Jamboree Journal, Volume 2
Posted: 11 Jun 2019, 05:38
JAMBOREE JOURNAL, Volume 2
Hello Again!
As the Round of 32 of the 2nd Annual WoL Jamboree comes to a close, we are slowly seeing more and more advanced strats propping up and more advanced players dominating the stage. The tourney is heating up, and we even had Daedralus himself join in on the party! As with the previous volume, I shall focus on 2 interesting matches that popped up...
THE BEST DEFENSE IS A GOOD OFFENSE
ROUND OF 32 - DANIELEK VS WESTSIDER
Malta vs Korea, Cerrado
Starting off this match, Daniel had scored himself a confident win in Game 1, managing to beat Westsider’s Sioux with Tupi, a civ that I’ll be sure to cover in the future. With the score up 1:0, Game 2 has begun...
[spoiler=Now, Malta was bound to appear in the tournament at some point...]otherwise I would never hear the end of it from Daed... Malta is a defensive civilization that screams AoE2/Medieval Era in its design. Its walls upgrade through the ages, allowing a Late Game Malta to hold for eternity with the amount of HP those walls stack up. The units themselves are designed to counter other units extremely well but be rather bad against those that they do not. Plus, true to their defensive nature and their crusading origins, they also get a Field Hospital Wagon at the start of the game. When built it gives a healing aura to nearby allies and 80 XP, which can prove incredibly valuable in the early game in streamlining the shipment progression.
Did I mention that Malta also gets a lot more wood at the start than other civs? Typically launching with 400 wood, this start allows the Maltese player to wall up from the get-go, or simply utilize the wood for a Trading Post, channeling one's inner Ottoman (oh the irony) and propelling the civ that much higher. Malta has a lot of things going for it and is, in my opinion, one of the strongest civs in the mod currently. If played well and in the hands of a player who is familiar with its matchups, Malta can effectively dominate the match by canceling out the strengths of the opponent’s civ thanks to the focus on hard-counter units. One issue you may come across when playing as Malta is in dealing with Ranged Cavalry, for which Malta lacks units to properly defeat. Even still, Malta has plenty of tools to leverage an advantage with, and some players have even chosen to rush with the civ, myself being one of the earliest adopters of said strategy.
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Daniel mainly focused on one unit in this match, the Footman, which proved to be a sound choice. The Footman is a fairly simple unit, and in a way similar to the Primero de Linea mentioned in the previous Journal. Only much, much stronger. The cost is also fairly manageable, and with 5 speed it does pretty good at closing the distance. In Age 2 it is a pretty reliable unit to rely out the gate, due to most civs not having access to Skirmisher variants that will mow it down what with its melee armour. Although in case the opponent chooses Hand Cavalry, you would be better off electing for the Ranseur, who exceptional at forcing engagements with its 6 speed and following up a 10 x 6 damage output vs all cavalry. In this match though, there was no Cavalry to be seen from West...
[spoiler=Am I the only one who notices the popularity of Korea?]Korea is, funnily enough, also a defensive civilization, with extensive naval capabilities. Korea is a WoL-unique Asian civilization, meaning it also shares the mechanics of the other Asian civs in the Consulate and Wonder Age-up. One pretty unique aspect of Korea is that its military units can garrison inside all buildings and fire from them, similar to Settlers garrisoning inside the Town Center. This can be cleverly utilised to bait enemy cavalry into hidden Pikes, to toy around with enemy melee units, and so on...
Korea launch with 2 high-speed explorers on horseback, both of which are more frail than the typical explorer, maintaining the stun ability comme the Ikko-Ikki/Miko ofJapan. They basically guarantee a fully-scouted map in Age 1 and even allow you to score on more demanding treasures. Korean houses also have access to a few techs to grant these explorers new abilities, like temporary damage buffs and gather-rate auras. Korea has an interesting array of wonders to choose from, like the Grand Palace which gives free villagers and the ability to research the first tier of European Market techs for double the cost. This lets the Korean player get a significant eco boost in a slower match. As for units, Korea is mainly focused on fighting from range, with it having some decently strong units in all stages and somewhat poor frontline units, giving it a clear weakness when caught out.
Westsider mainly focused on the Myeong Gung, which is Korea’s mainline infantry unit. A reliable longbowman-style unit, sporting a tight 1.5 ROF and with a very short windup time. When fighting Korea, it is safe to expect the player to rely on these early on, and even later on as they fulfill the role of a standard skirmisher. Normally I wouldn’t showcase units that weren’t used in the match for practicality’s sake, but given how good this unit would have been in the matchup, I want to make mention of it. In Age 2, Korea boast the Gungdo Cavalry, a Light Cavalry unit that is pretty good at its job, which also has 2 ROF. The unit can seem pretty expensive to go for in Age 2, but given Malta’s aforementioned lack of counters to Light Cav and that Footmen die in 4 hits... you can see where I’m going with this.
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The match itself went pretty smoothly for Daniel, securing a solid start and using the Creeping trick to score himself a 160 wood treasure. Interjection made a solid guide on it, for those unfamiliar. Where West went with the Grand Palace and gradually boomed, most likely expecting Malta to boom as well, Daniel decided to go for a Footman rush, which made sense given Korea’s focus on the Myeong Gung, making the civ easy pickings. Even so, Westsider could have microed the Myeong Gung, allowing himself to secure more kills of the Footmen and possibly making him back off after taking too many losses. Couple that with West’s eco which got pressured nonstop by Footmen running around, the battle turned into the floodgates busting open, with the match quickly ending in Daniel’s favour. Had West chosen the Fortress Wonder or prioritised the Gungdo alongside micro, he could have beaten back the rush and possibly brought the fight to him, as his troops would have been decimated by Cannon Fire from the Fortress and Gungdo’s solid damage. But alas, he had not, and so Daniel proceeded to win the match in a clean 3:0, propelling him into the Round of 16 where he would face . . . (to be continued)
20 MINUTES, FEATURING NOT A SINGLE OOS
DAEDRALUS VS JERIMUNO
Korea vs Inca, ESOC Gran Chaco
Not one to disappoint, Daedralus led the Korean's with a more convincing performance than the previously covered match. Due to a few tournament no-shows and Daed’s wish to participate, he was able to fill in a slot in the Round of 32, matching him up with Jerimuno, a legendary PR35 Colonel, of all people. Ouch.
On Korea’s side, there isn’t much new to describe barring the Dangpa Spearman, which functions as the Korean Pikeman. With considerable bulk, it can do its job of countering cavalry rather well, but it scales rather poorly beyond Age 2. Fun thing to note is that Korea has access to a shipment that lets Dangpa do Area of Effect damage with their attacks. It’s a modest 1 AoE bonus, but it can prove useful in certain situations, like in this match...
[spoiler=Amongst the over 30 civilizations introduced with Wars of Liberty, Incas are one of the most interesting.]Incas belong to the South American Native archetype, which function similar to TWC civs. Incas, historically, have a focus on gold. In-game, this manifests in their villagers trickling 0.40 gold/s while working, ensuring that an Incan player will always be on top in the gold production department, ousting even Dutch. But what would you use all that gold for? Well, Incan buildings and Age-ups cost gold. Its worth suggesting to anyone initially trying out Incas to do the reverse of Dutch's normal Age 1 villager distribution, by putting 4 villagers to food immediately for constant production while putting all new vills to gold.
Incas do not have the typical Explorer. Instead, they rely on Chasqui messengers to do the job. Chasqui messengers are trained and healed by the Incan Warchief, who, with no attack of his own, will mostly stand there and look pretty, amirite Interjection?
Guess who made a comeback! It’s everyone’s favourite native, the Huaminca! This is the unit you will mostly rely on when playing Inca, as its cost is pretty easy to work with thanks to the trickles, with boast-worthy HP and a fair speed of 5. Unless the enemy packs early skirmishers, these guys
can dominate Age 2.
But what if an Incan faces skirmishers? Whatever shall he do? Incas weren’t exactly known for their amazing Horsemen, were they? Surely there must be something he can do! Hit them with your own coyote runner-types, the Auca Runa, of course! Besides the special Manco Horsemen who are only available from the Home City, the Inca will rely on these speedy bois to swarm enemy skirmishers with efficiency. Packing 6.25 speed these fellas do a stellar job at smashing any upstart Korean archer wanting to ruin the day (hint hint). Plus, with 0.30 ranged armour and the Light Infantry tag they can tank more than a few Skirmisher shots. Much like most of the Incan roster though, they scale rather poorly and their cost can be counterintuitive since Incas do not use wood for anything else except their few artillery units (which aren’t anything notable besides their ability to kill enemy artillery) and upgrades, making an Incan players scouted gathering wood quite predictable.
Good thing however, the natural gold trickle of the Incan villagers can make for a reliable Age 2 army of Huaminca and Auca Runa by simply putting villies to food and wood, as Jerimuno did. Remember the trickle!
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Entering this game, Jerimuno had already scored two victories over Daedralus, needing one more for the clean sweep and passage to the Round of 16. Daed decided to play defensive, opting for aging with the Fortress Wonder. Jeri decided to go for an aggressive 13 villie age up, with him prioritizing hunts at the start of the game before switching to coin, then back and forth a few times, most likely miscalculating what was needed for villager production and Age-up resources due to lack of experience with the civilization. After reaching Age 2 Jeri set up a forward Ushnu (an Incan Barracks/Art Foundry mix) and opened with Huaminca production, having scouted Daed’s Fort. He also switched production to Food/Wood, while letting the gold trickle work its magic.
Daed mainly relied on the Myeong Gung, to be expected. He also microed rather well, and utilised the garrison feature of Korea to maintain distance from Jeri’s melee units. It was comical to watch them swapping from one side to the other. Jeri quickly switched to spamming Auca Runa, noticing that mass Myeong was what Daed relied on. Daed continued Myeong Gung production. In my opinion, he should have switched to Dangpa and shipped the AoE damage card, which would've enabled them to counter the Auca Runa while also fighting Huaminca cost-effectively, due to mostly equal HP and the AoE making up the damage difference. Not to mention Incan counters to Heavy Infantry being... less than stellar (Incas have Bolas too, which have similar drawbacks to those that apply to the Argentinian Lassadors mentioned in Volume 1).
Daed was put into a corner very early by this quick swarm, limiting his overall economy. This meant that Jeri just needed to maintain pressure. And so he did... By 10 minutes Daed was running out of resource options while being raided nonstop by Auca Runas and Huamincas, and slowly being overpowered by the superior Incan economy...
By 14 minutes, the Korean Town Center had fallen.
And 19, the game was won, and so ended the match in a squeaky clean 3:0 for Jerimuno, proceeding him to the Round of 16!
A Congratulations, with further coverage of the events to be expected in Volume 3!
