So it’s no mystery Poles are pretty strong in Feudal/early Castle age and get a moderate power spike with Slachzta Privileges in late Castle age. While many think this bonus is OP, it kicks in relatively late and you generally can’t afford to tech switch in late Castle to knights, generally knights is something you mass right away, which means that a good 60%+ of your knights pay the full gold as Poles, until you get the tech to make them cheaper in late Castle age (at around minute 28-30 let’s say). If you are doing knights play, you can’t afford to have 0 knights at minute 28, and if you went Crossbows, switching to Knights is not easy in Castle age and generally happens only in Imp.
Playing Crossbow/Arbalest is also OK until early Imp, but then, you gotta wonder why you are playing Poles to begin with if your plan was to do full Crossbow play, there are FAR better civilizations, including Ethiopians, Britons and even Japanese (faster attacking Halb are FAR better complement than Pikeman which is a very bad unit in Imperial age).
Remember also that the Poles don’t have any map-specific eco bonus, and as such, they don’t have a map where they can cheese a matchup particularly (for example, Mongols can cheese their hunt bonus on Valley, Britons are good on Glacial Lake, Tatars are good on maps with a lot of hills, and so on).
The true focus of this thread is however what should Poles play in Imp/late Imp in 1v1. As we said:
- Arbalest play is average at best and lacks a complement unit such as Halberdier, which means that you can’t play this long term, 200 vs 200 pop.
- Cavalry is generally unplayable if you go vs an Archer civ, and even vs a civ with FU Skirmishers (many cavalry civs have decent enough Skirmishers to complement cavalry play, for example, Burgundians or Tatars), something like FU Poles Cavalier takes 3 (!) damage per shot from an Imp Skirmisher as opposed to 1 for generic Cavalier. You could argue that Cavalier is the Poles’s Champion, i.e. a “trash-slaying unit with moderate stats” but even then, a generic FU Champion has 5 pierce armor as opposed to 4 of the Poles Cavalier so it’s more durable vs Skirmishers.
- Obuch/Skirm might be the best play but is vulnerable, again, to full ranged and especially to fortifications (Castles). Also, takes quite a lot to mass since they produce from Castles only.
- Halb Siege is also not a possibility as Poles lack Halbs.
- Winged Hussar (which imo in the Poles case is below average) + full Skirm still sees Skirms miss the last armor upgrade, and vs archer civs it’s very important to have the last armor in Imperial age.
To me, it seems that this civilization dies automatically to many civs that specialize in Archers/have a wide tech tree. All you need to do vs the Poles is survive the Castle age by out-microing the Poles player or spamming Castles and walls. Civs that in particular wreck the Poles imo are:
- Vikings (their eco bonus is still better than what the Poles mill gives + they have the desired composition of higher HP pikeman with more bonus damage + FU arbalest)
- Britons (self explanatory, a bit worse eco than Vikings but better army composition)
- Franks (quality > quantity when you are 200 pop and I don’t see what Poles have to stop full cav play when it’s Paladin with a civ bonus on top too)
- Tatars (while Poles have Husbandry, so can somewhat chase cav archers around, Poles still lack the last armor upgrade which makes cav archers trade FAR better in Imp, I don’t see what Poles can do vs a cav archer blob with full upgrades. Keshik play is also good as regular beats Knights cost-effectively and elite beats FU cavalier, by extension it beats also the cheap Poles cavalier).
- …
In my opinion, this civ needs some buff, perhaps in return for a nerf to something (I don’t see what is OP in their tech tree though, perhaps the gold mining bonus from stone mining could be lowered). I think something like last armor upgrade (so that they can play Skirmishers late game) or a bonus of +1 pierce armor that works ONLY in Imp on their cav (perhaps with exception of Winged Hussar) could work. 4/4 armor Cavalier, even for 60f/30g, just doesn’t seem like an attractive option. Sure it has 140 HP compared to the Champion’s 70, but also 1 less Pierce armor, less bonus dmg vs buildings, 1 less attack overall, 10 more gold.
Also note please that I don’t mind a civ having a below average late-Imp composition, but when I think of a strong late-Imp civ, I think about for example Mongols or Britons, and when I think of a civ that is weak in late Imp, I think about Aztecs, Burgundians or Malay. In many cases, these civs have very good trash units, such as the FU Skirmisher from Malay and in some cases above average even (trash 2h swordsmen from Malay and Atlatl Skirmisher from Aztecs). Poles, in contrast, assuming gold runs out, are stuck with the following 3 trash units:
- FU Imperial Pikeman without particular bonuses (no extra HP, attack like Vikings for example). Pikeman trades very badly into Imperial cavalry play and generally it’s not worth massing in Imp according to many players to counter Imp cav play.
- Winged Hussar (sounds good on paper and looks good but in truth it’s really just a normal Hussar with same melee armor, 2 less Pierce armor, 2 more attack and 5 more HP). It is almost universally agreed that the single attribute you want from Hussars is a high Pierce armor and it’s why Hussars from Turks/Indians/Tatars are considered S tier generally. The high attack is nice but it turns out it doesn’t make a difference vs Villagers and vs enemy army the lack of last armor is a big downside that will see Winged Hussars melt MUCH faster than a generic FU Hussar and trade less cost-effectively as a result.
- Skirmishers without last armor (takes 4 damage from FU Arbalest as opposed to 2, i.e. 50% as survivable as a generic FU Skirmisher - in other words you need nearly double the amount to achieve the same effect of countering Arbalest play).
tl;dr: cavalry civ lacking last armor upgrade is just not a good option, now perhaps some consider the Poles OP because they DLC just released, but once everyone gets used to them, I think they will be considered a mid-tier civ, maybe even lower. Remember that Burmese, for example, also have a VERY good eco bonus (one of the best you can have in fact, probably even better than the Franks farm one), but due to poor tech tree were considered a bottom 3 civ until recently. In short, yes the Folwark bonus is good on paper but alone it might not be enough to carry the civ through an underwhelming tech tree.
No. In what world can the Poles spam “their gold units longer with a way better eco behind it”? You literally need at least two gold costing units such as Arbalesters and Obuch (not mentioning Siege) to have some chance against opposing Heavy Cavalry civs which otherwise just overpower you - while not getting a single bonus affecting your gold income.