BREAK THE META; The Vietnamese Prush

Overview

The Prush is designed to break the meta and try something different by taking advantage of the Vietnamese opponents revealed at the start of the game bonus. It may not end up becoming a viable strategy in expert games, but, not every game is an expert game. Different strategies may be more viable at different skill levels. Just because TheViper may know how to counter it doesn’t mean the guy you are playing in a random lobby game does, the disruption of your opponents build order may be enough to demoralize him and cause him to tilt, as this strategy and many of the tactics described in it are “lame” or even considered “unnatural,” you will not learn how to make your opponent smash his keyboard from a Jedi. I say if it is in the game, it’s in the game. Everything else is just an excuse, and on a map like Arabia as the Vietnamese you will need every advantage you can get.

Introduction

The Vietnamese Pallisade Rush (Prush): or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Vietnamese on open maps

Hey there! This is Furor_Teutonicus leader of the FavsT AOE Clan. You can chat with us on our Discord Server; [link]. I have been working on a strategy for the past few weeks and would like to share it with the community. I think the Vietnamese could use some help and shaking up the meta with an unpopular civilization sounds fun.

Vietnamese are often lamented as one of the worst civilizations in the flank starting position and in 1vs1 on open maps like Arabia. The Vietnamese low win rate and bad reputation in the aforementioned situations is in large part probably due to their lack of early economic bonus, they fall behind other civilizations rather quickly when those other civilizations have an early economic bonus. So, when Vietnamese how do I gain an early advantage? The answer may lie in the element of surprise combined with the certainty of always knowing the location of your enemy thanks to the only Dark Age Vietnamese bonus. At the very least this strategy should severely disrupt most opponents plans leveling out the playing field.

This strategy has “triggered” many of my opponents. Causing them to tilt ad infinitum, the Prush has caused many streams of expletives to be hurled my direction. This strategy is particularly effective against those who tilt at being “lamed” and is even more effective against those who have trouble improvising/adjusting in their build orders. The strategy could have successful results at certain lower ELOs. Some players have simply done the same build order on the same map so many times and never really experimented. This causes them to be mindless zombies in the dark age, forcing these players to have to make new decisions on what to do by already denying them of resources critical to their build order could prove to be an effective tactic. Let’s push the enemy out of their comfort zone and get messy.

Lets begin by taking a look at the Vietnamese bonuses and see if we can perceive any potential early game advantages.

Archer civilization

• Enemy positions are revealed at the start of the game
• Archery Range units +20% HP
• Conscription free

Unique Units:
Rattan Archer (foot archer)

Unique Techs:
• Chatras (Battle Elephants +50 HP)
• Paper Money (Each team member receives 500 gold)

Team Bonus:
Imperial Skirmisher upgrade available in the Imperial Age

The only two bonuses that appear to be related to the early game are Archery Range units having extra HP and enemy positions being revealed at the start of the game. The Archer bonus is a well known bonus of the Vietnamese and one that is often utilized, therefore, it will not be the focus of this article. Rather a more unconventional approach to the Dark Age hearkening back to Age 2’s early days (and some of it’s more vexing legends) will be the main crux of this stratagem. The focus will be on how to unconventionally take advantage of the bonus

Enemy positions are revealed at the start of the game

and hopefully “break the meta” disrupting your opponent.

The Prush is not a strategy for the faint of heart.

If open maps and Feudal warfare are not your thing, the Berbers Fast Imperial for closed off maps might be more appealing. You can check out that guide here; [link]

Execution

Start the game as you normally would with the first 6 villagers being sent to sheep. The 7th villager will be sent forward, slightly outside the range of your opponents town center. Queue up another villager, send villager 8 to build a lumbercamp, after villager 8 research loom. We are researching loom this early so that your villager can survive any wolves it may encounter on the way to the enemies base with a viable amount of HP left. The sooner we can free up our Scout and send him to help protect the villager the better. If any wolves are encountered make sure to take advantage of the hill bonus.

Send your 7th villager, the forward villager, in a straight line towards your opponents base.

The 8th villager builds a lumbercamp and goes to wood, just like any other build order, the only difference is we are researching loom after this villager is created so that we are ready for any wolves we may encounter on our journey forward into enemy territory.

Careful not to send them directly to the enemy town center, stay out of range of any enemy line of sight if at all possible, you do not want them to notice your villager and you do not want it to die. You want to send the villager in a straight line as this is the method that will get you to their base the fastest and since you are covering the least amount of ground it should reduce the likelihood of your villager being attacked by a wolf and/or spotted by the enemy scout. Speed is important, you want to wall in your opponents resources before they have a chance to scout you and disrupt your strategy.

Targeting your opponents boar is especially useful in disrupting their build order and may be one of your first forward moves with this strategy. You can kill both of your enemies boars with 4-8 palisades and one villager.

If you are more advanced with your micro, you can steal the opponents boar and harvest it back at your own base. The most recent DE update I think requires two hits for the boar to follow your scout.

Spirit of the Law covers boars in detail in the following video;

Scouting with your sheep and Scout at the start of the game is very important, you must find your boars and sheep quickly so your Scout can accompany your forward Villager and help defend him and scout the enemies base more easily.

At the start make use of waypoints (by holding down shift and right clicking) to minimize scout idle time. Also control group your scout, sheep, and forward villager (press CTRL and a number on your keyboard to create a control group).

If you are unlucky and have cows spawn as your herdables/extra herdables this can be especially difficult since you only get 3 starting cows / 3 extra cows. Extra cows are all one group of 3 and finding them quickly is even more important, if you don’t find them at all you are behind an exorbitant amount of food.

When you have found at least your 2 boar and 2-4 extra starting sheep, scout your opponents base in the same way you would scout your own, do circles around their town center looking for their resources. Their main gold is usually the gold pile closest to the Town Center spawn. Work your way outward just as you do when exploring your own map in ever larger circles. Be careful to make note of if they have back gold/stone, you may want to wall these in first as they may be the first resource the enemy tries to mine since they are naturally easier to protect.

Your follow up strategy may be dependent on how the walling goes and what resources you are able to deny.

For example, completely denying their stone sets you up for a potentially great Tower Rush.

The enemy then needs to break your walls to mine stone, buy stone at the market, or make due with the measly 200 stone they have at their disposal. Remember Fletching and to send an additional 4 villagers forward when you are on your way to the Feudal Age if you decide to do a Tower Rush also remember to make a mining camp near your stone and add 5 villagers to stone.

Complete denial of both stone and gold is perfect execution and will require a bit of luck.

Wall in the resources closest to the enemy first, that way if you are scouted you have already walled in their closest resources and the safest sides of those resources, forcing them to take the more vulnerable side of the resource (the one furthest away from the town center spawn), making a resource hard to defend and more inefficient is still a win.

Berries are taken very early and will easily get you scouted, therefore they are probably not worth the trouble of walling in, unless disrupting food income is your main objective. Berries are better skipped over so you maintain the element of surprise. Your opponent sending a villager to make a gold mine only to discover all of his nearby gold spawns have been fully walled in, is a much better denial of resources since food is readily available from a variety of sources, the same can not be said of gold/stone, especially in the dark age and early feudal age. Berries are also a slow source of food for most civilizations and relatively low on the priority list of resources to deny. Allowing the opponent to take the berries also acts a decoy giving you time to wall in more scarce resources.

Recouping Those Forward Idle Villager Seconds

Your forward villager could build any housing, to help cut down on villager inefficiency, recouping some of the losses from having sent a villager forward. If the villager survives he could build a forward base in the back of the opponents base. You could choose to tower your opponents lumbercamp/woodline once you hit feudal if the denial of other more scarce resources went well.

Walling in lumbercamps can be effective or other resource drop off buildings to deny resource collection.

If you decide to have the lone forward villager build a tower, it would be best to wall in the builder. Like in the following image.

You can also send the forward villager back to your base once you feel they have served their purpose, having them gather resources.

Remember to wall in the base of your towers, it makes them much more resilient.

Walling the base of your forward tower also makes it impossible for it to be camped like these archers are camping this tower;

Example Game

Furor_Teutonicus (myself, the author) executing this strategy on Arabia

[link]

Questions

What if I am found out and my first forward villager dies? Do I send a second villager forward? Well that is situational, how much damage did you do with your initial forward villager, were you able to disrupt your opponent sufficiently even though the first villager died? How far away is your opponent, are they relatively close on the map or did they spawn unusually far away? These are some of the questions you will have to answer if your forward villager dies prematurely.

This strategy will probably delay your feudal time and put you a bit behind your normal build times, sometimes adding an extra villager to wood in dark age will help offset the cost of building so many forward palisades/houses this strategy can be followed up with a variety of openings; archers, scouts, trush, skirms, wall + fc.

If you were able to wall in all three of your opponents starting gold spawns, expect the opponent to produce trash units (units that cost no gold).

Team Games & Alternative Civilizations

In team games when performing this strategy you will benefit from the team bonuses of the; Mayans, Cumans, Mongols & and slightly the Chinese bonus.

Mayans team bonus walls cost -50%, this is probably the best team bonus for this strategy.

Cumans team bonus Palisade walls +50% Hit Points.

Mongols team bonus Scout gains +2 Line of Sight

Chinese team bonus of +45 food to each farm can be good since they give an economic bonus to a civilization who otherwise has none.

The Mayans and Cumans team bonuses are especially appealing for teammates of anyone attempting this strategy, Mongols is also attractive due to the helpful LOS on your scout with a Mongol teammate.

Lithuanians are able to do a 3 Minute Drush

Your Lithuanian teammates Drush going forward with your forward villager could be devastating as the Lithuanians early Militia are able to defend your forward villager or distract the enemy by pulling their attention in multiple directions. (idea courtesy of DEspite)

The non-Vietnamese Prush?

Other civilizations who may excel at this strategy even though they do not start with access to the enemy location?

Burmese, could potentially easily deduce the enemies location by where the relics are placed on the map. Mayans & Cumans could potentially do the strategy themselves for the the same reasons that they make good allies for a player attempting this strategy, the cheaper Mayan walls or greater HP on the Cuman allied palisades.The extra starting villager with Mayans creates an interesting scenario where you are forced to research loom at the start of the game and are a villager ahead and could send that extra 4th villager towards where you believe the enemy to be. If you have your own Vietnamese ally, they could flare the starting location of the enemy allowing you to also do this strategy easily.

Byzantines buildings hit points increase as they advance through the ages, making their walls stronger as they age up.

Magyars ability to one hit a wolf could make them a viable option, especially with a Vietnamese teammate to point them in the right direction. (idea courtesy of The Owlogram)

Also the Spanish’s faster building times and Malian wood discount would be candidates for excelling at this strategy as well. (suggested by jonoliveira12)

The all in approach in team games of sending 1 villager forward to each enemy, and then Trushing a player and slinging an ally could be a viable strategy. Targeting the enemies best player for the Trush, giving your team the best chance at victory by attempting to slow down the enemies best player. This could be a good strategy when out matched in a team game, if there is one player on the opposite team who is obviously on a higher level, disrupting their game plan could be the edge needed to tie them down long enough for a double or triple team to come in and finish them off effectively, balancing out the remaining players.

Here an enemy player has been denied stone by one player and is being castle dropped by another.

Rattan Archers are a potential easy transition from a Trush since you already have stone miners and a potential stone stockpile. Forward drop the castle or build it defensively. Send villagers forward during tech to Castle Age is researching or if 5 villagers still forward and mining forward stone? Use them.

In the games that I have play tested the strategy I have noticed I tend to perform worse when focusing too much on the forward walling and villager, and not enough on my build order back at home. Keep your focus on maintaining a relatively meta build order and on whatever course of action you have decided on, for example; tower rush, archer rush, wall fast castle, etc…

The Prush is not specific to just the Vietnamese, if you have a Vietnamese ally he can point you in the direction of an enemy town center so that you could also do the strategy or you can try your luck in guessing the location of the enemy base. Vietnamese have a 100% chance of knowing the enemy location though and that is why they are best suited for this strategy.

“Laming” or How to Win Ruthlessly; The lame side of the Vietnamese is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural

Deleting enemy straggler trees with Palisades. This trick is helpful for denying wood, especially if you have pushed the enemy off of all woodlines. It also works if they have a stray tree that is part of their wall. The villager does not have to strike the building foundation, it simply needs to be placed and this trick can be done from all the way across the other side of the map without any walking necessary.

Killing enemy deer at the end of your endeavors, know that it may reveal your presence however through the fog of war.

Walling in enemy military buildings.

Building scouting/scanning. Using a building foundation you can scout for enemy units or buildings through any visible areas by simply hovering over the location. If it is red you know there is a building or unit there, if it is not red then there is nothing there. This is useful to see if your enemy is gathering gold early, is moving forward with villagers, in your base, etc…

In the above two images you can see I have located the enemy town center using this trick.

Wall trick on wolves; when a villager is too injured to survive the battle is especially useful with the Prush. Attempt to build a palisade foundation on the wolf, it will disorient for a moment, allowing you to wall your villager in, saving the villager to be potentially rescued at a later time.

Boar blocking. Boar blocking is when you move your scout back and forth in front of the boar while it is being lured, causing it to not be able to move, which messes up your opponents boar lure attempt. You can also use this to your advantage at home if needed you can have a sheep block your boar if your villager is about to die from boar injuries.

Conclusion

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

If you have any questions regarding the strategy or are just looking for people to play with consider joining the FavsT Clan discord server; [link] we are always looking for new people to play with and potentially join our clan it is also an easy way to contact me.

Any constructive criticism is welcome that does not change the theme of the strategy, please keep it constructive though, cheers.

3/12/2020; There has been an update to the Vietnamese, economic upgrades no longer cost wood, they now have an economic bonus. This applies to every economic upgrade; wood upgrades, farm, wheelbarrow, handcart, mining, etc…

Further Study

Vietnamese Overview

Rattan Archers vs Arbalests

Imperial Skirmishers

Is Paper Money Worth It?

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Guide