AI monk spam is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[BlazinGod!]

title says it all... how about a fix for this crap?

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

I don't really care about the majority of players (although I'm almost 100% sure you have no data to back up that claim).

I care about my games, and high level games. My personal games won't matter to anyone else, so lets talk high level games.

In high level games, monks are pretty damn common. Usually in early castle age, or in imperial to counter siege. And on arena, monks are pretty much the meta there.

And of course, top players can't use monks perfectly either, but they're better than the ai. Honestly monks aren't that hard to use, you can consistently get at least 5-6 conversions with 2 seconds (or less if you're good) of micro in a fight just by hotkeying them.

Also what's the hard counter. On voobly you could say scout cav. But on DE, with a bit of luck monks convert them first.

I literally don't agree with a single thing you said here. "Human players almost never use Monks" is obviously wrong at high levels, "not at the level AI does" is obviously wrong at high levels, and "hard counters" is a bit subjective and hard to define, there's not really many units in the game where you can't do something to win with the unit that gets "countered", but the difference with monks is that whether or not they get countered is luck based.

High level games see the least amount of Monk usage, since the top level players see them as 100 Gold waste units, after the early Castle Age.

Ok cite any pro player who has said that.

I've been watching all the tournaments. Arena is always monks in early castle age for relic control.

And other than that, its pretty common with aztecs, or occasionally in early monk siege pushes.

And then with redemption and block printing in imperial age its often used to counter siege.

They're conditional, but they see good usage.

The point isn't that monks are op though. The point is that their conversion time should be the same as it was on voobly. Every pro player has said that. They all think its too rng.

I'd find a clip for you, but I think you're making entirely baseless claims with no evidence whatsoever, so I'm not gonna put in that effort unless you can find at least one clip of someone skilled saying monks are a waste of 100 gold. "Not used often" sure, but the waste of 100 gold sentence is total pulled out of your ass bull.

Also a good part of why they aren't used all the time is because you can't pick Aztecs every game in tournaments and monks aren't good on open maps vs archer civs (and cav civs are uncommon with how melee pathing is right now).

To be clear, they specifically affect arena and regicide fortress (and black forest but that map isn't competitive anyways), where if 1 player gets lucky conversions and the other doesn't it can pretty much decide the game on rng.

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

High level games see the least amount of Monk usage, since the top level players see them as 100 Gold waste units, after the early Castle Age.

Ok cite any pro player who has said that.

I've been watching all the tournaments. Arena is always monks in early castle age for relic control.

And other than that, its pretty common with aztecs, or occasionally in early monk siege pushes.

And then with redemption and block printing in imperial age its often used to counter siege.

They're conditional, but they see good usage.

The point isn't that monks are op though. The point is that their conversion time should be the same as it was on voobly. Every pro player has said that. They all think its too rng.

I'd find a clip for you, but I think you're making entirely baseless claims with no evidence whatsoever, so I'm not gonna put in that effort unless you can find at least one clip of someone skilled saying monks are a waste of 100 gold. "Not used often" sure, but the waste of 100 gold sentence is total pulled out of your ass bull.

Also a good part of why they aren't used all the time is because you can't pick Aztecs every game in tournaments and monks aren't good on open maps vs archer civs (and cav civs are uncommon with how melee pathing is right now).

To be clear, they specifically affect arena and regicide fortress (and black forest but that map isn't competitive anyways), where if 1 player gets lucky conversions and the other doesn't it can pretty much decide the game on rng.

Arena is the only map where they shine, since Relic Gold is reliable, and you dont have tro defend it constantly, unlike the Gold nodes that are in the middle of the map.

Aztecs and Saracens always go for Monks because they have very good bonuses and techs for them. They are one of the few civs that actually can effectively field Monks in any competitive capacity.

I mean, you just admitted that Monks are only useful in ONE map type, and for ONE civ in general.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Ok cite any pro player who has said that.

I've been watching all the tournaments. Arena is always monks in early castle age for relic control.

And other than that, its pretty common with aztecs, or occasionally in early monk siege pushes.

And then with redemption and block printing in imperial age its often used to counter siege.

They're conditional, but they see good usage.

The point isn't that monks are op though. The point is that their conversion time should be the same as it was on voobly. Every pro player has said that. They all think its too rng.

I'd find a clip for you, but I think you're making entirely baseless claims with no evidence whatsoever, so I'm not gonna put in that effort unless you can find at least one clip of someone skilled saying monks are a waste of 100 gold. "Not used often" sure, but the waste of 100 gold sentence is total pulled out of your ass bull.

Also a good part of why they aren't used all the time is because you can't pick Aztecs every game in tournaments and monks aren't good on open maps vs archer civs (and cav civs are uncommon with how melee pathing is right now).

To be clear, they specifically affect arena and regicide fortress (and black forest but that map isn't competitive anyways), where if 1 player gets lucky conversions and the other doesn't it can pretty much decide the game on rng.

Arena is the only map where they shine, since Relic Gold is reliable, and you dont have tro defend it constantly, unlike the Gold nodes that are in the middle of the map.

Aztecs and Saracens always go for Monks because they have very good bonuses and techs for them. They are one of the few civs that actually can effectively field Monks in any competitive capacity.

I mean, you just admitted that Monks are only useful in ONE map type, and for ONE civ in general.

Ok lets start from the beginning.

Monks should convert at the same speed they did on voobly.

If that only affects arena and black forest (25% of the current map pool, or replace black forest with regicide fortress for competitive and its probably more like 20% of the pool), it still negatively affects the game.

I'm not the original poster, I don't think the way ai uses monks is bull. I think it only seems that way because they're so relatively bad with cav, infantry, and siege (archers I think they're better with than monks).

I just think that monks converting so fast they can rng out conversions vs scout cav and eagles is bad. And every pro streamer I've watched has expressed this exact same opinion.

Also, its not like Aztecs can't go monks on other maps. And its not like they're the only civ that goes monks on Arena. Every civ opens with them, and any civ with block printing and redemption will likely use them if the opponent goes onager or bombard cannon (also not sure why you listed Saracens, they aren't an arena civ and often go archers). Plus, Aztecs are in the top 3 civs on half the maps in the pool (arena, BF, gold rush, arabia).

So even if I did say that (btw what I wrote was they're commonly used on 2 maps + 1 civ, aztecs don't need to be on arena to build monks), again that's 25% of the map pool that's affected (although everyone bans black forest, so maybe 20% after arena with 3 bans). They nerfed China for steppe and nomad.

But we're not debating the frequency monks are used. I'm claiming the conversion bug should be fixed (and just as a side effect this would make ai monks less annoying too). They don't need to be broken overpowered on Arabia for that to be true.

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

Arena is the only map where they shine, since Relic Gold is reliable, and you dont have tro defend it constantly, unlike the Gold nodes that are in the middle of the map.

Aztecs and Saracens always go for Monks because they have very good bonuses and techs for them. They are one of the few civs that actually can effectively field Monks in any competitive capacity.

I mean, you just admitted that Monks are only useful in ONE map type, and for ONE civ in general.

Ok lets start from the beginning.

Monks should convert at the same speed they did on voobly.

If that only affects arena and black forest (25% of the current map pool, or replace black forest with regicide fortress for competitive and its probably more like 20% of the pool), it still negatively affects the game.

I'm not the original poster, I don't think the way ai uses monks is bull. I think it only seems that way because they're so relatively bad with cav, infantry, and siege (archers I think they're better with than monks).

I just think that monks converting so fast they can rng out conversions vs scout cav and eagles is bad. And every pro streamer I've watched has expressed this exact same opinion.

Also, its not like Aztecs can't go monks on other maps. And its not like they're the only civ that goes monks on Arena. Every civ opens with them, and any civ with block printing and redemption will likely use them if the opponent goes onager or bombard cannon (also not sure why you listed Saracens, they aren't an arena civ and often go archers). Plus, Aztecs are in the top 3 civs on half the maps in the pool (arena, BF, gold rush, arabia).

So even if I did say that (btw what I wrote was they're commonly used on 2 maps + 1 civ, aztecs don't need to be on arena to build monks), again that's 25% of the map pool that's affected (although everyone bans black forest, so maybe 20% after arena with 3 bans). They nerfed China for steppe and nomad.

But we're not debating the frequency monks are used. I'm claiming the conversion bug should be fixed (and just as a side effect this would make ai monks less annoying too). They don't need to be broken overpowered on Arabia for that to be true.

I forgot to add that when I did my test with Monks VS Cavs. They never managed to convert more than 3.

So, any fast units that can outrun monks would be a great counter but you'd have to rush them. You have to be prepared and commit to the attack. In a mixed engagement, it might become a problem. But, so is any other unit used the right way.

When facing monks. Make sure to research heresy. And, have fast units to deal with them the best way possible.

They might need a balancing pass (I can only judge from what I see from the test I made. And from my tests they seem fine.) but in the current state of things they are not even close to be as broken as you seem to imply. Otherwise a lot more people would be using them wich, clearly, isn't the case.

Again, I'm going to study the problem more and simulate some engagements to see how it goes.

[Ducks on Fire]

Or you can just not suck. The AI isn't very good

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Ok lets start from the beginning.

Monks should convert at the same speed they did on voobly.

If that only affects arena and black forest (25% of the current map pool, or replace black forest with regicide fortress for competitive and its probably more like 20% of the pool), it still negatively affects the game.

I'm not the original poster, I don't think the way ai uses monks is bull. I think it only seems that way because they're so relatively bad with cav, infantry, and siege (archers I think they're better with than monks).

I just think that monks converting so fast they can rng out conversions vs scout cav and eagles is bad. And every pro streamer I've watched has expressed this exact same opinion.

Also, its not like Aztecs can't go monks on other maps. And its not like they're the only civ that goes monks on Arena. Every civ opens with them, and any civ with block printing and redemption will likely use them if the opponent goes onager or bombard cannon (also not sure why you listed Saracens, they aren't an arena civ and often go archers). Plus, Aztecs are in the top 3 civs on half the maps in the pool (arena, BF, gold rush, arabia).

So even if I did say that (btw what I wrote was they're commonly used on 2 maps + 1 civ, aztecs don't need to be on arena to build monks), again that's 25% of the map pool that's affected (although everyone bans black forest, so maybe 20% after arena with 3 bans). They nerfed China for steppe and nomad.

But we're not debating the frequency monks are used. I'm claiming the conversion bug should be fixed (and just as a side effect this would make ai monks less annoying too). They don't need to be broken overpowered on Arabia for that to be true.

I forgot to add that when I did my test with Monks VS Cavs. They never managed to convert more than 3.

So, any fast units that can outrun monks would be a great counter but you'd have to rush them. You have to be prepared and commit to the attack. In a mixed engagement, it might become a problem. But, so is any other unit used the right way.

When facing monks. Make sure to research heresy. And, have fast units to deal with them the best way possible.

They might need a balancing pass (I can only judge from what I see from the test I made. And from my tests they seem fine.) but in the current state of things they are not even close to be as broken as you seem to imply. Otherwise a lot more people would be using them wich, clearly, isn't the case.

Again, I'm going to study the problem more and simulate some engagements to see how it goes.

I thought your test was with the ai using the monks. If you put 18 monks vs 12 knights and perfectly micro the monks, the monks win. I'm 100% sure of that. That's the test you were referring to right? A monk converts a knight before it gets in range over 50% of the time (, it its literally impossible that only 3 knights would be converted if the monks are properly microd.

Also you have to consider the meta. Monks are a counter to expensive units, especially melee units. And because of melee pathing in DE, knights aren't meta. Most of the top tier civs are arbalest civs, or meso civs. I see monks used decently often when the opponent goes siege or knights. Its just opponents don't often go siege or knights.

But honestly I don't think the unit should be in a state where its used frequently. Its a unit based on rng. Or at least in DE it is because the conversions aren't as consistent as they were in voobly.

I don't get it, I think it would take me under 30 minutes to find clips of every single player in the top 10 of the game complaining about instant conversions. I've heard literally all of them complain about it. But for some reason no one here agrees. The unit is literally bugged. And I just think the bug should be fixed. I don't understand what is so disagreeable about that. I never said the unit is blatantly overpowered, I said on arena it can cause the game to be largely decided by rng.

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

I forgot to add that when I did my test with Monks VS Cavs. They never managed to convert more than 3.

So, any fast units that can outrun monks would be a great counter but you'd have to rush them. You have to be prepared and commit to the attack. In a mixed engagement, it might become a problem. But, so is any other unit used the right way.

When facing monks. Make sure to research heresy. And, have fast units to deal with them the best way possible.

They might need a balancing pass (I can only judge from what I see from the test I made. And from my tests they seem fine.) but in the current state of things they are not even close to be as broken as you seem to imply. Otherwise a lot more people would be using them wich, clearly, isn't the case.

Again, I'm going to study the problem more and simulate some engagements to see how it goes.

I thought your test was with the ai using the monks. If you put 18 monks vs 12 knights and perfectly micro the monks, the monks win. I'm 100% sure of that. That's the test you were referring to right? A monk converts a knight before it gets in range over 50% of the time (, it its literally impossible that only 3 knights would be converted if the monks are properly microd.

Also you have to consider the meta. Monks are a counter to expensive units, especially melee units. And because of melee pathing in DE, knights aren't meta. Most of the top tier civs are arbalest civs, or meso civs. I see monks used decently often when the opponent goes siege or knights. Its just opponents don't often go siege or knights.

But honestly I don't think the unit should be in a state where its used frequently. Its a unit based on rng. Or at least in DE it is because the conversions aren't as consistent as they were in voobly.

I don't get it, I think it would take me under 30 minutes to find clips of every single player in the top 10 of the game complaining about instant conversions. I've heard literally all of them complain about it. But for some reason no one here agrees. The unit is literally bugged. And I just think the bug should be fixed. I don't understand what is so disagreeable about that. I never said the unit is blatantly overpowered, I said on arena it can cause the game to be largely decided by rng.

No worries. I will make more tests. I suspect the problem is in mixed engagements. Since so much units OUTrange the monks. Do not think im not giving credits to your opinion. I just prefer to do my own tests when given the opportunity.

I'll need to run a lot of test then take notes of the number of conversions. Thing is, for that information to be usable, I need to run A LOT of tests. The small sample makes me believe everything is fine. But, that dosen't mean it won't be different once I crunched the numbers.

[Matteo Carati]

Originally posted by -Dare Devil/x/:

-I am pretty sure there currently is a bug in DE II based on the last time I compared monk conversion rates with HD. It seemed some converts happened way too quickly too often but I didnt time it with a timer so I'm not 100% sure.

Because the animation in AOE 2 DE is faster, perhaps.

[-Dare Devil/x/]

Originally posted by Gerd Wiesler:

Originally posted by -Dare Devil/x/:

-I am pretty sure there currently is a bug in DE II based on the last time I compared monk conversion rates with HD. It seemed some converts happened way too quickly too often but I didnt time it with a timer so I'm not 100% sure.

Because the animation in AOE 2 DE is faster, perhaps.

-Looking at the update notes:

Fixed a legacy issue where Monk conversion times would vary based on the performance of the player’s computer. This addresses an issue where conversions would sometimes complete faster than intended.

[Forcedge]

You can't "counter" AI monk spam. Any unit you use to counter them, will immediately be countered by the AI before you can kill the monks. Not to mention the AI never fights in the open and only turtles inside their base surrounded by like 80 castles. (another problem for another thread)

The only way to deal with the AI late game is to beat them at the numbers game, or play on a smaller map. But since AI monk builds can convert each unit individually, that isn't going to happen for you.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Forcedge:

You can't "counter" AI monk spam. Any unit you use to counter them, will immediately be countered by the AI before you can kill the monks. Not to mention the AI never fights in the open and only turtles inside their base surrounded by like 80 castles. (another problem for another thread)

The only way to deal with the AI late game is to beat them at the numbers game, or play on a smaller map. But since AI monk builds can convert each unit individually, that isn't going to happen for you.

There's like 50 ways to play around what you just described.

First of all, you can just snipe the monks with crossbows or light cav. Monks convert light cav really slowly and crossbow can shoot them before they convert. The ai will not just counter them either. Crossbows do fine against skirms without the armor upgrades and the gets its upgrades slow because it tries to build everything at the same time. And its gonna build spears against light cav (along with skirms, it builds skirms no matter what for some reason), and you can just run past the spears and raid its unwalled economy. If they're building monk+spear, they have nothing mobile, and nothing threatening to your base, so nothing stops you from just raiding them to death (pretty similar story with crossbow tbh).

Or of course, as you said they often just turtle with castles. So just go imp, place a forward castle, and treb down all their castles. They can't convert you when a castle is shooting at them.

The problem with ai monks isn't that you can't counter them. You can, and its stupidly easy (even if you have no micro and can't multitask enough to raid an enemy that doesn't wall, just build a castle and they'll walk into it).

The problem is its unfun. People play against the ai to just macro and flood units and base build and all that. And that doesn't work well against monks. If you start using cheap micro tricks, mobility, map control, or all those things against the ai, it just stops functioning. It can't handle a castle drop. It doesn't know to wall out raids or leave spearmen behind. It doesn't understand +0 def knights don't counter +2 attack crossbow and it shouldn't take that engagement. Or that it shouldn't sit there attacking your walls while you counter attack. Its not fun to play strategic against the ai because you just crush it off a single decision. You counter attack while its attacking your walls with its whole army, and the game ends instantly.

And that's the problem. Ai monks are really strong in direct engagements. So they make you play strategically. So either you end the game instantly and anti-climactic with a raid while the ai runs monks into your castle, or you take a stupid straight up engagement and their monks convert everything because its the only unit they can micro as well as players.

In other words, the counter to ai monks is such a hard counter its not even fun.

[RightClickClassic]

solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q879j3ydfw8

[Forcedge]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Originally posted by Forcedge:

You can't "counter" AI monk spam. Any unit you use to counter them, will immediately be countered by the AI before you can kill the monks. Not to mention the AI never fights in the open and only turtles inside their base surrounded by like 80 castles. (another problem for another thread)

The only way to deal with the AI late game is to beat them at the numbers game, or play on a smaller map. But since AI monk builds can convert each unit individually, that isn't going to happen for you.

There's like 50 ways to play around what you just described.

First of all, you can just snipe the monks with crossbows or light cav. Monks convert light cav really slowly and crossbow can shoot them before they convert. The ai will not just counter them either. Crossbows do fine against skirms without the armor upgrades and the gets its upgrades slow because it tries to build everything at the same time. And its gonna build spears against light cav (along with skirms, it builds skirms no matter what for some reason), and you can just run past the spears and raid its unwalled economy. If they're building monk+spear, they have nothing mobile, and nothing threatening to your base, so nothing stops you from just raiding them to death (pretty similar story with crossbow tbh).

Or of course, as you said they often just turtle with castles. So just go imp, place a forward castle, and treb down all their castles. They can't convert you when a castle is shooting at them.

The problem with ai monks isn't that you can't counter them. You can, and its stupidly easy (even if you have no micro and can't multitask enough to raid an enemy that doesn't wall, just build a castle and they'll walk into it).

The problem is its unfun. People play against the ai to just macro and flood units and base build and all that. And that doesn't work well against monks. If you start using cheap micro tricks, mobility, map control, or all those things against the ai, it just stops functioning. It can't handle a castle drop. It doesn't know to wall out raids or leave spearmen behind. It doesn't understand +0 def knights don't counter +2 attack crossbow and it shouldn't take that engagement. Or that it shouldn't sit there attacking your walls while you counter attack. Its not fun to play strategic against the ai because you just crush it off a single decision. You counter attack while its attacking your walls with its whole army, and the game ends instantly.

And that's the problem. Ai monks are really strong in direct engagements. So they make you play strategically. So either you end the game instantly and anti-climactic with a raid while the ai runs monks into your castle, or you take a stupid straight up engagement and their monks convert everything because its the only unit they can micro as well as players.

In other words, the counter to ai monks is such a hard counter its not even fun.

Ok let me rephrase my response. I didn't mean it was impossible, I just meant that if you don't want to "cheese" the computer and actually play against it fairly (letting it get to imperial age, letting it get it's economy up, etc) there is no unit composition to deal with this simply because this game is like rock, paper, scissors and the AI will always draw paper whenever you get rock. No dude, you can't just shoot the monks with crossbows or snipe them with light cav. If it was that easy then this thread wouldn't exist. You can't snipe their monks when they are turtling and building a forward castle is a moot point because they will just trebuchet you down. You would have to build like 10 forward castles for something like this to work and at that point it's just getting dumb.

If you're going to do things that you know will break the AI functionality then really what is the point in playing vs AI? Eventually you can beat the ai late game in a straight up fight units vs units but the secret to winning that way is tons of siege rams, trebuchets, and a steady stream of reinforcements. And LOTS of production buildings. And a huge economy. These things, imo, are far more important than putting a castle in the enemy's face, tower rushing, knight rushing, etc.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Forcedge:

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

There's like 50 ways to play around what you just described.

First of all, you can just snipe the monks with crossbows or light cav. Monks convert light cav really slowly and crossbow can shoot them before they convert. The ai will not just counter them either. Crossbows do fine against skirms without the armor upgrades and the gets its upgrades slow because it tries to build everything at the same time. And its gonna build spears against light cav (along with skirms, it builds skirms no matter what for some reason), and you can just run past the spears and raid its unwalled economy. If they're building monk+spear, they have nothing mobile, and nothing threatening to your base, so nothing stops you from just raiding them to death (pretty similar story with crossbow tbh).

Or of course, as you said they often just turtle with castles. So just go imp, place a forward castle, and treb down all their castles. They can't convert you when a castle is shooting at them.

The problem with ai monks isn't that you can't counter them. You can, and its stupidly easy (even if you have no micro and can't multitask enough to raid an enemy that doesn't wall, just build a castle and they'll walk into it).

The problem is its unfun. People play against the ai to just macro and flood units and base build and all that. And that doesn't work well against monks. If you start using cheap micro tricks, mobility, map control, or all those things against the ai, it just stops functioning. It can't handle a castle drop. It doesn't know to wall out raids or leave spearmen behind. It doesn't understand +0 def knights don't counter +2 attack crossbow and it shouldn't take that engagement. Or that it shouldn't sit there attacking your walls while you counter attack. Its not fun to play strategic against the ai because you just crush it off a single decision. You counter attack while its attacking your walls with its whole army, and the game ends instantly.

And that's the problem. Ai monks are really strong in direct engagements. So they make you play strategically. So either you end the game instantly and anti-climactic with a raid while the ai runs monks into your castle, or you take a stupid straight up engagement and their monks convert everything because its the only unit they can micro as well as players.

In other words, the counter to ai monks is such a hard counter its not even fun.

Ok let me rephrase my response. I didn't mean it was impossible, I just meant that if you don't want to "cheese" the computer and actually play against it fairly (letting it get to imperial age, letting it get it's economy up, etc) there is no unit composition to deal with this simply because this game is like rock, paper, scissors and the AI will always draw paper whenever you get rock. No dude, you can't just shoot the monks with crossbows or snipe them with light cav. If it was that easy then this thread wouldn't exist. You can't snipe their monks when they are turtling and building a forward castle is a moot point because they will just trebuchet you down. You would have to build like 10 forward castles for something like this to work and at that point it's just getting dumb.

If you're going to do things that you know will break the AI functionality then really what is the point in playing vs AI? Eventually you can beat the ai late game in a straight up fight units vs units but the secret to winning that way is tons of siege rams, trebuchets, and a steady stream of reinforcements. And LOTS of production buildings. And a huge economy. These things, imo, are far more important than putting a castle in the enemy's face, tower rushing, knight rushing, etc.

Yes you can just snipe them with crossbow. It just requires your macro to be as good as the ai's.

That's the reason this thread exists. The ai has better macro than a vast majority of players, so they get more stuff. Most of the time, they use their more stuff in really stupid ways, don't micro, take horrible engagements, and ultimately you just crush them anyways. Its hard for this to happen with monks.

Also if I do what you said, and just let the ai get to imp age for free, how are monks threatening exactly? I presumably have a castle. The ai doesn't avoid castles. Castles 1 shot monks. I'm not seeing the threat.

The only way I can see the monks being that big an issue is if I
A: don't snipe them with a castle
B: only take straight up fights down the center of the map
C: macro worse than the ai so I don't have enough crossbow to snipe monks while dealing with their army
D: my micro isn't very good

We basically have to start from the assumption I'm worse than the ai.

(For example they're imp age before me to treb down my forward castle, even though I know I need imp age fast and the ai doesn't know that). I must be building units I don't intend to do anything with (otherwise I know the ai is just turtling so my eco is way better by not spending money on anything else). My micro must suck (they don't put effort into protecting their monks, they convert the first unit they see, and they don't dodge mangonel or bombard cannon shots so I'm really not sure how their skirms are countering my crossbow).

And obviously I'm not raiding or anything like that, I'm only fighting direct engagements because otherwise the ai just falls apart.

And so we're basically taking something monks are very good at (direct engagements with no abuse of mobility) against an opponent who has less stuff (5 monks vs 5 poorly microd crossbow, all the crossbow get converted for free. But it should be 5 monks vs 10 crossbow focus firing effectively, in which case all the monks die and get maybe 2 conversions).

Then again I'm honestly not sure what people do against the other ai units in direct engagements. I don't directly fight with knights against their spearmen spam, I just age up and they'll eventually run all their spears into a castle or something. Or if they spam skirms (they do this very often), I just kill them with mangonels or knights while they for some reason don't have their spears near. And they don't upgrade their knights so of course I just eat them with crossbows kiting.

Honestly that might be a big part of it. Ai doesn't upgrade their units until like imp age (probably because they do that whole rock paper scissors thing and try to build everything). So monks are the only unit they have not getting destroyed by ♥♥♥♥ upgrades.

In all honesty though, there's a thread about ai monks because they're ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying. I don't like just sniping monks with crossbows, or avoiding them with knights, or watching them just charge into castles. There's never a situation where they're fun to fight.

As I said, they're very counterable, just the counters aren't fun to do and make it feel like I'm just abusing the ai.

[Mentos]

Even back in the day I hated monks. I only use them to gather relics. And scout.