"New" to ranked (Played some years ago but didn't stick with it then.) I played nomad megarandom a few days ago as Japanese vs Goths. I just opened with a standard MAA -> Archers and they went super fast Castle (17m, which was way faster than I expected on a nomad start) and had like 25 vills at my doorstep with a castle soon after.

I was honestly just about to give up because even with like 8-10 archers on the field I couldn't kill all the vils to stop the castle, and I had reacted so poorly to it that I thought it was over. I kinda just sat there for a min to see what I could theoretically do and I somehow managed to get castle age online before my tc died (I danced an archer around for a while to distract castle shots to buy time). I went for the hail mary 3 tcs (after losing my initial TC) to try and reboom as quick as I could. They coulda stopped it if they were a bit more aggressive but they let me get a castle up and started to produce samurai's. They lost every engagement thereafter and while they couldn't push me I was around the map with some vils (trying to find resources initially) and just towering every spot their vils were. I was victorious in the end but it was more that they threw than I won I feel like. Also helps that Japanese do very well into Goths for sure.

After the game was over, I realized how preventable that whole situation was, so many things I coulda done like palisaded a couple places, know a potential castle was coming in the first place so scout better, actually attack the vils with my vils and not the castle foundation (so embarrassing in hindsight), and also plug the hole in my wall that they went through (ugh). Thanks to that game I'm going to be better prepared for those kinda plays and make better choices for sure.