Lithuanians, Malians and Huns comes to mind
Yes, Huns relies on their CA and Malians are an anti-archer civ with their infantry. Lithuanians have their super skirms.
Huns can go knights just as well. Malians absolutely use their cavalry, especially with Farimba, heck, their light cavalry is better then generic hussar. and Lithuanians are a knight civ through and through.
what are you even talking about?
I donāt know if youāre just a contrarian who loves to argue for the sake of it but my point is obvious to anyone and I wonāt waste time reiterating it for you.
1 Like
except your point is not right. sure. Malians go for infantry, but it certainly isnāt there main strategy, and it certainly isnāt beating archers alone, that tends to be cavalry.
Lithuanians skirms are great but they arenāt going to win you a game, they rely on their knights as the bread and butter of their army composition.
as for hun cav archers - cav archers trade very poorly vs foot archers.
Wait what? You mean the high pierce armor units donāt beat archers? instead the cav that literally melts to massed archers somehow will? What?
first of all Malian Militia only has 1 more pierce armor then knights do, if the Cavalry is being melted by mass archers, the Militia line units arenāt going to fair any better.
The problem the infantry has is that they can be effectively kited by archers. it takes a bit of work for their infantry to push archers due to their lower speed.
think about it this way - in castle age Malian longswords have 5 pierce armor, 60 health, and .99 speed fully upgraded.
crossbows may only do 2 damage a shot to them, but they need 30 shots to take the malian infantry down and they move at .96 speed.
meanwhile a knight has 4 pierce armor, 120 health, and almost 1.5 speed and takes 40 shots for the archers to take down.
which do you think is going to fair better against archers?
yeah the malian infantry TECHNICALLY has more pierce armor, but they move a lot slower and they have half the HP.
the best bet for an infantry push is to go after the buildings and then force the archers from there, but even that is going to be costly. (or trap them or surround them, all options, but again takes setup and will be very expensive).
Yes, but youāre only spending 20 gold on those units. Much more cost effective than cavalry, for which you donāt even have full upgrades if the game goes post imp. (although Paladin is I suppose irrelevant in 1v1, but this can still matter in a team game)
So you can start demolishing the economy and base of the opponent. If theyāre not willing to take the fight, then their base is all yours.
You can produce more longswords, as theyāre significantly cheaper, so you might be less pop space effective, but you should be able to just flood into the enemy base for the same price.
this assumes they can actually get to the archers - which they frequently canāt.
and that is a viable option - but tell me - how often do we actually see this happening? go watch some malian pro games - especially in tournaments - and tell me what you see.
on gold? sure. on food? absolutely not cheaper. youāll need 2-3 LS per knight to pull off what youāre suggesting. and that will be far more expensive.
do i think malian infantry is strong and has potential - absolutely. but right now its not the superior choice against archers (in castle age).
How often do you even see pros prioritize Malians? Itās not really a top tier civ. But this situation in general happens in āaverageā games and certainly happens in team games.
So, itās still a massive discount compared to using knights. If the enemy is running away from the fight as discussed earlier, then they are either losing villagers/TCās, or at the very least idling a major portion of their eco, so it should result in an overall advantage, provided that the Malian player is paying attention to their eco behind the push.
With Malians I would never even consider using Knights to counter archers, their infantry is a lot more convenient and easy way to deal with them.
dude in average games you can literally see Tatar Longswords and Teuton Cav Archers win.
1 knight - 60 food and 75 gold.
2-3 longswords 90-135 food and 40-60 gold.
iām not sure iād call that a massive discount. especially after you factor in the cost of supplies, longsword, and arson.
by the way - king of the desert 3.
Malians - literally used in every series from the round of 8 onwards and in half the round of 16 series.
Thereās a difference between Pro, Average and LELā¦
Ok, so thatās a personal preference. We can agree to disagree 
man that was even at average elos that was happening.
even at 2 to 1 your trading 30 food for 35 gold. is that really a discount? look whats more important in early castle age.
by the way - king of the desert 3.
https://liquipedia.net/ageofempires/King_of_the_Desert/3
Malians - literally used in every series from the round of 8 onwards and in half the round of 16 series.
Malians are a solid Arabia civilization. they just arenāt as good on hybrid maps.
What elo was that? (Iām curious, not to disagree with you, I just donāt really know what elo that is, I donāt see this kind of unit choices during my games)
Ok so it would make sense that they were prioritized thereā¦ but that makes them lower priority in most competitions where there is more than 1 map played. (have to admit, didnāt really tune into that specific competition, as the premise of only one map all the way through sounded boring)
Well, in early castle age EDIT(didnt use the right word) cheap units is what I prefer, but then again, Iām not the Viper so thatās just how I play. Maybe you have good success with knights, but it seems ridiculous to me to prefer that unit over the unit with high pierce armour in this specific case simply. I tend to favour pop space effectiveness in later stages of the game, when resources start being hard to come by.
let me put it this way 1600+ is the top 10% of all players. so average to me would be basically 1k-1400ish.
except hereās the thing - just because Malian longswords have a whole 1 pierce armor more doesnāt mean much when they have HALF the health and move slower to. again - malian longswords take 30 shots for crossbows to kill. Knights take 40. and that assumes you have all the armor upgrades.
Oh okay, makes sense. I was assuming 1600-1800 range.
Yep, but Iāll have more longsowrds than I would have Knights, so net benefit.
At the cost of more food that could go to booming and also being more expensive to tech. Furthermore youāre knight is much more likely to get to the archer.
While I believe Teutons could benefit from having the scout cav upgrade, they do not need extra speed - massing scouts for teutons is effective as trash when used right even without a scout cav upgrade in combination with gold units and spammed scouts to fill the gaps or to distract archers while more expensive units go for the kill when the scouts arenāt enough alone - that being said - I would appreciate the only change being the adding of the first scout-line upgrade. Teutons already best Franks with the healing fortress formation and co - the scout upgrade would be a buff against archers via a small increase in hp (less speed aside, and thatās fine) they will not need further buffs against melee types, focusing on small buffs against ranged in general would be helpful - the scoutline upgrade does this well while not increasing melee prowress too much.
As for if a Teuton relic bonus were to be implemented:
1 Relic + 5% HP for all units
2 Relic + 1/0 armor to infantry
3 Relic + 0/1 armor to all units
4 Relic + 5% speed to Infantry
5 Relic + 5% speed to infantry
Actually believe it or not, Teutons have very good winrate on arabia. Their knights are really powerful and they have a decent eco boost. Not to mention that on close map they are totally beast. They have everything in lategame, SO halb, BBT, Paladinsā¦
3 Likes