Wanted to hear people’s thoughts on dealing with mass lancer runbys. I play predominately large team games and late game inevitably there are a few enemies constantly trying to run lancers by for a landmark snipe or just disrupt eco. I always have at least one landmark separate and stone-walled off to avoid snipes, and try to spam springwald towers around the base. However, it never seems to punish the lancer mass too much. Even with over a dozen towers and a keep or two contributing rounds and additional troops chasing, they are still quite able to snipe several buildings and disrupt eco. Certainly I can mitigate the damage, but it never feels like I can shut them down as much as I should. Any thoughts on how to do so?
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You need walls.
Once you get to a certain point in the game you need to have walls. Obviously stone walls are better but even if they are palisade walls, it’s still better than just have units freely walking into your base and gives you some time to react to the raids.
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Walls are useful but trying to keep the entire map sealed, when cover and buildings get in the way, overchops happen, and the enemy just needs one bombard somewhere on the periphery is rough.
Yeah, I understand that, but it is still way better than not using them at all. They will buy you time for you to react though.
If you are moving to another ressource point, feel that some area is weak or unprotected then you have to use walls.
Another way to deal with runbys is going for one yourself. You know his army wont be on his base after all, this is easier to do in 1v1 but can definitely be done in team games too.
build towers with bombards
Are the bombards worth it over more springs? Seem much more expensive for not much more dmg.
Lancers are very expensive and cant directly confront a spear mass. You should never chase knights with spears. Get stone walls as soon as possible. And lastly this is most important. You need to raid the opponent. They will need to create archers or any other composition to counter your spears + whatever (maa/archers) comp. And their entire knight mass is not very effective until they get rid of so many spears. This is trap that french mostly fall in. They make knights but end up being unable to defend base and lose in feudal. Also castle and imperial age spears are too effective against knights.
Lastly you don’t wanna take game too late game. If opponent can start trading or have gold supply from relics/sacred sites and can constantly produce knights. At max pop his units will beat any of your army composition, as knights are most population efficient.
The biggest issue right now is that most allowed maps are open. Its hard to wall, especially stone wall early in game. And second English farm bonus is broken. All you need is gold to make endless knight. If english is going for eco its not possible to raid them. Compared to english any other civ if it goes for farms this early (even if with english discount) they won’t wont be able to defend in feudal. English villagers can counter spears and they already have archers. MAA die from their TC.
The main issue is english TC and villagers which makes their base impossible to raid to prevent them from getting eco boost.
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