really nice idea for a series. I think a forward baracks would have improved this strat a lot ;) I don't like that you broke your own rules and went castle + mangonel. The fun part about this weird cheese strat is the commitment. just rush down the tc with man at arms while the corpses of your units pile up when they will not resign
@@ZeroEmpires I agree with the original comment. You could maybe change the rule of no more vils in feudal so you can develop a better economy and mass produce those men at arms. It would be awesome to see you take down TCs with just pure brute force in feudal. Anyway, great video!
@@matthaeushilpold2134 Lithuanians allows a faster dark age rush of militia and possibly faster Feudal. However the M@A upgrade is 140 resources and involves a training time and idling barracks production. Bulgarians are strong not only because they skip the cost of M@A upgrade but because the upgrade is instant upon arriving Feudal. Militia trained in dark age will arrive just in time to be upgraded by the bonus. Not to mention in this strategy it's not a typical M@A rush to slow the opponent with 3-5 but is an ongoing spam of them to overwhelm and close out the game. A Lithuanian style would promote a fast castle behind Militia whilst Bulgarians better promotes the M@A spam. Both have a bonus to help the strategy yes, I would argue Bulgarians bonus is that little bit better in this case.
@@liamkerbey8320 thanks though! Denying berries gold and lumber with a hefty drush (say, 10 militia) with lithuanians, then up to feudal for m@a -> would that be a thing?
@@matthaeushilpold2134 its a very 'cheesy' all in strategy. It might pay off for you in winning some games but if you cant find the damage considering your large investment then you will lose. You wouldnt see this at a pro level as they easily counter it with walling vills and getting archers out to kite MaA. The heavy investment into so many MaA would delay castle too much and then they would quickly lose to knights or simply get outboomed. 3 militia should be enough to delay your opponent. If you make 10 you essentially need to kill them for it to pay off.
Damn that was amazingly entertaining. Watching 9 matches compressed into 25minutes really kept it exciting non-stop even tho it was always the exact same strat. Would love to see more of that :)
Nice video! As you start with 200 stone and never use it in this strategy, there is some space for improvement. Collect 50 more stone and go for 2 towers in a spots where you can't hit directly with the man-at-arms. For example in the last game a single tower behind his wood line (which he wouldn't even notice before it'd be up) would win the game. Send 2-3 vills to tower up and add 2-3 vills from the TC to keep your eco on the proper level
I really hope this is the start of a new favourite series of mine. Great idea zak I love the format and the editing. Ideas for other cheese strats could be endless hoang rush never going feudal or tati rush? :)
was so pumped to find another cool age yt and see a cool unique series but then see there’s only one video in the playlist and he hasn’t uploaded in a year ;(
I liked to see how this strategy could be followed with aging up, mangonel, etc. Yes, it breaks the rule. But helps to learn how to use the strategy effectively. I think it's much better than another "challenge" video.
I loved it! Would definitely like to see more. I'd also like it if you allowed yourself margin of deviation from the cheese, so that if you think you can win the game with a tweak, you can apply it.
very good play. i guess you reacted well when the situation turned bad at some games. It seems to be a workable strategy at the intermediate level(or even upper-inter) I feel like the intermediate level doesnt react very well to Drush, and they kind of collapse when the start doesnt go smoothly
A bit similar to this strat, but you could try to go Feudal as fast as possible with Lithuanians (and their +150 food bonus), maybe with 14 vils, then make archers from two ranges. Or tower rush + walls.
i do something similar with the magyars with scout cavalry and a blacksmith. also as you progressed in games you adjust your strat like making spearmen lol
Fun games, keep doing these. Also i think that this strat has a sort of "ELO" cap, at certain point you will face people who actually wall or counter you strat with the obvious deficiences, like low eco, almos not scouting and slow speed, 3 miners in a far gold for example.
May I say that I ate a nice fondue yesterday evening with my parents, sis, step bro and nephews. It was delicious. We all left the table with double-sized bellies.
I've always been pretty shit at AoE2, playing it very casually since I was first show how to torrent it by the boys on the gamemakergames IRC channel, but even I recently found man at arms production really easy to exploit.
I want to see you repeat the same strategy but with a twist which is that you are allowed to build as many offensive/defensive towers as necessary in feudal age and you can train as much villagers as you want. Also in castle age you are allowed to create as many mangonels and scorpions as you want
"My opponent insists on playing on". Cheese comes with salt after all. Betrayed by barracks placement of all things though. By the way, I wonder if slavs are capable of cheese with their free supplies. It is more expensive tech then man-at-arms and will pay off in about ten units created in feudal, wich in collusion with faster farmers could potentially allow to even add vills at home. ...Initial attack being delayed by infantry upgrade sucks though, but it could be something of an element of surprise for usual lategame civ, right? P.S. Khmers are seemingly immune to man at arms cheeses, right?
I played not man-at-arms but long swordsman, and light cavalry. I didn't have gold for upgrades, so I left it at that, put all my efforts to farming food, and basically swarmed the enemy with massive charges. ........ they ran out of gold, then they ran out of troops, and buildings, and finally of willpower. low-tech rush has to be nicknamed "The Russian" by now.
Great strategy! Where this build order can be found? I'm very interested on trying it, but I asume it doesn't work with 9 on Food, 2 on Wood and 3 on Gold right off the bat, right? I understand from the video you re-assign vills here and there to prevent falling short on Wood for Barracks and Mill/ Lumber Camp or getting TC idle time... Great content anyway and I'd love to see more videos for this series!
Worth noting it is possible to take down a TC with MAA once you get both smith upgrades. You need a lot however (35 or 40 from memory). This was probably the way you could have won the last game.
trying to do this vs the "hard" ai and failed.. had to go full HAM with the cobra car :D You should have shown your time stats in these videos, I'm wondering how fast you need to up. The AI was smart with archers and it's tough to avoid tc fire
does not work with AI so well because AI will miro every unit heavily and it spreads its units far off but i have been doing this with goths and so far 3 straight wins from yesterday plan to continue till i can
i think vills should be allowed. So that you can add barracks and really spam those MAA and potentially brute force through defences. The cheese strat must be relentless :D
Sad thing is, they perfectly could be; either as the Frisians (their direct descendants who had history with both the Franks, Germans and Vikings at the beginning of the middle ages) or the Flemish (who were a bit more well known abroad) Both of these civilizations would be perfect imo for a proto-dutch addition in the timeframe of AOE2, since they fit the criteria for inclusion
@Robzah although I wholeheartedly agree, Wouldn't adding wallachians (I would call them vlachs or Romanians tbh) mean that the Dracula campaign would have to be overhauled? Also, what would set apart wallachians from the Russian slavs? Or the Serbians for that matter? Because iirc they still had very similar societal structures and military types at the time, even if their cultures were different.
The Dutch only became prominent very late in the middle ages and were no more than a few unified provinces before that. It would make sense if it was a very imperial age focused civ. I see a trading bonus and a unique ship unit on water; one that makes the opponent lose gold when they kill it. And most importantly: the ability to build on top of shallows.
Lol I actually broke the damn streak haha
Yeah thank the gods! No one man should have this much power unchecked!
Was hoping for a longer video. Thanks a lot!!
Haha gg man
Lucky tc ... Lol
@@johnkimbalb Lucky? You mean well placed :)
This is a great series. I'm definitely looking forward to watching more.
Little did he know... there would be no more
4:29 im that female villager and the rhino is life
And the scout is self-doubt
id like to see this go on!
Gh.8
Cool Idea for a series, keep it up
Against me you will win endless amounts of games with this strategy.
really nice idea for a series. I think a forward baracks would have improved this strat a lot ;)
I don't like that you broke your own rules and went castle + mangonel. The fun part about this weird cheese strat is the commitment. just rush down the tc with man at arms while the corpses of your units pile up when they will not resign
Fair point! I’ll make sure to do that next time ;)
@@ZeroEmpires I agree with the original comment. You could maybe change the rule of no more vils in feudal so you can develop a better economy and mass produce those men at arms. It would be awesome to see you take down TCs with just pure brute force in feudal. Anyway, great video!
@@Zonalyre exactly. I was wondering why the villager limitation was there at all! 🤔
@@ZeroEmpiresbrother in Christ hope you are ok😅
Puns and cheese... Cheesepuns... Yes please. Couldnt have asked for a better series, keep it up my man
I think you could have mentioned at the start why the bulgarians are uniquely suitable for this strategy.
He did say they get the man at arms upgrade for free. What else is there to say?
wouldn't the lithuanians be better?
@@matthaeushilpold2134 Lithuanians allows a faster dark age rush of militia and possibly faster Feudal. However the M@A upgrade is 140 resources and involves a training time and idling barracks production. Bulgarians are strong not only because they skip the cost of M@A upgrade but because the upgrade is instant upon arriving Feudal. Militia trained in dark age will arrive just in time to be upgraded by the bonus. Not to mention in this strategy it's not a typical M@A rush to slow the opponent with 3-5 but is an ongoing spam of them to overwhelm and close out the game. A Lithuanian style would promote a fast castle behind Militia whilst Bulgarians better promotes the M@A spam.
Both have a bonus to help the strategy yes, I would argue Bulgarians bonus is that little bit better in this case.
@@liamkerbey8320 thanks though! Denying berries gold and lumber with a hefty drush (say, 10 militia) with lithuanians, then up to feudal for m@a -> would that be a thing?
@@matthaeushilpold2134 its a very 'cheesy' all in strategy. It might pay off for you in winning some games but if you cant find the damage considering your large investment then you will lose.
You wouldnt see this at a pro level as they easily counter it with walling vills and getting archers out to kite MaA. The heavy investment into so many MaA would delay castle too much and then they would quickly lose to knights or simply get outboomed.
3 militia should be enough to delay your opponent. If you make 10 you essentially need to kill them for it to pay off.
Damn that was amazingly entertaining. Watching 9 matches compressed into 25minutes really kept it exciting non-stop even tho it was always the exact same strat. Would love to see more of that :)
More of these please. I really enjoy you illustrating and teaching these strat
Nice video! As you start with 200 stone and never use it in this strategy, there is some space for improvement. Collect 50 more stone and go for 2 towers in a spots where you can't hit directly with the man-at-arms. For example in the last game a single tower behind his wood line (which he wouldn't even notice before it'd be up) would win the game. Send 2-3 vills to tower up and add 2-3 vills from the TC to keep your eco on the proper level
Awesome dude! Love seeing your videos again. Keep it up please!
I really hope this is the start of a new favourite series of mine. Great idea zak I love the format and the editing. Ideas for other cheese strats could be endless hoang rush never going feudal or tati rush? :)
Time for an update: "How many games can I win with only Militia? AoE2:DE | Goths Edition"
How many games can i win by ONLY luring the enemy's boar?? FIND OUT SOON!!!
Answer:
NONE!
was so pumped to find another cool age yt and see a cool unique series but then see there’s only one video in the playlist and he hasn’t uploaded in a year ;(
This is how I play Goths. Because who would want to wait till Imperial Age when you can flood your enemies with infantry in the Feudal Age?
I liked to see how this strategy could be followed with aging up, mangonel, etc.
Yes, it breaks the rule.
But helps to learn how to use the strategy effectively.
I think it's much better than another "challenge" video.
i did it it with slavs all the time. I won 20 games in row and got #3 during the beta
At this point should've played the last game just to see where it would rank in the leader boards, good series!
Man At Arms = my favorite unit also the best :)
Yeah same. They look sexy to me
Mascarpone haha I definitely puffed some air out of my nose at that
very nice format, pls do more!
how about a classic, c̶a̶n̶n̶o̶n̶ tower rush.
What a great idea! Keep it up!
That shr!mp last guy was my opponent in a game today
How did it go?
@@ZeroEmpires he started spamming just cammels in post imp in the arena map, but I had map control so I won
@@vichonavarrete9929 no way, you flipped the shr!mp??? :O
I loved it! Would definitely like to see more. I'd also like it if you allowed yourself margin of deviation from the cheese, so that if you think you can win the game with a tweak, you can apply it.
What an amazing series. I hope you come back to do more.
I love this series idea, but you should definitely be allowed to keep producing villagers. I want to see how far this can go.
Especially with blacksmith upgrades cheaper you can have fully upgraded man at arms pretty quickly
15:50 I have the High ground, don't do this
We need more videos man!
Someone did this to me yesterday. I won so i feel like 300 elo higher now :D
Super entertaining kind of video. Would love to see more like this. :)
Wow love the concept of taking a cheesy strategy and seeing it play out several times in one condensed video.
Huge video, thanks from a foreigner, very clear ! +1 sub
Thank you for the quality content!
Great series!
Andrzej the 'mask a pony' was a masterpiece!
And*
Yes !!
Interesting. More of this !!
Only man at arms? Is this mangonel a disguised man at arms? ;)
Nice video, I love, how you explain your actions, keep going!
This was awesome to follow alongside!
5:44 It "Woloallow" you to do a surprise landing?
very good play.
i guess you reacted well when the situation turned bad at some games. It seems to be a workable strategy at the intermediate level(or even upper-inter)
I feel like the intermediate level doesnt react very well to Drush, and they kind of collapse when the start doesnt go smoothly
As someone within this group: its true. Any game vs Lithuanians with fast drush I died so hard it was embarrassing :D
A bit similar to this strat, but you could try to go Feudal as fast as possible with Lithuanians (and their +150 food bonus), maybe with 14 vils, then make archers from two ranges. Or tower rush + walls.
Nice idea, yeah keep going with this.
i do something similar with the magyars with scout cavalry and a blacksmith. also as you progressed in games you adjust your strat like making spearmen lol
Fun games, keep doing these.
Also i think that this strat has a sort of "ELO" cap, at certain point you will face people who actually wall or counter you strat with the obvious deficiences, like low eco, almos not scouting and slow speed, 3 miners in a far gold for example.
Does feel like a “Sandbagger Series”. Very fun/entertaining to watch, but not sure if it’s enjoyable for the other players.
I've played 90 hours of Bulgarians so far, I love this civ. Im not a great AOE2 player but this strat makes me laugh
I fight like pig on the ice for months to break the 1000 and you troll yourself up to ~1300 straight away, feels good :D But nice vid :)
Welcome back , cheers
That cheese joke was amazing dude!
This was a great video! :)
This is great, you should do more!
Great format of the video.
Edit: the pun is Andy Ostroy...
Awesome
Hope to see more =)
Geting 47 elo in 1 game, for someone who has spent a lot of time trying to go up in dota2 quickly I so with the k factor was not 50 in that game.
NEED MORE of these!
I chuckled and then exhaled at 20:20... it's like he knew
Awesome idea for a series
yes please more fondue!
Loved the video! Do another one with only archer rush!
nice, this is going in my strat book
May I say that I ate a nice fondue yesterday evening with my parents, sis, step bro and nephews. It was delicious. We all left the table with double-sized bellies.
I love this series. also great name "manwitharms". please do more in this series like cuman TC douche, or incan vill and trush
17:21 ! no I was waiting for 40 man at arms to destroy the town centreeeeeeeeeeee
Great video! Liked!
I've always been pretty shit at AoE2, playing it very casually since I was first show how to torrent it by the boys on the gamemakergames IRC channel, but even I recently found man at arms production really easy to exploit.
I want to see you repeat the same strategy but with a twist which is that you are allowed to build as many offensive/defensive towers as necessary in feudal age and you can train as much villagers as you want. Also in castle age you are allowed to create as many mangonels and scorpions as you want
So just play normally...
Please finish your tutorials serie it's one of the best on youtube
@ZeroEmpires will you make more Strat Fondue vids? Can't wait!
best aoe cast ever
"My opponent insists on playing on". Cheese comes with salt after all. Betrayed by barracks placement of all things though.
By the way, I wonder if slavs are capable of cheese with their free supplies. It is more expensive tech then man-at-arms and will pay off in about ten units created in feudal, wich in collusion with faster farmers could potentially allow to even add vills at home.
...Initial attack being delayed by infantry upgrade sucks though, but it could be something of an element of surprise for usual lategame civ, right?
P.S. Khmers are seemingly immune to man at arms cheeses, right?
Malay could be also good because their quick up time
Yeah I like this. Take more ingrediens for your fondue and try with different cheesy like strats! I love it!
Deadass making a new steam account for this
I played not man-at-arms but long swordsman, and light cavalry.
I didn't have gold for upgrades, so I left it at that, put all my efforts to farming food, and basically swarmed the enemy with massive charges.
........ they ran out of gold, then they ran out of troops, and buildings, and finally of willpower.
low-tech rush has to be nicknamed "The Russian" by now.
´´Laughing in Brittish´´
So what other strategy fondues are coming up?
sicc strat for my favorite civ
Very nice video
Great strategy! Where this build order can be found? I'm very interested on trying it, but I asume it doesn't work with 9 on Food, 2 on Wood and 3 on Gold right off the bat, right? I understand from the video you re-assign vills here and there to prevent falling short on Wood for Barracks and Mill/ Lumber Camp or getting TC idle time...
Great content anyway and I'd love to see more videos for this series!
a singular man at arm
I've fought Shr!mp some time ago, I used a lot of trash on him. I don't like 1v1 tho and he didn't appreciate me making the game last so long.
go to the top with this
Worth noting it is possible to take down a TC with MAA once you get both smith upgrades. You need a lot however (35 or 40 from memory). This was probably the way you could have won the last game.
Damn. My guess was 9. You almost had it!
So damn funny. Im a noob but still gonna try this. I think of a full feudal thrash all-in maybe could work.
I'm subscribed to this channel yet I've never seen a video from here as a suggestion. Anyone else?
trying to do this vs the "hard" ai and failed.. had to go full HAM with the cobra car :D
You should have shown your time stats in these videos, I'm wondering how fast you need to up.
The AI was smart with archers and it's tough to avoid tc fire
does not work with AI so well because AI will miro every unit heavily and it spreads its units far off but i have been doing this with goths and so far 3 straight wins from yesterday plan to continue till i can
Love the series idea.
For the lazy what is the general build order guide?
i think vills should be allowed. So that you can add barracks and really spam those MAA and potentially brute force through defences. The cheese strat must be relentless :D
manwitharms 111 awesome video
Cool Vlog!
Man with arms xD
I think I need a proper build order for that. Can I read it up anywhere?
No other game will make you rage like this one.
Zeroempires can you make a cuman feudal age ram push (R-rush) video for strat fondue. 😁
Also great content my favorite I hope you continue
Like Viper did at NAC3 on Arena?
You kind of sound like History With Hilbert even though the Dutch are unplayable in AoE II.
Sad thing is, they perfectly could be; either as the Frisians (their direct descendants who had history with both the Franks, Germans and Vikings at the beginning of the middle ages) or the Flemish (who were a bit more well known abroad) Both of these civilizations would be perfect imo for a proto-dutch addition in the timeframe of AOE2, since they fit the criteria for inclusion
@Robzah although I wholeheartedly agree, Wouldn't adding wallachians (I would call them vlachs or Romanians tbh) mean that the Dracula campaign would have to be overhauled? Also, what would set apart wallachians from the Russian slavs? Or the Serbians for that matter? Because iirc they still had very similar societal structures and military types at the time, even if their cultures were different.
The Dutch only became prominent very late in the middle ages and were no more than a few unified provinces before that. It would make sense if it was a very imperial age focused civ. I see a trading bonus and a unique ship unit on water; one that makes the opponent lose gold when they kill it. And most importantly: the ability to build on top of shallows.
I bet Hoang left a like.
This is like the AOE DE version of the classic SC II double 11 rax xD
We call this “Man-At-Arms Nothing”.
when does the next video come out?