How to beat
Delhi Sultanateas French
Matchup tips
I've spoken to a few pro players about the matchup between French and Delhi. You would think, okay, Ghazi Raiders cheaper, they also have maces, so theoretically they should be able to deal with knights, but knights for a long time, they just outdo the Ghazi Raiders. Now, there is a little bit of an asterisk here. Ghazi Raiders get to go and heal up a little bit earlier than the knights do. So the problem is French gets that tech in Feudal, so they don't have the same risks.
With Chivalry, every time they're chasing and kiting back and forth, they're healing a little bit as well. The value that's being gained by these knights taking a little bit of action and then backing away is just massive. You're getting extra knights out of your knights. For a knight, it's a resource they can spend and then recuperate. For most other units, they have to find a Scholar to heal them, which bears the opportunity cost of that scholar not helping to research more upgrades.
French, they are pretty much okay against Delhi, especially with the mobility that they can match and the fact that knights are just made of steel.
It makes so much sense as the French in this match-up in particular because you take the deer nice and early, you begin your pump ahead of the Delhi with superior food that way and you can then contest the sites in pretty good timing.
French investing heavily into knights for more early knights can be crucial for contesting sacred sites against Delhi.
French can't just rush age up against Delhi; they need to keep scaling knights and find trades before Delhi's free upgrades kick in.
French archers must stay close enough to reinforce knights but not overextend, because Ghazi can quickly melt them.
If you take too much damage on your knights from Ghazi, you have to delay more knights by investing into Chivalry, which isn't great unless you got a good dive with low HP knights.
If caught by Delhi's castle timing with war elephants, switching to spears is too late; you need 10-20 spears preemptively to fight war elephants.
Free tech for Delhi will start coming online very soon, and this is where things get a little dicier for the French. Once these free techs come in, you suddenly have an eco boost and also a combat boost once the blacksmith upgrades come in. But one interesting thing is that while you get the techs for free as Delhi, French get more villagers over time, plus they get cheaper eco techs, so the discrepancy isn’t as big as you’d think. It’s definitely an edge for Delhi, but it’s a windowed advantage — it doesn’t last as long as you’d think. You get like 12-14 minutes in the game and you’re like ‘I got all these techs, there’s nothing else to do now.’ So unless you go to castle age, these scholars become dead weight. That’s why we usually see that infamous 10 to 12 scholars coming to the fight to provide healing because it’s the only thing left for them to do.
As soon as Delhi hits Castle Age, attack them: they've spent 1800 resources on the landmark and are still stuck with Feudal Age units.
Ghazi Raiders have more movement speed and base damage than normal Horsemen, so you have to be really careful when expanding your economy onto deer.
It's still best to go School of Cavalry, just because of the way it secures yourself against the first couple of Ghazi Raiders.
You don't want to ever go Chamber of Commerce against a raiding type civ, and Delhi go Ghazi — they're going to do that.
Gunpowder elephants have nine ranged armor; crossbows with 12 base damage max at 14, so only five damage gets through.
Hon Blades kind of just gets nullified in short fights by Cantle Saddles default, and if you upgrade the Cantle Saddles full you pretty much have enough damage burst at the beginning of the fight that it makes Hon Blades an equalizer for full engagement.
Delhi Sultanate Unique Units
Delhi Sultanate Landmarks
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