How would you defeat Persians with infinite resources?

Mass Genoese Crossbowmen is not a single Crossbow. Mass Genoese Crossbowmen + Elite Skirmisher + Bombar Cannons = Persians fully countered, no matter how much resources they have.

Also, Crossbowmen is plural, no one can make a “single Crossbowmen”.
Crossbowman is singular.

Goths would be screwed against mass War Elephants and Trashbows.

This will not be true. 400 genoese crossbowmen will not counter 400 war elephants that have bombard cannons and onagers to back it up. You’ll run out of room to backpedal to and suddenly the enemy is in your base already, cause all the time you produce more genoese, persian will also keep producing more war eles which keep rolling further and further inside your base. You will probably have the bigger military score when you lose, but that’s about it.

The only real answer is siege. You might spam a few halbs at first in the front but after that, just pure siege siege siege. Wasting poproom and maproom on halbs and barracks will be a waste at a point. Bombard towers if you have can help greatly. Monks are useless, you wont spend time in an unlimited resource game microing individual monks to convert units, you spend time microing your siege to attack the correct spot and also your villagers to expand your production and map control with workshops, castles and towers. And producing new villagers to continue on with the dream.

Personally I’d pick koreans celts or ethiopians, slav cost reduction bonus is pointless and the halbs just won’t mean squat, the one bonus that could actually matter on the slav arsenal is that production buildings work as houses so you can concentrate almost (!) purely on them, so you’ll ramp up your production faster initially. However if you can’t finish the game early enough, the other siege civs will be looking so much better.

There’s some people hosting custom AI games with this idea. Basically just pick Britons and stack the UU. Literally nothing the AI can do.

Needs to be a ranged unit, because war elephants dominate everything melee in even numbers.

I’m pretty sure SO is the best because of their high damage output and splash, but it would be fun to test out stuff with more range (elite longbow) or tankier archers like elephant archers or ballista elephants. Also curious about elite Mamelukes and other ranged melee units.

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Portugese and full Bombard Cannons and Bombard Towers can be also good.

Longbows and elephant archers would take forever to kill, I don’t think that’s a good idea. SO and mamelukes will probably work

If you want bombards, just go turks. But plain bombards ain’t too useful tbh. You need siege onagers.

portuguese bombards are arguably superior against land units… and I guess buildings too because they get siege engineers. Turk tho have superior BBTs after arquebus nerf

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Bombards just aren’t the most useful unit in 500 pop unlimited res cause of their lesser aoe damage x] They are useful in the mix with siege onagers, but not alone.

So only Etiopians, Teutons and Koreans.
But Portugese BBC can be good, because they have more range (more can fire in one time) and are more accurate. Also Portugese have Onager with SE, something Turks or Spanish lack.

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Its the turks with the more range, not the portuguese.

The accuracy means little here, the size of area of effect damage is more important.

Against REALLY massed elephants, you really want siege onagers tbh. I mean saracens could actually work maybe.

I tested that out, unless they’re celts it doesn’t actually work. At the very least, it’s not a commanding lead. In my tests the war elephants against Teuton Siege Onagers won probably 70% of the time.

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Hmm, maybe Khmer or Celt heavy scorpions are the answer, or Ethiopian. With the rate of fire and anti elephant bonus, they might just do it

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You go Khmer/Ethiopian Scorpions or put “No Persians” in the lobby title.

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Tbh the question is a bit pointless, as having infinite ressources will make the unit that is the most held back by its cost suddenly OP. It’s like asking “How do I beat Cuman in games that can’t go beyond Feudal” or “How do I beat Goths in 25 pop games”. You have to accept gimmicky rules will bring some unholy amounts of unbalance if you don’t ban stuff on top of that.

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Infinite resources make it hard to use halberds, even with those civs that get a bonus to them. Monks are a valid option, but with 200 pop I don’t think anyone can realistically micro fast enough. Massed siege is a good option, probably the most realistic one. However, I think there’s also something to be said for Indian camels. They still take trample damage, but they do bonus damage in return, last longer in the fight and get to the fight quicker than halberdiers and can outmaneuver the elephants to… well, I was going to say raid, but what’s the point with infinite resources? Not as good as massed siege, but might work in combination with siege?

Never said to pick teutons though. They don’t get a bonus that helps in the situation really. Celts and ethiopians can be very useful, but also koreans cause they get bombard towers on top of the bombard cannons and the small range advantage and minimum range advantage. But celts and ethiopians will still obviously be a choice better than the koreans for sure. But that’s about it.

Well khmer might have a chance cause they have more easily spammable elephants (tho weaker) to screen the frontlines. They might even run over the persians before persians get a critical mass themselves, since castles are so much longer to build. And since persians miss on siege engineers, their only counter to khmer scorps would be bombard cannons.

It’s an interesting question to ask and wonder, if the situation is impossible or not. :- ) And I’d say it’s not.

Halbs get a +60 against elephants in total. So if they become somewhat obsolete at a point, then so do Indian camels, since camels don’t get any extra versus elephants, only cavalry. And you don’t have much room to maneuver around when pop hits 500. There’s just the front.

Well khmer might have a chance cause they have more easily spammable elephants (tho weaker) to screen the frontlines. They might even run over the persians before persians get a critical mass themselves, since castles are so much longer to build. And since persians miss on siege engineers, their only counter to khmer scorps would be bombard cannons.

Well if were going down the “run them over fast” road, a frank pala flood with unlimited gold is probably best. Simply cause of production speed.
Dont have enough DM knowledge to know if goth flood is actually better. Dont think so in this setting though.

But I understood this thread more as “lets build up 500 pop and crash our pcs while fighting” theoretical experiment.

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Do not try a Goth Flood against a Paladin civ in Infinite resources or Deathmatch, specially if they are Persians (War Elephants slaughter Infantry without Platemail).

Goth Flood is meaningless in an Infinite Resources scenario.

I see you like difficulty 11 I guess that if Celt siege does work then the next question will be “How to beat Celts with infinite res”