How To Defend vs A Forward Castle | AoE2

My Twitch: / hera
My Discord: / discord
My Twitter: / hera_aoe
00:00 - 01:57 Intro
01:57 - 04:22 Deny it
04:22 - 05:42 Go to Imperial Age
05:42 - 07:26 Run!
07:26 - 08:51 Push in Castle Age
08:51 - 09:32 Final Talk & Outro
Music in this video: • nothing really matters...
Edits by K1
/ @k1aoe

[@luisvsanchez]

Let's hit 1000 likes!

[@SAUL_GOOFYMAN]

Let's hit 1000 likes!

[@hollowhunter7791]

how many likes are you gonna get tonight? ONE THOUSAN----

[@teddyhaines6613]

From what I've seen in pro play, the ram push works best not as an immediate response, but as a followup attack once you've hit them elsewhere and they're on the back foot.

[@justincronkright5025]

It's hilarious that my very first game of AoE II, had the G/Turks doing this to me on Arena. Super low game, so actually did this exact thing... where my rams do get punished by Janissaries. But I just kept pumping them out as I did have a good 3-T.C. timing. And I also used Crossbows to snipe something like 10 villagers of his building the castle. I meanwhile went to take out more villagers with more of my crossbows in front of his base by his 4-plot stone/gold and kill any monks.

[@TheRomanAoE]

6. Return the favor. Drop a castle on his base :)

[@TheUndulyNoted]

I did this the other day and won the game, actually ended up putting 2 up on his base, pushed inside and was making a third deep in his economy when he resigned. Sometimes best approach is not to react immediately

[@0344478]

The type of content we've been craving. Great job Hera! 👍

[@pogimodo]

OMG why did I never think of making petards to kill rams

[@HeraAgeofEmpires2]

now u know bro ;)

[@Pyrrha_Nikos]

@@markdowse3572 for a one time use unit, no. But they are cheaper than losing your castle

[@mikelivingood7797]

Extremely interesting. The petard does 25 melee and +60 against siege units. They cost 65 food and 20 gold. A battering ram costs 160 wood and 75 gold. Two petards would normally deal 170 melee damage but since the battering ram has -3 melee armor they deal 176 damage, 1 point over the 175 hp. The capped ram has 200 hp so it would take 3 petards which would not be cost effective. I certainly see Ironclad as more valuable since you would need 3 petards to destroy an ironclad battering ram and villager damage would drop from 6 to 2. You also have just enough hp left to survive direct hit mangonel exchanges.

[@michamalinowski8015]

What I found out as a Tatar fan is sometimes ignoring the castle and going all in with cav into the enemy base works wonders. If the enemy drops a castle he/she expects to pressure and you to defend. They are usually not expecting that when they are bringing 10 vills and all of their army to defend those vills, that you will show up at their base to clear their economy.

[@satyakisil9711]

That's a much better way than pushing against the castle itself. Push against the enmy eco, force his army away from the castle, rendering it useless.

[@battleforevermore]

Do tartar buildings and vills take less bonus damage from a castle on a hill? It should, I just never think about it during gameplay.

[@mosatsoni4324]

If you are playing as Aztecs, you can sacrifice some villagers so that the gods will destroy enemy castle.

[@evetslon]

This video (and intro) was fire, I love watching as the videos get better and better!

[@haiqiwen9704]

Another strategy to defend forward castle: prepare a mangoel and attack ground their foundation right when they start building it.

[@jits2q127]

Very hard to do because timing needs to be perfect and right at that time a mangonel has to be at the location. Very rare

[@haiqiwen9704]

@@jits2q127 happens a couple of times in pro games. Plenty of clips online.

[@ihmpall]

@@haiqiwen9704 we’re not pro

[@haiqiwen9704]

@@ihmpall I am

[@silviodomenico]

@@haiqiwen9704 lmao you wish

[@brendankelly7671]

Also deleting farms in range of the castle so vile don’t move thwre

[@martinalejandroarguelloira7627]

Another strat is spread single palisades where you suppose the enemy will drop the castle

[@angryii5411]

Just to disrupt the area, thats smart

[@spoody4789]

laughs in rubenstock

[@allanthomson9372]

@@spoody4789 it never works !

[@scespinosab]

Hahaha, never tought of that.

[@ashleythomas1988]

Too difficult to implement in a decent sized map

[@simonf8490]

As a bit of a noob and someone doesn't get a lot of time playing AOE2, I've really been enjoying your short videos. I've picked up so many handy hints. Keep up the great work 👍

[@caleb4836]

Love the vid! In the future can you do another one with the same concept but for tower rushes?

[@forsakenquery]

Yesss

[@HeraAgeofEmpires2]

Yes

[@dougler500]

Yeah, I would love this. Me and tower rushes don't get along and I'd love to hear some tips on how to defend and punish them.

[@sam4secretary]

so the key reads are: 1) do you have enough military to deny? 2) can you get a defensive castle to stop the push? If yes, Imp

[@ajnicasio7987]

Just what I have been looking for! Thanks hera!

[@germanpenn]

Amazing video Hera, thank you for this. About this series, I think another good one would be: how to defend a feudal tower rush on Arena when you are still in dark age (e.g., you're planning a FC)

[@FatalExit]

Great video (always look forward to your uploads)! 😀

[@leviswift940]

A lot of the threat at my elo is seeing the castles. (They don't send the alarm until they are up and attack)

[@derekhershey4219]

super helpful, I always did the last approach you mentioned but i realize that wasn't very good.

[@Jompa10]

Love these videos! Thanks!

[@fingon8919]

nice content Hera! would appreciate a "wall timing or smart building placement and timing" for begginers in arabia maps. How many vills to be commited to building walls, where to put the walls and buildings, etc.

[@josecarlosrodriguez9876]

Nother great video man. Thanks!

[@lonewolforigin]

Best advice overall: "know when to pull out"

[@vtstuff3447]

Loving these new tips videos, keep it up!

[@0344478]

Here here!

[@worwor1721]

This is awesome bro thanks.

[@u9vata]

One more tip: Wall behind -this is especially good trick on arena or if you are otherwise already walled manually and set up your game that way (for example if you were about to boom originally and have no military buildings at all but all your edge can go away if he go in and raid you - or in team games his teammate go in and raid your vills). I think defensive castle alone might be not good enough in team games even in 2v2 because one might drop you a castle and the other player might go heavy eco + knights and raid you constantly. For that the safest is to at least palaside wall behind sometimes.

[@AtillaTheFun1337]

Castle droppers are honor-less curs! Thanks for the guide.

[@foodmaniya433]

LOVE U MAN

[@forsakenquery]

What a great video

[@voidgods]

I'd say that going for towers can work greatly with a lot less investment, depending on the situation. Even without access to stone, it's not that expensive to buy stone for 2 towers. If they are not going for xbows and you can fight/quick wall and get a couple of towers in range of their villagers and garrison yours, it will go up much faster and deny the castle with a fraction of the investment. They may even try to stop your villagers by ignoring your troops and basically suiciding to kill vills - in this case, even if the castle goes up, killing a lot of their army can buy you even more time to go to imp safely.

[@jonathanbrowning4]

Hey Hera, could you please cover how to do dark age when you have access to "safe" water? Four lakes would be a good example- access without having to contest it early. Basically whats the safe way to fish boom. I really, really enjoy those maps because you can up so quickly and keep food gatherers building during your feudal and castle ups. But I also feel like my opponents most likely have more knowledge than me about it.

[@hoangtrunganh]

I would love if you produce the other side of the talk :) Yes I forwarded my Castle, and I have treb/mangonel to kill opponent TC. They settle elsewhere cos I have to clear their castle before I can chase after their villagers. I am the one on timer now. What should I do next? Both have knights but I have less knights because I have some pike proctecting mangonel and lower eco. And I have to start building skirm/pike at home to defend counter raid in 2-3 mins from now

[@battleforevermore]

Pull out and reassess. Good advice in general.

[@scespinosab]

I once had a game in which my opponent tried to build like 3 or 4 forward castles. I was Poles, he was Huns. What I did was, go up to Imperial first to take down the castle, but I also punished that he went full Tarkan. So I researched Stlazha Privilieges while going up and went full knights to cancel any other castle that he tried to build, since Knights completely destroy Tarkans. However he kept pushing with two more castles but he stayed in castle age. One of those castles denied one of my golds, so since my gold collection was running dry I switched to Winged Hussars an started to raid the hell out of his economy. In the end he went up to Imperial very late, so I destroyed all of his castles and I won the game. He had however a very poorly balanced economy, since to build that many castles he had 10 villagers in the front to build, plus another 10-15 gathering stone, thats the main reason he couldnt go up to imp soon. I think i punished that correctly.

[@HunTLaaR007]

In team games, I decide to play on the flanks as the bulgarians because I like to be aggressive on arena. Sometimes they drop a castle on me and in return, I sneak out 2 or 3 vills alongside few knights to drop 2 krepost outside their base and make sure to deny him his front gold and exit gates, they don't even expect that and it shifts my opponent's attention and it buys me a lot of time since I know he doesn't have eco to sustain 2 battles at the same time(attack and defense), either he has to commit on defending which will halt his offence and makes it easier for me to take out his castle, I'm willing to trade my 1 krepost in return of 1 castle, its a win win for me.

[@daytoend5383]

got a question for the imp rush. wouldnt it be equally or even more efficient to drop down 1-2 siege workshops & university to somewhat wall the castle off for the time, go imp and instantly start chemestry to build cannons? sure they do less damage then a treb, but with their agility they can easily take down oponents trebs and castle. if you dont already hold the stone for the castle, youre going to build those 2 buildings anyway to start going imp. this way you hold more ressources for army

[@AsymptoteManuki]

one thing about dealing with castles in castle age wit hrams or melee units that you didn't mention is that these things ususally don't have murder holes. So same as with towers with a few melee you can take it out and punish if they dont defend it. Just like you already said but I felt like the murder holes thing plays a big part especially against AI. a big bad castle can become defenseless to militia-line

[@mikelivingood7797]

Don't let T90 hear you talking so highly about murder holes. He will not be happy. Muurrrdder holes.

[@sourathghosh5170]

Hera as usual very nice video! Any additional considerations when dealing with Krepost rush? I am guessing actually denying the kreposts or running away become much less viable and defensive castle+boom to imp is much better?

[@sourathghosh5170]

Also how bad is buying the stone for the defensive castle ...when you have invested into 3 tcs and have 0 stone to start with?

[@HeraAgeofEmpires2]

krepost is same as castle when it comes to this i think, big difference is they cant make trebs from them tho

[@krystofcisar469]

Just destroy it, kreposts are so weak.

[@ar1sm70]

Love you in teacher mode :)

[@derek79919]

Raiding the opponent's home base is also an option.

[@roncola1980]

How yo defend Castle?: 1. You have to be Hera.

[@brutalarmy4179]

For point 2 isn't going for bbc a good strategy if you don't have stone? Apart from the risk of going fast imp and buying chemestry I don't see any downside for it (apart from the civ lacking bbc)

[@kaito4996]

I love your videos they help me a lot in aoe two. But could you add ad the end of videos like this a example of one of your games to show how Iranian practice.

[@16Gym]

push in castle age can work pretty well if you are cumans

[@youcanthandlethetruth5433]

In some situations you can rush down a defensive tower to kill vills. But only if he has less vils if it's 10 plus then usually not worth it

[@stuartmacaulay5761]

The ram push isn't too bad since they've been buffed. If you are an infantry civ, filling them with 6 units makes them super fast, drastically reduces his time to react. Also when hitting the castle, I spread them slightly so petard or mangonel damage cannot damage more than one, if he tries to stab them quickly ungarrison, kill and regarrison.

[@praevasc4299]

The last strategy (ram push) is the most civilization-dependent. Are their unique units melee, or otherwise good against rams, or not? For example, if you fight against a Magyar castle in castle age, their unique unit just shreds rams effortlessly. On the other hand, if their unique unit is an archer, rams might work a lot better, especially if they don't yet have any production buildings close to that castle.

[@bensonrabe6728]

What do you think of an imp tec at the University to add a trep at your castles?

[@christoskaragiannis7973]

Do you ever do a "ram" push with indian civs vs a castle drop? The food cost of the ele-rams makes me get stuck in castle age forever.

[@luciangrand1943]

To deny the castle, there's also the monk trick: get a monk near the foundation and spam-click the builders. This will idle each of them for a few seconds, which gives you more time to get your own castle up or kill the villagers or whatnot.

[@stuartmacaulay5761]

And they can just spam right click with the vills, if you have no other units except monks it'll still go up fast

[@emiliotube01]

Lol, going ham in castle age (his last choice) is my one go to strategy. Even when i am the one with the forward castle

[@Dr.Happy11]

I'm not a top10 player or anything, but one good strategy i've found and witnessed being very succesful, over the years, to counter forward castles is to play against Lord Daut.

[@Saner-zu6zr]

11

[@takethebluepill16]

Denying Larry's castle makes the hun longswords look decent 11

[@MrMoty91]

Can you do a "how to defend against feudal age archers?". When to go for skirms, archers, walls, towers, etc. Always feels like that's the easiest way to lose in feudal age especially vs a good archer civ when your own archers won't compete.

[@justincronkright5025]

Build a ram to place in front of your villager and build walls around where needed whilst protecting the villager with it. You can also garrison it if needs be. I actually just preferably would want a crossbow tech that gives me 5-6 free at castle/a free upgrade and I can just kill the villagers off before they build it. :)

[@Skythikon]

What are your thoughts on fast imp into bombard cannons?

[@dougler500]

$$$ unless you're turks

[@Redragonclaws]

Can you do a video like this for trush?

[@MikelKiriakos]

Another strategy I do is return the favour. When he castle drops my base I'll sneak a whole bunch of vills to his base and drop a castle at his wood line or near a tc and build another tc at his base. I've won this strategy many times as some times he doesn't have a good enough military or they're all my base meanwhile their vills are getting smashed. May not even realise immediately

[@keanuvernon6177]

Yo Hera I always see viper and other pros put down the foundation of the castle even when their villagers are many tiles away. Do you think this gives the opponent too much time to come up with a counter?

[@CrotchetRest]

Doesn't opponent see the foundation only after villagers actually start building it?

[@victorhbrasil]

Only foundation enemies can see before it starts, are the farms

[@arzievsultan]

When the opponent builds a castle in the range of my TC I just build next to the castle two sage workshop, that allows me to protect rams/elepants with TC arrows and distroy the castle.

[@stuartmacaulay5761]

Unless your opponent has a mangonel or mangudai's then they can smash the rams without getting hit

[@arzievsultan]

​@@stuartmacaulay5761true, it works most of time

[@Avinash_Lincoln]

Teutons with iron clad and crenellations : Forward castle? are you sure about that?

[@bigunt6861]

I just counter attack when they castle drop or ask them nicely to stop with the push.

[@RausTribe]

how is it that he can zoom in so far and the sprites have so much definition?

[@Kawabongahlive]

People rely on castles too much in lower elos. Some players put them as "outposts" as if they were some kind of fortress and I end up taking it out with 4 sneaky siege rams in imp while the fighting is elsewhere.

[@ihmpall]

You’re in lower elo too. That means it works against you otherwise you’d be playing at higher Elos

[@Kawabongahlive]

@@ihmpall TG elo and 1v1 elo are different

[@krystofcisar469]

People are literally throwing games because they castle drop someone :D

[@Ty5oN101]

Bonus tip- Scout his vils coming forward before this happens

[@silvanmoses9122]

Monks! Monks! T west explained it how to deny castle

[@sourathghosh5170]

True but not in early castle age in my opinion...takes too long to mass them.

[@sourathghosh5170]

1:45....pause the game when it is about to happen, take a deep breath and think about all the responses before restarting 11!😄

[@dougler500]

Don't pause unless you need to pause. The amount of casual pausing in AOE is cancer.

[@HeaveNinMyHandS]

I also deny it but it is not the castle itself I deny but the existence of it :D

[@nelsonmejiaslozada9362]

A tip for all players, a ram attack vs a forward Castle is hard to stop if they are commited to UNique unit and that UNique unit is an archer, for example, mayans, britons vietnamese maybe Korean

[@Igor369]

You still need to kill villagers garrisonned in that castle that will kill the rams while under castle fire.

[@mdmishfaqahmed8356]

laughs in mangudais 🤣

[@08vinster]

Ram rush is terrible advice. Vils eat rams. Nevermind even the slightest melee units sent from the opponents base. Because rams take so long to kill a castle. Nevermind the cost. Having an army + rams

[@krystofcisar469]

Just place1 mangonel behind castle and its fine :D

[@aadityarauniyar6922]

2:18 can anyone tell me what map is that?

[@loudradialem5233]

One small remind is that if your opponent isn't Teutons, he probably doesn't have Murder Holes.

[@TheMaxiFruite]

Can a towera stop a fwd castle ? It is quicker to build and save a lot of ressources in theory. But does it work ?

[@mah.5704]

it does not. it's a waste of stone

[@ingoseiler]

If they only brought like 5 villagers, your army is dead and their army is dead a tower that ranges all of the castle's base will stop it As always: it depends

[@iwersonsch5131]

Ok, but what about "Make your own forward castle"? Slam seems to like it

[@user-sj7jt5ir3h]

Get it, huns longswords are the counter to castle drop. 11

[@satyakisil9711]

What if you're in nomad with a bad tc spot and you are still in/advancing to Feudal and the enemy drops the castle? Also, how do you determine where to drop tc in nomad?

[@dougler500]

Hera has a good video on this topic from some months ago.

[@vlafed4690]

Tower defence into gg

[@willthebillstealthkillkell7776]

I do 8 petards and a distraction unit ram or scout.

[@latbat58]

How do you target villagers behind the castle building it?

[@jesusmgw]

Try archers or knights.

[@UnfamiliarPlace]

Hold ALT and right click. Ignores buildings.

[@samuelpetri7031]

Yoitsbro03 says Hi:)

[@hansoskar1911]

The Ram push is siginficantly better with Cumans, Celts and Gurjaras bc those civs have functionally Capped Rams in Castle Age.

[@08vinster]

Gurjaras armoured elephant is mofo expensive though. Rams are much much cheaper The food cost is the killer

[@krystofcisar469]

siege elephants are literally useless in castle age...

[@pomber-aoe2]

forward castles are an invitation to switch bases

[@thegmer5249]

From the arena games between Vinch and TaToh, I could see that the run approach didn't work very well, especially for TaToh. He lost several games just due to 'running' from a forward castle by Vinch.

[@ThatGuanfranco]

Hera has been stalking my Reddit posts it seems

[@insearchofvalue8034]

you missed the most important option, gg

[@luiz8755]

I hate this strategy so much that i insta quit more times that i 'd like to admit now my revenge is poles tower rush.

[@mikelivingood7797]

I don't think your military resource for military advantage is as great as you might think. 10 villagers cross 24 tiles in 30 seconds. If the villagers are producing 24 resources at that time. This is 120 resources, if they have to cross 30 tiles it is 150 resources. Building the castle will take 10 builders 50 seconds (200/4). This amounts to 200 resources. In total you have a 320 resources advantage. Assuming we already have a siege workshop, by the time you accumulate the 295 resources to build it, you get what one or two shots before the castle is built. You cannot kill all the villagers. The best counter for villagers walling themselves in to build would be archers. I don't say crossbow because you would rather have the extra attackers than using the 200 resources for the upgrade, the same applies to ballistics and bodkin. With 280 resources you can create 4 archers with fletching. This will kill a few villagers but not stop the castle. There is the case to instead of mining stone for a castle or 2 extra town centers you invest the 650 resources into military units. This will work great. But you are going to need good scouting to see them on stone. The castle drop is the perfect counter to someone building two extra town centers right away. Destroy the initial TC and the protection built in Feudal. If you can destroy a TC, a military building and two houses, the castle has paid for itself. Let's not forget Hera loves to use Poles for the castle drop.

[@StephenDeTomasi]

Step 1. gg in the chat Step 2. Cry

[@tizioita]

Sometimes i try to defend with a tower and try to kill enemy builders

[@improvisedchaos8904]

whenever I feel oppressed - i follow up on the hunch that his economy is more open for attack. Always down to base swap

[@timothyoniga1352]

yes same account yoitsbro03 says hi again kekw

[@KR33P1NGD3ATH]

Around 800 elo here and maybe 4 out of every 5 games i get castle dropped and i hate castle age response

[@robertboemke8705]

Towers.

[@sjwgenius7347]

The way to deal with forward castle issssss Don’t let your opponent make a forward castle 4Head

[@mysteriousshadow395]

When running away, be sure to wall behind as well.

[@sapatanque5881]

Insta resign 😂

[@lilo337]

I normally kill the villagers that are building their castle since they're easier to kill than the military forces.

[@UnfamiliarPlace]

Sometimes low elo players will drop multiple castles at or around the same location. Each castle is a huge commitment to one specific area of the map. Immobilizes your power base

[@zachariastsampasidis8880]

Sometimes that 2nd castle in the area is what you really need to solidify your presence though

[@chaithanyasai5655]

How to download age of empire 2 for free?

[@antonharai4665]

I don't see the most used strategy against castle drops, gg and quit 😁

[@derikaem8021]

i just blame the devs that they allow this strategy at all :D