French stagecoach semi FF?

No Flag Astaroth
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French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Astaroth »

I have been trying some French but I have been having trouble with a TP+stagecoach FF.

I try the TP FF vs civs that are generally more passive/boomy like Dutch, Japan or Brits, but I have the following problems:

- some e.g. Japan players play aggressively, then I just lose multiple TPs before I have enough units out to defend them (If I start with 5 pikes I can't match his mass of ashis; I can't so easily scout him because my explorer is building TPs and the scout gets TC killed in base). Then I don't know what to do - if I mass units in age2, Japan has better units and more mass and I still can't save my TPs, if I age up, I still lose my TPs, am slower than a regular FF and wasted like 700w.

- other civs, especially Brits, then simply timing push my base with musk huss when I age up to fortress. Due to the TPs, I age up a bit late and don't really have enough to hold. Scouting is not as easy due to explorer building TPs, even with the native scout

- e.g. Dutch can also do a fairly early fortress push on your TP with ruyter/falc and some shipped skirms. Then I don't know if I should defend my TPs (risky, because he has more early mass) or stay back but lose all my TPs.

Generally, maybe I am being too greedy? I have tried to go for 2 TPs already when aging to age2 then 700w or 4 cdb, then the other shipment of the two, 700g and up, meanwhile either building a few pikes VS Japan and/or 10 musks to defend huss raids VS Dutch or Brits (stable scouted).

But I feel it just has been too slow or I have been unable to deal with early TP siege/age2 timing push/Age3 early fortress timing.

Do you think I should change my strategy? Is my BO bad? Should I go for less TPs? Scout more? When and how should I defend my TPs? Rather go out with musks or just let him have them?

Stay age2 against an early TP pressure or a timing push?

Or do you think it's just a problem of execution /correct tactical decision making?

I currently feel like the strategy is just too risky if you don't know 100 % that he is playing very passively. Unlike Otto, France doesn't have OP age2 units to mass and defend TPs with...
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

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Post by bepsi »

The greed meta is only viable on the ESOC patch with ESOC maps while only playing against a select pool of players, who in accordance with the cult of good manners, will adhere to the same strategies. On RE most attempted semi or greed play with hunt dependent civs is punished badly by early colonial all-in aggression or timings, save for a few lucky map spawns.

tl;dr the reigning meta is entirely irrelevant outside the cordon-sanitaire of ESOC.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Hazza54321 »

probably cant stagecoach vs brit. but if u do stagecoach you might aswell make units to defend them, or to even delay them sieging them down so u can age safely and retake them.Either way jap shouldnt really be able to contest the tp if france makes units age 2 for a decent time
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Riotcoke »

bepsi wrote:The greed meta is only viable on the ESOC patch with ESOC maps while only playing against a select pool of players, who in accordance with the cult of good manners, will adhere to the same strategies. On RE most attempted semi or greed play with hunt dependent civs is punished badly by early colonial all-in aggression or timings, save for a few lucky map spawns.

tl;dr the reigning meta is entirely irrelevant outside the cordon-sanitaire of ESOC.

This just isn't true, RE is also bot build order heaven at any level above pr20
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Astaroth »

Well, I also suck pretty bad atm, but I feel like players between pr 25-30 on RE/QS tend to go for rushes/late-ish age2 or early age3 timings very often.

If I "just play normally" (make some defensive musks, semi FF, build TP(s)), I tend to die to that quite hard. I would probably have a better chance if my (decent, but nothing special) mechanics were better (vill defense etc).
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Googol »

@optimusprime Thoughts?
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Yea, there was also a RE meta ofc.
Because of the RE maps though, you had to adapt to the map a lot more.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by bepsi »

@Riotcoke Om RE there's simply not enough of close by hunts to fuel any sort of greedy play resulting in literally all strats revolving around early aggression. It's just the occasional lucky spawn on a few maps (eg GP and Siberia) that allow for semi play with euro civs, and ever so often one is hunt screwed on those maps as well.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

bepsi wrote:@Riotcoke Om RE there's simply not enough of close by hunts to fuel any sort of greedy play resulting in literally all strats revolving around early aggression. It's just the occasional lucky spawn on a few maps (eg GP and Siberia) that allow for semi play with euro civs, and ever so often one is hunt screwed on those maps as well.

Well the meta is more agressive but people still go for the same builds.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Riotcoke »

It's still a bot build order but as rouga said more aggressive. If anything EP is less bot as people adapt better, this is a stupid discussion anyway just play EP if you're pr25 and above playing RE is pointless.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by bepsi »

In addition to my previous post it deserves to be mentioned that the strategies on display in tournaments, which one often seeks to emulate, are conducted in a laboratory like environment where observers will cry foul if a player is missing hunts or mines. What can you do when trying to pull off a tight semi only to discover that there is no second hunt or mine while the Aztec timing comes slouching towards your base?
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Riotcoke »

bepsi wrote:In addition to my previous post it deserves to mentioned that the strategies on display in tournaments, which one often seems to emulate, are conducted in a laboratory like environment where observers will cry foul if a player is missing hunts or mines. What can you do when trying to pull off a tight semi only to discover that there is no second hunt or mine while the Aztec timing comes slouching towards your base?

Because you play EP where the maps spawn correctly, also just so you know from what i recall the only maps that were restarted by the Admins, Edeholland at lan, were maps that aren't part of the EP mapset so Deccan and NE
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by gamevideo113 »

I don’t think bepsi’s point was that people on RE are less bot players. I think he was just saying you can’t get away with greedy builds as easily on RE as you would on EP. Also, if you are PR 20-30 you can’t always apply what you see on ESOC tv because the meta at lower level is different, if there is a meta. Recently played a jap mirror where the other guy just went ashi - from what i recall every jap mirror i’ve seen in the last months was yumi war, so I was a bit surprised.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Mitoe »

You could always age first and go for stagecoach after aging, rather than before.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by dansil92 »

Riotcoke wrote:
bepsi wrote:The greed meta is only viable on the ESOC patch with ESOC maps while only playing against a select pool of players, who in accordance with the cult of good manners, will adhere to the same strategies. On RE most attempted semi or greed play with hunt dependent civs is punished badly by early colonial all-in aggression or timings, save for a few lucky map spawns.

tl;dr the reigning meta is entirely irrelevant outside the cordon-sanitaire of ESOC.

This just isn't true, RE is also bot build order heaven at any level above pr20


2nd leut on RE patch. Can confirm lol

Yeah most people play more aggressive on RE outside of deccan. Its definitely harder to get away with greed or fast industrial style strats. Fortunately, walls are full strength on RE so its not impossible either. On RE as france you are likely to get flamed just for playing france and get rushed hard before cuirassiers hit the field (do you blame them though?). If you want to emulate greedy EP builds you'll need to buy/chop 100 wood or cut a house to get a small wall segment(s) up.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Astaroth »

I think the maps influence the meta, but I feel it isn't just that.

E. G. I saw a game on stream, Kaiserklein as Fre vs Garja Japan on that frozen/snow island map with 3 TPs and no water. Garja did some sort of yumi semi FF, allowing Kaiserklein to siege down his shrines and stagecoach all 3 TPs.

Now I am not claiming to know this match up well nor to know better than Garja, but I know that regardless of the hunts and type of map I feel that I would prefer to play against this strategy as France compared to an aggressive club ashi pressure that kills my TPs when I go stagecoach.

Obviously scouting matters, but even pros often play completely blind and still don't get pressured.

Notable exceptions of more aggressive play seem to be people like Somppu, maybe iamturk, PrinceofKabul.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by bepsi »

Please refer to my initial post, it is considered disrespectful to play non-meta (club-rushing bad, semi good).
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

bepsi wrote:Please refer to my initial post, it is considered disrespectful to play non-meta (club-rushing bad, semi good).

No it's not? Club rushing is decent.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by bepsi »

I agree, I was referring to the medieval tournament mindset concerning the meta when the previous poster alluded to a situation where aggressive play would have been preferable.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Garja »

Astaroth wrote:I think the maps influence the meta, but I feel it isn't just that.

E. G. I saw a game on stream, Kaiserklein as Fre vs Garja Japan on that frozen/snow island map with 3 TPs and no water. Garja did some sort of yumi semi FF, allowing Kaiserklein to siege down his shrines and stagecoach all 3 TPs.

Now I am not claiming to know this match up well nor to know better than Garja, but I know that regardless of the hunts and type of map I feel that I would prefer to play against this strategy as France compared to an aggressive club ashi pressure that kills my TPs when I go stagecoach.

Obviously scouting matters, but even pros often play completely blind and still don't get pressured.

Notable exceptions of more aggressive play seem to be people like Somppu, maybe iamturk, PrinceofKabul.

Well every game is different. That game didn't mean too much. I just improvised the naked FF with 4v 600g (cause I got amost 400g in treasures+starting crate), but it was slower than 600g 600g so it didn't even work as intended.
Anyway ye the map can influence strats etc. obviously. On Herald island you can't shrine all over the map and it's very easy for the opponent to just siege the shrines from top to bottom. That combined with the very poor jump start of coin crate and no food/wood treasures results in the FF not working. Also normally with gold start you can do no port consulate strat but that map is also big and has perfect resources for defense so I don't think going with aggressive strats is very effective. Then again (semi) aggro Japan is probably the best way to play vs French as you want to punish the semi FF.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Shikari »

I think you need to make like atleast 10 bow as well with your pikes in order to not let japan take down tp line. But don't ask me i sucked at this mu. And keep poking japan player when he sieges the tp line to buy time.
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by Luciofrancosi »

Against standard Japan it should be easy to stage coach!! U just need 5 pikes and 15 or 20 bows to deffend!! Also use pikes to keep sieging shrines, he will have to choose between defending shrines or sieging the tp line down!! Even if he takes 1 or 2 fps down you should be able to retake it on fortress with no problem!!
Also make sure to keep a eye on his deck for the x2 disappearing!! It tells a lot of what they are going to do!! Of they rush just get 1tp musk semi and u will he fine!!

Vs Brits u only go for stage coach if they build their rax in base!!
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

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Post by [Armag] diarouga »

!!
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Re: French stagecoach semi FF?

Post by pecelot »

vs Brits you can rarely go for stagecoach, your best bet is to age up fast to get falcs and cuirs

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