Age 2 Dragoons

[Mr_Brightside]

I play on the RE, and recently I played against someone who played as Portugal and instead of FF sent the card that allows for dragoons to be trained earlier. It worked out pretty well in that game, but as a general rule, is it a complete waste of a card? Should you send resources and make other units or just FF instead?

[fei123456]

in team games it may work

[duckzilla]

I used it a lot in team games (classic 3v3) and, in my opinion, it can really make up for the slow start which ports usually have. Sending Early Goon card in age I, followed by 700c in age II allows you to focus mainly on food gathering and pump out around 8 - 10 goons quite early. Of course this is mainly useful if you expect your enemy to seek early combat.

Early goons are nice for both, an offensive or defensive playstyle. You can, for example, either choose to defend against raids or you can support a raid from one of you teammates by (1) killing any cav which tries to chase the raiding units and (2) raiding on your own, though you are less effective against vills.

[[Armag] diarouga]

It's a waste because they're weaker (not veteran). It's always better to either ff or start with musks or huss.

[Guigs]

The only reason to send this card is prob in team games when you're sure you'll get rushed, and probably only if it is a wood start for an early tp so it doesn't slow you down too much

[Hazza54321]

Wouldnt send it in a macro game because youre just behind eco wise, wouldnt send it vs a rush because cm is better and cav +cm is better than goon cm. Also rushing port is a poor choice anyway

[Hazza54321]

Also sending early goon is a trigger for the opponent cav player to age up with superior eco

[Gendarme]

Possibly useful against something like ger/ger/sioux I imagine. Eco theory is probably overrated.

[Bucknasty]

only send it if u have a french teammate who sends the early skirm card as well

[Ashvin]

only send it if u have a french teammate who sends the early skirm card as well

That would be very bad

[Gendarme]

tfw you send two shipments to become India

[[Armag] diarouga]

Possibly useful against something like ger/ger/sioux I imagine. Eco theory is probably overrated.

Yea if you're facing 2 german players it might be good (dunno why you added Sioux, goons do pretty bad vs bow riders) because Germany is the only civ which has no options in colonial but to go cav.
However as Hazza pointed out, since Port is slow and age 2 goons aren't scary at all, one of the Ger players will probably boom and age, and age 2 goons are trash vs vet skirms (especially on the EP).
Still, depending on the map and your team mates, it could be ok. It's bad in every other situation anyway and it's very unlikely you'll face two ger.

[Gendarme]

Goons are bad against BR despite their RR?

[pecelot]

on RE if you send this your German teammate gets veteran war wagonsh

[Gendarme]

ez

[[Armag] diarouga]

Goons are bad against BR despite their RR?

Yes.

[deleted_user0]

they do pretty well if you get the arsenal upgrade. With the 2+ range and instant fire they are essentially your best bet vs pure br. Just make sure you trade down the BR before they are triple carded and you're totally fine.

[Hazza54321]

gotta kite them i guess, but goons are the only thing that catches them

[FireandIce]

I never liked the age 2 dragoons since going fast fortress seems better than shipping the early goons with ports.

[momuuu]

Goons are bad against BR despite their RR?

Bow riders have very high damage and a mediocre multiplier vs hand cav, whereas goons have low damage with a good multiplier against hand cav, so bow riders dish out more damage despite the goons having RR.

[Gendarme]

...as is the nature of using bow and arrow instead of bullets and gunpowder. However, kiting is a thing (to negate their ROF), and it is not very obvious that the better stats outperform the RR to a significant degree.

[momuuu]

...as is the nature of using bow and arrow instead of bullets and gunpowder. However, kiting is a thing (to negate their ROF), and it is not very obvious that the better stats outperform the RR to a significant degree.

Bow riders are cheaper, have 250 ranged hp vs 260 ranged hp for goons, they have 20 ranged damage vs 22 from a goon. With perfect micro, goons are a very tiny bit better than bow riders in the direct fight, although I actually doubt it's possible to actually trade one attack for one attack every time. In reality, perfect micro isn't possible and actually usually you can't kite forever, so in reality bow riders actually eclipse goons.

[deleted_user0]

With goons you can pretty much kite forever though. But ye, per cost, br are better. Perhaps even per head, but the goon player is usually gonna be outmassing the br player, and also has easier access to the arsenal

[duckzilla]

...as is the nature of using bow and arrow instead of bullets and gunpowder. However, kiting is a thing (to negate their ROF), and it is not very obvious that the better stats outperform the RR to a significant degree.

Bow riders are cheaper, have 250 ranged hp vs 260 ranged hp for goons, they have 20 ranged damage vs 22 from a goon. With perfect micro, goons are a very tiny bit better than bow riders in the direct fight, although I actually doubt it's possible to actually trade one attack for one attack every time. In reality, perfect micro isn't possible and actually usually you can't kite forever, so in reality bow riders actually eclipse goons.

It is a common misconception, but there is no such thing as "ranged hp", since the range resistance is a multiplier for the opponents dmg, not one for the unit's own hp. Assuming "ranged HP" of 260, it would take 13 bow rider shots to kill a dragoon. In reality, dragoons are significantly better than indicated by you.

Bow riders do 20 * 0.7 = 14 dmg per hit to dragoons, dragoons do 22 dmg per hit to bow riders. To kill a dragoon (200HP) with bow riders, you need 15 hits, while it takes 12 hits to kill a bow rider (250 HP) with a dragoon. While bow riders have an advantage regarding rate of fire, dragoons have the advantage of being able to kite due to shooting instantly without loading animation.

I draw the following conclusions: (a) when microing perfectly, dragoons are significantly stronger than bow riders, (b) with realistic microing effort, dragoons are slightly stronger than bow riders, (c) without micro, bow riders are significantly stronger than dragoons.
Hence, bow riders are the classical noob unit.

[momuuu]

...as is the nature of using bow and arrow instead of bullets and gunpowder. However, kiting is a thing (to negate their ROF), and it is not very obvious that the better stats outperform the RR to a significant degree.

Bow riders are cheaper, have 250 ranged hp vs 260 ranged hp for goons, they have 20 ranged damage vs 22 from a goon. With perfect micro, goons are a very tiny bit better than bow riders in the direct fight, although I actually doubt it's possible to actually trade one attack for one attack every time. In reality, perfect micro isn't possible and actually usually you can't kite forever, so in reality bow riders actually eclipse goons.

It is a common misconception, but there is no such thing as "ranged hp", since the range resistance is a multiplier for the opponents dmg, not one for the unit's own hp. Assuming "ranged HP" of 260, it would take 13 bow rider shots to kill a dragoon. In reality, dragoons are significantly better than indicated by you.

Bow riders do 20 * 0.7 = 14 dmg per hit to dragoons, dragoons do 22 dmg per hit to bow riders. To kill a dragoon (200HP) with bow riders, you need 15 hits, while it takes 12 hits to kill a bow rider (250 HP) with a dragoon. While bow riders have an advantage regarding rate of fire, dragoons have the advantage of being able to kite due to shooting instantly without loading animation.

I draw the following conclusions: (a) when microing perfectly, dragoons are significantly stronger than bow riders, (b) with realistic microing effort, dragoons are slightly stronger than bow riders, (c) without micro, bow riders are significantly stronger than dragoons.
Hence, bow riders are the classical noob unit.

Ah, that's interesting. I still disagree with your conclusions though. When microing perfectly in an infinite map with nothing else on the maps, dragoons are stronger than bow riders (note they do cost slightly more too). When in any realistic situation, you can't actually micro 'perfectly' on your finite map. You can't endlessly kite bow riders that are killing your villagers, hell I think it'd be really hard to even kite bow riders properly to the point where they'd only get one shot off. Realistically, I'd take on H2O in a sioux mirror with bow riders against his goons any time of the day, and I think any good player would make that choice too.