Recommendations for a Defensive Civilization for a Newer Player
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Greetings, I recently purchased a game and have played nine ranked matches.
Unfortunately, I have lost all of them.
Through my experience, I have discovered that I struggle to push my opponent and have only been successful once.
Most of the time, I become overwhelmed during feudal or castle and am subsequently defeated.
I believe that I would be better suited for a more defensive civilization.
One where I can focus on my own economy and gradually build up my army before launching an attack.
I am open to any recommendations or advice you may have.
Have you considered just playing closed maps?
In aoe2 the best defense is usually a good offense, though playing greedy and defending does pay off if you can minimize damage and boom.
The 2 main civs that usually come to mind are Byzantines and Teutons.
Byzantines have a counter to everything and counters are cheaper, meaning if you want to sit back and adapt to whatever is thrown at you, they can do this job well.
Paired with free vision upgrades and extra building HP, you can see enemies quicker and hold longer.
The negative imo is the lack of a powerhouse unit, some see this in their UU but i disagree, since by itself it’s cost effectively dealt with by knights and loses hard to archers.
Teutons on the other hand get a lot of defensive upgrades for free, have extra garrison space in towers and town centers and with cheap farms they can boom very quickly behind a defensive play.
In imp the defenses go further with castles that have 13 range, meaning only trebs and turk BBC’s can take them down from range.
Add to this great infantry, amazing monks, full gunpowder and good tanky siege and you have a slow but powerful powerhouse of a civ.
The biggest downside is that they do have issues with mobility and can struggle with cavalry archers, especially mangudai.
First, keep if mind that if you’re new and playing on the ranked ladder you may not yet be at the appropriate ELO to be matched against opponents of a skill level similar to your own.
Since the game has been out for so long, the average ranked player (1000 ELO) is actually pretty good compared to someone new to the game.
You should stick with it and play ranked until your ELO stabilizes.
Regarding defensive play, hiding behind walls well into Castle Age may actually make the game more difficult for you since you allow the opponent to take control of the map and build up army and economy freely.
If you want to be safe behind walls until Castle Age, try playing on maps like Arena or maps which are easily walled like Yucatan.
Those maps tend to favor a Fast Castle strategy, but in Castle Age you’ll still have to be aggressive to succeed; your opponent doesn’t normally defeat themselves.
A good “defensive” civ would be Teutons or Bulgarians in my opinion, especially Teutons.
They both have access to improved defensive structures which you can place to protect your base or protect a forward position.
Teutons are better at building up their economy and their Crenellations Castles defended by Teutonic Knights are difficult to assault until Trebuchets are on the field.
Bulgarians are able to place Kreposts all over the map, and their Town Centers cost less stone so they are easier to place defensively.
Both can play Halberdiers/Siege/Castle to slowly spread across the map, and that is the most “defensive” strategy of attacking the enemy I know of.
Hopefully that helps! 🙂
Playing defensively is harder.
Think about you.
You are trying to take the game to its largest population and most complicated.
Consider using Sicilians:
1) They start with extra stone so you can stone wall your base no problem.
2) They have good knights.
They negate bonus damage so you can mono comp Knights.
3) Their farms have extra food so you don’t have to reseed as often.
If you can learn to manage a small economy and spam knights in Castle age you will start to develop the skills needed to climb the ladder.
It’s actually less management than most strategies.
You only need 20 farms and 12 on gold plus eco upgrades and multiple stables.
There are a few good defensive civ options.
Byzantine have super tough buildings which can make them tough to break into, giving you time to figure out a counter.
Teutons get a lot of defensive bonuses for their buildings for free that can make things like towers and castles really effective at defending your town.
Incas are an underrated option for newer players.
They have early game bonuses that don’t really make your start faster, but they make it smoother.
They have cheaper stone buildings which isn’t huge but can help with putting down lots of towers.
Most importantly for incas though is they have very easy and strong counter units.
Kamayuks for cavalry, eagle warriors for archers, and stingers for infantry.
All easy to use and mass, and if you use that with your cheaper stone buildings bonus you can take a very strong defensive-counter style of play.
The other major thing to consider is playing closed maps.
Ban open maps like arena, favorite something like arena that starts with a walled in city.
This goes a long way towards guaranteeing you make it to castle age at least.
Incas, Byzantines, Gurjaras and Teurons all have good counter units, strong defensive units and/or stone/building bonuses.
Byzantines all the way.
Best defensive civ IMO.
Higher HP buildings and cheap counter units.
The best defense is massing knights.
Play Berbers.
Just favorite Arena and ban arabia
Why do all new players want to play defensively?
Like other people are saying, fight the urge to go defensive.
It’s a tough mentality to break once you get in it.
Instead of switching to defensive gameplay, you should continue with pushing your opponent.
Playing defensive isn’t going to lead you anywhere since you are effectively giving up map control.
Also, the defensive options will easily fall off against rams and trebs.
The best defence is actually with offence.
Use units to raid and pressure the enemy.
Best civs I can recommend is Gurjaras, Hindustanis, Sicilians and Byzantines.
You can try Teutons as well.
Portuguese is alot of fun spam out organ guns to defend your base and the best part is once you get fetorias.
You can start spamming Bombard towers since you will have infinite gold/stone but this all comes together in the late game honestly.
Also they have a tech thats makes gun powder more accurate.
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