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Sioux Guide

From The ESOC wiki for Age of Empires 3

Double stable Bow Riders timing[edit | edit source]

Effective Against: Semi-FF, FF, Sioux mirror

Weak Against: Rush, strong colonial infantry masses

The point of this build order is to hit a timing with a good mass of BRs (as in Bow Riders, Sioux's strongest and most all-rounded unit), usually to try and punish a fortress age up. Indeed, a bunch of BRs should allow the Sioux player to kill the army produced in the colonial age by his opponent, especially along with the warchief and a 4 ARs (Axe Riders) shipment to snare. Once these colonial units are cleaned up, Sioux will be able to idle most of the other player's villagers, and maybe even catch and kill a fortress unit shipment. After hopefully gaining this advantage over his opponent, the Sioux player might decide to keep massing or age up himself.

Note: This build order requires a trading post (TP). If you are playing on a map without TP, you might want to go for another build order.

Card Order[edit | edit source]

  1. 3 villagers
  2. 5 villagers
  3. 700 coin
  4. 4 AR
  5. 600 coin OR 2 dogs soldiers

Build Order[edit | edit source]

Discovery Age

  • If you start with a crate of wood, use it to drop 2 teepees close to your hunt(s) and coin mine(s). You can also build a trading post (TP) if you find a wood treasure as well.
  • Queue villagers until you reach 14 population, taking the 3 villagers shipment into account. If you have more than 700 food banked when the 14th villager is about to pop, stop making villagers. Otherwise, queue a 15th villager.
  • Age up with the Chief (400 wood) politician.

Transition to colonial

  • Chop for a TP.
  • Gather resources for a market and hunting dogs. Do NOT get placer mines.
  • Chop for 2 teepees. Place them close to your hunt(s) and coin mine(s).
  • Keep no wood banked, and task a bit more than half of your villagers to food. The remaining villagers must be tasked to coin.


Colonial Age

  • Ship 5 villagers.
  • Gather your 400 wood age-up reward with a couple villagers, and as soon as you have 200w out of it, drop a first stable with 4 villagers.
  • Drop a second stable with 1 villager when the remaining 200w has been gathered.
  • As soon as your first stable is up, queue a BR. You should be able to get a full batch of 5 out. You can go raid with them, but make sure not to waste them.
  • Ship 700 coin, and switch most of your coin miners to food. You should be able to get a big batch of 10 BR out.
  • Ship 4 AR and try to spend your remaining resources to get a good batch.
  • Go push your opponent when your shipment and your batches are out. You should have around 20 BR and 4 AR before 8 min.


Hopefully, your strong cav mass will be able to catch and clean up the opponent's colonial army. You also want to force his settlers into his towncenter. You can try to siege a military building or a couple of houses down, but most importantly, be ready to have your units surrounding the towncenter 40 seconds after your opponent hit fortress, so that you can catch and kill his unit shipment. After the timing, you might want to fuel your mass with more BRs and the 2 dog soldiers shipment if you feel like it can hurt your opponent. Otherwise, just ship 600g and age up to fortress yourself.

Cavalry semi-FF[edit | edit source]

Effective Against: Cavalry semi-FF, FF

Weak Against: Rush, early timing

This build order is the Sioux version of the standard european cavalry semi-FF build orders. It allows Sioux to train a few cavalry units in the colonial age, while getting their infrastructure up, and then get to the fortress age quite early. It is also a flexible build: possibility of researching stagecoach, adaptable into colonial play if needed, giving the player the choice between training BRs (as in Bow Riders, Sioux's strongest and most all-rounded unit) and ARs (as in Axe Riders, melee cavalry unit), or even a mix of both.

Note: This build order is usually executed on a map featuring trading posts (TPs). It can be however be adapted to work without TP, although it will be weaker.

Card Order[edit | edit source]

  1. 3 villagers
  2. 5 villagers
  3. 700 wood
  4. 700 coin
  5. Fortress unit shipment

Build Order[edit | edit source]

Discovery Age

  • If you start with a crate of wood, use it to drop 2 teepees close to your hunt(s) and coin mine(s). You can also build a TP if you find a wood treasure as well.
  • Queue villagers until you reach 14 population, taking the 3 villagers shipment into account. If you have more than 700 food banked when the 14th villager is about to pop, stop making villagers. Otherwise, queue a 15th villager.
  • Age up with the Chief (400 wood) politician.

Transition to colonial

  • Chop for a TP.
  • Gather resources for a market, hunting dogs and placer mines.
  • If you still have time until the colonial age, you can chop for a couple teepees. Place them close to your hunt(s) and coin mine(s).
  • Keep no wood banked. If you want to train BRs, task a bit more than half of your villagers to food. If you want to train ARs, task around 80% of your villagers to food. The remaining villagers must be tasked to coin.


Colonial Age

  • Ship 5 villagers.
  • Gather your 400 wood age-up reward with a couple villagers, and use it to build a stable and 4 teepees. Place them close to your hunt(s) and coin mine(s).
  • Train a first batch of 5 BRs or ARs, depending on the match-up. You'll usually train 2 batches of 5 units in colonial, so you can decide to mix 5 BRs + 5 ARs.
  • Ship 700 wood. Use this wood to build a warhut, usually in the middle of the map if you're confident your opponent won't be able to deny it, otherwise in base. Build an additional teepee as well. Keep the remaining 400 wood for your BR and AR fortress upgrade. You can also spend 200 of that wood on a second TP if you think you won't need to upgrade one of these units.
  • Ship 700 coin, and use this coin to age up to fortress.
Stagecoach variation[edit | edit source]

Colonial Age

  • Gather your 400 wood age-up reward with a couple villagers, and use it to build a stable and a second TP.
  • Ship 700 wood. Use this wood to research stagecoach and to build another TP (if possible). Also build a warhut next to the TP line. Keep the remaining 50 wood.
  • Train a first batch of 5 BRs or ARs, depending on the match-up. You'll usually train 2 batches of 5 units in colonial, so you can decide to mix 5 BRs + 5 ARs.
  • Ship 5 villagers.
  • Once stagecoach is in, set your TPs on wood if you can/want to build more TPs. Otherwise, set them on coin (or on food if you already have 300 coin) to speed up your fortress time.
  • Ship 700 coin, and use this coin to age up to fortress.

Transition to fortress

  • Train an additional batch of units from your stable.
  • Try to have 100 coin ready at the end of the transition.


Fortress Age

  • Ship a unit shipment, directly in your warhut if it's forward. Usually 9 wakinas, but can also be 5 axe riders, 3 dog soldiers or 5 rifle riders, depending on your needs.
  • Use your stacked wood (either from the 700 wood shipment or from your TPs) and 100 coin to upgrade your BRs or ARs, depending on which of these units you have the most.
  • Train a batch of 5 wakinas.


You can now have, for example, 15 upgraded BRs and 14 wakinas before 9:30. This is quite a scary early fortress mass, that a lot of civilizations will have difficulties to match; try to directly pressure your opponent with this army. You also already have the wood ready to research the remaining cavalry veterancy. After the first unit shipment, Sioux will usually keep sending more unit shipments, and eventually Cavalry Combat. 1000 wood is also an option.

written by Kaiserklein