The Magyars are an offensive civilization that focuses on light cavalry units and Cavalry Archers. They are similar to the Mongols who rely on similar units for guerrilla techniques and quick skirmishes. However, they have potent heavy cavalry as well.
Strengths[]
The Magyars are good at rushing in the Feudal Age in a variety of ways, as they have different types of bonuses. Villagers can strike down wolves or their equivalent with one hit, allowing them to quickly move near an opponent and build forward bases without interruption. Magyars get Forging, Iron Casting, and Blast Furnace for free, which means that their melee units have a huge advantage in the early game. This helps with both Man-at-Arms and Scout Cavalry rushes. Their Scout Cavalry line has a 15% discount, so they can amass them faster. Either of those opening strategies can be followed up with an Archer rush, which gets a decent +2 Line of Sight, thanks to the team bonus, enabling them to take calculated engagements. In team games, the Magyar team bonus is probably more important for archer civilizations (like the Britons, Mayans, and Ethiopians), which can utilize this as an addition to their bonuses, instead of their sole archer bonus, with the Magyar player contributing with cheaper or better cavalry.
The Magyars have complete archery and cavalry upgrades except camels and Hand Cannoneers. Added to their cavalry roster is their unique unit, the Magyar Huszar, which is a cheap light cavalry unit with an attack bonus against siege units. Their Castle Age unique technology Corvinian Army eliminates the already-low gold cost from the Magyar Huszar, making it a trash unit. Their Imperial Age unique technology, the Recurve Bow, gives +1 range and attack to Cavalry Archers, which makes them better at everything they do, be it performing hit-and-run tactics, providing ranged support, or dealing more damage.
Weaknesses[]
Magyar defenses are mediocre. At the University, they lack the Keep, Bombard Tower, Architecture and Fortified Wall.
The Magyar Barracks is deceptively poor. They have Champions and Halberdiers, but lack most auxiliary upgrades like Plate Mail Armor, Squires, and Gambesons. The free attack upgrades and access to Supplies means a Man-at-Arm opening will be potent, but long-term, they will fall off.
Their siege weapons are mediocre, lacking the Siege Onager, Bombard Cannon, and Siege Ram. This means they have to rely on Trebuchets and Capped Rams to take down enemy buildings, which means their ability to take down enemy buildings is among the worst in the game. This also forces a Magyar player to rely on their anti-siege Huszar as a defense against enemy siege.
Although the Magyars have access to a full range of late-game economic technologies, they lack any significant early economic bonuses.
Strategy[]
The premiere tactic employed by Magyar players is a Feudal Age Scout Cavalry rush. With cheaper Scout Cavalry and free Forging, they can get significantly more Scout Cavalry out for the same resources. Just the resources saved by not needing to research Forging allow for two extra Scout Cavalry. To use this tactic, the player must advance to the Feudal Age on 22 population (21 Villagers) and get extra Villagers on wood if possible. Then the player must get a Barracks up while advancing to the Feudal Age and put up two Stables (one Stable will work if wood is tight). The Stables can go at home or near the enemy's base. It doesn't matter too much but is necessary that the opponent doesn't spot them. If the player wants to build the stable near the opponent, they don't need to worry about the wolves, jaguars or bears in the path to the enemy's base. The player should research Scale Barding Armor, although it should not be researched at the expense of Scout production until at least six Scout Cavalry are trained. Archers can also be added to the rush, taking only wood and gold, where Scout Cavalry only take food. Since Magyars can fully upgrade their Archer line, these units will retain their value in the late-game.
Micromanaging the Scout Cavalry is very important in a Magyar flush in order to keep them away from Town Center fire, so the player must try to not let them get surrounded and chase Villagers away from critical resources, such as wood and gold, as well as denying any buildings they try to put up. This last part is important: if the opponent cannot get up military buildings, they cannot defend themselves outside of Villagers. If they cannot put up Feudal Age buildings, they cannot advance to the Castle Age. A smart opponent will likely just build these buildings next to their town center, but that clutters their base and makes it more difficult for Villagers to get back to their Town Center, which allows for more kills. Archers can help keep buildings from going up even close to the Town Center, which forces the opponent into an extremely difficult spot.
In the Castle Age, Magyars get far more diverse. The Knight is going to be the main Magyar unit of choice during the early stages of the Castle Age, with Crossbowmen and Long Swordsmen also serving well during this stage. Later on, the Magyars will want to focus on their Cavalry Archers as their main army backbone, with the Magyar Huszar as a buffer to aid them.
In the early Imperial Age, the power of the Magyars starts to taper off. They lack proper anti-building siege (lacking Siege Ram and Bombard Cannon) and are forced to rely on Trebuchets. To make matters worse, almost none of their civilization bonuses actually affect the late-game. They don't even have a solid defense to fall back on, forcing them to keep up offensive pressure. Fortunately, that is what they do best, with their Magyar Huszar and Heavy Cavalry Archers. They also have Paladins for when they have the gold to spare.
The late Imperial Age is where Magyars truly shine. Having a gold-free unique unit and cheaper Hussars means Magyars can keep sending a formidable army even long after they are out of gold. They get fully upgraded Skirmishers and are only missing Plate Mail Armor on their Halberdiers. This makes them one of the best civilizations in the game for trash wars.
Strategy changes in the Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition[]
Since every civilization now has Supplies as a Barracks technology, Magyars are now better enabled to perform a Feudal Age rush with Men-at-Arms, considering they already have free attack upgrades for melee units.
With update 87863, their team bonus was changed into faster Cavalry Archer creation. While the Magyars are somewhat classified as a Cavalry Archer civilization, they do not have a bonus until the Imperial Age, making their Cavalry Archer rush underwhelming. The bonus also works for Elephant Archers and unique Cavalry Archers.
Alliances[]
The Magyars work best in the flank where they can go aggressive with their Scout Cavalry and Archers. The Magyars can work both as melee support and ranged support with their Paladins and Heavy Cavalry Archers respectively. The Magyars' faster Cavalry Archer creation speed bonus can be useful for cavalry-archer-based civilizations.
Berbers: Both unique units are Cavalry Archers, which are affected by their team bonus. In addition, the Berber Kashbah can make the Magyar Huszar train faster. The Genitour benefits from Recurve Bow too.
Burgundians: Not an obvious pick but having Burgundians as an ally provides captured Relics with food trickles, which in the Magyars' case can be used to pay for more Hussars and Magyar Huszars. Also, the Burgundians have great economic advantages with good Monks and Bombard Cannons that the Magyars lack, while the latter have excellent ranged units which the former does not, so they cover each others' disadvantages.
Gurjaras: Elephant Archers are created faster combined with their own team bonus. Unfortunatly, the Maygars own neither camel nor elephant units.- Hindustanis: The Hindustani team bonus (Light Cavalry +2 attack vs standard buildings) will make it harder for an enemy to defend against a Magyar raid. While not the first choice, the Hindustanis can also train their moderate Cavalry Archers faster.
- Huns: Their faster-working Stables help the Magyars' Scout Cavalry production. In return, faster Cavalry Archer creation speed is very helpful to their already-discounted Cavalry Archers.
- Mongols: Their team bonus (+2 LOS for the Scout Cavalry line) helps a Magyar scout cavalry rush. Mangudai can be created faster, which solved the problem to mass them.
- Poles: The Polish team bonus team bonus helps Scout Cavalry against enemy archers.
- Tatars: They give the Magyars +2 Line of Sight for their Cavalry Archers.
Compared advantages and disadvantages[]
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Advantages vs other civilizations[]
- The Magyar Huszar, being a Light Cavalry with attack bonus vs Siege, counters all types of siege units. Also, as they become a "trash unit" after Corvinian Army is researched, it gives the Magyars a late-game advantage against civilizations without a good trash anti-cavalry unit.
- Being a civilization with good early- and mid-game, and able to raid with the use of Scout Cavalry (which in their case is cheaper, and their melee attack technologies upgrade automatically) and Cavalry Archers, they can defeat civilizations that fare otherwise in open maps like Arabia, especially if starting in the Dark and Feudal Age.
- As they have free melee attack upgrades they are able to perform infantry rushes, which adds more power to their early- and mid-game against civilizations with bad early game.
- As their archers have full upgrades and better LOS, they are able to counter civilizations reliant on infantry. Their Skirmisher is another valuable asset for the late game in "Trash Wars".
Disadvantages vs other civilizations[]
- Their economy is poor without any early game bonuses.
- They lack several important upgrades for their infantry, Gambesons, Squires, and Plate Mail Armor.
- They do not have access to Atonement or Redemption, making a Monk rush not very useful, and the absence of Faith allows civilizations with good Monks to have an easier time converting Magyar units in the Imperial Age.
Situational advantages[]
- As their Villagers can kill Wolves (or their equivalent) with one strike, they are technically at advantage in maps where there are lots of Wolves, as they don't have to bother if an opponent lures a pack of Wolves to a Magyar town, or if the player has to use their Villagers to take out an area filled with Wolves. Maps like this include Black Forest and Gold Rush, and this advantage is even more noticeable in high difficult settings (as difficulty affects the Wolf and similar animals LOS; the higher the difficulty the more LOS Wolves have)
- In the Budapest map, as every player has double start-up (2 Town Centers, double Villagers, and two Scout Cavalry), they also get an advantage, as their two Scout Cavalry may be used to perform their Scout rush in the Feudal Age.
- In the "Capture the Relic" game mode, as their Light Cavalry line is cheaper, they can prevent enemy Monks from getting the Relic, while at the same time they may outnumber Scout Cavalry patrols from other players.
