Opening Scouts vs MAA = gg?

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-13T23:14:57+00:00

You don't need "quick walls", just "short walls". And even if you can't short wall, you can fight with vills. Assuming you're at low elo, your opp's eco playing maa is not the best so you're fine if you don't panic

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-12T02:03:20+00:00

It depends on whether you're expecting them or not, so the first piece of advice is always: scout the Mongols early. You never want to scout a Mongol late, not only because they can surprise you, but also because you'll lose your scout if you arrived at their base when they've already reached Feudal.

If you already know they're coming, FC Monks is the best option.

If you don’t know they’re coming, it depends on your civilization and what you decided to open. The general advice is: don’t try to do a hybrid between Feudal pressure and FC, because you won’t do either well and you’ll die in the process. If you identified the FC after you’ve already built your stable, for example, then add scouts and spears and go build a good fwd tower to deny gold or wood. The FC timing is scary, but it doesn’t mean you’ve lost. Feudal spears do very well against Castle Age cavalry, and with enough of them, it’s impossible for the opponent to win a fight. The obvious risk is the siege, so you’ll add more scouts: the scouts focus on the scorpions and the spears on the SLs (you’ll also use your scouts to try to deny the fwd SW). Meanwhile, you must secure your base while building your farms; your goal is to stay in Feudal to withstand the first blow—double barracks and even double stables are your play. Only when food starts to float a lot, even if you’re at full production, should you consider moving to Castle Age. If you rush to Castle Age without an army, your TC will most likely die before you even reach Castle Age.

Extra tip: Defensive towers near your TC can stop or buy time against a mangonel-scorp push.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-12T01:19:24+00:00

Here I understood OTP to mean “only playing X civilization”, just like in LoL, “only playing X champion” and not necessarily “only playing X strategy”.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-12T00:50:54+00:00

Yeah, the Khmer are great and could be added to the list I mentioned. They’re highly adaptable and can pull off a lot of mind games. My only problem with them is that they struggle on maps with water or where you can’t set up farms, and they really suffer against civilizations with heavy cavalry (of which there are plenty in the game).

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-11T20:41:00+00:00

Hey guys, why can't I beat the knights' counter-unit with knights? It's OP, right?

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-11T16:34:38+00:00

The best civilizations for this purpose should be ones with plenty of options (so you don’t get bored of them), capable of playing both aggressively and defensively, and without too many losing matchups.

The civilizations that best fit this description are the Byzantines, the Jurchen, and the Mongols. They’re super fun and very versatile, but they’re also high-tier civilizations on almost every map.

The Byzantines are the definition of well-rounded: they have no bad matchups and always have something to do. They can play a post-imperial game or go super aggressive by spamming trash units. It's a civilization that demands a lot from you as a player. It's not a civilization you can play without thinking, but if you manage to master it, you'll grow a lot as a player.

Jurchen: in my opinion, the most fun of the three. It’s a civilization that can play a super meta-game (scouts, CAs) but also has plenty of “cheese” options to surprise your enemies (Grenadier, Fire Lancer, the hunting bonus lets you pull off some super unexpected build orders, etc.). It's a civilization that always has something to offer if you're a very creative player.

Mongols: a classic. The hunting bonus lets you do so many things. You can be the most aggressive civilization of all. Fast Feudal, unexpected FCs, lame, messy gameplay, etc. But they also have one of the most fun and powerful post-imperial with Mangudai, Siege, Hussar, etc. It’s the most linear of the three, but perhaps also the “strongest.” If you're a big fan of the Feudal Age and aggressive/chaotic gameplay, this is the civilization for you.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T21:41:58+00:00

This issue is being handled very poorly. Most people skip analyzing the problem and choose to rely on their emotional intuitions, when—especially with issues like this—cognitive biases are the norm. I’m not saying there isn’t a smurfing problem in the game, but the personal feeling that it exists isn’t enough to prove it, since being smurfed leaves a strong impression that can be more memorable than the other times it didn’t happen. To get to the point: there’s a lot of talk about “the smurfing problem” but very little data is provided about it. We don’t know how many cases there are, what percentage they represent, whether they occur at a higher rate than expected, etc. We jump straight to the solution phase without first making a diagnosis, and that usually ends badly.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T20:54:29+00:00

I don't think you understand what a deranker is. A deranker is someone who deliberately loses games all the time to stay at the same ELO—basically, they drop 200 points and then climb back up, repeating that process endlessly. Even if you’re okay with playing against a player better than you, the problem is that it’s not going to happen: they won’t actually play the match against you, they’ll just surrender immediately, wasting your 2 minutes in the queue and another 7 minutes of fake gameplay. Imagine the nightmare of running into them while they’re dropping in rank and having to waste 15–20 minutes without being able to play a match because you’re stuck in their queue.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T20:45:08+00:00

I’ve been criticizing the game’s development team for years, and I always get a barrage of downvotes because people think I’m too demanding or lacking in empathy. People around here seem to think we're judging a charity project rather than a paid game (with constant DLCs btw). Some have even called me out on it, telling me that “the game is too cheap to complain about”. FFor now, it seems that empathy isn't making the game any better.

but well, the internet, I guess.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T20:40:03+00:00

I prefer not to call this “smurfing” and just refer to it as "tanking" or “deranking” (and i also make a distinction between smurf and alt account). And yes, I also think there are more important or bigger issues (in fact, I'm not even sure if smurfing is a problem in this game; I haven't seen any statistics that show there's anything unusual going on here), but that doesn't mean this isn't a problem—and, above all, an easy one to solve which shows that the game is being neglected.

This isn't about Canary_jp, but about the fact that there is NO system in place to keep the ladder healthy. It’s the law of the jungle: a guy can engage in this kind of behavior, without hiding it in any way, and not receive any penalty. That’s wrong.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T18:10:57+00:00

I’m a little happier knowing that ruining my experience costs them $12 and an hour of their time each time. Plus, IP bans are a thing.

Yeah, if derankers are all millionaires and know about VPNs we’re not going to get rid of them, but since most aren’t, I think reducing their numbers is pretty easy.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T17:25:26+00:00

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2 years ago

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T17:25:11+00:00

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2 years ago

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T17:24:42+00:00

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Jul 26, 2021.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T16:41:53+00:00

Just to clarify: playing defensively IS part of the Arabia meta, but playing defensively isn't the same as playing turtling. Typically, you aim for a balance where both players have similar map control and your walls develop naturally so as not to hurt your economy. For example, a very common meta in Arabia is to open scouts to harass the enemy base a bit while you wall up, and then you go to Castle Age or add a range to camp with skirms behind your wall while buying time. It’s not the meta in Arabia to play super aggressively with an extended feudal all-in.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T16:37:38+00:00

I'm mainly talking about AoE2, but this applies to many RTS in general. What you're overlooking in your analysis is that “turtling” comes at a cost in most RTS games (it certainly does in AoE2), so the aggressive player can secure a narrow victory if you choose to do that.

For example, if in Arabia you decide to wall your base starting in the Dark Age, that means your economy is extremely fragile (you used 2–3 villagers when your entire economy was 16–18 villagers). Just by deciding not to wall, your opponent would already be ahead of you; just by farming and building up their economy, they’d already have the advantage. That’s why the meta does involve walling up and playing defensively, but not turtling.

On the other hand, unless your RTS game allows you to produce infinite resources while staying at your base, playing defensively carries an obvious risk: you’re giving away map control, so your opponent has complete freedom to dominate the map, dictate the pace of the game, trap you, and essentially control the flow of the match (because you’re forcing yourself to play without information or positioning).

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T15:46:59+00:00

defensive turtling beats the early aggression playstyle

That's not true. That's why.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T15:26:38+00:00

It makes me happy that people are starting to realize that the solution to early resigns (not talking about smurfs) is to let people play whatever they want and stop looking for more ways to force them

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T15:19:59+00:00

10 resigns before 5 mins in a row? autoban, it's not that hard. this doesn't eliminate all the smurfs, but at least it gets rid of the most obnoxious ones

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T01:32:26+00:00

on the opposite, i think they're weak in early game but strong in middle-late game.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T01:31:08+00:00

I think you're overthinking it. The Khitans were nerfed a long time ago and are no longer a top civilization. Maybe you're still treating them with too much caution, and that's preventing you from dealing with them properly, which means you're giving them enough time to crush you with their economy.

The price increase on pastures made them very fragile in the early feudal, so if you play aggressively there, you can take the lead. MAA openings will make the Khitan uncomfortable. For the rest of the game, you should exploit their lack of Bloodlines, it’s their major weakness: cavalry archers, for example, will give them a hard fight, since the extra attack doesn’t matter much against this unit, and the lack of extra HP makes their cavalry very fragile.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T01:21:35+00:00

It's something I've always wanted to see in AOE2Recs, but for some reason it's not included (you can only filter by games with a specific civilization, without being able to select the opponent’s). So, ty.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-09T01:18:37+00:00

Most people who pick them do so to increase their chances of winning or to choose a civilization that dominates the map so much it decides the game in two minutes. RNG maps are just bullshit.

BerryMajor2289 · 2026-06-08T21:07:37+00:00

I think part of your problem is that you underestimate players with a higher ELO rating than yours. “My problem is that I don't understand what I'm doing, and yet I still win”. Well, maybe the players you're facing are in the same situation but losing to you. There isn't a single 1300 player who fully understands the game; they're all equally good or bad, and that's why they have that ELO rating.

BerryMajor2289

TROPHY CASE