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Poles

Dive Raze armor-debuff carry + cheap cav.

Spawn unit Starting age Kills to Castle Kills to Imp Razes to vill Cap Interval
Obuch (Castle UU is the signature spawn) Post-Imperial (all CBA civs start Imperial with unique tech access ... 200 450 2 100 7 s

⚡ Quick reference

  • Baseline: Folwark farming, Villagers regen, stone mining generates gold, cheaper Bloodlines/Scout food. UU Obuch (strips armor). UTs Szlachta Privileges, Lechitic Legacy.
  • Requiem v294: starting age Feudal; kills-to-Castle 200; razes-to-vill 2.
  • CBA role: armor-debuff carry + cheap cav.
  • Post-vill: Knights + Winged Hussar + Obuch + siege.
  • Weak vs: ranged kite, anti-cav.

📜 Deep playbook

🏛️ Standard DE profile

  • Civ bonuses (verbatim from current DE):
  • Villagers generate 1 gold per 25 seconds of Stone mining.
  • Folwark replaces the Mill; gathers food from farms faster and immediately provides food when a farm is built (base +17.5 food, plus a percentage of the farm's yield depending on age).
  • Skirmishers +1 melee armor per age starting in Feudal.
  • Scout Cavalry line moves +10% faster.
  • Stone Shaft Mining is free.
  • Team bonus: Field units resist the first 4 seconds of conversion (monks need to hold the beam significantly longer to flip a unit).
  • Unique units:
  • Castle UU: Obuch (heavy infantry that shreds enemy armor on hit).
  • Stable UU (available from Castle Age at the Stable, unlocked by a tech): Winged Hussar (Hussar replacement with slightly different stats and a small trample-style splash on the Elite upgrade).
  • Unique techs:
  • Castle Age: Szlachta Privileges — Knights cost –60% gold.
  • Imperial Age: Lechitic Legacy — Winged Hussars deal trample damage.
  • Notable missing techs: no Camel line, no Halberdier (they stop at Pikeman), no Bombard Cannon, no Siege Onager, no Champion, no Ring Archer Armor, no Arbalester.
  • Wall availability: Palisade, Stone, Fortified — all present.

🏰 CBA REQUIEM v294 profile

(v294 numbers: Fandom wiki, retrieved 2026-08-21)

  • Starting age: Post-Imperial (all CBA civs start Imperial with unique tech access unless the mod explicitly downgrades them; Poles are standard Imperial start).
  • Spawn unit: Obuch (Castle UU is the signature spawn).
  • Spawn interval: 7 s per Castle.
  • Unit cap: 100.
  • Kills to Castle (silver UT / Elite trigger): Elite column: yes; exact silver-UT trigger not listed in the v294 wiki table — ask in the Requiem Discord.
  • Kills to Imperial (unlocks post-villager comp): 450.
  • Razes to first villagers: 2 (assume standard 1-raze pool unless the v294 table lists Poles among the delayed civs).
  • Subsequent raze payoff: not listed in the v294 wiki table — ask in the Requiem Discord gold + villager batch.
  • Free starting tech: Stone Shaft Mining is free in the base civ; CBA typically grants full economy techs at spawn. Any Requiem-specific free tech (e.g., pre-applied Blast Furnace or Plate Mail) is Forging + Iron Casting (+2 melee attack); Squires.
  • Elite trigger: reaching the silver-UT kill threshold flips Obuch to Elite Obuch.
  • Silver-UT unlock: not listed in the v294 wiki table — ask in the Requiem Discord trigger — expected to be the Castle-Age kill threshold.
  • Available buildings / disabled units after villagers: Barracks, Archery Range, Stable, Siege Workshop, walls/gates, up to 10 Bombard Towers (Castles and Town Centers can NEVER be built; Blacksmith & University are pre-placed). No Bombard Cannon for Poles, no Siege Onager. Elephants and treb are civ-locked out per DE.

CBA role & archetype

  • Primary role: Melee dive / anti-armor bruiser. Obuch strips armor on hit, so every subsequent Poles hit — and every teammate's hit — bites deeper.
  • Secondary role: light raze support once Winged Hussars come online in the post-villager stable comp.

🌅 Opening play (pre-villager)

  • Minute 0–3: set spawn to the mid-point between your castle and the shared middle. Obuch is slow-ish; you do not want to walk half the map before your first engagement.
  • Patrol pattern: short patrols into contested pockets. Do not deep-patrol across the map — you will feed kites (Mangudai, Plumed, Rattan) if you overextend.
  • Preferred fights: any melee ball (Teutonic Knights, Samurai, Jaguar Warriors, Berserks, Huskarls). Obuch's armor-shred snowballs against high-armor targets.
  • Fights to refuse: massed archer UUs with clean kite lanes (Longbow, Mangudai, Chu Ko Nu, Rattan, Plumed) unless a teammate is tanking.

⚔️ Kill accumulation strategy

  • Safest kill farm: Teutons, Japanese (Samurai), Aztecs (Jaguar), Goths (Huskarl), Vikings (Berserk), Celts (Woad) — any melee UU without kite.
  • Avoid feeding: Mongols (Mangudai), Britons (Longbow), Mayans (Plumed), Vietnamese (Rattan), Chinese (Chu Ko Nu). If forced in, dive with a teammate tank in front.
  • Anti-cage rule: keep at least one squad garrisoned in castle to reset if the front melts. Obuch cages fast because it is melee-only — never let all Obuch be forward and outside castle vision.

🏚️ Raze allocation

  • Poles are a standard 1-raze recipient. They benefit from villagers early because their post-villager comp (Knights with –60% gold, Winged Hussars, Halb+Onager unavailable but Ram+Pike works) scales well with a full eco.
  • Feed razes to: teammates who need gold-heavy comps (Turks for Janissary+BBC, Spanish for Conq, Saracens for Mameluke). Poles want their own villagers, not to funnel razes.

👷 Post-villager composition

  • Wall order: backwall first (behind TC and castle), then a front palisade layer on the choke, then gate patches.
  • Standard build: 2 Barracks, 1 Archery Range, 2 Stables, 1 Siege Workshop. UU production and Castle research run from your pre-placed Castles.
  • Imperial composition: Winged Hussar + Ram + Pikeman as the raze/harass core, Elite Obuch + Ram as the melee siege push. Add Skirmishers vs. archer-heavy opponents (Poles Skirms have per-age melee armor, so they trade well).
  • Silver-UT priority: unlock Szlachta Privileges if the game shifts to Knight play (rare in CBA post-villager because Obuch dominates the UU slot), else prioritize Lechitic Legacy for the Winged Hussar trample.

⚖️ Strong against / Weak against

  • Strong vs.: Teutons, Japanese, Aztecs, Goths, Vikings, Celts, Franks (Paladin armor gets stripped), Persians (War Elephant armor gets stripped — Obuch is one of the few melee UUs that punishes ele stacks without treb).
  • Weak vs.: Mongols, Mayans, Britons, Vietnamese, Chinese, Koreans (War Wagon kite), Ethiopians (Shotel dive is faster than Obuch and out-DPSes it).

🤝 Team synergies

  • Best pairs: Teutons (front tank while Obuch strips armor from behind), Slavs (Boyar tank + Obuch shred), Byzantines (cheap Halb screen), Franks (Paladin front + Obuch anti-armor cleanup).
  • Conflicts: another slow melee civ on the same flank (double-Obuch or Obuch+TK creates a kite-bait ball with no answer to Mangudai).

🎮 Key micro rules

  1. Never chase — Obuch is slow; let the enemy come to your patrol line.
  2. Always dive with a teammate tank; never lead the ball alone.
  3. Keep one squad in castle at all times for reset.
  4. Focus-fire high-armor targets first (Paladin, TK, Cataphract, War Elephant) — that is where Obuch's shred pays.
  5. Do not attack-move into unseen fog; Poles have no scout unit forward in CBA.

⚠️ Common mistakes

  • Deep-patrolling Obuch across the map and getting kited to death by Mangudai.
  • Letting the –60% Knight tech sit unresearched when the game shifts to Winged Hussar + Knight raiding.
  • Wasting the team bonus (monk resistance) by not clumping with monk-heavy teammates.

🔒 Version-locked (Requiem v294)

  • Spawn interval, cap, kill thresholds, and raze payoff are v294-specific and marked "not listed in the v294 wiki table" above.
  • Obuch's armor-shred value in DE has been rebalanced multiple times; the CBA mod may pin it at an older or newer value.