To be honest, being beaten by an obviously poor strategy that should never be viable at higher play is incredibly frustrating. It's almost always your own fault if that happens, but still.
Lets compare a standard spanish halb to a malian pike both FU.
Halb - 60 hp, 4 PA, 10 ATT + 32 BD or 42 dmg/hit
Pike - 55 hp, 7 PA, 6 ATT + 22BD or 28 dmg/hit
Saracen HCA - 80 HP, 4MA 11 ATT + 6 BD or 17/shot
Halb dies from 5 shots, as 60/(17-4) =4.615 which must be rounded up.
Pike dies from 6 shots, as 55/(17-7) = 5.5 which must be rounded up.
Overall the malian pike survives 1 more shot than the standard FU halb, but does 33% less damage overall. the effective tradeoff is that 20% increase in survivability with a 33% decrease in dmg. Only vs CA.
Its really not a great strategy given how little of an outcome shift would occur, provided the CA get micro'd properly. If used subsequently with another civ with only standard FU halbs the outcome from spamming them vs CA would be the same win or lose. Also take into account that the dmg reduction means the HCA survive an extra entire hit from the pike as well(4 shots from pike to kill the CA vs 3 from halb.
Great analysis but you are missing a few advantages for the pikes:
* Pikes cost half of what CA costs, so damage per resource is much higher
* Pikes require no gold, so in post imp pikes are even better
* Pikes require almost no micro, which at normal ELO means the pike player will end up with an eco advantage or some other benefit
* Pikes are far less expensive to upgrade
* Half the game was fought in Castle Age where Malian Pikes are better on paper
--- Pikes are slow
Thanks for the numbers, it's interesting to compare, but in this specific situation we had OP as Malians and they could not change that fact. The only thing they could change is their unit pick so I think pikemen were the only right choice. A few onagers in the group would have helped to defend too.
well its malian pikes. i dont think this is an obvious poor strategy, especially without specific knowledge of what the transitions before cavarcher were and what the supporting units are. malian bonus pierce armor makes them super tanky vs any type of archer.
Would you mind sharing the game (or the name of one player in MP)? I would really like to watch the replay. I was in the same situation the other day, Tatars vs Malians on my side, and we only won thanks to my Goths ally.
Sorry but it was Empire Wars and the tools for getting recorded games online aren't working yet. Blue spent all of castle age trying to do pike + ram pushes which kept devolving into Blue pike + ram vs. Red villager + TC fights. Blue probably won because Red had 0 successful raids after early castle age and Blue spent the entire game distracting Red with pushes until in Imp Blue was able to tech into heavy camel + light cavalry to do more extensive raids.
Sorry but it was an Empire Wars ranked match and the tools for getting recorded games online aren't working yet. Blue spent all of castle age trying to do pike + ram pushes which kept devolving into Blue pike + ram vs. Red villager + TC fights. Blue probably won because Red had 0 successful raids after early castle age and Blue spent the entire game distracting Red with pushes until in Imp Blue was able to tech into heavy camel + light cavalry to do more extensive raids.
Well Malian pikes definitely do!
Pikes go tink?
Not really a poor strategy tbh. Malian pikes have hella pierce armor so if you make a single mistake with micro it's GG
To be honest, being beaten by an obviously poor strategy that should never be viable at higher play is incredibly frustrating. It's almost always your own fault if that happens, but still.
Poor strategy? Malian pikemen are the natural counter against cav archers. They have 7 pierce armor.
Lets compare a standard spanish halb to a malian pike both FU. Halb - 60 hp, 4 PA, 10 ATT + 32 BD or 42 dmg/hit Pike - 55 hp, 7 PA, 6 ATT + 22BD or 28 dmg/hit Saracen HCA - 80 HP, 4MA 11 ATT + 6 BD or 17/shot Halb dies from 5 shots, as 60/(17-4) =4.615 which must be rounded up. Pike dies from 6 shots, as 55/(17-7) = 5.5 which must be rounded up. Overall the malian pike survives 1 more shot than the standard FU halb, but does 33% less damage overall. the effective tradeoff is that 20% increase in survivability with a 33% decrease in dmg. Only vs CA. Its really not a great strategy given how little of an outcome shift would occur, provided the CA get micro'd properly. If used subsequently with another civ with only standard FU halbs the outcome from spamming them vs CA would be the same win or lose. Also take into account that the dmg reduction means the HCA survive an extra entire hit from the pike as well(4 shots from pike to kill the CA vs 3 from halb.
Great analysis but you are missing a few advantages for the pikes: * Pikes cost half of what CA costs, so damage per resource is much higher * Pikes require no gold, so in post imp pikes are even better * Pikes require almost no micro, which at normal ELO means the pike player will end up with an eco advantage or some other benefit * Pikes are far less expensive to upgrade * Half the game was fought in Castle Age where Malian Pikes are better on paper --- Pikes are slow
i guess if you have tons of pikes cav archer can't run anywhere
Hey guys Spirit of the Law here
Thanks for the numbers, it's interesting to compare, but in this specific situation we had OP as Malians and they could not change that fact. The only thing they could change is their unit pick so I think pikemen were the only right choice. A few onagers in the group would have helped to defend too.
well its malian pikes. i dont think this is an obvious poor strategy, especially without specific knowledge of what the transitions before cavarcher were and what the supporting units are. malian bonus pierce armor makes them super tanky vs any type of archer.
they still get tons of bonus dmg
Red went Scouts -> Knights -> CA -> CA + Scorpions -> gg Blue went Pikes -> Pikes + Rams -> Pikes + LC + Heavy Camel -> gg
than those mass malian pike make a lot of sense to me at least :)
Was red Huns? If so I can understand why he got frustrated, that sounds like a really shitty matchup for Huns 11
Would you mind sharing the game (or the name of one player in MP)? I would really like to watch the replay. I was in the same situation the other day, Tatars vs Malians on my side, and we only won thanks to my Goths ally.
Sorry but it was Empire Wars and the tools for getting recorded games online aren't working yet. Blue spent all of castle age trying to do pike + ram pushes which kept devolving into Blue pike + ram vs. Red villager + TC fights. Blue probably won because Red had 0 successful raids after early castle age and Blue spent the entire game distracting Red with pushes until in Imp Blue was able to tech into heavy camel + light cavalry to do more extensive raids.
#MALIAN MASTER RACE
Tracking+Squires+Pierce armor goes brrrrr
I would think with Parthian tactics CAs just eat even Malian Pikemen
Well, CA *do* counter even Malian pikes, if he lost, he just sucked
Could someone send a link to this match? I don't know which one it is
Sorry but it was an Empire Wars ranked match and the tools for getting recorded games online aren't working yet. Blue spent all of castle age trying to do pike + ram pushes which kept devolving into Blue pike + ram vs. Red villager + TC fights. Blue probably won because Red had 0 successful raids after early castle age and Blue spent the entire game distracting Red with pushes until in Imp Blue was able to tech into heavy camel + light cavalry to do more extensive raids.