Best "support" civ?

Hi, I usually play FFA but whenever I play on team games I like being the support, in any other game could be either the buffer, the healer, whatever, so, my question is: Which is the best “support” civilization? Not taking anything else into account, just the buffs and support units, if you don’t want to attack that much, just support (probably with trash too or defend your ally’s units), which civ would you choose?

None. Age of empires doesn’t work like that. All of the team members have to make army and attack. It’s not “one civ attack, one defends”. Yeah, you have some more defensive civs (Byzantines, Koreans, Teutons) but still in team games, you can just defend

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you could go full eco and sling your ally
the best support civ is a) the best booming civ or b) a civ with a bonus that synergizes like Huns +20% stable production speed with franks or an infantry civ with an Italian ally.

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I mean the one who would look the closest to that idea, i know all are good on their own, but just asking.

That’s vikings, but I mean overall, in ally techs, units, etc…

If we have something like support it would be the pocket in a team game. But it’s actually important to have an experienced pocket who knows how to play that position.

Yes, for sure. But not all team members really appreciate that strat, because the slinger needs to be protected aswell. Usually the pocket needs to “help” his flanks out of bad situations, too. That’s also an important part of being an experienced pocket.

I would usually say the best “pockets” atm are cumans and indians. Indians are for sure way easier to play, but the cumans cav spam can be insanely strong, too. If you want to play FFA “peace” way you should take cumans I think, because nobody “fears” cumans lategame, so it’s more likely to find allies, I think.

Burgundians are the best civ if you stonewall in feudal age and just sling your opponents.
But this does require the whole team knowing what you are doing and expecting the resources at certain times to do certain things. It’s definitely not a playstyle to go for at low to intermediate ELO…

The Burgundian don’t get sling techs earlier than other civs so this doesn’t really work

No but they can make much better use of the extended feudal time as they can go for castle techs if applicable…

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If you want to make burgundians work, you should full boom into sling into flemish revolution. It’s the only way to make them work in team games.
Sicilians have actually the potential to be a quite good pocket civ. Good boom, counter-resistent cav. I just bother a bit about their lategame.

At this stage I don’t even know what to say anymore lmao

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I like that idea. when i play in noob lobbies i always play support to make it sort of balanced, because support isnt really as strong as playing normally or “meta” if you will.
I usually play either of 2 support strategies:

  1. go cumans → fast feudal and build hella walls → build second TC and market and get eco upgrades → dont make military, dont go up to castle just keep in feudal and keep making vils and sling all the excess resources to your allies.
    If your allies are at least good enough to know what to do with extra resources, that will give them a pretty good advantage over their opponents, often enough to effectively win a 3v4.
    2.go spanish → fast castle into double monastery → get a stable for bloodlines and husbandry and get sanctity and frevor at the monasteries, then mass produce missionaries and follow your allies’ military units to heal them with your missionaries. → later in imp start trading early and go into a full spanish trade cart gold boom and sling the gold to your allies. this is gonna be at a point in the game, where gold starts running dry and the gold is gonna help them immensely, so they dont have to invest so much into making trade carts.

Other things you can do to support your team are

  • building outposts all over the map so your team gets vision

  • getting relics with monks and putting them into your allies’ monasteries, especially if you have a lithuanian on the team

  • making one huge stone wall through the whole map that protects your whole team. (works best as chinese)

But you guys are talking about slinging, that is good and all but I mean with techs and bonuses, not only sling, I think any civ can sling… The thing is the overall package probably without including the sling stuff. Like I said, Techs and team bonus, etc…

The thing is it depends on who your teamed with.
Cummins have mercenaries
Italians Condottiero
Burber genitorers
Sicilians give gold for military units
Persians knights get +2 against archers
Sacrans +2arxhee attack against building
Spanish +25% trade gold
Vietnamese youll know where enemy tcs are
Aztec +33% relic gold.

So maybe a lithuanian, aztec, Persian build would be cool. Give the relics to the lith so he can get bonus damage and make loads of knights and letis while the persain slings and aztec builds trash to counter. I dont know. Just kinda making it up right now.

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There is a very stabilished meta on team games. Unless you going to play against ai with your friends, better to stick with the meta.
Nobody likes to play with a guy making a snowflake build next to you xD

Bro, I know, I’m just asking which one would that civ be, not saying it’s the new meta, or we like to camp, just asking.

Another strat that also works on 2k+ Teamgames is the Teuton farm sling.
If you build 10 teuton Farms at your teammates TC you spend 370wood. If you want to sling them the same amount of resources in the feudal age you have to pay 780wood.
This works on Arena if you want to give your Teammate a headstart when he is doing an aggressive castle rush strategy while you have some time to boom.

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As many people stated here, there is no such thing as support in aoe2. Better support you can give to your allies is play as huns pocket and spam a hell lot of knights. xD

It’s not meta… But to fit the OP’s requests…

You have the healer civs things like faster healing monks, further healing monks, more resilient monks. Byzantines, Teutons, aztecs

“ranged support” civs…Cheaper siege, better siege, longer range siege.slavs, celts, Koreans.

Koreans could also just go around buildings towers and longer range onagers.

Byzantines could leave all the gold and stone to allies, only produce trash and monks to heal the allies’ power units. As well as micro managing vils to repair siege.

Of course none of this is meta, but if you really want to play as a “support civ”, and don’t consider archer civs as ranged support civs…

Obviously you’ve heard it already, but the concept of support like in Overwatch doesn’t exist. But I think your question is still valid, there are definitely some civs that take more “supportive” rolls (obviously not full no millitary).

I’d say Spanish as others have. That trade bonus is just so good. And even fielding 40 conqs that you hit and run with is a huge benefit to the team. You’ll be using those conqs to hit and run, and hopefully have an ally tanking damage in front of them, meanwhile full trade carts behind and sling gold to your allies. Theoretically you won’t be losing many conqs, while also making it hard for the enemy to push your ally since conqs have high damage output.

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Ig if your friends don’t like scouting play Vietnamese so that you can ping them the enemy location.