I had a match with my former highschool friend who also plays AoE2.
Since he knows I am playing as Burgundians, he chose Saracens! I realized I should have picked Franks instead.
I tried to raid him with Scouts and into Knights to slow his economy, and he already had camels in his base, so I didn’t do that much damage to his economy. I lost some units in the process so I went back to focus on booming with my Burgundian economic bonuses.
When imperial age came, my friend sent Mamelukes and Camels at me, and I also reserved manyCavaliers and Coustilliers. I was able to hold them off, but at the cost of most of my army. Why? Camels eat cavalry!
Fortunately, my friend was too focused on attacking me so I made a second base near his and made Paladins to and BBC to knock him out.
I’ve played as Franks vs Saracens before and I had no real problems, but Burgundians against Saracens is no easy task, because Burgundian paladins are not as great as Frank ones, since not only they don’t have Bloodlines, they don’t have any other bonus aside their easier Paladin access.
Are Saracens always bad matchup for Burgs?
Sounds like you need to be using Halberdiers more. Halb Coustillier maybe. I’d expect Franks to be worse against Saracens though, their eco is weaker, and they’re even more cav-reliant.
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A civ doesn’t exhaust itself in its main go-to unit.
In case of cavalry civs going vs Camel civs, Knight + Pikeman, Knight + Monk, full boom with few pikes to force him to make a secondary unit (Camels are bad at attacking) are all possible starts you could have gone for.
I also doubt that Franks Paladins will carry in the situation where Burgundian Paladin won’t. The 2 units behave about the same when it comes to facing Camel civs, i.e. they lose.
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Yes it is bad for low elo players because their mameluke can deny all units other than skims of Burgs. The situation will change when you can take early advantage and start using monk or siege in castle age.
Historically this is accurate franks vs saracens in the holyland.
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I would try out Halb/Hand Cannon/BBC against that Saracen style. Sure, they could do an Arb switch, but that is costly and time consuming.
Low elo players don’t have the micro nor boom to actually keep up Mameluke production, so you can just spam Halberdiers into a Mameluke mass and be fine.
I think staying on Paladin and adding Halberdiers would’ve been enough for you - not sure if Coustillier are great here since Saracen player can just do Arbalest to deal with it, Coustillier are pretty fragile whereas Paladins can tank the shots thanks to higher armor.
Or maybe Halb + Hand Cannon/Skirmishers and BBC.
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