Lately I've noticed when I play as flank in 3vs3 I can play strong on my flank and usually have a great shot at knocking my opposing flank out, but then I start to run into some trouble with the pocket's army when they send help (one of the worst and deadliest counters to feudal flank rush I've witnessed can be conquistadors against a pure archer army. Another time I was Aztec and managed to nearly take out the Mongol flank on my side but then the Teuton pocket dispatched about 10 Teutonic knights which obviously would and did make fast work out of my eagle warrior rush (I noticed at the end of the game that he tributed the would-be routed Mongol a sizeable amount of resources at about the time that I was being countered and driven back, that ended up turning into a robust production of mangudai forming a decisive counter army (along with the teutonic knights) that pursued what was left of my retreating forces all the way back to my base and then put the nail in my town and thus the game into its coffin about a minute or so later).
In both games the pocket on my team was unaggressive and unwilling to send adequate reinforcements that the other flank enjoyed on their side of the fray. As a rule of thumb I tend to be an aggressive player, but I realize that there is something that needs to be resolved or tweaked in these seemingly advantageous but precariously fragile scenarios. I'd like to think I can count on my pocket to give me help with pushes if I've already made decisive advances against my adjacent opponent, or at least to give the pocket a reasonable distraction to keep his attention off of my forward armies.
But I'm wondering how others view forwards in team games as flanks. Is it worth it to forward? Or to drop a castle as a coup de grace for an originally flush based strike, or would it be better for the sake of surprise or aggressive maneuvers to save a forward castle ace you have in the hole for the pocket man? And how could I beef up my feudal army to hang with teutonic knights, conquistadors and knights if I'm still stuck in Feudal but making moves on my guy on the map?
In both games the pocket on my team was unaggressive and unwilling to send adequate reinforcements that the other flank enjoyed on their side of the fray. As a rule of thumb I tend to be an aggressive player, but I realize that there is something that needs to be resolved or tweaked in these seemingly advantageous but precariously fragile scenarios. I'd like to think I can count on my pocket to give me help with pushes if I've already made decisive advances against my adjacent opponent, or at least to give the pocket a reasonable distraction to keep his attention off of my forward armies.
But I'm wondering how others view forwards in team games as flanks. Is it worth it to forward? Or to drop a castle as a coup de grace for an originally flush based strike, or would it be better for the sake of surprise or aggressive maneuvers to save a forward castle ace you have in the hole for the pocket man? And how could I beef up my feudal army to hang with teutonic knights, conquistadors and knights if I'm still stuck in Feudal but making moves on my guy on the map?