Gideon's Baja California all-in

Build inspired by a game between GideonAI vs ChefSudiste where the former surprised the latter with a Baja California all-in. The replay is available on the Sunbros discord. The game was casted by LionHeart.

Game Plan:

Choke your oppenent as early as possible using the Baja California revolt to burn his base down. If your opponent turtles hard, go for a trade monopoly victory.

Opening:

• Gather your food crate with villagers and enough wood to build one house. Leave the rest on the ground. We will pick it up during transition.
• Absolute priority on food treasure. Time is of the essence on this strategy. Wood and coin treasure will only take priority in transition to age 2.
• Ship the cathedral in age 1. It will not help us age faster but the shipment will have time to pay back its XP cost and won't delay our tempo.
• Once you have 11 villagers on the field, eat your cow. You should aim to age up with 12 villagers. If you have a water shipment point, age with Michoacàn. Otherwise it does not matter.

Transition and age 2:

• Once you have clicked the age up, the explorer should focus on wood and coin treasures as they are worth more villager seconds.
• Pick up your leftover crates and macro for 350f, 350w, 350c exactly. Your aim is to have these ready as soon as you reach age 2.
• As soon as you age up, collect the XP crates then revolt as soon as the crates are collected. Use the wagon to build a saloon.
• When you revolt use your filibusters to idle the enemy, but do not overextend. Wait for reinforcements from the saloon and the TC to commit.
• Use the TP wagons to seize the trade line.
• Ship 600c back to back. In the saloon produce Bandidos. In the TC produce filibusters. Once the batches are out, it's pushing time.

Branching paths:

• If your push is going well and you feel you can burn down the TC, send coach guns.
• More likely your opponent will use a military shipment with militiamen. Pull back. Filibusters are highly suceptible to militiamen as they are tagged as siege units. It's better to send a factory wagon and wait for the health of militiamen to deplete before attacking again.
• If you see your opponent produce military to defend, ship soldier of fortune. Don't hesitate to cancel a shipment and wait for it to arrive before engaging.
• If your opponent is ageing up, burn down his houses. Then, stop producing filibusters and focus on cuatreros. They have little siege but can handle canons.
• If your opponent starts shipping towers/colonial militia. Pull back. your plan is now to secure a trade monopoly. The 3TP wagons shipment will be of great help. Macro the factory to get stagecoach then send annexion to trigger the trade monopoly victory. "Coach gun" allows your TPs to fend off a batch of enemy pikemen on top of sending outlaws.
• After the factory, Team Trickle Economics is your second best economic shipment if and only if you have researched stagecoach.

Where to execute this build?

Any map with a good trade line and exposed TP slots (e.g Ozarks, Bahia, Pendjab). The more TP the more difficult securing a trade monopoly will be. 5TP slots (natives+trade line) is the optimal number as the 3 TP wagons received upon revolting will be enough to allow Annexation to be shipped.

Note:

The deck is configured to look like some FF/FI style deck to bamboozle your opponent. You can take whatever card you fancy as you will only ever send the church.