How to beatRusas Chinese

Now when it comes to late game, I would say that these two late game titans, old school titans are actually very evenly matched when it comes to that. China has really good siege, but so does Rus. China has amazing hand cannoneers, but so does Rus. And Rus also has great horsemen besides it. I would pick Chinese hand cannoneers over Streltsy any day. But then again, Rus does have the better cavalry.

And yeah, the Zhuge Nu still have great DPS, but with warrior monk inspired knights here, they're going to do one damage per bolt.

China's still number one, right? But Roos is decent at pro scouts. It's just a difference of approach. They can't rush pro scouts, but they can get a lot more scouts out before you can.

Too many players are adamant on going for knights and archers as China, and that works fine early on, but as the horse archer numbers climb and Boyars comes in for Rus's own knights, that composition is never going to work. If the Rus is making horse archers as well as knights early on, moving into horsemen and crossbows as China is a very cheap effective composition that can really let you take some great fights around the map.

When both players go for pro scouts and a lean feudal into Castle Age, China is slightly quicker to hit Castle, but Rus is much more sustained once they age up.

This is typically the point where China has the biggest window of opportunity against Rus, when there aren't many horse archers yet and China has really good production speed.

Once Boyars Fortitude comes in, Rus has the better knights, especially with inspiration from warrior monks. If he made nothing but knights of his own, he might have won the skirmishes.

The issue with China up against Rus when it comes to just massing knights against knights is that China tends to run out of food a good bit earlier.

Boyars Fortitude bonus health on every Rus cavalry unit is too much for Chinese knights to win the fight.

While Chinese has taxes, Rus has the extra food from the High Trade House, making the farm transition easier.

Knight for knight, pound for pound, we usually see Chinese knights do pretty well, but Rus ones, once they have that amazing upgrade that gives them just a little bit of HP, this gets a little bit tough. Considering there are warrior monks in the mix, too, that's going to mean that getting them healed back up is going to be so simple.

But the High Trade House deer keeps spawning deer in your base every minute, 350 food that you can gather, and you can munch on as Rus and keep making knights and horse archers.

You have to keep trading. You can't just let the number get up to the point where the Horse Archers can turn around and instantly one-shot your front line.

You are China. You love this late game. You don't mind trading off a little bit less effectively over time.

You got this very late farm transition from the Rus where if Chinese is able to get to that point where Rus need to transition and Chinese hasn't taken significant damage yet, then Chinese wins. Chinese typically farm transitions like 20 minutes into the game. Rus more like 25-30 minutes depending on the deer split. If you're able to take a significant larger amount of deer from Rus, like if it's a three to one deer split which is very rare, then suddenly it flips on its head and Chinese just wins straight up.

So, China definitely wants to deny these initial safe deer packs from Rus and at least force them to invest in something in the feudal age, because the longer this feudal age goes, the better it is for China. At the end of the day, they can get more value out of the imperial officials and not be as out-tempo'd by that castle as they would like, because the longer they have to prepare for those horse archers, the better they will be prepared for them.

The lancers initially can do great work, but it's not something you want to invest into too heavily because not only do they not do great up against the horse archers, but the Rus knights are just superior once Boy Fortitude comes in.

The Rus passive gold income in the late game exceeds China's if we just count purely hunting cabins, high trade house as well as taxes. Rus just severely outdoes it.

Steel arrow can be supervised to circumvent the ranged armor from Boy's Fortitude.

Horsemen aren't the greatest answer to cavalry archers. They are the counter on paper, but in practice kiting back with high base damage lets cav archers do fine against horsemen.

Horse archers are great even against crossbows: they don't take bonus damage, have similar base damage, and with Boy's Fortitude become much tankier.

The active ability of the Imperial Palace lets you see the Horse Archer raids super early so you can react.

Zhuge Nu will shred the Horse Archers; the Horse Archers' attack animation gives Zhuge Nu time to return fire, making it not a cost-efficient trade at all.

Nest of Bees still have that bonus damage against ranged; they're actually very good at clearing Horse Archers.

With the Imperial Academy and those Chinese villagers are going to build it faster than their Rus counterparts. So, not only do you get that faster age up, you also have a potential, hopefully, of getting that professional scouts a lot quicker.

Remember foot archers trade well against horse archers, so you need something to soak the arrow fire. If you're fighting horse archers and men-at-arms, focus the horse archers first and ignore the men-at-arms.

It's tricky because the Zhuge Nu don't have a good range; it's not like archers where you can just fire back at horse archers immediately. The Zhuge Nu actually have to be pretty close.

If you're playing Chinese you would be happy with the late game. It's going to be tricky for the Rus player because they're playing horse archers, and once the walls are complete, horse archers will just struggle so much to do anything.

Once we get to late game, horse archers don't have crazy armor-piercing power. If your opponent starts bringing in Palace Guards and hand cannoneers on the backline, that's not a composition that horse archers love to fight into.

When you look at the Rus, you have the Hunting Cabins for pro Scouts, whereas with the Chinese you have the ability to supervise the stable to mass scouts, so both civilizations are able to get very quick professional Scouts builds.

Against Horse Archers, Chinese should go Lancers and use supervision on stables to produce them quickly.

With the High Trade House, Rus can sustain a wood and food composition because of the deer spawns, while Chinese relying on gold units will need to find new gold sources.

Horse Archers trade out quite fine against Crossbows because their base damage is high and they can tank a lot.

Boyar's Fortitude gives Rus Knights +25 HP, helping them survive Lancer charges.

The High Trade House provides 150 passive gold, equivalent to nearly two relics, allowing you to skip gold villagers and focus on wood and food.