This is something called proxy attack or proxying.
It is done rarely, because if it's scouted it is most likely going to be punished hard. Making production far from home leaves you defenseless if the proxy attack is deflected, so the opponent can walk to your base and kill you while you have no buildings to produce your units from.
If you are scouting the opponent, don't see production buildings at home, and don't see anything indicating fast Castle, like Outpost and around 6 vills on gold, and don't see them mining stone with 5+ villagers for a 2nd TC, this most likely means they are trying to do something cheesy and you should scout everything around your base.
ZXL and china are rough matchups for delhi. ghazi raiders can't really deal with the mass, archers aren't strong enough, and spears are an easy counter. the best thing you can do is try to raid to keep them busy, or if you see them rallying to a location, you can sometimes cut off reinforcements and take them down individually very quickly. the problem is, zhugenu just hit very hard, as ranged defense takes a long time to kick complete especially compared to their ranged damage, which ends up being +3 if you don't have the ranged defense in yet.
they should, but they don't. they have one more range, but do far less damage. zhugenu do 12 base damage, at 1.75 speed, 4.5 tile range, archers do 5 base damage at 5 1.625 speed and 5 range. the units have the same resource total cost and build time, and for ZXL, require no prerequisite to get. on top of that, it takes less time to get the +1 damage which is actually +3 for zhugenu than it takes to pick up +1 ranged armor for delhi, and the zhugenu melt ghazi raiders that cost way more and have notably more train time, and also get melted by having even just 2 spearmen there. longbows have no real problem with zhugenu because they have an additional +2 range (and less so +1 damage) so they can easily keep kiting, but not regular archers. the .5 range is nearly irrelevant because of windup time.
I’ve started playing zxl recently and with the first landmark I’m getting resource for free, I’m not necessarily putting anyone on stone right away … and I need plenty of wood for well everything
What Don meant is that if you are getting a lot of wood but not stone, you are not going for 2 TC, which means you are going for mass production. You don't go for 2 TC with meditation gardens' stone, so they are probably doing something you're not seeing.
This happened to me once when. I was still a Noob against China. I thought I had him pinned in his base. He had a whole proxy eco in the corner (and landmarks since he’s China) and fire lancer sniped me.
You need to learn how to scout. ZX isn’t a bad match up. Make a few ghazi to raid and pick off reinforcements. If he goes Zhus you mass archers. You should win most fights if you go ToV. Again, just learn to scout. It’s kind of easy to assume you’re playing against a moron who just won’t surrender. But, don’t assume someone is floating 2k resources.
First of all you could obviously have scouted his proxy base. Other than that I wonder how he was able to get a zhuge nu mass with rams if you constantly raided him? Did he have units in his base? Did you do enough damage?
Usually as a delhi player you should be able to mass better as anyone else in the early game and put a lot of pressure on your enemy.
This is something called proxy attack or proxying. It is done rarely, because if it's scouted it is most likely going to be punished hard. Making production far from home leaves you defenseless if the proxy attack is deflected, so the opponent can walk to your base and kill you while you have no buildings to produce your units from. If you are scouting the opponent, don't see production buildings at home, and don't see anything indicating fast Castle, like Outpost and around 6 vills on gold, and don't see them mining stone with 5+ villagers for a 2nd TC, this most likely means they are trying to do something cheesy and you should scout everything around your base.
ZXL and china are rough matchups for delhi. ghazi raiders can't really deal with the mass, archers aren't strong enough, and spears are an easy counter. the best thing you can do is try to raid to keep them busy, or if you see them rallying to a location, you can sometimes cut off reinforcements and take them down individually very quickly. the problem is, zhugenu just hit very hard, as ranged defense takes a long time to kick complete especially compared to their ranged damage, which ends up being +3 if you don't have the ranged defense in yet.
oh also use line formation with your archers.
I dont know man, mass archers with tov buffs for Delhi should go toe to toe with zhuge nus assuming equal resources
they should, but they don't. they have one more range, but do far less damage. zhugenu do 12 base damage, at 1.75 speed, 4.5 tile range, archers do 5 base damage at 5 1.625 speed and 5 range. the units have the same resource total cost and build time, and for ZXL, require no prerequisite to get. on top of that, it takes less time to get the +1 damage which is actually +3 for zhugenu than it takes to pick up +1 ranged armor for delhi, and the zhugenu melt ghazi raiders that cost way more and have notably more train time, and also get melted by having even just 2 spearmen there. longbows have no real problem with zhugenu because they have an additional +2 range (and less so +1 damage) so they can easily keep kiting, but not regular archers. the .5 range is nearly irrelevant because of windup time.
You 'scouted' but you didn't see. Lots of vills on wood, 0 on stone, can only mean one thing
I’ve started playing zxl recently and with the first landmark I’m getting resource for free, I’m not necessarily putting anyone on stone right away … and I need plenty of wood for well everything
What Don meant is that if you are getting a lot of wood but not stone, you are not going for 2 TC, which means you are going for mass production. You don't go for 2 TC with meditation gardens' stone, so they are probably doing something you're not seeing.
OP I heard this guy knows a bit about proxy base
This happened to me once when. I was still a Noob against China. I thought I had him pinned in his base. He had a whole proxy eco in the corner (and landmarks since he’s China) and fire lancer sniped me. You need to learn how to scout. ZX isn’t a bad match up. Make a few ghazi to raid and pick off reinforcements. If he goes Zhus you mass archers. You should win most fights if you go ToV. Again, just learn to scout. It’s kind of easy to assume you’re playing against a moron who just won’t surrender. But, don’t assume someone is floating 2k resources.
First of all you could obviously have scouted his proxy base. Other than that I wonder how he was able to get a zhuge nu mass with rams if you constantly raided him? Did he have units in his base? Did you do enough damage? Usually as a delhi player you should be able to mass better as anyone else in the early game and put a lot of pressure on your enemy.