VoC bank boom into merc

Since 2005, the greediest build for Dutch is the 7 bank boom in age II. The usual shipment order is 3merchants>700w>600w>religious freedom (church card) to achieve 7 banks by 8'30".

Today I would like to present an even greedier version of this build, using the reworked Dutch East India Company card. You are down 3 merchants compared to the regular boom version. However, at the end of the boom, missing 3 merchants is only ~6% less economic force compared to the regular 7 banks boom, you have more resources in the bank at that stage of the game and you have abused the market less, allowing you to pivot to agression more smoothly.

Game plan

Leverage the Dutch East India Company card as much as possible by getting 7 banks by 8'30".

Age I :

Standard Dutch things : build a house, gather coin to train 12 merchants. Focus on coin treasures.

You will send east india company first instead of 3 merchants. Age up with the quartermaster.

In transition gather 300w and 300f and build your first bank with your starting envoy, then collect coin to queue a merchant. Timing is really tight and you will have a slight downtime if you don't get good treasures.

Age II :

Collect the wood and build a market and a 2nd bank (possible because banks cost 297f+w now). Ship 700w. Once the 2nd bank is up, shift all your merchants back to food. Use the collected wood to buy hunting dogs, build one extra banks, a church and a house. Ship 600w after this, and build your remaining two banks with this wood and the food you collected with your merchants.

Finally, ship the church card (religious freedom), and research coffee trade, allowing you to build your 6th and 7th bank. You will need to abuse the market to get the wood for your banks. At this point you should have around 22 merchants and 7 banks.

Followup :

Your medium run plan is to get to age 3 and start pumping mercenaries. Your endgame is to reach age 5 with the mercenary contractor and drown your ennemy under highlanders backed by artillery and red lancers (enabled in the saloon with the red lancer tech at the church). Your deck is entirely built around maximising your coin income and being able to print fully highlanders highlanders stupidly fast.

In the short run, here is what you can do with your 5th shipment to adapt to what is going on :

• No pressure : Ship 700f, get to age 3 with the mercenary contractor. Build a saloon in transition and train fusiliers. Extremely good vs civilizations that do not have falconets.
• You need to support your allies : Ship Waardgelders to push back the opponent. As soon as you have an opening (fast age up), go to age 3 as your swiss pikemen are shadow nerfed. Ageing up will remove the nerf but keep the discounted price. Train Swiss pikemen in transition. In age 3 ship Dutch State armies and slowly replace your pikemen with highlanders.

Variants :

• If you want to spam cavalry instead of infantry, replace fencing school with riding school. Your mercenary cavalry now trains instantly. Focus on royal horseman in age 4, but red lancers are better in age 5 as they get a better upgrade from the contractor.
• You can retool the deck to support a standard Dutch army. Remove the train time card and the advanced arsenal and replace with more infantry upgrade cards (infantry combat is better than advanced arsenal). Replace cigar roller with refrigeration.
• You have a combo where you sling a Japanese teammate using red seal ship (converts coin to export), then revolt to South Africa and use trekk wagons to transport ronins/samurai to the enemy.