The Rus player can tower def early game. The Zhuge Nu cannot snipe villagers like Long Bows, so no Zhuge Nu are not over tuned, just that players who used to play aggressive need to learn to def like the Chinese did.
^This. People now have to scout Chinese and can't just blindly all-in cheese the Chinese every single game in Age 2. With the TC targeting change this really seems to be a non-issue and people will learn quickly how to defend age 2 chinese pushes. Defensive strategies with walls/towers work really well vs this also cav play to keep the chinese in his base would work as well and I am sure people will find lots more counter-plays in time.
@@helpagames5952 The irony in this game, is Don Artie is known for English Long bow spearmen Ram Rush, and the new guy has done the same to him with Zhuge Nu, but the difference is Zhuge has crap range to maim eco if Don had built outposts and not build so many archers and maybe even a feudal 2nd TC right next to the 1st TC that would have helped. More knights to slap down the rams. In fact Rus should fare one of the best to beat rams early age, since every other civ exept English would be using villagers due to cheap food cost.
@@Tizonwar8 The irony is indeed great! The Archer Ram cheeser can't defend against his own strategy vs units that are generally worse than longbows at said strategy. xD I was also really confused why he just continued to mindlessly spam archers without upgrades instead of just going knights as you said or get some more towers/ a 2nd TC. It is like he didn't want to believe the chinese repeater crossbow unit even exists. The biggest irony here is that at another youtube video of a cast of him he bm'd his opponent saying multiple times that he played poorly defending the archer-ram push by building the wrong units, didn't use his cav mobility enough, didn't target rams with villies and didn't refocus the TC fire. All of those things he did himself now in this game!
@@helpagames5952 I guess to be fair you'd have to play through the worse times as Chinese to know the def Strat well because that was all the Chinese Civ players had every game to hope to survive to castle age.
If Rus scouted and saw Song Dynasty coming, could go castle age. Dynasties are a bit like going age 2.5/3.5/4.5, natural way to respond should be to keep up / stay ahead in tech. Song Dynasty + Blacksmith + Rams is expensive and slow, it shouldnt be taken for granted that you can beat it in age 2.
I think the fast Castle strat that many Rus are doing is a potential option here, as the new Mangonel seems to be a solid counter to massed ranged. Beyond that, I do think the +1 ranged armor is an essential upgrade if your playing against Zheng Nu, you have to ensure they don't get bonus damage against you.
Yes spamming unupgraded Archers vs +1damage China special crossbow repeater unit is definately not the right play. I think all this video shows is that the meta cheese build finally failed and China didn't die age2 like pre-patch every single time. Great stuff really! I mean thats kinda like spamming generic unupgraded MAA vs upgraded HRE MAA and wondering why you lost. ; )
I barely played any China pre patch and since the bufs i gave them a shot and i gotta say they play sooo deem nice so fun to play they are so versatile and strong late game with so many possibilitles like fire lancer rush might be one of the most broken strats in the game you can put 6 stables around the imperial age landmakrs that reduces the cost of dynasty units supervise them with IO's and pop redicilous ammount of lancers in super dupper quick fashion and rush to enemy base. And their best part is that they melt siege units so easily beeing able to catch them in no time.
Zhuge Nu are obviously crazy against unarmoured at the new price point, but with that one ranged armour, horsemen survive 14 bursts in Age II. Obviously significantly less than knights with equal upgrades, which tank 64. But since they almost deal the same damage as a knight with half the cost, more on food that the Rus collect fast and got deer to boot and faster speed to avoid spears and use openings against the Zhuge Nu - wouldn't it be smart to mix some in with your knights? Makes it hard to prioritize the glasscannon horsemen and if you focus fire too much on those horsemen with your mass of Zhuge Nu, you're massively overkilling. Higher damage output for the resources spent and more cav to kill while your archers get free shots in.
Its an interesting idea. The other thing to remember is that with the Rus, food especially gets a "discount" due to the bounty system, so focusing on food units over gold units gives them an economy multiplier as well.
@@minmean3016 the nerf didn't make the unit useless. I guess we just need a pro player to prove that or people will keep treating horses like they're spontaneously doomed now. They take a few less hits, but in a mix with knights, they are harder to focus, they do good damage, they're still cheaper to produce, still do torch damage, and can still be mobile to get in on a backline. I don't think they're the ideal counter against zhuge nu. But in a mixed comp they might be more valuable than we think now.
Not to mention horsemen are actually tankier than knights against spears because 2 horsemen have a lot more hp than 1 knight(310 vs 190) and the knight's armor doesn't matter against spearmen.
idk if anyone has said this before but "Zhuge Nu" is pronounced closer to "joo-geh noo", certainly not "cho-ku nu" . I assume the Zhuge Nu are somehow related to Zhuge Liang (strategist in Three Kingdoms period)
Zhuge are slower with less range. But will shred anything without armor. It does 12 dmg to an archers 5, you can trade so well, if you can catch up / have them with their back against the wall. Tax being useful with the CD reduction and zhuge being affordable now + spear buffs. I think the early knight civs are not going to bully china anymore. However I think HRE (maybe) and English with MAA and LB's will still do very decently. Marching drills will be scary vs zhuge. I think don didn't scout enough. It's a complete role reverse, normally non scouting china gets punished hard xD Maybe he should try walling 4Head
I had already faced a Zhuge rush as English, and I defeated the guy with some effort but yes, MaM does very well because China can only use spears or horses on mele, and both do terrible Against MaM. Here Russ only had his Knights, which is terrible against spears. I feel bad for non-HRE or English mains, watching this must be terrifying.
Yeah zhunge are basicaly archers that get countered harder by armored units but they shred anything with low armor. So probaly vs HRE or English i expect zhunge to not be as effective, especialy since English maa are absolute tanks with unique tech
I do agree that he didn't scout enough. He would have known (or should have known) when China switched into the Song dynasty because the number of enemy landmarks is visible on conquest games, but even so he should have scouted more. Maybe even look to do a little harassment as well.
I'm wondering if the Zhuge Nu buff went too far. Perhaps only the cost decrease, or the damage increase rather than both. Or put the price up by 10 food 10 wood, something like that. I'm happy China have a viable early game strat now but they can't be both an early and late game powerhouse. Perhaps along with a horseman buff a very slight cost increase would put them in line. I also wonder about a speed decrease to make archers able to kite them, but its possible that would ruin their viability entirely.
China feels too strong right now. They made for some interesting games before the patch, because it usually ends up being a struggle to hold on and defend early, but they shine in the late game. Now with the option of age 2 attacks, it just seems like too much. I agree that they shouldn't be able to be both an early and late game powerhouse. All of that being said, I'm a noob at aoe and just started playing, but that's my observation from these casted games
No they should not have buffed spears so much and nerfed horsemen. Zhuge Nu are just an archer side grade and still suck against armor. Problem is knights get hard countered by spears and horsemen suck now. Best option is maa. Go watch vipers video, he massed zhuge and got shrekt by maa even though he got good pressure in age 2. Early maa will shut this composition down completely.
Maybe if he went kremlin instead of golden gate and built a bunch of scouts to harrass and burst the rams he could survive untill he got a mass of horse archers.
@@CullingBlades But the horse archers never have to take a fight, they can just kill villiagers and poke out the zhuge nu from range after mounted precision.
@@CullingBlades You harrass on the map and threaten damage to the other guy's base to keep him pinned. If he leaves, kill workers and harass the army with poke. Your base should have some walls to slow down the Zhuge Nu push and give you more time to harrass while making the push itself less effective when you inevitably have to defend it. You can also scuicide mass scouts on the rams to make the push crazy impractical into any static defence.
@@aidancrowder4911 im going to be straight with you, you have not played enough to know what you are talking about. walls ?? harass ?? when youre getting ram pushed minute 8 ???. the answer to the zhuge push is fast castle into maa and siege, which rus achieve very fast with professional scouts
With the buffed spearmen and Zhuge Nu I think it's made knights less relevant in age 2 for China at least, men at arms seem to tank well though and the spears don't really do that much, so More archers to Zhuge nu with M@A to tank seems to work. At least that's what I've seen.
Don artie didn't have armour upgrade in that first push, so those zhugunu are doing 15 damage a shot instead of 12. might still have lost the fight with the armour upgrade but that is huge
No offense but Don Artie played this rather poorly. Why on earth would you go mass archers vs Chinese post-Winter patch. Did he not read the patch-notes? Reminds me of the previous video with the English Longbowman push where Don Artie bm'd his opponent saying he build the wrong unit and did not use his superior mobility. Goes full-circle in this huh? He blindly went for an archer-ram push (maybe a habit of mostly playing English and/or it being generally OP pre-winter-patch?) with a few knights instead of trying to get to age 3 for Manganel/MAA or going heavy into early knights which would have forced his opponent to build way more spears which he then could have countered with a few archers. He did not take the Chinese special unit into account at all and enabled (even forced) the Chinese to mass it because China was facing mostly archers and not mass knights. Noteably he got the +1ranged armor upgrade way after his initial push too which would have been double important against Chinas special unit due to the 3shots and also never tried to use his superior mobility to harass his opponent nor focus-fired the TC nor pulled villagers to burn the Ram... The main thing I take from this is: Don't try to archer-spam ram rush Chinese in age 2 as China now got a decent answer to that cheese!
Sure in hindsight I'd say mangonels woulda been huge. But he'd need castle for that. Mayne having a wall too? Since they dont do a whole lot to the palisades. Specially since he went archers. U can deal with rams with knights and turtle till u can rebuff in age 3. Idk I play HRE so the turtle is completely different. Fast castle age and wall up. But Russia dont have stone walls.
dont you hate it when because of a buff china has finally some play in feudal and the first time someone pulls it off succsesfully it gets deemed as op?
The reason no one takes your tier list serious is because anyone who's anyone knows until the updates are done nothing is set in stone. I say just give it a rest and wait until balance pushes are relatively done. Thanks for the content mate! Absolute love it.
Bro you talk so fast i checked if the speed was on 1.5x but it wasn't xD Maybe calm down a little, i showed a friend a video or two of you and he said he tried watching it but its way too hectic and stressful to listen to you, no offense but maybe take something away from that. Then you always make that "he is going professional scouts - let's check - *player doesn't get prof scouts*" which is already meme for me when i watch your vids. I enjoy your content and i don't want to be rude but maybe take away something from this and chill down a little. AoE4 is not paced faster than SC2 so theres no need to talk like you can't keep up with the game..
If Zhuge Nu is really buffed too hard, maybe the developer should consider changing the unit from a normally trained unit to a type of unit that can only be summoned limited times in villages, TC, and maybe outpost in defensive situations, similar to how militia and sentry work in AOE3. It is more historically accurate (historically repeating crossbow was a type of weapon preferred by civilians and militias as a type of home defense weapon) and also more interesting give something unique to each civ.
I think the only real counter to zhuge nu is man at arms. Mangonels or any other seige simply can not compete with clocktowner. If this stratege gets China to the S tier, we could probably see the MAA civs to be prepelled to A tier, like HRE and dehli. How ironic that they actually got nerfed XD
To be honest noone forced Don Artie to throw his army and a ram away in a push. If he stayed defensive get one or 2 towers and aged up he would have been fine. Not like archer units gonna raze your base. (as TC can focusfire now) Or if he spammed knights and kept them near chinas base the chinese could not have even gone out to push...
With an imperial official that would be 1,6 seconds extra. And nearly all china players open with one. I agree though that the training time reduction ontop of the cost reduction was kinda overkill.
The fact they buffed china this hard when they were already the best late game civ before the patch is very concerning for the future balance of this game
Zhuge Nu now need a nerf lol. Knights have a really hard counter now in spears and in castle the crossbows shred knights now. Can't give a civ a fuedal ranged unit that also does so well against knights. Not balanced. And Zhuge Nu are dirt cheap the fact that it requires gold doesnt change anything.
@@minmean3016 100% the horsemen didn't need a nerf but knights in particular should be a hard counter to Zhuge Nu akin to how they do against archers. Maybe they should be ever so slightly better than archers against knights but this is busted. This guy probably could've just spammed them without any spears at all and still won.
They're still slower with lower attack range. And require 2 landmarks with a decent cost. They eat into 3 resources as well. Idk how other civs play vs the english, but it'd be a good idea to look for answers out of that matchup experience. Just theorizing, but spearmen and knights might be a better combo than archers + knights. Zhuge have a tendency to overkill, if they move before all shots are out it messes with their next attack as well. So pressuring them with faster, mass bodies (spearmen also do more dmg vs them than archers) might be the way. Or partial walling and defensive buildings, into fast castle (which has been nearly any china matchup before the patch). Use the knights to eco herass for kills or eco downtime since zhuge eat up 3 resources. Getting Imperial official kills for 1 - 1,5 knights is a great trade for the knights. Also: scout scout scout.
@@SamuraiHonor okay the fact they require 3 resources doesn't matter at all they're still relatively cheap. All the resources gather at about the same rate in this game. Doesn't matter. And the slower movement speed and lower attack range are almost a non factor when talking about how they do against knights, any player worth mentioning in this conversation has a front line so we're talking about how they do in the backline vs how archers do. And it's hilarious at the moment. Yes scouts are great but with how good china's late game is you can't also give them a fuedal that almost negates knights.
The Spear buff would've been a sufficient Horseman nerf in itself. The devs made a mistake of nerfing their health AND buffing their counter, which results in a massive power shift. That's why I think it's better with smaller changes.
What I feared about cheaper Zhuge Nu and which seems to have happened is that China never really has a reason to produce archers anymore and skipping Song has become very, very unattractive. I'm afraid it becomes like the landmarks of some civs, where there is a clear optimal way you almost always want to take.
I don't see a reason to skip Song Dynasty. Its the best early to mid game power spike the Chinese get and now with the better Chu Ko Nu i see no reason to skip it... Don't forget that you technically age twice in order to get the the ability to train them. Most civs can get +1 armor to their units with the same resources or save for fast castle to MAA that hard counter the Chu Ko Nu...
@@SamuraiHonor Not really though. China attacked more than 12 minutes into the game and brought a ram. The Kremlin might be more helpful against a fast rushing Longbow spam than using your Golden Gate to buy arrow slits on your Wooden Fortresses; but against a rather slow Feudal push like massed Zhuge Nu + spears + ram, I'd rather pull a Naked Fast Castle with the Golden Gate.
@@Muenni aye, I was being a bit comical about landmarks being skipped. And as a china player being told forever to "just turtle" while enduring these kinds of attacks from nearly every civ. What you suggested probably is the smartest thing to do. It's been my personal china standard strat for a long time too.
@@Muenni Lets be honest here though. The chinese push only happened because of the failed RUS push. There was 0 reason for the Rus to do this cheeky (and blindly executed) archer-ram cheese. he could have easily gotten to age 3 before the chinese push and even if he didn't his units would have been more than enough to defend if he wouldn't have thrown them all away in a push where he had 0 ranged armor vs chinese special unit with +1ranged attack... Archer units do nearly nothing to buildings and you can targetfire your TC so a ram in your base is not that scary. He basically forced the chinese to spam these units because he was endlessly spamming archers plus a few knights. If he would have spammed knights with a few archers plus the +1ranged armor upgrade or gone age3 this could have gone very differently I feel...
don went for ram push timing and lost the fight... dont think this is a game to judge chinas strength by, are they stronger tier 2? ofc.... but don shooting himself in the foot on this one has to be considered, and makes it impossible to conclude anything from this game xd
@@18Jurado Every armored unit (if you have +ranged armor as they do 3 shot bursts which he didn't have in this game), manganels, outposts, walls, cav harrass... Need more? ;$ @Blottingpaper Getting to castle is a viable counter because they cannot really hard-push your base with archer units. All you need is build outposts/walls and defend until you get to castle or spam horseman and abuse his low speed and harrass his base so he can't really move out... (rams are not that much of an issue as pre-patch as you can targetfire your TC now which shreds non-armored units...)
@@MrJColeman1987 early men at arms destroy this combo but I don’t think rus get early maa. He would have to rush castle which is what the China men used to have to do to counter knights. Ironic huh.
China and Mongol have always been in contention for that number 1 meta spot. IDK why Delhi got nerfed when those two were the ones being a bit too powerful.
This is your definition of nothing he could do? He didn't even scout properly and went for a blind archer-ram all in which get hardcountered by the chinese special unit and ontop of that got the greedy economic landmarks and build no defensive structures to hold off the chinese counter-push. Then he kept on spamming archers eventhough he was already getting countered and never even tried to switch to a workable unit-composition and on top of that for some reason he even kept on pushing arrogantly (not harrassing but actually pushing for a battle) after getting his whole army wiped already with the same unit composition! He didn't respect the chinese age2 army whatsoever and thus lost justified. Its like trying to push with unupgraded generic MAA vs HRE fully upgraded MAA in age 3 and then saying "well guess HRE is just op there was nothing that could have been done differently!" when you get slapped hard.
Man, Chinese are so over tuned and they have so many good unique units and buildings. I don't see how any other civ is better than them. Their only downfall was early game and that is mostly taken away with the Zhuge Nu buffs. They're so strong now. Springalds are still op and Chinese have the best, or second best maybe to Rus, and they have nest of bees which are just much better Mangos.
Wrong. NoB is a worse version of mango. Moreover, in age II Chinese has no counter to English Lbs + MAA. Chinese late game is pretty questionable too as their NoB, Cavs and MAA are all weaker than avg
You're kidding right Knights are incredibly tanky, if anything they need a nerf. Zhuge Nu need to be scaled back, they got buffed way too hard, that's all there is to take from this
Knights are still OP if anything. Noone forces you to charge face-first into spearman who can't possibly catch you. Horseman need a buff now that I would agree with but Knights? oO Does it feel bad that they aren't unkillable Tanks anymore? Historically Cavalry died like flies when frontally charging pike formations (english vs scottish i.e.). They still 2shot Villagers and still are nearly unharmed by TC fire. They still shred any unit except for their actual counters spearman and x-bows and are exceptional harrass units and their HP and damage output is massive. Maybe now people need to use Cavalry more like it was used in real life. Charge in at a flank, fight for a bit, if the formation turns to fight the knights pull out, reform, charge again. Rinse and repeat. Instead of just autoattacking into enemy formations and killing everyone with 0 micro like it was before... Hammer and Anvil tactics work with infantry taking the frontal charge and cavalry acting as the hammer coming form the rear or at least the sides.. Right now everyone uses the cavalry as both hammer and anvil by just facecharging everything and actually winning with that silly tactic.
I don't agree with that opinion. I think his titles tend to give an idea of what the match is about and why to watch it. If the title was literally "Commentary of #52 Don (Rus) vs #113 400 (China)", I'm far less inclined to watch.
what counters this age 2? this seems extremely broken- on top of all the protection and population from the villages, fast building, horsemen being nerfed, spears getting buffed... not to mention the health on siege units that's practically unbeatable late game rus are in a really bad spot which is sad. Mongols and Chinese need nerfs asap
Towers and Walls really. Archers are really bad at torching and they have low hp and no armor which makes garrisoned towers or even arrowslit upgrades exteremely cost-effective at defending vs the chinese special unit. Or keep cavalry near his base so he can't move out without risking to lose part of his eco...
The speed you churn out contents is insane, tq
I think he mostly cuts live streams, right?
@@RDR911 yes. He doesn't edit the videos
@@RDR911 he casts during streams and uploads, it's smart.
'400茶了，发东西‘ means ' it's 400 export now, please send a shipment from your consulate’ yeah, he was also a AOE3 player in chinese community
你确定吗？我是看不懂他的名字在表达什么，是有什么梗吗？
@@RongDirection 应该是AOE3语音的梗，猜的
@@RongDirection 应该就是 AOE3的梗吧。。。3里面亚洲国家的“出口商品”资源的图标就是个茶叶，攒够了可以在领馆建筑里买建筑或者军队之类的船运。
@@RongDirection 帝国3的亚洲国家有一个叫茶叶的资源,当一般攒够400可以在领事馆用来出兵,但是我打的时候老是忘记结果被人暴打,一气之下把名字改了想着这样能提醒自己记得用茶叶,最骚的是改了之后还是忘
I laugh when I roughly translate it as "400 goods here, send the goods!".
The Rus player can tower def early game. The Zhuge Nu cannot snipe villagers like Long Bows, so no Zhuge Nu are not over tuned, just that players who used to play aggressive need to learn to def like the Chinese did.
^This^
^This. People now have to scout Chinese and can't just blindly all-in cheese the Chinese every single game in Age 2. With the TC targeting change this really seems to be a non-issue and people will learn quickly how to defend age 2 chinese pushes. Defensive strategies with walls/towers work really well vs this also cav play to keep the chinese in his base would work as well and I am sure people will find lots more counter-plays in time.
@@helpagames5952 The irony in this game, is Don Artie is known for English Long bow spearmen Ram Rush, and the new guy has done the same to him with Zhuge Nu, but the difference is Zhuge has crap range to maim eco if Don had built outposts and not build so many archers and maybe even a feudal 2nd TC right next to the 1st TC that would have helped. More knights to slap down the rams. In fact Rus should fare one of the best to beat rams early age, since every other civ exept English would be using villagers due to cheap food cost.
@@Tizonwar8 The irony is indeed great! The Archer Ram cheeser can't defend against his own strategy vs units that are generally worse than longbows at said strategy. xD
I was also really confused why he just continued to mindlessly spam archers without upgrades instead of just going knights as you said or get some more towers/ a 2nd TC. It is like he didn't want to believe the chinese repeater crossbow unit even exists. The biggest irony here is that at another youtube video of a cast of him he bm'd his opponent saying multiple times that he played poorly defending the archer-ram push by building the wrong units, didn't use his cav mobility enough, didn't target rams with villies and didn't refocus the TC fire. All of those things he did himself now in this game!
@@helpagames5952 I guess to be fair you'd have to play through the worse times as Chinese to know the def Strat well because that was all the Chinese Civ players had every game to hope to survive to castle age.
Everytime the cinematic mode is activated, I think the game ended
I thought it was only me
If Rus scouted and saw Song Dynasty coming, could go castle age. Dynasties are a bit like going age 2.5/3.5/4.5, natural way to respond should be to keep up / stay ahead in tech. Song Dynasty + Blacksmith + Rams is expensive and slow, it shouldnt be taken for granted that you can beat it in age 2.
I think the fast Castle strat that many Rus are doing is a potential option here, as the new Mangonel seems to be a solid counter to massed ranged. Beyond that, I do think the +1 ranged armor is an essential upgrade if your playing against Zheng Nu, you have to ensure they don't get bonus damage against you.
Yes spamming unupgraded Archers vs +1damage China special crossbow repeater unit is definately not the right play. I think all this video shows is that the meta cheese build finally failed and China didn't die age2 like pre-patch every single time. Great stuff really! I mean thats kinda like spamming generic unupgraded MAA vs upgraded HRE MAA and wondering why you lost. ; )
I don't know what you did, Drongo, but your videos look much better than they did before. The clarity is much higher.
I barely played any China pre patch and since the bufs i gave them a shot and i gotta say they play sooo deem nice so fun to play they are so versatile and strong late game with so many possibilitles like fire lancer rush might be one of the most broken strats in the game you can put 6 stables around the imperial age landmakrs that reduces the cost of dynasty units supervise them with IO's and pop redicilous ammount of lancers in super dupper quick fashion and rush to enemy base. And their best part is that they melt siege units so easily beeing able to catch them in no time.
0:20 His name means "we have 400 tea(Export), send something quickly! ". From the Age of Empires 3.
For what it’s worth, Drongo, I like how you say “haych” and when you talk about civ tiers! Have a nice day and thank you for the great content!
Zhuge Nu are obviously crazy against unarmoured at the new price point, but with that one ranged armour, horsemen survive 14 bursts in Age II. Obviously significantly less than knights with equal upgrades, which tank 64. But since they almost deal the same damage as a knight with half the cost, more on food that the Rus collect fast and got deer to boot and faster speed to avoid spears and use openings against the Zhuge Nu - wouldn't it be smart to mix some in with your knights?
Makes it hard to prioritize the glasscannon horsemen and if you focus fire too much on those horsemen with your mass of Zhuge Nu, you're massively overkilling. Higher damage output for the resources spent and more cav to kill while your archers get free shots in.
i’d do that but the damn horseman nerf
Its an interesting idea. The other thing to remember is that with the Rus, food especially gets a "discount" due to the bounty system, so focusing on food units over gold units gives them an economy multiplier as well.
@@travisdunlap4526 Yeah, absolutely, even more so when you can bring in that many hunts.
@@minmean3016 the nerf didn't make the unit useless. I guess we just need a pro player to prove that or people will keep treating horses like they're spontaneously doomed now.
They take a few less hits, but in a mix with knights, they are harder to focus, they do good damage, they're still cheaper to produce, still do torch damage, and can still be mobile to get in on a backline. I don't think they're the ideal counter against zhuge nu. But in a mixed comp they might be more valuable than we think now.
Not to mention horsemen are actually tankier than knights against spears because 2 horsemen have a lot more hp than 1 knight(310 vs 190) and the knight's armor doesn't matter against spearmen.
The century of humiliation has ended.
idk if anyone has said this before but "Zhuge Nu" is pronounced closer to "joo-geh noo", certainly not "cho-ku nu" . I assume the Zhuge Nu are somehow related to Zhuge Liang (strategist in Three Kingdoms period)
Zhuge are slower with less range. But will shred anything without armor. It does 12 dmg to an archers 5, you can trade so well, if you can catch up / have them with their back against the wall.
Tax being useful with the CD reduction and zhuge being affordable now + spear buffs.
I think the early knight civs are not going to bully china anymore.
However I think HRE (maybe) and English with MAA and LB's will still do very decently. Marching drills will be scary vs zhuge.
I think don didn't scout enough.
It's a complete role reverse, normally non scouting china gets punished hard xD
Maybe he should try walling 4Head
I had already faced a Zhuge rush as English, and I defeated the guy with some effort but yes, MaM does very well because China can only use spears or horses on mele, and both do terrible Against MaM. Here Russ only had his Knights, which is terrible against spears. I feel bad for non-HRE or English mains, watching this must be terrifying.
Have you ever seen what they can do on a wall? HO BOI!
Yeah zhunge are basicaly archers that get countered harder by armored units but they shred anything with low armor. So probaly vs HRE or English i expect zhunge to not be as effective, especialy since English maa are absolute tanks with unique tech
I do agree that he didn't scout enough. He would have known (or should have known) when China switched into the Song dynasty because the number of enemy landmarks is visible on conquest games, but even so he should have scouted more. Maybe even look to do a little harassment as well.
no such thing as bullyx or etc
Great video, Is there a way to watch this replay myself?
I'm wondering if the Zhuge Nu buff went too far. Perhaps only the cost decrease, or the damage increase rather than both. Or put the price up by 10 food 10 wood, something like that. I'm happy China have a viable early game strat now but they can't be both an early and late game powerhouse. Perhaps along with a horseman buff a very slight cost increase would put them in line. I also wonder about a speed decrease to make archers able to kite them, but its possible that would ruin their viability entirely.
No, there is no damage increase.
China feels too strong right now. They made for some interesting games before the patch, because it usually ends up being a struggle to hold on and defend early, but they shine in the late game. Now with the option of age 2 attacks, it just seems like too much. I agree that they shouldn't be able to be both an early and late game powerhouse. All of that being said, I'm a noob at aoe and just started playing, but that's my observation from these casted games
No they should not have buffed spears so much and nerfed horsemen. Zhuge Nu are just an archer side grade and still suck against armor. Problem is knights get hard countered by spears and horsemen suck now. Best option is maa. Go watch vipers video, he massed zhuge and got shrekt by maa even though he got good pressure in age 2. Early maa will shut this composition down completely.
Lol the whole cinematic mode thinking gg happened has been confusing me, thanks for pointing it out lmao
Dude, you're ridiculously entertaining!
Today's ABC how to youtube -> Claim anything AND everything is busted in the thumbnail :)
dont forget a big red arrow
@@stixy3600 preferably multiple red arrows!
Maybe if he went kremlin instead of golden gate and built a bunch of scouts to harrass and burst the rams he could survive untill he got a mass of horse archers.
horse archers are shit against zhuge nu repeaters they melt anything non armored
@@CullingBlades But the horse archers never have to take a fight, they can just kill villiagers and poke out the zhuge nu from range after mounted precision.
@@aidancrowder4911 how can you not take a fight when zhuge nu mass is in your base pushing with rams ???
@@CullingBlades You harrass on the map and threaten damage to the other guy's base to keep him pinned. If he leaves, kill workers and harass the army with poke. Your base should have some walls to slow down the Zhuge Nu push and give you more time to harrass while making the push itself less effective when you inevitably have to defend it. You can also scuicide mass scouts on the rams to make the push crazy impractical into any static defence.
@@aidancrowder4911 im going to be straight with you, you have not played enough to know what you are talking about. walls ?? harass ?? when youre getting ram pushed minute 8 ???. the answer to the zhuge push is fast castle into maa and siege, which rus achieve very fast with professional scouts
"time to check for a new upload". Yep, there it is
Does the +1 damage get applied to each shot of the burst? So it's actually +3!!!!?
Yes that is the case indeed! Which makes me question why DonArtie didn't get +1ranged armor before he pushed. Poorly played really.
With the buffed spearmen and Zhuge Nu I think it's made knights less relevant in age 2 for China at least, men at arms seem to tank well though and the spears don't really do that much, so More archers to Zhuge nu with M@A to tank seems to work. At least that's what I've seen.
Feels so good to do this strat to mongols. I'm sure they were bummed I was outproducing them as feudal china on units vs the ovu double production.
as a mongol main im salty reading this
Sir, how to observe like this in game? Is this tourney? Rank is not release but i see the rank number on it
Drongo, I noticed the Chine buffed with Chu-ko-nu and I discover that English MAA + mangonels + springales is a nice combo to win the new china meta
Don artie didn't have armour upgrade in that first push, so those zhugunu are doing 15 damage a shot instead of 12. might still have lost the fight with the armour upgrade but that is huge
Can you post build order for the Chinese?
I'd love to see some more pov gameplay from you Mate
what happened to koreans, turks and the celts? why are there so few civs compared to aoe2 or 3?
No offense but Don Artie played this rather poorly. Why on earth would you go mass archers vs Chinese post-Winter patch. Did he not read the patch-notes? Reminds me of the previous video with the English Longbowman push where Don Artie bm'd his opponent saying he build the wrong unit and did not use his superior mobility. Goes full-circle in this huh?
He blindly went for an archer-ram push (maybe a habit of mostly playing English and/or it being generally OP pre-winter-patch?) with a few knights instead of trying to get to age 3 for Manganel/MAA or going heavy into early knights which would have forced his opponent to build way more spears which he then could have countered with a few archers.
He did not take the Chinese special unit into account at all and enabled (even forced) the Chinese to mass it because China was facing mostly archers and not mass knights. Noteably he got the +1ranged armor upgrade way after his initial push too which would have been double important against Chinas special unit due to the 3shots and also never tried to use his superior mobility to harass his opponent nor focus-fired the TC nor pulled villagers to burn the Ram...
The main thing I take from this is: Don't try to archer-spam ram rush Chinese in age 2 as China now got a decent answer to that cheese!
Sure in hindsight I'd say mangonels woulda been huge. But he'd need castle for that. Mayne having a wall too? Since they dont do a whole lot to the palisades. Specially since he went archers. U can deal with rams with knights and turtle till u can rebuff in age 3.
Idk I play HRE so the turtle is completely different. Fast castle age and wall up. But Russia dont have stone walls.
dont you hate it when because of a buff china has finally some play in feudal and the first time someone pulls it off succsesfully it gets deemed as op?
The reason no one takes your tier list serious is because anyone who's anyone knows until the updates are done nothing is set in stone. I say just give it a rest and wait until balance pushes are relatively done. Thanks for the content mate! Absolute love it.
raiding the opponent when being raided is the good strat. removes the focus on the main battle
Nice to see China be actually playable against stronger factions
tax is a meme, you can never collect the amount you generate better off supervising buildings
its good for push to second age tho
Thanks for the commentary
Hey Drongo what's with the lack of content lately?
Just started playing on my 8gb ram laptop, still very excited 😊
They should do unit production and worker killed tab as well.
Bro you talk so fast i checked if the speed was on 1.5x but it wasn't xD
Maybe calm down a little, i showed a friend a video or two of you and he said he tried watching it but its way too hectic and stressful to listen to you, no offense but maybe take something away from that.
Then you always make that "he is going professional scouts - let's check - *player doesn't get prof scouts*" which is already meme for me when i watch your vids.
I enjoy your content and i don't want to be rude but maybe take away something from this and chill down a little. AoE4 is not paced faster than SC2 so theres no need to talk like you can't keep up with the game..
If Zhuge Nu is really buffed too hard, maybe the developer should consider changing the unit from a normally trained unit to a type of unit that can only be summoned limited times in villages, TC, and maybe outpost in defensive situations, similar to how militia and sentry work in AOE3. It is more historically accurate (historically repeating crossbow was a type of weapon preferred by civilians and militias as a type of home defense weapon) and also more interesting give something unique to each civ.
Maybe if he picked a different civ Nd made man at arms
Is there a reason you are only casting?
He should have tried going fast castle. Maa would shred the Zhu get nu
I think the only real counter to zhuge nu is man at arms. Mangonels or any other seige simply can not compete with clocktowner. If this stratege gets China to the S tier, we could probably see the MAA civs to be prepelled to A tier, like HRE and dehli. How ironic that they actually got nerfed XD
Delhi will never be more than D tier with current patch
It seems that with some civs there isn't much you can do against Zhuge Nu spam
To be honest noone forced Don Artie to throw his army and a ram away in a push. If he stayed defensive get one or 2 towers and aged up he would have been fine. Not like archer units gonna raze your base. (as TC can focusfire now) Or if he spammed knights and kept them near chinas base the chinese could not have even gone out to push...
They need to change those lines at the edge of the map they shouldn't hide units.
Soooo... anyone wrote down that sweet sweet chinese build order ?
If they gave the repeaters explosive tips,....would that make them OP?🙃👍
he could of deffently built more outposts and stack them with archers
400 is a pretty high level aoe3 player he is 1700 to 1800 elo
i love when you talk about tier stuff, dont stop it!
Mate it's not choke nu, chuge nu, chokonu, or whatever else you said lol. Look up the pronunciation for Zhōng.
Everyone crying about how spears are too strong when they have always been the counter to horse...
+5 second for produce Zhuge Nu will fix this problem.
With an imperial official that would be 1,6 seconds extra.
And nearly all china players open with one.
I agree though that the training time reduction ontop of the cost reduction was kinda overkill.
Seems like spears and horsemen changes weren't that good. I like the Chinese updates however.
Social credit +64
The fact they buffed china this hard when they were already the best late game civ before the patch is very concerning for the future balance of this game
it doesnt matter that they were the best late game civ if they never got to see imperial
China is a bit broken now, I get it they need a buff but them nerf their defensive buildings now they are a Jack or all trades...
Zhuge Nu now need a nerf lol. Knights have a really hard counter now in spears and in castle the crossbows shred knights now. Can't give a civ a fuedal ranged unit that also does so well against knights. Not balanced. And Zhuge Nu are dirt cheap the fact that it requires gold doesnt change anything.
it’s really about the horseman nerf that came out of nowhere
@@minmean3016 nah they were too tanky at the beginning. They could do with an armoured tech buff or melee sword or something tho
@@minmean3016 100% the horsemen didn't need a nerf but knights in particular should be a hard counter to Zhuge Nu akin to how they do against archers. Maybe they should be ever so slightly better than archers against knights but this is busted. This guy probably could've just spammed them without any spears at all and still won.
They're still slower with lower attack range. And require 2 landmarks with a decent cost.
They eat into 3 resources as well.
Idk how other civs play vs the english, but it'd be a good idea to look for answers out of that matchup experience.
Just theorizing, but spearmen and knights might be a better combo than archers + knights.
Zhuge have a tendency to overkill, if they move before all shots are out it messes with their next attack as well. So pressuring them with faster, mass bodies (spearmen also do more dmg vs them than archers) might be the way.
Or partial walling and defensive buildings, into fast castle (which has been nearly any china matchup before the patch).
Use the knights to eco herass for kills or eco downtime since zhuge eat up 3 resources. Getting Imperial official kills for 1 - 1,5 knights is a great trade for the knights.
Also: scout scout scout.
@@SamuraiHonor okay the fact they require 3 resources doesn't matter at all they're still relatively cheap. All the resources gather at about the same rate in this game. Doesn't matter. And the slower movement speed and lower attack range are almost a non factor when talking about how they do against knights, any player worth mentioning in this conversation has a front line so we're talking about how they do in the backline vs how archers do. And it's hilarious at the moment. Yes scouts are great but with how good china's late game is you can't also give them a fuedal that almost negates knights.
“Zhoo-Gay Noo” not “Choka-Noo”
China used his unique things. Don could have done the same. Towers and constant horse raid.
im loving Haitch-pee
China : "Should we ban this game?"
Horseman are supposed to be tough. Those spears are too dangerous. That buff is over powered if you ask me.
The Spear buff would've been a sufficient Horseman nerf in itself. The devs made a mistake of nerfing their health AND buffing their counter, which results in a massive power shift. That's why I think it's better with smaller changes.
Spearmen are supposed to beat horesmen, look at history you'll see
GG, china looks strong, but that's fine. mass nests of bees are much harder to kill
Zhuge nu don't seem be the problem. It is the speermen that are now way too strong against cavalry.
Build the kremlin vs New China
tight build order from the chinese player
They are not called cho ku nu ;)
What I feared about cheaper Zhuge Nu and which seems to have happened is that China never really has a reason to produce archers anymore and skipping Song has become very, very unattractive. I'm afraid it becomes like the landmarks of some civs, where there is a clear optimal way you almost always want to take.
Well ironically, maybe a kremlin would've helped the Rus out here ;D
I don't see a reason to skip Song Dynasty. Its the best early to mid game power spike the Chinese get and now with the better Chu Ko Nu i see no reason to skip it... Don't forget that you technically age twice in order to get the the ability to train them. Most civs can get +1 armor to their units with the same resources or save for fast castle to MAA that hard counter the Chu Ko Nu...
@@SamuraiHonor Not really though. China attacked more than 12 minutes into the game and brought a ram. The Kremlin might be more helpful against a fast rushing Longbow spam than using your Golden Gate to buy arrow slits on your Wooden Fortresses; but against a rather slow Feudal push like massed Zhuge Nu + spears + ram, I'd rather pull a Naked Fast Castle with the Golden Gate.
@@Muenni aye, I was being a bit comical about landmarks being skipped.
And as a china player being told forever to "just turtle" while enduring these kinds of attacks from nearly every civ.
What you suggested probably is the smartest thing to do. It's been my personal china standard strat for a long time too.
@@Muenni Lets be honest here though. The chinese push only happened because of the failed RUS push. There was 0 reason for the Rus to do this cheeky (and blindly executed) archer-ram cheese. he could have easily gotten to age 3 before the chinese push and even if he didn't his units would have been more than enough to defend if he wouldn't have thrown them all away in a push where he had 0 ranged armor vs chinese special unit with +1ranged attack...
Archer units do nearly nothing to buildings and you can targetfire your TC so a ram in your base is not that scary. He basically forced the chinese to spam these units because he was endlessly spamming archers plus a few knights. If he would have spammed knights with a few archers plus the +1ranged armor upgrade or gone age3 this could have gone very differently I feel...
don went for ram push timing and lost the fight... dont think this is a game to judge chinas strength by, are they stronger tier 2? ofc.... but don shooting himself in the foot on this one has to be considered, and makes it impossible to conclude anything from this game xd
Wheelbarrow isn't all that essential for the Chinese as it decreases their drop off rate, meaning you get less tax gold
Quick relic, nerf China before people can find reasonable counters already present in the game!
so? which ones?
the factions without armoured units in age 2 the only reasonable response is to get to castle. That's not really a counter.
@@18Jurado Every armored unit (if you have +ranged armor as they do 3 shot bursts which he didn't have in this game), manganels, outposts, walls, cav harrass... Need more? ;$
@Blottingpaper Getting to castle is a viable counter because they cannot really hard-push your base with archer units. All you need is build outposts/walls and defend until you get to castle or spam horseman and abuse his low speed and harrass his base so he can't really move out... (rams are not that much of an issue as pre-patch as you can targetfire your TC now which shreds non-armored units...)
really feel like men at arms would have done quite a lot
@@MrJColeman1987 early men at arms destroy this combo but I don’t think rus get early maa. He would have to rush castle which is what the China men used to have to do to counter knights. Ironic huh.
china has actully runied the game
In om tripp,and he cannot.
It is pronounced as "ju-ger-nu". nice vid! im struggling against them. zz
China and Mongol have always been in contention for that number 1 meta spot. IDK why Delhi got nerfed when those two were the ones being a bit too powerful.
China will never be too strong I killed a whole team of 4 in team
Match with mass fire lancers lmao 🤣
This looked disgusting. big F for Don, nothing he could do. I think china was good and fun as a Big Boom nation. it shouldnt be this stong early on.
This is your definition of nothing he could do? He didn't even scout properly and went for a blind archer-ram all in which get hardcountered by the chinese special unit and ontop of that got the greedy economic landmarks and build no defensive structures to hold off the chinese counter-push. Then he kept on spamming archers eventhough he was already getting countered and never even tried to switch to a workable unit-composition and on top of that for some reason he even kept on pushing arrogantly (not harrassing but actually pushing for a battle) after getting his whole army wiped already with the same unit composition! He didn't respect the chinese age2 army whatsoever and thus lost justified.
Its like trying to push with unupgraded generic MAA vs HRE fully upgraded MAA in age 3 and then saying "well guess HRE is just op there was nothing that could have been done differently!" when you get slapped hard.
Man, Chinese are so over tuned and they have so many good unique units and buildings. I don't see how any other civ is better than them. Their only downfall was early game and that is mostly taken away with the Zhuge Nu buffs. They're so strong now. Springalds are still op and Chinese have the best, or second best maybe to Rus, and they have nest of bees which are just much better Mangos.
Wrong. NoB is a worse version of mango. Moreover, in age II Chinese has no counter to English Lbs + MAA. Chinese late game is pretty questionable too as their NoB, Cavs and MAA are all weaker than avg
Seems overpowered
China is too strong now imo since the spear buff helps them the most
Great content... SUB
Knights need a huge buff, they are too expensive and too slow to build for them to be as weak as they are
You're kidding right
Knights are incredibly tanky, if anything they need a nerf. Zhuge Nu need to be scaled back, they got buffed way too hard, that's all there is to take from this
Knights are still OP if anything. Noone forces you to charge face-first into spearman who can't possibly catch you. Horseman need a buff now that I would agree with but Knights? oO Does it feel bad that they aren't unkillable Tanks anymore? Historically Cavalry died like flies when frontally charging pike formations (english vs scottish i.e.).
They still 2shot Villagers and still are nearly unharmed by TC fire. They still shred any unit except for their actual counters spearman and x-bows and are exceptional harrass units and their HP and damage output is massive.
Maybe now people need to use Cavalry more like it was used in real life. Charge in at a flank, fight for a bit, if the formation turns to fight the knights pull out, reform, charge again. Rinse and repeat. Instead of just autoattacking into enemy formations and killing everyone with 0 micro like it was before... Hammer and Anvil tactics work with infantry taking the frontal charge and cavalry acting as the hammer coming form the rear or at least the sides.. Right now everyone uses the cavalry as both hammer and anvil by just facecharging everything and actually winning with that silly tactic.
God bless y'all and Zhuge Nu. Christ is good
Congrats Chinese mains.
No, it’s just you making crappy clickbait titles like always.
I don't agree with that opinion. I think his titles tend to give an idea of what the match is about and why to watch it. If the title was literally "Commentary of #52 Don (Rus) vs #113 400 (China)", I'm far less inclined to watch.
just saying
Taiwan No. 1
what counters this age 2? this seems extremely broken- on top of all the protection and population from the villages, fast building, horsemen being nerfed, spears getting buffed... not to mention the health on siege units that's practically unbeatable late game
rus are in a really bad spot which is sad. Mongols and Chinese need nerfs asap
Towers and Walls really. Archers are really bad at torching and they have low hp and no armor which makes garrisoned towers or even arrowslit upgrades exteremely cost-effective at defending vs the chinese special unit. Or keep cavalry near his base so he can't move out without risking to lose part of his eco...
CHINA NUMBER ONE
CHYNA#1
First?
Congratulations
@@ElSolRacNauj I’d like to thank my mom, my dad, my dog, and my cat.
@@SVPD-LR-114 I would also like to thank your mom
@@SVPD-LR-114 *Slow clap*
@@humanbeing2730 for last night?