Micro help

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Korea South jj0823
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Micro help

Post by jj0823 »

Hi Esocks

How are you supposed to micro bow/pike compositions? I assume you're not supposed to run the pikes into musks and get them killed, but it still seems like my pikes get microed down by musks too fast to beat down cav. I've also been trying to do LB/pike, and that seems even harder because of LB animations.

Also unrelated, what are you supposed to do against heavy pressure civs like Russia and Sioux, as a civ like the Brits? A cav semi + tower and minutemen seems to work against Russia's initial pressure, but on RE maps it seems impossible to defend my vils from BR/Axe Riders while they're trying to eat way unbalanced hunts. Most infantry is too slow to kill them, and they just keep racking up free vill kills. If you leave 5 pike around your hunts, they just mass bow riders and kill them anyways.

I seem to have a lot of trouble in big battles, any micro tips in general for even a musk huss comp would help me, I hate losing to lame civs.
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Re: Micro help

Post by tedere12 »

with xbow pike you kite the xbow back and split the pikes in 2 groups (left and right) and come in with them when hussars try to engage, you try to focus down the heavy infantry unless there is only a few cav remaining, in which case you can kill the cav and then snare the musks with the pikes. With lb pike I like to put pikes in cover mode and focus down cav with lb.
Thats my opinion
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Re: Micro help

Post by Gendarme »

Musk/huss almost always beats xbow/pike with equal armies and micro, unless the environmemt is unsuitable for the pathing of the hussars (@lordraphael has nightmares about this), or allows the xbows to take advantage of their range more than usual.

This is mostly due to the awkwardness of pikemen. To be useful, they need to stand between the xbows and the enemy army, and since they are very squishy, they drop dead easily, often before even having time to do any major damage to the hussars (the hussars will fall back as soon as the pikes get too close, and they can always manage to do this due to their speed).

In other words, the hussars will approach the xbows and the pikemen will react and scare them away. The hussars will never touch the xbows, and the pikemen will never touch the hussars, but during this dance, the hussars are continously taking fire from the xbows, and the pikemen from the musketeers. This is a lot better for the musk/huss composition, since musketeers deal a lot more damage to pikemen than xbows deal to hussars, and hussars are already a lot tankier than pikemen.

Xbow/pike does have the range advantage though, so if you are on top of your micro and do not let the hussars get a single swing on your xbows (so you do not get snared), you can perhaps kite long enough to not lose the fight.

Longbow/pike is different. You cannot kite with longbowmen, and therefore you cannot push out with a small mass. Longbowmen are incredibly efficient units contrary to xbows, so if you let them sit there and shoot their arrows undisturbed they will destroy everything in their sight, even hussars. To do this you need a very large mass of both longbowmen and pikemen. More common nowadays is simply to go for other compositions if you want to fight out in the open. In colonial age you have hussars and extremely strong musketeers yourself, and in fortress dragoon/hussar/longbow is the standard composition.
Pay more attention to detail.
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India rsy
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Re: Micro help

Post by rsy »

Gendarme wrote:Musk/huss almost always beats xbow/pike with equal armies and micro.

I think God Garja once said in low to medium numbers xbow pike beats musk hus if u're fast enough to protect both flanks with pikes and keep kiting with xbows.
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Poland pecelot
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Re: Micro help

Post by pecelot »

Yeah, @Garja said something about his own theory of xbow+pike micro :smile:

Against early pressure it's arguable, but I think the optimal choice is to start with cav, get 5 hussars and if you are attacked heavily, send 6 musks after 700w and time it with MM. Build a rax from 700w, too, for more flexibility. You can do similar strat with the French, but with 8 xbows.
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Re: Micro help

Post by _H2O »

That would back up my feeling about xbows being great early colonial. Larger numbers for sure it gets worse.
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Re: Micro help

Post by deleted_user0 »

rsy wrote:
Gendarme wrote:Musk/huss almost always beats xbow/pike with equal armies and micro.

I think God Garja once said in low to medium numbers xbow pike beats musk hus if u're fast enough to protect both flanks with pikes and keep kiting with xbows.


This is true until xbow one shot hus again then it kinda becomes even again, as long as you can control pikes on 2 flanks
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Re: Micro help

Post by Hazza54321 »

Teach us umeu
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Re: Micro help

Post by deleted_user0 »

U just kite.
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Re: Micro help

Post by deleted_user »

teach me how to kite @deleted_user and @_H2O

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/147536602

I can't even watch this it's too cringe inducing
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Re: Micro help

Post by deleted_user0 »

You need to learn how to write.
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Re: Micro help

Post by pecelot »

*sportsmanship
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Hungary Dsy
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Re: Micro help

Post by Dsy »

Xbows and pikes are just simply not cost effective units.
They are only usefull in special cases. For example vs japan pikes are good siege shrines. In combat they are totally useless.
Xbow can be used for a big early mass cause they are somewhat usefull. But still very weak.
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India _RDX_
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Re: Micro help

Post by _RDX_ »

Xbow pike is a fine combo. They are way too simpler and train faster. I used to take them in a 5:4 ratio ( 25 xbows and 20 pikes) when I do a rush. In the part of microing them, put them on each control groups, Attack move always with xbows, if you see Heavy infantry/Light infantry and kite them too. Always have your pikes backed up, make him to bring cavs to kill your xbows, Immediately switch to bring pikes and get those cavs killed while your xbows are backed up. Keep switching places, his cavs are taking damage from xbows too. Also pikes have very good siege, try to siege important buildings when he's busy doing things like FF. In my opinion, lbow pike do better than xbows pike, lbows have that abusive 22 range.

Against Russia,
If you play with civs that normally ages up at 3.50-4.40, go for a cav start, raid him so much. He needs atleast 300 food, to keep his villie production​ going and to start making his musk/strelet. If you have better infantry like Otto, you can defend him with them.
If you play civs that normally ages up at 4.45 - 5.00 and 5.00+ Try just defending him with your infantry. Asian civs have both sentries and irregulars , make use of them. And put more villies on the wonder (like 3-4 or +) to age up faster

Against Sioux, I only know how to play vs them as India. Other civs, it's just gg
oranges.
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Italy Garja
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Re: Micro help

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Post by Garja »

Dsy wrote:Xbows and pikes are just simply not cost effective units.
They are only usefull in special cases. For example vs japan pikes are good siege shrines. In combat they are totally useless.
Xbow can be used for a big early mass cause they are somewhat usefull. But still very weak.

This is partially not correct. Cheap hard counter units are generally more cost efficient than all-around units and this is the case too. All-around units might be more effective (winning you a decisive battle and with that the game) but with multiple trades cheaper/weaker units have the upper hand in direct fights as they win the attrition game in the long run.
That's one consideration.

As for value per cost compared to the other units in the game, xbows are indeed a bit trashy because they miss shots (their multiplier vs HI isnt great either but it's okish still) and they only have 20% rr. Pikes are trashy because off 10% melee armor otherwise they would be totally ok (for their role). Hussars are not that great either. Their attack is average and 20% rr is bad. Musks are the only units with up-to-the-cost stats.
Euro units are trashy in general, because their cost is merely based on their attack/hp stats. In this sense, for example, sepoy/sowar or ashi/nagi are vastly superior combos than musk/huss despite the much higher price, simply because they get premium impactful stuff that euro units normally don't have( like 30% rr, special multiplier vs RI, unusual speed, etc.).
Unit upgrades do change these dynamics so they must be taken into account. With some ups musk/huss is definitely superior. French do have a colonial xbow up tho which is often forgotten.


Now, to theorize about musk/huss vs xbow/pike you must consider the practical aspects more than anything else already mentioned.
It is key to know what to do depending on army sizes and proportions. Sometimes you have to focus on just one unit type rather than trying to counter each type with the correct unit.

Xbows still counter musks per cost and they still barely outrange them if used properly. It is key to kite and focus on musks with proper fire splitting (that's the hard part). Xbows base attack per cost is also not bad so in mass they can and they should focus on huss first. In big masses you have enough xbows to fully kill hussars so you can effectively do that while kiting. Bigger mass also means worse pathing for huss and more musks lagging behind and not shooting.
Yes pikes also path worse but since they are defending they generally land on opponent cav anyway. The cav player has to dodge them till enough get picked off and in this process it is possible to kill more units (or damage them) than losing your own, again because of pathing and position, not because of stats.

Pikes do counter huss per cost. Both pikes and huss are kinda useless if they don't land on the opponent unit, except for tanking enemy shots. Pikes do tank very well in cover mode. Cover mode is part of micro and it is a practical aspect. It makes all the difference in the game. Without cover mode pikes are indeed almost useless when cav is gone since they do basically nothing vs musks (funnily enough musks counter them harder than RI basically).

Another thing that makes a huge difference is how you actually kite. Most of players end up leaving pikes way too exposed to cover the xbow, because the feel the urge to repel huss at any cost. Bear in mind that if pikes are exposed to musk fire huss don't have to run away anymore. If you only had enough pikes to deal with the cav alone (e.g 2 pikes per cav or something like that) anything extra (even just explorer shots) means that now huss win vs pikes, even if barely.
So don't let pikes get focused by both huss and musks at the same time. In order to do that you want to only show pikes when huss are actually reaching xbows and then kinda shuffling pikes with bows so that it will be harder for the opponent to focus all his units on just the pikes. This also makes it easier to snare huss as the opponent will have harder time noticing when pikes actually touch huss, or simply he has to commit more to do his own snare on something.
Since pathing sucks for pikes too it is important that you optimize it. When armies get bigger it is useful to split pikes in two groups so that they cover both flanks and also can just retreat without having to go all the way around your xbows. Another useful trick is to mix ctrl group micro with dragboxing to invert/shuffle the units.
Also pay attention to not moving your units too much. Most of musk/huss microers A-move the musks and just move the huss around. That is kinda optimal as musks keep the chase and deal full dps.
Xbow/pike microers often have their units moving all the time (especially xbows) because they don't want them to attack when they're not exactly on the correct unit. That is intuitively correct on paper, but doing no damage is worse than dealing damage to the wrong unit. So sometimes consider shooting with xbows at huss and letting some pikes melee the musks if the alternative is to run away without dealing any damage.

There are also some advanced tricks but honestly pulling them off in actual games is not realistic. The best example is the pulling trick with which you keep kiting at faster speed by dragboxing xbows with pikes and then quickly letting pikes loose with their ctrl group. By repeatedly doing this you will have a spring effect with xbows kiting at about the same speed of pikes if not more. I'm not sure this works with all units but it definitely works with chokus and qiang pikes so I assume it does with other infantry units as well. For the record it does work greatly with skirms and ruyters but not really with skirms and goons.

Once you have all these things set up you can then focus on what units to target and what units sacrifice to trade evenly. Normally, you are not winning battles decisively with xbows/pikes. As mentioned, your goal is to trade as long as possible to starve the opponent. Musk/huss might not be that more expensive after steel traps but it is food heavy and that, again, is a practical aspect you can exploit.
For this reason you always want to balance your army accordingly to match the proportions of the opponent's army.

Sometimes you have to sac some xbows (let huss land on them for a while) while pikes clean up some huss because you know you don't have enough anticav. For this same reason you might spend one or two xbow volleys on huss as well, relying on the next batch of reinforcement to keep the correct musk:xbow ratio.
In the same way sometimes you have to throw pikes atthe musks (with cover mode ofc) because you realize that you are outmassed by them. Bear in mind in fact that xbows kinda softcounter musks when it comes to the HP/RR side (this applies to lbows as well) so an extra cover completely changes the outcome of the battle. Again you need to factor in the reinforcements. If you let all pikes die and there aren't some on the way it is very possible to die to upcoming hussars.

This last point brings to the final consideration, which again comes from a practical yet objective factor. Musk/huss is definitely a more mobile combo. Not only musk and huss are scarier for vills (so they can dictate the macro movement dynamics on the map) but also they don't rely on the support of the other unit, unlike xbows do (pikes instead can always run away from musks and rarely are chased by cav alone). It is rather likely to get outplayed for this reason. And that's probably the number one reason why musk/huss is an overall better combo or atleast a prefered one.
When the map is narrow and you rush from the start the mobility factor can be reduced and might be completely neglectable if everything is done properly.
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Re: Micro help

Post by jj0823 »

Thanks so much for the advice. I have been playing a lot of China lately and the xbow pike micro is suddenly a lot more relevant, even in the fortresss age. Speaking of China, which is more preferred; Old Han reformed or Territorial Banner Armies?
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Re: Micro help

Post by Jaeger »

Garja wrote:When the map is narrow and you rush from the start the mobility factor can be reduced and might be completely neglectable if everything is done properly.

Yeah I would love to see some games where players choose to do xbow pike rush, it'd be interesting to see how it does in the current meta
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Re: Micro help

Post by Dsy »

Like always misleading people. Just look at the stats for the units: Musk: 150hp 23 dmg Xbow: 120hp(with rr), 20dmg(vs hi)
Xbow the big musk counter wich is countered basicly by musks.
Btw xbow 127 villsec cost musket is 130. So they are kinda equal. However with steel trap musks are basicly cheaper than xbows.
Dont know why do you call the cheap when they are more expensive than musks.

They are cheaper only if you make them from wood shipment. Thats why they can be effective early on. Later they are expensive and statwise terrible.

You can have brilliant theories how they perform good later vs huss musk. But they lose vs pure musks any day. You dont even need huss to beat xbow pike...
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Re: Micro help

Post by Gendarme »

Importance of meta is pretty overrated nowadays. A lot of the current top players - with their superior builds and knowledge - would still probably lose to a reincarnation of 2008's Ryan/Grunt/Parfait merely due to their inferior mechanics.

The average lieutenant today knows a lot more (relative to the current top players), than lieutenants ever knew before. But in every series you see countless non-negligible mistakes - the mechanics are simply not on par with the knowledge today. I am sure any great mechanical player could 700w/600w/8xbow with France every game on ESOC maps QS and win a lot against today's top players.
Pay more attention to detail.
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Re: Micro help

Post by Gendarme »

@Dsy If xbows do not get snared, they kite "forever". If they get snared a lot, musketeers will eventually get close enough for every single musketeer to shoot at the xbows, at which point the person with the xbows might as well resign.

Pure musketeers do not beat pure xbows if they kite. You need hussars to beat xbows.
Pay more attention to detail.
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Re: Micro help

Post by Garja »

Dsy wrote:Like always misleading people. Just look at the stats for the units: Musk: 150hp 23 dmg Xbow: 120hp(with rr), 20dmg(vs hi)
Xbow the big musk counter wich is countered basicly by musks.
Btw xbow 127 villsec cost musket is 130. So they are kinda equal. However with steel trap musks are basicly cheaper than xbows.
Dont know why do you call the cheap when they are more expensive than musks.

They are cheaper only if you make them from wood shipment. Thats why they can be effective early on. Later they are expensive and statwise terrible.

You can have brilliant theories how they perform good later vs huss musk. But they lose vs pure musks any day. You dont even need huss to beat xbow pike...

That is simply not true. Even on nilla where they have only 18 attack pure xbows beat pure musks.
This is based on experience not on theory.
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Re: Micro help

Post by momuuu »

Range advantage is actually huge. Skirms are pretty mediocre units if you dont consider their amazing range. I think vet xbows might even cost efficiently beat skirms otherwise.
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Re: Micro help

Post by deleted_user0 »

Dsy wrote:Like always misleading people. Just look at the stats for the units: Musk: 150hp 23 dmg Xbow: 120hp(with rr), 20dmg(vs hi)
Xbow the big musk counter wich is countered basicly by musks.
Btw xbow 127 villsec cost musket is 130. So they are kinda equal. However with steel trap musks are basicly cheaper than xbows.
Dont know why do you call the cheap when they are more expensive than musks.

They are cheaper only if you make them from wood shipment. Thats why they can be effective early on. Later they are expensive and statwise terrible.

You can have brilliant theories how they perform good later vs huss musk. But they lose vs pure musks any day. You dont even need huss to beat xbow pike...


except if well microed, you should never get a shot off with your musketeers... the difference is 4 range, which is big. i remember playing a portuguese player a few years back with amazing micro, i had xbows with 16 range, he had cassadores with 20 range, and I almost never got a shot on him, while he was constantly poking at me. ofcourse the 4.5 speed helped alot in that case. but still bows should stay out of musket range
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Re: Micro help

Post by Gendarme »

Cassadors have 4.5 speed?
Pay more attention to detail.
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Re: Micro help

Post by Kaiserklein »

Nah, xbows cant stay out of musks range after a while. Like 1-2 free volleys max and then musks will catch up. It's due to the fact that xbows have a trash animation so their kiting is not so fast.
Cassadores can kite xbows forever because they have 0.5 extra speed as well as a faster shooting animation, but it's not comparable.

About bow pike vs musk huss, to make it short, musk huss just wins because xbows cant kill cav. Their dps vs cav is just trash, so they have to shoot at musks. Which means that they can't kite so much (they need to stay at 16 range of the musks) and it's easy to snare them with huss while bringing musks in to snipe the pikes.
On vanilla, bow pike did fine because bows had some dps against cav, so you could actually hit and run the cav and stay far away from the musks, which means you needed a decent mass of cav to catch bow pike, unlike on tad where a few huss can be enough
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