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@@nono_no I had to evacuate, now just waiting to see the damages

Wow, this one takes me back. 1150 ELO was not very long ago.

@yahm0n honestly I was just moving too fast trying to comment on todays stream, ended up leaving the comment here. I since then watched this gameplay and it is indeed a solid sesh. Saracens OP

@@nono_no Saracens OP indeed. Unless everyone starts saying it, in which case I will disavow all knowledge of Saracens being OP 🤣

Archer+spear cannot be properly handled with a single stable, even if I make militia from the barracks also. The comp to field for bridging the gap to castle age would be skirmisher+spear, though it is very micro dependent so it won't work if the opponent has a significant skill advantage. Double stable also doesn't quite have enough oomph either, so the cheapest way to take on a micro god for me would probably be skirmisher+scout.

I have little respect for camels because they are so weak to everything besides cavalry. You actually need to make things other than cavalry for that to matter though, which is where I often fail.

Well, considering he was forced to hug his TC and couldn't mass anything, his eco was in far worse shape. All of the deer on the map were available for my recovery as long as I maintain map control.

@@yahm0n shame we didn’t get to see the army triumphantly return home only to find a plague wiped out their wives and children

@@fiable262626 The reason I wait is to avoid showing my hand. If they check the market and see the stone go up then they know the castle is coming. I suppose most won't check though. If I get a better sense of the market I could spend and hold my cards close at the same time.

@@yahm0n I honestly don’t think they expect a castle drop! They might if they saw you mine stone

It will be easy to forget about that one. On the other hand, if it was a bluff for a boom, I would have looked like a genius. Nostradamus Principle

meh, he wasn't even 2k... (😆)

Interesting idea

No sanctity

@@fiable262626 I thought I didn't need sanctity from a hill.

I think it is just a case of them claiming they fixed something and not really succeeding at it. I noticed no difference at all when they announced it.

Yeah I am doing it a little bit now, and I can feel it. I can feel my APM getting more annoying. It kind of feels like it is only useful for dunking on lower skilled players, as some opponents just never get tripped up by this kind of stuff. I have also been playing around with under TC scout micro, where I watch for which scout they are shooting at and have that one scout dodge.

FU scouts do okay against spears, but the dynamic shifts pretty badly once pikes come into play. That being said, my ultimate unit composition is hussar/mameluke, so perhaps I could sacrifice most of my power spike to make a more sane farming transition, allowing me to start early with light cav/mameluke.

It would have been so cool if I would have won that game. It was very close despite me making far more mistakes than normal. Hoang had fletching on his TC, which is absolutely horrible in a Feudal age TC fight, because it does no additional damage yet burdens 3 additional villagers to reach 10 arrows. I just needed to keep my idle time down and throw less mamelukes, then I could have afforded to do a lot more.

I really need to get my farming going better for that. It seems to be a fundamental limitation of my strategy, that the recoil from the no farm power spike will take me down if I don't do enough damage.

@@yahm0n You only take recoil if you sell food! Though missing a few farming upgrades can hurt

@@fiable262626 I think selling food is the best way to bounce back from the recoil, giving you a second wind as gold is becoming more precious.

I tend to view light cav very unfavorably because their combat stats are so much worse than knights, yet cost an upgrade and more food, my most precious resource. The fact that light cav are not afraid of monks is a pretty big deal, however. The speed advantage is easy to overlook, though it sucks how you actually lose speed by getting the upgrade.

@@yahm0n Trick is to forget hussar go with the more affordable lightcav. You get the same damage for raiding and don’t have to guess the right timing. Maybe make knights with a throwaway mindset.

@@fiable262626 yeah if you trade away your knights before they can get converted, that could maximize their value. If you are stuck outside the enemy walls though, there is nothing to trade against.

@@fiable262626 the first Ozone game really didn't have legs. For the second one, fast imp was a requirement to make something out of that position

@@fiable262626 yeah, skill level is all relative. My weaknesses now used to be my strengths when I was up against 1000 elo players. Mastering the saracens market and TC drop have given me a strategic power to punch hundreds of ELO above what I could otherwise, but in doing so I have to avoid entering direct skill vs skill confrontations as much as possible

There really wasn't a window. He had castle age pretty much immediately after me.

@@yahm0n Agreed

Yah mon. I created a smurf account to test my random civ ELO, and it is currently 400 less than my Saracens ELO. Most of the difference is surely due to my lack of experience outside of Saracens, but the more I play other civilizations the more clear it is to me how great the Saracens are. For Saracens to be the best civilization, however, you can't play it like a generic civilization, you have to take full advantage of the market.

@@yahm0n u can also have easy counters with archers, cavalry, infantry. great blacksmith upgrades too

Yeah, it was very unfortunate in the game where I had 2 idle stables, heaps of food and gold, and didn't realize to make knights to counter knights. I feel like things like that are learning moments, and the memory would probably kick in strong the next time I face the same situation.

I think committing to Franks goes against the spirit of Nahm0n, which is primarily a reaction to the cult of random civilization. I think if I want to seriously pursue this path, what I need to do is learn completely generic build orders that do not rely on bonuses. It is more entertaining, however, to dive in face first to each civilization's bonuses.

Yep, I was only reluctant about it because I was actively trying to do the Red Phosphoru strat. I think though that one of Red Phosphoru's weaknesses is committing to his favorite strategy even when there is an easier and clearer alternative path. Perhaps if I take what works from his strategies and keep what I know on deck, I could eventually surpass him.

I suppose if I could take the stone without spending a tower on it by taking it faster, it would be worth. Otherwise I want to be able to capture as much res as possible.

Yeah it looked like I had won the game pretty thoroughly and had many options to win. Considering I can't know everything he has got and my base is relatively safe, attacking his base seems like the best move.

I think Saracens are unique in that regard, as the market advantage makes buying food so much easier. Ratha is more advantaged as a unit, but the flexibility of the market might outweigh that.

@@yahm0n oh maybe. I forgot about their market bonus. I've not really played saracens enough to comment on them

It was a very uphill battle after I fumbled the survival of my back eco, but ended up closer than I expected.

Selection boxes are my first choice, but I use control groups when they seem better. I usually use it when I move my initial 11 villagers for the TC drop. I also use it when I want to negate a selection, like if I want to select all damaged villagers I'll put all the villagers into control group 1, and then I'll control click the damaged villagers and put the remainder in group 2, then when I select group 1 again I end up with just the damaged villagers.

Yeah, clearing every villager besides the 15 in the TC would put me in a great position, so long as I keep enough scouts alive to prevent him from returning to work.

I think knight would have been scarier than camel actually. DPS is similar to camel, but the 2 armor would make it very difficult for me to clean even a small number of them with scouts.

@@yahm0n but yeah bravo this play if you practice as much as TC drops it will be a very powerful option and easy to tweak and adjust to the situation. empire wars just makes it easier because you get the free set up

@@yahm0n Depends a lot on upgrades as I don’t think this guy had any armor or bloodlines. 4 armor knight vs 6 attack scout is huge. Since no armor scout would be doing double

@@fiable262626 So I broke out excel for some calculations, and looks like camel is still better than knight. If you have +2, however, the choice is a wash, but you end up with knights instead of camels once you kill all the scouts, so probably go with knights in that case.

Interesting concept. Wheelbarrow villagers are still slower than archers, but the difference is halved. That makes microing twice as hard and shots miss more often.

@@yahm0n nevermind if vills still slower - i thought they were like infantry

Yeah it really bridges the gap between clicking up to feudal age and being able to build a tower

An individual FU pike does 7.67 DPS to FU camel, while bimaristan monk does 2-6 HPS automatically. Once you include backline mameluke damage, the fight doesn't look very good for pikes, at least while gold is still available. Hussar+Mameluke has always been passable even against Halberdier, so bimaristan monks ought to be rather influential there too

@@yahm0n I tried bimaristan heavy camel vs some halbs once it was a massacre

@@fiable262626 you do need backline mamelukes to bring the DPS, and once food is worth less than gold it is time to at least switch to hussar

also petard is almost always a bad choice. even under perfect conditions you are spending as much on petards as they spent on the castle, and if they are watching and sometimes even if they aren't, petards get sniped delivering no value

@@yahm0n In that scenario yes but with mongols you can also waste 1000 gold on trebs that get sniped. The value of the petards is they kill castle and quickly and open up the base for raiding or in mongol case you can then forever chase their mangudai.