The password shall be hunter. The password may be in all caps. The password may be lowercase. No one ever knows. If dukla is hosting, the password might be something different altogether, in which case I suggest you look at this post.

I also suggest you try finding us in the Agincourt Lobby.

[This message has been edited by Leif Ericson (edited 04-20-2012 @ 07:19 PM).]

Games will be starting in about 15 minutes. Get ready to play!

dukla is a fascist!

apparently I missed a tonne of it, but turnout seemed real good, and a looooott of games played

and even an appearance from the legendary pikeman93!

[This message has been edited by TOAO_DaVe (edited 04-22-2012 @ 07:10 AM).]

I am sorry I couldn't be there. My brother came for a visit, and I think he's a little more important than aok

Great game guys!

After playing Teutons three times on BF, now I learn their true weakness - speed and range!

Chinese opponent raided my base with 40 light cavalry at one point (yes, just light cavalry). Nothing can catch up and kill them, not even paladins. While my paladins were too busy chasing them down, they've already done a good damage to my economy. Needless to say, I lost. If I had something fast like camels or arbalests, that would have been great.

Also, walling off between you and your ally doesn't help your trade too much......

I heard from barneythegreat that his ally walled off between them, and never deleted the wall, even though all game long he was flaring. Eventually, he cut around with trebs.

Teutons have that disadvantage on open maps, but on closed maps, they should be able to hold a gap easily without letting anything in. If light cavalry do get in, garrison the villagers. TC +2 attack will help fight it off. If you really worry, make some BBT in your base. Teutons dominate most civilizations on BF. Koreans and Turks give them trouble, but Koreans and Turks give EVERYONE trouble. BBT, siege onager, and paladin, not to mention hand cannons, heavy scorpions, cannons, and a fast boom on top of it.

Celts are still better on BF overall.

.1111111111111111111111111111

Yes, my 5 Mangudai castles killed dozens of Barney's trade carts.

Pikeman, to play multiplayer, you gotta learn to recognize chats and flares. You were playing fine on BF, but when you're not communicating with your ally, it's tough for any pairing. If you play mostly 1v1s, it's not so much of a problem, but tgs, it really can be. It's just something that takes some getting used to.

In that same game, I think Dave might've broke his keyboard screaming at me. "GUARD YOUR RAMS!!!!!!!" "GET MORE RAMS!!!!!!" "BUILD MORE HUSSARS!!!!!" "STOP BEING A WUSS!!!!!" "31" "31" "31" "31" "31" "31"

Teutons have that disadvantage on open maps, but on closed maps, they should be able to hold a gap easily without letting anything in. If light cavalry do get in, garrison the villagers. TC +2 attack will help fight it off.

Teutons dont have +2 attack for TC.

Whoops. Yeah... I guess I should have built a gate between me and my ally instead. Sorry Barney. I guess that's why I lost. Ran out of gold and had to sell precious stone.

Regarding Elite Teutonic Knights - wow they probably do worse than what I expected. My opponents were Koreans and Mongols (two civs that pwn Teutons), and I had to use only siege onagers before I could get paladins. I guess if the opponent has anything ranged you're better off not producing ETK's, because they're only going to be sitting ducks. Barb - would paladins + hand cannoneers for halbs and camels + siege onager + BBC for buildings be a good combination?

[This message has been edited by pikeman93 (edited 04-22-2012 @ 07:07 PM).]

@pikeman: There is a reason why TK's have low ranged armor, it's their only real weakness, because they are real juggernauts against melee, just like huskarls are the other way around, even if you had enough castles and an economy to allow yourself to pump them, massed archers and scorpions beat them all the way back to Germany.

Teutons' horrible archers don't make it better.

I also don't quite see how ETK's can do so well in melee either. Every single melee unit is faster than ETK's, and whereas it's true that they all lose 1 vs 1 against an ETK, they can simply run past it. I mean, ETK's counter elite mamelukes beautifully, but if 30 elite mamelukes entered your town to kill your villagers and then ran back out your ETK's would only walk after them helplessly.

I only see ETK's good in trash wars and in fast booms (since all castle age units do 1 damage against ETK's) but that's it. In late games ETK's would probably all be replaced by paladins.

Teutons no longer have +2 attack. You are correct. I was mistaken.

Elite Teutonic Knights are great for:

When you are faster than your opponent. They raze a town very fast when there is no military opposition, and they kill most castle age units. They are not necessarily so great later.

Against late imperial armies consisting of:

Paladins, Throwing Axemen, Mamelukes, trash, champions, camels, woad raiders, huskarls, and isolated siege.

Elite Teutonic Knights lose to anything with an attack bonus against them (jaguar warriors, samurai, cataphracts,) or anything with a pierce attack of more than seven. War Wagons and Mangudai fit the second criterion.

Against Mongols, use siege onagers, elite skirmishers, bombard towers, and paladins. Cannons or trebuchets are good too if he is micromanaging siege onagers to avoid everything.

Against Koreans, be faster. Teutons have an excellent boom. Koreans have an inferior boom. They beat everyone on black forest in late imperial anyway, so you don't want to be fighting them then. If you must, then do castle pushing instead of BBT pushing. Their siege onagers outrange Teuton BBTs, as do their BBTs. Castle pushing is expensive, so plan on being faster. Perhaps you might want to do a monk rush.

Teutonic knights are an offensive unit. If you can attack your enemy with plenty of ETKs and prevent your enemy from amassing large amounts or ranged units, castles, or BBTs, your enemy will have difficulty defending against you. Their defensive capabilities are poor.

Your problem was you went ETKs vs Koreans, whose best unit's are WWs and SOnars, both of which really crush ETKs. It wasn't the civ's fault, it wasn't the units fault, it was an issue of scouting and reading your opponent.

Our 3 Civs were Koreans, Mongols, and Chinese. All of whom have a monster UU that does incredibly well vs ETKs (at least when you bother microing them, which I did not).

The next issue was your timing. BarneyTheGreat was fighting through 10 layers of stone walls, so I had time to send my Mangudai over to bail out Leif while he was getting ready. You were right to fall back (although I was wrong to not micro, 11), but you waited too long to try to push again. In the mean time, Barney had broken through the stonewalls, and I had to commit to fight him. With some coordination with your ally, you would've been able to strike before Leif was prepared to fight your units and break through him quickly. Or, an even better idea, would've been to attack me from behind. As bad as I am at BF and Post-Imp armies, Scip was rebuilding and I was struggling to beat massed Paladins. If your ETKs had gone right for him instead of going for Leif, that game was totally winnable for you guys. It would've had the additional advantage of blocking me from any trade (which was already very bad for me).

What ended up happening is that I got to play Barney 1v1, until Scip got his eco built up and bailed me out there. Barney was able to push quite a few times, but Scip was able to save me every time Barney got to a point to beat me. If you would've been attacking me from behind, it would've been an easy win for you guys. It wasn't a civ problem, and while I don't think ETKs were the best unit to have used, it wasn't even a unit problem. It was a tactical and communication problem.

BF is a game that needs a LOT of ally coordination. Doubles, triples, slinging, and finding a weak point are all essential. When you don't communicate with your ally, you don't find out these things and can't capitalize on them.

That's my reading of the game, maybe Dave, Scip, or Leif had a different interpretation, but until Leif was able to get out, I was most worried about ETKs just slow marching through my eco while trying to beat Pals on the other side.