The clean version is familiar: six on sheep, four to wood, lure the boar, add food, click Feudal with the economy already leaning toward stable production. The useful version begins when the second house is late and your villager distribution looks like a committee designed it.

If you are housed before the click, do not “make up” the lost time by floating resources and panicking faster. Finish the house, protect villager production, and decide whether the stable timing still buys information or damage. One late scout opening can become a clean range follow-up; it does not need to become three bad openings stacked together.

The real checkpoint is not population. It is purpose. Before the first scout crosses the map, know whether you are checking greed, forcing spears, denying a resource, or simply learning where the opponent lives.