Quote from TheMasterFez

EDIT: I am rank 1700-ish, occasionally dipping into the 1600s.

START:
- Sword miner miner.
- Sword goes to tower, use first return of gold to get another miner.

If the opponent has nothing at the tower: This won't happen against a good player
- Capture the tower and then run my sword to the enemy base. If he has troops at his base, fall back to the tower and make an archer or two, maybe a castle archer (Not unless he went full army and is pressuring really freaking hard, or you like to turtle. If he has no troops, try to pick off miners.
- Get about 8-10 miners, purchasing tower spawn as soon as is realistic. First: You generally don't just spam miners, you make miners alongside swords and archers. Also, only get tower spawn if you're certain you can hold tower, which usually means at least a spearton and some archers.
- Set up a miner wall as far forward as possible (If you're turtling, a wall should be just far enough out to cover second row miners. If at tower, you generally don't need walls unless your archers are consistently chased by spears, in which case a place to hide behind *might* be nice.), then start (Start? You should have been making archers a long time ago.) manufacturing an archer horde, with 3-4 speartons to defend the wall. Don't forget to invest spare money into passive income and miners.
- Continue to apply pressure and pick at him with archer hit-and-runs whenever possible. (Only do this if you have more archers than him. Otherwise, your units will take more damage. If you have tower though, absolutely pressure.) Build magikill, speartons, and merics as needed. Don't forget the archers. Also, mages are a late-game unit.

If the opponent has a sword at the tower:
- Hope my sword can kill it. If so, capture the tower, garrison, and continue as above, but with a few more archers earlier on.
- If my sword dies which isn't going to happen, since you'll retreat if your sword is losing, train an archer. If he makes an archer, boost my economy a bit and then go for a spearton (That sounds pretty early for a spearton. If you make one that early you'll get wrecked by swords. You need to have a decent amount of archers and a decent eco for speartons to be really worth it) and take the tower. Proceed as above.

If the opponent has SwArch:
- Run my sword to the end of the map as a distraction (Interesting idea. That might work as a stalling tactic if you're turtling. Anybody else have thoughts on this?). If he chases it, build another miner, followed by a castle archer. If he does not pursue, consider not building the extra miner. (I don't have much experience vs swar on medium maps, so I may not be the best person for advice here.)
- Build more miners. Stop at around 10 (Again, you don't want to exclusively build a bunch of miners then stop, you want to build them alongside military units.), then get some archers and a spearton.
- By now, the enemy probably either has a good force at the tower, or a tower spawn. Try to use your archers to lure the enemy into your base, and thus your castle archer. Take them out there.*

*This is where my problem is. If the enemy does not take the bait and has good enough micro to negate my archer fire, I lose.
If you're not intentionally turtling, and you absolutely can't handle your opponent's army without the assistance of a CA, you're probably going to lose unless you have a big eco advantage, you don't have much choice but to build and hope they don't pressure much. If you are turtling, you won't have archers, you'll be making spears with shield wall, merics, and teching into mages, ninjas, and giants.

Replays:

VS order: www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay6532977&version=2.13

VS Elemental: www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay6532678&version=2.13
(Very good against elemental in my experience. What should I expect from elemental attempting to counter me?)

Quote from ShadowGeneralChaos

always variable your strategies...like dont do miner miner sword on short maps.
Beside that, dont get a too early castle archer, this will get you to an early disadvantage. Better make an archer or sword miner.
As for "If opointment has sword archer", run with your sword back (every unit at the beginning are important, loosing one could be fatal; for example loosing your first archer in short maps, its like you already lost), so run with your sword back and buy immediatly an archer. If you dont have the gold, cancel the buying of others like miner, sword, Castle archer to get money for buying your archer.
Also...dont lower your economy because this and that...ye right, its ways better to respond to your oppointment tactics, but you also have to make your "own".