I like it too, but I think it would work better with one video per civilization, rather than 2-3 crammed in. I know I would rather watch shorter and more focused videos more often than one longer video with less focus less frequently.
0:09 What I liked about the original game is that the dead units left a skeleton, I remember that when a villager died you hid the misfortune with a fence.
I remember building a monument to more than one ancient battlefield of corpses, usually with a temple and a castle to these areas, complete with housing and a combat building for whichever combat unit of mine spread the destruction next to these sites sights. That and being really particular about where I allowed myself to engage AI units, always fighting for the uphill advantage.
@@SIGNOR-G well, DE uses 3D models where as the OG engine used isometric graphics so it could run into more memory issues. I only play on voobly so i would have missed the dev explanation of that, but that is such a shame.
3:22 I just realized, that the Teutons Crenellations-Tech, was intended as a balanced version of their previous bonus. You can still make defensive structures, that outrange those of your opponents, but only in late-game, where counters exist, and only with expensive castles.
The TC range bonus could have also been age gated. (And reduced because you know +5 range is actually insane on ANY unit) (Like +1 Castle, +2 Imperial like Britons archers or +1, +2, +3 starting Fedual)
I’d say TC range affected by blacksmith upgrades would be cool since Teutons don’t get bracer plus fletching and bodkin aren’t usually go-to techs for them anyways, so they’d have to deviate from other useful upgrades to make it happen. It’d be more about stopping mangonel pushes than sniping enemy TC’s.
@@dazenith4517 Only problem is that even a +1 advantage on the town centers in Feudal Age would allow the Teuton TC to shoot another TC to death without practical counter. Also, there would have had to be a minimum of +3 for the original intent to allow an extra layer of farms to be covered by the TC. A +1 would thus not only not really help protect anything around the TC not already protected, but would still make it a functional Deathstar. Really, I am not seeing any way to balance the TC range without siege being available in Feudal Age, and even then, the enemy could drop a Deathstar faster than anyone was likely to build a siege engineer in the Feudal Age.
@@genericpersonx333 +1 range would likely not do that. Or more specifically would be far far FAR more difficult to pull off against any player paying attention. Since you would literally have to start building right in the opponents face. Mind you. You would also need to age up FIRST. Then delete your TC and then build a new one. By the time you get your villagers over to the enemies TC they should likely already have significant military. Enough to kill most of your vills attempting to build the TC.
@@dazenith4517 Difficult or not, once that TC is down with 15 villagers inside it, it would be unlikely that most Feudal-age players would be able to successfully destroy it. Whatever the case, it would be bad mojo in my opinion.
Excellent series! It brings me back to 1999, sitting in my friends basement with 5 computers all networked as we played this for hours and hours! Sometimes my brain still defaults back to the AoK and AoC bonuses 20 years later.
I haven't played AOE2 in almost 15 years. But I'm hooked on this new series because of: your great voice, the detailed information, the changes in numbers and the evolution of the meta.
Amazing retrospective. I didn't play AoE from 2005 to 2020, so I was actually shocked when I heard of Japanese referred to as mainly an archer civilization. This puts that transition into perspective.
I think a good pairing for another of these is Byzantines and Chinese. Both of these are civilizations that haven't changed all that much over the course of their existence. Their bonuses have more often been tweaked than outright replaced. The major exception is Chinese getting the LoS bonus for Town Centers (as mentioned here). They are also often brought up when historical inaccuracies are discussed. The fact that Chinese as the inventors of Gunpowder don't have much of it in the game, and the Byzantines _having_ all the gunpowder options and speaking Latin rather than Greek.
i could see chinese also being divided up into more civs at some point, with one getting firesticks/some gunpowder focus whilst the other keeps chu ko nu.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 That’s a lot harder to justify because that's functionally a separation in time, between different eras of Chinese history, rather than between culture/people groups, which has been the operating principle for AoEII, both with what happened to Indians and also with the introduction of multiple individual Slavic civilizations to the game as well (Poland, Bulgaria etc.) all the while "Slavs" still stands by itself in an awkward coexistence with the aforementioned civs. It's a problem somewhat unique (though not entirely) to such long-lived civs as the Chinese and Byzantines. Imagine if you gave the Byzantine Empire two or more civs, one for the early period when it was still a superpower stretching across continents, and another for the high medieval polity centered around modern greece and turkey. You could absolutely make those two civs distinct from each other, but that's going along a different axis of separation than the one AoEII uses between civs.
@@Alias_Anybody Not necessarily. If you are referring to the bit about the Byzantines speaking Latin. That was still the language of government and administration in the Eastern Roman Empire up until the 7th century. The Romans used both Greek and Latin a lot throughout their entire history. As early an Emperor as Claudius complimented a foreign diplomat because he was fluent in "both our languages", referring to Latin and Greek.
I'm glad to see that Teutons have had a remarkable comeback. If you ever want to have a power trip with them however, may I highly recommend getting the original Age of Kings and just dominating in the Barbarossa campaign using nothing but vils and TCs. It's really fun just decimating civilizations with nothing but the Teuton Death Star!!!
Is there a way to get the original AoK now though? I've been searching for it for a long time now, and, the closest I've found is AoC. I've been wanting to re-experience that +5 Teuton TC range in the Barbarossa campaign for years now. xD Do you know where I can get the original AoK, assuming it can still be played on current Windows systems?
@AlHasan Sameh I posted a reply to your comment, but, idk, I don't see the comment now. So, gonna write it again, just in case. Thank your very much, kind stranger. I appreciate it very much. :) Don't go out of your way to help me/us. But, if you still want to try and share a link, it would be really awesome. Thank you. :) Also, it's awesome to hear that people are still playing on voobly. So many memories. :)
@@michaelandreipalon359 There’s plenty of censorship around here, but one thing YT will do consistently is auto-delete any comments with external links. You can only comment links to other YT videos.
Its pretty likely. One thing I've noticed about game developers (from listening to so much commentary from them) is that even when they cut an idea from a game they tend to keep it in their minds just in case they decide to try implementing the idea in the future.
Check out Sandy Petersens interviews on his TH-cam channel. The current AOE II devs have taken a lot of cues from him and his old ideas. Guess they failed to read this interview however about attack type switching being a bad idea, which I fully agree with. The Ratha is annoying to use and annoying to play against, strongish sure, but not fun on either end.
I think a compromise that wouldn't be a complete overhaul of the samurai is if they could shoot arrows from buildings, like Teuton infantry after crenellations. Might be too much on top of Yasama, though.
I loved the Teutons in AoK and Conquerors when I started playing the game because of the Teutonic Knights. Because let's face it they were - and still kind of are - incredibly powerful and they look incredibly cool. PS: These videos remind me of how bad the graphics used to be in comparison to the definitive edition.
The problem with tk was never that they weren't, as you put it, incredibly powerful. Of course they always were. The problem is and always was that if you concentrate that many resources on a single unit, you better get some use out of it... and the only use of a tk is to punch anything that voluntarily walks up to it very hard, which is a rather restrictive niche.
@@naphackDT Not helped that Aoe2 Meta aggressively favours cavalry, archers, cavalry archers. Combine that with every new civ having some variation of armor ignoring and the TK looks really weak. There really is no justification for why they should be one of the only UU with an active debuff (slow as shit)
Teutonic Knights actually look better in old graphics. New cape reflections and new teamcolors in general and incompetently textured and animated, they look flat instead of shiny.
Really interesting to hear that Samurai used to be able to switch between range and melee. It would be cool to see that added in the future in my opinion, especially now that the ratha has it too, but maybe that would make them too OP
@@Ashman792 Unlikely. The community tends to react quite negatively to major changes to classic civilizations. Changing the Samurai at this point would be highly controversial.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn On this specific topic I kinda disagree. This ability originally being intended for the Samurai has been such a well-known bit of trivia for such a long time that I think it would actually be received positively if implemented. It would also boost their anti-UU identity even further by buffing their strength against cavalry UU's in a roundabout way.
@@Copperhell144 Just said this under a different comment, but I think a slight change that would be nice is if samurai could shoot arrows from buildings, like Teuton infantry after crenellations. It's not much, but it'd be one more small benefit from actually using infantry as Japanese.
Fact about the Teutons, in Age of Kings they were one of only 2 civs to be given the title of "Defensive Civilisation", sharing it with the Byzantines. Everyone else was an "Offensive Civilization".
Imagine a hybrid between those two civs. Hell if you could replace the Knight line with the cataphract and the have the Teutonic Knight as a complementary unit to the militia line, you'd have a civ so dominant in melee battles that the only option would be ranged attacks.
@@Reaper_03-01 The Teutons already are that though. All of their melee units have so much extra melee armor that unless you have bonus damage, ranged is the only way to cost effectively take the fights.
The samurai is still one of my most favorite UUs in the game given its justified cost and damage with atk speed. I really look forward to the rest of the 8 original civs and how they've changed....specially the Goths. Aside from that.... New civ overviews when?
@@harishsubramanian1241 You're right... These civs each need to be tried and tested by all in the community and Spirit himself thoroughly before he can voice opinions.
You won't get civ overviews for the new civs for a while. He tends to wait until the civ has been patched and rebalanced enough to have settled down before making civ overviews for them. That could mean the overview comes months after they were released.
Looking forward to it. I really like that you switch up your content form time to time but always have that high quality standards with nice humor. Also videos like Age of Empire olympics catch me by surprise but are really great. You´re channel is the reason i play the game from time to time.
They look much more flashy, yes. I also like the graphics of DE. But I also really adore the somewhat stale old graphic specifically of the Teutonic Knight. It looks a bit like a man in a suit walking around and doing badss stuff such as more or less replacing every other sieg unit because the knight itself can and will bring buildings down reliably fast compared to most siege. Or killing Paladins 1v1 and even withstanding Jaquars and most archers for a remarkable length.
Historically, the earliest Samurai were archers who usually fought on foot or on horseback. They utilized longbows called the Yumi but was still proficient with swords just as well. The use of swords was done in close combat and mainly for finishing off their wounded opponents. After the invasion of the Mongols in 1272 and 1281, the Samurai began improving their long curved Tachi swords. Naginata, Yari and spears were also used but was further adopted in the 14th Century. The Samurai used to wear two swords at early time, the Tachi and the Tanto. However, at the end of the 14th Century, the Katana was introduced and the concept of wearing two swords known as Daisho has changed to the Katana and Wakizashi. Those were eventually banned from use in the late 16th century. So yeah, Samurai should have both archer and infantry modes and can switch between freely. Or make them like Konnik, first a cavarly archer similar with Mangudai, after first HP bar depleted, their horse die and then they switch to Katana/Tachi , both modes should have slightly lower bonus against UU since now they have extra HP and range. Of course their price with gone significantly higher , since they are ruling military-class in feudal Japan and more powerful , game balance wise.
They were originally supposed to have both modes, but they were unable to make it work at the time. Of course, now we have such units...but it's probably not easy to change the Samurai now.
I could only imagine the upgrade dependency now. Cav Archer -> Infantry kinda like the Konnik you say? Blacksmith: Archer armour, infantry armour, archer attack, infantry attack. Barracks: Squires, Arson Archery Range: Thumb Ring, Parthian Tactics Stable: Bloodlines, Husbandry University: Ballistics, Chemistry Castle: Elite Upgrade 21 upgrades. I think this makes them equal to the other unit with the highest number of upgrades unless I am missing or forgetting something.
@@dazenith4517 its probaly more, the other 2 competitors were the konnik which didnt need chemistry, archer armor and atack and the new chariot thing that only needs 1 armor (archer i think)
A nice thing would be for the regular samurai to have a bow and sword, and the elite samurai to have switch the bow for an arquebus, since they were in wide usage by the time of the Toyotomi invasion of Korea.
The Japanese got the short end of the stick. The Samurai lost the ranged mode because it was supposedly hard to micro, but now they introduced the Ratha which precisely has that feature. Not a nice thing. (Also, I forgot that Centurions had such ridiculous 30 Attack)
I guess then if the devs add a ranged mode to the samurai..... Even assuming the target has more PA than the samurai's pierce atk, that overwhelming fast rate of fire combined with damage to UUs will make any army look like a joke in front of it. On top of it, it costs only 90 resources. People tend to love simple things the most. That's why there is much love for the samurai and the original AoE2 unique units.... And not much for new ones... Heck some people even hate the Urumi because of a new gimmick.
It's interesting to consider. I'm just going to assume "balanced" stats for a hypothetical Japanese unique infantry unit with the ability to switch between melee and ranged. There should be some trade-offs so that each mode has situations in which it shines. There are two ways I could envision it being added to the game. A) The devs could add an option to switch modes to the existing samurai unit. There would probably be knock-on effects from balance decisions being made based on samurai being able to switch, but players could still choose to abstain from using such an ability if they really want to play with samurai the way they've worked since AoK. B) The devs could give the Japanese a second unique unit with the ability to switch between melee and ranged. Other civs have multiple unique units, so this isn't outrageous. The problem is establishing an identity for its melee mode. And making the unit itself on par with the samurai in terms of coolness. Maybe there are more ways for the devs to give the Japanese such a unit, but I can't think of any at the moment. The ratha has proven that the concept is viable, at least from a technical standpoint. It would be nice to see a prototype of the version of the samurai as it was originally envisioned, especially if the community could voice their opinions on it.
Teuton Death Star lol, didn't know they were that OP. The early days TC drop is scary It's really cool to see the old concept of Samurai able to change melee into ranged able to be implemented now. But under different name. Reminds me of Total War Shogun 2's units
Oh I wasn't born when aok came out but my father has a lot of memories from those days he didn't face as many teutonic death stars but the few times he did he absolutely hated it back in those days it was all Franks and Mongols
I love this series. Used to play LAN parties in AoK with my friends back in the day, so it's interesting to hear all the changes that have happened over 23 years
By popular belief, samurais are pictured as infantry units with katanas and all that heroic, bushido stuff, so it makes sense devs making the japanese UU like this. But is important to remember, though, that is more historically accurate to depict the samurai as cavalry archers, with a fight style kind of similar to the mongols. So it kind of pleases me that japanese have fully upgradeable cav archers, being one of the few civs who does, but I would like to see them with some kind of specific bonus for them, even at the expense of taking something else, like water bonuses. The prospect of a complete redesign of the samurai to be like the new UU and choose between archer mode and swordman mode... sound kind of amazing tbh.
Maybe make a mount/dismount mechanic for Samurai, where when mounted they act as a slightly worse Cav archer but with bonus vs Cavalry. And when dismounted they would be the infantry Samurai we have now, with bonus vs UU's.
This is so crazy. I used to watch you yeeeeaaaarrrs ago. I even remember watching your video on the Japanese! But then I went through college and life changed. However the TH-cam algorithm brought me back to you!
You know what's mildly funny? Attack mode switching became a staple in AoE3 (Musketeer and Dragoon type units) but poor Samurai still only got their melee attack. (for the record, mounted and ranged warriors are represented by other units - the Naginata Rider and Yabusame arguably represent the "real" early modern Samurai better.
Love this evolution videos as a concept!! It's a form of documentary for the game's history. And the game dev hating my two favorite civs from the original ones is hilarious, I guess we have opposing playstyles ^^ Would love someone did interviews with Pro players to see how the meta has evolved for each civ too!
Thanks for covering the Teutons. I don't know if you read my comment on the first video or not but it makes it feel like you responded to viewer feedback.
...I can't believe it took until the second video for this to click. Sandy Petersen? THE Sandy Petersen? One of the people who worked on classic levels for two of the most influential first-person shooters ever made was also heavily involved with AOE2? I did NOT realize that!
i think the way they did the teuton buffs was exactly the right one. slow buffs one after the other to see how much they impact the civ. and keeping the boni in line with the original idea of the civ. thats how buffing should be done in games in general
Weird that Teutons lost the "Defensive" classification in the civ description, as I think of them as being just as tanky as the now only "Defensive" civ, the Byzantines.
@@798jeremy Yeah they are, but my point was about the "Defensive" classification being removed from Teutons for no apparent reason, whereas Koreans never had it to begin with (even though you could say they should).
Civ descriptions are a curious beast as the Britons are classified as a “Foot archer civilization” which is fair enough except that the Mayans-who don’t actually have a single mounted unit-are just classified as an “Archer civilization.”
@@jefffinkbonner9551 The thing is, In AoK there have been only two classifications: Defensive and Offensive. The specifics of 'foot archer civilization' were added with Conqs. And if I remember correctly, especially the Teutons and the Byzantines were two of the very very small group that kept their 'old' civ classification until Forgotten. Teutons lost it while are still described as slow and especially tanky. The Byzantines still have the old classification from over 20 years ago, but the only real defensive thing that they have going is a full tree for upgrading building HP and getting LOS for free. Looking at their techtree, they are actually quiet manouverable and especially the Cataphract is a great offensive cav... on top of that, Byzantines get discounts on every counter trash. Meaning they can just mix in a healthy amount of trash in every composition to throw off the enemies planned army.
Thanks for this series, I’m looking forward to it. If I were to make suggestions, I say that we desperately need some civ overviews to be updated, most notably Slavs. Also I think putting all the videos with the patch updates on its own playlist would be useful for visibility purposes.
Of Course Sandy Petersen doesn't like the defensive civs, having come from games like Doom or Quake he would be more biased to a more aggressive style of play.
Great video! I have an idea for a new type of series as well, where you talk about players who defined certain off-meta plays. For example tower rushes by the fat dragon or who first came up with the idea of a MAA rush. I think that would be very interesting to know
Now that the technology is there for melee/ranged-switching units, it'd be super cool to see the samurai get a full overhaul to fit the original vision. It'd make them more historically accurate, and a more interesting unit
Another aspect of the Teuton Death Stars, is that in Age of Kings Town Centers were affected by the +1 range from Fletching, Bodkin and Bracer, so those town centers were way too offensive.
Teutons have problems in high level tournaments bc unit speed gets more important and the dominance of micro intensive units like Cavalry Archers goes up the higher the level of Competition is. At the same time Teutons is mega opressive against a great number of Civs on any remotely closed and boom oriented settings.
Example: Socotra. Go watch Masters of Socotra and Teuton tower rushes are some of the best around there, with a good eco from cheap farms as a easy transition into booming
True but watch Survivalist he used TK + Siege tower to beat a Korean opponent going for War Wagons. I think the Siege tower is criminally under utilized as it synergizes well with slow moving infantry.
Man that would be sweet if they actually went through with that today and changed the Samurai as a mixed attacking melee and range option. Like the new UU in the expansion A lot of UUs have a cavalry version of a foot unit. IE kipchaks and chu cu nu/ Teutonic kt and boyar I think that would really help push the Japanese to being more competitive without having to buff the rest of the civ Make it like a more expensive champion but can transition to a weaker version of an arb in overall damage. Keep the bonus to UUs but maybe make is less of a bonus while in ranged mode vs melee Or perhaps a cool concept would be the elite version of the samurai would acquire the ability to perform range attacks vs the standard. Talk about a story behind the unit
Huh, the only thing I see about tuetons these days are that they need a buff to the foot knight or people calling for them to get the crusader knight as an additional UU/ alt paladin
I gravitated towards Teutons as a kid because of the fairly open tech tree, long range castles, cheap farms and paladins so naturally I'm now even more stoked for cheaper farms and stronger paladins
Now that they implemented the Ratha's ability to swap between melee and ranged, I wonder if they will ever give that ability to the samurai. If so, I wonder how that would change them balance-wise?
H Y P E
Actually love this series, really interesting to see the games history
It is so nostalgic
I like it too, but I think it would work better with one video per civilization, rather than 2-3 crammed in. I know I would rather watch shorter and more focused videos more often than one longer video with less focus less frequently.
0:09 What I liked about the original game is that the dead units left a skeleton, I remember that when a villager died you hid the misfortune with a fence.
I remember building a monument to more than one ancient battlefield of corpses, usually with a temple and a castle to these areas, complete with housing and a combat building for whichever combat unit of mine spread the destruction next to these sites sights.
That and being really particular about where I allowed myself to engage AI units, always fighting for the uphill advantage.
I wonder if they removed corpses cause of frame rate or censorship...
@@SIGNOR-G aoe 2 HD addition still has this i think?
@@testaccount4191 i mean in the DE.
@@SIGNOR-G well, DE uses 3D models where as the OG engine used isometric graphics so it could run into more memory issues. I only play on voobly so i would have missed the dev explanation of that, but that is such a shame.
3:22 I just realized, that the Teutons Crenellations-Tech, was intended as a balanced version of their previous bonus.
You can still make defensive structures, that outrange those of your opponents, but only in late-game, where counters exist, and only with expensive castles.
The TC range bonus could have also been age gated. (And reduced because you know +5 range is actually insane on ANY unit) (Like +1 Castle, +2 Imperial like Britons archers or +1, +2, +3 starting Fedual)
I’d say TC range affected by blacksmith upgrades would be cool since Teutons don’t get bracer plus fletching and bodkin aren’t usually go-to techs for them anyways, so they’d have to deviate from other useful upgrades to make it happen. It’d be more about stopping mangonel pushes than sniping enemy TC’s.
@@dazenith4517 Only problem is that even a +1 advantage on the town centers in Feudal Age would allow the Teuton TC to shoot another TC to death without practical counter. Also, there would have had to be a minimum of +3 for the original intent to allow an extra layer of farms to be covered by the TC. A +1 would thus not only not really help protect anything around the TC not already protected, but would still make it a functional Deathstar. Really, I am not seeing any way to balance the TC range without siege being available in Feudal Age, and even then, the enemy could drop a Deathstar faster than anyone was likely to build a siege engineer in the Feudal Age.
@@genericpersonx333 +1 range would likely not do that. Or more specifically would be far far FAR more difficult to pull off against any player paying attention. Since you would literally have to start building right in the opponents face. Mind you. You would also need to age up FIRST. Then delete your TC and then build a new one.
By the time you get your villagers over to the enemies TC they should likely already have significant military. Enough to kill most of your vills attempting to build the TC.
@@dazenith4517 Difficult or not, once that TC is down with 15 villagers inside it, it would be unlikely that most Feudal-age players would be able to successfully destroy it. Whatever the case, it would be bad mojo in my opinion.
i think it's the right time to revisit "all techs" video.
Cheap Gurjaran Chakrams with blast furnace and squires could be really solid
@@furkansaryerli imperial camels with EXTRA ARMOR
@@SIGNOR-G Bonuses disappear on all techs though so you get the final blacksmith armor but not the +1/+1 bonus
@@SIGNOR-G Also wait didn't they removed that from the Indians/Hindustanis?
@@furkansaryerli i was thinking about the tech with extra armor
Idk how they changed since 1999, teutonic knights always looked cool, they were my fav as a child and they still are!
Me too
Fr🤌😁😁
The conquistadores in DErp look like hunchback freaks, and I'm sure they kept taking power from the Spanish.
Excellent series! It brings me back to 1999, sitting in my friends basement with 5 computers all networked as we played this for hours and hours! Sometimes my brain still defaults back to the AoK and AoC bonuses 20 years later.
I haven't played AOE2 in almost 15 years. But I'm hooked on this new series because of: your great voice, the detailed information, the changes in numbers and the evolution of the meta.
Amazing retrospective. I didn't play AoE from 2005 to 2020, so I was actually shocked when I heard of Japanese referred to as mainly an archer civilization. This puts that transition into perspective.
I think a good pairing for another of these is Byzantines and Chinese. Both of these are civilizations that haven't changed all that much over the course of their existence. Their bonuses have more often been tweaked than outright replaced. The major exception is Chinese getting the LoS bonus for Town Centers (as mentioned here).
They are also often brought up when historical inaccuracies are discussed. The fact that Chinese as the inventors of Gunpowder don't have much of it in the game, and the Byzantines _having_ all the gunpowder options and speaking Latin rather than Greek.
Don't forget Chinese not getting block printing tech lol.
i could see chinese also being divided up into more civs at some point, with one getting firesticks/some gunpowder focus whilst the other keeps chu ko nu.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 That’s a lot harder to justify because that's functionally a separation in time, between different eras of Chinese history, rather than between culture/people groups, which has been the operating principle for AoEII, both with what happened to Indians and also with the introduction of multiple individual Slavic civilizations to the game as well (Poland, Bulgaria etc.) all the while "Slavs" still stands by itself in an awkward coexistence with the aforementioned civs.
It's a problem somewhat unique (though not entirely) to such long-lived civs as the Chinese and Byzantines. Imagine if you gave the Byzantine Empire two or more civs, one for the early period when it was still a superpower stretching across continents, and another for the high medieval polity centered around modern greece and turkey. You could absolutely make those two civs distinct from each other, but that's going along a different axis of separation than the one AoEII uses between civs.
Byzantines had to represent late Western Rome in the campaign, that's where that's coming from.
@@Alias_Anybody Not necessarily. If you are referring to the bit about the Byzantines speaking Latin. That was still the language of government and administration in the Eastern Roman Empire up until the 7th century.
The Romans used both Greek and Latin a lot throughout their entire history. As early an Emperor as Claudius complimented a foreign diplomat because he was fluent in "both our languages", referring to Latin and Greek.
This series is really fascinating - thanks for making it!
I'm glad to see that Teutons have had a remarkable comeback. If you ever want to have a power trip with them however, may I highly recommend getting the original Age of Kings and just dominating in the Barbarossa campaign using nothing but vils and TCs. It's really fun just decimating civilizations with nothing but the Teuton Death Star!!!
There was a reason why the hardest mission was the fifth one, when you don't have a town center 🤣
Is there a way to get the original AoK now though?
I've been searching for it for a long time now, and, the closest I've found is AoC. I've been wanting to re-experience that +5 Teuton TC range in the Barbarossa campaign for years now. xD
Do you know where I can get the original AoK, assuming it can still be played on current Windows systems?
@AlHasan Sameh I posted a reply to your comment, but, idk, I don't see the comment now. So, gonna write it again, just in case.
Thank your very much, kind stranger. I appreciate it very much. :)
Don't go out of your way to help me/us. But, if you still want to try and share a link, it would be really awesome. Thank you. :)
Also, it's awesome to hear that people are still playing on voobly. So many memories. :)
Yeah, noticed that some comments actually go missing all of a sudden. I fear it's unjustified censorship.
@@michaelandreipalon359 There’s plenty of censorship around here, but one thing YT will do consistently is auto-delete any comments with external links. You can only comment links to other YT videos.
I wonder if the Ratha was directly inspired by the original melee/ranged concept for the Samurai
Its pretty likely. One thing I've noticed about game developers (from listening to so much commentary from them) is that even when they cut an idea from a game they tend to keep it in their minds just in case they decide to try implementing the idea in the future.
Check out Sandy Petersens interviews on his TH-cam channel. The current AOE II devs have taken a lot of cues from him and his old ideas. Guess they failed to read this interview however about attack type switching being a bad idea, which I fully agree with. The Ratha is annoying to use and annoying to play against, strongish sure, but not fun on either end.
@@dougler500 "The Ratha is annoying to use and annoying to play against" - that's just like, your opinion, man!
@@dougler500 they get more gimmicky with each expansion
I think a compromise that wouldn't be a complete overhaul of the samurai is if they could shoot arrows from buildings, like Teuton infantry after crenellations. Might be too much on top of Yasama, though.
I loved the Teutons in AoK and Conquerors when I started playing the game because of the Teutonic Knights. Because let's face it they were - and still kind of are - incredibly powerful and they look incredibly cool.
PS: These videos remind me of how bad the graphics used to be in comparison to the definitive edition.
back then they were actually relevant and useful.
The problem with tk was never that they weren't, as you put it, incredibly powerful. Of course they always were. The problem is and always was that if you concentrate that many resources on a single unit, you better get some use out of it... and the only use of a tk is to punch anything that voluntarily walks up to it very hard, which is a rather restrictive niche.
@@naphackDT
Not helped that Aoe2 Meta aggressively favours cavalry, archers, cavalry archers. Combine that with every new civ having some variation of armor ignoring and the TK looks really weak.
There really is no justification for why they should be one of the only UU with an active debuff (slow as shit)
Teutonic Knights actually look better in old graphics. New cape reflections and new teamcolors in general and incompetently textured and animated, they look flat instead of shiny.
I really enjoy this new series. And agree with your decision making about doing one every so often.
I was hoping you would follow up on this series, glad to see this!
As someone who has been playing these games since the very beginning I love seeing this history and arcs of civs. Keep these vids coming please!
This is definitely a really cool idea for a series! I'm looking forward to your Turks coverage. Should be interesting to see that one unfold!
Amazing video, this has quickly become one of my favourite series on the channel!
Really interesting to hear that Samurai used to be able to switch between range and melee. It would be cool to see that added in the future in my opinion, especially now that the ratha has it too, but maybe that would make them too OP
Maybe this video will encourage that change in a future update
@@Ashman792 Unlikely. The community tends to react quite negatively to major changes to classic civilizations. Changing the Samurai at this point would be highly controversial.
Just play Age of Empires 3.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn On this specific topic I kinda disagree. This ability originally being intended for the Samurai has been such a well-known bit of trivia for such a long time that I think it would actually be received positively if implemented. It would also boost their anti-UU identity even further by buffing their strength against cavalry UU's in a roundabout way.
@@Copperhell144 Just said this under a different comment, but I think a slight change that would be nice is if samurai could shoot arrows from buildings, like Teuton infantry after crenellations. It's not much, but it'd be one more small benefit from actually using infantry as Japanese.
Fact about the Teutons, in Age of Kings they were one of only 2 civs to be given the title of "Defensive Civilisation", sharing it with the Byzantines. Everyone else was an "Offensive Civilization".
Imagine a hybrid between those two civs. Hell if you could replace the Knight line with the cataphract and the have the Teutonic Knight as a complementary unit to the militia line, you'd have a civ so dominant in melee battles that the only option would be ranged attacks.
@@Reaper_03-01 The Teutons already are that though. All of their melee units have so much extra melee armor that unless you have bonus damage, ranged is the only way to cost effectively take the fights.
The samurai is still one of my most favorite UUs in the game given its justified cost and damage with atk speed. I really look forward to the rest of the 8 original civs and how they've changed....specially the Goths.
Aside from that.... New civ overviews when?
Give him time for the new civs. He's not the kind of creator from whom you'd want half baked analysis.
@@harishsubramanian1241 You're right... These civs each need to be tried and tested by all in the community and Spirit himself thoroughly before he can voice opinions.
You won't get civ overviews for the new civs for a while. He tends to wait until the civ has been patched and rebalanced enough to have settled down before making civ overviews for them. That could mean the overview comes months after they were released.
There were actually 13 original civs
@@jefffinkbonner9551 He already did a video looking at three of them, so 8 more
Looking forward to it. I really like that you switch up your content form time to time but always have that high quality standards with nice humor.
Also videos like Age of Empire olympics catch me by surprise but are really great.
You´re channel is the reason i play the game from time to time.
Awesome to see this series continue with two of my favorite civs!
Seeing the Teutonic Knight in DE is what first got me on board with moving to DE. The graphics are so much better
What civ do u main
They look much more flashy, yes. I also like the graphics of DE. But I also really adore the somewhat stale old graphic specifically of the Teutonic Knight. It looks a bit like a man in a suit walking around and doing badss stuff such as more or less replacing every other sieg unit because the knight itself can and will bring buildings down reliably fast compared to most siege. Or killing Paladins 1v1 and even withstanding Jaquars and most archers for a remarkable length.
I don't really like the DE units stiff fondant capes tho
@@dirkauditore8413 Bohemians, Spanish, Mongols would probably be my main three
@@Randleray they still do that though, do they not?
Historically, the earliest Samurai were archers who usually fought on foot or on horseback. They utilized longbows called the Yumi but was still proficient with swords just as well. The use of swords was done in close combat and mainly for finishing off their wounded opponents.
After the invasion of the Mongols in 1272 and 1281, the Samurai began improving their long curved Tachi swords. Naginata, Yari and spears were also used but was further adopted in the 14th Century. The Samurai used to wear two swords at early time, the Tachi and the Tanto.
However, at the end of the 14th Century, the Katana was introduced and the concept of wearing two swords known as Daisho has changed to the Katana and Wakizashi. Those were eventually banned from use in the late 16th century.
So yeah, Samurai should have both archer and infantry modes and can switch between freely. Or make them like Konnik, first a cavarly archer similar with Mangudai, after first HP bar depleted, their horse die and then they switch to Katana/Tachi , both modes should have slightly lower bonus against UU since now they have extra HP and range. Of course their price with gone significantly higher , since they are ruling military-class in feudal Japan and more powerful , game balance wise.
They were originally supposed to have both modes, but they were unable to make it work at the time. Of course, now we have such units...but it's probably not easy to change the Samurai now.
I could only imagine the upgrade dependency now.
Cav Archer -> Infantry kinda like the Konnik you say?
Blacksmith: Archer armour, infantry armour, archer attack, infantry attack.
Barracks: Squires, Arson
Archery Range: Thumb Ring, Parthian Tactics
Stable: Bloodlines, Husbandry
University: Ballistics, Chemistry
Castle: Elite Upgrade
21 upgrades.
I think this makes them equal to the other unit with the highest number of upgrades unless I am missing or forgetting something.
@@dazenith4517 its probaly more, the other 2 competitors were the konnik which didnt need chemistry, archer armor and atack and the new chariot thing that only needs 1 armor (archer i think)
@@davidpereira5969 Possibly yeah. Though I can't remember the upgrade tallies for either of them or any other high upgrade count units.
A nice thing would be for the regular samurai to have a bow and sword, and the elite samurai to have switch the bow for an arquebus, since they were in wide usage by the time of the Toyotomi invasion of Korea.
wow the teuton tc range is wild. crazy that was in the game for so long, today a bonus like that would probably kill the entire game within a month
I guess players were more patient back then
The Japanese got the short end of the stick. The Samurai lost the ranged mode because it was supposedly hard to micro, but now they introduced the Ratha which precisely has that feature. Not a nice thing.
(Also, I forgot that Centurions had such ridiculous 30 Attack)
AOE 1 had a much smaller population cap, and resources were more limited, so the units had to count, which explains why most of them had huge stats.
I guess then if the devs add a ranged mode to the samurai..... Even assuming the target has more PA than the samurai's pierce atk, that overwhelming fast rate of fire combined with damage to UUs will make any army look like a joke in front of it. On top of it, it costs only 90 resources.
People tend to love simple things the most. That's why there is much love for the samurai and the original AoE2 unique units.... And not much for new ones... Heck some people even hate the Urumi because of a new gimmick.
They can always rework it in the future.
It's interesting to consider. I'm just going to assume "balanced" stats for a hypothetical Japanese unique infantry unit with the ability to switch between melee and ranged. There should be some trade-offs so that each mode has situations in which it shines. There are two ways I could envision it being added to the game.
A) The devs could add an option to switch modes to the existing samurai unit. There would probably be knock-on effects from balance decisions being made based on samurai being able to switch, but players could still choose to abstain from using such an ability if they really want to play with samurai the way they've worked since AoK.
B) The devs could give the Japanese a second unique unit with the ability to switch between melee and ranged. Other civs have multiple unique units, so this isn't outrageous. The problem is establishing an identity for its melee mode. And making the unit itself on par with the samurai in terms of coolness.
Maybe there are more ways for the devs to give the Japanese such a unit, but I can't think of any at the moment. The ratha has proven that the concept is viable, at least from a technical standpoint. It would be nice to see a prototype of the version of the samurai as it was originally envisioned, especially if the community could voice their opinions on it.
Love the choice of putting those 2 specific civs together giving their history in the 20th century.
Teuton Death Star lol, didn't know they were that OP. The early days TC drop is scary
It's really cool to see the old concept of Samurai able to change melee into ranged able to be implemented now. But under different name.
Reminds me of Total War Shogun 2's units
Oh I wasn't born when aok came out but my father has a lot of memories from those days he didn't face as many teutonic death stars but the few times he did he absolutely hated it back in those days it was all Franks and Mongols
I love this series. Used to play LAN parties in AoK with my friends back in the day, so it's interesting to hear all the changes that have happened over 23 years
Awww yeah I'm really glad you have been making these. Thanks Spirit!
You have been making a lot if videos recently man, on one hand I love that, on the other, be careful not to burn out
'Teutons and Japanese contrast well together' ;) I see what you did there
I love this series! I'll be looking forward to the next episode when it's ready !
Samurai, jaguar warriors and teutonic knight: we are the best infantry
Urumi swordmen be like: hold my masala and fish 🐟🐠
By popular belief, samurais are pictured as infantry units with katanas and all that heroic, bushido stuff, so it makes sense devs making the japanese UU like this. But is important to remember, though, that is more historically accurate to depict the samurai as cavalry archers, with a fight style kind of similar to the mongols. So it kind of pleases me that japanese have fully upgradeable cav archers, being one of the few civs who does, but I would like to see them with some kind of specific bonus for them, even at the expense of taking something else, like water bonuses.
The prospect of a complete redesign of the samurai to be like the new UU and choose between archer mode and swordman mode... sound kind of amazing tbh.
Maybe make a mount/dismount mechanic for Samurai, where when mounted they act as a slightly worse Cav archer but with bonus vs Cavalry. And when dismounted they would be the infantry Samurai we have now, with bonus vs UU's.
Fantastic video and idea for a series. Keep 'em coming, man
Yessss series for sure! Of course the Japanese need their video early, that’s your civ! Love it.
This is so crazy. I used to watch you yeeeeaaaarrrs ago. I even remember watching your video on the Japanese! But then I went through college and life changed. However the TH-cam algorithm brought me back to you!
Literally just sat down for my break and get a notification for this vid
Yesss, glad to see it continues.
Yesss!!! im so happy this will be a series!!!!!
You know what's mildly funny? Attack mode switching became a staple in AoE3 (Musketeer and Dragoon type units) but poor Samurai still only got their melee attack.
(for the record, mounted and ranged warriors are represented by other units - the Naginata Rider and Yabusame arguably represent the "real" early modern Samurai better.
All units have stances like in aoe2 but all ranged units have melle modes and all melle or ranged units have a siege mode to atack buildings
This is pretty interesting I used to play mostly Japanese civ cuz of their samurais and Teutons were a very strong infantry civ back in time
Teutons will allways be my fav civ.
Nice, looking forward to more of these
Really enjoying these!
Love this evolution videos as a concept!! It's a form of documentary for the game's history. And the game dev hating my two favorite civs from the original ones is hilarious, I guess we have opposing playstyles ^^
Would love someone did interviews with Pro players to see how the meta has evolved for each civ too!
Thanks for covering the Teutons. I don't know if you read my comment on the first video or not but it makes it feel like you responded to viewer feedback.
Teutonic Knight are really one of the best looking units!!
I would love to see a launch game tournament sometime time. Would be hilarious to see how hard you can push these.
I don't think it would be much more than a Paladin spamfest unfortunately.
@@ruludos1977 Or towering until one side missplaces a tower and giving the enemy a gap.
@@ruludos1977 With teuton TC rush you won't get to paladin
...I can't believe it took until the second video for this to click. Sandy Petersen? THE Sandy Petersen? One of the people who worked on classic levels for two of the most influential first-person shooters ever made was also heavily involved with AOE2? I did NOT realize that!
Not surprising tbh. Game developers do get around a lot (i.e. laid off when a game is finished).
i think the way they did the teuton buffs was exactly the right one. slow buffs one after the other to see how much they impact the civ. and keeping the boni in line with the original idea of the civ. thats how buffing should be done in games in general
Man, i remember when i discovered your channel several years ago, i thought that you would run out of subjects pretty quickly. I'm happy i was wrong.
I love this series as I played the game back in the early 2000s and just recently picked up the DE with almost no gametime in the years between.
Yay, new video!
I like how Teutons are now the embodiment of the French from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And don't come back or I'll taunt you a second time!
Love this series, i hope You keep going with it
Weird that Teutons lost the "Defensive" classification in the civ description, as I think of them as being just as tanky as the now only "Defensive" civ, the Byzantines.
Well they defense forces never dropped so that would make actually sense.
Then what about the Koreans actually ? I heard they were pretty solid and quite well known as a defensive civ too, in fact...
@@798jeremy Yeah they are, but my point was about the "Defensive" classification being removed from Teutons for no apparent reason, whereas Koreans never had it to begin with (even though you could say they should).
Civ descriptions are a curious beast as the Britons are classified as a “Foot archer civilization” which is fair enough except that the Mayans-who don’t actually have a single mounted unit-are just classified as an “Archer civilization.”
@@jefffinkbonner9551 The thing is, In AoK there have been only two classifications: Defensive and Offensive. The specifics of 'foot archer civilization' were added with Conqs. And if I remember correctly, especially the Teutons and the Byzantines were two of the very very small group that kept their 'old' civ classification until Forgotten. Teutons lost it while are still described as slow and especially tanky. The Byzantines still have the old classification from over 20 years ago, but the only real defensive thing that they have going is a full tree for upgrading building HP and getting LOS for free. Looking at their techtree, they are actually quiet manouverable and especially the Cataphract is a great offensive cav... on top of that, Byzantines get discounts on every counter trash. Meaning they can just mix in a healthy amount of trash in every composition to throw off the enemies planned army.
Thanks for this series, I’m looking forward to it. If I were to make suggestions, I say that we desperately need some civ overviews to be updated, most notably Slavs. Also I think putting all the videos with the patch updates on its own playlist would be useful for visibility purposes.
Very interesting to see this regarding the initial balance issues with AoE 4. It takes a long time to find a fun Meta.
Biiiig fan of continuing this series!!
Giving a like, just to make sure SOTL remembers to keep making those videos as well :)
theres something hilarious about watching a town centre destroy a castle lol
Of Course Sandy Petersen doesn't like the defensive civs, having come from games like Doom or Quake he would be more biased to a more aggressive style of play.
My new favorite series!
3:22 "Teuton Knight Train" sounds like a fun party
I'd love to see the Persians! Their unique tech surely changed them a lot.
Add Italians and you get a very powerful infantry alliance (or axis you might say)
i like how SOTL uploads videos more often
Samurai should be a different twist of Konniks.
A Cavarly Archer that when dying becomes a Melee Infantry. That would be very historically accurate.
Great video! I have an idea for a new type of series as well, where you talk about players who defined certain off-meta plays. For example tower rushes by the fat dragon or who first came up with the idea of a MAA rush. I think that would be very interesting to know
The Teuton bonus was more than that. It was written as "Towers garrison 2x units and fire 2x normal garrison arrows", which is insane.
Nice! Two great civs.
With the new unit that switches between melee and ranged, I hope they update the samurai to do the same.
they probably wont as that would mean weakining in other ways and "players aren't ready"
Now that the technology is there for melee/ranged-switching units, it'd be super cool to see the samurai get a full overhaul to fit the original vision. It'd make them more historically accurate, and a more interesting unit
Came here to say this. It would definitely spice things up again for the civ!
They may have patched the teutonic range bonus, but they didn't patch the Persian Douche !
8:33 I feel that so hard with that new chariot unit
Another aspect of the Teuton Death Stars, is that in Age of Kings Town Centers were affected by the +1 range from Fletching, Bodkin and Bracer, so those town centers were way too offensive.
Love this series!
I get that I've got the benefit of 20+ years of aoe2 history, but that town centre bonus is absolutely insane
Yep love it brings back the memories, keep them coming!!!
You're the most important person in the AoE2 community.
Teutons have problems in high level tournaments bc unit speed gets more important and the dominance of micro intensive units like Cavalry Archers goes up the higher the level of Competition is. At the same time Teutons is mega opressive against a great number of Civs on any remotely closed and boom oriented settings.
Example: Socotra. Go watch Masters of Socotra and Teuton tower rushes are some of the best around there, with a good eco from cheap farms as a easy transition into booming
True but watch Survivalist he used TK + Siege tower to beat a Korean opponent going for War Wagons. I think the Siege tower is criminally under utilized as it synergizes well with slow moving infantry.
Man that would be sweet if they actually went through with that today and changed the Samurai as a mixed attacking melee and range option. Like the new UU in the expansion
A lot of UUs have a cavalry version of a foot unit. IE kipchaks and chu cu nu/ Teutonic kt and boyar
I think that would really help push the Japanese to being more competitive without having to buff the rest of the civ
Make it like a more expensive champion but can transition to a weaker version of an arb in overall damage.
Keep the bonus to UUs but maybe make is less of a bonus while in ranged mode vs melee
Or perhaps a cool concept would be the elite version of the samurai would acquire the ability to perform range attacks vs the standard. Talk about a story behind the unit
This would be awesome
I love this series! The next will probably be Chinese. Started very OP to a civ that's good in the hands of pros, but bad for most.
Huh, the only thing I see about tuetons these days are that they need a buff to the foot knight or people calling for them to get the crusader knight as an additional UU/ alt paladin
It’s interesting about the multi attack issues mentioned … now that they’ve introduced a multi attack unit
Teuton knights were so broken in the og aoe2. My fav unit since then.
They sucked
Nope arbalest will wreck them, Persian war elephant is the best bcs Halberdier isn't event existed yet
I gravitated towards Teutons as a kid because of the fairly open tech tree, long range castles, cheap farms and paladins so naturally I'm now even more stoked for cheaper farms and stronger paladins
Love this series
日本文明について、日本でずっと議論になるのは、ユニークテクノロジーのカタパルトがあまりにも意味不明すぎる事だな。
名前はただの音写。歴史的にも全く関係ない（大砲なら少し使った）。ゲーム的にも歩兵文明なのに唐突。
しかしながら、ユニークで面白いテクノロジーには違いないので、今更修正もできない。
代わりに欲しいと言われてたのは弓騎兵ボーナスで、これは近年実装されて楽しくなった。
長剣剣士と弓騎兵でガチで攻める、なんて昔は夢でしかなかったのが、実現するようになった。これは喜ばしい。
its sad how so many new dlc civs basically sideline Teutons bonuses :(
Oh yeah, Teutonic Knights! Or as they're called in German localization: DEUTSCHRITTER
I can't believe it, Sandy Peterson worked on every PC game that released in the 90s
Now that they implemented the Ratha's ability to swap between melee and ranged, I wonder if they will ever give that ability to the samurai. If so, I wonder how that would change them balance-wise?
*Medieval axis powers intensifies*
4:45 top left corner: "fisherman"
I'd love to see more of these videos
The Japanese in Age Of Mythology have a Hero that can do Ranged and Mele attacks. So they used that idea later ^^