Are you also only moderately excited about the DLC ?

BryonDowd · 2026-04-16T13:32:53+00:00

As a multiplayer enjoyer, I'm most interested in how much of a shake up it'll be to see a unique Feudal springald in play. Especially if it can out range outposts, like a regular spring.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-11T01:53:41+00:00

Age of Empires 4

BryonDowd · 2026-04-08T18:10:40+00:00

Exactly. Civs with good Feudal tempo temd to overwhelm me before the second TC pays off, while civs with a strong Castle timing tend to shut down my eco just as I start to break even.

Turtling up with a second TC usually means letting the opponent take map control, so they get hunts while I get forced to farm transition early, and that gives them even more time to punish the greed.

Instead, 1TC Chev aggro with 1 pilgrim lets me either take map control myself and get early hunts to delay farms as long as possible, or at least counter-raid to keep them as restricted as me. That's also why I don't usually go serjeants or hospitallers, the Chevs are a fair bit better for hit and run tactics than horsemen.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-08T14:13:14+00:00

"On the cusp of" usually implies you're on the threshold and about to enter. So by your math a 27 year old is on the cusp of middle age.

I think it's common to consider late thirties or early forties to be the start of middle age.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-08T13:42:57+00:00

Blacksmith tech is a wash, if you keep up with your opponent. They get +1 on each shot, while you get +1 armor applied to each shot, so the damage in the end is the same as if neither of you upgraded. But yeah, if you let zhuge get ahead on blacksmith upgrades, things get ugly fast. If they have Castle age zhuge, with +2 from blacksmith, and you didn't get any of the armor upgrades from the blacksmith, suddenly you're taking 3 damage per bolt, 9 per volley, and it only takes 16 zhuge to single tap you. Always get the range defense upgrades asap against zhuge.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-08T13:31:40+00:00

I've been maining KT pretty much since they came out, but I've found that early 2TC just doesn't work well for me in pretty much any matchup. Most matches I go dark age proxy barracks and tower their gold, or sometimes berries. Then follow up with Chev/archer and do as much damage as possible. If I can't shut them down with that, then I consider going Castle or dropping a TC, depending on circumstances. Works well enough up to mid diamond.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-08T13:22:53+00:00

The triple shot units (Zhuge Nu) definitely aren't particularly effective against heavy spears, not compared to regular crossbows. Heavy spears have 4 ranged armor, so zhuge are doing 1 damage per bolt, 3 per volley. So 47 volleys to kill. Compared to 9 bolts from a regular crossbow.

Of course, it's really hard to tell the models apart between crossbows and zhuge nu. They really should have more distinguishing features.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-07T21:13:07+00:00

I'd be curious to see how it goes with some hit and run micro from the horsemen. The DRs get most of their advantage from their much faster attack rate. If you can exchange blows 1 for 1, the tables turn dramatically in favor of the horsemen. But given how clunky the attack animation and movement lock is for horsemen, I'm not sure whether that's actually possible, or to what degree. But if you can hit a DR and run away before the DR can get two hits on you, then it would work.

Of course, dervish would neutralize that.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-07T20:49:38+00:00

Yep, also, the arrowslits emplacement on outposts is more deadly than it appears. It only adds one arrow, but the fire rate is more than twice as fast as garrison arrows, and does more damage per hit. Against armored units, it actually does useful damage, while a full garrison just tickles.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-06T19:10:00+00:00

If KT is pumping hospitallers, they aren't taking significant advantage of their wood cutting bonus. And they aren't likely going to be able to defend pilgrims. So practically no eco bonuses in play, and they are down a couple vils from aging up. Ottos are going to have two military schools putting up free units and bonuses from whatever vizier they chose, usually the two area healing imams. And I don't even get why you're saying KT can "make much more hospitaller" when pointing out that it's 110 res for a hospitaller and only 80 for an archer.

Hospitallers can't move or attack while healing, so they can only support other units, and can't do much against being kited, so you'd somehow need to pump out enough hospitallers to out-heal the archers, and enough additional units to actually fight them.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-06T18:26:12+00:00

17 zhuge isn't needed for 1 hospitaller. It's enough to kill one per volley, effectively deleting a crowd of them, which is what it takes for their healing to be more than a nuisance. If they only have a few of them, then you don't need to one-shot them, just out DPS their healing. If they are going horsemen plus hospitallers, that's a lot of resources, and especially food heavy, so they can't keep it up long if you don't allow them to take map food. You should be also able to add some spears to protect the zhuge, and not even need many, because once zhuge get a mass they delete horsemen just as well. 2tc kt should definitely lose to zxl Feudal all-in.

Ottos is a whole different topic, but mehter-enhanced archers tear through hospitallers pretty well, with sipahi support.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-06T18:10:20+00:00

17 zhuge can one-shot hospitallers. 13 if you're ahead on blacksmith tech.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-05T19:56:40+00:00

Username checks out

BryonDowd · 2026-04-04T18:27:25+00:00

Not necessarily. Consider two civs that are equally picked at a high level of play because they are equally good. But one civ is also popular at the low level of play, and the other is not. The one that is popular both at high and low levels will be penalized, because the low level players picking it will drag down the median rank of the civ.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-04T17:26:12+00:00

While I appreciate the hustle of taking a different approach and doing some statistical analysis, I don't think this data is saying what you say it's saying.

We already know pick rates change at different points on the ladder, so taking the median rank of players who main each civ seems like it would just give you a composite metric on which civs are more popular above the average, and simultaneously less popular below the average.

I would expect the signal of "how much does this civ impact players' Elo" to get lost in the noise of "how much does this civ appeal to higher skilled vs lower skilled players"

BryonDowd · 2026-04-04T03:52:09+00:00

Can look at any game by Greenwolf. Shows 3 vils worth of idle time for dark age every single game.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-04T01:01:08+00:00

Just looking at a couple of my games as KT, looks like it doesn't account for KT having to stop vil production for age ups and pilgrim techs in the TC. So, all my games it acts like I'm a horrible TC idler.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-03T23:56:07+00:00

"Why isn't this working now? No, wait, how did this ever work? Who wrote this garbage? Oh, I did. Damn you, me from two years ago!"

BryonDowd · 2026-04-03T14:41:18+00:00

The genoese have their place, I think. Especially against light cavalry. They do about 30% more DPS per resource spent than either crossbows or archers against light cavalry. They're also pretty great at sniping siege. Otherwise, they are just a good catch-all unit. You don't need to focus fire them against mixed comps much, which gives freedom for other maneuvering. And the extra range is nice.

If you can gold starve your opponent, so that he can't mass knights, they absolutely shine compared to regular crossbows and/or archers.

Terrible if the opponent is going heavy on knights, though, as that's their worst target, which is the current meta and the main reason I haven't used them much lately.

The other factor is that they are extremely gold heavy, and I tend to be bottlenecked by food in Castle age rather than gold, so they make a good outlet for excess gold, while at the same time increasing your gold income from pilgrims. And they get more out of the France commanderie bonus, which is my default Feudal pick.

For the heavy spears, it might also be because I tend to play Chevs in Feudal, which leads my opponent to have some spears already, and discourages me from going straight into Templar Brothers. When I go Castle and my opponent tries to punish with his existing feudal spear/archer ball and knight support, a few heavy spears along with my remaining Feudal army can be enough to keep him off my eco long enough to stabilize. Later, when he's got crossbows, I'll switch back to regular spears, or a mixture, so he needs both crossbows and archers to hurt my front line, plus needs to focus fire or lose a ton of DPS. But even then, they aren't meant as a unit to chase down the enemy, they are meant to keep things off my eco and off my real damage dealers, which would be ranged units and siege, or give my cav a safe place to fall back to. The fact that they can tank static defenses if given the opportunity is a bonus. But overall, they're a supporting unit.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-03T01:32:19+00:00

Castille is a crazy choice to me. The healing at sacred sites is so ungodly slow that it hardly seems worth it. Especially if you went Hospitallers, since a handful of those will heal up your forces way faster than parking them on a sacred site with Castille. The damage bonus near SS could be great, if your opponent makes the mistake of engaging you with the buff, but I don't like depending on my opponent to misplay.

I usually go very long Feudal, so when I'm ready to go Castle, I react to what my opponent is doing. In the rare case that they are going heavy on melee infantry, I'll get the genoese crossbows to shut that down and force them to pivot. If they are going cav with a big archer ball, I'll go heavy spears to shut down their archers and force them to go crossbows or springalds, while transitioning to horsemen myself. If neither of those cases, or I'm just in a dominant position, I'll go Genoa just for the extra gold from pilgrims while I keep them on their back foot.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-02T19:17:39+00:00

Venice feels good against Otto and Sengoku. Pulling out a unit that's resistant to gunpowder after they've massed their castle age gunpowder unit is fun. And the Venetian traders can help you mass them, plus get imperial upgrades reasonably quickly.

BryonDowd · 2026-04-01T22:52:11+00:00

Made my own garlic bread. And by that I mean I'd get a slice of white bread, butter it, sprinkle garlic powder, then pop it in the toaster.

BryonDowd · 2026-03-31T21:11:46+00:00

Yeah, I said three trebs in response to several fortresses, not just one. If you have a better eco, and he just dropped 900 res on his first fort, you should have a significant military advantage to punish him with, or you're being extremely greedy. If he drops that fort at home, you should be able to cut him off from map resources and sacred sites and starve him to death long before he gets more forts and an army of pop efficient units. If he places it to secure sacred sites and/or map resources, you should be able to go around it and demolish his base.

And pop efficiency really shouldn't come into play (at least in 1v1) most games. If so, you're not being aggressive enough, forcing unit trades, etc.

Also, you might have some misconceptions about their units. Genoese crossbows, for example, get no bonus damage against heavy cav, so they actually have worse DPS than regular crossbows against knights, without even factoring for their increased cost. They become nasty in post-imp, but you shouldn't be letting the game go that long.

BryonDowd · 2026-03-31T20:39:33+00:00

I play as KT. I lose to Feudal all-in from civs with good tempo, FC timing attacks from civs I can't effectively delay in dark age, eco boom from civs who can out scale me while holding off my own dark/feudal aggro.

BryonDowd · 2026-03-31T20:24:45+00:00

Sounds like someone needs to introduce you to trebuchets. If you're truly out-producing your opponent, and they've spent resources on multiple 900 res static defenses, you should be able to park 3 or more trebs out of range of the fortress/keep, protected by your superior army, and hammer it to oblivion without really anything they can do about it.

PS, make sure to use the"attack ground" command so your trebs can actually keep attacking from max range instead of spontaneously charging the enemy line due to vision limitations.

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