What Are the Chances of Archers Beating M@A Civilizations?
- This topic has 7 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 2 years, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I am currently watching the most recent instructional video from the Survivalist. Around 6:00, he mentioned that it is not advisable to use the Scout opening strategy against Viking civilizations. This has made me contemplate whether it is wise to use the Archers opening against civilizations like the Bulgarians and Japanese, as a counter for when they go for the typical Men at Arms opening.
1 fast range into potential fast fletching is kinda the standard opening against MAA.
​
Playing scouts against maa its kinda tricky and need a lot of stuff going well to not die horrendusly, and at survivalist lvl (2k) all players send the first 1 or 2 archers with 1 spear to avoid getting sniped
Short answer: scouts are not good vs M@A, archers are, so opening archers is smoother. Scouts can still work if you don’t give up initiative but just defend well vs M@A.
Long answer:
Scouts are not good vs M@A for two reasons. 1. You lose the initiative that the early scouts gave you if you defend with them instead of going forward. 2. Scouts don’t trade too well vs M@A (although they do if you fight with vills and scouts).
Of course, if you are comfortable defending vs M@A, you can (small/quick) wall them out while going forward with scouts. Same story as before, just make sure you do more damage with your scouts than they do with their M@A . They will follow-up with archers so intercept them or add a range as well.
Still, there’s less pressure on you if you open archers instead since those counter M@A very well. Straight archers is mostly a defensive opening anyway (because it’s slower to get a threatening army over to their base), so losing initiative is not really an issue. Just make sure the M@A don’t kick you off gold or you will be stuck producing skirms from your range(s).
Btw, opening archers defensively vs M@A also allows you to go 1 range archers (cheap non-food counter) into a faster Castle Age. It’s hard to punish since the usual follow-up for M@A is archers and you can just pivot to 1 range skirms to buy yourself time to get to Castle Age.
When all’s said and done, playing scouts vs M@A is far from impossible. Just go forward and do more damage there than you take at home. Opening archers is certainly easier/smoother, though.
If I strongly suspect men at arms, I do the 4v4 Arabia flank archers build. It be real risky pushing deer and not actually scouting what enemy is doing though. If they drush you can be disrupted, if they scout your build and make skirms at home instead you should be behind to castle age. But man oh man if they really do men at arms, they show up at your base when you’ve got 2+ fletching archers and you are at a huge advantage.
Along with what others said it is also way easier to trade archer v archers once both have numbers than trading scouts alone against archers. You have more options to keep archer numbers low because of that, or when you have more archers, because the enemy is forced into some skirms (and most of games you will go knights in Castle Age anyways, making them useless). Since maa is ecowise really not the prettiest opening you still have the better eco approach with fast archers. Be aware though that fast archers can become ugly if your enemy opens scouts himself with a civ you expect maa or goes into some 2 range “all-in”.
As you might have noticed is roughly like a “counter”-triangle:
Fast Archers > Maa > Scouts > Fast Archers
Straight Archers+Skirms vs Men-at-Arms is a fairly standard opening now-a-days.
You get your range up before the other player and can have higher numbers.
And with some small walls around resources a couple of Archers keep the Men-at-Arms away initially.The Men-at-Arms do become useful later on for soaking up Skirmisher javelins and pushing back inside of their minimum range.
And they can continue breaking through walls once the player gets Archer+Skirm reinforcements.
But it’s a trade-off for starting behind in Archery Range production.
Scout openings can work well. You’re ahead on eco this way. You just need to make a spear for his scout and engage when you get 3/4 scouts. It’s very important to find his barracks and track his militia as they go to your base. Then you small wall. No small wall it could turn into a shenanigans.
I think I’ve going to try a 2 militia drush with a 22 pop up. Then transition into one range for a faster castle time.
Yes, but one exception is a forward range opening. If they get 2 skirms out you are screwed. If you have a good eco, consider matching their opening and keeping your MAA in defense.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
