I lost now several games in a row against the same English strategy as HRE. First they rush - either with longbows, man-at-arms or/and spears and slow down my economy. Then they build towers and at an early stage a keep close to my center.
I tried everything. If I try to pick longbows with horsemen - like someone suggested - they answer with spears. Archers are useless, because their man-at-arms are not vulnerable to that. My man-at-arms are too expensive and fall quickly to their longbows.
I can’t raid their economy because English has the defensive bonus and longbows. If I make it to Castle Age to finally build artillery, they’ve slowed me too much down at this point and still win.
I tried the Aachen chapel → Regnitz and Meinwerk option. It doesn’t matter.
I’ve rarely been so clueless…
HRE and Ootd are dead civs. They won’t be getting anything, ever. Devs are too biased.
Wood wall up? I mean I play English a lot and I just spam longbow vs most civs to mess up the eco
So you are complaining about losing?
How dare you
HRE and Ootd are dead civs. They won’t be getting anything, ever. Devs are too biased.
Fitzyhere is a Conq3 player who does nothing but spam HRE, and usually goes with the “bad/meme” landmarks like meinwork. I’m not saying balance is perfect, but HRE is far from a “dead civ”. OP, you could probably find some replays of his for examples.
Archers are useless, because their man-at-arms are not vulnerable to that. My man-at-arms are too expensive and fall quickly to their longbows.
Your MAA cost the same, how are they too expensive? Longbows do a whole 1-more damage, that’s an advantage but it doesn’t make them a MAA counter. Also longbows are slower, and HRE MAA faster, which means they can’t kite nearly as well. I’m not sure the matchup is worse than a standard archer vs MAA.
I don’t play HRE so I won’t pretend to have the true answer, but just speculating here. One tower on gold would stop all longbow harass on it. You could save food under TC, either by starting on berries or even going two scout to get a lot of sheep. That would give you protected resources to fast castle and beat english feudal harass.
If they go MAA to dive under tower/TC, you’d just need to match those MAA numbers roughly, and should come out ahead in fights. They might slow you down still, but will take losses to do so. Unless they all-in with rams and stuff, I don’t see how english could stop a proper HRE setup from fast castling.
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You could try what is the “Defensive Play” until Castles, here are some tips:
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Once you start the construction of Aachen, and before reaching Feudal, send your food villagers (minus 5 so that you continue producing villagers) to collect wood and stone. Build 2 outposts, one next to gold, and another next to food or wood, always at least 2 spaces in front of where the villagers collect, to shelter it in case of Rush. Also build a stockade in a space where you don’t want to build towers.
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Already in Feudal, in the presence of Rush he develops a fortified tower. It doesn’t matter what they attack you with, the towers are always price/cost effective, I mean, a spearman costs 80, a tower 100, there is not much difference, but the towers are lowered by 5 or 6 spearman, and if it is fortified, it will need 20 Fortified lasts in feudal like triple against battering rams, and you can use the technique of removing the villagers from time to time to attack the battering ram and normal.
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Consider that the HRE in theory generates more resources per second than the English, you will always have the advantage in advancing to Castle Age.
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If you decided to build a stable for defense, consider building a 2nd or 3rd scout, and checking the size of the enemy army and its composition to fight in castles.
-Already in the age of the Castles, Analyzed the enemy army, if it is pure Archers with Spearman, he builds a Siege Machinery Workshop and several mangonels. EVERYONE you can. If it is pure “Men at Arms”, go building a lot of other Men at Arms with bonus + Crossbowmen. Also consider building 1 or 2 springald in case the enemy attacks you with Stone Thrower.
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Already in Castles or before even consider collecting stone to build a Castle or a 2nd TC somewhere with enough resources nearby, mainly GOLD. Always consider adding 1 or 2 extra towers to a TC to add more shelter for villagers (Since the previous patch there are now only 7 for each new TC).
Out of suggestions, I would also say that the HRE is currently one of the weakest civs, mainly because he is the only civ that lacks feudal RUSH, 2 of the Unique Tech are available only via Meinwerck, which nobody uses, and don’t have a Imperial Unique Unit, a ranged unique unit or a 2nd military unique unit. Also, most Civs have either 2 offensive Landmark Feudal, or an economical one along with a Rush, but the HRE has 2 economical ones, and the first (Aachen) is 100 times better than the 2nd (Meinwerck), while the HRE lacks an extra bonus for a good rush.
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