Weekly Update #1 -> First Weekly Update
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Hello everyone,
From August to September 2022, I, like many others, have been playing AOE2. I started with unranked games and then moved on to ranked 1v1s. At first, I lost many games, almost 100, before finally winning some. I have always been more comfortable playing with infantry and cavalry.
However, in the last three months, I have had several coaches who have taught me the basics and other strategies. I have never used an archer civilization or even tried to use archers in any matchup, including skirms, cavalry archers, and archers.
Therefore, this week, I plan to start using archers with poles and scouts/knights and see how I perform. I am still unfamiliar with the techniques of using archers with cavalry, so any tips on this would be much appreciated.
[Current ELO – 01-03-2023](https://preview.redd.it/wa93c1x8j4la1.png?width=577&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=b74c643e17d7cc89655f45e63f95d2cbcabf6926)
[Ratings and Civilizations 01-03-2022](https://preview.redd.it/r3nlva3bj4la1.png?width=1349&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=cd5621db172266cc7d729fcdae08d5cf4d96ce3e)
You want to work on your micro if you play archers. Learn hit and run especially as a good start.
I also wouldn’t pick Poles to learn archers, as you don’t usually want to combine cavalry and archers, due to the high gold investment. Instead, I recommend starting with a civ such as Britons or Ethiopians, both of them are very easy archer civs to learn.
Cavalry will be one of your main enemies, so be prepared to add spearmen. You can add a few knights when required as well, to snipe Mangonels, but you don’t usually want to mix large numbers of both archers and knights.
Remember to pick up the attack upgrades as the priority, as they also add extra range. The armor ones can usually be skipped unless you’re going to be taking archer vs archer fights.
Double gold comp, especially xbow + knight, is most often done with open tech tree civs that have one or more good eco bonuses fir that. Portuguese and Chinese are the first that come to mind.
As for the techniques, MAA into archers opening is quite popular for this. Look for some damage but age up reasonably fast and add in a stable and some knights in castle age.
Alternatively, you can open scouts and then add archers. This commits you to a long feudal (with arguably the most dangerous feudal army composition) so you will be looking to find damage before you get to xbow/knight. Definitely get Light Cav if you age up with a bunch of scouts, don’t overfocus on knight spam.
As for micro, use archers as your dps units, and hold back your cavalry as a meat shield. Only collapse on unprotected skirmishers or when picking off reinforcements. Don’t kill spears “effectively” with more scouts when your archers can pick them off for free.
Also, just have fun.
In the current state of the game, cavalry just run straight through archers and the archers freeze up when that happens, so you picked an unfortunate time to try out archers. Hit and run with xbows also works significantly worse than it did a few patches ago in my experience
So you won’t be alone at least if you feel frustrated with that fact!
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