As far as I know, the higher the rank, the fewer people use Mangudais, and at the professional level, no one uses them(unless it’s for teabagging). Mangudais have weak attacks and have a fairly short range without Khan’s Hunters. They’re quite fragile and easily countered by archers. Furthermore, they’re fairly expensive units, costing precious gold. Its attack power is supplemented in Imperial Age, so you can gather enough units to use it like AOE2 Steppe Lancers, but before that moment, there’s absolutely no reason to use them. They had the advantage of being able to attack while moving, but now even that is almost gone. Even before the current nerf, I thought the Mangudais were quite useless.
What I’m curious about is why lower-ranked people consider Mangudais so strong. They say they deserved a nerf, but I really don’t understand why. Some say they are strong in team games when sufficiently massed, but anything that’s massed is strong. Don’t they realize that archers can easily counter them? I think there were some developers who thought that way, but I really don’t know what criteria they used to say they were strong.
The pros who stream generally STREAM their 1v1 or 2v2 matches, which aren’t where Mangudais shine.
Mangudais lose effectiveness in some 1v1 matches because the maps are too small for their hit-and-run tactics.
But in some cases, if you know the enemy is playing a civ who need time to make its economy or even mass trops (Chinese, Templars), Mangudais can be the right choise to harass in feudal, even in 1vs1.
Beastly play many games with Mongol mangudais even in 1vs1, and he won:
In any case: The Mangudais really shine in 3v3 or 4v4 environments, and even more so on Open maps.
Well, thats is not true.
Generally, with enough experience, no one would mindlessly mass “WHATEVER” unit, because if the enemy discover that, they gonna mass the Counter of that unit. For that reason, many player usually use 2 units groups, generally one than counter the anti-counter of the other (Knight+archers, Donso+JavelinThrower)
Also, some feudal massed units present terrible problems:
Mass Spearmans.- The worst unit to mass, is actually a terrible mistake in Feudal Age (II) if the enemy has appropriate counters, of which there are many (Archers, Crossbowmen, Handcannoners, Men-at-Arms, Springalds, Camel Archers, Horse Archers, even Mangudais).
Massing Archers.- is strongly countered by full Horsemen or Fast Castle Knights. The worst part is that they “can’t run” and die like flies, jejjejje.
Mangudais. The advantage of massing Mangudais over other units is that they are very difficult to kill, so you can continue massing them until the late game because they “don’t die,” they just escape, and unlike other units, they have few counters. Horsemen and archers aren’t really their counter; if the enemy amasses enough Mangudai, they’ll take them all down, and all you need to do is run.
Because they shine absurdly in 4v4 teams, especially in the late game “Post-Imperial”.
Generally, after rushing in Dark Age with Horsemen (I) and slowing down the enemy, the key to Mangudai in Feudal Age (II) is that they “keep” the enemy wary of any attack, forcing them to spend resources on towers to defend themselves, or to constantly fortify themselves to avoid losing villagers. The time you take away from a player by forcing their villagers to fortify themselves, or lose them, is quite beneficial to you.
Additionally, for certain civilizations whose knight defense consists of spearmen, you can take down the spearmen with Mangudai without even lose 1 HP with enough Micro.
Where they truly shine is in the Imperial Age (IV), where, thanks to the civilization’s bonuses, unique technology, and everything else, their DPS becomes monstrously high. Simply breaching a wall or palisade is enough to destroy the entire enemy base, their economy, and everything else, and they won’t be able to do anything unless they have five towers on every farm, mining camp, and lumber camp.
I use them a lot when I play Mongol, and they are truly an unstoppable force once fully assembled and equipped with all the technologies in the Imperial Age (IV).
For a example of their power, a Beasty Game where the uses them in mass for Post-Imperial. He even destroy Mass Horsemans, their “supposed” counter:
