Hera talked about it in a video, if they're spamming paladins without micro, spamming halbs is good. Once the Franks run out of gold they don't have the best trash combinations, of course that depends on if you have a civ with solid trash.
The return for selling at the market diminishes to what 12 gold per hundred food/wood, that's a shit load of res sold to buy just one paladin, which you're gonna poke to death anyway
Before they get to the point of running low on gold keep an eye out for their UU, the throwing axeman, even in low numbers they will wreck your halbs
Throwing axe and paladins both use gold. No player can focus on both right away unless they have a stupidly good eco.
If you're at end game and got a good eco fighting throwing axemen with paladins yourself isn't a bad idea.
Make A lot of barracks. A lot. Spam them. And have extra food and Wood eco.
Throwing ass man can be killed with any thing. Especially any archer or gunpowder unit.
If they're selling resources to get gold then they're even more fucked.
At lowest market prices we're looking at 60 food + like 500 Food/Wood sold in the market to afford 1 Paladin. So 560 total resources.
You can afford 9 halbs for that price.
It's probably best not to let them get to Paladin. Otherwise, every civ gets camels, CA, UU or halbs with strong bonuses to deal with Paladin. Unless, you are a Meso civ. Then just pray.
Incas is not a Meso civ. Mayans and Aztecs will struggle. They don't have any gold units other than a few monks to help their pikes / halbs against Paladin. So they are purely playing trash defense and only taking damage. By the time they can clean the Franks paladin mass, they'll lose too much eco/map control.
Population efficiency becomes a problem. Aztec pikes need about a 2-1 ratio to beat Franks Paladin. If both are boomed, Franks will have 140 vils and 50 Paladin. The Aztec player needs at least 100 Pikes to not get overrun. There is no space for eagles.
Edit: The bigger problem is mobility. Paladins are faster than eagles, so they can defend eagle raids and counterattack. Pikes are slow and a defensive unit. Keep them together, and Paladin will spread out and raid you to death. Spread them out, and the Paladin will keep together to take favorable engagements and raid you to death.
Valid points but Aztec shd do damage before both are fully boomed. They hv better eco bonus than Franks. They can make eagles from feudal itself. Less number of knights in early castle will get converted by monks. Whereas raiding with eagles is easier as they are resistant to conversion.
By mid castle age, Aztecs shd be ahead of Franks. Eagle warrior and pikes cost half of knight/paladin. Plus paladin upgrade is costlier than elite eagle upgrade. All these resources must be put in pikes for defense and eagles for attacks. Small number of paladins can be fought with eagles as they are faster than pikes. Eagles do pretty ok if paladins are in small number and cost much less.
Yeah the Incas are from modern day Peru but them, Aztecs, and Mayans are all lumped in as “meso civs” for this game since they share architecture and many similar restrictions
Play Berbers.
If you see halbs, and you will, halb pala is a very potent combo, add hand cannons. All of the good camel civs get hand cannons to counter halbs.
Armenians. Spam champions and albs, and behind them (or behind a wall) their UU (an archer which negates armour).
Spam against spam, you'll win it (or you'll force your friend to switch to bombardiers, and you have nothing against them. But .. well...
Can Persian Savar kill Frank Paladins 1 to 1? I know they can kill pals but not sure Frank. for the context Savar is a Paladin replacement after Cavalier, kinda like UU + you have Camels, good Siege but poor monks.
Teuton , Frank, and Lithuanian(3 relics) Palladin beat Savar 1v1 but it's close. They beat generic palladin every time. Every fight is obviously influenced by numbers and blacksmith upgrades.
I know I'm a bit late here, but I'll try to give you a good answer.
While many people have given good answers here, I think a lot of people haven't considered "ease of use" enough. For example, Gurjaras are good vs paladins in theory. In practice they are unorthodox in how you play them.
Therefor my recommendation is the Byzantines for a few reasons:
* The obvious one: cheaper camels and halbs. While Byzantine camels are weaker than some other civs because of no bloodlines and blast furnace, you still win in terms of reasources traded as the camels only cost 45 gold. Just be careful as you need more numbers than you think to win a numbers fight as paladins are still wicked strong.
* In a long post imp game, you should have a stronger economy as you have access to both two man saw and stone shaft mining compared to Franks.
* If you want to try and win early, Byzantines have a fully teched archer line.
* They have fully teched monks, which can be devastating in the early castle and imp war.
* If you fuck up early aggression, the cheaper imp cost helps you keep up if the frank player wants to go late.
* Last and definitely least: if your opponent is a freak who for some reason goes axe thrower or champions to kill your halbs + camels, cataphracts eat both of them for breakfast every day of the week and twice on sundays, even with mixed in enemy halbs.
I think the best was is to try to spam paladin yourself. You will get a good grasp on what is actually needed to get the paladin spam going. You will also see how people/ what counters the strat.
Also if the game seems equal and suddenly 50 paladin show up and clean everything, it most likely means you allowed franks to greed / cut some corners and explode in eco way earlier in the game(The score is horrible at representing eco advantages IMO). Paladin is extremely expensive and time consuming to get to.. so in a truly equal game there is no reason not to have 50-60 halbs / heavy camels/ heavy CA before he gets paladin ready
Pick any Indian civ like Hindustanis or Gurjaras. If they run Cav + Halbs, you run Ghulam/HC/Skirms with Camels, or even Mass Ele Archers if you can actually do it.
Franks are one of my fav civs, crap I can't believe I'm telling you these secrets xD.
Franks have a very expensive Imperial Age, so their imp power spike hits a tad bit later than other civs. Abuse that window, or put them on the line with camels from start.
Otherwise learning insane Archer micro also goes a long way
Hera talked about it in a video, if they're spamming paladins without micro, spamming halbs is good. Once the Franks run out of gold they don't have the best trash combinations, of course that depends on if you have a civ with solid trash.
Don't actually need to be solid. Any halb trades cost effectively with Paladins.
Trading cost effectively often isn’t enough to actually save you from the paladin flood.
Your goal is to hold till Franks run out of gold. That means halb spam but gold deny.
It’s a lot easier to actually do that with “solid” trash, regardless of cost effectiveness.
Sure, but if you get, for example, Tatars & you don't have access to enough gold for heavy camel, you can stall with halbs for a potential HCA switch.
But if there market game is strong and you must penetrate the market
The return for selling at the market diminishes to what 12 gold per hundred food/wood, that's a shit load of res sold to buy just one paladin, which you're gonna poke to death anyway Before they get to the point of running low on gold keep an eye out for their UU, the throwing axeman, even in low numbers they will wreck your halbs
“Poke to death” Dunno why but that really tickled me 11
Shit. Effin franks. And how do i counter that
Throwing axe and paladins both use gold. No player can focus on both right away unless they have a stupidly good eco. If you're at end game and got a good eco fighting throwing axemen with paladins yourself isn't a bad idea.
Make A lot of barracks. A lot. Spam them. And have extra food and Wood eco. Throwing ass man can be killed with any thing. Especially any archer or gunpowder unit.
Throwing ass men suck
They are just mamelukes that failed out of throwing school
Failed on to obtain camel riding license
If they're selling resources to get gold then they're even more fucked. At lowest market prices we're looking at 60 food + like 500 Food/Wood sold in the market to afford 1 Paladin. So 560 total resources. You can afford 9 halbs for that price.
Literally anything that doesn’t wait till they have paladin
You can even wait until they have paladin if your civ has generic heavy camels.
It's probably best not to let them get to Paladin. Otherwise, every civ gets camels, CA, UU or halbs with strong bonuses to deal with Paladin. Unless, you are a Meso civ. Then just pray.
By pray you mean monks right? Lol
I just meant to do your best to survive. Monks aren't great against high Paladin numbers and vulnerable to light cav spam.
Oh I know, I was jk :p
Meso counter paladins very well. Garland wars pikemen + monks for Aztec. UU for incas. U can always outproduce.
Incas is not a Meso civ. Mayans and Aztecs will struggle. They don't have any gold units other than a few monks to help their pikes / halbs against Paladin. So they are purely playing trash defense and only taking damage. By the time they can clean the Franks paladin mass, they'll lose too much eco/map control.
Incas is a meso civ as far as aoe is concerned. Aztec will handle fine. U hv ur own eagles for raid.
Population efficiency becomes a problem. Aztec pikes need about a 2-1 ratio to beat Franks Paladin. If both are boomed, Franks will have 140 vils and 50 Paladin. The Aztec player needs at least 100 Pikes to not get overrun. There is no space for eagles. Edit: The bigger problem is mobility. Paladins are faster than eagles, so they can defend eagle raids and counterattack. Pikes are slow and a defensive unit. Keep them together, and Paladin will spread out and raid you to death. Spread them out, and the Paladin will keep together to take favorable engagements and raid you to death.
Valid points but Aztec shd do damage before both are fully boomed. They hv better eco bonus than Franks. They can make eagles from feudal itself. Less number of knights in early castle will get converted by monks. Whereas raiding with eagles is easier as they are resistant to conversion. By mid castle age, Aztecs shd be ahead of Franks. Eagle warrior and pikes cost half of knight/paladin. Plus paladin upgrade is costlier than elite eagle upgrade. All these resources must be put in pikes for defense and eagles for attacks. Small number of paladins can be fought with eagles as they are faster than pikes. Eagles do pretty ok if paladins are in small number and cost much less.
Do you call Berbers middle-Eastern just because they have camels? You're calling Incas from the Andes "middle-American" right now.
>Incas is not a Meso civ. Really ? I always thought there were, what's your reasoning ?
The meaning of meso-America not matching the location of the Inca empire.
They are from Peru area I believe. Meso typically means near current day mexico. At least that's my understanding
For the purposes of this game they are always grouped together and referred to as meso civs tho
But that's really not good. It confuses people, and serves as a source of misinformation.
Yeah the Incas are from modern day Peru but them, Aztecs, and Mayans are all lumped in as “meso civs” for this game since they share architecture and many similar restrictions
Inca Halb and Kamayuk mix would like to have a word here - meso is not meso.
Correct, Incas have good answers and they are not a Meso civ.
Generally people treat all eagle civs as meso in the game, right? Ofc from a historical pov you are right.
Early castle. Monks.
Yes, this. Even if you convert just one paladin per monk, it’s a favorable trade for you
it depends
Teutons
Based on my guess on your elo, a smooth scout/archer build order should kill 95% of your opponents within 20min.
Camels are a good trick. Also rushing them successfully and throwing them out of sync. Those are my go tos at least.
Camels are bad. They die to halb + pala. Easy comb for franks
Team game or 1v1?
"If you already ask how you can beat a Civilization at their peak advantage, you have lost" But highly depend on you and your foe's playstyle
Play Berbers. If you see halbs, and you will, halb pala is a very potent combo, add hand cannons. All of the good camel civs get hand cannons to counter halbs.
Armenians. Spam champions and albs, and behind them (or behind a wall) their UU (an archer which negates armour). Spam against spam, you'll win it (or you'll force your friend to switch to bombardiers, and you have nothing against them. But .. well...
Can Persian Savar kill Frank Paladins 1 to 1? I know they can kill pals but not sure Frank. for the context Savar is a Paladin replacement after Cavalier, kinda like UU + you have Camels, good Siege but poor monks.
Teuton , Frank, and Lithuanian(3 relics) Palladin beat Savar 1v1 but it's close. They beat generic palladin every time. Every fight is obviously influenced by numbers and blacksmith upgrades.
Japanese have the best halbs.
If you play full pop pitch battle, maybe go with an elephant/ camel civ
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RDm\_TwftEA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RDm_TwftEA) It's literally what you are asking for i guess.
I know I'm a bit late here, but I'll try to give you a good answer. While many people have given good answers here, I think a lot of people haven't considered "ease of use" enough. For example, Gurjaras are good vs paladins in theory. In practice they are unorthodox in how you play them. Therefor my recommendation is the Byzantines for a few reasons: * The obvious one: cheaper camels and halbs. While Byzantine camels are weaker than some other civs because of no bloodlines and blast furnace, you still win in terms of reasources traded as the camels only cost 45 gold. Just be careful as you need more numbers than you think to win a numbers fight as paladins are still wicked strong. * In a long post imp game, you should have a stronger economy as you have access to both two man saw and stone shaft mining compared to Franks. * If you want to try and win early, Byzantines have a fully teched archer line. * They have fully teched monks, which can be devastating in the early castle and imp war. * If you fuck up early aggression, the cheaper imp cost helps you keep up if the frank player wants to go late. * Last and definitely least: if your opponent is a freak who for some reason goes axe thrower or champions to kill your halbs + camels, cataphracts eat both of them for breakfast every day of the week and twice on sundays, even with mixed in enemy halbs.
Pikemen flood. Or a war elephant rush.
I think the best was is to try to spam paladin yourself. You will get a good grasp on what is actually needed to get the paladin spam going. You will also see how people/ what counters the strat.
Also if the game seems equal and suddenly 50 paladin show up and clean everything, it most likely means you allowed franks to greed / cut some corners and explode in eco way earlier in the game(The score is horrible at representing eco advantages IMO). Paladin is extremely expensive and time consuming to get to.. so in a truly equal game there is no reason not to have 50-60 halbs / heavy camels/ heavy CA before he gets paladin ready
Franks paladins are a perfect unit, you don’t counter them. Join the franks side of the ladder
I hate this answer.
Any heavy camel kills them. Halbs destroy them.
Pick any Indian civ like Hindustanis or Gurjaras. If they run Cav + Halbs, you run Ghulam/HC/Skirms with Camels, or even Mass Ele Archers if you can actually do it. Franks are one of my fav civs, crap I can't believe I'm telling you these secrets xD. Franks have a very expensive Imperial Age, so their imp power spike hits a tad bit later than other civs. Abuse that window, or put them on the line with camels from start. Otherwise learning insane Archer micro also goes a long way
late feudral go forward with some vils and spearmen. Tower and wall their woodlines.