The Overwhelming Dominance of Cavalry in this Game is Unfun

[RoofKorea=BestKorea]

i dont think i want to play this game anymore. its at the point where if your civ doesnt have good cav or cav analogs, you just auto lose. cav is powerful against every unit in the game except spears which they can just run from.
nothing kills knights
nothing kills cav archers
why do archers get a bonus against spears? that crap is half the problem. Archers/cavarcher + Knights/huzzars kill the crap out of spears + skirms.
Every single match is the same because only 1 or 2 units actually matter. non cav units are countered by whole swaths of the tech tree, while cavalry just ignores their counters or runs away from them. its stupid and im tired of it.

now that i think of it.... AOM had this exact same problem that persists to this day. seems to be an intentional/negligent malfunction in design that will never be corrected. combined with the matches having someone drop 75% of the time the only good option is to not play.

[jonoliveira12]

引用自 Le chevalier de Mortecouille：

2 gold units countered by 2 trash units (and more)
I mean, cav archers are notorious for being weak to *anything* that's ranged or faster than them.
Effective counter to knight-line+cav archers ? Spears/camels, mixed in with skirms/archers, scorpions/mangonels.

nuff said

Not to mention the greatest counter all of the Cavalry units: Walls and Castles.

[Morvana]

引用自 Forcedge：

One of the biggest problems in this game is the fact of rock, paper, scissors. This game takes it to an extreme.

If you don't make skirmishers to deal with archers you will die.

There is never going to be a "paper" unit in this game that can destroy a "scissors" unit, regardless of how good of a player you might be.

Nop. A simple way to win without a proper counter is having more units, and it snowball fast.

There is games were you can't win without a counter (in a majority of WW2 games, without a anti-tank unit you can make almost nothing to armored vehicules, the same against planes), but AoE2 isn't one of them.

Sure, having a good counter will be helpfull, but against more units you will suffer (even against 20% more unit for some light counters)

[Forcedge]

引用自 jonoliveira12：

引用自 Forcedge：

One of the biggest problems in this game is the fact of rock, paper, scissors. This game takes it to an extreme.

In Starcraft 2, marines are weak against banelings. But if played correctly, marines can destroy banelings. You can't do anything like that in Age of Empires. If you don't make skirmishers to deal with archers you will die.

There is never going to be a "paper" unit in this game that can destroy a "scissors" unit, regardless of how good of a player you might be.

Starcraft 2 is even more "rock-paper-scisors" than this one. To the point in which entire strategies can be countered by spamming a single unit.
Just because SC2 is more micro-intensive, it does not mean the counters are not harder. In fact, it means they must be more so.

But the fact still stands that the counters actually exist, regardless of how hard they are. Marines can destroy banelings. Archers CANNOT destroy skirmishers. This is just FACT, no point in arguing with it. This game is much more rock paper scissor intensive. Entire strategies revolve around massing trash units to COUNTER gold units. Seriously dude?

[Forcedge]

引用自 Morvana：

引用自 Forcedge：

One of the biggest problems in this game is the fact of rock, paper, scissors. This game takes it to an extreme.

If you don't make skirmishers to deal with archers you will die.

There is never going to be a "paper" unit in this game that can destroy a "scissors" unit, regardless of how good of a player you might be.

Nop. A simple way to win without a proper counter is having more units, and it snowball fast.

There is games were you can't win without a counter (in a majority of WW2 games, without a anti-tank unit you can make almost nothing to armored vehicules, the same against planes), but AoE2 isn't one of them.

Sure, having a good counter will be helpfull, but against more units you will suffer (even against 20% more unit for some light counters)

Yeah...that just doesn't work. I don't care how many skirmishers you have they will all get slaughtered by a few catapults because they do 1 damage.

[Forcedge]

See you guys are used to playing little micro battles with 60-100 units on the battlefield. Try playing 500/500 population battles and get back to me

[jonoliveira12]

引用自 Forcedge：

引用自 jonoliveira12：

Starcraft 2 is even more "rock-paper-scisors" than this one. To the point in which entire strategies can be countered by spamming a single unit.
Just because SC2 is more micro-intensive, it does not mean the counters are not harder. In fact, it means they must be more so.

But the fact still stands that the counters actually exist, regardless of how hard they are. Marines can destroy banelings. Archers CANNOT destroy skirmishers. This is just FACT, no point in arguing with it. This game is much more rock paper scissor intensive. Entire strategies revolve around massing trash units to COUNTER gold units. Seriously dude?

Marines will die to Roaches or Zealots, in equal numbers. so they too are hard-countered.

SC2 has counters issues, that is true, since small ranged units can hit a critical mass to the point that they just melt their own counters. Aoe2 also has this, but it is much easier to spam military in SC2, and that makes it much more noticeable.

25 Marines will die to 25 Roaches, but 50 Marines will beat 50 Roaches, for example.

[jonoliveira12]

引用自 Forcedge：

See you guys are used to playing little micro battles with 60-100 units on the battlefield. Try playing 500/500 population battles and get back to me

There is no micro in lategame 500 pop games, there is only economic strength and terrain advantages.
He who controls the Gold deposits, controls the game.

[COOL EPIC SKELETON]

引用自 ThunderclesTheBrass：

if you are not going to speak honestly, just do not participate in the discussion. plumed archers are fast, with high hp, and high armor, just like cavalry archers. they even get a bonus against infantry just like cav archers get a bonus against spears. mayan eagle warriors are fast with high pierce armor, large sight and high hp, just like light cav, and are countered by a slow unit that cannot catch them.

Eagles don't take bonus damage from spears/camels and get murdered by militia (unlike knights). They're also nowhere as fast and, unlike scout cavalry, cost an absurd amount of gold.

Plumed archers also not only require a castle, but are resource intensive and can be countered with skirms and even light cavalry.

[woodsmanac]

引用自 jonoliveira12：

引用自 TheWorld：

Today I've learned that camel is a slow unit...

Camels are the slowest Cavalry unit.

I thought camels were faster then knights?

[jonoliveira12]

引用自 woodsmanac：

引用自 jonoliveira12：

Camels are the slowest Cavalry unit.

I thought camels were faster then knights?

You are correct. I just checked.

Knights have a speed of 1.35.
Camels have a speed of 1.45.

[theworld]

Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

jonoliveira12's status: ☐ Not rekt ☑ Rekt

[theworld]

引用自 Forcedge：

Archers CANNOT destroy skirmishers. This is just FACT, no point in arguing with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wungrWKCxSQ

[jonoliveira12]

引用自 TheWorld：

Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

jonoliveira12's status: ☐ Not rekt ☑ Rekt

Enjoy your win, even though you posed it as aquestion, and it was I that corrected myself.

[Cacomistle]

Since melee pathing was fixed, its pretty balanced hoenstly. Cav absolutely does not win direct engagements with crossbow + pikemen. Cav archers don't win direct engagements vs skirmishers or crossbows. They have to abuse mobiltiy. And I'm just taking a guess here, but I don't think players at your level abuse mobility.

Spears + skirms are trash units, that require no gold. The composition isn't supposed to be powerful. If your opponent is going archers + knights, just go archers yourself. They can't afford upgrades for both while still having more units than you. Knights without +2 armor lose, honestly pretty bad, to crossbows with bracer.

Watch some high level games, because you'll notice a lot of the most dominant civs in the game often don't go cavalry (especially if you don't count eagle warriors as cav).

Really in this game, the dominance is pretty close between cavalry and archers. Its just infantry that suck, and siege+monks are kind of situational.

[jonoliveira12]

引用自 Cacomistle：

Since melee pathing was fixed, its pretty balanced hoenstly. Cav absolutely does not win direct engagements with crossbow + pikemen. Cav archers don't win direct engagements vs skirmishers or crossbows. They have to abuse mobiltiy. And I'm just taking a guess here, but I don't think players at your level abuse mobility.

Spears + skirms are trash units, that require no gold. The composition isn't supposed to be powerful. If your opponent is going archers + knights, just go archers yourself. They can't afford upgrades for both while still having more units than you. Knights without +2 armor lose, honestly pretty bad, to crossbows with bracer.

Watch some high level games, because you'll notice a lot of the most dominant civs in the game often don't go cavalry (especially if you don't count eagle warriors as cav).

I tested it, and Turk HCAs (the best in the game) lose to Crossbows (not even Arbalests), with Bracers and Ring Archer Armour in Stand Ground Formation, in equal resource costs.

The HCAs win only when they have height bonus (or hill advantage), otherwise they lose, because Crossbows have both the numbers and range advantage.

Only civs like the Franks and the Persians, lose with equal resources, but at least the Persians can spam them as trash in the lategame.

For the record, I used Turks vs Turks, since they have the best Heavy Cavalry Archers, but no bonus to their Crossbowmen.