It largely centres around the free scout you get with each barracks.
These stats are taken from a practice game against the AI.
Start with Sci1 - its researched in 14 seconds. While that's going on use your initial scout - you want him to find a ruin after Sci 1 is researched to you get 50 bonus not 25, and you want gold, so keep food and wood above 50. You want gold because the aim is to go Sci 2 which costs 120 gold as well as 120 food. Halt your scout for now. Build a temple, which when completed gives you another 30 gold. In my game this was completed after 1 minute 15 seconds, but this will depend on your initial wood pile. While that's going on, research mil 1, and start to build a barracks. Research Sci 2. At about 2 minutes you should have Sci2 Mil 1 a temple and a rax, with food and wood at 60/60. Now get both scouts going with way-points and each ruin they find is worth 75.
Now boom quickly towards Classical. Com 1, Civ 1, research Classical. In the game mentioned, by 4 minutes 5 seconds I had Sci 2, Com 1, Civ 1, Mil 1, and was researching Classical. By this time you should have added a market. Look out for nearby rares and use them. At 4.14 Classical is researched. First thing you do is build the Senate which is free and builds instantly. Build granary, lumber mill and a mine, and research Despotism. By 5 minutes 35 seconds, I had added a senate, granary, lumber mill and a mine as well as having a Despot. You now have a good position to do a delayed rush. The Despot makes infantry cheaper. Also, Iroquois spear-men are slightly tougher than usual. Might be an idea to build a stables to throw some LC into the mix. It is probably worth starting to recruit some infantry while Classical research is underway. Perhaps one of each. Don't forget to top up your metal supply, depending on what rares you've got, as in Classical you will need it for HI (and HC if you choose to go MIL 2 and add HC). By no later than 9 minutes you should have something like this:
3LI/7HI/3FA/2LC/1HC with all three infantry types upgraded.
9 minutes might not seem fast, but the advantage with this strat is that as well as having a decent sized army, you have a decent economy to back you up.
The free/instant senate means that you should have a despot before any one else, which puts you at an advantage when building an army.
Your scouts should have found the enemy's second city by now. Leave one there to see what hes doing. Launch attack. Iroquis scouts are better than normal and can stay hidden in an enemy city as long as he doesn't build a watchtower (and lets face it, who's going to build one that early in the game?).
Don't forget that whilst all this has been going on, your two scouts have been collecting 75 of whatever from every ruin, whereas your opponent has one scout collecting 50 by now.
OK, so other advantages of Iroquois - scouts get sniper and counter-intelligence ability in Enlightenment Age. If the game goes that far you will have probably built 2 more barracks, so you should have 3 or more scouts to use this ability by then. And their scouts upgrade for free.
Your troops are invisible whilst not attacking in friendly territory, and heal whilst not moving or attacking in friendly territory. A nice bonus worth remembering.
Well there it is, my first posted strat, so go easy on me. Constructive comments always welcome though, so let me know what you think.
Now some people might wonder about the cost of Sci 2 so early in the game. Well yes it costs 120 food and gold. But with 2 scouts collecting bonuses at ruins, you will make most if not all of this back in a few minutes. And don't forget that it makes Comm 1, Civ 1, Mil 1 and Classical all slightly cheaper than they would be with Sci 1 only. By my calculations, you will save 50 food and 30 wood on all 4 of these. And your scouts continue to collect 75 ruins each, while most people won't go Sci 2 until several minutes after you.
You can adapt this to suit your strategy. Delay the attack until you have siege if you like. Or just use the economic side of this strat and forget the delayed rush altogether. It is still worth it. An extra barracks straight after Classical might be a good idea, both for another free scout, and so that one rax can be researching upgrades while the other is producing units.
Thingol (I_ofthetiger)