MU of the month: Spain vs China

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Bavaria j_t_kirk
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MU of the month: Spain vs China

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Post by j_t_kirk »

Image Back to the great AOE3 strategies. We saw in the past some nice MU of the week already. One month ago we had Otto playing vs Iro
The meta changes, the player skill level changes, and the patch changes. Some high-level 1v1 players from our lovely community want to show up in a BO5. Let's find out what they could do.

Every at least once per month a thread will be opened where you can discuss a certain MU. This week's MU is Spain vs China. Hopefully, the discussion will be in depth and top players will share their insight.

Vote for the next MU here!


What is the current meta?
What strategy fits best for each map?


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The map pool:
Fertile Crescent --- Baja California --- Tibet --- Malaysia --- Gran Chaco

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Welcome! Credit for this idea goes to @kami_ryu as well as @musketeer925 , @BrookG ,@lemmings121 & @Diarouga building upon it. They are the masterminds behind this pretty nice idea!

All played MU's you can find here: viewtopic.php?f=29&t=13821
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

@Mitoe
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From my experience, China wins quite easily.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by Youssef »

I think spain FF is faster. I used to do the piroshiki church build with spain with upgraded halbs and falcs, its hard to china to counter this build.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

I used to counter piroshiki ff :P
You just have to be fast, take a TP in age 1 to get faster shipments altho it costs you one vill, and age with the skirms.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by Garja »

Best way for Spain is eco FF with gold card first. If China semi FI Spain follows ups with 1k food.
This assumes that the China players is capable of holding Spain aggro FFs. If he doesn't know how to adapt then aggro FF can also work, especially with a stable instead of rax.

I think it's possible to also musk semi on EP. By reaching the fortress age at 9 minutes with like 15 musks and 7rods and 4huss (alternatively 600w) Spain should be able to hold any early pressure with 2 falcs first shipment. The only problem is if China manages to semi FI because then it's harder to follow up in time.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by DracoWolfgand »

Noob question: Wouldnt it be better for Spain to do a Colonial Age rush over a Fast Fortress? I mean... Between their Rodeleros and, perhaps most importantly, their ability to send shipments faster, a lot about Spain always screamed "Early, constant agression" to me.

I have been plaiyng around a bit more with the "Old Han Reform" card lately, and while I still have split feelings on that card, I wonder if it would be a good idea to send this card on this scenario. On one hand, against the Spanish, my first instinct would be usually to try to beat then with cavalry( Because Lancers. ). On another hand, it is actually quite impressive how good of a anti-cavalry unit the Quiang Pikeman actually becomes with Old Han Reform... Well... "Impressive" for Chinese standarts anyway :p. Still, Quiang Pikeman certainly become better then Changdao Swordsman once that card is out: It is just that instinctivelly, I avoided using Quiang Pikeman whenever possible, and thus by logical extension, I avoided using any card dedicated to upgrading then. The real question here, however, should be: "Do Quiang Pikeman become good enough to stop Lancers?"
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

They only had hand infantry shipments, and the musk shipment (from the consulate)+a few skirms is going to rape that.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by momuuu »

the idea of shipping hand mortars vs falcs is just so awesome.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by TNT333 »

I'm going for China but spain will put heavy pressure if they go for cav like lancers.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

momuuu wrote:the idea of shipping hand mortars vs falcs is just so awesome.

Yes, that's the only way to deal with them effectively.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by dansil92 »

Generally in this matchup isnt china going to simply use meteor hammers/iron flails to 'counter' the lancers? As lancers just arent very good against other cav?
Also would this be a good matchup for that 7 steppe rider shipment simply for siege pressure should spain go for ATP?
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

dansil92 wrote:Generally in this matchup isnt china going to simply use meteor hammers/iron flails to 'counter' the lancers? As lancers just arent very good against other cav?
Also would this be a good matchup for that 7 steppe rider shipment simply for siege pressure should spain go for ATP?

Yea, cav counter lancers, but you also want the redcoats.
Nah, 7 steppes is a waste, because their siege is actually bad and they're paper. You could send 9 pikes to siege TPs, but the spain guy is going to make musks or bows to defend his TPs, so you'd better just age and kill the TPs with the mortars.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by Mitoe »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:@Mitoe
@Hazza54321

From my experience, China wins quite easily.

Really? In my experience it's quite a difficult matchup. Granted, I was playing vs H2O and being pretty stubborn with my build at the time. The 2 falcs are the key to this matchup, if China deals with them easily then it's very difficult for Spain to get back into the game; however, if Spain plays well they're not always easy to deal with and apply a lot of pressure in early Fortress. Plus, trading 2 falcs for a few units or a building + forcing the 7 hand mortar shipment leaves Spain with a pretty strong follow up timing.

It's also near impossible to deal with ATP, although this does slow down their Fortress push quite a bit which is a decent trade off.

dansil92 wrote:Generally in this matchup isnt china going to simply use meteor hammers/iron flails to 'counter' the lancers? As lancers just arent very good against other cav?
Also would this be a good matchup for that 7 steppe rider shipment simply for siege pressure should spain go for ATP?

You age too slowly to punish ATP, I think. Spain is usually already age 2 with 3-4 TPs by the time you hit age 2. You could try to setup a forward base in transition to rush his base to try to punish this, but if he's going for a semi or staying age 2 you pretty much just lose.

In a lot of situations in this matchup I think you want to age with the Confucian Academy instead of Porcelain Tower. Porcelain just takes too long to pay off against an aggressive FF. This makes cavalry a bit hard to mass, and I'm not sure you want early cav all that much when they will often mix a lot of heavy infantry to defend their falcs.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by DracoWolfgand »

dansil92 wrote:Generally in this matchup isnt china going to simply use meteor hammers/iron flails to 'counter' the lancers? As lancers just arent very good against other cav?
Also would this be a good matchup for that 7 steppe rider shipment simply for siege pressure should spain go for ATP?


Well, I often support Lancers with Dragoons-Ideally, Unction-boosted Dragons-Specifically to deal with this kind of situation. Not sure of how common this tactic is in high SRs, though, but it always worked for me.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Mitoe wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:@Mitoe
@Hazza54321

From my experience, China wins quite easily.

Really? In my experience it's quite a difficult matchup. Granted, I was playing vs H2O and being pretty stubborn with my build at the time. The 2 falcs are the key to this matchup, if China deals with them easily then it's very difficult for Spain to get back into the game; however, if Spain plays well they're not always easy to deal with and apply a lot of pressure in early Fortress. Plus, trading 2 falcs for a few units or a building + forcing the 7 hand mortar shipment leaves Spain with a pretty strong follow up timing.

It's also near impossible to deal with ATP, although this does slow down their Fortress push quite a bit which is a decent trade off.

dansil92 wrote:Generally in this matchup isnt china going to simply use meteor hammers/iron flails to 'counter' the lancers? As lancers just arent very good against other cav?
Also would this be a good matchup for that 7 steppe rider shipment simply for siege pressure should spain go for ATP?

You age too slowly to punish ATP, I think. Spain is usually already age 2 with 3-4 TPs by the time you hit age 2. You could try to setup a forward base in transition to rush his base to try to punish this, but if he's going for a semi or staying age 2 you pretty much just lose.

In a lot of situations in this matchup I think you want to age with the Confucian Academy instead of Porcelain Tower. Porcelain just takes too long to pay off against an aggressive FF. This makes cavalry a bit hard to mass, and I'm not sure you want early cav all that much when they will often mix a lot of heavy infantry to defend their falcs.

I was playing the chinese/jap guys who used to play 100% China (I think they were like 3-4 2400-2500ish), and I won 95% of the time.
The mankle ATP build might be an issue, but the std ff isn't iirc. You ship the 7 mortars to kill the falcs, and you train skirm/pike with skirm and redcoat shipment. You should have a bigger skirm mass, and Spain can't hold your crow/skirm/pike/redcoat timing.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by Mitoe »

Part of the problem might've been that I stubbornly refused to use 7 Mortars or Confucian at the time, but I still don't think it should be a free win for China really.

Spanish Gold + 1000f/1000w and mass skirm/goon is probably a solid way to play this matchup as Spain as well.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

I've never played vs spanish gold+1000f, but I don't think that it's good. It lets China too much time to send the mortars, and get a lot of units. I don't see that working.

If you age with the tower you probably won't have enough units to hold, these skirms are very important. Also I don't think that you can deal effectively with the falcs without the mortars, but it's like 1 shipment for 1 shipment, and you can use them later to siege his fb, or to tank.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by dansil92 »

Also with the recent changes to ep, would xbow pike be a good option for Spain? Double rax with 700 wood 600 wood? Then 700 coin & age as an option?
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by Mitoe »

It gives you a pretty good economy, and you can get a pretty scary mass off of it. It's also nice that you get to convert all of those resources back into XP for more shipments. I also don't think falcs are an important focal point of the matchup if you go for crate spam unless China is going pure infantry--and if they are, they have to send 7 Hand Mortars. If you just don't send falcs you should have the advantage: China can't really outmass skirms, and a big lancer transition will be pretty good as well.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by Garja »

The thing with eco FF and spanish gold is that you get very good eco and premium units, instead of trashy pikes and colo huss. Basically you can play on equal footing instead on relying on being aggressive from start to end.
Vs ATP China can do colo 700w 600w with a starting TP and then age up or play colonial. China colo is probably better than Spain colo, atleast in the long run.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by Mitoe »

I don't think Colonial works vs ATP, because you can still naked FF as Spain with ATP, albeit a little bit slower, and then how does China deal with lancers or falcs?
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by Garja »

Semi FF
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Garja wrote:Semi FF

That's too late, you'll lose your age 2 wonder and maybe even one village before you reach the 3rd age.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by Garja »

Considering that ATP ff is 8minutes at least and with tower in base/destroyed I don't think it's too late.
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Re: MU of the month: Spain vs China

Post by momuuu »

Vs atp I feel like china can just age and kill some tps and get free stagecoach. China's mass is pretty amazing to be honest, I think they could even compete with 2-3 tp spain.

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