I dont think if two top Players where one would use this strategy would ever make it viable. You basiscly Always Set yourself behind the player who Booms freely without any defense. Top Players are masters of greed, defending with as little units as possible and getting max value Out of the Units they have.
If this would be the best way to Play defencive, i think the Players that are around for many many years would have figured it Out.
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Selecting one player out of any number of players who use it, even if he happens to be the only one, will draw misinformation by looking at that playerās ability to pull it off and it being imperfect in the way that things are done.
Iām obviously currently in the 1150 range, and thatās my current ability talking, not the strategy - my imagination says itās possible to do much better, and I believe it, so if I were to either improve greatly or someone else with greater skill and apm were to utilize it in a way I have not, then of course Iāll believe it, because I believe it can be done, and thatās the first step in taking something like this guideline of a strategy and running with it.
Thereās always a bigger fish regardless of which strategy you look at and judge by its lesser users.
Much of my current flaws reside in my ability to understand the opponentsā flow and making the correct decision to break it or surpass it based on the situation, which is currently minimal and can be vastly improved on, and thatās what I mainly lack, apm aside, which stands to be another place I lack, though I do improve my apm by practicing my hotkeys to be perfect for my memory the draw on hopefully with enough speed to be āquick enoughā yet accurate to a T.
My flaws are not the strategiesā flaws, they are my own - and rushes may be incorporated into the strategy - the lack of a rush on my part is a flaw of my own ability, not the strategy - it is as flexible as wanted, and that makes it possible to reach any elo based on the user overall skill.
Any strategy may be defeated with one that provides the most options.
The Teutonic Fortress strategy, which started with the Teutonic Healing Fortress Formation as the premise is the artform of combat I follow, and even though I created it, I realize I am no master of its strengths.
I am proud of the strategy, not myself. I present the Tools, but someone, be it a future version of me or someone greater, will take it and run with it.
Do I believe given the correct user and the correct understanding that someone utilizing these tools, which are as flexible as needed, may take down even viper? Yes.
Do I think I can given my current skill? No.
Any flaw perceived is due to my own, not the strategy, and even my guides are imperfect representations of the picture I see that is hard to grasp In the first place yet is beautiful enough that I chose to dedicate much time to its understanding. the current ones are outdated, and I really should bring an updated guide in at some point to draw a picture thatās just a little bit clearer of what I see as I attempt to see clearer into its frame myself.
Another way to look at it is this- could viper defeat viper if viper used this strategy, which is a guideline and variable in its usage to be as flexible as viper needs given a mastered understanding of it with proper practice? I believe itās most certainly possible. and even if viper defeats viper only once out of 1000 times, then that proves the premise of the strategy being capable of taking on top opponents such as viper at the very least. Will it improve viperās abilities overall? That is another question, and one I would be interested in, but itās possible that anything for or against is possible.
And would future viper defeat past viper, given time, regardless of strategy, yes.
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Your strategy loses to such a wide variety of meta strats that no, it would not be possible to beat the Viper with it. Even if the Snake train specifically for this strat for one year, he would 100% not be able to beat anyone in tournament with it, probably not even high ladder.
You go up with what? 25 vills? You are literally dead to a fast up time for man at arms - archers or straight archers. If someone knows that thing is coming, he can just fast castle in your face, do a small boom with three tcs and kill you with an arbalest timing. Your build dies to fast imp even on arabia, where the strat is the weakest.
By all means, you enjoy and you are proud of your strategy, so you should have fun and play it, but you should also know that it has incredible evident weaknesses
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To note, itās actually at its strongest on Arabia, or more preferably runestonesā generation of it. Itās great when the opponent actually attempts to raid. Itās good if not, but itās always preferable when the opponent puts in the res and delays their timings.
That being said, yeah - a very quick fast imp is for sure hard for me to counter, but that is not a strategy flaw, itās a flow reading and action taking flaw, a personal one.
From what I gather, it just looks like an open map variation of a lot of turtle and boom strats that have been common among beginners since at least 2003. I myself used to enjoy Korean turtling with towers/mangos on closed maps, or even trying stuff like War Wagon +Monks + Mangos or BBC in box formation on open maps, but the ācoolness factorā of such things far exceeds their viability when you get even semi-competitive.
On the one hand this comes across as sort of a compliment, as those are all good things, on the other hand, it is pretty crippling to the idea that the strat itself is any good competitively, as it seems to imply that superiority in every other aspect is required to make it work. Another way of putting this is that this strat does not give you a competitive advantage; on the contrary, playing like this is a handicap outside of the lower elos.
I agree. I donāt want to be the fun police, and I think thereās the occasional place for silly strats, or focus on playstyles that work at low Elos (T90ās regular and low elo āLegendsā series being good examples if youāre into that sort of thing.) But when one-tricking a variation of a common noob strat is fully the basis of your playstyle, persona, and so many of your posts, I seem to catch a whiff of spam. (Although this thread gets a pass in that regard since it was made by someone else).
Man, I feel like I just walked into an Anime scene.
He was talking about Fast Imp, which is much weaker/easier to punish on Arabia than say, Arena. And TBF if the enemy can get away unpunished going FI on an open map, he can get away with a lot of things.
Anyway, to end on a semi-positive note, I think this strat is a decent candidate for a pro troll series. I really enjoyed the few āViper Trollsā videos he made, as itās awesome to see a niche or meme strat executed by a master of the game. If Viper plays this strat, yes, I would watch it (hard pass on any content from someone called āPoop Lordā though). Honestly I wish Vipy would bring that series back, as getting new Mastapizzas from him would be a lot more interesting than watching him play campaigns.
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And your reason for this post is then what? An attempt at bullying? Honestly childish.
according to the most recent video iāve seen, 24 villagers. and some of those are already mining stone, not to mention hunting deer without a mill or tc nearby and the plethora of dark age farms.
so yeah. pretty much any normal feudal play is absolutely going to shred his strategy.
I think if Healfortress wantās his strategy to actually work (and to be frank, i donāt think the TCs around a castle will EVER work at a high level), heās going to need to play more agro into map control and then slow the game down from there.
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At that point why would you WANT to slow the game down and give your opponent a chance to catch up? If the aggro works and cripples you enemy you should really push it and not back off so you could boom up.
Iām speaking from the perspective of Heals wanting to play defensive grind it out games at any sort of competitive level.
And i wasnāt exactly talking about crippling your opponent, go agro, get map control, keep your opponent on his side of the field, and setup behind it.
and despite his claims, Heal isnāt the originator of this strategy either. about the only thing that i could see being Originally his, is the whole TCs built around the castle thingā¦
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This is literally the only thing that his fine from a competitive perspective and that happens quite often
with half your food villagers?
Man, this is just negative and unproductive. Weāve been over this ground more than enough, and itās pretty clear where people stand. Why not let this thread sink into the abyss, and hope it leaves no heirs.
Iād be fine with that until healfart comes back with a new set of threads promoting turtle bonuses. If thatās the case they come back with more garrison rehash bonuses I will say he was warned to learn to play better.
if you place turtling under a broad spectrum, sure - but the key part Iāve put in without really copying another is the teutonic healing fortress formation(29 teuts, 20 hands, 11 monks, which I updated from my previous numbers of 29,21,11, among other number variations)(and Iāve posted about it over the years under numerous accounts on different parts of the aoe 2 websites) which was the first thing I really started with, after that I started playing around with the army comps in general which is normal, the second thing was the castle and tc formations, and lastly was my version of small wall defense+ tower, which I can understand if someone else came up with that first, Iām just doing what I can to streamline my gameplay from beginning to end. the only two things I can see as mine are the formations and tc + castle formations. that being said, I didnāt take from anyone else in how I do my walls in feudal age, at least not from examples, though I did start walling my berries after I saw viper do something similar. full walls Iāve tried to stay away from, though I am considering later full or semi full stone walls atm sometime in castle age.
another part is the towers around the tc which I havenāt had out into a video yet, but thatās for special use cases, such as mass archers rushing in within feudal. that being said, I am considering more unit options such as skirms or pikes based on the situation, it will be a bit hard to figure out which ways I can improve my habits rather than fall into a bad habit even if itās for the sake of broadening my personal ātech treeā of reactionary and actionary actions based on the situation.
you could say I am being a little stagnant and I should pick up the pace of my learning it, but Iām trying to be careful to learn what makes sense perfectly rather than push myself to throw away all structure for the sake of
possibly quick progress.
another thing would be my personal hotkeys, but thatās besides the game.
Nah. What youre doing rhere with your healing a huge expensive army is not new. Heck one of the barbarossa campaigns literally gives you an army just like that, with the whole goal being smart use of your troops to cover weaknesses and conserve your army for the long haul
Furthermore towering strategically and small walls as you call them are not new either
Literally the only thing you do that i havent seen elsewhere is the castle with tcs around it.
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call it a difference of opinion then - the 29 teutonic knight, 20 hand canons, 11 monks square formation Iāve been proud of and brought up well before my castles and tc formation, years before then. the castle and tc formation is a newer addition within the recent few years. (previously 29,21,10) and tbh, Iāve yet to play much of the Barbarossa campaign. and sure, having a monk or even a good many around the same number or more may not be a new thing, but Iāve certainly streamlined the use of such for myself without much if any outside influence or copying.
I built the Teutonic healing fortress formation off of the concept of the William Wallace learning campaignās line of defending monks, nothing else really came to mind when I went about it, I was just annoyed with losing monks and wanted to find the key numbers needed to properly defend the monks without enemy units just going right through the formation āwallsā or otherwise as well as to ensure the formation still had some dps even if it was unmoving.
I spent hours playing in the editor just finding the correct numbers and testing them out to get the correct formation, and when I found it, I was truly happy.
and then I went about testing it with other civs, such as the spanish with their paladins, conqs and missionaries, and incas with their kamayuks and slingers/arbs/monks or italians with their genoese crossbows, hand canons and monks - etc. Iāve had so much fun with these concepts over the last 10 or so years,itās the reason I named my account āTeutonic Healing Fortressā and only recently upon making the defensive eco a focus and starting a clan that I changed it to ā[Heals] Teutonic Fortressā'.
The square formation was always my focus for the greater part of the decade.
Iāve held a happy child-like giddiness towards it for a long while.
as of late, itās become a tool I use from time to time based on the situation if it calls for it, because in my experience there are times where I wonāt win without it. every strategy is a tool for a certain situation, and I intend to grow this one to counter as many strategies as possible under one umbrella using multiple methods, or call it a skill tree of actions to take based on what happens if you will.
the Teutonic Healing Fortress formation has taken the sidelines, but make no mistake; it is still a valuable tool I use when it is called for.
much like a recent tool Iāve started using to counter siege engine balls -
Teutonic knights (or another tanky unit) spam the select idle military hotkey in a slight span of directions in a short distance behind the general area of the target scorpion/onager formation and repeatedly spam units to go in a hellzone grenade formation around it, and once the units have surrounded or have started to surround the siege units, snipe them with minimal damage to your units.
And how are you going to have the time to get this set up when the factor of an enemy is present against a human? Please show this working!!
With 3/4 yes, half sounds like a bit of an overkill
I think the reason why this strategy is hard to pull off becauase the natural of this game that defending is harder than offending in almost all situation in Dark Age, Feudal Age and Imperial Age, in terms of resource and required time to react. (I can think of some exception like Spanish Cannon Galleon but out of topic)
One of the exception is Castle Age Castle which only need 650 stone and opponent in same age cannot use lesser resource to destroy a castle. Not to mention Teutons have free Murder Holes and Herbal Medicine which make it even harder to be destoryed. Three rams are already 705 resource and 200 resource for Siege Workshop and other unit to protect the ram from villagers which will also die to Murder Holes.
Therefore, given the same skill level of two players, this strategy work very well in Castle Age if you can bait your opponent to commit on aggressive and then you build a castle to protect everything from it. Since your opponent already commit too much on it, his blooming will slower than you and you can take this advantage to win this game afterward.
Like all other strategy that works and does not work in different scenario, it is actually not true to consider this strategy as ādoesnāt work at allā or āweakā . It is off-meta because the current meta is too greedy and in Dark Age and Feudal Age you need to spend more res to defend compare to the offend side.
I think this strategy can be viable via changing your player name like ā8 min Feudal Scoutā or āAre you ready for Teutons TC drushā and insist this point in game chat to fool your opponent that you are going for early aggression to make them go for defending side. Then you FC into Castle Age and tell your opponent that you are actually go for bloom to bait, and use this strategy and then bloom and get advantage to win this game. Just like the previous āfirst time random Malay Elephant rushā strategy that does work every single time until T90 exposed it. Use all the tool you can use to get to the point that your strategy shine is the key point of RTS
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