This is a BIG EXPLOIT and there is no way around it. In some games, say Arena games, it’s impossible to make early aggression and you typically open with 1 unit. It’s not uncommon to open with Knights for a Knight civ and Archers for an Archer civ. Teching into Skirmishers or similar is generally not easy and not always possible, not to mention some civs have bad Imperial age skirmishers (e.g. Slavs).
You see A LOT of players even in low elo use this exploit. Make a 1-tile wide corridor with a bunch of production buildings, or even outright stone walls, and stack 60 archers in 3 tiles. This is:
unrealistic
when similar behavior was present for MELEE units, it was EXPLICITLY patched out because too strong/unfun/whatever
hard to counter for some civs (a classic is Britons doing this which with their extra range only adds to the problem)
Just make it so that if more than, say, 4 or 5 units with range are in 1 tile, only 4 can attack and the rest are idle. Already archers are the better unit between archer and knight, they don’t need this added handicap, if you are facing overwhelming Knights numbers, you should stay at the bottom of a Castle, and/or mix in Halberdiers (which most if not all archer civs have). Already archer play allows for faster Imp time, they don’t need this unrealistic, unfun to play against handicap.
Well high level players know how to play against it: throw away some hussars and come with onagers behind. But it’s clear that mid-level players still struggle against that and it’s not very likely they learn how to deal with it soon.
Another tactic is to just ignore it (if it’s an open map). The arb ball ist actually thrown away pop space if it doesn’t moves. It’s basically a castle but occupies 60+ pop… Strategically very inefficient usage of pop space.
Before you get onager, game will be finished already.Onager would be in the field at the middle of imperial age and archers civs can add bbc to their composition. At this point, opponent would be took down half of the town and placed castle to strategic places. By the way high level players use archers more often.
Archers stacking really problem. It does not allow knight’s engaging. 15 xbows can at least kill 7-10 knights even in the open field with micro while the 1 knight cost more then 2 xbows. That is why archer civs broken.
I will only point out the most obvious ones:
Cause you currently can “engage” and “disengage” with them at the same time when you learned the attack move micro.
Pros have become insane in evading siege shots with them.
They are usefull in pressuring, raiding and defending, so it’s almost never a “mistake” to open archers opposed to other openers. Especially in the beginning this strategic versatility is extremely valueable at the highest level of play.
But I am no pro and that’s only what I figured out so far. The analysis is always behind the meta.
What I definetely can tell, that the stacking isn’t the main reason for it. Besides it can play a situationally role.
also Archer flood allows for an Imp time that cav civs cannot compete with no matter what, and who gets the first treb out is ALWAYS at an advantage as overall Trebs are the best "generic’ siege unit in the game (good vs every building etc. while not best at any specific niche like, say, Bombard Cannons are).
That’s why we can’t anymore instant kill building by sending 40 contact units between two building.
I agree with you, I use that because it’s exist and I want it to stop
They do it all the time, go in forest hole and the oponent need to run away. They use also patrol on very small distance to have all unit stack on a same line
you can make it on completely open terrain… really, you just need three well timed right angled patrols and the stop move hotkey. Nothing else.
But fyi you don’t want to do it if you are allready attacked by cav cause this way you allow the cav player to get multiple hits with stand ground patrol or attack move. You only want make this when you are currently not attacked by melee units.
And fyfi imo the current attack move micro is actually superior to that against cav cause you can actually move while you still attack.