Liga 1v1 2settle Middle Ages start.

[lightnessking.]

but yes you need 4 on forage. (or switch every dropoff between 3 and 4 citz lol.)

[Samuel]

By the time you take have used one citizen to lure the hippo:

1_if you have used a forage citizen, you won't be able to constantly produce citizens all the time
2_if you have used a wood citizen, you will end up with a slower strat in terms of army production

Only get hippo if it's relatively close to forage. As for the number of citizens, 3 at hippoes doesn't really make your start fast enough to make it worth it, because by the time the hippo finishes you will have another problem which is luring the other one (and unless it's attached to forage, which is rare, that becomes a problem) :

1_If you use a food citizen, you will have 2 foragers (hippo has finished) for some seconds, and your citizen production will stop
2_If you use a wood citizen, you might waste your initial advantage (which was starting with wood citizens 1 citizen earlier) and then you might as well have started with 4 and avoid these problems. Luring the hippo with the wood citizen doesn't necessarily prevent you from lacking food since you might end up with 3 foragers as you wait for the hippo to come. You can obviously get it earlier with a wood citizen but then why not just go to food with 4 citizens in first place? (since you are now having 3 citizens at hippo and 1 citizen luring the 2nd hippo).

There are also other things to keep in mind. Getting 3 at hippo means that by the time you have 3 foragers and 5 woodcutters you will have to choose where to send your next citizen:

1_You can send it to gold and go on as normal, and that means you will get an earlier gold, but filling the mine earlier means that you will have extra gold, some of which you will not use, by the time you get cavs, which is not convenient.
Of course someone might say that you don't necessarily have to fill that mine straight away, and after 4 citizens at gold you might send 1 citizen to forage, but then you could have just sent it there at the beginning and avoid these continual changes and perhaps focus more on scouting or on thinking about your map/the enemy's map's weaknesses a bit more.

2_ you can go for a 3 hunters and 6 woodcutters (so that extra citizen goes to wood in this case, rather than gold as in the case above), and then get the gold in the exact same timing as in the "normal" strategy. Which leads you to too much wood, which is of course not bad in a Mid game, but at the cost of risking your citizen production (plus remember that, unless you want to use the food gatherer, which isn't recommended, you'd have to use one of these wood gatherers to gather the hippo).

Obviously using one of the wood gatherers in this scenario still leaves you with 5 wood gatheres overall, 3 at hippo and, overall, the same timing with cavs since the timing of the gold is the same, and the wood is going to be quite similar. Perhaps you might get your Archery Range up a bit earlier (since the 6th wood cutter who has spent some time luring the hippo has still been able to get back home that little extra wood, like 30/45 or so) but since the timing of the gold is the same, the timing of the cav archer will be basically the same.

Why then, not just go the "normal" strategy (which always works and doesn't rely on the position of the hippoes) and eventually save the hippos for a bit later stage? You can still get them as soon after the first cav has come out if you so wish, I have done that on multiple occasions and it's actually better in the case you have only one good gold and bad 2nd and 3rd gold, since you might end up having to TC in that case (needing that little bit of extra food) in a transition that only the "normal" strategy will allow you to go into at its best (you can also do it in case of double gold and against a 2 settlement strategy, no way against a 1 settlement strategy).

Plus keeping in mind this citizen's changement from wood (originally from wood, then luring the hippo to forage, and then back to wood), as I stated above, might also distract you from other things, especially in the case you don't have wood right next to forage, in which case you will also need to move your wood citizens to the gold's wood quite early.

There's the scenario, of course, of having hippoes right next to forage, almost running towards your citizens. Which is also luck-dependant and hardly ever happens (and if it happens, you might still haven't forage + wood) and that's why you can't really rely on it.


The strategy that Kazter originally posted is just well too balanced already, creating an almost perfect balance between food, wood and gold doesn't give you extra resources that you won't be using, saves your hippo for a later stage eventually, best allows you to transition out of it and it's also simpler to pull off.

[Captain Nemo]

3 on hippo gives more food than 4 on forage tho. getting hippo will be some work, but it will maximise your gather rate, releasing one cit to gather wood (preferred I should say) and thus getting more ress which in any matter will be an advantage. whether the efford is worth it I leave up to you. Obviusly it will have something to do with how far the hippo is, but normally it should be close enough, especially since u can normally lure both hippoes with 1 cit. Or if you're really pro, lure the hippoes with your first ca... tho risky, I wouldn't recommend using ranged militery units lol.

[Arntzen]

I see Sam basically saved me here. I guess in normal games I've used hippo's then I've been sticking to 4 on forage and one of those lure the hippo so even tho you'll get more once they start on hippo, you will loose while he's going hunting for it.
I recommend using 4 on food anyway if hippo or forage, and only get hippo if they are in danger to get killed by enemy.

[Samuel]

I see Sam basically saved me here. I guess in normal games I've used hippo's then I've been sticking to 4 on forage and one of those lure the hippo so even tho you'll get more once they start on hippo, you will loose while he's going hunting for it.
I recommend using 4 on food anyway if hippo or forage, and only get hippo if they are in danger to get killed by enemy.

Yes.

Remember that as you saw yourself you need to constantly force the gathering of every resources to keep the balance. The goal of this strategy is to get a really quick first cav archer whilst keeping the production of citizens and cav archers, to defend from quick 1 settle strategies and outnumber 2 settlement strategies.

Also remember that 3 hippos means that you will have an extra citizen that won't be useful at gold, and working as a part-time wood gatherer and hippo lurer can work, but that extra wood that you will get (and earlier archery range) doesn't really end up in an earlier cav archer.

_If the hippo is far it gets obvious that it would take too much time for the citizen to get the hippo and you explained it above.

_If the hippo is close you can get it, and I would still keep 4 because that extra citizen won't lead to a better start since the extra resources that you will get from that extra citizen (either at gold or at wood) will most likely lead to unspent resources.
And on a side note, keeping 4 in that case gives you the chance to eventually TC boom gold with more ease.