I never know when the opponent is going to choose aggression or FF, but even when I attack, they still manage to age up with seemingly little difficulty.
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Malta is vulnerable to just about every strategy in the book including FF, rush, or boom. Unfortunately you will have to outplay your opponent at every turn until and unless Malta gets the few small buffs they deserve. You’ll also have to have impeccable scouting. If you manage to outplay the opponent in micro and macro during the entirety of the game things will eventually scale in your favor.
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its difficult. there is little way to say nicer.
You need to scout and figure out quickly 1- is ther FF rushable? if so, a timing of pikes and xbow plus prehaps order cav/totenkampf can be important. sentinels and order huss are just not worth the res and low seige in under TC fights. so open bow pike forward 2 hospitals and send 700w 600w and then units or winningcourt. you need to not piss away units since xbow and pikes work en mass and some civs (spain usa and ofc otto even germans) can easily handle low unit counts while they go to age3. the goal here is to cripple them and then go age3 yourself, or again add order huss after the inital push and have a much larger mass plus cav to handle falcs
If not rushable or timing FF, a semi ff could work. open german tongue and make 5-10 order huss. idle them, snipe vills, and make them build infantry to protect falcs. the goal here is to slow them down so by the time the ff falc hits you can be age and ship counter stuff like fixed gun or if they turtle ship 1 falc 1 mortar and punish those fort bots. build can be something like german tongue 700w 600w(only if you have tp and feel like you can idle them) wignacourt hospitality
None of this is easy. each of the above dies if opponent also scouts and either ships 8xbow or eq and times the rush then ages or FF and arent idled vs the semi ff. or they go age4 after the ff and you are stumped unless you knew it was an FI and greeded into age3 artillery/infanty. its like playing roulette cept only half the chambers are empty and every card could be your last. frusterating for most of us
But hey, a well earned win feels better anyways. Deus Vult!
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Facts. Malta’s units just suck. Fire throwers and sentinels are a joke.
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Haha, sure. 10 fire throwers can obliterate infantry, and sentinels are pretty good late game, but are a bit lacking.
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20 pop dragoon/skirm mix that has more like 15 pop army stats decimates infantry
So do falcs or even culvs
Simple, just make more fire throwers (fire throwers kill ALL infantry) and culverins. That’s the problem with combos. They can be countered with massing more of a same unit type that counters at least one of the units that the opponent is training. I learned that from a Survivalist video.
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You can only play in Malta in a team game. In 1v1 you need to know the meta. Only Ottoman, Dutch and possibly Japan (but I’m not sure about lastone). Nobody will ever win their ff.
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Actually, I’ve figured it out. I just build two hospitals forward and harass the opponent with crossbowmen and pikes. There’s no need to worry about such civs now. But, this strategy doesn’t work against all civs. For example the Lakota, who are practically immune to rushes.
What rank are you? Any competent player even in with intending to FF will scout and prepare for the rush, or have at least one Age 1 or Age 2 card that will stifle the rush and not make it worth it in the long-run (AKA you’ll lose).
I’ve taken out 8 Dutch settlers before the 7 minute mark as Malta (I’m rank ~1750) and it was literally anyone’s game the whole game. If I made any mistakes despite the gains I made, I would have lost.
The 5 Spahi + 4 abus/huss from age-up + MM + TC will clear the xbow/pike rush in seconds.
Your first paragraph is really jumbled. And a COMPETENT Malta player doesn’t scout with the Grand Master in commerce age, they use him to build things like depots and outposts. As for my rank, I’m about 930 elo. But I care very little about rank, besides the achievement (I’ll be satisfied once I reach 1200)
I think you might’ve been trying to be a bit too perfect. This is a game after all.
I saw JulianK use the strategy I used (that’s when I decided to use it) against the United States, and he won. Spahi basically destroy multiple strategies.
Ok but your 930 rank has everything to do with your outlook on this. No offense. You can be a competent Malta player like myself and almost never build towers and depots with the Grand Master.
You might be able to get away with it in the lower tiers but not when the opponent actually knows what they’re doing and actually utilizes their superior civ’s bonuses. Just saying.
The thing is, the higher you go up in elo the more competent people will be at holding rushes, so if you want to reach that 1200 elo, you will need to deal with FF without rush. Particularly since Malta isn’t exactly a civ designed to rush.
Every shipment increases Malta standard military units health a little.
You can advance into Age II with the Quartermaster for 400 wood.
You have 700 and 600 wood shipments.
Hospital their Barracks type building cost only 100 wood each which is half the cost of a Barracks.
You can have a Commandery up and running to produce Order Hussars which are stronger then normal by default if you went for German Tongue for a economy boost.
You have Wignacourt Constructions which increase your natural resources gather rate especially when near a Towncenter, Outpost or Commandery.
You have many different Age II military shipments available to chose from.
You can send a card that boost the Attack of your Crossbows and Pikeman by 15% and another card that boosts those units Health by 15%
How the hell are Malta a civ not particularly designed to rush?
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So what you’re saying is Lionheart and Widgie are unreliable sources?
How can you even counter a fast fortress strategy without aggression?! The counter system works like this: boom>turtle>rush>boom. So I don’t see how Malta can counter an FF without aggression.
This is his thing. (((((
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Just cause you stacked unit shipments doesn’t make it a rush civ, most civs can stack unit shipments. Malta is predominantly a map control, booming civ, not a rush civ, as these help it gain more value out of its default bonuses. For that extra hp bonus to really kick in you need a bunch of shipments. Should you apply pressure? Yes. A rush implies dealing game ending damage to your opponent. Malta can’t really do that. And most civs can semiFF and stop you with double falc or equivalent age3 shipments. There’s a reason Malta has the lowest win rate.
I listed the various different stuff that can help with a rush and its not just because of stacked unit shipments. Cheaper Barrack type building, 400 wood age up option with multiple wood crate shipments help with performing a Crossbowman and Pikeman rush.
All the different military unit shipments help to maintain attack pressure and with the civ bonus of more HP to your standard military units and the 2 Crossbowman and Pikeman upgrade cards your units can get pretty strong in Age II to the point it leads to victory.
I see a lot of Malta games with people doing a FF then trying to get strong defenses with a Fort, Fixed Gun(s), Outposts and Depots or just trying to boom with German Tongue and Wignacourt Constructions. Doing this stuff hasn’t resulted in good win percentages maybe people should try more aggressive play.
This can probably work against other turtle or non-early skirmisher civs (e.g. NOT dutch or not india) but in most match ups, other civs will be able to out-rush you or something.
I think the overall design intention of the devs was to create a hausa-like civ, that’s rewarded for map control (the TC, tower giving extra bonus gather rate) and prefers semi-FF. But they failed somewhere along the way, by stacking too many bonuses and then nerfing them. I hope Malta gets a rebalancing of power in following patches.