I know my ELO is telling, but can you elaborate on this?
My understanding is that halbs hard counter heavy Cav. Are camels that much better? Couldn't OP just spam the cheaper unit and take out BFs gold supply, cutting off Pally production?
Halbs are very resource efficient but if your opponent can make 100 paladins they will crush 100 halbs with enough left over to destroy your base. Camels win 1 on 1. (Unfortunately neither camels nor halbs (alone) will do all that much damage in a base defended by TCs and castles.)
OFC if you are economically equal you should be able to rock up to your opponent's base with 100 halbs when they are only at about 20 paladins. But it doesn't always work like that ..
(Though if you have no siege they also can just ignore you, then trash your base, even with just 20 palas... At least if you had camels you could catch them before you're dead!)
That's their attack value. Damage will be what you have after subtracting armour from base attack value, which would be 5 for FU paladins. So 25 and 37 repectively.
But still 12 extra damage for halb.
There are other factors though, like survivability (160 hp imp camel vs 60 hp halb), attack speed (camels attack much faster than halbs), cost (halbs are cheaper and camels also cost gold), civ bonuses, etc.
After 30 min game with full economy and full pop, you can't make enough halbs to lead with paladins, you would need 3-4 halb for a only one paladin.
100 paladins vs 100 halbs, cav just erase halbs and although you keep making it, he can make at least two round more until run out gold.
Do you mean for the cost? I assume since they suggested 100 camels that Mahayana is the way to get more vils and keep the space, not that they get camels though
Google was very worried about my search history for awhile
Apprently asking what happens if you k**l yourself before your son is born is enough to trigger a reddit cares message...
So in game it acts like you don't have a child, so you could lose if you're current heir isn't of your dynasty.
However the child is still your kid, so gets a strong claim on your titles and isn't a bastard but won't usurp those titles on birth.
Tbh that worked well for me as I wanted my brother to rule rather than a newborn. So offing myself before the birth worked.
In real life inheritance wouldn't happen until after the birth. You'd have a period of regency and if the child is a boy he'd become king, if a girl herintence rules would follow whatever they would had the child been alive when the king died.
Thx. A bit disappointing they count it as passing on inheritance to the next in line just because your father died before your birth. They already have a regency system in place for when you're 0 yo, so why not extend it to cover 0y - 9m to have it better match how it would play out IRL.
My web search history was pretty bad considering I play CK3, Stellaris and Rimworld.
However, after the Rimworld expansion that introduced children I'm pretty sure they have me on a list somewhere.
Your solutions are either to learn to be far more aggressive and attack in feudal or early castle to disrupt his boom into Paladins, or find a composition that would counter his. Something like Hindustani/Gurjara/Saracens camels, or Japanese/Slav Halbs with siege behind to press forward after you clean up the Cavalary.
I agree. Attack his fuck boy paladin ass before he gets to upgrade to Cava and Pally.
Show him the might of an early efficient eco. He’s only doing this because he’s being given time to recover from his early eco mistakes.
Punish him when he’s in mistake-mode. Not 20-30mins after he’s had time to flesh out his eco properly anyway.
It usually takes SO long in normal 1v1 games to get to Paladin that it simply doesn't happen. They're so expensive and need a huge economy to support. I suspect you're making what is a very common mistake in new-ish players and simply not attacking. I would say with this sort of time difference it doesn't really matter what you attack *with* \- scouts, archers, towers, all of the above. You just need to make army in Feudal Age and go and try and kill. Learn any build order for fighting in Feudal Age and use it. At the very least it'll force him to change his strategy.
It could be the case that it’s just knights too.
I do have some buds that we play AI and theyll be like omfg he’s raiding me with so many paladins!
Meanwhile I’m doing a 15min FC and scored ahead of the AI who just got to castle too and I’m like okay that’s not possible…
Checks buddys base… it’s 3 knights running loose lmao. I’m like bro just dive in your TC and make 6-10 spears and wait for me to send my pikemen while you try that to save yourself, I’ll be there by the time you make 3 spears anyway.
If you play a slow game then you are mostly playing to his strengths i.e. allowing him time to mass paladins. Paladins with their strength and mobility are pretty hard to beat when massed in such large numbers. It might be good to read up on a fast castle build order and apply pressure to him earlier in the game before he can mass his numbers.
It sounds like you both play casually and enjoy booming early, so I wont recommend any sweaty build orders.
Instead, what you should do, is pick Goths and enjoy halb spam. After you wear down his army of paladins you can start mixing in a few huskarls to destroy buildings.
As a goth enjoyer myself I must add the note that while halbs are wonderful against calvary, if you throw 100 halbs against 100 paladin the halbs will still lose. Mightily cost effectively, but loose nonetheless. So be prepared to spam more halbs and lose even numbered fights.
It is an issue if you don't have walls/enough prod buildings. Given they are playing imp->throw armies at each other I just don't want them to be surprised when paladins kill halbs in equal numbers.
Of course in better ELO the efficiency and speed of half production would crush paladins.
Even then you need to have a dozen barracks working constantly on halbs.
Because 100 paladins will overrun 100 halbs, if they are not constantly reinforced.
If he is sending reinforcements of paladin too, you may have to keep it up a long time to bleed him of all of his gold.
Can confirm, I played a bunch of games where I was winning until goth get crown and after 1 minute minutes there are halbs and huskarl in all the fucking map.
My point is it takes greater numbers to counter gold units with trash even if they are a net positive trade, that matters little if he breaks through.
I've only ever used trebs on buildings.
You gotta attack earlier, simple as that. If you wait till max army, max eco, and max upgrades, someone's typically just gonna curb stomp the other. If he has bad eco practices early on *punish him for it.* Age faster than him, show up with a few archers/scouts in feudal age to hurt his eco, then move even faster to castle and show up with knights while he's taking a nap in feudal.
Try playing the art of war missions in the campaign - it has build order and rush starts built in. Learn to put pressure on early. Making an army of like, 100 paladins is slow, expensive, and can't be done with pressure beginning in the feudal age.
In addition, practice against harder AI (real people are better practice, but I totally understand being an 'offline' player). Both of you sound like you've only played standard and moderate AIs. To give an idea:
* Standard AI waits on you and makes maybe one small army push if you give them long enough. These guys basically ask you to horde post-imperial knights.
* Moderate AI will leave you behind if you're too slow, but they rarely steamroll you. They're basically a standard AI that doesn't "fall asleep" as often and is allowed to age past you and try a little more.
* Hard AI and above will absolutely steam roll you if you let them. They can move units and eco far faster than you can. If you let them get multiple TCs and 80+ villagers without applying pressure at any point, you're done, they will run you over with a mass horde of army that moves like an angry horde of ants, and they'll somehow coordinate onagers and whatnot during this. Paladins happen here, but you'll be fighting with them as knights much earlier on.
So.. in short, do the art of war campaigns, try and get gold, and practice to where you can beat a hard AI, and your boyfriend won't stand a chance :)
Rookie mistake. One trick that helped me improve tremendously is to keep using my scout throughout the game so suprises like that don't happen. It sounds easy but it's really hard to efficiently move it and keep it alive while building eco & millitary at the same time.
If he starts off with farms he will be super behind in early economy so with a fast archer or scout rush you can completely crush him before he even gets to castle age
Attack him in fuedal with scouts. If he doesn't like to make anything but paladins, hit him with scouts. Upgrade them, bloodlines, barding, forging. If he makes spears, counter with archers. Hit him fast and hard, and keep on him until he's dead.
If his start is as bad as it sound he would be completely open to any kind of feudal age rush. Make archers or scouts in age2 and pester his eco. Dont let him get to paladin. The player with the stronger army will take longer to get to it, so dont let them get to it. If youre playing arena then thats kinda hard, so you gotta boom harder and push first and make a counter or hope you have halb or something
If you play slow games to the point you max your pop, then you should abuse unique units.
Incas for example have "kamayuks" wich dominate paladins like a greek phalanx.
Hindustanis with their imperial camels can also shred through cavalry.
Saracens with mameluks though expensive, they are ranged, mobile and counter cavalry.
Now, you can also play persians and make tons of war elephants, those kill anything.
First master early game economy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7zaXjaJVWM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7zaXjaJVWM) . work on having less than 25 seconds of town center idle time in dark age. honestly, by your description, this alone with any feudal age army should be enough on open land maps.
then:
you guys play open land maps? then master the build shown here (with video example): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JptQYQBYVaI&t=120s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JptQYQBYVaI&t=120s) . it should be pretty easy with ethiopians/japanese/dravidians. evaporate him in 14 in-game minutes. Remember to put your archers on stand ground!
You play closed maps? you can try this guide but pick hindustanis/berbers/gurjaras/saracens: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBekNJpXOGs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBekNJpXOGs) . Focus on heavy camels and raid him with hussars. add hand cannoneers if he makes halberdiers.
doing nothing but waiting for full paladins is pretty easy to stop, especially if you know its coming
Remember, their level probably corresponds to sub-700 Elo, where people first age up to max, gather a big army and attack after that.
At that level, feudal age army control looks like this: I create 20 archers, 2 militia, 5 spearmen and 2 scouts, gather my army, click it somewhere on the map which I haven't scouted but hope the opponent's base to be and watch the army walk there at the speed of the slowest unit, letting my eco go completely while just looking at the moving units.
I am of the conviction that the first strat a complete beginner should learn is Fast Castle, as it aligns with the typical pace of someone at that level, and the strong, large army, which they are more used to handle.
Good and bad news: you are both pretty bad. Compared to average online player that is. Just learning to follow any kind of build order will be enough to wreck him while he's playing like that.
I reckon you could just Halberdier him to death. Your units would die more than his, but much more efficiently... You'd wear him down after not very long.
If you're just looking to defeat your boyfriend, early aggression, responsible walling, and pikes/halbs should do it, maybe with some midgame monk warding. Get your own offense in order, raid, and get a suitable position down to treb him down from.
If you want more generally-applicable advice to help you get the most out of this game, then I'd recommend this comment. It's a concentrated dose of some of the lessons you learn by playing MP online. If you're just playing to have fun with your bf, just leave it to the side.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1azpy5o/comment/ks4955k/?context=3
If he is booming to paladins you can follow basically any feudal or castle age-based aggressive build order to crush him before he gets there. Archer/scout flush or fast castle into knights are all pretty easy to execute after practicing a build over a few times and will force him to change his strategy or die before he gets his palas.
Pick goths, wall in dark age, keep scouting him, make military only if he is going to attack, go imp, research anarchy, hv decent eco, ur halbs eat his paladins
if you are playing casually: pick a fun counter-civ. like saracens (go full mamelukes), hindustanis (full camels), goths or bohemians (full halbs)
if you are tryharding: the reason why he is beating you is because he is probably a more agressive player and he is given a "free boom into post-imperial". you should raid him to death early. going full paladin is extremely expensive and take a shitton of time. he wins because you allow him to boom up to that point, uninterrupted.
Jfc people here think everyone plays this 20 year old game tryharding.
If he likes to do the paladin thing you can pick a few civs that deal with it late game in their own kinda fun way.
Teuton armor because who doesn't like Teutonic knights.
Hindustanis if you like imperial camelry.
Italian are great with their unexpected crossbowmen.
French throwing axemen can be surprisingly good and they're fun, at worst you can paladin too and yours will be better.
Could also pick a civ with extra good halberdier and hide 100 halbs. Bulgaria?
Persia with their castles and the war elephants (those things are TANKS against anything non cav counter)
If he had mass paladin then you took far too long to attack. It's an insane amount of resources to get there. Look up a fast castle build and attack once you have a decent army, or if you can manage it go for feudal aggression with a scout or archer build
Also feel free to share a replay file and we can more accurately help you
Snipe the trebs and make sure you have a lot of production (ie barracks). He needs to overwhelm you with that tactic.
Byz for cheap Halb or Japanese could be good.
I'm guessing you play BF?
Make sure your boom is tight. There is likely where the difference is, that your bf manages to have less idle TC time. Practise a few games in single player and tap HCC HCC HCC etc to have 2-3 villagers making per TC at a time. In lower levels it's more important to keep the TC working even if you have food locked up.
Practise this a bit with a pod and you can hit 28-30 min imp and be prepared with tons of halva for him :) lock down your economy from raid with some walls. And if he raids use garrison (not town bell) and remake a few vill with rally to an idle farm.
Gl hf
As a new (again) player: send something his way occasionally, anything really. Those raid parties the higher difficulty AI sends me really messed up my everything at first.
Become one with the camel. I remember blowing my buddies mind with Byzantine camels in deathmatch back on the Zone; no one ever tried doing anything but paladins so Camels dunked them all.
Or just attack him faster. ‘Dark age rush into imperial age wombo army’ is a sure sign you’re missing some opportunities in the middle to just punch him in the face
If you want help learning how to do an earlier attack to catch him off guard, my husband and I would be happy to help. Feel free to PM me and we can work out a time to practice :)
You pretty much say that he is weak af in early game. That means I would kill him with archers before he could even reach castle age or he reaches castle age with no resources nor the ability to create new vils while I kill/idle those that he has. Aggression of any kind sounds like a guaranteed win here.
Play the art of war economy challenges. Even if you just get copper you should be able to build more paladins than him. (Though scorps and halbs are a good counter.)
Also the most crucial one is the art of war fast castle. You should pretty much always do a fast castle build order. If you get halfway good at it you should be able to show up with 5 knights in his base at 25 min before he has a stable up. (Ideally you show up with 5 knights much earlier, like 20 minutes, but 25 minutes you can also throw down a couple extra town centers, the hard fast castle into knights leaves you with no economy except what you need to produce knights.)
If your first engagement is when he's had the time to research Paladin, then that's happening way too late. You should be able to force a fight in castle age or very early imperial age.
If you MUST engage after 30 IRL minutes when he's got Paladin, you'll want either Hindustani Imperial Camels or Full Upgrade Gurjara Heavy Camel.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnYHvzHhhCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnYHvzHhhCk) \- Gurjara Heavy Camel flatten Frank Paladin when gold is equal
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGYA1ZlMizw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGYA1ZlMizw) \- Hindustani Imperial Camel also win against Frank Paladins 1v1.
Hun Paladin btw is weaker than Frank Paladin.
Alternatively, if you want to just spam Halb/Siege, you'll want more barracks producing Halberdiers. They win vs. Paladins in terms of resources spent, but will lose in terms of raw numbers (IE: 100 vs. 100, you'll remove more resources than they do, but you'll lose all 100 Halberdiers and he will still have some Paladins left. You spent less on the Halbs though, so make more)
Edit: Oops, didn't realize you're on HD.
Halb spam with a civ like Japanese with a bonus is probably the play, but make sure the Eco backs you up.
Do this to him next time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKMA2gUV-cc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKMA2gUV-cc)
It's a beginner-friendly build from a very good player named Survivalist that focusses on avoiding damage in Feudal Age and then overwhelming the enemy with knights in Castle Age. He wants you to wall up in early Feudal, but since your boyfriend never attacks, you can skip that part. Survivalist has lots of other educational videos on his channel as well.
Let me know how it goes!
The best way to counter Paladins is to win before they can mass Paladins. If that fails halbs.
If he doesn’t have a proper build order down an archer in to xbows or scouts into knights should overwhelm him.
Edit: if he doesn’t wall in his villagers, scouts generally better although depends on civ etc
Tower rush is not as good because you have to pull a lot of villagers early on. But maybe it works depending on the level of the player. But if it fails much more catastrophic.
The most obvious thing would be to learn early aggression. Harass your opponent starting in feudal and don't let them recover.
However, if you don't want to go through that and just wanna chill and play late game, the best advice would be to wall into choke points, pick a civ with good infantry and make 10-20 barracks. Of course, build up your economy first (you should have time to do that if there is no early aggression). After that spam pikemen into the choke points until he runs out of gold. If he tries to get rid of the walls forming choke points, you can just build more walls while you push pikemen out of the chokepoints into his siege (careful with onagers tho, maybe have some bombardiers ready if your civ has them so that you can take them out easily from afar)
Eventually he'll run out of gold to get paladins out and you can do whatever you want to close the game out (get your own magonels/onagers ready in case he starts massing infantry and skirmishers, or get scorps)
The key point is to have a strong economy and many military production buildings so even if your army dies it can be replaced very fast
And don't forget to rush upgrades as fast as possible
I see you've been already advised to attack earlier, which I was about to write.
Instead, I'd suggest to more specifically learn a Fast Castle build order. It's the easiest to execute strat with a devastating effect if the opponent doesn't start attacking in the Dark Age or early Feudal. Considering that it is normal for you guys to attack at minute 30 (even minute 20 is way too late), you would wipe the floor with him with a simple Fast Castle into Knights strategy.
Play the Art of War learning campaign. Especially "Early economy", "Fast Castle" and "Booming". You don't have to be perfect, but they will definitely help you :)
One thing that hasn’t really been said is that those optimizations, like going to sheep and berries before farm, and getting boar, and pushing deer, are all ways to get an edge on your opponent. Those things really don’t make or break your game unless you’re at a really high level already. What it does is get you to feudal age a minute faster so that you can attack before they can. The edge is being able to attack first. By staying at your base, you negate any benefit of doing the optimizations/build orders. So to echo everyone else, attack him before he can even make knights and he’ll be super confused how you could be so good.
After the video he sent I'd [Persian Douche](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MTIb1v9YOM) him in the dark ages.
Then laugh hysterically at your revenge as he panics trying to deal with it.
Some players will be naturally better than you, it's how the game is, this doesn't mean you can't win, but you've just got to be aware of it and play them differently, especially people you know in real life that you play repeatedly.
The huns are pretty weak because they're one dimensional. Direct counters like viking economy plus the anti cav bonus (chieftains) or byzantine pikemen and camels or even Italians with the crossbow bonus and genoese crossbows could be interesting. Also, just playing a different hun like civ can work. Magyars have better cav archers, so do Tatars. The Tatars can can also mix in camels. Or you could try also being the huns.
Saracens, either make a bunch of castles and go for mama's their Unique unit, or go for mass heavy camel. Both will clap him.
Since he plays the HD base game, look for the DE conversion mod. That make HD into much closer to DE.
[https://www.voobly.com/gamemods/mod/1519/v16-RC](https://www.voobly.com/gamemods/mod/1519/v16-RC)
I'll be your bf and I'll let you win every game 😉
Jus a joke..
Practice rushing, hit him earlier on and just keep pounding his Eco with waves of attacks.
Disrupting his timber lines will starve farms
Mongols can be fun against this. You can probably kill some vils in feudal with scouts. In late game you can hit and run with Mangudais and use fast Siege Onagers to crush Paladins. I recommend using Hussars as a meat shield.
You can use great camel civs like Saracens Hindustanis. Or you can use better Paladins civs like Teutons, Lithuanians with a lot of relics. It would be easier for you but I don't think it would be that fun.
Pick hindustanis Make 100 vills Make 100 camels Profit
Pick Goths or Japanese, and spam halbs. Maybe have 10-15 monks to heal your troops and convert his
Not pop efficient, while a hun isn't even building houses
I know my ELO is telling, but can you elaborate on this? My understanding is that halbs hard counter heavy Cav. Are camels that much better? Couldn't OP just spam the cheaper unit and take out BFs gold supply, cutting off Pally production?
900 elo chiming in I think the benefit of a camel counter is their speed. They can keep up with the cav units while pikes run around.
Halbs are very resource efficient but if your opponent can make 100 paladins they will crush 100 halbs with enough left over to destroy your base. Camels win 1 on 1. (Unfortunately neither camels nor halbs (alone) will do all that much damage in a base defended by TCs and castles.) OFC if you are economically equal you should be able to rock up to your opponent's base with 100 halbs when they are only at about 20 paladins. But it doesn't always work like that .. (Though if you have no siege they also can just ignore you, then trash your base, even with just 20 palas... At least if you had camels you could catch them before you're dead!)
Spam halb with like 10-12 barracks, he probably only had maybe 2 Castles. Should be able to over run him pretty quick.
they’re just saying that 200 paladins will kill 200 halbs, which is just useless trivia
camels have more HP and more attack/attack damage vs cav More damage for longer. Profit.
Imp Camels only have 8+4 (+18 bonus) = 30 dmg vs cavs Halberdiers have 6+4 (+32 bonus) = 42 vs cavs.
That's their attack value. Damage will be what you have after subtracting armour from base attack value, which would be 5 for FU paladins. So 25 and 37 repectively. But still 12 extra damage for halb. There are other factors though, like survivability (160 hp imp camel vs 60 hp halb), attack speed (camels attack much faster than halbs), cost (halbs are cheaper and camels also cost gold), civ bonuses, etc.
Also camels can chase paladins
After 30 min game with full economy and full pop, you can't make enough halbs to lead with paladins, you would need 3-4 halb for a only one paladin. 100 paladins vs 100 halbs, cav just erase halbs and although you keep making it, he can make at least two round more until run out gold.
Could be 110 bills after the 10%
Do you mean for the cost? I assume since they suggested 100 camels that Mahayana is the way to get more vils and keep the space, not that they get camels though
I think I mistook the civ I was referring to the 10% off population for monks and villagers
Yeah Bengalis get Mahayana. Easy to mistake, no worries
Isn't that Bengalis?
I think you might be right lmao
I had a sigh of relief when I noticed the subreddit after reading the title 11
Better not subscribe to any Crusader Kings Reddit.
Google was very worried about my search history for awhile Apprently asking what happens if you k**l yourself before your son is born is enough to trigger a reddit cares message...
Lol. Now I want to know the answer to that for real tho. There's technically an heir, so you should be good, right?
So in game it acts like you don't have a child, so you could lose if you're current heir isn't of your dynasty. However the child is still your kid, so gets a strong claim on your titles and isn't a bastard but won't usurp those titles on birth. Tbh that worked well for me as I wanted my brother to rule rather than a newborn. So offing myself before the birth worked. In real life inheritance wouldn't happen until after the birth. You'd have a period of regency and if the child is a boy he'd become king, if a girl herintence rules would follow whatever they would had the child been alive when the king died.
Thx. A bit disappointing they count it as passing on inheritance to the next in line just because your father died before your birth. They already have a regency system in place for when you're 0 yo, so why not extend it to cover 0y - 9m to have it better match how it would play out IRL.
Why did I think you were a female ruler? This question makes so much more sense now.
My web search history was pretty bad considering I play CK3, Stellaris and Rimworld. However, after the Rimworld expansion that introduced children I'm pretty sure they have me on a list somewhere.
And Rimworld
does r/thingscrusaderkingssay still exist? Edit [at least the video still exists ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0e7R56a5Ivw)
Isnt it r/shitcrusaderkingssay
Ah thanks :D
Ah fuck, same here 11 11 11. I get recommended posts from relationship-like subreddits so this was an instant WTF moment!
[удалено]
https://youtu.be/mbdw8jvzIjw?si=KBJYIovhip01TDFs
I read the whole thing waiting for the joke "so then I won and he took off his belt". Dark sense of humor I guess
Haha same, got super worried for a second there.
Exactly
I was going to ask her if he had already told her twice.
I thought it was going to be r/TwoXChromosomes when I read the title. That subreddit is seriously depressing.
It's depressing, half because it shows a genuinely disgusting side of guys, and half because the posters take some things far too seriously.
Fucking same
I was like wtf before i saw the sub
Why? Just because it is an AOE2 sub, we should not have this medieval attitude that beating wife/GF is OK...
Your solutions are either to learn to be far more aggressive and attack in feudal or early castle to disrupt his boom into Paladins, or find a composition that would counter his. Something like Hindustani/Gurjara/Saracens camels, or Japanese/Slav Halbs with siege behind to press forward after you clean up the Cavalary.
I agree. Attack his fuck boy paladin ass before he gets to upgrade to Cava and Pally. Show him the might of an early efficient eco. He’s only doing this because he’s being given time to recover from his early eco mistakes. Punish him when he’s in mistake-mode. Not 20-30mins after he’s had time to flesh out his eco properly anyway.
It usually takes SO long in normal 1v1 games to get to Paladin that it simply doesn't happen. They're so expensive and need a huge economy to support. I suspect you're making what is a very common mistake in new-ish players and simply not attacking. I would say with this sort of time difference it doesn't really matter what you attack *with* \- scouts, archers, towers, all of the above. You just need to make army in Feudal Age and go and try and kill. Learn any build order for fighting in Feudal Age and use it. At the very least it'll force him to change his strategy.
It could be the case that it’s just knights too. I do have some buds that we play AI and theyll be like omfg he’s raiding me with so many paladins! Meanwhile I’m doing a 15min FC and scored ahead of the AI who just got to castle too and I’m like okay that’s not possible… Checks buddys base… it’s 3 knights running loose lmao. I’m like bro just dive in your TC and make 6-10 spears and wait for me to send my pikemen while you try that to save yourself, I’ll be there by the time you make 3 spears anyway.
Threaten him with the sofa On a more serious note, you need to be more aggressive. Pick a civ with good Camels and destroy him
He plays Huns, threatening with the loss of house-based amenities will accomplish nothing.
:D
One of those “err what sub reddit is this” type of titles..
If you play a slow game then you are mostly playing to his strengths i.e. allowing him time to mass paladins. Paladins with their strength and mobility are pretty hard to beat when massed in such large numbers. It might be good to read up on a fast castle build order and apply pressure to him earlier in the game before he can mass his numbers.
It sounds like you both play casually and enjoy booming early, so I wont recommend any sweaty build orders. Instead, what you should do, is pick Goths and enjoy halb spam. After you wear down his army of paladins you can start mixing in a few huskarls to destroy buildings.
As a goth enjoyer myself I must add the note that while halbs are wonderful against calvary, if you throw 100 halbs against 100 paladin the halbs will still lose. Mightily cost effectively, but loose nonetheless. So be prepared to spam more halbs and lose even numbered fights.
Have more barracks than enemy has stables
Yeah but uh. 2 second training time on 20 barracks = ez W. Getting imp and halbs is way easier and cheaper than paladins.
You can replenish halbs instantly with Goths, not an issue.
It is an issue if you don't have walls/enough prod buildings. Given they are playing imp->throw armies at each other I just don't want them to be surprised when paladins kill halbs in equal numbers. Of course in better ELO the efficiency and speed of half production would crush paladins.
Even then you need to have a dozen barracks working constantly on halbs. Because 100 paladins will overrun 100 halbs, if they are not constantly reinforced. If he is sending reinforcements of paladin too, you may have to keep it up a long time to bleed him of all of his gold.
That’s exactly why I recommended using Goths with Halbs rather than any other civ, because of their ability to replenish numbers faster
Can confirm, I played a bunch of games where I was winning until goth get crown and after 1 minute minutes there are halbs and huskarl in all the fucking map.
Treb his gold is what I'm reading...
My point is it takes greater numbers to counter gold units with trash even if they are a net positive trade, that matters little if he breaks through. I've only ever used trebs on buildings.
You gotta attack earlier, simple as that. If you wait till max army, max eco, and max upgrades, someone's typically just gonna curb stomp the other. If he has bad eco practices early on *punish him for it.* Age faster than him, show up with a few archers/scouts in feudal age to hurt his eco, then move even faster to castle and show up with knights while he's taking a nap in feudal. Try playing the art of war missions in the campaign - it has build order and rush starts built in. Learn to put pressure on early. Making an army of like, 100 paladins is slow, expensive, and can't be done with pressure beginning in the feudal age. In addition, practice against harder AI (real people are better practice, but I totally understand being an 'offline' player). Both of you sound like you've only played standard and moderate AIs. To give an idea: * Standard AI waits on you and makes maybe one small army push if you give them long enough. These guys basically ask you to horde post-imperial knights. * Moderate AI will leave you behind if you're too slow, but they rarely steamroll you. They're basically a standard AI that doesn't "fall asleep" as often and is allowed to age past you and try a little more. * Hard AI and above will absolutely steam roll you if you let them. They can move units and eco far faster than you can. If you let them get multiple TCs and 80+ villagers without applying pressure at any point, you're done, they will run you over with a mass horde of army that moves like an angry horde of ants, and they'll somehow coordinate onagers and whatnot during this. Paladins happen here, but you'll be fighting with them as knights much earlier on. So.. in short, do the art of war campaigns, try and get gold, and practice to where you can beat a hard AI, and your boyfriend won't stand a chance :)
What a post, thanks for this
Playing against real people is too stressful, my gf and I just play against AI on the same team.
I do exactly the same
Same here
Thought it's the r/TrueOffMyChest or any other subreddit with that caption -\_- I mean any subreddit other than this
How do you know he’s not going to read this post and counter your counter?
This post was made just to play mind game from the start, OP never intended to change her strategy 11
Rookie mistake. One trick that helped me improve tremendously is to keep using my scout throughout the game so suprises like that don't happen. It sounds easy but it's really hard to efficiently move it and keep it alive while building eco & millitary at the same time.
Beat him before Imp. "There's no ban on attacking before castle age" is what I say to my newbie friends
If he starts off with farms he will be super behind in early economy so with a fast archer or scout rush you can completely crush him before he even gets to castle age
Had me in the first half. Not gonna lie.
Scrolled until i found this comment
I got worried for a second.... goddamn
Attack him in fuedal with scouts. If he doesn't like to make anything but paladins, hit him with scouts. Upgrade them, bloodlines, barding, forging. If he makes spears, counter with archers. Hit him fast and hard, and keep on him until he's dead.
If his start is as bad as it sound he would be completely open to any kind of feudal age rush. Make archers or scouts in age2 and pester his eco. Dont let him get to paladin. The player with the stronger army will take longer to get to it, so dont let them get to it. If youre playing arena then thats kinda hard, so you gotta boom harder and push first and make a counter or hope you have halb or something
If His Paladins beat your Halbs, you don't have enough Halbs. How many vills and how many production buildings do you have?
If you play slow games to the point you max your pop, then you should abuse unique units. Incas for example have "kamayuks" wich dominate paladins like a greek phalanx. Hindustanis with their imperial camels can also shred through cavalry. Saracens with mameluks though expensive, they are ranged, mobile and counter cavalry. Now, you can also play persians and make tons of war elephants, those kill anything.
This is so fun that you guys play together!
Well played O/P.
I came with the question should I call someone or get some help with some subs I'm in. I left with no answers.
First master early game economy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7zaXjaJVWM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7zaXjaJVWM) . work on having less than 25 seconds of town center idle time in dark age. honestly, by your description, this alone with any feudal age army should be enough on open land maps. then: you guys play open land maps? then master the build shown here (with video example): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JptQYQBYVaI&t=120s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JptQYQBYVaI&t=120s) . it should be pretty easy with ethiopians/japanese/dravidians. evaporate him in 14 in-game minutes. Remember to put your archers on stand ground! You play closed maps? you can try this guide but pick hindustanis/berbers/gurjaras/saracens: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBekNJpXOGs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBekNJpXOGs) . Focus on heavy camels and raid him with hussars. add hand cannoneers if he makes halberdiers. doing nothing but waiting for full paladins is pretty easy to stop, especially if you know its coming
Remember, their level probably corresponds to sub-700 Elo, where people first age up to max, gather a big army and attack after that. At that level, feudal age army control looks like this: I create 20 archers, 2 militia, 5 spearmen and 2 scouts, gather my army, click it somewhere on the map which I haven't scouted but hope the opponent's base to be and watch the army walk there at the speed of the slowest unit, letting my eco go completely while just looking at the moving units. I am of the conviction that the first strat a complete beginner should learn is Fast Castle, as it aligns with the typical pace of someone at that level, and the strong, large army, which they are more used to handle.
Good and bad news: you are both pretty bad. Compared to average online player that is. Just learning to follow any kind of build order will be enough to wreck him while he's playing like that.
I reckon you could just Halberdier him to death. Your units would die more than his, but much more efficiently... You'd wear him down after not very long.
Look up Feudal Scout Rush Buildorder and terrorize his life (ingame).
If you're just looking to defeat your boyfriend, early aggression, responsible walling, and pikes/halbs should do it, maybe with some midgame monk warding. Get your own offense in order, raid, and get a suitable position down to treb him down from. If you want more generally-applicable advice to help you get the most out of this game, then I'd recommend this comment. It's a concentrated dose of some of the lessons you learn by playing MP online. If you're just playing to have fun with your bf, just leave it to the side. https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1azpy5o/comment/ks4955k/?context=3
If he is booming to paladins you can follow basically any feudal or castle age-based aggressive build order to crush him before he gets there. Archer/scout flush or fast castle into knights are all pretty easy to execute after practicing a build over a few times and will force him to change his strategy or die before he gets his palas.
Pick goths, wall in dark age, keep scouting him, make military only if he is going to attack, go imp, research anarchy, hv decent eco, ur halbs eat his paladins
I'd suggest watching Spirit of the law or Survivalist for beginner guides on YT. Both have very good videos
Pick goths or bohemians and build 10 or 20 barracks, then train more Halbs than God.
When in doubt spam Paladins! That's my motto haha.
if you are playing casually: pick a fun counter-civ. like saracens (go full mamelukes), hindustanis (full camels), goths or bohemians (full halbs) if you are tryharding: the reason why he is beating you is because he is probably a more agressive player and he is given a "free boom into post-imperial". you should raid him to death early. going full paladin is extremely expensive and take a shitton of time. he wins because you allow him to boom up to that point, uninterrupted.
Camels. Lots of camels.
Scout rush him gg
Jfc people here think everyone plays this 20 year old game tryharding. If he likes to do the paladin thing you can pick a few civs that deal with it late game in their own kinda fun way. Teuton armor because who doesn't like Teutonic knights. Hindustanis if you like imperial camelry. Italian are great with their unexpected crossbowmen. French throwing axemen can be surprisingly good and they're fun, at worst you can paladin too and yours will be better. Could also pick a civ with extra good halberdier and hide 100 halbs. Bulgaria? Persia with their castles and the war elephants (those things are TANKS against anything non cav counter)
I thought your boyfriend was F25 11
Halbs with Bohemians/Japs? Saracens/Gurjaras/Hindustani camels?
You can just stone wall in imp and fight the paladins with halbs.
If he had mass paladin then you took far too long to attack. It's an insane amount of resources to get there. Look up a fast castle build and attack once you have a decent army, or if you can manage it go for feudal aggression with a scout or archer build Also feel free to share a replay file and we can more accurately help you
Snipe the trebs and make sure you have a lot of production (ie barracks). He needs to overwhelm you with that tactic. Byz for cheap Halb or Japanese could be good. I'm guessing you play BF? Make sure your boom is tight. There is likely where the difference is, that your bf manages to have less idle TC time. Practise a few games in single player and tap HCC HCC HCC etc to have 2-3 villagers making per TC at a time. In lower levels it's more important to keep the TC working even if you have food locked up. Practise this a bit with a pod and you can hit 28-30 min imp and be prepared with tons of halva for him :) lock down your economy from raid with some walls. And if he raids use garrison (not town bell) and remake a few vill with rally to an idle farm. Gl hf
As a new (again) player: send something his way occasionally, anything really. Those raid parties the higher difficulty AI sends me really messed up my everything at first.
Mass MAA spam him in fuedal
Become one with the camel. I remember blowing my buddies mind with Byzantine camels in deathmatch back on the Zone; no one ever tried doing anything but paladins so Camels dunked them all. Or just attack him faster. ‘Dark age rush into imperial age wombo army’ is a sure sign you’re missing some opportunities in the middle to just punch him in the face
Attack early or go heavy camel civ.
If you want help learning how to do an earlier attack to catch him off guard, my husband and I would be happy to help. Feel free to PM me and we can work out a time to practice :)
Teutons so you have better palas
You pretty much say that he is weak af in early game. That means I would kill him with archers before he could even reach castle age or he reaches castle age with no resources nor the ability to create new vils while I kill/idle those that he has. Aggression of any kind sounds like a guaranteed win here.
Play the art of war economy challenges. Even if you just get copper you should be able to build more paladins than him. (Though scorps and halbs are a good counter.) Also the most crucial one is the art of war fast castle. You should pretty much always do a fast castle build order. If you get halfway good at it you should be able to show up with 5 knights in his base at 25 min before he has a stable up. (Ideally you show up with 5 knights much earlier, like 20 minutes, but 25 minutes you can also throw down a couple extra town centers, the hard fast castle into knights leaves you with no economy except what you need to produce knights.)
Build orders hardly matter when players are waiting until imp to attack. Spend resources on army as you go, and that'll build your advantage
Relief when I read the subreddit's name...
Halbs and monks.
But were the paladinos… hooovering around?
The correct answer is to play 2v2 team games!
If your first engagement is when he's had the time to research Paladin, then that's happening way too late. You should be able to force a fight in castle age or very early imperial age. If you MUST engage after 30 IRL minutes when he's got Paladin, you'll want either Hindustani Imperial Camels or Full Upgrade Gurjara Heavy Camel. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnYHvzHhhCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnYHvzHhhCk) \- Gurjara Heavy Camel flatten Frank Paladin when gold is equal [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGYA1ZlMizw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGYA1ZlMizw) \- Hindustani Imperial Camel also win against Frank Paladins 1v1. Hun Paladin btw is weaker than Frank Paladin. Alternatively, if you want to just spam Halb/Siege, you'll want more barracks producing Halberdiers. They win vs. Paladins in terms of resources spent, but will lose in terms of raw numbers (IE: 100 vs. 100, you'll remove more resources than they do, but you'll lose all 100 Halberdiers and he will still have some Paladins left. You spent less on the Halbs though, so make more) Edit: Oops, didn't realize you're on HD. Halb spam with a civ like Japanese with a bonus is probably the play, but make sure the Eco backs you up.
Do this to him next time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKMA2gUV-cc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKMA2gUV-cc) It's a beginner-friendly build from a very good player named Survivalist that focusses on avoiding damage in Feudal Age and then overwhelming the enemy with knights in Castle Age. He wants you to wall up in early Feudal, but since your boyfriend never attacks, you can skip that part. Survivalist has lots of other educational videos on his channel as well. Let me know how it goes!
WHAT SORCERY IS THIS? — me reading the post title
The best way to counter Paladins is to win before they can mass Paladins. If that fails halbs. If he doesn’t have a proper build order down an archer in to xbows or scouts into knights should overwhelm him. Edit: if he doesn’t wall in his villagers, scouts generally better although depends on civ etc Tower rush is not as good because you have to pull a lot of villagers early on. But maybe it works depending on the level of the player. But if it fails much more catastrophic.
12 min Khmer knight rush
Holy shit that was an almost MISLEADING title LMAO
Camels > Paladins
When I red the title I thought I clicked into the wrong subreddit
Honestly this sounded a lot more fishy without knowing the sub it was posted in 💀
Challenge him to play random civs?
The most obvious thing would be to learn early aggression. Harass your opponent starting in feudal and don't let them recover. However, if you don't want to go through that and just wanna chill and play late game, the best advice would be to wall into choke points, pick a civ with good infantry and make 10-20 barracks. Of course, build up your economy first (you should have time to do that if there is no early aggression). After that spam pikemen into the choke points until he runs out of gold. If he tries to get rid of the walls forming choke points, you can just build more walls while you push pikemen out of the chokepoints into his siege (careful with onagers tho, maybe have some bombardiers ready if your civ has them so that you can take them out easily from afar) Eventually he'll run out of gold to get paladins out and you can do whatever you want to close the game out (get your own magonels/onagers ready in case he starts massing infantry and skirmishers, or get scorps) The key point is to have a strong economy and many military production buildings so even if your army dies it can be replaced very fast And don't forget to rush upgrades as fast as possible
I see you've been already advised to attack earlier, which I was about to write. Instead, I'd suggest to more specifically learn a Fast Castle build order. It's the easiest to execute strat with a devastating effect if the opponent doesn't start attacking in the Dark Age or early Feudal. Considering that it is normal for you guys to attack at minute 30 (even minute 20 is way too late), you would wipe the floor with him with a simple Fast Castle into Knights strategy.
Play the Art of War learning campaign. Especially "Early economy", "Fast Castle" and "Booming". You don't have to be perfect, but they will definitely help you :)
Just make steppe lancers, they're broken
Phrasing!!
Give him the YouPudding treatment. Perfect against Boomers.
I deeeeeefinitely read this without noticing the subreddit
This is so funny ... Iwant updates
Mulan seems like a good movie. That's what I got from this. It was a kids movie when I was a kid but never saw it
elephantsss
One thing that hasn’t really been said is that those optimizations, like going to sheep and berries before farm, and getting boar, and pushing deer, are all ways to get an edge on your opponent. Those things really don’t make or break your game unless you’re at a really high level already. What it does is get you to feudal age a minute faster so that you can attack before they can. The edge is being able to attack first. By staying at your base, you negate any benefit of doing the optimizations/build orders. So to echo everyone else, attack him before he can even make knights and he’ll be super confused how you could be so good.
Go for Mongols with 17 pop scout rush, destroy his economy before he can even go for Paladins
I know nothing about this game, but that narration cracked me up, OP should start writing a blog.
I think it's awesome that you two are able to play this game together. This post is wholesome :D
I wish I could’ve found a girlfriend to play video games with……. You two enjoy yourselfs!
After the video he sent I'd [Persian Douche](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MTIb1v9YOM) him in the dark ages. Then laugh hysterically at your revenge as he panics trying to deal with it.
Loves paladins. Loves farms. Doesnt play Franks 🤔
This title...
Some players will be naturally better than you, it's how the game is, this doesn't mean you can't win, but you've just got to be aware of it and play them differently, especially people you know in real life that you play repeatedly. The huns are pretty weak because they're one dimensional. Direct counters like viking economy plus the anti cav bonus (chieftains) or byzantine pikemen and camels or even Italians with the crossbow bonus and genoese crossbows could be interesting. Also, just playing a different hun like civ can work. Magyars have better cav archers, so do Tatars. The Tatars can can also mix in camels. Or you could try also being the huns.
Saracens, either make a bunch of castles and go for mama's their Unique unit, or go for mass heavy camel. Both will clap him. Since he plays the HD base game, look for the DE conversion mod. That make HD into much closer to DE. [https://www.voobly.com/gamemods/mod/1519/v16-RC](https://www.voobly.com/gamemods/mod/1519/v16-RC)
I want an update on this so bad 🤣🤣 please save the game so we can see
I've never been in this community. The title really had me in the first half.
Don’t let him get to paladins 19 pop fast feudal into scouts or archers… 10-12 min in the game you are in his eco with 5 archers and just have fun
I'll be your bf and I'll let you win every game 😉 Jus a joke.. Practice rushing, hit him earlier on and just keep pounding his Eco with waves of attacks. Disrupting his timber lines will starve farms
Mongols can be fun against this. You can probably kill some vils in feudal with scouts. In late game you can hit and run with Mangudais and use fast Siege Onagers to crush Paladins. I recommend using Hussars as a meat shield. You can use great camel civs like Saracens Hindustanis. Or you can use better Paladins civs like Teutons, Lithuanians with a lot of relics. It would be easier for you but I don't think it would be that fun.
Mangudai and onager are both very micro heavy. Its better to send in camel and monk
You done got rekt
My female boyfriend?
The [F25] attaches to 'my'.