Don't be afraid to redo some older videos considering how many updates the game had. Most of your Civilization overviews would benefit from that, and we'll watch them quite gladly.
@@limcritiques What? Saracens are a top 3 camel civ, have fully upgraded Hussar and have the now improved Mamelukes in castles which counter every other cav in the game, their stable is fine as is even without Cavalier. Not to mention you apparently didn't watch the video as the camel scout wins in every trade against the scout cav, so not sure how that would be a downgrade? Especially as they have a +10 hp bonus to camels?
@@ComeRestusFX well, if we're going with the video essay, the raiding aspect of camels are still weak though. Still a lot more vulnerable to Town Center arrow fire, and needs more hits to take out villagers in early game. And Zealotry is a tad too expensive in my opinion, but I understand if majority see the price being within reason for its effect.
I wonder whether the camel scout would be expand to other civs. Since camels in history, instead of war are more commonly used in trades, I think giving the Persians, Saracens and Tatars access to camel scout will be the most fittable
That's a very true observation, the horse was always preferred for most military combat duties possibly except for long range scouting and raiding as many long legendary journies with the camel's well known assets that assist in that situation, but I think it would be OP for that to happen IMO
units that get passive updates when aging up like scouts or eagles should get a name or visual change. Like "early scout" to indicate that a dark age scout is weaker than a feudal scout. Same with eagles randomly getting stronger and gaining hidden bonus damage in castle age even before the castle age upgrade it's so confusing.
They get it for each age? Was this a thing back in HD Edition, when Tracking was still a thing? I thought their increased LoS was purely tied to them now getting Tracking for free when you advance to Feudal, but if that was the case they wouldn't get a LoS upgrade for Castle and Imperial Ages.
this is the neverending topic of discussion when it comes to strategy genre. I don't agree that the game should be getting any more descriptive than it is. Things like this are part of the surprise factor and contribute to the overall difficulty of mastering this game.
Hey SOTL, in the recent tournament players came with a new trend to build the first Mining Camp touching the corner of the gold node (instead of the classic way of building it with one tile gap and in the most "tetris" position possible). They claim that with a few vills this is the most efficient place. Can you make a video about the math on this? =)
I feel like one of the best things about the camel scout is that if you havent taken much damage you get a free camel rider in castle age. Also you can get three to four of them while aging up, so it's easier to defend against knights even if you are a minute or so behind
If you keep your Camel Scout alive till feudal, you can also mix it into your scout army if you're doing a scout rush - should give you a nice advantage against opposing scout rushs.
I'll tell you: it's a left-over from the AoC days, where Camels received the Ship armor class so that they wouldn't be cavalry. This in turn made them far weaker against static fortifications. When the African Kings update dropped, Camels received their own armor class, and static defences were granted this bonus damage as a reference to the past balance patches.
I know it would be hard to balance but I don't like it when a unit's bonus damage changes or appears for no obvious reason. It makes the unit less intuitive, especially since bonus damage in AoE2 is not reflected in the stats.
The starting scout/eagle at higher levels is crucial in battles against drush or maa and even at sniping single archers and skimishers.. And also scout's anti monk abilities are underrated.. Would love to see details around this
For the purpose of (early) scouting I'd say it's worth noting that the Inca also get a llama to start with, which both adds to the total scouted area and gives the option to scout more places at once.
This is great content for how to break down and determine the strength of different options just from seeing how some choices actually play out in a simulation from on paper.
Elephant Scout: Can beat 3 villagers with loom. Has higher line of sight than Camels and Horses (but less than Eagle). Moves faster than Eagles but slower than Camels and Horses. Has a random chance of disobeying orders and wandering off somewhere else every 5 tiles it moves. You can research proper training in Feudal Age to stop this disobey chance and give it its full movement speed.
Make elephant scout replace some sheep and be carvable for food. That would be an interesting choice. Frankly I don't get why cav, camel and elephant shouldn't all be able to do be used like that.
@@Vaasref That would be interesting. You could use dead horses after a cavalry fight as a food resource. Controlling a battlefield becomes a strategic resource. Whoever wins the fight gains an edge over his opponent as he can rebuild his forces quicker
@@orionl7406 Yeah but in the dark age it's still a wild animal basically, until you train it properly in the feudal age. That's why it wonders off and doesn't use its full speed :P
I always imagined the scout/cavalry/eagle scout as a Hero unit. It was fully realized as a Hero unit in Age of Empires III (Explorer, Warchief, Ikko-Ikki, Monk, Brahmin, and General in the Definitive edition for the USA and Mexico civs)
@@KingOskar4 hmm I can't remember now. It was always an out of the way castle. But I think it follows melee unit rules where it adds like half their damage? Ik there's a SOTL video on that
Informative as always. the Eagle eyes was a very nice touch. Suggested video: show what keyboard strokes are being used by the best players.... I'm always amazed how they move so quickly around... more than just understanding the short cuts I'm talking about how they perform those actions. My two cents.
Would be nice to see this expanded, comparing these units as they're upgraded further (both the unit specific upgrades and the generic... ie blacksmith).
0:51 Honestly, scouting in Age of Empires doesn't make any sense if you think about it. Elevation doesn't affect line of sight, barriers like walls, trees, and buildings don't prevent units from seeing whatever is behind them, animals can provide scouting information, and scouts can somehow see farther simply by their civilizations moving up an age.
I mean, that last one is pretty true to life if you think about it. Both technology and training improve as a society advances, so they would absolutely get better at something like that. The weird part is that it changes instantaneously no matter how far they are from home lol.
Honestly? Having LoS be a circle instead of a cone is slightly unrealistic as well. It's just a game mechanic. Though yeah, it might be kinda funny to see someone cast a game where a scout looks over a cliff and misses an enemy crossbow army pressing themselves tight against the side of the cliff because the scout was one tile away from the edge of the cliff.
Cavalry aren't great for standing around whacking things repeatedly. They excel at hit-and-run charges. A horse might be faster and have more stamina over long distances.... but someone on foot would be far more nimble, able to dodge attacks easier, change directions and wield a weapon far better. It's hard to dodge or turn from a seated position, and they'll have to also keep the mount under control / give it directions. They're basically a sitting duck / easy target. Oh, and using a sword from a mount would drastically reduce the ability to reach a target. The Eagle's have spears. The rider would be dead before they get close enough to attack.
Hi SOTL I would love to see your next video talking about the PAPER MONEY Vietnamese tech because I just found out that apparently lumberjacks give some gold now. Thanks and your videos are amazing :)
I'm really glad the Camel Scout is in the game, but I find it's implementation really underwhelming. Maybe I'm just naïve, but I don't think it would have been broken if they had 3 Atk and a small bonus versus cavalry. Bring down their HP to 55 or 60, keep the low pierce armor, reduce that ridiculous Feudal training time, and you at least have a unit with distinct strengths.
I agree with changing the unit in Dark Age. If you give Camel Scouts 55 hp and 3 attack in Dark Age, they still lose to an Eagle Scout and just lose against a Loomed Villager so it's fine. Then if you give it +2 bonus damage vs cavalry (+3 for Gurjaras) it wins very easily against the Scout Cavalry, but if you bring down its speed by a tiny amount in Dark Age (it's slower in Feudal Age anyway) just so that Scout Cavalry can always run away, it shouldn't be a problem. I wouldn't reduce the Feudal training time by too much though. Having these Feudal units immediately upgrade to Camel Riders gives you already a good power spike.
@@martijnbouman8874 great analysis, I appreciate you putting my loose ideas to more proper numbers! I do still think that the feudal training time should be notably dropped, though if it was still higher than either of the other two scouts that's probably reasonable. My reasoning for this is that the Camel Scout still has a much higher cost than either of the other two Scout units, meaning that it's already going to be quite difficult to mass. This cost on top of a massive train time makes proper feudal play with them pretty unviable right now in my experience, even with the free upgrade in Castle age (which admittedly is awesome). Another way to balance could be to massively reduce train time but have their Castle age boost actually take a small upgrade, as with Eagles, but I personally don't like that idea as much unless the unit becomes available to other civilizations as well.
Everyone talks about boar stealing, but another huge slight against the Gurjaras is that they cannot kill a sheep in one hit in Dark Age. Since my favourite Dark Age thing is to send 2 Villagers to wall right up the front of Amazon Tunnel, and use my Scout to kill sheep under their TC, it definitely is a slight against them.
@@jamaly77 I like to think the reason it's so easy is because sheep don't make an alarm sound, so I can try and sneakishly do it. But yes, often my Scout just gets fucked.
Hey SotL! Could you do a video on the programming of Deer pushes? My biggest questions are what determines their run direction / distance, and how does their 'reset' timer work? Do all huntables of this class act the same? Love your content and experiments. Thank you so much!
In regard to the best dark age scout. One addition one could add in favour of eagles is that they can be healed up in TC. Which can turn the favor of a scout war - even in feudal age. But that's being nitpicky :)
Since the new India dynasties DLC released I’m hoping you could do another “create op civs” video with an elephant civilization, camel civilization, maybe a new siege that is updated, plus some others? Ever since we learned about that krakenmeister civ creator I have really been interested in creating civilizations to play with and I’m really hoping you could do another video where they all battle each other to see how the AI plays them, etc. Having an actual match with players controlling them would be even more amazing!
One of the more important points in this i think is that camel scouts and eagle scouts transition into real gold units in castle age and beyond. Whereas regular cavalry scouts can at best hope for hussar status in the late game.
This makes me wonder if the gurjaras +50% bonus damage would apply to the hindustani team bonus turning it into a +3 attack vs buildings from a +2 for camels and light cav
Video suggestion: Is it worth creating these worse units in the game?: Turk Spearmen/Skirmisher/Mangonel Saracen Knights Spanish Archers Teuton Scout Calvery
I would say if I'm playing Gurjaras, I'm gonna try to make SURE the camel gets to use it's combat advantage if my opponent isn't meso. It's really not a good scout unit but it is good at depriving your opponent of their scout. If I'm Gurjaras vs Meso, well, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.
But the opponent scout should never offer you the fight. They are significantly faster and have more line of sight. Unless you pull them in long feudal battle they will just avoid your camel scout
Nice video, but it's lacking one thing, which is how each of them played out against archer, which is a opening people do in feudal, which would make camel look worse then the rest.
The good thing about camels being slightly slower in Feudal is that it isn't an automatic Scout kill. The scout can run away . The eagle on the other hand is still in bad luck
I think, aside from balancing, the reason the eagle scout has better line of vision than the others is that he does not need to also focus on his mount, allowing him to focus purely on the surroundings
the issue with Eagle Warrior that even if his sight is better, the movement is a more important key in scouting, i mean, u don't want to explore the 100% map, just the key important places, in that case the faster is the better, not?
Not really, unless you are going for a very fast feudal rush. The thing is, you don't know exactly where you need to scout, especially for your Dark Age priorities. In Dark Age, you are mostly interested in finding your sheep, locating your nearby resources, and locating any chokepoints or barriers in the map. You'll know that the resources are roughly near your base, but you still need to scan the whole area until you find them, so tiles/sec is still the most important (especially for the barriers/chokepoints scouting, because you have no idea where those are). And unless you are going for a hyper aggressive rush, even an Eagle Scout will be able to make it across the map and find your opponent's base well before you can actually attack them. You could argue that a mounted scout can more quickly give you information about your opponent's strategy, so you can react; but it is just as likely that they will miss a proxy barracks or early mining camp because it was intentionally placed a bit farther away, outside their narrow LoS.
Being able to move quickly is pretty valuable, but when it comes to actually scouting it's not the most important thing. Uncovering a wider area around your base means that you'll almost never have to double back and recheck anything, which the other scouts almost always have to do to uncover all resources. In a practical situation, not covering the same ground twice saves even more time than it's increased rate of revealing tiles would imply. Not to mention that they're much more likely to reveal things like relics while you're going about your normal scouting. Also, with it's increased view radius it can outspot and avoid most units, and those that it can't it can outfight. This makes it less vulnerable to getting picked off so long as you're paying attention, a value that's difficult to quantify but is certainly very useful. Now, later in the game when you're not primarily using them for scouting obviously you'd prefer the faster movement over the view range, but smoothing out the early game is one of the most important things a player can do so it's probably worth it.
Camel scout best by a clear margin for sure. Scouting wise they are mostly a wash. But the camel is really the most formidable unit in feudal age. Slightly worse vs archers than the scout but beating scouts pretty hard and also being less vulnerable to spears (take 5 hits instead of 3) is a pretty big deal. And the free upgrade to camel in Castle age is very helpful. Overall like eagle the least actually because it's the worst in feudal by a fair margin.
i see no mention of husbandry or the cumans speed bonus, a bit far fetched for this comparrison i'll admit, but sice you briefly mentioned the mongol bonus it would seem fitting to glance over theese aswell :)
So the higher up you are from the ground, the worse your scouting range. So why do we make a small tower called an outpost? Surely it would have more vision if it was just a pad on the ground? xD
Cool, but I do wonder how each unit progresses beyond Feudal age with upgrades, because IIRC both eagle scouts and scout cav have an upgrade line and stay mutually exclusive with each other. Plus Im still a relative noob, so any info is good info for me.
Hello SoTL, I have seen/heard pros idle their TC to go up to castle age so they can make TCs and recouple their lost villagers. How cost effective is this? How long will it take to payoff adding 2 or more TCs?
Camel Scout makes me feel as if it would have been interesting if Scout Cavalry turned into the knight line. I wonder if that was ever considered in the early stages of this game?
Town Centers have Bonus Damage against Camels? At least they're not being mistaken for ships anymore but it still feels like a bit of that old classification is still there.
Hey, the spirit of the law in future, do the devs would replace scout with camel scout for camel focus civs like Berbers, Byzantines, Chinese, Cumans, Ethiopians, Hindustanis, Malians, Mongols, Persians, Saracens, Tatars, Turks. (These civs have access to camel lines) Just like south-east Asian civs. Why do they give Indian civs an at least Knight only? No extra upgrades like paladin or cavalier? Just an opinion, A change is quite good. I don't care whether you accept it or not.
An elephant is a large, strong, expensive unit, why would any kingdom use an Elephant as a scout when a cheaper ,less devastating battle creature like the horse will do a better job at scouting. Let the horses scout and leave the elephants for the front lines. But I 100% agree we need more regional specific units/skins for regular A,B,S,M units.
My regular dose of interesting information that I will likely never use but appreciate knowing
I mean, I haven't played the game for almost a decade, but still watching every video.
....when the time comes, you'll know how to use the info.
same here xD been playing only here and there and not for a very long time. Just love the numbers and comparisons
“Eagle eyed” …superb commentary
It definitely helped me during my first match online. I won :D even tho it wasn’t high ranked.
Don't be afraid to redo some older videos considering how many updates the game had.
Most of your Civilization overviews would benefit from that, and we'll watch them quite gladly.
That's true. But only if Mongols keep the MS Paint / Bob Ross intro ;D
I like the new series he's doing where he compares/contrasts AoK civs with their modern versions.
Quite gladly?
I will see it very very happy
Camel scout should be a regional unit for a few civilizations. Not sure which but only having it for one Civ seems weird.
Not for saracena for sure though, although the stigma sticks to them as if they only ever mastered camels in history 😂
I think camel scout should also be available to saracens and persian
Yeah, but Saracens already have a "mediocre" cavalry. So they don't need to get any worse
Berbers & Hindustanis too.
@@limcritiques What? Saracens are a top 3 camel civ, have fully upgraded Hussar and have the now improved Mamelukes in castles which counter every other cav in the game, their stable is fine as is even without Cavalier. Not to mention you apparently didn't watch the video as the camel scout wins in every trade against the scout cav, so not sure how that would be a downgrade? Especially as they have a +10 hp bonus to camels?
@@ComeRestusFX well, if we're going with the video essay, the raiding aspect of camels are still weak though. Still a lot more vulnerable to Town Center arrow fire, and needs more hits to take out villagers in early game. And Zealotry is a tad too expensive in my opinion, but I understand if majority see the price being within reason for its effect.
nah that's gurjaras biggest unique thing
1:00 it's simple, they're foot unit, they can easily climb up and down high place to see further without worrying about their horse
The horse/camel make noise whereas the Eagle scout can better trust his ears to take in his sourroundings ;7
mountain goat scout when???
@@dnd3edm2 that will be funny!
I wonder whether the camel scout would be expand to other civs. Since camels in history, instead of war are more commonly used in trades, I think giving the Persians, Saracens and Tatars access to camel scout will be the most fittable
100% Persians and Saracens
Berebers too
Persians with weaker scouting would nerf them a little i think, maybe new team bonus?
That's a very true observation, the horse was always preferred for most military combat duties possibly except for long range scouting and raiding as many long legendary journies with the camel's well known assets that assist in that situation, but I think it would be OP for that to happen IMO
Even berbers, camel scout would fit them :)
1:29 ah, yes. The obligatory "unless you're the Mongols" caveat.
units that get passive updates when aging up like scouts or eagles should get a name or visual change. Like "early scout" to indicate that a dark age scout is weaker than a feudal scout. Same with eagles randomly getting stronger and gaining hidden bonus damage in castle age even before the castle age upgrade it's so confusing.
But doesn’t this happen with most units? Infantry for instance also get bonus LOS for each age.
They get it for each age?
Was this a thing back in HD Edition, when Tracking was still a thing?
I thought their increased LoS was purely tied to them now getting Tracking for free when you advance to Feudal, but if that was the case they wouldn't get a LoS upgrade for Castle and Imperial Ages.
this is the neverending topic of discussion when it comes to strategy genre. I don't agree that the game should be getting any more descriptive than it is. Things like this are part of the surprise factor and contribute to the overall difficulty of mastering this game.
I always thought Eagles had the small anti-cavalry bonus from the start of the game; did they change that?
@@dogg-paws maybe they changed it when they added eagle scout. Started with eagle warrior in aoc
Hey SOTL, in the recent tournament players came with a new trend to build the first Mining Camp touching the corner of the gold node (instead of the classic way of building it with one tile gap and in the most "tetris" position possible). They claim that with a few vills this is the most efficient place. Can you make a video about the math on this? =)
If anyone wants a laugh, enable captions, set to English auto-generated and read at 0:14
Ah yes the ancient civilization of the Good Jars. Now they are know as the Tuperware people of the southwest middle eastern.
Ah yes the Good Jars who triumphed over the Palaces and (El) Risitas in the tripartite struggle for the great ancient Indian capital of Kannauj
ty for lol
that is why the closed captions need to be updated
@@Henk8118 they're not, just watch the introduction caption and you will never believe this guy any more xD
I feel like one of the best things about the camel scout is that if you havent taken much damage you get a free camel rider in castle age. Also you can get three to four of them while aging up, so it's easier to defend against knights even if you are a minute or so behind
If you keep your Camel Scout alive till feudal, you can also mix it into your scout army if you're doing a scout rush - should give you a nice advantage against opposing scout rushs.
I'm surprised by the TCs hidden bonus damage vs camels. Maybe a good video could be a collection of lesser known hidden bonuses.
Same. But that explains why camels are so extremly bad at raiding
I'll tell you: it's a left-over from the AoC days, where Camels received the Ship armor class so that they wouldn't be cavalry. This in turn made them far weaker against static fortifications. When the African Kings update dropped, Camels received their own armor class, and static defences were granted this bonus damage as a reference to the past balance patches.
@@unimportantcommenter4356 You have ascended to your true form. You are now "Important Commenter".
I know it would be hard to balance but I don't like it when a unit's bonus damage changes or appears for no obvious reason. It makes the unit less intuitive, especially since bonus damage in AoE2 is not reflected in the stats.
"Meso-Americans, what do your Eagle Eyes see?"
"The Spanish turned north-east..."
"-They're taking Cortez to the Inquisition!"
americans*
@@dontspikemydrink9382 you lost
I bet he didn't expect that....
@@bogdanbogdanoff5164 lost what?
@@dontspikemydrink9382 The american continent. It's even named after a european
The starting scout/eagle at higher levels is crucial in battles against drush or maa and even at sniping single archers and skimishers..
And also scout's anti monk abilities are underrated..
Would love to see details around this
For the purpose of (early) scouting I'd say it's worth noting that the Inca also get a llama to start with, which both adds to the total scouted area and gives the option to scout more places at once.
This is great content for how to break down and determine the strength of different options just from seeing how some choices actually play out in a simulation from on paper.
The Eagle Scout has the new line of sight in the Community Patch, Definitive Edition is not the only one.
Your depth of analysis amazes me everytime. I haven't played AoE2 since Age of Conquerors (yep, AGES ago) but I always enjoy your videos.
I am surprised you still haven't covered caravanserai seeing that you did a quick overview of all new units
5:27 Look at that elephant zooming! The other new Indian civs should get Elephant Scouts.
Elephant Scout: Can beat 3 villagers with loom. Has higher line of sight than Camels and Horses (but less than Eagle). Moves faster than Eagles but slower than Camels and Horses. Has a random chance of disobeying orders and wandering off somewhere else every 5 tiles it moves. You can research proper training in Feudal Age to stop this disobey chance and give it its full movement speed.
Make elephant scout replace some sheep and be carvable for food. That would be an interesting choice.
Frankly I don't get why cav, camel and elephant shouldn't all be able to do be used like that.
@@Vaasref That would be interesting. You could use dead horses after a cavalry fight as a food resource. Controlling a battlefield becomes a strategic resource. Whoever wins the fight gains an edge over his opponent as he can rebuild his forces quicker
Pretty sure elephants and rhinos move faster than other lure animals. That's an elephant fact :D
@@orionl7406 Yeah but in the dark age it's still a wild animal basically, until you train it properly in the feudal age. That's why it wonders off and doesn't use its full speed :P
I always imagined the scout/cavalry/eagle scout as a Hero unit. It was fully realized as a Hero unit in Age of Empires III (Explorer, Warchief, Ikko-Ikki, Monk, Brahmin, and General in the Definitive edition for the USA and Mexico civs)
If he survived I'd always retire him as a hero to the castle
@@Hemostat Now THAT'S a good idea. Just like Villagers, does it allow to shoot arrows from Town Center? Or just villagers can defend from Town Center?
@@KingOskar4 hmm I can't remember now. It was always an out of the way castle. But I think it follows melee unit rules where it adds like half their damage? Ik there's a SOTL video on that
Informative as always. the Eagle eyes was a very nice touch. Suggested video: show what keyboard strokes are being used by the best players.... I'm always amazed how they move so quickly around... more than just understanding the short cuts I'm talking about how they perform those actions. My two cents.
Everyone knows that the sheep is the best scouting unit.
not everyone, only 1200+ players probably
hi spirit old viewer from like 4 yrs ago here, good to hear your voice. Great vid.
Maybe (AND I SAY MAYBE) berbers and saracens (and industanis) too could have the camel scout.
What do you think?
Thnks a lot for uploading so often and regularly. Love your videos
Would be nice to see this expanded, comparing these units as they're upgraded further (both the unit specific upgrades and the generic... ie blacksmith).
0:51 Honestly, scouting in Age of Empires doesn't make any sense if you think about it. Elevation doesn't affect line of sight, barriers like walls, trees, and buildings don't prevent units from seeing whatever is behind them, animals can provide scouting information, and scouts can somehow see farther simply by their civilizations moving up an age.
I mean, that last one is pretty true to life if you think about it. Both technology and training improve as a society advances, so they would absolutely get better at something like that.
The weird part is that it changes instantaneously no matter how far they are from home lol.
Honestly? Having LoS be a circle instead of a cone is slightly unrealistic as well. It's just a game mechanic. Though yeah, it might be kinda funny to see someone cast a game where a scout looks over a cliff and misses an enemy crossbow army pressing themselves tight against the side of the cliff because the scout was one tile away from the edge of the cliff.
Eagle Scout is light enough to climb onto his own spear when he needs to see further.
Might say the Eagle Scout is... _light as a feather._
That's why he moves slower as well. He has a sore bottom.
Do sicilian scouts take less damage from boars?
boars don't do bonus damage
@@dontspikemydrink9382 did you watch the video
yes
@@dontspikemydrink9382 they do
AOE2 logic: A man in a chicken suit is stronger than a man on a horse/camel.
Cavalry aren't great for standing around whacking things repeatedly. They excel at hit-and-run charges.
A horse might be faster and have more stamina over long distances.... but someone on foot would be far more nimble, able to dodge attacks easier, change directions and wield a weapon far better. It's hard to dodge or turn from a seated position, and they'll have to also keep the mount under control / give it directions. They're basically a sitting duck / easy target. Oh, and using a sword from a mount would drastically reduce the ability to reach a target. The Eagle's have spears. The rider would be dead before they get close enough to attack.
It's kind of funny that I keep watching your videos, even though I don't play Age of Empires 2.
Hi SOTL I would love to see your next video talking about the PAPER MONEY Vietnamese tech because I just found out that apparently lumberjacks give some gold now. Thanks and your videos are amazing :)
Gotta love how "Gurjaras" turns to "good jars" by the auto captions
SOL: *Uploads New Video*
Me: "I don't need sleep. I need answers."
I'm really glad the Camel Scout is in the game, but I find it's implementation really underwhelming. Maybe I'm just naïve, but I don't think it would have been broken if they had 3 Atk and a small bonus versus cavalry. Bring down their HP to 55 or 60, keep the low pierce armor, reduce that ridiculous Feudal training time, and you at least have a unit with distinct strengths.
I agree with changing the unit in Dark Age. If you give Camel Scouts 55 hp and 3 attack in Dark Age, they still lose to an Eagle Scout and just lose against a Loomed Villager so it's fine. Then if you give it +2 bonus damage vs cavalry (+3 for Gurjaras) it wins very easily against the Scout Cavalry, but if you bring down its speed by a tiny amount in Dark Age (it's slower in Feudal Age anyway) just so that Scout Cavalry can always run away, it shouldn't be a problem.
I wouldn't reduce the Feudal training time by too much though. Having these Feudal units immediately upgrade to Camel Riders gives you already a good power spike.
@@martijnbouman8874 great analysis, I appreciate you putting my loose ideas to more proper numbers!
I do still think that the feudal training time should be notably dropped, though if it was still higher than either of the other two scouts that's probably reasonable. My reasoning for this is that the Camel Scout still has a much higher cost than either of the other two Scout units, meaning that it's already going to be quite difficult to mass. This cost on top of a massive train time makes proper feudal play with them pretty unviable right now in my experience, even with the free upgrade in Castle age (which admittedly is awesome).
Another way to balance could be to massively reduce train time but have their Castle age boost actually take a small upgrade, as with Eagles, but I personally don't like that idea as much unless the unit becomes available to other civilizations as well.
Thanks for all the content
Everyone talks about boar stealing, but another huge slight against the Gurjaras is that they cannot kill a sheep in one hit in Dark Age. Since my favourite Dark Age thing is to send 2 Villagers to wall right up the front of Amazon Tunnel, and use my Scout to kill sheep under their TC, it definitely is a slight against them.
So your opponents don't how that you can garrison the TC?!
@@jamaly77 I like to think the reason it's so easy is because sheep don't make an alarm sound, so I can try and sneakishly do it. But yes, often my Scout just gets fucked.
I have an exam tomorrow but I really have to know the comparison between Camels, Calvary and Eagle scouts in Aoe 2
no wonder we still worship AOE2... one of the best balanced game ever
Hey SotL! Could you do a video on the programming of Deer pushes? My biggest questions are what determines their run direction / distance, and how does their 'reset' timer work? Do all huntables of this class act the same? Love your content and experiments. Thank you so much!
Last time I was this early you could convert heroes
In regard to the best dark age scout. One addition one could add in favour of eagles is that they can be healed up in TC. Which can turn the favor of a scout war - even in feudal age. But that's being nitpicky :)
Since the new India dynasties DLC released I’m hoping you could do another “create op civs” video with an elephant civilization, camel civilization, maybe a new siege that is updated, plus some others?
Ever since we learned about that krakenmeister civ creator I have really been interested in creating civilizations to play with and I’m really hoping you could do another video where they all battle each other to see how the AI plays them, etc.
Having an actual match with players controlling them would be even more amazing!
If you haven't already, can you do a whole video specifically on the Gurjaras bonus damage of mounted units? I can't tell how good or bad it is.
Hi SOTL! Great video. How is your Masters going?
Was that a Crash Course reference I heard? Gotta love those exceptional Mongols
One of the more important points in this i think is that camel scouts and eagle scouts transition into real gold units in castle age and beyond. Whereas regular cavalry scouts can at best hope for hussar status in the late game.
Why don't you upload your matches with commentary??? That would be amazing.. every single one of us would watch that!
This makes me wonder if the gurjaras +50% bonus damage would apply to the hindustani team bonus turning it into a +3 attack vs buildings from a +2 for camels and light cav
Thanks for another great math lesson
We need more custom units.
Video suggestion: Is it worth creating these worse units in the game?:
Turk Spearmen/Skirmisher/Mangonel
Saracen Knights
Spanish Archers
Teuton Scout Calvery
I would say if I'm playing Gurjaras, I'm gonna try to make SURE the camel gets to use it's combat advantage if my opponent isn't meso. It's really not a good scout unit but it is good at depriving your opponent of their scout.
If I'm Gurjaras vs Meso, well, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.
But the opponent scout should never offer you the fight. They are significantly faster and have more line of sight. Unless you pull them in long feudal battle they will just avoid your camel scout
Nice video, but it's lacking one thing, which is how each of them played out against archer, which is a opening people do in feudal, which would make camel look worse then the rest.
At 0:08 I thought you wanted to start with the mighty goat.
SOTL can you do a review on the Sirak LOTR map? I actually think its weird that you haven’t made a video on it yet! :)
The good thing about camels being slightly slower in Feudal is that it isn't an automatic Scout kill. The scout can run away . The eagle on the other hand is still in bad luck
I think, aside from balancing, the reason the eagle scout has better line of vision than the others is that he does not need to also focus on his mount, allowing him to focus purely on the surroundings
Scout Cav: “Hey! Where’s my talking-points list?? HMPH!”
Hmm answer to question I didn't have about game I don't play. Yup let's watch it
can Gurjaras ally with mongols for the bonus LOS, or does it not work for the camels?
the issue with Eagle Warrior that even if his sight is better, the movement is a more important key in scouting, i mean, u don't want to explore the 100% map, just the key important places, in that case the faster is the better, not?
Not really, unless you are going for a very fast feudal rush. The thing is, you don't know exactly where you need to scout, especially for your Dark Age priorities. In Dark Age, you are mostly interested in finding your sheep, locating your nearby resources, and locating any chokepoints or barriers in the map. You'll know that the resources are roughly near your base, but you still need to scan the whole area until you find them, so tiles/sec is still the most important (especially for the barriers/chokepoints scouting, because you have no idea where those are).
And unless you are going for a hyper aggressive rush, even an Eagle Scout will be able to make it across the map and find your opponent's base well before you can actually attack them. You could argue that a mounted scout can more quickly give you information about your opponent's strategy, so you can react; but it is just as likely that they will miss a proxy barracks or early mining camp because it was intentionally placed a bit farther away, outside their narrow LoS.
Being able to move quickly is pretty valuable, but when it comes to actually scouting it's not the most important thing. Uncovering a wider area around your base means that you'll almost never have to double back and recheck anything, which the other scouts almost always have to do to uncover all resources. In a practical situation, not covering the same ground twice saves even more time than it's increased rate of revealing tiles would imply. Not to mention that they're much more likely to reveal things like relics while you're going about your normal scouting. Also, with it's increased view radius it can outspot and avoid most units, and those that it can't it can outfight. This makes it less vulnerable to getting picked off so long as you're paying attention, a value that's difficult to quantify but is certainly very useful.
Now, later in the game when you're not primarily using them for scouting obviously you'd prefer the faster movement over the view range, but smoothing out the early game is one of the most important things a player can do so it's probably worth it.
Good points all around, and a very civil and well thought out discussion.
You forgot to analyse who have the best moon walking style.
We need an update to the AOE v History playlist
I would have liked a mention on the last 2 uses for scout units: anti monk and late game trash fights.
that is not scout anymore
Camel scout best by a clear margin for sure.
Scouting wise they are mostly a wash. But the camel is really the most formidable unit in feudal age. Slightly worse vs archers than the scout but beating scouts pretty hard and also being less vulnerable to spears (take 5 hits instead of 3) is a pretty big deal. And the free upgrade to camel in Castle age is very helpful.
Overall like eagle the least actually because it's the worst in feudal by a fair margin.
we need revisit all topic, all civ change so much.
SOTL, have you ever considered doing a “is masonry worth it?” Video?
Is that a Crash Course History reference at 1:30?
4:47 With arms like that you would think this unit was an Imperial unit or elite upgrade. Instead, it got demoted to cartographer xD
Does Mongol scout team bonus apply to Gurjara camel scout?
“We are the exception!”
newbie question but is downhill damage considered as bonus damage?
That's a good question
Depends. Normally? It is
Does it effect the Gurjara's +50% bonus dmg? No.
balance on point
i see no mention of husbandry or the cumans speed bonus, a bit far fetched for this comparrison i'll admit, but sice you briefly mentioned the mongol bonus it would seem fitting to glance over theese aswell :)
So the higher up you are from the ground, the worse your scouting range. So why do we make a small tower called an outpost? Surely it would have more vision if it was just a pad on the ground? xD
Captions said "good jars" xD
Cool, but I do wonder how each unit progresses beyond Feudal age with upgrades, because IIRC both eagle scouts and scout cav have an upgrade line and stay mutually exclusive with each other.
Plus Im still a relative noob, so any info is good info for me.
Would have loved to see some cost comparison in feudal age, i.e how easy is it to mass any either of these units while saving for castle age
big BRUH moment. these units are ONLY available as scouts
for the scout, what about the couman ability ? it discover more land by moving quicker
Eagle scout might not sit on a horse/camel but he has eyes like an eagle...that's why the LOS is greater ;)
Hello SoTL, I have seen/heard pros idle their TC to go up to castle age so they can make TCs and recouple their lost villagers. How cost effective is this? How long will it take to payoff adding 2 or more TCs?
Camel Scout makes me feel as if it would have been interesting if Scout Cavalry turned into the knight line. I wonder if that was ever considered in the early stages of this game?
Town Centers have Bonus Damage against Camels?
At least they're not being mistaken for ships anymore but it still feels like a bit of that old classification is still there.
Berbers should also get the camel scout
Mongols are the exception!!
My conclusion: never mess with wild boars.
AoE4 is really good now. Please do some content
I hope someday scout elephant will be available ...
Hey, the spirit of the law in future, do the devs would replace scout with camel scout for camel focus civs like Berbers, Byzantines, Chinese, Cumans, Ethiopians, Hindustanis, Malians, Mongols, Persians, Saracens, Tatars, Turks. (These civs have access to camel lines)
Just like south-east Asian civs. Why do they give Indian civs an at least Knight only? No extra upgrades like paladin or cavalier?
Just an opinion, A change is quite good. I don't care whether you accept it or not.
That mongol exception meme!
Make Bohemian and Dravidian Civs review please????
Please do Dynasties of India civ overview
Hey I like AOE2 !
An elephant is a large, strong, expensive unit, why would any kingdom use an Elephant as a scout when a cheaper ,less devastating battle creature like the horse will do a better job at scouting. Let the horses scout and leave the elephants for the front lines.
But I 100% agree we need more regional specific units/skins for regular A,B,S,M units.
My guess is that eagle scout is the best.
yeah but you didn't compare them with sheeps!
So Gujarat must not delay the feudal research in order to have edge in scout rush.