Yeah, halbs would have been smarter than ruyters, though they are harder to avoid fire with than ruyters are. Halb + Skirm or Halb + Falc is tricky to deal with if not in fort yourself.
@scriv: There are a few principles to the game that will generally dictate how one should play it out. In this case, he did an economic fast fortress, while I did an economic rush. It isn't wise to do a full out rush vs dutch because CM will wipe cost you more than you can produce, meaning you will eventually lose. On the other hand, FF'ing along with him is suicide, as dutch can reach fortress with a much better economy.
What I was trying to accomplish here was this: keep his army low, not allowing him to mass anything. If I can swarm him quick enough, he will never be able to use his powerful economy to its full potential, meaning he will fall behind militarily. If I had let him breathe even a little that would give him enough time to build some units that I really can't deal with, such as saloon mercs or falc + meatshield. It's then when I start to lose my advantage.
TC fire is negligible with armies growing to those sizes. Remember that a TC kills just one xbow every 6 seconds, but I can produce 5 xbows every 27 seconds (plus 5 hussars on top of that). Meanwhile, it's costing him 30 vill seconds per shot, so in the end, I win out militarily.
Hope that wasn't too confusing