[Anonymous Player]

I find playing Burmese enjoyable, and I think I could also enjoy playing Malay.

However, I am unsure about how to handle their opening strategies or transitioning into castles.

Do you have any suggestions for these aspects or tips for utilizing their monks, siege weapons, and karambits?

I am also curious if elephants are still effective for castle-raiding purposes.

[Denikin_Tsar]

one way to use their bonus is to go up 2 vils later than you normally would.

This will allow you to hit the next age at the exact same time as you would with another civ (well 2s faster actually) but with 2 extra villagers.

This is a very slightly better bonus than the Bengali bonus of 2 free villagers.

As an avid Burmese fan, I have to tell you that despite the geographical proximity, these 2 civs play VERY differently.

Yes they both have elephants, but they are very different.

Malay are generally an archer civ while the burmese are a cav civ.

As Malay, assuming an Arabia type map.

Playing xbows in castle age is the go to play.

You can mix in some elephants to help counter skrims/siege.

The elephants cheap cost and their hard counters (pikes and monks) being nearly useless vs your xbows means that the eles are actually kind of tough to deal with for your opponent.

In imp, you generally want to play arbs.

Karambits are good at raiding and are surprisingly good at taking down TCs.

Just 30 of them (which is 15 pop space) can easily take down a TC very quickly when they are FU

if the game goes to late imp, you always have your trash two-handers to help out.

[Blocklies]

I’ve been preparing for this my whole life.

Malay are tricky to start and to master but they’re not impossible to use.

The secret is making extra vills in dark age so you advance at regular times but with more vills (2 extra is standard), you’ll need to alter your build order or find ones online however.

You almost always wanna go archers because you have a stronger eco for them and lack most cavalry upgrades, you also have FU halbs and bombards/monks to support your mass and you’ll be up to imperial age first to use your powerspike to steamroll your opponents.

In castle age you have an opportunity to go for elephants or standard walling + defensive castle into fast imp, when elephant pushing use your 2 archery ranges from feudal age to pump out crossbows and build a stable or 2 (and an additional archery range) to create elephants, keep adding more stables and archery ranges and be vigilant for any counter raids because a good player will go for one.

Elephants aside from rushing can be used as meatshields while fast imping to kill knight masses but aren’t very good in post imp, they can be used to take out castles despite lacking armor and health because of high stats.

Your monks can be quite strong with most upgrades but lack fervor and theocracy so your monk pushes aren’t the strongest.

Lastly their infantry is situational, trash 2hs can be useful but not in every game so don’t rush for them, karambits are kinda bad and are more useful as treb killers, raiders or castle defenders, they can be used but massing halbs and arbs usually is more cost effective.

[Loxodontox]

Honestly, I’d choose another civ if not a water map.

I love Malay, but they have awful elephants and the larambit warrior is probably the worst UU imo

[Loxodontox]

The Burmese on the other hand… they do have power

[UAForever21]

The reason Malay are hard to play with is because they’re almost as good as the Dravidians in terms of their stable.

When I say that I’m ignoring Battle Elephants and light cav occasionally on arena openings in castle age.

Even though Burmese are a CA civ, you’ll probably still train hussars or some cavalry once in a while, so playing Malay would be different thanks to their abysmal cavalry upgrades.

So once I accepted that, I started realising and appreciating the potential in their FU Archer line, so I usually go crossbows and mix in siege/battle elephants

Elephants are still chonky let alone the bad Armor or bloodlines, cause they’re 300HP atleast and will shred most things if protected well.

But they’re also dirt cheap, in fact cheaper than the Knight Line itself.

So Archer line + Battle Elephants + Siege(BBC in Imp is an awesome power spike) is usually super strong as Malay.

When your gold is running dry, it’s a good time to switch into trash Swordsmen, and it’s worth it as well.

And yes you have their faster click up times which helps a lot, so train more vills before clicking up to use this advantage I guess

Malay are a powerhouse on Arena, Arabia I’m not too sure as they somewhat lack mobility, but if you’re good with archers I guess you could go ahead

Hope this helps!

[Author]

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