Logistician rush

I have seen a few attempts online to play the dutch logisitican. Most of the builds are small variations of the standard Dutch hussar build. Bank in transition, followed by tiny batches of units.

I have the feeling it is not playing to the logistician strength. So I came up with this build. Warning it is a low eco, high tempo build !

Game plan

Sacrifice the bank in transition in favour of market upgrades, allowing you to pump full batches of infantry in age 2.

Age I :

Bog standard Dutch opening. The only difference is that we will age with the logistician instead of the quartermaster.

In transition, put 3 merchants on food and the rest one coin. Build a market with the leftover wood, then buy wood to research placer mines, hunting dogs, queue a merchant, and build a house. After that shift an extra merchant to food, and start accumulating resources.

You explorer should focus XP treasures (food and coin as secondary). Ignore wood.

Age II :

Ship the bank wagon immediately. New merchants to food until you have 5, then to coin.

Build barrack and start training halberdiers. Your second batch will be more halberdier (if you see a stable or greed) or skirmishers (to counter musketeers/light infantry). Your 3rd shipment is 700w. Upon sending this shipment you must make an important decision :

• Balanced approach : Collect the wood crates and build a church and two houses. Bank 350wood and ship 700f next. It will be used to build another bank while maintaining unit production from a single barrack.
• Economic switch : Cancel your batch of units, shift most of your merchants to food. Collect the wood crates and build two banks. Buy wood for a house.
• All in agression : Collect the wood crates, build three houses, a church and another military building. Remacro merchants to food. Your 4th shipment is 700c to be able to produce from two buildings.

If you got experience from treasures, you will receive it before being pop-capped (ideal scenario). If not you will have to stop unit production and wait for the house to be built to resume it, which will impact your tempo.

Followup :

• This build is designed for very long age 2 fights. you have access to skirmishes and halberdiers already so ageing up has less value than usual. Bank of Amsterdam is there in case you reach your merchant build limit.
• Military reform makes halberdiers very fast. With this card, they are quite good at raiding villagers, hunting light cavalry, and can escape from infantry easily. However, the damage penalty against infantry makes them lose a fight against musketeers. If you are unsure, ship infantry attack/HP instead
• If you face heavy turtling, go to age 3 and ship advanced artillery. It is not the best value shipment, but it will force your enemy to react to you.