LogFAQs > #955946566

I gave the Persians a try in Age of Empires II. They have only two bonuses, both of which are economic in nature (their team bonus benefits their knights though), however they are designated as a cavalry-oriented civ in-game due to their many options in that category and their infamous unique unit the War Elephant. So naturally I just crushed my opponent with a horde of Light Cavalry after advancing to the Castle Age after an initial Scout Cavalry raid (Scout Cavalry are the only cavalry unit available in the Feudal Age and they upgrade to Light Cavalry in the Castle Age and Hussars in the Imperial Age) with a few Elite Skirmishers on hand to cover against Pikemen. When the game finished I was absolutely shocked this turned out to be such an effective strategy - it was one thing to do this as a civ with a bonus regarding those units like the Mongols or Turks, but the Persians?

Then it dawned on me that both of the Persians' non-team bonuses operated in the background the whole time and contributed massively to my dominance. They start the game with 50 extra food and wood with no concessions whatsoever (contrast the Chinese) and I would not be surprised if this helped me get my economy off the ground nice and early. Second, their town centers and docks have twice the usual amount of hit-points and work incrementally faster from the Feudal Age onwards. That last bonus simply cannot be overstated - the Town Center is where villagers, the main resource-gathering unit, are trained, and I also built a nice fishing armada to help with food too. The Scout Cavalry line of units cost only food but a lot of it, but I was able to leverage my economy to devastating effect in this category. Heck if anything I feel like I should have just trained swordsmen instead of skirmishers to help deal with pikemen since I was putting quite a strain on my wood for reasons not entirely clear to me, but yikes. I think the Persians' main weakness is supposed to be their poor defensive options, but they have strong economy bonuses and lots of military options.

And I'm glad I was able to write so much because nothing really struck me about the game I played until the Light Cavalry decapitation strike. So far here's the order of civs in the game I've tried based on which ones I liked most:

1) Mongols
2) Indians
3) Japanese
4) Celts
5) Khmer
6) Vikings
7) Bulgarians
8) Goths
9) Incas
10) Britons
11) Chinese
12) Slavs
13) Spanish
14) Turks
15) Persians
16) Tatars
17) Teutons
18) Ethiopians
19) Portuguese
20) Magyars
21) Huns
22) Koreans
23) Malians
24) Malay

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Why do people act like the left is the party of social justice crusaders?