Imperial Palace is really good on this type of map because it gives you protection via earlier warnings in what is expected to be a heavy cavalry matchup.

Need quite a bunch of archers in order to deal with the Limitanei and the Longbows.

Painted shields in already as well. They take no damage. No damage at all from those archers.

And we all know how Chinese has legal map hacks with their third age landmark. So can utilize that at some point. Can see, you know, which gold vein the opponent moved out to and then send a few lancers that way.

When your opponent has Cataphracts, it always feels kind of bad to invest in early siege like Nest of Bees because their trample can get the Cataphracts right on top of your siege 100% of the time.