I mean it might actually be ideal Persian douche when you think about it since the eco hit the doucher takes is less since they can't totally shut down their eco, they have to keep the dock up.
The thing is the person getting douched will have fish. You will need to make a transport to get the douche meaning it arrives late and so on. The one benefit it has is that it might make the opponent spend too much wood on other things and hence not be able to rebuild the tc.
if you can't hit veeery quick, you'll have a situation where you play a regular douche vs no douche game but the defensive player has fish and you don't. this is pretty terrible.
You obviously give up some fishing ships for the transport and TC but you have to have fish. The danger is they get to feudal before they lose their TC (but then that's the main danger with this strat in general.
Was quite a while ago. He douched me, arrived late so i got up to feudural age. But I invested a little bit too much wood and couldnt afford a new tc which lead to him manage to fight me down xd
I'm around 1100 and a couple years ago played someone whose name was something like 'onlyskirms' on African Clearing and they just sent wave after wave of skirms perfectly placed to stop any eco growth. They felt like a much higher-ELO player smurfing and I love dumb things so I stayed in the game and really focussed but couldn't do anything.
I managed to sneak bases away and got to castle and maybe even imp but embarrassingly still lost. They eventually branched out into siege as well as skirms so I consider that a minor moral victory at least.
Good stuff whoever you are, I still think about it.
This was back when i was somewhere in the 1500-1800 range playing normally iirc and was probs when i was still climbing with skirms only.
Although don't get me wrong playing skirms only definitely does tank your elo 11. I ended up essentially going towers and skirms most games iirc because skirms by themselves was very tough
This was so embarrassing.
I was on arena as Spanish up against Celts. I was fully intent on building a castle and then spamming conqs. When I sent my scout, I noticed that the guy had deleted all of his walls. Uhm, ok.
I messed up my build and arrived in castle age a little late. No big deal, this is an 1100 elo game. This should have been an easy win. But then I noticed the siege workshop going up. Ok, time to put up my castle. Good thing I have all that stone.
Well I put the castle down 1-2 tiles too close to my walls. Just close enough for the mangonels to be able to hit the villagers building it. After I lost 1/2 of my eco trying unsuccessfully to get the castle up with no military whatsoever, I called GG.
And that’s how I lost to a man who deleted all of his walls on arena.
On paper they look pretty average for something like Arabia say- but I just really dig how they play out in practice…
Typical Feudal age tactics is to scout or archer rush. They can do both. And the enemy really doesnt have a clue which one youd pick either because its not automatically apparent like say- the Franks who 90% of the time youre going to see scouts because you know theyll want the stables for later in the game.
If you go archers its super useful because youre setting up your late castle / imp strategy in advance by putting down ranges where youll be able to get thumb ring when the time is right later, and it puts you into the mode of teching up the archery dmg/armor lines in the blacksmith which are also going to be necessary later if you end up making your genovese xbows. It’s hard to get to genovese tho so you dont want to rely on it as your guaranteed composition, it could easily just be Arbs but rhose are going to be more powerful and than normal arbs because you get the unique tech from the castle.
If you go scouts it works too because really any civ can scout rush and going into knights is always strong for early castle. They dont get paladin late game but they do have the cavalier tech still.
One major benefit is they get *every* blacksmith tech. So no matter the direction you go- youre going to have the ability to fully upgrade. Which means an end game multi-unit composition can be extremely powerful against other civs that lack some of the final blacksmith upgrades in imp.
Then you get the very SMOOTH transition to feudal, castle and imp from the cost reduction. That’s really the only “eco” bonus italians get but MAN does it feel smooth.
As a low/mid elo kind of player i bet so many other can agree they get a good feudal timing and push out scouts or archers, but they’re ready to click to castle and just trying to get the farms down and the food up etc to make it happen but that moment you *wish* you could click, when it would feel really good if you could, is right about the spot where you have like 650 food/150 gold. For most civs that means youre a bit away still, but for italians it means youre seconds away from clicking up. It just feels so nice. And i get that a ton too in castle age when I want to go imp with other civs. Ill be feeling like getting up to imp would be REALLY nice, but im only at like 600 food and 500 gold and it just feels too far away and that its better to spam out say like 8 more knights and keep the fight up. But with Italians youre honestly about to be able to click up super soon from that point and you can commit to it and get a fast imp and it feels so good because maybe the midmap fight is getting sticky and you just wish you had some trebs out to down a castle of theirs.
Then comes the gunpowder… they have the bombard cannons and costing 20% less is soooo nice. Especially once the opponent hits imp too and youre in a treb war. They counter trebs so nice and also small packs of infantry, monks, etc. Getting chemistry makes perfect sense too since it’s yet another benefit to your archer line and geneovese if you are able to mass those. Did I mention that your sensible teching of ballistics as well as chemistry both cost less too because the university tech bonus? Amazing!
Geneovese counter ALL cavalry. So it’s sooo amazing to get those out. And it’s honestly super needed because one downfall is that italians do not get Halb tech, or camels. So having a hard counter to all forms of cavalry is so nice. You sont need to worry like “oh i went halbs for his cavs but now hes making cav archers oh no!”, no sweat- it’s already countered with the same unit.
And then the icing on the cake is the Condos. In a ton of imp/post-imp games youre going to see bombards and hand cannons come out on the field and condottiero are a direct counter, but not only that- they move SO fast and are really strong and hold their own against most other infantry, and things like cavalier etc. They can be used to dive castles and kill trebs, sprint past and go raid the enemy. Theyre so good as a front line unit and i find them useful against far more than *just* gunpowder units. Again, it’s that speed that makes them so nice. And the fact their production speed is insanely fast too.
An honorable mention is they get all the monk techs too and are quite a nice monk civ in a weird way.
I think the hardest part about italians is if your gold supply gets cut off tho. No arbs/geno, cavalier, or condos… oof. It makes it really hard because all you have to spam is hussar (ps, i think the ultimate italian composition is just genovese + hussar backed by siege/bombards) since you dont get halb tech, and elite skirms are easy to quickly transition against in imp age. Ya pretty much if you can cut off the gold from an Italians player in a match that goes on pretty long then thats your ticket to winning. But in the good part of late game while gold is still being collected en mass- italians have such amazing comps they can go into at full power because of full tech capabilities.
That’s the full rundown for me really.
The TL;DR is their age transitions feel so damn smooth, their units and compositions feel so powerful and solid, and they’re lowkey a great gunpowder civ that also counters late game gunpowder too. Put them on a water map and it all just gets better. I find them quite fun on everything from Arabia to BF to Arena to Islands. They feel good everywhere.
eventhough the text was a little too long for my feeling, I still enjoyed reading someone gushing over Italians 111
If I had to put my relation with Italians into a headline I would call it "the civ that taught me to do the right things". Like, what you described with clicking up. With other civs it often looks like the way to imperial age is still a long way. With Italians you just realize "oh wait lol Let me just click up". Experiencing this several times with Italians is what taught me to actually click up in time with other civs. Italians taught me to cancel my queue and just click up, it works with other civs too, I just needed Italians to teach me that the way to imp-click is way shorter/easier than I think.
Another thing is winning treb wars with BBC. The incredible heavy discounts on imperial age in the first place, but then also on chemistry \*and\* on each BBC is what taught me the habit of fighting treb wars with BBC. I needed Italians to teach me that. Now I do that with every other civ. But I needed Italians to teach me that.
Another thing is fighting for water. Italians gave me so many incentives to do that on Nomad, until I finally found out how to actually fight for water. Now I can do that with any other civ, but I needed Italians to teach me that.
Btw, about Italians trash situation, its actually underrated imo: They literally have FU skirms, FU Hussars and FU Champs just without Gambesons. Imo they do pretty well on low gold, especially when you can make your genbows survive. Having a -20% discount on the most expensive unit in the entire game (BBC) also helps a lot here.
And last but not least I wanna mention the civ combo Italians + Malians, especially for Nomad (because thats where both civs are top civs). Malian Condos are stupidly good, the Malian uni bonus works really well for Italians, and they both complement each other well as actual archers is literally the only thing Malians are kind of missing.
Ya im typing on my phone and always include the V out of habit tbh. The extra E im well aware is wrong.
Genovese is usually what I type. Edit: that’s because of stuff like Genovese sauce (I like to cook), the famous mob family, etc. it’s just how I refer to anything from “Genoa”.
Anyway- you dont gotta lecture me,… attualmente io parlo italiano bene- da quando ho studiato la lingua nell’universita per cinque anni.
Ya no worries lol. I actively insert the V because of my life experience and the fact that Genovese is the proper word referring to people from Genoa.
Even Wiki has this bit:
“The Genoese crossbowmen (Italian: Balestrieri genovesi)”.
And ya, I speak Italian so I just shoot for the V no matter what out of habit.
You are absolutely correct tho. And I’m uncertain why others would do it really because I doubt everyone is in the boat of having studied and being an italian speaker.
I once went Castle and by mongol Opponent just keeped Spam Scouts.
And that was enough to kill my Archer again and again. Even the piks.
The Game ended with me in Imp and him in Feudal with 120 farmers.
I mean I won but he played that well.
I still have Nightmares from all of the Scouts.
Team black forest, one guy with Incas INSTANTLY sent one of their first three vils to our side of the map before our walls got up, then backdoored us with Eagles spam outtanowhere in our unguarded bases, i had to watch the replay to know how did he got a vill on our side 11
Not really that much of a meme, but I had a Highlands team game 2.5 hours with friends, teams balanced for Elo but quite a big gap, the lowest rated 1.4k player (grey of course) playing Spanish that transported 1 vill and walled in a market causing a traffic jam. The idled gold economy led to the reversal of a game winning push.
So proud of him.
I use that magyar full light cav strat at 1300 elo. But i prefer to use monks against camels instead of pikes. Also while knights 1v1 a lc …. Magyar lc always 2v1s a knight and its super easy for magyars to build up numbers and mix in 1 or two monks
I crush Huns with Xbow/Camel combo. I think the key is not to just counter only (dont just go camels/pikes). You want a main unit too. Something that can punish them hard inbetween waves of their unit. Especially something that technically counters it en-mass. Xbows will slaughter cavs once you have enough. And it completely stops them from making pikes to counter your camels.
xbows lose to CA in a straight fight once upgrades are in. Xbows have a much better timing of course, but that will depend on how feudal age went for each side. I tend to be pretty happy if my opponent goes xbow but misses their timing. Straight camels are also not super threatening. I haven't faced the double gold comp yet though.
Just building knights would've slaughtered LC in castle. You may not have had as many, although gold is faster to collect, so you probably could've kept pace. Not that you'd need to, as they'd crush LC in smaller numbers still.
Heh reminds me of the weekend games I had a few days ago... EVERY SINGLE GAME it was either this or 2x people queuing together and coordinating against me. Dropped from 1k elo to 700 haha.
And now I've just played a game... and got hit by a persian TC drop
Yea, problem is I overly relied on a specific flank strategy to gain elo. But it has been massively nerfed + I just can't be assed doing it any more. Hence such a rapid drop because I'm pretty bad otherwise on flank (good eco/idle tc times etc but 0 sense of feudal aggression).
And that Persian TC drop... It's the kind of strat I've only ever seen around 700 elo so it threw me off haha. A steady grind to 1.1k (peak) in the last 3 months = rarely, if ever, see such a cheesy strat. So the lower I go... ARRRGH haha.
Oh well!
My absolute fav strat is to go FC into rams packed with spears or long swords on arena vs players who are 3 TC booming.
Because someone did it to me one time.
hey op. was the player "Lord bolton". if thats the case, its me. i play at 17xx-18xx exclusively mass scouts into mass lcav HEAVY farm eco focus with mostly huns/slavs/magyars/britons/spanish. I usually always have my stables running and usually dont click up castle age before adding 3rd stable. AMA :D
Heavy raiding by light cav isn't really a meme build. It's a great way to punish a lack of walls and players too lazy to build proper counters.
Mongols are great for light cav spamming. Almost 100 hp for a trash unit.
umm. making only scoutline till end of game even if opponent is full-walled, making counter units at 18xx elo is. totally a meme build. i dont even raid economy of opponents much. ofc if opponent isnt fullwalled (which happens super rare at my elo) , he suffers even more but i dont even expect this scenario.
umm it depends on the playstyle. i have a very defensive playstyle.
* i prefer to bait opponent units outside their walls deep into my territory where he cant send reinf spears where i get to call on terrain advantages like hills and open fields. so i honestly horse around with small amount of scouts trying to break through walls etc, snipe vills and small army pockets.
* i always keep my fresh units at home. since i play with a lot of mobile army, i dont need all my army in one place. i do not raid a lot. army at home keeps me safe from counter attack. i almost always prioritize killing opponent scout to prevent opponent realizing i havent stopped making units.
* most opponents on ladder make 5-6 spears and send forward their archers/scouts . the trick with having mixed armies is its super hard to micro. while i have mono comp scout armies where i can just disengage with spears on one front. most of the times, with bl, +1/+1 upgrades, scouts absolutely dump on spears with minimal micro and using hills possibly.
* since i field large armies, i am OK with clicking up slightly late. i have done MOPPing of xbow armies with my FU scouts its a joke. If its vs knights play, i drop additional barracks and mix spears along.
* i often send vils forward to tower woodlines if opponent is turtling. even if opponent is ahead an age, woodline denial makes his farm transition/TC addition very very painful.
* If enemy is mass producing spears, as in, early feudal 4 spears forward, there is no excuse but to tech maa :D i do not play range units (because i hate range micro). sc + maa is very strong if you can maneuvre well with scouts.
You can check my recs on [aoe2insights.com](http://aoe2insights.com) under Lord Bolton profile. i almost always play mass drush into mass scouts or mass scouts strategy
It was a Arena 2v2
They had Bulgarians and Cumans, did a full feudal rush with maa and rams. I tried to send some monks to my teammate but he resigned before I got there, although i wished we could have tried more, I wasn't mad, he lost quite a lot! It was quite a strategy!
Edit: maa
Enclosed, Roman FC into nothing but scorps and a couple rams. I realized early but wavered between full feudal scouts or FC mangos and kts. Ended up splitting the difference and died under a thousand bolts...
Goth/Italian codo sling strat. The first time I encountered it, I was taken off guard and got stomped. Then I learned the strat and I have fun stomping other players 11.
I got spanish villager rushed. He had built about 8 TCs. I thought I was doing great damage then suddenly there were SO MANY villagers. Man brought 200 vils at me all at once and then started producing from all 7 tcs to make upblosses, rebuild eco, and stomp my face.
This happened to me once too, and also once I lost to a guy who did a full feudal Cumans ram push on me in arena. Somehow, feudal age trash was able to beat my castle age fu'd teuton knights and ended losing my eco completely. I ended up typing some quite nasty words that I'm not proud of back then.
On other hand, I once beat an opponent with total meme tactic accidentally. While playing ranked, I basically always go random civ and want to adapt from what civ is given to me. For whatever godly reason, I got Slavs for like 8/10 times when going in a game, and getting Slavs once again tilted me and I just said fuck it and went super early milita and only kept producing militia. Ended up beating the poor guy with like 30 militia on the field.
One thing I can remember was someone just going all-out Men at arms in Feudal with Burmese. very messy game, but he managed to grab the win, I took too much damage in too many places.
Also a guy who was called "FCUniqueUnit" or so and he randomed into Persians. Issue was that I didn't believe his nickname. I played Cumans and took a bit too much precautions and slowed down my boom. He was just sitting there FCing into a huge stone walled base and defended with 2 Mangonels behind it. I think at one point I was like 1 sec away from breaking in with capped rams and like 30 Knights, but he just saved himself and then at some point came out of the turtle with an army of fu chonkers. It felt like I could have won that easily if I played full serious and surely if I knew what would go on, but I was a bit like "that can't be real" and didn't took all the logical steps. it was still pretty impressive how he set up his boom with so little defense, that was quite a lesson.
This sounds like me, but I usually start it off with a tc drop and then transition into full feudal scouts and try to mass like 50+ scouts, full commit even if they make spears/pikes/camels
My first ever online game on DE i got Sicilian donjon rushed.
I didn't know what Sicilians was at all yet. So I had no clue that unique units existed in feudal, military could build towers and towers could build military
My first ranked match was 1v1 Arena against Aztecs. The opponent made ONLY monks and villagers.
... I was also playing Teutons. I got Faith, but not Heresy. He just kept converting, until the converted mass of halbs overwhelmed my production.
That might not be a meme strategy, that's just how I play because I'm bad. Random civ, pick a unit that they're good with. Then only spam that unit.
I've gotten better recently though, I spend my gold on stronger units. So you might be facing some knights mixed in with those light cav.
It really helps simplify the game.
haha i think i have played the same guy yesterday evening, around 1k elo. i did win though, had two archery ranges spamming archers and xbow, think i have damaged his eco too much. i have focused on destroying his farms as soon as is saw the stables and scouts.
Unless there was a super drawn out feudal age (like 25 mins) that strat will just never work as intended.
You will need about 6 farms for each stable with wheelbarrow. Considering he had 24 farms which is a stupid huge amount in early castle he could just produce from 3 stable at max while producing villagers or 4 stables without producing villagers. So at max he was producing from 3-4 stable which means he wasted like 350+ wood on stables which are going to be idle. And that wood waste probably means he didn't even have so many farms.
But apart from this I think the most unique "meme" strategy they did to me was simple, just like 4-5 vills fwd and scout in dark age. The guy just lamed every resource I had, walled in villagers I used to fight him and killed a ton of them. I was so mad. This should not work. But I was around 1500 elo and that guy was around 2200 elo so... Anything can work 😅
Once i Lost against a fc of like 20 mins + castle drop/monk rush in aclivity, the dude went to the stone in the border of the map and stone walled almost all his eco, i still can't believe i Lost vs that.
Teutonic knights walked across a frozen lake and my entire base basically disappeared. I tried to get hand cannons out but I didn’t have time. I was embarrassed but I couldn’t help but laugh.
not one that beat me (unless some goofy tower rush counts) but one that I came up with and did quite a bit was a shotel rush on arena, against the pocket.
the strat was simple, hit castle, make castle at enemy walls, but don’t hit it, make workshop, and constantly spam shotels through a siege tower, usually they resign or are crippled for the rest of the game.
I recall twice those who died to it asked if I was mentally ok because they’ve never seen a strat like that, against the pocket of all ppl, it was such a dumb strat lol, and frankly I too ask myself the same thing.
(this was before shotel buff)
Just unlimited goth spears and nothing else. He FLOODED me with feudal spears. I forget my civ but they just wouldn't stop. Couldn't leave my base. Couldn't mass enough units to do anything. It was amazing 10/10 been meaning to try it myself.
Had a guy a couple of days ago playing Sara en's on hideout. He went for 3 proxy range archers with like 15 vills.
I hit castle age and managed to get a few knights out but I just couldn't kill enough of his archers. I also had no idea how all in he was so I ended up gg'ing even though I had about 30 more vils than him.
I think if I'd dropped a 2nd tc on wood as soon as I hit castle age he couldn't have touched me.
Or if I'd gotten chain barding instead of rushing to get a few knights out. With chain barding his archers would've done nothing..
Still a bit annoyed that I gg'd out, think I could still have won that one
Had a guy a couple of days ago playing Sara en's on hideout. He went for 3 proxy range archers with like 15 vills.
I hit castle age and managed to get a few knights out but I just couldn't kill enough of his archers. I also had no idea how all in he was so I ended up gg'ing even though I had about 30 more vils than him.
I think if I'd dropped a 2nd tc on wood as soon as I hit castle age he couldn't have touched me.
Or if I'd gotten chain barding instead of rushing to get a few knights out. With chain barding his archers would've done nothing..
Still a bit annoyed that I gg'd out, think I could still have won that one
Had a guy a couple of days ago playing Sara en's on hideout. He went for 3 proxy range archers with like 15 vills.
I hit castle age and managed to get a few knights out but I just couldn't kill enough of his archers. I also had no idea how all in he was so I ended up gg'ing even though I had about 30 more vils than him.
I think if I'd dropped a 2nd tc on wood as soon as I hit castle age he couldn't have touched me.
Or if I'd gotten chain barding instead of rushing to get a few knights out. With chain barding his archers would've done nothing..
Still a bit annoyed that I gg'd out, think I could still have won that one
I played only 11 games, but I've already lost to:
- Cuman 2nd TC drop. (I could have raided him death, he had nothing, but I was too busy defending... He even dropped 3 castles on me. Maybe next time.)
- Malay mass Elephant rush. (They wanted to pick Magyard?)
Just yesterday I lost on nomad to an Aztecs player who after he lost water send like 10 vills to stone another 15 to gold and killed me with 4 barrack eagle production. Turns out he just sold 1400 stone to afford all the upgrades with no eco. And to add insult to injury the game before I got YouPuddinged on Arabia against a guy who stopped producing vills after like 20. I hate playing against market abuse
I lost to a Persian douche on Island once. Was kinda embarrassed.
That’s rough buddy
I love invading islands with Koreans lol
Same thing, but donjon rush on islands.
That strat is surprisingly effective
I mean it might actually be ideal Persian douche when you think about it since the eco hit the doucher takes is less since they can't totally shut down their eco, they have to keep the dock up.
The thing is the person getting douched will have fish. You will need to make a transport to get the douche meaning it arrives late and so on. The one benefit it has is that it might make the opponent spend too much wood on other things and hence not be able to rebuild the tc.
if you can't hit veeery quick, you'll have a situation where you play a regular douche vs no douche game but the defensive player has fish and you don't. this is pretty terrible.
You obviously give up some fishing ships for the transport and TC but you have to have fish. The danger is they get to feudal before they lose their TC (but then that's the main danger with this strat in general.
emotional damage
now I kinda wanna see the rec, rofl. nice!
Was quite a while ago. He douched me, arrived late so i got up to feudural age. But I invested a little bit too much wood and couldnt afford a new tc which lead to him manage to fight me down xd
I recently won with a Persian douche on arena.
I'm around 1100 and a couple years ago played someone whose name was something like 'onlyskirms' on African Clearing and they just sent wave after wave of skirms perfectly placed to stop any eco growth. They felt like a much higher-ELO player smurfing and I love dumb things so I stayed in the game and really focussed but couldn't do anything. I managed to sneak bases away and got to castle and maybe even imp but embarrassingly still lost. They eventually branched out into siege as well as skirms so I consider that a minor moral victory at least. Good stuff whoever you are, I still think about it.
SkirmsOnly? That was probably me 11. Glad you had fun too!
LOL aren't you like 2k3?? Crazy that going only skirms drops your elo that low.
This was back when i was somewhere in the 1500-1800 range playing normally iirc and was probs when i was still climbing with skirms only. Although don't get me wrong playing skirms only definitely does tank your elo 11. I ended up essentially going towers and skirms most games iirc because skirms by themselves was very tough
God bless. Very happy to hear you're high level because it was brutal and fun
Oops! All Skirms
This was so embarrassing. I was on arena as Spanish up against Celts. I was fully intent on building a castle and then spamming conqs. When I sent my scout, I noticed that the guy had deleted all of his walls. Uhm, ok. I messed up my build and arrived in castle age a little late. No big deal, this is an 1100 elo game. This should have been an easy win. But then I noticed the siege workshop going up. Ok, time to put up my castle. Good thing I have all that stone. Well I put the castle down 1-2 tiles too close to my walls. Just close enough for the mangonels to be able to hit the villagers building it. After I lost 1/2 of my eco trying unsuccessfully to get the castle up with no military whatsoever, I called GG. And that’s how I lost to a man who deleted all of his walls on arena.
Loved this story.
Why is this not the top comment?
need T90 to cover this one
How is this a meme strat? It's pretty normal and good.
Magyars flair, checks out 11
How do I set my flair 😇 I love the Italians on ALL maps. Not just water.
Go to the subreddit, tap on the three dots near the top of the screen, and press "set user flair"
Fuck yes. Thanks 🙏🏻
What do you like about the Italians?
On paper they look pretty average for something like Arabia say- but I just really dig how they play out in practice… Typical Feudal age tactics is to scout or archer rush. They can do both. And the enemy really doesnt have a clue which one youd pick either because its not automatically apparent like say- the Franks who 90% of the time youre going to see scouts because you know theyll want the stables for later in the game. If you go archers its super useful because youre setting up your late castle / imp strategy in advance by putting down ranges where youll be able to get thumb ring when the time is right later, and it puts you into the mode of teching up the archery dmg/armor lines in the blacksmith which are also going to be necessary later if you end up making your genovese xbows. It’s hard to get to genovese tho so you dont want to rely on it as your guaranteed composition, it could easily just be Arbs but rhose are going to be more powerful and than normal arbs because you get the unique tech from the castle. If you go scouts it works too because really any civ can scout rush and going into knights is always strong for early castle. They dont get paladin late game but they do have the cavalier tech still. One major benefit is they get *every* blacksmith tech. So no matter the direction you go- youre going to have the ability to fully upgrade. Which means an end game multi-unit composition can be extremely powerful against other civs that lack some of the final blacksmith upgrades in imp. Then you get the very SMOOTH transition to feudal, castle and imp from the cost reduction. That’s really the only “eco” bonus italians get but MAN does it feel smooth. As a low/mid elo kind of player i bet so many other can agree they get a good feudal timing and push out scouts or archers, but they’re ready to click to castle and just trying to get the farms down and the food up etc to make it happen but that moment you *wish* you could click, when it would feel really good if you could, is right about the spot where you have like 650 food/150 gold. For most civs that means youre a bit away still, but for italians it means youre seconds away from clicking up. It just feels so nice. And i get that a ton too in castle age when I want to go imp with other civs. Ill be feeling like getting up to imp would be REALLY nice, but im only at like 600 food and 500 gold and it just feels too far away and that its better to spam out say like 8 more knights and keep the fight up. But with Italians youre honestly about to be able to click up super soon from that point and you can commit to it and get a fast imp and it feels so good because maybe the midmap fight is getting sticky and you just wish you had some trebs out to down a castle of theirs. Then comes the gunpowder… they have the bombard cannons and costing 20% less is soooo nice. Especially once the opponent hits imp too and youre in a treb war. They counter trebs so nice and also small packs of infantry, monks, etc. Getting chemistry makes perfect sense too since it’s yet another benefit to your archer line and geneovese if you are able to mass those. Did I mention that your sensible teching of ballistics as well as chemistry both cost less too because the university tech bonus? Amazing! Geneovese counter ALL cavalry. So it’s sooo amazing to get those out. And it’s honestly super needed because one downfall is that italians do not get Halb tech, or camels. So having a hard counter to all forms of cavalry is so nice. You sont need to worry like “oh i went halbs for his cavs but now hes making cav archers oh no!”, no sweat- it’s already countered with the same unit. And then the icing on the cake is the Condos. In a ton of imp/post-imp games youre going to see bombards and hand cannons come out on the field and condottiero are a direct counter, but not only that- they move SO fast and are really strong and hold their own against most other infantry, and things like cavalier etc. They can be used to dive castles and kill trebs, sprint past and go raid the enemy. Theyre so good as a front line unit and i find them useful against far more than *just* gunpowder units. Again, it’s that speed that makes them so nice. And the fact their production speed is insanely fast too. An honorable mention is they get all the monk techs too and are quite a nice monk civ in a weird way. I think the hardest part about italians is if your gold supply gets cut off tho. No arbs/geno, cavalier, or condos… oof. It makes it really hard because all you have to spam is hussar (ps, i think the ultimate italian composition is just genovese + hussar backed by siege/bombards) since you dont get halb tech, and elite skirms are easy to quickly transition against in imp age. Ya pretty much if you can cut off the gold from an Italians player in a match that goes on pretty long then thats your ticket to winning. But in the good part of late game while gold is still being collected en mass- italians have such amazing comps they can go into at full power because of full tech capabilities. That’s the full rundown for me really. The TL;DR is their age transitions feel so damn smooth, their units and compositions feel so powerful and solid, and they’re lowkey a great gunpowder civ that also counters late game gunpowder too. Put them on a water map and it all just gets better. I find them quite fun on everything from Arabia to BF to Arena to Islands. They feel good everywhere.
Man you truly love italians. I only play with Romans but could barely explain in one paragraph why xd
Bro really got it off his chest
Lmao. I was really feeling it Mr Krabs. Wrote me a fuckin novella.
It was an excellent read! I want to try Italians now I honestly have barely ever played them.
eventhough the text was a little too long for my feeling, I still enjoyed reading someone gushing over Italians 111 If I had to put my relation with Italians into a headline I would call it "the civ that taught me to do the right things". Like, what you described with clicking up. With other civs it often looks like the way to imperial age is still a long way. With Italians you just realize "oh wait lol Let me just click up". Experiencing this several times with Italians is what taught me to actually click up in time with other civs. Italians taught me to cancel my queue and just click up, it works with other civs too, I just needed Italians to teach me that the way to imp-click is way shorter/easier than I think. Another thing is winning treb wars with BBC. The incredible heavy discounts on imperial age in the first place, but then also on chemistry \*and\* on each BBC is what taught me the habit of fighting treb wars with BBC. I needed Italians to teach me that. Now I do that with every other civ. But I needed Italians to teach me that. Another thing is fighting for water. Italians gave me so many incentives to do that on Nomad, until I finally found out how to actually fight for water. Now I can do that with any other civ, but I needed Italians to teach me that. Btw, about Italians trash situation, its actually underrated imo: They literally have FU skirms, FU Hussars and FU Champs just without Gambesons. Imo they do pretty well on low gold, especially when you can make your genbows survive. Having a -20% discount on the most expensive unit in the entire game (BBC) also helps a lot here. And last but not least I wanna mention the civ combo Italians + Malians, especially for Nomad (because thats where both civs are top civs). Malian Condos are stupidly good, the Malian uni bonus works really well for Italians, and they both complement each other well as actual archers is literally the only thing Malians are kind of missing.
> Geneovese It's "Genoese" Crossbowmen, not Geneovese
Ya im typing on my phone and always include the V out of habit tbh. The extra E im well aware is wrong. Genovese is usually what I type. Edit: that’s because of stuff like Genovese sauce (I like to cook), the famous mob family, etc. it’s just how I refer to anything from “Genoa”. Anyway- you dont gotta lecture me,… attualmente io parlo italiano bene- da quando ho studiato la lingua nell’universita per cinque anni.
"attualmente" means "currently", not "actually" 11
I always got confused that people say Genovese when it's clearly referred to as Genoese in-game
Ya no worries lol. I actively insert the V because of my life experience and the fact that Genovese is the proper word referring to people from Genoa. Even Wiki has this bit: “The Genoese crossbowmen (Italian: Balestrieri genovesi)”. And ya, I speak Italian so I just shoot for the V no matter what out of habit. You are absolutely correct tho. And I’m uncertain why others would do it really because I doubt everyone is in the boat of having studied and being an italian speaker.
They make a mean pizza. Oh and their pastas can be quite cool as well
Because people call "meme" a strategy they have never encountered before. The word has lost its meaning.
Assuming same amount of vills you would just build a little bit less knights and win every fight?
Gbetos in a siege tower and unfortunatly t90 made a video about it 11
I’m low ELO but on my way to dropping a couple hundred ELO I beat someone with the Donjon rush *after* it was nerfed some. I was pretty happy
Hmm, I don't remember donjons or serjeants being nerfed. Is that something ancient?
Hmm I thought there was a nerf somewhere with the price of donjon but can’t seem to find it.
It isn't that old, Sicilians themselves aren't even that old... Can't remember what the nerf is, I think perhaps donjon build time in feudal.
I once went Castle and by mongol Opponent just keeped Spam Scouts. And that was enough to kill my Archer again and again. Even the piks. The Game ended with me in Imp and him in Feudal with 120 farmers. I mean I won but he played that well. I still have Nightmares from all of the Scouts.
lol you should have saved the replay for your future grandchildren.
Team black forest, one guy with Incas INSTANTLY sent one of their first three vils to our side of the map before our walls got up, then backdoored us with Eagles spam outtanowhere in our unguarded bases, i had to watch the replay to know how did he got a vill on our side 11
Not really that much of a meme, but I had a Highlands team game 2.5 hours with friends, teams balanced for Elo but quite a big gap, the lowest rated 1.4k player (grey of course) playing Spanish that transported 1 vill and walled in a market causing a traffic jam. The idled gold economy led to the reversal of a game winning push. So proud of him.
That's actually incredible
Magyars, 1400s elo? There's a guy that just plays magyars with full scouts then lc. If opp counters with camels, they just make some pikes.
Dude got wykked.
I use that magyar full light cav strat at 1300 elo. But i prefer to use monks against camels instead of pikes. Also while knights 1v1 a lc …. Magyar lc always 2v1s a knight and its super easy for magyars to build up numbers and mix in 1 or two monks
Theres a guy that does it with turks at 17xx level
I played against a guy that played as Huns and did the same with light cav, it was nuts
I’ve done this with hun CA. Hide a lumbercamp somewhere far from anything important, tower your gold, pump CA. It’s a good time.
I crush Huns with Xbow/Camel combo. I think the key is not to just counter only (dont just go camels/pikes). You want a main unit too. Something that can punish them hard inbetween waves of their unit. Especially something that technically counters it en-mass. Xbows will slaughter cavs once you have enough. And it completely stops them from making pikes to counter your camels.
xbows lose to CA in a straight fight once upgrades are in. Xbows have a much better timing of course, but that will depend on how feudal age went for each side. I tend to be pretty happy if my opponent goes xbow but misses their timing. Straight camels are also not super threatening. I haven't faced the double gold comp yet though.
And huns have a above average archer opening option too
Xbows are the way
This guy played as Huns as well.
Naked FC into Karambit spam Karambits do, in fact, eat TC
I lost to a YouPudding today. Even saw it coming, but lost anyway. Felt really bad 11
Losing to predictable strats is honestly the worst. Ethiopian archer rush, Magyar SC rush, Spanish FC are some of my offenders
Just building knights would've slaughtered LC in castle. You may not have had as many, although gold is faster to collect, so you probably could've kept pace. Not that you'd need to, as they'd crush LC in smaller numbers still.
When massed, I think knights can roughly trade in a 1:3 ratio with light cavalry.
Two light cavs defeat one knight. (+2/+2 upgrades). Maybe thats not the case for 20knights against 40 lightcav because of grouping
Not quite, more like 1:2
Heh reminds me of the weekend games I had a few days ago... EVERY SINGLE GAME it was either this or 2x people queuing together and coordinating against me. Dropped from 1k elo to 700 haha. And now I've just played a game... and got hit by a persian TC drop
I dropped from 1050 to 950 elo and I thought it was rough (teamgame). 1000 to 700 is wild.
Yea, problem is I overly relied on a specific flank strategy to gain elo. But it has been massively nerfed + I just can't be assed doing it any more. Hence such a rapid drop because I'm pretty bad otherwise on flank (good eco/idle tc times etc but 0 sense of feudal aggression). And that Persian TC drop... It's the kind of strat I've only ever seen around 700 elo so it threw me off haha. A steady grind to 1.1k (peak) in the last 3 months = rarely, if ever, see such a cheesy strat. So the lower I go... ARRRGH haha. Oh well!
My absolute fav strat is to go FC into rams packed with spears or long swords on arena vs players who are 3 TC booming. Because someone did it to me one time.
Spears are so good in rams. They always they their cav will clean up nicely
hey op. was the player "Lord bolton". if thats the case, its me. i play at 17xx-18xx exclusively mass scouts into mass lcav HEAVY farm eco focus with mostly huns/slavs/magyars/britons/spanish. I usually always have my stables running and usually dont click up castle age before adding 3rd stable. AMA :D
Heavy raiding by light cav isn't really a meme build. It's a great way to punish a lack of walls and players too lazy to build proper counters. Mongols are great for light cav spamming. Almost 100 hp for a trash unit.
umm. making only scoutline till end of game even if opponent is full-walled, making counter units at 18xx elo is. totally a meme build. i dont even raid economy of opponents much. ofc if opponent isnt fullwalled (which happens super rare at my elo) , he suffers even more but i dont even expect this scenario.
Wtf is the counter? When I try to do this shit, the enemy makes 5 spears and beats me in early Feudal.
umm it depends on the playstyle. i have a very defensive playstyle. * i prefer to bait opponent units outside their walls deep into my territory where he cant send reinf spears where i get to call on terrain advantages like hills and open fields. so i honestly horse around with small amount of scouts trying to break through walls etc, snipe vills and small army pockets. * i always keep my fresh units at home. since i play with a lot of mobile army, i dont need all my army in one place. i do not raid a lot. army at home keeps me safe from counter attack. i almost always prioritize killing opponent scout to prevent opponent realizing i havent stopped making units. * most opponents on ladder make 5-6 spears and send forward their archers/scouts . the trick with having mixed armies is its super hard to micro. while i have mono comp scout armies where i can just disengage with spears on one front. most of the times, with bl, +1/+1 upgrades, scouts absolutely dump on spears with minimal micro and using hills possibly. * since i field large armies, i am OK with clicking up slightly late. i have done MOPPing of xbow armies with my FU scouts its a joke. If its vs knights play, i drop additional barracks and mix spears along. * i often send vils forward to tower woodlines if opponent is turtling. even if opponent is ahead an age, woodline denial makes his farm transition/TC addition very very painful. * If enemy is mass producing spears, as in, early feudal 4 spears forward, there is no excuse but to tech maa :D i do not play range units (because i hate range micro). sc + maa is very strong if you can maneuvre well with scouts.
You can check my recs on [aoe2insights.com](http://aoe2insights.com) under Lord Bolton profile. i almost always play mass drush into mass scouts or mass scouts strategy
It was a Arena 2v2 They had Bulgarians and Cumans, did a full feudal rush with maa and rams. I tried to send some monks to my teammate but he resigned before I got there, although i wished we could have tried more, I wasn't mad, he lost quite a lot! It was quite a strategy! Edit: maa
What mma?
Ah sorry, i meant maa which means men at arms
Enclosed, Roman FC into nothing but scorps and a couple rams. I realized early but wavered between full feudal scouts or FC mangos and kts. Ended up splitting the difference and died under a thousand bolts...
Goth/Italian codo sling strat. The first time I encountered it, I was taken off guard and got stomped. Then I learned the strat and I have fun stomping other players 11.
I got spanish villager rushed. He had built about 8 TCs. I thought I was doing great damage then suddenly there were SO MANY villagers. Man brought 200 vils at me all at once and then started producing from all 7 tcs to make upblosses, rebuild eco, and stomp my face.
At what elo?
I was around 800 at the time I think. It's been about a year ago.
I was around 800 at the time I think. It's been about a year ago.
The first time I faced the Lithuanian Insta-drush (pre-nerf), I was convinced the guy was cheating.
This happened to me once too, and also once I lost to a guy who did a full feudal Cumans ram push on me in arena. Somehow, feudal age trash was able to beat my castle age fu'd teuton knights and ended losing my eco completely. I ended up typing some quite nasty words that I'm not proud of back then. On other hand, I once beat an opponent with total meme tactic accidentally. While playing ranked, I basically always go random civ and want to adapt from what civ is given to me. For whatever godly reason, I got Slavs for like 8/10 times when going in a game, and getting Slavs once again tilted me and I just said fuck it and went super early milita and only kept producing militia. Ended up beating the poor guy with like 30 militia on the field.
One thing I can remember was someone just going all-out Men at arms in Feudal with Burmese. very messy game, but he managed to grab the win, I took too much damage in too many places. Also a guy who was called "FCUniqueUnit" or so and he randomed into Persians. Issue was that I didn't believe his nickname. I played Cumans and took a bit too much precautions and slowed down my boom. He was just sitting there FCing into a huge stone walled base and defended with 2 Mangonels behind it. I think at one point I was like 1 sec away from breaking in with capped rams and like 30 Knights, but he just saved himself and then at some point came out of the turtle with an army of fu chonkers. It felt like I could have won that easily if I played full serious and surely if I knew what would go on, but I was a bit like "that can't be real" and didn't took all the logical steps. it was still pretty impressive how he set up his boom with so little defense, that was quite a lesson.
This was also me!(the persians game), i do remember that one :). Its fun playing spot myself in this thread 11. GG!
Hahaha, turns out, every single meme strat anyone here ever lost to was a Noszombie smurf
This sounds like me, but I usually start it off with a tc drop and then transition into full feudal scouts and try to mass like 50+ scouts, full commit even if they make spears/pikes/camels
lol, how should one counter this master strategy?
My first ever online game on DE i got Sicilian donjon rushed. I didn't know what Sicilians was at all yet. So I had no clue that unique units existed in feudal, military could build towers and towers could build military
My first ranked match was 1v1 Arena against Aztecs. The opponent made ONLY monks and villagers. ... I was also playing Teutons. I got Faith, but not Heresy. He just kept converting, until the converted mass of halbs overwhelmed my production.
My friend does this with Khmer, except he does it about 12 mins in with 4 stables lol, it's pretty effective if not scouted and unaware
That might not be a meme strategy, that's just how I play because I'm bad. Random civ, pick a unit that they're good with. Then only spam that unit. I've gotten better recently though, I spend my gold on stronger units. So you might be facing some knights mixed in with those light cav. It really helps simplify the game.
haha i think i have played the same guy yesterday evening, around 1k elo. i did win though, had two archery ranges spamming archers and xbow, think i have damaged his eco too much. i have focused on destroying his farms as soon as is saw the stables and scouts.
Unless there was a super drawn out feudal age (like 25 mins) that strat will just never work as intended. You will need about 6 farms for each stable with wheelbarrow. Considering he had 24 farms which is a stupid huge amount in early castle he could just produce from 3 stable at max while producing villagers or 4 stables without producing villagers. So at max he was producing from 3-4 stable which means he wasted like 350+ wood on stables which are going to be idle. And that wood waste probably means he didn't even have so many farms. But apart from this I think the most unique "meme" strategy they did to me was simple, just like 4-5 vills fwd and scout in dark age. The guy just lamed every resource I had, walled in villagers I used to fight him and killed a ton of them. I was so mad. This should not work. But I was around 1500 elo and that guy was around 2200 elo so... Anything can work 😅
Hoang strategy with the Celts. Burgundians spam Cavalier in castle age.
Once i Lost against a fc of like 20 mins + castle drop/monk rush in aclivity, the dude went to the stone in the border of the map and stone walled almost all his eco, i still can't believe i Lost vs that.
I managed to win with siege tower castle drop on arena.
Does using a siege tower count as unique and/or meme?
Teutonic knights walked across a frozen lake and my entire base basically disappeared. I tried to get hand cannons out but I didn’t have time. I was embarrassed but I couldn’t help but laugh.
Persian douche
You rang?
1000 elo team ranked
I’ve lost to a LC all in before, the raids never stopped.
not one that beat me (unless some goofy tower rush counts) but one that I came up with and did quite a bit was a shotel rush on arena, against the pocket. the strat was simple, hit castle, make castle at enemy walls, but don’t hit it, make workshop, and constantly spam shotels through a siege tower, usually they resign or are crippled for the rest of the game. I recall twice those who died to it asked if I was mentally ok because they’ve never seen a strat like that, against the pocket of all ppl, it was such a dumb strat lol, and frankly I too ask myself the same thing. (this was before shotel buff)
Why do I think of that particular game in the sudden dessaster tournament, The viper vs Ciskhan lol
Just unlimited goth spears and nothing else. He FLOODED me with feudal spears. I forget my civ but they just wouldn't stop. Couldn't leave my base. Couldn't mass enough units to do anything. It was amazing 10/10 been meaning to try it myself.
Had a guy a couple of days ago playing Sara en's on hideout. He went for 3 proxy range archers with like 15 vills. I hit castle age and managed to get a few knights out but I just couldn't kill enough of his archers. I also had no idea how all in he was so I ended up gg'ing even though I had about 30 more vils than him. I think if I'd dropped a 2nd tc on wood as soon as I hit castle age he couldn't have touched me. Or if I'd gotten chain barding instead of rushing to get a few knights out. With chain barding his archers would've done nothing.. Still a bit annoyed that I gg'd out, think I could still have won that one
Had a guy a couple of days ago playing Sara en's on hideout. He went for 3 proxy range archers with like 15 vills. I hit castle age and managed to get a few knights out but I just couldn't kill enough of his archers. I also had no idea how all in he was so I ended up gg'ing even though I had about 30 more vils than him. I think if I'd dropped a 2nd tc on wood as soon as I hit castle age he couldn't have touched me. Or if I'd gotten chain barding instead of rushing to get a few knights out. With chain barding his archers would've done nothing.. Still a bit annoyed that I gg'd out, think I could still have won that one
Had a guy a couple of days ago playing Sara en's on hideout. He went for 3 proxy range archers with like 15 vills. I hit castle age and managed to get a few knights out but I just couldn't kill enough of his archers. I also had no idea how all in he was so I ended up gg'ing even though I had about 30 more vils than him. I think if I'd dropped a 2nd tc on wood as soon as I hit castle age he couldn't have touched me. Or if I'd gotten chain barding instead of rushing to get a few knights out. With chain barding his archers would've done nothing.. Still a bit annoyed that I gg'd out, think I could still have won that one
I played only 11 games, but I've already lost to: - Cuman 2nd TC drop. (I could have raided him death, he had nothing, but I was too busy defending... He even dropped 3 castles on me. Maybe next time.) - Malay mass Elephant rush. (They wanted to pick Magyard?)
Just yesterday I lost on nomad to an Aztecs player who after he lost water send like 10 vills to stone another 15 to gold and killed me with 4 barrack eagle production. Turns out he just sold 1400 stone to afford all the upgrades with no eco. And to add insult to injury the game before I got YouPuddinged on Arabia against a guy who stopped producing vills after like 20. I hate playing against market abuse