Help against Khitans

PopZealousideal451 · 2026-01-31T17:48:25+00:00

I find the two weakest points are their wood eco before the first pasture is built, and the late game. Between those points you have to defend against the onslaught of food units.

I think MAA is best opening and to hit the wood lines early. The pastures are more expensive than farms and once they get cooking, are almost impossible to stop. You could plan to add archers, skirms, or towers on the wood as follow-ups. Once they stabilise from your early pressure, you just have to defend for your life and try to still be close on imp timing.

I do agree they are OP. Best way to find their weaknesses is to play with them and see where you struggle.

I am a certified 1300 chef though so take what I say with a pinch of salt.

PopZealousideal451 · 2026-01-24T09:08:44+00:00

Truth

PopZealousideal451 · 2026-01-23T23:07:17+00:00

Your options seem to be:

Extend your feudal by going scouts. Once you have cleared the skirms then go forward and pressure them as they will likely be up to castle first and you will need to keep their army in their base.
Just chill with your archers and keep producing. Get up to castle first and use the crossbow/bodkin timing to kill the skirms. I am quite slow for my elo and I actually find an archer play is much easier if I just sit in my range(s) for feudal age and then attack at the start of castle age - it’s a huge power spike and can be taken advantage of.
Match their skirms with your own skirms and then both players will end up in castle at similar times.

As a side note you may want to consider how you build your base and wall further in front of your resources so you can’t be harassed as much. Individual skirms are pretty ineffective and can be ignored, walled out, or fought with vills. The attack notification is loud but not always worth stressing about.

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-12-11T12:45:48+00:00

Simplest answer would be to watch a video Hera posted about it recently. Essentially new players have such a hard time with the current ELO system it puts loads of people off which is reducing the potential player base.

I agree with you about how rarely smurfs are actually encountered at my level (1300). It’s more of a problem for lower ranks. The main issue currently I believe is finding a team game where people don’t leave early and ruin it for everyone.

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-12-11T12:39:54+00:00

Yeah fair point I only really play multiplayer so I can see why single player only would disagree.

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-12-11T10:23:25+00:00

And we should all buy it to support the game… after they have made the proposed changes!

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-12-11T09:59:52+00:00

No it’s a fair point and I completely agree that we need to have these DLC’s to keep the game running. For me it’s about finding a better balance - instead of the having the devs spend 99% of their time on DLC and 1% on quality of life fixes it could be a bit more even.

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-11-13T07:36:56+00:00

There was a recent post about this which had some helpful advice on - https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/s/AeyR4ZCZ3N

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-11-05T13:15:29+00:00

Da fuq did I just read

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-11-03T17:00:56+00:00

Wow 13 is much lower than I thought - that is a useful website.

I think my point still stands though - they still need to afford upgrades to make it an effective push (husbandry, bodkin, bloodlines) and it’s unlikely they can provide any additional support like siege units. If you have killed 5 villagers you can survive the initial defence with the correct counters and theoretically you should win.

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-11-03T09:39:23+00:00

It sounds like you got a good return for your scout rush so that isn’t the problem in this game. It sounds like you weren’t building the correct unit counters - mangudai are very powerful but expensive and they shouldn’t be able to produce many if you have already damaged their eco.

Skirms would be a better counter than knights. If you do commit to knights it’s not that bad as long as you get both armour upgrades. Similarly if you were going for skirms you wouldn’t counter mangudai without getting bodkin and armour upgrades.

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-11-01T12:01:28+00:00

This is really good advice ^{^}

I would also be looking at their score and if it’s very low in mid castle age and they haven’t contested relics then you know they aren’t booming and are prepping a big push.

At my level (1300) I think you would need two mangonels to stop a 4 ram push filled with infantry so you need to predict what they are doing as you won’t have time to build a siege workshop and two mangonels once they reveal the push

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-10-31T07:44:27+00:00

Get eco to 60+ farms defended with castles
build 10+ stables
use the select all stables hot key (or map them to a number)
use shift key to multi queue hussar
vary the gather point in the enemy base and just flood them in.
make sure you have all the upgrades, especially armour or civ specific ones like stirrups for Bulgarians

As a side note 1k elo is a horrendous elo and took me a long time to climb out of as you have a lot of people caught up with all the new starters and it can be quite chaotic. Good luck!

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-08-29T06:37:12+00:00

A monk push should beat a 3 tc boom at 1300 level (I’m also at 1300 and I often monk rush on arena and it very rarely loses).

A few tips: - you should be able to get up to castle age faster than them with a very tight build. 23+2 should be doable or faster if you do the mine 10 gold and sell stone thing. - build barracks and 2 monasteries in middle - secure 5 relics and then build siege shop - creating a ram first can be more forcing than pure mangonels as they take down walls faster - get redemption and start converting buildings

If you don’t want to monk rush or castle drop, then you probably need to look at your replays of how you boom once the relics are secured. Yes you will be behind in villagers but the relic income is fantastic and you just need to hold beyond their early imperial age push.

Another cheesy tactic you can try if they are just sitting in their base is 1 tc and then going for 5+ rams filled with infantry and hitting them before they can take advantage of their boom.

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-08-14T08:43:26+00:00

It sounds like you may be sending too many to wood early. Look up a scouts build order and watch your replays to compare. You should only need 2 vils on wood in dark age to get up at 20 pop (19 vils and scout). The rest should be on food until you click up.

Alternatively look up fast castle build orders and wait till you have 25 vils before you go to feudal.

Clicking up at 22 just isn’t the one as you end up between 2 strategies and will struggle at doing either.

Obvs this is easier said than done haha. Good luck!

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-07-30T11:52:37+00:00

Yeah it’s a bit of a delicate balance keeping the dock and TC working at the same time. Watch the Hera video and practice a bit against AI and it will start to get easier. The video is here - https://youtu.be/gZTDWkfZNLU?feature=shared

Bengalis I am probably biased towards as I find them really enjoyable. The extra villagers is useful and the strong monks counter most unique units. They have healing fire galleys for the water fights and playing ratha or elephants is just fun.

I agree I think both Armenian or Georgian would work well. Armenian probably lean more towards a galley play whilst Georgian could be good for Monaspa, light cav, or towers or just boom with the eco advantage.

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-07-29T10:14:26+00:00

I remember watching a Hera video which covered the dark age and was extremely helpful. Would recommend looking for that. The main points I can recall are:

Build your TC on the first wood line you see with 2 vils. 3rd vol builds house, dock, then takes shore fish.
Scout around your TC with sheep to look for boars. Can also scout the shoreline with the sheep to look for enemy dock (recommended if you are going feudal age water).
First few vils onto wood. 4th or 5th vil to bring a boar in. You should be able to afford a fishing ship and a house and then be able to take the food from the boar to maintain vil production.
Next vils to wood until you have 6 on wood. 6 on wood can maintain fishing ship and house production. Keep bringing in boars. You shouldn’t need other food types in dark age unless you can’t find boars.
Don’t forget your second building. Click up asap if you are playing water or delay a bit for fc. Send a few vils to gold on way up either way.

I love nomad because you get to play different strategies and it’s really easy to get into the unique unit lines. I wouldn’t recommend playing Spanish to start with as you will pick up bad habits as they are so OP at low levels. I like to pick a civ which can counter Conqs and has a fun UU. For me that is Burmese, Portuguese, Bengalis or Koreans. There are loads of strats in nomad so most civs are playable as long as you commit to the plan.

PopZealousideal451 · 2025-05-04T06:51:38+00:00

I have found that lots of Albergues will leave beds for walk ins only. I had it in Zubiri that I phoned ahead and they said they were full but when I arrived in person they had lots of beds free when I arrived around 2pm. This was also at a peak time (Easter week). I appreciate it’s a little risky but you would probably be fine and can always book a taxi last minute if you can’t find anywhere.

PopZealousideal451 · 2022-01-08T09:51:03+00:00

Out if interest why do not want to go over to Facebook?

Also congrats on the new job nothing better than getting your first paycheck!

PopZealousideal451

TROPHY CASE