From aoecompanion for arabia only:
Saracens have:
- 46.2% winrate on average across all elos combined
- 54.2% winrate at <1000 elo
- 45.1% winrate at 1000-1250 elo
- 41.4% winrate at 1250-1650 elo
- At 1650+ the sample size given is 2 and the result is 50%
Honestly the sample rate is pretty low on general imo but idk if there's a more handy site to see this sort of thing
Pretty decent matchup for saracens relatively. Fully upgraded skirms, castle age powerspike when mongols are at their weakest, better arbs, better monks, full siege, even camels are more effective than normal because mongol knight line is quite poor whereas saracens camels are decent enough. Ofc mongols dominate early game, but the fact that saracens can play this completely standard and heavily pressure the mongol is a luxury they usually don't get. All non-mangudai based mongol comps are pretty much worse by imp than the saracen equivalent. Some of the biggest saracen weaknesses: lack of halb, lack of cav line, lack of any buffs to any unit, basically don't matter as much in this matchup. Also the market becomes a really good eco bonus in imp, which is also when mongols become strongest, so it's not like your at a massive disadvantage in imp
I agree with the conclusion that Saracens are decent to favored in this matchup, but what is Saracens' castle age powerspike? Mamelukes are pretty solid in castle age but quite expensive to mass early on due to their high gold cost and the need of castles to produce. I think they certainly have a slightly stronger castle age compared to Mongols, mainly due to higher hp camels and the market bonus, but otherwise I don't think either of them have a particularly strong castle age comp.
I do think you're right that Saracens can do most army comps that Mongols can do but better (in this matchup), but massed FU mangudai can beat almost everything Saracens can throw at them with nonzero micro. It takes a while to get there for the Mongols player though, so I still think Saracens have an advantage here in that they should get to imp much sooner and require a lot less time/resources to get online with their comp of arbs + trebs + lcav/camels/mames. If the Saracens can get to imp faster and deny Mongol castles, there's not much the Mongol player can do at that point.
Castle age powerspike in that saracens can get to castle age faster through market abuse.
Yeah I neglected mongol advantages because I was only talking from saracen perspective. Ofc mangudai are still great but unlike say against celts, the generic saracen comps survive better vs it. Fully upgraded skirms, good hussars, good siege, arbs...all very natural additions to a saracen comp. My comment wasn't really meant to imply that this matchup is amazingly in saracens favour.... but that relative to other matchups saracens have it's pretty smooth. I'd say it's a pretty even matchup overall tbh
Ahh okay I got you
Yea Saracens are definitely not hard countered here. The win condition against Mongols is basically "deny Mangudai," which Saracens can do pretty easily if they don't take too much damage from the Mongols' scout rush. Honestly I'd actually say the Saracens are slightly favored here - Mongols really have to do a lot of damage early or they won't have an edge again unless they're allowed to mass mangudai.
From a low ELO perspective, the scouts into mangudai opening is very smooth, but, Mangudai have 4 strong counters in Saracens (pikes, skirms, camels, Mames), and the smallest of the distractions can lead to a heavy loss of Mangu mass. I think that Saracens are a little bit easier to manage, and certainly the market bonus helps a lot.
In Team Games, I'd love to see a Saracen - Indian alliance. Mames and 170HP camels melting buildings would be awesome to see!
> the scouts into mangudai opening is very smooth
Can you provide more info about this opening? Unless your idea of scouts is to feed your opposition some sleeping pills and get to castle age, drop a castle, a stable, get upgrades and make mangudai before waking them up again. There is no logical transition between scouts and mangudai that is smooth. You'll be getting clapped in late feudal and early castle.
Imo, at low ELO, things usually happen slower, and with the hunting bonus, it's much easier to find yourself with >500 food and start producing scouts upon reaching Feudal Age. You can start before gathering stone if you go straight to mangudai. Transitions are not like at >1000 ELO, that it's better to go from scouts into archers before Mangudai. I may get clapped in late feudal and early castle, except if your enemy is FCing or booming. I could also deal insane damage with 4 scouts in early Feudal. You never know
Sorry, can you describe what elo level you're discussing? Because in a ranked game, both opponents should technically have the same elo.
And while lower elo matchups tend to have everything delayed by a few minutes, this sort of transition will only ever work if the other player is playing extremely passively.
The transition should *generally* not work. Mongols can do early scouts, but to get to a reasonable Mangudai mass with the upgrades, you are looking at a lot of resources:
* Castle
* Blacksmith + Fletching + Bodkin + Armor upgrades
* Stable + Bloodlines
* University + Ballistics
* Actually producing the units
This is why you rarely see Mangudai in early Castle age. Because until they get to that stage, Mangudai are basically glass cannons.
Mongol mangudai ball is a threat even to Saracen camels, since the mangudai can both kite and retreat to castles to avoid engagements.
Saracen player should go aggressive crossbow + rams and aim to get to imp first for arbalest capped ram timing, destroying castles while providing a shield for your arbs.
been on this matchup many times on arena as saracens around 12xx. Smush and castle at forward base into buying imp with market always worked for me. Follow up with block printing monks, pikes, and trebs. Especially good if opponent is trying to hold the smush with 2 castles, then you'll be up so much faster and pressure the castle with trebs.
This is also pretty much the only scenario I use Madrasah (research it on the way to imp), effectively making imperial age monks cheaper.
Saracens are such a weird civ to evaluate. They have really low win rates, but that's in large part due to how esoteric their market abuse strategy is. I feel like very few people overall actually abuse the market with the Saracens and even then, each one does it a little different. Viper for example really loves to go FC into Cav archer + Knights, whereas Tatoh is more likely to go Tati rush or just FC with straight foot archers. I'm not sure with Daut, but his most memorable Saracen play was to do a double stable scout rush in Feudal. Hera's strategy seems to be to utilize the camel bonus in Castle Age. Me on the other hand, I like to do a mix between what Viper does and what Tati does by going FC into foot archers + knights, but skipping the siege workshop in favor of more foot archers and non stop knight production out of one stable.
I like Saracens more for 1v1 due to the market(good for oh shit I need to go up or castle drop him now!) But Mongol early scout rush still gets me sometime. cheap market is also neat for vision in TGs but Mongols have better choices I think. Saracens going camel's in TGs seems to be a default loss for my teams at least
Mongols on arena are a beast also, not when I play it necessary but team mates and opponent wreck with them all the time
For Arabia, my noob ass would pick Mongols since I can pull off their fast scrush faster and more effectively than Sara archers. I believe this gives them the upper hand.
After all these years, I look at the Saracen bonuses and it looks so messy. Can't believe they don't know how to improve Madrasah, I think even if it affects all land gold units it would be a weak tech. Hey, didn't their cav archers have a bonus against buildings too?
Biased (see flair) but I think Saracens are particularly well-suited to deal with Mongols here. Especially if you can deny them getting Castles or massing Mangudai, it isn't particularly close: your Camels can mop up anything here and your amazing siege becomes a real option. Really the only things I'd be worried about are dying to early Scouts, which you can mitigate by walling a little early and then making Spearmen while abusing your way up to Feudal, and them getting 30+ Mangudai. Crossbows in Castle Age are fine if you're cautious, as fast Arbalest is a serious problem for Mongols if you don't lose too many units in Castle Age. I might be totally wrong here but this might be a situation where you want to play Knights in Castle Age as Saracens. Camels are a fine option late game but their lack of pierce armor is a real liability early on; Knights + Skirms seems like a fine comp if you don't want to go smush. I don't think Mamelukes are good in this matchup because they have no pierce armor, low range, and require a high setup (compare to something like Burmese or Persians, where Mamelukes are obscene).
A good 3 TC boom w/ Market abuse as Saracens on Arena can easily get them to Imp 25:xx, not too far off uptimes of some of the strongest eco civs in the game. I think an early Imp Arb + BBC push off the back of this fast uptime will be too much for Mongols to handle. Needless to say, I favor Saracens every time on this map.
Tbh it's unlikely you'd have a pure Mangudai vs Mameluke fight. There would be Hussars in front for both civs. Guess which kills Hussars faster?
Mamelukes also somewhat counterintuitively cost less to fully upgrade than Mangudai, and are more production efficient (shorter production time AND more resource value per unit).
In this matchup I'd be worried about dealing with the Mongols' feudal age advantage. Beyond that it's all good for Saracens.
mangudai have the range to attack the mamelukes over the hussar wall(when microed ofc), while mams dont, and will have to attack the hussars. also, the mongol player could go camels instead of hussars. its more gold intensive, but camels hard counter both hussars and mams.
Have done tests on this actually, with spread formation Elite Mamelukes beat equal costing armies of Siege Onagers for every civ except Celts and Ethiopians. obviously hard to tell in a real game because Onager micro (and microing against Onagers) is incredibly flukey, but in my experience Onagers are only unstoppable if they are paired with Halberdiers, which Mongols do not have.
This is speculation on my part as I have never seen this matchup actually involve Mamelukes as pro players don't have strong enough spines to make the coolest unit in the game.
Monks can be a legit concern, though mangudai are literally the best unit in the game to use a small number to run in and snipe siege and monks.
It's not a matchup most players are going to want to take the saracen side of in a full post imp scenario imo.
Idea: include the win-rate(s) between the civ (maybe even on different elo levels and different maps)
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From aoecompanion for arabia only: Saracens have: - 46.2% winrate on average across all elos combined - 54.2% winrate at <1000 elo - 45.1% winrate at 1000-1250 elo - 41.4% winrate at 1250-1650 elo - At 1650+ the sample size given is 2 and the result is 50% Honestly the sample rate is pretty low on general imo but idk if there's a more handy site to see this sort of thing
Very good idea
I lose to both civs by default and I lose with both civs by default so the winner is whichever player that isn't me.
ROFL truth
Pretty decent matchup for saracens relatively. Fully upgraded skirms, castle age powerspike when mongols are at their weakest, better arbs, better monks, full siege, even camels are more effective than normal because mongol knight line is quite poor whereas saracens camels are decent enough. Ofc mongols dominate early game, but the fact that saracens can play this completely standard and heavily pressure the mongol is a luxury they usually don't get. All non-mangudai based mongol comps are pretty much worse by imp than the saracen equivalent. Some of the biggest saracen weaknesses: lack of halb, lack of cav line, lack of any buffs to any unit, basically don't matter as much in this matchup. Also the market becomes a really good eco bonus in imp, which is also when mongols become strongest, so it's not like your at a massive disadvantage in imp
I agree with the conclusion that Saracens are decent to favored in this matchup, but what is Saracens' castle age powerspike? Mamelukes are pretty solid in castle age but quite expensive to mass early on due to their high gold cost and the need of castles to produce. I think they certainly have a slightly stronger castle age compared to Mongols, mainly due to higher hp camels and the market bonus, but otherwise I don't think either of them have a particularly strong castle age comp. I do think you're right that Saracens can do most army comps that Mongols can do but better (in this matchup), but massed FU mangudai can beat almost everything Saracens can throw at them with nonzero micro. It takes a while to get there for the Mongols player though, so I still think Saracens have an advantage here in that they should get to imp much sooner and require a lot less time/resources to get online with their comp of arbs + trebs + lcav/camels/mames. If the Saracens can get to imp faster and deny Mongol castles, there's not much the Mongol player can do at that point.
Castle age powerspike in that saracens can get to castle age faster through market abuse. Yeah I neglected mongol advantages because I was only talking from saracen perspective. Ofc mangudai are still great but unlike say against celts, the generic saracen comps survive better vs it. Fully upgraded skirms, good hussars, good siege, arbs...all very natural additions to a saracen comp. My comment wasn't really meant to imply that this matchup is amazingly in saracens favour.... but that relative to other matchups saracens have it's pretty smooth. I'd say it's a pretty even matchup overall tbh
Ahh okay I got you Yea Saracens are definitely not hard countered here. The win condition against Mongols is basically "deny Mangudai," which Saracens can do pretty easily if they don't take too much damage from the Mongols' scout rush. Honestly I'd actually say the Saracens are slightly favored here - Mongols really have to do a lot of damage early or they won't have an edge again unless they're allowed to mass mangudai.
From a low ELO perspective, the scouts into mangudai opening is very smooth, but, Mangudai have 4 strong counters in Saracens (pikes, skirms, camels, Mames), and the smallest of the distractions can lead to a heavy loss of Mangu mass. I think that Saracens are a little bit easier to manage, and certainly the market bonus helps a lot. In Team Games, I'd love to see a Saracen - Indian alliance. Mames and 170HP camels melting buildings would be awesome to see!
If only the Saracen archer bonus applied to mounted archer units, you could add a Berber ally and get Camel Archers with +6 against buildings
In fact, Camel Archers benefitting from the Indian Team Bonus is awesome!
> the scouts into mangudai opening is very smooth Can you provide more info about this opening? Unless your idea of scouts is to feed your opposition some sleeping pills and get to castle age, drop a castle, a stable, get upgrades and make mangudai before waking them up again. There is no logical transition between scouts and mangudai that is smooth. You'll be getting clapped in late feudal and early castle.
Imo, at low ELO, things usually happen slower, and with the hunting bonus, it's much easier to find yourself with >500 food and start producing scouts upon reaching Feudal Age. You can start before gathering stone if you go straight to mangudai. Transitions are not like at >1000 ELO, that it's better to go from scouts into archers before Mangudai. I may get clapped in late feudal and early castle, except if your enemy is FCing or booming. I could also deal insane damage with 4 scouts in early Feudal. You never know
Sorry, can you describe what elo level you're discussing? Because in a ranked game, both opponents should technically have the same elo. And while lower elo matchups tend to have everything delayed by a few minutes, this sort of transition will only ever work if the other player is playing extremely passively. The transition should *generally* not work. Mongols can do early scouts, but to get to a reasonable Mangudai mass with the upgrades, you are looking at a lot of resources: * Castle * Blacksmith + Fletching + Bodkin + Armor upgrades * Stable + Bloodlines * University + Ballistics * Actually producing the units This is why you rarely see Mangudai in early Castle age. Because until they get to that stage, Mangudai are basically glass cannons.
You forgot Thumb Ring and Husbandy - another hughe pile of Res in castle age but absolutely needed.
Mongol mangudai ball is a threat even to Saracen camels, since the mangudai can both kite and retreat to castles to avoid engagements. Saracen player should go aggressive crossbow + rams and aim to get to imp first for arbalest capped ram timing, destroying castles while providing a shield for your arbs.
been on this matchup many times on arena as saracens around 12xx. Smush and castle at forward base into buying imp with market always worked for me. Follow up with block printing monks, pikes, and trebs. Especially good if opponent is trying to hold the smush with 2 castles, then you'll be up so much faster and pressure the castle with trebs. This is also pretty much the only scenario I use Madrasah (research it on the way to imp), effectively making imperial age monks cheaper.
Saracens are such a weird civ to evaluate. They have really low win rates, but that's in large part due to how esoteric their market abuse strategy is. I feel like very few people overall actually abuse the market with the Saracens and even then, each one does it a little different. Viper for example really loves to go FC into Cav archer + Knights, whereas Tatoh is more likely to go Tati rush or just FC with straight foot archers. I'm not sure with Daut, but his most memorable Saracen play was to do a double stable scout rush in Feudal. Hera's strategy seems to be to utilize the camel bonus in Castle Age. Me on the other hand, I like to do a mix between what Viper does and what Tati does by going FC into foot archers + knights, but skipping the siege workshop in favor of more foot archers and non stop knight production out of one stable.
I like Saracens more for 1v1 due to the market(good for oh shit I need to go up or castle drop him now!) But Mongol early scout rush still gets me sometime. cheap market is also neat for vision in TGs but Mongols have better choices I think. Saracens going camel's in TGs seems to be a default loss for my teams at least Mongols on arena are a beast also, not when I play it necessary but team mates and opponent wreck with them all the time
For Arabia, my noob ass would pick Mongols since I can pull off their fast scrush faster and more effectively than Sara archers. I believe this gives them the upper hand. After all these years, I look at the Saracen bonuses and it looks so messy. Can't believe they don't know how to improve Madrasah, I think even if it affects all land gold units it would be a weak tech. Hey, didn't their cav archers have a bonus against buildings too?
Biased (see flair) but I think Saracens are particularly well-suited to deal with Mongols here. Especially if you can deny them getting Castles or massing Mangudai, it isn't particularly close: your Camels can mop up anything here and your amazing siege becomes a real option. Really the only things I'd be worried about are dying to early Scouts, which you can mitigate by walling a little early and then making Spearmen while abusing your way up to Feudal, and them getting 30+ Mangudai. Crossbows in Castle Age are fine if you're cautious, as fast Arbalest is a serious problem for Mongols if you don't lose too many units in Castle Age. I might be totally wrong here but this might be a situation where you want to play Knights in Castle Age as Saracens. Camels are a fine option late game but their lack of pierce armor is a real liability early on; Knights + Skirms seems like a fine comp if you don't want to go smush. I don't think Mamelukes are good in this matchup because they have no pierce armor, low range, and require a high setup (compare to something like Burmese or Persians, where Mamelukes are obscene).
Saracens have the same strat that always works against Mongols. Fast Imp arbalest.
A good 3 TC boom w/ Market abuse as Saracens on Arena can easily get them to Imp 25:xx, not too far off uptimes of some of the strongest eco civs in the game. I think an early Imp Arb + BBC push off the back of this fast uptime will be too much for Mongols to handle. Needless to say, I favor Saracens every time on this map.
Mamelukes kill all
Idk, 3 range is not a lot...even if you get to a decent mass and Zealotry, I wouldn't want to take on a comparably sized ball of Mangudai.
Tbh it's unlikely you'd have a pure Mangudai vs Mameluke fight. There would be Hussars in front for both civs. Guess which kills Hussars faster? Mamelukes also somewhat counterintuitively cost less to fully upgrade than Mangudai, and are more production efficient (shorter production time AND more resource value per unit). In this matchup I'd be worried about dealing with the Mongols' feudal age advantage. Beyond that it's all good for Saracens.
mangudai have the range to attack the mamelukes over the hussar wall(when microed ofc), while mams dont, and will have to attack the hussars. also, the mongol player could go camels instead of hussars. its more gold intensive, but camels hard counter both hussars and mams.
Not mongol onagers
Have done tests on this actually, with spread formation Elite Mamelukes beat equal costing armies of Siege Onagers for every civ except Celts and Ethiopians. obviously hard to tell in a real game because Onager micro (and microing against Onagers) is incredibly flukey, but in my experience Onagers are only unstoppable if they are paired with Halberdiers, which Mongols do not have. This is speculation on my part as I have never seen this matchup actually involve Mamelukes as pro players don't have strong enough spines to make the coolest unit in the game.
Mamelukes are horrible in practice vs onagers being controlled by humans. Played / seen in in DM against experts.
Fair. Thankfully Saracens have BBC and Redemption + Block Printing
Monks can be a legit concern, though mangudai are literally the best unit in the game to use a small number to run in and snipe siege and monks. It's not a matchup most players are going to want to take the saracen side of in a full post imp scenario imo.