Also pikes were mixed in, and elephants seemed to die like flies against the equivalent number of pikes...

you need get advantage and big advantage against Goth in early of the game. Look at the stone. Focus on stone and wood. Get castle and do not ever give a change to his gatthering stone and wood. If you persian, attack in dark. Press him. No breathe area. Wall with army in. If he gets stone and wood easily untouched even he is late 5 min castle or more, you gg and the end. Do not forget no bonus for Goths other than hunting kill in dark age. Focus on his first barrack. Scout it. Give him no change to sneak. Force him produce millitia in dark one of the best dark age fight. Kill his 1-2 villgers nice. Spend his eco in dark. DARK is the key.

So you have advantage in early feudal... Small early tower rush on resources and ready up long swordman fight in castle. Just collect 50-60 stone and put two well placed tower with map luck. Probably you gonna need his wood. Focus on his eco.... Not focus on killing. Focus eco. No stone, very less wood give him. Hard but not impossible. If you wait and you say i can win with crossbowmen against huskars... GG man. GG. Monks and knights... You end up the game after 15-20 minutes if he play well under your TC and you do not farming he is scamming two handed sword man and you are calculating champion time with diminishing +1 armored knights. Watch some folks tasted this strategy and see... No way. do not sit your ass and wait. Attack and attack. Begin in dark age. focus. scouting is curical. If you cannot scout well, if you lose your scout, generally it is gg against goth. Goth scouting generally will be short handded because of his walling act. Carlos shows one of the best if not Goth play style. Watch his games... and learn what you need not to do. Do not give them break. Do not hurry up to castle... Meaningless if you do not have big advantage. I rather choose stoping his collecting stone and some wood and castle same time. With persian you may have good castle on him in early very early castle and wall him in. Wall him in. Do not let him out. You cannot play in plain all ground. Major arror against goths is wall yourself... no man, no... You must wall in the Goth. If he is walling Help him. Wall in him. Without resources... Do not hurry to be castle... You gonna be castle nearly same time or maybe late if he cannot collect any stone.

Carlos probably lose many games on stone and wood focusers but i guess he publish some of them... Goths losing attidued always same. They lose because of wood and stone. Cut stone. Crossbowmen and knights kills like butter

Game with end, you imperial he gonna never be imperial or just he imperial and gg. You understand? he need spend everything and all game you must attack. NO Wall yourself... WALL him in his base.
My noob ideas.

against goth 10 knights in 22 mark is not an attack... if you cannot touch his eco early. Even he is in feudal transaction... he walled and as soon as he castled. He get ****ing castle and pike... even he can goes to directly to longswordman with monks... man GG.

if you let him live and prosper. Ofcourse every civilization has its shinny time.

Well my question was out of general interest, not about the individual mistakes a noob like me makes on a bad day. My conclusion would be: With Persians against Goths, one needs to gain advantage in Feudal already, or it is quite hopeless.

manage 60 elite eles if u can

Paladins + Hand cannoners

Paladins shield cannoners vs huskarls, and hand cannoners are pretty good vs pikes and not bad vs huskarls

What about Hand Canoneers and Hussar as shield? HC still destroy huskarls...

problem is hand cannoners slow and you may only defend your gap... if you are not in attack position on his eco... GG in your land. gold will finish.

you cannot mass paladin and hand conners... infact if you can take paladin upgrade game is already gg or will gg.

not advantage. big advantage needed. every age passes you gonna close to die under heavy army spamming.

In Castle Age, You need to have few mangonels(+pikes). Otherwise it wil be harder to counter goths. In Imperial age, You have hand canonners + mounted units to counter goths.

Try the persian ****.

Not allowed to post the word d o u c h e? Lol.

In the early stage you have an advantage. Goths have no eco bonusses and your TC produces faster (plus easier start). He has cheaper militia starting from the feudal age, but his man-at-arms rush can be stopped pretty easily if you go archers. If he goes scouts into x-bows or kts it's np, because you can do that too.
In castle age it can get kinda tricky. If he plays huskarls, you will need to do kts. If he mixes pikes, you also need to do xbow/skirm. At least try to get it to imperial, as weird as this may sound.
In imperial goths mostly only play infantry. You can do HC (hand cannonneer), which are extremely good Vs. infantry (attack bonus). He will need to add skirms or onagers (he can't do arbalest). In that case you can add hussar or onagers yourself.

He might produce his army faster, but you will have a better army composition and a better economy (because of the faster tc production).

Also, in imperial, if you have time, you can try elite war elephant. He needs at least twice the amount of halbs, maybe even 3, to counter you. Beware of monks though.