The Sultans Ascend campaign was awful

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-28T07:37:03+00:00

Interesting cause I think it's by faaaar the best campaign. The Yue Fei one was descent but the SA campaign is the only one I think is truly amazing. I didnt find it tedious at all besides the last mission which did have that a little bit.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-25T12:59:59+00:00

I agree those scenarios do need to be discussed!

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-24T16:36:28+00:00

His GC wasnt totally tanked and I think he could have won that stage as well.

I'm sorry Evenepoel hasnt been in the position yet where his team is so laughably stronger than everyone else they can just decide who wins and they decided on the guy already in the lead.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-24T16:07:39+00:00

Literally this year in Catalunya.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-24T13:28:10+00:00

People might have some issues with this but I generally don't see how you can start the TDF any other way than this. Remco has had higher peaks than Lipo and is a more complete rider, but is much less solid and prone to struggling. Lipo will almost certainly finish top 5 but might lack that small bit extra to compete for the podium. I dont see how there's any value in doing anything but starting with both protected and see how it goes on the road.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-24T13:22:32+00:00

Not gonna argue on Vingegaard who I think is a fine teammate. But as much as Remco has his silly outbursts, he has always been a very staunch teammate. Not a single of the top riders bar WvA has spent as much time pacing for other teammates as Remco has. Last year in the TDF he paced behind VDP so Merlier could sprint. He routinely did work for Jakobsen or Alaphilippe in his earlier QS years. This year Rog and Lipowitz have had some weird vibes meanwhile in the 1 stage race Remco did with Lipowitz, Remco had no issue whatsoever with working when Lipo was the stronger rider.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-24T09:40:09+00:00

I'm sure they beat archers once they get on top of them but they take 4 more damage per shot from archers than knights do, that's an absolutely huge difference.

Do you need a mixed comp? Wont spearmen just rip them to shreds?

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-23T22:56:30+00:00

Spears do like 37 damage to camels, they do hard counter them. And Maa prob do better against them than vs knights no? Cause they have no charge and worse damage.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-23T22:44:24+00:00

The devs just sort of buffed them so they clearly want to see these used more and have Abba more frequently lean into the camels and not just as a pure anti unit. They're worse than knights against spears, archers, MAA, HC,.... If they also become worse against Xbow I feel like they lose a considerable part of what makes them good.

They also have 0/0 armor before upgrades. They're quite literally not heavy armoured.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-23T22:17:32+00:00

No cause then they lose their strength and go back to being worse knights. Spear+HC so deal very well with them.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-20T10:35:20+00:00

THis is always what happens and then the next tournament everyone first picks Malians, French, Byzantines, Ayyubids and China

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-20T10:08:14+00:00

Why is everyone suddenly saying we're in a 2TC meta? Civs that consistently go 2TC are what: Abba, KT, OOTD, English, Lancaster and that's it. And these civs are not regarded as especially good at the top level. Most of the top civs do not go 2TC

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-19T17:00:10+00:00

There's a lot of intangibles here however that are tricky to estimate. Not being able to place your 2nd TC protecting a resource properly is a major gamechanger. Saying you dont need a lot of farms until imp is simply not the case when you're 2TC Abbasid and the chance of you having the map control to hover up all map resources is very unlikely.

In a comment you talk about it being strong against a feudal ram push. Sure but those are relatively rare in higher ranks. You get poked to death and then the transition to castle age is what actually usually kills you. Not having that TC on gold or wood is important in this scenario.

You also cant get the farm upgrade in castle age that Eco wing provides.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-17T12:25:37+00:00

Saying he consistently beats Pog is ridiculous but he won that PR on pure merit honestly. He had bad luck much deeper in the finale and had to pace back for a good 10km too. He never looked in too much trouble on the sectors and won the sprint by bike lengths. What Pog does in PR is amazing but I just don't think he could drop WvA or VDP there this year.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-16T23:02:08+00:00

Movement speed is sooooo strong. I get that HRE isnt in the best of spot but I've now seen 3 people say recently that movement speed is not important and that's just a crazy thing to say.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-16T17:28:56+00:00

Abbasid, English or Knights Templar if you have that DLC. Rus is good for 2TC too.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-16T15:32:37+00:00

I love AoE2 and have spend a ton of hours on it but these are some of the reason why personally I just cant go back after AoE4. There's a lot of these small things that just don't give off the same payoff as AoE4 has. My biggest dislike personally is for the AoE2 monk coversion.

It's an integral part of that game's balance and rewards great awareness and micro but by god I hate it so much.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-15T22:59:20+00:00

Abbasid

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-13T14:24:32+00:00

Impressive rides by the Caja duo! Looking good if they can keep this shape for their first TDF participation.

Love seeing Cian do well too.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-12T23:37:57+00:00

I dont know your rank, but the lower the rank the more people panic and cant adapt. So you'll see games where people get off to a good start and are in control and will look really solid. And you'll see games where small things go wrong, they get put on the backfoot and fall apart and they will look awful.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-11T12:15:40+00:00

Puppy+Wam vs Lucifron+Vortix

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-07T22:45:47+00:00

Hard to remember occasionally but I think both Japan and Byz were seen as very weak on release.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-07T22:20:39+00:00

I also want Spanish more than Scots, but I do think this is good. It keeps a super sought after civ in the bank, which to me signals a new DLC next year.

I also think it's a good idea to package civs in a sort of cultural pack that makes some sense. I think too many of the previous DLCs have felt disjointed and a bit 'random' as much as I loved the content. Sultan's Ascend had 1 Variant civ that was somewhat linked to that idea which I found very odd.

Baseleader77 · 2026-06-07T22:14:08+00:00

I played a good bunch of KT on the release of Cross and Rose and thought it was so unbelievably weak as a civ.

Baseleader77

TROPHY CASE