is Northern refugees. Don't forget to put a waypoint from your villages to your hunts to reduce the need to micro villagers.

Age up at 15 villagers with the summer palace. You will want to eat your goat when the 14th villager is up to reduce idle time.

Transition :

Build the summer palace with 4 villagers. Keep 4 other villagers on hunts to keep the TC working. The rest of the villagers (including the ones created in transition) chop wood until 380 wood is banked. Then, all villagers on food except one who will stay on wood and the 4 building the wonder.

Age II :

Ship 700w immediately. Shift the summer palace to old Han army production. Collect the food crates. Build a war academy with two villagers and produce an old han army. New villagers rally to wood. From now on, collect the crates with the wood villagers.

When the 700w crates arrive, build a TP (or a monastery if there is no trade route), a village and keep producing old Han armies from the war academy. Your 3rd shipment is 600w. Keep building old Han armies but add a village and a market. Once the 600w are in, you need to remacro some villagers from food to wood to maintain old han army production.

Pressure and figure out how your opponent will try to respond to you. Your 4th shipment should counter what your opponent is doing :

• Full heavy cav timing : Qiang pikemen
  • Note : if your ennemy engages with his own mass of units, the pikemen will be thinned out quickly. You can replenish your frontline by producing Ming army instead of Old Han at the war academy. No need to remacro.
• Light infantry mass : Steppe riders
• Grenadiers : Watch out for these mf'ers who can do surprisingly well against old han. Chu-Ko-Nu are easily available but what you really want are the rattan shield or the Duck squad.
  • You can replace one of these two shipments with the "castle+one flame thrower" one. Sell food to produce flamethrowers. You will idle the war academy.
• Full turtle : ship 700c and age up. Shift your wood villagers to coin and food to get 300c, and stop unit production to create a food surplus.

Follow up :

Keep the pressure up to contain. Avoid committing under a TC. It is preferable to age up and crack a base open with the hand mortars or the redcoats from intervention.

If you age up, you can save a shipment to send "New army" in transition to turn your old hand army into territorial army. You gain ~40 villager seconds per Chu-Ko-Nu converted. While you lose villager seconds when converting Qiang pikemen in theory, in practice, the Changdao swordsman is a superior unit. Finally these two units will shadowtech, saving you resources and helping you maintain unit production.

Variants :

For water replace the 2 "W" shipments with "2 junks" and "one fuchuan". Against civilisations that do not rely on heavy infantry, replace "repelling volleys" with the territorial army combat card.