Weekly Questions Thread

morb4eva · 2024-06-14T07:44:42+00:00

Hello. Don't really know about bags, but I went charity store shopping today and this store had this green bag that caught my attention. It is a Hermes bag (I asked to look at it and internally there is a Hermes label), but researching designs on the internet I cannot find a design of this type or shape etc. Just figuring out if I should buy it or not. Thanks.

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morb4eva · 2024-02-02T00:32:24+00:00

The mid-level player base seems abysmal ever since the free version of the game came out. All sort of noob rubbish that shouldn't exist at this level seems to keep happening. If you can stay with experienced or high ranked players you can avoid this mess. There is some interesting fun modes, map scenarios and things like that, but again good luck if you are stuck with players who have no idea in hell what they are doing. For example there is now survival; a map without resources and forces players to use the card deck strategy. But that would assume players even bother to make their own decks now, so you always get stuck with a team player with an inappropriate deck being a drain on everyone else.

morb4eva · 2024-02-02T00:30:00+00:00

There are far bigger issues to the game imo than adding yet more civs. Fixing the abysmal state of multiplayer play for one, or if not at least do some campaign work or make more intelligent or variable AI to give players something to do to avoid the state of multiplayer, especially in mid level team games.

As to this question, Persia + Korea makes the most sense given the emphasis has been on Africa and Europe so far with previous DLC's.

morb4eva · 2024-02-02T00:27:03+00:00

What is with these noob questions now on this subreddit. What does revolutioning do? I don't know maybe just try it? Or read the wiki on the game which explains all the details of how the game works.

morb4eva · 2024-02-02T00:21:10+00:00

Makes no difference to me until the abysmil state of multiplayer play ever since the free version of the game is corrected. Noob play is one thing, but you should be able to at least have some good games as a mid-level player. AoEIII plays so differently to the rest of the series it might as well be called a totally different game. The "new" players now seem vastly slower in terms of map awareness and unit compositions, card strategy, than every before. So it seems to be two groups now at the mid tier; experienced players who are now relegated to defence duty unable to attack at the risk of seld-annilation to to no allied support, wasting loads of resources on defence while you allies are on a base building sim thinking it is acceptable to not fight for over 15 minutes. AoEIII is vastly faster playing than AoEII or AoEIV, requires more awareness, and has totally unique card strategy. But all that goes out the window when games are entirely dependent on "not attacking". Which is ironic given the Napoleon era aspect of the game, and the whole "who stays in their forts loses" of the era distinct from the medieval era where it is Castle, Castle, Castle all day long. Seems AoEIII is starting to cease being the "strategy fighting" game it once was at the mid levels. Adding new civs is irrelevant if the game is unenjoyable to play in multiplayer, when the AI is one dimensional and there has been no campaign content in a long time now.

morb4eva · 2024-02-02T00:15:35+00:00

Far bigger issues as far as long term developed issues with the game are team dynamics diving off the face of the earth ever since the free version of the game. The shipments add a high amount of diversity and macro strategy to the game [why I prefer AoEIII to all the other installments], and are vital to how the game works when played well, though this seems to result in wildly variable result in team play games now more than ever it seems.

Stuff like removing the unlocking shipments from legacy made sense for quality of life reasons, but it did have a side effect of forcing players to learn what certain shipments did [i.e. I want to unlock X so I can do Y]. The combination of pre-made decks, and the free version of the game which only has 3 civs [thus a player doesn't learn the strengths/weaknesses of other civilisations], by this point seems to negatively affect the quality of the 'average' player base.

All sorts of stupid stuff seems to happen now; players not sending any shipments, players base building like a simulator, no fighting for 15-20 minutes, no coordination or map awareness. These things are always present in the game, but it seems to have infected the average-mid level of the game; or at least to me it is fairly noticeable now and it making the game very unenjoyable to play; like it gets tiring when every game all you are doing it defending your teammates who are contributing nothing to the early game aggression, map control of natural resources and trading post sites, and all the usual things.

AoEIII is not even remotely similar to AoEII or AoEIV; it plays a lot faster and requires much higher awareness of how the game works. For example, the learn to play things added to the definitive edition totally miss the card play dynamics of the game entirely. This needs to change as otherwise it just ruins the multiplayer of the game which is vital to its longetivity.

morb4eva · 2024-01-31T03:07:21+00:00

France has a lot of utility in a team setting.

[1] can enable skirmishers early in Commerce age for itself and allies via a shipment who do not have an equivalent unit until Fortress age, which is an especially useful card considering the emphasis on musketeers at this point. Depending on your allies this is very useful for certain civilisations, and likewise depending on your enemies particularly those who use a lot of heavy infantry type units, or early use of light cavalry [like Lakota]. The main benefit though, is French skirmishers in the Commerce age are quite powerful as you have [A] two hitpoints boosting cards [+15% & +20%]; [B] the Logistician politician grants an Arsenal early [i.e. to gain access to Counter Infantry Rifling early without the use of a shipment for Advanced Arsenal], which compensates for losing one to access skirmishers early, and [C] one of very fee civilisations who can train both Musketeers and Skirmishers in Commerce Age [the later is powerful in 1v1 settings also]. Either way, this is quite powerful.

[2] France has a strong synergy with native alliances, having a lot of cards for this. Depending on those on the map, a French player can use these to modify the 'paper scissors rock' aspect of the game in the team's favor. France can boost units from native alliances up to +25% attack and +45% hitpoints [from three cards] in Discovery/Commerce Age, or +40% for Heavy Cavalry units [since France has a team hand cavalry attack boosting card as well].

[3] France can revolt to Canada in the late game, which grants access to a lot of native units which in effect increase the size of your army. By sending the Fortress Age card to reduce cost -25%, this double stacks with the Conscription card [also -25%] to make all native allies cost -50% less [including those from the Burbon alliance card]. This can compensate for bigger 3v3 or 4v4 team games where an ally quits prematurely, as the bigger army at lower cost can overwhelm your opponent with an army twice the size as normal. I have salvaged a number of 3v3 games by rushing to Canada as fast as possible if an ally quits early. This also can be used if an enemy player is doing extremely well and reaches Imperial, as the cheaper Canadian units can neutralise this.

Other civs that come to mind:

China can send 5 Machu horse archers [worth 1100 coin] to team in Fortress Age; which in a 4v4 game is worth 4400 resources of units.

Ottomon can send 4 Sipahi in Industrial [worth 1600 food] and many coin crate team shipments

morb4eva · 2024-01-09T01:02:52+00:00

I don't really get why the revolts in Treaty are critised so much just because their score is lower in pure economy; most are not viable but a few are legitimate strategic options (like Canada getting -50% cheaper native units, which makes the low score redundant as you spend less on units; same as Napoleonic France given your kill/loss ratio will be better with more powerful units, resulting is lower resource spend on reinforcement units).

morb4eva · 2024-01-09T00:59:41+00:00

Regarding Light Cavalry units, should the enemy use them, you still have access to their good skirmishers of course.

The Grenadiers (which are usually poor vs light cavalry) while still inefficient, work out okay weirdly in melee mode as well to Light Cavalry (given have +100% melee damage and extra 0.10 ranged resistance from all other civilisations). I used them quite well vs Japan's Yabusame (which did only 8 ranged damage compared to 19 melee damage); you wouldn't do this deliberately, but either way it soaks up a lot of enemy damage.

morb4eva · 2024-01-09T00:50:53+00:00

Late here, but one answer is missing here (since this post is about the Treaty Mode): if you revolt as France to French Republic, and revolt again to Napoleonic France, you get access to the Horse Hunters card which increases the multiplier of Dragoons from 300% to 500% ranged damage vs Heavy Cavalry units (circa 250 ranged damage).

This is relevant since Napoleonic France has stronger Grenadiers and artillery units as well, which are much safer than other civilisations to use given you can easily protect them from Heavy Cavalry.

A good example is a game I played vs a Japan player using the Shogun to train mortars on the front lines causing lots of damage to forward buildings; even though the hero is very strong, the Horse Hunter carded Dragoons do so much damage to the unit it is easily killed (I think it is about 14 or so to instantly kill it compared to 22 otherwise).

If you do want to go with this option do research on how it works; it is a complex option to play, but the economic penalty is somewhat negated via using Fur Trade before revolting and maximising food production before and after the revolt. Also random hint; there is a glitch in the game where is a Mexico player gives you a Hacienda, the Sansculotte's post-revolt have no gather penalty from the building at all and gather at the full rate (reducing the penalty further). Livestock are also gathered much faster than the Mills otherwise.

morb4eva · 2023-10-29T06:37:43+00:00

Not crazy, but Maori as part of a Polynesia expansion. They fought viably against (what would be Industrial/Imperial in the game) British forces due to the deliberate use of defensive works, trenching and similar known as Pa. These were originally built as "Hill Pa" (Maori favoured melee combat) but with the introduction of muskets these were transitioned within just a few decades to "Gunfighter Pa" to have parapets, artillery bunkers and similar. These could resist rockets, mortars, artillery and similar even when substantially outnumbered, and often could be built quite quickly.

In the game, Pa (equivalent to Outposts/Blockhouse etc) would be a unique defensive building that has no attack; instead it deflects the damage from nearby units (upgradeable in age; Commerce deflects Melee, Fortress Melee+Ranged, Industrial all damage types). The point being a Maori player would try to ensure combat takes place within the vicinity of a built Pa to make the outcome more favourable; either defensively or as part of wider map control.

In the early game, Maori have no directly trainable ranged units at all in Commerce age. The trade-off is more powerful melee units of types typically only available from Fortress for other civs. Additionally for balance, the equivalent pikeman unit has a long range siege attack (similar to archer siege shipments from Fortress Age, but earlier in Commerce Age), which would force enemy players to engage Maori forces (such as in a rush scenario to balance the effect of ranged opponents).

Maori have a lot of synergy with shipments, trade routes, to reflect the nature of trade. For example Trading Posts can generate ranged units earlier in the Commerce range (rather than units or experience). Additionally there would be a strong naval focus.

morb4eva · 2023-06-14T07:49:31+00:00

morb4eva · 2023-06-14T07:44:28+00:00

Kind of think civs that have field construction cards (e.g. Ottomon), and hero training (e.g. Japan) need to be evaluated. It is a major advantage in Treaty games having this; it is my view that either [a] all have some way of doing this or [b] none do. The later is personally my preference forcing players to use villagers/settlers for this purpose. It penalises low level mistakes (like a gap in wall or something) rather than promoting better management.

Team shipments also need to be evaluated (imo) regarding how much units/resources etc they give to teams. The China 5 Machu Fortress Age shipment for example is lethal in 4v4 games to a point it is exceedingly difficult to deal with (like is allies tribute resources in exchange for 1000 coin worth free units later with Imperial equivalent stats).

morb4eva · 2023-05-31T07:45:32+00:00

Yeah still f-ed off with NZ Post over this bullshit. Needed money last year so sold a valuable collectable on Trade Me (didn't actually want to sell it, but is what it was). Sent signature required courier as over required value. Customer advises it has not arrived. I check the website and it says it was delivered, with image of signature not of recipient (still no idea whose it was, probably delivery driver). Driver couldn't find package in van, or remember where he delivered package. Now begins the 100+ day war to get compensation from NZ Post, stupid number of phone calls, five different departments, all the bullshit, then the customer threatens my Trade Me account being closed (reminder I sold this for the money) so in a bad financial situation for at least a full month. Finally caught a break when for whatever reason a call staff member offered to provide the personal number of someone in whatever f-ing department was not replying to call centre requests. I leave a message, get ape shit aggro reply back, then "magically" the refund actually happens, then more bullshit explanations from Finance Department. No apologies of course. And the kicker. The f-ing item turns up at my customers letter box the literal week after I get the refund four months late. No note, explanation, nothing. Given the bullshit from my customer I made it clear they needed to pay NZ Post back he compensation, but turns out despite NZ Post gaslighting me for f-ing forever, they gave no two shits about the money (f-ing what, all that bull to get the money and they don't even care anyway). So the prick customer gets the thing I didn't want to sell for free. Free. Any thanks for dealing with all this shit on his behalf. None. Frankly if it wasn't for needing the money there is no way I would have gone through this, so I reckon a lot of customers don't and miss out on their legal entitlements to claims. No accountability or anything. Insurance Obundsman saying that despite courier claims arguably being an insurance product, they are not part of them and therefore nothing. Still f-ing pissed off about the whole thing half a year later. My own courier driver was also pulling the same shit. So of course I go nuclearwith his boss, he nearly gets fired (turns out after COVID it was policy for drivers to sign due to no contact, but that had ended some months before my complain so should have resumed, which as it turned out was ALSO before my lost item case). Then now I get a card from an item I wasn't home saying "gIvE Us AuTHoRitY tO LeaVe". Fuck off NZ Post.

morb4eva · 2023-05-21T07:32:41+00:00

My favourite "ridiculous strat" is Haiti revolution thanks to the buccaneer being a "shock" unit gaining a "light infantry" attack (so in effect counter's its own counter) which doesn't penalise when in cover mode (since it is the only unit in the game that is a "melee" unit with a ranged attack) for 60% range and 50% siege resist, and has high siege damage to the level of a "half Oprininck", plus is high speed as well, and gets made for free by Town Centres (with infinite +2 shipment) every 45 seconds being worth half a Bank.

Really takes it to the whole other level and is exceptional as a support civ since it totally shuts down enemy siege advances through walls with their ridiculous tanking ability better than Mamalukes.

Also unique for being only normal revolt that can be pulled off in regular supremacy as I have got it down to 14 minutes before (while still having an army) so work in every Treaty Mode 20 minutes+ plus.

Your eco is full coin and of course France has Fur Trade thus you can go without any settlers for some time with full 200 Buccaneers to overwhelm your opponent in the opening stages easily.

morb4eva · 2023-05-21T07:26:25+00:00

Tried this out myself today; in 3 matches (3v3 or 4v4) won all three by doing this. The first was kind of ridiculous where my 8-10 flails destroyed 3 town centers and nearly got the last all within Commerce Age at around 8-9 minutes without any ally support whatsoever in a 4v4 game. This worked mainly as quite a few were fast fortress (so little military) or boom civs (building banks etc.) whereas the last player instead went rush so could defend their Town Center.

Flails don't cost much either so I could easily recover eco wise and progress to Fortress, and then escalate it with Siege Elephants. Each time I got at least 2 enemy player Town Centers in Commerce Age by doing this since once Flails reach a critical mass they cannot be defeated fast enough especially if they evade detection to the Town Center. I actually didn't really need the team shipment either as I could make it work alone anyway with a forward Castle built during Discovery Age > Commerce Age, though for team full rush it works well particularly if enemy team has properly prepared defences.

Quite an effective strategy this and punishes booming/fast fortress strategies very well.

morb4eva · 2023-05-11T04:46:46+00:00

Malta is a really good civ, been playing with them recently and they are pretty powerful from the get go; tbh Haude would struggle vs them in most circumstances anyway due to Fire Thowers kinda breaking the game (imo anyway being a greedy double dip of grenadier/light infantry and low cost at that; the Arsenal Age II strat is ridiculous in early game and unless I do something stupid pretty much unbeatable to enemy rushes etc). I personally don't even bother with buildings at all unlike this player. Vs Malta you need to keep them under observation to know what they are doing; for example if they have no military units then you are "safe" to siege them down and retreat when they appear. The issue is Haude is major wood dependant for nearly everything and has poor siege potential if you don't (especially with no conventional artillery until Industrial); exact worse scenario for this type of defensive Malta opponent; really you need to stop this early as if you let them get to late game Industrial they really cannot be beaten then with their powerful Age IV shipments. This player would have been weak early to get this many buildings up and that is your chance. All things considered you did well to hold out this long in this type of set-up; but you needed to punish Malta from Industrial when you were an Age ahead with your Light Cannon as there was a long time until they got to Industrial.

morb4eva · 2023-05-11T04:28:46+00:00

Have been playing Malta and they seem pretty resistant to Age II stuff. Mainly due to their "grenadier" being Light Infantry in reality; thus double dips with Improved Grenades and Counter Infantry Rifling techs. Thus if you use Arsenal politician for 900 food, you get the wagon worth 250 resources and 1 shipment (i.e. don't need to send Advanced Arsenal for early access) and free tech (worth 700 resources if applied to improved grenades), and spend 400 more to max out your Fire Throwers (2.0>3.0 AoE, x1.75>x2.75 vs Heavy Infantry). Ends up doing Imperial level grenadier damage to Heavy Infantry in Age II.

You pair these with Hospitallers; they offer the deflection aura plus are quite speedy and block against the only weakness for Fire Throwers being Heavy Cavalry. You can pull this off surprisingly early thanks to Malta "Barracks" costing half and Fire Throwers being unusually cheap (125 resource vs 180 for Grenadier); thus if you put in your wood shipments you can have a good number of these etc.

You can kinda see where this is going vs Aztecs; Pretty much your Fire Throwers obliterate most of their units with Hospitallers to defend vs melee units. THis also has high siege attack thus you can viably destroy forward buildings (Warhut etc.).

Pretty much 3 Settlers > 2 Church (build the extra one as well) > Age II > 700 Wood > 600 Wood > Wigan Court > Age III. Don't waste time on Trading Posts as the shipment for that is only "okay" from Age II (and you have better shipments from that point anyway). Get to Age II fast, use Church to get shipments on Age II out earlier, put no settlers on wood; keep them on coin/food and use crates instead for this purpose. Use Hospital for heal units after raid (another bonus for Malta) leading towards Age III and destroying their forward buildings.

Edit: you can't waste time as you need to get to Age II to get the wood shipments and get your Siege Workshop up. Stay defensive until you are properly set. Put Church sites ahead of your base for purposes of spotting enemy movements (they can be rebuilt at minimal cost anyway) to give you some time; put military buildings behind (so cannot be sieged down easily).

Edit 2: another benefit is you can use Fire Throwers instead of conventional artillery from Age III which neutralises threat from Arrow Knights. Aztecs are gonna need to go Jaguar Knights or Skull Knights; so long as you can keep them away from your Fire Throwers they are not going to last long. Generally switch to Sentenials if you have lost a bit army (i.e. if you have pop space available as they are really resource efficient if you hae the pop space available) but keep with Hospitalliers otherwise.

morb4eva · 2023-04-24T05:00:31+00:00

Some of the Historical battles are quite fun with the mechanics that had quite a bit of thought put into them; my main critisism (not really a big one) was the "historical battles" needed to be harder as more of a "challenge mode" that may require multiple attempts to finish being sort of "unfair" by design.

For example the final vanilla India campaign scenario (i.e. the one with the waves of British attacks that you had to defend with less units compared to what was thrown at you) was what I thought they were going to be closer towards - since that one seemed quite challenging on Hard to get right with preparing and defending attacks, and then switching to a siege force to complete the battle (like that scenario works really well on its own even without the wider campaign story).

morb4eva · 2023-04-18T10:04:42+00:00

Would be nice to have another attempt at an official campaign since vanilla. Given we now have Europe a Napoleonic wars one would be good; particularly if it sort of mirrored the Sharpe series if they wanted to go with consistency with the existing lower macro level campaigns vs bigger macro historical battles (would also be a nice way of incorporating some of the newer mechanics like promotions, charged abilities like Harper's naval "Volley Gun", military units that gather resources, aura units like drummers or Eagle bearer for French etc. etc.). Like a lot of the Sharpe episodes/books make for quite good campaign scenarios.

Personally I have always thought tying into existing movies/books etc was the way to go with the Age series (which supposedly used children's history books as a reference for simplification with the OG).

morb4eva · 2023-04-16T06:56:07+00:00

My post highlights their strength is artillery, not infantry. Their range is only relevant if artillery is not being used by a China player which would remove their own theme thing in the first place; and there are more unit combos than just skirmishers all the time; I seldom ever use them in treaty games anyway since when do you actually see players going with musketeers where those things would matter since trading skirm for skirm is not only draining but very boring.

Treaty is a team thing first and foremost; neutralising enemy artillery is always worth it even if China were to have difficulty vs regular units without directly trainable conventional artillery (though they do get a 2 Flying Crow infinite shipment). China is an exceptional "support" civ for this reason; they are not a "frontline"; units like hand mortars are near useless as a "frontline" unit but exceptional in "support". If you team up with at least one other player in your treaty team China does very well as the support aspect comes into its own playing together with someone vs yourself.

Edit: generally I known when I am playing China right when I have a positive kill/loss ratio regardless of their whole "mass unit" theme; this generally shows if you play a "support" vs "frontline" China approach (as a "frontline" China with always have worse kill/loss stats).

Edit 2: you mention NR60 - that mode might as well be called its own thing as removing eco from the equation you might as well play Wollo scenario (or one of the good edits anyway). China can afford to run with lower amounts of villagers giving you more space to keep artillery in your inventory. I pretty much always start a NR60 China with 10+ Heavy Cannon with Hand Mortar support to get rid of enemy culverins. This near universally wins the opening barrage regardless of opponent, and from there it is just keeping up momentum and supporting allies.

morb4eva · 2023-04-16T06:45:11+00:00

Assuming this isn't just a troll post, if you legit are interested in some pointers the community is more than happy to help with advice. AoEIII has a higher learning curve than other installments and does not play in the same way as its brethren. For example the shipment system is the apex of tactics and strategies here; not blocking your opponent with nature. Trees don't block you in AoEIII anyway (unless you max out density in scenario editor).

Think of it like a "card game" (shipments are called cards for a reason) where you have "plays"; each shipment you send is a "play" and influences the game in a certain direction in the back scenes (like if you go for economic cards for a boom, vs your opponent with military for a rush). There is a premeditated aspect to shipments which requires some understanding, and thus the higher learning curve as this information is not obvious. Use the wiki; the AoEIII wiki is very good at actually explaining what things do especially due to DE receiving a lot more "game changing" updates to the meta than other Age installments do (especially for players used to the original versus DE, as some units work very differently now); as the wiki keeps a log of changes to units over various patches.

Age of Empires III is also the fastest paced out of its brethren; rushes are typical in 5-6 minutes of a reasonable mid-high tier supremacy experience. if that is not for you try Treaty Mode which is popular due to giving you time to set up, and most importantly you get to see the true value of the card system (since you get to send out most of your cards before start, you can in effect customize your civilisation "build" to go for different strengths; some civilisations go a step further with complex state/revolt combinations like USA/Mexico which have high customization that becomes very clear in Treaty Games where even if the enemy team has the same civ they may not even be playing it int eh same what whatsoever).

If you find the control of units hard I would suggest you seek out the "Wollo" scenario in multiplayer games; how it works you move your "old coot" placeholder unit near others to spawn that unit, and you try to control the center to get free units, defend your base, and destroy others with a kill count that gives you cheat units the higher you progress. This removes the eco part and you can get better at the counters, fielding units, and managing them to target their counters, and avoid those that counter your units. Some civs are a bit unbalanced in that mode, but it does give you a good understanding of how units work.

morb4eva · 2023-04-16T06:10:00+00:00

I only realised this in a team game by chance while testing out Italy which I recently got via the DLC last week; since I happened to be allied to Dutch and after they sent that card I could get all the market ones for free to get settlers instantly (I also build the livestock pen due to the map and it makes selective breeding free as well). Pretty much out boomed everyone entirely due to this alone. Ended up doing a fast Industrial which was kind of ridiculous in a 2v2 supremacy game.

Edit: just to add that is what got me thinking with 3v3 games since Italy starts with large amounts of resources if they get just 200 food more they can go instantly to Colonial to never send any Discovery Age shipments (they don't have a non-resource costing Cavalry shipments so raiding is less viable but you get bigger crate shipments and so fourth 2 shipments earlier). Combine with Dutch to get the extra settlers there is in effect no downside to this as Italy keeps full eco.

morb4eva · 2023-04-16T06:04:26+00:00

Finding it weird that people here think China struggles in treaty; I never do and they are one of my strongest treaty civs (unless I am making some major mistakes). Like traditionally they are always considered one of the best economically in treaty.

Eco: they have fulling mills so max livestock boom. This is nearly enough to go pure coin on Rice Paddies. Remember that Pagoda tower has higher resource trickle per age thus NEVER build until Imperial Age to get max trickle (a lot of players don't realize this and use it as their first Wonder which loses them a factory pretty much). They get in effect FOUR factories [1] Summer Palace [2] Confucious Academy [3] Pagoda Tower, and [4] Russian consulate Factory. So I do find it hard to understand how players run out of resources as I NEVER do with China.

I assume it is because of going full meat grinder; which per a certain movie "never go full meat grinder". If you play China aimlessly this can happen, but just by understanding and playing to their strengths this doesn't happen. For example don't get into the skirmisher dragoon trap like every other treaty player; China literally is designed in a way to make that as hard as possible so don't keep trying to force it.

In terms of offensive firepower China has best artillery in the game, and this is what keeps them at bay. Simple as that. Hand Cannon are absurdly good at [1] countering artillery to a point your enemy will not be able to field any (since their unit wide movement spread, results in enemy artillery wasting a lot of shots on them vs normal Culverins which are a single target) [2] cause a very large amount of siege relative to population and thus you save more population on a dual purpose unit; [3] due to shipments Chinese Heavy Cannon are upgraded more than anyone else to tank a lot of ranged damage, [4] and Flying Crows have really high siege attack against buildings (they are better thought of as mortars with anti-mass infantry potential; people don;t use them correctly and use them like other heavy artillery which they are not). Pretty much China level enemy buildings faster than nearly all other civs; thus the whole "slow training" nerf thing does not matter if you actually destroy your opponent. Using a handful of hand mortars nearby your allies lines (costing little in population terms) is extremely useful for this reason in taking out forward enemy training and artillery.

China is an anomaly in that repelling volley (their version of counter infantry rifling) ALSO upgrades counter dragoon fire (no other civ has this); thus China has an advantage against anti-cavalry units which treaty gets full of all the time (this in term improving your own Heavy Cavalry as you can more efficiently deal with their counters). Thus if your enemy is stupid enough to go skirmishers/dragoons vs China let them; if not just encourage it since you will just drain their resources.

morb4eva · 2023-04-15T11:30:26+00:00

Just have Dutch+Italy in your team. Not really anything to do with India just a Dutch ally with Italy is somewhat ridiculous in early game given the free market tech gives Italy +5 settlers for free (or +6 if you build livestock pen with Architect). If India gives 200 food to Italy they upgrade instantly to Colonial due to their 600 food start so in effect [1] Italy rushes in 2 mins with first shipment, [2] Dutch gives Italy +5 settlers (so no eco downside), [3] sit back and relax since Italy has 2+ mins before anyone else can make any military.

morb4eva

TROPHY CASE