So how are the Mongols supposed to have a chance against the English?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

Look, I get it, every civ is gonna have their best and worst matchups, but Mongols vs. English is just stupid. I’ve literally thought of every possible combination of units you can make on ages 1-2 and none of them work against Longbows into Spearmen. I’ve only ever had success against them if they play badly and don’t pressure me until I get to age 3 and get Man-at-Arms, Lancers or Mangonels.

So let’s go over the options for units you have at ages 1-2 as Mongols. You can go for:

  • Early horsemen

Good luck trying to harass them with the insane English TC damage, even then they get Longbows before 5mins so you can’t even get close without getting sniped after that.

If you try to continue using Horsemen on age 2 you just get annihilated. Their spearmen counter your charge, and the Horsemen have no armor so they still take a fuckton of damage from everything.

  • Spearmen

Have fun getting kited for eternity by archers shooting from across the ■■■■■■■ globe.

  • Archers

Do i even have to explain this one? Longbows cost a measly 10 food more but have extra damage and range. You’re at a clear disadvantage

  • Mangudai

Again, same thing as normal archers. They have slightly higher damage but only half the range of longbows. I’m pretty sure everyone knows by know that Mangudai are hard-countered by archers.

oh I forgot to mention that mangudai cost MORE THAN DOUBLE the price of a single Longbow.

So what the ■■■■ am i supposed to do? Hope my opponent screws up? Surrender all matches against English because you’re at a disadvantage in every way? For the love of baby jesus someone tell me i missed something.

Edit: To all the people saying Cavalry+Archers counters Longbows+Spearmen, watch the grand finals of the last tournament between StrikeR and TheMista: AGE OF EMPIRES 4 TOURNAMENT - Ft. Top Talent | WHO WILL RULE? Launch Event - YouTube

He literally said exactly what I’ve been saying, except for Mongols it’s infinitely worse without armored units until age 3. For us the only option is cavalry, which they counter with their Hardened Spearmen (which they get for free, btw) and we try to counter the spearmen with archers, which in turn get destroyed by the Longbows. If these high-level players are getting absolutely TRASHED by this opener, how are normal players supposed to have a chance?

This isn’t even like a super high-level strategy, it’s the standard English opener.

2

Make the trade landmark, move it to ovoo, immediately make 2x traders at half cost using stone. Make 7 total so you get the bonus, then before they get back, move the trade landmark across the map to ramp up the returns. You’ll be miles ahead in eco if they don’t stop you very quickly. I’ve lost to this as English several times already.

4 Likes
3

I think the main issue with Mongols is that they are supposed to be super strong in early game and then fall off dramatically. To win with them, you need to be ahead from the very start, the moment you’re even with you’re opponent, you’ve basically lost.

Now, the issue is in the current state, that this is quite hard to leverage as you need to be way better than your opponent, not just better. Besides the general defender bonus, all the timings, scouting, and production must be on point to have a chance against a good player.

But with the current balance, it’s though, no doubt. Most successes in even matchups seem to be achieved by extravagant starts or flat-out cheesing.

I personally do best by timings with Horsemen / Archer Horse dudes, while pushing all my stone into double unit production and from then on, keep them occupied and small while slowly progressing my eco, with focus on tech and being ahead in army. But I’m mediocre at best and so I think are my opponents.

4

Thats the point of them being a unique unit though? They’re meant to be better archers.

Use them for raiding or harassment in battle. They aren’t meant to be the bulk of your forces.

Just because you’re playing mongols doesn’t mean your only viable units are cavalry btw.
The mongols still have access to siege (one of the best counters to longbowmen) and infantry.

Edit: I see you were specifically talking about Age 1 & Age 2 so my advice doesn’t work here.

1 Like
5

too risky, you can snipe Traders with just a few longbows and Mongols have no armored units to stop your raids. And if they try they still lose because:

Mongol cavalry cost 2 times (or more) the price of a longbow so even if you only kill 1 of theirs for 2 of yours you’re still just at parity. This never happens though because you can hit them before they even get close due to the insane Longbow range, so they already start the fight at a disadvantage. The other options Mongols have are spearmen which are useless because they get kited and take extra damage and archers which are straight up worse versions of Longbows with less range, less attack, but only costing 10 food less. 10 food!!! what a joke

6

Just rush with spearmen, men at arms and Rams to its TC. The English wont stand a chance in Feudal Age. It is a 7minute tactics.

Be really fast with your hotkey tho!

Been destroying the French, the Rus in the Early game. I think I can do 1vs2. The Mongols are just so amazing. By far, the most fun civilization for me and then the Delhi with Elephants xD

1 Like
7

Sorry for the double post, didn’t realize you could quote like this

That’s not my point. What I’m saying is that we have access to 4 units on Feudal Age, 2 of them get hard countered by longbows (spearmen and mangudai), Horsemen get countered by Spearmen (which are a lot cheaper) and archers are straight up worse than Longbows in every way.

This combined with the fact that Mongols cant hide behind walls to defend against raids means we are at an inherent disadvantage before the game even begins and there’s nothing you can do about it (short of hoping your opponent misplays)

it’s impossible to raid English when their TC deals double damage and drops your cavalry in a couple seconds.

How am I supposed to harass in battle with literally HALF THE RANGE of their units? Not 1/4, less, not 1/3, freaking half. Is harassing just standing there while they shoot me? Or running way while doing no damage and still taking shots because again, they have double your range?

The only infrantry we have at Feudal Age is Spearmen and they take extra damage from archers so not an option.

Siege only becomes available at age 3 which, like i said before, I can never get to because we have no way to counter Longbows on age 2. My opponent doesn’t have to age up at all, just research siege engineering and make a ram, while I have to spend thousands of resources on a landmark, take the time to build it, then make a siege workshop, and make artillery to and counter their mass of infantry. Does that sound viable to you? My opponent could go make coffee, take a dump in the toilet, make love to his wife and get back to siege me before I’m even halfway done making units that are useful against him

Well then you’re a wizard because mongols don’t get access to Men at Arms until age 3, and Spearmen get hard countered by archers (longbows have extra dmg against light infrantry, which is every infrantry we have until age 3)

8

Very often the gold mine is out of range for the TC. By denying the enemy safe gold you severely delay their development.

Im proposing that you make an army based on heavy infantry + siege. With the Mangudai sweeping in tho provide archer support/kill key targets.

However this won’t work in Age 1 & 2 so this doesn’t apply here.

9

By the time you rush with spearmen and rams you reach Castle age. You send your barracks close to enemy base and spam men at arms.

And the English must attack the rams. I use at least 5 rams. Bcse as soon as all the landmarks are destroyed the game ends. So the English must focus rams not spearmen. And that makes it so hard. The rams penetrate TC and go for other landmarks. The English have no choice but to lose.

I remember in team play, 1vs3 they all tried to destroy the rams together against my rush and failed. I just went for the TC and then the 2nd landmark. It is unstoppable.

10

Plenty of good players are doing this. You could also try making a stable fast in the dark age and rushing 4 cav quick using ovoo. I’ve won with both these strats and also lost vs them as English.

If you can’t make it work for you, why not try another civ? You seem determined to argue Mongols are weak regardless of what people say. Why did you post this if you don’t want to hear what others have to say?

11

Constantly scout around with your khan and react to what he’s doing.
English have the same issue against dheli early game holy sight control, they are super defensive and don’t have any early game eco bonus the first 15 minutes to speak of.

Just simply react to what he’s building in early game.
If he has a hall, get a stable at the ovoo, if he gets a rack, get an archery or rack as well.

Best to play is cav and mangudai to keep up with the traderoute, but if you have good scouting on the map you can also counter his entire roster by going MAA yourself.

Some general tips for fighting:
Signal arrow by the khan and not loosing him is insanely useful.
The castle age landmark that heals and buffs units that are damaged when the khan is nearby has to come to the frontline. 25% damage boost for 30 seconds trigger before the fight is massive.
1-2 towers are speeding up your 1v1 trade economy by around 30%. That’s insane value for just 100-200 wood.
The buff the lasts for about 20-30 seconds, so you don’t need to cover everything up with towers, just some here and there.
Mangudai work against everything but english MAA.
You can just rally through the enemy base when you force him into the fight or he moves out to autokill villagers without any micro input, Khan speed buff can help to tighten the timeframe in which the oponent can react. Splitting up your army (at least into meele and ranged) is absolute key.
The techs of khan arrow buff length, bonus dmg vs buildings and 100 stone for raid is absolutely insane.
Super lategame you just run through with your mangudai to kill vils and some military while a cavblob of 40 just 3/4 shots landmarks (depending on the landmark) ignoring anything that tries to kill them.
The stone you get for raids (which also trigger on farms bte) you can use to double your unit production and get some units for free (100 food/gold/125stone per building raid in lategame) paired with the trading route boom and mangudai raids in these pushes is just auto gg cause he’ll never come out of the defensive anymore and lose way too much to be able to push out.

If you want, we can practice the matchup in 1v1 customs.
1337Cammy is my username on steam, i’ve got an irl pic of mine as a profile pic (short haired dude with the beard and twitch/mixer link in his profile description).

1 Like
12

i mean yeah, that’s the only viable plan. But how am I supposed to get to age 3 when they can get rams on age 2 and I’m you’re losing every single engagement because all your units are hard-countered by theirs?

Yes, dude, i’m not dumb, I know rams and men at arms are good against Longbows. The problem is that before you can do that, every unit you have is countered by theirs. Do you just not make any military until age 3? or you do, but lose every single fight since your units are at an inherent disadvantage?

Mongols don’t even have the option of walling up and trying to hold on until you can age up and get artillery, so just “get to age 3” is not a viable and consistent strategy you can use to have a fair chance of beating English.

We’re talking about game balance here, your personal experiences will vary and it’s not a true representation of the balance between the civs. You can’t say a certain animal isn’t endangered because you’ve seen it once.

I can show you the spreadsheet with all the unit stats and how the English are favoured in almost every single way against Mongols, but your argument is “but i’ve lost to them before, they can’t be bad!” or “Daut (aka one of the best RTS players ever) wins with them, there’s no way they’re bad!” that’s why I’m not hearing what you’re saying. It makes absolutely no sense.

13

The same applies to you then and your observations

14

Look bro, the rams are going straight to your TC and will take it down in 30 sec. And it will go for your 2nd landmark to finish the match. Your longbows cant deal any damage to rams. If I notice the English have only ranged units I don’t even have to use melee units. I will only use melee units if there are melee units present at your base. If you attack my rams with your melee units I will just kill them with spearmen. I don’t just send 10 spearmen. Im talking 30 spearmen and more will come bcse barracks are just next to enemy base. The rams are just too tanky. You can kill all the spearmen but you will lose so much time. You have maximum 2 mins to stop the rams. Or you are finished.

15

Ramrush against english is pretty stupid tho since they have one of the safest early games of them all.

16

Try Horseman + Mangudai with Spearman and Archers. Have your infantry build rams. If your in castle, go for Mangonels as well. I used this recently and it worked pretty well!

17

Building stables, archery range is waste of resources. Instead build rams more rams xD

18

Each rams deal 500 dmg to building (10sec delay), TC has 7000 hp. 5 rams deal 3500 dmg.
Which means at the fastest TC will be there 20 sec.
and the second landmark is even faster xD

19

except i can back up my arguments with numbers, and you can’t. It’s a fact that Mongols have no units that are favoured against a Longbow+Spearmen opening, and you have no good defensive options like walls to try and rush age 3 either

Thank you for your tips, but this is exactly my problem. Mongols have no way to react to a Longbow into Spearmen opening. Horsemen are not good counters to Longbows since they have no armor and cost double the resources, spearmen take extra damage from archers, and mangudai get destroyed because they have 1/2 the range of a longbow (and are also way more expensive)

I would if I could, the problem is getting to age 3 without losing every fight because they have superior units and you have no counters to them.

Mangudai work against everything but english MAA.

No they don’t, Mangudai get destroyed by longbows every time. They are almost double as expensive, have half the range and only have 15 more hp and 1 more attack. Because of the range they attack you before you attack them so the measly 15 hp bonus you get is basically useless. It’s a bad deal, you’re spending way more resouces for less stats.

20

English is fine i think. They are famous for their archers. Mongols may need a buff.