Fast Castle on Fortress
Steps 13 · 4 → 24 pop · ~11 min
Source: Hera — Strategy Guide (December 2025)
Reach Castle Age around 10:40 from the Fortress map's pre-built start, using its free walls and towers as cover while your eco snowballs.
Step Timeline
Follow the villager rail and resource-split columns while you play.
13 
7 
2 Castle 24 vils 10:40 13 6 2 Opening
8 steps · pop 4–20Bld - 4 4000
Fortress start (10 vils): 4 → berries and build a Mill ↳ Keep the Town Center queuing villagers throughout
- 7 4300
3 → wood, drop a Lumber Camp - 10 7300
3 → farms; use the 5 pre-built farms by the Town Center - 10 7300 Lure the first boar with the scout; eat it under the TC
↳ Send the first 1-2 trained villagers onto farms as it runs out
- 16 13300 +6 → food under the TC (9 on food, 4 on berries)
- 16 13300 Lure the second boar to keep food flowing
↳ No new pop — keep eco vils busy
- 20 13700 +4 → wood as the wood economy tightens
- 20 13700 When the boar is gone, push food villagers onto farms (seed 4)
↳ Reassignment, not new pop
Feudal
3 steps · pop 22–24 7:10Bld - 22 13720 +2 → gold, then click Feudal Age (7 wood, 13 food, 2 gold) 7:10
↳ Spend as little time in Feudal as possible
- 24 13920
Feudal: heal the scout, then scout relics and the opponent; move +2 → wood - 24 13623
Pull 3 wood villagers → Market (2) and Blacksmith (1)
Castle
2 steps 10:40Bld - 24 13623
Click Castle Age; research Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar 10:40 - 24 9627 Castle: as the berries run out, send those villagers to your first extra Town Center spot
Strategy Notes
- The Fortress map hands you a ready-made base — 10 villagers, a scout, five farms, a barracks, a castle, four houses, four towers, and stone walls — so you start safe and never spend wood on defenses. Lean on that to commit fully to the economy.
- Keep the boar and deer flowing into the Town Center: tight food management is what lets this build hit Feudal near 7:10 with only seven villagers on wood.
- Feudal is just a transit age. Drop a Market and Blacksmith with three wood villagers, heal your scout, and click Castle immediately — Double-Bit Axe and Horse Collar go down the moment you arrive.
- As berries deplete in Castle Age, walk those villagers straight to your first extra Town Center site so your boom never stalls.
- Use the free castle and towers to deter raids while you out-eco the opponent; you are trading early aggression for a lead you must convert in Castle Age.
- From here, lean into your civ's Castle-Age power spike — knights for Franks or Persians, monks and relics behind the walls, or extra Town Centers into Imperial if the game goes long.