TRUSH

Starting off with one of the most effective strategies in AOE and my favourite… TRUSH.

- What is a TRUSH?

TRUSH stands for tower rush. What I am about to write here is how to make a successful feudal trush. Particularly more helpful in a 1 on 1 game, this attack involves building watch towers at strategic locations in enemy base. These strategic locations are the enemy mines (focus more on stone and main gold mine) or lumberjack or any place away from the enemy town center where the villagers are working. One of the best things about this strategy is that it doesn’t leave you crippled even if it fails i.e. you can always switch to another strategy decently if this one doesn’t work out.

- How to execute a successful TRUSH?

One of the major aspects of a successful feudal attack is enemy base exploration. Apart from playing a normal game, at about 5:30 min, when your scout has explored both the boars (important) and the 8 sheep (minimum 6), send your scout to explore the enemy territory. Find out where the enemy villies are working. Save your scout from lurking around enemy town center again and again. At about 7:50 min (depends on distance from enemy territory), send 4 of your full health villagers towards enemy base and 4 another to a nearby stone mine. Practice this strat until you start clicking the feudal age button at around 8:00 with about 22-23 villies. This way you reach the feudal age at about 10:00 min.

As soon as you reach the feudal age, start building a watch tower near a strategic location (a place where enemy vills are working). Get TOWN WATCH researched. Build two towers in range such that one protects the other (Remember that you don’t have MURDER HOLES research in the feudal age so a single tower is useless). Make the first tower such that it is out of sight of the enemy. Garrison your villagers whenever enemy attacks. Thus your attack is successful because if he resists with his villagers then he will lack on resources otherwise he loses his mine.

For a more successful trush, try to capture both of his stone mines or try to kill as many enemy villies as possible. To make it more successful, leave the first tower 95% complete and complete the second tower earlier. This way you won’t alarm the enemy by 1st towers attack. Also, keep your scout exploring the area surrounding your attacking villagers so you would always know what’s coming next?

TRUSH is a very successful strategy in case the enemy is going for a fast castle (and hence a late feudal) disrupting his economy badly.

A good strategy after a successful trush is going for a fast imperial. If you manage to advance to imperial before the enemy and attack with trebs, his kingdom is doomed. But the position of your castle in the enemy territory is very important in this strat. Make the castle such that it protects your treb afterwards.

Civilizations suited for TRUSH

Spanish – Best for trush because villies build towers 33% faster.

Teutons – A Teutonic trush can be made different from the normal trush. In teutons, you can garrison as many as 10 villies in a single tower (double the casual 5).A teutonic trush is a do or die attack in a 1 on 1 game in which you take 8-9 of your villagers to attack, 6 on stone and rest on food and wood making towers even in front of your enemy with your 8-9 villies.

Byzantines - free town watch, stronger towers and cheap army.

As for the other civs, the future prospects of a trush are bright in case of Aztecs, Mayans (Cheap fast Eagle warriors), Britons (long ranged archers), Goths (fast cheap army), Koreans (free tower upgrades), Persians (faster feudal because of +50 food) and dark in case of Saracens (knights cannot be upgraded). Apart from these, trush doesn’t show much discrimination to any civilization.