Poles don’t need halbs.
As others have mentioned Obuch and arb is really good. Even Obuch and skirm. Or Obuch and Winged hussar. Or obuch and seige ram. Or Winged hussar and arb. Full cheap knights and skirm.
They have a lot of viable options.
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Against cav civs go Obuch, pike and hussar. Or Obuch and arb ball.
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I play multiplayer with a fairly high elo and take it from me, Poles don’t need halb. There are other factors besides tech tree that counts in winning game. And actually those things count more. Eco, raiding, power spikes etc
There are many things that you can do vs heavy cavalry civs. Play archers, get to early imp death ball and push him early imp before he gets his mass heavy cavalry. Transitioning into Winged hussar for the frontline. Arb hussar composition is very strong and what civs like Italians rely on most of the time already. (Italians also don’t get halbs and they don’t always go genoese crossbows since they are harder to mass than regular arbs) but I haven’t heard of Italians struggling for lack of halb
You can also drop a fast castle and match your cav opponent with your own cheaper knights in castle age. They are fully upgradable in castle age and still good in early imperial.
If the quality is not the best make use of quantity. Think goths. And poles have excellent eco for the spam.
Last point is pikes still hold up well vs enemy cavalry. With defensive castles, vils in Tc cover and pikes in base you can adequately defend against even heavy cav raids while your great eco hussar spam should be able to raid your enemy better.
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Yea, we once had a high elo player here spamming his brillant balance suggestions that some were ok but all were trash, at some point the guy once was banned use alt accounts.
So yea I respect that, but Poles lack answer to elephants.
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If theres a single unit against the pike to halb upgrade doesnt matter that much that is elephants.
And Poles still have good monks
Is Equalizer even high elo? lol
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Yea look at his profile XD
https://www.aoe2insights.com/user/1535618/
Saracen picker so expected Zealotry towards them and Zakat…
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Disagree. Teching into Obuch and Arbalesters at the same time to be able to counter 1 opposing unit type requires a ton of resources.
Unless you’re floating in gold it isn’t feasible because both units cost gold too.
Mining both stone and gold with multiple villagers will consequently either limit your food or wood income.
The Folwark is a bit overrated as you’re either prone to raids or must place them un-economically next to Town Centers for protection, which means an unnecessary wood expense.
The opponent can comfortably go for Onagers or Scorpions to destroy this whole army with ease.
In which case you’d be forced to research all required for Light Cavalry which you shouldn’t be able to afford by then.
People still think the Poles’ Knight spam is comparable to Goth Infantry spam. You forget that Goths get Huskarls which have next to no counters if mixed with Halberdiers (can only think of Cataphracts, maybe HCs), an overall Infantry discount that requires no Castle as well as research time and cost unlike Szlachta Privileges, but most importantly Anarchy combined with Perfusion.
Apart from all that the Goths’ spam strategy is only really viable in low elo matches.
Wrong. Just completely wrong.
That’s coming from an 700 elo guy?
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I initially thought that Poles NEED Halberdier, but after playing them for a while, I think their tech tree is good enough. Winged Hussar with Trample Damage mixed with basically fully upgraded Arbalest can outgrind most gold-based comps, you just have to set your eco right right it.
As for Camels, it is not a very strong unit at fighting infantry (unlike Cavalier/Paladin), so Pikeman should still do the trick. Just don’t have full cavalry-based army if opponent goes full Camel/Heavy Camel, which, Poles or not, you should be doing anyway. Even Frank Paladin loses equal numbers battle to Heavy Camel for example so it’s not a problem of Poles not being good enough, it’s a problem of opponent having counter units.
What keeps Poles alive in late game is not a specific fully upgraded unit, it’s the fact that they can do very broad compositions. Arbalest to counter Pikeman/Camel, Lechitic Legacy Winged Hussar to counter blobbed up elite Knights (here you will likely lose, but only slightly and you are trading trash for gold units anyway), Bombard Cannon to kill Castles etc.
Their tech tree is fine, if anything their transitions are a bit awkward in Imp so you need to be an advanced player to not fall behind, but even with 2+2 pierce armor, Winged Hussar is good enough when you get Trample damage tech.
In general, I’m glad the devs gave us 2 civs which feel strong even in Imp but don’t have a default go-to comp such as halb + arbalest + treb or Paladin + scorp + BBC.
The compositions of Poles and Bohemians are awkward in Imp in the sense that you might have to juggle 4+ unit types in Imp, but discounts and UTs are there to make these comps worth it. For example, Bohemians have food-based Monk and +25% dmg on Halb, while Poles have cheap Cavalier, Trample damage Hussar and good Arbalest and BBC.
I see Poles struggling vs a couple specific civs, like Sicilians with UT Cavalier, or Teutons (only real counter to extra melee armor Knights and infantry is Obuch), but it’s fine for a civ to have bad matchups. Meso civs, for example, struggle vs Bohemians too. Mongols can struggle vs e.g. Byzantines or Lithuanians.
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Tbh I think he means that the strat is still strong if you get to late game.
What are you even talking about? 11
Don’t think so, Poles should struggle more against archer civs I think. Against cav the lack of the last armor shouldn’t have that big of an impact.
But ofc there are more aspects to this. But I think poles should be better against cav civs than archer civs.
it’s more about not having Halberdier vs cav civs, because vs cav civs, the only way to beat say a blob of 40 FU Paladins/Sicilian Hauberk Cavalier is either Knight line with comparable upgrades/tech (and Poles don’t have that), OR equal-ish numbers of Halberdiers (which lose to Paladin 40 v 40, say, but then u have like 20 Paladin left with 2/3 HP which you finish off with reinforcements of Halb/tech transition into Winged Hussar). Now, I don’t know how armor works va Trample damage, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Hauberk/Teuton Paladin also decreased the splash damage component significantly compared to a generic Cavalier/Paladin.
Vs a civ like Teutons, I think your main unit as Poles should be Archer line and complement with whatever is needed.
Vs Archer civs, you still have Skirmishers, even missing the last armor you trade positively resource-wise and what you lose in terms of armor on Winged Hussar you gain with the Team Bonus (+1 attack Vs Archers) AND Trample damage, basically yes, Arbalest demolishes you as you close the gap, but once the gap is closed you do Paladin level of damage with a 80f unit AND you get Trample damage on adjacent units, in short, given enough numbers, Scout line is still a good counter to archers even lacking the last armor just because in melee the performance is so superior to that of a generic FU Hussar (13 damage +1 from Team Bonus + iirc 5 Trample damage vs 11 damage of FU Hussar)
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If Poles need something, it’s probably last archer armor. No Plate Barding, Skirms and Arbs loosing 1v1 vs FU arbs, meh Onagers… That’s quite an awkward Endgame Vs archer civ.
And TB does not make any difference Vs FU arbs (bar Italians’).
Trample damages isn’t 5, it’s 11/3 vs FU arbs.
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Skirms don’t lose vs FU Arb, even lacking the last armor. Skirm from the top of my head does 3+4+4 Bonus, after armor that’s 3+4 = 7, Arbalest vs Polish Skirm does 4 damage, even taking into account 3 vs 2 seconds firerates, the Skirmisher comes out on top because the normalized, per-second DPS is 7/3 in one case and 4/2 in the other, or 2.33 vs 2. The Skirmisher has 5 less HP (12.5% less than Arbalest), but 15% more damage after armor and firerate are taken into account, and does so while costing 10 resources less too. The time to kill is 6 shots for Skirmisher or 18s vs 9 shots for Arbalest or also 18s. So it’s an even-ish trade where who lands the first shot wins and Arbalest costs 10 resources more and it’s a gold unit.
Winged Hussar with Trample Damage and the Team Bonus is also a good counter to Archers. Without even taking into account the Trample damage part, which vs clumped up Arbalest is SIGNIFICANT, you do 13 + 1 from Team Bonus damage. That’s 3 more than a generic, FU Hussar. Notably vs FU Arbalest you kill in 4 hits instead of the 5 required from a generic FU Hussar. But again, remember there is Trample damage also which I haven’t included in the calculation.
Skirms do 3+4-4+4 = 7 damages => 6 hits
Archers do 4 damages. => 9 hits
RoF is 1.7s Vs 3s due to thumb ring.
So on paper Arbs win 1v1.There might be other factors (overkill, initial hit), but it’s overall so close I don’t call it a true counter.
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skirms benefit from Thumb Ring also.
Furthermore, you can mix your own Arbs as the Poles too. The last Archer armor is normally taken in mid-Imp and not considered a priority tech. Or you can take the fight vs Arbalest in Castle Age.
More generally, Poles being inefficient in early Imp is probably intended. That’s like Persians not having anything better than Longswords vs Eagle civs, or Eagle civs not having anything vs Bohemians early Handcannons. It’s a slight gap but not unbearable, Poles still can do their own Arbalest, spam Castles/building walls or wait to mass Winged Hussar and overwhelm the Arbalest blob, or even try to all-in Castle Age where late Castle they get a BIG power spike with cheap Knights. All are viable counters, and even the ‘default’ one, Skirmisher, by my math above trades about 1:1 while costing 10 resources less so you are technically still trading cost-efficiently, though not by as much as you would like to.
No they don’t. More precisely, they do benefit from 100% accuracy, but not from Rate of Fire increase.
Still, Skirms probably work vs arbs, at least gold efficiently. But they’re a pretty mediocre counter, which is my point. And I was just speaking about standard FU Arbs, not even talking about stuff like Ethiopians Arbs…
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The cold cost of one obuch and arb combined os still lower than that of a cavalier. So yeah obviously it requires quite some gold but in contrast to other possible double gold compositions this one is actually able to be pulled off. Also the stone mining generating gold helps here.
Well no this is goths best strat on any level and if you get to it that’s extremely strong on any level. Thing is just the higher the level the better people are at preventing goths to reach the point where they can use it.
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