Parantago i am a spanish playing with goths teaming with my friend, who plays spanish, do you know how many ragequits we provoque? Do not let a spanish feed gold to a goth and then send his villagers next to 200 huscarls... ^^
Thanks to some of his strategy's i managed to beat more records in some of my MP games (Even winning average players), beat the HD AI on Moderate and crack the ass of 7 conquerors AI on hardest.
Lol I cant even play multiplayer. The way I play the game, when I change certain things, their are never any people in the room. Lol. I play the original not the expansions like Africa campaign.
Hey Spirit, I think you missed out on a pretty important situation where Samurai absolutely kick ass- when you need an infantry heavy army in a pinch. The ability to pump out decent infantry without any research time comes in handy. For instance, I had once an army mostly composed of archers and had the upper hand in game, but ended up being raided insanely heavily by Eagle Warriors. I could quickly create enough Samurais to save my economy without needing to build barracks or research upgrades, . Sure it's situational, but unupgraded samurai>>unupgraded militia
In movies, people draw aaaalllll the way back, and then the sword throws them around; they act as if it weighs 20+ lbs, when most swords, even big ones, max out at 8, and are balanced around the hilt for better control, particularly in Europe.
@@erickrivasv3077 why are you assuming that the reason they don't play is financial? No shit it's cheap, but that doesn't mean that you have the time to play a full match online let alone have the time to get back into practice.
The cold open reminds me of Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds (and the Clone Campaigns expansion) which was an underrated remake of AoE II and the Conquerors.
Speaking from the distant 2019, year of Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition, that comparision between Champion and Samurai became even more complicated. Supplies technology makes the sword-line cost be 45 food 20 gold, but the Samurai is now advertise as good vs infantry (my tests go against this claim). Mr Law, it's time for an update for this video! Uhm, can I also suggest a list of the best unique units? You could do 2 or more videos to analise the strength of each unique unit and how they work for their civilizations.
I wouldn't say the comparison was ever complicated, SoL just beats around the bush way too much. Even before the supplies tech, the samurai costed 50% more gold while being just as strong as a champion against everything except for a very few castle units (most castle units counter infantry harder than the samurai can counter them with some extra damage). It can also only be made in an expensive castle where it competes with the actually good japanese trebuchet creation time. You pretty much never used samurai over champion unless you were facing goths or went for style points.
Greetings! I'm not an active AoE player (never played online, only did half of the campain as a child), but around a year ago I stumbled over your channel. I love your mix of mathematic and spirit to proof everything ingame. Keep up the good work! And now to the fun part... last week I attended a local AoE turnament, and just by watching your videos (especially Top 5 underused units) I was able to carry and crush the enemy bases. Thanks a lot for this epic evening!
In 5:40 Vikings will be soon an exception, because in patch 4.8 the Chieftans (+4 bonus dmg vs cavalry) will apply to all infantry units, alongside with more HP the Vikings Champions will be better against cavalry, than anybody elses :-).
I think Chieftains is +5 dmg not +4. I totally agree though =) also chieftans will effect their pikes! making them the best castle age anti-cav unit imo.
another great video, thank you. i dont play anymore because of time constraints from other activities but your videos definitely allow me to vicariously relive the analytic side of the game, not to mention the nostalgia.
i usually get annoyed at peoples analysis on things, because I always have unanswered questions or I find flaw in the math. But you are so thorough! Well Done!
I wouldn't view it as skewed as you make it sound - when you equalized the resources, you did the total amount of all resources, which doesn't take into consideration the fact that food is less valuable than gold in game. I understand why you did this, as obviously it's hard to be mathematically scientific when you are equalizing resources based on "How much I feel food is valued". In the end though, 50% more gold is a LOT more gold, and considering gold is limited(In 1v1s) and hard to get, I personally view champions as slightly better than samurai for the price unless the enemy is using unique units or I have lots of extra resources and I'm trying to get better units to fill the population space. This is obviously just an opinion though!
I feel I addressed that idea the best way I could, and you correctly point out it's near impossible (or at least would make for a very long tangent in the middle of the video) to try to work out a value of gold compared to food for 1v1, team games, and other exceptions. The food:gold value is pretty volatile, and in castle age it tends to go from food being higher in value, and people often buying food to advance and do research, but then flips to being as low as selling 100 food for14 gold in 1v1, or sometimes the reverse can happen in team games with a lot of trade. I think the best I can really do without overreacting is to point out what the differences are between the cost of each unit, and trust you guys to apply that knowledge to whatever situation you find yourselves in :)
@@SpiritOfTheLaw all respect to you, I'm a big fan of your videos, but I think you are putting a bit too much faith into the AoE2 devs when it comes to perfectly balancing the game. Samurai is a really underpowered unit that doesn't see almost any play in competitive games. They cost 50% more gold than a champion (which is HUGE) while being almost completely just as strong, they cost a lot more gold to upgrade and they can also only be created in expensive castles where they are competing with the actually strong Japanese trebuchet's creation time. There are very few castle units they can actually counter, since most castle units counter infantry way harder than the samurai can counter them with some extra damage. Overall, if you want to be efficient you will pretty much never chose samurai over champions against any civ that isn't Goths, and should be noted that champions are already a pretty situational unit because of how much more versatile gold units arbalests and heavy cavalry are. Gladly, AoE2 is still getting supported by the devs to this day, so flaws like this should get some attention so they can be improved upon. A unit that is so extremely rarely viable is a badly designed unit. An iconic unit like the samurai should be a bread and butter of the civ, not something you only use every 20th matches. This goes for other castle units too, most of them are underpowered compared to generic gold options like heavy cavalry or arbalest, even on the fields they are supposed to excel at.
Varskar I frequently vs 8 on hardest (lousy isp in the middle of nowhere). They resign after a certain percentage of their total pop. is gone, somewhere between 85-95% of the limit, or if their pop. is low and you destroy their economy, via relic raiding or destroying all TCs. I find if I want to be evil and have them hang on the longest, I leave the Monastery, Market and TCs alone once I've decimated half their area. I retreat (to attack their neighbors) then come back after they send their own units after me.
"whenever fun is being had laying waste to an AI town they will resign." One of the things I love about Age of Mythology (imo the best game in the series) is that you can simply refuse to show the AI mercy and continue to crush them after they ask to give up.
"'Odsblood! I accidentally resigned by mistake." "My townsfolk began too close to mine kingdom's Town Center." "Far too many birds flew over mine kingdom." "A mere a single scout was present to serve in the beginning." "My sheep perished when my folk sought to use it as food." "Forsooth, I couldst not tame any wolves." "All my beginning citizenry were male." "Thy heraldic color was superior to mine own." "My ignorant folk couldst not replant the berries!" "Thou art human, with soul and wit. I am naught but clockwork!" "My throne was most uncomfortable." "Forsooth, the nearby boars grunted too loudly and frequently." "'Zounds! I couldst not build a Wonder in the Dark Age!" "I couldst not comprehend mine folks' speech!" "My peasants wert puling wretches (a puny 25 hit points)!" "The shore fish near mine villager appeared all too sleepy." "A graceless hillock rose too near my Town Center." "My peasants' huts all faced different directions!" "The deer fled when mine hunters sought to slay them." "When I commanded a peasant to hunt fierce boar, it slew him." "My peasants foolishly walk on foot instead of astride ponies." "Alas, I could find naught but fools gold." "No wonder thou wert victorious! I shalt abdicate."
Here are a few ideas on how to compare two units from two civilisation: a) 1v1 potential: Easiest test to run; not specially informative though. b) skirmish potential: Some units excel in group because they can all attack the same target simultaneously (ranged)or have less idle time (more speed, less collision with each other) crippling enemy DPS faster. A regular 10v10 would be the proper test here. This would of course depend on the quality of the micro management of each player. c) Population as the limiting factor: Assume each player has near limitless ressources, and infinite time to get his army ready. His only limit is the population limit. With such large armies, micromanagement becomes impossible, and the better formation (tightness of units) becomes an advantage. This would of course strongly favor the more expensive units. d) Ressources as the limiting factor: Assume that each player benefits from 200 villager minutes' worth of ressource. Assume that the map carries infinite wood, infinite gold, and infinite berries/fish. You don't need to build the mills, or mines, or wood mills, or town centers, you don't need to buy the economy technologies (all those come for free) or to hire the villagers; all that is included in your 200 villager minutes. You must however pay for each age upgrade, for each unit upgrade, for a castle/barrack/etc., and if you wish, for the forge/university and for the upgrades that you want to buy from the forge/university. Given that budget, which unit/unit combination wins? Suddenly, your knights are way outnumbered by your longsword-guys, which is something to take into account. This could be modified for an "early game viability" by cutting your villager minutes to 50. e) Gold/scarcity as the limiting factor: Just as above, only you have 300 villager minutes, but all of your food spending must come from farms (you have to take their wood cost into account), and all of your gold spendings past the first 8000 golds must come from the market; meaning you have to pay the cost of building a market and the trading fees. With that limit into account, maybe some un-upgraded units would look significantly better, and of course trash units get a significant numbers bonus. Note: the advantage of the two above methods is that they allow you to evaluate the value of split type forces. How much do these halberdiers bring to your arbalest, considering that you have to buy two separate forge lines? What about hussars to cavaliers, considering they both benefit from most of the same technologies and buildings, and have one available to counter monks? f) Mobilisation speed as the limiting factor: Assume that you have 30 barrack/archery-range/etc minutes _or_ 15 castle minutes to research any desired upgrades and train as many units as you can; _and_ 15 forge minutes research upgrades. Resources are assumed to be plentiful. g) Clock as the limiting factor: How many of the troops can you get standing by 15 minutes, or 30 minutes, assuming you start in the dark ages, play optimally, and don't get interfered with until that time. (Obviously, this is the hardest one to test, as a single test would take probably 30 minutes for each side, whereas the others would just require a spreadsheet that automatically calculates the cost in different ressources of the units, research, and buildings, and then a map editor for a small scale reproduction test).
Samurai was always underpowered even before the supplies tech made the gap even bigger. SoL beats around the bush way too much. Samurai costed 50% more gold while being just as strong as a champion against everything except for a very few castle units (most castle units counter infantry harder than the samurai can counter them with some extra damage). It can also only be made in an expensive castle where it competes with the actually good japanese trebuchet creation time. You pretty much never used samurai over champions unless you were facing goths or went for style points.
I tend to have my melee units in a staggered line and instead of issuing attack moves just move them on top of enemies and then issue a Stop command to make them stop moving and immediately attack anything they are close to. this usually results in a surrounded enemy blob. a problem with this is that your guys are taking a couple melee swings while not returning them as they go in, so a micro adjustment could be to have a small front line group of 10 units in a line formation that get the regular attack move into the enemy. Imagine a line of teutonic knights as that line component, it might entice an committed attack since they'd be looking a like a juicy target to envelop ^^ or i'm just day dreaming and they'd get shot by onagers and charged by cav like always... but maybe a staggered halvberd line. hah thanks for another upload! Keep making the great videos!
Super-useful for me as a brand-new player currently favoring Japan as my civ of choice. I was already favoring Samurai > Champion, now I know it's at least equal in performance sans against Eagles, so it's perfect that I can keep using that plan effectively in most situations.
So for reference, against trash champions are more cost effective, which is a big deal in the late game. I would argue that you should open with samurai, but as the game goes on you'd want to switch into champions, unless you have a very strong trade route. In a typical game, it's easier to get some barracks out and go longswords in castle than it would be for me to go into samurai, so chances are you'd already have at least some of the infantry techs. Something else to consider is that if you are low on gold, as you tend to be in late imp, each individual infantry upgrade costs less to get to champion than the elite samurai tech does, so you don't have to stockpile as much resources to have access to champions, you can spread the upgrades out. Overall the samurai is the stronger unit, but it's not as cost effective unless you're up against unique units, in general. By the way, I do not like how Spirit takes imperial age units and compares their food and gold costs as roughly equivalent, where 10 gold is equivalent to 10 food. That's simply not the case, the later game the unit, the more important the gold cost of it.
In late game though, gold usually isn;t equally valuable to food. Food can be mass-auto-farmed with very modest micromanagement. Gold is either finite or requires trades. Trades that quickly drop to 14% efficiency. Meaning the effort required to get gold with no market trade routes and no gold ore left in the area you control is 7 times that of food.
Being able to build units from barracks rather than castle means a lot more than simply being able to mass up a large army faster. It also means you can more easily build military buildings right next to your enemy's base. That minute of time a unit spends walking from your base to their's is a minute of time it's not doing damage. In a big battle that's a big deal.
One more thing to consider is that Japanese has strong keep (assuming post Forgotten Empire) with Yasama tech and player may want to build a lot of them, which will compete the stone for building castle. Because of this, one should just use Champion unless the opponent is using a lot of Unique units, as Japanese Keep is very strong indeed after the tech.
I find the samurai to be more convenient from a timing perspective. Once one hits imperial age, there's one tech and boom, you're done, and you have a great infantry unit in that early imperial phase. Champions are much more delayed because of getting all the upgrades. Alternatively, one could tech the swordsmen line up through the ages, but the resources there are probably much better spent on other things, unless one wants longswordsmen in the castle age or something like that.
Have you ever played Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds? Its basically AoE2 with a star wars skin. Its available on steam and surprisingly a really good game. Would love to see you make a video on it.
Spirit, I love your videos. Can you make an overall comparison of all the diffrent infantry civs (including latest expansions) to finally see who has the best champions/halbediers in the game?
Hey Spirit, just a small question. When are you going to do a civ overview for an African Kingdom civ? They all have very powerfull bonusses and have some pretty interesting unique units and technologies. Keep up the good work, love it all!
In fairness the militia line seem to have such an obvious disadvantage stat-wise, that Japanese players could consider them as an dark/feudal offensive choice. Catch your opponent off-guard with attacking units earlier than they expected and you could claim a few villagers with them, or at least stall their economy by a fair bit.
May I suggest a few more videos in a style similar as this? For instance Shotel Warrior vs Karambit Warrior, two units that seem to serve a somewhat similar purpose, would be great to have an analysis video on their differences and when it'd be best to use one or the other
I usually mass Samurai only when doing some heavy invade, I leave my halbs to protect trebs and send the cavalry/champions to do their job, while controlling cavalry archers and samurai for more dangerous situations that approach.
i wish the samurai had a ranged attack, apparently they were supposed to get one (along with their melee attack) but they scrapped it in alpha for some reason it'd be cool if their elite upgrade gave them an arquebus
It was done with 10 or 15 keyframes. You basically set specific frames and tell it where to be and it moves the picture at the appropriate speed to hit those points, so you don't have to set every frame individually.
The samurai is a great wild card against units many civs otherwise really have problems with, like the Hurskarl. They are not the best castle unit, but it is great to have them as an option.
Do you think you would ever do Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds in depth videos? It's made by the same company, although it's not in HD in a new release, but it's still a solid game.
I like your voice as a commentary/podcast style for background company when I play RTS games, but I'm really into TW:Shogun 2 since AOE2 gets really slow in a big game. Would you ever consider extending your channel to TW:Shogun as well?
Hey Spirit Of The Law, if you need an idea for another video, how about a tutorial on how to use the scenario editor for special things like custom units and working with triggers / cinematics? Would be awesome for people who want to create custom maps but dont know how to. Thanks! :)
![Megan Thee Stallion - Neva Play (feat. RM) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TpYTyAaTRts/mqdefault.jpg)
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But what about Elite Samurai vs Spanish Villager ?
nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
thanks you made my day hahaha
i'm spanish and i confirm it: our babies are born samurai
Damn, my first online match was against spain, never expected him to rush all his villagers to my base and fucking wreck everything
Parantago i am a spanish playing with goths teaming with my friend, who plays spanish, do you know how many ragequits we provoque? Do not let a spanish feed gold to a goth and then send his villagers next to 200 huscarls... ^^
1:12 that Wolf made a mistake it would not live to regret
Wolf: SHINEEEEEOO KONOYAROOOOOAAAHHHHHH
Samurai: Omae wa.. Mo Shindeiru...
To be continued...
Wolf: *NANI!?*
*head explodes*
I'm not even play this game on multiplayer. But I'm the only who keeps watching every video of this guy?
same here ahah
im in the same boat, havent played a long time and never really in multiplayer at all :D
Maybe I just enjoy the detailed explanation :D
Thanks to some of his strategy's i managed to beat more records in some of my MP games (Even winning average players), beat the HD AI on Moderate and crack the ass of 7 conquerors AI on hardest.
I still have the old school version on CDs that don't even work anymore on modern computers. But I still watch these for the nostalgia
Lol I cant even play multiplayer. The way I play the game, when I change certain things, their are never any people in the room. Lol. I play the original not the expansions like Africa campaign.
Hey Spirit, I think you missed out on a pretty important situation where Samurai absolutely kick ass- when you need an infantry heavy army in a pinch. The ability to pump out decent infantry without any research time comes in handy.
For instance, I had once an army mostly composed of archers and had the upper hand in game, but ended up being raided insanely heavily by Eagle Warriors. I could quickly create enough Samurais to save my economy without needing to build barracks or research upgrades, . Sure it's situational, but unupgraded samurai>>unupgraded militia
Wolf: attacks
Samurai: your free trial of living has just expired.
1:20 samurai was like dont piss me off wolf gotta pose for the comparison.
No, it wouldn't ;)
I have only just noticed that Soldiers in AoE dont overswing their sword. Nice historical detail.
Well, the infantry doesnt at least.
what do you mean by overswing?
In movies, people draw aaaalllll the way back, and then the sword throws them around; they act as if it weighs 20+ lbs, when most swords, even big ones, max out at 8, and are balanced around the hilt for better control, particularly in Europe.
meaning they don't swing their sword like a baseball bat. They do shorter jabs with it
schmid1.0 those mamelukes and their flying shamshirs though
I don't play this anymore but i love watch this videos.
Wolololo
Aioioioooo!!
Watching the vids makes me wanna play it again
Come on guys, it's just $9 on steam
@@erickrivasv3077 why are you assuming that the reason they don't play is financial? No shit it's cheap, but that doesn't mean that you have the time to play a full match online let alone have the time to get back into practice.
Haha I love the intro x)
who doesn't?
He made it himself after all, yes even the music is his own composition!
because of copyright issues?
#Same
The cold open reminds me of Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds (and the Clone Campaigns expansion) which was an underrated remake of AoE II and the Conquerors.
Speaking from the distant 2019, year of Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition, that comparision between Champion and Samurai became even more complicated. Supplies technology makes the sword-line cost be 45 food 20 gold, but the Samurai is now advertise as good vs infantry (my tests go against this claim). Mr Law, it's time for an update for this video! Uhm, can I also suggest a list of the best unique units? You could do 2 or more videos to analise the strength of each unique unit and how they work for their civilizations.
I wouldn't say the comparison was ever complicated, SoL just beats around the bush way too much.
Even before the supplies tech, the samurai costed 50% more gold while being just as strong as a champion against everything except for a very few castle units (most castle units counter infantry harder than the samurai can counter them with some extra damage). It can also only be made in an expensive castle where it competes with the actually good japanese trebuchet creation time.
You pretty much never used samurai over champion unless you were facing goths or went for style points.
*IT'S OVER ANAKYN, I HAVE THE HIGH GROUND!*
Saberlaser Tiger c: you underestimate my champions
In my opinion, I have the lava ground.
Lava ground! Lava ground!
(spilling lava by force)
You know, I'm surprised Spirit has never covered Galactic Battlegrounds, given it is literally AOE2 with a Star Wars skin.
@@bul21301 Don't try it!
1:12
Wolf: sup bro
Samurai: OMAE WA MO SHINDEIRU
Wolf: NANIIIIII
*instadies*
Never clicked a video so fast. Amazing content.
Greetings!
I'm not an active AoE player (never played online, only did half of the campain as a child), but around a year ago I stumbled over your channel. I love your mix of mathematic and spirit to proof everything ingame. Keep up the good work! And now to the fun part... last week I attended a local AoE turnament, and just by watching your videos (especially Top 5 underused units) I was able to carry and crush the enemy bases. Thanks a lot for this epic evening!
"With just 2 castles, you can have over 40 Elite Samurai in just over 2 minutes"
… as a Goths player I laugh at these numbers.
In 5:40 Vikings will be soon an exception, because in patch 4.8 the Chieftans (+4 bonus dmg vs cavalry) will apply to all infantry units, alongside with more HP the Vikings Champions will be better against cavalry, than anybody elses :-).
I think Chieftains is +5 dmg not +4. I totally agree though =) also chieftans will effect their pikes! making them the best castle age anti-cav unit imo.
If only the vikings had a little bit better cavalry, they would be my favourite civ
The intro scene made me think for a second that I was on a Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds video.
you missed the most important point:
samurai are 61,4% cooler in looks and generally about 48% cooler with some favorable rounding
Shouldnt it be 61,8%?
Was about to make a similar comment. Admittedly 2 years after you tbf
Shut up weeb
Re-skin mods
Knights look way fucking cooler you pleb.
another great video, thank you. i dont play anymore because of time constraints from other activities but your videos definitely allow me to vicariously relive the analytic side of the game, not to mention the nostalgia.
I would love to see a video on the Cataphract. How trample works, how much bonus dmg vs inf, and how that weird protection against anti cavalry works.
that intro made my afternoon
Typo at 7:13, it says teutonic knights costed 1700 F and 800 F :P
Ah yes, that should be 800 Gold, shouldn't it :)
Spirit Of The Law
Sounds just like when I try to make some scouts early on to attack. The food cost!
migueeeelet or when you optimistically place a dock then realise you have only 20 wood and 1 chopper :X
pokeybit
Haha, happened to me yesterday when doing a practice match in hamburger against the AI, there were no fishes on the area I docked
Easy mistake to make, considering the F and G key literally sit right next to each other xP
5:00 song name?
Simple Pleasantries - Arthur Benson
i usually get annoyed at peoples analysis on things, because I always have unanswered questions or I find flaw in the math. But you are so thorough! Well Done!
I swear this is one of the best channels on TH-cam. The depth you go into is astounding, and yet near always relevant to the topic, bravo
Wolf: Attacks
Wolf 2 seconds later: *It was at this moment he knew: He messed up*
I wouldn't view it as skewed as you make it sound - when you equalized the resources, you did the total amount of all resources, which doesn't take into consideration the fact that food is less valuable than gold in game. I understand why you did this, as obviously it's hard to be mathematically scientific when you are equalizing resources based on "How much I feel food is valued".
In the end though, 50% more gold is a LOT more gold, and considering gold is limited(In 1v1s) and hard to get, I personally view champions as slightly better than samurai for the price unless the enemy is using unique units or I have lots of extra resources and I'm trying to get better units to fill the population space.
This is obviously just an opinion though!
I feel I addressed that idea the best way I could, and you correctly point out it's near impossible (or at least would make for a very long tangent in the middle of the video) to try to work out a value of gold compared to food for 1v1, team games, and other exceptions. The food:gold value is pretty volatile, and in castle age it tends to go from food being higher in value, and people often buying food to advance and do research, but then flips to being as low as selling 100 food for14 gold in 1v1, or sometimes the reverse can happen in team games with a lot of trade. I think the best I can really do without overreacting is to point out what the differences are between the cost of each unit, and trust you guys to apply that knowledge to whatever situation you find yourselves in :)
@@SpiritOfTheLaw all respect to you, I'm a big fan of your videos, but I think you are putting a bit too much faith into the AoE2 devs when it comes to perfectly balancing the game.
Samurai is a really underpowered unit that doesn't see almost any play in competitive games.
They cost 50% more gold than a champion (which is HUGE) while being almost completely just as strong, they cost a lot more gold to upgrade and they can also only be created in expensive castles where they are competing with the actually strong Japanese trebuchet's creation time. There are very few castle units they can actually counter, since most castle units counter infantry way harder than the samurai can counter them with some extra damage.
Overall, if you want to be efficient you will pretty much never chose samurai over champions against any civ that isn't Goths, and should be noted that champions are already a pretty situational unit because of how much more versatile gold units arbalests and heavy cavalry are.
Gladly, AoE2 is still getting supported by the devs to this day, so flaws like this should get some attention so they can be improved upon.
A unit that is so extremely rarely viable is a badly designed unit. An iconic unit like the samurai should be a bread and butter of the civ, not something you only use every 20th matches. This goes for other castle units too, most of them are underpowered compared to generic gold options like heavy cavalry or arbalest, even on the fields they are supposed to excel at.
Lets just take a moment to appreciate the truly stunning amount of work thats put into these videos
Hey spirit, got crazy difficult task for you. I was wondering today... What exact circumstances have to occur to make the AI to resign?
Good luck. :P
whenever fun is being had laying waste to an AI town they will resign.
^yes, that is so true. Even in the face of your victory they manage to make you feel like you lost. AoE AI is brutal
Varskar I frequently vs 8 on hardest (lousy isp in the middle of nowhere). They resign after a certain percentage of their total pop. is gone, somewhere between 85-95% of the limit, or if their pop. is low and you destroy their economy, via relic raiding or destroying all TCs. I find if I want to be evil and have them hang on the longest, I leave the Monastery, Market and TCs alone once I've decimated half their area. I retreat (to attack their neighbors) then come back after they send their own units after me.
"whenever fun is being had laying waste to an AI town they will resign." One of the things I love about Age of Mythology (imo the best game in the series) is that you can simply refuse to show the AI mercy and continue to crush them after they ask to give up.
"'Odsblood! I accidentally resigned by mistake."
"My townsfolk began too close to mine kingdom's Town Center."
"Far too many birds flew over mine kingdom."
"A mere a single scout was present to serve in the beginning."
"My sheep perished when my folk sought to use it as food."
"Forsooth, I couldst not tame any wolves."
"All my beginning citizenry were male."
"Thy heraldic color was superior to mine own."
"My ignorant folk couldst not replant the berries!"
"Thou art human, with soul and wit. I am naught but clockwork!"
"My throne was most uncomfortable."
"Forsooth, the nearby boars grunted too loudly and frequently."
"'Zounds! I couldst not build a Wonder in the Dark Age!"
"I couldst not comprehend mine folks' speech!"
"My peasants wert puling wretches (a puny 25 hit points)!"
"The shore fish near mine villager appeared all too sleepy."
"A graceless hillock rose too near my Town Center."
"My peasants' huts all faced different directions!"
"The deer fled when mine hunters sought to slay them."
"When I commanded a peasant to hunt fierce boar, it slew him."
"My peasants foolishly walk on foot instead of astride ponies."
"Alas, I could find naught but fools gold."
"No wonder thou wert victorious! I shalt abdicate."
Here are a few ideas on how to compare two units from two civilisation:
a) 1v1 potential: Easiest test to run; not specially informative though.
b) skirmish potential: Some units excel in group because they can all attack the same target simultaneously (ranged)or have less idle time (more speed, less collision with each other) crippling enemy DPS faster. A regular 10v10 would be the proper test here. This would of course depend on the quality of the micro management of each player.
c) Population as the limiting factor: Assume each player has near limitless ressources, and infinite time to get his army ready. His only limit is the population limit. With such large armies, micromanagement becomes impossible, and the better formation (tightness of units) becomes an advantage. This would of course strongly favor the more expensive units.
d) Ressources as the limiting factor: Assume that each player benefits from 200 villager minutes' worth of ressource. Assume that the map carries infinite wood, infinite gold, and infinite berries/fish. You don't need to build the mills, or mines, or wood mills, or town centers, you don't need to buy the economy technologies (all those come for free) or to hire the villagers; all that is included in your 200 villager minutes. You must however pay for each age upgrade, for each unit upgrade, for a castle/barrack/etc., and if you wish, for the forge/university and for the upgrades that you want to buy from the forge/university. Given that budget, which unit/unit combination wins? Suddenly, your knights are way outnumbered by your longsword-guys, which is something to take into account. This could be modified for an "early game viability" by cutting your villager minutes to 50.
e) Gold/scarcity as the limiting factor: Just as above, only you have 300 villager minutes, but all of your food spending must come from farms (you have to take their wood cost into account), and all of your gold spendings past the first 8000 golds must come from the market; meaning you have to pay the cost of building a market and the trading fees. With that limit into account, maybe some un-upgraded units would look significantly better, and of course trash units get a significant numbers bonus.
Note: the advantage of the two above methods is that they allow you to evaluate the value of split type forces. How much do these halberdiers bring to your arbalest, considering that you have to buy two separate forge lines? What about hussars to cavaliers, considering they both benefit from most of the same technologies and buildings, and have one available to counter monks?
f) Mobilisation speed as the limiting factor: Assume that you have 30 barrack/archery-range/etc minutes _or_ 15 castle minutes to research any desired upgrades and train as many units as you can; _and_ 15 forge minutes research upgrades. Resources are assumed to be plentiful.
g) Clock as the limiting factor: How many of the troops can you get standing by 15 minutes, or 30 minutes, assuming you start in the dark ages, play optimally, and don't get interfered with until that time. (Obviously, this is the hardest one to test, as a single test would take probably 30 minutes for each side, whereas the others would just require a spreadsheet that automatically calculates the cost in different ressources of the units, research, and buildings, and then a map editor for a small scale reproduction test).
4:48 I think he is just a peace loving guy trying to run away from conflict.
I don't play AoE" anymore, but I still like watching your videos. There is just something extremely comfortable about them.
I think in DE since upgrade "supplies" was added, champions are better unless you fight unique unit.
Samurai was always underpowered even before the supplies tech made the gap even bigger.
SoL beats around the bush way too much. Samurai costed 50% more gold while being just as strong as a champion against everything except for a very few castle units (most castle units counter infantry harder than the samurai can counter them with some extra damage). It can also only be made in an expensive castle where it competes with the actually good japanese trebuchet creation time.
You pretty much never used samurai over champions unless you were facing goths or went for style points.
I tend to have my melee units in a staggered line and instead of issuing attack moves just move them on top of enemies and then issue a Stop command to make them stop moving and immediately attack anything they are close to. this usually results in a surrounded enemy blob. a problem with this is that your guys are taking a couple melee swings while not returning them as they go in, so a micro adjustment could be to have a small front line group of 10 units in a line formation that get the regular attack move into the enemy.
Imagine a line of teutonic knights as that line component, it might entice an committed attack since they'd be looking a like a juicy target to envelop ^^
or i'm just day dreaming and they'd get shot by onagers and charged by cav like always... but maybe a staggered halvberd line. hah
thanks for another upload! Keep making the great videos!
Full review of the Japanese again, as promised?
Cleared a few misconceptions I had about the Samurai's power. Thanks as always Spirit :)
Today is a good day: SOTL uploaded!
Cool and instructional video! Makes you reflect a little bit more over the unit choices.
I'm SO glad you've finally made this vid! Now I wont have to argue for hours about which is better, I can just send them the link.
Super-useful for me as a brand-new player currently favoring Japan as my civ of choice. I was already favoring Samurai > Champion, now I know it's at least equal in performance sans against Eagles, so it's perfect that I can keep using that plan effectively in most situations.
i like to watch your video because i love your intro
Is this going to a series, if so I think Longbowman vs Arbalest is a good one
Kaotic Phoenix arbalest vs chukonu. longbowmen r just the best imo.
the longbowmen's inaccuracy is their fatal flaw
The lightsaber batte at the beginning was pretty much a total foreshadow for this entire video.
I was inspired by your channel to buy the HD game, and I'm loving it
So for reference, against trash champions are more cost effective, which is a big deal in the late game. I would argue that you should open with samurai, but as the game goes on you'd want to switch into champions, unless you have a very strong trade route. In a typical game, it's easier to get some barracks out and go longswords in castle than it would be for me to go into samurai, so chances are you'd already have at least some of the infantry techs. Something else to consider is that if you are low on gold, as you tend to be in late imp, each individual infantry upgrade costs less to get to champion than the elite samurai tech does, so you don't have to stockpile as much resources to have access to champions, you can spread the upgrades out. Overall the samurai is the stronger unit, but it's not as cost effective unless you're up against unique units, in general.
By the way, I do not like how Spirit takes imperial age units and compares their food and gold costs as roughly equivalent, where 10 gold is equivalent to 10 food. That's simply not the case, the later game the unit, the more important the gold cost of it.
*spams about 10 thousand samurais*
*against turk janissaries*
*Shiroyama plays*
underated comment
Imperial force defied
Facing 500 Samurai...
500*
Oh boy! Great video. Can't wait for the eagles comparison, specially since expansions with the super Inca buff.
Now you need to do Chu Ko Nu vs Arbalest
Handcannoner vs janisssary
He already compared those 2 in the turk civ overview
Cyrus Gideon ik
@@mr.mister2783 Don't forget Plumed Archer vs Longbowman
hahaha that intro was amazing!! Great video Spirit, I never use my samurai, now I think that will change!
In late game though, gold usually isn;t equally valuable to food. Food can be mass-auto-farmed with very modest micromanagement. Gold is either finite or requires trades. Trades that quickly drop to 14% efficiency. Meaning the effort required to get gold with no market trade routes and no gold ore left in the area you control is 7 times that of food.
I'd be interested to see an update vid on this. Both units changed dramatically (buffed a lot).
DAMN I MISSED THOSE VIDEOS!!! Thanks for the upload mate!!!
Glad to see you back man
AW YISS a new video by SOTL! Time to watch it about ten times in a row
Thanks for the information about background music.
Being able to build units from barracks rather than castle means a lot more than simply being able to mass up a large army faster. It also means you can more easily build military buildings right next to your enemy's base. That minute of time a unit spends walking from your base to their's is a minute of time it's not doing damage. In a big battle that's a big deal.
I have been looking for this info. Thnx
Hey SotL, i think a lot of people want to see just your gameplay videos like "The road to 1800". Just start recording some of your games dude :D
One more thing to consider is that Japanese has strong keep (assuming post Forgotten Empire) with Yasama tech and player may want to build a lot of them, which will compete the stone for building castle. Because of this, one should just use Champion unless the opponent is using a lot of Unique units, as Japanese Keep is very strong indeed after the tech.
Hey Spirit, can you do an update now that Champions cost only 45 F / 20 G after Supplies? Thanks
The love you put into this channel is admirable man.
What you think of the open beta 4.8 patch so far?
Awesome video! It would be cool to look at the same thing, but comparing other unique units. Comparing the boyar to the paladin would be a fun one.
Yours is my new favorite channel. Great work!
Nice review thank you !
I still play this but I still watch your videos.
I find the samurai to be more convenient from a timing perspective. Once one hits imperial age, there's one tech and boom, you're done, and you have a great infantry unit in that early imperial phase. Champions are much more delayed because of getting all the upgrades. Alternatively, one could tech the swordsmen line up through the ages, but the resources there are probably much better spent on other things, unless one wants longswordsmen in the castle age or something like that.
Have you ever played Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds? Its basically AoE2 with a star wars skin. Its available on steam and surprisingly a really good game. Would love to see you make a video on it.
If camels are not ships sign me up mate.
Spirit, I love your videos. Can you make an overall comparison of all the diffrent infantry civs (including latest expansions) to finally see who has the best champions/halbediers in the game?
Hey Spirit, just a small question. When are you going to do a civ overview for an African Kingdom civ? They all have very powerfull bonusses and have some pretty interesting unique units and technologies. Keep up the good work, love it all!
In fairness the militia line seem to have such an obvious disadvantage stat-wise, that Japanese players could consider them as an dark/feudal offensive choice. Catch your opponent off-guard with attacking units earlier than they expected and you could claim a few villagers with them, or at least stall their economy by a fair bit.
Like I'm watching a Galactic Battleground standoff
I'VE WANTED TO SEE THIS FOREVER!!!!!!!
We know the answer here.
Space Samurai OP. Protoss. Done.
Great video as per usual, keep it up spirt!
May I suggest a few more videos in a style similar as this?
For instance Shotel Warrior vs Karambit Warrior, two units that seem to serve a somewhat similar purpose, would be great to have an analysis video on their differences and when it'd be best to use one or the other
Love your videos spirit, keep up the good work.
Great video man!!
a similar video with elite mameluke vs elite mangudai would be great too...
OMFG NEW INTRO!!!!!! COOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
SOTL vids are really interesting, in that pros often seem to have contradictory opinions on them
Thank you for tis video!
Great video, Mr. Spirit!
Great intro with the lightsaber battle
I usually mass Samurai only when doing some heavy invade, I leave my halbs to protect trebs and send the cavalry/champions to do their job, while controlling cavalry archers and samurai for more dangerous situations that approach.
You have to take into consideration how fast you can upgrade to Samurai. One of the best unique units in the game if you feel comfortable pushing
Just wanna say, i love your intro video. i usually skip intro videos but not yours
awesome work champ
i wish the samurai had a ranged attack, apparently they were supposed to get one (along with their melee attack) but they scrapped it in alpha for some reason
it'd be cool if their elite upgrade gave them an arquebus
if only i had these vids in my childhood.
Wow, almost 30k views in less than 24 hours. You've worked hard to get to this point.
4:47 looks like this was done frame by frame. I wonder how long it took to get that to look smooth?
It was done with 10 or 15 keyframes. You basically set specific frames and tell it where to be and it moves the picture at the appropriate speed to hit those points, so you don't have to set every frame individually.
Ah yes, it's called a motion tween iirc. For some reason it impressed me xD. I remember things like that usually looking fidgety.
Lightning Lance is your profile pic from a game might and magic the mandate of heaven?
Joonas Hongisto You got it! :D Favorite game
Love the background music! :)
The samurai is a great wild card against units many civs otherwise really have problems with, like the Hurskarl. They are not the best castle unit, but it is great to have them as an option.
A remake like Cossacks would be great!
Do you think you would ever do Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds in depth videos? It's made by the same company, although it's not in HD in a new release, but it's still a solid game.
Entertaining video but when is the Japanese civ overview coming out?
Thats his first video, but what youre asking is for a new polished one, right? If not, then now you know; if yes, ill wait for that too
Hahah, i mean the new one
Good job on the editing!
7:17 I love how teutons only cost food
I like your voice as a commentary/podcast style for background company when I play RTS games, but I'm really into TW:Shogun 2 since AOE2 gets really slow in a big game. Would you ever consider extending your channel to TW:Shogun as well?
Hey Spirit Of The Law, if you need an idea for another video, how about a tutorial on how to use the scenario editor for special things like custom units and working with triggers / cinematics?
Would be awesome for people who want to create custom maps but dont know how to.
Thanks! :)
hey spirit; could you revisit this with other infantry civs champions? I would be curious how samurai stack up to Goth flood and Viking HP boost.
great videos!