[Anonymous Player]

I often play on Arena TG and I want to improve my strategy so that I don’t always end up as a boom pocket or get castle dropped as a flank.

I’ve researched and found very few resources on the smush strategy, which is difficult to pull off in 1v1 due to the scouts meta.

However, at my TG ELO (1450-1550), few people play scouts from pocket, so I’m focusing on TG.

My basic build order is 22+1 and so far, I’ve been able to stop any forward castle drop from happening.

My strategy involves FC 2x monastery + Siege Workshop, training monks, mangonels and adding a 3rd monastery while ignoring eco upgrades except for gold shaft mining.

I buy food excessively and mine stone for a castle, going for an Imperial Age push with trebs and monks.

Most of the time, I end up in a commanding position over the opponent’s flank.

However, every other game, my forward is cleared by the opponent’s pocket, leaving me with only a few monks, trebs, and 40 villagers.

I have two questions:

1.

What could I do to prevent getting cleared?

I’ve been experimenting with walling in my monks and siege and adding UUs without upgrades, but with subpar success.

If my pocket is slower than the opponent’s, I will likely lose my forward position.
2.

How do I follow up my Imperial Age push?

How long should I stick to an army of 8-10 monks and trebs assuming I don’t get cleared?

If my pocket does not win decisively, should I focus on rebooming slowly, or should I take a different approach?

[da_m_n_aoe]

As a starting note: I wouldn’t really recommend monk rush in teamgames, it’s way more effective in 1v1 as your army can be fragile and easily gets cleared if 2 opponents commit.

Also I don’t agree with your take on eco.

First lumber camp upgrade is the most essential one, gold mining oftentimes makes sense but is not always mandatory early on.

Second wood upgrade you only get if it’s a siege heavy approach with later uptime.

And no you don’t buy food early on that’s very inefficient.

You make 2 or 3 farms on the way up to castle or early castle age and couple more after that so that you can sustain tc production.

You buy food if you need to get more spears than expected or if you wanna get imp.

That being said, there are different versions of monk rushing, I’d very roughly differentiate between 3 builds towards it (at some point they tend to play out rather similar though).

Firstly you can use the market and sell stone to get map control very fast with a 20+1 BO.

Here you’ll probably want to drop 2 forward monasteries and collect at least 3 relics before opponent gets to castle age.

Your third building usually is either siege workshop (first a ram and then mangonels) or barracks depending on how your opponent reacts.

Make redemption and push into your opponents base.

As long as they don’t make a defensive castle or guard towers keep pushing.

If they defend with those put like 7 or 8 vils on stone, buy your way up to imp and make a forward castle.

At some point you wanna have a forward castle anyways to secure your position.

Never reach imp without forward castle, this will never work.

Other BOs would be 22+1 without using market (initially 3 on wood, 2 more before clicking feudal and after boars run out 10 vils on sheep meaning 5 each sheep, push all dear before getting boars).

Then you can also play 24 or 25+1 which usually plays out more siege heavy.

In this case I’d make a barracks at home on way to castle and make 2 spears in case opponent opens scout which could kill your forward vils while they’re building the monasteries.

Also there is the delayed fast imp build which is very easy to execute and can work fantastically at mid elo but experienced players will have an easier time countering it compared to regular monk rush.

For that you go 27+2, make second lumber camp with 6 vils (2 more vils to it later on when your going up to castle age), then 3 vils on stone and 3 on gold.

Make barracks at way up to to castle age, make some spears and send 4 vils forward to make double monastery followed up by forward castle.

Collect the relics and try to force your opponent to react to your forward, meanwhile buy your way up to imp and play treb monk, add pikemen or mangos (maybe UU depending on you civ).

[Ohana_1220]

I do it quite often with Aztecs and it’s pretty hard in TG because if the op pay attention they can focus your army (expected to be the most valuable army on the field at this point) down together easily if you’re not supported by teammates.

I’ll try to take map control with eagles (4-5) and reduce the number of monks a bit, only making 2 upgrades for them (speed & hp).

It’s way easier to secure the relics and avoid being castle dropped this way as the eagles are produced already when clicking up to castle.

It’s extremely tight but I can do it with 23+2 (adaption of this [https://aoecompanion.com/b/c0w14avittb](https://aoecompanion.com/b/c0w14avittb)) so you surely can do it even faster/better

[1zweidrei]

I am no expert, but I think you don’t want to buy a lot of food.

A smush is pretty all in and depends on killing an opponent early or deal a lot of dmg.

The 100 food that you buy could have been one or 2 more monks, if you boom behind you lack ress for more mangonels or spears.

You need 5-6 farms to keep one tc working, so maybe go for 7-8 farms to add some spearmen from time to time, otherwise your whole eco should be on wood/gold.

The wood upgrade is very good, so I would not skip it.

The most dangerous units to stop your push are scouts and Mangonels, so getting a few spears is highly recommend, also redemption tech to convert siege/buildings.

You should probably communicate with your pocket so he doesn’t go full boom but supports you with knights or a even a castle drop.

Going for imp seems like a mistake to me, as you will never catch up in time, and you want all the ress you can spare to kill off one opponent.

Maybe you can go for imp if you have inflicted so much dmg to one opponent that the game became a 4v3 but else I think it puts your eco too much behind.

[kirxan]

You are higher TG elo than me by 200-300, so what I say may not apply at your level, but I also do monks from flank occasionally.

I’d like to more often than not, but I see a lot of Teutons, so I give up on monks.

My go to is FI monk + treb in TGs and smush in 1v1s.

Don’t skip double bit axe.

I think this is the single most impactful eco upgrade.

Gold mining is nice to have, but not needed and I pick it up on the way to Castle Age sometimes.

I also buy some wood early Castle Age to afford siege usually or to get to 5 farms when smushing.

Food is usually not an issue until berries run out.

I go 20+2, getting Loom after Castle Age.

When I FI, once I have 9-10 monks and 2-3 trebs, I add a TC behind my push and switch to a support unit for my pocket.

Typically at this stage the enemy flank is dead, my window to kill is between when I am Imp ~22 mins and ~27 mins (when the enemy pocket is Imp).

When I smush in TGs, I’m usually not as successful as when I monk+treb, I push until I see a Castle.

If their Castle is up, then Imp + forward castle becomes my agenda.

I can’t say I’ve executed this well in TGs, but I have done this in 1v1s to better success.

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