Lithuanians/Strategy

The Lithuanians are a Cavalry and Monk oriented civilization.

Strengths
Their aditional 150 food at the begining, allows them to get into the Feudal age much earlier than other civilizations or saving them for creating 3 more villagers and also allows them to task their villagers into collecting other resources and give less focus on food in the early game. This, combined with their faster Skirmishers and Spearmen, allows them to perform a Feudal Age rush more effectively than other civilizations.

Their unique technology, Hill Forts, increases the range of their Town Centers by 3 allowing them to have good defenses in Castle age, considering also theyhave almost all the relevant defensive technologies except for Arrowslits and Hoardings, also two of their core units the Spearman line and the Skirmiher are also used mostly for defending against cavalry and archers respectively.

Considering their Imperial Age Technology Tower Shields which improves the Spearmen line and Skirmishers pierce armor while also both units being faster they are a strong civilzation at "Trash Wars" particularly their Skirmishers become even more effective against archers. also their Scout line cavalry benefits from their relic bonus see below.

As Cavalry gets +1 attack for each garrisoned relic ( maximum +5 attack) they can become a devastating force if the player has at least 2 or 3 of them considering they also have all improvements for Paladins and Hussars, as their unique unit is the Leitis a cavalry which attack ignores armor and also benefit from this bonus. Lithuanian cavalry must be a force to fear at the late game. And finally as their team bonus Monasteries work 20% faster, enabling them and their team mates rapidly spam their monks for searching and taking relics so Lithuanians can make a good use of the attack bonus.

Weaknesses
Aside of having faster Skirmishers, average Cavalry Archers and hand Canoneers, they lack the Crossbowmen and Arbalester improvements.

Aside from the Bombard Cannon their siege Workshop is mediocre, lacking Siege onagers, Siege Rams and Heavy Scorpions, they also lack Siege Engineers so for taking down buildings they may rely sometimes on the Cavalry.

Despite the fact their monasteries work faster, their monks themselves are nothing special, lacking some key improvements for them like Atonement, Sanctity and Block Printing, reducing the use of their monks mostly for healing and getting relics for the usual gold and their cavalry bonus.

They lack Plate Mail Armor so aside  their Pikemen can get +1 pierce out of Tower Shields, in Castle Age, their Halberdiers in Imperial Age are Still suboptimal. They lack Shipwright and Heavy Demolition Ship and  doesn't have any bonus for their navy.

Strategy
The Lithuanians have a powerful Early game since their 150 extra food allows for fast Feudal Age times while enabling their villagers to get more focus on taking other resources early on, A Scout Rush should be considered strongly for this reason (considering that those 150 extra food at the begining can be invested in almost 2 extra scouts), but they may also intend a Spearmen rush supported by skirmishers, as both units move faster, also all of their three trash units will retain their value furtherly in the mid and late game.

Another Strategy that should be considered is a Fast Castle followed by a Knight or Leitis Rush. Their 150 extra food and their attack bonus makes up for this, in this case the player should take their Dark age normally (advancing at 22 population) and save the extra food for the Castle age upgrade, while also save at least 200 gold ( preferably 300) for making monks which will be used for retrieving relics. Once in castle Age Lithuanians should strike with knights and Leitis and focus on the search for relics with their monks as those increase the attack of all their cavalry, if the player got lucky and take 5 relics they will get the upper hand since this point of the game surpassing even the attack of the Malian Cavalry With Farimba (which is an imperial Age technology), but even with just one relic a Knight rush with Lithuanians is very viable. Of course the player must also research the blacksmith technologies in order to get the most attack possible for their cavalry. In any case their Cavalry Rushes can also be supported with their faster Skirmishers in order to counter archers and with pikemen in order to take out faster opponents cavalry. Since their monastery works Faster, A monk Rush may also be considered despite lacking some monk upgrades.

Defensively speaking they have their peak also at Castle age as their Unique technology Hill Forts will make enemy raidings on the Lithuanian settlements more diffucult, this allows their Town centers to outrange Mangonels and have the same range of any Standard Onager or Siege Onager with Siege Engineers (Korean Onagers being an exception), all their fast trash units also helps them in the defense department.

In Imperial Age they must keep raiding with cavalry and start considering adding gunpowder units in their ranks. Once the Gold Runs Out specially in single games they have little to bother at trash Wars since their Hussar benefits from the relic extra attack bonus ( also the relics generate gold), while also having faster Halberdiers and Skirmishers, enables them for late game Trash raids.

They have a Mediocre Navy so unless the control of the seas is necesary they should avoid the use of ships.

Alliances
In team games, Lithuanian players should be better positioned in the Flank position as this civilization can perform early raids on the opponents, but if not they also may be ok in the pocket position and try a fast castle.

Lithuanian team bonus ( monasteries work faster) makes great synergy with prominent Monk Civilizations like the Saracens, Spanish, Slavs, Aztecs and Burmese to name some of them. This enables to their allies to perform Monk Rushes earlier and better. particularly the best synergies in these regard are with the Burmese which in returns allows to Lithuanians to snatch relics faster as Burmese team bonus makes relics visible on the map from the start of the game, and with Aztecs since they have full Monastery technologies and each one furthers up the HP of the Aztec Monks while in return Relics will give the player 33% more Gold. In any case when playing on a Team Game is preferable to give all the relics the team can take to the Lithuanian player (until he or she got five) so they max the attack of the Lithuanian cavalry.

As a cavalry civilization they naturaly benefits from team bonuses that furthers up the usage of cavalry like the Hun Team Bonus ( Stables Work Faster) Periasn Team Bonus ( +2 LOS For cavalry) and Mongol Team Bonus (+2 LOS for light cavalry) this last one also helps early on into finding the relics for the attack boost for cavalry.

Vietnamese supporting bonuses ( Paper Money Technology and the sight of enemies bonus) as long with its official team bonus ( the imperial Skirmisher) is also very helpful for Lithuanians as their skirmishers are faster and can get +1 pierce armor out of Tower Shields technology, Briton team bonus and Goth team bonus ( faster production for Archery range and Barracks respectively) helps out with spamming more skirmishers and halberdiers.