Let’s talk about douching in AoE2:DE

The original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/z1ht7i/strategy_thesis_of_the_week_never_go_feudal/ T-West video: …

Today we’re going to look at the Reddit thread that was posted nine months ago I haven’t read this at all I wasn’t aware of this this was brought to my attention by my wonderful editor tiramis the point there is this is a strategy thesis of the week posted by um Deuter never go

Fueled against a douche the pros get it wrong I have had a lot of opinions and shared a lot of opinions on a douche throughout my career I’ve had multiple videos as well on my YouTube channel when it comes to what to do if you’re getting douched

Usually I tend to encourage that just go feudalish ignore the douche just rebuild your town center get some archers on the field something like this and then take it from there this can also be very map dependent though okay but yeah we’re going to read this thread possible on

Deuter to see what exactly he’s saying okay so usually I put this disclaimer here at the beginning of my thesis like I’m only 1700 ELO I might be wrong blah blah blah ELO is irrelevant to opinion you could be right even though you’re 400 ELO and you could be wrong even

Though you are 2500 ELO but this time I won’t because I’m very convinced not 100 sure but very positive that this is simply correct and even the pros have just not understood it yet bold claim indeed very bold claim I know feel free to prove me wrong in the comments I’m

Going to give you my reasoning the reason why it also caught my attention is because it’s very much hinting towards the game that I was a part of here we just had a beautiful game between doubt and the Viper in the Warlords tournament I recommend you

Watch it but T West also did a nice quick summary we’ll watch this is the Persians that means it’s time for a douche the tournament has a nine villager start so that can collect wood from a straggler and almost immediately have enough to rebuild his TC it only

Takes 10 villagers for the TC to shoot the max number of arrows so the 12 villagers doubt has one minute in are more than enough that Persian TC has twice the HP of a normal TC so there’s no way that Viper can fight back he’s going to the big thing about this douche

As well is that I’m eating two or three Boars in a Range to the TC so that makes it a little bit harder to uh to deal with to lose his TC that much is inevitable but he has a plan he’s the Khmer he doesn’t need Dark Age buildings

To advance to the feudal age with the three Forest he took at the start he can use the nine villager start and click up around 3 minutes and 30 seconds but he has only 16 villagers this is an incredibly fast up time but honestly I think this is a mistake the feudal age

Takes two minutes and 10 seconds to research that’s 5.2 villagers worth of idle time and he needs to repair the TC while going up we have to emphasize though regarding the situation here this is a map that is extremely close right the walking distance for doubts villager

To drop the these in this case was extremely short unlike most buildings TCS take twice their cost in wood to repair that’s 550 wood to go from one HP to full HP now with two repair villagers the TC slowly loses HP with three villagers the TC slowly gains HP but the

Challenge isn’t repairing the TC so which is having enough wood to repair the TC folks of quick testing it takes about 18 or so Lumberjacks to maintain enough wood for three villagers eight of these will vary with Lumber Camp efficiency but with only 16 villagers in total Viper doesn’t have nearly enough I

Have no idea you need that many wheels to keep it alive both to collect wood and repair once the TC gets below 480 HP villagers no longer can Garrison so doubt can send everyone forward to batter down the TC Viper desperately wants to force drop wood and repair it

And he just manages to get to feudal age that was so close but was it the right play from doubt should he have on Garrison the villagers let’s go to the scenario editor and check here we have a TC with 10 villagers versus 10 villagers attacking directly and the TC shooting

Arrows wins so doubt made a huge mistake here I wouldn’t say it was a huge mistake if you go back here you see I mean it was a mistake but you see doubt has wheels Garrison as well but you could probably make an argument that he

Should have sent less bills to hit the easy like keep 10 mils in the DC and the rest of the bills goes to to batter it down that would have been the right player and the TC shooting arrows wins so doubt made a huge mistake here I

Would have not got two ledge if that was because there’s enough villagers to keep 10 in the TC if he stops Viper from getting to the feudal age then he wins the game right there because once the TC goes down Viper is stuck without enough

Wood to rebuild it ah this is almost the worst situation you can be in versus the douche if he didn’t finish feudal he’d be dead right here also something else I just noticed if you destroy a TC then eventually it loses its player color as it sinks into the ground in decays not

That that matters at all but just something I think very sad very sad yeah the issue here is that I don’t have wood either like now he’s sending bills to fight right he has more Wheels he can justify it but I don’t have I need to

Collect wood I need an archery range I need a mining camp like and I also need to wall in my villagers notice before it just snowballs wants to keep chasing and Will fighting but Viper is the Khmer he can both Garrison in houses and hop to

The other side of his house wall now doubt is using 12 villagers to fight these houses so back to the editor let’s check if this is a good idea we’ll see how much wood 12 villagers can chop in the time it takes them to destroy two

Houses just to check we can Force drop the wood right as the houses are destroyed okay that’s 132 wood compared to the 25 Wood per house Viper would have to spend remaking them hey you gotta factor in Walking time for those villagers too and definitely not worth it for doubt in

Mind you have to take into context here as well is that it’s not only that you could have collected that wood instead you’re also taken away from the from the enemy like and the context of this situation is I’m already struggling a lot for wood so I think in this case it

Was actually worth worth it for Dell to to be taken out the houses anyway Viper is futile but what is he going to do gather wood for a TC no he’s making an archery range and sneaking to the side to collect gold he tries to Masterpiece quick wall doubts villagers but can’t

Quite get the fight little house in time The Archers can’t really do much damage without Fletching eventually Viper adds in a TC while doubt goes also able to Tower up and Defenders it’s basically a normal game of AOE 2. a normal game where doubt has a sizable lead and well nine villagers game

Between these two involves Viper trying to Quick wall out microingdat’s crossbows and evening up the vilcat but even with all of that Viper has to keep reacting to doubt defensive castles keep him alive but they don’t help him apply any pressure Viper goes for Cavaliers but with the Persians doubt can just go

For camels and Viper’s Eco never really recovers fast enough and he can’t make the transition to halves in time to answer the camels and doubt behind the power of the Persian douche goes on to win this game so very good example of a douche going right let’s say so I think

This game serves as a nice example for what happens when you go a few layers against the douche and why that is such a terrible Choice again this is I think just based on this first chapter here that has a lot to do with the map we

Played okay in the map we played it made a lot of sense to douche because we’re so close there’s food under the TC there’s boards on the TC so the too long don’t read or didn’t read uh the TC douche is an absolute terrible strategy agreed the right reaction is always to

Just stay in Dark Age disagreed most people and even Pros react wrongly by going through you spend rest for nothing disagreed going fuel is the only reason that the douche works the strategy is just so bad that it still very often fails despite the wrong reaction wait so

What what’s that okay let’s see what he thinks is the right reaction and let it just stay in Dark Age and that is based on just maths but also backed up by quite some experience I have been douched very often I won against it almost every game even had a

Comfortable win against the douche once after my opponent blamed both of my boards I have done an in-depth review of my Dark Age approach sometime in the past so this is a this is a an example where he stayed in Dark Age to combat it

For a long long time why is the douche so bad so the investment into a douche is just absurd at the moment where you have rarely any Eco you idle almost all of it and stop villager production just to Trey Town centers and you have to buy

The TC even earlier than your opponent it’s not necessarily trade towns I guess you can argue it is but yeah okay if it doesn’t make sense at all imagine you pull all your villagers to repair a Mangano and then you trade it one for one on the next location it’s a little

Bit different as well civilization wise you have sieves with bonuses on Town centers that can make it a little bit more Justified like Persians double the HP byzantines extra HP and so forth it’s not as straightforward as a one-to-one trade when a player douches with a TCA

He is at this point several bills and tons of idle time behind even when you kill the TC of the opponent he only has to make a new new one some investment that you already have to do yourself why is he several bills down at the point to

Douches the only thing that where he falls behind is the second he deletes his TSC and the time it takes to build a new TC so on paper he’s not going to be more than two villagers down maybe okay when doubt killed Viper’s TC had 32 more

Minutes of Village idle time so he spent basically a thousand resources on that which is almost half the total gather resources at this point because it’s border dispute that number up there is actually pretty small on Arabia it’s going to be even higher because the huge Walk-In times make sense the only

Immediate win is that you potentially kill his farming Eagle but that is very often zero at this point of the game and that you deny his bears and can take them for yourself the other potential wins there is like you’re forcing a reaction from your opponent right

Because he has to decide okay what do I do next do I build a new TC do I try to keep my TC alive do I throw the wall in like you have to make a lot of decisions around the whole TC douche around right it’s easy to make the wrong decision in

That regard again his emphasis is regarding why you should never go through the glitch honestly he can even just go and put his TC on your Bears I did it once and it was instant GG anyway quite some crazy investment just to conquer some berry bushes for it that is

True why it still can work specifically against a feudal player so the douche puts you miles behind by default you have to do a lot of damage now to get back into the game the usual thing that T90 explains there you fight their Wills with your Wills while you can produce

Additional ones and he can’t but that only applies when he didn’t do a new TC by himself yeah so this example with the game against me and doubt my teeth was down and after that he just sent all his wills to try and engage mine because I

Didn’t have a TC to hide in right or I produce new villagers so for him any one-to-one villager trade in that case would have been a big win for him uh why would that be the case it shouldn’t be the case that a player can’t afford something at minute 12 which the other

Guy had to afford at minute 8 already except well except if he spends tons of resources on something else like going to feel this for example again I need to emphasize another thing regarding this very example this very example he showed was Warlords you start with nine

Villagers the douche comes in way faster than normal as well like there’s a lot of trickle effects from Context in this specific example he showed as well think about your resources on a fast fuel plane you are always on the limit you can just afford a range just afford a

Blacksmith it’s difficult to seed farms and when you have lost your Bears you may struggle to get enough food for Wills keeping TC’s working and producing Army on 2025 bills is tough yes but even though you’re behind villager wise if you have four arches with Fletching

Against a Dark Age player the amount of problems you can cause with that is so big it’s so big if you’re now in a position where you need to place additional Lumber camps you lost your barriers you need to engage in build fights and slash or heavy Walling and

You need to buy a new TC then there is absolutely no chance to afford all of that it’s impossible either you can’t afford a Town Center or you can’t afford production buildings or you can’t use them or need to vital production a lot I disagree with that like all you need to

Do in general in my opinion when it comes to dealing with a douche let’s use Arabia as an example you will normally have a lumber cam towards the back so his douche is not going to impact your Lumber Camp unless he sends villagers to fight it throughout the time like you’re

Just a little bit repairing your teeth if needed you probably don’t even have to repair your TC at all in order to get to fuelish so you’re going to bank up a lot of wood and you only need wood for a barracks and archery range initially and The Archers will secure every resource

You have on the map like he cannot start engaging your wood Lumber camper houses or villagers once you got a few arches on the field it’s a terrible position to be in and delays your whole development so much that the absolute crazy over investment of your opponent may still

Pay off Viper’s approach are going up extremely quick made it in worse firm on this very map in a nine villager start yes it was worse practically that means that you just invested 500 food to gain nothing like the only thing to achieve is a single Tower to protect your new

Town center which can simply be done by quick walls and that you can trade your real production now for producing a few archers but that is a huge risk to take when you should be Miles Ahead anyway I I really think he over like he judged he thinks that you’re way further ahead

Than you truly are by not going to fuel age yes I would I would say it’s not going to be bad to just continue making bills and stay in Dark Age because again I agree with his main point of douche being a terrible strategy but I still

Disagree with the point that Feud ledge is wrong it’s basically playing a no Eco fuel all in in a situation where we’re comfortably ahead it can work but why would you do that so if you stay in Dark Age there is basically no danger at all

What you should do in my opinion because I need a sip of water my throat’s getting dry what you should do in my opinion stay in Dark Age keep up a villager production to expand your lead spread your economy even when you have clicked up already

Cancel a few days you will need the food for real production as you won’t have another food source right away now this very much depends if you’re 50 on the way to Village don’t cancel a few days to stay in Dark Age just know never

Gonna be worth it I put many wheels on wood to make sure that you can afford a second TC right away probably put a second Lumber cam far away far from your first one to secure the wooden gun now I think at this point by the time the

Douche is even close to finishing your or destroying your town center you’re always going to have pretty much enough wood for a second TC anyway uh send some Villages far away from farming where they are safe and potentially can be walled sure you keep a village Elite but

You’re also you’re putting a lot of in quotes negatives on yourself the way I’m counting this is I’m gonna walk a long way to start farming safely all the way over there you know then you are also indirect well directly burning your economy as well just because you want to

Deal with this in a different way again I’m not saying this way is necessarily wrong I’m just saying this is uh in my opinion not the preferred option put your second TC in a relatively safe spot far away from your farming and your Lumber camps he might keep trading

Thesis and that is only a problem for you if he kills other Eagle next to it if you’re in Fearless he cannot continue to trade Town Sinners quick wall where it’s needed to avoid villager fights be good is what he’s saying be an Alcatraz player if not possible run with your

Wills when you’re outnumbered you either less than him or fight with your Wills when you outnumber them you have more wills and better will production behind it now there is basically no potential for damage anymore the douche can continue but it will still just trade TC

For TC with more idle time for the doucher There is almost nothing he can do he can try to wall in your Lumberjacks and douche them that is quite easily avoidable plus most of the time still too much of an investment he also loses bills on the additional TC

Rebuild I would like to also bring up another strategy here that is used sometimes with a douche which is essentially a douche into drush or a drush into douche so essentially they will do a Barrack make three militia and then follow that up with the douche that

Can make it a lot more difficult to in this case just stay in Dark Age because the opponent might also with whatever food incoming has you might just keep adding militia so he suddenly have four five six seven militia on the field while you’re just staying in Dark Age

Right and suddenly that’s like maybe I would have preferred to have some arches here he may find and fight your Farmers then he can steal your Farms but he has to invest at additional idle build time that is probably not even worth a killed Farm also just make sure to spread and

While you’re farming to equal to I’m not sure if I like the idea of just like spreading everywhere of course it’s unlikely it’s going to find everything but it’s like yeah let’s carry on what I usually do because you have spare food anyway add malicious with 567 militias

You can take will size extreme well and make additional TC drops deadly for him and deny him unpleasant build fights and such I don’t disagree with this but what happens if you make three four five militia and he’s not continuing the full douche and Dark Age play suddenly he

Goes to feel late and you over invested in Dark Age that’s a possibility as well you can also rate his home Eco well which is usually completely open usually I I found the doucher to wall his resource at home so I don’t think militias necessarily will accomplish

Anything there he’s farming Eco at least usually they don’t farm at home they will Farm around their newly built douched towns douching townsenders like the only thing they will have at home is usually a mill on the Bears and lumber camp on the wood and given that your

Opponent is like 1000 resources and several bills behind makes that a very little risk and because you will go up from farming you’ll take a bit anyway and the follow-up doesn’t really matter I had games where my opponent even reached castles comfortably before me but even then they can’t really do

Anything with it because their Eco is so far behind just make any army don’t die to some sort of Monk SI Jolin go on Stone with just some bills just in case it’s simply playing a game with a completely open map where you are 30 equal ahead or something like that as

Long as you produce stuff that is a one game most importantly try to keep an eye on the map with some outposts or some units to get an idea where the opponent goes and what he does as everything is open there shouldn’t be much potential for surprise PS if you expect the douche

Send more wheels on Bears early and preserve some sheep to take it under your Rebel team Town Center who in the right line starts the game and expects a douche maybe only if you see persons on the other side you can kind of think of it

But yeah my full take on this is that I don’t agree with him but I also agree with him I think staying in Dark Age is fine I don’t agree with the whole idea of let’s spread out our economy everywhere and don’t go the few days at

All all that stuff keep in mind what a douche can also do is pretty much shut you off completely from any resource you need like a gold or stone right and if then the doucher gets to a few glitch and he has access to Stone while you do

Not he can start towel rushing you and it might be an awkward position well I also again 100 agree douching is a terrible strategy this title I don’t agree with it never goes through the few days against douche the pros get it wrong after the defend us Pros here I’ve

Always find it working the best is simply go a few ledge get some arches out with Fletching and then just play it from there you’re gonna have so much such a Time window in the field lace where you can just make it really hard for him to defend or deal with it while

He’s still trying to recover that foolish time and he’ll just be vulnerable to everything but the examples that om Deuter has used here are from water dispute and socatra those games are super short Rush distance and really hard to avoid each other if that makes sense douching has a lot more potential

In team games douching has a lot more potential because there’s a lot of other factors around it that influences the fact that a douche can work so my recommendation is simply go to field Lage keep your TLC alive maybe one villager repairing as long as you need

To get a few glitch get the barracks get arranged get a blacksmith even sacrifice villager production time with your new town center which again you in my opinion you should be able to afford all these things you just need to avoid to not end up in massive villager fights

That’s the biggest problem you can have with a follow-up to a douche and check out my YouTube videos on that topic in those games that we have Defender douche you will find great examples exactly how to do it that’s all it was a great post though really interesting topic to

Consider because douching still happens even in pro games good video by T West as well you will find the links to everything in the description of the video hope you enjoyed and let me know your opinion what do you think about never going to field glitch against

Final words to this and their absolute correct answer it depends
—
theviper aoe2