Fast Chickens Dark Age
Steps 11 · 5 → 18 pop · ~9 min
A flexible 18-pop Arabia opener that uses the chickens by your Town Center for fast early food, landing in Feudal around 8:50, ready for any aggressive strategy.
Step Timeline
Follow the villager rail and resource-split columns while you play.
14 
4 Opening
8 steps · pop 5–15 - 5 50
5 → sheep under the TC - 8 80
+3 → build a mill on the chickens and gather them ↳ Chickens give fast, dense food right next to the TC
- 9 90 +1 → back onto the sheep
- 10 100 +1 → send 1 villager to the first boar
- 11 101
+1 → build a house, then chop a straggler tree - 14 104 +3 → straggler trees near the TC
- 15 114 +1 → send 1 villager to the second boar
- 15 114
Drop a lumber camp on the 4 straggler-tree villagers ↳ No new villager — just relocate to a proper woodline
Feudal
3 steps · pop 18 8:50 - 18 144
+3 → hunt under the TC; research Loom, then click up to Feudal 8:50 ↳ Land at 18 pop with a 4-wood / 14-food split
- 18 144 Feudal: walk 6 villagers onto the berries with a mill so food keeps flowing
- 18 144
Pick your feudal opening based on what your scout sees — scouts, archers, or man-at-arms all work from here
Strategy Notes
- The whole point is tempo: a mill on the chickens early gives you dense food a few tiles from the TC, so villagers walk less and the TC never idles. Keep producing villagers nonstop until you click up.
- This is an open template, not a committed plan. The 4-wood / 14-food landing lets you turn into scouts, archers, or a man-at-arms rush — let your scout's information decide before you commit buildings.
- If you want man-at-arms or a drush, shift one extra villager to wood while you place the lumber camp (5 on wood) and go up one villager later at 19 pop, which pays for the barracks and early infantry.
- In early Feudal, send roughly 6 villagers to the berries with a fresh mill. That stabilizes food while you re-task hunters to wood and gold for your chosen military.
- Wall as your economy transitions, then react to what you see: add a stable against scouts, an archery range plus skirmishers against archers, or push militia across the map if you opened man-at-arms.
- Civ notes: eco bonuses (Mayans' extra starting villager, Aztecs' villagers carrying +3, Vikings' free Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart) stretch the chicken food further, while Ethiopians' faster-firing foot archers and Malians' cheaper (-15% wood) buildings convert cleanly into archer pressure.