I surfed the forums for a bit and picked up what I felt where some of the best recent posts on Flushing strategy. This is meant to help players who have just started Flushing or who have had limited success with Flushing. Odds are if you are a good Flusher you know most of this stuff, or at least you *should* know this stuff.

- blue_myriddn

Tips from michaelharvey
One of the biggest assets in performing a flush is knowing how much the units cost, since you'll be making so many of them. For example: an archer costs 25 wood/45 gold, so you'll need lots of gold and slightly over half that amount of wood just for that purpose. On top of that, you need 175 wood each for barracks and ranges, and to improve the wood-gathering rate, you'll soon want to research the double bit axe upgrade (20% faster chopping) for 100 food/50 wood. Now, for the skirmisher, you need 25 food/35 wood, but any experienced flusher will tell you that the wood is the easy part... it's the food that you'll need because you're making villagers at the same time you're producing skirmishers. In a blink you could have an excess of wood and insufficient food. So you'll need farms and additional food sources such as deer (the latter being the far better choice if you want to upgrade your skirms at the blacksmith early on, since farms are a delayed source of food).

Most forms of the flush are still high-intermediate to expert strategies because they involve very tight control over how to task each villager, when to queue units/villagers, and when to attack or retreat from an army. Well-positioned towers and walls add to the complexity. The reason some people flush successfully with a 21-villager feudal is that they *can* balance their economy on a razor's edge. Inexperienced players often make the mistake of going with too few villagers, and then running out of some critical resource, usually food when it comes to skirm flushing, or wood/gold when it comes to archer rushing. For these players, feudalling with 24 villagers is often a far better idea, since they can afford to wall up a bit more in the transition, while an enemy who doesn't tower rush usually won't attack before 13 minutes (up until that point, their feudal force can easily be swarmed by a few villagers). If you feudal significantly after the enemy, realize that a well-placed tower can usually hold back the enemy force while you take the time to build up ranges and upgrade your troops. Remember that you have the economic advantage when you feudal with more villagers.

Another requirement for a good flush is excellent unit control. There will be times when the enemy force is on patrol and will win over your troops if you don't retreat quickly. At other times, your archers had better stay clear of a garrisoned tower or town center. Since they have to manage a tight economy at the same time, it's no surprise that good flushers perform some insanely fast micromanaging, with a slight emphasis on troops over econ. Most flushers can be distinguished by how well they control their troops, since the player who can first realize when to retreat will usually have an advantage later on. For these aspects, all I can suggest is practice. It takes the equivalent of thousands of games to develop expert-level mouse/keyboard control, and at least several hundred games of AoC to get a feel for where villagers should be if you're making a certain combination of troops.

Tips from DaRq_Minos
Here are some pointers even though I really hate Feudal warfare.

Don't think of it as a Feudal rush anymore. It is the way the game is played. It is not a rush. That's the first hurdle in thinking the game properly.

Now people have tried to devise ways to beat the flush without actually flushing. These worked for a while (I was pretty good at defending the flush and enjoyed it when it didn't invariably win), but eventually people practiced the flush so much, and got so good at it, that it is impossible to stop without actually flushing yourself.

Note that when I say "flush" I refer to Feudal warfare, not the original gutter_rat archers/towers rush.

You're going to have to practice getting to Feudal a.s.a.p. with a decent economy. With a 10:47 Feudal, you should actually have 22 villagers non-Chinese or Mayan... practice those starts and watch recorded games for ideas.

• Tower rushes- usually Feudal at 9:15 with 19 vills I think
• Archer rush- usually Feudal at 10:15 with 21 vills
• Skirm/Scout/MAA- 23 or 24 vills 11:00-11:30 methinks

1. Collect food like a mofo from the get-go. You need to Feudal quickly with constant villager flow. Then collect wood like a mofo while Feudaling to build your military buildings... usually when you get 75% Feudal you switch your villagers to collect what you need to produce units and villies when you reach Feud. This is all along the idea of "gathering what you need, when you need it."
2. Scout your opponent and determine what route he is following... Is he mining stone early? Expect a tower rush. Is he mining gold at 10:00? How many vills are on gold? If there's only 2-3 expect a militia/MAA rush... If there's 4-6 expect an archer flush. If he's got farms and Feudals after 11:00, expect a skirm rush or scout rush or MAA rush... have your scout look around to see if he's built archeries or stables or more than one rax.
3. Try to anticipate what kind of military he's building and build the counter to it... Usually there's an initial conflict among equal players (provided they Feudal around the same time). If you already knew what he was preparing and countered it, you'll gain the initiative.
4. Attack his economy as hard as you can.. even if you force his villagers to garrison towers or his TC you've kept them from working and are gaining an advantage.

Another difficult hurdle to overcome for economic players is to realize that military is more important than economy. It's not AOK anymore... military is the priority, to protect and allow you to build a superior economy.

You will never beat 1700+ players consistently without actually making a commitment to fight hard in Feudal (except when you're on a wallable map, but even then massing Feudal troops isn't a bad idea as you can upgrade them when you reach Castle Age).

Feudal combat takes a lot of practice... eventually you'll see the game different. With practice you'll understand how to multi-task it... I'm an incredibly slow clicker compared to equal or better players, but eventually you'll realize what you should be paying attention to, and that's where you'll beat some of the faster clickers... unless they have the same understanding you do... doheth!!!

If you're using an infantry rush, your priority is to shut down his gold. He can't counter infantry without gold. Otherwise, shut down wood or farming... Try to focus on denying him a single resource. This hurts a lot. If he Castles before you, attack his gold so he can't build knights or siege weapons, while you try to Castle a.s.a.p.

All I can say is that your scout is your most important unit the first 15-20 minutes of the game. Use him to give you an edge... Take a good look at your opponent's town and the path between you and him, and react to his moves. Some people say Feudal warfare is a crap shoot, but even though I hate it, I'll be the first to admit that this is bullsh!t... If you know how to use your scout, you can prepare yourself, and you'll know what your opponent is up to a couple minutes before he executes. Reconnaissance is key! By 8:00, you wanna have your scout looking at the other guy's town to try to figure out what he's doing.

An invaluable asset is the ability to think outside the lines... this is the only reward you'll have other than following optimized build orders. Wall certain entrances to your town, to force your opponent to come through your military, towers or TC... Think about how you want to lay out your town when you look at the map you've uncovered. Use elevation advantages. Think the game as much as you can...

God I hate the fact that this is the only viable option.  When you get bored of all this join me in shooters or ROR while waiting for EE to come out, which looks like it's going to have tons of options and be a living hell for build order people

Watching recorded games can be a powerful technique to improving your skills.