What Should I Have Done to Improve My Performance as Hindustani Against Frank Pike and a Knight?
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I recently lost a match that I was sure I could have won if I had known the right counter to use.
I was playing at 1300 ELO and usually prefer to use random civilizations, but sometimes I choose Hindustani due to the high number of Franks.
We both sent out scouts in the Feudal Age, and neither of us did any real damage.
We both made it up to the Castle Age relatively unscathed.
I made some camels expecting knights, and saw him walling heavily and making pikes, so I took that as my cue to add some economy and chose Ghulam as my counter.
I knew that Ghulam are more effective against archers, but would be vulnerable to knights.
We had a bit of a cat and mouse game, then moved up to the Imperial Age.
He had lots of halberdiers and cavalry, while I had heavy camels and elite Ghulam.
I thought my economy was better at this point.
The fight came down to a big battle at the end, and I did my best to micro my Ghulam into his halberdiers, but his composition was superior and he easily defeated my camels and Ghulam.
I’m now wondering what I should have done.
Should I have added crossbows to deal with the pikes, even though Hindus have a weak archer line?
Should I have bet on making Heavy Cavalry in the Imperial Age?
Or should I have added siege in the Castle Age, like Scorpions for the pikemen?
I think choosing Ghulam was a major mistake.
Shatagni HC Camels.
Or HCA Camels/Hussars.
For the big fight in the end I’d have killed off 20 excess vils (lumberjacks) and gotten another 20 Imperial Camel.
1250 elo.
I was up against Lithuanians knights and pikes, so I went camels then added in xbow which worked v well.
Obviously it’s pretty gold heavy so depends on your eco but my xbow with bracer were shredding halbs
My brother in Christ, you have the overpowered counter everything civilization, and you lost to FRANKS?
Heavy Camel Hand Cannoneers, switch into Hussar after taking care of his Paladin.
This is why you preferably want to open maa/archer or straight archer into xbow especially with Gurjaras and Hindustanis.
You stay on xbow as long as you don’t see any knights.
Once they’re coming though, you can transition into camels.
That gives you a counter to pike in castle age.
In Imp, most camel civs don’t have halb or FU arbs so xbow don’t really work anymore.
What they all have is hand cannon though.
And there you have the preferable unit comps for most camel civs.
Castle Age: xbow into camel
Imperial Age: heavy camel into Hand Cannons (into Hussar, once gold is getting scarce)
Make anything to stop pikes, siege, hand cannons, whatever.
Protect them with Camels and make sure you track enemy heavy cav with your camels, don’t let him raid you.
Ghulam is definitely the bad choice against heavy cav.
Ghulam doesn’t really counter pikes that well, hc or xbow or even skirms are better.
Hand Cannons with a pikeman meat shield
Scorpions protected by camels.
Ignore the people saying handcanons they cost food you dont want to be producing two units costing food.
Ten or so scorps will make short work of any halb army.
Just be sure to finish the game before franks switches to bombards. (Honestly, 1v1s are usually over by imperial age)
HC might be the way in combo with Impcamels
>I see him walling heavily and making pikes so take as my que to add some eco and I chose my counter for that to be Ghulam.
I know Ghulam are more anti-archer and get wrecked by knights but I went with it in the moment.
Yeah, that probably was the big goof.
1] Ghulam are quite solid infantry, as just general “fighters”, and their pierce damage can work against pike blobs, but it’s not amazing.
The trouble is they’re **expensive** compared to most infantry.
They dominate archers, but they just do alright against other troops.
2] Ghulam also, counterintuitively, get no anti-cav damage(!).
They’re a spear unit, but they break the “rule” and aren’t anti-cavalry.
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And yeah — Hindustani’s “Shatagni” Hand Cannoneers are amazing.
if its castle age fighting, i like to go camel scorps.
but since it was a boomy game until imp, i think the easiest comp to go for is skirm camel.
HC is strong, but you kind of want to pair them with halb to protect from paladin, which hindus dont have anymore.
so youre left with HC hussar, which doesnt feel as strong.
so id have gone skirm camel on the front, with hussar raiding the sides.
another option hindus have is cav archer btw.
Personally I feel like all the eyes are on the imp camel and ghulams too much as your main go to unit.
I think their gunpowder is actually their go to, and I’m wondering what 9 Range hand cannons + hussar spam would have done there.
I imagine that you would have whittled down the paladin mass and would easily win a war of attrition as you aren’t throwing away camels to halbs.
Imp camel is great, everyone says it so it must be true.
The reality is that since ROI the tech is much weaker, it’s price extremely expensive for what it does.
I’m not saying it’s a bad unit, but camels are still a counter unit, no one should make them if you aren’t up against cav, and against halbs it’s very questionable to tech into them.
When I’m Hindustanis I often run through my gold when going imp camel.
I played a game like that some days ago.
I was Hindustanis and was playing against Franks.
Scout fight with no one winning the feudal war…
he started making Knights, I strated Camels…
he came with Pikes and I didn’t fought against him because I was getting Stone to put a castle.
After that I made a defensive castle and started to make Ghulams to beat his Pikes.
But after that I pressured in castle age with Camels and Ghulams, and forced him to fight.
In Castle Age Ghulams eat pikes.
My Camels was there just to push away his Knights.
The idea was not winning the game, but to force him to do bad fights and make him waste more resources.
It worked…
when I entered Imp he was forced to use his Knights and I won.
You can go CA that counters both units.
But you can also simply stay walled and boom and laugh as the knights and pikes poke your walls and you make houses behind.
You don’t have to fight that army if you don’t want to, and it will take forever for them to go to Imp making 2 food units.
Then add some HCs to your camels and ez win.
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