Helping Knights: How Scouts are Contributing to the Cause
- This topic has 9 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 1 year, 9 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hey everyone!
I wanted to bring up a topic regarding the recent pro-level tournament.
What do you think about using Scouts or upgrading them to Light Cavalry to counter 2 “simple” Monks and prevent them from being a threat to an 8-Knight push?
Do you feel like this unit is underutilized in Castle Age, especially since it benefits from the same upgrades as Knights?
Do professional players use Scouts enough?
Personally, I find adding Scouts beneficial because they have double the Line of Sight for raiding.
Additionally, Camels are another option to consider as they take more hits to kill a Monk, although they may not be as effective for pushing.
I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Have a great day!
I don’t know about pro-scene.
But I do it a lot at my ELO.
Heavy scout in feudal, and I continue to make them after clicking up.
They pay off really well.
In fight vs the archers, them taking a few volleys instead of the knights, and getting hits on the archers feel huge.
Same case in fight vs the knights, their knights hitting my light cav instead of my knights, give my knights an advantage.
I don’t queue knights after clicking up, instead I go for light cav, get the final armor and unleash them on the enemy eco or archers.
Feels great.
Light cav is a underrated unit at most ELOs I guess.
It’s a good idea vs monks, but a dubious investment vs a camel civ.
Blending in a few light cavalry isn’t bad, but you need to time their spawn, either start building in feudal or send in after the initial knight investment, as they also use stables.
This is actually a pretty solid move in resource-inefficient maps.
We saw it quite a bit during NAC4, more than previously at least.
I had mixed feelings, it was often pretty hard for the scouts/LC to take out the monks if the monk/knight player keeps them in proper position.
When it’s a 1:1 scout/monk trade it’s a bit dubious, obviously the scout is cheaper, but the food cost has a higher value than the monk’s gold (+optional LC upgrade cost).
I think in many cases it’s better to invest in trying to match monk numbers with your own monks (although it depends on civs bonuses) because monks are more versatile with the healing and relics.
That said, LC can really swing the momentum of the game.
If you suddenly take out your opponents monks, even if it’s a bad trade resource-wise, you can overwhelm quickly and snowball the game.
So there’s definitely value there.
At low elo, monks are quite useless and people don’t usually mass them, so in my opinion, knights are way stronger.
I’d rather spend my early castle age food on beefy knights than light cavalry.
A group of 4-6 knights with upgrades can easily take out any light cavalry that was massed during feudal.
This would be a ELO dependent thing..
At lower ELO, monks are a pain for the monk user.
I have seen folks make 8+ monks and get like 3 conversions because they don’t micro them individually, which is hard when you are trying to multi-task in a battle.
People in general don’t send forward 3-4 knights, but wait to build up to 10+.
The strengths of monks mixed in at lower ELOs is when you are fully walled and the knights are poking at the walls, where LC are useless.
This changes at higher ELOs as people don’t concede map control that easily and tend to move out with monks + army.
In this case, it comes down to skill with micro and LC can be useful.
But you are better off matching army numbers initially.
Haven’t seen it here yet, but the main reason against it imo is resource balance.
Scouts being more food heavy means it’s sometimes a struggle to afford them if you add tcs.
And regarding queuing on the way up, I feel like I would rather have the res to click bowsaw vs 2 scouts for monk snipes.
On the other hand if you were heavy feudal and have a sizeable economy or you aren’t adding extra tcs right away and are going for two/three stable knights I think it’s a great idea to add some light cav
It’s not a solid but very theoretical play.
In practical gameplay, even at the pro level It’s a tense situation.
You’re adding a whole new unit to micro.
Next, you’re wasting the recources of 4-6 knights by upgrading and making more scouts..
Gold is “cheaper” than food.
Less knights mean less danger to your opponent.
You might be cutting into 25-30% of your power.
The optimal scenario isn’t amazing either .
Your opponent makes 3 monks, two saving 2 knights – youve broken even with the scouts youvd made.
Worse case, you’ve wasted recources, weakened your push – and scouts can’t reach the monks because they’re blocked and behind walls.
Which also makes sense because if you’re making monks, you’re probably trying to survive behind ecoing up.
Better: why don’t you just have 6-8 xbows?
Those actually can improve the army comp.
Snipe monks at range , and actually have a dangerous transition from feudal age.
Yep, scouts wreck monks, but many supporting units for monks will wreck your scouts before they’re able to do anything (xbows, pikes, eagles).
Works okay vs monk+siege and monk+knight though.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
