BREAK THE META; Cumans Capped Ram Express

Overview

The Cumans Capped Ram Express is designed to break the meta by taking advantage of the most recent Spring balance update & patch. In that Spring update, the Cumans received access to the Capped Rams technology in the Castle Age. This strategy guide breathes new life into the Ram Express rush originally created in the early days of AOK by Crexis & _Methos_ST by utilizing the Cumans Castle Age access to Capped Ram. The Ram Express has been updated for 2020 and double teaming in Castle Age has never looked so strong.Past strategies in the BREAK THE META series have been accused of not being viable in multiplayer games, the strategies outlined in this guide got me my first 30 game win streak and my highest unranked rating yet. The strategy takes advantage of the strength of having early tech & Capped Rams on closed in maps like Arena, Black Forest. & Fortress. Keep the game interesting with this aggressive strategy by catching your Arena, Black Forest, & Fortress opponents off guard.

Preamble

Greetings Furor_Teutonicus here, leader of the AOE 2 DE FavsT Clan, I’m back once again to help you break the meta with another new strategy. I have been working on this one since the most recent patch hit giving Cumans access to Capped Ram in Castle Age and the time has come to reveal it to the community. I think the Cumans Capped Ram Express could shake up the team game meta with such a strong early aggressive double team.

Before we begin I want to clarify the skill level of some of the opponents that have succumbed to this strategy. The following lists are not exhaustive and are only to demonstrate the strategy can work vs at least intermediate level players. I took the players highest Rating and listed it here, whether that was in Ranked Team RM or Unranked. This is not meant as a brag for myself, but, for the potential of the strategy.

As you can see some relatively well rated players have fallen to this strategy. Now that we have proven it CAN work, lets find out more about what the strategy is and how to execute it.

Introduction

Cumans Capped Ram Express (CRush): or how I revived an ancient AOK strategy and bashed people over the head with it as if it were a club

The Cumans Capped Ram Express is primarily a team strategy. While this strategy is capable of being successful in 1vs1 it is more easily countered in 1vs1. It has been developed as a team strategy to take full advantage of the Cuman access to Capped rams as quickly as possible. By as fast as 16-17 minutes in game you and your ally can be knocking on the gate of an enemy with Knights, Crossbowmen and 2 Capped Rams. To use this strategy to it’s full potential you will need a competent team mate who is able to perform a basic knight rush in unison with your fast assault. This strategy is probably at its strongest in 2vs2, but, can also work in 3v3 & 4v4. If in a 3v3 or 4v4 make sure team positions is checked (in ranked it is automatically checked) and make sure the Cuman player is a flank color and the Knight player is the corresponding pocket for that flank. For example Cumans orange and Knight player grey or Cumans blue and Knight player red.

This strategy is especially good on closed off easily walled or prewalled maps like; Arena, Black Forest, and Fortress which are ideal for a Fast Castle Age strategy. I would not attempt this strategy on a map like Arabia. The strategy entails arriving to Castle Age relatively quickly, by the 15-16 minute mark. Once in Castle Age you are on the move with your 2 Battering Rams and 5 Archers while researching Capped Ram & Crossbowmen, “little pig, little pig, let me come in.”

On the way to Castle Age you are producing 2 Battering Rams and your first 5 Archers out of the enemies Line of Sight, ensuring the element of surprise. They won’t know what happened to their Town Centers after Capped Rams have razed them with haste. As Cumans your opponents may be expecting you to two TC Feudal boom into a fast castle or the Tower/Battering Ram rush. They probably won’t be expecting the Capped Rams Express.

A double team can be very hard to deal with, especially if it is all in. Countering a double team from competent players requires communication and coordination skills from the opposing team. Having a reliable teammate to play with and the flare function hotkeyed in an easily reachable spot on your keyboard is essential.

Capped Rams are especially effective early on maps like Arena, Black Forest, & Fortress which encourage booming, we want to catch our enemy off guard by; advanced tech, cost efficient trades through double teaming and early siege pressure.

On closed maps many players have a sense of security given to them by their walls. Players will often choose to boom because of this sense of security foregoing an army altogether until later in the game or choosing to produce units at a slow pace. When players boom their resources are tied up in their economy as a long term investment, this strategy makes it hard to quickly respond to the double team.

The element of surprise is on our side, the Cumans Capped Rams Express is not a well known strategy. Fortune favors the bold. We will have a great chance at pulling off this strategy repeatedly in part because a Capped Rams Castle Age Rush is an unexpected strategy even though the Cumans now have access to them this is not a widely known fact. A Knight rush on Arena is also an unexpected strategy due to the walls, not a problem with Cumans as your ally.

Capped Rams make short work of the opponents walls, your allies Knights and your Crossbowmen work as a team. The razing commences. The Cumans Capped Ram Express makes quick work of most foes.

Example Streams

**STREAMS NOT CURRENTLY WORKING**

Point of View of the Cumans;

In this game the enemy goes for a Monk/Knight defense with Knights from their ally as well, the Cumans ally Knight Rusher is Huns;
[link]
In this game we are able to pull off the rush successfully and the other players teammate went for a boom causing him to be unable to send support units in time, the Cumans ally Knight Rusher is Berbers;
[link]
In this game the Cumans player is Castle dropped and forced to play some defense before going on the offensive with the Capped Rams, the Cumans ally Knight Rusher is Franks;
[link]

Point of View of the non-Cumans;

Knight Rusher is Khmer this game. The enemies choose a Castle/Crossbowmen/Wall defense with Knights from their teammate;
[link]
Knight Rusher is Franks & does a forward Castle Drop. Cumans player does a forward Siege Workshop assisting the Frankish Castle Drop & tributes stone. Our opponents had played against us using this strategy before so we went for the enemy across from the Knight Rushing player rather than the enemy across from the Cumans player, they go for a Wall/Mangonel/Longswordsmen/Pikemen defense;
[link]
Knight Rusher is Khmer & does a Knight flood supporting the Cuman player one player is caught off guard and has difficulty helping their teammate while the other attempts a Stable/Siegeworkshop defense;
[link]

Capped Rams & Archers Build Order

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Dark Age;

Queue up villagers at the Town Center, keep constant villager production in the Dark Age.

2 Villagers build one house, the other villager builds another simultaneously, make sure the houses will not disrupt your Farm efficiency.

Send one sheep underneath the Town Center. Shift click the builders to gather from the Sheep under the Town Center so they will automatically gather when construction is complete, do the same for the other builder.

CTRL group your Scout & any sheep you want to scout with, I CTRL group my Scout to “2” & two scouting Sheep to “3” & “4.” Waypoints make scouting easier, set them by holding ♥♥♥♥ & clicking.

If the map is Arena; Find starting sheep & your two starting boars, then, immediately go towards the closest enemy. Try to “lame” the opponents sheep by checking if they spawned outside the perimeter of their walls. If possible steal the sheep if not then kill them, head back to your base to push deer.

Villagers 1-6 Sheep then Boar when Boar has been lured to the Town Center. I like to CTRL group these villagers to “1.”

Villager 7 Builds a Lumbercamp then to Wood
(If map is Black Forest now may be the time to research Loom & go forward to wall off the choke points. If the map is not Black Forest disregard this.)
Villagers 8-10 Wood, Villager 10 builds a House.

Villager 11 Lures 1st Boar. I like to CTRL group this Villager to “3.”

Villagers 12-14 Harvest Boar. Begin luring the 2nd Boar at 200 Boar Food remaining. Use one of the Boar harvesters. We want no idle time when switching from the 1st to 2nd Boar.

Villager 15 Builds a Mill & gathers Berries. If your Deer are close to your Berries build the mill on the side closest to the Deer, minimizing the micro necessary to successfully push Deer.

Villager 16 builds a house.
Villagers 16-19 gather Berries/Deer.

When your Boar runs out under your TC eat the remaining sheep, you should have 3-4 left. Intermittently between this, you may elect for some of these villagers to hunt pushed Deer.

When the Deer pushing is finished by your Scout, go on a reconnaissance mission. See as far as you can into the enemies base closest to you while also checking for any Villagers going forward or rushing. If the map is Arena in order to get closest to the walled perimeter of the opponent briefly attack the stone wall.

Villager 20 builds a Mining Camp near the main Gold unless an additional gold pile is very close to the Town Center minimizing travel distance or the main Gold is in a very difficult to defend spot, typically we will be taking the main Gold first. Villager 20 then mines Gold.

Villager 21 mines Gold.

Soon the Herdables will be exhausted, have the Villagers who were injured luring Boar begin seeding Farms. Begin Farm production on the right side of the Town Center for efficiency.

Villager 22 builds a house, then goes to the 1st Lumbercamp & chops Wood.

Villager 23 builds a new Lumbercamp & chops Wood.

As the Herdables & Deer begin to expire/run low it is time transition Villagers away from Herdables/Deer to Wood until you have 10 on Wood. We do, however, want to gather all of our Herdables/Deer.

Villagers 24-27 to Wood at the new (2nd) Lumbercamp unless you already have 10 on Wood then have them chop straggler trees & then begin seeding 5-6 Farms in total. Some Villagers may have to chop straggler trees which are located near the Town Center while waiting for the necessary wood to seed 5-6 Farms.

Go to the Feudal Age, Queue up 2 additional Villagers. Set the Town Center rally point to collect Gold.

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Feudal Age Research in Progress;
Game Time Approximately: 10-11 Minutes
Pop; 27 Villagers + 1 Scout = 28 Population.

Watch your Scout, if the enemy advances to Feudal & a Scout fight ensues you will be at a tactical disadvantage unless the enemy scout is sufficiently injured prior to the engagement. On advancing to the Feudal Age scouts gain a speed & attack increase. It may be wise to bring your Scout inside your walls until you reach Feudal then back to exploring.

Ensure you have the following distribution for your economy;
10-12 on Wood, 2 on Gold, 13-14 on Food; 5 on Berries, 3 on Deer, 5-6 on Farms

Start building a Barracks when Feudal research is near %50 complete. Build a Barracks & 2 Houses.We want the enemy to think it is possible you went for a Market & Blacksmith build. Discretion is key. Building Adjacent to the Stone Wall gives away too much information. Build the Barracks far enough back that the enemy Scout can’t see it. We also want our buildings as a 2nd back up wall in case the stone wall were to fail us.

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Feudal Age;
Game Time Approximately: 12 Minutes

Villagers 28-29 to Gold

When arriving in the Feudal Age have 1 Villager, a Wood cutter if you are low on Food a Berry picker if you have excess Food, begin building an Archery Range out of the Line of Sight of the enemy Scout & near the gate you plan on staging your attack from. Have another Villager, a Wood cutter if you are low on Food a Berry picker if you have excess Food, begin building a Blacksmith. The Blacksmith may or may not be built outside of the Line of Sight of the enemy Scout, it is less important.

When the Archery range is completed, if you have enough Gold to not delay your Castle Age time, begin Archer production now.

Once the Blacksmith & Archery Range have been completed, begin researching Castle Age & constructing a Siege Workshop out of the enemy Line of Sight & preferably near the gate you plan on launching your attack from, this is important since Rams are slow & their pathing leaves something to be desired.

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Castle Age Research in Progress;
Game Time Approximately: 13 Minutes
Pop; 28-29 Villagers + 1 Scout = 30 Population.

Research the wood upgrade Double-Bit Axe at the Lumbercamp. Continue producing Archers.
Produce two Battering Rams.

When up to Castle Age or close to having enough food start taking villagers off of Berries/Deer & send them to Gold until you have 8.
Make sure you end up with the following distribution for your economy;
12-13 on Wood 6 split between two Lumbercamps, 8-9 on Gold, 6 on Farms / 2-3 finishing Berries once Berries are exhausted these Villagers go to Farms.

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Castle Age;
Game Time Approximately: 15-16 Minutes

Have both of your Battering Rams & 5 Archers? If your Ally has Knights en route to the enemy you are double teaming join him outside the enemy gate but not too close, don’t want them to see you. When Capped Ram is complete begin the assault. Keep your Archers with the Rams.

Immediately research Capped Ram. Begin researching Crossbowmen. Queue up a Ram. Queue up another Archer.

You may have to delay Villager production momentarily. Resume Villager production when you are able. Prioritize the Range/Attack upgrades at the Blacksmith.

Continue producing Crossbowmen & Capped Rams & assaulting the enemy. It is important if possible to have the rallying point near the enemy now.

New Villagers are sent to Wood until wood income stabilizes. Then Farm production and economic research proceeds like a normal game.

Decide whether to add more Archery Ranges & switch to Skirmisher, Cavalry Archers for mobility, or go for a different unit. If you continue down the archery line make a University & research Ballistics. Build a Market for vision/trade.

The push went successfully? May want to keep the pressure on moving to the other enemy or finish off the hurt one. Staying one Town Center with excess resources to Army production is an option. Do not leave the other enemy player unmolested for too long. When switching targets player the Knight Rusher can leave a few Knights behind to harass the enemy.

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Capped Rams & Archers Execution

Right click the spot indicated in the image below to get the capped rams underneath the town center, it creates less bumping and gets the Rams “inside” the Town Center. The same can be done with melee units. The area indicated will change from a Sword icon to the normal Pointer and can be right clicked for movement rather than attack, giving more movement freedom.

Continue constant Archer/Ram production from 1 Archery Range and 1 Siege Workshop to keep a constant stream of units going for the push on the target enemy. We want to synchronize our attack with our teammate so that his first Knights are meeting our Rams and Archers at the enemies gate to commence the attack. This tactic is an aggressive rush and siege push once your Capped Rams are in range and make short work of the gate it is onward to the Town Center. It does not take many hits from two Capped Rams to take down a Town Center.

The Archers should defend the Knights from Pikemen, Camels, and Monks, in order to reach the Monks behind any walls the defending enemy player may produce it is vital to remember the upgrades at the Blacksmith prioritizing range and attack over armor.

If the Archers are in trouble & are close to the Rams they can hide by garrisoning inside the Rams.
If your Ally is planning a Castle Drop they can hide their Villagers by garrisoning them inside your Rams, this feature was added in one of the recent expansions.

The hotkey for ungarrisoning units from Rams is different from the key ungarrisoning units from buildings. You can edit this in the hotkey settings.

This is especially useful vs Town Center fire as the Town Center makes short work of Crossbowmen. The Knights will soak up Town Center fire as they should have their armor upgrades as a priority. The Knights should defend the Archers from Mangonels and Skirimishers/other Archers.

The Knights also have the task of diving under the Town Center to prevent Villagers from taking out the Capped Rams. When you go in for the Town Center Raze be sure your Knight Rushing team mate is ready to follow the Rams. Make sure your flare hotkey is in an easily reachable position on the keyboard, flaring and communication is key. If you can both be on a voice chat program like Discord this will help tremendously. If not you must chat to your ally and use the flare.

In some situations it is prudent to send a Mangonel of our own forward, for example if the enemy is attempting to defend with an Archer of sorts.

The Capped Rams are to quickly break through any defenses and take out the Town Centers of the enemy so that their economy is disrupted and their Villagers are slaughtered. Capped Rams are surprisingly fast at destroying Town Centers, the Villagers will be sitting ducks, be ready to snipe them once it is destroyed.

After the initial push ends you will want to switch to a different unit other than Crossbowmen, Cumans do not have access to Arbalest. There is a plethora of options available to you once the point in the game is reached that Crossbowmen production should cease. Usually when you can start to afford a 2nd & 3rd Archery Range is when you should be switching to Cavalry Archer or Skirmishers or a different unit line entirely. This depends on what the enemy is doing and how the push is going.

Usually destroying the opponents initial Town Center is not enough, he will usually have more, have your Knight Rushing ally scout the enemies base and look for other Town Centers.

Vision is important with this strategy, keeping your Scout alive will help you determine the exact location of the enemies initial starting Town Center.

Who to Knight Rush As?

The following is a list of good partner civilizations for a Knight Rush supporting the Cumans Capped Ram Express. The civilizations that were deemed better suited to supporting this strategy have been theorycrafted & tested. The civilizations deemed best are listed in descending order. For example Khmer is first on the list and is probably the strongest ally for the strategy so Khmer begins the list.

“No buildings required to advance to the next age or to unlock other buildings” is what brings Khmer to the top of this list, that coupled with their farming rate being among the highest, if not the highest. They are also a terrific Arena civ to begin with, so if the game goes long you have the tech to back it up. Thanks to Khmer not needing any Feudal Age buildings to click up to Castle Age, they are able to click up to the Castle Age immediately after finishing Feudal Age research. There is also wood savings in not having to build a Barracks in order to build the two Stables allowing you to go up with less villagers. You can also delay the Blacksmith.

The real strength of the Khmer here is just how much faster they can have the Knights with your Capped Rams, which means more Knights sooner and speed is of the essence in this strategy You can easily have 2 Capped Rams knocking down an opponents gate at 16-18 minutes in game time. Having Knights with you to back the push up means you can dive under the Town Center that much sooner crippling the opponent before they have enough time to react.

The Franks have an early economy bonus in the form of faster foraging. They also don’t have to research Bloodlines. They arguably have the best Paladins in the game not counting Relic powered Lithuanians and the extra Line of Sight on their Knights is useful in a rush strategy like this.

The Franks player should consider at some point Castle dropping to help knock out the first player quickly. If the Cumans player wishes to assist with this, the Cumans player should consider sending at least 100 Stone to the Franks player. The Cumans player would be left over with 70 Stone after tributing 100. If the Cumans player is going all in one TC then they should tribute all of their stone expediting the Castle Drop.. The Frankish player would then need to buy or mine 200 Stone and then would have the 488 necessary for building a forward Castle in an offensive position. A forward Castle strengthens the push. The drawback being however the Cumans player now has zero stone, but, Cumans only have access to Palisade walls to begin with, Stone Walls are not an option for Cumans.

The Huns are up there with the friendliest of civilizations for newer players, they are forgiving civ. Not needing to build houses helps a newer player so much with a rush. Being pop capped in a strategy like this could be a death sentence. The times my eleven year old son did the strategy with me, he was Huns. It worked very well. They have a very strong and fast Knight Rush, not quite as fast as the Khmer, but, it is one of the top civs to do a Knight Rush with thanks to their quickly producing Stables.

The wood saved and villager seconds saved from not having to build houses is huge. They are one of the few civilizations lacking access to Onager though and on a map like Arena if the Rush were to fail, that could be a potential weakness in Imperial.

The Berbers cheaper Cavalry starting in Castle Age helps tremendously with the Knight Flood required in this strategy. Not to mention if you want to be cheeky and do the Cumans Castle Drop into Kipchak and Capped Rams and communicate with your Berbers teammate, your Castles can be working %25 faster with the push of a button. Definitely a strong ally.

The Lithuanians are strong in the mid-late Castle Age when performing this strategy if they are able to grab a few of the relics. The main problem being that the game may have been decided before in Early Castle Age. This why they are low on the list. Their early food could help get some Scouts out in Feudal to help contest for those Relics though.

Speaking of Relics, they do matter, but, less so in team games. The ability to set up a trade route for late game gold collection makes them less relevant in team games. If you are the Lithuanians though relics are especially important in this strategy in particular since you are for sure going Knights. If the Knight Rushing player has chosen to play as Lithuanians Relic collection should be near the top of the priority list in Early to Mid Castle Age. The focus, however, should remain on the forward Ram push. When you begin to have excess resources/time start grabbing the relics.

Honorable mentions;

The Bulgarians are similar to the Franks in one respect, the drawback of Bulgarians to Franks being their Knights have less Line of Sight, they need to research Bloodlines, and lack an economic bonus. Now you are asking how are they similar to Franks then? Well the Krepost.

Kreposts are able to fill many of the same roles a Castle would, being able to produce Konninks & controlling territory. Kreposts are also quicker to build. The Konnik is a Unique Unit that works well with this strategy. The Krepost costing only 350 Stone is interesting as well. Since if the Cuman player tributes all of their 200 Stone to their Bulgarian ally, the Bulgarian will end up with 353 Stone, allowing them to drop a forward Krepost without having to mine or buy any Stone. The Cuman ally tributing all of their stone would make dropping a Krepost with the initial assault feasible. If you do choose to go Bulgarians and go the Konnik route, don’t forget to build a Castle for Stirrups.

The Chinese +45 food to farms helps the Cuman player by freeing up wood sooner allowing them to choose to drop down a 2nd Archery Range or to get their Town Centers up quicker if booming becomes necessary. An interesting fact about having a Chinese ally is that the Cumans farms will last longer this will allow the Cuman player to keep pushing longer since it will take longer until they need to first reseed Farms. This has a snowball effect on the Cumans players economy strengthening them. The Chinese cheaper techs and superb tech tree make them a solid choice if the pilot understands how to properly start with the Chinese.

The Teutons resistance to conversion team bonus coupled with their cheaper farms could allow for Monk resistance Knights to be flooded into the enemies base that is being pushed. The original 20 knights in 20 minutes made use of the Teuton farm bonus and that strategy is listed below under the Further Study section of the guide.

Knight Rush Build Orders

Khmer Knight Rush

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Dark Age;

Queue up villagers at the Town Center, keep constant villager production in the Dark Age.

2 Villagers build one house, the other villager builds another simultaneously, make sure the houses will not disrupt your Farm efficiency.

Villagers 1-6 Sheep then Boar when Boar has been lured to the Town Center. I like to CTRL group these villagers to “1.”

Villager 11 Lures 1st Boar. I like to CTRL group this Villager to “3.”

Villagers 12-14 Harvest Boar. Begin luring the 2nd Boar at 200 Boar Food remaining. Use one of the Boar harvesters. We want no idle time when switching from the 1st to 2nd Boar.

Villager 15 Builds a Mill & gathers Berries. If your Deer are close to your Berries build the mill on the side closest to the Deer, minimizing the micro necessary to successfully push Deer.

At 200 Food on the 2nd Boar start pushing Deer to the TC or Mill.

As the 2nd Boar begins to finish start farms with the two injured Boar lurers.

Villager 16 builds a house.
Villagers 16-20 gather Herdables/Berries/Deer.

Build a House.
Villagers 21-23 Wood
Villagers 24-26 Gold

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Feudal Age Research in Progress;
Game Time Approximately: 9-10 Minutes
Pop; 26 Villagers + 1 Scout = 27 Population.

Build a House.
Ensure you have the following distribution for your economy;
7 on Wood, 3 on Gold, 16 on Food

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Feudal Age;
Game Time Approximately: 12 Minutes

Immediately upon reaching Feudal Age click the Castle Age upgrade.

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Castle Age Research in Progress;
Game Time Approximately: 12 Minutes

Build two Stables & a Blacksmith & a House.
Research Bloodlines.
Research the first Cavalry Armor upgrade.

Move the majority of your Food gatherers onto Wood & build another Lumbercamp as soon as Castle Age is researching. Once Wood for Both Stables & a Blacksmith, 500 Wood, has been spent on those necessary buildings, start transitioning villagers from Wood to Farms each 60 Wood you get until you have 12 Farmers, this will take some time. Remember it does not necessarily matter where you build your Farms as Khmer they do not need to be near a Mill or Town Center.

Ensure you have the following distribution for your economy before Castle Age Research is complete;
5-7 on Wood, 9 on Gold, 10-12 on Food

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Castle Age;
Game Time Approximately: 14-15 Minutes
Begin Knight production from both Stables set the rally outside of the Line of Sight of the enemy gate you plan to enter through. Have your Cuman Ally flare the location.

CTRL groups for the TC/Stables is helpful so you don’t have to look away from Knight micro whilst queuing more Knights, helps as you won’t be able to queue up many at a time.

Continue Villager production. Continue to build farms as Wood becomes available until 12 Farms.
Now send Villagers to Gold until you have 14 Gold Miners. 2 Mining Camps with 7 Gold Miners on each. If you do not split the Gold Miners, there will be a lot of inefficiency due to bumping.

Do not research Double Bit Axe until constant Villager & Knight Production from both Stables is achieved. Horse Collar & the 2nd Wood upgrade as soon as you can afford them.

When the push starts to slow or your resources begin to stockpile it is time for more Town Centers.

If the push fails, the first to Imperial on Arena has tech advantage with Trebs/Bombard Cannons. The economy of the Knight Rushing player is more geared towards reaching a quicker Imperial Age time than the Cumans player. The Knight Rusher should consider building a Castle for Trebs & not delaying their Imperial Age time too long if the push has failed.

An alternative start to this Khmer Build Order is the following; If you push deer in ASAP & save boars for later all 11 Hunters can sit on one animal at a time rather than splitting across multiple sources. This also has the benefit of freeing your Scout up sooner.

Alternative Build Orders for non-Khmer civilizations.

I believe the following build is by Cicero.

Knight Rush Video Tutorials;

T90’s

TaToH’s

St4rk’s

HC_Shanks__ 20 Knights in 20 Minutes

Tips & Tricks

If you notice your enemy is not paying attention to their Scout and it is idle, help them remain safe by walling it in.

If the Knight Rushing player is Castle Dropping have them consider walling in their Villagers so they are not killed and the Castle is not denied by melee units.

Remember the highest and lowest number color on teams will be the flanks and they go in order from 1 to 8 in their positioning. So for example you are in a 3v3 and want to be the flank you could be Blue and you want your Knight rushing ally to be your pocket, they can be red, if red is not available to your team they can be green, and so on and so forth. Team positions is always on for ranked games. For Lobby games it must be checked

Another lobby tip, when creating your lobby ensure that Hidden Civilizations is selected and the Civilizations players are selecting will remain Hidden until the match starts.

When you have 4-5 Knights it sometimes makes sense to use the boxed formation as opposed to line formation. The first image is line formation, the 2nd is boxed.

In large team games this strategy may be difficult to execute. For more flexibility you could do a Castle Drop into Kipchack / Capped Rams push. Initially that is the genesis for the Capped Ram Express, I began my journey into optimizing this strategy with a Castle Drop into Kipchak.
The Kipchak are much more impressive unit, they are a glass cannon though and require a lot of attention so that you do not lose them. Also the Capped Rams will be much delayed which is why I opted for the Archers instead.

Around the time the 4th-5th Ram is out, it is time to evaluate whether to set the Siege Workshop rally point to the other enemy.

On Arena protecting your trade can sometimes be as simple as walling between two allied towns like in the image below.

Since this strategy requires skipping loom to be faster here are some tips to save a Villager from death by Boar. One option is to quickly try and build a building, such as a house, on top of the Boar causing it to lose interest. Another would be blocking it with a herdable. You could keep a herdable CTRL grouped near the path of where you know the Boar will be lured, this is especially good for a map like Arena where you can not be punished for doing this.

Conclusion

When you choose random or mirror and get Cumans on a closed map like Arena, BF, or Fortress now there is one more strategy you can opt for, and since this strategy civilization specific and outside of the meta you may now crack a slight smirk at seeing the Cumans as a pleasant surprise in these situations, forcing both you and your opponent to play the game in a new and creative way.

We are always looking for new people to play with and potentially join our clan. It is also an easy way to contact the author.

Any constructive criticism is welcome that does not change the theme of the strategy.

EDIT May 2020, there has been a recent buff to the Teutons Knights armor, this would make them even more viable as the Knight rusher than before.

Also HumzaCrumza’s 20 Elephants in 20 minutes as Malay may be a contender instead of using Knights.

About the Author

My AOE Credentials

Firstly my role currently in DE is Leader and Founder of the Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition FavsT Clan.

So who am I and why is that relevant? It is necessary that I demonstrate a level of proficiency and experience in order for this strategy to be taken somewhat seriously. My past two guides in the BREAK THE META series were criticized for not being viable in higher ELO games and were in truth closer to meme/beginner strategies. The Cumans Capped Ram Express however is closer to the side of viability in at least some what competitive play and could very well help BREAK THE META. Lets look into my play history to hopefully dispel some of the accusations I am expect will be made about this strategy and it’s author.

I have been playing Age of Empires off and on since the late 90s like many of you reading this guide, so, I am quite familiar with the game mechanics & general strategies.

Some highlights of my AOE Experience;

Reaching 2k on the MSN Gaming Zone in Death Match with my own Spanish strategy during the early 00s.
Joining the DjiNN Clan and reaching 1800 for the first time on the MSN Gaming Zone in RM during the early 00s.
Surpassing 2K in Random Map on HD when it first released.
Making it into the top 50 for unranked on DE.
Surpassing 2k in unranked on DE early on during the games release.
I have over 1,000 hours played in DE.
During the release of Age of Mythology my theorycrafting kept me in the ranked top 100 Random Map ladder for the first few months of release.
When Age of Empires 3 released I received the silver medal for most Ottoman wins when the medals were awarded for the first time.
Unfortunately I do not have any screenshots of the aforementioned play history in AOM or AOE3.

A non-exhaustive list of aliases;

AOC; DjiNN_Zombie, _ViRuS_Leopard, FlaMe_Animosity, FanatiC_Zombie, Ldz_Vegeta, MaJiK_Caesar, wB_CloneMePlz, _CloneMePlease, AdiX_WiSp (Founder of the AdiX Clan), Olympus_Caesar, etc…
AOM; DjiNN_Loki, TITAN_Thor, Rebal_lilWarner
AOE3; lilWarner
DE; Furor_Teutonicus

Other Guides by the Author

[link] [link] [link] [link]

Acknowledgements & References

Acknowledgements

Having reliable clan mates made this work easier. I want to thank these clan mates specifically for their excessive time commitment to making this work, feedback, and testing. They each contributed heavily in various manners;

zReptar; was a great teammate and added a lot to the team work aspect and the pros and cons of the various knight rush civs, he tested many games as the following; Berbers, Bulgarians, Franks, & Khmer. zReptar also played as the Cumans allowing the author to test the other side of the strategy. zReptar’s contribution was vital to the thoroughness of the development of the strategy.
Terror_Cimbricus; without my 11 year old as a constant team mate I wouldn’t have had the impulse to even care about making this guide to begin with, Terror tested multiple games as the Huns and had exceptional teamwork.
ZeyXaper; was a great teammate as well and played a fair amount of games as my partner and tested primarily as the Franks in the multiple games we played.
bird_on_acid; gave some good suggestions and tested as the Khmer.

In general I would also like to thank the FavsT Clan.

This started off as a Castle Drop with Kipchaks & a forward Siege Workshop (which may be viable as a strategy) all by my lonesome and then developed into a team strategy thanks to the clan.

References

The idea for this strategy originates from the original Ram Express. This was first popularized by Crexis & _Methos_ST in the early days of the Age of Kings base game circa 1999-2000.

Thanks to the wayback machine (internet archive) you can still read their original strategy guide here; [link]

The idea for the Frankish ally Castle Drop probably was popularized by the Crexis & _Methos_ST tandem as well. You can read more about that original strategy here; [link]