Astec doesn’t have Halberdier, you have a unique bonus who increase infanterie attack of 4. If you spawn pikeman and the other player pole scout. Your pikeman are kill like it’s nothing.
On paper pikeman should beat pole scout but in fact it’s not the case.
Pole have winged hussard and Lechitic Legacy: Scout Cavalry line deals trample damage.
Winged hussard are faster than pikeman that’s mean if a pikeman focus an unit it will take more time to reach it.
Winged hussard attack effect at the begining of an animation.
They have trample damage
How astec can beat spam of this unit?
(elite) Eagles are more effective against scout than pikeman but not enough to stop them.
Elite Eagle Warrior, Champion and even Jaguar Warrior with Garland Wars can deal severe damage to them, even aztec arbalests are Ok in large numbers.
Also if you are on an aggressive map, you have much better eco in early to midgame than Poles (Poles food bonus starts to kick strong in late castle age and Imperial Age) which can also is realy easy to punish (Folwarks can’t garrison villagers).
Pretty much nothing can beat this efficiently enough, you need to avoid reaching post-Imp with meso civ generally speaking, and Aztecs in particularly, espeically against Hussar civs.
Winged Hussars do surprisingly well against Aztec Pikes, winning with equal numbers in large battles. They’re not always cost efficient though, and if you balance for unit cost (80 pikes vs 60 hussars) then the Aztecs win with about 1/4 of their units remaining. Still could be tricky to pull this off when considering population limits and the possibility of Polish Arbalesters backing up the cavalry.
Eagles do poorly against Winged Hussars, despite their bonus damage to cavalry. I would not recommend trying this unit, especially with the high gold cost in the late game.
Interestingly Aztec Champions do well against Poles, much better than Aztec Pikes. 60 Champs beat 60 Winged Hussars with about 20 units remaining. They do have a small gold cost, but this can be relatively sustainable with the Aztec relic bonus if you’re not spamming archers or eagles. Champions are definitely weak if the enemy goes into Arbs, but at least Aztecs have good Skirmishers and Siege Onager (although both are hard to keep alive around Winged Hussars). They also perform well if the opponent tries to switch into Obuchs (which would destroy Pikes). Probably still a civ disadvantage, but Champs seem to be the best option, especially if you can push into the enemy eco and take out some TC’s and Folwarks with their bonus damage to buildings.
I believe Champions in general should beat Hussars more or less soundly all the time regardless of civ, as that was their purpose initially, right? To be the low-gold cost infantry that beats/counters all trash units.
(Just Aztec Champions are especially strong and efficient due to Garland Wars and faster barracks.)
Yes, I think that’s generally true, but for most civs Halberdiers are a more efficient way to counter Hussars than Champions. I find it strange to see the opposite for Aztecs, since I don’t really think of their Pikes as particularly weak (full blacksmith upgrades, squires, arson and a great UT). I guess they’re just too squishy to survive against the Poles’ trample damage, and can’t get in enough hits with their slow attack rate.
There are exceptions to Champions vs Hussar as well, such as Malians mirror (their Light Cav beat their Champions with equal numbers). And in late game trash wars, Hussars can eventually overwhelm Champs unless there is a reliable source of gold. Bottomed out markets result in Champs costing effectively 45 food + 117 wood (with guilds), another reason spears look good with their 35 food + 25 wood price.
Actually that is not entirely true. FU champion hit hussar 17 attack with Hussar 3 armor, which means 14 attack and kill in 7 hit (95 HP). FU hussar hit champion 11 attack with Champion 4 armor, which means 7 attack and kill in 10 hit (70 HP). Hussar attack slightly faster (1.9 reload time). Therefore, champion win with 14HP or 21HP remaining. Champion win for sure, but considering Hussar cost no gold and it perform much better against other unit(archer, seige), it is not great result for champion.
If champion lack one of the attack or armor upgrade, the fight become very close. Also, Bulgarian Hussar attack 33% faster, and Polish hussar have 13 attack with 100HP, which means both Hussar trade roughly equally against generic Champion. Only Aztec Champion or other special champion can win Bulgarians/Polish winged Hussar decisively.
Kill the poles guy before game gets to Winged hussars and you’ve run out of gold as Aztecs. In early imp, Arbalest-pike should still be effective as Winged hussar lack the last armor upgrade.
In general Poles can be beaten by ranged units. The aztec player should imo fokus on the archer production. then just add some pikes as meatshield and the winged hussars die like flies because of the lack of armor.
The biggest problem for aztecs in this matchup is the polish eco imo. So being annoying and don’t let the poles stay comfort with their insane eco is the key in that matchup in general.
That said Aztecs still can deal with the hussar spam as said, but as all meso civs, the lategame doen’t really favors you and you have a lot of matchups were other civs just have an advantage because of their access to strong light cav. It’s not the poles soli.
Another advantage of champions is with Arson you can also destroy his stables so you can slow down his production. But as others have said, you really need to use your early eco advantage with Aztecs because it’s a bad civ matchup in the late game. Strong hussar vs a monk civ and no halbs means he can just raid you to death. If you end up in that situation again, I would stone wall the sides and castle the hills and choke points if you can. Force fights by trebbing his castles so he has to try and snipe your trebs (preferably under your castles) and defend your trebs with your champs. Also raid his farm eco with eagles so he doesn’t have enough food for hussar. Use your champs to take out his side town centres which will be less well defended than his main base.
Trash unit work in a kind of circle.
Pike is a counter of scout, scout is a counter of skirmisher, skirmisher is a counter of pike.
With meso civ, it’s include eagle in it. It’s a super counter of pike and skirmisher (because it use gold).
All unit normally have a counter available in every civ, except astec.
Astec doesn’t have stable and harbaldier.
Against non trash cavalry it’s acceptable because pike is a good counter to knight, camel and elephant because those unit use gold.
The issue with winged hussard it’s not a unit that you can avoid. If for example teutonic knight had no counter it won’t be an issue because they are slow. You can macro to kill them or avoid to fight them. But that not the case of winged hussard.
The issue is perhaps not the winged hussard who are overkill but astec who have a flow in their design
yes the full polish hussar beats pikeman. Not to mention normally the poles have skirms/arbs behind or Obuch.
Aztecs champ + (3+5) skirms should be the best solution (yes aztecs skirms can do 4 damage to polish wings).
Its great only mid-castle age where you seed a lot of heavy-plow researched farms at a time. Aztecs get great eco and should be able to do a good monk-eagle-pike push on open maps.
We should accept that Pikeman in the game is pretty weak unit comparing to Halberdier. Even best Pikeman which is Aztecs is worse than generic Halberdier. Vikings Pikeman is also trash comparing to generic Halberdier for same reason.
Devs didn’t give Vikings and Aztecs Halberdier due to balance reason. On the other hand, I don’t think they would want their Pikeman to be worse than Halberdier. This state ensemble Malians Light Cav being worse than Hussar-line (it isn’t worse of course).
I would understand if Halberdier upgrade is expensive and longtime like Paladin but it isn’t. Devs say to players that you don’t have Halberdier but you have other bonuses in return. However, this bonuses doesn’t compensate Halberdier upgrade.
Aztecs Pikeman is better than Vikings because with +4 attack, you can raid enemy’s eco with Pikeman, kill enemy’s Skirmisher etc… Vikings Pikeman is tanky but killing enemy’s Cavalry faster is more important than tanking more hits… Therefore, generic Halberdier is better than Vikings Pikeman.
I just played a Berbers vs Poles game where I even had small advantage through the game despite my civ eco bonus is not as strong. We went through all units possible, he made cav, oboch, arbs. I made camels, hand cannoneers, camel archers. Eventually gold runs out and he just switched to a mono composition. Only hussars. But I have nothing that can beat him. Even my cheaper Berber hussar get completely dominated. Poles has better farming eco than Berbers too, Berbers has no Halberdier so pikeman gets dominated by the trample damage despite it is a supposed counter, all of my advantage is gone. I feel that civ without Halberdier upgrade is impossible to beat winged hussar from Poles in trash war.
Also when he went spam obuch, I responded with hand cannoneers because my civ doesn’t have arbalester. And his winged hussar has bonus vs gunpowder unit which is completely busted and non sense. My mass hand cannoneer got deleted by a hussar spam I can’t even react. I even used camel archer but can’t afford elite upgrade, still he just spam winged hussar, he lost all obuch for nothing and switched to hussar. despite taking bad trade he could just throw the units away eventually my archers and hand cannoneer will die out, completely no skill required and one unit spam to win. Later I checked recording I has 80 farmers he had 75. Yet he was able to out spam me
Poles hussar definitely need a nerf. Reduce the trample damage needed. Lithuania winged Huss is not op because they don’t get that trample damage that flip the counter. Also remove bonus vs gunpowder it’s non sense. Even magyar huszar loses to poles hussar in large battle, and late game hussar spam is usually large battle and trample damage is too much