What can be done for Mass Condottieri + Genoese Xbows?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

I played on Coastal 2v2.

I am Turks, ally is Saracen. Enemy is Italians and Georgians.

When feudal age came, the Italian player was by far the most dangerous player in the game and the Saracen player was slightly behind me, as he started by trashing my ally’s base with archers. He retreated when I sent scouts to reinforce the Saracen player.

Later, the Georgian player came at me with knights, but I managed to hold them off with camels. Because of their being quick-to-raid , I had little time to pressure them myself. They left me alone for a while until imperial age.

When Imperial came? Georgian player built a wonder, so I coordinated with the Saracen player to destroy the wonder. I trained Janisaries, Cav Archers and Hussars backed by BBC while the Saracen made Mamelukes.

Somehow, nobody made warships in this matchup.

The wonder was well-walled with Castles surrounding it, and the enemy team massed Condottieri, Genoese Xbowmen, and Monaspas! My own mounted units and any Saracen units attempting to counter the Monaspa died to the Genoese crossbows, while Condottieri mopped out all gunpowder units in my side, and after they countered our forces, the Georgian and Italian then invaded our base and defeated us.

Analysis:
The Georgians are not that big of a threat, since our camels can stop them. The problem is the Italians making counter units to back the Georgians, and our own units got countered by them.

How does one stop late-game Italians? They are such a pain to battle against.

2

Saracens have Siege Engineers, so their BBC are better than Italians, Turks with UT also. Saracens do some SO, your BBC kill enemies BBC, SO ##### ######## army and you help to protect those SO. Champs or Champs+Janissaries might be enough to hold Condo+Genoese Xbows off, Mamelukes deal with Monaspa.

4

Turks have heavy scorpions.

Heavy scorpions + bbc + camels can make the job. But it’s never easy to play VS italians as a Powder canon civ.

5

In Feudal age, Saracen player owns water and use trash unit to defend himself. you guys fish boom and your opponents can’t. You should have big advantage in castle age to early imp age so that Italian can’t afford both Condo and Genoese.

6

Elite Genoese is rather weak unit because all Elite upgrade gives them is more bonus vs cavalry/camels and +5 hitpoints. They get farmed by any non mounted unit. Condos are not exactly stat heavy unit either and are only strong when made by civs with infantry bonus.

For turks: Janissaries, Bombard Towers and Bombard Cannons. Janissaries are not weak against Condos like Hand Cannoneers, because they don’t rely on bonus damage against infantry. Just use Hussars as Meat shield, but don’t let them near genoese.

Saracens: Any non mounted unit, they have great siege onagers, siege rams and bombard cannons. They have FU champions, skirms and Arbalester.