Beware choosing Abbasid as starting civ, they're not easy!

[ARCAGNELL0]

I'm sorry in advance for this thread. Did not want it to get so long but what can you do.

EDIT:
The help on the comments of this thread has been incredibly useful to me and more or less turned the whole purpose of this thread around, the original title was revolving how I found Abbasid underwhelming but the new one more or less reflects on the fact they DESERVE those 3 ouf of 3 difficulty stars on the difficulty rating. Try to main them first at your own risk!


ORIGINAL THREAD STARTS HERE!

Hello. I've been playing this game for around 4 days and I've been having a blast with it, too bad I picked a starting civ I either don't know how to use or simply can't bloody compete with at least 3 other civs on either land or water.


My gripes with the civ in regards to its aggressive capabilities

1)the only dark age rush you can do is spears + rams, making the early game aggression of abbasid only subpar to China and Delhi. The rams cost 300 wood each, take ages to build and can be torched down by enemy villagers with incredible ease, making a rush at this stage of the game basically an all-in you will never be able to recover from.

2) at feudal stuff gets more interesting, Ram rushes are still viable but you now have the option of using more offensive units with some admittedly nice combinations:

Archer + Spearmen combo works really well against mongols, rus and the stupid french whenver there's a tryharder padding the winrate

Archer + Horsemen is on the other hand decent against factions that either spam archers or don't use horsemen.

Too bad English and HRE more or less hardcounter you from age 2 and onwards considering they get either better archers or early men at arms, completely hardcountering any unit you have at feudal, effectively making rushes against those factions almost a lost cause for me.

You also get the Camel Archer. A unit that disappointed me quite a lot since it costs an eye and a leg in both food and wood and does not have the DPS or mobility to match. The bonus damage against spearmen is almost worthless since there are better options at the same age to deal with those anyway, unless you're also going for horsemen/knights that could use a counter, but then again the cheaper counter options are there. The best use I found for it so far is just have a couple to provide the armor bonus if you went for the Military wing. That's it.

As for water play, I find abbasid ships in general (altough the imperial one IS nice) to be the worst ones aside from the mongols'. They can still hold their own against England, delhi and Rus but they're completely stomped by everyone else, especially Frence that gets the TOTALLY BALANCED tier 2 Hulk and the germans that have a tier 2 combat ship that's SO LAUGHABLY STRONG you can just mass and defeat an equal cost worth of tier 3 abbasid combat ships. Am I missing something here?

Do I need to become a cocaine addicted squirrel to boost up my micro and just kite with the Abbasid ships since they're SLIGHTLY faster? The only tiny, absolutely WORTHLESS (late game) bonus for naval combat Abbasid get is the dock only costing 75 wood.

There's also the very profitable trade ship combo with the "spice roads" in the economic wing but how exactly are you going to get traders going if you don't get some modicum of sea presence first?

3) Castle age obviously opens up the possibilities of the faction to get some new army comps, too bad their only new unit, the Camel Rider, is as bad to mass as the Camel Archer, effectively rendering it useless when used plenty. Compare this to awesome unique units other civs get and you may get on to why I've grown to dislike Abbasid now.

You also get both men at arms and crossbowmen to counter HRE with, if they somehow have not managed to absolutely curbstomp you with their early, faster men at arms, same applies to English since it would be rare for one of those players to not have thoroughly abused you with both longbows and early men at arms first.

This is the age when other civs also get to build siege equipment, which more or less makes the Abbasid's innate ability to construct all siege apart from Trebuchet, Culverin and Bombard practically useless.

4) and then we get to age 4 of Abbasid , more or less what I think is the most UNDERWHELMING Imperial Age civ in the entire game. They get some upgrades on their gimmick camels but nothing else really happens aside from all the general upgrades. I may have not played imperial long enough to know tough, mostly because other civs seem to consistently get better army comps than I do.

My GENERAL build order usually revolves around:
1) Getting a fast age 2 with the economic wing, I obviously go dock first if there's a map with deep sea fish somewhere

2) getting 4 military production buildings (of choice) and two blacksmiths to push the enemy with (also thanks to an upgrade timing) using a combination of unit I think works with the RAM usage to try and either get the win or do a lot of economic damage, since I'm going to be saving up for a second TC while that goes on

3)getting to age 3 and 4, getting all the upgrades, getting better versions or revisiting my army comp while the game goes on, the mid game pressure would mean I'd get a head start on economy and tech allowing me to push the enemy until victory, ideally that is. The reality is that to me all other civs get so much stronger than Abbasid from castle age onwards that you more or less have to make your push count midgame, or you're toast.

I have yet to try very defensive Abbasid play, but it really looks like a waste of civ skills to me.

And there it is. Sorry again for the length of all this but it all had to be written to give you an idea why I'm so incredibly disappointed in the Abbasid.
Please make sure to elucidate any criticism in a constructive manner since I'm here mostly to learn from you!

[Kastor]

The strongest thing about the Abbasid is that they are strong against the horse civs. As you suggested against those civs you need to push that advantage early on. Against infantry civs you want to rely heavily in your siege I think. Being able to field build mangonels is a huge advantage in inf vs inf.

[Banelord]

i want them to yell allahu egber , until then i wont be playing them

[Tomoko]

You seem well informed. How are the Mongols? This game is insanely overpriced so I haven't bought it yet, but the Mongols are the only civ I'm interested in playing. Are they any good?

[Subtle Butt ( >ω<)っ ♡]

So I mainly main HRE and Abbasid and I've been playing the whole gamut from 1v1 Arabia to 4v4 Blackforest. I'll address your points.

1.) Dark age rushes are extremely easy to stop, nobody really does a dark age rush. Abbasids have a good time to Feudal and dont have to use up their 3 vills building the wonder.

2.) You acknowledge that Abbasids have good Feudal play. You're not beating HRE or English in Feudal this is true, but you're not going to be rushing these factions when they're one of the strongest in Feudal. Archer + Spearmen combo works vs every other faction. Especially with Phalanx upgrade. One thing to note is camels are a support unit. You get camel archers to debuff the enemy cavalry which makes them strong vs feudal knight civs and mongols. Camel archers beat the snot out of Mangudai. Also, camel archers are actually quite strong pop for pop. They have massive health, massive ranged damage base and fire faster than archers. They will beat enemy archers quite decisively.

I couldn't care about actual naval gameplay, but Abbasids have a strong fish boom in a mixed map due to the cheaper docks.

3.) Abbassids can produce springalds and mangonels in the field. This is a pretty big leg up vs others who need their siege workshops and travel to the fight. Camel riders, once again are a support unit. They will beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of enemy cav while your own lancers ride down the enemy.

4.) Abbasids actually have one of the strongest Imperial ages in the game. They have 15% HP Handcannoneers, access to Culverin, and some of the strongest traders in the game, coupled with golden age and your unique eco techs, they are one of the top imperial ecos in the game. When you have the eco to spam camel archers, they are one of the strongest units in the game. You get 20 ranged damage, 1.25 attack speed, 300 HP and 1.87 movespeed after movement upgrade (which is faster than all cav besides scouts), on top of damage reduction to cavalry. In comparison, average archers only get a measly 13 damage and 1.5 attack speed with 90 HP. Crossbowmen are in the same boat with 22 ranged damage, 2 attack speed, 95 HP.

Your imperial age is very dominating and will beat the breaks out of something like French or HRE. Oh yeah and infantry can make mangonels. Abbasids really dish out the pain with culverin spam, HCs and meatshielding camel archers. Oh massed streltsy? Whip out some mangonels out your ass.

Abbasids are a very balanced civ that really dominates cav factions but have a hard time with infantry centric factions early on.

[Despiser]

Abbasids were the first civ I won with playing against France after failing with England a few times. In fact I still haven't won playing as England. Camel archers are very effective when massed with a few monks

[TheDiaper]

Originally posted by Tomoko:

You seem well informed. How are the Mongols? This game is insanely overpriced so I haven't bought it yet, but the Mongols are the only civ I'm interested in playing. Are they any good?

They are good but hard to play

[Buntkreuz]

The Abassid strength isnt necessarily a rush, its strength is that its a flexible counter civ.
It can literally counter EVERY other army.
It can counter cav, it can counter infantry, it can counter range.
If you scout your enemy knowing what he/she builds, you can ever counter it.
No other civ is that flexible with what it can do.
A great Abassid Dyn. player can counter a french, british or HRE army.
Their problem is that their build orders are more complex and its easier to mess them up.

[ARCAGNELL0]

Thank you everyone for your comments, I will play them more with your feedback in mind now!

In order:

Originally posted by Kastor:

The strongest thing about the Abbasid is that they are strong against the horse civs. As you suggested against those civs you need to push that advantage early on. Against infantry civs you want to rely heavily in your siege I think. Being able to field build mangonels is a huge advantage in inf vs inf.

I seem to have actually understood the fact they've got a natural advantage against horse civs quite well, that's reassuring. I guess I will have to somewhat turtle up and wait to be able to field mangonels and spriggalds in age 3 when fighting against HRE or the English!

Originally posted by twotimesfour:

i want them to yell allahu egber , until then i wont be playing them

Wasn't it Aloha Snackbar? Man can't reeelly put my finger on it ;)

Originally posted by Tomoko:

You seem well informed. How are the Mongols? This game is insanely overpriced so I haven't bought it yet, but the Mongols are the only civ I'm interested in playing. Are they any good?

While they're not all that strong against abbasid due to their early spear+camel archer/archer play Mongols are an absolute bane against everything else, especially early game. You will have issues figuring out how they work in a fast manner tough, they're not exactly straightforward!

Originally posted by Subtle Butt:

So I mainly main HRE and Abbasid and I've been playing the whole gamut from 1v1 Arabia to 4v4 Blackforest. I'll address your points.

1.) Dark age rushes are extremely easy to stop, nobody really does a dark age rush. Abbasids have a good time to Feudal and dont have to use up their 3 vills building the wonder.

2.) You acknowledge that Abbasids have good Feudal play. You're not beating HRE or English in Feudal this is true, but you're not going to be rushing these factions when they're one of the strongest in Feudal. Archer + Spearmen combo works vs every other faction. Especially with Phalanx upgrade. One thing to note is camels are a support unit. You get camel archers to debuff the enemy cavalry which makes them strong vs feudal knight civs and mongols. Camel archers beat the snot out of Mangudai. Also, camel archers are actually quite strong pop for pop. They have massive health, massive ranged damage base and fire faster than archers. They will beat enemy archers quite decisively.

I couldn't care about actual naval gameplay, but Abbasids have a strong fish boom in a mixed map due to the cheaper docks.

3.) Abbassids can produce springalds and mangonels in the field. This is a pretty big leg up vs others who need their siege workshops and travel to the fight. Camel riders, once again are a support unit. They will beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of enemy cav while your own lancers ride down the enemy.

4.) Abbasids actually have one of the strongest Imperial ages in the game. They have 15% HP Handcannoneers, access to Culverin, and some of the strongest traders in the game, coupled with golden age and your unique eco techs, they are one of the top imperial ecos in the game. When you have the eco to spam camel archers, they are one of the strongest units in the game. You get 20 ranged damage, 1.25 attack speed, 300 HP and 1.87 movespeed after movement upgrade (which is faster than all cav besides scouts), on top of damage reduction to cavalry. In comparison, average archers only get a measly 13 damage and 1.5 attack speed with 90 HP. Crossbowmen are in the same boat with 22 ranged damage, 2 attack speed, 95 HP.

Your imperial age is very dominating and will beat the breaks out of something like French or HRE. Oh yeah and infantry can make mangonels. Abbasids really dish out the pain with culverin spam, HCs and meatshielding camel archers. Oh massed streltsy? Whip out some mangonels out your ass.

Abbasids are a very balanced civ that really dominates cav factions but have a hard time with infantry centric factions early on.

A lot of amazing feedback here, thank you Subtle Butt!
In order:

1) The two times I did a dark age rush was both on small maps, against HRE and French respectively. I wanted to strike before HRE got their men at arms and before the froggies could get their CHEESE KNIGHTS DU FROMAGE raining down upon me. It somehow worked but that's probably due to the game being very young and people not really knowing what the Abbasids even DO since they're quite rare. There was this funny moment where the French player litterally asked me what even were those battering rams, since he probably stomped any other civ before they coulkd field any, quite hilarious.


2)That's what I gathered yeah, I will have to switch to a more conservative playstile against strong feudal faction that are not centered around cav, like HRE and English. Turtling and attempting to go to Castle age for those sweet mangonels it is!

The fact I have just now figured out how to fastly garrison civs and have them go back to the work they were previously doing instead of absolutely RAGING at the bloody villagers repairing an Outpost while they're being turned into pincushions by Mangudai PROBABLY will help in that regard. The Pain.

I have not tried to mass Camel Archers against Mangudai yet. That'll be interesting, altough I feel quickly walling off your side of the map with palisade walls as soon as you see the archery range going up and then training archers to be as effective but more economic, with some camels sprinked in to provide the horse damage debuff and possibly also the armor bonus of course.

As for water play, I've actually gotten a page from Turin's book where he actually gave the French opponent a healthy dose of RAM RANCH by stealth carrying 3-4 vills to his opponent's base, build 3-4 barracks in the back of his island and rush him with 3 battering rams with supporting units behind it. Hilarious stuff.

Abbasid may be decent in water battles since their explosive ship is a converted Dhow, their age 2 combat ship. You could try spamming those in age 3 with mimal non-suicide combat vessels behind them. They also get extra movement speed at age 3 and more explosive damage in age 4, making them quite strong, if you survive on water that long. That said I'm probably not gonna bother with island maps until the french are fixed and the HRE feudal combat ships are nerfed.


3-4) You're making me reconsider camels as a late game spam unit supported by mangos/culverins now, thank you for the in-depth explaination! I've also seen there's an upgrade to Camel riders giving them +3 armor in melee, which would make them quite a good mobile tank unit. I don't think just massing camel archer/camel riders is effective at all but having at least one of those plus infantry to build siege equipment with will surely be effective in combat!

Originally posted by Despiser:

Abbasids were the first civ I won with playing against France after failing with England a few times. In fact I still haven't won playing as England. Camel archers are very effective when massed with a few monks

Huh. You used camel archers ageinst the frenchies backed up by monks against their CHEESE KNIGHTS DU FROMAGE and you prevailed? kudos to you my man! Did you also use spearmen with their upgrades to cover the monks? I will have to try that!

Originally posted by Argentum:

The Abassid strength isnt necessarily a rush, its strength is that its a flexible counter civ.
It can literally counter EVERY other army.
It can counter cav, it can counter infantry, it can counter range.
If you scout your enemy knowing what he/she builds, you can ever counter it.
No other civ is that flexible with what it can do.
A great Abassid Dyn. player can counter a french, british or HRE army.
Their problem is that their build orders are more complex and its easier to mess them up.

I get everything that you wrote and I take it to heart.

I especially relate to "their build orders are more complex and its easier to mess them up", I wonder why, heh.

[ARCAGNELL0]

I'm coming back to this thread in other to say I've been using the advice given to me and managed to win some games that I would've probably lost before:

1)had a game against HRE in a map with no sea, played it defensive until tier 2 when I did some Camel Archer harass while I ecoed hard back home and unlocked all the smithy upgrades. Turns out HRE got rather spooked by the camels and turtled rather hard as I aged up to Castle before them with the military wing , built up a meaty men at arms frontline, got the Camel support buff and then proceeded to build some 6 battering rams and levels his/her base with plenty of Monk support to keep healing as much as they could. Glorious

2)had another game against the English, this time on water. I managed to obtain water superiority and started using trade ships for my gold/wood income. Age 3 came for both of us, I had water control but I did not place my ships around his island to check if he was trying to transport ship land into my island. He actually did but I already had 3 barracks and 3 Archery Ranges at the ready to meet him.

We both got to age 4 and I figured he was probably going to go for a Wonder victory considering the tea boys are pretty good at defending, so I moved some civs to the island nearest to his, build a plethora of docks to repair my sieging tier 4 ships at then built even more barracks and archery ranges to which then I produced a lot of fully upgraded and buffed Camel Archers/Men At Arms.

I landed in a spot my sieging units cleared, built some 5 battering rams and started pushing, at which point he surrendered.


I hope this whole thread helps anyone having issues with abbasid, I'll go change the title real quick and add an EDIT at the start of the OP :)

[Falaris]

The devs have rated them as follows:
Easy:
French
English

Intermediate:
HRE
Rus
Abassid

Hard:
China
Mongols
Delhi

This roughly plays out. It is no surprise France and England are very popular now - it's easier to get full value out of those factions. Mongols in particular are CRAZY strong though, if you play them right, but while French eco advantage is straightforward - it's almost a background bonus - with Mongols you need to consciously combine several elements to get advantage from it and it is still a bit vulnerable.

Now, I can't add much on the Abassid, but in the discussion of wether Abassid is hard to play right - yeah, it is, but it's not the worst. I feel it's the hardest of the Intermediate ones.

[Edge_1985]

Originally posted by Tomoko:

You seem well informed. How are the Mongols? This game is insanely overpriced so I haven't bought it yet, but the Mongols are the only civ I'm interested in playing. Are they any good?

the cant build walls, but they can exclusive move Buildings. Its a strong Cavalary Nation.

[381]

Originally posted by Tomoko:

You seem well informed. How are the Mongols? This game is insanely overpriced so I haven't bought it yet, but the Mongols are the only civ I'm interested in playing. Are they any good?

mongols are one of the best :D

[ARCAGNELL0]

Coming back to this thread to say that I'm probably going to quit playing Abbasid for now until they actually stop being a pathetic feudal/castle gimmick civ that get outperformed by almost at least 2 civs in whatever they're trying to do. The more I play them the more flaws preventing me to win against most civs I find.

I've just hit 1000 ELO (which means I'm still pathetic, mind you) and I just keep getting

1)the bloody English doing the Man At Arms/Longbow rush with rams mixed, against which I literally have no way to effectively trade, making even a potential repelling of this push almost a prolonged death sentence. What am I going to fight better archers and men at arms with? Spearmen and horsemen? Please.

All that you can possibly do against that is NOT go double TC (which more or less gimps Abbasid out of probably their best tech which is reducing the cost of vills by 50%) and try to get to castle age asap in order to get crossbowmen+lancers, THEN try and out-boom your opponent, at which point the english will probably have already blanced their TOTALLY BALANCED second landmark that also acts as TC, meaning even your ECO is going to struggle

2)I wish Abbasid had a good matchup against Mongols, but they don't. I hardly see any Mongol stupid enough to go mass Mangudai/horse units against me, practically denying the entire PURPOSE of this civ.

I will be forced into a defensive strategy from the begninning since mongols can get you to lose even at age 1 by spamming those horrible scouts doing their insane torch damage while costing only 60 wood, while he on the other hand is gonna eco hard with deer stones, at which pont I'm already going to fight an uphill battle.

3)Rus I have an easier time against since most of them still like using early knights which I can counter with spears, a camel archer or two and then mass archers, which gets me to ACTUALLY PRESSURE A CIV WITH A RAM any not actually get hardountered. How quaint. Too bad any rus worth his salt is going to invest in those very nice defensive keeps and landmarks while trying to raid me at the same time, meaning it's not going to be easy to push for his surrender, not to mention that Rus can simply go mass springalds as soon as they get into imperial and I'm just boned unless I somehow managed to get Culverins before ge gets a critical Springald mass going, which also doubles as siege and even anti-cav. Yeah that's how good they are.

4)90% of the french players always go for the school of cavalry and feudal pressure. I usually manage to wall myself in and out-eco them with double TC to when come out at castle age with Spears, camel riders, crossbowmen/archers + mangonels/springalds, all the while supporting rams at the front. Too bad that I once again do not have many asnwers against a french deciding to go full eco and combine those royal knights wich archers in feudal, making even that matchup very hard fought

5)Any delhi worth their salt will start to build up archers in feudal and try to hold on until they get to castle age, at which point a single Melee Elephant to hold me back most likely will evaporate any chance I have at winning that quick match, since it will neutralize more or less all the resources I spent with that much aggression.

6)even HRE can just win against my feudal ram push with just men at arms and some keeps aiming at my archers instead of the Rams, hell I'd consider HRE bactually being BETTER than Abbasids if they weren't even more bugged than Abbassid is, not to mention that you're basically going to get run over by the mouthbreathing HRE infantry blob supported by springald/culverin fire support behind it from castle age and up, and Camels are absolutely USELESS in this match up.

You go ahead and try accruing 220 resources worth of damage dealt with your stupid camel archers in feudal, because that's how much each one costs. Good luck with that.

7)China is the only civ that is as equally screwed unit-wise in feudal as Abbasid, which means it's also the only civ Abbassid can effectively ram push in Feudal and win, too bad that as soon as they get to castle and the Barbican begins to pump out their rocket arty rams become useless and springalds can't target the chinese counter-siege if they're behind walls, since they got indirect fire capability and springalds do not, meaning your only good chance of breaking into castle-imperial china is to spam trebuchets to stay outside their arty range, and possibly defensive-oriented mangonels to try and counter their Palace Guard running headlong and sniping your siege engines.


I am probably going to try and main the MOST BRAINDEAD EASY civ for now that's not the french, meaning the English, while I practice with Delhi since I like their playstile. I really wish Abbasid gets reworked to be more organic and not remain as the meme it currently is that's only ever good for counter-picking if you know the opponent goes French/Chineese and possibly Rus.


I admit that I may be doing something wrong. Maybe going as hard as possible on eco and then going to castle age with the Culture wing to then get all the 30% discount upgrades is indeed the best way to play abbasid, while any eraly game aggression other than some sporadic horseman raids is not to be attempted above 1000 ELO.

Hell even discarding the Military Wing completely and just going for the Trade WIng for imperial age in order to just spam traders looks like a good idea, The military wing upgrades are that bad afterall.

Why try and buff your subpar units when you can probably try and out-eco your opponent, trying to win through sheer trading attrition?

Oh and don't even get me started on ater maps since I don't play those anymore, I'm just gonna say Abbassids probably have the worst combat and demolition ship roster out of all the civs, including mongols.

Hurr durr 75 wood docks are so good brah....yeah right.

Oh and Relic, for the love of whatever is most holy, at least make that damnable +1 armor buff camels are supposed to provide actually work. Thank you.

[MustardTiger]

If you're a noob I would 100% recommend Abbasid, right behind French or English...

[MustardTiger]

Originally posted by Falaris:

The devs have rated them as follows:
Easy:
French
English

Intermediate:
HRE
Rus
Abassid

Hard:
China
Mongols
Delhi

This roughly plays out. It is no surprise France and England are very popular now - it's easier to get full value out of those factions. Mongols in particular are CRAZY strong though, if you play them right, but while French eco advantage is straightforward - it's almost a background bonus - with Mongols you need to consciously combine several elements to get advantage from it and it is still a bit vulnerable.

Now, I can't add much on the Abassid, but in the discussion of wether Abassid is hard to play right - yeah, it is, but it's not the worst. I feel it's the hardest of the Intermediate ones.

IMO Abbasid is the easiest civ to play after French and English.