Early colonial skirms vs xbows?

[Jaeger]

Some high-level players believe that in early colonial situations, having access to bows is more valuable than access to skirmishers. What do you think?

Advantages of bows:
1) Less train time
2) More base damage
3) More massable with 700w 600w
4) You make rax faster because you gather wood in transition anyway, no need to wait for 400w
5) Cheaper

Advantages of skirms
1) Outrange bows
2) Better multiplier vs heavy infantry
3) More base HP
4) More ranged resist
5) More line of sight

Unit stats:

Skirmisher Crossbowman

HP: 120 HP: 100
Attack: 15 Attack: 18
Resistance: 30% ranged Resistance: 20% ranged
Multipliers: x2 vs heavy inf and ranged cav, Multipliers: x1.25 vs heavy inf, x2 vs ranged cav,
x0.75 vs cav x.075 vs cav
Train time: 33s Train time: 27s
Cost: 50 food/65 gold (168.5 VS*) Cost: 40 food/40 wood (122.2 VS*)

*VS calculated assuming no market upgrades, as the upgrades can vary widely based on the civ and on the build order, but common upgrades (unting dogs+gangsaw for xbows, unting dogs+placer mines for skirms) generally won't reduce the cost by more than 15-20 VS

[DivineFire]

It's a bit of a weird comparison as only dutch has the option to make skirmishers in age 2 unless you count the french early skirmisher card, which shouldn't even be discussed like ever. So basically you can have either one or the other, there isn't really a civ that gets to choose. However, given the option I would prefer skirmishers as their increased range gives you the ability to constantly harass your opponents army without committing to anything and they don't cost wood which makes transitioning to the fortress age much easier as you're already gathering coin.

[benj89]

it all depends about mu and situation, but if you pick the example we talked about which is pure xb of a french (not of a german who would have free cav) vs pure skirm of a dutch, I'm convinced that dutch win with the proper build and walls. and as mentionned, basic situation: it turns out dutch win the cost efficiency battle, goes age3 easier and gg

[DivineFire]

I'd say you don't even need walls or the proper build. Pure skirms vs pure bows favours the skirmisher player in a huge way, as he can simply kite the bow player to death.

[benj89]

hm considering french early spam is important, and you don't always have the perfect hunts, you always need walls (to complement with your market/houses placement), and to prevent from having to many iddle vills early, because after you got like 15-20 skirm it's over anyway

[DivineFire]

Fair enough.

[Jaeger]

I''d say you don''t even need walls or the proper build. Pure skirms vs pure bows favours the skirmisher player in a huge way, as he can simply kite the bow player to death.

What a lot of people don''t realize is that most infantry units (including xbows and skirmishers) have the same speed (4). This mean that if microed properly, the skirmishers get about 2-4 free volleys on the xbows, but after that all the xbows will be able to shoot at the skirms, so range is no longer a factor (except that the skirms can stop kiting at any time and just keep walking, taking 1-2 free volleys from the xbows). This means that if you don''t mind running trough TC fire and know that enemy minutemen/huss are no longer available, you could chase down all the skirms with xbows.

[DivineFire]

Id say you dont even need walls or the proper build. Pure skirms vs pure bows favours the skirmisher player in a huge way, as he can simply kite the bow player to death.

What a lot of people dont realize is that most infantry units (including xbows and skirmishers) have the same speed (4). This mean that if microed properly, the skirmishers get about 2-4 free volleys on the xbows, but after that all the xbows will be able to shoot at the skirms. This means that if you dont mind running trough TC fire and know that enemy minutemen/huss are no longer available, you could chase down all the skirms with xbows.

Ummm, 2-4 free volleys is a substantial amount of free damage, so chasing down the skirms would only be viable if youve got them outnumbered at least 2 to 1 or even more, otherwise youre just going to be taking waaay to much free damage.

[Jaeger]

What a lot of people dont realize is that most infantry units (including xbows and skirmishers) have the same speed (4). This mean that if microed properly, the skirmishers get about 2-4 free volleys on the xbows, but after that all the xbows will be able to shoot at the skirms. This means that if you dont mind running trough TC fire and know that enemy minutemen/huss are no longer available, you could chase down all the skirms with xbows.

Ummm, 2-4 free volleys is a substantial amount of free damage, so chasing down the skirms would only be viable if youve got them outnumbered at least 2 to 1 or even more, otherwise youre just going to be taking waaay to much free damage.

Thats true, but usually you DO have even more than 2:1 advantage because you spam fast-training xbows from 2 rax as opposed to 1 rax skirm. But ofc you also have buildings which help you do more free damage.

[Garja]

Id say you dont even need walls or the proper build. Pure skirms vs pure bows favours the skirmisher player in a huge way, as he can simply kite the bow player to death.

The kiting thing is misconception. Extra range doesnt give infinite kiting but just a number of free shots before the opponent gets in range and fire himself.

it all depends about mu and situation, but if you pick the example we talked about which is pure xb of a french (not of a german who would have free cav) vs pure skirm of a dutch, Im convinced that dutch win with the proper build and walls. and as mentionned, basic situation: it turns out dutch win the cost efficiency battle, goes age3 easier and gg

Also another common misconception is calling premium units "cost effective". In 90% of cases cost effective units are the cheap ones while premium units are effective but not efficient (aka cost effective).
Skirms, along with other units, are effective because they can win a decisive battle, but they only become cost effective if they kill enough units to repay for their cost, which is often not the case.

Aside from that I voted for xbows. The cost and train time are decisive factors imo. Units like cav (and to a lesser extent xbows themselves) just get more value out of killing skirms than xbows in comparison. Skirms do much better vs musks but fore the rest early on bow type units just perform a better job.

[cowhax]

Can somebody tell me what the results are so far? 8 votes by 8 users. I'm choosing not to vote because I think either build is equal in that they're meant to counter heavy infantry.

But Dutch aren't the only ones with age 2 skirms. Never forget Russia! And in that, the comparison is completely lost since Russian skirms cost food and wood, no gold. I don't like strelets though since you get 10 at a time, meaning you have to build a house for each wave which means they secretly cost 100 extra wood (unless the blockhouse is taking on some of the population required).

[Jaeger]

Can somebody tell me what the results are so far? 8 votes by 8 users. I''m choosing not to vote because I think either build is equal in that they''re meant to counter heavy infantry.

But Dutch aren''t the only ones with age 2 skirms. Never forget Russia! And in that, the comparison is completely lost since Russian skirms cost food and wood, no gold. I don''t like strelets though since you get 10 at a time, meaning you have to build a house for each wave which means they secretly cost 100 extra wood (unless the blockhouse is taking on some of the population required).

It''s 2-8 in favor of skirms. I voted for skirms, but after thinking about it if one player makes only bows and the other only skirms, i think the bow player will win.

[Jaeger]

Id say you dont even need walls or the proper build. Pure skirms vs pure bows favours the skirmisher player in a huge way, as he can simply kite the bow player to death.

The kiting thing is misconception. Extra range doesnt give infinite kiting but just a number of free shots before the opponent gets in range and fire himself.

it all depends about mu and situation, but if you pick the example we talked about which is pure xb of a french (not of a german who would have free cav) vs pure skirm of a dutch, Im convinced that dutch win with the proper build and walls. and as mentionned, basic situation: it turns out dutch win the cost efficiency battle, goes age3 easier and gg

Also another common misconception is calling premium units "cost effective". In 90% of cases cost effective units are the cheap ones while premium units are effective but not efficient (aka cost effective).
Skirms, along with other units, are effective because they can win a decisive battle, but they only become cost effective if they kill enough units to repay for their cost, which is often not the case.

Aside from that I voted for xbows. The cost and train time are decisive factors imo. Units like cav (and to a lesser extent xbows themselves) just get more value out of killing skirms than xbows in comparison. Skirms do much better vs musks but fore the rest early on bow type units just perform a better job.

Yeah I think if one player goes full bow and the other full skirms the bows will win, but I think skirms are more useful for dutch because they outrange EVERYTHING (except lb) in colonial by so much, so I think theyre the best unit to have behind a bank wall. for example, if you start cav vs french and they musk cav u, after the second push you will have to add a rax imo and make some skirms. Them being more expensive than bows is also an advantage in that situation, because it means 1 skirm>'1 bow. That means that just spamming skirms from 1 rax will get you a lot more firepower than spamming bows from 1 rax. So if Dutch had bows, they might need to drop 2 raxes in colonial in some situations instead of just 1.

[benj89]

I am convinced that a good dutch player who knows the civ and how to use it, with the right build/walls/abuse of the range (nobody mentioned the card which also make a huge diff as dutch, but even without considering them) pure skirm win vs pure bow.
some obs would need to be played to show it

[Jaeger]

I am convinced that a good dutch player who knows the civ and how to use it, with the right build/walls/abuse of the range (nobody mentioned the card which also make a huge diff as dutch, but even without considering them) pure skirm win vs pure bow.
some obs would need to be played to show it

You mean the age 2 skirm cards? They are really good, but we''re talking about mostly eaerly colonial here. In best case scenario your first skirm card will probably be like your 4th colonial card (bank wagon 700w 600w first) , but more than likely you will probably have to send 8 pike and/or 3 huss before upgrades.Yeah I agree with you that skirm is better than xbow to have in base behind a bank wall, but if it''s just straight up 2 rax xbow vs 1 rax skirm I think the bows win regardless of the kiting.

[benj89]

yeah but that doesn't make sense to compare it like that. you have to compare it in "real" situation as a dutch should play pure skirm vs a french who pure bow. if french add pikes then it's different but we consider he pure bows here
(why 8 pike or 3c since we said pure skirm ?).
I'm not a fan of the bank wagon even vs press, well i don't like dutch in general on tad but anyway i'd just do 700/600/skirm cards if it was pure skirm vs pure bow, then u easy win
but of course if you put a straight skirm rax vs 2 bow rax the bows wins, but that's not how it works (I concede that pure skirm vs pure bow isn't how it works neither after all , but even if he had pikes, it's more difficult to deal with but the dutch should still win on a map with enough herds. as long as there is no cav with good micro imo skirm>'bow pike)

[princeofkabul]

Dutch can also start 2 raxes and skirms, Ovi ')

[SoldieR]

This question can easily be answered by the comparison of how skirm+huss for dutch do vs musk+huss, and xb+pike do vs musk/huss for any other civ. And that in itself is why dutch is not played..they cant hold vs musk/huss, like the typical french 5/5 build, after the 8xb ship, charge in and win

[Goodspeed]

Skirms are the better unit, but Dutch's early game is pretty shitty if that was the actual question (seems to be the one being discussed ITT?)

[bart331]

Banks just suck, they gather too slow for the investment

[Jaeger]

Skirms are the better unit, but Dutch''s early game is pretty shitty if that was the actual question (seems to be the one being discussed ITT?)

Yeah I guess thats what were tlaking about XD

[DivineFire]

Skirms are the better unit, but Dutch''s early game is pretty shitty if that was the actual question (seems to be the one being discussed ITT?)

I was confused as well, I thought that it was an "if you had the option" sort of question where you''re spamming from a single rax and can make either sort of thing...

[Durokan]

On the topic of age two skirms, does anyone have thoughts on the french team early skirms to get them in age 2? Dutch aren't truly the only ones with age two skirms, they just don't have to find a way to sneak in/waste a critical shipment.

Edit: I was reading about how bad dutch early eco is early on in this post, france does not have that problem. Maybe this could work as a cheese? Idk.

[Jaeger]

On the topic of age two skirms, does anyone have thoughts on the french team early skirms to get them in age 2? Dutch aren''t truly the only ones with age two skirms, they just don''t have to find a way to sneak in/waste a critical shipment.

Edit: I was reading about how bad dutch early eco is early on in this post, france does not have that problem. Maybe this could work as a cheese? Idk.

I guess it would be good in long colonial wars, but it''s probably not a good idea to ship that card very early. Let''s say youre playing a french mirror for example. If you play colonial you have to send 700w 4v so that your eco doesn''t suck and you have a good setup. Only after that I would send the skirm card. I think this strat could win the first time if your opponent doesn''t see it early and continues massing in age 2, but the second time around your opponent can just scout for it and send 700g and age up for vet skirms, which he can do safely because your card will probably take 2-4 minutes to pay off.

But who knows, maybe some all in 700w>'early skirm>'700g 600g 3 huss 8 bows build with TP in transition might be ok especially on a map with low food, but sending the skirm card instead of something else just puts a HUGE handicap on your massing potential until the gold crates come in.

[Garja]

On the topic of age two skirms, does anyone have thoughts on the french team early skirms to get them in age 2? Dutch aren''t truly the only ones with age two skirms, they just don''t have to find a way to sneak in/waste a critical shipment.

Edit: I was reading about how bad dutch early eco is early on in this post, france does not have that problem. Maybe this could work as a cheese? Idk.

Actually you gave me quite an idea. What if Fre send that card after they developed with the usual stuff? The can have nice musk+skirm+huss combo with 2 ups on skirm. Basically they don''t necessarily have to age in some cases. Interesting.