Diamond 2 player here. I play mainly malians and some knights templar for fun. I find myself struggling against china, especially to their nest of bees.
I tried to go feudal aggressively to deny their pro scout. I mass donso and javalin throwers. They can grab one pack of deer and age up to castle and make one nest of bees and immediately push me back and regain map control. To counter their bees I have to transition to horses, they easily add spears. And the comp is never engageable for me. The game dragged out and they win.
I tried to age up with mansa javalin. They added a lot of horsemen and archers and even one nest of bees make me don’t know how to engage.
I tried musofadi with stealth to snipe their bees, but they always surround their bees even not knowing about my stealth attempt.
With pro scout their feudal time window is strong and with 1 nest of bees it forces me to make a lot more army. By that time, China already had significant villager lead with song dynasty and safe farm under barbecan or Greatwall gatehouse.
What would be your advice? knowing that my opponent and I should be around 1400-1600 ELO, what would be the way to exploit the weakness of players of chinese civilization at this level?