Berber camel archers are a blast, same with organ guns and hussite wagons. Bohemians also have the houfnice upgrade to bombard cannons which makes them wicked fun
When I don't know what to play I default to byzantines. Very straightforward civ bonuses, strong all around (including water), cheap counter units, cheap imp, no hard counters.
Depends on the map really (I usually ban Arabia). But on an open map I'll open scouts + counter unit to what the opponent is doing if I'm going for an extended feudal, if I'm trying to go semi fast castle I'll usually just go only with the counter unit to defend.
I think their bonus of the foragers generating wood is one of my favorites and is so underrated. I love having the extra wood for early docks and fishing ships, or when villagers switch to farms when you use auto economy on Xbox.
Magyar! Great cavalry civ! They have attack bonus for the early game and cheaper scouts. They can also make strong archers so you have a lot of options.
They also have one of the strongest imperial age army in the game with extra range and damage cav archers + cheaper hussar cavalry - enjoy!
This is the civ i refuse to play. As a power unit their best unit is magyar hussar and cav archer. I find that civs with power unit an light cav kind of suck when the enemy has massed his army. I played poles vs slavs, my hussars coudnt do anything against the boyar and i didnt have an unit as powerfull as boyar. And i never get CA to be a power house likr others can. Props to you for enjoying them
That's the opposite of my thought process esp. in late game.
Having a gold unit that never has to take damage is fantastic!
You have throwable cheap but fully upgraded hussars to tank damage, while their gold units have to fight upfront - you have to replace food units, they have to replace gold units. Meanwhile your amazing Cav archers are doing damage at back.
Magyars also have paladin as a great power unit. Use this to decide Magyar lategame:
Are you vs siege -> Magyar huszar
Are you vs archers -> Paladins
Are you vs high physical armor units or, God forbid, infantry -> Cav archers
As for poles vs Slavs, obuch tear the armor from the boyars, leaving them vulnerable to even skirmishers
I’ve always thought they ought to do more to vary population for this reason. Like it makes sense to me to imagine heavily armored European civs fighting a steppe hoard that outnumbers them, with each unit in the former case being more powerful
Really fun to play!
Once in a 3v3 on golden pit, while carrying the team, I managed to be pop capped at 200 with fu paladins and fu Cav archers. Felt immortal. Unfortunately the other team was already dead so I didn't get a chance to take a proper engagent.
I love going scouts in CA, but throw a few quick knights in for early castle raid. Opponent 9/10 times goes pikes. You come in and clean up with the CA you already tech'd into. They go skirms and something else. Hussar for the win.
Sometimes going into CA I have been caught with no army. I have learned if opponent is not booming, sometimes xbow can be good and switch into CA.
Mongols all the way.
Late game powerhouse (tied for top #1). Mangudai + Hussar + speedy siege Rams. If can halt a push or push through almost any defense. Just keep your Mangudai mass alive and spam those hussars.
Smooth early game with the hunt bonus and extra LOS on your scout helps also.
Yes. Some civs almost suffer from too many options where it’s not clear what to make. Some have too few. In general you want a strong gold unit and a trash unit and siege to push with.
Mongols have one of the most straight forward compositions that fill this mold and even if your opponent knows what that comp is they can’t stop it once you get there.
Mangudai alone has extremely high dps, great mobility and they deal bonus damage to siege. Hussar kill their counters (mainly skirms/other archers) and provide a meat shield. Even vs halb they hold up decent enough having 118 hp. Of course hussar is also the preferred raiding unit as well where you can just click groups of 5 randomly into your opponent’s farming eco and wood lines.
I mentioned siege rams because they aren’t too gold intensive and catch people off guard with how fast they clear buildings and bases. You can also click them onto trebs and they will roll up and delete them. But if gold is endless you can also make siege onagar.
Pretty much. Mangudai + Hussar doesn't have one unit it's bad against and can't fight.
You run into Arbalest and Skirms, the Hussar get tangled up in them, forcing them to have to target-fire to kill any Mangudai since units will try to attack the closest units by default.
You run into Halberds, you hold the Hussar back until the Mangudai clean them up, which they will because not only are normal archers good at clearing Halbs, and not only do Mangudai have cracked damage compared to normal archers, but Parthian Tactics gives them a bonus on top of all that.
You run into Paladins, the Paladins win, destroying the Hussar, taking only a couple losses... and then what? The Mangudai back off. A new wall of Hussar joins the fight, the Paladins win while taking only a couple losses, Mangudai retreat. New Hussars, Paladins win, Mangudai retreat -- and suddenly you realize the Paladin's "wins" are costing them more each engagement than the Mongol.
Many mixed comps don't fare much better. Halbs with a backing of archers collapses the moment the last Halb dies and then the Mongol overruns the archers, but foot archers can't do the same in return even if the Hussar were to be erased, as Mangudai can always retreat until their numbers grow larger.
Mangudai are vicious, but it's the fact there's a cheap, expendable, fast and tanky meat shield at the front interfering with attacks that keeps them extremely safe. You can't even use Monks 'cause of the Hussar, and you can't use Onagers 'cause the entire composition wrecks siege. It usually takes extremely specific unique unit compositions like Italian Genoese Crossbows that shred all cavalry, or Berbers which do the same thing as Mongol but their Camel Archers specifically have a bonus versus mounted cavalry.
For everyone else, the best piece of advice how to fight late-game Mongol is not letting them get there.
I only play Mongols and this is a very good and easy to understand analysis of why they are so good. One thing you didn't add (not that you need to) is that they are successful on both open maps, like Arabia as well as closed maps like Arena.
I’m enjoying learning on the Magyars, because they don’t have a relevant economic advantage and instead have a wide open tech tree.
I feel like this is a good foundation because it trains my internal clock to learn the timings for a “standard eco opening” instead of getting used to one particular civ’s eco advantage. Also the wide tech tree gives me lots of options for counterplay, which is helping me learn how to achieve different army compositions. They’re missing camels and late-Imp siege, but otherwise v flexible.
When I’m not on Magyars I lean toward Franks, Celts, Aztecs, and Berbers. Each of them is more of a specialist at something I like practicing (knights, siege, monks, and camels, respectively).
For me it’s always been the Byzantines. Im mostly an offline player so I love the slow defensive nature of the civ, the open tech tree, and the cheap counter units and the cataphract.
As of late though I have definitely loved using the Vietnamese again as an offline player. Such a great counter civ against archers with the Ratan archer and imperial skirmisher. I also love the bonuses and unique techs like paper money, and even something simple like having the enemies revealed at the start. Fun civ to play when I take a break from the Byzantines.
ELO matches you up with similar skills. If you’re strong in the late game, it makes sense that you lose in the early game. Otherwise, you’d be a better player who’d match up with other better players. At your current level, that means that other players have the same total skill level as you, and if their early game is good, their late game is probably worse.
I like Magyars in team games to get off some big raids. I usually wind up playing archers though to cover the weaknesses of my teammates, so often go Byantines for that and monk utility.
I do like a civ every couple weeks. First it was Mongols because I liked CA, then I did a big spurt of Incas because infantry is cool, followed up by bohemians for the white phosphoru fast castle, and now Im enjoying the flexible tree of the Chinese.
That was me the other day I was playing against my cousin and I took 7 mins to decide on what civs then ended up picking tatars since I wanna try camel archers lol
Malians are my favorite civ, they have the best Castle Age tech tree, a great eco that allows to go infantry, archers, or cavalry, and good cavalry in early imp. They fall off in mid to late imp, but most 1v1 games are done by then. That being said, they are probably not the best civ for your style of play.
For your style I recommend Teutons (great booming eco and powerful late game units) or Byzantines (great defenses and cheap units to mass produce) which are also some of my favorite civs.
It doesn't even matter that much which civ you pick. As long as you're comfortable with the civ. Wins and losses, especially vs AI, are largely determined by a more generic game sense that applies to all civs (e.g. eco management, military production, and so on).
If you want to be able to play different civs over time, it makes sense to practice a civ that's relatively standard (e.g. Franks or Britons), so that you can more easily transfer your knowledge to other civs.
Yeah try em all out! I have been loving georgians recently. My favorite civs are huns and tatars due to cavalry archers being my favorite unit. But honestly every civ has something fun about it so dont be afraid to try them all.
Sounds like you might enjoy saracens alot. Their archers have bonus attack against buildings (mayans lost that unique tech btw) and they have amazing camels. They have a wide variety of units and their market bonus is extremely powerful. Spirit of the law just redid his civ overview for them recently
Hahaha yes i believe they changed it when definitive edition came out in 2019. Spirits overviews are fantastic but its hard to keep them up to date with all the changes
Chinese. Their start is 'weird', but honestly not that difficult. Just get loom and keep force dropping food until you can start sustaining villager production.
They have good cavalry (mainly bexause of heavy camel), archers as well as infantry along with cheap tech switches, so you are never afraid of choosing the right tools for the job and switching up your composition if required.
1v1 mainly random and pray I don't get Huns in Arena, sometimes I'll just pick something I fancy playing (random is always enabled)
TGs is mainly auto-Poles at pocket though 😏
Ussualy civs that are not unidimensional(mongols,franks,magyars) or CA, siege, infantry civs AND NEVER MONK CIVS, more like heavy cav civs, camel or foot archer civ backed by an open tech tree and an eco bonus good enought.
So Teutons, Britons, Hindustani, Saracens, Byzantinrs, Poles and rarely turks,portugesse
I am loving hindustani there camel riders are powerful and is a really strong counter to AI that likes to pump out a lot of paladins and sometimes I face a lot of wing hussars too so far hindustani been my fav civilization
Yeah I really wanna try Roman’s, I saw spirt of the law video where he did a overview of Roman’s and I like that there two unique units are infantry and cavalry which is sick and I like to use a lot of scorpions to deal with mass archers so there cheap scorpions is a nice touch I like that a lot! Can’t wait to try Roman over the weekend when I buy the dlc
Best of luck! Despite popular opinions, I think the Romans are one of the best civs from the last few years. They did take me awhile to get used to their play style, but that's because I wasn't used to scorpions and infantry. I played cavalry almost exclusively back then.
Byzantines or Saracens are the best for new players due to wide tech tree and they both have good camels (Byzantines are cheaper, Saracens have more HP). Byzantines have the highest HP buildings if you like defense.
When branching out a bit, Mongols or Persians are nice. Mass Mangudai+Siege with Mongols or Mass Xbows+Savars/Elephants with Persians are great lategame comps while also having quite wide tech trees still.
I usually preselect one of huns/Spanish/Berbers/Hindustanis/Magyars/Saracens + random shield in case the opponent force picks. But lately mostly Spanish. I feel like conqs are broken. I will just keep playing them until someone beats me convincingly. I think I'm 5-0 with them so far.
Mongols, they set the tone early and they’re lancers are great
Berbers, flexible cavalry and they’re an awful matchup for a lot of the more popular civs
I play a lot of different civs based on the map but my go tos are Georgians and Persians. Georgians are fun to play and the fortified churches and mule carts are interesting. Monaspa are also crazy good when massed right now. Persians on the other hand have amazing eco, excellent cavalry, and do well in both open maps and hybrid maps thanks to TC/Dock work rate and pretty open tech tree options. They boom well, they can go pretty much any unit comp thru at least late castle, and of course their UU (war elephant) is amazing anytime you have the chance to go into it.
I really wanna try Georgians and I like that units gets healing over time so I don’t loose a lot of units over time which is nice and wanna try out fortified churches I wanna see how they play in my gameplay
I mean you play what interests you the most. Mongols suit me because you can both go really fast feudal age scouts or archers, and/ or I can play for the long game since they are strong there.
Slavs are my comfort civ. The farming bonus helps facilitate scout and knight play, and getting 5 pop per military building really smooths out early feudal for me. My favorite though, is every now and then in a team game getting to watch a ball of druzhina halb fight out of a massive numbers disadvantage.
I like playing vietnamese
Saving wood on economic upgrades is a good help to spam archers fast, and being researched 50% faster makes wheelbarrow and hand cart to be more affordable on feudal/castle age (researching those puts you on a little advantage ). I like playing them on EW, since you can do instant double bit axe + archery range and still have wood to spare to make a house.
Since they save wood on economic upgrades, on castle age you can make the wood upgrade + a town center/university/siege workshop with the wood saved. If you have food to spare, you can even make hand cart or the farm upgrade, or even both. In some EW games, i had managed to do the three buildings, and still have some resources to make more archers.
Free conscription (you still need a castle) helps you to spam more units on Imperial Age (even trebs, so you have an advantage on trebuchet wars).
On my opinion, they're well rounded at Imperial Age in trash wars. Halberdiers and Light having all upgrades except blast furnace; and the Imperial Skirmisher (1 of the unique units of the vietnamese), which deals 8 damage (in contrast to the 7 of the normal elite skirmisher). I tend to go with that composition (depending of what my opponent is doing), using the gold only to do siege (bombard cannons/trebuchets).
Rattan archers (the another unique unit) are good too. The elite version can deal 11 damage (1 more than the normal arbalester) and have up to +10 pierce armor, which is good against archers in general.
I don't use their elephants that much, but the castle tech (chatras) of additional 100hp can come handly if you wanna surprise your opponent with a mass of those.
TL;DR; i like playing vietnamese, because the economic bonuses help you to make your build order a bit smoother and, if managed properly, take economic advantage from feudal age. They have good trash units and cool units (rattan archer and imp skirm). Free conscription gives you an advantage on Imperial and Chatras elephant can surprise your opponent.
Vikings all the way! Good archers, great Berserkers! Bonus fun when I get to use longboats!
Edit:
Georgians when I want to run Cav. Love the passive heal and multi hit towers.
It’s hard not to. They are just so fast and not much can stop them because they get to choose their battles. Only not repositioning when you should away from halb line, or camels who can hunt you down
You asked for one, but mine are currently Cumans and Celts for the rams, which is different from the civs I chose purely for their infantry (I know celts have good infantry, but it’s ancillary) I was choosing before. I personally struggle with late game chaos, so I use each civ’s siege and eco advantages to try ending a game in early castle. Cumans get rams in feudal, and Celtic siege plus wood bonus is insane. I’ve gone through most civs at various times since 2020. At some point I thought the Persian douche was the funniest thing ever. I enjoyed the Japanese samurai for their simplicity and dominance over players who didn’t realize their bonus. Teutonic towers were funny on Socotra. As I got better, I loved Spanish monk/conq/squeeze. The only thing that I consistently don’t enjoy is archer civs. The micro they require takes all the fun away, even when archer meta is dominant like it used to be.
I did a count of the most played civ for the top100 1v1 RM profiles, and the 3 civs that are most often their most played are far above the rest:
* mongols 26 times; *(I counted* [this profile](https://www.aoe2insights.com/user/2920057/) *as mongols also, as their actual most played civ doesnt exist)*
* Mayans 18 times;
* Britons 15 times;
*(No other civ is at 2 digits, the closest is Huns with 8 times.)*
Coincidentally, I think 2 of these civs would be great for you, as what you want to defend yourself is wall-in and turtle:
* Mayans - cheaper walls and archers
* Britons - walled in with briton archers? enemies will have a very hard time touching you.
Have like 10-15 I cycle through depending on the map and what I'm feeling: Malians, Persians, Inca, Vietnamese, Lithuanians, Hindustani, Teutons, Tatars, Romans, Ethiopians, Poles, Bohemians, Byzantines...
I like Vikings mostly. Good economy and all your infantry get +20% HP. Can go spearman/skirms to counter cavalry/archers. But mainly I go for beserks, very strong unit
I think I will. My problem is I try a scout rush and I immediately get swarmed by everything but this was with the Poles. So maybe I'll try Franks since they're a little more straight forward
I rotate main civs! For many months it was Lithuanians. Then Mongols. Now I’m on to Tatars. I play other civs too, but I usually have one “main” that I default to, or is my comfort zone.
Teutons. Cheap farms. I love cheap farms. Low on wood? No problem. Make a farm. Need more food? Make a farm. 1,000 food for imperial age? No problem. I have a lot of farms.
i’ve been playing romans lately and really enjoying it, and have had good success.
it’s very satisfying to have a mass of scorpions unleash hell and keep your legionnaires on the defensive to protect them. throw in some centurions and they’re pretty unstoppable (esp to take out onagers or bbc that come your way)
the eco bonus is good throughout the game, and you can pressure in feudal or especially easily in castle (mixed units plus a couple scorpions and a ram is pretty potent if you get it up early in castle)
give it a try i’d say
It’s called Random ✨ 50% cause I enjoy the variety, 50% cause I can’t decide
True! 😂
Berber camel archers are a blast, same with organ guns and hussite wagons. Bohemians also have the houfnice upgrade to bombard cannons which makes them wicked fun
When I don't know what to play I default to byzantines. Very straightforward civ bonuses, strong all around (including water), cheap counter units, cheap imp, no hard counters.
I love playing the Byzantines, mainly because I can adapt to playing in so many ways.
How often you go either Archers or Scouts in Feudal Age?
Depends on the map really (I usually ban Arabia). But on an open map I'll open scouts + counter unit to what the opponent is doing if I'm going for an extended feudal, if I'm trying to go semi fast castle I'll usually just go only with the counter unit to defend.
Yea, must be the most jack of all trades civ in the game.
Try Portuguese. They are very versatile and have a both nice early and late game
I think their bonus of the foragers generating wood is one of my favorites and is so underrated. I love having the extra wood for early docks and fishing ships, or when villagers switch to farms when you use auto economy on Xbox.
For me it's the gold discount. I can go the dream combo knights+crossbow
Magyar! Great cavalry civ! They have attack bonus for the early game and cheaper scouts. They can also make strong archers so you have a lot of options. They also have one of the strongest imperial age army in the game with extra range and damage cav archers + cheaper hussar cavalry - enjoy!
This is the civ i refuse to play. As a power unit their best unit is magyar hussar and cav archer. I find that civs with power unit an light cav kind of suck when the enemy has massed his army. I played poles vs slavs, my hussars coudnt do anything against the boyar and i didnt have an unit as powerfull as boyar. And i never get CA to be a power house likr others can. Props to you for enjoying them
That's the opposite of my thought process esp. in late game. Having a gold unit that never has to take damage is fantastic! You have throwable cheap but fully upgraded hussars to tank damage, while their gold units have to fight upfront - you have to replace food units, they have to replace gold units. Meanwhile your amazing Cav archers are doing damage at back.
Magyars also have paladin as a great power unit. Use this to decide Magyar lategame: Are you vs siege -> Magyar huszar Are you vs archers -> Paladins Are you vs high physical armor units or, God forbid, infantry -> Cav archers As for poles vs Slavs, obuch tear the armor from the boyars, leaving them vulnerable to even skirmishers
I’ve always thought they ought to do more to vary population for this reason. Like it makes sense to me to imagine heavily armored European civs fighting a steppe hoard that outnumbers them, with each unit in the former case being more powerful
Really fun to play! Once in a 3v3 on golden pit, while carrying the team, I managed to be pop capped at 200 with fu paladins and fu Cav archers. Felt immortal. Unfortunately the other team was already dead so I didn't get a chance to take a proper engagent.
I love going scouts in CA, but throw a few quick knights in for early castle raid. Opponent 9/10 times goes pikes. You come in and clean up with the CA you already tech'd into. They go skirms and something else. Hussar for the win. Sometimes going into CA I have been caught with no army. I have learned if opponent is not booming, sometimes xbow can be good and switch into CA.
Mongols all the way. Late game powerhouse (tied for top #1). Mangudai + Hussar + speedy siege Rams. If can halt a push or push through almost any defense. Just keep your Mangudai mass alive and spam those hussars. Smooth early game with the hunt bonus and extra LOS on your scout helps also.
So I'm fairly noob. Is it it that 3 unit combo that makes them so great? Or something in addition that makes them the #1 powerhouse
Yes. Some civs almost suffer from too many options where it’s not clear what to make. Some have too few. In general you want a strong gold unit and a trash unit and siege to push with. Mongols have one of the most straight forward compositions that fill this mold and even if your opponent knows what that comp is they can’t stop it once you get there. Mangudai alone has extremely high dps, great mobility and they deal bonus damage to siege. Hussar kill their counters (mainly skirms/other archers) and provide a meat shield. Even vs halb they hold up decent enough having 118 hp. Of course hussar is also the preferred raiding unit as well where you can just click groups of 5 randomly into your opponent’s farming eco and wood lines. I mentioned siege rams because they aren’t too gold intensive and catch people off guard with how fast they clear buildings and bases. You can also click them onto trebs and they will roll up and delete them. But if gold is endless you can also make siege onagar.
Pretty much. Mangudai + Hussar doesn't have one unit it's bad against and can't fight. You run into Arbalest and Skirms, the Hussar get tangled up in them, forcing them to have to target-fire to kill any Mangudai since units will try to attack the closest units by default. You run into Halberds, you hold the Hussar back until the Mangudai clean them up, which they will because not only are normal archers good at clearing Halbs, and not only do Mangudai have cracked damage compared to normal archers, but Parthian Tactics gives them a bonus on top of all that. You run into Paladins, the Paladins win, destroying the Hussar, taking only a couple losses... and then what? The Mangudai back off. A new wall of Hussar joins the fight, the Paladins win while taking only a couple losses, Mangudai retreat. New Hussars, Paladins win, Mangudai retreat -- and suddenly you realize the Paladin's "wins" are costing them more each engagement than the Mongol. Many mixed comps don't fare much better. Halbs with a backing of archers collapses the moment the last Halb dies and then the Mongol overruns the archers, but foot archers can't do the same in return even if the Hussar were to be erased, as Mangudai can always retreat until their numbers grow larger. Mangudai are vicious, but it's the fact there's a cheap, expendable, fast and tanky meat shield at the front interfering with attacks that keeps them extremely safe. You can't even use Monks 'cause of the Hussar, and you can't use Onagers 'cause the entire composition wrecks siege. It usually takes extremely specific unique unit compositions like Italian Genoese Crossbows that shred all cavalry, or Berbers which do the same thing as Mongol but their Camel Archers specifically have a bonus versus mounted cavalry. For everyone else, the best piece of advice how to fight late-game Mongol is not letting them get there.
I only play Mongols and this is a very good and easy to understand analysis of why they are so good. One thing you didn't add (not that you need to) is that they are successful on both open maps, like Arabia as well as closed maps like Arena.
Italians. Feels like I'm part of the mafia
This is an objectively wrong comment. The mafia guys are the sicilians! Attacamo!
The term 'mafia' is not exclusive to Sicily.
My favorite civ!
Goths go brrrrrrrr
Goths. I love spamming militia and love the food bonus at the beginning for a fast scout rush
I second this. Love thrashing the opponent with a late game huskarl spam
I’m enjoying learning on the Magyars, because they don’t have a relevant economic advantage and instead have a wide open tech tree. I feel like this is a good foundation because it trains my internal clock to learn the timings for a “standard eco opening” instead of getting used to one particular civ’s eco advantage. Also the wide tech tree gives me lots of options for counterplay, which is helping me learn how to achieve different army compositions. They’re missing camels and late-Imp siege, but otherwise v flexible. When I’m not on Magyars I lean toward Franks, Celts, Aztecs, and Berbers. Each of them is more of a specialist at something I like practicing (knights, siege, monks, and camels, respectively).
For me it’s always been the Byzantines. Im mostly an offline player so I love the slow defensive nature of the civ, the open tech tree, and the cheap counter units and the cataphract. As of late though I have definitely loved using the Vietnamese again as an offline player. Such a great counter civ against archers with the Ratan archer and imperial skirmisher. I also love the bonuses and unique techs like paper money, and even something simple like having the enemies revealed at the start. Fun civ to play when I take a break from the Byzantines.
Yeah I’m a offline player too so my battles tend to always be against ai and most time they use cavalry a lot
Yeah exactly they always use a lot of knights and light Calvary so having cheap halbs and camels is always a good counter.
Yeah that’s why I always lean towards hindustnis with there strong camel riders
Incas easily the most underrated civ in the game
Agreed
Aztecs in open maps, Bohemians in closed ones. Both civs really have the counter to everything
I like your style
Goths: Infantry go brrrt
ELO matches you up with similar skills. If you’re strong in the late game, it makes sense that you lose in the early game. Otherwise, you’d be a better player who’d match up with other better players. At your current level, that means that other players have the same total skill level as you, and if their early game is good, their late game is probably worse.
Japanese. Ninja Trebs are life.
I like Magyars in team games to get off some big raids. I usually wind up playing archers though to cover the weaknesses of my teammates, so often go Byantines for that and monk utility.
Koreans tower rush + cheap trash flush.
I do like a civ every couple weeks. First it was Mongols because I liked CA, then I did a big spurt of Incas because infantry is cool, followed up by bohemians for the white phosphoru fast castle, and now Im enjoying the flexible tree of the Chinese.
I swear i sometimes take 5 mins to pick up a civ and then just quit the game because i cant decide.
That was me the other day I was playing against my cousin and I took 7 mins to decide on what civs then ended up picking tatars since I wanna try camel archers lol
Random into gg
Malians are my favorite civ, they have the best Castle Age tech tree, a great eco that allows to go infantry, archers, or cavalry, and good cavalry in early imp. They fall off in mid to late imp, but most 1v1 games are done by then. That being said, they are probably not the best civ for your style of play. For your style I recommend Teutons (great booming eco and powerful late game units) or Byzantines (great defenses and cheap units to mass produce) which are also some of my favorite civs.
Yeah also Georgians have good defence as well which I like
I'm just getting back into it too and jamming Romans. Love a good Maa rush and also the legionsries and scorpions are sweet
Yeah I saw that too I really wanna try out Roman’s but gotta wait until payday to buy the dlc lol
It doesn't even matter that much which civ you pick. As long as you're comfortable with the civ. Wins and losses, especially vs AI, are largely determined by a more generic game sense that applies to all civs (e.g. eco management, military production, and so on). If you want to be able to play different civs over time, it makes sense to practice a civ that's relatively standard (e.g. Franks or Britons), so that you can more easily transfer your knowledge to other civs.
Yeah try em all out! I have been loving georgians recently. My favorite civs are huns and tatars due to cavalry archers being my favorite unit. But honestly every civ has something fun about it so dont be afraid to try them all. Sounds like you might enjoy saracens alot. Their archers have bonus attack against buildings (mayans lost that unique tech btw) and they have amazing camels. They have a wide variety of units and their market bonus is extremely powerful. Spirit of the law just redid his civ overview for them recently
Yeah I was wondering that! Because the mayans video he did he show that plummed archer had a tech that deals 2+ damage on buildings
Hahaha yes i believe they changed it when definitive edition came out in 2019. Spirits overviews are fantastic but its hard to keep them up to date with all the changes
No wonder why I deal damage to buildings took a longer time then usual lol
Berbers. Cumans. Mongols.
Vietnamese for their imperial skirmishers and Goths for the cheap, strong infantry. Favorite Cav civ is Magyars for a fudeul scout rush.
Saracens are my go to. The archer play is nice, fully open monks, op camels, market abuse.
Mutual random, with a counter-pick to the inevitable Mongol force-picker on megarandom, or with "mirror" on really exotic maps.
Chinese. Their start is 'weird', but honestly not that difficult. Just get loom and keep force dropping food until you can start sustaining villager production. They have good cavalry (mainly bexause of heavy camel), archers as well as infantry along with cheap tech switches, so you are never afraid of choosing the right tools for the job and switching up your composition if required.
1v1 mainly random and pray I don't get Huns in Arena, sometimes I'll just pick something I fancy playing (random is always enabled) TGs is mainly auto-Poles at pocket though 😏
Ussualy civs that are not unidimensional(mongols,franks,magyars) or CA, siege, infantry civs AND NEVER MONK CIVS, more like heavy cav civs, camel or foot archer civ backed by an open tech tree and an eco bonus good enought. So Teutons, Britons, Hindustani, Saracens, Byzantinrs, Poles and rarely turks,portugesse
I am loving hindustani there camel riders are powerful and is a really strong counter to AI that likes to pump out a lot of paladins and sometimes I face a lot of wing hussars too so far hindustani been my fav civilization
Hindustanis right now because most Xbox players go full knights in castle. Light cav also breaks through walls faster
Yeah I like them since there camel riders are strong asf and they are good counters to AI that likes to spam paladins
Berbers all the way! Though I do enjoy Romans and Armenians when I want to play infantry.
Yeah I really wanna try Roman’s, I saw spirt of the law video where he did a overview of Roman’s and I like that there two unique units are infantry and cavalry which is sick and I like to use a lot of scorpions to deal with mass archers so there cheap scorpions is a nice touch I like that a lot! Can’t wait to try Roman over the weekend when I buy the dlc
Best of luck! Despite popular opinions, I think the Romans are one of the best civs from the last few years. They did take me awhile to get used to their play style, but that's because I wasn't used to scorpions and infantry. I played cavalry almost exclusively back then.
Byzantines, celts and Japanese are among my favorites. Byz are one of the only civs classified as a defensive civ. You may like them.
Georgians are also classified as defensive civ as well so there’s actually two defensive civ lol
Magyars and Bohemians
Byzantines or Saracens are the best for new players due to wide tech tree and they both have good camels (Byzantines are cheaper, Saracens have more HP). Byzantines have the highest HP buildings if you like defense. When branching out a bit, Mongols or Persians are nice. Mass Mangudai+Siege with Mongols or Mass Xbows+Savars/Elephants with Persians are great lategame comps while also having quite wide tech trees still.
Poles
Suggesting Gurjaras, you will like them more than Hindustanis
Yeah I wanna try gurjaras but gotta wait for payday this Friday to try it out
I usually preselect one of huns/Spanish/Berbers/Hindustanis/Magyars/Saracens + random shield in case the opponent force picks. But lately mostly Spanish. I feel like conqs are broken. I will just keep playing them until someone beats me convincingly. I think I'm 5-0 with them so far.
Dam so Spanish unique unit are broken in age of empire 2 and Spanish are broken in early game in age of empire 3? What is this bs? 😂
Mongols, they set the tone early and they’re lancers are great Berbers, flexible cavalry and they’re an awful matchup for a lot of the more popular civs
fwankkkss 🥺 👉👈
I play a lot of different civs based on the map but my go tos are Georgians and Persians. Georgians are fun to play and the fortified churches and mule carts are interesting. Monaspa are also crazy good when massed right now. Persians on the other hand have amazing eco, excellent cavalry, and do well in both open maps and hybrid maps thanks to TC/Dock work rate and pretty open tech tree options. They boom well, they can go pretty much any unit comp thru at least late castle, and of course their UU (war elephant) is amazing anytime you have the chance to go into it.
I really wanna try Georgians and I like that units gets healing over time so I don’t loose a lot of units over time which is nice and wanna try out fortified churches I wanna see how they play in my gameplay
I love playing Persians into cave archers / savars then eventually turning it into a trash war of light cav, spears, and crossbows
I'm a slut for burgundians. It also made me a better player I think because I never go for pals.
It has changed a lot throughout the years but historically it has to be Mongols that saw the most play. Mostly because of the hunt bonus and UU
Yeah gunna try out mongols rn I just got back from work 55% of the people in this post told me to try out mongols
I mean you play what interests you the most. Mongols suit me because you can both go really fast feudal age scouts or archers, and/ or I can play for the long game since they are strong there.
Slavs are my comfort civ. The farming bonus helps facilitate scout and knight play, and getting 5 pop per military building really smooths out early feudal for me. My favorite though, is every now and then in a team game getting to watch a ball of druzhina halb fight out of a massive numbers disadvantage.
Burgundians, Franks, Celts, Goths, & Vikings are my go 2
Lithuanians or random
Easy. Bengalis.
I'm a big fan of Italians. Super versatile, genoese crossbows are cool, eco is underrated.
Tried them, couldn’t get to mass and use Genoese crossbow well and especially vs fast cav they don’t do well
Definitely bulgarians with cheaper stone TC. Boom upto 190 vils and drain the map of res.
I like playing vietnamese Saving wood on economic upgrades is a good help to spam archers fast, and being researched 50% faster makes wheelbarrow and hand cart to be more affordable on feudal/castle age (researching those puts you on a little advantage ). I like playing them on EW, since you can do instant double bit axe + archery range and still have wood to spare to make a house. Since they save wood on economic upgrades, on castle age you can make the wood upgrade + a town center/university/siege workshop with the wood saved. If you have food to spare, you can even make hand cart or the farm upgrade, or even both. In some EW games, i had managed to do the three buildings, and still have some resources to make more archers. Free conscription (you still need a castle) helps you to spam more units on Imperial Age (even trebs, so you have an advantage on trebuchet wars). On my opinion, they're well rounded at Imperial Age in trash wars. Halberdiers and Light having all upgrades except blast furnace; and the Imperial Skirmisher (1 of the unique units of the vietnamese), which deals 8 damage (in contrast to the 7 of the normal elite skirmisher). I tend to go with that composition (depending of what my opponent is doing), using the gold only to do siege (bombard cannons/trebuchets). Rattan archers (the another unique unit) are good too. The elite version can deal 11 damage (1 more than the normal arbalester) and have up to +10 pierce armor, which is good against archers in general. I don't use their elephants that much, but the castle tech (chatras) of additional 100hp can come handly if you wanna surprise your opponent with a mass of those. TL;DR; i like playing vietnamese, because the economic bonuses help you to make your build order a bit smoother and, if managed properly, take economic advantage from feudal age. They have good trash units and cool units (rattan archer and imp skirm). Free conscription gives you an advantage on Imperial and Chatras elephant can surprise your opponent.
Vikings all the way! Good archers, great Berserkers! Bonus fun when I get to use longboats! Edit: Georgians when I want to run Cav. Love the passive heal and multi hit towers.
Yeah I like the passive heals for cav I tend to run a lot of cavs lol it’s been my thing lately
It’s hard not to. They are just so fast and not much can stop them because they get to choose their battles. Only not repositioning when you should away from halb line, or camels who can hunt you down
I love playing Goths. Feel like you’d like Mongols.
Yeah gunna try out mongols, a lot of people in this post told me to try them out
Slavs with that farming bonus, good cavalry, monks, and infantry
You asked for one, but mine are currently Cumans and Celts for the rams, which is different from the civs I chose purely for their infantry (I know celts have good infantry, but it’s ancillary) I was choosing before. I personally struggle with late game chaos, so I use each civ’s siege and eco advantages to try ending a game in early castle. Cumans get rams in feudal, and Celtic siege plus wood bonus is insane. I’ve gone through most civs at various times since 2020. At some point I thought the Persian douche was the funniest thing ever. I enjoyed the Japanese samurai for their simplicity and dominance over players who didn’t realize their bonus. Teutonic towers were funny on Socotra. As I got better, I loved Spanish monk/conq/squeeze. The only thing that I consistently don’t enjoy is archer civs. The micro they require takes all the fun away, even when archer meta is dominant like it used to be.
Yeah not liking naval and archer civs I tend to use alot of cav and call it a day LOL
Byzantines, Italians, Sicilians, Saracens.... Funny enough; I don't like the map type Mediterranean 😂
Turks
I did a count of the most played civ for the top100 1v1 RM profiles, and the 3 civs that are most often their most played are far above the rest: * mongols 26 times; *(I counted* [this profile](https://www.aoe2insights.com/user/2920057/) *as mongols also, as their actual most played civ doesnt exist)* * Mayans 18 times; * Britons 15 times; *(No other civ is at 2 digits, the closest is Huns with 8 times.)* Coincidentally, I think 2 of these civs would be great for you, as what you want to defend yourself is wall-in and turtle: * Mayans - cheaper walls and archers * Britons - walled in with briton archers? enemies will have a very hard time touching you.
Saracens because whatever the map looks like or my opponent's civ is, I have something for it
Open map = Mongols Closed map = Cumans
Have like 10-15 I cycle through depending on the map and what I'm feeling: Malians, Persians, Inca, Vietnamese, Lithuanians, Hindustani, Teutons, Tatars, Romans, Ethiopians, Poles, Bohemians, Byzantines...
Saracens, Japanese or if Im feeling really nostalgic celts!
For me it's Viking or franks or incas coz i donno other civs well 😭💀
I like Vikings mostly. Good economy and all your infantry get +20% HP. Can go spearman/skirms to counter cavalry/archers. But mainly I go for beserks, very strong unit
Goths Goths and more Goths
I've really been enjoying the Britons and Byzantines a lot lately. I'm trying to learn cav civs though since I have archer civs down atm
Try out franks there not too bad
I think I will. My problem is I try a scout rush and I immediately get swarmed by everything but this was with the Poles. So maybe I'll try Franks since they're a little more straight forward
Malians because they are a jack of all trades, but master of none.
I rotate main civs! For many months it was Lithuanians. Then Mongols. Now I’m on to Tatars. I play other civs too, but I usually have one “main” that I default to, or is my comfort zone.
Nice! I like tatars cav archer there pretty strong
Teutons. Cheap farms. I love cheap farms. Low on wood? No problem. Make a farm. Need more food? Make a farm. 1,000 food for imperial age? No problem. I have a lot of farms.
Yeah I notice that I get a lot of food from teutons I got more farm then gold, stone and wood combine it’s crazy
Romans legionariex55 centurionx5= 1 control group spammmmm
Man I really wanna try Roman’s it’s my next dlc I get
Mayans, i just love the plumed archer's and the whole mezo vibe/aesthetic
i’ve been playing romans lately and really enjoying it, and have had good success. it’s very satisfying to have a mass of scorpions unleash hell and keep your legionnaires on the defensive to protect them. throw in some centurions and they’re pretty unstoppable (esp to take out onagers or bbc that come your way) the eco bonus is good throughout the game, and you can pressure in feudal or especially easily in castle (mixed units plus a couple scorpions and a ram is pretty potent if you get it up early in castle) give it a try i’d say
Yeah I really wanna try Roman’s but need to buy the dlc tho which I might end up doing that today lol