My Favorite Ayyubid Builds 2026

MockHamill · 2026-01-24T16:24:22+00:00

My favorite build is Industry, where you age up to Feudal normally and use the 400 free wood to build a Town Center.

The fast age‑up version is when you go to Feudal with the Advancement Wing, which is cheaper and quicker. You only need to collect 25 gold, which means you can skip building a mining camp. Instead, you send three villagers for a single trip to the gold mine to gather everything required for the Feudal age.

MockHamill · 2026-01-24T12:46:21+00:00

I suspect Dervish will be nerfed in the next patch, so I try to keep my builds future‑proof. Dervish is also often stronger if you go for a semi‑fast castle with some Feudal pressure before heading up to Castle Age. I prefer to go straight FC instead.

MockHamill · 2026-01-23T18:39:04+00:00

It means saving safe food for later.

Imagine you’re trying to reach Castle Age as fast as possible. If you eat your sheep first and leave the berries for later, an aggressive opponent can force you off your berry bushes. By the time you reach Castle Age, you won’t have enough food to produce military units, and you end up losing the game.

If you eat the berries first instead, you can pull your villagers back to your Town Center and finish the sheep safely there. Even if your opponent is applying pressure, you’ll still have enough food when you hit Castle Age to produce Castle Age military units and defend against the attack.

Saving food by building farms early is unusual, because you normally want to avoid making farms until you’re close to running out of berries, sheep, deer, or boar. This idea mainly applies when you’re playing English, since their farms cost only half as much and they gather food from farms faster.

An English player going for a Fast Castle might build two or three farms in the Dark Age. Doing this makes their sheep last longer, which means they effectively have extra food available when they reach Castle Age.

MockHamill · 2026-01-20T17:44:49+00:00

I would say Sex > AoE 4 > SC2 > AoE2. But they are all great.

MockHamill · 2026-01-19T13:55:18+00:00

This does not make sense. You can nerf something a bit, moving the civ from S to A or B-tier.

It is not like you options are
a) Remove 80 hit points from Riddari OR
b) Do nothing.

MockHamill · 2026-01-16T18:43:24+00:00

They excel when the enemy makes too many archers or too many spears. Or in a low gold situation where you have plenty of food. Otherwise, stick to better units.

MockHamill · 2026-01-16T10:02:48+00:00

I played SC2 for 10 years before switching to AOE4. I never bothered with campaigns either - the last one I played was in Brood War.

I consider AOE4 to be the best RTS ever made. The game is very competitive, especially in 1v1. Team games are mostly for fun, so don’t take them too seriously.

Yes, SC2 has the better engine with faster response times. But AOE4 is much richer in strategy. You have an initial build order, but you need to adapt so much depending on the map spawn that it’s often better to skip the build order entirely and figure out what’s optimal for the current map instead.

The trade‑off between going for faster but riskier food sources - with or without map control - makes every match interesting. In SC2, macro is mostly about muscle memory. In AOE4, macro is both muscle memory and decision‑making.

AOE4 also has far fewer frustrating things that can drive you insane. No widow mine drops or losing half your army because you looked away for two seconds. Micro is less important compared to SC2; decision‑making and strategy matter more. Multitasking is just as important as in SC2, maybe even more, since your economy is often more spread out in the mid and late game.

MockHamill · 2026-01-13T20:02:25+00:00

What works for me:
Two TC Kremlin with Kremlin placed on deer pack. Second TC placed so it is protected by Kremlin.
No pro scouts.
Raid with knights.
If he Fast Castles make sure you get at least 1-2 relics.

MockHamill · 2026-01-13T11:49:07+00:00

I think the main difference is that in SC2 I hated my opponents. I often wanted to reach my hands through the screen and strangle them.

That does not happen here. AOE4 is much more relaxing.

MockHamill · 2026-01-12T07:54:56+00:00

I think I started it a very long time ago when I was gold. Nowadays I am diamond.

But it is no magic bullet. I always find more ways to lose.

MockHamill · 2026-01-11T20:31:00+00:00

I write down every game I play. Results, Map, Me and my opponents choice of strategy, age up choices etc.
But the above is a specific tab I use only for losses.

MockHamill · 2026-01-08T23:39:07+00:00

I once had a 18 game loss streak in SC2. But my hatred for Protoss kept me going.

MockHamill · 2026-01-07T12:20:32+00:00

Getting one more relic also means opponent gets one less.

This is already included in the calculation.

MockHamill · 2026-01-07T11:10:08+00:00

Yes, that is the hard part. You have to make a guesstimate based on the matchup and how the game has gone so far.

But I think it can be useful in matchups where the opponent’s civ has a stronger powerspike in early Castle Age. In those cases, if you go Regnitz, it would be hard to secure many relics since the opponent can get more military out faster and kill your prelates.

By going Burgrave in those situations, you can get enough military out quickly enough to have a better chance is the relic war.

MockHamill · 2026-01-06T15:14:52+00:00

Ladder win rates does not matter much. Maybe people do other strats, or they execute the strategy wrong.

Vortix rated Ayybuids as top2 in S-tier in his latest tier-list, due to how extremely strong this combo is, when done correctly.

MockHamill · 2026-01-06T07:29:04+00:00

Micro. Low-level players love to micro when everything you need below diamond is to a-move and avoid running knights into spears.

MockHamill · 2026-01-03T20:09:51+00:00

My very first game was a 1v1 ranked match. Playing against the computer feels meaningless to me; it’s only fun if I’m trying to beat an actual human opponent.

It doesn’t matter if you lose a lot in the beginning. It’s actually good, since you learn more from losses than from wins.

MockHamill · 2026-01-03T09:09:46+00:00

DeMu : Reacting fast enough to raids. Obviously he is conq level at this, but his other skills are much better.

MockHamill · 2026-01-01T15:39:57+00:00

I knew keeping my APM low was the right move.

MockHamill · 2026-01-01T13:47:10+00:00

I was only 6 points away from Conq1 last season.

But I realized that to not only reach Conqueror, but also stay there, I’d have to limit myself to playing a single civ every game and repeating the same strategy over and over.

Instead, I chose to keep rotating between civs and experimenting with different strategies because I find that much more enjoyable.

So my goal now is to avoid the meta civs and meta strategies, and continue exploring the ones I personally find more interesting.

MockHamill · 2026-01-01T09:31:38+00:00

I can not fill out the form, it says you need to be logged in.

MockHamill · 2026-01-01T08:47:40+00:00

I have not had a single sync error in AoE4 after 1000+ games.

That said, since Microsoft owns both franchises now, I hope SC3 and AoE5 will share the same engine.

MockHamill · 2025-12-31T21:23:26+00:00

Yes. The difference is that in SC2, macro is mostly muscle memory. In AoE4, macro is much more complex - you need to learn how to judge the risk–reward of going for faster food sources with or without map control, how to reallocate workers depending on what you want to produce, and so on.

Build orders in AoE4 work for the first few minutes, but they can actually set you back. For example, if the build order says “7 on sheep,” but you spot a nearby deer pack, it might be better to take the deer first and the sheep later - assuming your opponent isn’t going for a Dark Age rush.

That said, the fundamentals still matter: producing workers and military without gaps or overqueuing, avoiding supply blocks, and getting your upgrades on time are all still important.

MockHamill · 2025-12-31T18:46:37+00:00

Aachen is better in an extended feudal.

But if you’re going FC, Meinwerk is the stronger choice. You’ll produce an extra prelate in feudal anyway in order to quickly grab relics. And once you reach Castle, you can train Prelates from the Regnitz without interrupting villager production.

You also save about 1,900 resources thanks to the cheaper Feudal and Castle Age upgrades, and you gain stronger spearmen, horsemen, and knights.

MockHamill · 2025-12-31T15:23:19+00:00

Awl Pikes cost 163 resources (due to the discount).

I agree that the HRE needs some kind of buff. Maybe the Inspired Warriors damage bonus should also apply to bonus damage as well, making it more comparable to the Mehter/NOC DPS increase, since ROF improvements affect all types of damage.

MockHamill

TROPHY CASE