How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Australia ChoppeR
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How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by ChoppeR »

I would like some good players to offer advice regarding countering India. I have been playing match ups with a friend who plays India and finding that their age 3 units, particularly mahout and urumi cannot be dealt with. I really am not sure how to play against India, particularly in age 3, with their multi unit combos.

I would like to refer to the following youtube video of other players who are playing match ups which I have attempted. The match ups I have attempted are France v India, British v India.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93SmL0lzoLU - Around 20 min mark. A skirmisher & dragoon mass gets utterly melted by Indian unit combo.

How can France or British effectively deal with India?

The France double bow rush can have some effective outcomes but with a defensive agra fort it is hard to do real damage and India can age up and ship urumi or mahout and totally dominate.
The British musket start can do some early aggression but if India gets to age 3 then I cannot figure out what unit combos to go for to deal with the elephant combos and their insane amount of hp plus the way urumi just melt any infantry.

I am finding I can out gather my Indian playing friend by 5k resources, raid him insanely with curs, yet still his multi composition army with elephants is just turning my army into dust and my happiness to fury.

I would really appreciate some good players who are experienced in dealings with India throwing some comments down to shed some light on these type of match ups.

Appreciate your thoughts!
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by tedere12 »

you can scout what he is doing with your explorer (see wonder foundation/check his army mass) and then push fast with skirm goon falc
India is pretty slow so you can do a lot of damage before he reaches age 3 and then outmass him and get a better composition to win it
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by ChoppeR »

so you are suggesting a pure ff if i see him defensively placing the agra or am i doing a 10 musket semi ff and shipping skirms and falcs and training goons? can you provide a few more details as to your thoughts? sorry but i feel this is a little more complex. also what better composition are you suggesting?

your assuming i can get enough eco damage done in very early fortress to prevent him from having the resources to build elephants?

thanks for your response
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by tedere12 »

it depends, I think its not possible to get away with a naked france ff , because if he makes 10 sepoy for example he can harass your villagers and you will age up later and have a lot idle time which isn't ideal. You can try a 10 musketeer semi ff, maybe even 15 and try to do some damage with them or use them to get a stagecoach upgrade and protect the trading posts. India is a slow civ and assuming that he builds a base agra, he is gonna send something like 600 wood/ 300 export/ foreign logging first. Which means that your mass will be superior early on and you might be able to get away with a stagecoach tp upgrade. But thats up to you. 10 musketeers are not completely useless if you are gonna semi ff because you can ship falcs instantly and push with 5 skirm 5 goon 10 musk and 2 falc. Elephants cost a lot of resources and a lot of population space, he is gonna have a tough time getting all the wood for them (india has to upgrade units in age 3 as well so its not like they are floating wood). Pushing and aiming for the houses would be a nice tactic. Of course military buildings are more important to focus down. Taking the map vs india as france would give france a great advantage in that matchup I feel.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by tedere12 »

Forgot to mention that vs base agra hussar semi is an option too, maybe even better than a defensive musketeer semi
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by ChoppeR »

thanks a lot...your comments make good sense...

if anyone else cares to add their comments i would appreciate it, or if anyone has any ideas about the british match up.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by ssaraf »

I wud suggest you try to add handcav (currs or huss) to your army composition as early as u can , coz when u r pushing with falcs your army becomes kind-of immobile (hence difficult to micro) and protecting your falcs is a priority coz siege. Thus 10 handcav can act as a good bodyblock to his 2 big pops (urumi and mahout), while your skirm falcs some goons etc can shoot from behind. Also, if its not mandatory try not to siege buildings which can pop stuff (early age3 agra sieging is ok coz india isnt even age3 by then, but after that dont go to TC). Houses and military buildings are good options (stable first , rax later).

Another thing which high level players do is ----> Look out for flanks. You can send your explorer ahead to see his army composition, send 1-2 units to the right and left , which can scout flanks (like 3 mahouts coming to your skirms from behind and sepoys and monks closing in from front etc etc).
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by Gendarme »

I'd go for stagecoach "naked" semi if possible. If not, either naked FF or hussar semi. None of this is possible against forward Agra, so in most cases you'll have to go for musk semi (4cdb, 700w/8xbow, 700w/8xbow, 700c) I think. You should always have a better army early on if you're both in fortress as Tedere pointed out, so just do as much damage as possible with whatever unit composition you see fit. Skirm/goon is safe, but cuirassiers are the unit that can really take advantage of your opponent's windows of weakness. If you see a good immediate use for cuirassiers you could probably go for them straight away. Mahouts are pretty awful against anything that isn't ranged infantry, and people generally won't send mahouts against France, so you shouldn't really worry about them.
Pay more attention to detail.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by tedere12 »

As british, if you see defensive agra, IMO you know you already won, you can boom up to 200 shrine pop and age up while still massing a lot of units and slowly take the map, so your 50+ vill eco can keep the unit production going.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

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Post by Gendarme »

British shrines are the best.
Pay more attention to detail.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by _H2O »

SoL_The_Crusher wrote:I would like some good players to offer advice regarding countering India. I have been playing match ups with a friend who plays India and finding that their age 3 units, particularly mahout and urumi cannot be dealt with. I really am not sure how to play against India, particularly in age 3, with their multi unit combos.

I would like to refer to the following youtube video of other players who are playing match ups which I have attempted. The match ups I have attempted are France v India, British v India.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93SmL0lzoLU - Around 20 min mark. A skirmisher & dragoon mass gets utterly melted by Indian unit combo.

How can France or British effectively deal with India?

The France double bow rush can have some effective outcomes but with a defensive agra fort it is hard to do real damage and India can age up and ship urumi or mahout and totally dominate.
The British musket start can do some early aggression but if India gets to age 3 then I cannot figure out what unit combos to go for to deal with the elephant combos and their insane amount of hp plus the way urumi just melt any infantry.

I am finding I can out gather my Indian playing friend by 5k resources, raid him insanely with curs, yet still his multi composition army with elephants is just turning my army into dust and my happiness to fury.

I would really appreciate some good players who are experienced in dealings with India throwing some comments down to shed some light on these type of match ups.

Appreciate your thoughts!


In this fight you don't let your goons get thinned out by skirm and mahout, and you hit and run vs the urumi and mahout.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by ChoppeR »

legends....thanks for the responses. very helpful
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by ChoppeR »

Back again. More questions. Still finding this very hard if I haven't crippled him by 12 ish mins. Are you guys talking about fan patch match up or re? Will this make much difference? I play re. Does anyone have any recs available of a Brit India where Both are going semi FF, India sepoy Brit musket? The urumi and elephant shipments are just bashing me with those pesky fast siege elephant just standing back and dropping my cannons, leaving the musket cannon push around 9-10 mins basically dead.

Thanks again.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by ChoppeR »

Perhaps someone could also give a card order for British? The initial age 3 push composition? Timing? Any rec would sort this out.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by xhuggels »

Goons goons goons. kiting goons beat all your problems, be it urumi, mahout or siege elephants, and if he has sepoy along with em just kite it out. if he has gurka you need hand cav(which incidentally also do better against any of those top mentioned units than musks or lbows would)
im no pro, but i think ur over investing in your musket line, and not building a stable soon enough. What use is a full musket line with cannons, if you know you cant keep those shipments from walking over you. you are only wasting a perfectly good cannon shipment, as the better of the two options you have is to leave your cannons behind as opposed to losing your entire army. maybe start by shipping 5 goons/huss instead to build up your cav mass, and getting a stable or two up to pop out more of em.
I think understanding each of those troops and what they are meant to do will also help a lot.

Siege elephants are meant to force fights, as they have great range, and to counter cannons. Indians will ship that when they see or anticipate your cannons, so if you gonna send cannons, expect to see siege elephants, as they are basically mobile culverin that happens to have siege potential.

Mahouts are superbuffed epic 2 rider cuirs that are scary as hell, but they are clumbsy and can be kited easily, they are best used as a shock shipment, like for instance when you attack the indian, or when he catches you offguard.

Urumi are basically melee skirmishers, and are strong against musks and goons because of that, they are also strong against akrims because they are designed to be a melee troop, whereas skrims are strictly range, with horrible melee stats. They are strong because almost everything has to run from them, so they are great units to push the lines or as a shock shipment, same as mahout, only not clumbsy, but the fact that they are melee troops also make them kitable, you just need to kite better.
You see the theme here with all the units you struggle against. they all see a musket line(or infantry line for that matter) as a healthy meal, and since it seems like that is what 90% of your army consists of, its a mismatch.

Last thought. Remember these arent only shipments, but shipments that cost food. To send them the indian player needs room to do so. If you allowed your opponent to stack these shipments up and couple them with his sepoy mass from colonial, then you are setting yourself up to lose. if even 2 of those are on the field at the same time it makes things infinitely worse.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by amiggo1999 »

As a majorly India-player, I am quite familiar to this MU (India vs France)

First of all, I know the meta would be, to start a rax, mass some muskets in colonial, build stable in transition, ship 2 falcs, and push as soon as you have at least one (complete or incomplete) batch of cuirs. While I do agree, that this strategy has the potential of working vs India, since it enables France: to easily raze the agra and even some additional buildings, counter any age 2 composition of India. This timing push works very well, since India will be aged only around 2 mins after the falcs have arrived for France, which puts them at a tough position. Losing the Agra is almost guaranteed, which most people underestimate. The reason the Agra is so vital for India is: map control, getting out batches in early colonial (without having to invest into military structures), and popping units onto the opponents' army (while he is sieging) + snare him in the process --> is mostly important in age 3, due to the type of shipments available. So by losing the Agra in age 3, India no longer has the ability to rely on an insane unit pop, which is kind of a big deal.

While this sounds all nice and dandy, out of experience, I do think, that opening with cav vs India is even better, unless you scout a stable from India. Whenever I play vs this gamestyle, I find myself in an awkward position, where i have cav running around in my base, killing and idling vills, making it hard for me to decide, where my sepoys are best-positioned. If I'd attack only with a few, they can be caught by 5 huss, MM and tc fire. If I use all of them to attack, my eco will suffer a lot. and since CDB have 40% rr, they can tank quite many sepoy-shots, making it hard for me to cause any significant dmg, else than razing your infrastructure. I believe if you made 5-10 huss in colonial, then aged, and made a rax during transition, you would still be able to go for a strong age 3 push, with the std skirm/goon/cuir and 2 falc combo, and have more meelee cav to deal with the urumi.

Side note to consider: In order to effectively deal with falcs India requires siege elis, since Mahout/Sowar lack a decent base dmg (and you want them to connect on skirms), sepoy/gurkha will die in the process of killing them, and zambs should always be kept in the back. Now as smb in here pointed out already, they DO COST FOOD. Consider this, India has to use a shipment (which are more costly than std. european ones, in terms if xp) and spend an additional 500f just so that they can deal with the falcs.

I hope, this will help you play this MU better!
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by tedere12 »

thats weird I think goon would do better since india usually tried to kill the falcs by overwhelming you with sepoy sowar
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by fei123456 »

Don't lose too much to urumi and mahout.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by deleted_user0 »

miggo9919 wrote:As a majorly India-player, I am quite familiar to this MU (India vs France)

First of all, I know the meta would be, to start a rax, mass some muskets in colonial, build stable in transition, ship 2 falcs, and push as soon as you have at least one (complete or incomplete) batch of cuirs. While I do agree, that this strategy has the potential of working vs India, since it enables France: to easily raze the agra and even some additional buildings, counter any age 2 composition of India. This timing push works very well, since India will be aged only around 2 mins after the falcs have arrived for France, which puts them at a tough position. Losing the Agra is almost guaranteed, which most people underestimate. The reason the Agra is so vital for India is: map control, getting out batches in early colonial (without having to invest into military structures), and popping units onto the opponents' army (while he is sieging) + snare him in the process --> is mostly important in age 3, due to the type of shipments available. So by losing the Agra in age 3, India no longer has the ability to rely on an insane unit pop, which is kind of a big deal.

While this sounds all nice and dandy, out of experience, I do think, that opening with cav vs India is even better, unless you scout a stable from India. Whenever I play vs this gamestyle, I find myself in an awkward position, where i have cav running around in my base, killing and idling vills, making it hard for me to decide, where my sepoys are best-positioned. If I'd attack only with a few, they can be caught by 5 huss, MM and tc fire. If I use all of them to attack, my eco will suffer a lot. and since CDB have 40% rr, they can tank quite many sepoy-shots, making it hard for me to cause any significant dmg, else than razing your infrastructure. I believe if you made 5-10 huss in colonial, then aged, and made a rax during transition, you would still be able to go for a strong age 3 push, with the std skirm/goon/cuir and 2 falc combo, and have more meelee cav to deal with the urumi.

Side note to consider: In order to effectively deal with falcs India requires siege elis, since Mahout/Sowar lack a decent base dmg (and you want them to connect on skirms), sepoy/gurkha will die in the process of killing them, and zambs should always be kept in the back. Now as smb in here pointed out already, they DO COST FOOD. Consider this, India has to use a shipment (which are more costly than std. european ones, in terms if xp) and spend an additional 500f just so that they can deal with the falcs.

I hope, this will help you play this MU better!


if fre players would std open with cav, then india players will respond by std opening sepoy rushes, which forces fre to std open musket. hence we're where we are.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by xhuggels »

lol yeah no cav start against the strongest musket in the game seems sub optimal. But you definately need that transition stable, and id even say 2 stables once you hit fortress, as you really do need to get the goon mass up quick. think of it this way. you ship 2 falcs first shipment and stay back until they arrive. he has time to gather the food. now you go in once your cannons arrive. He is now in a position where he can choose which to send either seige ellis if he sees cannons, or urumi if he sees an over investment in the musketline. He is reacting to you with a powerplay either in his base or at his Agra, neither of which you want, cause your army is exactly where it needs to be for his shipment to be at max power. This means you lose with cannons, as you have something to force a decision, but nothing to beat his decision.
Now if you shipped 5 goons and followed it up with a batch or 2 of goons form your 1-2 stables, then you are in a solid position to defend your cannons against those shipments.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by amiggo1999 »

well my point is that you can't really dmg france all that much, since their vills are huge tanks, and using cav, you can idle India just as much, while having the superior unit for raiding, and if lucky, even catching small unit batches off guard. And mirroring muskets vs the civ with the strongest muskets doesn't seem all that prudent either, only as long as it is temporal. Since you would bell his vills up, I don't think India would be able to secure the game early enough to stop you from getting up.

But maybe it is just that I am so used to the meta, that I know how to counter it well vs ppl my pr-range, and that I was merely caught off-guard by the cav-semi ff.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by xhuggels »

look at it this way. if he brings out the torches with his sepoy against your TC while you age, with musks you can poke him while he tries to siege, and keep him busy until the opportune moment where you can use TC fire, MM and cdb to push him out. With huss, you cant poke, and raiding his eco wont help if he takes out your TC in return. Also the Agra allow india to gather safely, either over a larger area of the base, or in a different location all together. sure you can idle him with huss, but will that really be enough? Idk i feel like an sepoy are strong enough without giving them their favorite meat to chew on. Though i do agree in fortress the huss will be way more useful, its just a matter of getting there safely, which against a competent indian player you wont with a huss semi.
Im not a competent india player, but i scout a stable and i go 300e redcoats and sepoy spam your TC. both teams get idle'd, but only one team loses TC in the process.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by deleted_user0 »

miggo9919 wrote:well my point is that you can't really dmg france all that much, since their vills are huge tanks, and using cav, you can idle India just as much, while having the superior unit for raiding, and if lucky, even catching small unit batches off guard. And mirroring muskets vs the civ with the strongest muskets doesn't seem all that prudent either, only as long as it is temporal. Since you would bell his vills up, I don't think India would be able to secure the game early enough to stop you from getting up.

But maybe it is just that I am so used to the meta, that I know how to counter it well vs ppl my pr-range, and that I was merely caught off-guard by the cav-semi ff.


you may not kill that many villagers, but rushes do hurt fre. because they have less vils and cdb count for more than their pop in gather, idling vils hurts fre more than other civs. and sepoy pack enough punch to threathen france. if you start cav, you can be in danger vs agressive india, or even the consulate timing.
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by HUMMAN »

U should play fre vs india MU enough talking!
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Re: How to counter age 3 India...or when to attack?

Post by Rikikipu »

Dangerous though it may be, the india rush really struggle vs raids. Maybe a samwise build with rax and stable is the best option ?

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