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Getting to the start of the Feudal Upgrade
Villagers 1-15 go to food. Villagers 16-22 go to wood. Start the Loom upgrade immediately after the first villager is built. Put the first 6 villagers on sheep and set the town center gathering point to the berries. Your first priority is to eliminate all villager build delays. You need to anticipate the creation of the next villager and be ready to command a new villager build as soon as you have the 50 food. Get multiple villagers queued up in the town center as soon as you can.
If you didn't see sheep right away, send five of your villagers to berries and then transfer them to sheep after they return to the town center. Use the 6th villager to help your scout find the sheep.
Have your villager that is not eating sheep to start a house. You need to start it once your second villager build begins. After he finishes, send him to berries.
For the first few villager builds, you will usually need to force your sheep eaters to dump their food just before a villager is finished being built. Early food dumping can save you 15 seconds or more on your Feudal time which is significant for such an early attack.
Your second priority is to find the two pigs lurking around your town. By the time you have about 5 villagers on berries, you should have just delivered a pig to them. Have them dump their berries at the mill and kill the pig. It is important to save as many berries as possible for Feudal when you will need low-maintenance food. You don't want to have to be trying to build farms or hunt during the early phases of your Feudal attack.
Deliver the second pig to the sheep eaters at the town center.
When luring pigs, don't start running your hunter away until the pig is just about to hit him. Watch the pig on the way back. If the pig stops, immediately shoot him again. If you are running to the town center, ALT-rightclick the runner on it so that he will garrison as soon as he arrives. Immediately ungarrison him so that he doesn't idle. If you are running to the mill, run circles around it as your other villagers shoot until the pig is dead.
Once your population reaches 16, change the town center gathering point to a straggler.
By 7:30, you should have achieved the following: reached a population of 21 (20 villagers + 1 scout), found 2 pigs, found gold, found stone, and found a deer herd. This will give you all the resources you need for a strong Feudal attack and economic expansion. If you don't reach a population of 21 around 7:45, a Feudal rush is still a viable option though a bit riskier as you will not get to the Feudal Age until around 10:45. If you have not accomplished all of these things by 7:45 against a good player, then you should probably go on to a fast Castle instead of Feud rushing. You still have that option as it is very doable to get a sub-17:00 Castle with a population of 30 using this China start. As soon as your scout has found the pigs, gold, stone, and deer, you should send it in search of the enemy.
Monitor your villagers cutting the straggler trees around your town center. Once you have made the required three houses and your cutters are carrying enough wood to reach 100, have them dump their wood at the town center and go build a lumberyard. Preferably, this will be at a nearby forest that is also close to gold and stone.
As the lumberyard is just about to complete, monitor your food gatherers. As soon as you estimate that they are carrying enough food to reach 500, have them all dump their food at the town center or mill.
If you've timed everything well, you should finish the lumberyard, reach 500 food, and finish your 22nd villager (giving you a population of 23), all at the same time.
Practice this start in Single Player Mode until you can begin the Feudal upgrade before 8:20 which will result in a 10:30 Feudal time. If you can't begin it before 8:20, restart the game and try again until you do. Once you get fairly good, you should be able to occasionally begin the upgrade by 7:30, resulting in a 9:40 Feudal time.
Preparations during the Feudal Upgrade
Send two villagers towards the enemy to act as forward builders. Give them a number so that it is easy to check on them.
Put two villagers on food.
Put all the other villagers on wood. I usually have 3 to 5 villagers cutting stragglers around the town center in order to reduce crowding at the lumberyard.
By the time you are 75% to Feudal, your forward builders should start building a barracks in a good spot near the enemy with easy access to their woodcutters and nearest gold mine. Your scout should have recently covered the area all around the build site to ensure you are far enough away from any enemy villagers and buildings that you will not be discovered.
As soon as you have 100 wood after starting the barracks, send a villager to make a mining camp at your gold mine. If there is a gold mine and stone mine near one another, put the camp right between them (this will save you 100 wood later).
From this point on, you should make sure that your scout is always moving and scanning the area around the enemy as well as all unexplored areas of the map so that you know the likely spots that the enemy might run to. Give your scout 15 or so waypoints at a time so that you don't have to constantly monitor him.
The Feudal Age
As soon as you reach the Feudal Age, start making an archery range with your forward builders.
Build a house.
Start a second archery range as soon as you have 175 wood. This should happen before the first one is done.
Start queuing up villager builds at the town center and set the gathering point to food (probably berries). Once you eventually have at least 7 on food, periodically change your gathering point to whatever other resource you are short on.
Send 8 of your woodcutters to gold so that you now have 9 miners total. You should send these guys as soon as you see that you will have no problem getting the wood to start your second archery range once the first one is started.
Send two more villagers to join your two current forward builders. These will probably come from your woodcutters although they might be miners if you have excess gold.
Immediately queue archers when your ranges are done. Also start a couple pikes at the barracks.
Start a stone mine. Transfer 4 gold miners and 4 woodcutters to stone. If you are short on wood, just set the TC gather point to stone instead of transferring the woodcutters.
Once you have 5 or 6 archers, a couple pikes, and 4 forward builders, go attack the enemy, giving priority to their wood operations and then stone and gold. If possible, put your force between the enemy gatherers and their town center before you start attacking. Just make sure you are not within range of the town center. Use the stand-ground hotkey "n" to prevent your units from following the villagers to their town center. Your units can still be moving when you apply the stand-ground hotkey to them and they will stand-ground once they get there.
While your military units attack, start making overlapping towers near them to disable the gathering spot. Try to position the towers so that they cover multiple resources. Split your builders evenly between the towers you are making as that is more efficient. For example, if you use two builders on one tower and two builders on another at the same time, you can complete both towers in 38 seconds. If instead, you use all four on the same tower before starting another, it will take you 50 seconds to finish both. For more information on construction efficiency, refer to my article at .
Keep making archers non-stop at your ranges and spread them around to prevent resource gathering until you can tower or wall things up. If the enemy is in Castle and is getting gold, research fletching and archer armor and try to keep your archers in groups of at least 5 with a spearman or two.
If the enemy has put up a single tower, just locate your archers right up against it and put them on stand-ground so that the tower cannot hit them. The archers will stop the resource gathering and even kill the tower eventually. Just don't do this versus a Teuton when they are in Castle as they get automatic murder holes once they reach Castle Age.
If the enemy has more than one tower up, find an angle where you can build a tower that will hit their resource gatherers while still being out of ranges of their towers. This is almost always possible and is really just about as good as taking the towers down. If your towers have trouble reaching a spot, be sure to get Fletching.
Your scout should be running all around during this time, looking for relocated villagers. Do not let the scout stop unless it is for a very good reason. You should count on there being a new wood operation starting up right after you attack the first one. Look for it! As soon as you see it, attack immediately. Wood is usually the enemy's most important resource at this time as it is what they need to relocate and counter you.
Ring the enemy town center with stand-ground archers and/or towers to prevent farming and straggler cutting. If the enemy is Teuton, you need to use towers for this (preferably with Fletching). A Fletched tower has a range of 9 whereas a Teuton town center has a range of 11. If you place the tower just out of range of the town center, the villagers will only have a 2-tile safety zone. Since farmers like to walk around a lot, they will still get hit even if the farms are right next to the town center. For non-Tuetons, there will be no safety zone all. Note that you can easily count out tiles with the pre-built tower by dragging it away from the edge of the town center as you are about to place it.
If you run into skirmishers, use your pikes, villagers, and towers to help beat them down. If you did your job in attacking his wood, you shouldn't see many skirmishers. If you do, retreat to your towers and make some Men-At-Arms.
Once your berries run out at home, go hunt those deer you found. After that, start farming. You should have enough woodcutters by then to lay several farms. You should have a better economy than the enemy does by this time and you should also be pretty close to starting the Castle upgrade. If the enemy is in Castle, be sure to have some spearmen at your town.
Once you have around 30 villagers, send three villagers out to start walling up all of the remaining gold and stone spots that the enemy might relocate to (you should have them all scouted by now). Don't lay the foundations until you get there as the enemy may have beaten you to it. If so, call in some military for backup and then tower the site up.
After the Feudal Age
You are unlikely to completely wipe your opponent out in the Feudal Age so you must plan on reaching Castle and expanding your economy from the very start. With your constant villager building in the Feudal Age, you should be in a very nice position at this point.
My goal in Castle is usually to use my economic advantage to put town centers all over the map and build up my population even more for a big Imperial. During all this, it is important to continue raids upon the enemy in order to keep their economy in check. It can also be very helpful to research murder holes, guard towers, and Bodkin Arrow, to make your towers more powerful. The enemy will often be busy trying to clear out your towers from gold and stone while you are building your economy. A small group of knights can be very useful in killing off any rams that might show up. The knights usually don't need much backup either since your upgraded towers will tend to keep away any knight counters.
Summary
You can download a demo recording of the Flush at
I believe that part of the advantage to being able to strike forcefully with a Feudal attack is that your opponent doesn't know what to expect early in the game. This is especially true in AOK since there is no achievements screen to monitor. The threat of a Feudal Rush can be as good as the actual thing if it makes your opponent spend time and resources early on to defend against an attack that never comes.
I'm not sure whether to give this strat a name or not. Maybe "Flush" would be good as it is a FeudaL-rUSH and it is probably about the closest thing to a Brush that you can effectively do in AOK. Well, whatever it is, I know that several others and I have had great success and a lot of fun with it even against very good players. I hope you find it useful.
Good luck and have fun.
Q: What is a FLUSH
A: A FLUSH is a highly specialized strategy that has two goals 1. Get you to the feudal age fast. 2. Provide you with an econ set up to strike with towers, archers, and some spearmen. It was developed around mid-October by a secret society that went under the name "the Feudal Blitzing Team", but the strategy's primary shaper was gutter_rat a notorious Tool Age rusher from Age of Empires I. A FLUSH can be done with any civ but works best with the Chinese, Persians, and Mongols. The strategy gets you to the feudal age between 9:30 and 10:45 and involves attacking with a main force of archers, and towering up your opponent while continuing to make villagers at home. More information can be found on this strategy here:
Q: Hey wait a second that isn't what I thought a FLUSH was?
A: Yeah I know J There has been a lot of "talk" about FLUSHes of late, but in many cases what was done really wasn't a FLUSH. There are a lot of different Feudal Rushes out there. You can go for a stronger attack that comes later, or a weaker one that comes earlier. A variety of units can also be used such as Men at Arms, spearmen or skirms. The goals of the attack can be changed as well. A tower with archers/spearmen over a players gold pile while you scoot to the castle age is a popular and effective tactic. There are a lot of options open to a player during the Feudal Age.
Q: Why should I bother attacking in the Feudal Age
A: I know what you are thinking; with the "Mighty TC" why bother using anything but rams and knights? Well there are a lot of good reasons, but the simplest one is that if you are attacking, generally you are winning. This is true for several reasons:
1. You are calling the shots, the other player is reacting to your moves
2. It is hard to run a good economy in the middle of a battlefield
3. Garrisoned villagers are non-working villagers
4. You start taking territory over early
5. Often you get the element of surprise
The key here is that you get the jump on the other player. Your "plan" goes into effect before his does and this gives you an increased opportunity to spoil his plans. Another important thing to note is that out of those 5 reasons are directly economical. This should be an important reminder that while running a Feudal Attack, you should always keep your economy working.
Q: This stuff is old! Why is it suddenly so popular?
A: The biggest reason is that it is very effective against the standard strategies that are being used on the zone right now. Here's a quote from one of the top Feudal rushers out there which will give you some insight:
"Weird how people first bitch that the feudal rush is too weak cuz of tc and now they [complain] about it being to powerful. Flush (or better feudal rush) is not unstoppable, it makes short work of the "traditional" fast (14-18 mins) castles. Cuz most/all people played like that other people developed a strategy that can defeat it easily. Now new strategies will be developed doing strong vs flushes but they probably will have a hard time dealing with plain fast castle boomers." - DevilZ_Aarsvark
I am going to take that a step further. I think that one of the larger factors of success for Feudal Age attacks is the prominence of early farming (~ 7 to 8 min). What this means is that a player's wood budget is kept very tight in these optimized fast castle strategies. This increases the odds of crippling someone when you hit their wood supply because suddenly they will not have the resources to build anything new. This can be deadly.
Either way, Feudal Attacks (FA) are rising in prominence because they work. They provide an effective counter for the common strategies that are out there and will often win you the game. As the FA becomes more and more prevalent, its place on the cutting edge will be usurped by a different strategy.
Q: Ok, so how do I do a Feudal Attack?
A: There are 2 key principles to success in a FA: Speed and Unit control
1. Speed: your attack needs to arrive FAST. There is a very small window of opportunity that you can strike in. This means feudaling between 9 and 11 minutes in general. While you can still mount a successful Feudal offensive if you arrive at the feudal age past 11 minutes, your chances of success start to diminish. Sending forward builders in the dark/feudal transition or earlier is a must. Additionally you must make a significant impact on your opponents economy fast. Don't hesitate too long to get that 1st tower up or to move in on those villagers with your troops. If you wait too long, your opponent will have the opportunity to stockpile enough resources to escape your assault. On the other hand, make sure you have a force that won't be decimated by a pack of angry villagers.
2. Unit Control: This is where the men are separated from the boys. It takes A LOT of skill to properly move your troops so they don't get eaten alive by the TC and to make sure they are completely covering your opponents territory. Careful micromanaging of your force will make or break your strike. Watch some of the top players handle their troops and you will get a feel for this. However, there is only one way to get better at this and it is by practice.
Q: Can you be any more specific on how to do a FA?
A: Sure! While the basic principles of speed and unit control are the key elements there are some other essential components. The first thing is that you are not going to build as many dark age villagers as you probably would. Another thing is that you are going to go a little heavier on the food then you may think. In general, you are going to live off the land and skip the farming. Grabbing both boars and as many sheep as you can eat is a must. For some basic ideas, gutter_rat's build order for the FLUSH is a good place to start.
Here are some other things you may want to keep in mind though regarding your economy.
1. Econ upgrades are secondary to villager and military production. Get them if you can and when you can.
2. Make sure you leave some villagers on food production and spend that food to increase your villager population. Setting the gather points on berries is a great way to keep food coming in without much attention. After they are gone you will most likely have to start farming.
3. Don't worry about stockpiling food to get to the castle age use it to make more villagers. Shoot for villager populations of 40+ (don't forget your population marker will not be entirely accurate since it includes military units)
4. Get a market up and use it to get yourself to the castle age if need be. Keeping a good handle on your resources and your attack can be tricky. Often you will end up with an excess of gold and wood. If you have 500-600 gold and need more food to hit the castle age, use the market and buy it. Strategic timing can be more useful than the cost of using the market.
Here are some other things you may want to keep in mind though regarding your military.
1. Archers rule the Feudal Age battlefield. They cost no food and this means you can keep expanding your economy.
2. Most of the time Men at Arms aren't worth the money
3. Spearmen mixed into your force is a good idea for several reasons they can't be countered by skirms and they add more units to your army. Look at it this way, a Feudal Age army of 8 is better than an army of 6. Since you have to build a barracks anyways, use it to make more troops.
4. Keep your troops on the move. Idle military units are about as worthwhile as idle villagers. By the same token, keep expanding your army to cover losses and increase you military dominance of the situation.
5. Towers they are a crucial element to a good FA. Use them to cover resources, claim land, and waste skirmisher. Build them so they cover each other if possible. Putting one up over the shadow of the TC is a good idea, but make sure it is out of range of the TC. Skillful use of towers is critical to the success of your FA.
Q: How do I stop a Feudal Attack?
A: There are several things that you can do to make yourself a tougher opponent to take down with a FA. I put them into 2 classes 1. Good ideas for any game. 2. Specific responses to a FA.
Class 1 good ideas for any game
* Early scouting of your base: There are 3 general phases to early game scouting. First you look for your local resources (boars, sheep, gold, wood). Second you check out the enemy's base and the land in between. Third you rescout your own home for enemy activity. The faster you get jobs 1 and 2 done the better shot you have at spotting trouble before the FA starts. So practice your early scouting and get efficient at it.
* Early food gathering: Going food heavy early gives you great flexibility. If you have gathered 500F early you have the choice of when to age advance. Should you need to rapidly do so should you expect a FA there is nothing to stop you. However if you have to wait for the 500F to come in you lose valuable seconds of defense time. Getting food early is often as simple as putting more focus on boars and sheep early on and less focus on farming and berries.
* Intelligent base layout: Do you have your gold&wood operations right next to each other so that one tower can shut them down? Do you have resource centers towards you enemy so that they don't have to go past your TC to get to them? If so you may want to rethink how you are setting up your dark age buildings. In general, getting the resources located in the back of your base is a good idea; they are that much harder to hit. Additionally, when possible a lumber camp at a large forest is much hard to tower than one in a smaller forest.
* "Radar houses": Make sure you know what is going on in your home town. Placing towers at the edge of forests, a few tiles away from gold mines, or in the path between you and your opponent is often a good idea.
Class 2 specific responses to a FA
* Feudal ASAP: Two of your strongest defenses against most FA's, the skirmisher and the tower, are only available in the feudal age. Get there fast so you can use them.
* Aggressive scouting. Figure out where the attack is coming from. Odds are they are going for your wood since this is the more crippling blow so scout around your forest. Knowledge of what the enemy is up to in your base is critical. Mass your force before you defend. If you attack with individual units they will be chewed up. Use the internal rally point to keep you units in the military building until you have 4 or more of them and then spring them on the unsuspecting opponent. Often a Feudal attacker will spread his units out to try and cover more ground. Take advantage of this to knock out his force piece by piece.
* Focus on wood. At this stage of the game, wood is much more precious than gold. Gold will NOT be the thing that will get you out of this attack, but wood will. Odds are you will need to relocate at least a portion of your base and without the necessary wood you will be very hampered. Make sure you make a priority to secure this. Gold is actually secondary since it doesn't provide much use in defending the feudal age rush until you arrive at the castle age and can produce knights. Remember if you need to you can always sell other resources to get gold.
* Counterstrike. Most Feudal attackers go all out offense and have very little if anything at home. Once in castle, a force of 3-4 knights can seriously cripple your opponent's feudal age base.
* If there is a good place to wall him out do so. This one can be kind of tricky and situational, but some of the top players have been being creative with palisade placement to make them that much harder to hit with a FA.
* Build an Archery and a Market as your 2 Castle Age buildings. Why do this? Because you are going to be on a tight wood budget and will need only the buildings that will benefit you the most. Sure you may want a stable later to produce knights, but for right now you want an archery to make skirms. The market is crucial because it is often VERY tricky to keep your economy managed during an attack like this. Use the market to get yourself out of a tight spot.
* If you are going to fight him in the Feudal Age you will need stone to make towers so start gathering it. It is also a pretty good idea to get the fletching upgrade. That extra range can make a BIG difference. Of course getting the 150W to build a blacksmith can be tough!
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