Age of Empires: New Strategy; Castle to Castle fight

This is an age old strategy that was practiced before the flush and the castle rush were discovered.It mainly consists of the following steps:-

1.Trush:-The first step is tower rush strategy.Hit fast feud(around 10-11 mins)and then start building towers in the opponent's base.This may have many variations like trush+flush or archer+trush though these variations slow down the attack(coz u have to collect food+gold+stone+wood).The key point here is to build towers at strategic positions.For example,a tower near his lumber camp will besiege him and he will be forced to cut wood elsewhere(this wastes his 100 wood he used to build the lumber camp).Other strategic positions maybe his main gold mine or stone mine.

2.Castle Age:-Once the towers surround his base (partly or completely),it time to hit castle age.Ideal time would be around 22-24 mins.Once in castle age build a castle in between the towers(so that he cannot kill the vills with knights).Castle should be built as close to his TC as possible.Once the castle is built its time to hit age.

3.Imperial Age:-Imperial age ideal time is around 30 mins.Once in Imperial make trebeuchets and destroy his town center,castle etc..keep archers to guard the trebeuchets.If the castle was built near his town center,then the castle itself will give protection to the trebeuchet.Once his main buildings are razed he will resign sooner or later.

4.Important researches:-Range researches are very important as the main attack used is with arrows.It banks on archers,so gold and lumber camp researchers come next.Last come the researches of wheelbarrow etc.(it can even be done in the imperial age.

5.Advantages of the castle to castle strategy:-Fast and continuous attack are its advantages.Occupation of enemy territory and restricting the enemy to have his resources.

6.Civilizations often used:-Archer civilizations are advantageous.Teutons are hot favorites because of their garrison bonus.Britons are also preferred because of range bonus.Other civilizations which are useful include Byzantines(lesser resources for advancing age),Mayans(cheaper archers),Persians(faster work rate),Vikings(free wheelbarrow).

7.Precautions while using castle to castle strategy:-If strategic positions are not occupied then it is very vulnerable to attack.For example, if towers are build in the middle of nowhere, then it wont affect his resource collection etc.If he notices the first tower being built, then he will try to raze it with vils.So a trush+flush is advisable.

8.Disadvantages of the castle to castle strategy:-As attack is continuous and the main priority is to advance age,boom is slow(mainly only with 2 TCs or even 1 TC as the stone is used in making towers and castle).So if attack is not successful,it fails miserably.It cannot defend in case of a counter attack,flush strategy being its best counter(becoz all the attack is concentrated in the enemy territory).Decentralization is also effective against this strategy.Just move away from the town center and collect resources elsewhere.

This strategy is very old and we have very few instances of such games in the recent past.