Plop Spain Guide

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France chronique
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Plop Spain Guide

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Plop Spain Guide
Image Contents
1 - Introduction
2 - Deck
3 - Discovery Age
4 - Build Orders
5 - Match-ups
6 - Conclusion


1) - Introduction

Spain has been on top since the very begining of Age of Empires III (only the oldest of us can remember this time) but lot of things have changed with the Definitive Edition. Spain has always been a very age 3 oriented civ, their XP bonus allows you to send more shipments than any others civ, which is great considering you can send super strong age 3 shipments.
Spain was great back in the old day, however, during the TAD area, it got ton of nerfs and was considered very bottom on RE, nearly forgotten by everyone.
Now with EP then DE, they are back in buisness !! The Spain empire can rise from the ashes !!

Strengths
The most notable strength of spain is their its XP bonus.
- you need 72 % of the regulare amount xp needed to get a shipment. This makes them very strong in age 3-4.

- you start with a war dog. This brave companion will help to collect treasures and kill the opponent’s explorer, don’t lose him!! Moreover, your explo can train more for 75 :food: (it’s super cheap) and their stats scale with age (age 3 war dog is one of the most cost efficient unit).

- you have access to every « standard » unit from european nations (musketeer , pikeman, xbow, skirmisher, dragoon, hussar, only halberdier is missing but this unit is usless anyway), plus 3 unique units (lancer, rodelero, missionary), so you have a lot of possible compositions.

Weaknesses
Spain has three notable weaknesses. :
- You can’t age 2 with 400 :wood: which is the best politician. The lack of this option is a big disadvantage for the commercial play

- You don’t have any range unit from the home city (xbow/skirm/dragoon) before age 4. It’s an other weakness for the commercial play, and can be annoying in age 3 when you need those units

- You don’t have access to the fast age up politician in to age 3. As a consequence, if you want to play age 2, you are committed to that age.

Unique units

War dog :
Image
This unit is just so strong, espectially in age 3. In early age 3, it can be used as HI (groupe them with pikes/rods), later when you want to use the full speed of your rods, group them with skirm, that they can help in the skirm war since they are « tanky » for their cost. Dog are special because they have the « melee infantry » tag, so some arsenal upgrades work on them (like the «  infantry breastplate »)

TIP : A batch of 5 dogs at the end of a close fight can be game changing, so don’t lose your explo
TIP 2 : If you expect some tp play from your opponent, you can use your dog to deny it, quite frustrating for him

Rodelero (rods) :
Image
Efficient unit for its job (killing cav), in mass, rods are quite strong because you can surround your opponent’s army while your skirm mass kills everything. Also, they are decent at killing falcs. They are tanky in hand combat (40 % res) but like paper vs range unit. Can be used for raiding but their dps is pretty bad so they are not great at this job, still annoying because it’s harder to counter them (as they counter cav).

Lancer :
Image
What a cool unit !
This unit is glorious with cav combat and cabalero. Furthermore, since it’s an age 3 unit, it scales better than most other units. Alone, lancers are pretty bad because they are only cost efficient vs Range Infantry (they lose vs other cav and musks), but with upgrades and supported by musks/rods, they can be super scary.

Missionary :
Image
A monk on a steroid donkey. Mainly used with unction.
TIP : you can garnison them in tower, (but the aura from unction doesn’t work, sadly)


2) - Deck

Image
This is my standar deck, but i have something like 20 different ones (probably too many).
Somes cards are debatables / situationnal.

In age 1, instead of 300 :wood:, you can prefere :
Image for tp heavy play
Image usefull in late game
Image can be good on maps with a lot of good treasures, like yukon
Image i think this card become more and more meta, i don’t know if you can used it with spain, but i feel you can.

Of course, all of thoses card cannot be send instead of 3 vills, but on certain build order, you can send a second age 1 card.

Image is the only card i like to have in age 2 sometime. If there are a forward base fight, 7 + 6 rods back to back with xbows / dogs and you can outmass your opponenet in early age 2.
Image only for the halberdier ff.

Image is a good alternative to 8 rods. I prefere 8 rods because when i send it, i want benefit from their 6 speed and i have already tech vet rods, 12 pikes would slow down my rods army.

Image Image on map with a water pond (like New England), you need those 2 cards, insteed of 600 :coin: and 8 rods

Key shipments 
I want to talk about 2 super strong shipments on which the spain strategy is based.

Spanish Gold (SG) :
Image
It gives you 400 :coin: with each shipment from that point (including that shipment iself). Thank EP (Zoi), now spain can play more eco and not just spam units shipments. This shipment is super strong as it will help you to mass skirms in early fortress, and doesn’t take much time to pay off (at the third shipment, which is around min 10 with spain if SG is your first age 3 card). This card is a little hard to macro though.

2 falcs :
Image
This is your mom and dad shipment (or mom mom or dad dad, whatever). You need them, spain without them is naked. When you send them, be sure to have enough units to protect them. The only situation where it's okay to let them die is if you kill every unit your opponent has. Super strong in all compositions (skirm/rods/falcs or musk/lancer/falcs). Don’t waste them, if this happend, you can type « gg », because you can’t really recover from that.


3) - Discovery age

Spain is know for its scary age 1, as you start with the terrible war dog.

There are 3 standards openings in age 1 :

1) naked 15 vills age up :

All vills on :food:, make sure to collect only 100 :wood: from your 200 :wood: start, as you only need 100 :wood: for your house. A vills gathering a :wood: crate is not gathering :food: and you want to be as fast as possible.
Always send 3 vills, standard for every civ.
When your 15th vills pop out, you are supposed to have 800 :food:(around 2min42). Age with 200 :coin:+ tower.

During transition, 2 vills on the last :wood: crate, and 10 vills on :wood:, you need 200 :wood: as soon as possible to take the trading post (tp). When it’s done, all vills on :food: and 0-3 vills on :coin: (need 100 :coin:) depending of on :coin: you get from tresures. Queue 2 vills.

2) 15 vills + market age up :

Because we start with 200 :wood: all the time, and because there are almost everytime some w/g treasures next to your base, you can build market and get hunting dogs in age 1. With your 200 :wood: from the start, build one house and the market, gather 50 :wood: / 50 :coin: as quickly as possible for hunting dogs (with treasures it’s quite easy to get it).
You can have some idle time (when your 15th vills pops out sometimes you will often only have 700 :food:).
Then everything is the same as the naked 15 vills, age with tower, almost all vills on :wood: for the tp, then all on :food: (need 100 :coin:). Queue 2 vills.

3) 16 vills + tp :

Here you want to get a tp a soon as possible to get a nice synergy with your civ bonus. Queue your first vill then gather the :wood: crates as soon as possible, take tp, put 5 vill on :wood: and chop 100 :wood:. Most of the time you can’t build your house before you get your first shipment, that is not a problem, you can send 3 vills when you are at 9/10 and build the house before next vills pop out, if necessary, build the house with more than 1 vill, it’s only 5 :food: lost for each additional vill on it (ref : [armag]_diarouga ). After that, all vills on :food:, can’t really age 15 vills with that opening, so age 16 vills.
After you have clicked up, you can chose between building the market + hunting dog (150 :wood: 50 :coin:) because you’ve already built a tp, or getting an other tp (200 :wood:) instead of the market. After that, all vills on :food: (need 100 :coin:). Queue 2 vills.
The advantage of that build is that you can send 2 cards in age 1 or save one it for later. In return, you are slower (~ 25 sec)

All of these starts are designed for a fast fortress build order.


4) - Build Orders

When you think about spain, you think about FF, when you think about FF, you think about spain, if you don’t like FFing, don’t play spain.
So, you want to be age 3 ASAP, most of the time your build will be very similar until age 3. Spain have some great shipments (thx EP) at this stage, plus a lot of different units, as a result you have many different composition.


FF general build order :
3v / 700 :coin: / 700 :wood: / 5v

Pick one of the age 1 above, send 700 :coin: first (+200 from the age up +100 gathered from your own work), train 2 more vills in age 2, then put all of your vills on :food:, you need 1200 :food: asap (you can eat some sheep if necessary), age.
Build your tower at a key point, in base if you scout some aggro play from your opponent, at a good hunt/:coin: spot otherwise (not too far from your base), or forward if you want to be aggressive (if you can hide the tower, it’s better!).
700 :wood: is needed for infrastructures (rax/market/houses). If you already have a market, get steel traps and placer mine. Else, build a market and get hunting dogs and placer mine (you can't afford steel traps).
5 vills because this shipment is great and will help you to mass age 3 units. You can send 5vills before 700 :wood: if you don’t plan to train units during transition to age 3.
Most of the time, your 5 vills from the shippement will be sent to :wood:.
You should be age 3 at ~7.10 with 15 vills age up and ~7.30 with 16 vills age up.

In mid fortress (~15 min) the classic spain composition is skirm/rods/lancer, the amount of lancers depends of the amount of infantry your opponenet has but the standard ratio of each unit should be 30s/55r/15l.
In some MUs i prefer musks/lancer/dragoon (dragoon only if your opponent has a lot of cav), and vs turtle style skirm/dragoon + unction and artillery, unction works better with range units.

How to hold big timing :

If you are under big pressure in age 2 (vs double rax jan or stuff like that), send 7 rods instead of 5 vills, be sure to have 150 :food:/150 :coin: in bank (for minuteman), this part is absolutly vital 150/149 in bank means you have lost. DON’T TAKE THE FIGHT until age 3, hide one villsager far from your base (can be useful if you need to build some houses, all of your vills are in the TC).
When you reach age 3, pop minuteman + engage with your 7 rods + 4 cav/8 xbow from your age up + 5 lancers on the way and you can clean up almost anything.
The biggest mistake is to engage with 7 rods alone then 6 mm alone then age 3, you need to take the fight with everything (if you can add 1-2 dog, it’s better but milice is more important).
If you do that perfectly, game is won, train musks send 9 rods / 2 falcs (you get a lot of xp from the fight), it’s almost impossible to beat musks/rods/2 falcs in age 2 with no eco

TIP : you don’t necessarily need to scout your opponent’s forward base, scouting the base is most of the time enough, what was his politician ? What is the first age2 shipment ? How many houses ? Also if you are not sure, you can delay the construction of your tower by like 20 sec (that’s what i do against aztek or russia, aztec can priest boom or russia can ff, you don’t want inbase tower vs that)

How micro your falcs :

Like i said earlier, your falcs are super important, you don’t want to lose them. There are several situation and the positionnement of your falcs will change accordingly

musks/falcs vs age 2 play :
Image
In that situation, you want your falcs in front of your musks to try to get some free falcs shot on his army. If he engage, dragbox your musks (select your musks and your falcs, then right clic in front of your falcs) so that they can be positionned around your falcs. Your falcs are perfectly protected from cavalery.

skirms/rods/falcs vs skirms/goon civ (Hauds/Dutch/Germany) :
Image
When you move arround the map with skirms/rods/falcs, you army need to be in that position as much as possible. If he tries to pock with his skirms, he will only touch your own skirms and he risks to take a falc volley in exchange (which is what you want). Moreover, it’s very difficult for its dragoons to find an angle to hit your falcs. And if he try to engage with heavy cavalery, you can dragbox your army which will put your rods in a front and block the cavalery.

falcs wars :
Image
You want your falcs in a front line but your skirms very close to them. If you put your skirms in a front, you will take some free falcs shot on them which is bad. If he tries to snipe your falcs with dragoons, back them and put your skirms in a front and shot those dragoon.
TIP : don’t put your falcs in trees because you will lose your mobility


Meta build orders (95%) :

- Musk Falc FF : old but gold
3v / 700 :coin: / 700 :wood: / 5v / 2falcs / 5lancer

Age to III with 4 hussars /8 xbows, 400 :wood: + caravel only on maps with a pond
In transition to age 3, with 700 :wood: build market (if not done in age 1), research :food: / :coin: / :wood: upgrades (this order is optimal), build your rax + houses.
The 5 vills from the shipement, on :wood:, 5 vills on :coin:, rest on :food:
Start the musk production.

First shipment, 2 falcs or 5 lancer and start pressuring, but DON’T LOSE YOUR FALCS.
Behind this pressure you can follow up with a stable and add lancers, or transition into skirm/rods. Don’t forget the Veteran Musket upgrade if you keep training them.

Strong against :Ottomans, Swedish, Aztecs, Russian, Inca, age2 play
Viable against : Japanese, British, Indians


- Skirm/Rod FF : also old school
3v / 700 :coin: / 700 :wood: / 5v / 2falcs / 9rods

Same build as before but train 5 rods in transition instead of musk, and go for a full skirm production (after your 5 rods, put 9 vills on :coin:, 8 :food:). In this case you probably want 9 rods before 2 falcs (you can go 2 falcs first vs Dutch, not vs Germans or Lakota)

Viable against : French, Germans, Lakota, Hauds, Dutch, Spanish, Chinese, Inca


- Spanish Gold FF : fast and furious
3v / 700 :coin: / 700 :wood: / 5v / SG / military shipments

In Age 2, build the tower forward, rax too.
Same build as before. Go Age 3 with 4 huss, be sure to pop them from your tower. Train 5 rods and 5 dogs (it’s optionnal but 5 dogs in age 3 are always worth it). In Age 3 push with 5 rods/4huss/5 dogs and be as annoying as you can, your first age 3 shipment will be Spanish Gold, don't forget to change the shipment rallye point. Because of your harass, it can be hard for your opponenet to punish SG.

Behind this early presure, go for skirm/rods. When SG pop out, don't forget to reallocate your vills (6-7 vills on :coin: is enough when SG is in play, 5 on :wood: and rest on :food:). Add a second rax.

This build works against FF civs like French or Germans which like to go villager shipment into fast age up vs Spanish, they age at the same time as you (~7:10) with better eco but no units, so your 4 huss / 5 rods are super annoying until he get his first shipment (a dragoon type unit most of the time).

Strong against : French, Germans
Viable against : Dutch, Lakota, Portuguese, Hauds


- Eco FF : if you want to feel like Midas
3v / 700 :coin: / 5v / 700 :wood: / SG / 1000 :wood: / units

Age with 16 vills + TP

Build your tower not too far from your base. Here you want 5 vills before 700 :wood: because you don’t care about age 2 units, you want eco. Age with whatever (4 huss is maybe your best bet but it depends of your opponents civ), 5v from shipment on :wood:. In transition put 9 vills on :coin: 9 vills on :food: and 5 vills on :wood:, get market upgrades, with 700 :wood:, research steel traps and placer mines, build one rax.

Send SG first then 1000 :wood:, this build is probably better with a TP start because you want thoses 2 shipments back to back, when 1000 :wood: is on the way, move vills from :wood: to :food:. With 1000 :wood:, add a second rax, stable or arsenal (reserach infantry breastplate) depending of what you want + houses (+church maybe?).
Go for skirm/rods, against civ with heavy cav (Lakota, French) you probably want some dragoons, otherwise skirm/rods is the better unit combo. Add a stable when you want to transition to lancers (~ 15 min)

This build is quite greedy but adaptable, if you expect some aggression, don't send 1000 :wood:. I also don't like this build when you don't have ample hunts in your base because you can't leave your base before your 3th age 3 shipment (~10min) and you might run out of :food:.

Strong against : French, Germans, Portuguese, Lakota, Chinese
Viable against : Dutch, India


- Double Skirm FF: send your best !
3v / 700 :coin: / 5v / 700 :wood: / SG / 2falcs / 9rods

Age with 16 vills + TP

Age with 8 pikes/4 huss (I prefer 8 pikes here), put your 5vills from the shipment on :wood:. In transition to age 3, 9 vills on :coin:, 9 vills on :food: and 5vills on :wood:, research market upgrades( :wood: first because you don’t have the :wood: needed for the others), with 700 :wood:, research steel traps and placer mines, build 2 rax and 2 houses (not with vills on :wood: or you will be housed). Train 5 dogs.

In age 3 (~7.30) start your skirm production from 2 rax and go SG first, if nothing severe happens you can pop 8 skirms from your 2 first batches.
When SG arrives, gather the crates with 2 vills and add 2 vills on :food: (so you should have 5 vills on :wood:, 5 vills on a mine, 2 vills on SG crates and rest on :food:).
After SG, send 2 falcs and push (5dog + 8pikes + 2X skirm + 2falcs), and train more rods.

This build is an alternative to the SG into 1000 :wood: build. I like this one because you can leave your base earlier and take map control. You have a very strong timing by the time your 3rd age 3 shipment arrives because your SG has paid off, you sent 2 falcs which is your best military shipment and you have a big skirm/rods mass to cover thoses falcs.

Variation :
Send 300 :wood: after 3 vills, so you can take another TP and build a market for free. Put 2 vills on :coin:, 10 on :wood:, research hunting dogs and gather 150 more :wood:.
In age 2, build a church.

With this variation, you gathered 50 more :wood: than the regular FF (TP + church = 350 :wood: ) but that won't change your timing.
Most of the time, with a TP first, you can accumulate 3 shipments before reaching age 2, so the aim of this variation is to translate one of those spare shipments into 2 buildings (TP + church) which provide XP. The time you need to spend your shipments is the time you need those buildings to pay off. Then you have 2 TPs + church for the rest of the game.

Strong against : French, Germans, Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch
Viable against : Indians, Hauds


- Advanced Trading Post (ATP) FF : get rich or die trying
3v / atp / 700 :coin: / 700 :wood: / 5v / units

Age with 16 vills + TP

In transition to age2, gather 240 :wood: (TP with ATP cost 120 :wood:) and build 2 other TPs (you can use one vills if you think your opponent will contest those TPs).
In age2, build your tower next to an ATP, it's like a double tower now.
You can be age 3 before 7:30 with 23 vills and 3 ATPs !!

This build is super strong in my humble opinion for three reasons :
- You can do the FF but with 3 upgraded TPs
- You can play greedy and take more TPs (it will slow down your age up so be carrefull)
- You can research Stagecoach (SC) instead of building a market with 700 :wood:, 23 vills + 3 TP Stagecoach is quite amazing. But you can play without SC and it's still more than fine.
- Even if you can only take 2 TPs (if your opponent takes 2 of his own), because you TP first and get a lot of XP, you can still do a decent « standard FF » and be able to send 700 :coin:/700 :wood:/5 vills. It's not the best start but your opponent is not necessary in a better spot (as he takes 2 TPs which wasn't necessarily his intention). And you can retake those TP at a later time.

Strong against : French, Germans, Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, Japanese
Viable against : British, Russians, Hauds, Lakota, India


- 16 Pikes Aggro FF : a fast way to climb the ladder
3v / 700 :coin: / 700 :wood: / 8pikes / 2falcs / all military shipments

Age with 15 vills in age 1 (market or naked, you decide), 16 vills is too slow to be really efficient. I think 15 vills is better because you want to be as fast as possible.

Put your tower in a forward location (if you can hide the it from your opponent, it's even better). Age 3 with 8 pikes, send 8 pikes instead of 5 vills. Send 1-2 vills next to your tower and build the rax. You can train 5 musks and push with 5 musks + 8 pikes before aging (can force minuteman), otherwise save res for full skirm production.
During transition to age 3, put 7-8 vills on :coin:, 4 on :wood:, rest on :food: (market + hunting dogs and placer mines).
First shipment: 2 falcs and attack!! You must damage your opponent super hard with this falcs timing (10 skirm/16pik/2 falcs) or you'll be behind.

I think it’s a good build for learning the basics of Spain because it's not super hard to micro, super easy to macro (spamming skirms from one rax and sending rods/pikes shipments) and you will learn how important your falcs are (because if you lose them it's pretty much over)

TIP : I like the infinite 1 falcs shipment in this build, you are very low on eco and you deal a lot of damage so your opponenet is low on eco as well. Against civs like Dutch or Hauds, after 2falcs/rods/pik shipment you don't want to send any cavalry cards because he is going to spam ruyters or musket riders and on a low eco game, it’s quite hard to transition into a macro-orientated game. Also against Dutch, since you can raze banks (banks are the best XP donators as they have fairly low hp for the amount of XP you get when you destroy it), you can get a ton of XP, fueling your 1 falc shipment that can be sent until hell freezes over. Imagine the Dutch wasting 50 % of his ruyter mass for one of you falc, only for you to send another one right after.

Strong against : Dutch
Viable against : Aztecs, Inca, Hauds, Spanish, Chinese (if he has no 7 hand mortars in his deck, this build might give the Chinese a very hard time, maybe even rendering this matchup unwinnable for them)


Alternatives / niche build order (5%)

- Anti Water FF :
3v / 700 :coin: / 700 :wood: / 2Caravel / 2falcs

Here you want to FF with caravels + 400 :wood: and time your 2 caravel shipment with your age up for a big 3 caravel push on water. First age 3 shipment will be 2 falcs, add some musks. falcs are great in this situation as they are good vs ships and buildings, moreover since your opponent has invested a lot in his water agenda, leading to a smaller landy army.
After that, you can follow up by sending SG or 1000 :wood: for the TP line / 2nd TC.

strong against : heavy water play


- 12/10 FF: the fastest way to climb the ladder II
3v / 700 :coin: / 700 :wood: / 8pikes / 2falcs / 12pikes

This build is almost like the 16 Pikes FF but faster, it's a very cheesy build and shouldn't work if your opponent reacts properly (but tbh with decent treasures it can still be obnoxious).
The plan is quite simple: build a TP as soon as possible with your starting :wood: crates, no need for a house, so after your 3 vills from the shipment you are overpopped (12 vills / 10 pop). Eat your sheep, search for a :food: treasure. You want to be as fast as possible.

Age with 200:coin: + Tower, all vills on :food: (12 vills and nothing else), if you can, find some large :wood: treasure, facilitating your goal of getting a house up and queue 1-2 vills but be sure that this won't slow down your FF, otherwise FF with 12 vills and no house (tbh you need some treasures because gathering 1200 :food: and 100:coin: with 12 vills is painful). 700:coin: first of course, put your tower as far as you can.
Age with the 8 pikes politician.
With 700 :wood: build the rax next to the tower and use the rest to build 5 houses (you don't really need a market for 12 vills), then 8 pikes.
In transition, put 6 vills on :food:, 6 on :coin: (for skirm production), 2 falcs first as your first III shipment and push. You can reach age III at 6:30 and have 2 falcs on the field at 7:15, but you won't have more than 15 vills.

I wasn't sure if I should talk about this build because it can be cancerous in low/mid level as it's super easy to execute and not that easy to deal with. But you can't write a Spain guide without it 
 I guess.

Strong against : someone who doesn't pay attention to your timing push


- Halberdier FF :
3v / 700 :coin: / 700 :wood: / church card / 2 falcs

You go to age II with 15 vills as it's another cheesy build.

Put your Tower as far as you can (hidden for a nice surprise)

Age to 3 with the 4 Hussars or 8 Xbows politician, then put all of your vills on :wood:, build a house + church. You need 1000 :wood: for the Halb church tech. In age 3, go raid with your cav and send 2 falcs, you must have 1000 :wood: on standby, so when 2 falcs are close to pop out, tech your Halbs and go !
Then try to transition into skirms.

Strong against : someone who didn't scout properly


- Semi FF Rods :
3v / 700 :wood: / 5v / 700 :coin: / 600 :wood: / SG or 2falcs

15 vills + market, age to 2. In transition, put 12+ vills on :wood:, you need to gather 400 :wood: (TP + rax). Then 5 vills on :coin: rest on :food:.

Send 700 :wood: and build your rax with one vill (it's important because if you build it with more than 1 vill and queue 1 rod too early, you won't be able to finish the batch), queue vills until you have 18/20 pop.

When your rax is ready queue one rod, then over pop with 5 vills shipment (24/20), when 700 :wood: arrive, collect them with 3 vills and build a house quickly (you need to finish your batch of rods and you don't want to stop the vill production). Build a second house (40 pop is enough), research steel traps, train 5 more rods, you can take a 2nd TP (not mandatory but you should have enough :wood: to spare).

With 700 :coin:, age (8 xbow or 4 cav), research placer mines, send 600 :wood:, add a second rax and train more rods, ~16 vills on :food: 11 on :coin:. You are supposed to reach age 3 at the 9 min mark with 27 vills and 20-25 Rods.

Your first shipment in age 3 should be either SG or 2 falcs depending on what you expect, upgrade your rods to veteran status and produce skirms from 2 rax (you probably need to add some vills to :wood: at this point as your 600 :wood: are probably depleted already for the second rax and vet rods, etc.).

I used that build when everyone was doing a cav semi ff, I think it happend quite often at mid level. If you can catch his first 5 cav, you are probably in a very good spot, under no circumstances are you allowed to lose any vills!

Variation :
You can do the same build with musks but I don't see a reason why you should do that, however you can do it if you wish. Again, I don't think it's very good, I use this kind of semi with a proxy stable (in transition to age 2, send one vill in a corner of the map and build your stable). This build is harder to execute with a stable because when you queue 1 cav, it takes 2 pop, so you can't queue vills until 18/20 but only 17/20 (then 19/20 when queue your cav). Also, if you build your stable in a corner, it's gonna be harder to use or defend it later.

The main objective is to disrupt your opponent's eco super hard (as your cav will be faster in his eco). You must inflict a lot of damage because you are pretty much doomed if you fail to do so.
In transition to age3 build 2 rax with 600 :wood: and go back to a more common approach with a skirm/rods composition.

Viable against : Rods version : Germans, French
Cav version : Against unprepared person


- Xbow slow semi :
3v / 700 :wood: / 5v / 600 :wood: / 700 :coin: / 7rods / military shipement

15 vills + market age up to 2. In transition, put 12+ vills on :wood:, you need to gather 400 :wood: (TP + rax), then 8 vills on :wood: rest on :food: (all others vills will go to :food:).
Send 700 :wood:, build your rax in a forward position(but not too far, up until the middle of the map is enough), start the xbow production. With 700 :wood:, research steel traps and add houses. When you have 10 xbows, try to snipe some vills (you need 10 xbows to kill one unupgraded villager), but don't fully commit with your xbows. Continue the xbow production (you should train 25 of them).
When 600 :wood: arrives, move all of vills from :wood: to :coin: (you need 300 :coin:), research placer mines. Then you can continue the xbow production with any vills on :wood:.
With 700:coin:, age (4 cav politician, you need some meatshield). You should have 29 vills. In transition to age 3, ~10 vills on :coin:, ~5 on :wood:, rest on :food: and produce musks + dogs. Send 7 rods (at this point your army consists of only xbows + dogs). You are age 3 in roughly 9:50.

Disclaimer: I don’t know if the build is super viable in hight level but my main problem was vs brit. It's super hard to punish a full boom with a FF, and it’s not unusual to see the British player delay his own rax for more manors. You want punish their greedyness !
This build can be used against rush stuff as well, but i don’t think it’s really needed (and with the 8 xbow age up, hold rushes are not that hard now).

viable against : British, Aztecs

- FF Water Boom : no idea as i don't like water game
- FI : Garja has already published his guide so no need to cover this here !
viewtopic.php?t=22069


5) - Match-ups

Dutch : 
Recommended builds : 
- 16 pikes FF
- Spanish Gold FF 
- Eco FF
- Double Skirms FF
- Atp FF

Pretty much all FF’s are strong against dutch. It's the easiest mu for spain. I like to go for a very aggressive build (16 pikes FF), mostly because I don't want to lose my time.
So go for a 16 pikes FF. In transition to fortress age I like to train 5 musks and push with 5 musks + 8 pikes (from shipment) before getting to age 3. Siege houses with your pikes and try to kill some vills, he probably uses minuteman, if so go back. It’s a small victory.

In age 3 train some skirms, wait your falcs, then push. Destroy banks, when you tear down a bank, you damage his eco and you get a lot of XP (this building is the best to destroy, it gives a lot of xp, more than a TC and it has less hp). The only thing you need to do is to cover your falcs with skirm/rods, demolish banks and send 9 rods/12 pikes. I like the infinite falc shipment because at this point you don't really need cav shipments (as dutch spam ruyters most of the time), but SG is probably the wisest choice.

If you opt for an eco way, then it’s pretty much the same, put your tower in a fb and don’t waste your falcs, in a mid-game age 3, you want a big mass of skirm/rods, and add lancers only if he transitions into a lot of skirms.

Tip : Sometimes, the dutch will try to kill your tower, if you have opted for an eco way, you don’t care as it slows down his own age up. If you have opted for an aggressive play then you can send 7 rods instead of 8 pikes (7 rods are better in fight) and train dogs. You can probably hold your tower, then 2 falcs age 3 will sell the deal.


Aztec : 
Recommended builds : 
- 16 pikes FF
- Spanish Gold FF
- Eco FF
- Double Skirms FF
- Musk falcs FF

This is the second easiest mu for Spain. It’s quite simple. Aztec can choose to priest boom, or to hard rush. 

When I get to age2, I don't build my tower until confirming what is his first shipment (700 :wood: = probably rush, 3 priests = boom priest), and I build my tower in accordance (in base against rush, middle map vs priest boom). To be honest, with 8 xbow age up i don’t know if aztec can rush spain anymore, 8 xbow + 7 rods + mm + dog if you can, are great against all aztec units, then musks/rods + falcs and it’s pretty much impossible for him to kill your falcs if you don’t mess up.

Against the priest boom, it can be more tricky. Most of the time aztec will age up behind, and it’s not easy to do damage with 10 priests. So i recommend you to play eco against that and contain. Train a big mass of skirm/rods/dragoons, then age up to industrial or send unction and push with skirm/goon + 10 monks. Aztec is probably going to try to raid you with Eagle Runner Knights , so be prepared.


German : 
Recommended builds : 
- Spanish Gold FF
- Eco FF
- Double Skirms FF
- Atp FF
- Semi rods

This mu is Spain favored. So what you want is a big mass of skirms/rods + 2 falcs.
Most of the time Germans go for ff or uhlan semi ff. Sometimes you can see some doppelsoldner semi. Be careful of uhlan raids and you should be fine. If you opt for rods semi and if he opens with doppels, train 5 rods and 5 musks instead of 10 rods.

In age 3 you don’t need to be aggressive. Use SG to follow German’s eco and push when you have something like 20 skirms 40 rods 2 falcs. Slow push his base with falcs well protected by your skirm/rods. Tear down houses (Germany’s army needs a lot of pop space). During the push you can send some rods for raiding the :coin: mines. It’s annoying for germans as they don’t have fast cav type units like dragoons to deal with it and uhlans get melted by rods.

You need a lot of rods in your composition because they protect your falcs from uhlans as well as flanking because war wagons will try to snipe your falcs. With skirms, shoot at everything you can.

After the big battle, you should be in a good spot. As germany needs to commit his war wagons on your falcs to kill it (It can’t be cost efficient if you don’t mess up).You will probably lose most of your rods, so the reinforcing units should be more rods. You can add some lancers (because you probably killed a lot of war wagons and the threat now can be from Jaegers shipment).
 

Russia : 
Recommended builds : 
- Musk falcs FF
- Spanish Gold FF
- Eco FF

Another good mu for Spain but not as easy as people think it is. Like against aztecs, don’t build your tower as soon as you age up because you want to confirm what russia is doing (if you don’t see any fb, a lot of vills on :coin: and one house, he is not going to rush you hard so you can build your tower slightly forward).

If Russia rushes hard, apply « how to hold big timing ». 
Some good tips to know: 

1. Put your TC and your tower in the same control group, 
2. TC with 10 vills + tower deals 120 damage so you can one shot all russian infantry. This technique makes the rush absolutely not cost efficient for
Russia, even though you are idle.

Then when you are in age 3, you want enough mass of units (musks for the most part) to cover your falcs. The only way for the russian player to take a very good fight is with a big surround.

If you are a very good player, when you push on his forward base with falcs + musks, you can add a small segment of wall around your falcs to reduce exposure of cossacks flanking.
If the russians opt for some age 3 play, just play skirms/rods.


Portuguese : 
Recommended builds : 
-Spanish Gold FF
-Eco FF
-Double Skirms FF
-Atp FF
-Counter Water FF

Spain is favored on land, probably not on water. What you want to do is contain and boom in the back. 

Build your tower in the middle of the map. Send SG as the first card of age 3 and train skirms + some rods. If he plays full turtle style you can send 1000 :wood: right after SG and take the tp line. Poke him with skirms and don’t fight under 3 tc’s (pressure him but « gently ») . You need to be patient vs ports (that’s why i don’t like this mu) and you should be fine. If needed you can finish him at age 4.

Sometimes the game turns into artillery wars. So make sure to out culverin him but SG is your best bet for that. In that specific mu vs turtle style I like to ship unction a lot as you will probably slow push him with artillery and stuff. So you can train more dragoons and less rods because dragoon benefits a lot from unction and your army is composed only of ranged units so everything can be touched by the power of the god !

You can probably also FI xbow/pikes vs ports.


Chinese : 
Recommended builds : 
-Spanish Gold FF
-Eco FF
-Double Skirms FF
 -Atp FF
-16 pikes FF (if no hand mortars in deck)

Aggressive ff if china doesn’t have 7 hand mortars in deck as he wont be able to kill your falcs. The danger can come from 5 meteor hammers which are great to kill artillery but your 2 falcs should be covered by a ton of pikes/rods so they’re not as easy to kill even though they are broken chinese cav. 
When you push (asap, when you have your falcs), focus on villages first because the main issue with china is how they can find pop space for all their swarmish stuff. Game should be over before 12 min.

If the china player has a proper deck. You need to play more standard with SG first and skirms/rods at the beginning. Then adding a stable for lancers and dragoons. 

And yes you need 4 different types of units vs china because rods alone are not good enough vs broken china cav which can hit you from the same range as a falconet. So you need some dragoon to deal with. 

Be sure to snipe manchus with your skirm when the fight begins. Your superior economy should make you win the game.

You can probably FI xbow/pikes against china as well.


Japan : 
Recommended builds : 
- Atp FF
- Musk falcs FF
- Spanish Gold FF

This is the best mu for lancers as Japan doesn't have a very good dragoon type unit. You can play this MU more or less aggressively. 

FF into musks/falcs push then transition into musks/lancers which is a good strategy but you can play it with SG first. I like musks / lancers because lancers with cav combat and Caballeros (card ) are super good vs ashi, and naginata are not that strong to deal with lancers.

I don’t recommend skirms that much (you can add a couple of them unless japan train a lot of yabusame, in that case you need a lot of them) because lancers are strong enough with those cards and musks are better vs naginata. If there are a lot of naginatas you can add 5 dragoons with your lancers.


France : 
Recommended builds : 
- Spanish Gold FF
- Eco FF
- Double Skirms FF
- Atp FF

One of the most interesting mu in my opinion.
It looks like vs germany but it has more balance as france as they have access to the 2 falcs shipment and dragoons are probably better vs rods than war wagons.

France can play this mu in 2 ways, pure ff or semi ff (musks most of the time but there are some cav semi bot france players). 

If french opts for ff there is nothing special to do, maybe try to walk around your base with a dog + explorer and snipe his scout. In this situation, your Spanish Gold ff can be very good as you will be very annoying in early fortress with 4 cav. 

If he opts for musks semi ff. Most of the time it’s for killing your tp. Try buying time with explo /rods / dogs (ofc after clicking up age 3) get 8 xbows from age up. 

If he opts for semi cav ff, train 5 rods in transition to age 3 and protect your vills.

Anyways, you want a lot of skirms in early fortress because most of the time there are going to be skirmisher wars, so train them from 2 rax. You don’t need more than 20 anti cav units (8 pikes from age up + 9 rods + 5 dogs is enough or 14 rods + 5 dogs). 

There will be a falcs war, which can be decisive (the loser of this interaction can instantly lose the game). If none take a decisive advantage (both lose their own falcs), the skirm wars begins !, so you are now happy to spam them from 2 rax. 

When you have something like 30 skirms, start the full rods production, and add a stable for lancers. You need a loooooot of rods (40+) and like 10/15 lancer (depends a lot on how many skirm France has). 

Your rods will have a double function, first, they will protect your skirms from cuirassiers, and second, they will chase dragoons and allow your lancers to connect/latch with their skirms. When the big battle begins, you will produce rods and lancers only, you are not supposed to lose a single skirm.

Most of the time, in a mid fortress when the fight begins, the french player will try to block your lancer with cuirs/goons and block your rods with skirms when you want the opposite interaction. It will result in a sort of a dance where you are going to reverse the position of your rods and lancers all the time when the french player will try to do the same with skirms & cuirs.


Spain : 
Recommended builds : 
-Skirm/Rods FF
-16 pikes FF

Annoying MU. Pretty much decided by the falcs wars. The safest option is to go for skirms/rods ff, build your tower in fb because if you don’t, your opponent can send SG first and you can’t punish it. 

You are forced to send falcs first in that mu because if you don’t, you can instantly lose vs the falcs from your opponent. What I like to do is to send 1 falcs after 2 falcs because you can crush the falcs war where you still have 2 falcs vs 0, so basically in the situation where 1 falcs becomes a 2 falcs shipment.

Another way to play this mu is to hide a stable in a corner of the map and spam lancers from it, send 5+4 lancers and when your opponent pushes with falcs + skirms + rods, counter it with a big mass of lancers, he won’t have enough rods at this point, but if your opponent smells the bait, you have lost as it will just spam rods.


India : 
Recommended builds : 
-Eco FF
-Musk falcs FF

This MU is probably spain favored now with sepoy nerf and 8 xbows age up. From what i know, either india goes for sepoy rush, then apply « How to hold big timing », or if your opponent goes for a sort of semi ff then you can ff SG into 1000 :wood:.

Against forward agra fort you want to age with 8 xbows to help you to deal with the sepoys, then you want to have a good mass of musks to protect your falcs. Most of the time, you want 2 falcs as your first shipment but if you can’t mass enough musks to protect them, it can be better to send 5 lancers then 2 falcs. When 2 falcs arrive, push. When you have a big mass of musks (20+) you can start to train some skirms, be sure to have enough anti cav.

Tip 1 : When you push his agra fort in the middle of the map, if you can, siege it with your falcs right after you put them next to a treasure. The area damage of  the agra fort will damage the treasure guardians. On somes maps it can be very helpful (like Deccan).
If the game goes in a macro game, you want a nice mass of rods/skirms but you must have 10 cav to deal with urumi when you push.

Tip 2 :  If you see 2 siege elephants shipped, back your falcs, it’s still a good trade for you as siege elephants are useless in fights and it’s better to use your falcs later (if you manage to kill his elephants) than losing them for nothing.


Ottomans : 
Recommended builds : 
-Musk falcs FF

This MU is quite simple, ff with 8 xbows (safest option) or 4 cav and spam musks. Scouting is vital against otto. 

If he ages with tower + 200 :coin:, it’s a tower FF. 

If he takes a second tp in transition, it’s probably not a big rush. 
If he ages with 400 :wood: and don’t take a second tp, meh
 that’s weird, why do you want this amount of :wood: ? You get double rax jan rushed. In that situation, apply « How to hold big timing » and you win ! (easier to say than to do).

If he goes for FF,  it’s going to be jans/falcs ff vs musks/falcs ff. So you have the same composition, otto is faster but your eco and your follow up is better. If you lose the falcs wars, the game is pretty much over. In mid fortress, build a stable and train lancers, if otto stays on jan he loses as lancers with cards eats them. The danger can come from spahis/mamelukes, be sure to have a decent mass of musks all the time, if you have your stable ready when spahis pop out, you can train some dragoons.


Haudenosaunee : 
Recommended builds : 
- Skirm/Rods FF 
- 16 pikes FF ;
- Double Skirms FF

Another ff vs ff MU. You can play this aggressive or not. If hauds age with 14 vills and no tp (around 4:15) that means he won't ff, so build your tower in base. 

The hauds hard rush is not very scary now because all of his age 2 units have a super bad animation and throw projectiles, so your vills can dodge them when getting in the TC before the projectiles hit you. 

Sometimes they try to go age 3 after a toma/kenya pressure. Don’t over react, be sure to not lose any vills and TC fire his explorer first as he can give you 100 xp (which is a lot when you are in age 3) and reduces the strength of his army.

If he builds a tp in age 1, he will age up with 15 vills and he will be ff’ing. Here you can choose to build your tower forwards and play aggressive with 16 pikes ff. 

Hauds can struggle vs falcs, musket riders are great but you need a critical mass (13 of them are needed to one shot a falcs), so they can struggle vs a push with 2 falcs/10 skirms/16 pikes.

Another option is to age with 4 cav and raid as Haud don’t have units in early fortress (except 5 tomas from big button but toma is not an unit you want in fortress so if you force that tech it’s a small win for you). Then you can follow it up by a constant skirms production and pressure, because most of the time hauds will mass musket riders to deal with your falcs. In that build, you probably want 9 rods then 2 falcs to be safe.

The third way imo is to go eco but not super eco. Build your tower in base, age with 8 pikes or 8 xbows (i think 8 xbows is better as they will help you to deal with musket riders), send SG first and train skirms from 2 rax in early fortress. Then send 2 falcs and start the rods production (just in case), don’t leave your base until you get your third shipment, SG would have paid off & you have a decent mass of skirm/rods and 2 falcs.

Why i don’t recommend the full eco ff (SG into 1000 :wood:), from my experience, if you do that vs hauds you can die vs a full musket rider + skirm timing. Hauds are quite aggressive most of the time and SG into 1000 :wood: takes some time to pay off because you need to build your infrastructure and mass from them. And when hauds can send 1200 :food: / :coin: / :wood:, produce Forest Prowlers + Musket Riders from two buildings but also ship 5 MR’s right after, you are just dead. People need to have in mind that musket rider is the strongest dragoon in early fortress as they have 0.3 range resistance (instead of 0.2) and cost less than a dragoon, so they tank much better from your skirms, if you don’t have a critical mass of skirms to deal with, you can be in trouble.


British : 
Recommended builds : 
- Atp FF
- Musk falcs FF
- Xbow slow semi

This MU is known to be hard for you because spain can’t really disrupt the brits manor boom and everybody knows how good brits are if you let them build these legit maphack things everywhere.

I think the best way to play this mu is by doing a quite fast FF. Build your tower in fb if you can, if the brit pretends to rush then build it in base. Age with 8 xbows (i think it’s better but 4 cav can be viable for raiding) and train musks. Send 2 falcs first or 5 lancers (depends if you have enough musks, you need 20 musks at least to cover your falcs). With your falcs + musks army, kill his fb and push his resources. When the big fight begins, you need to cover your falconets perfectly because brit’s army is stronger than yours (even if you have vet musk) and falcs are your main advantage.

If the game continues (that’s mean you didn’t lose so it’s good), you can follow up with a stable and add lancers (few dragoons are needed if the brit player spams a lot of cav) or you skirms/musks (i like lancers myself, no reason to play spain otherwise).

In some maps with safe tps (like pantagonia), atp ff is probably the wisest choice, but in others maps i am not a big fan of it as brit can easily take the map control in early game and take down your tps with a mass of musks. It buys you time but your ff is slower so i don’t think it would make a huge difference.

Third way to play this mu is by doing an early pressure with xbows in age2 before aging to 3. It works quite decently at my level (i think my win rate is better with this build than with ff against brit) because most of the time brit opens with blind musks as he expects ff from you, or sometimes they don’t train a single unit before 6 mins.

Moreover, you can adapt your build. If your opponent tries to take the map control with a fb, you can contest it with your own fb because xbows are pretty spammable, you can send more units shipment and faster (13 free rods are decent in fight with small army), and you have your explorer for dog production. In that specific situation, skip 5 vills after 700 :wood: and send 7 rods then 6 rods. If you win the fb war, you will be able to age safely.


Lakota : 
Recommended builds : 
- Eco FF
- Skirm/Rods FF

Most of the time, Lakota opens with bowrider (can be a simple semi ff 5 bowrider but they can spam more of them before going age 3) but their WarHunt rush is viable on DE as cetan and clubman were buffed. So the first thing to do is to scout his base, if he has a lot of vills on :coin:, it’s a BR opening. If he’s on :wood:, it’s a WH build (i don’t think the WH rush can beat the spain ff but they can take the map control and TP line before aging).

Against the standard lakota play (bowrider stuff), on maps with a lot of hunt, you can play it with SG into 1000 :wood: very defensively, with skirm/goon and somes rods (i don’t like rods that much as they die super fast vs every lakota units, but you probably need somethings to block their cav). Move your army from hunt to another. If you manage to do that, your eco can be insane and you will be able to send unction before 15 mins. With unction, your skirm/goon army can probably deal with the BigButton timing.

On a low hunt map, the best way is probably to play it quitte aggro (not full all in but build your tower in fb, train 5rods in transition and age with 8 xbows), then skirms/rods. Don’t send your falcs if he plays full cav, send it only vs wakinas.

Against a WH pressure (i didn't face this kind of build a lot), you need your falcs sooner with rods and retake the line when he is aging. 


Swedes : 
 Recommended builds : 
-Musk falcs FF
-Eco FF

I haven’t played this MU a lot but Sweden is quite slow early game and a big musks/falcs timing at 8 min can be tricky for him to deal with. While you are aging, pressure him with musks. In age 3 your first shipment must be the 2 falcs card which you’re going to use to push him while you transition into skirm/rods. 

The biggest mistake you can do is to stop playing after destroying his whole base because as long as he has torps, he can rebuild it (and I know what I am talking about).

If he opts for a ff, you can play eco ff as he can’t be fast in age 3 and build torps everywhere. It’s always good to have somes cav around the map to kill vills on :coin: mines.


Incas : 
Recommended builds : 
-Musk falcs FF
-Skirm/Rods FF
-16 pikes FF

Haven’t played this MU a lot either. This looks like aztec, musks/falcs with tower in base if he rushes. Otherwise, skirm/rods/falcs with a lot of pressure. 

I think he doesn't have an obvious response to your falcs + rods composition and you can probably kill a lot of kancha for free if he plays defensive. 

If you build your tower in front base, put your explorer next to the tower just in case if he tries to destroy your tower with pikes (if that happens, train dogs and send 7 rods right after 700 :coin:). You should be able to hold your tower, and 2 falcs in age 3 plus a skirm production to seal the deal.


6) - Conclusion

FF :mrgreen:

Thanks to @[Armag] diarouga @aaryngend @Challenger_Marco @NekoBerk @louis293 for the time they lost because of me :oops:

Next guide, Haudenosaunee, in 10 years (the time i need to learn a civ)

ps : if you have any recommendations, feel free to contact @flontier
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by NekoBerk »

Thanks a lot for this @chronique ! You made Spain my main civ now :D
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

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Post by louis293 »

Insane ! OP guide
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

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Post by Le Hussard sur le toit »

That guide is just amazing. Wow.
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by Jets »

I hope I see more Spain on ranked games due to this. Thank you.

I have to say that the best way to beat Spain as Spain is to avoid doing an FF: You either make an age2 all in with pike/rod/musks or FI xbow/pike. Considering the speed of their shipments, 8pikes, 7rods, 6rods are pretty opressive vs a naked FF from you opponent.
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by chronique »

Jets wrote:I hope I see more Spain on ranked games due to this. Thank you.

I have to say that the best way to beat Spain as Spain is to avoid doing an FF: You either make an age2 all in with pike/rod/musks or FI xbow/pike. Considering the speed of their shipments, 8pikes, 7rods, 6rods are pretty opressive vs a naked FF from you opponent.
That was before the 8 xbow, i have a very strong all in build in spain mirror but not viable on DE.
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by Garja »

Aztecs 2nd easiest MU for Spain. Oook

Nice guide nonetheless
chronique wrote:
Jets wrote:I hope I see more Spain on ranked games due to this. Thank you.

I have to say that the best way to beat Spain as Spain is to avoid doing an FF: You either make an age2 all in with pike/rod/musks or FI xbow/pike. Considering the speed of their shipments, 8pikes, 7rods, 6rods are pretty opressive vs a naked FF from you opponent.
That was before the 8 xbow, i have a very strong all in build in spain mirror but not viable on DE.
Is it the one you tried vs me? Because I don't think it works even without 8xbows
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

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Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Garja wrote:Aztecs 2nd easiest MU for Spain. Oook

Nice guide nonetheless
chronique wrote:
Jets wrote:I hope I see more Spain on ranked games due to this. Thank you.

I have to say that the best way to beat Spain as Spain is to avoid doing an FF: You either make an age2 all in with pike/rod/musks or FI xbow/pike. Considering the speed of their shipments, 8pikes, 7rods, 6rods are pretty opressive vs a naked FF from you opponent.
That was before the 8 xbow, i have a very strong all in build in spain mirror but not viable on DE.
Is it the one you tried vs me? Because I don't think it works even without 8xbows
Ye, Dutch is easier, thus Aztec is the 2nd easiest ;)
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

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Post by RefluxSemantic »

This guide is amazing, I love the hard work here even though I don't play spain much.

Also I strongly agree with your general evaluation of Spain vs Dutch. This is possibly the match up I am most knowledgable about, as I have done a lot of extensive testing. Ultimately Spain has basically the perfect package to beat Dutch. Spain is really fast, to the point where it's actually really awkward for Dutch to try to get literally anything done. And even if Spain doesn't outright kill Dutch, it's very easy to do a bunch of damage, their rod/lancer based composition is actually extremely problematic for Dutch. But over many test games, I've reached the conclusion that Spain should outright kill any Dutch player that tries to age up - no excuses, using the following very precise build:

Start out with a standard 3v 700c 700w opening, but instead of 5 vills ship the 8 pikes (this is basically your 16 pike variant). However, instead of aging with more pikes, age with hussars. While the 16 pike BO is really strong versus Dutch, if Dutch manages to adapt and get 5 skirms out it won't work quite as well. However, by aging with the hussars you cover this possibility. Now it is important to do a scout here: is the Dutch player getting a barracks, or is he skipping the barracks and going for stable (so ruyter). If he is doing that, you can push right as your 8 pikes arrive and start getting that juicy XP from sieging banks. You will be in a great position doing this. I will explain a bit below why I think it's unwise for the Dutch player to not get the barracks.

Now if the Dutch player does accout for this build and go for skirms, do the following: train musks and dogs in transition, and do a careful initial timing attack as soon as you age up. With this timing, Dutch isn't going to prevent you from killing a bank either, as there is just no way to hold the 4 huss/10 musks/dogs/8 pikes at this stage of the game (Dutch hasn't even aged yet normally). You follow up by training skirms, shipping falcs first in age 3 and then shipping either 12 pikes, 5 lancers or 9 rods. With the falcs, you'll be killing even more banks and get so much xp that you will just completely outmass the Dutch player.

Now I promised to explain why the Dutch player shouldn't skip the rax: This simply loses to the 16 pike build. There's a subtle trick that is a bit counterintuitive to make this a free win. Against basically all Dutch FFs that make more than 1 bank, you can just get all your pikes and siege down the TC for free. Without a shipment point, there is no way for Dutch to win. It's counterintuitive because we generally learn that sieging a TC is usually a bad choice, but with these builds the timings work out such that the Dutch just loses his TC and then has no way to beat you.

Now all of this might be irrelevant in a sense, because I think that Dutch should try to play colonial against you. In which case you probably want to mix in spanish gold somewhere instead. I haven't really tested the optimal path here as I have mostly been consumed by the puzzle of this FF match up.
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by louis293 »

yeah you feel the passion of a try hard spain player in this guide !
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by Garja »

[Armag] diarouga wrote: Ye, Dutch is easier, thus Aztec is the 2nd easiest ;)
Especiall on DE, it is not an easy MU at all.
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by chronique »

Garja wrote: Is it the one you tried vs me? Because I don't think it works even without 8xbows
No idea, i think i didn't try this build in rated game on DE but on EP it was my standar build in spain mirror.

You think aztek are suppose to be ok vs spain? To me, germany in 3th easiest mu is more controversial ^^
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by Garja »

On mexico, Idk maybe it wasn't you. Something like 2x rax all in.
Aztecs do fine vs Spain especially on DE
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by chronique »

@RefluxSemantic I found a build with dutch (because i practise this mu from dutch side, i basicly can play one mu with dutch ahah) and i think i found one build which not die vs the super aggro ff. I don't know if it's really viable but you have a shit ton of ruyter. Take tp age 1, age 15 or 16 vills (make any difference imo), in transition build bank, age 2 put 4 vills on gold train 3 or 4 more vills (you age with 19), one vill on the wood crate for the market + HD, bank wagon first then 700g. During transi to age 3 gather wood for 2 house then 5 vills on wood, 5 food rest gold.

You are age 3 arround 7 min (6.50 is the fastest but always before 7.05) with 2 bank, 1 tp, 1 stable, enough pop space, 1 shipment ready and 50% of the second one (which mean you can send back to back 9 and 7 ruyter). Ofc your eco is meh but 20 vills + 2 bank + HD is still far better than spain eco.

edit : @Garja it wasn't me, i have never play spain mirror on mexico, but there are a lot of french players which use that all in double rax build ahaha (they only remember this strategy when i try to teach them spain)
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by Squamiger »

awesome guide. would love to see the plop haudenosaunee guide :)
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by Miyawaki Sakura »

Thank you for your teaching
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by chronique »

Squamiger wrote:awesome guide. would love to see the plop haudenosaunee guide :)
Gona take many years ahah
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

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Post by edeholland »

Image Great guide, insta-approve :flowers:
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

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Post by Kanoo »

chronique wrote:
Squamiger wrote:awesome guide. would love to see the plop haudenosaunee guide :)
Gona take many years ahah
Petition to fast-track the plop Haudenosaunee guide! :P
thebritish wrote: ↑
19 Jan 2016, 09:58
So, you are saying that if i watch H20's rec, i can beat anyone below H20's level because i know his BO?
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by RefluxSemantic »

chronique wrote:@RefluxSemantic I found a build with dutch (because i practise this mu from dutch side, i basicly can play one mu with dutch ahah) and i think i found one build which not die vs the super aggro ff. I don't know if it's really viable but you have a shit ton of ruyter. Take tp age 1, age 15 or 16 vills (make any difference imo), in transition build bank, age 2 put 4 vills on gold train 3 or 4 more vills (you age with 19), one vill on the wood crate for the market + HD, bank wagon first then 700g. During transi to age 3 gather wood for 2 house then 5 vills on wood, 5 food rest gold.

You are age 3 arround 7 min (6.50 is the fastest but always before 7.05) with 2 bank, 1 tp, 1 stable, enough pop space, 1 shipment ready and 50% of the second one (which mean you can send back to back 9 and 7 ruyter). Ofc your eco is meh but 20 vills + 2 bank + HD is still far better than spain eco.

edit : @Garja it wasn't me, i have never play spain mirror on mexico, but there are a lot of french players which use that all in double rax build ahaha (they only remember this strategy when i try to teach them spain)
I have written down some Dutch tests moving forward from the Spain BO I described. I cant open them right now because its in a word file and I uninstalled word from my pc because it kept taking up resources without asking me for permission.

Iirc, my path was similar to your path, however I think you need to get some skirms. I believe a 16 pike FF would kill your TC before your ruyters arrive. I spent 5 games losing to a 1st lt trying to do something similar to your BO. I would have to look up my specific notes for this to give more insight.

Generally speaking though, the Dutch play on ladder is not this advanced as most people havent spent dozens of games carefully mapping out the exact timings of these exacts builds (it delights me to see that you have spent a lot of effort on it though). I think my suggested Spain build is amazing for ladder play and even tournament play, as I think its extremely unlikely that your opponent will have the exact response necessary - if there even is a good response - and even with that perfect response the mu is still strongly in spain's favor.
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by Scroogie »

Thank you very much for the guide, it's very good! I especially liked your explanation of falconet control.
Me being slightly ahead vs H2O: Image
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by PancakePrincess »

This is amazing! Thank you very much for the effort!
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by chris1089 »

Ty Poisson. The long awaited guide. ^^
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Re: Plop Spain Guide

Post by Rohbrot »

This Guide will improve more and more after the 1000 games we will play with Poisson
Spain pain train is real

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