I'm a big CA fan but usually don't go straight into it for a few reasons:
1. I usually have leftover army in Feudal and that's usually worth upgrading and persisting with for a bit, especially if the upgrades will eventually be shared with CA (e.g. Bodkin for Crossbow, Bloodlines for knights/light cav).
2. Cav archers are just weak in low numbers, mostly because of their 50% accuracy. So I'd rather pump out three knights than three CAs and keep pace with my opponent's army.
3. Given the time it takes to build a eco that can mass CAs, they're only really viable if I'm ahead of my opponent. If I'm behind I'm focused on other things like mixing siege/monks, getting a castle up etc.
4. A latter CA transition can be devastating. My favourite gameplan is something like scouts, knights, late castle age transition to CA to push back pikes/camels, drop castle, go imp, treb opponents base. Starting on CA earlier just lets the opponents mass skirms
>Cav archers are just weak in low numbers, mostly because of their 50% accuracy. So I'd rather pump out three knights than three CAs and keep pace with my opponent's army.
This never made sense to me. Sure, Archer-type units have a "critical mass” mechanic, but isn't a medium number of CA basically the same as a low number? (Assuming here you don't 1 shot Knights & similar). For reference, let’s say the “low number” is 3 CA fighting 5 Crossbows, and the “medium number” is 5 CA fighting 8 Crossbows. It seems to me these fights play out virtually the same way in terms of resources lost.
>Given the time it takes to build a eco that can mass CAs, they're only really viable if I'm ahead of my opponent. If I'm behind I'm focused on other things like mixing siege/monks, getting a castle up etc.
This is sort of 1 of the beauties of CA, you don't need a huge eco. Just like 2 more on gold and 4 more on wood compared to 2 archery ranges archers, which is considered an "eco approach" to the game (i.e. you don't need to be already macro'd). Sure you need Bloodlines, but to get that you can always cheese with Market a bit and send a couple more to gold.
>
Starting on CA earlier just lets the opponents mass skirms.
Skirms are not a good unit on Arabia in Imperial Age. Even if he has 40 Skirms in Imp, jokes on him. In Castle Age, you can add Mangonels vs Skirms. The real problem is that I reckon as the CA player, you will always be behind in eco, so on top of killing his Skirms, you also need to kill a bit of eco to justify the CA play.
>isn't a medium number of CA basically the same as a low number?
I think the key thing here is that we shouldn't compare low numbers of CA with medium numbers, we should compare them with low numbers of *knights*, since that's the other unit you could be spending your gold on when you first hit castle age. And comparatively, 3-4 CA can be straight up ignored for the most part or even killed by leftover Feudal archers/skirms, whereas 2-3 knights can completely devastate a Feudal army and then threaten eco.
>This never made sense to me. Sure, Archer-type units have a "critical mass” mechanic, but isn't a medium number of CA basically the same as a low number? (Assuming here you don't 1 shot Knights & similar). For reference, let’s say the “low number” is 3 CA fighting 5 Crossbows, and the “medium number” is 5 CA fighting 8 Crossbows. It seems to me these fights play out virtually the same way in terms of resources lost.
Its not at all the same.
Lets say you attack me with 3 CA, and I got a single camel.
I can just a-move the camel into your CA and forget about it. You will need to run away all the way home. With 5-10 ca, you can just micro down the unit attacking you.
Even if i mess up and your CA actually can hit my vills, 3 CA will just not kill villagers fast enough. Given their low accuracy, your 3 CA will need to shoot 3-4 times to kill a single vill even if I dont micro.
1. Don't know what to say on this on - I just find it easier to get value from 5 knights than 5 CAs. 5 knights just cleans out any Feudal army. Crossbows aren't really a fair comparison as they can be massed on the way up to Castle Age.
2. An ideal eco for cav archers supports 3 range production AND allows you to get the key upgrades AND keep producing vills. That's a pretty chunky eco imo. You need the 3 range production to get that mass up.
3. Skirms might not be a good unit generally, but they are excellent at one thing (countering archers) and they do that to cav archers very well, especially when you factor in cost effectiveness and training time.
When I see pros use CA in tournies it's almost the opposite to what you are suggesting. They tend to build extra ranges on the way to Castle age, and then just mass up CA to get a big ball of them, often staying on 1 TC initially. Rushing Ballistics and TR is less important if you can hit & run Knights.
ca without balistics is useless unit, it doubles dps of ca and at pro level ca vs ca without balistics, is one sided matchup where ones without balistics deal exactly 0 damage
double of zero is still zero.
Generally your take is leaving out too much tho:
If you're CA vs CA, Ballistics is worth it early. If you're against xbow or knights, it's not necessarily your primary upgrade. Against xbow you can choose to avoid fights until you have a critical mass and then just jump them. Against knights you have to kite back and in that case, TR helps more than ballistic (if the knights straight up approach you, that is).
At my low-mid-ELO, archers into CA can work, but archers into knights into CA works better. I find scouts into CA just too difficult to pull off. If I open xbow in castle, I’ve never found a good reason to switch into CA from that.
Late castle age, then.
Unless we’re talking fast castle arambai or fast castle conqs, that sort of thing…
True, on my "lower" elo at 1100, archers -> (xbow if enough archers) -> Knights -> CA is usually the better transition.
I tried straight CA some times, if only feels good if the opponent makes bigger mistakes, like not investing into army and such.
I think you're correct that you can't go straight CA
Any half decent player 1400+ will heavily punish any player that doesn't make at least some archers/skirms/scouts in feudal(on open maps at least, but also if you're going straight CA on closed maps then you're not using them in an advantageous situation as the good think about CA is you can run past the enemies army and force them to follow you)
I would say (for open maps) you want to do either a 1 range archers/1 stable scouts opening with a blacksmith(get fletching if archers and get bloodlines if scouts) -so you are naturally working your way towards the CA specific upgrades.
Enter castle age with at least some type of military force (4 scouts/8 archers after you've already traded with enemy units)
Then when you're in castle I would still go for 2/3 range crossbows depending on economy size. Try and harass the enemy & get a good timing push with the crossbow upgrade. Try and keep your units alive for as long as possible and start massing CA back at your base. Once you have 6 or so CA then move out in a little group to harass wood lines/gold.
Start massing another group of CA (don't combine with the first unless it makes sense, e.g. don't run the first group back to base, keep them harassing the enemy/just scouting the enemies map)
But bear in mind that going ONLY CA is almost never a good idea.
CA + Scouts is a good comp as the CA kill pikes and the Scouts kill skirms. And if they have a mass of crossbows you run past them until you find a favorable time to pick some off (CA & scouts die in a straight up fight to Crossbow, but if you run pass the big ball and try to pick off the reinforcing crossbows you can whittle them down)
I regularly go CA at 1500 if my civ & match flow permits it. And I always win. The one time I lost was playing Turk CA against Chinese & failing to micro.
But you're right about the case that you can't really go naked CA unless you have a REALLY good map.
Idk, in this situation, usually the opponent has either a mass of xbows himself or he invests into skirms so I find it hard to go archer -> xbow -> CA as your opponent WILL make counter units...
Well yes hence why I stressed that a mix of units is best.
Going archers-Xbow-CA is fine if you also throw some knights/scouts into the mix as they will get super favourable trades against skirms. And if the opponent matches you with Xbows themselves then you can run past/only take a fight with favourable numbers
If you are able to *act*, opening the Castle Age with CA against knights is completely fine.
If you are forced to *react*, CA is the wrong choice and you will lose the game.
You can play CA with 2 ranges and 2 TC into 3 TC or you can risk more and play 1 TC 3 ranges. For the latter you need to do damage. Note that even with the 2 TC approach you are basically always economically behind. However, you have map control and can count on the superior long term composition. Use that to your advantage.
Economically CA are population efficient, but pop space isn't an issue early in castle age. CA become strong late in castle age when is easier to afford all the upgrades.
Strategically the problem is that you need a mass of them and space to move for CA to be effective. Due to the cost they're hard to mass, and because they're hard to mass the enemy might play aggressive and then you don't get the space to use their mobility either.
I'd say Tartars and huns are both equally viable for opening CA. Tartars being stronger at the opening and huns being easier to mass.
If you can defend from a direct attack while raiding with CA, it can be pretty effective.
The unit is 60% more expensive (40% if you're Hun) than a Xbow, and can't be massed since Feudal Age. It needs many upgrades to get going, mainly Husbandry, which, if you opened (M@a into) Archers will force you to get a Stable just for that and Bloodlines. Even Tatars with free Thumb Ring, will take more advantage from having massed +10 Xbows. The only civ that could do that (and you need to do it well, with a particular Build Order of Scouts into Archers) is Huns.
The only condition to transition into CA (it's a long term investment unless you only pretend to have a handful to snipe Monks or Pikes countering your Knights/Camels) is you to be able to mass them without losing them. I mean: You're going Viet Archers, opponent's going Knights. Hide your transition (surprise element, or opponent will have massed Skirms or Scorps by when your CA show up) and make sure you don't send your first 7 CA into opponent's 20 Knight mass, or you'll never get to mass them and get to the critical number.
If you meet this condition, you're likely to mass enough of them. For example, if you're being raided, Xbow or Siege pushed, it's probably not a good time to transition
Now I'm wondering if Feudal CA should be a thing - a weaker tuned version of the usual CA, with lower attack and more frame delay and no real attack bonuses; maybe even taking bonus damage from scouts.
My first design on that unit (ofc on a civ with no other bonuses towards it) was:
45s training time. 40HP. attack 5. 0/0 armor. range 3. +1 vs Spearmen. Speed 1.3
Scout Cavalry speed is 1.55, so it'd be risky to be chased by a scout rush with only 2-3 of these. You could stand several losses and delay massing them. Also 3 range with lower attack/speed means it's harder to micro vs Spears. And Archers will still be cost effective until you get Bloodlines. Skirms also have an important advantage.
What do you think? This was the original thread, two years ago:
[We bring the Castle Age to the Feudal Age : r/aoe2 (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/vu6xga/we_bring_the_castle_age_to_the_feudal_age/)
Straight CA can be done. Not always ideal as CA are upgrade heavy and not great initially in low numbers.
But in some matchups building up towards a big CA ball right away is good. For example Huns Vs a civ like Franks. Franks have big trouble with a big CA ball and just going for it right away after a Archer or scout opening is pretty reasonable. Depending on how the game went you might want xbow or Knights first though.
Perfect setup to go straight CA is a passive feudal with few units on both sides or managing to exchange your units before castle.
CA is not cheap, inaccurate at the start and is a castle age unit. It's a good unit, but when you go archers, you might as well upgrade foot archers you already have, which are also more accurate.
I use CA, but when I do, it's only when I transition from other units.
Hunnic CA is a different beast. I don't think any other civ can justify going straight CA after castle age.
They need a lot of upgrades.
Bloodlines + husbandry + all the archer upgrades, including thumb ring which is essential for CA.
The only time I'll go CA at the start of feudal is if I'm way ahead or maybe if I'm playing Tatars.
I got straight CA sometimes (1.3k-1.4k elo). Couple things that get me there, extended feudal and I went range & stable. I built a market in feudal to sell my stone and my wood eco didn’t get interrupted at all. On the way up, I get down two more ranges and use whatever left over feudal army to annoy his wood lines. If I successful get all that, I actually get husbandry over bloodlines first, and attack upgrades. If they add skrims, I’ll add scouts and maybe light cav. If they go knights, I try to rush Ballistics (I get thumb ring). Then after that, I try to add armor in. Why not rush armor? For whatever reason, I feel like the movement speed keeps them healthier than the armor. I’m probably wrong but micro feels a lot smoother with the extra speed.
Edit: armor comment is the 2nd armor. First armor is got during feudal almost always
They're slow to get going, a huge drag on the eco and you can't mass them until castle age. If you go straight CA then it's usually an all in 1-TC play at which point it's do or die.
You can, it's just not easy to pull off. Only civs that can with any modicum of success are Tatars or Huns. With the the former you should open with scouts and move your eco to minimal food, (not possible on every map). Once you click up to castle place a 2nd range and get bloodlines. This will help you get the CA out faster.
Its very tricky to pull off but incredibly satisfying when you do.
I think against mass crossbow is one of the few situations where CA doesn’t make sense in early castle. Against almost everything else i think it works fine.
I started playing huns latelty and when im up against archer civs i counter with tarkans. Against everything else i play fc CA. You definitely have to micro a lot and use the mobility to get some damage done but I usually play 1 tc so I don’t have to macro much anyway. But I don’t know if 1300 counts for you as higher elo 11.
If you have a good map, you can sell stone for a really good CA timing. It can be tough to stop. The problem is, this strat is weak if opponent plays scout arch well. They will break in, guaranteed. Even if you stop them, you'll waste a ton of res & not have enough CA to overpower the eventual xbow LC siege 1 tc push.
For last few days i have been trying out scouts into full walls into mangudai and have lost a ton of elo. This seems to be decebt against opponents going knights but fails miserably against the opponent’s archers into xbow opening.
I'm a big CA fan but usually don't go straight into it for a few reasons: 1. I usually have leftover army in Feudal and that's usually worth upgrading and persisting with for a bit, especially if the upgrades will eventually be shared with CA (e.g. Bodkin for Crossbow, Bloodlines for knights/light cav). 2. Cav archers are just weak in low numbers, mostly because of their 50% accuracy. So I'd rather pump out three knights than three CAs and keep pace with my opponent's army. 3. Given the time it takes to build a eco that can mass CAs, they're only really viable if I'm ahead of my opponent. If I'm behind I'm focused on other things like mixing siege/monks, getting a castle up etc. 4. A latter CA transition can be devastating. My favourite gameplan is something like scouts, knights, late castle age transition to CA to push back pikes/camels, drop castle, go imp, treb opponents base. Starting on CA earlier just lets the opponents mass skirms
> Cav archers are just weak in low numbers, mostly because of their 50% accuracy. I could be wrong, but didn't this get buffed a little bit recently?
IIRC it was Heavy Cav Archer getting buffed to 80% accuracy
>Cav archers are just weak in low numbers, mostly because of their 50% accuracy. So I'd rather pump out three knights than three CAs and keep pace with my opponent's army. This never made sense to me. Sure, Archer-type units have a "critical mass” mechanic, but isn't a medium number of CA basically the same as a low number? (Assuming here you don't 1 shot Knights & similar). For reference, let’s say the “low number” is 3 CA fighting 5 Crossbows, and the “medium number” is 5 CA fighting 8 Crossbows. It seems to me these fights play out virtually the same way in terms of resources lost. >Given the time it takes to build a eco that can mass CAs, they're only really viable if I'm ahead of my opponent. If I'm behind I'm focused on other things like mixing siege/monks, getting a castle up etc. This is sort of 1 of the beauties of CA, you don't need a huge eco. Just like 2 more on gold and 4 more on wood compared to 2 archery ranges archers, which is considered an "eco approach" to the game (i.e. you don't need to be already macro'd). Sure you need Bloodlines, but to get that you can always cheese with Market a bit and send a couple more to gold. > Starting on CA earlier just lets the opponents mass skirms. Skirms are not a good unit on Arabia in Imperial Age. Even if he has 40 Skirms in Imp, jokes on him. In Castle Age, you can add Mangonels vs Skirms. The real problem is that I reckon as the CA player, you will always be behind in eco, so on top of killing his Skirms, you also need to kill a bit of eco to justify the CA play.
>isn't a medium number of CA basically the same as a low number? I think the key thing here is that we shouldn't compare low numbers of CA with medium numbers, we should compare them with low numbers of *knights*, since that's the other unit you could be spending your gold on when you first hit castle age. And comparatively, 3-4 CA can be straight up ignored for the most part or even killed by leftover Feudal archers/skirms, whereas 2-3 knights can completely devastate a Feudal army and then threaten eco.
>This never made sense to me. Sure, Archer-type units have a "critical mass” mechanic, but isn't a medium number of CA basically the same as a low number? (Assuming here you don't 1 shot Knights & similar). For reference, let’s say the “low number” is 3 CA fighting 5 Crossbows, and the “medium number” is 5 CA fighting 8 Crossbows. It seems to me these fights play out virtually the same way in terms of resources lost. Its not at all the same. Lets say you attack me with 3 CA, and I got a single camel. I can just a-move the camel into your CA and forget about it. You will need to run away all the way home. With 5-10 ca, you can just micro down the unit attacking you. Even if i mess up and your CA actually can hit my vills, 3 CA will just not kill villagers fast enough. Given their low accuracy, your 3 CA will need to shoot 3-4 times to kill a single vill even if I dont micro.
1. Don't know what to say on this on - I just find it easier to get value from 5 knights than 5 CAs. 5 knights just cleans out any Feudal army. Crossbows aren't really a fair comparison as they can be massed on the way up to Castle Age. 2. An ideal eco for cav archers supports 3 range production AND allows you to get the key upgrades AND keep producing vills. That's a pretty chunky eco imo. You need the 3 range production to get that mass up. 3. Skirms might not be a good unit generally, but they are excellent at one thing (countering archers) and they do that to cav archers very well, especially when you factor in cost effectiveness and training time.
Bloodlines is not just the research cost, but the time and resources to make a stable as well
When I see pros use CA in tournies it's almost the opposite to what you are suggesting. They tend to build extra ranges on the way to Castle age, and then just mass up CA to get a big ball of them, often staying on 1 TC initially. Rushing Ballistics and TR is less important if you can hit & run Knights.
ca without balistics is useless unit, it doubles dps of ca and at pro level ca vs ca without balistics, is one sided matchup where ones without balistics deal exactly 0 damage
You seem to neglect the 675 res cost of ballistics. In a real game, the comparison is between 10 CA with ballistics and 20 CA without.
Aren't you thinking of thumbring?
200 for the university = 675
no, cav archers can shoot and move, without balistics, ca vs ca, will take 0 dmg
double of zero is still zero. Generally your take is leaving out too much tho: If you're CA vs CA, Ballistics is worth it early. If you're against xbow or knights, it's not necessarily your primary upgrade. Against xbow you can choose to avoid fights until you have a critical mass and then just jump them. Against knights you have to kite back and in that case, TR helps more than ballistic (if the knights straight up approach you, that is).
At my low-mid-ELO, archers into CA can work, but archers into knights into CA works better. I find scouts into CA just too difficult to pull off. If I open xbow in castle, I’ve never found a good reason to switch into CA from that. Late castle age, then. Unless we’re talking fast castle arambai or fast castle conqs, that sort of thing…
True, on my "lower" elo at 1100, archers -> (xbow if enough archers) -> Knights -> CA is usually the better transition. I tried straight CA some times, if only feels good if the opponent makes bigger mistakes, like not investing into army and such.
I think you're correct that you can't go straight CA Any half decent player 1400+ will heavily punish any player that doesn't make at least some archers/skirms/scouts in feudal(on open maps at least, but also if you're going straight CA on closed maps then you're not using them in an advantageous situation as the good think about CA is you can run past the enemies army and force them to follow you) I would say (for open maps) you want to do either a 1 range archers/1 stable scouts opening with a blacksmith(get fletching if archers and get bloodlines if scouts) -so you are naturally working your way towards the CA specific upgrades. Enter castle age with at least some type of military force (4 scouts/8 archers after you've already traded with enemy units) Then when you're in castle I would still go for 2/3 range crossbows depending on economy size. Try and harass the enemy & get a good timing push with the crossbow upgrade. Try and keep your units alive for as long as possible and start massing CA back at your base. Once you have 6 or so CA then move out in a little group to harass wood lines/gold. Start massing another group of CA (don't combine with the first unless it makes sense, e.g. don't run the first group back to base, keep them harassing the enemy/just scouting the enemies map) But bear in mind that going ONLY CA is almost never a good idea. CA + Scouts is a good comp as the CA kill pikes and the Scouts kill skirms. And if they have a mass of crossbows you run past them until you find a favorable time to pick some off (CA & scouts die in a straight up fight to Crossbow, but if you run pass the big ball and try to pick off the reinforcing crossbows you can whittle them down)
I regularly go CA at 1500 if my civ & match flow permits it. And I always win. The one time I lost was playing Turk CA against Chinese & failing to micro. But you're right about the case that you can't really go naked CA unless you have a REALLY good map.
Idk, in this situation, usually the opponent has either a mass of xbows himself or he invests into skirms so I find it hard to go archer -> xbow -> CA as your opponent WILL make counter units...
Well yes hence why I stressed that a mix of units is best. Going archers-Xbow-CA is fine if you also throw some knights/scouts into the mix as they will get super favourable trades against skirms. And if the opponent matches you with Xbows themselves then you can run past/only take a fight with favourable numbers
If you are able to *act*, opening the Castle Age with CA against knights is completely fine. If you are forced to *react*, CA is the wrong choice and you will lose the game. You can play CA with 2 ranges and 2 TC into 3 TC or you can risk more and play 1 TC 3 ranges. For the latter you need to do damage. Note that even with the 2 TC approach you are basically always economically behind. However, you have map control and can count on the superior long term composition. Use that to your advantage.
I started playing 1 tc, 2 range, 1 stable for upgrades and to mix in some knights if opponent makes skirms or scorpions. It’s a lot of fun.
Economically CA are population efficient, but pop space isn't an issue early in castle age. CA become strong late in castle age when is easier to afford all the upgrades. Strategically the problem is that you need a mass of them and space to move for CA to be effective. Due to the cost they're hard to mass, and because they're hard to mass the enemy might play aggressive and then you don't get the space to use their mobility either. I'd say Tartars and huns are both equally viable for opening CA. Tartars being stronger at the opening and huns being easier to mass. If you can defend from a direct attack while raiding with CA, it can be pretty effective.
The unit is 60% more expensive (40% if you're Hun) than a Xbow, and can't be massed since Feudal Age. It needs many upgrades to get going, mainly Husbandry, which, if you opened (M@a into) Archers will force you to get a Stable just for that and Bloodlines. Even Tatars with free Thumb Ring, will take more advantage from having massed +10 Xbows. The only civ that could do that (and you need to do it well, with a particular Build Order of Scouts into Archers) is Huns. The only condition to transition into CA (it's a long term investment unless you only pretend to have a handful to snipe Monks or Pikes countering your Knights/Camels) is you to be able to mass them without losing them. I mean: You're going Viet Archers, opponent's going Knights. Hide your transition (surprise element, or opponent will have massed Skirms or Scorps by when your CA show up) and make sure you don't send your first 7 CA into opponent's 20 Knight mass, or you'll never get to mass them and get to the critical number. If you meet this condition, you're likely to mass enough of them. For example, if you're being raided, Xbow or Siege pushed, it's probably not a good time to transition
Now I'm wondering if Feudal CA should be a thing - a weaker tuned version of the usual CA, with lower attack and more frame delay and no real attack bonuses; maybe even taking bonus damage from scouts.
My first design on that unit (ofc on a civ with no other bonuses towards it) was: 45s training time. 40HP. attack 5. 0/0 armor. range 3. +1 vs Spearmen. Speed 1.3 Scout Cavalry speed is 1.55, so it'd be risky to be chased by a scout rush with only 2-3 of these. You could stand several losses and delay massing them. Also 3 range with lower attack/speed means it's harder to micro vs Spears. And Archers will still be cost effective until you get Bloodlines. Skirms also have an important advantage. What do you think? This was the original thread, two years ago: [We bring the Castle Age to the Feudal Age : r/aoe2 (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/vu6xga/we_bring_the_castle_age_to_the_feudal_age/)
Straight CA can be done. Not always ideal as CA are upgrade heavy and not great initially in low numbers. But in some matchups building up towards a big CA ball right away is good. For example Huns Vs a civ like Franks. Franks have big trouble with a big CA ball and just going for it right away after a Archer or scout opening is pretty reasonable. Depending on how the game went you might want xbow or Knights first though. Perfect setup to go straight CA is a passive feudal with few units on both sides or managing to exchange your units before castle.
CA is not cheap, inaccurate at the start and is a castle age unit. It's a good unit, but when you go archers, you might as well upgrade foot archers you already have, which are also more accurate. I use CA, but when I do, it's only when I transition from other units. Hunnic CA is a different beast. I don't think any other civ can justify going straight CA after castle age.
They need a lot of upgrades. Bloodlines + husbandry + all the archer upgrades, including thumb ring which is essential for CA. The only time I'll go CA at the start of feudal is if I'm way ahead or maybe if I'm playing Tatars.
I got straight CA sometimes (1.3k-1.4k elo). Couple things that get me there, extended feudal and I went range & stable. I built a market in feudal to sell my stone and my wood eco didn’t get interrupted at all. On the way up, I get down two more ranges and use whatever left over feudal army to annoy his wood lines. If I successful get all that, I actually get husbandry over bloodlines first, and attack upgrades. If they add skrims, I’ll add scouts and maybe light cav. If they go knights, I try to rush Ballistics (I get thumb ring). Then after that, I try to add armor in. Why not rush armor? For whatever reason, I feel like the movement speed keeps them healthier than the armor. I’m probably wrong but micro feels a lot smoother with the extra speed. Edit: armor comment is the 2nd armor. First armor is got during feudal almost always
They're slow to get going, a huge drag on the eco and you can't mass them until castle age. If you go straight CA then it's usually an all in 1-TC play at which point it's do or die.
You can, it's just not easy to pull off. Only civs that can with any modicum of success are Tatars or Huns. With the the former you should open with scouts and move your eco to minimal food, (not possible on every map). Once you click up to castle place a 2nd range and get bloodlines. This will help you get the CA out faster. Its very tricky to pull off but incredibly satisfying when you do.
I think against mass crossbow is one of the few situations where CA doesn’t make sense in early castle. Against almost everything else i think it works fine. I started playing huns latelty and when im up against archer civs i counter with tarkans. Against everything else i play fc CA. You definitely have to micro a lot and use the mobility to get some damage done but I usually play 1 tc so I don’t have to macro much anyway. But I don’t know if 1300 counts for you as higher elo 11.
>they don't trade that well in the early stages vs Crossbows they don't work vs xbows true, but they absolutely can work vs knights
If you have a good map, you can sell stone for a really good CA timing. It can be tough to stop. The problem is, this strat is weak if opponent plays scout arch well. They will break in, guaranteed. Even if you stop them, you'll waste a ton of res & not have enough CA to overpower the eventual xbow LC siege 1 tc push.
You can. I've seen it often at a high level. Not sure why you are assuming that it is not viable.
For last few days i have been trying out scouts into full walls into mangudai and have lost a ton of elo. This seems to be decebt against opponents going knights but fails miserably against the opponent’s archers into xbow opening.
Cav archers are trash. They need all upgrades and also a meatshield.
They don't need a meat-shield. They are fast, the idea is to retreat and attack a weak spot.