How can I beat elemental? The empire kind of seems op. I was beaten by a guy who would normally be in like the 1500s (note I am in the 1700s). So far the best strategy is spear rush or spamming swords, but I see many of the top players mass archers and then get merics. What should I do?

Quote from Saegon

How can I beat elemental? The empire kind of seems op. I was beaten by a guy who would normally be in like the 1500s (note I am in the 1700s). So far the best strategy is spear rush or spamming swords, but I see many of the top players mass archers and then get merics. What should I do?

Take a look here: www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay4955842&version=1.99
I used a single archer to deny a lot of the scorpion harrass and just spammed swords to break the Treature rush. Following their castle Air I built up my eco because it had fallen behind and with that I was able to buy enough archidons to keep my opponent's air's falling out of the sky. Spamming swords does work much more than it would against Chaos or Order but it's not so good for the later game, a balanced army as always tends to fare better.

1. don't mass spears, they get destroyed my swordwrath and albows, thus making them only viable for mid game (but still very strong at that time).
2. Vs tree, aim for the tree with swordwrath and scorpians with archers. Remember to micro!
3. Vs air, spam archers and get a castle archers. Then, play defensive unless your archers can defeat their airs. As I remember, 2 archers>1 air but 2 airs>3 archer
4 Mid game, use speartons and kitting archers. Get a mage to destroy their units and a shadowrath if their V comes
5. late game, if you destroy their army, attack immedietly because there is very low queue time for elementals.