if I may, I'd recommend checking out how Spirit of the Law does unit comparison tests for Age of Empires II. He checks and displays the % remaining HP at the end of a fight to better portray how well a fight went. Sure a 100 pop vs. 100 pop fight could end with 25 spearmen remaining, but if they're all 1 hit from death, the % hp will better display the true result instead of # of units remaining. Great video all the same, I really enjoyed this.
That's true and I should get better about displaying what is going on for the viewer. I'm not sure if it's my bad or it's truly the game but the enemy HP bar always goes back to full at the end of combat quickly when it's over. If I can figure out how to avoid that, it will be easier.
One thing I would also consider testing, is how do the spearmen with and without serpent spear do against some other units, specifically units that would normally counter them, or units against which they aren't particularly effective. Considering that the poison is divine damage, I would think that, while not making them effective, it would make the spearmen far more capable of holding their own in those situations.
for no micro testing, try setting up a scenario where the spears are immediately in aggro range of each other. Currently, the units are colliding differently.
In a real game scenario, spearmen are rarely just fighting cavalry. If the opponent is paying attention they'll run them away. Their main benefit is for zoning cavalry out of a fight so you can fight their other units without them being able to use their cavalry as effectively
Bennoloth, you gave us an awesome experience here. You were the most acurate channel in testing AoM that I got until now and have the more relevant information packed in each test. Very impressive. Just as a tip for poison testing: maybe a micro test might be interesting. If you hit and run with this tech the results might be very different. Can you try it out? If it is interesting to you, maybe you cam share here in the channel with us. Ty for your work and content. Much apreciated.
I'm glad you like it! I spent over 9000 hours in the editor on that scene haha. I painted the terrain to grass and reused it for my newest video, and will probably do that again =)
Testing feed back: Excellent idea to keep major god the same to remove variables. Potentially include a rough cost analysis? Ie for this example, cost of tech was X which is roughly Y many spearmen that could have been created. In the Scorpion vs Zero fight (great touch by the way), Zero would have had more spearmen numbers due to not researching the tech which likely would have resulted in a larger difference Definitely would have liked to see tech effects against other non cavalry units Noise lower than last video was another excellent idea and allowed for easier hearing of the analysis Keep it up!
I really like you video analysis, the only thing i would point, is about zooming a litte bit the camera on individual fight. The infatry in this game seems so small sometimes, that is difficult to read certain fights with the camera being so far.
I feel like the spear vs spear fights might have been affected by only one side being ordered to attack, while the other side let itself be aggroed, this resulted in different flanks/encirclings causing small differences in result.
The 2nd fight had one of the Scorp-Spears be targeted first, I do think it was slightly skewed because of that & would be a draw or with without that. Yeah this one felt particularly clear to see with that 1 spear dying so quickly!
Serpent Spear is like a worse version of Electrum Bullets. It would honestly be great for Isis if it were a bit stronger, but it'd be cursed in campaign mode where you only get Bast.
Am i the only one that builds a barracks dedicated to research? Obviously i train units from it too but i like to have at least 1 barracks always available to make units if i need them
Isnt Serpent Spear alsop researchable through armory? one thing i noticed. The Fight Spear vs Same Spear but we found a Poison snake and used it in Fulll Myth age went with 3 Units very Low HP My guess is that the average outcome is by just 2-3 Soldiers One thing im curoius about : does the poison dmg increase per dmg upgrade or age? Also : great Video !
It is not researchable through the Armory/Blacksmith. I tested that out in game. The poison damage does not increase at all. It just gets "more effective" because it ignores armor. So your opponent's armor increases with Blacksmith upgrades, making your main attack damage lower, while your poison damage stays the same.
@@bennoloth ah ok. Thanks for the research. Its kinda weird that its not researchable from the smith comparing it with other similar upgrades. Maybe it will get patched.
A bit sad that they balanced it to be almost identical. The poison is a cool concept for Anubis and specific for spearmen. A bit higher dmg for the tradeoff of it being delayed and going all in on spearmen wouldnt hurt in my opinion. It should also add a slighty larger slow debuff to the target than normal attacks.
Test murmillo bleed damage next. Im convinced its useless but everyone fawns over it. Then compare with mummy dot and bladed bird dot. Those 2 are serious.
It's an okay tech. +% damage and 0.75 divine over 3 seconds per attack. All in all probably around a 15% damage boost which isn't bad. That said I think they are dull design. Making the bleed much stronger, like 1 dmg/second for 5 seconds but not letting it stack would be more interesting. You could get more value from it in some scenarios with target switching but would be worse in a head on fight.
Just wanna ask for clarification, poison stacks across attacks? As in if after 10 hits, the enemy should have received 10 stacks of poison for 7.5 divine damage, not 10s worth of the DoT for 1.25 divine damage?
I think the tech is a bit underwelming in 1v1 pvp game. Why ? Because it can be good when armory is updated to max (due to divine damage), but you will barely use spearmen in very late game (you usually don't go that much in very late game tho in 1v1...) to counter cav you usually just go for camel rider since it's a more well rounded unit and way faster.
you should take inspiration form Spirit of the law video your are ok but is are clearly better. I am sure looking at symilar video would help you improve. little thing like when you should pick up a tech and other small thing like that would be nice. also having a average hp left help show how good a tech is ect
Playing the Egypt campaign section is a pain when all the enemy spearmen have this upgrade....
if I may, I'd recommend checking out how Spirit of the Law does unit comparison tests for Age of Empires II. He checks and displays the % remaining HP at the end of a fight to better portray how well a fight went.
Sure a 100 pop vs. 100 pop fight could end with 25 spearmen remaining, but if they're all 1 hit from death, the % hp will better display the true result instead of # of units remaining.
Great video all the same, I really enjoyed this.
That's true and I should get better about displaying what is going on for the viewer. I'm not sure if it's my bad or it's truly the game but the enemy HP bar always goes back to full at the end of combat quickly when it's over. If I can figure out how to avoid that, it will be easier.
One thing I would also consider testing, is how do the spearmen with and without serpent spear do against some other units, specifically units that would normally counter them, or units against which they aren't particularly effective.
Considering that the poison is divine damage, I would think that, while not making them effective, it would make the spearmen far more capable of holding their own in those situations.
But other than that suggestion, nice video!
for no micro testing, try setting up a scenario where the spears are immediately in aggro range of each other. Currently, the units are colliding differently.
In a real game scenario, spearmen are rarely just fighting cavalry. If the opponent is paying attention they'll run them away. Their main benefit is for zoning cavalry out of a fight so you can fight their other units without them being able to use their cavalry as effectively
Strong Spirit of the Law vibes, if he were less maths-y
Love it! Keep it up!
Always happy to see deep dives on stuff like this. Nice video.
Thank you. We're all coming back after all these years and we're relearning the game.
It's not really relearning here since Serpent spear had a different effect in the original. At this point, it's just learning a new game.
Love your content! More of these in depth analysis videos!
Bennoloth, you gave us an awesome experience here. You were the most acurate channel in testing AoM that I got until now and have the more relevant information packed in each test. Very impressive.
Just as a tip for poison testing: maybe a micro test might be interesting. If you hit and run with this tech the results might be very different. Can you try it out? If it is interesting to you, maybe you cam share here in the channel with us.
Ty for your work and content. Much apreciated.
Maybe it's more like agains cavalry that attempts to run away, so additional damage is dealt while they are running away.
I had no idea it was stackable! It is not as bad as I thought then. Love the mortal combat music by the way lmao
1:50 that's a great set piece right there. Very cool.
I'm glad you like it! I spent over 9000 hours in the editor on that scene haha. I painted the terrain to grass and reused it for my newest video, and will probably do that again =)
Loving the videos so far!!! Can you make one on the lampades and her new ability to polymorph human soldiers into chickens?
Love the videos
Hey, to make this did you have to do a separate "Player: Set tech status" for each tech, on each unit, for both players?
Yes sir. It's a pain.
Testing feed back:
Excellent idea to keep major god the same to remove variables.
Potentially include a rough cost analysis? Ie for this example, cost of tech was X which is roughly Y many spearmen that could have been created. In the Scorpion vs Zero fight (great touch by the way), Zero would have had more spearmen numbers due to not researching the tech which likely would have resulted in a larger difference
Definitely would have liked to see tech effects against other non cavalry units
Noise lower than last video was another excellent idea and allowed for easier hearing of the analysis
Keep it up!
Does the cavalry multiplier multiply the posison divine damage?
I really like you video analysis, the only thing i would point, is about zooming a litte bit the camera on individual fight. The infatry in this game seems so small sometimes, that is difficult to read certain fights with the camera being so far.
Ptah's upgrades are better you think?
very good
I feel like the spear vs spear fights might have been affected by only one side being ordered to attack, while the other side let itself be aggroed, this resulted in different flanks/encirclings causing small differences in result.
The 2nd fight had one of the Scorp-Spears be targeted first, I do think it was slightly skewed because of that & would be a draw or with without that.
Yeah this one felt particularly clear to see with that 1 spear dying so quickly!
Serpent Spear is like a worse version of Electrum Bullets. It would honestly be great for Isis if it were a bit stronger, but it'd be cursed in campaign mode where you only get Bast.
Am i the only one that builds a barracks dedicated to research? Obviously i train units from it too but i like to have at least 1 barracks always available to make units if i need them
Can you do the same with bite of the shark?
Isnt Serpent Spear alsop researchable through armory?
one thing i noticed. The Fight Spear vs Same Spear but we found a Poison snake and used it in Fulll Myth age went with 3 Units very Low HP
My guess is that the average outcome is by just 2-3 Soldiers
One thing im curoius about : does the poison dmg increase per dmg upgrade or age?
Also : great Video !
It is not researchable through the Armory/Blacksmith. I tested that out in game. The poison damage does not increase at all. It just gets "more effective" because it ignores armor. So your opponent's armor increases with Blacksmith upgrades, making your main attack damage lower, while your poison damage stays the same.
@@bennoloth ah ok. Thanks for the research.
Its kinda weird that its not researchable from the smith comparing it with other similar upgrades. Maybe it will get patched.
A bit sad that they balanced it to be almost identical. The poison is a cool concept for Anubis and specific for spearmen. A bit higher dmg for the tradeoff of it being delayed and going all in on spearmen wouldnt hurt in my opinion. It should also add a slighty larger slow debuff to the target than normal attacks.
what happens if you hit and run with spearman Serpent Spear for abusing the poison damage ?
Test murmillo bleed damage next. Im convinced its useless but everyone fawns over it.
Then compare with mummy dot and bladed bird dot. Those 2 are serious.
It's an okay tech. +% damage and 0.75 divine over 3 seconds per attack. All in all probably around a 15% damage boost which isn't bad.
That said I think they are dull design. Making the bleed much stronger, like 1 dmg/second for 5 seconds but not letting it stack would be more interesting. You could get more value from it in some scenarios with target switching but would be worse in a head on fight.
Just wanna ask for clarification, poison stacks across attacks? As in if after 10 hits, the enemy should have received 10 stacks of poison for 7.5 divine damage, not 10s worth of the DoT for 1.25 divine damage?
That's right, they are independent stacks, it does not just refresh duration.
@@bennoloth Thanks for the explanation, had the wrong idea for so long cause I was so used to poison never stacking in other games
I think the tech is a bit underwelming in 1v1 pvp game. Why ? Because it can be good when armory is updated to max (due to divine damage), but you will barely use spearmen in very late game (you usually don't go that much in very late game tho in 1v1...) to counter cav you usually just go for camel rider since it's a more well rounded unit and way faster.
you should take inspiration form Spirit of the law video your are ok but is are clearly better. I am sure looking at symilar video would help you improve.
little thing like when you should pick up a tech and other small thing like that would be nice.
also having a average hp left help show how good a tech is ect
Sick videos