Maurays are too weak and Spartans are too strong against Maurays

[UltraMan]

I've been playing some 1v1 matches and it seems that my chances to win are high when I pick spartans and zero when I pick Maurays.

My Archers slaughters by Javs and Spearman and swordsman are slaughters by Skiritai commandos.

Maurays also dont have access to infantry javs.

Their archers are basically useless against javs. They have more range but they can't outrun enemy javs

Elephant archer is also useless. Its a waste of resources. its slow and dies very quickly even by Persian/Kush archers. Its also hard to mass produce them. They are also marked as citizen which is confusing as they can't collect any resources or build anything. It just gets in way when I press alt+. to select all idle units.

Champion elephants are somewhat good but they are too expensive and they die very quickly by mass javs and slingers while my support archers do very little damage.  Also they are only available in phase 3. Until then, I'm basically defenseless against Javs+Skirtai commandos.

Can't say anything about Champion chariot as I never even got to use it.

mass producing maiden is also hard. They are slow and can't collect resources like skiritai commandos. Also they only available in phase 3 with special building

Maurays are dont have any strong hero. hear hero is somewhat useful but its so easy to spot and kill him.

Am I using Maurays wrong ? 

Does anyone have a25 replay of two OP players in which one is using Maurays ?

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by UltraMan

[davidsrsb]

I have found the Spartans are hammered by Gaul cavalry

[LetswaveaBook]

47 minutes ago, UltraMan said:

I've been playing some 1v1 matches and it seems that my chances to win are high when I pick spartans and zero when I pick Maurays.

First of all, I would say that I view Sparta as far from being a top tier faction on 1v1s. Sparta is strong when they get their maximum population with a good number of skiritai and upgrades, but if they aren't given that much time they don't seem very good to me.

I don't think archers are weak, I think skirmishers are overpowered. So Mauryas suffer from that disadvantage. People seems to be happy that skirmishers are overpowered and I think that has to do with the fact that they are the most common unit. If there were only 4 factions getting CS skirmishers I think there would be as much outrage about skirmishers as there was about archers in A24.

If you play as Mauryas, your CS infantry mainly consists of archers and spearman, which is not a good combination. That suggest that it possibly might be better to use other units.

What Mauryas can do is make good use of their cavalry and maybe an early cavalry build by the mauryas might be uncounterable by factions such as Seleucids, Romans, Macedonians or Spartans. I played against Lorenz11 several times and he picked Mauryas and I have a youtube video about that strategy.

 

[alre]

6 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

If there were only 4 factions getting CS skirmishers I think there would be as much outrage about skirmishers as there was about archers in A24.

so true! 

[thephilosopher]

I've played a lot recently as the Spartans and agree with what LetswaveaBook said. Using them well really depends a lot on dominating territory and securing access to metal. That's what you need to spam out skiritai and get them upgraded. And even if you get all that done, you have a slow-moving army that needs to be supplemented with cavalry against better opponents. If I'm playing the Spartans and the enemy is able to attack me early or dominate territory and cut off access to additional metal, I won't last long in the game.

[Player of 0AD]

Don't forget that sword cavalry is very strong, and mauryans have extra strong sword cav. They lack a hero to support them well, but the tech hero is very helpful for getting the techs fast, especially in fortress and wonder. Sword infantry is also very helpful.

[UltraMan]

4 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

CS infantry

what CS infantry mean ?

 

1 hour ago, Player of 0AD said:

Don't forget that sword cavalry is very strong

It is very easily killed by pikemen/spearmen and spear cavs. Also they can't collect wood, stone and metal unlike skiritai comandos who are basically champions.

Also I played 2v2 match today. made bunch of champion chariots. They so useless. They die very quickly to normal infantry javs

4 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

That suggest that it possibly might be better to use other units.

There are no other better units available. Most of the time, I don't even get chance to go into phase 3 when lots of ptol pikemen supported by slingers shows up.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Just now, UltraMan said:

what CS infantry mean ?

Citizen soldiers.

[Dizaka]

Mauryas have swordsmen.  Forge R3 upgrade makes Mauryas swordsmen as strong as iberian swordsmen.

Additionally, Mauryan forge R3 upgrade allows them to have the 2nd strongest cav IG (when not considering heroes) right behind Roman champion cav.

Additionally, Mauryans have a population bonus.

Mauryas are not weak.

Mauryas have the cheapest and fastest temple upgrades of any civ.  Additionally, they have p2 elephant stables for eles in p3.

 

Going head first against a spartan player is never a good idea because of skiritai.  Mauryas are a civ that needs to be microed a lot.  This means 20-30 cav doing constant harassing and not engaging directly.  Just whittle the spartan player down.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Dizaka

[LetswaveaBook]

3 hours ago, UltraMan said:

It is very easily killed by pikemen/spearmen and spear cavs.

Mauryan sword cav are so strong, they can win against the pikemen/spear cav that are supposed to counter them.

3 hours ago, UltraMan said:

Also they can't collect wood, stone and metal unlike skiritai comandos who are basically champions.

Skiritai are far from being champions and they can only gather at half the speed. The skiritai are stronger than the mauryan sword cavalry in a 1v1 though.

3 hours ago, UltraMan said:

made bunch of champion chariots. They so useless. They die very quickly to normal infantry javs

If chariots die to short ranged infantry, that is not their fault. That can only be caused by neglecting micro.

8 hours ago, UltraMan said:

Champion elephants are somewhat good but they are too expensive and they die very quickly by mass javs and slingers

This is neither true. An Indian elephant can take on up to 10 skirmishers on its own and is as resistant as 10 spearman. The point is that the elephants can't take on 40 skirmishers.

However I have to admit that defending against an early p3 push can be difficult as Mauryans against Spartans.

[Reyhan]

Hi, I think the Spartan units are very strong indeed. However, that does not mean the Mauryan player has no solution against them: use ranged cavalry to troll the enemy melee and snipe their skirmishers. The sword cavalry can go behind the enemy melee and attack their ranged units. The war elephant can be used as a meatshield against dense melee units. In addition, Mauryans have a steel sword tech; combining that with their infantry swordsman and champion swordsman, you have quite a good defence against Spartans. Don't forget that light cavalry is stronger than regular infantry skirmisers, so you can catch them out this way. 

You can also sneak attack on their Civic Centre with maceman champions while they are fighting you.  

[UltraMan]

On 19/11/2021 at 2:56 AM, LetswaveaBook said:

Mauryan sword cav are so strong, they can win against the pikemen/spear cav that are supposed to counter them.

No. They cannot. swordcav.mkv

 

On 19/11/2021 at 2:56 AM, LetswaveaBook said:

If chariots die to short ranged infantry, that is not their fault. That can only be caused by neglecting micro.

I did micro them but my opponent also knew how to micro. Its very hard to micro against pike/spearman+ javs . If I stop to focus fire javs then pikeman kill chariot

On 19/11/2021 at 2:56 AM, LetswaveaBook said:

This is neither true. An Indian elephant can take on up to 10 skirmishers on its own and is as resistant as 10 spearman. The point is that the elephants can't take on 40 skirmishers.

I don't know what skirmishers mean but It does dies to 10~15 javs. Its slow and javs just run away from it. They can outrun both archers and elephant. also current pathfinder of the game makes it so difficult to effectively use elephant

 

 

Edited November 20, 2021 by UltraMan

[UltraMan]

3 minutes ago, UltraMan said:

No. They cannot. swordcav.mkv

Also tested with all techs researched and I get same results

[LetswaveaBook]

2 hours ago, UltraMan said:

Also tested with all techs researched and I get same results

You did a test with a spearman, not with a pikeman. It is true that the spearman wins.

Without all upgrades, the pikeman(the one with 10 armor) also wins, but if the Mauryan player has the +10% HP upgrade and the final attack upgrade the sword cavalry should win.

Even if both the spear cav and the mauryan sword cav have all upgrades, the spear cavalry loses. However it is unlikely that in a 1v1 someone researches all upgrades and without the final hack armor, the sword cavalry has the advantage.

Anyway, I accept that it is a though to beat spartans with Mauryans after 10 minutes.

[davidsrsb]

On 19/11/2021 at 2:03 AM, UltraMan said:

Also I played 2v2 match today. made bunch of champion chariots. They so useless. They die very quickly to normal infantry javs

Chariots were already obsolete tech at 0AD, they belong to a time when horses were too small to carry an armoured man and they had not invented stirrups

[LetswaveaBook]

I played a game against Dakeyras who played as Mauryas and he showed some good cavalry play. He showed that Mauryas have potential to deal some blows to the opponent. In the end, I defended well and he had probably to many archers (it might have been better to recruit spearman instead), which I think was what cost him the game. With the Briton hero, the Mauryan archers suffer from a serious speed disadvantage, so that makes them extra bad in this situation.

I played as Britons, who are in my view probably one of the best factions to resist Mauryas. Against Sparta I think the strategy has a better chance. I think that for the Maurya player playing in this style is the best you can do as Mauryas in 1v1s and it probably can give better results on another day.

Maur vs Brit.zip

[davidsrsb]

It seems to me that which is the best faction is a rock paper scissors choice and the map comes into it a lot too. The AI thrashes me on the high resource maps as it is simply better as gathering than a human. Very limited resources like Northern Island is much easier to win

[UltraMan]

12 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

Maur vs Brit.zip 243 kB · 1 download

In this match Maurayan player was heavily relying on jav cavs which are common to nearly of civs.

I also tested spartan jav cav vs mauryan sword cav and spartan jav cav always win with 1 hp remaining.

Isn't it fair to say that maurayas needs buffing in Alpha 26 ? It seem Maurays has only one advantage which is worker elephant. Imo worker elephant should be removed or its equivalent should be given to all civs and Maurays need to get access to better infantry like javs and better hero. or their archers should be buffed or sword cav should be buffed and make it champion and remove useless chariot

[LetswaveaBook]

1 hour ago, UltraMan said:

I also tested spartan jav cav vs mauryan sword cav and spartan jav cav always win with 1 hp remaining.

The units should be equal, so the result should be decided by randomness and should be equally likely to go either way. I ran some test and I believe this is the case. If you place on units, let them fight and then press "reset" to rerun it, the same situation will be simulated exactly the same. Moving around the units a little means that a new situation is simulated. So if you try different positions you would get different results. The units should be equal.

The Mauryas do not have stronger jav cav, but due to their ability to use to worker elephant for efficient hunting, they can afford more than any. So Mauryas can do an unique strategy with a common unit.

2 hours ago, UltraMan said:

Imo worker elephant should be removed or its equivalent should be given to all civs and Maurays need to get access to better infantry like javs and better hero. or their archers should be buffed or sword cav should be buffed and make it champion and remove useless chariot

The idea is not to streamline all faction, but rather to give them unique and interesting options. That has the result that not all options are balanced perfectly. Anyway, you are free to have your own opinion on whether streamlining or diversity is the better option.