I am around 1300 elo, and I checked berbers is one of the best civs at my elo on 1v1 Arabia. It is very predictable that berbers is going into cavalry. Else it doesn’t have any bonuses. It is very usual for opponent to just go instant pikeman in castle age (pikeman upgrade is cheaper now btw), accompanied by some knights or mangonel or crossbow depending on the situation. I have played this civ a lot actually most of my 1v1s are using Berbers.
It is basically forcing me to give up the civ bonus.
I have several options.
Cav with croosbow/skirm. If I make cav, I have to do bloodline, husbandry, cav armour and attack, or at least some of them, then I can barely (never) afford archer upgrades, which means my crossbow/skirms are in low number, or poorly upgraded. They are not effective against pike+knight and they need a lot of micro unlike pikes.
Cav + scorpion. Scorpion doesn’t need that many upgrades, but it is expensive, difficult to use, and sometimes even die to pikemen, and can be sniped by cav easily unlike crossbows. Overall cav+Scorpion still die to pikes. (Unless I have a lot of scorps which is impossible)
Don’t make cav at all and go ranged unit or infantry in castle age, or use unupgraded cavs. I basically play a civ with no eco or military bonus at all. Will struggle vs some more well rounded civs with decent bonuses.
So why is berbers winrate high? How does it deal with mass pikes? Or is the civ so one dimensional on cavs that just supposed die to pikes? Btw don’t say hand cannons I am focused on castle age because if I don’t survive castle age there is no imp.
This is why you have genitours. They aren’t the strongest and do require some micro, but they can deal with pikes effectively, while not sacrificing mobility. Make a few (3-4) and micro them.
Berbers are good because of their early scout rushes and strong late game. Camel archers are a fantastic unit in the late game, and berbers have cheaper cavalry, allowing them to keep their cav spam going longer.
However, since the OP said they struggle with Scorpions (which I’d say are a better fit generally) I wouldn’t be surprised if microing genitours might also become a problem for them.
They might also be hard to afford in Castle Age while producing Knights, as they cost food. But as you said, even just a few to micro down enemy Pikemen should be good.
I think either pikes, genitours or elite skirms should be okay. For skirms you probably need the elite upgrade, and match the attack upgradevwith the pike armor.
For your knight upgrades, I think Husbandry and bloodlines are good. Then you match your opponent upgrades. You only really need armor when against range units. If you see he goes full pike, you can skip at least the 2nd cavalry armor.
And against full pikes, Berbers can probably go full knights and raid while avoiding fights when you are outnumbered. I think it is good for you to take a fight 10 knights vs 10 pikes if you see one.
You don’t have to open with scouts in feudal. Go straight archers play in Feudal or MAA into archers. This is good because enemy will be caught off guard as he will be expecting scouts vs Berbers. He may even waste resources on a few spearmen if you’re lucky and he hasn’t scouted your buildings. Be aggressive with your archers and enemy will then invest a lot of food into skirms. Meanwhile you should get up to castle age sooner, because unlike him, after fletching you won’t be spending food on anything but villagers. Click up to castle age and transition your economy into 2 or 3 stable knights. He will still be in feudal age with skirmishers and you should destroy him with cheap knights. He can’t afford to make spearmen because he needs to save up food to click up. So you have a small time window where you can snowball enough damage and break in before he gets to pikemen.
Alternatively you can go scouts into Knights + Longswords, since you will be on food+gold anyway for your knights and the attack upgrade from blacksmith benefits both units. Get Supplies and your Longswords should shred through pikes. Longswords get attack bonus vs. buildings too, so focus on taking out his barracks so he can’t keep up production.
If you like playing aggressive, then along with your cavalry, do your own pikes or do scorps+monks. And if your opponent did a lot of pikes right away, stop producing military units just make monks and defend. They wasted 240 resources + how many ever pikes they made on something that’s not useful if you don’t attack with knights. Take the economy lead and then transition into camel archers or add several stables after you hit 70+ vills.
It depends. You don’t need husbandry and armor if he only make pikes because pikes will kill your knight with 5 hits anyway with equal upgrades. You definitely have extra resources to add a few archers according to the situation.
No, I am assuming your opponent is not stupid.
Pike opening is usually not a thing because pikes can’t kill stuffs, he must push step by step with mangonel which will kill scorpion. You should make mangonel too if it is hard to snipe his mangonel with knights.
In high elo games , archer and cavalry are not limited to any civ, everybody will use archer or knight when they can take advantages. Your villager speed is already a good eco bonus because you can open with lame.
I know some civs got better eco bonus but why don’t you pick them instead of Berber ?
because Berber has the most cost effective knight and camel in castle age.
one option if you see your opponent go pikemen pro-actively one option is to just boom pikemen are terrible raiding units if they also boom you should have an advantage because you didn’t invest into an unnecessary counter unit. if they go fwd SW or crossbow you can go defensive SW if you trust your micro. if your opponent goes knights you can go monks or camels.
This is the second post by the user, so we cannot blame. But for the information @lilyjullet your solutions may be not enough because the author of this discussion is 1300 elo( It is very high compared to the beginner level)
Ok thanks for tbe replies I watched a few higher level game play with Berbers seems crossbow/skirm/genitours with only attack upgrade and cav with only armour+bloodline is the way to go. Skipping husbandry seems quite common. Meanwhile expand eco and pick up other upgrades later. Skipping thumb ring /university is probably also a way to be able to afford more units.
Still I would think berbers can struggle vs civs with good knight+pikes. Knight+pikes seems to beat knight+skirm. While knight+crossbow is very gold heavy it could be difficult to afford and maybe the answer is just do my own knight+pike.
I think husbandry is mainly useful when facing monted units, especially camels or cav atchers
I think Thumb ring and ballistics should only be researched when xbows or cav archers is your main unit. If you play skirms, genitours/crossbows as a pike counter, you dont need thumb ring and ballistics. They are too expensive (750w+175g+300f).
