Honestly castle pushes kill me; all you have to do is walk to my base and castle me, and i feel like it’s game over. I don’t really know what to do at that point, even with a stronger economy. Having to fight under enemy castles feels like i’m losing 2 or 3 resources to every resource the enemy loses.
But the big issue is that i just can’t keep up with the micro anymore… it’s not that i don’t know what to do, it’s that i can’t do it.
There’s this feeling i’m losing to “build order” gameplay, rather than strategic gameplay, which also is really frustrating. Like, do X Y Z in order, and on map X, with Civ Y, you win. Now obviously this is a low level player problem, but it feels hard to come back to Age and be expected to know every possible civ and map combo perfectly.
Tip: adapt to castle presence (ignore it without ignoring it)
Move your economy far from that castle. Now your villagers are safer. He cant move the castle.
Build a castle to stop the push and prevent another castle drop. Take the fights under your castle, not under his one.
Start a counter raid in his base: if he has a castle in your base maybe he hasnt one in his one.
Build defensive upgrades in university to build some time. Masonry is dirty cheap.
Once you have hold it enough time, try to age up. If needed, use your market to get the resources you lack and age up to imperial. Then, make some trebs and take that castle down. (If you cannot age up, you can use 5 rams but it is risky).
You can all of this without following any build order.
I have posted some advice to newer/weaker players in different threads in the past. You will find these at the end of this post. It is posted as answer to other questions, so not everything is relevant to your case, but i hope it will help you to become better and have more fun in this game. Build order are a part of the game, but it is mostly about decision making in the end. When to execute which strategy. Build orders are just a tool for the execution.
Build a military building and some scattered houses slightly forward of your base. Make a handful of scouts and keep them at home.
Now…
You’ll see them opponent coming with the building and scout line of sight.
The scouts can either stop the castle, delay it, or punish it with some villager losses.
Often the opponent will build in front of the first buildings they encounter. Given that you built some dispensable buildings forward, they won’t be able to hit your economy with the castle fire.
I think it’s just a bunch of things - I play several different games, and i play different Age modes, so there’s a lot of muscle memory i don’t have. The “build orders” and unit composition in Arena for ex is very different. I haven’t had a decent pick-up Arena game in months, it seems like someone does a “win button” combo against a weaker player in Castle age, and it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s game over. I did manage to hold off 3 players for a good long time in a certain game after i got my post Imperial economy going but there was no way i could win once they had trade going. What mode you play has huge build order effects. Like in Nomad, if I spend more than like 10 seconds walking before TC’ing, i’ve lost, and often if it just so happens my teammates are on the other side, there’s nothing i can do but lose.
There’s also just a lot of prescribed things, like you pretty much have to wall unless you’re significantly better (ie faster, larger eco) than the other player. If i forget to wall, i’ve already lost.
But this is the whining thread my big issue is just that i sort of know what to do, but i can’t do it. I can HAHAHAHA forever, but it’s hard to build farms and micro raids and build more units and micro a defense… in theory and in practice are different animals. I’m also getting older and some days i can hang and some days i just can’t.
But psychologically there’s something about getting castle dropped, and then getting treb’ed first, and then getting castle pushed… man, that really gets to me. The best way to put it is that i just don’t want to play anymore against a guy walking castles in my base because he hit Imp faster and i can’t raid his economy. Maybe i can win if he has a weaker eco, but if he’s decent enough it’s likely his economy is now stronger. It just feels like a guy laughing in your face for being a newb and punching you till you pass out. It’s not fun ^^. If i had the micro skills to rebuild maybe it wouldn’t be the end, but i probably don’t have the micro skills to rebuild, so i’m likely to have a huge idle economy scrambling around everywhere. Something about getting castled and losing the imp race is just totally demoralizing.
On Arena, which is one of the most castle-drop friendly maps, I see a lot of people that just blindly fast castle (I spectate a lot of matches, yes), yes that way you’re getting maybe better eco, and faster, but you’re giving up map control enhancing the probability of being castle dropped on your walls. Smart players stop a couple of minutes in feudal age to build a stable and 3-4 scouts, to win relic battles and to keep the map under control. I’ve also seen some guys build 3-4 outposts, they’re dirt cheap and you need just a vill to stone if you still want to build 2 TCs as soon as you hit castle age.
Or, you know, you can always start to mine stone from dark age to build a defensive castle in your base, if you have a good UU it might serve a double purpose.
Hey don’t give up! At one point you will cut it.
Also take into account that matches will get easier and easier if you lose all the time, because your rating obiviously goes down as well.
At one point you will have about 50% winrate over the last 50 matches or so.
At that point the games will be amazing and you go with the flow!
I have a few tips for you:
Just play 1 TC all over again. There is no way you get castle dropped 5 minutes into castle age, when you go full army.
Put your TC waypoint to the wood, if you float wood, make farms. Put as many own gold as you need for army production.
Stick away from archer play, that is for 14++ elo players. The winrate for archers civs is low on low rated players. I suggest to play knights in castle age.
Either you don’t attack your enemy early enough, or you overdo it without making any damage.
Try out a pre mill drush or a pop 20 scout rush.
Even if you send army early, keep walling with a dedicated villager, so that you are closed soon.
That way you attack first