There's not that many of those, I think you've named almost all of them already (just missing the genitour and Persian crossbow i think) But in the same vein, a tier list of each civs' trash units as a whole would be sick.
@@imsmeagol911 Atlatl Skirms, Byzantine cheaper trash, Viking pikemen, Slav Halbs, etc. You could include trash units with unique bonuses as well to make the list bigger.
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 True. I think the production speed is the main issue. They should have a unique tech that allows you to make them in stables or at least increases the production speed from castles (i.e. Cataphract Conscription). Would rather have that than +1 range for fireships (greek fire)
Yeah. Perhaps unpopular opinion here, but I do not like competitive meta for that reason. Feel like a lot of the game is lost as the games are just too quick/focus ignores a lot that a civ can bring. Though this has been the case for 20 years haha, so not expecting it to change. But casual games with friends, or max AI, I find much more fun as the games just have more going on.
For me as a noob-player, every unique unit that is good vs rams (usually melee like shotel warrior) goes up a tier in my mind ^^ feels so much safer in castle age wars
@@danielmunsaka2051 tbh, the Mangudai is possibly the single greatest anti-seige unit in the game. Maybe Houfnice or Turk Artillery bombard. Depends how open the map is, but the Mangudai is nuts
Tier list of 2021: th-cam.com/video/4WXAjovEph4/w-d-xo.html What changed since then: → non-castle units were omitted now → new units (for new civilizations) added (Chakram thrower: S, Ghulam: A, Hussite Wagon: D, Obuch: A, Ratha: C, Urumi Swordsman: C) Moved up by two tiers: → Ballista elephant: C → A → Coustillier: B→S Moved up by one tier: → Boyar: C → B → Cataphract: B → A → Kamayuk: C → B → Keshik: B → A → Leitis: B → A → Mameluke: B → A Stayed the same tier: → Arambai: B → Berserk: B → Conquistador: S → Genoese Crossbowman: B → Hurkarl: S → Jaguar Warrior: D → C → D → Janissary: A → Karambit: D → Mangudai: S → Organ Gun: B → Samurai: C → Serjeant: B → Shotel Warrior: C → Teutonic Knight: D → War Elephant: D → War Wagon: A Moved down by one tier: → Gbetto: B → C → Chu Ko Nu: A → B → Kipchak: A → B → Konnik: B → B → C → Longbowman: A → B → Magyar Huszar: A → B → Plumed Archer: S → A → Rattan Archer: A → B → Tarkan: A → B → Throwing Axeman: B → C
In Battle for Wesnoth (a turn based strategy game, so not really comparable), the "charge" mechanic works as "on attack, this unit does double damage, but it also gets double retaliation damage". So you try to use it against units which will be likely dead after the first or maybe second hit (low-HP units on low defense terrain), so the retaliation damage doesn't come into effect, or against units with low melee damage in general (like mages and archers). The counter to this ability (beside high-HP and/or being on good-defense terrain) would be units with first-strike (i.e. which strike first even on defense) - unfortunately, the only first-level examples in the default era are are the horseman and the spearman, both for the loyalist faction, so this only comes into effect on mirror matches (or in campaigns). I don't know how something like this could be implemented in a real-time game like AoE - maybe for x seconds after a charge attack, all attacks against this unit do double damage?
Well, the halb would do unbelievable damage to them, up in the 60's of damage for a single hit. Even archers would destroy with double damage as if one archer can do more then ALL archers can during that timeframe. Not to mention fighting cavalry, if they do double damage for a few hits then they would essentially get a more effective charge than the Coustillier did in the first place. You'd give every unit they face their own unique mechanic but better. And if you do it for just one hit then it can still be dodgey since units with high damage would just remove the Coustillier from play entirely making the Coustillier nuke itself. As the Coustillier has fairly weak stats without the charge, so giving every unit they fight the same reflect charge is just going to make them unplayable for the most time. The way you would fix it would just be to tweak the numbers. Sadly, unless you remove the mechanic entirely you need to pick the lesser of two evils. Either it does a lot of damage and has a long cooldown making it able to do heavy charges but only once per main engagements, or you give it low damage with a low cooldown which means it would enable hit and runs to recharge it IN battle but would also give enemy units counterplay. Where it is now is right in the middle and that creates problems because you get the lesser evil of both my suggestions by placing it in the middle causing the unit to be too flexible.
Absolutely love tierlists! Glad you didn't rush through it too, this was perfect length! It's a fair comment regarding Hussite Wagons and their bonus, but I've seen them used by quite many pro players to hold off crossbow pushes in castle age. A few wagons with some skirms behind them is literally a wall against ranged units. Overall I think the list represents that the meta has changed away from ranged units (apart from CA). Longbowmen and Plum Archers used to reign these lists. Overall it feels like speed/mobility is much more valued now.
Two more really strong points for the janissary are, in my opinion: First the really low frame delay and attack delay - with the elite actually having none at all - making both the micro ceiling and entry level (in lack for a better word, my reasoning is they are easy to micro by easily hitting the correct timing) making them even stronger against everything they have to be good against. Second, and possibly more important, they work amazingly with what Turks have otherwise. If you have a super strong knight + skirm civ, possibly add in a few camels, but even their go to comp of janissary + hussar will often do well, camels and pikes get shredded and will open your way to hussar, their free to upgrade hussar kills all siege and their bonus pierce damage makes them almost a counterunit vs every ranged unit, barring genoese crossbow, which also should be dealt with easily when having janissaries. As soon as you can mix in some bombard cannons, in my opinion janissary hussar bombard cannon is one of the most effective timing compositions in early imp and even overall.
Yea thats true but its really hard to get there with Turks as they don't have any reliable eco bonuses. And the real problem is Turk army composition really needs 7/24 baby sitting because Turks have NO TRASH option and struugles a lot against siege ram + Halb pushes...(Jans do only 1 dmg to siege rams) Other big issue is Turks have literally ZERO option against Gurjaras Camel+Shiriwamsha combo (which is much more cheaper and much much more stronger) Its like if you babysit and micro ur Jannies they can even melt FU paladins skirms arbalest etc. But if u wont micro them they die so quickly and nearly impossible to re-create them (castle unit and way tooo expensive) Elite Jans needs to have +10HP or +1 Range to be reliant. Maybe even both.
@@multitalentedman1284 uhm, please no. Turks are already the best closed map civs, 6.5% pickrate with 60% wr is crazy. They do get countered hard against Hindustani (That's probably the only reason why Hindustani got a high WR in closed map) but I don't think you should buff the Turks, rather nerf the Hindustani.
Wow, your TH-cam content is amazing these days. It's impressive how much thought and effort went into every minute of this video. This was super enjoyable to watch and didn't feel like 45 minutes.
Loved this video. This video makes me think about tips for how to counter the “S” tier units. Especially since I’m newer to AOE2, stuff like Huskarl spam is really hard to counter. Had to learn the hard way to use Champions and just cross your fingers the Goth player won’t go into archers or like Scorpions.
If you're playing RM or EW on open maps goths should be hit hard early to prevent them from setting up an eco to spam. Goths have next to no real eco bonuses and are on the backfoot early game. On closed map spamming cheap units is not as scary as a pop efficient deathball.
a good gunpowder civ like the turks hand cannoneers or in early castle knights usually do well. Personally I prefer the Italian hand cannoneer in the late game cause they are equally spammable thanks to the Italian discount on gunpowder. Though Frank knight are also good against them
Love these kinds of videos to have on in the background while I'm doing jobs, would like to keep seeing more of them. Keep up the great work been really enjoying your content recently!
While this is a pretty good tier list, I think it missing some key points that should be looked at when addressing UUs: Does the UU cover a weak spot for that civ? (Ghulam, Genoese, Huskarl, etc) Does the civ have other strong options in castle age/imp (Conq, Arambai) Does the unit out perform (or underperform) from its standard unit comparison (Longbowmen, Konnik, Samurai, etc) given how much harder it is to go into a castle and produce from there. For example; The briton longbowmen is CA gives +1 attack. And in imp it has +1 range over briton arbs. But in order to go for it, you have to produce from a castle, you give up the faster producing range bonus that you have with britons, it takes longer to mass since you have less production buildings, and while 12 range in imp is crazy, 11 range is pretty much just as good, and while +1 range on archers also seems really good, as britons you already have +1-3 range over your opponent, having 1 more isnt nearly as important as hitting with those large number of xbow/arb on early powerspikes. Longbows are like driving 20 miles to get a milkshake when you already have one in the fridge.
Longbows are cheaper gold wise, have more attack and range (which makes them harder to snipe by onagers) and have 1 base pierce armor , compared to the Arbalest's 0. Honestly just make longbows available at the archery range 1111
I feel as though the coustillier and hussite wagons were a legitimate effort to shake up gameplay and introduce new challenges in micro for both the player and the opponent. The coustillier falls apart when they're stopped by walls, but those are less common on open maps. It's hard to switch our habits, and the coustillier benefits from this, whereas the hussite wagon suffers from it.
very solid list, i only would bump the obuch to low S, that unit is so cheap for what its worth plus the fact that you get extra gold and food to begin with as poles makes this unit so much crazier. Its stats are also really busted; 80 hp and 2 armor and reasonable speed makes it so annoying to play against. I guess archers counter them, but its not like poles dont have an answer for archers anyway.
When I play Poles, I just spam Obuch and dive whatever the enemy is making. Only thing I wouldn’t dive would be heavy scorp (or a stupid number of elephants) tbh. 50 Obuch just push archers back and eventually eat them lol. The whole time, multiple castles are pumping out more Obuch at cheat-code speeds :D
Good list. I think the throwing axeman is much better than listed, i put it A tier. The thing is you'll have attack upgrades for your cav anyway. So basic TA do 11 dmg per 2 secs or 5.5 dps. HC do 27/3.45 * 0.75(accuracy) = 5.9 dps to infantry. TA are significantly cheaper, do only slightly less DPS to infantry and have more hp. Plus they do solid damage against stuff mixed in whereas HC don't. TA are a much better support unit when it turns into cav + halb vs cav + halb, common in cavalry civs mirrors. Castles for Franks are also much easier to have than a university and chemistry.
Throwing Axemen are always so underrated. They are easily to produce because of cheap castles. Theorically with their stats, they are bad, but they really do well against many of army composition with meatshield. They really beat most of infantry UU so nicely with or without micro and with or without meatshield, such as the Goths spam, remembering Viper completely wrecked Bugum as Goths with only Axemen, Light Cavalry, and Trebuchets composition in Imperial Age. They at least do better job against counter units than other infantry do. They are cheap infantry UU compared with others, move pretty fast, are trained easily, do better results against most of infantry UU and Halberdiers, and have range to support their heavy cavalry or be main army with meatshield. They are so underrated because Franks players always go knights, never esploiting or finding out how good Throwing Axemen are, not in early castle age but later.
They are great, really underrated. They are basically champions (similar cost, hp, armor) that exchange 5 dmg for 4 (or 5) range. That looks mediocre but is actually quite great. Especially as TA without the elite upgrade are solid and you tend to have castles anyway when halbs become a threat to your cav. Its a counter to a counter that automatically presents itself at the right time, that makes it so good. That's the key with all good UUs, they naturally fit in your plan or they ARE the plan. All the Knight like UUs should be dropped a tier because they are awkward, they aren't strong enough to beeline to and switching from knights into them is tough. Same for most archer UUs. The cav archer like UUs at generally the best because they fit in your plan the best.
Strong agree, also if I remember correctly Elite Throwing Axeman can survive even Siege Onager shots with like 1 hp which should not be overlooked. They're tanky, cheap, easy to tech into because of Frank cheap castles.
Now obviously, youre more than triple my ELO, so you would know better than me, but I feel like you sold the magyar huszar short. a fast unit with 6 pierce armor, 105 HP, and a +8 bonus vs siege makes it absolutely fantastic for diving on trebs or bombard cannons. And at only 10 gold a pop which makes them very affordable. (Plus they have the UT to make them free, if youre making a lot instead of just a few of them.) Was really surprised you didnt mention their bonus vs siege.
On the Konnik, I think its main power is anti-trash. The Konnik is superior to the normal anti-trash counter of Champions. Yes, enemy Halberdiers will shred the mounted version, but it will still get up and then it's almost a Champion, it's just a more population efficient anti-trash choice overall. If you have gold control and some tech advantage, they have some real viability in the late game.
"Once you get a high number of archers they can start one-shotting your organs..." yeah... hearts, kidneys, livers, etc have very low resistance to arrows. PS I'm just 1300 but I've won hundreds of games to Teutonic knights. Defends forward castle drops and comes out strong with little investment, and can melt TC's with less investment than siege.
2k ELO players will react to Teutonic Knights as soon as they see you go heavily on stone, whereas 1.3k players often start to react when they see their TCs getting melted 11
@@edwardblom2661 Sounds about right. I rarely go heavy on stone to make Teutonic knights thought. Teutonic knights are just extensions of Teuton castles if needed. Definitely a niche unit but it does one thing very well.
Great video. I think chukonu is low a tier on open maps but it's the only Archer unit that shreds shrivamsha because of its multiple projectiles. Because of this I think China is the only archer civ that can go toe to toe with late castle and imp Gurjaras.
Can we get an update on this for currently buffed/nerfed stats and for new units like Monaspas which are insanely strong? Also surprised by the location given to Kamayuk, Berserker, Genoese Crossbowman, and Serjeant all of which should be higher imo. Particularly Kamayuk which crush cav, crush inf, and have 6 pierce armor vs archers and high HP. Even with their somewhat low damage they nearly always outperform basically every other unit placed in B tier and their cost is pretty low (46 food in imp) due to the incas civ bonus. Plus Incas have even cheaper full tech skirms to help deal with the archers as well.
Did Teutonic Knights get a buff recently? I’ve been using them a lot recently and they honestly melt everything in their path if I have 50 and some archer cover
My trick is FC to 60ct Shotel + arson death ball, one shot TC, kill all vills, follow up in 60 sec with another 60ct control group of them and they're done. Not everyone's preference, but when I play that style I have a 95% win rate at 1750 ELO. I go 30 vil feudal with 5 on stone, immediate forward castle, spam shotels, done. But thats whats awesome about AOE2. It's so complex, has nearly unlimited tie-in counters and strategies, and what works for one person can be terrible for another. There is a civ + unit comp that works for every play style and enemy comp as long as you have your fundementals down.
In this match, Tatoh lost 20 Mangudai against Chakram when Mangudai lacked 2 armor upgrades (1+1/0+1 armor instead of 1+3/0+4 which means 6 damage instead of 4). Mangudai actually beat these Chakram without problem. However, Tatoh had very small number of Mangudai (it dropped 25 and doesn't mass more) after that big loss and Jordan used Hussars as melee shield against Mangudai.
@@dirkauditore8413 Yeahh I saw that ....and that's exactly the problem.. looking elsewhere for a couple of seconds and the mangudai number goes from 50 to 25....Its like running into 20 heavy scorpions(and chakrams are much cheaper and much more mobile than heavy scorps). With perfect micro mangudai beat them no problem...but people arent perfect. Granted that having all the armor upgrades would have helped a bit but it would have still ended up badly .
Nice list. But Id' probably put Konnik a bit higher. That thing has higher DPS with stirrups and is 2 units in 1. Plus you can spam it from Kreposts. I even think it can take on Frank paladins.
Two more things that i find noteworthy about the longbow: The castle age version is outperformed by xbow in pretty much anything due to low accuracy (only vs high armor targets like skirms its better), so massing them early is even more difficult than it usualy is for UUs. And even in imp, their accuracy is only 80%, meaning they deal less dps than arbs on targets that have below 6 PA.
Longbows should have a faster rate of fire. I don't get how a fucking crossbow can fire as fast as a longbow. You can shoot 6 times with a longbow in the same time it takes to reload a crossbow.
I think Kamayuk should be rated higher, at least in the B-tier itself. Sorta hurt seeing them in the end 11 It is a very tanky unit, post-Imp isn't even countered by Arbs that well (6PA is kinda nightmarish), and will go toe-to-toe with almost all other melee units in the game. Kamayuk + Skirm and some Slingers and Rams is a deathball very hard to stop, unless you are a Siege (or Gunpowder) civ. If you're in a teamgame, IMO Kamayuk is also the strongest power unit out of all Meso civs. If nothing else, their style points should net them a higher ranking! It's so satisfying to hear 40 Kamayuks poke at the same time, it's basically ASMR and they look awesome too 11
I think out of melee units only Urumis and TKs can rival massed up Kamayuks. If your civ doesn't have HCs, you pretty much have to try to kill them with siege, throwing any cav or infantry at the deathball is just a waste.
Been waiting on a list like this so thank you very much! I would say as a small bit of criticism that when explaining the unit make sure to say the civ when introducing it. you did on a lot of them but missed it on a few. I know you did it on the description as well and that was excellent, but for a newer player like me it was a bit confusing at first figuring out which civ some of the units were from. other than that excellent video! next do a tier list for civs in each age. I think that would be an excellent playlist
Best thing about Konnicks to me is that once you get the infantry upgrades then you can spam them into halbs and cav at the same time and still win. But I guess since they get free 2h swordsman they are not lacking for a halb counter
I don't think the Gbetto gets enough love. Not saying it's S-Tier or even A-Tier, but it's one of those units that doesn't get enough attention for what it brings to the table. They're pretty mobile and can absolutely maul groups of exposed villagers. When microed, they kite most infantry units with ease and can wreck siege. They totally counter Goths. Even smaller groups of xbow die to them, but you'll die very quickly if you're caught off guard by those x-bow. I've made a point to play with them more often, especially when I'm playing Nomad. High C-Tier for me.
Thanks for the updated list. I use your tier list as a guide to picking civs and found some of your selections interesting like the balstic and war elephants. But it makes sense. Also what happened to the usual Hera faking an S tier unit as a D tier. I was waiting the whole vid for you to pull out the gag.
Surely everything u said about the Organ Gun is also applicable to the Hussite Wagon. I have been castle dropped many times in Arena by Bohemians & the HWs r super hard to stop. They also have 1 more range than OGs. P.S. U hit da nail on the head re the Plumed Archer. They used to be even stronger than they currently are.
Thanks for the video, Hera! At 22:19 I want to clarify that the Keshik actually costs 50 food and 80 gold! Perhaps there was confusion with the Steppe Lancers, which cost 40 gold each and also benefit from the +1/+1 Tatar armor from the UT. Cheers! // Edit: I stand corrected, it's 40g.
my two cents: Cataphract - To expensive in 1v1, to underpowered in team games. Tarkan - To weak as a general combat unit (like an elite one takes a paladin down to ~40%HP?) I know it's meant for razing building, but I'd say some more power would be nice. Shotel - can't even cost-effectively fight Huskarls, so yeah, fail. Gbeto - way to squishy.
One good thing about the tarkan though is that it's great vs arbs/CA. Cheaper to upgrade than paladin, MUCH faster and you got 170 hp with 8 PA instead of 180 hp with 7 PA. So you tank 85 instead of 60 arb shots. Sure you kill in 4 instead of 3 hits but surviving more arrow shots is more relevant.
Yup, we have all seen what Chakrams can do in the recent games of T90TL. it is absolutely disgusting. I have taken quite a loong break right now from playing the ladder simply because of the Gurjara phobia.
Bro, the Mangudai army from Tatoh ran right into the Chakrams, what did you expect lol? That was a gross micro mistake from Tatoh, in any other situation Mangudai would wreck Chakrams
Great content and especially love your hot takes on some of the beloved civs! What do you think about inviting another AOE2 expert for the last 10 min of the video to discuss your Tier-1 list :) keep up the amazing work!
Wish to see future patch will make lower tier unique units trainable in corresponding military training building (barracks/stable/archery range), many unique units just almost never seen action in competitive play, more love is deserved, and see more actions from unique units does make the game more entertaining to watch, I mean, on competitive sense, taking Briton as example, making arbalester definitely make more sense than longbowman due to training speed (and only exclusive to castle), but on the lore perspective longbow is what Briton archers are famous for.
Can’t tell you how many times my Amazon Tunnel ranked games have ended because the Khmer player has cut through with ballista elephants. It’s surprisingly common and always seems to happen on the side I’m not on (so the area behind the woodline is not walled up…)
@hera i would personally rate unique units compared to their role counterparts otherwise it's pointless to rank them So for example, berserks among the infantry are low S tier or A tier. 1- berserks: minimum A tier compared to infantry generally, carried bt cheiftain power to enable berserks to deal with cavalery. still falls behind malians champions "as malian champions are too good for what they are meant to do" falls behind goth huskarl in their speciality too and falls behind japaneze i champions. 2-chinese chu ko nu are probably low A tier carried by the fact that they can deal with many of the arbalester weaknesses like rams, buildings " to some degree" high pierce armor targets " also to some degree" They could be B tier because of their range which makes them move IN FRONT of their skirmishers " skirms have 1 extra range" making them tank the damage instead od the tanky trash. That said" chu ko nu becomes S tier easily IMO if you have access to genitours as they have same range but high speed making them move IN front of chu ko nu and tank for them. CKN and genitours are a very strong combo 3-huskarl is 100% S purely because of the fact that you can spam it from barracks 4- maguar huszar is minimum A tier. In fact most ppl don't know that not only is it hjgher attack snd health but also higher attack speed making it capable of beating frank paladins in a 2vs1 "which huszar can't even come Close to doing" Thus maguar huszar role should be played as big mass of cheap dmg dealer rather than the hussar role as a meat shield. 5- i do agree on samurai as thry have 1 DUTY and that duty is not even that common, which is to beat unique units.
You diss the hussite wagon, but it might be the one of the few UU on this list that can tank the coustillier charge attacks and hit back. Along with the elephants, but elephants can't ever catch them. (they still die though)
36:48 from my experience shotel warriors are also pretty nice when you are vs goths and they start the huskarl spam against your archers, also really nice if you have a defensive castle and get raided and you just need anything quickly to kill the raid because they produce so fast
I wonder if a movement speed slow for 4-5 seconds after charging would help make the coustillier more fair to play against. Not sure if it would just outright cripple the unit but giving you a window to fight back sounds good in theory at least.
That's a bit unrealistic to code and apply in AoE2, simpler way is just to reduce their movement speed and/or pierce armor. Probably gonna cripple them but they would still be viable unit, besides not like Burgundians rely on them in the first place, they are just the best option currently.
I guess you could say that S tier units are powerful in almost all situations. Every other unit is just varying degrees of how "situational" they are 11
I m glad u talked abt chakram throwers i think pll dont talk enough abt it becz of how OP gurjara camels and shrivamsha riders are.These things eat arbalest and xbkws even in spread formations.They eat seige and also other infantry.Only counter is cavalry unlike u said in video but then u have OP camels so yeahhh..... And unlike scorpions since they dont have minimum range and also much faster movement speed even for an infantry.Thjs thing is super strong.Mass scorpions CAN deal with this but if they even throw one volley of disks scorpians will get shredded becz unlike scorpians these things do melee damage
Samurais should get ability to shoot arrows like Rathas! Lets start a petition! Very agreeable tier list btw, but Axeman is easy A tier though considering cheap castles, cheap price, tanky, ranged melee and how well they complement Frank cavalry, absolute nightmare to deal with this combo. Axemen > HC to clean halbs any day!
@@dariussonofjazzlin7433 Genoese Xbows, Camel Archers have bonuses and it does not break the game, so some bonus for Samurai ranged attack would be viable as well.
It's probably a case of 'I know what I like and I like what I know', but any infantry with which you can bring down castles is top tier for me, i.e. berserks, teutonic knights and axemen does it for me.
I would bump the shotel, urumi and karambit one tier higher just for one reason: they're quick to produce and use as an emergency anti-ram unit in case your castle is threatened.
I agree with about 90% of what was said here. Strength does vary if it's a 1v1 vs a team game. There are 2 things I'd like to point out. I feel like heavy cav or hussar is a much bigger counter to chakram throwers as you make them out to me. 6+2 damage is pretty low against a target that has 5 melee armor, the first target taking 3, the extra targets taking 1,5. I've played a ton of Gurjara's and while the chakrams are definitely strong, I feel like everything that Gurjara's do complement them so well, as they can counter the chakram counters quite well. If Chakram throwers were given to a civ without camels or viable hussar it would be much harder to work with. That's just my opinion playing mainly Gurjara's since the update. The second is, I feel like you are sleeping on rattan archers, perhaps it's because it may be more viable in team games, but a faster moving, tankier, harder to counter and higher damaging arbalest can be pretty oppressive at times. While you could make similar case for longbow's, their base accuracy is lower than the arbalest, and since britons don't get thumb ring, I don't consider them a pure upgrade (yes they are better but I believe rattan archers are much better than Vietnamese arbalests)
I only feel the placement for the Genoese Xbow is off, specially after you mentioned Arena/BF as a reason for B. Elephant to be A tier. Genoese are insane in Arena imho.
Well to be fair, B.Elephants win those games alone while G.xbows are just very strong in those situations. One is a game winner when used and the other is not. But i agree, they should be A tier considering they can be lethal in the right circumstance. (Which is the reasoning B.Elephant was placed high)
@@dirkauditore8413 Affordability wasn't really what the tierlist was about, it was the strength in usage. B.elephants when used in the right time are unbeatable while more affordable units would fall flat.
@@starcraft2own Affordability should 100% be considered. By your logic, the persian war elephant should also be A tier since they're so strong if used in the right time and cost isn't an issue. Right? Part of what makes a unit good is being able to amass them, and cheaper costs help accomplish that. That way it aint so taxing on your eco
@@dirkauditore8413 Except even with "My logic" the B.elephants would still out perform war elephants to such a crazy degree that they still wouldn't be able to compete with the sheer power B.elephants have when used right. But before you decide to give my arguments some more made up metrics. Strength in usage isn't stats, if it was then i would've said stats. Huskarls strength in usage happens to include their short creation time from barrackses and low cost, as a power unit they lose to champions after all, brits have a favorable matchup against goths if they go militia line from the start. In fact as you're trying to reduce my point to a single metric, i can turn it around to you who seems to use the logic that anything that is cheaper is automatically better. "other (more affordable units)" As you put it, only bringing up price as a relevant metric. So then Karambit warriors have to be your favorite gold unit in the game. After all, in the video he specifically argued UU that were good for the civ but not that strong overall were still better than generally strong UU because they give a lot of tools to the civ. So affordability is not at all a critical point to this tierlist. If a unit could just straight up win a certain map, even if that unit wasn't that strong on other maps, it's still a really good unit for the civ especially if the civ does fine without it. It's like trying to argue that longboats or carravels aren't good because not every map has water. Not every map has easily defendable bases but those that do the B.Elephant will give you a win on.
U said berserks require a castle and deducted points based on that??? I thought you would judge the unit for what it is not for how it's made. Also most of the unique unite require a castle......
I know I'm biased since I never play team games, but the war wagon feels B tier at highest to me. It dies to skirms and monks, especially when those are in combination with knights, and in imperial they die to halb spam, which is extremelt awkward and means you need either champs in front or arbs/skirms/HCs behind, and it feels like the wagons are just useless at that point. Easy to counter in 1v1s, its only real strong points are sitting under TCs to idle eco and countering xbows/CA/scorpions (and not being too shabby vs mangonels). Karambit warrior is WAY better than shotel warrior so it's weird to see them at the exact same spot, they fill the exact same niche except that karambit flood can actually kill arbalest in the same way that woad raiders can whereas shotels just lose to anything that is not a trash unit or eagle warrior
I like Keshiks, but I think they are only good against archers, though I remember fighting Frankish Paladins and they traded well. Serjeants are very strong.
ETk is underused imo, it dominates evry trash trash composition and can carry a teuton deathball through the center. When someday melee units get a working pathing and arbalest stops dominating late game this unit will be a viable option in some cases
One CA can theoretically kill infinite amount of TKs. A celt villager can circle the TK and wall him inside a 1x1. The TK is so fat not even your grandmother would be able to feed it. When the TK went to the first grade of elementary school by the time he arrived he was sent to collage.
Memes aside, ETK + siege tower seems like a decent combo in late game. People seem to think ETKs die instantly to Arbs, like Halbs would do. But what they forget is that ETKs have a super solid 100 HP and 2+4 pierce armor, they can take quite a beating before going down. So while yes Arbs kill them effectively, its not nearly as fast as people make it out to be. If the TKs ever get on top of the Arbs its over, which may be possible to accomplish with a couple Siege Towers lol.
I feel kind of vindicated on the Hussite Wagon...I love Bohemians but every time I've tried to use the HW it feels like it does basically no damage and then insta-dies to onagers and cavalry. And it can't fight rams AT ALL.
I think the Jarguar Warrior is better than e.g. the Samurai. Aztecs want to have another counter to Infantry (not just Champs but also a bunch of Inftrany UU that would mop the floor with Eagles ) while Japanese dont really need that. Japanese just turn to it a bit more often bc they lack other options.
I agree with the list, I would have put Berzerkers up in the A tier because often times with the removal of thumb ring, they rely on them to finish off the game. And while champions are very similar Berzerkers are ALOT stronger late game vs trash and also they are easier to transition into from Castle age because it doesn't require the time to upgrade the militia line. Also I think that Kipchak are very low A tier , we've seen them alot in recent tournaments and they are not that bad I love tier lists
In recent video, you placed Coustillier as B tier when Coustillier has +40 charge attack Now, Coustillier charge attack nerfed to +25 attack and you placed Coustillier S Tier. Did Coustillier take any buff which I don't know?
I was wondering that too since I only know of the recent nerf. I haven't seen them often in pro games either, so I'm curious what Hera was referring to
They have been used a lot in recent tournaments, and they are really overpowered, because they do not take fights, just hit and run, and not even Pikes deal with them because the charged attack leaves them almost dead. Look for Liereyy vs Yo in T90 league, for example.
@@mazinrobox2546 I didn't say Coustillier is bad, I pointed out Hera's contradiction about this unit. As for unit, Coustillier is probably mid S-Tier. Conquistador and Mangudai is still better than Coustillier.
![Beginners guide to countering every Unique Unit [AoE2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QYMr8OCdmsE/mqdefault.jpg)
Would also love to see a tierlist of "unique trash units" e.g. Bohemian monks, Malay two-handed swordsman, Magyar Huszar, Imperial Skirmisher, etc
There's not that many of those, I think you've named almost all of them already (just missing the genitour and Persian crossbow i think) But in the same vein, a tier list of each civs' trash units as a whole would be sick.
@@imsmeagol911 True
And The greatest of them all: polish wingded hussar
@@imsmeagol911 Atlatl Skirms, Byzantine cheaper trash, Viking pikemen, Slav Halbs, etc. You could include trash units with unique bonuses as well to make the list bigger.
Goth infantry
Cataphract is my favorite unique unit. Wish it would get more use. Its always hard to tech into in competitive play.
Its pretty decent though in some matchups its the main unit to go for
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 True. I think the production speed is the main issue. They should have a unique tech that allows you to make them in stables or at least increases the production speed from castles (i.e. Cataphract Conscription). Would rather have that than +1 range for fireships (greek fire)
@@pbsoccer2 last thing we need is more upgrade costs for catas
Yeah. Perhaps unpopular opinion here, but I do not like competitive meta for that reason. Feel like a lot of the game is lost as the games are just too quick/focus ignores a lot that a civ can bring. Though this has been the case for 20 years haha, so not expecting it to change. But casual games with friends, or max AI, I find much more fun as the games just have more going on.
For me as a noob-player, every unique unit that is good vs rams (usually melee like shotel warrior) goes up a tier in my mind ^^
feels so much safer in castle age wars
Why I love having the Magyar Huszars.
Magudai not bad with dealing with seige
@@danielmunsaka2051 tbh, the Mangudai is possibly the single greatest anti-seige unit in the game. Maybe Houfnice or Turk Artillery bombard. Depends how open the map is, but the Mangudai is nuts
Tier list of 2021: th-cam.com/video/4WXAjovEph4/w-d-xo.html
What changed since then:
→ non-castle units were omitted now
→ new units (for new civilizations) added (Chakram thrower: S, Ghulam: A, Hussite Wagon: D, Obuch: A, Ratha: C, Urumi Swordsman: C)
Moved up by two tiers:
→ Ballista elephant: C → A
→ Coustillier: B→S
Moved up by one tier:
→ Boyar: C → B
→ Cataphract: B → A
→ Kamayuk: C → B
→ Keshik: B → A
→ Leitis: B → A
→ Mameluke: B → A
Stayed the same tier:
→ Arambai: B
→ Berserk: B
→ Conquistador: S
→ Genoese Crossbowman: B
→ Hurkarl: S
→ Jaguar Warrior: D → C → D
→ Janissary: A
→ Karambit: D
→ Mangudai: S
→ Organ Gun: B
→ Samurai: C
→ Serjeant: B
→ Shotel Warrior: C
→ Teutonic Knight: D
→ War Elephant: D
→ War Wagon: A
Moved down by one tier:
→ Gbetto: B → C
→ Chu Ko Nu: A → B
→ Kipchak: A → B
→ Konnik: B → B → C
→ Longbowman: A → B
→ Magyar Huszar: A → B
→ Plumed Archer: S → A
→ Rattan Archer: A → B
→ Tarkan: A → B
→ Throwing Axeman: B → C
In Battle for Wesnoth (a turn based strategy game, so not really comparable), the "charge" mechanic works as "on attack, this unit does double damage, but it also gets double retaliation damage". So you try to use it against units which will be likely dead after the first or maybe second hit (low-HP units on low defense terrain), so the retaliation damage doesn't come into effect, or against units with low melee damage in general (like mages and archers). The counter to this ability (beside high-HP and/or being on good-defense terrain) would be units with first-strike (i.e. which strike first even on defense) - unfortunately, the only first-level examples in the default era are are the horseman and the spearman, both for the loyalist faction, so this only comes into effect on mirror matches (or in campaigns).
I don't know how something like this could be implemented in a real-time game like AoE - maybe for x seconds after a charge attack, all attacks against this unit do double damage?
Well, the halb would do unbelievable damage to them, up in the 60's of damage for a single hit. Even archers would destroy with double damage as if one archer can do more then ALL archers can during that timeframe. Not to mention fighting cavalry, if they do double damage for a few hits then they would essentially get a more effective charge than the Coustillier did in the first place. You'd give every unit they face their own unique mechanic but better. And if you do it for just one hit then it can still be dodgey since units with high damage would just remove the Coustillier from play entirely making the Coustillier nuke itself. As the Coustillier has fairly weak stats without the charge, so giving every unit they fight the same reflect charge is just going to make them unplayable for the most time.
The way you would fix it would just be to tweak the numbers. Sadly, unless you remove the mechanic entirely you need to pick the lesser of two evils. Either it does a lot of damage and has a long cooldown making it able to do heavy charges but only once per main engagements, or you give it low damage with a low cooldown which means it would enable hit and runs to recharge it IN battle but would also give enemy units counterplay.
Where it is now is right in the middle and that creates problems because you get the lesser evil of both my suggestions by placing it in the middle causing the unit to be too flexible.
Absolutely love tierlists! Glad you didn't rush through it too, this was perfect length!
It's a fair comment regarding Hussite Wagons and their bonus, but I've seen them used by quite many pro players to hold off crossbow pushes in castle age. A few wagons with some skirms behind them is literally a wall against ranged units.
Overall I think the list represents that the meta has changed away from ranged units (apart from CA). Longbowmen and Plum Archers used to reign these lists. Overall it feels like speed/mobility is much more valued now.
Two more really strong points for the janissary are, in my opinion:
First the really low frame delay and attack delay - with the elite actually having none at all - making both the micro ceiling and entry level (in lack for a better word, my reasoning is they are easy to micro by easily hitting the correct timing) making them even stronger against everything they have to be good against.
Second, and possibly more important, they work amazingly with what Turks have otherwise. If you have a super strong knight + skirm civ, possibly add in a few camels, but even their go to comp of janissary + hussar will often do well, camels and pikes get shredded and will open your way to hussar, their free to upgrade hussar kills all siege and their bonus pierce damage makes them almost a counterunit vs every ranged unit, barring genoese crossbow, which also should be dealt with easily when having janissaries.
As soon as you can mix in some bombard cannons, in my opinion janissary hussar bombard cannon is one of the most effective timing compositions in early imp and even overall.
Yea thats true but its really hard to get there with Turks as they don't have any reliable eco bonuses. And the real problem is Turk army composition really needs 7/24 baby sitting because Turks have NO TRASH option and struugles a lot against siege ram + Halb pushes...(Jans do only 1 dmg to siege rams)
Other big issue is Turks have literally ZERO option against Gurjaras Camel+Shiriwamsha combo (which is much more cheaper and much much more stronger)
Its like if you babysit and micro ur Jannies they can even melt FU paladins skirms arbalest etc. But if u wont micro them they die so quickly and nearly impossible to re-create them (castle unit and way tooo expensive)
Elite Jans needs to have +10HP or +1 Range to be reliant. Maybe even both.
@@multitalentedman1284 uhm, please no. Turks are already the best closed map civs, 6.5% pickrate with 60% wr is crazy. They do get countered hard against Hindustani (That's probably the only reason why Hindustani got a high WR in closed map) but I don't think you should buff the Turks, rather nerf the Hindustani.
Wow, your TH-cam content is amazing these days. It's impressive how much thought and effort went into every minute of this video. This was super enjoyable to watch and didn't feel like 45 minutes.
Thanks man glad u enjoyed it!
and he did it live in one take 11
Longbowman has been my favorite unit since I first played in 2000. I just came back to the game and still love it.
Me too man. I play the game just because of the longbowman
Loved this video. This video makes me think about tips for how to counter the “S” tier units.
Especially since I’m newer to AOE2, stuff like Huskarl spam is really hard to counter. Had to learn the hard way to use Champions and just cross your fingers the Goth player won’t go into archers or like Scorpions.
If you're playing RM or EW on open maps goths should be hit hard early to prevent them from setting up an eco to spam. Goths have next to no real eco bonuses and are on the backfoot early game. On closed map spamming cheap units is not as scary as a pop efficient deathball.
True, but in many cases and especially in team games given most team games are closed map, pocket Goths are a huge pain to deal with.
a good gunpowder civ like the turks hand cannoneers or in early castle knights usually do well. Personally I prefer the Italian hand cannoneer in the late game cause they are equally spammable thanks to the Italian discount on gunpowder. Though Frank knight are also good against them
Love these kinds of videos to have on in the background while I'm doing jobs, would like to keep seeing more of them. Keep up the great work been really enjoying your content recently!
Chakram also is perfect counter to halbs which is the counter to the other broken stuff of Gurjaras
Great point
dami eres un crack
While this is a pretty good tier list, I think it missing some key points that should be looked at when addressing UUs: Does the UU cover a weak spot for that civ? (Ghulam, Genoese, Huskarl, etc) Does the civ have other strong options in castle age/imp (Conq, Arambai) Does the unit out perform (or underperform) from its standard unit comparison (Longbowmen, Konnik, Samurai, etc) given how much harder it is to go into a castle and produce from there.
For example; The briton longbowmen is CA gives +1 attack. And in imp it has +1 range over briton arbs. But in order to go for it, you have to produce from a castle, you give up the faster producing range bonus that you have with britons, it takes longer to mass since you have less production buildings, and while 12 range in imp is crazy, 11 range is pretty much just as good, and while +1 range on archers also seems really good, as britons you already have +1-3 range over your opponent, having 1 more isnt nearly as important as hitting with those large number of xbow/arb on early powerspikes. Longbows are like driving 20 miles to get a milkshake when you already have one in the fridge.
The one advantage of 12 range is that they can outrange castles with bracer. It’s not the most incredible advantage, but it can’t be underestimated
He actually addressed these points quite well in the video…
The best thing of Long bows is that they cost less gold than arbalesters. Which is excellent long term.
Longbows are cheaper gold wise, have more attack and range (which makes them harder to snipe by onagers) and have 1 base pierce armor , compared to the Arbalest's 0. Honestly just make longbows available at the archery range 1111
@@imperator8125 That doesnt rlly come into play lol, it takes way too long to kill a castle with nothing but archers
Hera sending my childhood hero, the Caped Crusader (aka Teutonic Knight) to the bottom tier… Why you be that way man..? :( :(
I feel as though the coustillier and hussite wagons were a legitimate effort to shake up gameplay and introduce new challenges in micro for both the player and the opponent. The coustillier falls apart when they're stopped by walls, but those are less common on open maps. It's hard to switch our habits, and the coustillier benefits from this, whereas the hussite wagon suffers from it.
very solid list, i only would bump the obuch to low S, that unit is so cheap for what its worth plus the fact that you get extra gold and food to begin with as poles makes this unit so much crazier. Its stats are also really busted; 80 hp and 2 armor and reasonable speed makes it so annoying to play against. I guess archers counter them, but its not like poles dont have an answer for archers anyway.
When I play Poles, I just spam Obuch and dive whatever the enemy is making. Only thing I wouldn’t dive would be heavy scorp (or a stupid number of elephants) tbh. 50 Obuch just push archers back and eventually eat them lol. The whole time, multiple castles are pumping out more Obuch at cheat-code speeds :D
Good list.
I think the throwing axeman is much better than listed, i put it A tier. The thing is you'll have attack upgrades for your cav anyway. So basic TA do 11 dmg per 2 secs or 5.5 dps. HC do 27/3.45 * 0.75(accuracy) = 5.9 dps to infantry. TA are significantly cheaper, do only slightly less DPS to infantry and have more hp. Plus they do solid damage against stuff mixed in whereas HC don't. TA are a much better support unit when it turns into cav + halb vs cav + halb, common in cavalry civs mirrors. Castles for Franks are also much easier to have than a university and chemistry.
I agree. And also a ranged unit doing melee damage is very useful in many situations, like destroying trebs.
Look I was just gonna go with you were doing the old Vine meme of 9 + 10 = 21 but for leitus. Turns out it’s just Hera’s genius
Good job bro, well made and thought out. Keep up the good work. :)
Thanks man :)
"war wagon is very thicc"
-Hera, 2022
I think you need to stay away from deviantart for a while.
Throwing Axemen are always so underrated. They are easily to produce because of cheap castles. Theorically with their stats, they are bad, but they really do well against many of army composition with meatshield. They really beat most of infantry UU so nicely with or without micro and with or without meatshield, such as the Goths spam, remembering Viper completely wrecked Bugum as Goths with only Axemen, Light Cavalry, and Trebuchets composition in Imperial Age. They at least do better job against counter units than other infantry do.
They are cheap infantry UU compared with others, move pretty fast, are trained easily, do better results against most of infantry UU and Halberdiers, and have range to support their heavy cavalry or be main army with meatshield. They are so underrated because Franks players always go knights, never esploiting or finding out how good Throwing Axemen are, not in early castle age but later.
Agree fully but... the Gurjara UU power creep is here to stay
They are great, really underrated. They are basically champions (similar cost, hp, armor) that exchange 5 dmg for 4 (or 5) range. That looks mediocre but is actually quite great. Especially as TA without the elite upgrade are solid and you tend to have castles anyway when halbs become a threat to your cav. Its a counter to a counter that automatically presents itself at the right time, that makes it so good.
That's the key with all good UUs, they naturally fit in your plan or they ARE the plan. All the Knight like UUs should be dropped a tier because they are awkward, they aren't strong enough to beeline to and switching from knights into them is tough. Same for most archer UUs. The cav archer like UUs at generally the best because they fit in your plan the best.
Yeah I agree plus they wreck buildings so fast when you mass them
Strong agree, also if I remember correctly Elite Throwing Axeman can survive even Siege Onager shots with like 1 hp which should not be overlooked. They're tanky, cheap, easy to tech into because of Frank cheap castles.
Now obviously, youre more than triple my ELO, so you would know better than me, but I feel like you sold the magyar huszar short. a fast unit with 6 pierce armor, 105 HP, and a +8 bonus vs siege makes it absolutely fantastic for diving on trebs or bombard cannons. And at only 10 gold a pop which makes them very affordable. (Plus they have the UT to make them free, if youre making a lot instead of just a few of them.) Was really surprised you didnt mention their bonus vs siege.
It was a pleasant surprise to see Cataphracts and Mamelukes end up where they did!
"Genovesse crossbow, I think that you never get to it..." Tatoh won a game vs Lierrey in RW final with them :P and it was masterpiece
On the Konnik, I think its main power is anti-trash. The Konnik is superior to the normal anti-trash counter of Champions. Yes, enemy Halberdiers will shred the mounted version, but it will still get up and then it's almost a Champion, it's just a more population efficient anti-trash choice overall. If you have gold control and some tech advantage, they have some real viability in the late game.
"Once you get a high number of archers they can start one-shotting your organs..." yeah... hearts, kidneys, livers, etc have very low resistance to arrows.
PS I'm just 1300 but I've won hundreds of games to Teutonic knights. Defends forward castle drops and comes out strong with little investment, and can melt TC's with less investment than siege.
2k ELO players will react to Teutonic Knights as soon as they see you go heavily on stone, whereas 1.3k players often start to react when they see their TCs getting melted 11
@@edwardblom2661 Sounds about right. I rarely go heavy on stone to make Teutonic knights thought. Teutonic knights are just extensions of Teuton castles if needed. Definitely a niche unit but it does one thing very well.
I love your new channel because I have always been requesting for guides and yours are perfectly what I was looking for !
Great video. I think chukonu is low a tier on open maps but it's the only Archer unit that shreds shrivamsha because of its multiple projectiles. Because of this I think China is the only archer civ that can go toe to toe with late castle and imp Gurjaras.
Can we get an update on this for currently buffed/nerfed stats and for new units like Monaspas which are insanely strong?
Also surprised by the location given to Kamayuk, Berserker, Genoese Crossbowman, and Serjeant all of which should be higher imo. Particularly Kamayuk which crush cav, crush inf, and have 6 pierce armor vs archers and high HP. Even with their somewhat low damage they nearly always outperform basically every other unit placed in B tier and their cost is pretty low (46 food in imp) due to the incas civ bonus. Plus Incas have even cheaper full tech skirms to help deal with the archers as well.
Did Teutonic Knights get a buff recently? I’ve been using them a lot recently and they honestly melt everything in their path if I have 50 and some archer cover
My trick is FC to 60ct Shotel + arson death ball, one shot TC, kill all vills, follow up in 60 sec with another 60ct control group of them and they're done. Not everyone's preference, but when I play that style I have a 95% win rate at 1750 ELO. I go 30 vil feudal with 5 on stone, immediate forward castle, spam shotels, done.
But thats whats awesome about AOE2. It's so complex, has nearly unlimited tie-in counters and strategies, and what works for one person can be terrible for another. There is a civ + unit comp that works for every play style and enemy comp as long as you have your fundementals down.
Excellent tierlist Hera !!! Gujaras are broken... confirmed after watching Chakrams eat Mangudai (Jordan vs Tatoh Titans league ).
In this match, Tatoh lost 20 Mangudai against Chakram when Mangudai lacked 2 armor upgrades (1+1/0+1 armor instead of 1+3/0+4 which means 6 damage instead of 4). Mangudai actually beat these Chakram without problem. However, Tatoh had very small number of Mangudai (it dropped 25 and doesn't mass more) after that big loss and Jordan used Hussars as melee shield against Mangudai.
What game did you watch, Tatoh walked right into the chakrams without even looking ,of course chakrams would wreck in that position.
@@dirkauditore8413 Yeahh I saw that ....and that's exactly the problem.. looking elsewhere for a couple of seconds and the mangudai number goes from 50 to 25....Its like running into 20 heavy scorpions(and chakrams are much cheaper and much more mobile than heavy scorps). With perfect micro mangudai beat them no problem...but people arent perfect. Granted that having all the armor upgrades would have helped a bit but it would have still ended up badly
.
Gujaras have too much going for them
Nice list. But Id' probably put Konnik a bit higher. That thing has higher DPS with stirrups and is 2 units in 1. Plus you can spam it from Kreposts. I even think it can take on Frank paladins.
Two more things that i find noteworthy about the longbow: The castle age version is outperformed by xbow in pretty much anything due to low accuracy (only vs high armor targets like skirms its better), so massing them early is even more difficult than it usualy is for UUs. And even in imp, their accuracy is only 80%, meaning they deal less dps than arbs on targets that have below 6 PA.
Longbows should have a faster rate of fire. I don't get how a fucking crossbow can fire as fast as a longbow. You can shoot 6 times with a longbow in the same time it takes to reload a crossbow.
I think Kamayuk should be rated higher, at least in the B-tier itself. Sorta hurt seeing them in the end 11
It is a very tanky unit, post-Imp isn't even countered by Arbs that well (6PA is kinda nightmarish), and will go toe-to-toe with almost all other melee units in the game. Kamayuk + Skirm and some Slingers and Rams is a deathball very hard to stop, unless you are a Siege (or Gunpowder) civ. If you're in a teamgame, IMO Kamayuk is also the strongest power unit out of all Meso civs.
If nothing else, their style points should net them a higher ranking! It's so satisfying to hear 40 Kamayuks poke at the same time, it's basically ASMR and they look awesome too 11
I think out of melee units only Urumis and TKs can rival massed up Kamayuks. If your civ doesn't have HCs, you pretty much have to try to kill them with siege, throwing any cav or infantry at the deathball is just a waste.
Strong agree , Kamayuks are insanely underrated. In BF as Incas, i always go straight for Kamayuks, screw eagles, screw arbalests.
Been waiting on a list like this so thank you very much! I would say as a small bit of criticism that when explaining the unit make sure to say the civ when introducing it. you did on a lot of them but missed it on a few. I know you did it on the description as well and that was excellent, but for a newer player like me it was a bit confusing at first figuring out which civ some of the units were from. other than that excellent video! next do a tier list for civs in each age. I think that would be an excellent playlist
Saw this live. Judging by some of the reactions this should be called TearMaker 😂
Best thing about Konnicks to me is that once you get the infantry upgrades then you can spam them into halbs and cav at the same time and still win. But I guess since they get free 2h swordsman they are not lacking for a halb counter
I don't think the Gbetto gets enough love. Not saying it's S-Tier or even A-Tier, but it's one of those units that doesn't get enough attention for what it brings to the table. They're pretty mobile and can absolutely maul groups of exposed villagers. When microed, they kite most infantry units with ease and can wreck siege. They totally counter Goths. Even smaller groups of xbow die to them, but you'll die very quickly if you're caught off guard by those x-bow. I've made a point to play with them more often, especially when I'm playing Nomad. High C-Tier for me.
They have really high attack, so get like 15 of them and they can one shot knights lol
@@dirkauditore8413 yep it's true, they can handle knights pretty well in numbers
Thanks for the updated list. I use your tier list as a guide to picking civs and found some of your selections interesting like the balstic and war elephants. But it makes sense.
Also what happened to the usual Hera faking an S tier unit as a D tier. I was waiting the whole vid for you to pull out the gag.
Cant always use that bro keeping u guessing
Do a secondary UU tierlist as well, maybe in one vid with the unique trash units tierlist and unique building tierlist (just for the lulz)
Surely everything u said about the Organ Gun is also applicable to the Hussite Wagon. I have been castle dropped many times in Arena by Bohemians & the HWs r super hard to stop. They also have 1 more range than OGs.
P.S. U hit da nail on the head re the Plumed Archer. They used to be even stronger than they currently are.
Thanks for the video, Hera! At 22:19 I want to clarify that the Keshik actually costs 50 food and 80 gold! Perhaps there was confusion with the Steppe Lancers, which cost 40 gold each and also benefit from the +1/+1 Tatar armor from the UT. Cheers! // Edit: I stand corrected, it's 40g.
Nono keshik is 40 gold im 99% sure
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 I stand corrected, my bad.
@@LeicaFleury Keshik and Leitis was 50f 80g like 3 years ago. They are both changed sure.
my two cents:
Cataphract - To expensive in 1v1, to underpowered in team games.
Tarkan - To weak as a general combat unit (like an elite one takes a paladin down to ~40%HP?) I know it's meant for razing building, but I'd say some more power would be nice.
Shotel - can't even cost-effectively fight Huskarls, so yeah, fail.
Gbeto - way to squishy.
One good thing about the tarkan though is that it's great vs arbs/CA. Cheaper to upgrade than paladin, MUCH faster and you got 170 hp with 8 PA instead of 180 hp with 7 PA. So you tank 85 instead of 60 arb shots.
Sure you kill in 4 instead of 3 hits but surviving more arrow shots is more relevant.
@@markvanderwerf8592 and producible from stables!
@@markvanderwerf8592 Tarkan is insane unit actually. I think pros don't use Tarkan pursuant to its real power.
I had a shot every time hera said “imo” . I am in the ER for alcohol poisoning
Yup, we have all seen what Chakrams can do in the recent games of T90TL. it is absolutely disgusting.
I have taken quite a loong break right now from playing the ladder simply because of the Gurjara phobia.
Bro, the Mangudai army from Tatoh ran right into the Chakrams, what did you expect lol? That was a gross micro mistake from Tatoh, in any other situation Mangudai would wreck Chakrams
Great content. Yet a bonus question: how many times do you literally hear Hera say *literally* in this video?
great stuff, I love aoe2. I have been playing it since age of kings came out so long ago.
What are the odds I fell asleep last night listening to the year old tier list and I wake up to a fresh update wow
Great content and especially love your hot takes on some of the beloved civs! What do you think about inviting another AOE2 expert for the last 10 min of the video to discuss your Tier-1 list :) keep up the amazing work!
Wish to see future patch will make lower tier unique units trainable in corresponding military training building (barracks/stable/archery range), many unique units just almost never seen action in competitive play, more love is deserved, and see more actions from unique units does make the game more entertaining to watch, I mean, on competitive sense, taking Briton as example, making arbalester definitely make more sense than longbowman due to training speed (and only exclusive to castle), but on the lore perspective longbow is what Briton archers are famous for.
Can’t tell you how many times my Amazon Tunnel ranked games have ended because the Khmer player has cut through with ballista elephants. It’s surprisingly common and always seems to happen on the side I’m not on (so the area behind the woodline is not walled up…)
@hera i would personally rate unique units compared to their role counterparts otherwise it's pointless to rank them
So for example, berserks among the infantry are low S tier or A tier.
1- berserks: minimum A tier compared to infantry generally, carried bt cheiftain power to enable berserks to deal with cavalery.
still falls behind malians champions "as malian champions are too good for what they are meant to do" falls behind goth huskarl in their speciality too and falls behind japaneze i champions.
2-chinese chu ko nu are probably low A tier carried by the fact that they can deal with many of the arbalester weaknesses like rams, buildings " to some degree" high pierce armor targets " also to some degree"
They could be B tier because of their range which makes them move IN FRONT of their skirmishers " skirms have 1 extra range" making them tank the damage instead od the tanky trash.
That said" chu ko nu becomes S tier easily IMO if you have access to genitours as they have same range but high speed making them move IN front of chu ko nu and tank for them. CKN and genitours are a very strong combo
3-huskarl is 100% S purely because of the fact that you can spam it from barracks
4- maguar huszar is minimum A tier. In fact most ppl don't know that not only is it hjgher attack snd health but also higher attack speed making it capable of beating frank paladins in a 2vs1 "which huszar can't even come Close to doing"
Thus maguar huszar role should be played as big mass of cheap dmg dealer rather than the hussar role as a meat shield.
5- i do agree on samurai as thry have 1 DUTY and that duty is not even that common, which is to beat unique units.
You diss the hussite wagon, but it might be the one of the few UU on this list that can tank the coustillier charge attacks and hit back. Along with the elephants, but elephants can't ever catch them.
(they still die though)
Lmao
can you make an update? but not anew again, but taking the old graph and maybe put arrows where the units go NOW
Does he have a list like this but for civs?
Was this taking this months nerf into account on the cousstalier?
With the upcoming tournament I'd love an Empire Wars tier list! I have to imagine it would look quite different to the usual 1v1 Arabia tier lists.
"13+6 , 21 attack in castle age" I see what you did there,Hera
The same as 9 + 10
36:48 from my experience shotel warriors are also pretty nice when you are vs goths and they start the huskarl spam against your archers, also really nice if you have a defensive castle and get raided and you just need anything quickly to kill the raid because they produce so fast
I think shotels trade evenly against huskarls , which is funny I thought shotels smacked em.
I wonder if a movement speed slow for 4-5 seconds after charging would help make the coustillier more fair to play against. Not sure if it would just outright cripple the unit but giving you a window to fight back sounds good in theory at least.
That's a bit unrealistic to code and apply in AoE2, simpler way is just to reduce their movement speed and/or pierce armor. Probably gonna cripple them but they would still be viable unit, besides not like Burgundians rely on them in the first place, they are just the best option currently.
@@CrnaStrela Is it? Setting their movement speed to X after a charge really doesn't seem like it's in the realm of impossible.
Coustiller countered by flaming camel
I usually play mass petards, so Burgundians is no prob for me
arguable even Italian unique unit. Quite underrated in my opinion
Been recently using the Conquistadors a lot. They are sooo much fun to take down Trebs w/
I guess you could say that S tier units are powerful in almost all situations. Every other unit is just varying degrees of how "situational" they are 11
I m glad u talked abt chakram throwers i think pll dont talk enough abt it becz of how OP gurjara camels and shrivamsha riders are.These things eat arbalest and xbkws even in spread formations.They eat seige and also other infantry.Only counter is cavalry unlike u said in video but then u have OP camels so yeahhh.....
And unlike scorpions since they dont have minimum range and also much faster movement speed even for an infantry.Thjs thing is super strong.Mass scorpions CAN deal with this but if they even throw one volley of disks scorpians will get shredded becz unlike scorpians these things do melee damage
Nice list, would push Longbow up
so the Houfnice doesn't come into the discussion on the topic of best UUs?
Very good 💥💥👍
Samurais should get ability to shoot arrows like Rathas! Lets start a petition! Very agreeable tier list btw, but Axeman is easy A tier though considering cheap castles, cheap price, tanky, ranged melee and how well they complement Frank cavalry, absolute nightmare to deal with this combo. Axemen > HC to clean halbs any day!
Ooh, and would it do bonus damage against archer unique units while in the ranged mode?
@@dariussonofjazzlin7433 Genoese Xbows, Camel Archers have bonuses and it does not break the game, so some bonus for Samurai ranged attack would be viable as well.
Hi Hera nice video
I'd love a tierlist about best OTP civs or civs with a lot of variances
Hi hera! Please make a video on 5 civs that desperately need a buff
Hi hera! Please make a video on 5 civs that desperately need a buff
He made that video 9 days ago......
2nd, first time so early to hera’s vids
It's probably a case of 'I know what I like and I like what I know', but any infantry with which you can bring down castles is top tier for me, i.e. berserks, teutonic knights and axemen does it for me.
41:39 Hera simping for those thicc war wagons
I would bump the shotel, urumi and karambit one tier higher just for one reason: they're quick to produce and use as an emergency anti-ram unit in case your castle is threatened.
So nice to see tierlists. Can you make one for 1v1 Empire wars, maybe after RBW if you want to keep your opinion on civs a secret until then.
I agree with about 90% of what was said here.
Strength does vary if it's a 1v1 vs a team game.
There are 2 things I'd like to point out.
I feel like heavy cav or hussar is a much bigger counter to chakram throwers as you make them out to me.
6+2 damage is pretty low against a target that has 5 melee armor, the first target taking 3, the extra targets taking 1,5.
I've played a ton of Gurjara's and while the chakrams are definitely strong, I feel like everything that Gurjara's do complement them so well, as they can counter the chakram counters quite well.
If Chakram throwers were given to a civ without camels or viable hussar it would be much harder to work with.
That's just my opinion playing mainly Gurjara's since the update.
The second is, I feel like you are sleeping on rattan archers, perhaps it's because it may be more viable in team games, but a faster moving, tankier, harder to counter and higher damaging arbalest can be pretty oppressive at times.
While you could make similar case for longbow's, their base accuracy is lower than the arbalest, and since britons don't get thumb ring, I don't consider them a pure upgrade (yes they are better but I believe rattan archers are much better than Vietnamese arbalests)
Stop crying 1 Year old kid
mangudai are my favorte. Once you mass them + drill seige its over.
I would’ve liked to hear your opinion on the Houfnice!! it is THE unit for Bohemians, right? that’s an easy S-tier, I think!
also hard to get there
I only feel the placement for the Genoese Xbow is off, specially after you mentioned Arena/BF as a reason for B. Elephant to be A tier. Genoese are insane in Arena imho.
Yeah, i dont get why the B.Elephant is so high and other (more affordable units) are loweron the list
Well to be fair, B.Elephants win those games alone while G.xbows are just very strong in those situations. One is a game winner when used and the other is not. But i agree, they should be A tier considering they can be lethal in the right circumstance. (Which is the reasoning B.Elephant was placed high)
@@dirkauditore8413 Affordability wasn't really what the tierlist was about, it was the strength in usage. B.elephants when used in the right time are unbeatable while more affordable units would fall flat.
@@starcraft2own Affordability should 100% be considered. By your logic, the persian war elephant should also be A tier since they're so strong if used in the right time and cost isn't an issue. Right?
Part of what makes a unit good is being able to amass them, and cheaper costs help accomplish that. That way it aint so taxing on your eco
@@dirkauditore8413 Except even with "My logic" the B.elephants would still out perform war elephants to such a crazy degree that they still wouldn't be able to compete with the sheer power B.elephants have when used right.
But before you decide to give my arguments some more made up metrics. Strength in usage isn't stats, if it was then i would've said stats. Huskarls strength in usage happens to include their short creation time from barrackses and low cost, as a power unit they lose to champions after all, brits have a favorable matchup against goths if they go militia line from the start. In fact as you're trying to reduce my point to a single metric, i can turn it around to you who seems to use the logic that anything that is cheaper is automatically better. "other (more affordable units)" As you put it, only bringing up price as a relevant metric. So then Karambit warriors have to be your favorite gold unit in the game.
After all, in the video he specifically argued UU that were good for the civ but not that strong overall were still better than generally strong UU because they give a lot of tools to the civ. So affordability is not at all a critical point to this tierlist. If a unit could just straight up win a certain map, even if that unit wasn't that strong on other maps, it's still a really good unit for the civ especially if the civ does fine without it. It's like trying to argue that longboats or carravels aren't good because not every map has water. Not every map has easily defendable bases but those that do the B.Elephant will give you a win on.
Hera/anyone would any of the weak/bad civs benefit from a secondary unique unit??
Ready for that secondary units tier list along with team bonuses.
Shouldn't the Samurai be on top, as it counters all other unique units?
i cant undestand, how chakram can be tier s unit if they have less damage then halbs? and havent any aditional damage except to eagles
U said berserks require a castle and deducted points based on that??? I thought you would judge the unit for what it is not for how it's made. Also most of the unique unite require a castle......
Berserk / Mangudai = Best.
Thanks for watching.
I know I'm biased since I never play team games, but the war wagon feels B tier at highest to me. It dies to skirms and monks, especially when those are in combination with knights, and in imperial they die to halb spam, which is extremelt awkward and means you need either champs in front or arbs/skirms/HCs behind, and it feels like the wagons are just useless at that point. Easy to counter in 1v1s, its only real strong points are sitting under TCs to idle eco and countering xbows/CA/scorpions (and not being too shabby vs mangonels).
Karambit warrior is WAY better than shotel warrior so it's weird to see them at the exact same spot, they fill the exact same niche except that karambit flood can actually kill arbalest in the same way that woad raiders can whereas shotels just lose to anything that is not a trash unit or eagle warrior
Am i the only one seeing a pretty solid standard normal distribution amongst the tiers? The central limit theorem seems to checkout for n = 40 here :D
Huskarals being so good is a testament to how bad the Goths are without it.
Would love to see a top 5 more underused unique unit
I like Keshiks, but I think they are only good against archers, though I remember fighting Frankish Paladins and they traded well.
Serjeants are very strong.
Chinese is top tier already so they wouldn't need this but if Rocketry gave 1 extra range to Chu Ko Nu what tier would Chu Ko Nu be?
Viper 2 years ago had Konniks in S-Tier and War Elephant in A-Tier
please make a rating of regional unique units. elephant archers, steppe spearmen, and other unique units (not from the castle)
ETk is underused imo, it dominates evry trash trash composition and can carry a teuton deathball through the center. When someday melee units get a working pathing and arbalest stops dominating late game this unit will be a viable option in some cases
One CA can theoretically kill infinite amount of TKs. A celt villager can circle the TK and wall him inside a 1x1. The TK is so fat not even your grandmother would be able to feed it. When the TK went to the first grade of elementary school by the time he arrived he was sent to collage.
Memes aside, ETK + siege tower seems like a decent combo in late game. People seem to think ETKs die instantly to Arbs, like Halbs would do. But what they forget is that ETKs have a super solid 100 HP and 2+4 pierce armor, they can take quite a beating before going down. So while yes Arbs kill them effectively, its not nearly as fast as people make it out to be. If the TKs ever get on top of the Arbs its over, which may be possible to accomplish with a couple Siege Towers lol.
I feel kind of vindicated on the Hussite Wagon...I love Bohemians but every time I've tried to use the HW it feels like it does basically no damage and then insta-dies to onagers and cavalry. And it can't fight rams AT ALL.
well houfnices more than make for it tho
Hussite Wagon itself is not terrible unit but it has no place in Bohemian army compostion. Devs designed this unit very badly.
I think the Jarguar Warrior is better than e.g. the Samurai. Aztecs want to have another counter to Infantry (not just Champs but also a bunch of Inftrany UU that would mop the floor with Eagles ) while Japanese dont really need that. Japanese just turn to it a bit more often bc they lack other options.
once again, I wished i could give more likes than just one
I agree with the list, I would have put Berzerkers up in the A tier because often times with the removal of thumb ring, they rely on them to finish off the game. And while champions are very similar Berzerkers are ALOT stronger late game vs trash and also they are easier to transition into from Castle age because it doesn't require the time to upgrade the militia line. Also I think that Kipchak are very low A tier , we've seen them alot in recent tournaments and they are not that bad
I love tier lists
Me: ah finally, time to watch a drama free AOE2 video from a top player
Hera: Plumed archer isnt a S-tier unit
Me : *angry mayan noises*
In recent video, you placed Coustillier as B tier when Coustillier has +40 charge attack Now, Coustillier charge attack nerfed to +25 attack and you placed Coustillier S Tier. Did Coustillier take any buff which I don't know?
I was wondering that too since I only know of the recent nerf. I haven't seen them often in pro games either, so I'm curious what Hera was referring to
They have been used a lot in recent tournaments, and they are really overpowered, because they do not take fights, just hit and run, and not even Pikes deal with them because the charged attack leaves them almost dead. Look for Liereyy vs Yo in T90 league, for example.
@@mazinrobox2546 I didn't say Coustillier is bad, I pointed out Hera's contradiction about this unit. As for unit, Coustillier is probably mid S-Tier. Conquistador and Mangudai is still better than Coustillier.