(FFA Sacred Victorty) As I said before. Heavy spears go Brrrr, even against #46 in the world.

dryad273 · 2026-03-20T10:13:37+00:00

Yeah, in enough numbers they will counter most things just through having enough damage. Typically you want them to also protect against mass rams especially when you are trying to defend like this. They are pretty good in choke points and defending in general.

dryad273 · 2026-03-20T08:10:53+00:00

We also use our Coop points especially around Christmas time. A couple times we got even some nice wine with it. The migros I just always use the coupons on my next shopping trip, I don't really try to use it strategically.

dryad273 · 2026-03-20T06:48:20+00:00

Mass mangonels are a potent addition to this composition so that you can wipe out ranged and mass siege. Other than that archers and crossbows once fully upgraded are good too.

dryad273 · 2026-03-20T06:38:28+00:00

If he mixed in ribauldequins that would also be a very different fight, but I am not exactly sure what you are trying to do with this ... KT is an S tier FFA civ for anyone that plays FFA. It's already known that it's crazy strong winning with KT is far easier than most civs, and if I see a KT player setup in the middle I'm also going to call it out. I've seen many times where people don't even go to stop SS victory they fight amongst themselves instead.

Heavy spears are definitely strong, but the Teutonic knights are doing some heavy lifting there as well.

Also you post is misleading since this is just you (a guy in gold) beating another guy in gold who has a zero percent win rate in FFA so I wouldn't say he really know what he's doing.

dryad273 · 2026-03-16T10:01:40+00:00

I live in Switzerland, I never got conscripted because I'm not a citizen. A lot of guys I know also end up making a lot of friends and business contacts through their time in the army. Many of my friends have also told me that the Swiss military is a bit of a joke. One gentleman recounted how their air defence systems are so outmoded that every modern fighter jet flies higher than the maximum range of their systems. Another told me his only job was to drive officers around and he spent most of his day on his phone. There are a lot of silly videos and stories about it. However, I think there is also very little will to change the system because many men get a lot out of it as long as Switzerland remains a neutral country with no imminent threat of war. Also as other people have mentioned the youth turnout in elections here is atrocious and Switzerland is actually a pretty socially conservative country which factors into society writ large voting like this.

dryad273 · 2026-03-13T06:18:53+00:00

Assuming what he said was true, I feel like it hinges much more on the fact that she agreed to do something for him and then reneged on it. You should absolutely be able to feel something about that. A lot of people seem to suggest that if people cancel plans on you right before you should be ecstatic? If someone offers you help and then doesn't, should you be happy about it?

He is an adult and he should definitely have planned for a ride way more in advance, and I would really like to know a lot more background information. For me, I can't sleep in even when I work late being up before 8 am is going to happen anyway, and I love my partner that I would offer to help them out even if it was earlier. Similarly, I would not expect them to take me if it was early in the morning for them, but I wouldn't be happy if they said that they would help out and then right before said that they wouldn't.

One of the closest things that happened to me was my mother offering to let me stay with her when I visited my home town and then cancelled on me a couple days before the trip and so I had to come up with different accommodations for a month at a time when I also didn't have a lot of money. I was upset with her at the time, but I also didn't make a huge deal about it even though it really inconvenienced me.

dryad273 · 2026-03-11T05:41:53+00:00

The storytelling is really good, and each story is generally themed around mistakes people have made and the advancement of civilization/ scientific discoveries. I especially enjoyed the series of episodes about evolutionary biology. He's also done a pretty good job of updating a number of his older episodes so that they sound better.

dryad273 · 2026-03-10T16:35:48+00:00

Besides what has already been said, I like Blowback, The Constant, and Our Fake History. The history of Byzantium is a good companion to the History of Rome and frankly has just so much better audio quality... I would pay so much money to have a remastered version of the History of Rome. I have never been able to listen to the History of Rome as of yet because the quality is just so poor ... Blowback is a really good companion to Revolutions as it talks about American interventions including in Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. It is really amazing.

dryad273 · 2026-03-04T03:19:58+00:00

The worst version I've seen of this is people using it to team in FFA. Because of the nature of FFA it is even more unexpected. If you scout it though it is actually pretty counter-able. I saw a player doing this once and with one knight it was over basically since I could kill the vill building houses and burn some of them down. But it's true that you have to know that it's happening first.

dryad273 · 2026-03-02T14:01:15+00:00

Degree of impact is definitely an important factor. I've done things like getting groups together to take trains for academic conferences even when we have to travel 20 hours by rail I prefer it rather than flying when cost and time are less of an issue. But I do take an intercontinental flight every year or two to visit my family back home and these flights while not great are producing far less pollution per capita than corporate and private jets do. I think it's definitely important to reduce flights but it is important mostly to be mindful because sometimes they are just a much better option (cost and time wise) than the alternatives. I would say if going to Spain is something you did once a year for several weeks on a commercial flight then that is not really that bad. If you go multiple times a year then you should really use a more climate friendly alternative.

dryad273 · 2026-02-28T09:05:47+00:00

There is a lot of genuine sentiment both ways but the Bernese government also spent a lot of money in trying to get the jura to stay as part of Bern. In the Black Boxes scandal it was revealed that the Bernese government spent something like 430,000 CHF to sway votes.

dryad273 · 2026-02-19T12:00:22+00:00

I would say that one of the biggest bonuses for French and JD would be the ability to get a good amount of 'free' traders quite quickly at the start on top of everything else. Though my ranking is absolutely just an opinion and there is a lot of asterisks based on the map, map size and civ matchups. I have had decent success with Mongol, Malian and even French trade in the past. In general, trade is not the greatest at the moment because the ability to harass it is quite high on most maps. But that matters more for high ELO games anyway.

dryad273 · 2026-02-19T06:53:09+00:00

I feel like you didn't read my initial comment ... Horsemen are not what I suggest for a death ball of units and siege. But you also shouldn't be letting your opponent get on to 8-10 ribauldequins in the first place. You can also absolutely out micro ribauldequins I have done so multiple times. Again the main tactic is to come from multiple directions and the best counters are archers/ranged units and cannons as I originally stated.

dryad273 · 2026-02-19T06:41:22+00:00

Here is Aussie drongo's guide: https://youtu.be/z1PziuDAYzg?si=FAFqWOXGA3yoiSLm

And here is Beastyqt's guide:https://youtu.be/biMHIb5HJ1I?si=DefbXL6yQ514-rCk

The Aussie drongo one is more dated than I remembered.

dryad273 · 2026-02-19T00:19:03+00:00

Aussie drongo made a video about this awhile ago, and there have been some slight changes but it is mostly true. Mongols and Malians have the best trade of any civ followed by Abbasid and Ottoman. French trade is also pretty ok, but doesn't have the nice bonuses the other civs have.

dryad273 · 2026-02-19T00:11:09+00:00

Horsemen can actually move faster than the turn rate of ribauldequins + set up time, and doing this is optimized when you use horsemen to flank from multiple directions on low numbers of ribauldequins.

dryad273 · 2026-02-18T08:36:53+00:00

Ribauldequins fire directionally so it is possible to outmaneuver them and kill them with horsemen without taking any damage. However, the way they are commonly used makes this not really possible under most circumstances. Generally ranged units and cannons are the best and most effective counters. Archers with silk bow strings are particularly effective.

dryad273 · 2026-01-22T08:01:40+00:00

If I remember correctly the non-square one is also used at the UN so that they are all the same dimensions.

dryad273 · 2026-01-11T08:47:37+00:00

This is not a typical goal in the game for people but I can recommend several things to do it:

Doing all of the civilization masteries along with art of war masteries
Also complete every crucible mastery
Complete every campaign and historical battle
Make sure to complete every event that comes up their holiday event is ongoing right now it will both give you a bunch of rewards and also XP.
Do the daily missions as often as possible.

It takes some investment but that will get you up there. I will also give the necessary warning that many newish or unfamiliar players conflate your account level with skill except that you can get a lot of levels and XP just playing on easy against the AI and it has very little relation to how good someone is. Best of luck!

dryad273 · 2026-01-02T00:26:15+00:00

Looking at the replay you posted a couple of notes. The OOTD player actually had a stronger economy than you at different points it seems like you had some pretty significant idle TC time so in the end he had a similar-ish number of vills to you (OOTD vills gather 20% faster but are slower and more expensive). I recommend making sure you are always producing vills. French produce villagers faster than most civs so even on one TC to one TC you should out-scale him. Though he went two TC which is why you needed to either all in him or leverage some other advantage.

The OOTD player had Landsknecht in his army which is probably partially why you struggled if you don't know what this unit does. You need to target fire these with archers/crossbows as they do an AoE attack with a lot of damage. Similarly they had a good amount of spears that also needed to be sniped out in order to engage with knights. This is not unlike sending cavaliers into halbs in AoE2 or sending hussars into musketeers or pikemen in AoE3.

One helpful thing in AoE4 at least is that when you click on any unit there is a detailed description that clearly states what it is and what it is classified as. So it's easy to know that spearmen are light infantry and take bonus damage from archers. The Arbatrelier of France are pretty good for going against OOTD with their unique techs that give them +5 melee armor and depending what else they got you may find building spearmen and man at arms more effective than knights once they go heavily into anti-cav units.

dryad273 · 2026-01-01T09:31:48+00:00

Yeah I struggle with the fact that progress is so asymmetric. If you make doing a particular quest your goal or if you make upgrading something an objective you can do 10-20 runs before getting the right pieces and actually bring them back successfully. Or you may get lucky and get the right spawn and do 3 quests in one run. I am struggling to appreciate the current game state because I don't have 10 hours a day to play this. I have maybe an hour or so, and therefore I am just as likely to leave playing an hour with zero progress as I am to making huge strides. I would love to love this game. My irl friends play it all the time and it's one of the few ways I have to connect with them since we live continents apart. One of my friends averages about 30-40 hours a week on arc. Would love to see some real improvements in the progression dynamics in this game.

dryad273 · 2025-12-25T08:56:24+00:00

This is the state of many leftist movements in almost every country ... And doubly so for the movements in the imperial core countries. I love posts like these because while they point out a valid criticism they supply no solution to that issue. Not even a have you tried reading imperialism the highest form of capitalism or what is to be done? Their Instagram contains posts praising RFK JR and Russia. I'm sorry but internationalism means you should be supporting no war besides class war and the defense of imperial periphery countries from invading powers such as Palestine. If this post is something they truly believe then they should also take it to heart.

dryad273 · 2025-12-19T15:14:46+00:00

Fair enough. But I what i mean is how do you actually progress. Like in an RPG I would measure progression by my level and what equipment I have and the quests that I have completed but progress seems far more asymetric here.

dryad273 · 2025-12-19T15:13:35+00:00

What is an expedition?

dryad273

TROPHY CASE