@@dirkauditore8413 Spears done protect you from archer fire, and once infantry gets close they're just cumbersome. It's a pretty accurate representation of what would happen.
@@BigDoniel Not really. Spears were historically a much more common battlefield weapon than swords, and also generally more effective, with the idea that swords counter spears is more of a video game trope used for balance reasons. In reality the advantage of more reach is very noticeable. Off the top of my head I can't really think of any major pre-modern army that preferred swords over spears except the Roman Empire which mostly fitted out its legions with short swords. Otherwise spears, or polearms in general, were the more widespread and succesful weapon for the battlefield. Indeed during AOE2's timeframe spears were more commonly used than swords, and towards the end of the middle ages the primary infantry became pike squares with very long pikes, and these dominated the battlefield until they were rendered obsolete by guns, while swords were phased out almost entirely. For other settings you might prefer a sword for being smaller and easier to carry around, but on the battlefield that isn't much of a concern.
Back in my day there was one fast infantry unit! And that's how we liked it! Without SotL navigating us through these crazy times idk what I would do...
Also weird how Eagle warriors, with apparently no or light armor, is having a very high pierce armor. Meanwhile the visually heavily armored and slow long swordsman with shield has terrible armor
@@knasttrast7168 That's because units (usually) get pierce armor with shields, not body armor (skirms, knights, light cav, skirms, huskarls, eagles, ghulams etc.). At least in AoE2 logic.
you don't need ti produce camels, hand cannons AND ghulams. but you have all three options, depending on your enemy civ. that makes the civ so strong, they essentially have no really terrible matchups
same as incas, with their unique anti infantry slingers, anti archer eagles and unique anti cavalry kamayuks, but they're not that great for some reason
@@LokirofRoriksted too gold intensive, slingers are also not very good, it has low stats, not affected by thumb ring, and has no elite version which means it falls behind in imp. Even if it shoot faster than HC, they have less than half of HC base dmg, making them anti-infantry exclusively, who even make infantry during castle age?
I think Hindustanis getting Ghulam was one of the single biggest design blunders in aoe2. They were already extremely good at countering cav and infantry, having a weakness to ranged units was the only good game plan to exploit them until Ghulam. The reason they are far better than Inca IMO is a far stronger economy and the fact that eagle warriors are not nearly as potent as Ghulam as an archer counter in castle age. It really doesn't take many ghulams to stop an archer ball because of the bonus damage and base pierce armour.
@@LokirofRoriksted Because those counters are not as good, that's very simple. Is not about that it needs a lot of gold. Thing is ghulams do great against anything except knights, they are not terrible even against champs even though they lose, but they do decent. Also they do much better against xbow in castle age as was mentioned, also camels deal with knights better than kamayuks or pikemen, because of speed, camels can chase knights, unlike pikemen/halbs who often just keep chasing shadows. Having a super strong counter which can do against other types quite good or at least decent is amazing, while having stuff like slingers who do great against inf but die against any other unit miserably is just much harder to play with. Your slingers can get counter countered(?) with skirms or xbow fast because small numbers are enough to kill slingers, while with mass of ghulams you have way more time to switch into camels. Also fast creation speed just lets to get 10 ghulams superr fast and 10 ghulams can deal with like 25 xbow or something. With 10 eagles you won't do much in castle age though. In imp they seem to be not as good, however most games probably are decided before imp, not to mention hindustanis have one of the best eco together with insane counters
Interesting results in this vid! My takeaway is that the Ghulam needs to wear robes to justify its speed and strengths/weaknesses. Wearing heavy armor doesn't make sense.
I think what actually makes the Ghulam so good is the role it plays for Hindustanis. It's THE answer to archers for them and it completes their triangle of being able to counter all basic unit types (archers, infantry and cavalry) - Camels and UT boosted Handcannoniers taking on the other two types. Edit: spoke too soon, you actually mentioned it in the end, my bad!
It's nice that the Mayans are comparable to them as a very strong anti archer civ. With the tankiest eagle, 3 handed skirmisher and their own fast mooving archer. PS : RIP obsidian arrow.
One thing to keep in mind with a video like this, in a 1v1 you probably would make other kinds of unit decisions and a lot of these comparisons are moot, but in a team game there are plenty of times you might build these units to fight one of the players, and end up with some of these matchups when going against another player
When I watch this video, I think for the most part Gulam and Eagles are very comparable, with maybe an exception to Cav, but who is making EW's against cav. I think that's what it comes down to, because most of the comparisons are abit moot, because they are still counter by the same things, but how heavily is being the difference. If you loose 1vs1 and the unit has either 40% health or 60% health remaining is an indicator not to make the unit (especially considering that these are both Gold units).
I was just playing AOEII and thought about how I hadn't seen anything from you in a while. So I had to check and, sure enough, I hadn't gotten the notifications for two videos.
In case if you were wondering what "Ghulam" means its from arabic and it has some of the following meanings : kid, child, boy ... When a older person calls a child/younger person he says : "ya ghulam". I don't know why they called this unit a ghulam but its probably due to historical purposes like if they were trained since childhood.
@@cyberinsomnia3573 Well that make sence it could be like the janissaries/mamluks who were basically takes as slaves and raised as muslims. Thank you for the information.
The Ghulam is and will always be op. It's not the stats or the performance of the unit that matters, but the fact that it counters the one remaining weakness that the civ had. Hind is now essentially unbeatable. In early game the vil discount will eat you and in late game the relic gold will outproduce you from the unique tech.
that's a good point. they are a bit weaker than eagles in most situations, at leats in imp. but they fill a much more important role in their civ because the civ does have other options to deal with the weaknesses that ghulams and eagles have
@@abdalucchash5717 what kind of unit combos are these? You need to combine units, that cover each others weaknesses. When you have Paladins, you need something that can deal with Halbs and Camels, as that is what the Paladin is vulnerable against, so you put Skirms, Archers or Gunpowder (if enemy civ has no Camels) with them but not Halbs. And Camels and Pikes is even worse. You just need mass archers to shred this combo. OK Hindustani Camels are much more of a power unit than regular camels, but still both units of this composition are pretty much Anti Cavalry counter units. You either go Camel+Ghulam, Camel + Handcannon or Camel + CavArcher dependant on enemy civ and army composition.
I kinda wish they made a category of assault infantry to have the armor class the the eagle warrior so that it can be used again. I like how they are countered by swordsmen.
I feel like you missed the mass cav battle comparison to see if the pass-through damage helps at all vs their poor performance. I suspect not but seems like an odd oversight for you.
The fact that the Ghulam is beaten by generic FU Hussars 1v1 I doubt it'd change anything vs heavy cavalry options. The best comparison I can think of would be exploring how large of a mass you need in arbs to kill 20 FU Skirms. Lol.
Hi SOTL 😀 Could you do another update on pikes/halbs? Im really wondering which civs pointy boys excels best in different situations. For example a castle age trash battle between Teutons and Japanese, but of course also who has the strongest pikes/halbs vs cavalry in castle/imperial age. The civs i would like to see are mainly Japanese, Teutons, Vikings & Aztecs. (How good is a Viking castle age pike vs knights compared to the other 3 civs? How good are Teuton halbs against cavalry compared to the other 3 civs? Who has the strongest pikes/halbs for trash battles?)
Castle age Viking has 2nd best pikeman against knights, the extra hp allows them to poke one more time, but Japanese pikemen is definitely the best one, they just poke even more, if the knight has no bloodlines and armor and the Japanese research forging, they can even solo kill the knights
Yeah I tend to forget about civs that don't jump out as infantry civ as much as Japanese or Goths do. Having free extra attack on infantry helps, although it'll benefit mostly champions, pikes and halbs will only be slightly better in trash battles and pretty much the same against cavalry i think. 🤔
All attack bonuses and types of armor units have must be displayed in open as in AoE 3. With many unique units from many civs having absolutely unexpected hidden attack bonuses its unnessesary convoluted
I really like eagles. They are in my opinion the best unit in the game for being very very versatile - surprisingly fast (an FU eagle is even faster than an FU Teutonic Paladin), can kill archers, can tank arrow fire to kill villagers and eat buildings, can take on even cavaliers if greatly outnumbering them, can kill siege and monks, can be trained and upgraded faster since they are trained at barracks, can't be countered by trash units, and the most important thing - cost only 20 food so they don't slow down your economy and allow you to spam them while still booming. You can hardly find any other unit that is this versatile. If there really are any counters to them, it's either full turtling or rush them even harder to prevent such play. Ghulams on the other hand, I just consider them faster but weaker huskarls that have eagle-ish cost. They aren't as good as eagles but they fulfill the anti-archer role quite good for Hindustanis, and I always like units that can kill villagers or even TCs when under arrowfire.
The big thing is Hindustanis have some of the best mobile counters to everything. You make champion to counter ghulam? They whip out some 9 range HC. Cavalier? How about imp camel. It just feels like you have no good comp against them
@@micahbonewell5994 Personally, I would prefer a more flexible civilization with several options over a civilization like Franks that's basically good at one thing.
The big thing is the 9 range on their hand cannons, that is excessive in my opinion. It should be just +1 range, not +2 for their unique tech. Cus 9 range hc kinda invalidates onagers as a response, but without the 9 range any strong infantry civ (like japanese) + onager can beat hindustanis.
Why would Hindustani be weak to archers without the Ghulam? They can already produce elite skirmishers and have all the upgrades. I'm not saying the Ghulam is a bad unit, just that I think that they have a solution that's much more effective at taking out cavalry archers and arbalests and if you're selling 100 food for 14 gold, the skirmisher line would be better hands down. Raiding and shrugging off town center fire is a useful application of the Ghulam, but if all you want is getting rid of archers causing you problems, you already have a more cost effective solution.
No overlap between bonuses sounds like a cool trivia but it's mostly irrelevant. Monks are only used in early castle age in low numbers, before you get the castle up. Once Ghulams come to field, monks are already expired as a viable unit choice, so it really doesn't matter that eagles are good vs those. Similarly eagle bonus vs siege doesn't matter either. It's all about getting on top of siege. Once you do, siege dies, that's it, damage bonus doesn't change that. What does matter is that eagles get slaughtered if they are ever caught by enemy infantry while ghulams match somewhat evenly. Ghulams can perfectly do everything you would ever use mass eagles for, while also being harder to counter. (and they have better supporting options as Hindustani unit) And this is after they received a pretty big nerf. Incredibly strong unit.
They weren't "such different", they were very slightly different, and this is just the natural luck factor. They're not going to end up with the exact same amount of HP each time.
thats a good question, I tried searching, but couldn't find and answer. there is 10% difference between them here, and not sure if just down to random luck.
I still dont know how you keep getting ideas for new videos. Maybe you have this one planned already, but could you do a "who's the best Civ for early castle"?
quite impossible to say this. going archers? - britons. Going knights? probably Berbers, maybe Franks. Camels? Gujaras. Siege push? Celts, Slavs.. want to boom? want to get relics? oh boy, so many answers... its not a good concept for a video, way too general of a question, depending on waaay too many factors; the Map, the Civ matchup, what is your opponent doing, was your opponent faster to castle or is he still in feudal age? waaaaay too many factors
@@Progeusz Yeah I know they're all meant to be the same but in the testing in the video the CA Mayan eagles consistently outperform the others. SotL even pointed it out. Hence why I'm asking what makes them somehow perform better
Here's another suggestion for a Gurjara-related video: Are Gurjara 2H Swordsmen garbage or not? The question is complicated by their 25% Food discount tech and access to Supplies, giving them a price tag similar to Goths. However, Gurjaras lack Champion, Blast Furnace, and Squires, making their 2H Swordsmen very weak. Really, the Gurjaras' Barracks is probably the worst in the game, but it's unclear if their 2H Swordsmen having such a low cost could make up the difference.
Funny, i find these videos interesting even though i've nothing to do with AOE2. They're interesting but i don't care enough to actually remember anything, i usually watch while eating or out of boredom. Curious way someone can get you to subscribe.
@@SpiritOfTheLaw My bad, seems you are correct, I misremembered the Elite Ghulam's base speed as 1.25 and not 1.2. However, it seems at 1:56, you also mistook their base speed for 1.25, as you say the speed is 1.38 with Squires (which is a rounding of 1.375 I assume). Then at 7:52, you show the correct speed, which is 1.32
It’s a really bad unit design imo. The ghulam looks heavily armored, has a long spear and a large shield. *Everything* about this unit suggests they are a slow heavy infantry that should do well against cavalry. They could have made it a version of the teutonic knight with a focus on pierce armour instead of the tks melee armour and with some bonus damage against cavalry. But what makes no sense is that this unit sprints as fast as a lightly armoured eagle warrior and cannot take on cavalry
Well, if you're planning to take down other buildings, then it may very well be worth it for the additional bonus and splash damage. Plus, you get additional speed, especially if you're using the rams to transport infantry. I agree, though, that the upgrades are expensive. I'd say the Capped Ram upgrade is usually worth it, while the Siege Ram is a bit more situational (unless you're playing Bulgarians, in which case the reduced cost makes it a much easier upgrade to justify).
Siege ram is a very important upgrade. They survive for long and can carry more troops, and can attack multiple buildings together. And yes, if you wish to attack only a wall and castle it is stupid. Use trebs for that.
That's because SotL made sure to mostly include unrealistic scenarios that are biased against ghulams and biased in favor of eagles. You don't use ghulams in early castle age vs monks, you don't use either of those units 1 on 1, vs cavalry Hindustani have the strongest camels in the game and don't need to use ghulam. The important comparisons are vs archers and infantry. What's more, SotL failed to properly show the difference vs archer line because he used tiny groups. Results would be different if the fight was vs bigger ball of xbows/arbs. SotL basically removed the pass through damage from the equation to make ghulams look worse than they really are.
I wish they either made the ghulam weaker, took away one of the archer upgrades for the skirmishers, either elite skirmisher or the blacksmith techs, I feel like currently the hindustanis have too many options to counter archer civs. Combined with one of the best ecos in the game.
@@satyakisil9711 Ghulam is hopefully heavy cavalry in real history which fit Hindustanis' cavalry civ identity. I thought 45f 75g 80, 120 hp 1.45 speed 8, 10 attack ,1/3, 1/4 armor for Ghulam.
I haven't played this verision of aoe 2 but it looks like this unit is from Delhi sultanate days of India. The word Ghulam or Gulam litrally stands for slave.
Kind of a shame that they ruined the age-old engrained mechanic of men armed with spears having a bonus vs cavalry. Anytime I see a pointy stick in any game I assume it's good against cavalry and this unit actively goes against that.
Its not Ghoullum. Its pronounced Ghullaaaam. Meaning slave in Urdu. Because when the Delhi sultanate and Mughals invaded Hindustan, they enslaved the native people.
The Gulam is a superb unit made to counter the boring ,repetitive archer Mayan play of the ''pro'' scene, I adore the Gulam. The gives us so much more diverse infantry game play on both sides of a conflict. They should NOT nerf Gulam. If you want to nerf Hindustanis, do it by giving Caravanserai to Persia because they used the Caravanserai by far the most.
I kinda wished there was a Swiss group and thier pikemen were the special or unique unit. Too bad they only available in AOE 3. Even they are pretty powerful in that game in large groups
This unit doesn't make sense. Carry a shield, and use only 1 hand to pierce a long spear through 2 people. What are they, super man? And with a spear, they don't win against cavalry? Even more nonsense. And carrying all that equipment: shield, long spear that easily gets stuck, yet runs faster than archers. This unit doesn't make any sense, it's fantasy.
technically a ghulam is a skirmisher that refuses to throw their javelin (i mean look at their model they looks almost identical)
Lols i never understood why spear units are so weak vs anything but horses, when the spear was the king of the battlefield weapons
@@dirkauditore8413 Spears done protect you from archer fire, and once infantry gets close they're just cumbersome. It's a pretty accurate representation of what would happen.
@@BigDoniel Not really. Spears were historically a much more common battlefield weapon than swords, and also generally more effective, with the idea that swords counter spears is more of a video game trope used for balance reasons. In reality the advantage of more reach is very noticeable. Off the top of my head I can't really think of any major pre-modern army that preferred swords over spears except the Roman Empire which mostly fitted out its legions with short swords. Otherwise spears, or polearms in general, were the more widespread and succesful weapon for the battlefield. Indeed during AOE2's timeframe spears were more commonly used than swords, and towards the end of the middle ages the primary infantry became pike squares with very long pikes, and these dominated the battlefield until they were rendered obsolete by guns, while swords were phased out almost entirely. For other settings you might prefer a sword for being smaller and easier to carry around, but on the battlefield that isn't much of a concern.
Polearms are in general cheaper to make which is why they're so dominant
😂😂😂
Back in my day there was one fast infantry unit! And that's how we liked it! Without SotL navigating us through these crazy times idk what I would do...
Woad warrior and beserker: am I a joke to you?
Eagles are the way they are because meso civs don’t get cavalry. Ghulams are so dumb…
@@longbow857 Huscarl says hi
@@longbow857 I thought he meant Woads )
@@longbow857 beserkers were not fast back in 1999
It’s always a good day when SOTL posts a video!
pointy boi good vs. archer run fast ggwp
Is weird how armored units(infantry) move more fast(or almost) than Eagle warriors.
Also weird how Eagle warriors, with apparently no or light armor, is having a very high pierce armor. Meanwhile the visually heavily armored and slow long swordsman with shield has terrible armor
@@knasttrast7168 That's because units (usually) get pierce armor with shields, not body armor (skirms, knights, light cav, skirms, huskarls, eagles, ghulams etc.). At least in AoE2 logic.
@@knasttrast7168 They have Quetzalcóatl bless, that's why.
@@knasttrast7168 they dodge good
you don't need ti produce camels, hand cannons AND ghulams. but you have all three options, depending on your enemy civ. that makes the civ so strong, they essentially have no really terrible matchups
same as incas, with their unique anti infantry slingers, anti archer eagles and unique anti cavalry kamayuks, but they're not that great for some reason
@@LokirofRoriksted too gold intensive, slingers are also not very good, it has low stats, not affected by thumb ring, and has no elite version which means it falls behind in imp. Even if it shoot faster than HC, they have less than half of HC base dmg, making them anti-infantry exclusively, who even make infantry during castle age?
@@CrnaStrela All the Hindustani counter options also cost gold.
I think Hindustanis getting Ghulam was one of the single biggest design blunders in aoe2. They were already extremely good at countering cav and infantry, having a weakness to ranged units was the only good game plan to exploit them until Ghulam. The reason they are far better than Inca IMO is a far stronger economy and the fact that eagle warriors are not nearly as potent as Ghulam as an archer counter in castle age. It really doesn't take many ghulams to stop an archer ball because of the bonus damage and base pierce armour.
@@LokirofRoriksted Because those counters are not as good, that's very simple. Is not about that it needs a lot of gold. Thing is ghulams do great against anything except knights, they are not terrible even against champs even though they lose, but they do decent. Also they do much better against xbow in castle age as was mentioned, also camels deal with knights better than kamayuks or pikemen, because of speed, camels can chase knights, unlike pikemen/halbs who often just keep chasing shadows. Having a super strong counter which can do against other types quite good or at least decent is amazing, while having stuff like slingers who do great against inf but die against any other unit miserably is just much harder to play with. Your slingers can get counter countered(?) with skirms or xbow fast because small numbers are enough to kill slingers, while with mass of ghulams you have way more time to switch into camels. Also fast creation speed just lets to get 10 ghulams superr fast and 10 ghulams can deal with like 25 xbow or something. With 10 eagles you won't do much in castle age though. In imp they seem to be not as good, however most games probably are decided before imp, not to mention hindustanis have one of the best eco together with insane counters
I watched every single of your videos and Im not even playing aoe2, it's so entertaining tho
same
Did u play b4 in the past? Or any other version of aoe like aom
@@Achilles75 i dabbled in aoe ii hd and dev ed but rage quit most of the time bc i couldnt get my keyboard setup right lol
Same
Same. I play some vanilla aoe 2 back in early 2000s but that about it, still watch all of Spirit video
Interesting results in this vid! My takeaway is that the Ghulam needs to wear robes to justify its speed and strengths/weaknesses. Wearing heavy armor doesn't make sense.
I think what actually makes the Ghulam so good is the role it plays for Hindustanis. It's THE answer to archers for them and it completes their triangle of being able to counter all basic unit types (archers, infantry and cavalry) - Camels and UT boosted Handcannoniers taking on the other two types.
Edit: spoke too soon, you actually mentioned it in the end, my bad!
Yeah, 'cept all those options cost gold. So they need a lot of gold.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn Their castle age UT helps a lot there.
It's nice that the Mayans are comparable to them as a very strong anti archer civ.
With the tankiest eagle, 3 handed skirmisher and their own fast mooving archer.
PS : RIP obsidian arrow.
I would wholeheartedly support any petition to rename Hul'che javelins into 3-handed skirmishers lol
I found the difference between the eagle civs even more interesting than the ghulam thx
He already made a nice video to the diference between the eagles :)
@@MultiDJAddy I did not find that
@@flow333job th-cam.com/video/aO8fgQG5dlU/w-d-xo.html
Would love to see a video on Urumi Swordsman w/wo Wootz Steel and how they stack up against other infantry.
Always love these videos. Really helps me to understand the game better.
I love eagles so it's always fun seeing their ol comparisons again
I literally JUST rewatched your Ghulam video YESTERDAY. STOP READING MY MIND!!!
One thing to keep in mind with a video like this, in a 1v1 you probably would make other kinds of unit decisions and a lot of these comparisons are moot, but in a team game there are plenty of times you might build these units to fight one of the players, and end up with some of these matchups when going against another player
When I watch this video, I think for the most part Gulam and Eagles are very comparable, with maybe an exception to Cav, but who is making EW's against cav.
I think that's what it comes down to, because most of the comparisons are abit moot, because they are still counter by the same things, but how heavily is being the difference. If you loose 1vs1 and the unit has either 40% health or 60% health remaining is an indicator not to make the unit (especially considering that these are both Gold units).
I was just playing AOEII and thought about how I hadn't seen anything from you in a while. So I had to check and, sure enough, I hadn't gotten the notifications for two videos.
Eagles are easier to mass, because you can start earlier and barracs are cheaper than castles.
I think the biggest difference might be the spelling.
In case if you were wondering what "Ghulam" means its from arabic and it has some of the following meanings : kid, child, boy ...
When a older person calls a child/younger person he says : "ya ghulam".
I don't know why they called this unit a ghulam but its probably due to historical purposes like if they were trained since childhood.
In the hindustani languages (hindi and urdu) it means slave
@@cyberinsomnia3573 Well that make sence it could be like the janissaries/mamluks who were basically takes as slaves and raised as muslims.
Thank you for the information.
wither it's like a eagle or not, they are OP as a unit since they are so strong as a archer counter, without an hard counter themselfs
Missed you STOL! Hope you're good my man
Where is the intro at SOTL?!
The Ghulam is and will always be op. It's not the stats or the performance of the unit that matters, but the fact that it counters the one remaining weakness that the civ had. Hind is now essentially unbeatable. In early game the vil discount will eat you and in late game the relic gold will outproduce you from the unique tech.
that's a good point. they are a bit weaker than eagles in most situations, at leats in imp. but they fill a much more important role in their civ because the civ does have other options to deal with the weaknesses that ghulams and eagles have
Paladin + halbs can still beat heavy camel+pikes. It was unbeatable before but the pike nerf was huge
@@abdalucchash5717 what about handcannoneers and pikes?
or handcannoneers and camels
@@abdalucchash5717 who uses camel + pikes anyway?
@@abdalucchash5717 what kind of unit combos are these? You need to combine units, that cover each others weaknesses. When you have Paladins, you need something that can deal with Halbs and Camels, as that is what the Paladin is vulnerable against, so you put Skirms, Archers or Gunpowder (if enemy civ has no Camels) with them but not Halbs.
And Camels and Pikes is even worse. You just need mass archers to shred this combo. OK Hindustani Camels are much more of a power unit than regular camels, but still both units of this composition are pretty much Anti Cavalry counter units.
You either go Camel+Ghulam, Camel + Handcannon or Camel + CavArcher dependant on enemy civ and army composition.
does ghulams 1/2 dmg to 2nd target reduce bonus dmg? (sr for my english)
I kinda wish they made a category of assault infantry to have the armor class the the eagle warrior so that it can be used again. I like how they are countered by swordsmen.
I feel like you missed the mass cav battle comparison to see if the pass-through damage helps at all vs their poor performance. I suspect not but seems like an odd oversight for you.
The fact that the Ghulam is beaten by generic FU Hussars 1v1 I doubt it'd change anything vs heavy cavalry options. The best comparison I can think of would be exploring how large of a mass you need in arbs to kill 20 FU Skirms. Lol.
Hi SOTL 😀 Could you do another update on pikes/halbs? Im really wondering which civs pointy boys excels best in different situations. For example a castle age trash battle between Teutons and Japanese, but of course also who has the strongest pikes/halbs vs cavalry in castle/imperial age. The civs i would like to see are mainly Japanese, Teutons, Vikings & Aztecs.
(How good is a Viking castle age pike vs knights compared to the other 3 civs? How good are Teuton halbs against cavalry compared to the other 3 civs? Who has the strongest pikes/halbs for trash battles?)
you are forgetting burmese my boy
i think burmese pikemen beat all other pikemen in castle age, not sure about japanese though
Castle age Viking has 2nd best pikeman against knights, the extra hp allows them to poke one more time, but Japanese pikemen is definitely the best one, they just poke even more, if the knight has no bloodlines and armor and the Japanese research forging, they can even solo kill the knights
Even with chieftains only 2nd in castle? Damn.
Yeah I tend to forget about civs that don't jump out as infantry civ as much as Japanese or Goths do. Having free extra attack on infantry helps, although it'll benefit mostly champions, pikes and halbs will only be slightly better in trash battles and pretty much the same against cavalry i think. 🤔
All attack bonuses and types of armor units have must be displayed in open as in AoE 3. With many unique units from many civs having absolutely unexpected hidden attack bonuses its unnessesary convoluted
I really like eagles. They are in my opinion the best unit in the game for being very very versatile - surprisingly fast (an FU eagle is even faster than an FU Teutonic Paladin), can kill archers, can tank arrow fire to kill villagers and eat buildings, can take on even cavaliers if greatly outnumbering them, can kill siege and monks, can be trained and upgraded faster since they are trained at barracks, can't be countered by trash units, and the most important thing - cost only 20 food so they don't slow down your economy and allow you to spam them while still booming. You can hardly find any other unit that is this versatile. If there really are any counters to them, it's either full turtling or rush them even harder to prevent such play.
Ghulams on the other hand, I just consider them faster but weaker huskarls that have eagle-ish cost. They aren't as good as eagles but they fulfill the anti-archer role quite good for Hindustanis, and I always like units that can kill villagers or even TCs when under arrowfire.
The big thing is Hindustanis have some of the best mobile counters to everything. You make champion to counter ghulam? They whip out some 9 range HC. Cavalier? How about imp camel. It just feels like you have no good comp against them
I agree, they have far too many options imo, and one of the best ecos
@@micahbonewell5994 Personally, I would prefer a more flexible civilization with several options over a civilization like Franks that's basically good at one thing.
The big thing is the 9 range on their hand cannons, that is excessive in my opinion. It should be just +1 range, not +2 for their unique tech. Cus 9 range hc kinda invalidates onagers as a response, but without the 9 range any strong infantry civ (like japanese) + onager can beat hindustanis.
imma be honest, I watch these videos for the jam of a song at the end.
Ghulam is OP. They are only countered by knights, and Hindustanis has insane camels
Why would Hindustani be weak to archers without the Ghulam? They can already produce elite skirmishers and have all the upgrades. I'm not saying the Ghulam is a bad unit, just that I think that they have a solution that's much more effective at taking out cavalry archers and arbalests and if you're selling 100 food for 14 gold, the skirmisher line would be better hands down. Raiding and shrugging off town center fire is a useful application of the Ghulam, but if all you want is getting rid of archers causing you problems, you already have a more cost effective solution.
No overlap between bonuses sounds like a cool trivia but it's mostly irrelevant. Monks are only used in early castle age in low numbers, before you get the castle up. Once Ghulams come to field, monks are already expired as a viable unit choice, so it really doesn't matter that eagles are good vs those. Similarly eagle bonus vs siege doesn't matter either. It's all about getting on top of siege. Once you do, siege dies, that's it, damage bonus doesn't change that.
What does matter is that eagles get slaughtered if they are ever caught by enemy infantry while ghulams match somewhat evenly. Ghulams can perfectly do everything you would ever use mass eagles for, while also being harder to counter. (and they have better supporting options as Hindustani unit)
And this is after they received a pretty big nerf. Incredibly strong unit.
7:04 Why did the eagles have such different outcomes based on the civ? Aren't all the eagles the same in castle age?
They weren't "such different", they were very slightly different, and this is just the natural luck factor. They're not going to end up with the exact same amount of HP each time.
thats a good question, I tried searching, but couldn't find and answer. there is 10% difference between them here, and not sure if just down to random luck.
At this point, what infantry DOESN'T deal bonus damage to eagles?
Dismounted Konnik.
I still dont know how you keep getting ideas for new videos. Maybe you have this one planned already, but could you do a "who's the best Civ for early castle"?
quite impossible to say this. going archers? - britons. Going knights? probably Berbers, maybe Franks. Camels? Gujaras. Siege push? Celts, Slavs.. want to boom? want to get relics? oh boy, so many answers... its not a good concept for a video, way too general of a question, depending on waaay too many factors; the Map, the Civ matchup, what is your opponent doing, was your opponent faster to castle or is he still in feudal age? waaaaay too many factors
How does the Gulan vs Samurai go? I'd assume the Samurai wins, does anyone know this?
Is this to say that the best counter to Hindustanis is full castle age infantry? (before hand canoneers come in to play)
Thank you!
Wait... I get Imperial UT's making a difference, but what makes Castle Age Mayan Eagles better than the others??
They aren't. Castle age eagles are all the same.
@@Progeusz Yeah I know they're all meant to be the same but in the testing in the video the CA Mayan eagles consistently outperform the others. SotL even pointed it out. Hence why I'm asking what makes them somehow perform better
ghulams are very good counter to pikes, eagles on the other hand never fought a spearman in the last 20 years
I dont even play AoE anymore. I just like to listen to SotL at this point. Gotta love stats
Im missing the Intro sequence
Coot pfp
AOE2 version of what’s the difference between a naan wrap and a tortilla wrap
Edit: Suddenly I’m hungry
so even a light cavalry is dangerous against GHULAM? new thing I learned
Here's another suggestion for a Gurjara-related video: Are Gurjara 2H Swordsmen garbage or not?
The question is complicated by their 25% Food discount tech and access to Supplies, giving them a price tag similar to Goths. However, Gurjaras lack Champion, Blast Furnace, and Squires, making their 2H Swordsmen very weak. Really, the Gurjaras' Barracks is probably the worst in the game, but it's unclear if their 2H Swordsmen having such a low cost could make up the difference.
Funny, i find these videos interesting even though i've nothing to do with AOE2.
They're interesting but i don't care enough to actually remember anything, i usually watch while eating or out of boredom.
Curious way someone can get you to subscribe.
I literally rewatched the Eagles comparison video a few hours ago and then this vid appears, what the hell XD
We needd more running animations for infantry
Do you play AoE 2 more than 4 or 3 nowadays??
I have 2 and i was wondering if i should pick up 4 or 3
-7:52-- error, elite ghulam speed with Squires is 1.375, not 1.32-
What's the calculation for 1.375?
From genie editor: 1.2 elite ghulam base speed x 1.1 from squires = 1.32
@@SpiritOfTheLaw My bad, seems you are correct, I misremembered the Elite Ghulam's base speed as 1.25 and not 1.2.
However, it seems at 1:56, you also mistook their base speed for 1.25, as you say the speed is 1.38 with Squires (which is a rounding of 1.375 I assume). Then at 7:52, you show the correct speed, which is 1.32
Elite Ghulam has 1.2 speed. 1.2 * 1.10 = 1.32. 1.32 speed is true.
Just making note, the caption said "Hey guys, Spirit at the lie here".
Thanks for pointing that out. I looked through and found a few mistakes. The automatic captions love to write about "sieve bonuses"
@@SpiritOfTheLaw 100% reduction to water containment
How are ghulam versus spear line?
Are Ghulams better versus Spears and Siege than Eagles?
9 months later
Eagle: Hey I just got nerff, how about you everthing good?
Ghulam: Tell me about that
All in all, Eagles and Ghulam are suprisingly compairae, even thiugh they are vastly different.
SOTL are you going to Heidelberg?
I like this civ they are the counter op strats make low Eli frank and Briton players actually have to make some other units
I knew SotL was gonna throw Japanese in there to DUNK on the Ghulam XD
dont forget that to produce them u need a castle ans i guess it s easier to make 10 baraks thant a castle
It’s a really bad unit design imo. The ghulam looks heavily armored, has a long spear and a large shield. *Everything* about this unit suggests they are a slow heavy infantry that should do well against cavalry. They could have made it a version of the teutonic knight with a focus on pierce armour instead of the tks melee armour and with some bonus damage against cavalry. But what makes no sense is that this unit sprints as fast as a lightly armoured eagle warrior and cannot take on cavalry
such an unintuitive design, got long spear but sucks vs cavalry. Clad in iron but speedy as heck
Does ram upgrade worth it? It very expensive and if you want to destroy a wall and a castle is it stupid to upgrade them?
Well, if you're planning to take down other buildings, then it may very well be worth it for the additional bonus and splash damage. Plus, you get additional speed, especially if you're using the rams to transport infantry.
I agree, though, that the upgrades are expensive. I'd say the Capped Ram upgrade is usually worth it, while the Siege Ram is a bit more situational (unless you're playing Bulgarians, in which case the reduced cost makes it a much easier upgrade to justify).
Siege ram is a very important upgrade. They survive for long and can carry more troops, and can attack multiple buildings together.
And yes, if you wish to attack only a wall and castle it is stupid. Use trebs for that.
Why is a ghulam weak to cavalry?? they literally have the same weapon as a pikeman, just longer and with more armor. isnt a spear a spear?
Most i got from this is that the Guhlams are super underwhelming, i would prefer skirms against archers as they are plenty more cost effective.
But Ghulam are kinda more versitile as you can raid with them. And i feel thats valuable.
That's because SotL made sure to mostly include unrealistic scenarios that are biased against ghulams and biased in favor of eagles. You don't use ghulams in early castle age vs monks, you don't use either of those units 1 on 1, vs cavalry Hindustani have the strongest camels in the game and don't need to use ghulam. The important comparisons are vs archers and infantry. What's more, SotL failed to properly show the difference vs archer line because he used tiny groups. Results would be different if the fight was vs bigger ball of xbows/arbs. SotL basically removed the pass through damage from the equation to make ghulams look worse than they really are.
they should fix ghulams shield clipping
In Imperial age, eagles found the precious, while Ghulam is still trying to get it back from the nasty hobbitses.
inca eagles+monk seems super super strong.
Please fix the subtitles, who is alex for example?
I wish they either made the ghulam weaker, took away one of the archer upgrades for the skirmishers, either elite skirmisher or the blacksmith techs, I feel like currently the hindustanis have too many options to counter archer civs. Combined with one of the best ecos in the game.
So Mayan eagle warriors are broken, got it
Always has been
Shouldnt guhlams have maced or swords instead of spears
Naah, who needs swords when you have a shield? Swords were a cavalry weapon at the time.
@@satyakisil9711 Ghulam is hopefully heavy cavalry in real history which fit Hindustanis' cavalry civ identity. I thought 45f 75g 80, 120 hp 1.45 speed 8, 10 attack ,1/3, 1/4 armor for Ghulam.
@@Asterix958 I second that. Ghulam sipahi were a thing and were used as shock cavalry.
I haven't played this verision of aoe 2 but it looks like this unit is from Delhi sultanate days of India. The word Ghulam or Gulam litrally stands for slave.
Yh he is...first introduced in the campaign of Babur
Ghulams having anti-eagle bonus is so stupid. That way mezo civs dont really have a counter to them.
Kind of a shame that they ruined the age-old engrained mechanic of men armed with spears having a bonus vs cavalry. Anytime I see a pointy stick in any game I assume it's good against cavalry and this unit actively goes against that.
Random comment - I can hear some reverb on your voice - could add some acoustic panels on your walls to improve that. Great video as always!!
Short: eagles better vs cav and siege, ghulam better vs infantry and archers
"Eagles not unique enough" 😆
Its not Ghoullum. Its pronounced Ghullaaaam. Meaning slave in Urdu. Because when the Delhi sultanate and Mughals invaded Hindustan, they enslaved the native people.
Gossipgollumpodcast?
8:21
Best AoE joke of 2022 so far 😋
"This makes eagles easy to spam"
*5000 gold later*
Basically a Ghulam is better
name game
Hindustanis' unique unit should be Singham.
10:28 Ghulam Warriors are Great Value(TM) Mayan Eagle Warriors 🤣🤣🤣
Ghulam means slave in urdu
The Gulam is a superb unit made to counter the boring ,repetitive archer Mayan play of the ''pro'' scene, I adore the Gulam. The gives us so much more diverse infantry game play on both sides of a conflict.
They should NOT nerf Gulam.
If you want to nerf Hindustanis, do it by giving Caravanserai to Persia because they used the Caravanserai by far the most.
8:19 11
I kinda wished there was a Swiss group and thier pikemen were the special or unique unit. Too bad they only available in AOE 3. Even they are pretty powerful in that game in large groups
Eagles are not unique enough.
Who tf asked for a ghulam nerf??😒
Remember that not all pokey sticks work against horsies.
Poor Aztecs…their actual aztec inspired unit is weak compared to the other civs
This unit doesn't make sense. Carry a shield, and use only 1 hand to pierce a long spear through 2 people. What are they, super man? And with a spear, they don't win against cavalry? Even more nonsense.
And carrying all that equipment: shield, long spear that easily gets stuck, yet runs faster than archers. This unit doesn't make any sense, it's fantasy.
I hate the new civs and they Fanservice nerdy ability and Civ Bonus
First!
So are Ghulams useful for anything?
Looks like Hindustanis became a useless faction...