Changing the meta

[Pulikesi25]

@Davyman3583

I loaded up 3 arabia gens and to get full wall with closest woodlines I needed 55-60 palisades. Walling smaller to tc in front was 45-50.

That’s like super greedy walls. Walls are obviously closer to tc except probably one side which is a small gap between 2 forests or runs till edge of the map. And you’ll have a few military buildings as a part of the walls.
I’m not claiming you can make huge walls and stay inside that till castle age without any military. But with closer walls and a few feudal army, you can hit castle age with very little investment into military. And that’s more rewarding compared to an opponent who does a heavy feudal.

@Davyman3583

In that case you can keep attacking from different angles, have more efficient eco behind and have competitive castle age time. I don’t see the problem here. Early walling is a heavy investment and you take the appropriate strategy decisions after that. And it’s not like there isn’t any aggressive potential. Especially if there is forward stone you can keep harrassing that.

This is once again part of the castle age meta. I’m not claiming that its impossible to do any sort of damage with feudal army. You can do damage if opponent tries to do greedy walls and straight castle age. The point is you have to do these 19 pop, 18 pop build orders to hit early, then wall yourself and get a competitive CASTLE AGE time. Once opponent gets some feudal army themselves, its not a good decision to invest more into feudal military and break in even if you did some damage with your initial army. Civs like Magyars , Bulgarians, Cumans have bonuses which are strong for such extended feudal age play and that’s their strength. And that type of extended feudal age play is not feasible with the wall and defensive feudal into 20-23 min castle age meta.
And in this type of meta, obviously people don’t try to fully wall far from tc in dark age but rather along the side closer to the opponent and maybe from the wood to the edge of the map if that’s a small wall thereby limiting the number of areas to get hit. Eventually a few mins into the feudal there’s a range, blacksmith, a couple of houses and a bunch of palisade walls closing the remaining space and that’s it, its time for eco and castle age.

@MatCauthon3

So yeah. Fyi arbs have a training time of 27 seconds. Not sure where you get 30 seconds from.

You’re right and apparently archer training time is already 35 seconds , I’ll edit the post.

[Pulikesi25]

@MatCauthon3

And imagine how much better they will be with dark age (3 seconds more) and feudal walling (1 second) taking longer and palisades having less armor, as well as men st arms dealing an extra damage to buildings baseline ln top of that.

Not buildings, just walls and houses.

@MatCauthon3

You dont buff an already good unit 5 ways.

Squires is from castle age. So man-at-arms are just buffed in 1 way. They can break houses and walls, enter sooner and cause more idle time.

[MatCauthon3]

@Pulikesi25

Not buildings, just walls and houses.

and how do you plan on doing that? seeing as houses have 2 armor classes, standard bldg and bldg. walls have 3. bldg, standard bldg, and wall and gate.

@Pulikesi25

So man-at-arms are just buffed in 1 way.

false - longer build time for walls is a buff for them. (less likely to be walled out, and slower walling while they are in your base)
lower base armor is a buff for men at arms. (more damage done to walls due to lower armor)
increased damage vs buildings is a buff for them. (straight forward, even more damage done to the walls and houses)
houses have lower HP, that is a buff for them. (less hp to have chew threw).

that’s 4 different buffs that all affect the militia line.

[Pulikesi25]

@MatCauthon3

false - longer build time for walls is a buff for them. (less likely to be walled out, and slower walling while they are in your base)
lower base armor is a buff for men at arms. (more damage done to walls due to lower armor)

@MatCauthon3

houses have lower HP, that is a buff for them. (less hp to have chew threw).

these aren’t man-at-arm specific but rather generic to all feudal aggression. Scouts, straight archer, spear-skirm-towers all these rushes will benefit from those changes.

@MatCauthon3

increased damage vs buildings is a buff for them

This is the only buff specific to man-at-arms.

[MatCauthon3]

@Pulikesi25

these aren’t man-at-arm specific but rather generic to all feudal aggression. Scouts, straight archer, spear-skirm-towers all these rushes will benefit from those changes

Doesn’t matter. It still makes them stronger. And men at arms, as the one who hits earlirst and specifically has bonuses against buildings will benefit the most