new BANGER 1v1 strategy with berbers

[JesusChrist]

I've been 1200 elo player half a year ago, when I realised that berber villagers can be effectively used as offensive military in the dark age due to speed bonus. Since then, I've been playing around this idea, experimenting with berber villager rush buildorder over hundreds of games and refining the strategy, until I've figured out what seems to me flawless execution. By executing this strategy, I rose up to 1800 elo, and I think that with better micro and APM this strategy could be used to break 2200+ elo players easily. I am active AOE fan, I watch all the events and subscribed to many stream channels, I've watched countless youtube videos, but I've never ever seen anyone doing anything like what I've came up with. It seems that I am the only one who has unveiled the secret power of berber villagers. So in this post, I want to share this sacred knowledge with community, describing in detail berber strategy which I've been refining over hundreds of games.

My build order goes like this:

1. Build 2 houses right away. Order 2 vils + loom in your TC. Send scout to search enemy base right away, dont waste time searching for your own resources. Send 2 of the starting vils forward right away, remaining villager on food. Use sheeps to find your boars.
2. Send new villagers to food, until you have 6 (or 8 if you like) on food. After u have 6-8 on food, send all new villagers forward to enemy base. Your villagers at home will be collecting sheep and boars and berries to support vil production, all rest new vils will be sent to enemy base.
3. With scout sent forward, find enemy TC, boars, woodlines, berries and deer. Use 2 of your starting villagers which you sent forward to help your scout find resources. Ideally, your 2 starting villagers should lame 2 enemy boars, it is possible because your vils arrive before enemy should start to collect his boars. I often manage to lame both boars before opponent notices anything, but sometimes you will fail and not lame even one, this is OK.
4. Next tasks to these 2 forward villagers do something from following list in any convenient order: kill unloomed enemy wood vill using scout blocking, wall in enemy lumbercamp, wall in berries, kill deer, build house. If you get chased by enemy scout, fight him.
5. When new villagers from your TC arrive to enemy base, you use them to push enemy villagers off resources. Start pushing him from berries and wall them in, then push him from his lumbercamp and wall lumbercamp in, if you succeeded find where else he is collecting res and follow him and push him from his res. If enemy vilfights you, pull your weak vills back and chase his weak vils. This is where berber speed bonus is most powerfull: he will never catch your weak vils, while you can outrun his weak vils, block them and finish them. This makes you much, much stronger at vilfights. With fresh vils arriving from your TC you will never run out of steam, making defence complete nightmare for your enemy.
6. With weak vils you pulled back, build lumber camp near enemy base. Send all new weak vils to collect wood.
7. If opponent walls some of his res to protect form your vils, it is very good. Wall around his walls so he cant escape.
8. When you got 280+ wood, it is time to douche. Delete your starting TC and build it near enemy tc. If you walled some enemy vills in, build your TC so that i can attack enemy tc and trapped vills simultaneously, if you managed to do this it is almost surely GG, I finished games like this many times. Otherwise, build your tc on berries or enemy farms or near his woodline, whichever more convenient.
9. During TC war, pull weak vils into TC to regenerate, use fresh vils to collect wood, lame enemy woodlines and vilfight. When his TC collapses, chase his vils and finish the enemy. If he rebuilds tc, repeat douche and vilfights. If cant repeat douche, go up to feudal and finish him with military, at this point his economy should be much weaker.

If you execute everything properly, you can break player who has higher APM, macro, and is mich higher than your elo. The only downside is that you will often need to research spies to finish the game, but it's worth it.

 

[Elvaenor]

Seems like the perfect way to get berber villagers nerfed in dark age as well. :D
I'm not sure but maybe I'd just prefer the Inca trush over this strat after reading it. 11
It is creative though.

 

[thepitzaboy]

this is so much fun to watch, you got a game recd you can show us here?

 

[JesusChrist]

this is so much fun to watch, you got a game recd you can show us here?

I guess you can download from here - https://aoe2.net/#aoe2de-matches-1410192

 

[-R-]

I believe Biry was doing something of this sort with Berbers months ago at around the 2k-2k1 level.

 

[JesusChrist]

I believe Biry was doing something of this sort with Berbers months ago at around the 2k-2k1 level.

I found his content on youtube, that's not even close. He sends 3 vils forward at most, almost no vilfight just distraction

 

[-R-]

I found his content on youtube, that's not even close. He sends 3 vils forward at most, almost no vilfight just distraction

It depends on the game, I've seen him take a boar home with his scout while walling pretty much every other resource with forward vils. He does not go for a douche afterwards or stuff like that (maybe forward production buildings), but he doesn't need to either.

 

[Kellar]

Barles and Valas beat you to it several months ago on Black Forest.

The douche is new, though.

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

That sounds juicy, I would like to see a high level player perform this.

 

[SouFire]

Well those strats are just about to make the game longer and boring, you will get points for sure but not practical skills and the enemy will prevent the lame at the next game.

The teuton trush Hawk's style was better and faster to kill plebs and works in more maps.

 

[JesusChrist]

Well those strats are just about to make the game longer and boring, you will get points for sure but not practical skills and the enemy will prevent the lame at the next game.

The teuton trush Hawk's style was better and faster to kill plebs and works in more maps.

There were players who faced me dozens of times and were still losing to it (at 1700+ elo), besides usually game ends fast. Preventing lame not that easy if you think about it and re-read my build order.

 

[Degaussed]

I've played a few players who try this kind of stuff and I always just gg out of the game and then THEY often get salty lol

 

[T-West]

I played a couple of games a few months ago someone who would send two Berber vils forward immediately with Loom to lame, then vil fight and douche (I guess it was you). The vil-fight+douche combo is really strong since it prevents the other player from repairing their TC if they get pushed away from their Lumbercamp. I also learned that researching Fletching makes your TC weaker in a TC fight.

 

[Chainsaw]

The only downside is that you will often need to research spies to finish the game, but it's worth it.

Lol. I'd probably get bothered by it myself, but I think it's fun of you to share it. Funnily, I've tried the same myself, except not as aggressive as you and never with a douche. Fun to see that there is still creativity to be found.

 

[IYIyTh]

Oh, the tears. The sweet, sweet nectar of the gods.

Seems extremely all in, creative, and fragile.

I love it.

I expect eventually some crybaby meta pro will whine about it and the vil speed will get nerfed out or something hilarious.

In before "where are the m@a, crossbows are knights/real aoe2 though?"

 

[lecracheursagacite]

Oh, the tears. The sweet, sweet nectar of the gods.

Seems extremely all in, creative, and fragile.

I love it.

I expect eventually some crybaby meta pro will whine about it and the vil speed will get nerfed out or something hilarious.

In before "where are the m@a, crossbows are knights/real aoe2 though?"

And award for "least surprising AoEZone post of 2021" goes to...

 

[Lord Bolton]

I have faced you mr "Drill time" in RM 1v1.. i almost defeated you ( me 15xx) but i lost because my vils pathed out of a woodline for some reason during your douche and my TC fell.. i have seen many one trick ponies in my games and trust me, the next time you do, there will be militia waiting


I respect the strat and the effort you put into it, maybe be nice to your opponent instead of being toxic by writing stuff during game like "i will destroy you" , "i will lame your soul" kinda lines.

 

[dataidiot]

Oh, the tears. The sweet, sweet nectar of the gods.

Seems extremely all in, creative, and fragile.

I love it.

I expect eventually some crybaby meta pro will whine about it and the vil speed will get nerfed out or something hilarious.

In before "where are the m@a, crossbows are knights/real aoe2 though?"

By the number of posts ranting and disqualifying those who differ from your point of view I don't think you're in a good spot to call others crybabies .

 

[IYIyTh]

By the number of posts ranting and disqualifying those who differ from your point of view I don't think you're in a good spot to call others crybabies .

If you were intending to make the proper upvote-seeking insult I believe it would be to say I was an authority, no? I know you didn't bring charts and graphs derived from erroneously created data sets like others, but I prefer the off-topic insults to at least be good.

Encouraging alternative strategies and diversity of playstyle is a fine cross to die on. Especially in a day and age where games are noobified, dumbed down in the name of marketing to the most casual of player base for every last cent, typically at the expense of the better parts of the original product. It's actually comical that rather than respecting the ability to use all facets of the game to attempt to win both the opponent and the playstyle employed is treated as something negative.

Same with a few other non-OP all in strategies that were unceremoniously nerfed, sending certain civilizations to the dustbin of play-rate utilization.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

If you were intending to make the proper upvote-seeking insult I believe it would be to say I was an authority, no? I know you didn't bring charts and graphs derived from erroneously created data sets like others, but I prefer the off-topic insults to at least be good.

No he implied you were a crybaby too because the tone of some of your posts about the Incas comes off that way.

Encouraging alternative strategies and diversity of playstyle is a fine cross to die on. Especially in a day and age where games are noobified, dumbed down in the name of marketing to the most casual of player base for every last cent, typically at the expense of the better parts of the original product. It's actually comical that rather than respecting the ability to use all facets of the game to attempt to win both the opponent and the playstyle employed is treated as something negative.

Yes it is. But encouraging alternative strategies and playstyles shouldn't come at the cost of bad design either. You seem to think that everyone who did not like Inca vills belongs to the camp of inflexible meta tryhard even though some of them did not like Inca vills simply because they did not find the strategy fun to play against for whatever reason. You refuse to really explain how the strategy was in fact not unfun to play against and therefore all those people who might otherwise be sympathetic to your complaints about inflexible meta dumbing down are not inclined to agree with you.

Same with a few other non-OP all in strategies that were unceremoniously nerfed, sending certain civilizations to the dustbin of play-rate utilization.

If you are referring to Burmese specifically the building damage was degenerate nonsense as fun as it was to play.

 

[amazing_knight]

It seems that I am the only one who has unveiled the secret power of berber villagers.

Username checks out.

 

[The_Philos]

Seems like the player formerly known as 'God' came down to us as 'JesusChrist' to preach to us about his strategy. I like the christian 'love-thy-neighbor' or more like 'love your enemy' attitude, which fully gets incorporated by the chosen usernames. For this 10/10. The self-praise and your ingame attitude sadly taints this love spreading message.
I faced this strategy twice on the ladder, while you were still developing it, I suppose. Once unprepared and the second time I knew what was coming, but both times I could defend from it. I think the second time I just out-repaired your douche, since Berber douche has nothing special to it and I was Celts on 2 LCs.
It didn't really strike me as a good strategy, since it heavily relies on your opponent making mistakes in defending from the laming. Tbf it can be tricky, since villager micro is tedious and laming is always luck dependent.
Imo it only works, if you can surprise your opponent with this.
On a sidenote: Using Berber villager speed to lame your opponent does not seem new to me.

 

[dataidiot]

If you were intending to make the proper upvote-seeking insult I believe it would be to say I was an authority, no? I know you didn't bring charts and graphs derived from erroneously created data sets like others, but I prefer the off-topic insults to at least be good.

Encouraging alternative strategies and diversity of playstyle is a fine cross to die on. Especially in a day and age where games are noobified, dumbed down in the name of marketing to the most casual of player base for every last cent, typically at the expense of the better parts of the original product. It's actually comical that rather than respecting the ability to use all facets of the game to attempt to win both the opponent and the playstyle employed is treated as something negative.

Same with a few other non-OP all in strategies that were unceremoniously nerfed, sending certain civilizations to the dustbin of play-rate utilization.

Alright, so let me give you a proper answer then.

What this Berber strategy and Inca vill trush have in common? They rely mostly on the execution of a build order and recognizing very specific patterns of vill fights, but there is also a factor of successful laming, which is the most luck based part of RNG. As for the rest of the game? Forget about eco balance, macro and unit transition. You don't need them to achieve very good results(op went from 12xx to 18xx doing this strat only). To some extent, also forget about decision making, as you usually have to decide about Inca trush(at least if you want to do <20 pop up) or Berber vill forward before you have information about the opponent's map and the map of yours).

In addition to the previous paragraph, such games can become very one dimensional about one early fight, which for me is taking away the strategy part of a RTS - not to mention they highly reward APM and execution over game knowledge and .

All things considered, I don't think those strats do anything but noobify and dumb down the game. There a few different alternatives to standard play that actually make the game more complicated, maybe not as much as there should be, but this is the issue of having 37 civs and trying to keep the game balanced.

 

[IYIyTh]

Are you saying that the opponents strategy relies on having time to take both boars, to execute a perfectly manicured build order and it's just not fair because they aren't allowed to have 15 mins of no stress play only because their opponent consciously made efforts to prevent it? Meanwhile the other guy in all likelihood doesn't even bother with his boars and instead sends vils forward after clicking loom at 6 vils. It of course has decision making involved and I'm sure some great micro to boot. The RNG you speak of can equally be stated for any portion of the game, such as resource generation.

In all likelihood this completely beatable, insanely risky and all-in strategy will if at all -- only partially succeed and feudal play choices will be required to extend the advantage, towers, or achieve such a messy situation the berber player can think about playing safe into Castle Age and utilizing their cheaper cavalry options. Consequently the opponent also has choices regarding going for military, towers, etc. and the game is open.

If you only consider m@a archers, drush fc, or scouts as the only valid ways to play the game, you are taking a game of chess and playing checkers.

The argument that people can one trick strat is completely dubious, as, no one questions how high one can rise playing Frank/Magyar/Khmer Scouts into Knights, Mayan Men at Arms into Archers

 

[Tarsiz]

I've seen Sitaux experiment with that on stream a couple times. Seems quite strong but mostly because it's unexpected.