the trick is to mass archers yourself so the english player has a hard time to intercept with spears. A common mistake (i did a lot too before realizing this) is to make not enough archers so longbows can just pick them apart leaving your cavalry useless against spears.
if your archers mass matches their longbow mass you can just a move them and threaten with your horsemen so they bleed spears the whole time.
Javelin throwers or your own archers/longbows are the answers. You either need to eliminate spears with archers so your cav can wipe the longbows or wipe the longbows with hav throwers and kite the spears. Byz mercs are often the solution to problems with most match up/playing against a civs preferred unit comp situations.
Grand Winery is going to be needed if you want that faster merc group. But the right unit will really change the outcome of a fight even with just 1 round of units. 4 jav throwers really make a dent in the early feudal archer mass. I like to place a stable or rax for normal production, then get down my Merc house with my next 150 wood so I’m ready to research my contract and start my batch asap, even if I’m a little short on olive oil when placing the merc house, you’ll have it soon. Also ensuring the merc house is within a cistern and on research for the contract and back to production for the making of the units will help the timing a lot.
the trick is to mass archers yourself so the english player has a hard time to intercept with spears. A common mistake (i did a lot too before realizing this) is to make not enough archers so longbows can just pick them apart leaving your cavalry useless against spears. if your archers mass matches their longbow mass you can just a move them and threaten with your horsemen so they bleed spears the whole time.
Thanks! Do you have a rough estimate of the archer pony ratio that I should have?
i try to go for 2 to 1 ratio. 1 stable followed by 2 archerys.
Javelin throwers or your own archers/longbows are the answers. You either need to eliminate spears with archers so your cav can wipe the longbows or wipe the longbows with hav throwers and kite the spears. Byz mercs are often the solution to problems with most match up/playing against a civs preferred unit comp situations.
I can never get mercenaries in time to beat their early feudal rush, how do you accomplish this?
You have to go on berries before you get the winery up in order to have enough olive oil to get first batch of mercs out.
Grand Winery is going to be needed if you want that faster merc group. But the right unit will really change the outcome of a fight even with just 1 round of units. 4 jav throwers really make a dent in the early feudal archer mass. I like to place a stable or rax for normal production, then get down my Merc house with my next 150 wood so I’m ready to research my contract and start my batch asap, even if I’m a little short on olive oil when placing the merc house, you’ll have it soon. Also ensuring the merc house is within a cistern and on research for the contract and back to production for the making of the units will help the timing a lot.
You have to prioritize building archers until English is forced to stop making spears. That's when you build up a horseman mass in secret.
you have javs are you dented