Best civ in the very late game? Nearly, all gold mines are gone, if not totally gone. What civs do well when gold is a rare thing? In 1v1 setting.
Also: In team setting? Who works best in the very late game? (You could have made trade early to counter this in these long games) Granted, this is not always the case. But sometimes games, drag on, and guys with lots of trade carts can do well here.
I think Portuguese could be deadly with feitoria. Bombard towers, and not having to sell the market to get gold. Annoying wall spam, and bombard towers.
Persians. Both very strong Gold options with Trade (Full Stable, almost full Siege, plus Elephantos) and goldless options (FU Hussar, FU Halb, Skirm missig only Bracer, and Trashbow)
Hussars + Trashbow is much better than Hussar + Skirm. Persians also have FU Halb, and in addition their Skirms miss Bracer - and most of Skirm Damage is from bonus Damage, not from standard Pierce Damage. Yes, -1 range is hurting them, but there are many much worse Skirms in the game.
Assuming there’s no gold for either player either malay, cause 2handed swordsmen counter every trash unit or portugese, cause feitoria means more gold and depending on the stone price possibly even way more gold if you wanna sell it
So, best civ for trash wars? (Trash means not costing gold (or stone), for the uninitiated.)
This is going to depend who you’re up against. A civ with great hussars might still struggle against a civ with awesome halberdiers, for instance. But civs you could consider are:
Byzantines: Billed as the defensive (into very late game) civ by the original developers. They have a 25% discount on both skirmishers and halberdiers. Great buildings, which generally shred trash units if they survive the sieges of the regular midgame, and just allround a good tech tree for trash, missing only the final attack upgrade for halberdier and hussar (which is a big deal, but not big enough to make them anywhere near bad in this scenario).
Vietnamese: Have imperial skirmishers, which as archery range units benefit from their +20%HP bonus as well. They have halberdier but miss both hussar and the final melee attack upgrade. So they’re a bit of a one trick pony, but it’s a really good trick.
Berbers: They get elite genitour, discounted hussars and a full blacksmith. They’re only missing halberdier. You could argue they’re weak to enemy halberdiers, since genitours are mounted. But if that ever becomes a problem they can just make regular fully upgraded skirmishers too.
Persians: Kamandaran makes the Persian crossbows quite possibly the best trash unit in the game. They get the final stages of all three of the regular trash units as well, only missing the attack upgrade for the skirmishers (and for the crossbows obviously, but those are already great by the grace of not costing gold). And don’t forget their war elephants either. Yes, they cost as much gold as a knight does, but for the power they pack that is really cheap.
Malay: Forced Levy makes their two handed swordsmen trash units, thalassocracy turns their docks into defensive buildings that don’t cost stone and for the super super super late game they get infinite resources from their never ending fish traps. They even get discounted elephants. While Malay elephants are nothing special in regular games, they really don’t cost a lot of gold for the punch they pack.
Portuguese: All units cost less gold, feitorias slowly generate all resources, which is handy first for giving gold and stone and later in the super super super late game for getting you resources at all. Full blacksmith, only missing the hussar upgrade.
Mayans: They have 15% longer lasting resources so they’ll have to switch to trash units later or can mix in more siege with their trash. They get fully upgraded halberdiers and elite skirmishers, but are missing the scout line.
Magyars (almost forgot them, edited this in): Have a trash unique unit (after Corvinian Army), and a discount for the scout line. Only missing the final armor for the halberdier.
One of those eight is probably a good or the best pick in most trash war situations.
Aztecs might be worth considering too for their relic gold bonus, but to me it feels like they lack in their tech tree too much to be the greatest at trash wars. Elite skirmishers miss bracer, pikemen miss halberdier upgrade, scout line is missing entirely.
Both Scicilians and Burgundians get some extra trash war power too, but at the moment they’re probably overall just too underpowered to ever get to that point. Flemish Militia could become really good for this situation though with a little more finetuning.
For team games the answer is probably “any civ with fully upgraded paladin, arbalester, heavy cavalry archer or good unique unit, preferably with a Spanish ally”.
Except Portuguese never run out of resources, in the first place.
As long as even 1 Feitoria stands (and there are likely to be at laest 5, if Wood starts getting scarce in the map) Ports have infinite Gold units.
It is not even map-dependant, like Malay which needs some Water.
No gold? Magyars with Castles, Malay without Castles, Persians are a third ring.
There’s always going to be some light gold with relics and selling at market. Magyars have a HCA and solid trash (absurd with Huszar to deny minimal amounts of bought siege) so they can make use of the gold in the most efficient way possible in ultra-lategame, with Recurve HCA.
Malay don’t have a very pop-efficient gold unit to access in later trash fights, but having Arbalest as a gold outlet with 2h is very, very solid, no doubt one of the better two-part compositions that can be afforded with simple market abuse.
Persians have the trashbow but it’s going to struggle against enemy skirms and enemy non-trash units, and they don’t have an efficient unit to pump gold into. If you really consider it, all the units they can make with gold are either frontline units (which is a bad way to spend limited gold) or siege. Their trash composition is extremely good but I’d rather have the aformentioned.
This topic kind of makes me want to play a few matches with a post imperial start on maps with no gold or stone. That would result in a pretty different metagame.
yeah i quite regularly resign when the game reaches this level, regardless of whether i think i can win… its just super gross and hard boring
yeah they’re pretty good in that scenario but huszars are far more versatile and actually beat them cost effectively, just being throttled at the castle…
they are awesome, but i think one of the bigger issues is by that point of the game, food is usually the safest resource to attain, so skirms are actually cheaper than trash bows.
hussars will be trying to raid all over the place, disrupting wood lines a lot more than the disuption to farms imo (although definitely still a contender for the top spot)
I actually wonder how Teutons make here. TKs are the by far best trash counter in the game, even from a 17G/100F perspective.
Not that I mention Teutons to be the best trshwars civ, but they are certainly at least a honorable mention.
I like the list of panCalvus. Only berbers genitours aren’t convincing, they have probs vs the other other trash units. They are good vs many non-trash units from 17g/100f perspective, but are not good vs trash themselves. One reason why we don’t see them often. The other trash are a triangle but genitours are destroyed by light cav and receive bonus damage from both halbs and skirms.
The best trash unit is for sure magyar huszar. I think there is no doubt about that. Beating almost all other trash, also not as bad vs halbs as you may think, besides you still should avoid that engagement. What you fortunately can. They have exactly 2 unfavorable engagements from 17g/100f perspective, which are TK and Halbs. Absolutely broken trash units.
In the hidden cup finals, there were a match with a very late game. Stop reading if dont want spoilers.
Portuguese vs Vietnamese. In islands. Portuguese had 4 feitorias and water control (mass carabels). Vietnamese had map control (landed in enemy island, castle in neutral island), with light cav raiding. But eventually Vietnamese run out of gold, and called GG after losing their last trebuchet.
I think that if vietnamese had a bit better late game in water (i.e: better paper money), they would have been able to stop Portuguese). The match was pretty tense.
First there are the extreme Sitautions with basically 2 civs than can even keep playing:
No Wood left → portuguese
Land Map + No Wood left + save Ponds → Malay 2Handers
If there is plenty of wood then these 2 civs cant compete. Just cutting wood and seeling is much more beneficial than feitorias.
I would bet for magyar best late game civ then.
Cav Archers if kept alive are insane, with a hussar meatshield. THe raiding potential alone beats with its mobility malay and portuguese and other slow civs easily.
That would be because goth units aren’t very efficient and when all gold is gone its basically trash wars, which means you’re basically going to be pop capped or near it and unit efficiency matters a heck of a lot. with limited gold their champs are going to get wrecked by other civs options, and huskarls are dang near useless in a limited gold situation as well.