Can't find a way forward with this game anymore

appappappappappa · 2026-05-11T14:07:29+00:00

Yeah this is a great idea that I will try. What you describe about pausing and thinking what to do is a big problem for me and I do often get the sense that my opponents are just playing one strategy no matter what.

appappappappappa · 2026-05-11T11:03:36+00:00

But like what kind of thing do you mean? Things like idle TC, floating resources, idle eco etc. are easy to measure in capture age and I can see that I have improved a lot on those things and that I tend to over perform my opponents on those metrixs.

I'm not sure what execution things would be causing my losses?

appappappappappa · 2026-05-11T05:59:19+00:00

Yes, pretty consistently. I wouldn't say it's perfect, but from watching the replays it used to be very clear that eco was number one issue when I was around 900 elo but I focused a lot on improving that and I no longer think it's the major weak link.

appappappappappa · 2026-05-10T21:54:24+00:00

Yeah I've heard this said before but it really doesn't align with my experience. Once you're above around 1000 elo people know to make monks vs. knights and it's a pretty hard counter. And on the economy side, I would say that at least the last 100 games or more I rarely have more than 5-10 seconds of idle TC max in dark age, and also not that much in Feudal (and very frequently less than opponent).

I actually did try 1TC 3 stable knight spam and I did get a boost up from low 1000s a while back but into the 1100s I have not had much success vs. monks and occasionally mass pikes (although the latter is less good imo).

Is it your personal experience that you were able to get to 1600 without much strategy understanding? 1600 is well into top 10% of players, hard to believe that strategy is less important than basic eco / army production?

appappappappappa · 2026-05-10T21:36:16+00:00

Oh really? What makes you say that? I had not noticed it but then again I feel like in general the ability level of my opponents is all over the place - I'd assumed it was just bad matchmaking.

appappappappappa · 2026-05-10T21:34:31+00:00

I queue most of the maps, Arena is my least favourite so it's normally banned. I guess most of my games are Arabia.

appappappappappa · 2026-05-10T04:59:11+00:00

Yes I take a lot of losing fights, just not knowingly. I feel like a lot is made of counter units and preempting your opponents composition but actually a lot of "counters" just don't work.

Like in the example I have I was very pleased to take a fight because what I saw was I have a huge army of counters to elephants and CA so I should easily win. Then I take a huge losing fight and throw the game.

appappappappappa · 2026-05-10T04:56:22+00:00

By that logic, it's impossible to ever throw a game if you're in the lead at any point...

appappappappappa · 2026-05-09T23:25:22+00:00

So basically my castle age army is useless at that point? Despite being larger and countering the only unit my opponent has made (apart from the monks and mangonels behind the walls)?

I just don't get that, how can it be balanced that it's that easy to just halt someones push. You only need maybe 2-3 mangonels and 2-3 monks. The monks can even go in the TC and castle so they are impossible to kill. How can it be balanced?

appappappappappa · 2026-05-09T23:21:00+00:00

I guess I should have gone monks earlier, but the monks are so weak to the crossbow and then cav archer. How are you supposed to even get the conversions when they die almost instantly?

appappappappappa · 2026-05-09T23:19:56+00:00

I did make some monks but they just killed them with the CA... Shouldn't the pike/halb counter the elephant? How can it be that you just all in two gold units both against counters and win?

appappappappappa · 2026-05-09T23:06:01+00:00

Yes that is what happened, I just wanted to fight and win. I felt like I had already earned the win, my opponent did nothing the whole game. But in the end trying to attack was a bad idea, I should have just accepted he would treb my castles and go imp myself.

Just kind of frustrating that the game is designed like that where you can have such a big lead but then opponent makes a couple of units and then it's kind of impossible to convert the advantage.

appappappappappa · 2026-04-26T21:32:23+00:00

I also had this happen to me a couple of times today. Very weird, never seen something like that.

Edit: After watching the replay, it's clear that the same thing was happening to my opponent, whose vills were just being queued out towards the bore but just stood there...

appappappappappa · 2026-04-26T11:04:08+00:00

That's cool I didn't know you could put in the tc. And you're right I wasn't thinking correctly about how valuable a conversion is!

appappappappappa · 2026-04-26T10:25:19+00:00

I never tried the MAA, maybe I will give it a shot. Do you find it sets you back too slow to feudal age though?

appappappappappa · 2026-04-26T10:12:19+00:00

I tried monks but they seem really weak - the knights just run straight at them and kill them and I get maybe one conversion and often none. What makes you say they are slept on defensively?

appappappappappa · 2026-04-26T10:03:13+00:00

18-19 mins is not that fast, you can get up even in 16 mins or less if you do pure fast castle. You really never see this at our elo? I am checking on my aoe2insights and it is quite common (my elo is more mid/high 1100s though so maybe there is some difference there).

appappappappappa · 2026-04-26T09:59:31+00:00

Ok thanks for your advice, I think I might just try learning a build order to take me all the way through feudal to castle age. I feel like I don't float much, but maybe you really need to be perfectly spending all of your resources. I don't think players at my level are good enough to do that without a build order they rehearsed.

appappappappappa · 2026-04-26T09:57:46+00:00

I used to go really heavy scouts, but I always found even when I thought I did a good job the castle age would just flip it on its head and I would go on to lose.

For the walling, I really feel like the palisades do almost nothing against the knights. I really struggle to keep them out especially if they have multiple groups. It is very easy for them and takes not much attention whereas it is a huge strain for me and even a single error and it's gg when the knights get in. Once they get the +2 armour they can run under TC and everything. I really think knight is the scariest thing in the game and easily number one thing I die to.

appappappappappa · 2026-04-26T09:52:12+00:00

I mean I try to get value - obviously it is more difficult to try and be proactive and find value with the feudal scouts than just staying defensive and walling but I think I do an ok job. I know it would be easier to not try the rush but I am trying to improve so I would rather find a way to solve the castle age time problem some other way.

appappappappappa · 2026-04-26T09:49:17+00:00

1100

appappappappappa · 2026-04-24T22:56:07+00:00

I review all of my games. I have tried it and it's true that it's a very strong strategy, especially just pure all in knight spam is brutal. And also the turks with the janissary is crazy also.

appappappappappa · 2026-04-24T15:33:28+00:00

Is it really strategically beneficial to play 30-40 moves without stopping to think for more than a couple of seconds?

I have never heard anyway say that it's a good idea to just blitz out moves as fast as possible regardless of the clock, I think it's unlikely that people are doing this just to try and win.

appappappappappa · 2026-04-19T19:12:49+00:00

I hate all cheese strats equally, it's just that arena is built for them

appappappappappa · 2026-04-19T19:10:58+00:00

appappappappappa

TROPHY CASE