So 8 of 10 games I play the opponent goes for the “archer death ball”.
“So what”, you would say, his economy is very specialized in gold and wood (pleny of tutorials at Youtube). His “eco” is weak and, if you are able to defend, you would win the game. But NO!!!
When you hit Castle Age, he will have 40+ crossbowman and you will have nothing to fight that death ball. Mangonels die after one miserable shot and even if you scout his base you will be underprepared for the attack because you did the “common eco” thing.
And if you defend your town for a miracle, you will have no food and wood to upgrade to Imperial Age because to counter archers you need to make mangonels and/or skirmishers. At his base, he will have pleny of food and gold and should achieve Imperial no time. As soon he reaches Imperial it is “gg”.
And more, 20-30 archers will tear apart a STONE WALL in miliseconds, you don’t have any time to react to that. COME ON!!! Archers shouldn’t be able to destroy STONE WALLS that easyly. Stone walls should have an armor bonus against archers alone.
Now to play the game I obligatory have to make my own archers (units that I don’t even like to use) just to see if my enemy have gone for them.
The game is super stupid right now. If you want an example, I have pleny of games to give to you.
I would suggest an armor bonus for walls against archers and/or a nerf in the time to train archers in Feudal and/or Castle Age. They should have the same time of the eagle scout to train in Feudal Age.
if your opponent has 40+ crossbows by the time you hit castle age, i question what you were doing that you got to castle age so late. that’s over 2,000 gold he has mined, castle age researched, and assuming 2 archery range production, nearly or over 6 minutes worth of production of archers depending on if he made them as Archers (35 seconds each), or crossbows (27 seconds each). so he’s mined 2k gold, spent 6 minutes roughly producing archers, researched castle and crossbows, and you somehow just reached castle age?
i want to know what you’re doing that you can’t scout your opponent going for 40+ archers i question what you been doing during that time.
gross exaggeration
or skirmishers, or knights, but yeah, don’t let facts get in the way of your over abundance of exaggeration
crossbows and knights have always been the go to power units in the game, with the exception of a few civs that can safely use castle age UU.
archers already have a 35 second training time until crossbow is researched, which IS the same time as an eagle scout.
11, I can only laugh by your comments but OK, I explain even more. He will have 30-40 archers at his base and as soon Castle comes, he goes for your town (even Arena) and hit that little and cheap upgrade to Crossbowman.
40 archers are 1800 gold (it could be 30 with 1350 gold) - it is pretty achieveble with some 8-10 villies. Even more if you really commit to that.
But OK, I really understand that you must be one of the archer users. A cheap one, that doesn’t want to do anything different then that.
My point is that right now you need to prepared even before you see your opponent is going for archers just to have a chance. And Knights, my friend, what game is that you are playing? Knights just die to the stack.
And my man, you really doesn’t know the time to train units. Log in and see that in Feudal Age you can train 2 archers and only one Eagle Scout in the same time.
30-40 archers costs 750-1000 wood and 1350-1800 gold.
and you’re saying as soon as you hit castle. so what were you doing that your opponent mined that much gold, spent 6 minutes producing archers, but you couldn’t muster anything to fight it?
actually i think the only thing that needs to be nerfed about archers is the collision box a little bit and put the final fixes on melee pathing.
i just don’t think you’re being honest. your opponent mined over 1600 gold, and you did what during this time? 1600 gold, in feudal age, is a huge amount of gold. most people don’t mine more then 250-300 gold in feudal age.
if your opponent can field 40 archers, what were you doing while he was building those up? nothing? did you prepare nothing? and 40 archers is 1800 gold. that’s 24 knights.
or you could just make 40 skirms that train in 2/3 of the time and cost 0 gold, and shred his archer army.
train time is 35 seconds.
train time is 35 seconds.
your move.
that is the only thing that should be nerfed.
again, what were you doing while your opponent mined 1600 gold or more, during feudal age, and somehow he beat you to castle?
that’s 8-10 villagers who aren’t getting food so you can age up. remember, most people hit feudal age with 22 workers for archer build orders. that mean’s your asking for over a third the workers on gold. let alone the food to go up to castle age, and the wood to drop 2 archery ranges, farms, and of coure the 750-1k wood for archers.
Dude, it is Arena or Hideout or that one with palisades in a hill top. The maps that ask you to boom. Maps like Arabia if you are agressive you could prevent the death ball. But the game is impossible for defensive players right now.
no, you haven’t, you completely ignore very common advice. yes archers are very strong right now, but they have counter play, and if your seriously reaching castle age slower then someone mining gold for 30+ archers before castle age, YOU are the one doing something wrong.
Skirms not only hard counter archers, they cost way less (literally zero gold) and train 13 seconds faster too, which means you can easily outmass him.
Archer units have enough counter units as you said. If your enemy surprise you with the amount of units and you’re not able to counter, you did something wrong.
Have enough moment I surprise my enemy with Paladin rush, then it was faster game over then ever with Arbalest.
We reach Castle at the same time dude. And that is my point here. To counter it, you need to expend FOOD. After you deal with the death ball, at his base, he will have untouch economy and you will have NO FOOD. He will reach Imperial first and it is “gg”.
so you reached castle at the same time, and yet he managed to pump out 30+ archers. so again, what did you do with the resources you mined, that should compare to the resources he invested into 30 archers?
not a whole lot compared to what he put into it. skirms cost 25 food each. he gathered an additional 750-1k wood and 1350-1800 gold. what did you do with the equivalent resources?
so let me ask you this
you both reach castle age.
he somehow has 30 or more archers already. we will go with 30 for a good comparison.
that means 750 wood and 1350 gold extra was gathered by him.
what did you do with your equivalent resources that you clearly must have gathered?
MacCauthon3 has confused the numbers a little bit: To train 40 archers in 2 ranges it takes 40/2*35 = 700 sec. Last time I checked, a minute still had 60 seconds ;-), so that’s 700/60 = 11,67 min. Therefore, your opponent should only have 40 archers after an extended feudal age.
Besides that, he has some point. You need to scout the enemy’s archers as soon as possible. If we are talking about closed maps like arena, your stone walls should defend you long enough to train some mangonels. Crossbows take 1800 shots to kill a stone wall. If that happened in “milliseconds” to you, your opponent probably was Mayans or Saracens who get a strange archer bonus damage to buildings. Palisade walls are not sufficient, though, as they collaps after a few volleys.
As soon as you have 2-3 mangonels, your opponent has to be very careful with his archers, and you should be able to defend. To invest a lot of food into skirms in castle age is rarely a good idea, as your opponent will have the better eco and imp time.
You are right: the archer deathball can be incredibly dangerous. It is essential to scout it as early as possible!
to be fair, his opponent had time to invest 750 wood and 1350 gold (or more) into archers during feudal age and still make it to castle age at the same time as the OP. by my math, the OP should either be up a lot more workers already or floating a lot of resources, or both.
I didn’t know only Mayans and Saracens had that bonus. But why not balance like the burmese that have one tech that gives +6 attack against buildings but not to castles? The bonus should be just for buildings, not for walls and castles.