As a skilled Norse Hunt Deletor, I can say that Etendorf is very, very wrong.
Flame Disclaimer: The HD exploit has been known since the very old times, times in which new bugs were still regularly fixed (on the usual ES 3 month per patch basis). However, ES never fixed the HD, because they called it a feature. They never emphasized this a lot, rather avoided talking about it, but this is the official ES stance. So the option to do HD can well be regarded as an intended Norse bonus. And do not call it op; there are many other similarly op effects in the game, like the Atlantean capability to advance at 3:40 while maintaining an acceptable econ with nonstop vill production, or the op elephants.Flame Disclaimer #2: I have stopped using HD lately because it is more of a challenge and fun doing without it. Still I consider myself experienced in this tactics.I have yet to encounter an enemy who could micro my ulf into doom or prevent it from doing the deletion unless I make a mistake, e.g. by managing my economy while the ulf runs into doom, which I normally not do.Due to its superior speed, the ulf can always outrun any amount of chasing villies. If the opponent sends several of them, fine, just lead them on a wildgoose chase. You have already achieved your goal to keep several enemy vills off work in archaic age, which is a big one for you.
If he sends only one vill, you can easily run in a circle (making use of your superior speed). Order the wall connector while still running (using a waypoint). Your ulf will not build it before he has reached his previous destination, so you can carefully place it without your ulf immediately running towards it. Once the construction site has been placed, you complete your circle around the chasing vill. Just make sure your path touches the planned construction site. (This can always be achieved, unless territory is heavily against you.) At the construction site you stop for a fraction of a second to begin building the connector, the continue running. If properly done, you can do it without eating a single hit.
In reality, you may take a few unlucky hits if he tries to micro his vills in defense, but he is at a big disadvantage, and you can delete whole herds without losing your ulf. Again, this does not only work against players with weak micro. It works against everyone that I have faced so far, including players up to a skill rating of 1800. The opponent cannot prevent it if you do your micro properly.However, this goes for Norse only. I do not really believe in priest HD, because priests are too slow, so the vills can catch them. Micro advantage is on the vill owner's side in this case.
The tricky aspect is not to neglect your own economic buildup in archaic while you are microing your ulf. This is not a disadvantage though, because he needs just as much micro for his fruitless attempts to keep your ulf at bay. If he saves this micro by not trying to defend, HD will be so easy for you that you will need only a minimal amount of micro of your own.
Needless to say that HD is much easier when you are not playing with excessive lag.
So, Etendorf, you have every right to have a negative opinion concerning HD from the moral standpoint, but do not tell me that it is not effective.
Concerning vills vs enemy towers in archaic, well, vills get a fat multiplier (I think it was 2x) against towers while having the base attack of a hoplite, so they are obviously effective. However, in archaic they are so crucial for gathering resources that abusing them to kill a tower is a bad tactics. The impact on your own economy is just too great. sdw12umdjc was right to ignore it and simply crush his opponent in classical age with superior military power. An Eggy should have the flexibility to react by going barracks and rush with a quick classical spearman army instead of going FH and giving his opponent time to make troops and raid the spot where the tower was killed. Normally a spearman rush is not a first class tactics, but a spearman rush against an opponent that weakened himself by using several archaic villies against a tower should be easily successful.Quoted from Brtnboarder495:
I think that if you choose to build on livestock you are fined a large amount of a particular resource or you arent allowed to build on hunted livestock at all.
Umm... come again? What you say does not make any sense to me.
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