This guy is pretty damn good though his stats don't show it. I think he would have destroyed me if he used the french heavy cav but he opted for skirmishers and artillery which are equally powerful.
This is a game of his map control don't mean jack shite vs my semi turtle boom.
I think the biggest mistake turtlers make is to wall themselves in, while it restricts enemy movement it also restricts yours... don't wall yourself in, however walling off a route is a seperate deal.
German settler wagons and fishing win this for me, without them I would have lost very early on.
Key notes to look for!
1). I send vils out to gather food very close to his base, eventually he notices them and comes to kill them, i run them back and garrison half of them and run the rest. The reason I did this was to make him think he killed them all and didn't go looking for the remaining vils that I used to build a stable and raid him with the cav from it.
2). I use the cav to take out a sizable part of his army which he then sends the rest to kill my stable, once I see him do this I move in to kill his fort.
3). I used mortar ships (forget what they're called) to kill both his TCs and also killed many plantations/mills which really pissed him off lol.
4). When I realized I only had 1 freakin' barracks and a fort to produce units... it nearly cost me the game :s remember to build more than 1 barracks/stables if you plan on playing late games
This was a very good game and a game I thought for sure I was going to lose, a little out of the ordinary thinking and some miracles allowed me to pull off the win!