Bank Spank 2.0

[JUGGERNAUTMASTER]

The Bank Spank I created a while back (link) was designed to capitalize on Dutch's strengths (banks) while shoring up its weakness (FF). It did so, and was the best bank-boom strat I knew at the time. I beat players that were better than me and was very satisfied with it overall. Unfortunately, it was a pain in the ass to perform, mistake-prone, and didn't work too great vs a good boomer.
Bank Spank 2.0 is a drastic improvement over 1.0. Gone are the annoying walls that made base building about as fun as wiping your ass. Say goodbye to the late age-II time that made stopping a rush almost impossible. Say hello to:

* 6:55 age-III with 2 banks, 18 vils and 2 shipments
* A fort up by 8:30, 4 towers following
* 6 banks by 11:30


******** THE STRAT *********

Note: all times were taken from an actual recorded online game, so they're all real!

Age I:
* Build 6 vils from the TC
* Play no cards in age I

Age II 4:10 -- 500f
During age-up, put 5 vils on gold, 8 on food.
* Card 1: 700w
* Card 2: 700g
* Collect the 500f crate
* Make 5 more vils, sending them to gold or crates
* Build 2 banks with the 700w

Age III 6:55 -- Exiled Prince
During age-up, put 12 on wood, 6 on food, 0 on gold
* Card 3: Fort
* Card 4: 4 towers
* Build a market and research gang saws
* Buy wood/food at the market
* Build 2 more banks
* Build a church
* Card 5: Religous Freedom
* Build 2 more banks for a total of 6
* Build an artillery range and train 2-4 culvs
* Train halbs/ruyters at the fort

End result:
At 11:30 you will have an unraidable, 55 vil eco, the ability to spam gold-heavy units, and defenses strong enough to allow *you* to decide when you want to attack. You have no military at all, but usually you don't need any! They will either leave you alone and boom (smartest choice for them) or ramp up for a late-fortress attack, which will most likely fail since you'll have military by then.

What you do from here is of course up to you. I personally have the most success with first raiding with 5 Waardgelders, then massing troops to about 100 mil pop for defense, then going IV, then getting factories, industrial upgrades, and mortars, then finally pushing out at 200 pop. You may prefer an earlier attack, which is understandable, but you risk falling behind to your opponent's 2 factories.

In either case, raiding on both land and water is an absolute must. I use a different deck for water maps which contains 3 flutes and 4 privateers. Those cards make controlling fishing difficult for your opponent, and may even allow you to fish late-game.


******** NOTES *********

* Use your envoy to find out if they are rushing. If they are, ship 700w, get a rax up, and do whatever it is you like to do for colonial defense. Do not go to fortress right away! Doing so will kill you more often than not. You have plenty of food/gold for skrims, so use it.

* Fort/tower placement is very important. You want to make sure you are covering at least 25 trees. Sometimes this requires a tower off to the side, especially on Great Plains. The fort needs to go close to the TC and banks, and should be the first thing your enemy runs into if attacking. Plan your building placement very carefully because you are most likely going to want 2 mills and a plantation at some point, and these should be behind the fort and close to a tower/TC. Leave room for that.

* This is a beeatch to pull off on Rockies. I wouldn't recommend it. All other maps are fine. My favorites: Pampas, Carolina, Texas, Great Plains (yup), Bayou.

* Other weaknesses include Britain, who will out-boom you, an aggressive Otto, who probably won't let you do this, and natives, which your opponent has free access to because you don't control the map.