I remember once, back in AOE 2 HD, when we got to the late game, ran out of gold and I was playing as Turks vs Persians Once in a while a full upgraded War Elephant showed up and I felt a little guilty watching my 10+ spearmen get mowed down just to half its HP bar
@@miguelsilva1446 No, Persians have pikemen and hussar fully upgraded. The problem is they don't have bracer which is probably the most important ranged unit upgrade.
Yeah, if your opponent saw you making mass trash as Turks that's hardly a cause of concern as they can just mix in something else (Id assume even Longswords would be super good) it's very situational
Yeah, good armies are usually mixed. They barely hold up against enemies they are supposed to kill. But there are nearly always other units there aswell and than they get steamrolled.
Your job is to line up in front of our real troops to absorb projectiles and charges directed towards them. Oh and you need to be quick to duck when they fire their arquebuses from behind you.
@@Pronzershrecken Depends on the map I guess? I know it's a more extreme example but on a map like Black Forest I dont think it's an issue. Maybe not ideal but Skirms are so cheap I dont see too huge of a downside to it
@@niki75 The issue isnt running out of wood to be honest, it's the extra villagers you'd have to pour into it, that could have been used in the epic mass farming experience *& Turk Hussar are so good that there's not a good reason to be making skirms to tank tbf
There's a crucial test missing: Turk spearman vs. generic pike/halb and so on. Because if the game drags on to the point where both players can only build trash ...
@@andyw5962 What if the opponent brings a mix of pikes + skirms + hussars himself? I don't even want to get into that discussion as I haven't played that game for more than 10 years but if you assume that you always just counter the enemy perfectly, I don't know, should be self-explanatory really that it's better to assume equal trades.
tldr : in castle age, you're fine using them but you should have better gold options ; in imp, go for it only when everything else failed or against other trash
In castle age -> If the opponent micros his xbows, you're dead. If he has 1 knight for each 3 spears, you're dead. in Imp age -> If you must rely on trash skirms and spears, just resign because you're dead.
@@ADCFproductions keep in mind that on low scale this may be worth as a temporal solution. Like throwing 10-20 additional units for the same cost which opponent has spent to upgrade his trash units will basically mean a fair or even good trade.
YES! Thank you for taking my suggestion! Now do Teuton scout calvery next! I actually find that are way better than most people think. They are the #1 biggest nightmare for monks of all civilizations since it is the most conversion resistant (Naturally resistant, Teuton team bonus, and Faith combined) unit in the whole game and not to mention they lose team bonus benefits once converted. Plus who on earth converts scout calvery?
Teuton cav should have never gotten +2 melee armour. I wouldn't call it slept on, but imo it is a very strong free bonus that many people undervalue. From being a great deathball slow civ, their best unit now is the paladin, and I find that this killed their identity. Scout cav can keep the bonus though, it's both a good meme, and offers some utility.
However SotL didn't bring up the fact that removing the upgrade cost of the unit only covers that many extra units, but any extra Pyke/Halb the enemy makes after breaking even just scales infinitely better. So for example if your enemy has 5 Pikes and you have 10 Spears in Castle Age, yes you have 'double' the amount of units so it's sounds "even". But if they create 50 Pikes through the course of the game vs your 55 Spears, now you are the one paying premium for a bad late game unit.
@@yoyodude-aoe2726 I think you must have misunderstood something. I'm saying good units for an upgrade cost is better population efficiency than bad units even if you can make more because there is a limit
@@KaoticPhoenix no I agree but when u say "that's when pop efficiency becomes an issue" It's reasonable to compare it to the other best thing aka Cost efficiency and even there the spears don't shine. Like 20 pikes vs 25 spears They work fine as any spears vs early kts but that's about where there viability ends
@@yoyodude-aoe2726 Oh yeah for sure, there are some, maybe only very few, times however where being able to take a unit out 1 or 2 hits quicker is more important though
When hearing "are Turk trash units trash?" even though i know it's not really the same, my brain can't help but think of "the floor here is made out of floor"
It's a shame you didn't show us how spears do vs pikes and halbs with different upgrades, to see if there are any places where they might do ok, like the skirmisher does against the Burmese.
"Are Turk trash units really that bad?" Yes. They're supposed to be counter units, slow and very situational, and they barely survive against what they're supposed to counter.
For the Skirm tests, the problem is that people focus-fire. This means that whilst Spearmen rely on heavy damage bonuses to dish out damage, Skirms rely on solid pierce armor to soak up arrow fire whilst dealing humble counter damage. They basically function in such a way that their damage almost "breaks even" vs. if you'd just made crossbows (it's slightly better than xbows, but perhaps not when it comes to DPS), but the difference is that your skirms tank much better, allowing them to outlast for less resources spent. Skirms are not so much a direct powerhouse counter so much as they are an eco counter. For this reason, any test of Skirmishers that does **NOT** involve the enemy focus-firing a skirm down isn't a good test. The real interesting test is how many fully upgraded Xbows are needed to oneshot a Skirmisher vs. how many are needed to oneshot an elite skirm. Elite Skirm can be the difference between the opponent quickly disposing of your skirms as if they were just weaker Xbows vs. if the Xbows are getting deleted because they can't kill fast enough. Looking at the wiki, Crossbows deal 2 damage to Skirms assuming equal blacksmith upgrades for both, meaning 15 Crossbows can oneshot a Skirm. (30HP health) When you upgrade to Elite Skirm though, Crossbows only deal 1 damage per shot, meaning you need a whopping 35 Crossbows to oneshot an Elite Skirm. (35HP) This is a *WILD* difference in survivability. This is the difference between having to focus every volley from a 40 Xbow cluster on one target, vs. being able to do split formation for the Xbows and kill two Skirms per barrage. The difference is not as simple as the Skirmisher dealing 5 damage per shot whilst the Elite Skirm deals 7 per shot, but also that the Skirmisher *numbers* will quickly be whittled down, and every dead Skirm is 5 less damage per barrage. Should also add it takes 7 Skirms to oneshot an Xbow whilst it takes 5 Elite Skirms to do the same. I think anyone familiar with the game can attest to the fact that seeing your opponent get Xbows before you get Elite Skirm is absolutely disgusting and the Skirms feel helpless. They get disposed of too fast to feel cost-effective until that upgrade kicks in. Whether an opponent focus fires or mindlessly lets the Xbows attack random skirms makes a huuuuuuuuuge difference in results and really drives home the importance of Xbows, so the tests shown are rather worthless.
SotL makes theoretical videos. Numbers, theory, behind the scenes stuff, etc.. If you want to see practical go watch a pro. This is where you come to find the raw information that you can pull from in specific situations that just might come up during your game.
@@SioxerNikitaI think the comment is assuming you’re countering crossbows in castle and don’t have quite the numbers advantage yet, and crossbows having 1 extra range does make a difference, their point on durability is absolutely correct as well, the bottom line is that as Turks you should be massing light cavalry against crossbows, and not let it get to the point where they have a critical mass to begin with as well, maybe throwing in jans for enemy pikes
Just for reference, we already saw this in viper vs lierey RBW finals game. viper hadn't even clicked up and lierey was already up to castle age. Lierey went full knights to kill vills while the viper pumped out spears while he was going up. The spears held and saved his ass against those knights. I understood that feudal spears are a viable if not hard counter to early castle age knights.
SOTL I think u used imperial age in scenario editor for turk skirms, gives them free chemistry and inflating their value in the castle age tech. Also why no ele archer comparison :( Loved the vid other wise
Wow this is twice in a row that im catching sotl s video in under 10 mins cant believe it.Tho i was constantly checking if he posted a new video but really lucky anyway 😁😁
Good video, thanks Spirit. A related piece of insight is that Teuton scout cavalry is pretty good and fully upgraded beats e.g. Byzantine hussar in Imperial by virtue of full blacksmith, bloodlines, and armour bonus.
If anyone is wondering why Frank and Celt Elite Skirms beat Turkish Skirts despite missing Bracer and Ring Archer Armor (same attack, +5 HP, -1 PA compared to Turk skirms), its because of the way bonus damage works. Both do too little base damage to dent each other's high armor, but Elite Skirms get +1 additional bonus damage vs archers/skirms (which is not negated by PA). So Frank Elite Skirms deal 1 more damage per hit to Turk Skirms than vice versa.
What I would also like to see is how the Turk spear and skirm compare to the Turk hussar in fulfilling the same role in some situations. Can turk hussar counter archers and light cav better than their skirm and spear respectively?
Agreed. In cd version years ago, I held off 2 opponents forever by rushing in hussars with jannisaries and bombard coming in behind. Eventually lost but they worked well to soak up damage while my canons could knock down buildings.
Yes and no. A mixed spear+skirm squad will be tough for turkish hussars, But the strength of the hussars is picking your fights. Jumping on unprotected skirms and hunting down enemy light cavs, whilst avoiding spearmen is very viable, and maybe better than using skirms for archers+spears and your own spears against light cavs, for the exact same reasons. Generally, if you have to defend with trash as turks, you better call it, but if you're no the offensive, hussars can work wonders in many situations.
@@Dr.Happy11 You also forget to mention raiding potential. With the Hussar mobility you can bleed your enemy gradually by targetting their economy. A constant stream of hussars into farms or multiple woodlines is deadly when resources start running low in long trash fights
@@johnxina5126 You're right, I'm sure I mentioned that in another comment but forgot it here. Generally, this applies when you're on the offensive already, but even if you don't control the game, a hussar raid can turn the tides. Though that's harder to pull off when you need to defend at the same time. Generally, you gotta start throwing hussars before you completely run out of gold. In post imp fights, that's the only viable win-con for the turks in many match ups.
Turks hussars are just generic fully upgraded with +1 pierce armor that has nothing to do in melee fight against other hussars, but since they are fully upgraded, they do well against the one that doesn't, which is like more than half of the civ rooster. Of course they couldn't beat something that has civ bonus that directly affects their combat ability but for something with worse scout cav line, they would do well instead of having to rely on your spearmen. On the other hand against typical ranged units, they do exactly the same as typical FU Hussars against FU skirms so definitely better to use Hussars against skirms instead of using your own skirms, especially against civs that has bonus on their skirms like Aztecs. However against generic FU Arbalesters, they do better than their skirms. Turks skirms kill FU arbs in 8 attacks and arbs needs 10 shots to kill them, but (un)surprisingly arbs win because they reload around 40% faster. Turks Hussars require 32 shots from FU arbs to kill while they can close in and kill the arbs in 5 attacks this time the hussars doesn't suffer skirms slower reload time, they are only 0.2ish slower. Even if micro involved, it is a losing battle for the arbs unless the melee pathing screw the Turk Hussars real badly. Now we compare them against other typical ranged unit, cav archers. Keep in mind Turk Hussars timing is so quick that it would make sense for them to fight CA with just bracer and chem while they already FU, taking this into consideration, Turks skirm do even worse than against arbs because cav archers high HP and mobility, they need 14 hits to kill one because normal skirms don't get mounted archer bonus dmg, just archer while early imp cav archers kill them in 10 shots which again, while not as fast as arbs, is still much faster than skirms reload time. On the other hand, Turk Hussars takes same 32 hits and kill them in 9 hits although this time it is trickier for the hussars because CA is much faster than Arbs, however they definitely still a better choice than skirms. But let's ramp it up in some hypothetical scenario where opponent managed to get FU HCA, Turks skirms that did badly, do even worse by only doing 3 dmg to FU HCA which means 27 shots to kill them while they kill the skirms in 2 less shots (8 shots), at this point they aren't even cost effective anymore. Turks Hussars kill them in 14 hits but they also kill the Hussars in 24 hits, combined with their mobility and how screwed up melee pathing sometimes, Turks Hussars would probably lose as well but at least unlike skirms, they should have gotten actual cost effective trades.
I still think that the genitor should be made into a regional unit and given to the Turks. It fits their gold-cost and their steppe nomad identities perfectly.
Even funnier. When arbalesters fight skirmishers like the Bulgarian ones, they win. When they fight the Teutonic ones, they lose. Bracer is not the most crucial technology for the skirmishers in imperial age.
Interestingly Turk spearmen win vs Malian pikes, an INFANTRY civ. Also they are evenly matched 1v1 with Lithuanian Halberdiers, who have a bonus and a unique tech on them. Point is, blacksmith upgrade is important.
Spear line has very low damage to begin with, so the upgrades become crucial. Same goes for skirms. I feel like Lithuanian halbs fell off quite a bit since they lost Blast Furnace.
This doesn't really tell the full story though, because the same Malian Pikes hold up waaaaaaaay better vs. their own counters, and a Malian Pike vs. Turk Spearmen battle is super unlikely since the same civ has some amazing Champions they'd throw at you. This means the Turkish Spearman just *barely* edges them out in a battle that the Malians never need to take anyways, whereas the Malian unit will survive much better against mixed Cavalry-Skirm enemy compositions, which is far more likely and of much more value to do well against. Same exact thing applies vs. Cavalry: the Malian Pikes do better. You do not make the spearline to counter the enemy spearline, you make it to counter cav. As such, Malian Pikes losing in a Pike vs. Spear matchup is pretty irrelevant, again especially so when we're talking about a civ that can produce monster Champskarls as an easy alternative to Pikes. Beyond that, Malian Pikes don't rank high either. Being an infantry civ =/= their pikes are great too. They *are* one of the weaker Pikes in head-to-head matchups, and slightly edging out against them (in head to head fights, but NOT in matchups that matter far more for Pikes) is not exactly a stellar argument that Turkish spearmen aren't dogshit.
Don't forget the Turks save a lot of gold by not needing to invest in pike-line and skirmisher-line upgrades. Also the scout-line upgrades itself. That gold can be invested in heavy camels, which can be fully upgraded.
would've been nice to have a comparison of how well does the turk spearmen compare against their hussars when facing units like paladin (to have a better idea of wether you are better off just spamming hussars or sometimes try the spearman)
But I think the reason people think that Turks trash is bad is not because for countering units but mostly for trash war when gold is run out, at least that's what I've been hearing for a last couple of years. Well thankfully Turks have full blacksmith tech so if they're up against civ that lacking final armor or final attack upgrade Turks spear and skirms might still have the chance.
One vid I’d really like to see is on the spanish archer, bc unlike counter units, the archer line is just reliant on non-bonus damage for the most part. I’m fairly certain that post-imp, fully upgraded archers are only missing 2 attack, 10 health, and 1 range, which is miraculously close to an arb.
Wouldnt missing two damage mean that in some marchups they're going to be doing only half or one-third the damage a normal arb would? There's a huge difference between doing one damage per shot vs. doing two or three.
@@KaylaJoyGunn yes, but also, they most likely beat french x-bows with micro with no thumb ring, no bracer and no arb, as at that point it’s a difference of 5 health for faster and more accurate firing
I always used LC as meatshield for gunpowder, thinking spears and skirms are useless but spears are actualy decent, better than LC against knights. Hussar survives much more and is fater but running them into heavy cavalry is basicaly just an atempt to burry enemy under corpses of hussars. Spears (considering GP units behind them) are actualy good/better option. Good video.
Spears are not decent. If your opponent would see turks spearmans he can add like any unit to his comp and your spears would die with 0 value. They dont have any hp and dont have any atack vs other type of units. And you still have to invest a lot into melee upgrades and even barracks to mass them. So its like never never never wirth it. Like never. Also with scirms, without extra range half of your army would die to crossbows/arbalests. And we are not talking about fighting against mixed army with melee units. Even "good" scenarios for turks trash units in this video would never happen in actual game
@@superstar5042 Thats exactly their purpouse, to make dumb enemy send another type of unit against your hussars with +p armor and your GP units. Not sure if you are confused or what but you are not supposed to use only spearmen :D. As Turk, you need GP and hussars and apparently its good to add spears if you go against heavy cavalry, which is their biggest strugle. Dont use just spearmen please, with no civ, it realy isnt their purpouse.
@@grammaton3773 They can mix some Halbs/Pikes along the heavy cavalry. The frontline dies way faster, and the Spear efficiency drops by 50%. Or what about the usage of scorpions? They will thin the frontline further, as +1 pierce does little against 18 damage. Pass through damage also hurts the spears even further, hell, even the backline is in danger if the frontline is not replenished fast enough.(BBC might help, but that's it)
@@unimportantcommenter4356 You are talking about Turks not being the strongest civ. I am talking about what trash to build bcs you need all your gold for GP. I know Turks are not the strongest civ but i have fun playing them. Unles you are like top 100 players, better player usualy win. Game is very, very well balanced, and i have played more than couple RTS games. Look at the worst civ matchups vid by SotL, even the worst matchup is decided by skill in like 70-80% and by civ win in 20-30%.
@@grammaton3773 Nope, I'm really talking about the inefficiency of Turkish trash units, rather than Turk performance as a whole. Where did you get that I talk about the civ as a whole?
My main takeaway would be, besides still never wanting to play Turks, that the halb upgrade is not always that important (and it is quite expensive). I wonder whether that would be a good video idea (or whether the topic is too broad): obvious upgrades (like unit upgrades) that aren't worth getting in all situations.
That's some good thoughts on the matter Spirit. The numbers tell an interesting story, but don't always capture the real-game situations. Keep in mind, the pikeman upgrade in Castle age matters even less, since in many situations, teching into it means you're already behind. Even for a civ with good pikemen, they'll either have better anti-cav alternatives or will just be able to hold with spears. Gold should not be a problem at that time. Exceptions being prolonged castle ages where both sides end up in kind of a stalemate, but that doesn't happen too frequently. Or you scout 5 stables and the opponent is franks. The turks' trash units -or specifically, lack thereoff- is much more important in imperial age, and especially late imp, where to be frank, both of their options suck. A spear+skirm combo will work significantly worse than most civs' gold or hybrid (gold unit+trash support) alternative than suggested, since, for instance, a knight shreds skirm way harder than he's shred by spears, and an arbalest delets spears much quicker than they're checked by skirms. They might be able to fend off some raiding hussars or a sneaky woodline-arbalest, but defending from a mixed offensive is pretty much impossible. Running out of gold as turks usually means gg, unless you have 40-60 hussars on the opponent's farms already.
SotL makes theoretical videos. Numbers, theory, behind the scenes stuff, etc.. If you want to see practical go watch a pro. This is where you come to find the raw information that you can pull from in specific situations that just might come up during your game.
@@curlywhites I'm not negatively criticizing Spirit, he's the GOAT of AoE youtubers, and he does what he does better than anyone. Spirit also usually accompanies numbers with real match situations, which is great. I was mainly aiming to expand on this, sharing my thoughts as to why castle age spear vs pike against cav is slightly less relevant than post-imp trash mob spam.
@@Dr.Happy11 yeah, but it's like you still don't get it. It's not about relevance, viability, or being optimal. It's just about raw information. He came from the perspective of "the Turks gets a lot of crap for having the worst trash, let's see how bad they really are in comparative situations." Your expansion is good, but I just don't think it's relevant for Spirit's purpose or coherent to the conversation he was having.
I was actually recently thinking of doing a challenge video where I only use trash units as the Turks. Good to know I have somewhat of a decent chance.
With a video like this, I wonder if there will be more similar to it where some civilizations can still make do with certain units despite lacking a few upgrades.
It is nice to know in late game a blob of turk skirms can maybe give hussar spam a chance vs halbs. I'll definitely try it out. Turks used to be one of my favorite civs untill I realized how hard they are to play in games where you don't have trade for whatever reason
One thing I think you missed out testing. Adding extra trash units based on the resources they're not buying. Aka would a numbers advantage vs imp/castle age units make a difference.
I was confused about the +3 and +6 against cav archers. Then I realized you calculated it by adding the archer and cav archer bonus damage together. I was thinking there's no way that elite skirms do +10 total bonus against cav archers...
While Turk spearmen cannot hold their ground against heavy cavalry and ultimately lose, it's still a great resource trade off if they're able to defeat as many Paladin and Elephants as they did in your scenarios.
True, the fact that they can still trade with a heavy gold intensive unit like Paladin is not the worst thing. Their cost efficiency is not on the same ball park as halbs/pikes but you can mix them other gold units (camels, monks, etc.) to minimize it.
@@cutiestar4560 It's only a good trade if the heavy cav player doesn't take advantage of winning the fights. If they go in, fight your spears and then head home, sure, you're doing alright cost effectively, but if they go in, kill your spears and then start trashing your eco, then it doesn't really matter how cost effective your fights are.
Cataphracts negate 16 anti-cavalry bonus damage. Spearmen only have +15, so they'd be stuck with their base 3+4 attack against the cataphract's 2+3 armor for 2 damage per attack for 75 total needed to take down the 150 hp cata. Then catas do 12+2+12+6 vs 0+3 armor hahahahaha! And they attack every 1.7 seconds vs every 3.0 and damage adjacent units with that 6 trample damage.
I feel like this is raising the question now, when is Halberdier worth it? It seems like you mostly answered it here already, but could be a thought for a more in depth look at it.
What it looks like is that they might be strong with strong trash feudal aggression going into castle age. Light cav get free upgrade and other units don't fall off which is big if they are amassed in number. The big question is how viable this would be. And if viable how much of a screen into castle age could this work for getting your ducks in order for late game comp.
I was kinda hoping this video would be answering the question "when would I ever use spear/skirmisher instead of Hussar?" As Turks I don't care how spears compare to pikes and halberdiers because I can't make them XD
I'd love to see a video that really digs into Cav. archers. Why is it that quite a number of civilizations have access to them, though lack vital upgrades to make them a worthy unit to include in most compositions & strategies? Are there any situations where cavalry archers without thumb ring/parthian tactics/heavy cav archer or any combination of these three are even useful? Or is it just bait for people to throw gold away and lose games?
I remember a game in a Red Bull Wololo where Mbl made frankish Cav Archers against Hera and won. Really, in any hyper aggressive maps where mobility is really valuable, and planning for a late game is pointless then the cav Archer will be fine with just bodkin (or even fletching) if you have an archery range up. In a case of just outproducing your opponent with high mobility units. Otherwise i dont think it makes much sense, unless you're against civs that struggle fighting them (the Teutons and Bulgarians for instance). I can see a case for pure bodkin+husbandry cav archers dominate those matchups.
So Spirit, among Gurjaras or Hindustanis which Civs needs to be nerfed more. I think the Shrivamsha Riders are quite difficult to deal with in Castle age and the Gurjaras actually peak in early Castle age so they are probably best Early Castle age Civ in the game as of now. While the Ghulams are good but they still require castle. Does the +9 range HC really makes a difference in the late game or the Hindustanis having Skirms, Halbs, Camels make them too strong. What's your take on the topic? How would you make Bengalis viable because they are absolute trash right now.
I haven't played with Hidustanis, but I got a good Build Order down for Gurjaras, and their Shrivamsha Riders are crazy good. For me being so cheap and effective in low numbers against xbows can end the game there, or make a great comeback possible. I know speed is a big deal, but I don't think I operate fast enough to use the speed to full effect.
Shrivamsha riders are also the fastest cav, that makes them even harder to counter, and they are massed from stables unlike other very strong cavs like Leitis
@@davidpereira5969 Crossbows shred Leitis my man. Plus Knights in castle age are risky with your opponent having monks+halbs. Even a decent group of archers can be very cost effective against Knights. On yhe other hand Shrivamsha riders eat CBs.
But in reallity cavalry always starts the fight with a good opening instakilling 1st spear snowballling and surround 2nd faster, which leads into much worse outcome. And skirmishers lacking 1 range will be hit and runed by crossbows without losses=/
i can't help but wonder. you assumed equal costs in all scenarios, but what if the cost for the upgrade would be compensated with some extra manpower? how would that change the tide for at least the very early stage? (i know they would fall off real quick real fast) i'm just curious how the percentages change, and also seeing as in most cases spearmen fair better than halberdiers, how would adding more spearman influence the battle instead of upgrading to next tier?
Compared to other Civs, sure they don't hold up, but they are not useless, or underperforming. Like sure they lose a lot of weigh in Imperial Age, but you are basically using a Feudal tier unit against 2 tiers above them. So overall; They can still be of great value, since they can act as a cheap alternative to stop an advance, till you can pump out stronger units (Like from your stables).
Maybe it is a mistake to include all Blacksmith Upgrades for "Generic" units? The more I look at it, the more secondary upgrades seem part of a nations strenght. A nation can get strenght from a higher tier version of the unit, from a passive bonus/unique technology or Blacksmith upgrades. Generic Light Cav without Bloodlines < Light Cav with Bloodlines < Light Cav with some Unique Bonus or Technology to HP.
One thing that would have an impact - in all of the Turk trash vs upgraded version comparisions, the upgraded versions focused fire while the trash one spread the damage. One fight the upgraded versions would kill one unit each attack, while leaving the rest on full health while the trash versions would damage all of their targets, and kill none of them.
An interesting numbers test but what this video isnt really factoring in is that you'll have an extremely hard time forcing an engagement with your spears against raiding cav. A few attacks from a halb tear out large chunks of any cav trying to get to your siege, your ranged units or your vils. Meanwhile spears do little more than tickling in that same time. By the time they've caused damage whatever they were protecting is long dead.
Interesting. I wonder if a turk player could bait an opponent to going too hard into archers in castle by using skirms. They would expect to stop only to get whittled down.
Spearmen are good in feudal and castle age, but not the best, you have to use the camels (generic full tech tree with no special bonuses and up to heavy camel) and your cavalry archers (nice full tech tree with 20 more hp than generic) that feel like knight that uses arrows instead of a sword to fight their heavy cavalry. The skirmisher might not be good vs the cavalry archers, but he is good against the elephant archer given that they did well when I played the Dravidian campaign making feudal skirmishers vs elephant archers in the second scenario when playing for the achievement and getting no villager. If facing strong cavalry units use the gold units and maybe go aggressively after relics especially if you can succeed in removing their relics (by taking out their monastery to low enough health that it ejects the relic) and taking them to a monastery near you base right next to a castle. Don't forget Turks have access to full technology tree hussars which can do something against the Turk opponents. Last, if you are facing elephants you can also convert them as Turks have good monks.
As a Turkish I can confirm we had absolute skill with rifles but however it is overly exxagrated in this game. I still dont understand why we considered like that since we had powerful cavalry units like "Tımarlı Siphai, Bashibozuks, Deli, Cavalry Archer" well at least we can spam cheap hussars right ?
It is because they Turks are based on pop culture Ottomans, this means post medieval Janissaries. Actually medieval Ottomans not even used the hand guns too much because they didn't had to fight that much armor so the soldiers and commanders preferred bows over guns. Also the cavalry archer unit make no sense to exist in an Ottoman army because every cavalryman used a bow, it didn't matter if it was heavy or light, bow was the main weapon.
Hey Spirit of the Law, guys here.
Hey guys of the Law, Spirit here
Hi Law, Spirit of the guys here.
Hey Spirit of the guy, law here 🧐
Hey Guy of the Spirit, Laws here.
Hey Spirit, Guy of the Law here 🚨
They're not as bad. The five extra seconds they actually last can give you a moment to regret not using the stable.
Damned by faint praise.
@@michaelandreipalon359 LOL
Trial by wood
Halbs and Pikemen are so close because the Halbs had a lot of overkill damage and thus could only really shine against Paladins.
I remember once, back in AOE 2 HD, when we got to the late game, ran out of gold and I was playing as Turks vs Persians
Once in a while a full upgraded War Elephant showed up and I felt a little guilty watching my 10+ spearmen get mowed down just to half its HP bar
Ah yes, the good old days when Persians sucked at trash fights...
They are ok even without trashbow
@@ElArto95 But persians always had all 3 trash units for late game
@@mehranrassouli8876 didn't they miss pike an?
@@miguelsilva1446 No, Persians have pikemen and hussar fully upgraded. The problem is they don't have bracer which is probably the most important ranged unit upgrade.
They might look bearable in these isolated cases, but when unit comps and micro enter the scene, these guys just don't hold up.
TBF, this is how most of SotL tests work out.
Especially when you include the range disadvantage for the skirms. They get wrecked by good arbs.
Yeah, if your opponent saw you making mass trash as Turks that's hardly a cause of concern as they can just mix in something else (Id assume even Longswords would be super good) it's very situational
I imagine that (esp. in Imperial) pop limits are the real killer.
Yeah, good armies are usually mixed. They barely hold up against enemies they are supposed to kill. But there are nearly always other units there aswell and than they get steamrolled.
Turk skirmishers do still have a role as a meat shield for janissaries since they have one less range
Your job is to line up in front of our real troops to absorb projectiles and charges directed towards them. Oh and you need to be quick to duck when they fire their arquebuses from behind you.
Seems unviable since you'd end up having to gather & use more wood, instead of throwing it all into farms to get Hand C/Jans + Hussar out
@@Pronzershrecken Depends on the map I guess? I know it's a more extreme example but on a map like Black Forest I dont think it's an issue.
Maybe not ideal but Skirms are so cheap I dont see too huge of a downside to it
@@niki75 The issue isnt running out of wood to be honest, it's the extra villagers you'd have to pour into it, that could have been used in the epic mass farming experience
*& Turk Hussar are so good that there's not a good reason to be making skirms to tank tbf
@@Pronzershrecken You know that's fair enough. I must admit I main Byzantines and tend to forget they have a discount on Skirms and Spears.
when a Turk player gets plait mail armor for their spearmen
"can't have dirty garbage"
What's the opposite of a glass cannon?
An impregnable stick?
@@jefffinkbonner9551 I searched it up and it said meat sheild
There's a crucial test missing: Turk spearman vs. generic pike/halb and so on. Because if the game drags on to the point where both players can only build trash ...
He covered it. Skirms still get an attack bonus v pike/halb. Hussar will crush enemy skirms.
In trash wars turk will use mass hussars.
@@andyw5962 What if the opponent brings a mix of pikes + skirms + hussars himself? I don't even want to get into that discussion as I haven't played that game for more than 10 years but if you assume that you always just counter the enemy perfectly, I don't know, should be self-explanatory really that it's better to assume equal trades.
@@justachannel8600 I just said that he covered it dude
@@andyw5962 He did not.
tldr : in castle age, you're fine using them but you should have better gold options ; in imp, go for it only when everything else failed or against other trash
In castle age -> If the opponent micros his xbows, you're dead. If he has 1 knight for each 3 spears, you're dead. in Imp age -> If you must rely on trash skirms and spears, just resign because you're dead.
@@ADCFproductionsagreed, if anything the takeaway was to just stick to hussars and camels to counter range and knights respectively
@@ADCFproductions keep in mind that on low scale this may be worth as a temporal solution. Like throwing 10-20 additional units for the same cost which opponent has spent to upgrade his trash units will basically mean a fair or even good trade.
YES! Thank you for taking my suggestion!
Now do Teuton scout calvery next! I actually find that are way better than most people think. They are the #1 biggest nightmare for monks of all civilizations since it is the most conversion resistant (Naturally resistant, Teuton team bonus, and Faith combined) unit in the whole game and not to mention they lose team bonus benefits once converted. Plus who on earth converts scout calvery?
I was trying to find who suggested it. Nice idea!
You shouldnt go monks vs teutons anyways since all units get the team bonus, unless ur really desperate for a knight or teutonic knight counter
In fact, Teutonic scouts actually beat Korean hussars, making those the worst because they miss bloodlines, the final armor, and blast furnace.
Teuton cav should have never gotten +2 melee armour. I wouldn't call it slept on, but imo it is a very strong free bonus that many people undervalue.
From being a great deathball slow civ, their best unit now is the paladin, and I find that this killed their identity.
Scout cav can keep the bonus though, it's both a good meme, and offers some utility.
@@SethBennion Korean cavalry is among the worst in general. Their Cavaliers lose to Malay and Saracen Knights aswell.
However SotL didn't bring up the fact that removing the upgrade cost of the unit only covers that many extra units, but any extra Pyke/Halb the enemy makes after breaking even just scales infinitely better.
So for example if your enemy has 5 Pikes and you have 10 Spears in Castle Age, yes you have 'double' the amount of units so it's sounds "even". But if they create 50 Pikes through the course of the game vs your 55 Spears, now you are the one paying premium for a bad late game unit.
Yeah and that's when population efficiency becomes the biggest factor
@@KaoticPhoenix well it's not even cost effective 11
@@yoyodude-aoe2726 I think you must have misunderstood something. I'm saying good units for an upgrade cost is better population efficiency than bad units even if you can make more because there is a limit
@@KaoticPhoenix no I agree but when u say "that's when pop efficiency becomes an issue"
It's reasonable to compare it to the other best thing aka Cost efficiency and even there the spears don't shine. Like 20 pikes vs 25 spears
They work fine as any spears vs early kts but that's about where there viability ends
@@yoyodude-aoe2726 Oh yeah for sure, there are some, maybe only very few, times however where being able to take a unit out 1 or 2 hits quicker is more important though
When hearing "are Turk trash units trash?" even though i know it's not really the same, my brain can't help but think of "the floor here is made out of floor"
It's a shame you didn't show us how spears do vs pikes and halbs with different upgrades, to see if there are any places where they might do ok, like the skirmisher does against the Burmese.
It is unsurprising that the gap between pikes and halberds vs lower health opponents is so small. Gonna be tons of overkill.
"Are Turk trash units really that bad?"
Yes. They're supposed to be counter units, slow and very situational, and they barely survive against what they're supposed to counter.
Also don't forget that in late games when you have to depend on Trash units to fight.
Turk spearmen also beat Malian pikes and probably Lithuanian halbs in imp, which is something to keep in mind.
For the Skirm tests, the problem is that people focus-fire. This means that whilst Spearmen rely on heavy damage bonuses to dish out damage, Skirms rely on solid pierce armor to soak up arrow fire whilst dealing humble counter damage. They basically function in such a way that their damage almost "breaks even" vs. if you'd just made crossbows (it's slightly better than xbows, but perhaps not when it comes to DPS), but the difference is that your skirms tank much better, allowing them to outlast for less resources spent. Skirms are not so much a direct powerhouse counter so much as they are an eco counter.
For this reason, any test of Skirmishers that does **NOT** involve the enemy focus-firing a skirm down isn't a good test. The real interesting test is how many fully upgraded Xbows are needed to oneshot a Skirmisher vs. how many are needed to oneshot an elite skirm. Elite Skirm can be the difference between the opponent quickly disposing of your skirms as if they were just weaker Xbows vs. if the Xbows are getting deleted because they can't kill fast enough.
Looking at the wiki, Crossbows deal 2 damage to Skirms assuming equal blacksmith upgrades for both, meaning 15 Crossbows can oneshot a Skirm. (30HP health) When you upgrade to Elite Skirm though, Crossbows only deal 1 damage per shot, meaning you need a whopping 35 Crossbows to oneshot an Elite Skirm. (35HP)
This is a *WILD* difference in survivability. This is the difference between having to focus every volley from a 40 Xbow cluster on one target, vs. being able to do split formation for the Xbows and kill two Skirms per barrage. The difference is not as simple as the Skirmisher dealing 5 damage per shot whilst the Elite Skirm deals 7 per shot, but also that the Skirmisher *numbers* will quickly be whittled down, and every dead Skirm is 5 less damage per barrage. Should also add it takes 7 Skirms to oneshot an Xbow whilst it takes 5 Elite Skirms to do the same.
I think anyone familiar with the game can attest to the fact that seeing your opponent get Xbows before you get Elite Skirm is absolutely disgusting and the Skirms feel helpless. They get disposed of too fast to feel cost-effective until that upgrade kicks in. Whether an opponent focus fires or mindlessly lets the Xbows attack random skirms makes a huuuuuuuuuge difference in results and really drives home the importance of Xbows, so the tests shown are rather worthless.
SotL makes theoretical videos. Numbers, theory, behind the scenes stuff, etc.. If you want to see practical go watch a pro. This is where you come to find the raw information that you can pull from in specific situations that just might come up during your game.
@Longknife well said
I dont think anyone's focus firing their archers in late game trash wars when they've got a million other things to micro
If you focus fire too much you also lose though. You overkill with 1 volley? Skirmishers will out dps
@@SioxerNikitaI think the comment is assuming you’re countering crossbows in castle and don’t have quite the numbers advantage yet, and crossbows having 1 extra range does make a difference, their point on durability is absolutely correct as well, the bottom line is that as Turks you should be massing light cavalry against crossbows, and not let it get to the point where they have a critical mass to begin with as well, maybe throwing in jans for enemy pikes
Just for reference, we already saw this in viper vs lierey RBW finals game. viper hadn't even clicked up and lierey was already up to castle age. Lierey went full knights to kill vills while the viper pumped out spears while he was going up. The spears held and saved his ass against those knights. I understood that feudal spears are a viable if not hard counter to early castle age knights.
The tech bonuses always stood out to me as a kid. Thanks for showing them some love!
SOTL
I think u used imperial age in scenario editor for turk skirms, gives them free chemistry and inflating their value in the castle age tech.
Also why no ele archer comparison :(
Loved the vid other wise
I, too, saw those flaming Castle Age javelins ;)
Because the ele archer would have the same outcome as the heavy cav archer except even worse for the skirmishers.
@@curlywhites still worth testing as non elite skirms do get a lot of bonus
Reminds me of Eastern Spearmen from Rome 2 total war.
Wow this is twice in a row that im catching sotl s video in under 10 mins cant believe it.Tho i was constantly checking if he posted a new video but really lucky anyway 😁😁
Good video, thanks Spirit. A related piece of insight is that Teuton scout cavalry is pretty good and fully upgraded beats e.g. Byzantine hussar in Imperial by virtue of full blacksmith, bloodlines, and armour bonus.
it should say how much HP the winning side have instead of 0% on the losing side so we know by how much they win
If anyone is wondering why Frank and Celt Elite Skirms beat Turkish Skirts despite missing Bracer and Ring Archer Armor (same attack, +5 HP, -1 PA compared to Turk skirms), its because of the way bonus damage works. Both do too little base damage to dent each other's high armor, but Elite Skirms get +1 additional bonus damage vs archers/skirms (which is not negated by PA). So Frank Elite Skirms deal 1 more damage per hit to Turk Skirms than vice versa.
Thank you for an outstanding video on an important topic
Turk Spearman is the best unit in the game. **tips Fez**
I was waiting for this in a long time
6:53
Are those skirmishers using flaming arrows? I thought that was given by chemistry, and I thought chemistry was imperial age.
Turks get Chemistry in Castle Age.
@@VuLinhAssassin Actually that's Bohemians' bonus. Turks get free-chemistry in imp.
@@jptiz1 thanks I was mistaken
make this popular guys!! I noticed it too and I was searching the comments if someone else did!
@@krillindiesagain Lol. It's just an honest mistake, I think it only gives +1 damage anyway, so not a huuuuuuuuuuge difference to results.
that last conclusion of the use of skirmisher vs halberdier is the key.
What I would also like to see is how the Turk spear and skirm compare to the Turk hussar in fulfilling the same role in some situations. Can turk hussar counter archers and light cav better than their skirm and spear respectively?
Agreed. In cd version years ago, I held off 2 opponents forever by rushing in hussars with jannisaries and bombard coming in behind.
Eventually lost but they worked well to soak up damage while my canons could knock down buildings.
Yes and no. A mixed spear+skirm squad will be tough for turkish hussars, But the strength of the hussars is picking your fights. Jumping on unprotected skirms and hunting down enemy light cavs, whilst avoiding spearmen is very viable, and maybe better than using skirms for archers+spears and your own spears against light cavs, for the exact same reasons.
Generally, if you have to defend with trash as turks, you better call it, but if you're no the offensive, hussars can work wonders in many situations.
@@Dr.Happy11 You also forget to mention raiding potential. With the Hussar mobility you can bleed your enemy gradually by targetting their economy. A constant stream of hussars into farms or multiple woodlines is deadly when resources start running low in long trash fights
@@johnxina5126 You're right, I'm sure I mentioned that in another comment but forgot it here.
Generally, this applies when you're on the offensive already, but even if you don't control the game, a hussar raid can turn the tides. Though that's harder to pull off when you need to defend at the same time. Generally, you gotta start throwing hussars before you completely run out of gold.
In post imp fights, that's the only viable win-con for the turks in many match ups.
Turks hussars are just generic fully upgraded with +1 pierce armor that has nothing to do in melee fight against other hussars, but since they are fully upgraded, they do well against the one that doesn't, which is like more than half of the civ rooster. Of course they couldn't beat something that has civ bonus that directly affects their combat ability but for something with worse scout cav line, they would do well instead of having to rely on your spearmen.
On the other hand against typical ranged units, they do exactly the same as typical FU Hussars against FU skirms so definitely better to use Hussars against skirms instead of using your own skirms, especially against civs that has bonus on their skirms like Aztecs. However against generic FU Arbalesters, they do better than their skirms. Turks skirms kill FU arbs in 8 attacks and arbs needs 10 shots to kill them, but (un)surprisingly arbs win because they reload around 40% faster. Turks Hussars require 32 shots from FU arbs to kill while they can close in and kill the arbs in 5 attacks this time the hussars doesn't suffer skirms slower reload time, they are only 0.2ish slower. Even if micro involved, it is a losing battle for the arbs unless the melee pathing screw the Turk Hussars real badly.
Now we compare them against other typical ranged unit, cav archers. Keep in mind Turk Hussars timing is so quick that it would make sense for them to fight CA with just bracer and chem while they already FU, taking this into consideration, Turks skirm do even worse than against arbs because cav archers high HP and mobility, they need 14 hits to kill one because normal skirms don't get mounted archer bonus dmg, just archer while early imp cav archers kill them in 10 shots which again, while not as fast as arbs, is still much faster than skirms reload time. On the other hand, Turk Hussars takes same 32 hits and kill them in 9 hits although this time it is trickier for the hussars because CA is much faster than Arbs, however they definitely still a better choice than skirms.
But let's ramp it up in some hypothetical scenario where opponent managed to get FU HCA, Turks skirms that did badly, do even worse by only doing 3 dmg to FU HCA which means 27 shots to kill them while they kill the skirms in 2 less shots (8 shots), at this point they aren't even cost effective anymore. Turks Hussars kill them in 14 hits but they also kill the Hussars in 24 hits, combined with their mobility and how screwed up melee pathing sometimes, Turks Hussars would probably lose as well but at least unlike skirms, they should have gotten actual cost effective trades.
very nice video! i will try to do pikeman on castle age and skrimisher against halabardier
I still think that the genitor should be made into a regional unit and given to the Turks. It fits their gold-cost and their steppe nomad identities perfectly.
If I remember correctly Turks actually get the best genitors in the game since they have an unique tech that applies to them.
@@RusskiBlusski yeah! Sipahi gives bonus hp to them too!
Even funnier. When arbalesters fight skirmishers like the Bulgarian ones, they win. When they fight the Teutonic ones, they lose. Bracer is not the most crucial technology for the skirmishers in imperial age.
Somewhere there is a "hold my beer" joke for the Cataphract, but I can't think of it.
Interestingly Turk spearmen win vs Malian pikes, an INFANTRY civ. Also they are evenly matched 1v1 with Lithuanian Halberdiers, who have a bonus and a unique tech on them.
Point is, blacksmith upgrade is important.
Spear line has very low damage to begin with, so the upgrades become crucial. Same goes for skirms. I feel like Lithuanian halbs fell off quite a bit since they lost Blast Furnace.
This doesn't really tell the full story though, because the same Malian Pikes hold up waaaaaaaay better vs. their own counters, and a Malian Pike vs. Turk Spearmen battle is super unlikely since the same civ has some amazing Champions they'd throw at you. This means the Turkish Spearman just *barely* edges them out in a battle that the Malians never need to take anyways, whereas the Malian unit will survive much better against mixed Cavalry-Skirm enemy compositions, which is far more likely and of much more value to do well against.
Same exact thing applies vs. Cavalry: the Malian Pikes do better. You do not make the spearline to counter the enemy spearline, you make it to counter cav. As such, Malian Pikes losing in a Pike vs. Spear matchup is pretty irrelevant, again especially so when we're talking about a civ that can produce monster Champskarls as an easy alternative to Pikes.
Beyond that, Malian Pikes don't rank high either. Being an infantry civ =/= their pikes are great too. They *are* one of the weaker Pikes in head-to-head matchups, and slightly edging out against them (in head to head fights, but NOT in matchups that matter far more for Pikes) is not exactly a stellar argument that Turkish spearmen aren't dogshit.
Don't forget the Turks save a lot of gold by not needing to invest in pike-line and skirmisher-line upgrades. Also the scout-line upgrades itself. That gold can be invested in heavy camels, which can be fully upgraded.
Ooooooo perfect timing. Work break, time for some AoE.
This is missing the other half of the equation - How the units hold up against units they aren't supposed to counter in castle/imp.
Is spirit of the law a really awesome content creator? Yes.
would've been nice to have a comparison of how well does the turk spearmen compare against their hussars when facing units like paladin (to have a better idea of wether you are better off just spamming hussars or sometimes try the spearman)
But I think the reason people think that Turks trash is bad is not because for countering units but mostly for trash war when gold is run out, at least that's what I've been hearing for a last couple of years. Well thankfully Turks have full blacksmith tech so if they're up against civ that lacking final armor or final attack upgrade Turks spear and skirms might still have the chance.
this is a cool idea for a video
Love that Elite Skirmisher at 8:32 who just declares they are the leader now.
One vid I’d really like to see is on the spanish archer, bc unlike counter units, the archer line is just reliant on non-bonus damage for the most part. I’m fairly certain that post-imp, fully upgraded archers are only missing 2 attack, 10 health, and 1 range, which is miraculously close to an arb.
Wouldnt missing two damage mean that in some marchups they're going to be doing only half or one-third the damage a normal arb would? There's a huge difference between doing one damage per shot vs. doing two or three.
@@KaylaJoyGunn yes, but also, they most likely beat french x-bows with micro with no thumb ring, no bracer and no arb, as at that point it’s a difference of 5 health for faster and more accurate firing
I always used LC as meatshield for gunpowder, thinking spears and skirms are useless but spears are actualy decent, better than LC against knights. Hussar survives much more and is fater but running them into heavy cavalry is basicaly just an atempt to burry enemy under corpses of hussars. Spears (considering GP units behind them) are actualy good/better option. Good video.
Spears are not decent. If your opponent would see turks spearmans he can add like any unit to his comp and your spears would die with 0 value. They dont have any hp and dont have any atack vs other type of units. And you still have to invest a lot into melee upgrades and even barracks to mass them. So its like never never never wirth it. Like never. Also with scirms, without extra range half of your army would die to crossbows/arbalests. And we are not talking about fighting against mixed army with melee units. Even "good" scenarios for turks trash units in this video would never happen in actual game
@@superstar5042 Thats exactly their purpouse, to make dumb enemy send another type of unit against your hussars with +p armor and your GP units. Not sure if you are confused or what but you are not supposed to use only spearmen :D. As Turk, you need GP and hussars and apparently its good to add spears if you go against heavy cavalry, which is their biggest strugle. Dont use just spearmen please, with no civ, it realy isnt their purpouse.
@@grammaton3773 They can mix some Halbs/Pikes along the heavy cavalry. The frontline dies way faster, and the Spear efficiency drops by 50%.
Or what about the usage of scorpions? They will thin the frontline further, as +1 pierce does little against 18 damage. Pass through damage also hurts the spears even further, hell, even the backline is in danger if the frontline is not replenished fast enough.(BBC might help, but that's it)
@@unimportantcommenter4356 You are talking about Turks not being the strongest civ. I am talking about what trash to build bcs you need all your gold for GP. I know Turks are not the strongest civ but i have fun playing them. Unles you are like top 100 players, better player usualy win. Game is very, very well balanced, and i have played more than couple RTS games. Look at the worst civ matchups vid by SotL, even the worst matchup is decided by skill in like 70-80% and by civ win in 20-30%.
@@grammaton3773 Nope, I'm really talking about the inefficiency of Turkish trash units, rather than Turk performance as a whole. Where did you get that I talk about the civ as a whole?
My main takeaway would be, besides still never wanting to play Turks, that the halb upgrade is not always that important (and it is quite expensive). I wonder whether that would be a good video idea (or whether the topic is too broad): obvious upgrades (like unit upgrades) that aren't worth getting in all situations.
I have a low elo with a high ego regarding game knowledge and this video was an eyeopener to me 11
That's some good thoughts on the matter Spirit. The numbers tell an interesting story, but don't always capture the real-game situations.
Keep in mind, the pikeman upgrade in Castle age matters even less, since in many situations, teching into it means you're already behind. Even for a civ with good pikemen, they'll either have better anti-cav alternatives or will just be able to hold with spears. Gold should not be a problem at that time. Exceptions being prolonged castle ages where both sides end up in kind of a stalemate, but that doesn't happen too frequently. Or you scout 5 stables and the opponent is franks.
The turks' trash units -or specifically, lack thereoff- is much more important in imperial age, and especially late imp, where to be frank, both of their options suck. A spear+skirm combo will work significantly worse than most civs' gold or hybrid (gold unit+trash support) alternative than suggested, since, for instance, a knight shreds skirm way harder than he's shred by spears, and an arbalest delets spears much quicker than they're checked by skirms.
They might be able to fend off some raiding hussars or a sneaky woodline-arbalest, but defending from a mixed offensive is pretty much impossible. Running out of gold as turks usually means gg, unless you have 40-60 hussars on the opponent's farms already.
SotL makes theoretical videos. Numbers, theory, behind the scenes stuff, etc.. If you want to see practical go watch a pro. This is where you come to find the raw information that you can pull from in specific situations that just might come up during your game.
@@curlywhites I'm not negatively criticizing Spirit, he's the GOAT of AoE youtubers, and he does what he does better than anyone.
Spirit also usually accompanies numbers with real match situations, which is great. I was mainly aiming to expand on this, sharing my thoughts as to why castle age spear vs pike against cav is slightly less relevant than post-imp trash mob spam.
@@Dr.Happy11 yeah, but it's like you still don't get it. It's not about relevance, viability, or being optimal. It's just about raw information. He came from the perspective of "the Turks gets a lot of crap for having the worst trash, let's see how bad they really are in comparative situations." Your expansion is good, but I just don't think it's relevant for Spirit's purpose or coherent to the conversation he was having.
I was actually recently thinking of doing a challenge video where I only use trash units as the Turks. Good to know I have somewhat of a decent chance.
Would be good to see how well spearmen do vs pikemen if resources for pikemen upgrade was instead spent on attack and/ or defence upgrades.
With a video like this, I wonder if there will be more similar to it where some civilizations can still make do with certain units despite lacking a few upgrades.
The monks in the game have nightmares of Teuton Scout Calvary…
I rate the Turk spears and skirms 3.6 not great but not terrible. I'd throw a few of them in with my hussars next time I play them
Lmao they're the worst in the game, but that's 3.6/5 xD
It is nice to know in late game a blob of turk skirms can maybe give hussar spam a chance vs halbs. I'll definitely try it out. Turks used to be one of my favorite civs untill I realized how hard they are to play in games where you don't have trade for whatever reason
One thing I think you missed out testing.
Adding extra trash units based on the resources they're not buying. Aka would a numbers advantage vs imp/castle age units make a difference.
I was confused about the +3 and +6 against cav archers. Then I realized you calculated it by adding the archer and cav archer bonus damage together. I was thinking there's no way that elite skirms do +10 total bonus against cav archers...
Looking at the title, I thought the Scout Cavalry line was gonna be an initial target as well. Thankfully, I was wrong.
While Turk spearmen cannot hold their ground against heavy cavalry and ultimately lose, it's still a great resource trade off if they're able to defeat as many Paladin and Elephants as they did in your scenarios.
True, the fact that they can still trade with a heavy gold intensive unit like Paladin is not the worst thing. Their cost efficiency is not on the same ball park as halbs/pikes but you can mix them other gold units (camels, monks, etc.) to minimize it.
@@cutiestar4560 It's only a good trade if the heavy cav player doesn't take advantage of winning the fights. If they go in, fight your spears and then head home, sure, you're doing alright cost effectively, but if they go in, kill your spears and then start trashing your eco, then it doesn't really matter how cost effective your fights are.
@@beganfish Yes, that's a solid point!
Everybody: missing those upgrades is ba-
SOTL (1:08): that's actually an eco bonus
Did the castle age skirm have chemistry?
In the castle age, turks skirms were throwing flaming javelins. Is that a glitch or accidently tested for imperial age!
That's some interesting Turk/Bohemian hybrid, considering your castle age skirms appear to have chemistry
Makes me wonder how many Turk spearmen you need to take down a fully upgraded cataphract
Cataphracts negate 16 anti-cavalry bonus damage. Spearmen only have +15, so they'd be stuck with their base 3+4 attack against the cataphract's 2+3 armor for 2 damage per attack for 75 total needed to take down the 150 hp cata.
Then catas do 12+2+12+6 vs 0+3 armor hahahahaha! And they attack every 1.7 seconds vs every 3.0 and damage adjacent units with that 6 trample damage.
I feel like this is raising the question now, when is Halberdier worth it? It seems like you mostly answered it here already, but could be a thought for a more in depth look at it.
It is a super expensive upgrade at 600gold.
@spirit of the law
Your Turk skirms have chemistry in the castle age test, this isn’t free until imp.
Hey guys of the Law, Spirit here
What it looks like is that they might be strong with strong trash feudal aggression going into castle age. Light cav get free upgrade and other units don't fall off which is big if they are amassed in number. The big question is how viable this would be. And if viable how much of a screen into castle age could this work for getting your ducks in order for late game comp.
I was kinda hoping this video would be answering the question "when would I ever use spear/skirmisher instead of Hussar?" As Turks I don't care how spears compare to pikes and halberdiers because I can't make them XD
what about microing the xbows, how would that work?
Imagine having worst skirmishers and best genitours at the same time (of course it happens when Turks ally Berbers).
Yeah, does Sapahi also give +20 hp to Turk-made genitours??
@@jefffinkbonner9551 Yes it does.
This just proof how important the blacksmith techs are!
How about a video on the Persian Long swordsman?
Video: Are Turk thrash unit really that bad?
Me: So today I learned that halberdiers are totally unnecesary unless I fight Paladins
I think if they only got the pike upgrade added to their tech tree, it would make the late game a bit better without destroying the balance
I am curious tarkans vs conquistadors , an episode please?
I'd love to see a video that really digs into Cav. archers. Why is it that quite a number of civilizations have access to them, though lack vital upgrades to make them a worthy unit to include in most compositions & strategies? Are there any situations where cavalry archers without thumb ring/parthian tactics/heavy cav archer or any combination of these three are even useful? Or is it just bait for people to throw gold away and lose games?
I remember a game in a Red Bull Wololo where Mbl made frankish Cav Archers against Hera and won.
Really, in any hyper aggressive maps where mobility is really valuable, and planning for a late game is pointless then the cav Archer will be fine with just bodkin (or even fletching) if you have an archery range up. In a case of just outproducing your opponent with high mobility units.
Otherwise i dont think it makes much sense, unless you're against civs that struggle fighting them (the Teutons and Bulgarians for instance). I can see a case for pure bodkin+husbandry cav archers dominate those matchups.
I'd have liked a comparison vs normal trash units. For example, how badly would they lose a trash battle vs spanish with just halbs and skirms?
So Spirit, among Gurjaras or Hindustanis which Civs needs to be nerfed more. I think the Shrivamsha Riders are quite difficult to deal with in Castle age and the Gurjaras actually peak in early Castle age so they are probably best Early Castle age Civ in the game as of now. While the Ghulams are good but they still require castle. Does the +9 range HC really makes a difference in the late game or the Hindustanis having Skirms, Halbs, Camels make them too strong. What's your take on the topic? How would you make Bengalis viable because they are absolute trash right now.
And i thought Bengalis would have been OP with their fast attacking eleohants.
I haven't played with Hidustanis, but I got a good Build Order down for Gurjaras, and their Shrivamsha Riders are crazy good. For me being so cheap and effective in low numbers against xbows can end the game there, or make a great comeback possible. I know speed is a big deal, but I don't think I operate fast enough to use the speed to full effect.
Shrivamsha riders are also the fastest cav, that makes them even harder to counter, and they are massed from stables unlike other very strong cavs like Leitis
@@davidpereira5969 wait arent hussars the fastest?
@@davidpereira5969 Crossbows shred Leitis my man. Plus Knights in castle age are risky with your opponent having monks+halbs. Even a decent group of archers can be very cost effective against Knights. On yhe other hand Shrivamsha riders eat CBs.
But in reallity cavalry always starts the fight with a good opening instakilling 1st spear snowballling and surround 2nd faster, which leads into much worse outcome.
And skirmishers lacking 1 range will be hit and runed by crossbows without losses=/
i can't help but wonder.
you assumed equal costs in all scenarios, but what if the cost for the upgrade would be compensated with some extra manpower? how would that change the tide for at least the very early stage? (i know they would fall off real quick real fast)
i'm just curious how the percentages change, and also seeing as in most cases spearmen fair better than halberdiers, how would adding more spearman influence the battle instead of upgrading to next tier?
coming up next Spanish archers, Teuton Scouts and Persian Longswordman
I always found strange that the skirmisher doesnt has an imperial upgrade of its own, tho i guess it helps turks to not have too much of a gap
Compared to other Civs, sure they don't hold up, but they are not useless, or underperforming.
Like sure they lose a lot of weigh in Imperial Age, but you are basically using a Feudal tier unit against 2 tiers above them.
So overall; They can still be of great value, since they can act as a cheap alternative to stop an advance, till you can pump out stronger units (Like from your stables).
this man deserve nobel prise... Spirit...please make new elephant video
Maybe it is a mistake to include all Blacksmith Upgrades for "Generic" units?
The more I look at it, the more secondary upgrades seem part of a nations strenght.
A nation can get strenght from a higher tier version of the unit, from a passive bonus/unique technology or Blacksmith upgrades.
Generic Light Cav without Bloodlines < Light Cav with Bloodlines < Light Cav with some Unique Bonus or Technology to HP.
Hey SOTL can you maybe do a tutorial for the scenario editor? I have tried to learn it but its still unclear what many settings do.
which setting exactly? for triggers Alkhalims channel has some solid guides on how to use them
really depends on what you want to do
How did I not know elite skirm gave extra range 11 I've been playing for like 7 years
shouldn't you add spearmen units equal to the res spent for the upgrade to pikes and halbs?
One thing that would have an impact - in all of the Turk trash vs upgraded version comparisions, the upgraded versions focused fire while the trash one spread the damage. One fight the upgraded versions would kill one unit each attack, while leaving the rest on full health while the trash versions would damage all of their targets, and kill none of them.
An interesting numbers test but what this video isnt really factoring in is that you'll have an extremely hard time forcing an engagement with your spears against raiding cav. A few attacks from a halb tear out large chunks of any cav trying to get to your siege, your ranged units or your vils. Meanwhile spears do little more than tickling in that same time. By the time they've caused damage whatever they were protecting is long dead.
Sipahi tech should change from +20 hp to no cost gold for cavalry archer or +20 hp to Hussar.
Interesting. I wonder if a turk player could bait an opponent to going too hard into archers in castle by using skirms. They would expect to stop only to get whittled down.
I'd say it's demoralizing fighting knights and crossbows with feudal age units, but not a cause to give up.
What about how they fair compared to civs having halberds but not a lot of blacksmith upgrades (tatars). Same with burmese and the skirms?
Yes. The are. Free Hussar with extra pierce armour is really nice though
Don't forget your blacksmith upgrades.
Spearmen are good in feudal and castle age, but not the best, you have to use the camels (generic full tech tree with no special bonuses and up to heavy camel) and your cavalry archers (nice full tech tree with 20 more hp than generic) that feel like knight that uses arrows instead of a sword to fight their heavy cavalry.
The skirmisher might not be good vs the cavalry archers, but he is good against the elephant archer given that they did well when I played the Dravidian campaign making feudal skirmishers vs elephant archers in the second scenario when playing for the achievement and getting no villager. If facing strong cavalry units use the gold units and maybe go aggressively after relics especially if you can succeed in removing their relics (by taking out their monastery to low enough health that it ejects the relic) and taking them to a monastery near you base right next to a castle.
Don't forget Turks have access to full technology tree hussars which can do something against the Turk opponents.
Last, if you are facing elephants you can also convert them as Turks have good monks.
Could also consider whether Spear or Skirm are ever superior to the same value of Hussars
@6:52 I didn't know Turks got chemistry in Castle Age :)
As a Turkish I can confirm we had absolute skill with rifles but however it is overly exxagrated in this game. I still dont understand why we considered like that since we had powerful cavalry units like "Tımarlı Siphai, Bashibozuks, Deli, Cavalry Archer" well at least we can spam cheap hussars right ?
It is because they Turks are based on pop culture Ottomans, this means post medieval Janissaries. Actually medieval Ottomans not even used the hand guns too much because they didn't had to fight that much armor so the soldiers and commanders preferred bows over guns. Also the cavalry archer unit make no sense to exist in an Ottoman army because every cavalryman used a bow, it didn't matter if it was heavy or light, bow was the main weapon.