Good lord.
You’ve got no point if you think Mamelukes are never a good idea. It’s a hard counter to the Paladin in every respect. If you can’t find a good reason to use Mamelukes you must be trying very hard to be wrong.
I’ll send you my steam invite code if you want to try outmicroing Mamelukes with Mangudai. I come from experience, and I’m telling you, flat out, that what you are claiming should be easy is not easy and you will struggle to make it look easy.
This is a hard matchup to play as either side and with equal numbers it is extremely close. If you’d like to test it out, I’ve got the scenario built for it. Otherwise, you’ll have to take my word for it. Ditto the Kipchak.
It doesn’t need to be infinitely big. I’ll create a new scenario where the space I have to work with is less than 50 x 50 and I’ll very gladly micro down Huskarls outnumbering me 2-to-1 because it’s that easy. Again, if you’d like to test these things out I am glad to send you my invite code so we can stop talking and start proving what’s being said with micro involved. It’s going to be more efficient that I show you rather than have you take me at my word (especially since you disagree with my word)
No civ will ever go only Mamelukes. They can go into Hussar (or Skirmisher), which would be no greater a gold investment than just pure Mameluke. Scorpion + Halb cannot beat that. Especially given that the cavalry civ has the mobility. Push out with Halb + Scorpion and I’ll just raid your base and TC snipe. The more mobile unit composition has all the advantages.
Same offer as before, I can drop you my steam code, you may attempt to outmicro my Mamelukes with Camel archers for as long as you’d like. In this case (as opposed to Mangudai or Kipchak) I will guarantee, unilaterally, right now, that I will win every single time. The Camel archer has absolutely nothing on the Mameluke. You are just wrong.
37 v 21
yes
What? Do you know what “Pop efficient” means? It means "Assuming you have a limit of population (which you do in any game of AOE 2) what gives you the most value for the population space. Not for resources. That’s a polar opposite comparison to a cost efficient unit (which is efficient based off the cost of getting it and not the actual strength you’ve provided for the slot of population) and these two things are not associated. An Elite Battle elephant is Pop Efficient. A Malay two-handed trashman is cost efficient.
Mamelukes are pop efficient against Throwing Axes. Throwing Axes are cost efficient against Mamelukes. And yes, there are gamestates where population efficiency matters just as much as cost efficiency.
Okay, first off. That Video shows the Mameluke winning the fight against an equal cost of Eagles (which actually costs more gold than the Mameluke mass does) and you honestly think I can’t make it worse for you with Micro? Alright then.
I’ll give you my steam friend code, I’ll make the scenario, and we’ll play it out. I promise you I’ll be able to change your mind on every single item you’ve listed, because you are so far off from reality, even my average level of micro will be sufficient. No animosity, just testing for testing’s sake (words do nothing when someone’s stuck in an argument and are convinced of their position) and to clean up the discussion.
Beyond that. You called this a hard counter. The problem with that is… It isn’t. It’s the furthest thing from a hard counter. It’s just a micro-dependent MU common to 95% of the matchups in the game. very few things are hard counters in the game, in general, and even fewer of these things exist to the mameluke. Genoese, Camels, that’s literally the list.
Yes, yes, they’d win with all those factors in because the mameluke is more expensive and takes more time to train. But if a number of those hurdles would be cleared (say, a clean trade line, in post imp) and the Mamelukes got to a mass, the Archers would die with equal numbers. The advantage with the archer comes from the fact that the archers will almost always have greater numbers and that much is true. That doesn’t make it a hard counter.
In reality, Archers are very good against Mamelukes and that’s why they’re the go-to option against Mamelukes when Camels aren’t an option (and based on the civ, sometimes even when camels are an option) and that’s fine. They need some effective counters given how they utterly massacre cavalry in general whilst having the mobility of being cavalry. That’s an extremely dangerous compliation of factors to just be buffing willy-nilly and they are expensive for a good reason. That reason.