Transcription
Lancaster 2TC is here and has saved Lancaster. >> [cheering] >> I believe Lancaster 2TC is now in contention for the best 2TC in the game. In this video, I'm going to explain why the Lancaster 2TC is good, how to play it, and the common scenarios you will face and how to respond.
First, the build. You open all six villagers on sheep with one building a house first. The first three villagers go out to gold and then you rally sheep till age up. Boom, nice and easy. You then have the three villagers on gold drop the castle Lancaster. This is your first big decision points. Let's build down a bit on this. The buff to the castle Lancaster has been huge for unlocking 2TC. With eight garrison slots of arrows, it is now a legitimate defensive threat that can secure a large area of resources. My default is to drop the castle Lancaster right on the gold. But, if you have a nearby deer pack or a way to shade that deer pack with the castle Lancaster, then you should go for it.
After you choose a location for the castle, pull five villagers to stone from food. Leave three on food and rally villagers to straggler trees, then woodline until you have your second TC and two manners. After the castle Lancaster finishes, you should be at about pop cap. Rush all wood villagers and the age up villagers to the woodline nearest your TC and drop a manner. The manner acts as both a resource drop-off point and provides 10 pop space. So, [music] you save 100 wood on a mill and a house. It also provides passive food and wood for each villager in its range.
Once you get 400 wood, you drop your second TC. This is also an important decision. So, let's break down the choices and the situations you would choose it.
Safely on the wood. This is the best if you anticipate raids or aggression or you have a map where the woodline is very far away. Wood is vital for production, farms, and units. So, having a TC there is great and it keeps it close to your starting TC, making it harder to push.
Safely on the deer or gold. This is when the castle Lancaster is either placed more on food so your TC is on the gold to protect the gold or you have a nearby food source and you feel like your opponent isn't going to push or it's close to your starting TC.
Castle sieves since you will be trying to get to castle quickly yourself [music] and the castle Lancaster will help defend it.
Aggressive on the map away from base. I only do this if my opponent is also going to TC so I know that he can't get units to my side quickly. In that way, it's better for me to get an advantage by being on high-quality food and saving sheep at home.
Your five villagers on stone stay until they get another 100 stone. So, in total, you should gather around 500 stone. You pull them off of stone. Usually, you're getting off the stone as you get the wood for the second TC. As the second TC is dropped, you should still gather wood until you can drop your second manner, which I usually put on either the gold or near the second TC, depending on where the first manner is located in comparison. You now have an amazing eco setup. [music] Not only do you have two TCs, you also have two manners that should provide a lot of passive wood and food since they will be near all your major villager hubs.
All that matters most is making the correct reaction. Maximizing Lancaster. Your reaction after you get your two TCs and two manners should be based on leaning into the strengths of Lancaster. So, let's go through each of the three major scenarios that could occur and the options you have to respond. >> [music] >> As always, scouting is vital. I often have my scout doing circles around my opponent's base as I drop my TC and manner, so I know exactly what I need to do the second my eco is set up.
Scenario one, the opponent is going to attack you. You see the opponent is dropping production and making units. Your response should be as follows. >> [music] >> Macro heavy onto wood. You need a lot of wood villagers for production and units. The manners will help boost this, but still, in the early stages, you want more villagers on wood than food. If your opponent is making units, you need more production than them to catch up and eventually overtake them. Your comp should always be spear and archer. This works for a few reasons. First, your spears have an upgrade that reduces the armor of units they attack, making Yomen damage better. [music] Second is that you want the ranged ability to snipe opposing archers when they push, as you should only be taking fights near your base. Lastly, if Hobar instead of horseman. Hobar are a really good unit, but they need to be used in a very specific way that makes them strong. Taking defensive fights is not the Hobar strength. They have low health and damage. They are cheap and have high ranged armor, so they're an amazing spam raiding unit. So, you should open barracks and then archery range then stable. Stable only to make a few Hobars to raid the food and gold of your opponent and then spam spear and archer. Make sure you're scouting to make sure the opponent is not faking you out and going castle behind a fake push. >> [music] >> When you survive the push, macro to castle. Age up your units and then push to win. You can push back if you took a really good defensive fight, but I view it safer to just go castle and age up your units. Your eco should be much better at this point, so be aggressive, [music] force fights so that your eco can be used to out-mass your opponent over multiple fights. And lastly, focus on making counters, >> [music] >> adding production, and adding manners.
Next scenario, your opponent is fast castling. Macro heavy on the gold, leaving about four on [music] wood. The wood you have should be spent on walls and barracks for spears. One unique option you have, which can be very effective, is the demilancer pop from the castle and caster. Demilancers, much like hobilars, are not meant to take fights. They're meant to raid and distract. If your opponent is being greedy by not being on gold or food without protection, demilancers can be used to harass, get vill kills, and slow them down. >> [music] >> At worst, your opponent will have to dedicate units to chase your demilancers, buying you time. In this clip, the Zushi player fast castle, but his knights chased my demilancers instead of raiding, buying me time to finish my walls and lose no villagers. You should be able to click up soon after your opponent ages up. I highly suggest you go King's College. I used to think little of the slam mark, but much like the hobilar, the more I use it, the more I realize it is key to Lancaster success. The first reason is hill training. You want this upgrade first as it buffs the hobilar charge damage to 20 and reduces the production time of hobilars by half. Meaning you can make hobilars insanely quickly. This speed mobility combined with their cheap cost means I often open castle with spears and hobilars. [music] Spears at home to defend raids and hobilars to counter raid. Since they're so cheap, you don't really need to protect them like you would knights. I just send them into the enemy's resources. You're aiming for death by ping, meaning you want the opponent having to respond to so many things at once that they miss a raid and lose villagers. It's scary effective. While your opponent is cleaning up raids, you get the next level of manners and manner boom, which is easy to do. I rally my TCs heavily to wood and just keep dropping manners on exposed resources and adding farms around them whenever I have extra wood. Eventually, your eco will be better than even a civilization that got all of the relics. As your opponent cleans up the whole bloodline, you should be adding more archery ranges and barracks and going mass infantry. Just make whatever counters. Though, I often find myself making all of the infantry unless my opponent has hard committed to one to two units. You then push out and either attack your opponent as they're trying to set up their eco or secure the large golds of keeps. This is a major win condition as each keep increases the damage of your Earlsguard and securing the big golds gives you an eco win condition of just denying your opponent any [music] useful amounts of golds. You can also be securing sacred sites at the same time creating another win condition. You can either win the game in castle here or go Imperial. I'll talk about Imperial strategy for Lancaster at the end of the video.
Before I move on to our last scenario though, let's do a quick breakdown [music] of the King's College techs and when to use them. Overall, it makes all techs 20% cheaper which is a lot of resources over time. Often times, I rarely have many upgrades by the time I hit castle making it a huge overall resource saver. Now for the techs themselves, [music] I already mentioned hill training which is a great tech. The next is collar of asses which gives demilancers and knights plus five bonus damage against heavy units. This is knights if you're ever needing to do pure knights, but with two TCs, I really find myself going knights so I really go this tech. I really only do it if I'm getting men-at-arms rushed. Burgundian Imports unlocks castle hand cannoneers and reduces the cost of hand cannons by 25%. This is great if you have a lot of gold, but it can be difficult to afford until a large gold has been secured. What is nice is that all hand cannons made in castle get auto upgraded in imp and the hand cannon cost decrease is really nice especially when you want to spam them in Imperial. Military Tactics Training, [music] bonus damage of all military units increased by 20%. I considered with hill training as a must get tech [music] from the King's College. It makes your unit spam of spears, yeomen, hobal, and crossbow extremely effective because they do extra damage to the units they counter. So, each unit's worth is increased. [music] Next is the war wolf trebuchet which gives trebs plus two range and 50% more health. This is nice, but it also gives them a sick new visual upgrade. So, call these the swag wolf trebs. Lastly, we have ships of the crown, a carrack buff that I never get cuz I don't play water. Sue me. So, as As you can see by really examining these upgrades, they play so well into the units line caster wants to make as their manner income grows and grows.
Our last scenario is your opponent also going to TC. This is when you should do an extremely greedy TC. Really get that deer pack before and put almost all your villagers on food and gold. Manners are huge here because they provide passive wood as you age up. A demi lancer pop also does wonders if your opponent is playing greedy on any resource and once again, you force him to slow down and chase. After you age up, it's time for a swarm of hoplite. >> [music] >> In this case though, you're using the hoplite to buy space while you get relics. In a way, you play this in a very similar manner to how you play fast castle but you can be even more aggressive with your units because your opponent should be on an equal footing as you. Use hoplites to hurt eco, see if there's an opening to push, and then go infantry spam with hoplite to raid and tank. [music]
Now, what if the game goes Imperial? This is honestly a great state of the game for you. The scutage upgrade and manners means you now get passive gold and both Imperial landmarks provide a lot of value. Berkshire is an extremely strong keep that can secure an area by itself. It also raises the Earl's Guard damage increase [music] cap to six. For context, it's only four without the Berkshire. The Wynguard allows you to spam units but really its greatest value is the ability to spawn two Ribaudequins and a Culverin for a reduced upfront cost. Your comp basically stays the same but you want to go hand cannons if you have the gold. It's important to note that the Earl's Guard second dagger upgrade is great as it gives them a second dagger and that dagger [music] does area of effect damage meaning a massive Earl's Guards will do massive damage before they engage. My last big Imperial tip, have a lot of production. You're rarely going to win the first fight but thanks to your manner income, you will win the second and third and fourth as long as you can remass in [music] strength. So make sure you have plenty, plenty of production as you start your fights in Imperial.
That's it for me in this video. If you want to see more content from me such as live coaching and my thoughts on the game, check out my YouTube membership and Patreon. Follow me on Twitch or watch me on [music] YouTube live whenever I stream which I usually stream at nights Monday through Friday. All that is located in the link in the video description below. Thanks for watching. >> Mhm.