There are several different variations to booming with boats that are largely a matter of how big you boom. Here is a listing of various options:
  1. Fast Castle Boat Boom - goal is a sub 18 minute castle time with a pretty large economy (roughly 40-45 "villagers" - about 26 or so are real).
  2. Slow Boat Boom - some where around a 20 minute castle, but with an enormous early economy (roughly 50-60 "villagers").
  3. Boats as a supplement - Mill or lumber camp first and boats later to supplement your economy
  4. Feudal Age Boat Boom - after optimizing to a flush, catch up on the villager count using a dock

There are advantages and disadvantages to all the various techniques, so sometimes it is wise to chose one technique over another.

Part A: Fast Castle Boat Boom

The goal here is to get a castle time that is below 18 minutes with a powerful enough economy. You can then take advantage of that speed and launch a strong attack, start a large scale castle boom, or even sprint to the Imperial age. Being able to start a 2nd TC around 17:30 and add a 3rd right after and pump vils from all 3 (or use one for WB/HC upgrades) will generally allow you to catch up or overtake a slower, larger boomer economically. Your TC's also defend you and you don't have to worry about towering or making a great wall or other things that aren't economic or offensive in nature. Off course with a really good food intake and some gold you may be able to do all this while sending a few knights to hit the slower boomer just as he's castled and before he has more TC's up. This won't likely crush him , but it will surely hassle him and slow him down further, while you can decide to either imp ahead of him or stronger than him or make more army and roll up some rams for a full scale castle assault. Another side benefit of being in castle quickly is that you can make rams and take down an early forward enemy base. Your castle time can vary from mid 16 minutes anywhere to 18 minutes depending on how big you want to boom and how often you practice.

Start - Standard startup. Build houses, find sheep, but don¡¦t build a mill. First 6 vils go onto your sheep. When the population hits seven, change your gather point for the TC to the nearest strag and send the next few villagers there.

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The scout is looking for: forest, large body of water, more sheep (you will need at least 6 total), and boars. Although the first 200W will allow you to immediately build a lumber camp, hold off until you¡¦ve had a look at the forest. AOK gives you several strags to keep your villagers working. Generally you don¡¦t need to loom for a while so I tend to wait because early villager flow is VERY critical for your wood levels.

3 min - Lumber camp should be up or going up at this time. If possible place it between 2 forests because you are going to be having alot of villagers on wood. Your population should be around 11 with 6 on food and 5 on wood.

4-5 min - Dock should be going up at about this time. Worry more about getting a dock up than finding a "perfect" location for it. As soon as you have 150W, go build it, the boats can be moved to a better dock later. Your wood should start building up really fast now, so not to use it by this time is simply wasting the resources (remember you want to keep all your resources close to 0 in the early game if at all possible). It always seems to me that I need a house at this time so make sure you don¡¦t short yourself on wood by instantly building a boat if you only have 75W.

Also the sheep at home tend to be running out at this time (or earlier) so start going for that boar. Whether or not you get the loom before this is up to you. If you have quick fingers and can avoid losing the villager to boar luring, then go for it. However, the safe bet is to get the loom before this. You are going to want the loom soon for that dock builder anyways since he is going to start wandering.

Tip - There may be times when you need 50F to make a villager, but don't have the food in the bank. This will happen most often when you are eating the boar. Since hunters "carry" a great deal of food on them while "eating", you can simply click on one of the hunters and then click on the TC to make him "dump" the food. If you are real sharp, you can even make sure that you pick the right hunter. It is often a good idea to make the "dump" before you actually need the food, but that takes some practice

7 min - If you haven¡¦t gotten the boar yet, get it ASAP because your sheep are bound to be running out and you don¡¦t want to have to put a mill down by your berries. Even though you will have boats on the seas at this point, they won¡¦t be enough to support your villager flow.

The villager that built the first dock should start wandering down the coastline building houses as he goes (only build them if the population needs them, otherwise spend that early wood to make sure you have a constant flow of boats from your dock).

Tip - keep an eye on your housing! For those unfamiliar with boat booms, your population increases very rapidly, especially when you have two docks cranking. Also with wood being eaten up by boats it is easy to short yourself on wood for house

Keep an eye on your boats to make sure they are gathering from the deep sea fish, there is a big difference in food collection rates (take a look at this post from Neilkaz ). If you let your boats collect from shorefish, you won¡¦t have the 800F you need to hit castle.

9 min - Your wood inflow should be enough to support a second dock, so get one up with that wandering builder preferably in the corner of the map as this is where fish congregate on coastal and continental maps. Start on that second boar if you haven¡¦t already so that the food arrives at your drop off center by 11 minutes into the game. You might want to build a second lumbercamp as your first one is bound to be getting crowded. Pop should be around 24-27 with about 15 lumberjacks, 6 vils on food and a few boats.

Tip - don't que up a lot of boats in the dock early on. It is more labor intensive but limit the que to one boat building and maybe a second one waiting. Stay away from 3 boats in one que as 225W is a great deal of wood to have tied up in the early game

11 min - If things are going right you should be ready to click on the feudal upgrade. You can either assign your last few villagers to the gold mine or send over some of your boar hunters. You will easily get 800F from your fishing boats as long as you keep them on the deep sea fishing, so you can send the other boar hunters either as forward builders or to the lumbercamp. You should also either build a mill (if you haven¡¦t already) or a barracks. I like to go with the barracks so that I can make some troops, but you can just go with a mill.

During the feudal transition you want to keep on producing boats. Don¡¦t stop making them until you have reached about 80% of the feudal upgrade. With about 22 villagers bringing in wood your wood inflow will be able to build up enough for the two buildings without a problem.

13 min - A little after 13 minutes (or maybe 14 min depending on when you did the feudal upgrade) you will hit the feudal age. If you already haveor are close to having 200G, then have one of your gold miners build the blacksmith. If you didn¡¦t build a barracks, then have two villagers build the market, otherwise go for an archery or stable. Produce 2 villagers from your TC and send them where you want/need to. Alot of times you will have the food to grab the wood upgrade and gold upgrade and still have the 800F to hit castle.

15 min - Both buildings are built and you should hit the castle upgrade if you haven¡¦t already. If you haven¡¦t already grab the wood and gold upgrades as well as fletching and any other military upgrades you want, although I recommend the infantry armor. Depending on how the fishing is, you may want to crank our some more boats. This will get you more castle age food, but you will have less wood for TC's and you will most likely have to defend these boats.

17 min - You should hit the castle age at this point with a pop = 40-50 With around 28-29 real villagers and 12-20 boats. Go out there and wreak some havoc!

 

Sample Game

Here's a game that I recently played. It is a 3v3 Continental and all the players are skilled. I took Persia and had a Viking ally, so that helped alot. 4 of the other players also boat boomed in one way or another, so you can check out their techniques and see how they compare. Download it here: fast_castle_boatboom.zip

 

Special Economic Considerations for various Civs:

Britons ¡V because the Brits get a shepherd advantage you can keep steady villager flow off of 4 villagers (although 5 is a little safer). This means that when your pop = 5, you can change the waypoint to the stragglers and start chopping wood. This translates onto more early villagers on wood and a better dock time. The only thing to watch out for is that if you are going to go after a boar, 4 villagers is too few, so you will eventually have to add another 2 villagers to your food collecters. If you happen to find 8 or more sheep and your are the Britons, it is going to be a very, very good game for you.

Chinese ¡V having those extra 3 villagers at the start means several things. First off, you can start chopping wood instantly with 6 villagers while waiting for the sheep to come in. Also you don¡¦t have to worry about when to get the loom since there is a lull between villagers 7 and 8.

Japanese ¡V The cheap lumbercamp will allow you to build up the extra wood for a dock really fast. The 200W from the start, minus 50W for the lumber camp and 60W for 2 houses leaves you with 90W. Now you only have to collect 60W and if you are lucky to have a Viking teammate, that is only 20W to get the dock up. In other words you can almost build the dock and lumbercamp at the same time. But the benefits don¡¦t stop there because the Japanese fishing boats collect food faster. In my opinion, Japan was made to be a boat boom civ.

Persia ¡V The extra 50W gives you a similar edge on dock time as the Japanese cheap lumbercamp. The extra 50F can be a nice cushion since this strategy will run your food supply on a razor¡¦s edge. The quicker dock production gives you more boats while on your way to the castle age, but the time when you really need it (during the dark-feudal transition) the bonus hasn¡¦t kicked in. It does come in handy for defending your fishing fleet during the feudal age though. Also the quicker TC will get you to the castle age :15 seconds faster.

Vikings ¡V Everyone wants a viking teammate for those cheap docks. Also getting the wheelbarrow in feudal makes for slightly quicker gathering rates on your wood supply. Additionally the wheelbarrow will give you a stronger castle age as this strategy doesn¡¦t provide for researching the wheel during the feudal age.

Things that can go wrong
  1. You only find 4 sheep. Ouch, this one really hurts. If you are feeling really daring, you can put an extra villager on the sheep and start luring a boar almost right from the start and then get the vils onto the boar. However all this micro-management and extra villager time generally means a delayed dock time anyways. The safer bet is probably to go with a mill right after the lumbercamp rather than a dock. If possible, put it out near boars, deer or shorefish. Getting a slower dock time is a lesser evil then having a break in villager flow.
  2. No boars to be found. Another big bad. Even if the boars are far away or tucked around a corner it can still be worth luring them. But if you simply can¡¦t find them, then you are going to have to go lumbercamp, mill, dock.
  3. The place you dock first has no deep sea fish. As long as the water is connected to the main body of water (ie. it isn¡¦t a puddle), then keep producing boats from this dock.

Conclusion

This strategy is alot of fun to use and leaves you with alot of options when you hit castle. It is also a great strategy because there is alot of flexibility involved. You can cut back on producing boats and save up wood and quickly relocate your operation should you get attacked. If you lose some land you can always keep up villager flow with your fishing operation as well. All in all, this strategy is about as general purpose as it gets. Additionally, it is pretty easy to run once you do it a few times. I hope that it provides you with alot of good games and that this article, in addition to the future articles in this series, will provide you for a great appreciation of the power of the boat boom.

Good luck gaming!

blue_myriddn


Attachment(s): fast_castle_boatboom.zip