Formas de nutrición

Your other military half of the reason (or in some cases, the whole reason) for going to the castle age is because you get access to so many new units: fire ships, demolition ships, knights,

camels, monks, rams, scorpions, mangonels, unique units, cavalry archers, petards, and in some cases eagle warriors.

Fireships cost 75 wood and 45 gold and are your go-to unit when killing small groups of enemy feudal galleys or you are building lots of them because the enemy won water in feudal age and is doing a large fish boom without a large galley defense. The main way for feudal galleys to defend is by shooting and running against fireships. Winning water with fireships is one of those things where you may have control of the water, but your fireships really can't help for much else because they only have a range of 1. When galleys are massed fireships lose their effectiveness.

Demolition ships cost 70 wood and 50 gold and are even rarer than fire ships. Demo ships blow themselves up and do substantial damage to whatever is in their vicinity. Galleys kill

demolition ships very quickly so their main use is when you are facing a pack of fire ships. If your enemy is killing your docks by surrounding them with galleys then a couple of demolition ships can be very cost effective in that situation too. The last main use for demolition ships is when you are using them to kill land units in a shallows crossing. This is truly where they shine as 2 or 3 well placed demolition ships can wipe out an army.

Knights are very often one of your go-to units when you hit castle age. They are great for raiding and their speed allows you to choose your fights. Their main counter, spearmen, when

unupgraded cost effectively beat unupgraded knights when you fight knights in a 2 to 1 ratio (which is approximately the cost ratio too since spearmen cost 60 resources a piece while knights cost 135 resources), but this also means that if you are fighting knights versus spearmen in a 1 to 1 ratio, it is approximately breakeven. This means if you find an area with a knight where there is only 1 spearmen protecting villagers, don't be afraid to kill it and then go to town!

Camels are usually created as a counter to enemy knights. Camels cost 55 food and 60 gold, beat knights in 1vs1 fights and run slightly faster. They are not too strong in most other situations due to their low pierce armor and attack for their cost.

Monks are a really interesting unit. These slow moving old age men yelling gibberish are

surprisingly effective when they are used properly. In most cases they are used in defensive situations but on certain maps they can be used very offensively. For 100 gold you get a 30 hit point unit that has the ability to convert a unit within 15 seconds, can heal your units, and can pick up relics. They can garrison in towers, town centers, and castles which makes them absolutely great for dealing with non- overwhelming knight raids by trying to convert a unit and then garrisoning if they are unsuccessful to await a safe time to try again. That is their main military use in most 1vs1 settings, although gathering relics is sometimes their primary use and healing is usually just an added benefit. They have a range of 9 for converting and a range of 2 for healing. It seems that monks heal a bit quicker than 2 hit points per second. When you convert an enemy unit you are essentially killing that unit for your enemy and creating it for yourself so try to take the most expensive units (and with the highest hit points) you can. If your monk is trying to convert a unit and then you change targets without ordering your monk to do something else, the time spent converting the first unit will be used on the second unit so the second unit will be converted a lot faster. If you are building monks mostly for the relics you should try to build your monastery in a safe place. There are a lot of monk specific upgrades but in 9 times out of 10 games (unless you are an arena map only player) you won't even research one so we won't discuss the upgrades in this guide.

Rams are slow lumbering siege units that cost 160 wood and 75 gold. They are meant for

leveling buildings at close range and they are susceptible to melee attacks. Since they are expensive it is usually a good idea not to build rams lightly, you should always make sure you have enough units to defend them while you storm an enemy base. The other main use for rams is to tank when you and your enemy both have large ranged armies. Rams have 175 hit points and only take 1 damage per arrow they receive so if you have a choice of having 4 rams in front of 40 cavalry archers or 7 knights (approximately the same cost), it is probably slightly advantageous to go with rams despite them not doing any damage. Rams also have the ability to garrison units. This is not used very often but it is useful when you are trying to stop melee units from destroying your rams but your units are very vulnerable to tower, castle, or town center fire. If you have infantry units garrisoned they will also add a small amount of attack damage for the ram. The two most common situations to garrison

units are when you are pushing as a meso civilization and you are garrisoning eagles or you are pushing with any other civilization and you are garrisoning pikemen to protect your rams. By default rams are built with the defensive stance enabled. This means that after they kill a building unless there is another fairly close they will stand around and have a coffee break, so make sure you put them on aggressive stance! They only autotarget buildings but they do a lot of damage when they ram other siege units too so definitely use them for that purpose if you can get them up close.

Mangonels are expensive fragile siege units that have decent pierce armor and are effective at doing lots of damage to units that are packed close together. They have 1 more range than town centers and get an attack bonus against buildings so they are great for slow pushes. They are

extremely vulnerable to melee attacks so you want to make sure you have a way of keeping them safe. Their other main use is to defend your base against any type of ranged unit. In open fields ranged units can still destroy them (sometimes cost effectively) but their real power is when you are using them behind walls. They are also very strong at kill rams (although rams can kill mangonels if they get close enough to ram them!).

Castle age scorpions are extremely rare in 1vs1. They cost 75 wood and 75 gold and do 12 damage per shot that carries through any units it passes (not doing full damage though). They have 40 hit points so they are also very fragile. The main situation you would use them would be if you had a siege shop and knights and you were trying to push someone who was just massing pikemen. Another use would be if your enemy sent a few archers to attack you but it would be overkill to build a

mangonel.

Unique units, as their name suggests, are a single unit that are unique to each civilization and can be built from a castle. Their uses vary greatly so we won't discuss them here.

Petards are another type of self destructing explosive unit that are built from a castle and cost 80 food and 20 gold. There are only 3 realistic uses for these guys (except for a few very rare one-off scenarios). Their main use is to destroy enemy walls quickly as 2 petards will kill a stone wall. The other use is when your castle is being attacked by rams. 2 petards will kill a ram and they cost 160 food and 40 gold versus 160 wood and 75 gold for a ram, so they are slightly cost effective but very

helpful if you need to try to keep a castle alive. The third use is when your enemy has a forward castle and you know he is fast imperialing with a crappy economy to build trebuchets while you are doing a big castle boom. It is very expensive to take out a castle with petards (more than the castle costs!) but it may be slightly cheaper and safer in some circumstances than trying to build enough siege and fighting under castle fire long enough to bring it down.

Eagle warriors cost 20 food and 50 gold and are only available for the Aztecs and the Mayans. They are essentially a cross between knights and light cavalry from a raiding, scouting, and a monk- killing point of view. They are pretty decent against the archer line and they rip spearmen and

skirmishers to shreds. Interestingly, they are strongly countered by the swordsmen line but even then swordsmen are almost never used to counter eagles. When they are unupgraded they have 50 hit points, 7 attack, 0 hack armor, and 2 pierce armor. You should get the first armor upgrade when you have 7 to 10 eagles and the second armor upgrade when you have 13 to 20. The first attack upgrade is good to get when you have 15 to 25 eagles with the second attack upgrade when you have 30 to 40 eagles. These numbers are very rough guidelines because it makes a huge difference what you are fighting with eagles to determine when to get the blacksmith upgrades. For example if you are fighting enemy eagles in the open you should definitely get the first attack upgrade before you get the second armor upgrade, but if you are fighting under town center fire the second armor upgrade helps a lot more.