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H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 17:25
by mGravitus
Done vs Mongo10's china FF - game 2 I think?
Greedy af, but apparently works vs civs that:
1. Go heavy on Cav
2. Struggle massing skirmisher units.
3. Have zero to low early aggression.
Surgeons (!) were also built to heal the Howdahs.
Is this a legit strategy vs China? Could this work vs other civs?
Also what other sneaky builds does H20 have up his sleeve?
Re: H20 Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 17:26
by _H2O
After the tournament I will have some time. I can do a write up on this strat and the variations for it. It might work vs other things
Re: H20 Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 17:29
by Diarouga
Gotta love how you said it was bad on my stream one day before.
Was it a strategical move?
Re: H20 Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 17:30
by Akechi_Mitsuhide
It was game 1 as I remember. I guess it is legit cause China is always really passive in the beginning due to FFing almost every time.
Concerning other sneaky H2O builds you might ask Umeu but he won't tell you (probably).
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 17:35
by WickedCossack
It only worked because 2nd trickle was shipped before the 600w. Just saying.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 17:56
by Veni_Vidi_Vici_W
WickedCossack wrote:It only worked because 2nd trickle was shipped before the 600w the way the build was designed using tps, having time and being able to ship trickle before 600w in THIS specific case. Just saying.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 17:58
by WickedCossack
Why you gotta ruin my fun.
#2ndtrickle4lyfe
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 19:30
by Garja
Not too different frkm spamming 2x goons woth stagecoach ff altho Indian rack of fortress shipments is significantly better. Also howdah cool unit.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 19:33
by Gendarme
Garja wrote:howdah cool unit.
I think this is the main advantage of the build.
Re: H20 Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 19:33
by deleted_user0
_H2O wrote:After the tournament I will have some time. I can do a write up on this strat and the variations for it. It might work vs other things
early tp + GFA is da best!
Re: H20 Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 20:37
by _H2O
Diarouga wrote:Gotta love how you said it was bad on my stream one day before.
Was it a strategical move?
The build Mitoe and I put together is also just not even close to what you have been doing on your stream.
Plus our build was developed specifically to play against China. I still have to test it in other matchups to flesh out all the variations needed.
I would also like to point out that you have made howdah once in a rated game on your main account, never made one in a custom game. Lately you have been playing on diarouga on stream and doing it in custom games. So I am not sure where I could have learned about this Howdah eco india build from you? Maybe I missed something though.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 21:48
by Goodspeed
It's ok guys, builds are nobody's property. Glad to see this build though, considering the amount of time I spent arguing for Karni mata and transition TP(s) a couple of years ago. Great to see people are trying new things with this civ and finding that they actually do have fortress age options. For a while there it was looking like the balance team would be pressured to buff them, which would've been a mistake.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 22:17
by momuuu
Ofc mart new the meta before it happened.
I used elifents today too, it was funny. Howdahs are cool, garja really is right here.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 22:32
by deleted_user0
Goodspeed wrote:It's ok guys, builds are nobody's property. Glad to see this build though, considering the amount of time I spent arguing for Karni mata and transition TP(s) a couple of years ago. Great to see people are trying new things with this civ and finding that they actually do have fortress age options. For a while there it was looking like the balance team would be pressured to buff them, which would've been a mistake.
the point of india was never that they didnt have any FF options, they couldnt deal with semi ff. This build doesnt work vs semi ff anyway. It might work with less tps and making some zambs in transition though. However, vs most euro semi ff's you are going to be too late. They'd be pushing into your base before you have even have units, which will be after 10 min since you'd be delayed 1+ min for making units.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 22:48
by deleted_user0
This would have been easily counterable though but mongo didn't scout much
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 22:52
by momuuu
somppukunkku wrote:This would have been easily counterable though but mongo didn't scout much
How precisely would it be countered? It appears to me that China kinda commits to his build before india does tbh.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 22:54
by deleted_user0
Jerom wrote:somppukunkku wrote:This would have been easily counterable though but mongo didn't scout much
How precisely would it be countered? It appears to me that China kinda commits to his build before india does tbh.
China had 1 minute faster III but didn't use it.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 22:56
by momuuu
I've been doing some india FF and sometimes it does feel kinda slow but theres still the threat of otto mm + your own minutemen and possibly even an urumi shipment. That's how it tends to feel to me.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 22:58
by Goodspeed
umeu wrote:Goodspeed wrote:It's ok guys, builds are nobody's property. Glad to see this build though, considering the amount of time I spent arguing for Karni mata and transition TP(s) a couple of years ago. Great to see people are trying new things with this civ and finding that they actually do have fortress age options. For a while there it was looking like the balance team would be pressured to buff them, which would've been a mistake.
the point of india was never that they didnt have any FF options, they couldnt deal with semi ff. This build doesnt work vs semi ff anyway.
This one may not, but a less greedy version might. Trickle first isn't a must.
And even if they die to early fortress timings by the best semi-FF civs, it's fine as long as they have strengths to make up for it which it seems like they do.
For the record, are you arguing that they do need a buff?
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 22:58
by lemmings121
also, i'd like to see how that would work out if mongo just did the standard agro ff, instead of adapting to get stage coach and full eco.
I think that adaptation played into h20's favor, givin him time to make his build, but i'm note sure tho.... any toughts on that?
@H2O_ H2O_ wrote:notification
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 23:20
by Goodspeed
Ryan also went very greedy. Against an aggro FF he could have chosen to age with the Agra fort, done less market ups, or ship 600w instead of trickle. Seems likely they tested that scenario and found that India holds even with the trickle.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 23:31
by sirmusket
Goodspeed wrote:It's ok guys, builds are nobody's property.
GS VC!!
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 14 Nov 2016, 23:44
by Garja
To be fair if China does nothing India can just follow up and make any kind of reasonable combo. Gurka+sepoy works just as good. Main point is that China standard ff gives you 8 min to do w/e.
Howdah ff is not great in other MUs.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 15 Nov 2016, 00:11
by deleted_user0
Goodspeed wrote:umeu wrote:Goodspeed wrote:It's ok guys, builds are nobody's property. Glad to see this build though, considering the amount of time I spent arguing for Karni mata and transition TP(s) a couple of years ago. Great to see people are trying new things with this civ and finding that they actually do have fortress age options. For a while there it was looking like the balance team would be pressured to buff them, which would've been a mistake.
the point of india was never that they didnt have any FF options, they couldnt deal with semi ff. This build doesnt work vs semi ff anyway.
This one may not, but a less greedy version might. Trickle first isn't a must.
And even if they die to early fortress timings by the best semi-FF civs, it's fine as long as they have strengths to make up for it which it seems like they do.
For the record, are you arguing that they do need a buff?
i wasnt, no. But they might need one, they might not. All that I could think of is to give zambs their multiplier against cannons in standard, instead of with vet up. I wouldnt really change more. I think thats sufficient.
China does need a buff though, because old han has been nerfed, china has no other options but fortress, cuz their colonial isnt good enough and their FI is also pointless now. I would also consider tweaking the livestock nerf a bit. Both changes i think were in the right direction but they were too harsh.
Re: H2O's Eco Indian Elephants
Posted: 15 Nov 2016, 00:44
by Mitoe
@Goodspeed Goodspeed wrote:notification
I seem to remember when we were all playing India FFs in our obs games it was always pretty easy to beat.
The reason this strategy works against China is because they don't really have any reliable way of dealing with these units. Their strongest units, their cav, become useless; they can't reliably mass skirmishers because they have to mass swords with it as well; and they don't have a good ranged cav unit—even if Keshik
were good they wouldn't help because you have to train Qiang Pikemen with them and can't make skirms while making Keshik.
Basically what the matchup comes down to is China can survive fights while they use their 10 skirm card, 9 manchu, and 11 swords, but they don't really accomplish anything in these fights because they don't really kill anything. They simply don't have enough of a mass of any single unit type to deal with the elephants. Once these shipments run out they just die because they can no longer deal with mahouts.
It's not unwinnable, but China needs to make some pretty specific adaptations to win. Early timings can do ok, but don't really win.
It's also very possible the strategy just does not work on other maps. Manchuria just happens to be very good for India in this matchup, as it's very easy for them to get more cows than China and almost every treasure is great for India. I also doubt this strat works vs other civs.
@umeu umeu wrote:notification
I think China is fine: still strong, even. I would need to play more to be sure if they're still fine in other matchups, but I think they probably are. That said the Old Han nerf was probably still too much, I would probably never send it anymore, but aside from that the changes were pretty solid.
Although it is also possible the EP changes to China were too greatly influenced by China's performance on Tibet, and not enough on their performance on other maps. It's possible China wasn't even OP in the first place.