Classic Ottoman Fast Fortress (FF)

Introduction:

Hi all!

I'm not very good at AOE3, but I noticed that this strategy wasn't on here. It's more or less James246's strategy from back in the day.

Things have changed where it comes to resources, timing, etc but it still works well ESPECIALLY against Baja California.

Age I:

• Once your villagers have collected the crates, do your favourite opening.
  • If you don't have one, I'd recommend a Trading Post + Mosque + House opening. If you choose this, you'll want all villagers on food and 2 villagers on building + wood (you'll need to chop 50 extra wood) and to get you explorer moving to the trading post to build it ASAP (Mosque and trading post take priority over the house).
• Once you've got them all your buildings done, move those 2 villagers to food with the rest.
• Call in 3 villagers from your home city for your first shipment.
• Age up ASAP with the 400 wood politician (The Quartermaster)
• Once your Age II upgrade in progress, move 4 or 5 villagers onto coin (usually 4 is enough).

Age II:

• IMMEDIATELY ship 700 coin.
• Use 2 of the villagers on coin to collect the wood crates.
• Build 1 barracks and 2 houses with those 2 villagers from the wood crates, then put the settlers back on coin.
• Collect the 700 coin crates when they come in with 3 or 4 villagers from coin.
• Age up from II -> III as soon as possible. Either age up with the hussars or the abus gunners, depending on whether you expect to be left in peace or attacked respectively.
  • If you get attacked before you send/collect 700 Coin or while Aging Up, ship 5 Janissaries or 3 Delis, and call in your minutemen to try and fend them off.
• Once your Age III upgrade is in progress, have 5 villagers on coin. Start queuing up some Janissaries and ship in 700 wood.
• Once the wood arrives, build 5 houses. This will leave you with 200 wood for later. Be sure to have 200 coin when you hit age III.

Age III:

• Harass the enemy's villagers with your delis if you chose them.
  • If you chose the abus gunners, make sure they're positioned behind your janissaries and be ready to use them.
• Upgrade your janissaries in the barracks using that 200 wood and coin we saved.
• Send either the 5 Spahi (if you expect them to have a large army of infantry - with little anti-cav) or the the 2 falconets (if you want to get to work destroying their buildings) first. Once they come in...
• Attack!

From this point onwards, you're basically playing jazz... so improvise! A few recommendations I have for your next shipment*:

• 2 Falconets: If you called in the 5 spahi first and you need to get the buildings down.
• 3 or 5 Spahi: If you're not having any issues with getting the buildings down, and they don't have much anti-cav, call in the most spahi you can. Spahis are basically the super soldiers of age III.
• Fort: If you need to secure some huntables or mines in the middle of the map, a fort will work wonders. Place it near the resources you need before your villagers head out there.
• Enderun School: If you're finding that your janissaries are putting in a lot of work, give them this boost. They earned it :)
• 1000 Wood: Use it if the game is dragging out, or you need more abus gunners. Use the wood to get an Artillery Foundry up to make more abus gunners and use the rest on trade posts/houses as required.
• Silk Road: Send this if you've got some trade posts on the map but you're in need of more XP. It also provides an economic benefit should you call in any resource crate shipments.
• 8 Janissaries: Use this if your meat shield needs some bolstering. This one, and the next suggestion, are also great if the enemy does a sneak attack on your base while your army is away...
• 6 Abus Gunners: A valuable call in if you just need to kill more infantry, be they attacking your base or defending theirs.

Age IV and beyond:

• Ideally we end the game in age III, but if it draws out long enough and you have the resources, go to age IV.
• Call in your factories ASAP (Researching "Mercantilism" in the mosque can help with this if you have the coin).
• Upgrade the troops that you're using.
• Be sure to upgrade your villagers production capacity and speed in the Mosque, and...
• Play the game out as normal. Good luck!
  • Go to Age V if you're stalemated still (unlikely) and only Revolt as an ABSOLUTE last gambit (ie, gambling it on a truly all in attack or for a bit of fun if you're sure you're about to lose).
    • If you're pushed to that revolution point, I'd recommend the Egypt Revolution as the other revolution options are only better either with water decks, or if you have the max amount of outposts possible (neither which we do in this deck).

Conclusion:

Like I said: I suck at the game, but this strategy seems to still work! As somebody who isn't good enough at this game (or play often enough) to come up with my own strategies and decks from scratch I hope this helps some other people out there like me. Thanks for reading :)

If you're interested in more classic Ottoman strategies from back in the day, James246 also had an Ottoman Janissary Rush strategy. It was much stronger back in the day than it is today (to the point that I'd only recommend it today as purely a cheese strat and less a viable path to victory), but it serves as great additional reading if you're into this stuff.