Top 5 Cav Archer Civilizations AoE2

Top 5 ranking of the cavalry archers in castle age and imperial age. All Age of Empires 2 civilizations are considered, including the expansions. The castle age list focuses on civilizations that have bonuses to create units cheaply/quickly, and the imperial age list focuses on civilizations that provide the best long-term value.

Which units are included 1:10

TOP 5 CASTLE AGE CIVILIZATIONS
Testing with equal numbers and equal resources 2:00
Testing summarized 4:15
#5 4:20
#4 4:55
#3 5:45
#2 6:30
#1 7:05

TOP 5 IMPERIAL AGE CIVILIZATIONS
Testing with equal numbers and equal resources 7:50
#5 10:15
#4 10:50
#3 11:20
#2 12:03
#1 12:45

Game: Age of Empires 2 HD with Forgotten Empires, African Kingdoms, and Rise the Rajas expansions

[tomasangel]

13:50 Cav archers are strong, but Imperial militia makes your enemies flee in terror

[atrijogangopadhyay]

Spirit you will also have to consider the fact that while hit and run, the regular cav archers take some time to reload and fire but the Mangudai fire instantly so they are better against troops with lesser range and if micro ed well can be useful against other cav archers.

[SergioGarridoPaco]

Top 5 bes naval civs please

Keep up with this lists, I'm loving them!

[HyunAOP]

Magyars are number one 😍

Love recurve bow

[juliuss]

This test doesn't account for the biggest advantage of the Magundai: They fire instantly unlike the Cavalry archer line making them much better at Hit and Run and way easier to micro.

[aislingnokuni]

Saracen really loves shoot arrows to buildings, are they?

[brainwasher]

It's a travesty that the Mongols, who were infamous in their place in history for having the best cavalry archers ever, lose to so many civs in AoE2.

[angelo]

Everything you said about the Portuguese Cavalry Archers is historically correct. During the age of reconquest (1147-1320) Portuguese Kings and Lords would have a lot of running Skirmishes along the borders against the Berber Moors, in these situations Cavalry Archers are worth their weight in gold. Later Military doctrine was focused towards the sea as we started exploring the African Coast and tried to find a naval route to India. With that Horse archers feel by the wayside.
A really nice touch by the devs here.

[badassbassist]

Update the cumans and tartars in context

[TheKobasen]

When a so called cavalry archer civilization is beaten by cavalry civilization and gunpowder civilization...

Bring back the old huns...

[stefanovitali]

I take mangudai over any cav archer in late imp. Their bonus vs siege denies counters like rams and onagers and helps a lot in sniping trebs. they're easier to micro, too. Early imp, I agree Magyars cav arch have the edge

[sparepartssparepartsempori]

I've always loved massing cav archers when I'm playing Magyars. So glad to see them get some recognition.

[deathlessride]

Please do an update on this, I’m especially curious where cumans and berbers would fit into this

[arforafro]

Love to see my magyarbois being #1, they are a really beginner friendly cavalry archer civ with the Huszar and extra range, as +1 on range means your cav archer can attack pikes from much further away to cover your light cavalry while the Huszars have surprisingly high melee damage output and can easily deal with skirmishers and siege with the bonus damage while the food only cost of them lets you use them as trash units to cover your archers. They also play fairly well when you are more experienced and can work just fine with aggressive tactics like a feudal scout rush, and while they dont get any huge power spike at the castle age, unupgraded Huszars can deal with siege and archers alright, add some transitional pikes so you dont get overpowered by knights and you can stay safe and hit your imperial age powerspike.

Go Mags!

[darkdill]

One more thing that holds the Vietnamese back is their lack of Husbandry. That slows down their Cavalry Archers, making them easier to catch and less able to chase stuff down. Yes, you have to get that from the Stable, but it still counts.


Oh, and what about the Arambai? Does that not count?

[austinkossow]

I like the Magyar pick personally. I picked them up recently and find the transition from castle to imperial with cav archer hussar very strong. Especially when you eliminate the gold cost on your unique unit making it very easy to mass both. Definitely my favorite civ to play at the moment

[GarfieldRex]

Totally loved it! Even in post Imperial with the other Magyar tech, you can go full CA and Huszar (only food), saving all all the gold for the CA. You only waste food and save the gold.

[pineappleguy]

Whenever the "winner" song starts I get weirdly pump. How is it called?

[HazmanFTW]

Mongols still my fave for how the Mangudai control, I feel like that should have been another bonus towards them

[cornicheck]

Fun fact: The unique tech "sipahi" for turks was added for balance reasons so their cav archers could deal with elite mangudai better, because they had literally no answer to them; no elite skirms, onagers or arbalest.