How do you use cav archers?

I have a 100% lose streak whenever i go cav archers

I have over 1000s of hours in this game but I almost never go cav archers. I mostly play arena anyway but since DE im forced to play all these maps so i started experimenting with new units. I just played a Mongols mirror in Steppe where i went cav archers and mangonels and he went knights and skirms! I took full map control in feudal. I hunted most of the deer. I spent my extra resources getting all 6 of the cav archer upgrades. Thats freaking 6 upgrades you need so i expect to destroy knights after all that. He simply just went knights and skirms. I couldnt hit and run his knights cuz instead of chasing my units he went straight for my forward buildings and then my eco and whenever i attempted to engage in a fight his units melted half my army in 10 seconds my useless expensive cav archeres did NOTHING they would lose like 10 cav archers and kill 1 knight. I even had a way bigger numbers advantage at first and still couldnt defend my forward buildings. I had more numbers but he destroyed me. Its so hard to hit and run when he is going straight for my eco. Are cav archers garbage? Are they only good in post imp with 1000s of resources worth of upgrades??

I don’t know if it can help but in this game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imQ3pKpulYk&t=950s Tatoh goes cav archer in an Italian mirror (wich is quite risky since not only they get no Parthian tactics but no heavy upgrade as well) and he manages to win vs knight spam even though he gets Thumb ring late. In your situation, I guess you could have invested in pikes/camels and used them to defend while you raided his base.

  1. Use mobility: raid enemy eco and run when he comes to you (especially when the defender has slower defense units like archers and skirms).
  2. They should be the second line in larger fights, since you don’t stop a mass of heavy cavalry with them. Put a meat shield in front, can be camels, pikes or light cavalry for example. Keep throwing cheap units at the front line while keeping the cav archers alive behind it.

Cavalry archers might be a bit harder to use in practice indeed, I think because you must be very actively running around with them for them to shine and they are worse than the archer line for defending a position. In the original AoE II they costed 70 gold a piece, the gold cost was reduced later because they were underused. We still often don’t see them, except from Huns and Mongols. DE tried to bring them back in the picture a bit more with the new civilizations. I think they shine more in a bit lower numbers in early castle age with the raiding potential and being easier to produce while also booming up, compared to knights. In large numbers and well upgraded, a mass of knights becomes more potent, by that time you should have more than just cavalry archers to defend against it.

Ok ill watch that game sounds like he won cuz he is Tatoh but ill look into it. But yeah I did make camels and still lost they werent enough to put up with the spam of skirms

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I couldnt raid his eco he was fully walled with multiple layers. I thought that since I basically had him trapped in the corner of the map ill just hunt all the deer on steppe and destroy him with my cav archers when we get to imp but he came out with knights and skirms like a death ball killing all my forward buildings and eventually dropping a castle on my base and hitting imp while i was still trying to mass camels to help my cav archers. Seems like they are only good if you opponent doesnt wall and if he chases you instead of attacking buildings and stuff. So basically they suck?

Cav archer’s are great versus melee units when grouped together, on a stand ground, and patrolling or attack moving towards the enemy - making sure to stop the units just as they start to stack on each other (with a little practice it get easier).

The key during these raids is to split your Cav army into 70 / 30 ratio’s, where the 70 defend your economy and the 30 attack defenseless enemy woodlines and gold.

The moment the opponent starts to focus the archers, you pull them back and together to complete the step above.

PS: Care on stacking archer units - one good onager shot does massive damage.

And Turks

This is actually a very good way to do that.
You don’t use CA on Knight-Line without a meat shield usually.

Well, I’m sure TaToH wasn’t born an AOE2 pro.

Ok I’m aware it has been pulled off by the Viper but in this game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv_Rsmc6B3w) he uses Khmer cav archers and get the win thx to the surprise effect (because you would’nt expect a no-thumb ring civ to use them)