Age of Empires Forums

Hi everyone!

I've been playing for a little more than a month now and I'm currently a Master Sergeant Lvl. 17. I only play supremacy, and I seem to do pretty much well against any civ ranked around my own ranking, except Russian. Every time I play them it's not that I get that fat behind in points or anything, I save enough coureurs, but with their spam continuing, I just end up losing my TC, which is most of the times, of course, GG

 I've read a few strategy guides on the subject, but none have really worked for me

 A popular counter seems to be a crossbow-pike spam, to counter their musk/strelet + cossack rush. The problem I have with this strategy is that i can't seem to get enough units out in time, which either means that my pikes get owned by their ranged infantry, or my crossbows get owned by their cossacks

 Another strategy I've heard of is to just clump everything very close together, and focus on defensive buildings, build a few towers + garrisoned TC should do the work, it did for a while, but their spam just continues, so I end up losing my TC anyway. 

There are two more strategies I've heard of but that I haven't put into practice yet

One of them is to completely lock down my city with wall before minute 6. At first sight it seams like a decent counter, if microing well with your crossbowmen, but the amount of wood necessary could be a pain early game

And finally, I read about a full cav strategy. I've been thinking about this one, and the main problem I see with it is the huge amount of gold necessary, and i Russian player spams muskets, it's obviously GG ( Again, lol! )

All four of these strategies involve decent (not expert yet :P) coureur micro, focused firing and general micro control of units.

 

The deck I use is a quite standard french deck

 

Age I: 3 coureurs

Age II: 4 coureurs, 700 wood/food/gold, 8 crossbowmen, 3 hussars

 

What card order would you guys recommend?

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

Try to build a watch tower to protect you agains strelets and if you wanna be better try to play with the computer expert

vs russia you shoud start hussar and raid him a lot.  Once u have 15 huss switch to xbow. At the market, get ur villiger HP upgrade.  When he pushes attack with xbow hussar, and ur vils if need be.

Add me on eso i will show you if u want.

SecretShogun:

vs russia you shoud start hussar and raid him a lot.  Once u have 15 huss switch to xbow. At the market, get ur villiger HP upgrade.  When he pushes attack with xbow hussar, and ur vils if need be.

Add me on eso i will show you if u want.

no ? You just go musk huss. It doesnt make any sense to make xbow, they just give russia an excuse to get effective cav, which allows them to raid even more effectively. Also Hussar xbow is no way gonna beat muks cossack. Not to mention that once you start mixing in musks to beat cossacks youll actually have a much weaker composition as strelet beat musk more than xbows beat musks...

Jerom:

SecretShogun:

vs russia you shoud start hussar and raid him a lot.  Once u have 15 huss switch to xbow. At the market, get ur villiger HP upgrade.  When he pushes attack with xbow hussar, and ur vils if need be.

Add me on eso i will show you if u want.

no ? You just go musk huss. It doesnt make any sense to make xbow, they just give russia an excuse to get effective cav, which allows them to raid even more effectively. Also Hussar xbow is no way gonna beat muks cossack. Not to mention that once you start mixing in musks to beat cossacks youll actually have a much weaker composition as strelet beat musk more than xbows beat musks...

you are forgeting micro...russia cant touch xbow if u hit and run properly and huss come in if coss attk.  huss are for raiding eco while xbow are for hitting and running

Jerom:

SecretShogun:

vs russia you shoud start hussar and raid him a lot.  Once u have 15 huss switch to xbow. At the market, get ur villiger HP upgrade.  When he pushes attack with xbow hussar, and ur vils if need be.

Add me on eso i will show you if u want.

no ? You just go musk huss. It doesnt make any sense to make xbow, they just give russia an excuse to get effective cav, which allows them to raid even more effectively. Also Hussar xbow is no way gonna beat muks cossack. Not to mention that once you start mixing in musks to beat cossacks youll actually have a much weaker composition as strelet beat musk more than xbows beat musks...

 i agree with this. xbows are harder to hit and run with, and are obviously vulnerable to cossacks, 9 of which the russian player can send through shipments. besides the micro though, xbows = wood. i find that switching 6 or so settlers over to gold during transition = good hussar/musk spam with tier 1 market gold/food upgrades. you don't need much wood outside of housing because the barracks/stable (1 of each) comes via transition wood. if you were to use xbows, you would need a few more cours on wood and 100f down for the tier1 wood upgrade, which i tend to save until after my early col battles are decisive. another benefit to working heavily on gold/food with the cours is that you can hit fortress if you win a decisive battle or two during col without needing to switch cours from one resource over to another. 

 

edit - and to the OP, can you beat AI expert 1v1? russia and french are pretty evenly matched in the col age (map/hunts/treasures aside), so it comes down to speed, mirco, and scouting. you should be able to flat-out beat an expert AI in the first few minutes of colonial before getting online. youll find that once you start mastering the hotkeys/mirco/scouting and getting comfortable with a familiar BO (build order), you might get back online and completely destroy the russian guy who was giving you problems earlier. 

LeonidasHimself:

Jerom:

SecretShogun:

vs russia you shoud start hussar and raid him a lot.  Once u have 15 huss switch to xbow. At the market, get ur villiger HP upgrade.  When he pushes attack with xbow hussar, and ur vils if need be.

Add me on eso i will show you if u want.

no ? You just go musk huss. It doesnt make any sense to make xbow, they just give russia an excuse to get effective cav, which allows them to raid even more effectively. Also Hussar xbow is no way gonna beat muks cossack. Not to mention that once you start mixing in musks to beat cossacks youll actually have a much weaker composition as strelet beat musk more than xbows beat musks...

 i agree with this. xbows are harder to hit and run with, and are obviously vulnerable to cossacks, 9 of which the russian player can send through shipments. besides the micro though, xbows = wood. i find that switching 6 or so settlers over to gold during transition = good hussar/musk spam with tier 1 market gold/food upgrades. you don't need much wood outside of housing because the barracks/stable (1 of each) comes via transition wood. if you were to use xbows, you would need a few more cours on wood and 100f down for the tier1 wood upgrade, which i tend to save until after my early col battles are decisive. another benefit to working heavily on gold/food with the cours is that you can hit fortress if you win a decisive battle or two during col without needing to switch cours from one resource over to another. 

 

edit - and to the OP, can you beat AI expert 1v1? russia and french are pretty evenly matched in the col age (map/hunts/treasures aside), so it comes down to speed, mirco, and scouting. you should be able to flat-out beat an expert AI in the first few minutes of colonial before getting online. youll find that once you start mastering the hotkeys/mirco/scouting and getting comfortable with a familiar BO (build order), you might get back online and completely destroy the russian guy who was giving you problems earlier. 

I do beat an AI expert Russian 1v1. The main difference with a real player is that it's far easier to raid their villagers, and their attack comes in later, and with less micro, of course.

I do need to get better in microing and using more hotkeys, that could save some extra time/units!

well i dont like musk vs russia bc they die too fast to strelets so i prefer xbow huss since xbow outrange all russia age2 units and huss are good anti cav vs russia.

What does the Ai have to do with this? lol the Ai sucks

SecretShogun:

Jerom:

SecretShogun:

vs russia you shoud start hussar and raid him a lot.  Once u have 15 huss switch to xbow. At the market, get ur villiger HP upgrade.  When he pushes attack with xbow hussar, and ur vils if need be.

Add me on eso i will show you if u want.

no ? You just go musk huss. It doesnt make any sense to make xbow, they just give russia an excuse to get effective cav, which allows them to raid even more effectively. Also Hussar xbow is no way gonna beat muks cossack. Not to mention that once you start mixing in musks to beat cossacks youll actually have a much weaker composition as strelet beat musk more than xbows beat musks...

you are forgeting micro...russia cant touch xbow if u hit and run properly and huss come in if coss attk.  huss are for raiding eco while xbow are for hitting and running

This doesnt make any sense tbh. Over the years there have been quite a few discussions about Xbow Pike vs Musk huss and the conclusion has always been that musk huss beats that. Still though Xbows outrange everything a musk huss composition has. 

Given your reasoning Dutch is fruiting OP. I mean there is only one civ that can outrange them in colonial (british) so all they have to do is make skirmishers and hussars and then just hit and run while raiding the eco with hussars. You know this isn't the case. 

The point is that a smart russia player will start adding cossack as soon as he spots someone going Xbow hussar. Get to engage in the cav vs cav battle with musk shooting at the cav aswell. The musk will do much more dps than the xbow, maybe you can even throw some musk into melee. Either way a musk cossack composition will win the cav vs cav fight and then xbows are pretty much doomed since they lose really badly to cav. And btw, strelets only have 2 range less but 4.5 speed compared to the xbows 4 speed so theyll probably catch up after about one volley of xbows (which will probably do immense overkill aswell, killing like 2 or 3 strelets).

Not to mention the fact that you'll have a terrible opening compared to the samwise musk huss bo, and that your eco will be quite a bit behind compared to normal, as your having to upgrade 3 res while a musk huss compositin only has to upgrade 2 res. This can make up to a difference of 5- 7 units very early on, which means that russia can easily own you with a rush (exactly what seemed to be the problem here) or at least do severe economical damage.

There is no way to benefit from making Xbows, if your opponent adapts. You need to make hussars anyways as france, and if your opponent is mixing in strelets that means your hussars will become stronger, and if he does it too early that means russia is behind eco wise (again, because he has to upgrade more res). I think France should try to age up quickly if russia isn't rushing but rahter adding in more strelets than your hussars can handle. France has an early advantage over russia and it is extremely tough for russia to punish that. If France is stupid enough to play it out in colonial vs a russia that is booming, he cant win because russia's late colonial is far superior.

ThijsCMM:

Hi everyone!

I've been playing for a little more than a month now and I'm currently a Master Sergeant Lvl. 17. I only play supremacy, and I seem to do pretty much well against any civ ranked around my own ranking, except Russian. Every time I play them it's not that I get that fat behind in points or anything, I save enough coureurs, but with their spam continuing, I just end up losing my TC, which is most of the times, of course, GG

 I've read a few strategy guides on the subject, but none have really worked for me

 A popular counter seems to be a crossbow-pike spam, to counter their musk/strelet + cossack rush. The problem I have with this strategy is that i can't seem to get enough units out in time, which either means that my pikes get owned by their ranged infantry, or my crossbows get owned by their cossacks

 Another strategy I've heard of is to just clump everything very close together, and focus on defensive buildings, build a few towers + garrisoned TC should do the work, it did for a while, but their spam just continues, so I end up losing my TC anyway. 

There are two more strategies I've heard of but that I haven't put into practice yet

One of them is to completely lock down my city with wall before minute 6. At first sight it seams like a decent counter, if microing well with your crossbowmen, but the amount of wood necessary could be a pain early game

And finally, I read about a full cav strategy. I've been thinking about this one, and the main problem I see with it is the huge amount of gold necessary, and i Russian player spams muskets, it's obviously GG ( Again, lol! )

All four of these strategies involve decent (not expert yet :P) coureur micro, focused firing and general micro control of units.

 

The deck I use is a quite standard french deck

 

Age I: 3 coureurs

Age II: 4 coureurs, 700 wood/food/gold, 8 crossbowmen, 3 hussars

 

What card order would you guys recommend?

 

Thanks in advance

 

I think you should read what GS has to say in 'theguide' on French.  This includes going early market and starting age 2 with Steel Traps asap.  Starting with Musk Huss at the same time requires 400w from age up  and ship 700w THEN 4cdb ... then into 600W ... if you aren't aging then you need spice trade for eco.  And as GS spells out -- staying late in colonial w Russia is to your disadvantage as French since the russian will sustain better villager production from their tc ... so you will be looking to age sooner than him ... you may not have the timing down to use the 400w from age up to get up the rax and stables simultaneously and then use the 700w for housing so perhaps get up a stables +2houses with age up wood, then rax and more housing with 700w (you could even get the second gold upgrade if you have the 200f handy with the 700w) ... one other comment -- just forget building towers for 'defense' at 250w each you could have had far more support from keeping your vils on food and gold and making UNITS for that price ... from my experience look at the tower as a good place to give 20vils cover like at a future herd or gold mine and forget about that pea-shooter firepower it provides. 

cam44:

ThijsCMM:

Hi everyone!

I've been playing for a little more than a month now and I'm currently a Master Sergeant Lvl. 17. I only play supremacy, and I seem to do pretty much well against any civ ranked around my own ranking, except Russian. Every time I play them it's not that I get that fat behind in points or anything, I save enough coureurs, but with their spam continuing, I just end up losing my TC, which is most of the times, of course, GG

 I've read a few strategy guides on the subject, but none have really worked for me

 A popular counter seems to be a crossbow-pike spam, to counter their musk/strelet + cossack rush. The problem I have with this strategy is that i can't seem to get enough units out in time, which either means that my pikes get owned by their ranged infantry, or my crossbows get owned by their cossacks

 Another strategy I've heard of is to just clump everything very close together, and focus on defensive buildings, build a few towers + garrisoned TC should do the work, it did for a while, but their spam just continues, so I end up losing my TC anyway. 

There are two more strategies I've heard of but that I haven't put into practice yet

One of them is to completely lock down my city with wall before minute 6. At first sight it seams like a decent counter, if microing well with your crossbowmen, but the amount of wood necessary could be a pain early game

And finally, I read about a full cav strategy. I've been thinking about this one, and the main problem I see with it is the huge amount of gold necessary, and i Russian player spams muskets, it's obviously GG ( Again, lol! )

All four of these strategies involve decent (not expert yet :P) coureur micro, focused firing and general micro control of units.

 

The deck I use is a quite standard french deck

 

Age I: 3 coureurs

Age II: 4 coureurs, 700 wood/food/gold, 8 crossbowmen, 3 hussars

 

What card order would you guys recommend?

 

Thanks in advance

 

I think you should read what GS has to say in 'theguide' on French.  This includes going early market and starting age 2 with Steel Traps asap.  Starting with Musk Huss at the same time requires 400w from age up  and ship 700w THEN 4cdb ... then into 600W ... if you aren't aging then you need spice trade for eco.  And as GS spells out -- staying late in colonial w Russia is to your disadvantage as French since the russian will sustain better villager production from their tc ... so you will be looking to age sooner than him ... you may not have the timing down to use the 400w from age up to get up the rax and stables simultaneously and then use the 700w for housing so perhaps get up a stables +2houses with age up wood, then rax and more housing with 700w (you could even get the second gold upgrade if you have the 200f handy with the 700w) ... one other comment -- just forget building towers for 'defense' at 250w each you could have had far more support from keeping your vils on food and gold and making UNITS for that price ... from my experience look at the tower as a good place to give 20vils cover like at a future herd or gold mine and forget about that pea-shooter firepower it provides. 

this. 

"Vs Russia:

Wall off your town with buildings so he won't do anything with a 10 strelet 4 coss push, and start

musk huss. If he didn't go for a fast push, try to age after you get about 10/15 musks out (700w 4v

700g), you can't win in colonial. If he did push fast, go for the colonial wars. Raid him well and try

to pressure him before late colonial."

http://209.85.117.197/12414/111/0/p1035570/Stratguide2010.pdf 

Sums up what I said :D

(which is because I copied your opinion about everything, Im basically the GS-clown which is less OP) 

jerom i wasnt talking about starting xbow huss since that is too hard to macro, i was talking about starting cav and mixing xbow later.  The reason dutch is not op is bc they have weak age 2 anti cav (no musk unit). Vs russia, which doesnt have great anti cav either in age 2, i like to start cav then xbow for their musk.  Sure if you scout them going full cossack or coss musk you would switch, but personally i like to go xbow huss vs russia age 2, since most people tend to go musk heavy vs france.  I think a semi-ff is rly good too but personally i dont like huss musk vs russia.

So you should always switch because they will always get cossacks ? Why start making it then anyways when musk huss does the job almost equally well ?

bc xbow are fun to hit and run with and most russian tend to go heavy musk vs france. You need to realize this person is asking for advice at his level not at pro level where certain things are viable.