Hey there,

Introduction

I'm trying to create some civ-specific build orders that heavily lean into their bonuses and came up with this one for Britons: we use their faster shepherds, 1.2x range work rate and better archers to create a very early force of archers to harass our opponent and one-up their military.

Compared to a standard 23pop double range build, this build produces the first group of archers faster (e.g. 12min23 vs 12min53 for 6 archers), at which point you can add a 2nd range (or a stable) anyways. Also, the first archer is produced signficantly earlier (~10min) which means that you can have some defensive archers vs Militia before the M@A upgrade comes in or start harassing super early.

On a side note, this build is more flexible, ie not as easily countered by one range skirms, because we don't blindly invest in a second range in early feudal.

Still there's some trade-offs: we don't get our blacksmith instantly upon hitting feudal and the build is harder to execute. Also, we have less villagers working during ageing up, which is only partly compensated by getting an earlier axe.

At first glance, 19pop sounds really hard to accomplish, but with the right villager allocation and the Briton sheep bonus, I found it to be relatively easy and consistent.

The build:

19pop Britons fast archers

pop task

dark age

• 1-6: build a house, then eat sheep (5 total)
• 7: build a house, then a lumbercamp, chop wood (1 total)
• 8: to wood (2 total)
• 9: lure boar, eat boar along with shepherds (6 total)
• 10-12: to boar, dont forget to get in your 2nd boar lure in time (9 total)
• 13: build a house near your berries, then a mill, forage (1 total)
• 14: forage berries (2 total)
• 15-16: to boar/sheep (11 total). If you cannot fully surround your boar and/or once your 2nd boar depletes, start gathering from your remaining sheep in groups of 4-7 vils.
• 17-18: to wood (4 total)
• 19: build a mining camp on gold, mine gold (1 total).

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• as soon as you have gathered 500 food or clicked feudal, go down to 4 on food under TC and send the rest to wood (4 to woodline + 3 to stragglers or similar)
• research loom, advance to feudal with: 11 lumberjacks, 4 shepherds, 2 foragers, 1 miner.
• on the way up, as soon as wood becomes available, build a barracks (start before 61% to feudal!) and a house.
• once you run out of sheep/deer under TC, you can send those vils to the mill to forage (or to build farms once horse collar is complete).

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feudal age (ideal time: 16x25sec + 130sec = 8:50)

• queue two villagers. Immediatly build an archery range with two villagers, queue archers once complete. Keep your TC and range queued with archers and vils, there should be very little, if any, downtime.
• get Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar as soon as you can afford them which should be within the first minute to feudal. Don't forget to add houses!
• 20-22: to gold (4 total)
• 23: farm
• 24+: to wood/farms, adapt
• you should be able to afford both a blacksmith and a second lumbercamp before you hit 30 population.
• you need 4 goldminers and 2 lumberjacks to keep archer production up and 6-7 on food to keep villager production up. All extra villagers can be tasked to wood first or build farms around TC.

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The build order fades out here: Feel free to add some eco modules depending on the situations or add goldminers and farmers to follow up with a 22-23min castle age. Here's some guideline numbers:

• adding 2nd range archers: build range, +4 goldminers, +2 lumberjacks.
• adding 2nd range skirms: build range, +5 farms, +4 lumberjacks.
• adding scouts: build stable, +8 farmers.
• adding spears: +5 farms, +3 lumberjacks.

Pros/Cons

- delayed blacksmith

- harder to execute, less wiggle-room

- less vils during advancing, less surplus resources e.g. to wall

- initial single goldminer susceptible to being sniped

+ very early archers to counter drush or M@A, start harassing

+ first 7 archers produced faster

+ more flexible, not as easily countered

+ surprise factor: off-meta, unpredictable

Notes

• optional, but recommended: pushing 1-2 deer under the TC in mid dark age to early feudal will let you transition from sheep/deer to farms without going to berries.
• the normal two-house start also works. I simply like to delay the second house to avoid building it on gold/berries and potentially start walling.
• this build is intended for (half)open land maps with standard resources (arabia-esque).
• best in 1v1s or as TG flanks. probably not great as pocket.

I would be happy to know what you think about the build and its viability or any other feedback!