as an added touch, those miners kept mining smoothly & didnt skip any frames. so u know that they didnt just do it the cheap & easy way of record every part of the segment individually and then splice them together.
@@TheRealBruceLouis that is probably what they did do though, as none of the added buildings overlap with the vils mining so the frames with the buildings added can just be on top and have the edges removed revealing the vils behind, no frame matching needed
Bohemians are very good imo defensively. Aside from the houfnice, they get good halbs, the mining bonus to help build castles, the monk bonuses and faster vills, you can prepare bbc's with Castle age chemistry, and even the hassle wagon (whilst normally fairly useless) can tank archer pressure if needed. Have to be in the top 5 for me, and top 3 on closed maps.
I thought you were going to go with Turks for #1 with their 13 range bombard towers. Great breakdown of Britons, though. I hadn't really considered that "rams > Britons" was a thing of the past, but you make a solid case!
Not convinced for Britons. Longbow are hard to mass and keep alive if your frontlane is crushed. You lack strong melee unit. You can hold points but you lack mobility. Byzantines are more versatiles. If it was such a nightmare to push, they'd be stronger in the meta.
japanese are my favourite, those yasama towers make pushing them so hard and then you have the faster packing and shooting trebs to deal with siege with fast attacking halbs in front. really hard to push down.
I got jebaited twice while editing, thinking it was my discord 11 hera had discord notification while recording the voice over, so I thought i should warn people 11
Though I'm not really a good player in practice (I have only some technical knowledge), I would argue with the Britons being #1. Very good Archers are good, yes, but when I see Byzantines, they have the Cataphracts: anti-infantry unit against all of those Huskarls and Shotels that can attack you early in the game, but also, all trash units and super tanky buildings, very good Monks, all of that, seems like they just outclass Britons. But that's only, you know, my feeling. I enjoy Britons for their beautiful archers. Also, Japanese are not on the list? Samurai, a great unit, and their Towers with good stats, they also have Hoardings and Masonry, and faster shooting Trebuchets. Only Architecture and Bombard Tower lacking. Why are they disqualified from Honorable Mentions? They also have Keeps, so Yasama does a beautiful job.
The issue with Cataphracts is that they take too long to get there (And are very specific in terms of utility), while on the other hand even without Longbowmen Britons have 11 range arbalest and Warwolf trebs (They win every single treb war and even BBC can struggle to snipe them because of attack ground). Also because of their longer range those Longbowmen and Arbalest never die because you never reach them, which is one of the best thing you ever want on defense. I think Japanese towers are better on offense to secure the map than on defense since you'd rather have the longer range of a Korean tower (Japanese towers secure scrappy maps but Korean towers are unpushable without trebs. On a situation where you have to defend they aren't particularly amazing and you also have to upgrade them). Kataparuto trebs are amazing for both offense and defense however.
@@Mattroid99 1. It's takes a long time to get Warwolf trebs, but Cataphracts require only Castle Age and a Castle, so that's a bad argument. 2. Paladins and Houfnice shred Longbowmen/Arbalests, same with Huskarls, so there is a lot of civs who counter that. Also, massing Longbowmen/Arbalests to their full potential requires a lot of resources and Imperial Age, there's a lot of games where you won't get there. So in late game, you get great options, but they are still counterable, just like Cataphracts. I get what you mean with Japanese, but... this comment was made 6 months ago, before Georgians were introduced, so this particular comment is just outdated - in top 5 + honorable mentions Japanese wouldn't fit anyways.
@@ariisee That's not true, Warwolf is costly but so is Logistica and the Elite Cataphract (In addition you have to mass them, 5 of them in castle don't do anything if the opponent has a lot of infantry (Not that you would dive Byzantines castles with infantry anyways) You only need 3/4 trebs and then Warwolf is really good. Very affordable as it makes you win the treb war for free Hard agreed on Houfnice (Is Briton's worse matchup in closed maps), but Paladins are not that big of an issue. Halbs are a great pairing for Longbowmen, and if the opponent tries to go for it then it has to kill the Briton player completely because Paladins are not very good otherwise in 1v1 since you sink all your gold on a melee unit that is very expensive. The best counter for Britons is skirms but even these can be finnicky due to the extra range and Britons having good Champions and Light Cavalry (And in team games Skirms are not even an issue so Britons are just incredible) The archerbalest is among the least costly gold unit to get and mass (Especially if you are using them since Feudal Age as most archer civs do), they are very cheap individually and since they don't cost food is very easy to afford them with low eco (Knights and Cataphracts are very food intensive, so you need a big economy to sustain them). In fact a very common and strong strategy is to up faster than your opponent as archers since you don't need food and abuse the Crossbow and Arbalest powerspikes since very few units in Fedual/Castle can fight them
@@Mattroid99 Okey, makes sense. I think I forgot my last match (Goths vs Byzantines) where I discovered that a hard counter for everything that Byzantines have is just Hand Cannoneer + occassional Halbs to deal with mass cavalry. Yeah, you convinced me.
Hey Hera, I was quite a bite surprised that Incas didn't make it to this list because of their cheaper stone-buildings, cheaper food-units (good counters to any type of unit) and their villagers having blacksmith upgrades in late game. Is their a specific reason why they didn't make it or am I overestimating their bonuses?
You're heavily overestimating their bonuses. Cheaper stone buildings, say towers for example, does mean that you can get more out for the given amount of stone on the map, and tempo-wise you can get them out sooner. But the total number of towers you can make only matters in a few niche situations, it's more about having a few towers in key positions at the right times, whether offensively or defensively. And once the towers are built, they're just regular towers. When talking about castles and tempo, the Sicilian and Spanish build speed bonuses are much more significant (it's why the Sicilians got nerfed), and the Franks -25% or Slavs -40% is much more substantial than Incas -15%. The Inca food bonus is pretty much comparable to a free version of Gujaras Kshatriyas, why is a tech that Gujaras have to pay for more impactful than a free bonus? Because Gujaras are spending food on light cav (80), elephant archers (80), Shrivamsha Riders (70), camels (55), and Chakrams (65), while Incas are spending it on eagles (25), kamayuks (65), skirms (25), and spears (35). Villagers having blacksmith bonuses is also overrated, it makes them be able to fight off castle or imp trash (excluding hussars), but they still go down quite quickly to any gold unit. It's not like Spanish supremacy where 5 vils together can kill a paladin. It was very powerful in Feudal age, where the combat potential of military units and villagers are quite close, but it was nerfed. So yeah, I think you're overestimating their bonuses. Personally, I really love the idea of vils with combat potential, it's just a tricky thing to implement because the economy worker is not supposed to be the one doing the fighting. There are several ways to achieve this: #1 Statistically superior but more expensive villagers or #2 A series of stacking bonuses or techs that allow for timing pushes or niche situations or #3 Villagers can instantly turn into military units. Going the #1 route would be like the Palmyrans in Aoe1 (+1 pierce armor, work 25% faster, cost +25 food) or the Atlanteans in AOM (work 300% faster, cost 3 pop, train 250% slower, cost +75 food and 25 wood, 20% slower movement speed, no drop off sites). Going the number #2 route would be something like, Villagers benefit from blacksmith upgrades (starting in the castle age); villagers gain bonus hp +5/+10/+15 in Feudal/Castle/Imperial; sappers available in the castle age (alternatively, villagers gain +10/+15/+20 bonus damage against buildings in Feudal/Castle/Imperial age). Going #3 The Burgundians already have Flemish Revolution, in AOM all gatherers and dwarves have a button to instantly turn into an ulfsark (the basic norse infantry unit) for the price it costs to train one. I could see Incan villagers being able to turn into eagles or milita.
Serious question. Is defensive play *ever* actually a viable strategy in higher level (1300+) games? Are there any pros even known for playing defensive?
I think another defensive civ that kinda flies under the radar too is the Incas. You get cheaper stone buildings, redemption monks, good university techs and cheaper fully upgraded halbs and skirmishers. They don't get bombard cannons, but they have a flexible tech tree and some solid counter units. As a defensive player it's a real comfort pick!
They are both fairly cheap for a pretty strong effect. Though they are both not really things you build your strategy around. They have pretty good value for resources invested, but the payoff is not that high. Plus, you usually have enough town centers for them anyway, so they don't really change your strategy.
I thought bulgarians with 350 stone kreposts would be in the top5 with their UU or cumans with stronger palisade walls, cheap military buildings and double TC at feudal could be a great defensive civ early game
Cumans stop being a competitively defensive civ once Fuedal age hits and every single other civ (excluding Goths) now has better defenses due to access to stone walls. military buildings and early rams are more of an offensive than defensive perk.
@@frankbeams2374 The relative value of good palisades is MUCH higher than stone walls. How often do you see stonewalling in competitive play? Rarely, but everyone builds palisades. The second TC in Feudal is also a big deal for playing safe, denying raids and making it so that the later stages of the game will be in your favor with more villagers. Honestly Cumans is a big oversight, or rather, shows too great of a focus on defensive play in the imperial age, but it doesn't matter how good your defense is in Imp if you don't survive to get there, or you get there at too great of a disadvantage.
3:55 I love how they all look menacing being the final upgrade of the respective line but then we have Scout who just chill there with his big strong friends.
One thing you didn't mention about Koreans is just how useful that +villager line of sight bonus is. Not only does it really help in spotting those feudal archers on the other side of the woodline, it also makes it easier to choose the right resources and dark age base layout to prevent losses from early pushes. Critical for any defensive civ is not losing what little ground you choose to defend.
In a 3v3 once, Britons held the line against two of us, and they only broke after I managed to sneak 50 conquistadors and killed the other two players lol. They are really good
best defensive civilization: none this game only defense is offense, which is sad usually in war games the defense has the advantage, in this game its the opposite
I love britons as number 1. Never thought of them as defensive civ since with the adv they got easy to play aggressive and win. This kind mind blown me now and I hate playing archer civ since I hate the micro and timing attacks but now I will just play defensive and boom. Woot!!! Excited to realize this new play
ayo what about the Goths? i know, most of their tech is from the stone age ... but 350 wood - 2 barracks. in castle age but already due to cheaper units, you can outspam on pikemen and counter EVERY SINGLE Light Kav./Knight Raid imaginable. In the 3rd you get Huskarls from the barracks, meaning super fast deployment of a unit thats mostly resistant to arrows. Meaning the Knight guy tryna get ur pikemen killed on arrows now has to adjust. If you have no good tower or a strong wall, just put a pikemen on every tile of ur base lmao. I love the Goths man. Boring but so effective *by the way, If you ever run out of gold, Goths can play a great lategame too. Skirmisher + Halberds. Super cheap, 153% recruit speed. So just Artillery counters you. But losing units isnt pain since cheap ye?
I was at first upset about Teutons being low, but soon realized they are more a turtle into death ball civ (Tknight in rams with Pals) than a true turtle civ like Brits that just cannot be approached period You get so focused on surviving archers that their fully upgraded, but generic Cavalier melts though the wall of skerms, and rams sent against them.
I think since you don't win with just pure defense, you need to have some top tier siege to counter attack Trash units are a small consideration as well. In that case I think Britons are a bit overrated. They are good in general but it feels more like that it requires your opponent not to have bbc and suicide too many resources on your archers/walls/castles
What is the 3rd armor class listed when explaining architecture tech? The first 2 were +1 Melee Armor and +1 Pierce Armor, but what is the +3 BA armor?
I definitely expected to see Turks on the list at first, as a couple other commenters already mentioned, but I can also add some counterpoints to why they're not on the list - Turks are super reliant on gold, so just sitting back, letting your opponent take the map and defending leaves you with very few solid options once gold runs low - although I could see Hera make it work anyway with full Hussar spam. 😉
Nah Teutons is even more gold reliant, the difference is Teutons can expand with crenelation castle to fortify your positions, Turks doesn't have that luxury, they kinda struggle against cavalries too, so they mostly just researched Artillery for buffing their BBC and not BBT and BBC while can be used defensively, is not as good as something like 13 range keep or castle.
maxed out Briton towers have 17 piercing damage, yeoman giving a bonus +2 helps a ton. One of the few piercing attacks to deal more than 1 damage to a huskarl, and chops through a paladin faster than you would expect.
Don't agree with britons number 1. I feel bombard cannons are too important in defence and also britons have a clear weakness to seige ram late game. Theres been many times when people have to clear rams on castles with the uu and a cheap and fast producing melee unit is great for that like shotels and karambit. But britons can get cought out. They can also struggle vs all in knight plays in castle age. (Dont have great monks or thumb ring to power through them. Range doesn't matter so much when knights are in eco)
I would put them at number 2 though. And honorable mention to also turks and bohemians. Funnily enough I've had great defensive performances by Magyar and goths too lmao.
Also bombard vs warwolf treb the bombard can stick and move while the treb is stationary so I think it's not the same. And something like houfnice might just attack ground in front of longbow and move since they have 1 extra range
With the balance changes which have happened, I think the best defensive 🛡 civilisation for open maps might be Malay, with them being pretty good for defence in general. The reasons being: • Battle Elephants 🐘 being great on the defence, where their fast creation speed and high cost/unit shines to rush out an army, and the slow speed does not matter as much due to the close distance to the enemy units • Fast Age ups meaning it is unlikely they are behind the enemy for too long, so can use the counter units of the same Age against aggressive fast age ups from the enemy • Infantry armour upgrades makes defending from cavalry units easier and Karambits can be used to rush at siege and monks in spite of arrow fire In the late game, defensive powers fall off as their low quality cavalry means they are vulnerable to being outmaneuvered, especially with Hussar 🏇 raiding.
Tartars get 19 range, they have siege engineers too. Also yes, most people forget or don't know about the Blast Radius... I didn't until a friend was defending on B.F. with the stupidest map gen & almost Treb + Castles only and it was mentioned! Also the funky thing for Britons is their fully upgraded Champions now that they're the 1 archer civ given Gambesons... So going against Mayan Eagles where they have archers too, is even more reliable as them now.
Yoooooo Heerraaa!!! Whatup!!! Man, could you please make a video on team work ediquite. So many people are building things in absurd places and playing a 4v4 like its a 1v 4 o even 0 v 4. I understand we all have a learning curve and it's not possible to police people, however, you are a great aoe host and I feel like if you could work something like that into a game it might further help some of what you've been trying to do. The sportsmanship of this game is important just like soccer, baseball, or any sport in person.
I know this has nothing to do with top def civs but does ballistics help with Malians gbeto throwers become more accurate? Some units it’s hard to tell what actually helps them
While Ethiopians are missing a a few techs, I quite like defending with their Arbalest/Siege Onager combo, and unlike some of the others civs on the list, your economy is not slow. While I wouldn't say top 5 material, I'd make an honorable mention for them too.
As another honorable mention Id like to suggest cumans. It might not fit into the theme 100%, but in fact its my No. 1 clown civ for booming. In the end this is a pretty defensive play style, as I often need to invest in counter units, siege and scouts to defend my boom. Usually from a castle drop. Their boni (feudal tc+siege workshop and cheaper production buildings) can be used both offensively and defensively. If you go for a boom, your enemey can dictate the game by aggression forcing you to react defensively. I almost forget the teambonus: 30 % stronger palisades. Cumans should be No. 1! ^^
I’m going to guess Turks, Japanese, Teutons, byzantines, Koreans.
Japan Teutons Korea Britons byzantines
👍🏻Hera, the King.
I'll say Teutons, Turks, Byzantines... Koreans and Sicilians?
Sicilians for sure are more of a castle aggro civ
I feel like Hera missed Incas.
1. Byzantines 2. Byzantines 3. Byzantines 4. Byzantines 5. Byzantines
DYLON DYLON DYLON
Don't forget the,byzantines they're good too
Honourable mention Byzantines
You didn’t mention number 6. The byzantines
I heard the Byzantines are also good. Can anybody else confirm?
4:50 was some NICE editing; gorgeous!
as an added touch, those miners kept mining smoothly & didnt skip any frames. so u know that they didnt just do it the cheap & easy way of record every part of the segment individually and then splice them together.
@@TheRealBruceLouis that is probably what they did do though, as none of the added buildings overlap with the vils mining so the frames with the buildings added can just be on top and have the edges removed revealing the vils behind, no frame matching needed
As a Byzantine main, I can only agree on how hard it is to push when vs Britons
Too
Me too
I am Teuton player its harder for me with no discount skyrims.
Bohemians are very good imo defensively. Aside from the houfnice, they get good halbs, the mining bonus to help build castles, the monk bonuses and faster vills, you can prepare bbc's with Castle age chemistry, and even the hassle wagon (whilst normally fairly useless) can tank archer pressure if needed. Have to be in the top 5 for me, and top 3 on closed maps.
I thought you were going to go with Turks for #1 with their 13 range bombard towers. Great breakdown of Britons, though. I hadn't really considered that "rams > Britons" was a thing of the past, but you make a solid case!
Turks lack too many tools for 1v1 defense to be a good civ. They are an attacking civ through all stages of the game
Byzantines ,Koreans, Tutons,
Not convinced for Britons.
Longbow are hard to mass and keep alive if your frontlane is crushed.
You lack strong melee unit.
You can hold points but you lack mobility.
Byzantines are more versatiles.
If it was such a nightmare to push, they'd be stronger in the meta.
japanese are my favourite, those yasama towers make pushing them so hard and then you have the faster packing and shooting trebs to deal with siege with fast attacking halbs in front. really hard to push down.
You can also spam a lot of samurai from one castle quickly in a pinch
6:38 thats a nice jebait and edit 😂😂😂
I got jebaited twice while editing, thinking it was my discord 11 hera had discord notification while recording the voice over, so I thought i should warn people 11
Byzantines > all until Imperial Age. Stronger buildings and cheap trash count for a lot.
In Imperial Age Teutons, Chinese and Koreans are all strong.
Though I'm not really a good player in practice (I have only some technical knowledge), I would argue with the Britons being #1. Very good Archers are good, yes, but when I see Byzantines, they have the Cataphracts: anti-infantry unit against all of those Huskarls and Shotels that can attack you early in the game, but also, all trash units and super tanky buildings, very good Monks, all of that, seems like they just outclass Britons. But that's only, you know, my feeling. I enjoy Britons for their beautiful archers.
Also, Japanese are not on the list? Samurai, a great unit, and their Towers with good stats, they also have Hoardings and Masonry, and faster shooting Trebuchets. Only Architecture and Bombard Tower lacking. Why are they disqualified from Honorable Mentions? They also have Keeps, so Yasama does a beautiful job.
The issue with Cataphracts is that they take too long to get there (And are very specific in terms of utility), while on the other hand even without Longbowmen Britons have 11 range arbalest and Warwolf trebs (They win every single treb war and even BBC can struggle to snipe them because of attack ground).
Also because of their longer range those Longbowmen and Arbalest never die because you never reach them, which is one of the best thing you ever want on defense.
I think Japanese towers are better on offense to secure the map than on defense since you'd rather have the longer range of a Korean tower (Japanese towers secure scrappy maps but Korean towers are unpushable without trebs. On a situation where you have to defend they aren't particularly amazing and you also have to upgrade them). Kataparuto trebs are amazing for both offense and defense however.
@@Mattroid99 1. It's takes a long time to get Warwolf trebs, but Cataphracts require only Castle Age and a Castle, so that's a bad argument.
2. Paladins and Houfnice shred Longbowmen/Arbalests, same with Huskarls, so there is a lot of civs who counter that. Also, massing Longbowmen/Arbalests to their full potential requires a lot of resources and Imperial Age, there's a lot of games where you won't get there. So in late game, you get great options, but they are still counterable, just like Cataphracts.
I get what you mean with Japanese, but... this comment was made 6 months ago, before Georgians were introduced, so this particular comment is just outdated - in top 5 + honorable mentions Japanese wouldn't fit anyways.
@@ariisee That's not true, Warwolf is costly but so is Logistica and the Elite Cataphract (In addition you have to mass them, 5 of them in castle don't do anything if the opponent has a lot of infantry (Not that you would dive Byzantines castles with infantry anyways)
You only need 3/4 trebs and then Warwolf is really good. Very affordable as it makes you win the treb war for free
Hard agreed on Houfnice (Is Briton's worse matchup in closed maps), but Paladins are not that big of an issue. Halbs are a great pairing for Longbowmen, and if the opponent tries to go for it then it has to kill the Briton player completely because Paladins are not very good otherwise in 1v1 since you sink all your gold on a melee unit that is very expensive.
The best counter for Britons is skirms but even these can be finnicky due to the extra range and Britons having good Champions and Light Cavalry (And in team games Skirms are not even an issue so Britons are just incredible)
The archerbalest is among the least costly gold unit to get and mass (Especially if you are using them since Feudal Age as most archer civs do), they are very cheap individually and since they don't cost food is very easy to afford them with low eco (Knights and Cataphracts are very food intensive, so you need a big economy to sustain them). In fact a very common and strong strategy is to up faster than your opponent as archers since you don't need food and abuse the Crossbow and Arbalest powerspikes since very few units in Fedual/Castle can fight them
@@Mattroid99 Okey, makes sense. I think I forgot my last match (Goths vs Byzantines) where I discovered that a hard counter for everything that Byzantines have is just Hand Cannoneer + occassional Halbs to deal with mass cavalry. Yeah, you convinced me.
I always like the Inca of devence. They have #1 counter units. And most techs
you need.
And discount on stone building...and villagers with infantry armor...I was surprised not to see them neither in honorable mentions
and they get slinger which is sorta like having hand cannon in castle.
Hey Hera, I was quite a bite surprised that Incas didn't make it to this list because of their cheaper stone-buildings, cheaper food-units (good counters to any type of unit) and their villagers having blacksmith upgrades in late game. Is their a specific reason why they didn't make it or am I overestimating their bonuses?
You're heavily overestimating their bonuses. Cheaper stone buildings, say towers for example, does mean that you can get more out for the given amount of stone on the map, and tempo-wise you can get them out sooner. But the total number of towers you can make only matters in a few niche situations, it's more about having a few towers in key positions at the right times, whether offensively or defensively. And once the towers are built, they're just regular towers. When talking about castles and tempo, the Sicilian and Spanish build speed bonuses are much more significant (it's why the Sicilians got nerfed), and the Franks -25% or Slavs -40% is much more substantial than Incas -15%. The Inca food bonus is pretty much comparable to a free version of Gujaras Kshatriyas, why is a tech that Gujaras have to pay for more impactful than a free bonus? Because Gujaras are spending food on light cav (80), elephant archers (80), Shrivamsha Riders (70), camels (55), and Chakrams (65), while Incas are spending it on eagles (25), kamayuks (65), skirms (25), and spears (35). Villagers having blacksmith bonuses is also overrated, it makes them be able to fight off castle or imp trash (excluding hussars), but they still go down quite quickly to any gold unit. It's not like Spanish supremacy where 5 vils together can kill a paladin. It was very powerful in Feudal age, where the combat potential of military units and villagers are quite close, but it was nerfed. So yeah, I think you're overestimating their bonuses. Personally, I really love the idea of vils with combat potential, it's just a tricky thing to implement because the economy worker is not supposed to be the one doing the fighting. There are several ways to achieve this: #1 Statistically superior but more expensive villagers or #2 A series of stacking bonuses or techs that allow for timing pushes or niche situations or #3 Villagers can instantly turn into military units. Going the #1 route would be like the Palmyrans in Aoe1 (+1 pierce armor, work 25% faster, cost +25 food) or the Atlanteans in AOM (work 300% faster, cost 3 pop, train 250% slower, cost +75 food and 25 wood, 20% slower movement speed, no drop off sites). Going the number #2 route would be something like, Villagers benefit from blacksmith upgrades (starting in the castle age); villagers gain bonus hp +5/+10/+15 in Feudal/Castle/Imperial; sappers available in the castle age (alternatively, villagers gain +10/+15/+20 bonus damage against buildings in Feudal/Castle/Imperial age). Going #3 The Burgundians already have Flemish Revolution, in AOM all gatherers and dwarves have a button to instantly turn into an ulfsark (the basic norse infantry unit) for the price it costs to train one. I could see Incan villagers being able to turn into eagles or milita.
@@misteral9045 Thx for your answer, u have some valid arguments there!
@@FlyingHenroxx You're welcome. I love Incas, I'll take every opportunity to talk about them. :D
Hera can you make a video about transitioning from your early feudal wall (palisade) to a more robust stone wall?
The Goths are number one - they have armies everywhere.
Question, was this video made before the DLC that introduced Georgians? If so, where would they rank now?
Am I the only one who noticed the windows notification at 2:54 ?
Honestly expected Chinese to get at least an honorable mention
Britons keeps have realy high damage great for defence
Serious question. Is defensive play *ever* actually a viable strategy in higher level (1300+) games?
Are there any pros even known for playing defensive?
Lol, the video maker is one of them. Top tier defense player.
The meta is pretty defensive in general.
Though full-turtle 🐢 is not usually used, except as a surprise strategy.
Which is probably how it should be.
I think another defensive civ that kinda flies under the radar too is the Incas. You get cheaper stone buildings, redemption monks, good university techs and cheaper fully upgraded halbs and skirmishers. They don't get bombard cannons, but they have a flexible tech tree and some solid counter units. As a defensive player it's a real comfort pick!
What about Lithuanian Hill Forts or Malians Tigui as defensive techs that help with extra defense.
Both are meme techs only good for nomads unless they have been buffed recently and I forgot
They are both fairly cheap for a pretty strong effect.
Though they are both not really things you build your strategy around. They have pretty good value for resources invested, but the payoff is not that high.
Plus, you usually have enough town centers for them anyway, so they don't really change your strategy.
Byzantines still #1 I think
I thought bulgarians with 350 stone kreposts would be in the top5 with their UU or cumans with stronger palisade walls, cheap military buildings and double TC at feudal could be a great defensive civ early game
Cumans stop being a competitively defensive civ once Fuedal age hits and every single other civ (excluding Goths) now has better defenses due to access to stone walls. military buildings and early rams are more of an offensive than defensive perk.
@@frankbeams2374 The relative value of good palisades is MUCH higher than stone walls. How often do you see stonewalling in competitive play? Rarely, but everyone builds palisades. The second TC in Feudal is also a big deal for playing safe, denying raids and making it so that the later stages of the game will be in your favor with more villagers. Honestly Cumans is a big oversight, or rather, shows too great of a focus on defensive play in the imperial age, but it doesn't matter how good your defense is in Imp if you don't survive to get there, or you get there at too great of a disadvantage.
Pushing britons gives me ptsd
I love Koreans and Portuguese on Islands: easy defense into having more resources than the opponent.
Surprised Japanese didn’t make the list with their towers and trebs.
3:55 I love how they all look menacing being the final upgrade of the respective line but then we have Scout who just chill there with his big strong friends.
for Tuetons he is the final upgrade 11
Believe it or not teuton scout beats some hussar civ’s hussar.
What about turks?
One thing you didn't mention about Koreans is just how useful that +villager line of sight bonus is. Not only does it really help in spotting those feudal archers on the other side of the woodline, it also makes it easier to choose the right resources and dark age base layout to prevent losses from early pushes. Critical for any defensive civ is not losing what little ground you choose to defend.
For the same reason Byzantines free Town Watch and Town Patrol are super important defensive bonus.
In a 3v3 once, Britons held the line against two of us, and they only broke after I managed to sneak 50 conquistadors and killed the other two players lol. They are really good
best defensive civilization: none
this game only defense is offense, which is sad
usually in war games the defense has the advantage, in this game its the opposite
Nice list, though you mispronounced the first two civs. Supposed to be "KOREEEEEANS!" and "TOOOOOOTONS!"
I love britons as number 1. Never thought of them as defensive civ since with the adv they got easy to play aggressive and win. This kind mind blown me now and I hate playing archer civ since I hate the micro and timing attacks but now I will just play defensive and boom. Woot!!! Excited to realize this new play
ayo what about the Goths?
i know, most of their tech is from the stone age ... but
350 wood - 2 barracks. in castle age but already due to cheaper units, you can outspam on pikemen and counter EVERY SINGLE Light Kav./Knight Raid imaginable.
In the 3rd you get Huskarls from the barracks, meaning super fast deployment of a unit thats mostly resistant to arrows.
Meaning the Knight guy tryna get ur pikemen killed on arrows now has to adjust.
If you have no good tower or a strong wall, just put a pikemen on every tile of ur base lmao.
I love the Goths man. Boring but so effective
*by the way, If you ever run out of gold, Goths can play a great lategame too.
Skirmisher + Halberds. Super cheap, 153% recruit speed. So just Artillery counters you. But losing units isnt pain since cheap ye?
I was at first upset about Teutons being low, but soon realized they are more a turtle into death ball civ (Tknight in rams with Pals) than a true turtle civ like Brits that just cannot be approached period
You get so focused on surviving archers that their fully upgraded, but generic Cavalier melts though the wall of skerms, and rams sent against them.
Are Kreposts or Donjons just to weak? I would have expected either Bulgarians or Sicilians to at least make it to the honorable mentions to be honest.
The mongols are also good at turtling with castles. When trebs come up, snipe the treb with mangudai, run back in castle.
I def would not say Mongols are a defensive civ
3:03 "not this guy"
like he needs it lmao !!
I think since you don't win with just pure defense, you need to have some top tier siege to counter attack
Trash units are a small consideration as well. In that case I think Britons are a bit overrated. They are good in general but it feels more like that it requires your opponent not to have bbc and suicide too many resources on your archers/walls/castles
What is the 3rd armor class listed when explaining architecture tech? The first 2 were +1 Melee Armor and +1 Pierce Armor, but what is the +3 BA armor?
turks?
Koreans also have free instant bombard towers when getting chemistry
yeah i guess briton is pretty much unpushable since they have easy safe answers to all siege pushes.
@@donjoncraig6804 The thing is that the Briton army is more cost efficient and has more damage potential than the Byzantine trash units.
Lowkey thought Turks would be high on the list with the extra range on their cannons, but good list, Hera - pumping out some awesome content!
Are you saying we should nerf Britons pls?
Why are Britons on this list and not Japan
Bulgarian with their Krepost ?
I think best of atack civs is best of defansive civs.
I definitely expected to see Turks on the list at first, as a couple other commenters already mentioned, but I can also add some counterpoints to why they're not on the list - Turks are super reliant on gold, so just sitting back, letting your opponent take the map and defending leaves you with very few solid options once gold runs low - although I could see Hera make it work anyway with full Hussar spam. 😉
Nah Teutons is even more gold reliant, the difference is Teutons can expand with crenelation castle to fortify your positions, Turks doesn't have that luxury, they kinda struggle against cavalries too, so they mostly just researched Artillery for buffing their BBC and not BBT and BBC while can be used defensively, is not as good as something like 13 range keep or castle.
Hera Tatars have 19 Range Trebs not 18.
Georgians have entered the chat
One honorable mention: Chinese Chukonu melt siege rams - their extra attacks count as melee for some reason.
I was the 1337 thumbs up ^^,
maxed out Briton towers have 17 piercing damage, yeoman giving a bonus +2 helps a ton. One of the few piercing attacks to deal more than 1 damage to a huskarl, and chops through a paladin faster than you would expect.
Don't agree with britons number 1. I feel bombard cannons are too important in defence and also britons have a clear weakness to seige ram late game. Theres been many times when people have to clear rams on castles with the uu and a cheap and fast producing melee unit is great for that like shotels and karambit. But britons can get cought out.
They can also struggle vs all in knight plays in castle age. (Dont have great monks or thumb ring to power through them. Range doesn't matter so much when knights are in eco)
I would put them at number 2 though. And honorable mention to also turks and bohemians. Funnily enough I've had great defensive performances by Magyar and goths too lmao.
Also bombard vs warwolf treb the bombard can stick and move while the treb is stationary so I think it's not the same. And something like houfnice might just attack ground in front of longbow and move since they have 1 extra range
With the balance changes which have happened, I think the best defensive 🛡 civilisation for open maps might be Malay, with them being pretty good for defence in general.
The reasons being:
• Battle Elephants 🐘 being great on the defence, where their fast creation speed and high cost/unit shines to rush out an army, and the slow speed does not matter as much due to the close distance to the enemy units
• Fast Age ups meaning it is unlikely they are behind the enemy for too long, so can use the counter units of the same Age against aggressive fast age ups from the enemy
• Infantry armour upgrades makes defending from cavalry units easier and Karambits can be used to rush at siege and monks in spite of arrow fire
In the late game, defensive powers fall off as their low quality cavalry means they are vulnerable to being outmaneuvered, especially with Hussar 🏇 raiding.
Tartars get 19 range, they have siege engineers too.
Also yes, most people forget or don't know about the Blast Radius... I didn't until a friend was defending on B.F. with the stupidest map gen & almost Treb + Castles only and it was mentioned!
Also the funky thing for Britons is their fully upgraded Champions now that they're the 1 archer civ given Gambesons... So going against Mayan Eagles where they have archers too, is even more reliable as them now.
Teutons and Brits
Nerf Britons pls
nerf Britons PLZ
Is #1 then...
Incas?
Or maybe ethiopeans? Poles? Britons?
Where bohemians
Yoooooo Heerraaa!!! Whatup!!!
Man, could you please make a video on team work ediquite. So many people are building things in absurd places and playing a 4v4 like its a 1v 4 o even 0 v 4.
I understand we all have a learning curve and it's not possible to police people, however, you are a great aoe host and I feel like if you could work something like that into a game it might further help some of what you've been trying to do.
The sportsmanship of this game is important just like soccer, baseball, or any sport in person.
I would like to know hera's opinion about bohemians as an defensive civ.
I think that Bohes could be a #6 (hidden for most people)
Not even an honorable mention for yasama keeps and kataparuto trbuchets?
Free murder holes and herbal medicine for Teutons: am I a joke to you?
hahaha the discord notification got me
I know this has nothing to do with top def civs but does ballistics help with Malians gbeto throwers become more accurate? Some units it’s hard to tell what actually helps them
No ballistics does not affect gbeto, throwing axemen, chakrum throwers, or memelukes
@@Whokare thank you, just upgrade standard armor and attack bonuses for infantry through blacksmith for gbeto?
@@griffstratz6495 1 and squires/arson from the barracks.
Tatar trebuchets actually have 19 range.
Although less relevant, I think is important to mention that Teutons might garison more vills in the TC and have free murder holes.
While Ethiopians are missing a a few techs, I quite like defending with their Arbalest/Siege Onager combo, and unlike some of the others civs on the list, your economy is not slow. While I wouldn't say top 5 material, I'd make an honorable mention for them too.
Hey guy, Spirit of the... wait wrong video
commenting to help the algorithm. Thanks for the content.
I watch this as if I'm going to play anything other than Malians until the nerf 11
Did not even know you had a gameplay channel. Very nice
Aztecs for me... Because the best defense is offense
love the visuals of the little bases
I was waiting for the troll option Huns
thanks for tips!
GJ on the 1000 likes Hera ;)
Man said “without further to do”
Nice Video, Thx
Awesome video. Great editing again.
tatars is 19 range btw
Cool Video Man!!!!
Tremendous job with the scenario editor on this one!
#50: aztecs
Hello Hera. Do you know if monks have bônus against unique units? Less time to convert..
they dont
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 Thank you man, I looked for this information in several places and did not find it!
When you think about it, Persians are the ultimate defensive civ. The other TC shot first.
3st
Thirst? :p
I kind of go unusually with the turks. In late game they have the plus 2 range on bombard towers. Soo strong
Nerf Britons
Vietnamese are pretty good in defense, but not masonry or architecture hurts them. Maybe a little to much with the free Conscription.
As another honorable mention Id like to suggest cumans. It might not fit into the theme 100%, but in fact its my No. 1 clown civ for booming. In the end this is a pretty defensive play style, as I often need to invest in counter units, siege and scouts to defend my boom. Usually from a castle drop. Their boni (feudal tc+siege workshop and cheaper production buildings) can be used both offensively and defensively. If you go for a boom, your enemey can dictate the game by aggression forcing you to react defensively.
I almost forget the teambonus: 30 % stronger palisades. Cumans should be No. 1! ^^