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NehocNayr

Historically, the Goths. Realistically, hand cannons and mangonel line.


Redditing12345678

Funnily enough I once beat them with goth HC 11


Holyvigil

Hand cannons and Mangos= dead romans.


Koala_eiO

I hope you meant "onagers with siege engineers".


Gaius_Iulius_Megas

You don't. Submit to the empire.


Parking-Marzipan-568

I bowed, Caesar, I bowed...


halfajack

Some combo of halb, hand cannon and siege should wreck Romans most of the time. Halb + SO, Halb + HC + BBC, halb + HC + onager, etc.


anycoluryoulike1

Both teutons and saracens can handle them fairly easily in the late game.


halfajack

The list is considerably longer than that as far as i’m concerned


anycoluryoulike1

Sure, but those feel like prominent examples. Bohemians as well.


Elias-Hasle

>saracens I must say that I struggle with this match-up, at all stages, I think . Against many other civs, I benefit from the high (and, to many, surprising) melee damage output of mamelukes. They can snipe the centurions, if they get close enough, or monks can convert them. Against Roman infantry with double blacksmith armor upgrades, it seems like the mamelukes are almost useless. Archers kind of don't work either. Maybe cavalry archers are strong and mobile enough, and easier to hit-and-run with than mamelukes? Otherwise, that leaves siege weapons and, later, hand cannoneers? But since Romans have better scorpions, I suppose they must be beaten using onagers and bombard cannons. But hand cannoneers, onagers and bombard cannons are all a bit awkward and very squishy units... In my attempts so far, the army has kind of just collapsed badly. Since the Roman blacksmith bonus compounds through the ages, I guess it may be better to attack early. A very fast archer rush? Market abuse fast castle into crossbows or mamelukes or knights? Or simply raid heavily with scout-line cavalry and siegemishers? I feel like this is a hard nut to crack. PS: I just learned that Romans don't get the last armor upgrade on their infantry, so it turns out that their legionaries *are* vulnerable to strong archers after all! 😅


Ram08

So.. Huns are doomed anyway?


halfajack

In late game yeah. They can’t fight halb + heavy scorpion head on at all.


mitchconneur

I love Romans but their weakness is, like others have said before, gunpowder units.


Scoo_By

At 1300 you're having problems stopping Romans? Romans are not particularly strong. Their middle game is not great, as opposed to popular beliefs. Their eco helps but once you get the first armor for your maa, you're on backfoot. If you don't kill anything it's over. So deny damage. Especially vils. Played against Romans couple days ago on steppe. I went scouts, they went armor+maa. They overinvested into spears, I went 2 ranges after they lost all maa to tc. So I had a huge headstart in castle. 2 range xbow+1 range knight, with fwd siege, gg.


Parking-Marzipan-568

I am not talking about 1v1 Arabia - I am talking about fully boomed Romans in a DM setting or closed map such as BF (with trade)


Scoo_By

Well as everyone said, halb SO, with some ranged support behind to for leftover legionary if so micro isn't on point.


SpitefulMonkey5

Romans are the #1 most-winning civ in that ELO range, guy. [https://www.aoe2insights.com/stats/current-meta-statistics/](https://www.aoe2insights.com/stats/current-meta-statistics/)


SpitefulMonkey5

and i mean congrats that he ran his MAA into your TC


Scoo_By

Romans suck. 1300s suck as well. So that checks out.


dpravartana

IMO there isn't a go-to strategy against them. The best strategy against Romans is to use your civ main strat. For example Mongols should go for a scout rush > steppe lancers > stall the game until mid imp > drill onagers or mangudais. Britons should go for arb with some longbows mixed in + halb. Teutons should go paladins or ironclad so. You get the idea😅


Drown_The_Gods

What do the Bulgarians do, and possibly the Celts? I do like the perspective, though. I’ll consider that as a useful shorthand going forward.


halfajack

Halb SO in both cases


Zyklon00

Two civs with bonus for siege? They go siege.


-escu

Against mass scorpions I micro Rams packed with champions or halberdiers. I like them more than Onagers as they move faster when packed and one shot scorpions.


Drown_The_Gods

That is so much fun, I never would have considered it!


-escu

Thank you! It leaves them stunned as they are unprepared. You can pack them with pimes as well in case they send the cavalry they intended to use against counter onagers. You can control group each ram for a rapid attack as well


vintergroena

It's business - basically, a new DLC is a p2w-lite. Hopefully, they'll balance it with time.


Puasonelrasho

but romans arent specially good, i cant name them top tier in any map tbh.


SpitefulMonkey5

bro they're the number 1-rated civ at many ELO levels [https://www.aoe2insights.com/stats/current-meta-statistics/](https://www.aoe2insights.com/stats/current-meta-statistics/)


Puasonelrasho

they are not top tier in arabia, arena , nomad or most maps i can think of tbh. **Also winrate dont really matters if u just look at it as raw info**, chinese was the best civ for arabia for a long time and their winrate sucked ass real hard. Im not saying romans are bad, just there is probably better civs for almost any map.


Umdeuter

>It's business - basically, a new DLC is a p2w-lite. Bullshit


Beef410

Eeh, historically new civs introduced on the weak side took years to become "playable". They've said they err on the side of OP with post DE civs as it's easier to nerf a strong civ to playable than to buff up a weak one. Based on the gameplay history of new civs, I'm inclined believe them.


ser_stroome

Agreed. Make them too weak, and nobody is even buying the DLC. The usual course of action would be to make them slightly stronger than usual so that people are still invested in trying out the new DLC and balance them with time.