Not to mention with the Romans that the double-armor effect makes it quicker and easier to upgrade their spearline's defences if needed. And they end up with more melee armor than normal. It's not a lot, but it's something on top of their other bonuses.
It's not bad but kinda situational since it's purely there to cover the Malians' weakness to arbalest in the late game. If they're versing anything other than arbalesters or eagles their infantry are kinda trash because they miss out on blast furnace and the halberdier upgrade.
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 don't know, I've gone from 1200 to 1450 ELO by playing full infantry with Malians. It's all-in but they can go unpunished under the TC fire even in early castle age. I'll try to adapt this strategy to Romans but the lack of Supplies hurts.
Malay with the free armour upgrades are pretty versatile, you can consider it a powerspike in early feudal or you can consider it as just a super smooth transition into infantry in the late game (e.g. karambit spam). Surprised it didn't get an honorable mention
i personally love malay but look, truth to be told you can do insane numbers of two handed swrod men and they will still get wiped out with much fewer numbers of specific troops "especially arrchers" i've been finding malian the best civ in the game for infantry SPECIFICALLY because they don't get countered by archers.
Okay, one thing that stands out to me about the Roman Centurion. What's the problem with most unique units, they're hard to mass because they have to be produced from a castle, right? Now, here's a unique unit where you don't have to mass them, or even upgrade them, and they will still be an incredible boost to a composition.
@@btarczy5067jags are just bad. Very niche, and for all the jobs they can do, eagles and champs are just the better choice because being more versatile
@@btarczy5067 I think the video is more about having good infantry in most match ups, not which infantry civ beats other infantry. Otherwise teutons would beat everyone except dravidians with their teutonic knights
@@Nata-ch2bk Goths are the best then. In infantry mirrors Japanese Romans and Aztecs crush them but they are leagues better vs archers and better than Romans and Aztec at countering cavalry.
@@remote24i mean jags can do what any other champ does the stats are in favor but its just harder to mass being more expensive and training really slow
For me its: 5. Incas - Their unique unit is their anchor. Kamayuk performs exactly like IRL pikemen: good against anything in melee in formation. They get pierce resistant Eagles to offset their weakness to archers. 4. Romans - Legionaries are similar to Jaguar Warriors except they don't need a Castle. They even beat Jaguars if Centurions are backing them. However their generic Halbs limits them to #4 because the spear line is more important than the swordsman line. 3. Slavs - Immensely powerful in Imperial Age with splash damage, but generic until that point. 2. Japanese - Fast attacking infantry as early as the Feudal Age opens up a lot of options. Samurai are also one of the better infantry unique units especially after the patch lowered their cost. 1. Goths - While it is true that infantry specialized civs crush them, Goths are far better at dealing with Archers, which are infantry's kryptonite. The Huskarl is the best infantry unique unit in the game. All their infantry are dirt cheap, so they are more cost effective than other races' counterparts, and are produced lighting fast to top it off.
just came back to this video after some experience in romans 😂i would say romans endgame have the big weakness of being heavily countered by archers. but if a centaurian is kept behind they do get the highest infantry Movement speed in the game so at least they do get the chance to reach archers if archers are not protected.
Goth access to gunpowder allows them to function against infantry civs in the late game... until gold runs out. You have to carry out the switch obviously, but once you do, you can stabilize and punish slower-producing infantry civs that haven't massed enough to break a huskarl + hand cannon composition.
Idk how hand cannons will fare against cheaper and faster firing scorpions. And God forbid the Romans player have a Khmer ally. Romans are broken dude. Plain and simple.
TH-cam asked me if this video was: funny informative relatable educational etc I checked all the boxes and slammed the submit button, always when it's a Hera video.
Love these videos Hera and all the insights and reasoning behind your thoughts. Congrats on being the current No. 1 AOE2 player as well. It’s very well earned and I was stoked when you came back to the game. Keep up the great content mate. 👏🏽
Yeah Aztec going infantry every single game pretty much. Strong MAA rush, Eagles, and +4 to all in late game. Honorable mention jag warrior, which I guess at least come in clutch once in a full moon.
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 What about Malay tho, the arambia got buffed and is cheaper if I remember that correctly. I recently watched some black forest 4v4 games and arambia spam is just unstoppeble cuz they swarm any ranged unit and just kill everything even if u lose 20 pop. The trick is to just get up to like 40-50 arambia and use them as a meat shield. Even if the oponent has good ranged units, they can never kill all 40 of them. So unless the arambai get countered by something like knights or siege, u always come out on top. Not to mention they also need less pop space and get produced real fast so to get mass of like 40 arambia shouldn't be that difficult if u have a solid economy . Or maybe I am biased cuz I have watched too much Black forest 4v4 games with Viper etc. :PP Edit: I get that arambia is wrong unit, sry my bad. Obviously I mean the karambit warrior.
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 I was actually thinking Aztecs were gonna be number 1 especially after you didn't put them in honorable mentions, and then got slammed with Romans I was like what the hell
I was a bit shocked Sicilians did not make your list. The sergeant is not far off from the Roman MAA. The Roman MAA needs to tech into MAA (140 resources) and take scale mail armor. If you take Forging for sergeant, they are very close with Roman having +1 pierce armor and sergeant having +5 hp. The sergeant will cost +15 gold more, but you can make 9 before you start to exceed the upgrade cost of MAA. The do start to lose to the Roman longsword which is insane. The sergeant is still very strong against anti-infantry units like slingers and hand cannoneers because of their reduction to bonus damage. Then you have First Crusade which produces 5 sergeants for every TC up to 25 sergeants. The cost is 16 food and 12 gold per sergeant with 5 TCs if you have 4 TCs the cost is 20 and 15.
I agree, however the problem lies with the unique tech being a one and done strat and the Sicilians seem to be a bit up and down in my experience with being able to have success consistently at all points of the game
You can't spam serjeants from barracks. You can spam legionaries, with 50% faster creation speed, while having a charge attack AND they will be better than Japanese champs if you have a centurion in the vicinity.
@@RottenCash I believe Sicilians can be quite powerful but you need a to have a tight build order (who is good at those). I have not seen the forward donjon into max sergeants with forging and a few scouts. Without an early civ bonus you fall behind getting to castle. I also have not seen the faster TC bonus used to maximize the civ. With 4 villagers building a TC normally it takes 1/2 the time or 75 sec. The Sicilians would work twice as fast or finish in 37.5 sec. This allows 1.5 villagers to be created in the time it takes others to finish. It also may be advantageous to idle the TC 25 to 30 seconds before advancing to castle age.
I personally think that Goths and Incas should be higher than Romans because while Roman infantry counters infantry well they need other units for archers, whereas Incas and Goth can just spam an infantry option at any unit minus gunpowder, well Huscarls actually do okay against HC.
Celts left out, I feel offended. Only celts can raid with infantry effectively in feudal age and are able to catch up with archers with infantry. However none of that nor this ranking matters because literally everyone and their grandmother open with archers and infantry gets hard shut down, even roman and celtic MAAs. We play in an archer world.
Worse Archer in the game.. almost no monk, 4 buff to siege but only one aply to trebs, the inf is only 5% faster and thats all.. bad cab... the civ overall suck
Haven’t tried them much, but I get a feeling they’re S vs like 10 ish civs, and A ish vs the rest, worst case B+. UU should be OP in castle age with 3 base pierce armor and more, but so slow to mass. Takes time to get scorps and ballistic and they’re immobile. Late game Legion should rape civs like Malians.
hello hera, i wanted to say i think that you should also take malian into consideration. i personally rate number 1 because it deals with the infantry biggest weakness in every age and especially in castle/imperial. and they actually meet your criteria more than some of the civs on your list. "as in very good eco /infantry early to late" now the short reason is they don't get countered by the typical infantry counters. if you don't mind reading a newspaper here is my POV 😂 look, they are VERY different than most of the other infantry civs but the point is they have VERY strong early infantry "i personally think it's the strongest infantry in the late game game" but here is the point. the eco is very good. almost 100% designed to spam militia line early and better than anyone as you need less villagers in gold and wood "15% less wood cost for building 15% more gold received from mining" now their strength starting from feudal age is that they are able to beat archers in general. still the same power vs archers as romans for that matter but romans get 1 extra melee armor while malian get the better eco so probably more man at arms. so in a way, i'd say they are not very far apart but i'd take the better eco over the melee armor in the early game. "i guess romans eco probably scales better in the late though" now comes castle age, they become the tankiest infantry in the game vs ranged. only to get even stronger in imperial age. they trade of 2 melee damage for 2 p armor which imo is a very, VERY good trade. if you try them they have the only champion that is not hard countered by pierce attacks, in fact they win against them. now the minus 2 attack might sound like the end of the world for some people, but hey! bonus damage is actually what deals most of the damage for infantry civs in fact. so you get a spearman-liine that des not die to ranged attack and still deals same damage to cavs for example "no downsides here"
Hey man nice vídeo! You could add the full civ bonuses on the screen! Some newbie players like me dont know all the bonus a civ have by the top of their head.
I see 3 flaws with Aztecs that exclude them from making the list: *Garland Wars is locked behind Imperial Age. Until the game gets there Aztec infantry isn't anything special. *Bad unique unit. Jaguar Warriors are situational. People won't make pikes against Aztecs and won't really make the swordsman line since they know Aztecs have superior infantry. Only in certain matchups like Goths will Jaguars be warranted. *Lack of halberdier. Aztec pikes are only better in pike mirrors, they are way worse against cavalry.
fair point about the goths, while they dominate other civs with infantry one could even say moreso than other infantry civs who need to branch out from time to time, Goths get wasted by other infantry civs themselves. (this is of course a bit exagerated, we all know player+map+etc have a large impact on all of this)
No, Goths are still the best infantry civ. You have to look at their answers to various compositions used in multiplayer, and Gothic infantry lineup are good against other infantry, archers, and Cavalry. Japanese, Romans and Slavs might beat them in infantry mirrors, but none of their infantry are good against archers.
I think that Japanese should be #3 and Incas #5; Japanese beat Incas infantry in every stage of the game. Samurai deals with Kamayuks and Champion/Samurai deal with Eagles; Halberdier is one of the best in the game. They also beat easily Goths i think (Samurai vs everything). Incas has no Gambesons for Champion (so it is kinda worse option than Kamayuk). Japanese has probably the best Dark-Feudal agression of all of those top infantry civs.
Incas are better.. it is not 1v1 (because Incas would still win with a few slingers).. this is how good their infantry is... they both can make better than average maa rushes (japs attack faster, incas are cheaper), they are both great vs cav.. but incas have eagles too, so they are good against archers and raiding,, I would put them 2nd just because they don't depend on their UT as much as the Slavs to be good
Putting that low Japanese is quite surprising. Best spear-line in the game. M@A breaks houses/palisades very fast , champs are still comparable with Slavs, Bulgarians , Romans after their expensive UT. Samurai also could be situationally good.
But the Kamayuk is a staple in the Incan army, whereas Samurai are only an alternative to Champions to counter unique units. I agree that Japanese are better as a whole though, because their Champs and Halberds attack faster, and Incan Eagle Warriors aren't great.
As a 1000 elo player who mains Aztecs, I feel hurt. Once I get Garland wars, Blast Furnace & the 3rd armor upgrade, ain't nobody messing with my Champion/Pike or Elite Eagle Warrior/Pike combo. Other Infantry civs will die to my Elite Jaguar Warriors! Anything that counters my units is going to get converted =), so nothing counters my units!
Fr tho Romans are cracked rn. FU militia line with centurion buff is by far the strongest militia line in the game, and their cheaper scorps are cracked, even onagers don't matter, I literally can just outproduce him with the cheap AF scorps and fast producing UUs.
The quality of your videos is improving really quick man. I completely suck at water maps.. would you consider doing a video like this but top 5 water civs, or even water map tips video?
If the Hidden Cups taught me anything it’s that Hera doesn’t like water maps either… And personally, I don’t blame him. Hybrid maps can be fun for sure but full water limits the game too much in my opinion as it’s not the main focus of its design.
@@btarczy5067 I don't think anybody likes water maps but one or two always seem to sneak into the rotation! Then occasionally megarandom throwing some 90% water map at you
@@btarczy5067hera has changed in that regard tho, he is one of the best water map players rn Watch his previous tournaments, he has gotten some important wins against viper and tatoh which I consider top 2 water map players
Romans shouldn't be in AoE2 for some reasons,in my opinion: The medieval age started just immediately after the fall of Rome. That's why's called dark age or old medieval age. We have Italians, Sicilians, Byzantines, Franks... They are basically the left overs of the Roman empire... Romans overlap. They are so overpowered....
Like hear me out, because this actually bugs the hell out of me. With every civ to date, they will have strong units, but your opponent can play into counter units and win favorable matchups. With Romans, because of how their infantry armor works, they can just go infantry into anything, and its a legit W for them. Enemy going scouts->knights? Longsword/pike, you win all trades because you have 4/5 melee armor in castle age. Archers? You win just spamming Ma/longswords because they deal 2 damage in feudal/castle age, meaning that they take the same amount of hits as a knight with bloodlines for 1/2 the cost. And you get scorps that cost ~the same as an archer, so the enemy cannot just sit behind walls/buildings. Enemy going infantry. KEKW, you win because of 5 melee armor in castle age, and in imp you get a hidden bonus vs infantry attack on legionary, and you get celt+japanese civ bonus. Great joke FE
@@CornBredCrusader I think the problem with them in castle age is that they also have insane scorpions behind their strong longswords. longswords having 5 pierce armor is nothing new, malians have it too and crossbows in high numbers can definitely handle it, but when you bring in 2 insane scorpion bonuses into the equation then their army composition becomes unbeatable in castle age
That free M@A upgrade and cheap blacksmith techs makes it easier to strike fast, or gives you time to make 1 or 2 more... but I find it difficult to strike quickly enough with early infantry.
Hello Hera. Long time aoe2 player here. Thank you for keeo8ng this game alive. I wanted to bring your attention to a possible feature that can be added to aoe2 that I believe would greatly improve it and help bring different types of gameplay to spice it up. It would be nice to outright ban certain units on the settings before starting a random map game.
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2I know. They are barely even a top 10. Just think they should have been so that they wouldn't be that terrible. Maybe I should rephrased "I think" with "I wish".
You forgot to mention Incas UT Fabric Shields (gives Kamayuks, Slingers, and Eagle Warriors +1/+2 armor.) Surprised Aztecs +4 infantry after Garland Wars didn't get an honorable mention.
My personal favourite infantry civ is teutons due to the high armour With teutons, I'm just not scared of goths cuz my infantry just wrecks the goth infantry
Aztecs - nerfed so hard they nowhere to be seen on this list. Goths - indirectly nerfed so hard they not even top 3. DE devs get todays honorable triple facepalm of shame 🤦♂🤦♂🤦♂
Personally I think samurai should be a duel mode unit, IE horse archer and melee unit. Because history. Not sure if horse archer becomes melee on death. I probably would prefer you can choose and switch. Probably would keep melee stats as is but have a weaker horse archer IE armour/attack than standard IE Japan horse archer. But a unique tech to increase range by one. Lots of balance tweaking needed.
that was the original intention for the unit indeed as said by Sandy Petersen the lead developer for the Conquerors expansion and one of the devs for age of kings but it turned out to be a herculean task back then
Romans fix infantry. Archers have range Knights have mobility. Roman infantry have power. Honestly, I think the Roman infantry stats should be the default infantry stats.
Romans are so good I kinda feel like you could just vil rush your opponents TC with some longsword, as long as they're not on hand cannon or something insane
Surprised Malians aren't on this list at all. I would've put them at #1. (though Romans also make sense since they have identical pierce armor til Imp) In Feudal, Man-at-Arms are tanky enough you can ignore archers and just run around the enemy base for a looooong time, idling eco or threatening vils. MaA vs. Scout doesn't feel significant *enough* of a power difference (win before bloodlines, loss after iirc) to justify the Scouts, so they won't be getting damage in and will delay their up time more. Malians 100% justify a MaA opening. In Castle, this is admittedly the one awkward age for infantry in general. Here I've had more luck simply abusing Squires to keep enemy archer civs near their base and wait for a surround, or to directly attack Stables and houses to slow eco production and maintain a numbers advantage vs. civs using Knights. Still, easily the most awkward age no matter the civ. And for Imperial - exactly when Roman infantry falls off - Champskarls have been seen in multiple pro games blatantly rushing down Castles without a care in the world. No other civ really does this. Romans effectively mirror the bonuses of Teutons and Malians in Feudal and Castle, then fall off vs. both in Imperial, so it's weird to see neither being praised on the list. Teutons I could understand since more melee armor won't help them vs. their weakness, but Malians legit have identical pierce armor to Romans, and that's typically the weakness holding infantry back.
![กี่หมื่นฟ้า | Your Sky Series EP.1 [1/4]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vLGjxFL6U_I/mqdefault.jpg)
Whos excited to dominate with roman infantry?
I already do lol only once managed to get to imp in rest all games ended with my longswords and scopions destroing everything to quick😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I don't buy new dlc and its constantly getting more and more challenging to play against some of superpowerful newly added civs.
I wouldn’t say that on Arabia Roman infantry seem to struggle even with the armor
AETERNA VICTRIX
Would love to but I don't plan to play the rest of the Return of Rome content and I'm not about to pay that much just for one more civ
Can we appreciate Hera's clean editing and the cool custom base set up for each civ?
I think he has a Cutter for it or not?
@@ezio_aoe821 he has, it's at the end of the description
Yes we can. Love it. Basebuilding is legit a blast to do.
@k1aoe deserves the shoutout!
1
Don’t forget that Legionary unit has a whopping +4 against infantry 11
Still lose to urumis 11
Infantry: **exists**
Cataphracts: *Now THIS looks like a job to me*
Not to mention with the Romans that the double-armor effect makes it quicker and easier to upgrade their spearline's defences if needed. And they end up with more melee armor than normal.
It's not a lot, but it's something on top of their other bonuses.
For honorable mention I would also point out the Malians. Those extra pierce armor per age are so good vs ranged units excluding gunpownder units.
It's not bad but kinda situational since it's purely there to cover the Malians' weakness to arbalest in the late game. If they're versing anything other than arbalesters or eagles their infantry are kinda trash because they miss out on blast furnace and the halberdier upgrade.
I actually think its pretty overrated
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 don't know, I've gone from 1200 to 1450 ELO by playing full infantry with Malians. It's all-in but they can go unpunished under the TC fire even in early castle age. I'll try to adapt this strategy to Romans but the lack of Supplies hurts.
Malay with the free armour upgrades are pretty versatile, you can consider it a powerspike in early feudal or you can consider it as just a super smooth transition into infantry in the late game (e.g. karambit spam). Surprised it didn't get an honorable mention
i personally love malay but look, truth to be told you can do insane numbers of two handed swrod men and they will still get wiped out with much fewer numbers of specific troops "especially arrchers"
i've been finding malian the best civ in the game for infantry SPECIFICALLY because they don't get countered by archers.
Okay, one thing that stands out to me about the Roman Centurion. What's the problem with most unique units, they're hard to mass because they have to be produced from a castle, right? Now, here's a unique unit where you don't have to mass them, or even upgrade them, and they will still be an incredible boost to a composition.
My Aztec's heart ❤️ hurts 😢
Good video, thanks Hera, support from México
To be fair, Aztecs can probably still do well with Jaguars against all of these infantries if the game gets to that point.
In theory 🫠
@@btarczy5067jags are just bad. Very niche, and for all the jobs they can do, eagles and champs are just the better choice because being more versatile
@@btarczy5067 I think the video is more about having good infantry in most match ups, not which infantry civ beats other infantry. Otherwise teutons would beat everyone except dravidians with their teutonic knights
@@Nata-ch2bk Goths are the best then. In infantry mirrors Japanese Romans and Aztecs crush them but they are leagues better vs archers and better than Romans and Aztec at countering cavalry.
@@remote24i mean jags can do what any other champ does the stats are in favor but its just harder to mass being more expensive and training really slow
Impressed Bulgarians are not here.
They are really good for raiding and building Kreposts helps a lot.
That's Bulgarians
@@jiemileng7745 thanks!
@@Knightlain no problem bro
Legionaries also have hidden bonus damage vs infantry
For me its:
5. Incas - Their unique unit is their anchor. Kamayuk performs exactly like IRL pikemen: good against anything in melee in formation. They get pierce resistant Eagles to offset their weakness to archers.
4. Romans - Legionaries are similar to Jaguar Warriors except they don't need a Castle. They even beat Jaguars if Centurions are backing them. However their generic Halbs limits them to #4 because the spear line is more important than the swordsman line.
3. Slavs - Immensely powerful in Imperial Age with splash damage, but generic until that point.
2. Japanese - Fast attacking infantry as early as the Feudal Age opens up a lot of options. Samurai are also one of the better infantry unique units especially after the patch lowered their cost.
1. Goths - While it is true that infantry specialized civs crush them, Goths are far better at dealing with Archers, which are infantry's kryptonite. The Huskarl is the best infantry unique unit in the game. All their infantry are dirt cheap, so they are more cost effective than other races' counterparts, and are produced lighting fast to top it off.
The Dravidians Viper moment was hilarious.
Omg HAHAHAHA
just came back to this video after some experience in romans 😂i would say romans endgame have the big weakness of being heavily countered by archers. but if a centaurian is kept behind they do get the highest infantry Movement speed in the game so at least they do get the chance to reach archers if archers are not protected.
Goth access to gunpowder allows them to function against infantry civs in the late game... until gold runs out. You have to carry out the switch obviously, but once you do, you can stabilize and punish slower-producing infantry civs that haven't massed enough to break a huskarl + hand cannon composition.
Goth Hand Cannons are underrated.
Idk how hand cannons will fare against cheaper and faster firing scorpions. And God forbid the Romans player have a Khmer ally. Romans are broken dude. Plain and simple.
@@unimportantcommenter4356 actually is the only military fully upgrade goths have 😂
@@CoffeeAndBusiness Goths also do get bombard cannons and hussars.
@@CoffeeAndBusiness I've yet to win a single game vs Romans with any civ. I'm ignoring them bc they're broken lol.
TH-cam asked me if this video was:
funny
informative
relatable
educational
etc
I checked all the boxes and slammed the submit button, always when it's a Hera video.
❤💪
Love these videos Hera and all the insights and reasoning behind your thoughts. Congrats on being the current No. 1 AOE2 player as well. It’s very well earned and I was stoked when you came back to the game. Keep up the great content mate. 👏🏽
also legionaries have bonus dmg vs. infantry. they even destroy thigns like bulgarian bagain 2hs.
Teutons not even on the honorable mention list... Poor teutonic knights 😢
Right!
teutonic knights even die from crossbowmen
@@magnussonborski2664 X vs X "infantry" units only, T Knights beat all infantry units hands down
@@jrodthebold9617 They are too slow to do anything.. too bad unique unit. Anyway in combat vs infantry, mass T Knights is unbeatable.
In his worst unique unit video is the Teutonic knight. He has no love for them :(
A video about the most versatile civs would be cool
Japanese
Chinese
that would be any civs with higher percentage of techs available
I'd pick Chinese and Byzantines as the top two most versatile
missed the honorable mention to aztecs, celts, malians, and teutons! thanks for the content
they were close but the others were better, maybe aztecs over vikings though!
Yeah Aztec going infantry every single game pretty much. Strong MAA rush, Eagles, and +4 to all in late game.
Honorable mention jag warrior, which I guess at least come in clutch once in a full moon.
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 What about Malay tho, the arambia got buffed and is cheaper if I remember that correctly. I recently watched some black forest 4v4 games and arambia spam is just unstoppeble cuz they swarm any ranged unit and just kill everything even if u lose 20 pop. The trick is to just get up to like 40-50 arambia and use them as a meat shield. Even if the oponent has good ranged units, they can never kill all 40 of them. So unless the arambai get countered by something like knights or siege, u always come out on top. Not to mention they also need less pop space and get produced real fast so to get mass of like 40 arambia shouldn't be that difficult if u have a solid economy . Or maybe I am biased cuz I have watched too much Black forest 4v4 games with Viper etc. :PP
Edit: I get that arambia is wrong unit, sry my bad. Obviously I mean the karambit warrior.
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 I was actually thinking Aztecs were gonna be number 1 especially after you didn't put them in honorable mentions, and then got slammed with Romans I was like what the hell
@@sir_vikingbeard5842 Arambai is the unique unit for Burmese not Malay, Malay are still strong though but for a different reason
I was a bit shocked Sicilians did not make your list. The sergeant is not far off from the Roman MAA. The Roman MAA needs to tech into MAA (140 resources) and take scale mail armor. If you take Forging for sergeant, they are very close with Roman having +1 pierce armor and sergeant having +5 hp. The sergeant will cost +15 gold more, but you can make 9 before you start to exceed the upgrade cost of MAA. The do start to lose to the Roman longsword which is insane. The sergeant is still very strong against anti-infantry units like slingers and hand cannoneers because of their reduction to bonus damage. Then you have First Crusade which produces 5 sergeants for every TC up to 25 sergeants. The cost is 16 food and 12 gold per sergeant with 5 TCs if you have 4 TCs the cost is 20 and 15.
I agree, however the problem lies with the unique tech being a one and done strat and the Sicilians seem to be a bit up and down in my experience with being able to have success consistently at all points of the game
You can't spam serjeants from barracks. You can spam legionaries, with 50% faster creation speed, while having a charge attack AND they will be better than Japanese champs if you have a centurion in the vicinity.
@@synt4x1e Romans are without a doubt #1 but Sicilians did not even make honorable mention.
@@RottenCash I believe Sicilians can be quite powerful but you need a to have a tight build order (who is good at those). I have not seen the forward donjon into max sergeants with forging and a few scouts. Without an early civ bonus you fall behind getting to castle.
I also have not seen the faster TC bonus used to maximize the civ. With 4 villagers building a TC normally it takes 1/2 the time or 75 sec. The Sicilians would work twice as fast or finish in 37.5 sec. This allows 1.5 villagers to be created in the time it takes others to finish. It also may be advantageous to idle the TC 25 to 30 seconds before advancing to castle age.
I personally think that Goths and Incas should be higher than Romans because while Roman infantry counters infantry well they need other units for archers, whereas Incas and Goth can just spam an infantry option at any unit minus gunpowder, well Huscarls actually do okay against HC.
hera droppin vids while viper is on break so that he won't be told how wrong he is.
😂😂
Celts left out, I feel offended.
Only celts can raid with infantry effectively in feudal age and are able to catch up with archers with infantry.
However none of that nor this ranking matters because literally everyone and their grandmother open with archers and infantry gets hard shut down, even roman and celtic MAAs.
We play in an archer world.
Worse Archer in the game.. almost no monk, 4 buff to siege but only one aply to trebs, the inf is only 5% faster and thats all.. bad cab... the civ overall suck
@@DantoGMaybe they’re good in BF and other closed maps? If you have time to boom and mass siege with pikes it should be really hard to counter
i guess roman will be new meta, havent bought the dlc yet.
they will be A tier for sure, possibly S tier, maybeee the undisputed best civ in the game
Enjoy the Siege bonus until they nerf it with a patch.
Haven’t tried them much, but I get a feeling they’re S vs like 10 ish civs, and A ish vs the rest, worst case B+.
UU should be OP in castle age with 3 base pierce armor and more, but so slow to mass. Takes time to get scorps and ballistic and they’re immobile. Late game Legion should rape civs like Malians.
I’ll buy Roman’s when they add two more civs and fix pathing.
Crazy that Aztecs and bulgarians didn't even make this list
Celts and teutons too
Aztecs miss halbs though, which is a huge minus imo
@@souloftheworld9810 Plus they don't become better until Imperial Age, which is when Garland Wars becomes available.
Was surprised to not see Malay
hello hera, i wanted to say i think that you should also take malian into consideration. i personally rate number 1 because it deals with the infantry biggest weakness in every age and especially in castle/imperial. and they actually meet your criteria more than some of the civs on your list. "as in very good eco /infantry early to late"
now the short reason is they don't get countered by the typical infantry counters.
if you don't mind reading a newspaper here is my POV 😂
look, they are VERY different than most of the other infantry civs but the point is they have VERY strong early infantry "i personally think it's the strongest infantry in the late game game" but here is the point.
the eco is very good. almost 100% designed to spam militia line early and better than anyone as you need less villagers in gold and wood "15% less wood cost for building 15% more gold received from mining"
now their strength starting from feudal age is that they are able to beat archers in general. still the same power vs archers as romans for that matter but romans get 1 extra melee armor while malian get the better eco so probably more man at arms. so in a way, i'd say they are not very far apart but i'd take the better eco over the melee armor in the early game. "i guess romans eco probably scales better in the late though"
now comes castle age, they become the tankiest infantry in the game vs ranged. only to get even stronger in imperial age. they trade of 2 melee damage for 2 p armor which imo is a very, VERY good trade. if you try them they have the only champion that is not hard countered by pierce attacks, in fact they win against them.
now the minus 2 attack might sound like the end of the world for some people, but hey! bonus damage is actually what deals most of the damage for infantry civs in fact. so you get a spearman-liine that des not die to ranged attack and still deals same damage to cavs for example "no downsides here"
Hey man nice vídeo! You could add the full civ bonuses on the screen!
Some newbie players like me dont know all the bonus a civ have by the top of their head.
Sad there's no mention of the Huns with their excellent longswordsman, as you demonstrated in Wololo :(
Malay deserve an honerable mention, free invantry armor upgrades and forced levy
Wow I’d thought Aztec would at least make the honorable
I personally put aztecs just below burmese as garland wars is expensive compared to burmese free +1 attack per age
Lack of halberdier is a big problem.
I see 3 flaws with Aztecs that exclude them from making the list:
*Garland Wars is locked behind Imperial Age. Until the game gets there Aztec infantry isn't anything special.
*Bad unique unit. Jaguar Warriors are situational. People won't make pikes against Aztecs and won't really make the swordsman line since they know Aztecs have superior infantry. Only in certain matchups like Goths will Jaguars be warranted.
*Lack of halberdier. Aztec pikes are only better in pike mirrors, they are way worse against cavalry.
@@spectre9065 I agree, but they are still a good infantry civ just not top tier which is why they should at least be an honorable mention
Celts need another buff
fair point about the goths, while they dominate other civs with infantry one could even say moreso than other infantry civs who need to branch out from time to time, Goths get wasted by other infantry civs themselves. (this is of course a bit exagerated, we all know player+map+etc have a large impact on all of this)
No, Goths are still the best infantry civ. You have to look at their answers to various compositions used in multiplayer, and Gothic infantry lineup are good against other infantry, archers, and Cavalry. Japanese, Romans and Slavs might beat them in infantry mirrors, but none of their infantry are good against archers.
I think that Japanese should be #3 and Incas #5; Japanese beat Incas infantry in every stage of the game. Samurai deals with Kamayuks and Champion/Samurai deal with Eagles; Halberdier is one of the best in the game. They also beat easily Goths i think (Samurai vs everything).
Incas has no Gambesons for Champion (so it is kinda worse option than Kamayuk). Japanese has probably the best Dark-Feudal agression of all of those top infantry civs.
Incas are better.. it is not 1v1 (because Incas would still win with a few slingers).. this is how good their infantry is... they both can make better than average maa rushes (japs attack faster, incas are cheaper), they are both great vs cav.. but incas have eagles too, so they are good against archers and raiding,, I would put them 2nd just because they don't depend on their UT as much as the Slavs to be good
romans still better in feudal imo for the reasons Hera stated
Putting that low Japanese is quite surprising. Best spear-line in the game. M@A breaks houses/palisades very fast , champs are still comparable with Slavs, Bulgarians , Romans after their expensive UT. Samurai also could be situationally good.
But the Kamayuk is a staple in the Incan army, whereas Samurai are only an alternative to Champions to counter unique units. I agree that Japanese are better as a whole though, because their Champs and Halberds attack faster, and Incan Eagle Warriors aren't great.
@@spectre9065 incan eagles are great, actually, just more against archers than anything else
Romans, when you combine Teutons, Japanese, and Celt bonuses and give them Balista with Ballistics.
where is the armenians ? they always do cumans + armenians early feudal push, definitely should add armenians too on the list
great video!!!, but what's that scratching noise every 2 seconds? thought it was my dog scratching my chair for ages
Wanna honorable mention Celts, Bulgarians and Aztecs as well.
As a 1000 elo player who mains Aztecs, I feel hurt. Once I get Garland wars, Blast Furnace & the 3rd armor upgrade, ain't nobody messing with my Champion/Pike or Elite Eagle Warrior/Pike combo. Other Infantry civs will die to my Elite Jaguar Warriors!
Anything that counters my units is going to get converted =), so nothing counters my units!
Urumi swords are slanging WOOTZ STEEL
Fr tho Romans are cracked rn. FU militia line with centurion buff is by far the strongest militia line in the game, and their cheaper scorps are cracked, even onagers don't matter, I literally can just outproduce him with the cheap AF scorps and fast producing UUs.
Great edits bro
The quality of your videos is improving really quick man. I completely suck at water maps.. would you consider doing a video like this but top 5 water civs, or even water map tips video?
If the Hidden Cups taught me anything it’s that Hera doesn’t like water maps either… And personally, I don’t blame him. Hybrid maps can be fun for sure but full water limits the game too much in my opinion as it’s not the main focus of its design.
@@btarczy5067 I don't think anybody likes water maps but one or two always seem to sneak into the rotation! Then occasionally megarandom throwing some 90% water map at you
@@btarczy5067hera has changed in that regard tho, he is one of the best water map players rn
Watch his previous tournaments, he has gotten some important wins against viper and tatoh which I consider top 2 water map players
Poor Aztecs and Malians, they didn't even get mentioned...
Pretty sure you are sleeping on how powerful Persian infantry is.
Those longswords are crazt
I know this was sarcasm, but Persian infantry is far from the worst. Turks and Tatars are way worse.
Romans shouldn't be in AoE2 for some reasons,in my opinion:
The medieval age started just immediately after the fall of Rome. That's why's called dark age or old medieval age.
We have Italians, Sicilians, Byzantines, Franks... They are basically the left overs of the Roman empire... Romans overlap.
They are so overpowered....
Was the 8:39 clip too explicit for TH-cam to show until the end 😂
malians champscars are not on the list? I was expecting them to be top 1 :((
0:19 Shout out to spirit of the law.
Nice video. Big fan of infantry civs. Dude.. TEUTONS
I was hoping to see the Celts in honorable mentions with their speed and woad raider rework.
What is the rework ?
@@timii072 maybe rework is a strong word but what i meant was the HP and Attack buff
I have no idea how the Roman armor bonus made it to the live patch, it isnt balanced at all
Like hear me out, because this actually bugs the hell out of me. With every civ to date, they will have strong units, but your opponent can play into counter units and win favorable matchups. With Romans, because of how their infantry armor works, they can just go infantry into anything, and its a legit W for them. Enemy going scouts->knights? Longsword/pike, you win all trades because you have 4/5 melee armor in castle age. Archers? You win just spamming Ma/longswords because they deal 2 damage in feudal/castle age, meaning that they take the same amount of hits as a knight with bloodlines for 1/2 the cost. And you get scorps that cost ~the same as an archer, so the enemy cannot just sit behind walls/buildings. Enemy going infantry. KEKW, you win because of 5 melee armor in castle age, and in imp you get a hidden bonus vs infantry attack on legionary, and you get celt+japanese civ bonus. Great joke FE
@@CornBredCrusaderI wonder how 60/2 and 120/2 is the same amount of hits
Totaly agree I m a noob but I win every game with Romans I know a civ is broken when I win every game with it cause I m that bad😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@CornBredCrusader I think the problem with them in castle age is that they also have insane scorpions behind their strong longswords. longswords having 5 pierce armor is nothing new, malians have it too and crossbows in high numbers can definitely handle it, but when you bring in 2 insane scorpion bonuses into the equation then their army composition becomes unbeatable in castle age
I'm expecting them to get pummeled with the nerf bat in the next patch.
Bulgarians are pretty good for early Infantry too no ?
That free M@A upgrade and cheap blacksmith techs makes it easier to strike fast, or gives you time to make 1 or 2 more... but I find it difficult to strike quickly enough with early infantry.
This list proves to me that the Aztecs need a buff. Because if they aren’t even an honorable mention for infantry, what do they even have?
Hello Hera. Long time aoe2 player here. Thank you for keeo8ng this game alive. I wanted to bring your attention to a possible feature that can be added to aoe2 that I believe would greatly improve it and help bring different types of gameplay to spice it up. It would be nice to outright ban certain units on the settings before starting a random map game.
What about the malay infantry? You get food only infantry and kind of expensive but easy to mass Karambit Warriors
I believe Dravidians need to be #1 infantry civ. Unfortunately lack of Eagle and useable stable didn't come up with good infantry for them.
Romans way better than drav its not even close
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2I know. They are barely even a top 10. Just think they should have been so that they wouldn't be that terrible. Maybe I should rephrased "I think" with "I wish".
You forgot to mention Incas UT Fabric Shields (gives Kamayuks, Slingers, and Eagle Warriors +1/+2 armor.) Surprised Aztecs +4 infantry after Garland Wars didn't get an honorable mention.
It was in the video
Garland Wars costs a lot and is an Imperial Age tech.
False @@IndexInvestingWithCole
my fav civ type
*see notification *
Romans surely in this list, maybe first but not sure
*Romans 1# *
I knew it
What about Aztecs?
WHAT bruh Bulgarians are an amasing infantry civ along side the teoutons as well
My personal favourite infantry civ is teutons due to the high armour
With teutons, I'm just not scared of goths cuz my infantry just wrecks the goth infantry
For me the best infantry civ has always be the mighty aztecs.
Shocking to see Aztecs and Teutons aren't on honorable mentions
Micro from Microsoft
Buff up infantry on Romans,
To make everyone spend those extra 14 gold..🤔
Centurions should be an infantry unit with slightly better stats than the Legionary.
make top 5 cav archer civs!
Aztecs no in list?
HERA THE GOAT!
I hope celts being here
Aztecs - nerfed so hard they nowhere to be seen on this list. Goths - indirectly nerfed so hard they not even top 3. DE devs get todays honorable triple facepalm of shame 🤦♂🤦♂🤦♂
Personally I think samurai should be a duel mode unit, IE horse archer and melee unit. Because history.
Not sure if horse archer becomes melee on death. I probably would prefer you can choose and switch.
Probably would keep melee stats as is but have a weaker horse archer IE armour/attack than standard IE Japan horse archer. But a unique tech to increase range by one.
Lots of balance tweaking needed.
that was the original intention for the unit indeed as said by Sandy Petersen the lead developer for the Conquerors expansion and one of the devs for age of kings but it turned out to be a herculean task back then
Or maybe the shoot 1 arrow as a charge attack
obvious answer for you is which one has the best scout line to compensate
Now Top 5 battle elephants civs
As always, new civ equals to a broken civ... I hate how the old civs are not the specialist anymore (goths, britons, teutons, franks)
yea, especially teutons. They used to be a real powerhouse alongside franks.
I drop a comment because it doesn't cost anything and helps a lot ❤
Yeah, 1000 likes! GJ
In my opinion, the Roman infantry SHOULD BE the classical aoe infantry
Romans fix infantry.
Archers have range
Knights have mobility.
Roman infantry have power.
Honestly, I think the Roman infantry stats should be the default infantry stats.
Sad that the Goth identity has been take away by recent changes. They have been iconic for decades, and now there's nothing special about them.
the best infantry civ are the byzantines. cataphracts kill every infantry unit.
For whatever it's worth, you didn't mention the strength of the Roman spear line. Also you forgot Malians entirely.
Romans are so good I kinda feel like you could just vil rush your opponents TC with some longsword, as long as they're not on hand cannon or something insane
😂😂😂😂
Huns longswords not in the honorable mentions Sadge
Surprised Malians aren't on this list at all. I would've put them at #1. (though Romans also make sense since they have identical pierce armor til Imp)
In Feudal, Man-at-Arms are tanky enough you can ignore archers and just run around the enemy base for a looooong time, idling eco or threatening vils. MaA vs. Scout doesn't feel significant *enough* of a power difference (win before bloodlines, loss after iirc) to justify the Scouts, so they won't be getting damage in and will delay their up time more. Malians 100% justify a MaA opening.
In Castle, this is admittedly the one awkward age for infantry in general. Here I've had more luck simply abusing Squires to keep enemy archer civs near their base and wait for a surround, or to directly attack Stables and houses to slow eco production and maintain a numbers advantage vs. civs using Knights. Still, easily the most awkward age no matter the civ.
And for Imperial - exactly when Roman infantry falls off - Champskarls have been seen in multiple pro games blatantly rushing down Castles without a care in the world. No other civ really does this.
Romans effectively mirror the bonuses of Teutons and Malians in Feudal and Castle, then fall off vs. both in Imperial, so it's weird to see neither being praised on the list. Teutons I could understand since more melee armor won't help them vs. their weakness, but Malians legit have identical pierce armor to Romans, and that's typically the weakness holding infantry back.
buff chat for the algoritm 🙂
hey, what about Aztecs?
Where are my Mayans? :(
Eagle Warrior and Pikemen ezgg
Japanese, Incas, Vikings, Dravidians and Aztecs. Let's see how I did
No love for me Bulg's? 🇧🇬
Before watching i knew romans were 1. Played against them couple times.. They destroyed me
i'd say vikings should be higher up but i'm not contradicting the goat of arabia
Agree with list. Bulgarians and Aztecs can also be in honorable mention. Goths not #1 anymore.
Goths might not beat the other infantry civs but they are the best overall because Huskarls counter archers, which are infantry's Kryptonite.
Aztecs really fell down with the patch didn't they
What about Aztecs?!?
what about aztecs?