Favourite Arena Strategies - Compilation Thread

Love it or loathe it, full blown Arena clown or instant Alt-F4'er, this map probably provides the best opportunity for any civ in the game to try any strat that you can think of.

As much as I hate to admit it some of the most fun I've had in this game is playing Arena TG's, particularly flank and playing super aggressively. Even if we lose the game, some of the strats are so much fun that it provides a good bit of relief from the open-map meta.

I thought it would be cool to have a thread that contains a big list of possible strats that people can try out. I think the criteria can be fairly loose (clearly trying naked boom into imperial Khmer ele's and scorps in a 2K4 1v1 isn't going work) but most of us aren't at this level. So lets just say as long as it would be viable in a ranked 1v1 match and/or a TG above lets 1200 TG ELO then let's hear it!

If you want to add some explanation to quirks of the build etc then feel free. Use the template or don't whatever works.

I'll kick off with my favourite and a super common one...

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Civ: Bulgarians

Strat: FC > Siege Tower - Long Handed Swordsmen

People are much more aware of this one now, but you can occasionally catch someone off guard. This works with any civ that has access to siege towers, but the Bulgarians benefit from their free Militia line upgrades, meaning as soon as you hit castle age you can deposit LHS over their walls and run rampant in a possibly unprepared opponents base. Also seen this done with Teutons and Teutonic Knights, but is slower and of course requires the castle first as well.

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Civ: Turks

Strat: Fast-imp > Hand Canon's & BBC's

Everyone knows this one, probably the first 'clown' strat that people may try when they want to try an Arena specific strategy. Variations of this build are all over the internet, but it takes advantage of the Turks getting the tech Chemistry for free as soon as they reach imp, meaning you can get a time advantage over any other civ in producing gunpowder units. Turks gold eco bonuses also help here.