Not only is this mechanic at its root extremely unfun (except for the person doing it), it is waaaaay too easy to perform with little to no consequences. The gains to risk ratio is just astronomically in favor of knight spam. You can do this so early in the game that any race that is not doing this is at an inherent disadvantage. If you are an infantry favored race (such as China), there is very little you can do to stop knight spam from taking out your economy. Spears are simply too slow to be effective, and it costs way too much to put up any kind of decent defensive structures, especially in the early game, and especially for certain races like China. And if you focus on defense, you’ll inevitably succumb to the knight blob at some point.
Every team game is basically the same, at least one or two French and/or other races with good Knight bonuses/units, that’s all they do, and it’s so easy to execute. They can build Knights so fast and wreck eco with next to no repercussions. If you’re not building Knights/Cavalry and doing the same, then you’re at an immediate disadvantage and it’s an uphill battle all game.
I refuse to switch my main from China to French or Mongols in order to do the same thing, which honestly I find to be a cheese strategy and really just a lame mechanic altogether. Nothing but running from base to base and just picking off villagers over and over.
Personally I would like to see games won by destroying Landmarks, on the other point I disagree since France at the elite level is the least favorite due to the effectiveness / cost of the spearmen, you mix it with crossbowmen and they are not very powerful
Mongols need to do early damage to slow the other civs eco and try and do as many raids as possible(to get raid bounty) or else vs China they will loose once China booms and gets to age 4 and walls up. Mongols must do early damage and keep the pressure on the opponent or else they will be behind.
China is one of the best civs to deal with early knights. You have a TC that goes through ranged armor, a BBQ that does the same, as well as infinite garrison space in villages. If there’s any place where you can’t garrison easily or lack vision, that’s the only place you need to position your spears at. The only way you lose vills to french is if you put villagers somewhere without vision, garrison and spears, and even then, with song, you produce more villagers than the knight player. If they don’t deal big damage, you’re ahead.
As they go archer followup to deal with spearmen, you have zgn to cover for that. China is in a great spot vs early knights.
Rather than focusing on what seems unfair, focus on the basics, and ask more skilled players for feedback on your games. Noone that complaints about balance actually lose to what they’re focusing on, its always something else they’re not sufficiently aware of. It’s easy to confuse the thing that finished you off with the thing that lost you the game. Careful not to get stuck in this mentality as it’s the bane of having fun and improving. It’s a bug every one can catch, but many never recover from it.
Teamgame is another beast though. Fast units will always be OP on large team maps. It’s been the case for decades in games with army units balanced for 1v1 used on large team maps.
problem here isnt the knights its the knight training landmark because when you build spears to counter knights french player can build a archery range with same resources so they can counter your counter and even if they manage to kill just 1 villager you fall behind i am not even talking about the idle time your villagers stay in the town center
Good post. What I’d like to add is that the first thing one should do after losing a match that felt unbalanced is to take a look at the stats, check if the civ match up on the played map really has any balance issues and if not go check the replay. Then go out for a cigarette, a short walk or whatever and think about what you could have done better. That’s how you will improve. You can also check pro games but personally I’d always prefer to find solutions for tricky game situations myself.
I’m not talking about 1on1. Spears are somewhat effective in 1on1 because the maps are so small. There should be some kind of speed boost given to infantry depending on the map size. It just takes way too long to get anywhere to be effective whereas Knights just run around the map destroying everyone’s eco. It’s ridiculous.
France is in last place, take the time to observe and learn, obviously at first you should play defensive, boom and then be offensive, in castles you will also have knights, unless you are Mali only
Nothing cheesy with producing knights, lol, and you are talking as if French is useful at anything else. They are extremely expensive. 4 knights equals an age up from Feudal to Castle. France also has no economy buff to compensate for the immense cost of knights. Knight production is also nearly impossible to sustain and French player has to put himself into a position where he has to all in and he has to win with it, or he will just lose.
I’m 50/50 with you here. I think spears need to be more effective against cav but I also don’t think it’s impossible to stop. My advice is to keep track of you opponent and try to spot the knight as early as possible to counter accordingly
French are considered 1 of if not the weakest civ in the game, so while knights might be annoying to your villagers it doesn’t seem to make them win any more often.
As in larger team games, especially on maps like Prairie, dry arabia etc where walling is harder (and walls are now weaker, more expensive and take longer to build) raiding efficiently with RK is highly effective as you can just rotate between players.
So horseman or warrior scout raid them back, defend with spears, and come out ahead?
Why all the QQ about french when right now rus are french but better? And Malians have the outright best hit and run with warrior scouts and their regen + lower cost than even horsemen
When I use RK I just go to a different players base when spears approach. Then the trade lines. Then rotate back. By the time a sufficient number of spears make it to the resource node I’m now at I’ll have already left lol.
If they raid me with scouts and horsemen I would simply use RK to beat them lol.
