Agree completely. Minotaurs can be fun for small trampling (i.e. unit size 3 or less), but in my experience, they have too little protection/parry mechanics going on for them to make their trampling work efficiently for the (high) gold cost. Compare an EA minotaur, for example, to a Tien Chi Chariot. Not even close which is more worth it, and for the same gold cost, its a terrible trade. Now granted: if you're pangea, it MIGHT be your only option in that way, but you have a lot of summons and chaff you can use to "better" fill the same role in other approaches to it I think.

I don't know if I'd lean on crossbows in that matchup. Remember, most of Andramania's troops have 3 natural prot (under their 17 total prot) so if they spam Barkskin, you're going to have them hit that perfect 10 natural prot + 19 head prot, you have a 5.5% chance of successfully damaging them for a single point of damage, PER bolt, PER successful "square hit" that pelts them in the head. Instead, I would ASSUME they're going to use barkskin, and then try and orient yourself around spamming enlarge (since you're ahead on research) and trampling with some cheap minotaurs (don't bother with heavier armored ones: they will get chopped up by the Senatorial guard). The thing they're banking on is the high attack AND defense of the senatorial guards (as well as the high damage per hit) so overwhelm them with chaff + tramplers that are enlarged, and you'll find some success for cheap. That, or you need to get some massive battlefield wide spells (Curse of stones alt 4 comes to mind)or one of my FAVORITE combos (as I doubt you have a ton of tramplers just laying around) is "Iron Bane" (Alt 4) + Iron Warriors (after to give YOUR troops armor back) and that will swing the protection battle back HUGELY in your favor. Try it out and let me know (or some more specifics on what research you have so I can help out a bit more).

@@AOReaper hmm the enlarge minotaure is not something that I try or curse of stone (I'm out of e gem but I have 9 hammers :D). I'm not that far in the research I just got conjuration, construction and alteration 5 They mostly use barkskin and ethereal body Thanks for the tips! now I'm back to the drawing board :).

I'm at 503 research per turn and the next highest is 350 :D

@@skoub3466 Ooh yea, if you're out of E gems, you might suffer a bit. That being said, they have formation fighter, which packs them in tightly so I'd definitely try to ramp up a small evocation battery in each fight, and then hold them off with lines of chaff (Howl comes to mind as a GREAT way to throw them off as well). Elementals (conj 5) would stomp here, but its tough for you to find a fire mage to use. Something troop wise to consider, is using your air randoms to summon weak air elementals, but without Earth gems, you're in for a rough time. Let me know what you come up with! Is it PbEm? Or the online servers?

@@skoub3466 That's awesome, hows your site searching? Gotta snag some more of those gems, and you have a good shot at pulling out a win!