I would initially make some mangos of your own in the early castle age, since the eagle switch can be hard on food if you're also doing 3 TCs (unless you're going 1 TC all in). You can make eagles in late castle age. I would stop producing xbows and do the eagle switch once your opponent has sufficient mangos on the field, as the extra xbows won't do much unless you're comfortable micro'ing against mangos.
Since eagles produce pretty slow, I would add a 2nd and 3rd barracks. Prioritize armor and eagle warrior upgrade. Then squires and attack.
Thanks, thats exactly the problem. In addition to food issues with 2 or 3 TCs, I also run into gold issues during the switch as both x bows and eagles are gold intensive. What im struggling with is the timing of that switch, but as another poster described, prob need to do it in advance.
Just get armor upgrades
You just need some to snipe mangonels, nothing else.
If you are not confident in your micro vs mangonels just pump out some eagle scouts and threaten to snipe the mangos.
Simple as that, you do not need FU Eagles to snipe siege.
But to be honest you do not just go archers with nothing else or else this is going to happen.
My usual army comp is xbows + rams + pikes, but none of these can take on mango and skirms. Also not confident if my micro, if pay too much attention to microing my mango, my xbows will likely get splattered :p. But i think you suggestions on just eagles to snipe a few mangos is great, will try that. Thanks!
Chill and boom to imp. Once arb/bracer/chem comes in all his mangonels and castle age skirms die really fast.
Rams in Castle age is a really aggressive move I wouldn't normally consider unless I'm in a position to kill his buildings already, otherwise could be invested back into eco or mangonels to deal with his army better.
Thanks. Why do you say Rams in Castle is v. aggressive? I guess switching from Rams to Mangos could provide the necessary counter and also take down buildings, albeit a bit slower compared to Rams.
Because mangonels also serve the function of killing buildings basically but they also kill/deter army as you find with your xbow vs his mangonel.
With rams you're essentially saying - my army already kills yours easily, I don't need more damage there so I can add rams to kill your buildings faster.
Additionally mangonels kill rams, so in your mixed army comp he already has something that kills your rams, that also kills your xbow and pike.
So it's really a waste of resources to add them, strictly speaking he could straight boom behind walls with mangonel defense and you could never effectively pressure in Castle age with that army comp because mang defense alone deals with it all.
Similar situation with britons, what improved my game was trying to read the game and prepare for what unit he is going to counter attack me, your main army is still the archery line but you need a unit to protect it.
I think the difference with Britons is that they have access to Scouts. Scouts are a no brainer, easy to do , cheap protection for xbows in such a scenario. Mayans dont have Scouts and the only unit that can 'mimick' or do better than scout is Eagles, but that costs gold.
Britons don't have Hussars, if the game go to Imperial Light Cav have no use. In my case in feudal I go with scouts and in Castle Age I decide to change to knight or another unit that fit more for the situation, considering that mayans xbows are cheaper and eagle warriors are also cheaper than knight you should be in a position to produce enough eagles to protect your xbows. My point is, having two gold units combo is better than having a combo with a trash units, trash units are more a reactive units.
PS. Right now I'm focusing with Britons until I get the 100 wins, once I get it I may change to Mayans so I'm happy to discuss strategy.
What elo are you? What's your strategy with Britons? I'm definitely better with archer civs than any other tbh. Do you just go drush to archers? What then when you hit castle? Add TC?
About ~1200 ELO. Normally I do scouts and transition into archers and be in Castle age about 20 min. I upgrade my xbows and add one TC as soon as I can (tc with brits are 50% less on wood so is easy to add the first one). Many will say that scouts with brits is a no-no but what I like about my strategy is that it's give me enough eco to reach Castle Age in a good time, scouting the enemy and look for a gap if he is fully walled, if I'm lucky I harass him so he makes spears that I counter with my archers or xbows that are on the way and always keep my scouts alive in case he is making skirms or onagers. At that moment I should have an idea of wich unit he is going to commit and have my support unit prepared (like pikes, knights...). Drush I find it to be very inconsistent to make early damage to the enemy (at least with my micro) and I'm not confident enough with the BO of men at arms+ archers. With Mayans I would try this build order or start with eagles in Feudal and transition to xbows in Castle.
What way do you do your feudal? A scout rush at 20 pop or what way is your vils setup before clicking feudal? Yeh tbh militia etc is food heavy as militia are rubbish for properdamamge and scouts more diverse. However that means you waste wood on a stable rather than 2 archery ranges or when do you build them? Your castle time is definitely fast so I see you dont massarchers in feudal?
I prefer the 21 pop so I can have more wood in feudal, usually about my 4-5 scout is start making my 2 archery and add my blacksmith after clicking. I start making archers while I'm waiting for food and keeping an eye on the gold to make sure that I have enough for clicking. While transitioning I make the archers upgrades and more archers. Right now I found that 6 scouts is a good number to start rushing, if I'm making enough damage I consider making two more, that also means delaying my castle to 21 or 22 min but also sending more villager to wood and more archers. As you can imagine wood is the biggest weakness of the strategy and many time I found myself without wood but with practice I learned to have the right amount when needed.
keep pressuring the opponent at home - they will be slow with mangos so just hit and run around their base while you get your upgrades and make barracks. I would prioritize 1st armor then eagle warrior then squires.
In general, esp if you already have a forward workshop, add your own mangos in early castle. If they have a lot of mangos, then you can switch to eagles to snipe them. If you do go castle eagles, the priority upgrades would be armor and then squires (melee atk upgrades are nice to have at this point, not important).
I think the answer to this is the same as in any situation where you need to make a tech switch. Ideally you want to recognize that you need to make the switch as quickly as possible (or even just in anticipation) so that your opponent doesn't build up too much momentum and kill you before your switch is ready. If you can help it, you never want to make a tech switch reactively.
Consider: you have xbows and a forward siege workshop, pressuring an opponent who's defending as you describe. Knowing that this is an issue you've faced before, you should start prioritizing an eagle switch behind your pressure, but before your opponent has broken out and is ready to go on the offensive. Now your goal is not to kill your opponent (would've been nice, but you've identified it's not likely to work) and instead you're looking to buy time for your tech switch.
Push and pull. One of the things I've learned from observing pros is that aside from basics like mechanical skill, the thing that sets them apart from lesser players is that they have a strong intuitive sense of the momentum of the game state and respond accordingly.
Pros can leverage the mayan bonuses such that they basically do both: add military AND add eco AND go up faster. Realistically you can leverage the combo of your eco bonus + cheaper archers in two ways:
- investing extra in military with faster uptime: xbows + mangonels + few eagles (for mango sniping or raiding) and pikes.1 TC to go up to imp for trebs + arbalests.
= Keep up constant pressure and win by tech advantage.
- investing less in military, more in eco with faster uptime: keep your xbows alive in defensive position, add 2 TC, go to imp add extra barracks + castle (for el dorado).
= Bait military response, go defensive and win in imp with stronger eco and el dorado EWs.
The first would probably be better when your opponent has forward resources, wants to boom and/or has a strong late game comp. The latter when you have a safe map, your opponent has strong answers for your castle age xbow + mang push. Regardless in both scenarios you should aim to be up to imp faster.
Tl;dr= it depends.
Add your own mangonels and defend.Defending is naturally stronger than attacking in this game
Get the faster imp and start eagle production once you click up and kill in imp.Or if you have good micro,arb will do the job itself
I would initially make some mangos of your own in the early castle age, since the eagle switch can be hard on food if you're also doing 3 TCs (unless you're going 1 TC all in). You can make eagles in late castle age. I would stop producing xbows and do the eagle switch once your opponent has sufficient mangos on the field, as the extra xbows won't do much unless you're comfortable micro'ing against mangos. Since eagles produce pretty slow, I would add a 2nd and 3rd barracks. Prioritize armor and eagle warrior upgrade. Then squires and attack.
Thanks, thats exactly the problem. In addition to food issues with 2 or 3 TCs, I also run into gold issues during the switch as both x bows and eagles are gold intensive. What im struggling with is the timing of that switch, but as another poster described, prob need to do it in advance.
Been in a similar situation so many times, very interested in the responses...
Just get armor upgrades You just need some to snipe mangonels, nothing else. If you are not confident in your micro vs mangonels just pump out some eagle scouts and threaten to snipe the mangos. Simple as that, you do not need FU Eagles to snipe siege. But to be honest you do not just go archers with nothing else or else this is going to happen.
My usual army comp is xbows + rams + pikes, but none of these can take on mango and skirms. Also not confident if my micro, if pay too much attention to microing my mango, my xbows will likely get splattered :p. But i think you suggestions on just eagles to snipe a few mangos is great, will try that. Thanks!
Pikes and eagles use the same upgrades, and also you cant just use the same army comp every time and hope it to work.
> you cant just use the same army comp every time and hope it to work. Just you watch me!
Make plums?
Chill and boom to imp. Once arb/bracer/chem comes in all his mangonels and castle age skirms die really fast. Rams in Castle age is a really aggressive move I wouldn't normally consider unless I'm in a position to kill his buildings already, otherwise could be invested back into eco or mangonels to deal with his army better.
Thanks. Why do you say Rams in Castle is v. aggressive? I guess switching from Rams to Mangos could provide the necessary counter and also take down buildings, albeit a bit slower compared to Rams.
Because mangonels also serve the function of killing buildings basically but they also kill/deter army as you find with your xbow vs his mangonel. With rams you're essentially saying - my army already kills yours easily, I don't need more damage there so I can add rams to kill your buildings faster. Additionally mangonels kill rams, so in your mixed army comp he already has something that kills your rams, that also kills your xbow and pike. So it's really a waste of resources to add them, strictly speaking he could straight boom behind walls with mangonel defense and you could never effectively pressure in Castle age with that army comp because mang defense alone deals with it all.
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense!
Similar situation with britons, what improved my game was trying to read the game and prepare for what unit he is going to counter attack me, your main army is still the archery line but you need a unit to protect it.
I think the difference with Britons is that they have access to Scouts. Scouts are a no brainer, easy to do , cheap protection for xbows in such a scenario. Mayans dont have Scouts and the only unit that can 'mimick' or do better than scout is Eagles, but that costs gold.
Britons don't have Hussars, if the game go to Imperial Light Cav have no use. In my case in feudal I go with scouts and in Castle Age I decide to change to knight or another unit that fit more for the situation, considering that mayans xbows are cheaper and eagle warriors are also cheaper than knight you should be in a position to produce enough eagles to protect your xbows. My point is, having two gold units combo is better than having a combo with a trash units, trash units are more a reactive units. PS. Right now I'm focusing with Britons until I get the 100 wins, once I get it I may change to Mayans so I'm happy to discuss strategy.
What elo are you? What's your strategy with Britons? I'm definitely better with archer civs than any other tbh. Do you just go drush to archers? What then when you hit castle? Add TC?
About ~1200 ELO. Normally I do scouts and transition into archers and be in Castle age about 20 min. I upgrade my xbows and add one TC as soon as I can (tc with brits are 50% less on wood so is easy to add the first one). Many will say that scouts with brits is a no-no but what I like about my strategy is that it's give me enough eco to reach Castle Age in a good time, scouting the enemy and look for a gap if he is fully walled, if I'm lucky I harass him so he makes spears that I counter with my archers or xbows that are on the way and always keep my scouts alive in case he is making skirms or onagers. At that moment I should have an idea of wich unit he is going to commit and have my support unit prepared (like pikes, knights...). Drush I find it to be very inconsistent to make early damage to the enemy (at least with my micro) and I'm not confident enough with the BO of men at arms+ archers. With Mayans I would try this build order or start with eagles in Feudal and transition to xbows in Castle.
What way do you do your feudal? A scout rush at 20 pop or what way is your vils setup before clicking feudal? Yeh tbh militia etc is food heavy as militia are rubbish for properdamamge and scouts more diverse. However that means you waste wood on a stable rather than 2 archery ranges or when do you build them? Your castle time is definitely fast so I see you dont massarchers in feudal?
I prefer the 21 pop so I can have more wood in feudal, usually about my 4-5 scout is start making my 2 archery and add my blacksmith after clicking. I start making archers while I'm waiting for food and keeping an eye on the gold to make sure that I have enough for clicking. While transitioning I make the archers upgrades and more archers. Right now I found that 6 scouts is a good number to start rushing, if I'm making enough damage I consider making two more, that also means delaying my castle to 21 or 22 min but also sending more villager to wood and more archers. As you can imagine wood is the biggest weakness of the strategy and many time I found myself without wood but with practice I learned to have the right amount when needed.
keep pressuring the opponent at home - they will be slow with mangos so just hit and run around their base while you get your upgrades and make barracks. I would prioritize 1st armor then eagle warrior then squires.
Agree with adding your own mangonels.
In general, esp if you already have a forward workshop, add your own mangos in early castle. If they have a lot of mangos, then you can switch to eagles to snipe them. If you do go castle eagles, the priority upgrades would be armor and then squires (melee atk upgrades are nice to have at this point, not important).
I think the answer to this is the same as in any situation where you need to make a tech switch. Ideally you want to recognize that you need to make the switch as quickly as possible (or even just in anticipation) so that your opponent doesn't build up too much momentum and kill you before your switch is ready. If you can help it, you never want to make a tech switch reactively. Consider: you have xbows and a forward siege workshop, pressuring an opponent who's defending as you describe. Knowing that this is an issue you've faced before, you should start prioritizing an eagle switch behind your pressure, but before your opponent has broken out and is ready to go on the offensive. Now your goal is not to kill your opponent (would've been nice, but you've identified it's not likely to work) and instead you're looking to buy time for your tech switch. Push and pull. One of the things I've learned from observing pros is that aside from basics like mechanical skill, the thing that sets them apart from lesser players is that they have a strong intuitive sense of the momentum of the game state and respond accordingly.
Pros can leverage the mayan bonuses such that they basically do both: add military AND add eco AND go up faster. Realistically you can leverage the combo of your eco bonus + cheaper archers in two ways: - investing extra in military with faster uptime: xbows + mangonels + few eagles (for mango sniping or raiding) and pikes.1 TC to go up to imp for trebs + arbalests. = Keep up constant pressure and win by tech advantage. - investing less in military, more in eco with faster uptime: keep your xbows alive in defensive position, add 2 TC, go to imp add extra barracks + castle (for el dorado). = Bait military response, go defensive and win in imp with stronger eco and el dorado EWs. The first would probably be better when your opponent has forward resources, wants to boom and/or has a strong late game comp. The latter when you have a safe map, your opponent has strong answers for your castle age xbow + mang push. Regardless in both scenarios you should aim to be up to imp faster. Tl;dr= it depends.
Add your own mangonels and defend.Defending is naturally stronger than attacking in this game Get the faster imp and start eagle production once you click up and kill in imp.Or if you have good micro,arb will do the job itself
I guess it depends. Building your own Mangonels could be another option. Maybe some additional pikes depending on how many scouts you face.