Folwark semi FF

While everybody is laming with the church card, I was looking for ways to play the commonwealth "normally". Here is an attempt. Tell me what you think.

Game plan :

Harass your opponent early with retainers while you prepare your economy to spam cavalry archers in age 3 backed by banner armies. This BO requires a TP.

Age I

Perform a TP opening with poland. Use the starting wood to build a trade post, then chop wood with 3 workers. Houses are cheaper with poland at 85 woods apiece. The put everyone on food until age up with the governor at 15 villagers.

In transition chop for a market (remember its price is discounted), hunting dogs and bank 250 wood. Priority on wood and XP treasures. Ship advanced folwark in transition. You can build the folwark forward or in base. Then put all but 2 settlers back to food.

Age II :

Place the tower next to the folwark and start training retainers. Treat retainers as cossaks that do not like heavy infantry nor TC fire but eat heavy cavalry and escape light cavalry. They are still a decent raiding unit.

Ship 700w as fast as possible. The wood will pay for at least one more folwark (population space and preparation for later), and the rest will be spent to react to what your opponent is doing. Do not lose sight that you want to age up as soon as it is safe to do so. The longer you linger in age 2 the worse it gets for you.

• If you are not under threat, stop making units immediately. You need the food for the age up. Put some settlers on coin. Use the remaining wood for a church, steel traps. Ship 700c as your 4th shipment. You can build a Sejm with your hero to get the shipment sooner (the Sejm costs 255 wood but has a build bounty of 200XP, which is enormous for a building).
• If you are under threat (enemy is coming hard and fast for you), use the the wood for a barrack, upgrade one folwark to military, and defend with piechur/pike/Xbows. This is not ideal for you. Ship 700c to pay for your units then 600c to age up.

Always age up with the exiled prince unless you are very far from your next shipment. In this case, the winged hussars have their use.

In transition, upgrade one folwark to military is not already done. Research placer mines. Split your workers 50%/50% on food/coin.

Age III :

Unless you are being pushed hard, you want to ship 1000w. Build a 2nd town centre (or a sejm if not already built) and cover the floor with folwarks. Create cavalry archers from your military folwark. Your next shipment should be the 2 falconets, followed by one of the banner armies (most of the time Vlach). Once the banner army is here, push. 14 veteran boyars backed by cav archers and falconets are no joke.

Follow up

From this moment, adapt to what you see on the field. The general plan is to slowly get ahead by making settlers with your two TCs, keep building folwarks (the wood trickle from the sejm will improve as you have more settlers) and leverage your banner armies. Do not forget about rzeczpospolita later un the game.

Notes :

Regarding the banner/assembly shipments :

• Vlach banner is the BEST banner currently. And not because it reaches its maximum ressource value at 7 folwarks (net res value of 2340).
  • People tend to react to a mass of light cavalry (which you are training) by making light infantry. This banner is a high value heavy cav switch to punish such play.
  • Boyars are excellent unit themselves, great for sniping canons, and boasting high siege damage compared to other heavy cav.
  • For some reason, boyards do not get a population cost after shipping this banner.
• Scottish banner also maxes out at 7 folwarks but gives very low value (750 res including the cost of shipment).
  • It is in the deck to cover against a pike switch by your opponent against your cavalry archers, in complement of the falconets.
  • The musketeer version of the lowlander has higher melee attack and resistance compared to regular musketeers. Forcing melee mode is an option.
  • The dragoon version of the lowlander has bonus vs all cavalry in melee mode (not just heavy cav). Great for countering an opposing cav archer mass.
  • The lowlander is cheap to train but needs to be upgraded to veteran at a barracks. :(
• Royal Banner reaches maximum value at 10 folwarks for a net ressource value of 2750. At 7 folwarks it has a net value of 1700 res.
  • The companion is a bad unit, but has a niche use doing suicide charges in heavy infantry (siege damage bypasses melee resist) while in trample mode (companions have a lower damage penalty compared to other units in trample mode).
  • As such, this shipment should be LOW PRIORITY.
• Ladislas banner maxes at 15 folwarks for a res value of 1000 which is equal to an age 3 shipment.
  • Royal arquebusiers have high hit points, melee resistance and higher DPS in melee compared to ranged (this is uncommon for light infantry).
  • Good against heavy infantry and can serve as a decent frontline for cav archers against melee infantry.
• Towarzysze pancerni is not a great card. It needs 10 folwarks to break even with an age 3 shipment and its wood cost is prohibitive. I feel is better to train cav archers yourself so i did not include it in the deck.

Deck variants :

• Veteran piechur have 18 range so they will handle any light infantry with this range or below. For the rest, you have the pandour shipment.
• Bathory's banner is an option instead of pandours if you know you won't face 20 range light infantry. Maxes at 7 folwarks. Inferior to Vlach banner but good value nonetheless.