rate my malta deck for all game types (except water)

[skaarf]

https://imgur.com/a/hh8eh7J

[Catalytic]

I'm not a huge fan of the church card. Yes, you do get some additional exp trickles, but I don't find it nearly as useful as the free depot with every shipment. Vs. AI, it's wonderful bait to stop rushes. Vs. humans, it's a great scouting building that you get for free and which they don't want to attack until Age 3 and they can bring in something to kill it from range. The German Tongue (settler wagons) is a great card, but I find that getting a build order to get the thing quickly and then get the wood for the settlers to really take advantage of it does put some pressure on me early, so I don't have it in most of my Malta decks. IIRC, it's 450w to buy it, then another 100f/100w each for the settler wagons. You really have to have a big window to boom to get that in place early. If you get it, it's very powerful though.

I'm not a fan of the British Tongue (longbows). I'll happily use crossbows instead. Longbows have more range, but I can't put them in an infantry group and kite with them. I need crossbows which shoot instantly. Cassadors are my go-to. You have those too. Personally, I'd pick one skirmisher replacement and go with the cassadors.

As for the Spanish tongue (garrochistas), I don't find as much value in them. Hussars do fine for the job. I rarely find that I really feel I NEED lancers for much of anything.

I also find the Russian tongue (oprichniks) to be pretty situational. I absolutely love the fact that they shred artillery and buildings, which are the keys to winning late game. They're fantastic for sniping key buildings like factories and production buildings. But typically I have other solutions for both. I get a lot of value out of the hoop throwers and they absolutely shred buildings in groups of 10+, and of course for cannon there are hussars and cuirassiers (French tongue), which I do like to take.

I tend to look at Squires (faster working forts) as optional. It's a convenience that I typically don't fit into my decks.

I do have an instant unit card in Age 2 to stave off rushes. I think it's 8 crossbows. If you don't happen to have the 750w for the longbows, when you need units now, you could be in real trouble against a dedicated rush. This is a potential weakness if you're playing against AI on Hard+. They will make you pay for not having those extra units because they will take multiple free unit cards early and dump them all in your base.

Upgrading the hospitallers and the sentinels is something I typically do. I do have an alternate deck that focuses on the archaics more and upgrades the crossbow line. It's effective early, but falls off late. It's fun for an aggressive early game or one maps where you can get Carib allies that boost your archers. For my late games, I do utilize my hoop throwers more, so they get flame throwers and rocket upgrades.

The INF wood card isn't a terrible idea, but generally I don't find that I need it unless it's a water map or I'm going heavy archaics. I do typically use the INF 8 hoop throwers instead as my ultra-late game card.

Overall, not a bad deck. It may be suited to your play style, but I'd find it bulky and a bit too unfocused to want to use, in particular because it's so incredibly demanding on wood early.

[skaarf]

@Catalytic. thanks for the reply. I actually already replaced the oprichnik card with the cheaper order units. Also the faster working forts is just too good, idk if you've used it but its impossible to play with order units without it. And for the lancers, they actually saved me in some tough situations against civs like brits and ottos when they didnt expect it.

[skaarf]

Also I believe you are dead on about the longbows, while the cost isnt too damaging, the time it takes for the card to arrive once you finally got the wood to send it is a death sentence. Cost me quite a few matches against both AI and players. Thanks for pointing that out!! I should ditched it yesterday.

[.:Jj:.]

Longbowmen are my fav unit in AoE2, but here they always felt weird.
They are cool conceptually, but in practice, they feel weird. Archaic units have their obvious issues, but here the main problem is imho simply mechanics- length of animations, windups, how they feel to control in practice.
As time goes on they get weaker and weaker. For Maltese they're cool things to check out, but not that much more.

The "Siege Archery/Ranger Combat" Brit card is a pretty cool twist, but even the longbow-focused deck doesn't feel super amazing. 
And overall it's hard to beat Arrow Knights and their 30 range.

[Age of Nicius]

No crates and no unit shipments is a big no