Need help playing against Rus at 1200-1350 ELO

Age of Empires IV Ask for Help
1

I knew what were doing and they just did the same thing over and over again.
Hunt Deer, spam scout, pro scout, clicking on deers (most difficult thing to do with this strat, quoted by Viper), and spam Horse Archers and Scout, raiding with HAs and free grab-ing all 5 Relics with the cheapest, fastest monk.

I tried many Civ trying to compete with the deer warfare, but it just can’t compete in the number of scout, the Rus always win in number of scouts, efficiency on no Vills on gold even until early castle age, and Deers just at their own doorstep. My own foot archers doesn’t really able to compete with the Horse archers and don’t even speak about Manguldai, a gold devouring Horse Archer which is weaker than the food/wood one, WTF? Mangonels only work against someone never micro, that’s mean it doesn’t work. Towers on resources doesn’t really work.

Longbows spam having some success, the White Tower and keeps can shoo away those pesky Horse Archers but even the English Farm cannot compete with the crazy gold and deer econ of the Rus. Raiding them at feudal sounds impossible as they only harvest under their TC protection, French Knight doesn’t work at all.

And I don’t like mirrors, I hate Rus mirror / Mongol mirror.

The only way I can win by outmicroing / outmacroing some navie Rus player that only know how to click on the deers and A-moving the Horse Archers, but it is so difficult to do.

Pro scouts having no counter-play, putting archers/spear on deers, they can still run into it, clicking on the deers and run away. That’s mean you were forced to do the pro scout as well, but you can only produce some from stables that’s mean when you have 2-3 scouts, Rus having 6 already “clicking on deers”. Walling the deers make no sense at all.

Seriously, where is the patch?

1 Like
2

If this is just a rant post, I get it, I really do. You’re right in that the Rus meta (and Mongol meta too) are overtuned, and lacking many (if any) counter plays for most civs. The powers that be need to do a patch very soon.

If this is a legitimate post asking for help (I am a ~1400 ELO player atm), then English is your best bet. Rus currently do not have a positive win rate against them. Tier 2 ram pushes backed up by Longbows, towers and/or walls, and spears (if they go knights) is relatively strong against their fast castle. Even if they try to do HA, your Longbows should be able to take them out if you haven’t lost too many. I am a Delhi main, and I too try to do a tier 2 ram all-in, which works ~50% of the time surprisingly. So far, it’s my best counter.

Others might be able to add some other strats for other civs too, but the bottom line is, is that there currently isn’t many great options against it.

Here’s to hoping for a patch soon!

1 Like
3

English seems like having good winrate aginst the Rus/Mongols, but according to the stats site, English usually won at ~10-15 mins mark, looks like it is winning by fedual longbow Ram push.

Do you do it like all-in? like stop at 250 gold, research siege and range +1, get a tower and barracks at the front line? Do you add stone wall making your Longbows almost unkillable?

I tried 2TC, King palace boom but it just can’t compete with the pro scout.

4

I’ve had success as well with a Feudal Ram push. I usually main French and can have 30 military units and 2 rams by 10m30s (mix of spears/archers/horsemen and maybe 1 or 2 knights) with all blacksmith upgrades. I push no latter than 11m. I don’t ‘trickle’ in units because I want to overwhelm them with a large army at once.

My buddy mains Rus and when we play I usually also end up doing a mass villager pull to torch his TC as I don’t have enough military to stop his vills torching my remaining rams after taking out his other 2 landmarks and any production buildings.

For me against him it’s a literal all in but he can’t stop it doing his usual 8m30s FC and he is a higher elo than me.

I can also do decent without the villager pull as I stop unit production when I push so worst case scenario I can do enough eco damage / idle enemy vills to then reach the castle age with more vills and can get map control with keeps and towers as they rebuild remaining landmarks and production buildings.

3 Likes
5

You can beat Rus Horse Archers with English.

The weakness of Rus FC is that you are free to do what ever you want the first 10 minutes. Instead of focusing on deers or trying to punish him or whatever else… Just go greedy with a big investment on your own eco bonuses.

Explanation :

2 gold
8 food
wood
Click age2 and instantely 3 on stone from food
+2 stones
3 food, 5 stone, everything else for wood.

While going age 2 add more on food, you will need to create vils from 2 TCs and longbows to defend an attack (It shouldnt happen vs rus FC)

Age2
Build second TC between 5 minutes and 5.30 MAX, build it to secure wood. Add farms instantely after second TC. Go on gold to have 600 gold same time as 1200 food. Dont stack wood. 37 wood = 1 farm. Just be carefull, you need wood for defense if you are getting attacked, you have to anticipate by using scout always looking Rus base in case he goes for age2 push

Castle age with third TC landmark (10-11 minutes). While going castle age spam longbows, go for upgrades, wheelbarrow, horticulture + wood, and wall ONE SIDE. Add one archery and then baracks. Add towers around your base also to have castle network activated everywhere

The first HA attack should happen at 11 minutes, you should have 5/10 longbows but not upgraded yet, use your range to poke them, dont fight, longbows will lose, face to face at this stage, specialy vs scout meat shield.

Add 3 baracks. Spam spears/maa + longbows + vilsx3+towers+walls. Add a siege workshop for springalds to survive a Mangonnel/HA/Scout push

You should reach 200 pop at 19 minutes with 100 vils and 100 army. Ctrl+Maj+C+Attack move to his base. Micro only springalds to kill his siege. Add barracks and archeries. And spam units like never. At this point you have infinite ressources to spam units. Click imperial, and try to put the age4 landmark on his face, that’s what Rus deserve :slight_smile:

You have to scout all the time with 2 scouts of course, sometimes Rus try to push you in feodal age. In that case, it’s good for you, longer feodal age means better farms for you, while Rus delay his relics and sacred site control. Spam Longbows + Spears. Dont forget Rus have knigts, if you spot stables, you need A LOT of spears, they cost nothing, the problem is to recrut them in time.

Good luck ! (It works also with abbasids, but easier and maybe stronger with english)

Keep in mind this : Feodal longbow rush will win only vs bad Rus players

What about Rus going maa? You have better maa
What about white tower? You dont need it, spam army once you click castle age to defend. Network castle is enough
What about age 2 all in from Rus? English is the best civ to hold age2 push, if you lose to this, that means he won because he played better not because of the stupid FC Rus HA.

1 Like
6

Nice guide dude, I will give it a practice and try.

7

As a french player myself how do you have that big of an army by that point?

8

Hera has a really good build to use against the rus

9

So I start 8 on food, 3 gold, then a scout, 3 wood gets me to age 2. I send new 2 vills to build landmark (3 total) build mill/house (depending on my timing I can sometimes squeeze in wheelbarrow before hitting age2) send the 3 building landmark to sheep (11 total) 1 more to gold (usually my vill that built mill/2nd house) - then get all new vills to wood, build barracks while aging up, hit professional scouts once you can and make 3 scouts from school of calvary. Research spearman upgrade and make spearman send to gold. Build archery range then blacksmith. Then pull 2 vills off wood to food (13 total). You should be getting your 5 scouts to bring back hunts to TC.

Basically it’s non stop making of units, earlier focus on units that cost less wood and no gold (scouts,horsemen,spearmen) - then once wood is pouring in build a second archery range and focus on more archers - keep blacksmith research going but start with siege engineering. Rams should be getting built by 9m.

You should have close to 30mil and can push before 11m.

Typically when I push I send new villagers to gold, half my lumber to berries, build a market make traders. This sets me up for a nice age 3 if my push fails and I can stay focused on the military push and not worry about idle vills.

10

English completely stomps RUS. you just have to be active in harassing them man. Their Gold econ really isn’t THAT crazy. I play RUS and have found that while its ok its not broken by any means. You really just need to harass them before castle.