Japan vs Caroleans

[Inst]

What does Japan do vs Caroleans?

Here's the problem. Japanese Yumi are relatively weak archers that depend on their range and ability to kite. They have no true skirmisher class unit either.

The alternative for Japan is to depend on Ashigaru, but Ashigaru are designed with gimped melee attacks to compensate for their traditionally excellent speed. Caroleans destroy Ashigaru in melee.

The other choice for Japan is to use Samurai, but Samurai / Doppels / Halb class units are mainly useful vs Caroleans in a combined Melee / Skirm set-up, where the melee stops Caroleans from engaging skirms and skirms stop Caroleans from kiting melee. However, with Japan's relatively weak Yumi unit (i.e, mainly useful for range and kiting), this sort of falls apart as Yumi essentially become reduced to covering fire units as they don't deal enough damage to Caroleans in comparison to Samurai.

Switching to Naginata Riders as an alternative meat option doesn't work either, because the problem is with the Skirm component, not with the meatshield component.

===

The obvious option, of course, is Flaming Arrows in Fortress, which hard counters all infantry, but this still leaves Japan trapped with Yumi-Samurai combos in Colonial.

[Kawapasaka]

just kite with ashis lol

[Challenger_Marco]

speed vs speed put Pavillion on speed? + flaming arrows behind

[Inst]

just kite with ashis lol

Ashis have 4.5 speed and are worth roughly 4/7s a Carolean for cost in melee. With Golden Pavillon speed bonuses, Ashi have about 4.75 speed, while Caroleans in melee have 5.25 speed, so they'll get caught up in about 12 seconds. That said, in the 12 seconds Ashis should be able to deal 96 DPS, which is almost enough to put down a single Carolean or at least make the battle even once it hits melee.

It also look like Yumi are about 9.6 DPS vs heavy infantry, while Ashi are 8 DPS vs heavy infantry. But Ashi have far better resilience once the battle hits melee, and far better speed for kiting than Yumi.

So it looks like you can just switch the meatshield + skirm set-up from samurai + yumi to samurai + ashi with ashi doing the damage at range.

[Kawapasaka]

The melee attack of your musks is really not the stat you care about in regards to their performance against heavy infantry. The melee resist and high base hp meaning they tank for a while is all that's relevant practically, along with the ranged damage of course - and the instant firing animation. When you have 30 ashi vs 35 caroleans or whatever you don't care that your front row of ashi that will eventually get snared will do slightly less melee damage than a regular musk. Caroleans have 30% melee resist anyway. It's inconsequential. What you do care about is that they won't die quickly when they finally do get snared and the rest of your mass has already killed half of his in meantime. Unit performance is not an issue this match-up. If you're losing with pure ashi vs pure caroleans you're either not kiting at all or getting out-massed hard.

You don't need samurai and don't really need yumis either until swede gets extra range but a few either way can't hurt. You just need a way to deal with falcs (and probably falcs + culvs) then survive until the torps have chewed through all his map. Maybe Sweden has some good age 2 ways to play the MU though, but haven't seen anything of the sort yet.

[Inst]

The melee attack of your musks is really not the stat you care about in regards to their performance against heavy infantry. The melee resist and high base hp meaning they tank for a while is all that's relevant practically. When you have 30 ashi vs 35 caroleans or whatever you don't care that your front row of ashi that will eventually get snared will do slightly less melee damage than a regular musk. Caroleans have 30% melee resist anyway. It's inconsequential. What you do care about is that they won't die quickly when they finally do get melee'd and the rest of your mass has already killed half of his in meantime. Unit performance is not an issue this match-up. If you're losing with pure ashi vs pure caroleans you're either not kiting at all or getting hugely out-massed.

You don't need samurai and don't really need yumis either until swede gets extra range but a few either way can't hurt. You just need a way to deal with falcs (and probably falcs + culvs) then survive until the torps have chewed through all his map. Maybe Sweden has some good age 2 ways to play the MU though, but haven't seen anything of the sort yet.

The real problem with kiting is military drummers, once that comes in you're looking at 5.675-5.775 speed Caroleans. That drops the time needed to get into melee range from 12 seconds to 6 seconds with Golden Pavillon providing a speed boost to your Ashis.

Then you really need Samurai to beat the Caroleans in melee.

[harcha]

@Inst as @Kawapasaka rightly stated when there are sizable numbers out the range attack takes precedence over all else. This is simply due to how pathing and attack moving works in AOE3. At this point all that matters is that the base stats of Ashis will be better than those of Caroleans. What speed advantage gives Caroleans is that they can always chose which fights to take and they can force a fight when they want to, but army numbers and base stats is still what dictates the outcome of said fight.

[Kawapasaka]

The melee attack of your musks is really not the stat you care about in regards to their performance against heavy infantry. The melee resist and high base hp meaning they tank for a while is all that's relevant practically. When you have 30 ashi vs 35 caroleans or whatever you don't care that your front row of ashi that will eventually get snared will do slightly less melee damage than a regular musk. Caroleans have 30% melee resist anyway. It's inconsequential. What you do care about is that they won't die quickly when they finally do get melee'd and the rest of your mass has already killed half of his in meantime. Unit performance is not an issue this match-up. If you're losing with pure ashi vs pure caroleans you're either not kiting at all or getting hugely out-massed.

You don't need samurai and don't really need yumis either until swede gets extra range but a few either way can't hurt. You just need a way to deal with falcs (and probably falcs + culvs) then survive until the torps have chewed through all his map. Maybe Sweden has some good age 2 ways to play the MU though, but haven't seen anything of the sort yet.

The real problem with kiting is military drummers, once that comes in you're looking at 5.675-5.775 speed Caroleans. That drops the time needed to get into melee range from 12 seconds to 6 seconds with Golden Pavillon providing a speed boost to your Ashis.

Then you really need Samurai to beat the Caroleans in melee.

I doubt that's very relevant practically. Masses should be pretty big by then and even when swede closes the distance quicker, it's not like the majority of ashi are being forced into melee straight away. Way less than half, really, especially if you continue to kite even after getting snared. You're going to have plenty of ranged DPS throughout the entire fight anyway while half of the caroleans are pathing around aimlessly in melee mode (or firing in ranged mode where they're nothing special vs musks).

[Astaroth]

Can't you use nagi as a meatshield and to snare and ashis to fire from behind? Or are age2 nagis too squishy?

[harcha]

Yeah you can do that, and you must do that if you want to force a fight. However it's still an expensive option and something you will be able to afford only once you have pulled ahead. In bigger numbers caroleans have no problem taking down a few kavs quickly and remain unsnared due to how well ranged fire scales in AOE3.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Easy, yumi wall, or just ashi to tank with yumis behind.

[Hazza54321]

You know theres a balance issue when a musket in melee beats powerhouses like ashi and yumi

[kevinitalien]

You know theres a balance issue when a musket in melee beats powerhouses like ashi and yumi

that's what I said too, I was told "it's your fault if you made yourself surround"

[[Armag] diarouga]

Ye, if you get surrounded it's your fault.

[Kaiserklein]

Come on, japan is one of the civs that have the easiest time dealing with caroleans. No way they beat ashi/yumi

Japanese Yumi are relatively weak archers

lol

[kevinitalien]

it's my fault if the caros are just too strong in melee for their price and that clearly there is a big problem of balance? oh and added to that 5.30 speed which is just almost impossible not to get surround

[ShinkuroYukinari]

Shouldn't Yumi mass behind buildings be enough? Caroliner suck with siege and in melee only get bonus damage vs Heavy Infantry. Fighting behind chokepoints should be fruitful.

[kevinitalien]

Shouldn't Yumi mass behind buildings be enough? Caroliner suck with siege and in melee only get bonus damage vs Heavy Infantry. Fighting behind chokepoints should be fruitful.

the problem is that swedish goes boom torp super easily while you have to stay home to defend your yumi, and i don't know if the torp boom is better or not than the shrine boom, in any case it's boring

[duckzilla]

Say you invested equal resources and have ~40 caroleans vs ~35 ashis. How does he surround you, while you attack him? If he splits his army in 20 caroleans shooting + 20 melee caroleans for a pincer movement, you should be able to kill ~10 caroleans by hit&run with your higher range. If you further split up your own army, you can make surrounding your army even more difficult. The only thing that you should not do is blindly z-moving your ashis towards his caroleans.

[kevinitalien]

Say you invested equal resources and have ~40 caroleans vs ~35 ashis. How does he surround you, while you attack him? If he splits his army in 20 caroleans shooting + 20 melee caroleans for a pincer movement, you should be able to kill ~10 caroleans by hit&run with your higher range. If you further split up your own army, you can make surrounding your army even more difficult. The only thing that you should not do is blindly z-moving your ashis towards his caroleans.

5.30 of speed and snare, gl for hit&run

[[Armag] diarouga]

Shouldn't Yumi mass behind buildings be enough? Caroliner suck with siege and in melee only get bonus damage vs Heavy Infantry. Fighting behind chokepoints should be fruitful.

the problem is that swedish goes boom torp super easily while you have to stay home to defend your yumi, and i don't know if the torp boom is better or not than the shrine boom, in any case it's boring

To be fair eco doesn't matter when Swe can't really beat your army.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Say you invested equal resources and have ~40 caroleans vs ~35 ashis. How does he surround you, while you attack him? If he splits his army in 20 caroleans shooting + 20 melee caroleans for a pincer movement, you should be able to kill ~10 caroleans by hit&run with your higher range. If you further split up your own army, you can make surrounding your army even more difficult. The only thing that you should not do is blindly z-moving your ashis towards his caroleans.

Ye, I tested 30 caroleans vs 30 muskets the other day, and if you can hit and run toward a choke you get a decent trade. With ashis it has to be better.

[duckzilla]

Say you invested equal resources and have ~40 caroleans vs ~35 ashis. How does he surround you, while you attack him? If he splits his army in 20 caroleans shooting + 20 melee caroleans for a pincer movement, you should be able to kill ~10 caroleans by hit&run with your higher range. If you further split up your own army, you can make surrounding your army even more difficult. The only thing that you should not do is blindly z-moving your ashis towards his caroleans.

5.30 of speed and snare, gl for hit&run

Dead caroleans do not snare. And they only snare your army if you use exactly one control group. You can still choose to make 4 control groups with 8 ashis each and keep one-hitting the caroleans.

[kevinitalien]

Shouldn't Yumi mass behind buildings be enough? Caroliner suck with siege and in melee only get bonus damage vs Heavy Infantry. Fighting behind chokepoints should be fruitful.

the problem is that swedish goes boom torp super easily while you have to stay home to defend your yumi, and i don't know if the torp boom is better or not than the shrine boom, in any case it's boring

To be fair eco doesn't matter when Swe can't really beat your army.

if one day I see a stream jap swe I'd be happy to show you, and God knows I hate the jap but caro completely breaks the games today

[kevinitalien]

Say you invested equal resources and have ~40 caroleans vs ~35 ashis. How does he surround you, while you attack him? If he splits his army in 20 caroleans shooting + 20 melee caroleans for a pincer movement, you should be able to kill ~10 caroleans by hit&run with your higher range. If you further split up your own army, you can make surrounding your army even more difficult. The only thing that you should not do is blindly z-moving your ashis towards his caroleans.

Ye, I tested 30 caroleans vs 30 muskets the other day, and if you can hit and run toward a choke you get a decent trade. With ashis it has to be better.

and so it takes a lot of conditions to win lol