How to use Fervor with the most efficiency: 1 - Go fo rfast castle and build 6 monasteries as soon as you can when you reach castle age. 2 - Create 5 monks and research fervor all at the same time. 3 - Be the first to arrive at every relic. 4 - Loose all your monks to light cav, skirms or pikes becuse you werent looking at the monks and just set way points.
I’m really trying to integrate monks more in my games because of your advice. I just always hated how slow they were and how badly I always used them. :P
I always hated monks because how much better the ai uses them. I really don't know how you can beat the Extreme ai once they build up (which is why you rush them)
@@9051team You can beat them with a good eco setup of your own, knowledge about unit compositions, enough production buildings and the hotkey setup to use them.
@@9051team Cheesiest way is just to give them alternate target buildings, especially fortifications like castles and towers, to waste their units on. Even Extreme AI doesn't know when it's best to just go right past stuff as well as a human.
Grouping about six-eight monks with foot archers/ranged units works decently well against the Ai. It keeps them away from serious fighting, keeps your ranged gold units healed and allows you to pick up relics after raising an enemy base.
The other day I went to the priest for confession. Before we started, I congratulated him on the recent baptism he had performed. His face looked somber, however, and he stopped me before I said any more. "I can't hear your confession, my son." His normally stolid face was now quivering and a mist was forming over his wise old eyes. "You see, after the wonderful experience of welcoming in a new convert into our church," he was now holding back sobs as the great tears streamed down his kind, wrinkled face. "I've lost all my faith! I'm an atheist now." I was annoyed, but by the time I was back to my car, the priest was running toward me with great fervor, shouting indistinctly. Once he was 9 - no, 12 feet away I could finally understand him. "Come back, my son! I can hear your confession now!"
Using AOE logic, priests at church would get up in front of everyone and then just apologize because the will of god only extends out to 10 feet and the first row is 15 feet away
Herbal medicine is insane. So cheap and extremely cost effective. I remember viper with Franks vs Lierry masterpiece where he'd constantly clear archers and halbs and then heal up in his castles.
@@daarom3472 it was in Hera's tournament the Champions League final, the map was Mongolia, a hilly map full of choke points for Britons but Viper somehow won that game when it was supposed to be unwinnable vs Britons
For as often as I use Monks, or see them used against me in more than an early Castle relic-rush capacity, Herbal is more worthwhile than anything else in the monastery.
Not sure about other pros but Hera and Viper utilized it a lot, especially Viper. I remembered he just healed up bunch of injured Mangudai and holding that castle for the entire game until his opponent resigned.
One thing you have to consider is that it takes up research/build time of other more important techs and monk production. While it does make sense why it’s included in the monastery, you can actively hurt yourself by researching it if you are trying to utilize monks to the fullest. You want to focus on monk production and research in castle age, where as you don’t really need herbal medicine once you can free up space for it in Imperial age because you have a ton monks. I’d argue that it’s more important for civs that have weak monks, since you probably won’t be building any, but then you’d be building a monastery just to research a tech that may or may not be used, given on the game situation.
@@CyberDrewan or you could've built Monks for 1-3 Relics, tried using them, saw that your foe is Magyars/Mongols, lost 'em all wololos and just wanted to patch up yer horsies faster
You could also say that it indirectly affects monks by making it feasible to heal units without them, especially groups with high speed+cost and low HP, thus freeing up your monks for other tasks instead of walking from point to point healing them. Monks can heal anyone except themselves, so you don't need to keep them in pairs if you're using them as value/support units instead of your main army. And healing is exclusive to monks and buildings, so you research it at the building for monks. I kind of like the tech in some games, especially playing as Mongolian. It CAN swing the game if you retreat your Mangudai+LCalv to a castle, healing them and boosting the Castle attack. I know something has to be at #10, but it's far from bad.
Made me think of a what-if mechanic. A Unique Tech for the Aztec where, if you have a Monk trying to convert a unit, you can delete an allied unit nearby to make the conversion succeed instantly.
I think Sanctity still takes the number 1 slot for me as it makes your Monks much more effective in basically every situation as well as being available in the Castle Age and quite cheap. Redemption is definitely a powerful tech, but there are games where people will counter your Monks with Light Cavalry and not siege. The Arena map is a good example of this. Also, as pointed out in the video, it can still be risky going for Mangonel conversions without Sanctity which to me makes Sanctity the all round better tech.
am i the only one who thinks Monks should have regional skins like Trade carts? it really makes no sense that Chinese, Malians and Huns are rocking up with christian monks. it's a pretty recognizable unit too, just give it robes, a staff and a book or something of the sort and it's obviously a monk
Regional skins have the problem of making units less recognizable since there would be several different ways they could look while still being the same unit. Trade units are less subject to this because nothing else looks even a little like them and they're not military while also not even appearing in many games. I think the villagers for every civ look western European for this reason (as it was the choice to fit the most of the original Age of Kings civs)
@@Fronzel41 as i said, i think monks would be very recognizable, being the only units with robes, staffs and you could give them some kind of book or scroll. the american civs already have monk skins and you can tell them apart at a glance. for villagers it's more complicated, in part because they have more different animations, also their designs are simple enough and their culture is vague enough. where as monks for most civs are very obviously christian. it just feels really out of place.
They had that mod back then but not sure why only American civ got their own monk skin. There are more variations now considering we have more civs but they still doesn't seems wanting to integrate that mod. I'm not sure if it's some copyright problem or something but I feel like it's been long overdue.
I think a lot of the thought behind these rankings stems from using monks as "converters" rather than as "healers." I use monks mostly as healers, and like to incorporate a few monks in my armies as a way to assist in loss control (particularly in archer formations), so things like Sanctity and Fervor rank a lot higher for me, as those monks are marching within the unit and will often take damage themselves.
I would say Fervour should be #5 instead of Illumination. Speed can still mean you can escape/chase better, specially against siege. Illumination opens up a few "tricks" but it only comes up in Imperial and both these tricks shown require extra micro management that could be better used somewhere else
In retrospect, I feel we did too much with Monastery techs. We should have made these techs NOT cost gold, and probably combined two or more into a single tech.
Herbal Medicine I really enjoy in campaign for the reason mentioned in the video; Cavalry Archers. While you heal them up in the Castle, they're also shooting ~20 arrows at anything nearby.
It also Worth pointing out that with redemption during the process of converting buildings you can switch the target into enemy unit which leads to insta convertion. Its important because enemy usually counter monks with light cav. With "fully" charged monks it no longer works
Not to mention that Monks need Redemption to convert a handful of powerful castle units that are considered “seige” like Portuguese Organ Gun, Khmer Ballista Elephant and Bohemian War Wagon.
Hey Spirit! Thanks for doing this as always. Not sure how others feel but a quick summary at the end of the video would be mighty useful. Just the techs and a one-liner or even just a table of everything discussed. :)
Hi @SpiritOfTheLaw, love your content. It's weird seeing you compare the cost of Faith to the cost of units it would save, discounting the fact that losing them would lead your enemy to get free ressources, especially since you do count it for atonement.
Agreed. If faith denies conversion of a unit that costs 100 resources, it will bring you a value of 200 resources. Same with heresy. Heresy can effectively end a monk push because it cut down enemy monk value to half and trading evenly with monks when you have heresy become very hard. Before heresy, one knight conversion puts the enemy ahead by ~300 resources, with heresy, it only puts them ahead by ~150 resources. That means 66% of enemy monks have to get a conversion before dying to trade evenly as compared to only 33% of monks needing a conversion before dying if you don't have heresy.
How I use monks in every game: -Train two monks with fervor and sanctity behind them. -Send them to get relics. -Have them hang around to heal my units, including when moving offensively. -Prerequisite step: set AI to moderate.
The best time to use monks was when there was that bug around that allowed you to select a bunch of monks with some other units and initiate an attack-move, whereupon they would just move forward and convert anything that moved.
Fervor has one thing going for it I really like: it makes the box selection with a monk in the middle less of a problem with archers or infantry (except pikes or fast unique), and it also allows monks to reach their intended destination during a game 15% faster.
There should be a civ tech that transforms monks into druids - still able to do all the same as before, but now they can also convert animals. The best part is, even deer can be used for scouting, and sending a wolf after enemy villagers might mess up their eco.
Sounds a bit like what Egyptians/Set could do in Age of Mythology, and War Chiefs in Age of Empires 3. But I don't think it'd add on a mechanical level very much; most maps dont have a lot of animals in castle age, and paying res for some very weak units (a vil without loom can also survive wolf, if the first hit comes from the vil). Even as a civ bonus ("monks can convert animals"), it seems non consequential on regular maps as well - scouting is already done, enemies should have some military and who the hell doesn't take their hunts in dark age?
@@thomasfplm I'd say that that would be only impactful if: it's a civ bonus, you got the LOS from birds from the start (no conversion needed), or that you can control them (with conversion). First one has as a problem that it's very RNG dependent, but might help massively for rushes, and second one might be very OP for surprise raids (unless LOS is very small) in late game
@@bartelvandervelden9894, depending on how many birds there are, the birds could give you a wide vision, even if RNG dependent, so could be useful later widout needing to control them, the problem would be tasking the monks to convert them.
I had been mulling around an idea for a Civilization, called The Dutch (Naval, Economy and Monk). Team Bonus: Ships have +50% Line of Sight. Their bonuses: Villagers gain HP from Monastery Techs and (starting in Feudal) can convert enemy units for 100 Gold, and Redemption would extend this to buildings as well. Economy, Monastery, University and Gunpowder techs come an age earlier (which means bombard cannons, bombard towers, hand cannoners etc. in in Castle Age). Trade Carts and Trade Cogs can generate Gold from your own markets and docks. Their Unique Unit: Geuzen at the Castle (a halberd unit that has anti-cavalry bonuses and conversion immunity along with the charged ability which lets them capture an enemy building that's on 40% health or less and when used on units fires 2 shots from their brace of pistols, and an alternate attack mode with a sword that increases their movement speed and swaps their bonuses to anti-archer and the elite upgrade comes with a second alternate attack mode with a hand cannon allowing their bonuses to apply to infantry) and the East Indiaman at the Dock (A cannon galleon which can transport units). Their Castle Age Unique Tech: Humanism: Changes the cost incurred when a villager converts and enemy unit from 100 Gold to 100 Food and 100 Wood and removes the Gold Cost from all University Techs. Their Imperial Age Unique Tech: East India Company: Gives all villagers, buildings, trade carts, trade cogs, fishing ships and transport ships a hand cannon so while they have a slight reduction in their movement speed they can fight with a Blunderbuss (which fun fact is from the Dutch for "Thunder Pipe") and trade routes with other players generate Food and Wood as well as Gold. While they don't have access to the Knight Line or Elite Skirmisher, I was wondering if they were somewhat overpowered.
Even if redención is consider a defensive tec, is funny how sometimes you can clean a city faster than siege if the enemy is too envidius and delete as soon as he notice, harming him more than allowing the conver.
Several videos back, I asked if you would do a video focused solely on the Block Printing tech in this game, focusing on its importance, which civs you feel make the best usage of it, and which civs you feel would benefit the most from having it but don't. While I would still really love it if you made that specific video at some point, this video was also a lot of fun to watch, and I was honestly not surprised at all that Block Printing is so high on your list.
One of my favorite plays is a cavalry and monk combo. Because of this fervor is much more important when you need to get your monks from one end of the map to the other.
Hey SotL, I think you should consider changing the efficiency breakpoint for Faith to 6-7 pallys since conversions are worth double the original cost of the unit, as your opponent gains control.
I feel like there are a quite of few civs that value Sancity and Fervor far more than he has them ranked. Burmese and Bohemians obviously want them, but I would argue that they’re also important for healing focused monks like Tuetons and Byzantines, as it helps them keep up with your army and keeps them alive longer. Aztecs also use Sanctity as a power spike for their HP, and fervor works a little better at keeping up with your army when you don’t have calvary.
I've often wondered how effective an archer civ could be if they brought villagers to the front lines to build buildings to act as temporary walls for the archers to hide behind. It sounds like something an AI would do.
Probably the biggest difficulty with this would be micro for the villagers. If your opponent is fielding skirms or mangonels (or any ranged counter to archers) and they auto target your villagers - you're going to have to retask the vills every time they take a hit. Also the buildings won't stop the ranged counter units from attacking yours. If they are fielding melee counters to your archers it could be more beneficial, but melee units are typically better at destroying buildings so you'd need the vills to spend more time building them up to make them as effective - which means the vills have to spend longer out in the front lines and are more likely to get killed by the melee units on their way through. There's also the cost of the buildings. Whenever you place a building you pay full price, even if the building isn't finished. You can delete it to get back some of the resources (if it's not fully built you get back resources equal to the percentage you haven't built yet, i.e. at 80% building completion you get 20% building cost back) - but if the foundations are destroyed you lose all of it. Not a big deal for some buildings but can add up pretty quickly. I think this is probably why rams or melee units are typically used as meatshields. At least they have some offensive capability/utility beyond just being a blocker and they don't need as much micro - which is important when you're using archers who can typically benefit much more from your micro APM than melee units would.
For the sake of the argument. It would been good to see how quick you get relics in area, which is a very common situation. You can do 3 scenarios: Fervor->two monks, Monk->Fervor->Monk and Monk->Monk->Fervor. Comparing the times of those would been handy to show in a real example how effective it really is.
I never thought about it but there are are a lot of anti monk techs in the monastery. Even the one that lets you convert other monks is an anti monk tech
Herbal Medicine should be placed higher I think, based on it's increased usage by pros as well. It's reseached way more often than a tech like Faith for instance.
It's still a bit situational, as the attacking civ you don't want to send your units back and weaken the push, giving the enemy chance to push back. As the defending civ, garrisoning the army you are using to defend may just mean the enemy will push even deeper. The only good usage, and that is when pros research it, are in the stalemate treb wars between two hills. No one can push, you may try to harass from range, but at the end you are both waiting to see which trebs/castle go down first, so why not heal units in bulk in the meantime
I agree it should be higher than faith; cost and availability (one at castle age the other at imperial age) is quite significant as well; sotl effectively said that it was too expensive and comes in too late😅
Exactly, it's situational, but still very good in that situation. It's also better the lower elo you are since you can just throw them in while microing other things for a bit and get better value from it
in early version of aoe2 sanctity gives not +15hp but +50%, when you reached sanctity with Aztecs as last monastery tech, monk had over 100 hp! it counts +50% from ACTUAL monk hp: (30 + 5 for each tech)+50% !! After patch this was removed
While I love your videos and I enjoyed this one a lot, I think you're under appreciating the value of converting units putting Faith in number 9. The price of the tech is not always the best way to consider its value. A group of 4 or 5 monks can really change the outcome of a battle and steamrolll the rest of the game. Faith can change the entire battle, and it doesn't matter if you end up with all the resources to make Paladins but without time or stables to do so.
I'd say Herbal Medicine goes from worst to *best* monastery tech in campaign games. Microing monks there is usually not really worth it against the AI, so most monk techs are pretty bad, and monk defense is situational. Being able to quickly heal your units in the castles you often build to defend chokepoints is super useful. I often end up building a monestary for no other reason than to quickly pick up Herbal Medicine
One thing to add about Redemtion and which makes it an insane tech is that it opens up the charge up trick with buildings: you can have your monks converting random buildings to charge up their conversion and your opponent can no longer attack your monks even with light cav or eagles because they'll be converted instantly
Heresy needs also caculate the resource that conversion gives to your opponent,which is critical especially for something expensive and destructive like siege onager
And the damage the siege onager can do to your units if converted. And the damage your onagers can do if they shoot at the enemy among them and cause friendly fire...
When it comes to faith and heresy, I think there is more than just the value of the units. Some of your units, if converted, can deal significant damage to your other units or mess things up, ie draw fire of onagers, or kill valuable units.
Faith is extremely useful if you're an elephant civ/having war elephants as Persians, you need that time to either get out and use ranged units to kill Monks or avoid losing 13 elephants in a push suddenly, losing the whole game
Similarly with Heresy, you're not preventing 14 Paladins being converted to get the value, you're preventing 8 or 9 being converted and killing the other 6-7 which ends up being the same cost value. Since each unit converted is actually worth more than simply losing the same unit
Herbal Medicine should be at least 5th if not higher. It helps defensively and it helps offensively with castle drops. While your units are healing they can still contribute extra arrows and cycle out when they are healed or the battle is over. A monk can be sniped by a single light cav before he contributes any value at all but HM is hard to not have it pay fore itself. Early, cheap, potentially high impact tech that will almost always pay for itself? Yes please.
Fervor should get points for making monks easier to use in all contexts. Since a faster monk is a monk that can keep up with your army better and reach enemies for conversions better. They just get to where they need to be faster, making it a semi-invisible but global improvement to everything they do. The shortcomings of using it for relics, I think, undermines the extremely broad value it provides for such a cheap tech. The only tech that I think is better than it is redemption.
I think Heresy can actually be pretty useful in all-in situations to keep your opponent's monk defense from completely turning the tables on you. That may sound strange, since the tech is expensive and you'll have less economy if you're pursuing an all-in attack, but the thing is that gold gathers quickly, so if you're putting all your villagers on gold and food/wood to spam army, you can find yourself with a lot of it banked up. There was one Nomad team game where I was Spanish and tasked with handling a player 400 ELO better than me. He resorted to monk defense to fight my conquistadors, and I realized letting a player who's better than me steal conquistadors could be disastrous, so I researched Heresy. Once he saw I had it, he gave up on the monks entirely and switched to skirm defense, which was much less of an offensive threat than the monks could have been.
I'd switch 1 and 2, but otherwise agree entirely. To improve my monk play, I civ picked Aztecs for a while and played FC monks. Dropped about 200 elo at first, but gradually got it back. Block printing is insane. I would always get fervor quickly, but mostly for a cheap +5hp as Aztecs, after redemption and sanctity which I always got as quickly as possible.
As a low elo and casual player, my top 3 is #1 Theocracy, #2 Atonement and #3 Redemption. The combination of all three has a mental load impact that makes playing with Monks FEEL better and more fun. After that, your list is probably spot on, except id even maybe put Fervor even lower. I always thought : "make the slowest unit a tiny bit faster, thats not worth it"
Having ridiculous units such as the conq & mangudai be able to give more arrows, means that Herbal can be amazing on the front lines... Imagine 6 elite skirms trying to hit a conquistadour and 1 misses, that conq now garrisons, heals to full & adds extra arrows to kill your skirms/continue hitting your base. The fact that some ranged units are just too good at adding arrows can I think add a lot to that tech's utility. And Fervour is really nice, as you can better manoeuvre your monks around supporting cavalry such as Lith knights who can take out a scout/light cav before it kills the monk off - ALMOST ALWAYS EASILY PAYTING for itself after just 1 monk is saved (100 gold + faster relic in the bank & the monk is still running around converting and so on).
Personally prioritize Sanctity and Fervor (though you make a good argument to delay it). Then I get Faith and Heresy if I start hearing excessive conversion sounds. I don't often play monks too much in an active role, though it is something I probably should try more.
I make sure to add two-to-four Monks when I play Byzantines. I’ll be sure to stop picking up Fervor as often and put that gold towards something else. Thanks!
I personally consider Faith and Heresy to be in the top 3 monk techs. The effect all your units so if you're not going for monks or are just using them for healing, Faith and Heresy are still helpful. I agree with redemption. Converting enemy builds let's you train your own units right in their base.
Personally I think Heresy is the most useful, since I'm more likely to fight monks than use them myself. Fervor is definitely in my top 5 since it also helps them keep up with armies . But it's hard to argue against Redemption and Theocracy
Faith and Heresy in my opinion are for big lategames with more than 2 players on the field. If they didn't exist, you'd one day see a monk army arriving at your doorstep, with absolutely no way to stop it (Because you are at pop cap right?). At least no feasable ones. These 2 techs while not a top priority, exists to prevent monk spam in such an event.
One cool tech that could be included to the sarrassin civ is converts, when you rearch it will spawn a random castle unit from any civ ever conquered by muslims in the town center every 5 min
I think last year during Wandering Warrior, there has been a game during which Heresy decided the game, can't remember which one though. But it's rare yeah
I agree with your list almost entirely, except I'd switch Illumination with Fervor. I find the speed really does make a difference, to the point that when I don't get it, my monk plays usually fail. Could just be that I'm too used to the speed with fervor.
Monks are powerful and can easily change the course of an engagement if used well. However, they require a ton of micro and pampering, and losing a clump of fresh monks to a random mangonel shot can be very painful.
I know it will be too strong at higher levels but can we think of an aggressive stance for monks so everytime a unit enters the conversion radius monks start converting. The pro would obviously be it would be less micro intensive. But the disadvantage is that if you're not paying attention you might be converting a random pikeman in front and not the Mangonel at the back.
It seems like you based every situation, or at least most, on a multiplayer monk mash. I would think that monks might have more versatility beyond Castle Age rush and that utility might cause the list to change.
I tend to pick up every monk tech I've got (although as Bulgarians I rarely make it farther into Castle then it takes to pick up Arson) but I've often found a solid use case for Heresy if I've got lots of Konniks against someone like Aztecs. But as Bohemians, who have them all, I don't notice much of a difference from Faith, Fervor, or Herbal Medicine. I'd rather have 10 more Monks than a tech to heal 6x faster for sure.
I don't normally create monks, when I play the game, trying to focus instead on defenses and so, I prefer Herbal medicine first and foremost ( Cos' I like to create castles and defend them with cavalry that can be healed over time, within the castle in between fights. And yes, block printing is a game changer.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
How to use Fervor with the most efficiency:
1 - Go fo rfast castle and build 6 monasteries as soon as you can when you reach castle age.
2 - Create 5 monks and research fervor all at the same time.
3 - Be the first to arrive at every relic.
4 - Loose all your monks to light cav, skirms or pikes becuse you werent looking at the monks and just set way points.
Loose all monks cuz you are watching a SoTL video instead of playing the game
5 - keep producing monks and sending them to those waypoiints with the lcav
@@jurgnobs1308 Lol, at this point the enemy won't even try to get the relics for them, it's just much more worthy to leave them be.
Why 5 monks? I get most/all relics with only 2, then fervor.
@@elliejohnson2786 because you can't lose 5 monks to lcav if you only build 2
A tech making their "Wololo" LOUDER would be the best tech in the game.
there's the Vululu mod for that and you don't have to pay gold for it 😅
They would need an actual "Wololo" in the first place ;) AoE2 monks do not say Wololo
@@GummieI they do sometimes
Who are you? The man of the real faith who can unite all the religions?
@@bushido791 I always use the vululu mod. I've gg-ed before to monk pushes just because I can't stand the normal sound.
I’m really trying to integrate monks more in my games because of your advice. I just always hated how slow they were and how badly I always used them. :P
I always hated monks because how much better the ai uses them.
I really don't know how you can beat the Extreme ai once they build up (which is why you rush them)
If anything, always use them for relics and scouting the map. They are walking outposts.
@@9051team You can beat them with a good eco setup of your own, knowledge about unit compositions, enough production buildings and the hotkey setup to use them.
@@9051team Cheesiest way is just to give them alternate target buildings, especially fortifications like castles and towers, to waste their units on. Even Extreme AI doesn't know when it's best to just go right past stuff as well as a human.
Grouping about six-eight monks with foot archers/ranged units works decently well against the Ai. It keeps them away from serious fighting, keeps your ranged gold units healed and allows you to pick up relics after raising an enemy base.
The other day I went to the priest for confession. Before we started, I congratulated him on the recent baptism he had performed. His face looked somber, however, and he stopped me before I said any more. "I can't hear your confession, my son." His normally stolid face was now quivering and a mist was forming over his wise old eyes. "You see, after the wonderful experience of welcoming in a new convert into our church," he was now holding back sobs as the great tears streamed down his kind, wrinkled face. "I've lost all my faith! I'm an atheist now."
I was annoyed, but by the time I was back to my car, the priest was running toward me with great fervor, shouting indistinctly. Once he was 9 - no, 12 feet away I could finally understand him. "Come back, my son! I can hear your confession now!"
Using AOE logic, priests at church would get up in front of everyone and then just apologize because the will of god only extends out to 10 feet and the first row is 15 feet away
wololo
@@hashbrownz1999 considering how much of a unit model fits in 1 tile/range, eg: knight, i'd say its 10 metres instead feet.
@@abhishekjain3148 well then the guys at the back are like "why are his lips moving without making any sound?"
So he researched fervour and block printing....
Personally, I think Herbal Medicine deserves a higher spot than Faith, if only because it is easier to pay for and can quickly pay for itself.
Herbal medicine is insane. So cheap and extremely cost effective. I remember viper with Franks vs Lierry masterpiece where he'd constantly clear archers and halbs and then heal up in his castles.
@@daarom3472 it was in Hera's tournament the Champions League final, the map was Mongolia, a hilly map full of choke points for Britons but Viper somehow won that game when it was supposed to be unwinnable vs Britons
Herbal Medicine is practically required if you want to bulk heal your whole army.
For as often as I use Monks, or see them used against me in more than an early Castle relic-rush capacity, Herbal is more worthwhile than anything else in the monastery.
Not sure about other pros but Hera and Viper utilized it a lot, especially Viper. I remembered he just healed up bunch of injured Mangudai and holding that castle for the entire game until his opponent resigned.
I think block printing should also increase their healing range.
Either that or Herbal Medicine
Heal faster at home, heal farther at the field
I had no idea that it doesn't increase the healing range, lol.
3:00 you also have to keep in mind the resources you are both losing, and giving to your enemy with a conversion.
Yes, similarly for Heresy at 4:44, you need to account for the harm the converted unit would have done.
Yes! Same for Heresy @ 4:44
Yeah this was a weird oversight especially as he made the argument accounting for the resource switch when talking about atonement.
Herbal medicine makes 100% sense to be in the monastery though. Monks did a lot with herbs.
Sometimes realism is best
One thing you have to consider is that it takes up research/build time of other more important techs and monk production. While it does make sense why it’s included in the monastery, you can actively hurt yourself by researching it if you are trying to utilize monks to the fullest. You want to focus on monk production and research in castle age, where as you don’t really need herbal medicine once you can free up space for it in Imperial age because you have a ton monks.
I’d argue that it’s more important for civs that have weak monks, since you probably won’t be building any, but then you’d be building a monastery just to research a tech that may or may not be used, given on the game situation.
@@CyberDrewan or you could've built Monks for 1-3 Relics, tried using them, saw that your foe is Magyars/Mongols, lost 'em all wololos and just wanted to patch up yer horsies faster
You could also say that it indirectly affects monks by making it feasible to heal units without them, especially groups with high speed+cost and low HP, thus freeing up your monks for other tasks instead of walking from point to point healing them. Monks can heal anyone except themselves, so you don't need to keep them in pairs if you're using them as value/support units instead of your main army. And healing is exclusive to monks and buildings, so you research it at the building for monks.
I kind of like the tech in some games, especially playing as Mongolian. It CAN swing the game if you retreat your Mangudai+LCalv to a castle, healing them and boosting the Castle attack. I know something has to be at #10, but it's far from bad.
Aztec monk trying to stop a Spanish cannon by sacrificing more villager to sun god
lo siento, pero los sacrificios humanos se detendrán
Made me think of a what-if mechanic. A Unique Tech for the Aztec where, if you have a Monk trying to convert a unit, you can delete an allied unit nearby to make the conversion succeed instantly.
I think Sanctity still takes the number 1 slot for me as it makes your Monks much more effective in basically every situation as well as being available in the Castle Age and quite cheap. Redemption is definitely a powerful tech, but there are games where people will counter your Monks with Light Cavalry and not siege. The Arena map is a good example of this. Also, as pointed out in the video, it can still be risky going for Mangonel conversions without Sanctity which to me makes Sanctity the all round better tech.
am i the only one who thinks Monks should have regional skins like Trade carts? it really makes no sense that Chinese, Malians and Huns are rocking up with christian monks. it's a pretty recognizable unit too, just give it robes, a staff and a book or something of the sort and it's obviously a monk
Regional skins have the problem of making units less recognizable since there would be several different ways they could look while still being the same unit. Trade units are less subject to this because nothing else looks even a little like them and they're not military while also not even appearing in many games. I think the villagers for every civ look western European for this reason (as it was the choice to fit the most of the original Age of Kings civs)
@@Fronzel41 as i said, i think monks would be very recognizable, being the only units with robes, staffs and you could give them some kind of book or scroll. the american civs already have monk skins and you can tell them apart at a glance.
for villagers it's more complicated, in part because they have more different animations, also their designs are simple enough and their culture is vague enough. where as monks for most civs are very obviously christian. it just feels really out of place.
you could make the same argument for almost any generic unit, like how come mesoamerican civs have crossbowmen
They had that mod back then but not sure why only American civ got their own monk skin. There are more variations now considering we have more civs but they still doesn't seems wanting to integrate that mod. I'm not sure if it's some copyright problem or something but I feel like it's been long overdue.
It could be a user end option so it'll be choice for players
I think a lot of the thought behind these rankings stems from using monks as "converters" rather than as "healers." I use monks mostly as healers, and like to incorporate a few monks in my armies as a way to assist in loss control (particularly in archer formations), so things like Sanctity and Fervor rank a lot higher for me, as those monks are marching within the unit and will often take damage themselves.
I dont even play AOE2 but i watch all your videos anyway.
I think herbal medicine is perfectly placed in the monastery, since monks would cultivate healing herbs and know how to apply them.
thanks for the content! must have been hard to narrow it down to your top 10
Shout out to those monks from the 4th El Cid campaign for researching all those techs for you. Their diligent work was not in vain.
11
I always get Fervour because having Monks be a bit faster so they can avoid some damage and keep up with faster units I group them with.
I would say Fervour should be #5 instead of Illumination. Speed can still mean you can escape/chase better, specially against siege. Illumination opens up a few "tricks" but it only comes up in Imperial and both these tricks shown require extra micro management that could be better used somewhere else
@@voidgods fervor helps to dodge siege shots
In retrospect, I feel we did too much with Monastery techs. We should have made these techs NOT cost gold, and probably combined two or more into a single tech.
Herbal Medicine I really enjoy in campaign for the reason mentioned in the video; Cavalry Archers. While you heal them up in the Castle, they're also shooting ~20 arrows at anything nearby.
It also Worth pointing out that with redemption during the process of converting buildings you can switch the target into enemy unit which leads to insta convertion.
Its important because enemy usually counter monks with light cav. With "fully" charged monks it no longer works
Not to mention that Monks need Redemption to convert a handful of powerful castle units that are considered “seige” like Portuguese Organ Gun, Khmer Ballista Elephant and Bohemian War Wagon.
13:00 that beat got me like Drop it spirit
Hey Spirit! Thanks for doing this as always. Not sure how others feel but a quick summary at the end of the video would be mighty useful. Just the techs and a one-liner or even just a table of everything discussed. :)
Hi @SpiritOfTheLaw, love your content. It's weird seeing you compare the cost of Faith to the cost of units it would save, discounting the fact that losing them would lead your enemy to get free ressources, especially since you do count it for atonement.
Agreed. If faith denies conversion of a unit that costs 100 resources, it will bring you a value of 200 resources. Same with heresy. Heresy can effectively end a monk push because it cut down enemy monk value to half and trading evenly with monks when you have heresy become very hard. Before heresy, one knight conversion puts the enemy ahead by ~300 resources, with heresy, it only puts them ahead by ~150 resources. That means 66% of enemy monks have to get a conversion before dying to trade evenly as compared to only 33% of monks needing a conversion before dying if you don't have heresy.
@@oomdoa5454 Even more, because the unit starts fighting your units instantly, which is considerable if the unit is part of a group.
Redemption is also great at charging conversion during a push and switching to units for instant conversion
Didn’t realize monks could keep their progression when switching targets. That’s a neat, albeit micro-dependent, trick!
How I use monks in every game:
-Train two monks with fervor and sanctity behind them.
-Send them to get relics.
-Have them hang around to heal my units, including when moving offensively.
-Prerequisite step: set AI to moderate.
Thanks for making and sharing this! I completely agree Redemption is #1 and by a country mile.
The best time to use monks was when there was that bug around that allowed you to select a bunch of monks with some other units and initiate an attack-move, whereupon they would just move forward and convert anything that moved.
Fervor has one thing going for it I really like: it makes the box selection with a monk in the middle less of a problem with archers or infantry (except pikes or fast unique), and it also allows monks to reach their intended destination during a game 15% faster.
Man those Aztec monks are jacked af.
There should be a civ tech that transforms monks into druids - still able to do all the same as before, but now they can also convert animals. The best part is, even deer can be used for scouting, and sending a wolf after enemy villagers might mess up their eco.
Sounds a bit like what Egyptians/Set could do in Age of Mythology, and War Chiefs in Age of Empires 3. But I don't think it'd add on a mechanical level very much; most maps dont have a lot of animals in castle age, and paying res for some very weak units (a vil without loom can also survive wolf, if the first hit comes from the vil). Even as a civ bonus ("monks can convert animals"), it seems non consequential on regular maps as well - scouting is already done, enemies should have some military and who the hell doesn't take their hunts in dark age?
@@bartelvandervelden9894, what if you could convert the birds?
Even if you couldn't control them, they would provide map vision.
@@thomasfplm I'd say that that would be only impactful if: it's a civ bonus, you got the LOS from birds from the start (no conversion needed), or that you can control them (with conversion). First one has as a problem that it's very RNG dependent, but might help massively for rushes, and second one might be very OP for surprise raids (unless LOS is very small) in late game
Something like a Celts team bonus increasing Monk conversion rate against mounted units.
@@bartelvandervelden9894, depending on how many birds there are, the birds could give you a wide vision, even if RNG dependent, so could be useful later widout needing to control them, the problem would be tasking the monks to convert them.
I had been mulling around an idea for a Civilization, called The Dutch (Naval, Economy and Monk).
Team Bonus:
Ships have +50% Line of Sight.
Their bonuses:
Villagers gain HP from Monastery Techs and (starting in Feudal) can convert enemy units for 100 Gold, and Redemption would extend this to buildings as well.
Economy, Monastery, University and Gunpowder techs come an age earlier (which means bombard cannons, bombard towers, hand cannoners etc. in in Castle Age).
Trade Carts and Trade Cogs can generate Gold from your own markets and docks.
Their Unique Unit: Geuzen at the Castle (a halberd unit that has anti-cavalry bonuses and conversion immunity along with the charged ability which lets them capture an enemy building that's on 40% health or less and when used on units fires 2 shots from their brace of pistols, and an alternate attack mode with a sword that increases their movement speed and swaps their bonuses to anti-archer and the elite upgrade comes with a second alternate attack mode with a hand cannon allowing their bonuses to apply to infantry) and the East Indiaman at the Dock (A cannon galleon which can transport units).
Their Castle Age Unique Tech: Humanism: Changes the cost incurred when a villager converts and enemy unit from 100 Gold to 100 Food and 100 Wood and removes the Gold Cost from all University Techs.
Their Imperial Age Unique Tech: East India Company: Gives all villagers, buildings, trade carts, trade cogs, fishing ships and transport ships a hand cannon so while they have a slight reduction in their movement speed they can fight with a Blunderbuss (which fun fact is from the Dutch for "Thunder Pipe") and trade routes with other players generate Food and Wood as well as Gold.
While they don't have access to the Knight Line or Elite Skirmisher, I was wondering if they were somewhat overpowered.
Traditionally Monks were the main surgeons and doctors, so it does make sense that's where Herbal Medicine would be researched.
I would love to see this list again but this time for the missionary. I think that certain techs would be more important than others.
Even if redención is consider a defensive tec, is funny how sometimes you can clean a city faster than siege if the enemy is too envidius and delete as soon as he notice, harming him more than allowing the conver.
Several videos back, I asked if you would do a video focused solely on the Block Printing tech in this game, focusing on its importance, which civs you feel make the best usage of it, and which civs you feel would benefit the most from having it but don't. While I would still really love it if you made that specific video at some point, this video was also a lot of fun to watch, and I was honestly not surprised at all that Block Printing is so high on your list.
One of my favorite plays is a cavalry and monk combo. Because of this fervor is much more important when you need to get your monks from one end of the map to the other.
I had a very similar list. I'd just switch Illumination above Theocracy and Herbal medicine above Faith.
Hey SotL, I think you should consider changing the efficiency breakpoint for Faith to 6-7 pallys since conversions are worth double the original cost of the unit, as your opponent gains control.
Does this mean we’ll be getting a top 5 monk civs soon?
Also, petition to change the name of Aztec Monks into “Chonks” or “Chonky Monkys”.
Great video, hope to see the same list for aoe 1.
As a Burmese lover I often get sanctity and fervor even just for collecting relics.
I feel like there are a quite of few civs that value Sancity and Fervor far more than he has them ranked. Burmese and Bohemians obviously want them, but I would argue that they’re also important for healing focused monks like Tuetons and Byzantines, as it helps them keep up with your army and keeps them alive longer. Aztecs also use Sanctity as a power spike for their HP, and fervor works a little better at keeping up with your army when you don’t have calvary.
I've often wondered how effective an archer civ could be if they brought villagers to the front lines to build buildings to act as temporary walls for the archers to hide behind. It sounds like something an AI would do.
I've tried it with longbows. It works as long as you have something to clog up the way in.
Probably the biggest difficulty with this would be micro for the villagers. If your opponent is fielding skirms or mangonels (or any ranged counter to archers) and they auto target your villagers - you're going to have to retask the vills every time they take a hit. Also the buildings won't stop the ranged counter units from attacking yours.
If they are fielding melee counters to your archers it could be more beneficial, but melee units are typically better at destroying buildings so you'd need the vills to spend more time building them up to make them as effective - which means the vills have to spend longer out in the front lines and are more likely to get killed by the melee units on their way through.
There's also the cost of the buildings. Whenever you place a building you pay full price, even if the building isn't finished. You can delete it to get back some of the resources (if it's not fully built you get back resources equal to the percentage you haven't built yet, i.e. at 80% building completion you get 20% building cost back) - but if the foundations are destroyed you lose all of it. Not a big deal for some buildings but can add up pretty quickly.
I think this is probably why rams or melee units are typically used as meatshields. At least they have some offensive capability/utility beyond just being a blocker and they don't need as much micro - which is important when you're using archers who can typically benefit much more from your micro APM than melee units would.
For the sake of the argument. It would been good to see how quick you get relics in area, which is a very common situation. You can do 3 scenarios: Fervor->two monks, Monk->Fervor->Monk and Monk->Monk->Fervor. Comparing the times of those would been handy to show in a real example how effective it really is.
I never thought about it but there are are a lot of anti monk techs in the monastery. Even the one that lets you convert other monks is an anti monk tech
I have monks mostly for the in-battle healing they have, speed and hp is always a priority for me for monks in my formations
Herbal Medicine should be placed higher I think, based on it's increased usage by pros as well. It's reseached way more often than a tech like Faith for instance.
I think is good where it is, in the end you research it only if you aren t going hard into monks so they don t help a monk civ
It's still a bit situational, as the attacking civ you don't want to send your units back and weaken the push, giving the enemy chance to push back. As the defending civ, garrisoning the army you are using to defend may just mean the enemy will push even deeper.
The only good usage, and that is when pros research it, are in the stalemate treb wars between two hills. No one can push, you may try to harass from range, but at the end you are both waiting to see which trebs/castle go down first, so why not heal units in bulk in the meantime
I agree it should be higher than faith; cost and availability (one at castle age the other at imperial age) is quite significant as well; sotl effectively said that it was too expensive and comes in too late😅
Exactly, it's situational, but still very good in that situation. It's also better the lower elo you are since you can just throw them in while microing other things for a bit and get better value from it
in early version of aoe2 sanctity gives not +15hp but +50%, when you reached sanctity with Aztecs as last monastery tech, monk had over 100 hp! it counts +50% from ACTUAL monk hp: (30 + 5 for each tech)+50% !! After patch this was removed
_casually strolls in with 112,5 HP Monks_
isn't that tankier than some Knights?
Next video should be ranking the monk bonuses and UTs. I have faith in you.
While I love your videos and I enjoyed this one a lot, I think you're under appreciating the value of converting units putting Faith in number 9. The price of the tech is not always the best way to consider its value. A group of 4 or 5 monks can really change the outcome of a battle and steamrolll the rest of the game. Faith can change the entire battle, and it doesn't matter if you end up with all the resources to make Paladins but without time or stables to do so.
Perfect video to push my idea for a Vatican Civilization, with a Bishop as unique Unit.
If you want catch relics asap, make 19 militia and a siege tower that can drive the monk everywhere 😀
I'd say Herbal Medicine goes from worst to *best* monastery tech in campaign games. Microing monks there is usually not really worth it against the AI, so most monk techs are pretty bad, and monk defense is situational. Being able to quickly heal your units in the castles you often build to defend chokepoints is super useful. I often end up building a monestary for no other reason than to quickly pick up Herbal Medicine
One thing to add about Redemtion and which makes it an insane tech is that it opens up the charge up trick with buildings: you can have your monks converting random buildings to charge up their conversion and your opponent can no longer attack your monks even with light cav or eagles because they'll be converted instantly
Thank you sir, didn’t know I needed this
Heresy needs also caculate the resource that conversion gives to your opponent,which is critical especially for something expensive and destructive like siege onager
And the damage the siege onager can do to your units if converted. And the damage your onagers can do if they shoot at the enemy among them and cause friendly fire...
feels to me like Theocracy should be higher given that it's the only way you'll ever be able to use monks in large-scale fights
I feel like Faith and Heresy are relics (ahem) of the old 75 pop cap days, when two or three conversions could really swing a battle.
When it comes to faith and heresy, I think there is more than just the value of the units. Some of your units, if converted, can deal significant damage to your other units or mess things up, ie draw fire of onagers, or kill valuable units.
I love monks dude exspecially early castle or as Bohemians in Imp
I'm more intrested about the deselecting out of a group already converting and getting many convertions in a similar time that's so crazy dude.
Great, thanks.
who dares to make his / her own ranking after the lord spirit just made this video :D
Faith is extremely useful if you're an elephant civ/having war elephants as Persians, you need that time to either get out and use ranged units to kill Monks or avoid losing 13 elephants in a push suddenly, losing the whole game
Similarly with Heresy, you're not preventing 14 Paladins being converted to get the value, you're preventing 8 or 9 being converted and killing the other 6-7 which ends up being the same cost value.
Since each unit converted is actually worth more than simply losing the same unit
I'd love to see one video of top 10 monk civs.
The winner would be either Aztec, Spanish or Teuton
Herbal Medicine should be at least 5th if not higher. It helps defensively and it helps offensively with castle drops. While your units are healing they can still contribute extra arrows and cycle out when they are healed or the battle is over. A monk can be sniped by a single light cav before he contributes any value at all but HM is hard to not have it pay fore itself. Early, cheap, potentially high impact tech that will almost always pay for itself? Yes please.
ranking doesn't matter when aztecs are in the chat
Hey Law, Spirit of the Guys here
Cops who fight ghosts be like "Hey Spirits, Guy of the Law here"
4:32 Unsurprisingly Malay are the only civ where I recall heresy being part of a deliberate strategy in top pro level games (used by Mr. Yo).
Fervor should get points for making monks easier to use in all contexts. Since a faster monk is a monk that can keep up with your army better and reach enemies for conversions better. They just get to where they need to be faster, making it a semi-invisible but global improvement to everything they do. The shortcomings of using it for relics, I think, undermines the extremely broad value it provides for such a cheap tech. The only tech that I think is better than it is redemption.
I think Heresy can actually be pretty useful in all-in situations to keep your opponent's monk defense from completely turning the tables on you. That may sound strange, since the tech is expensive and you'll have less economy if you're pursuing an all-in attack, but the thing is that gold gathers quickly, so if you're putting all your villagers on gold and food/wood to spam army, you can find yourself with a lot of it banked up.
There was one Nomad team game where I was Spanish and tasked with handling a player 400 ELO better than me. He resorted to monk defense to fight my conquistadors, and I realized letting a player who's better than me steal conquistadors could be disastrous, so I researched Heresy. Once he saw I had it, he gave up on the monks entirely and switched to skirm defense, which was much less of an offensive threat than the monks could have been.
I'd switch 1 and 2, but otherwise agree entirely. To improve my monk play, I civ picked Aztecs for a while and played FC monks. Dropped about 200 elo at first, but gradually got it back. Block printing is insane. I would always get fervor quickly, but mostly for a cheap +5hp as Aztecs, after redemption and sanctity which I always got as quickly as possible.
As a low elo and casual player, my top 3 is #1 Theocracy, #2 Atonement and #3 Redemption. The combination of all three has a mental load impact that makes playing with Monks FEEL better and more fun.
After that, your list is probably spot on, except id even maybe put Fervor even lower.
I always thought : "make the slowest unit a tiny bit faster, thats not worth it"
Having ridiculous units such as the conq & mangudai be able to give more arrows, means that Herbal can be amazing on the front lines... Imagine 6 elite skirms trying to hit a conquistadour and 1 misses, that conq now garrisons, heals to full & adds extra arrows to kill your skirms/continue hitting your base.
The fact that some ranged units are just too good at adding arrows can I think add a lot to that tech's utility.
And Fervour is really nice, as you can better manoeuvre your monks around supporting cavalry such as Lith knights who can take out a scout/light cav before it kills the monk off - ALMOST ALWAYS EASILY PAYTING for itself after just 1 monk is saved (100 gold + faster relic in the bank & the monk is still running around converting and so on).
Personally prioritize Sanctity and Fervor (though you make a good argument to delay it). Then I get Faith and Heresy if I start hearing excessive conversion sounds. I don't often play monks too much in an active role, though it is something I probably should try more.
I make sure to add two-to-four Monks when I play Byzantines. I’ll be sure to stop picking up Fervor as often and put that gold towards something else. Thanks!
Crazy idea: give Aztecs Monasteries and Monastery techs an age early. Yes, on top of the HP bonus.
I personally consider Faith and Heresy to be in the top 3 monk techs. The effect all your units so if you're not going for monks or are just using them for healing, Faith and Heresy are still helpful. I agree with redemption. Converting enemy builds let's you train your own units right in their base.
For the tech icon for Heresy...what does the text in the book say?
I never research theocracy because i'd rather lose than have a theocratic civilization.
Personally I think Heresy is the most useful, since I'm more likely to fight monks than use them myself. Fervor is definitely in my top 5 since it also helps them keep up with armies . But it's hard to argue against Redemption and Theocracy
Faith and Heresy in my opinion are for big lategames with more than 2 players on the field. If they didn't exist, you'd one day see a monk army arriving at your doorstep, with absolutely no way to stop it (Because you are at pop cap right?). At least no feasable ones. These 2 techs while not a top priority, exists to prevent monk spam in such an event.
One cool tech that could be included to the sarrassin civ is converts, when you rearch it will spawn a random castle unit from any civ ever conquered by muslims in the town center every 5 min
Love this Video!
I think last year during Wandering Warrior, there has been a game during which Heresy decided the game, can't remember which one though. But it's rare yeah
I agree with your list almost entirely, except I'd switch Illumination with Fervor. I find the speed really does make a difference, to the point that when I don't get it, my monk plays usually fail. Could just be that I'm too used to the speed with fervor.
I've always included monks in my infantry attack groups.
Redemption should also get bonus points because if a Meso civ monk converts a stable, you can produce uniqie cavalry from them called Xholots warrior.
Xolotls are...okay at Castle Age, in Imp they're just a waste of resources
I wish they'd get the UT bonuses applied to them, that'd be cool
Monks are powerful and can easily change the course of an engagement if used well. However, they require a ton of micro and pampering, and losing a clump of fresh monks to a random mangonel shot can be very painful.
Grab sanctity
I know it will be too strong at higher levels but can we think of an aggressive stance for monks so everytime a unit enters the conversion radius monks start converting. The pro would obviously be it would be less micro intensive. But the disadvantage is that if you're not paying attention you might be converting a random pikeman in front and not the Mangonel at the back.
I 100% agree with redemption being #1!
It seems like you based every situation, or at least most, on a multiplayer monk mash. I would think that monks might have more versatility beyond Castle Age rush and that utility might cause the list to change.
I tend to pick up every monk tech I've got (although as Bulgarians I rarely make it farther into Castle then it takes to pick up Arson) but I've often found a solid use case for Heresy if I've got lots of Konniks against someone like Aztecs.
But as Bohemians, who have them all, I don't notice much of a difference from Faith, Fervor, or Herbal Medicine. I'd rather have 10 more Monks than a tech to heal 6x faster for sure.
I don't normally create monks, when I play the game, trying to focus instead on defenses and so, I prefer Herbal medicine first and foremost ( Cos' I like to create castles and defend them with cavalry that can be healed over time, within the castle in between fights. And yes, block printing is a game changer.
Great, now i wanna play Monks.
Converting a siege workshop is hilarious if they don’t realise during your main attack. Just queue up tons of rams stored inside and then release them
The icon for Fervor is great.
Just some poorly rendered 1990s-tier 3d face of a generic bald guy.
Great vid
Converting a monk only keeps its faith after you convert it if it is not in the process of converting something, or if you have theocracy.
i kinda wish monks were more viable when units start massing, its cool to see the variety in the game