u/KhajitDave

I'm talking about when your unit counters the enemy unit extremely hard and it's a joy to watch the enemy army just melt away in seconds!

Here's one I discovered yesterday:

Jurchen Grenadiers with Thunderclap Bombs vs siege rams

So I was playing an Arena match, the enemy sent a bunch of siege rams to my gates with shotels inside.

Even though I had a small mass of Grenadiers at the gates, I was a little worried because I didn't know how much damage they'd do to the rams and I thought it may not be enough...

The first volley of bombs did a little damage, but the secondary explosions from the unique tech absolutely demolished the rams, I was surprised. I'm not sure why this happened, maybe the secondary explosions do melee damage or something.

I thought this might be useful information for people to get better.

Please state your elo and civilization you often pick, and explain the strategies that you find hard to deal with as that civ.

I'll start-

I'm around 1200-1250 when at my best. I've never got to 1300.

I like to play as Cumans and I've been picking them every match recently to try and learn the civ and get better with them.

Here's what tends to work against me, but obviously bear in mind my elo level:

✔ Fast Castle to gold pressure

I was gonna say "TC pressure" but I think gold pressure is what I have most trouble with.

I think the 2 TC Cuman boom is the optimal strat and the one I've been having the best results with but there are 2 stages: first is obviously the boom, and sometimes I have to defend myself which I'm getting better at.

The second stage is the "early Castle Age defence" stage which is after I hit Castle Age: in most cases the enemy will have forwarded my base and is attacking with mangonels and xbows/knights, often against the TC.

As long as I have the gold then it's just a matter of being patient and then cleaning up the enemy attack with 3-stable fully upgraded knights or camels.

In other words my defence relies on gold because after a 2-TC boom I'm unlikely to have much gold collected, also there's a good chance my other golds are outside my base/too far. So pressuring the gold I think is particularly good against Cumans because they're probably waiting to hit Castle Age before making an army (at least I am in most cases).

✔ Fast Castle to castle drop

Again I'm unlikely to be able to contest the castle going up because I'm probably still in Feudal Age. Yes I can make rams or capped rams but it's a big investment and it can be easily defended with vills/mangonels/your own army (maybe what I should be doing is making fewer rams but more supporting units). So especially if the castle is on my main gold, or even worse a TC with my main gold, it's gonna be a big headache for me.

Also depending on what kind of army or UU you have (i.e. one that can destroy rams easily) I might be less inclined to try and take it down with rams.

✔ Rams > mangonels?

Because rams can take down buildings more quickly they're more of a threat than mangonels, which give me enough time to prepare a counter attack.

If you have supporting units which can kill my vills then you can do a lot of damage and perhaps even nullify my boom. Also I may have a defensive mangonel but just send a ram after it and I might not have the units to protect it.

Recently a player came at me with tons of rams and spearmen and absolutely destroyed me. I made a ton of mistakes but a large part of it was how unexpected it was.