Civs like the Mongols or Huns are key examples of civs that don’t generally go archers because they don’t get to reap the bonuses of that second bit, in building a lategame composite from the mass. Generally, you’ll avoid going heavy into archers (or avoid them entirely) when the unit doesn’t reach full upgrades in the lategame. The downside to that is if you need to make skirms or spears, it hurts your economy more since you haven’t grown your food economy much and it will delay your uptime more than it would if you had gone scouts and built a serious farming eco already. Food is the major hurdle to reach Castle age, so it’s oftentimes easier to reach an early castle age in Archer openings even though you aren’t prioritizing food. The third wing to that is that you generally save up Food in the creation of Archers, since the only thing you need the food for are one-time costs like your eco and archer upgrades. If you can preserve Archer numbers and supplement them in the later ages, the problems they create get even worse and even harder to deal with. Archers get more powerful as they get massed, so it’s valuable to you to invest in them early and continue to do so through all of Feudal and all of Castle age.

You go archers to do the damage and have an eco lead, preserve map control and all that, but you also generally go into them in Feudal for the rush when you intend to make them an important component of your long-term army. Am I trying to do lots of damage to economy? to the millitary? or am I being defensive? Should I be trying to get to castle fast after an archer rush or is the goal more to get to castle with a large army that can be upgraded? What are some key objective that you are trying to achieve when you go for archers?Īrchers are threefold purposed. I’ve learn a few different archer build orders now but I don’t know what I’m trying to achieve with my archer rush. I know that other things, like keeping my army alive until castle age, or taking trades with the opponent’s army, are less important with most scout rushes. Invest less overall than opponent in the feudal age, advance to castle earlier and with more resources.Force opponent to make >2 defensive spears.

With scouts, I always know what I’m trying to achieve with my rush. This week I started trying to play archers.

Age of empires 2 build order scout rush