21+1 Vils Portuguese Monk Rush Strategy

This build can flex by 1 villager more or less depending on the type of hunt available to you (rhinos versus elephants, or deer versus chickens). The objective is to rush Castle Age as fast as possible and take control of the center of the map. It's mainly played on Arena, but works on similar maps like Hideout too. The twist here is grabbing relics as fast as possible, while also picking up the wood and gold economic upgrades to set up a fast Imperial Age follow-up. This strategy is very hard to counter directly, and mostly loses to its own execution mistakes, it's genuinely difficult to pull off cleanly, so expect those mistakes to happen fairly often until you've mastered it.

  1. [Dark] Send 6 villagers to sheep (pop 6)
  2. [Dark] Send 3 villagers to wood (pop 9)
  3. [Dark] Send 1 villager to boar (pop 10)
  4. [Dark] Send 1 vil to hunt under TC (pop 11)
  5. [Dark] 1 to make 2 houses then mill (pop 12)
  6. [Dark] 1 to get second boar (pop 13)
  7. [Dark] Send 5 villagers to berries (pop 18)
  8. [Dark] Send 1 villager to wood (pop 19)
  9. [Dark] NOTE: make 1 extra villager here and send it to wood on chicken variations
  10. [Dark] Send 2 villagers to gold (pop 21)
  11. [Dark] Research Feudal Age (perfect landing time: 9:40)
  12. [Feudal] Send 1 villager to wood (pop 22)
  13. [Feudal] Research loom
  14. [Feudal] sell 200 stone and buy 100 food
  15. [Feudal] Research Castle Age (perfect landing time: 13:10)
  16. [Castle] Research double bit axe
  17. [Castle] Research gold mining
  18. [Castle] send all villagers from hunt/berries/chickens to wood or gold.
  19. [Castle] doesn’t matter too much because we will use the market to balance the economy
  20. [Castle] make a barracks and 2 spears
  21. [Castle] Send 2 villagers with your scout towards the center of the map
  22. [Castle] Make 2 monasteries near the center of the map, towards your opponents base
  23. [Castle] Pick up the relics
  24. [Castle] Make a siege workshop and make a ram to break opponents walls

What next: After grabbing the relics, launch a Castle Age push into your opponent's base to force a reaction. A Ram, 2 Spearmen, and a group of Monks is the bare minimum, add more depending on how they respond. If they do nothing and try to boom greedily, add Mangonels and Redemption, then convert their buildings and villagers while mangonel-ing their Town Centers. If they go Light Cavalry, add a few more Spearmen and get the Pikeman upgrade, along with Fervor and Sanctity for your Monks. If they set up a Monk defense, get Atonement and Devotion to counter it, though it's often better to avoid the fight entirely since you already hold the relics, just wait until Imperial Age and defend what you have. If they go for a Castle defense plus their Unique Unit, get Sanctity and Fervor and mass Monks, and add a second wall layer with houses or whatever else is available so they can't sneak Petards in for a counterattack. Whatever happens, hold the relics and control the middle of the map until Imperial Age. When you click up, move your farm villagers to stone so you can build a Castle in the middle of the map near the monasteries. GLHF!

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