What are the pros and cons of infantry, cav, and archers?

[Ash//Fox]

I know enough about this game to play the campaign, but I want to start playing multiplayer and I'm trying to build up my confidence by picking a civilization to focus on. I don't know what kind of civ to pick though. Favorite unit type seems like a good place to start, how should which to pick?

[jonoliveira12]

Archers:
-High damage potential
-Squishy

Cavalry:
-Fast raiders with high HP
-Expensive

Infantry:
-Easily available and cheap
-Slow and prone to being devastated at range

[Kyris]

Typically when choosing a civ look for what units and strats you would like to specialize in. Each has its own strength and weaknesses but it is also true some civs are easier to master than others.

Some civs like Chinese are a tech civ with cheap techs and good farms with strong archers and access to bombard towers , camels.

The more conventional Franks are also a strong farm civ and specialize in knights although are limited in strategy when faced with a hard counter such as camels or if you cannot get lots of knights, they also lack any real ranged / siege options of note.


Other civs operate on a cheap and low tech cost strategy. Goths are all about cheap and fast infantry production but lack the armour upgrades of cav and infantry.

Magyars are polar opposite of Franks specializing in Light cav : Magyar Hussars, same can be said for Poles who specialized in cheap knights and also very good Light cavalry, but again lack some crucial upgrades.

My advice would be to try a few out in campaign/ random map and see what suits your style and then compare what other civs would work well in a team game.

[Rhalius]

Spanish are a pretty solid civ I find, with quite some options.
Not paying gold for blacksmith upgrades is good for any unit you field, and gunpowder units shooting faster offers great siege options in the bombard cannon and also in cannon galleons.
Their archers are terrible but they have descent cavalry to counter the archers of others, and solid infantry.

I don't play online though, but I feel like it is a good beginner civ.

[cjwasright]

You're worried about what civ to pick? I'd be more worried about how to scout bump the starting deer herd to your town center by the 6 minute mark. Wondering about which units to build? Forget it. All that matters is to find and kill all 4 boars around your TC and the enemy by the 9 minute mark

And that's just the beginning. Intermediate would be to block your enemy's barracks with sheep so that he can't train any units or luring all the wolves on the map with your scout to wipe out your opponent's woodcutters. Don't have what it takes? Multiplayer isn't for you bub.

[Heimdall313]

Infantry are cheap and good to kill buildings. Slow means you get mowed by archers and can't actually catch or react fast enough to cavalry. Vikings, Goths, Aztecs, Japanese, Slavs.
Archers are something you're pretty much always going to use to add damage and support infantry or knights. Or spam into a deathball and use Rams to push over buildings. Britons, Vietnamese, Chinese, plenty of others.
Cavalry are fast, so you can go raiding, react to a problem faster, and are generally tougher than infantry. Franks, Magyars, Lithuanians, quite a few options.
Cavalry Archers are fast, a bit shorter range than regular on-foot archers, and slightly less squishy. They're very good at killing villagers, monks, infantry, literally anything that can't catch them or shoot back.

Main thing, just figure out how counters work. Spearmen counter anything with 4 legs, Skirmishers counter anything that can move and use arrows, any infantry with a Gold cost kills spears, Camels kill horses, etc.

You also have army compositions: Spearmen in front of Archers, Spears kill horses, the archers kill infantry that fight the Spears for example. Magyars, you have strong, cheap Huszar and very good Cavalry Archers that together are very fast and dangerous against anything that isn't Knights. Vikings, your Champions and Berserks are great at smashing other infantry and even have bonuses against Cavalry, you just support them with Arbalests and Skirmishers while Champs+Pikes make a good meat wall.

Byzantines are a good starter, they have access to most unit types (you're really only missing Elephants and those are big noob traps), cheap counter units help you learn. Byzantines taught me basically everything on countering and actually fighting.

Or, you know, Youtube and build orders for le stale 9 minute hobble rushes and 15 knights in 15 minutes.

[Vemonia]

In general:
- archers are good against infantry
- infantry is good agsinst cavalry
- cavalry is good against archers and siege

Usually you want a combination of 2 units from different type such as infantry+cavalry (try Spanish), cavalry+archers (try Magyars), or archers+infantry (try Japanese). Usually one "main unit" (costing gold) along with a secondary unit to cover the weaknesses from the main unit.

Most people like a lot the following combinations:
- knights + elite skirmishers
- knights + pikemen
- crossbows + pikemen
- crossbows + light cavarly
- pikemen + elite skirmishers

People usually avoid the milicia line until imperial age, and the this units works fine too against pretty much anything.

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by Vemonia:

In general:
- archers are good against infantry
- infantry is good agsinst cavalry
- cavalry is good against archers and siege

Usually you want a combination of 2 units from different type such as infantry+cavalry (try Spanish), cavalry+archers (try Magyars), or archers+infantry (try Japanese). Usually one "main unit" (costing gold) along with a secondary unit to cover the weaknesses from the main unit.

Most people like a lot the following combinations:
- knights + elite skirmishers
- knights + pikemen
- crossbows + pikemen
- crossbows + light cavarly
- pikemen + elite skirmishers

People usually avoid the milicia line until imperial age, and the this units works fine too against pretty much anything.

Infantry rarely pairs up with Archers, and never with Cavalry.
The only thing that pairs up well with Infantry, is Siege.

Cavalry is just Infantry but better, and Archers are countered by Ranged unit, or Melee units that die to Hussars or Knights, so there is no need to pair them with Infantry.

[Rabidnid]

Originally posted by Ash//Fox:

I know enough about this game to play the campaign, but I want to start playing multiplayer and I'm trying to build up my confidence by picking a civilization to focus on. I don't know what kind of civ to pick though. Favorite unit type seems like a good place to start, how should which to pick?

The actual troops are almost irrelevant compared to the Civ's eco and other bonuses.

Mostly though pick one you like and get used to it's strengths. Hera will have a video on how they play.