For skirmishers, it is more important to have the last armor than the bracer. If you want to make a video to compare Slavic skirmishers to Mongol ones, to Frankish ones and to Berbeber ones, you will enjoy the result Spirit of the law.
Of course, and having fully armored Hussars can fight Elite Skirmishers pretty well and just taking 1 damage, unlike others like Mongols, Poles and others that take 3 damage (because they lack the last cavalry armor) and they already have strong Halberdiers against Hussars and other Halbs that makes up that
this is only true in lower levels of play where there isnt much micro at play, but at higher levels of play, having a range disadvantage is a much bigger deal than having -2 armor since your skirms will just get kited
@@jagosvujovic2086 Not in the late game, early game that's true, but in the late game when there is so much going on, people don't typically spend the time to micro trash units.
@@joshuagabrielcatindig7607 Ukraine didn't even exist prior to the 20th century, especially in the middle ages it was literally all just Rus from Kiev to Novgorod to Moscow. Current political events have no bearing on a historical game like AoE.
Either they rename Slavs or they have to remove Poles, Bohemians and Bulgarians who are all also slavic and were already technically included in the Slavs umbrella.
@@majdavlk649 The Slavs civ makes much more sense than the "Indian" civ ever did. The languages and cultures of Bohemians, Poles, Bulgarians and Russians are far more similar than the language and cultures (and even appearance) of northern Indians (Indo-Aryan languages) and southern Indians (Dravidian languages). India is much more diverse than most people realize.
Just wanted to say I’ve started back playin AoE2 & AoE3 recently to give my mental a break from the toxic realm of League of Legends and I must say Spirit I truly enjoy your videos, I remember growing up playing this game religiously and with the help of your videos and steam I’m diving back into the world of AoE and I’m loving it. Keep up the great work, love your channel !
I feel you. Unlike in League, you have control over all of your own units and economy, unlike League where many things are determined by timers, champion knowledge, and worst of all, your own teammates. Age of Empires is the much better game if you ask me. Hahaha
One thing I've particularly enjoyed when rewatching some of these vids are the ads with squarespace. "Spirit of the Lawn" was especially funny to me lol
this is amazing! I really, really wanted you to redo the Slavs video due to the 'outdatedness' of the previous video's format! I am so glad that you did a modern Slavs overview video! thanks a lot SotL!! :) :D
I think the takeaway for Slavs performing average despite such strong ratings is simply that archers rule the meta still. I honestly would love to see a small increase in speed for all infantry units (or maybe a buff to squires) to help them out a bit
One of my favoite civs. I remember a 1v1 in arena. My oponent started attacking me in CA, but I resisted only walling and made up to IA, then I researched Druzhina, built as many barracks as I could and started spamming halberdiers. He resigned soon after. That game would be great for a T90's low elo legends video. Unfortunately, I had a problem with my PC and it doesn't run AoE DE anymore. 😭
Personally, they feel more like a B+ in most categories than an A- civ. Most categories they have serious shortcomings in terms of raw power. Jack of all trades and what not
It's tricky to grade for Slav, during different stages of the game they have different power spikes. But you're ensured to have se good options throughput.
I think that orthodoxy UT should have become a bonus, even if it wasn’t popular, this was partly because it was a tech. It could have become +3/4 armor and pierce armor in castle/imperial age.
They could make it so that infantry armor upgrades affect monks as well. That would get you your +3/4 armor in imperial while still remaining a fairly tame bonus.
Not to diminish the time and effort in producing these informative videos, but my favorite part of many of them is the well placed puns. Keep "punning".
I tend to be an economic player, booming hard, walling up, and making several troop buildings so I can pump out counters to whatever the enemy is attacking me with, and as I stress their gold reserves, I start making my gold troops. The Slavs played right into this and is one of my favorite civs now, lol. Having 10 barracks is a quarter of my pop cap, saving me on house building. Two birds with one stone. I usually rush Druzhina as fast as possible, because then my endless halberdier spam becomes an actual threat. I use my farming bonus and copious woodcutters to fund this spam until I notice the enemy sending fewer gold troops, then I start throwing in champions with the halbs, and making a few rams to start pushing into their base. If they counter infantry hard, I'll use Boyars as my gold unit, but I try to hold off on the gold units until late-game, again, to wear out their good troops early with sheer numbers of trash.
Good ideas and one I've used myself a few times. The issue is though, the enemy might 1 tc imp you with arbs, your siege onager tech simply takes too long to tech into when pushed early imp. Britons for example would eat anything you can use, even with full siege techs they can snipe your SO with good micro. Boyar hp also feels a bit low for their S tier unit at only 150 hp. Overall they just feel a bit vulnerable to a strong aggressive archer civ? I mean the discounted siege helps but no mobility with it.
@@stuartmacaulay5761 Yeah, archer civs are a struggle for them, but even if I don't have the best archers myself, at least Skirms don't cost gold, lol, so I can make those against archer civs instead of pikemen, and use a similar tactic. It's an uphill battle, but not unwinnable.
@@stuartmacaulay5761 actually no, they have a decent knight line, and have pretty good hussars spam, they have full upgrades on hussars and 10% more faster food farming, u can spam a LOT of hussars and destroy your enemy archers, u can deal with enemy halbs with cheap siege like scorps and onagers, of course u go need skill to do this, but u dont go suffer much like teutons for example. (dont forget to add champions to protect scorpions/onagers) Hussars front line and avoiding halbs + Siege scorp + onager + champion death ball push = push its a big threat to archers
For early Naval, there are a few bonuses: - less need for houses means more wood for ships - free Population Capacity makes it easier to build ships, villagers and land military at the same time. Just the harbor can support 5 fishing ships - less wood and population space needed for farms (due to better production), is also a very minor buff None of them is big, but I feel together they might have C+ or B-
Better production would also mean they need reseeded faster no? so it's all down to timing on that one, the generic 9th extra farmer vs 8 resseding farms 20 seconds earlier type scenario
The practical effect of the farming bonus actually matching up with the advertised number while actually being much higher in the code is an interesting contrast with the Japanese bonus being drastically higher than stated because of a misunderstanding of statistics. (i believe it was actually corrected in DE, but thats still decades of time where it wasn't)
I wonder how their Team Bonus interacts with Mongols "Nomads" tech... Do the Mongols keep the population space from destroyed military buildings, or do they lose it because they aren't "houses"?
@@richardkettering6116 That's actually a great idea. They could do something stupid like tie the ability for the black smith techs to count to one of the unique techs. But orthodoxy wasn't worthless. 6 monks sitting in the middle of a battle really really added up. I had great kill ratio with Slavs because of the tanky monks
Since we already have Bulgarians, bohemians and poles, it is clear that Slavs represent only the Kievan and Novgorod rus, so splitting them, as well as adding the Vlachs/Wallachians (btw they are not slavic) since we already have a campaign for them would be a great addition
@@sirtaelellevalerie1056 Aoe2 is mostly about ethnic group not kingdom like aoe4 so making kievan and novgorod civ would be problematic. Just renaming would be enough in my opinion
@@Just_a-guy I wonder if the Vlachs could be added at all though. If there is a missing civ for sure, that definitely is the Pechenegs (who should be an infantry civ IMO), but the Vlachs could also come.
I'm not sure you could go "Full Indians" on it, yeah there's a bunch of extra Slavic civilisations one could add. Kievans, Novgorod/Muscovites, Vlachs etc. I'd also love to see the Khazars in game but they might be better off with the Central Asia architecture.
Despite having a weak archery range, I find archer rushes very effective with the Slavs, since you save a lot of wood with their team bonus. Plus, since it is not a common strategy for them, you can really take your enemies by surprise.
As Hera said, they got great cav, but there’s just other civs that does it better. Franks obviously, Berbers who also have ranged UU, even teuton who get both farm bonus and extra armor. They get great siege but pike and siege is kinda bad in current meta. Other civs do monk siege better, and Celts are go to for best siege with wood bonus. So sadly they don’t have any real nice power spikes, and they often die do civs who can put pressure on them, and have a hard time against kiting CA. I kinda miss Slavs being strong so I hope they get a small buff, it’s not like have too many bonuses already.
@@kristaskrastina2863 If they're only making one unit, sure does! But maybe they'll make some of their really nice skirms when they see you go halb. Also it doesn't cover Castle Age UU play, pikes aren't so effective.
Since there are Poles, Bohemians and Bulgarians (to some extend we can count them as Slavs), they should do the same thing to Slavs they did to Indians. Split Slavas to more civs, where Kievan Rus should be baseline like Hindustanis inherited Indians theme. Serbs and Croats could be other two civs.
Slavs is already split, we have Bohemians, Poles and Bulgarians which are slavic sub-civs, they just never bothered to rename the base civ, which should be called Russians (or Rus) as that's what they obviously are. Also, Serbs and Croats are literally the same except for religion so it's doesn't make sense to have them separated. Just add Serbs as they at least had an empire at one point, if you need to represent Croatians in some campaign use the Serbian civ for them too.
I'd prefer it if they just renamed them to Rus and left it at that. As you said, there's already 4 slavic civs in the game now, any more would be excessive
Some historian : Slavics peasants suffered a great deal under their rulers. Peasant at 3:24 : Aint working without moonwalking P.D: Nice video as always!
spirit of the law i guess it's about time you gave us a small update on boyar considering their cost have been changed now :p since they are 60 food and 70 gold now it feels like they are now at the same league as top tier paladins vs everything that is not ranged
BOYARS! BOYARS! BOYARS! After playing the Rus Custom Campaign, it made me realize the full power of the BOYARS! WHAT a UNIT! They just absolutely destroy melee units like Cavaliers, Keshiks, Stepp Lancers etc. Always have Scorps or Skirmishers to help them take out Cav Archers who are strong against Boyars. But any Melee unit has no chance! BOYAR POWER man!
I understand that Slavs' slow start means that they struggle against extremely aggressive civs. One might hypothesize that Slavs would therefore do well on closed maps, where they would be able to reach their full potential. However, the data you showed at the start of the video don't support this hypothesis. What additional factors do you think are responsible for the win rates we observe?
When you look at the civs that Slavs struggle against, three of them have access to Hand Cannoneers and Bombard Cannons, which shut down the Slav Imperial Age army of infantry and siege. Mongols can shred Slav siege with Mangudai and Drill, Huns easily rush them down with Scouts into Knights, and Bulgarians have their faster-attacking Knights that stomp Slav Knights (even though Boyars still beat Bulgarian Knights). That said, there are several civs that have Hand Cannoneers and Bombard Cannons that don't do well against Slavs, such as Portuguese, Bohemians, etc., likely because they cannot keep up economically with Slavs. Meanwhile, Franks, Lithuanians, Huns, etc., all have great early eco bonuses that let them be more aggressive early. As Spirit put it, Slavs are not as fast as those hyper-aggressive civs, which can take them out before the Slavs' farms kick in.
Historians: By the 16th century, the Russians fielded vast quantities of firearm armed infantry, called Streltsy. AoE2: Discounted siege towers, take or leave.
To be fair, the timeframe from wich civilisations are taken for AoE2 is almost thousand years and slavs were taken from early medieval... I think. It's a question of balance really.
It's the main reason I think that the current slav civ will be "split in half" when/if the rework comes. So it's likely that the Rus will be a cavalry/gunpowder civ (like in AOE4) and the Wallachians will remain a infantry/non-gp siege and the current bonuses and unique techs will be split between both
Actually seing how much changes has each civ over the last moths overall after DE all of them need the updated overview video. Anyway its so funny watch one of 7 years ago and see how much the game changed!
The Slav team bonus is more powerful the more resources you start with in the game. This bonus is a must have if you want to win early consistently in deathmatches & infinite resource driven games. This gives Goths, Britons, Celt & Turk team bonuses very good synergy, & this is only just the tip of the iceberg.
Slavs are an interesting civ but I think that they should be renamed. I mean you've Slavic people like Bohemians, Poles and Bulgarians as separate civs and given the names of units and bonuses of Slavs, they are clearly inspired by the Kievan Rus so renaming the civ Rus would be a good idea. Not only are they named like that in AoE4 but also Indians were renamed to Hindustanis so there is a precedent for renaming an already existing civ.
since they split bohemians from slavs, i think it would be more fitting to gove bohemians the castles cost wood tech. but i know, balance needs to exist.
Really?? Slavic people were notorious for building wooden type castles/fortifications, especially the more north/eastern Viking related Rus. It part of the reason they were destroyed so quickly by Mongol invasion.
@@buffalosoulja3666 my reasoning for giving it to bohemians is to represent the high density of fortifications in bohemia. i think both civs could have it.
I think the main problem with slavs is that their bonuses revolve around having combined warfare and there are few people who can actually utilize combined warfare very well. Especially when it's a combination of onagers (Who suffer from FF a lot) and infantry/cavalry (Which just so happen to be melee). If Onagers would deal damage in several instances, boyars could be used around onagers with impunity, but they do one big punch.
I want to see Slav Halbs vs other things with trample damage, like Elite Cataphracts and War Elephants. I imagine it's still a bad deal for the Halbs because they rely on a numbers advantage, but it'd still be interesting to see.
@@Salnax Which is even worse, because its just as unspecific as "the Slavs", and doesnt really have any meaning. Ruthenians are just eastern Slavs that were under the rule of western states, and in modern times it refers to smaller ethnic branches of eastern Slavs.
It's a great day anytime SotL uploads a civ overview.
Definitely a great start to my day. Completely redeems the complete wash of a day yesterday.
Yess! I love the return of the old intro! So cool to see it in DE graphics!
So glad you went back to the acoustic Guitar intro. By far the best, catchy and memorable!
For skirmishers, it is more important to have the last armor than the bracer. If you want to make a video to compare Slavic skirmishers to Mongol ones, to Frankish ones and to Berbeber ones, you will enjoy the result Spirit of the law.
Of course, and having fully armored Hussars can fight Elite Skirmishers pretty well and just taking 1 damage, unlike others like Mongols, Poles and others that take 3 damage (because they lack the last cavalry armor) and they already have strong Halberdiers against Hussars and other Halbs that makes up that
I disagree, bracer is still more important for skirms than armor
this is only true in lower levels of play where there isnt much micro at play, but at higher levels of play, having a range disadvantage is a much bigger deal than having -2 armor since your skirms will just get kited
@@jagosvujovic2086 Not in the late game, early game that's true, but in the late game when there is so much going on, people don't typically spend the time to micro trash units.
@@beganfish well arbalest are early imp units and micro does happen at that stage, if you lose that battle with your skirms its pointless.
I wonder if devs at some point rename Slavs as Rus (especially after addition of Poles and Bohemians it makes sense).
especialy if they renamed indians to hindustani
Not while the Ukraine bs is ongoing, for sure.
@@joshuagabrielcatindig7607 Ukraine didn't even exist prior to the 20th century, especially in the middle ages it was literally all just Rus from Kiev to Novgorod to Moscow. Current political events have no bearing on a historical game like AoE.
Either they rename Slavs or they have to remove Poles, Bohemians and Bulgarians who are all also slavic and were already technically included in the Slavs umbrella.
@@majdavlk649 The Slavs civ makes much more sense than the "Indian" civ ever did. The languages and cultures of Bohemians, Poles, Bulgarians and Russians are far more similar than the language and cultures (and even appearance) of northern Indians (Indo-Aryan languages) and southern Indians (Dravidian languages). India is much more diverse than most people realize.
Just wanted to say I’ve started back playin AoE2 & AoE3 recently to give my mental a break from the toxic realm of League of Legends and I must say Spirit I truly enjoy your videos, I remember growing up playing this game religiously and with the help of your videos and steam I’m diving back into the world of AoE and I’m loving it. Keep up the great work, love your channel !
I feel you. Unlike in League, you have control over all of your own units and economy, unlike League where many things are determined by timers, champion knowledge, and worst of all, your own teammates. Age of Empires is the much better game if you ask me. Hahaha
The 4:27 upgrade to two-handed swordsman was some excellent editing. Very well done!
Was not expecting this redo today. Something good to take my mind off the heat.
Now, back to the inferno for you!
Texas?
@@RomaZeal London.
that spinning villager at 1:19 always cracks me up
Dude, I learn so much from these videos. Thanks for the time you put into researching, gathering footage and comparisons. Just constantly good stuff.
That sponsorship transition at the end was CLEAN.
*SMOOTH*
I like him for it, boy's gotta eat but he also isn't in your face about it
Spirit of the draw
Woad shader
Lol
Everytime i see the intro again is a moment i am happy
One thing I've particularly enjoyed when rewatching some of these vids are the ads with squarespace. "Spirit of the Lawn" was especially funny to me lol
this is amazing! I really, really wanted you to redo the Slavs video due to the 'outdatedness' of the previous video's format! I am so glad that you did a modern Slavs overview video! thanks a lot SotL!! :) :D
I think the takeaway for Slavs performing average despite such strong ratings is simply that archers rule the meta still. I honestly would love to see a small increase in speed for all infantry units (or maybe a buff to squires) to help them out a bit
Agreed. Fuck archer meta
Now we've seen Crossbow get a nerf in its research cost.
The classic SOTL intro sequence is the heroin that I didn't know I needed this morning.
One of my favoite civs. I remember a 1v1 in arena. My oponent started attacking me in CA, but I resisted only walling and made up to IA, then I researched Druzhina, built as many barracks as I could and started spamming halberdiers. He resigned soon after. That game would be great for a T90's low elo legends video.
Unfortunately, I had a problem with my PC and it doesn't run AoE DE anymore. 😭
So happy to see full civ overviews again! Hope there are many more DE civ revisits to come.
3:23 Moonwalking on the job, see this is why Slav farmers are the best farmers.
Spirit, I just love your intro. I get happy every time I see that villager kill the Cobra. Crazy good timing with the music.
"in this video we're going to be revisiting and taking an in-depth look at the SLOTHs."
I: Good. Wait what?
do muricans have hearing disorders?
the sloths and the students, my favorite civs
yeah, we in Polands are pretty much all sloths xD
SOTL is just such a genuine lad, he even makes watching ads for sponsors entertaining. Much love man!
I very much agree 😅
Personally, they feel more like a B+ in most categories than an A- civ. Most categories they have serious shortcomings in terms of raw power. Jack of all trades and what not
"Jack of all trades, and master of none. But better still, than a master of one."
It's tricky to grade for Slav, during different stages of the game they have different power spikes. But you're ensured to have se good options throughput.
Best Age II channel! Thanks!
3:24 That moon dance doe. Slavs are within top 5 dancers.
It's nice seeing you redoing older civ videos, considering a lot has changed in Definitive edition
He's got so many overviews to revisit. He's gonna have a lotta work
Look at my boy being sponsored! I'm so proud of you
I think that orthodoxy UT should have become a bonus, even if it wasn’t popular, this was partly because it was a tech.
It could have become +3/4 armor and pierce armor in castle/imperial age.
good point. especially since they dont have many free bonuses already. even if one of them is really strong
They could make it so that infantry armor upgrades affect monks as well. That would get you your +3/4 armor in imperial while still remaining a fairly tame bonus.
Even if it only had half of the impact, something like 1/2 armor would be a nice way to protect them a bit from non-upgraded Knights and archer units.
@@MagisterProcellas 4 pierce armor monks with almost full tech tree, sounds a little scary
@@MrLorddarktoothx It isn't. Why would it be?
Slavs have quickly become my new favorite civ. I just love the Boyar + SO combo
happy you still doing the civ overview updates!!
Not to diminish the time and effort in producing these informative videos, but my favorite part of many of them is the well placed puns.
Keep "punning".
Thank you so much for bringing the intro back.
For people complaining about the lack of strelets they are in aoe3 and 4
Been awhile since you made an overview video. I hope we get updates for all DE changed civs!
I have something to say. SOTL has one of the greatest UA-cam intros of all time
I tend to be an economic player, booming hard, walling up, and making several troop buildings so I can pump out counters to whatever the enemy is attacking me with, and as I stress their gold reserves, I start making my gold troops. The Slavs played right into this and is one of my favorite civs now, lol.
Having 10 barracks is a quarter of my pop cap, saving me on house building. Two birds with one stone. I usually rush Druzhina as fast as possible, because then my endless halberdier spam becomes an actual threat. I use my farming bonus and copious woodcutters to fund this spam until I notice the enemy sending fewer gold troops, then I start throwing in champions with the halbs, and making a few rams to start pushing into their base. If they counter infantry hard, I'll use Boyars as my gold unit, but I try to hold off on the gold units until late-game, again, to wear out their good troops early with sheer numbers of trash.
Good ideas and one I've used myself a few times. The issue is though, the enemy might 1 tc imp you with arbs, your siege onager tech simply takes too long to tech into when pushed early imp.
Britons for example would eat anything you can use, even with full siege techs they can snipe your SO with good micro. Boyar hp also feels a bit low for their S tier unit at only 150 hp.
Overall they just feel a bit vulnerable to a strong aggressive archer civ? I mean the discounted siege helps but no mobility with it.
@@stuartmacaulay5761 Yeah, archer civs are a struggle for them, but even if I don't have the best archers myself, at least Skirms don't cost gold, lol, so I can make those against archer civs instead of pikemen, and use a similar tactic. It's an uphill battle, but not unwinnable.
@@stuartmacaulay5761 actually no, they have a decent knight line, and have pretty good hussars spam, they have full upgrades on hussars and 10% more faster food farming, u can spam a LOT of hussars and destroy your enemy archers, u can deal with enemy halbs with cheap siege like scorps and onagers, of course u go need skill to do this, but u dont go suffer much like teutons for example.
(dont forget to add champions to protect scorpions/onagers)
Hussars front line and avoiding halbs + Siege scorp + onager + champion death ball push = push its a big threat to archers
Does the Druzhina work when the Halb is breaking a row of enemy houses ? Does it do damage to the adjacent houses ??
For early Naval, there are a few bonuses:
- less need for houses means more wood for ships
- free Population Capacity makes it easier to build ships, villagers and land military at the same time. Just the harbor can support 5 fishing ships
- less wood and population space needed for farms (due to better production), is also a very minor buff
None of them is big, but I feel together they might have C+ or B-
Better production would also mean they need reseeded faster no? so it's all down to timing on that one, the generic 9th extra farmer vs 8 resseding farms 20 seconds earlier type scenario
@@stuartmacaulay5761 but the one who is not farming now is a lumberjack
The practical effect of the farming bonus actually matching up with the advertised number while actually being much higher in the code is an interesting contrast with the Japanese bonus being drastically higher than stated because of a misunderstanding of statistics. (i believe it was actually corrected in DE, but thats still decades of time where it wasn't)
I wonder how their Team Bonus interacts with Mongols "Nomads" tech... Do the Mongols keep the population space from destroyed military buildings, or do they lose it because they aren't "houses"?
I would like to have Orthodoxy as an inherent bonus. Otherwise I played them the last 20 games only and I am very satisfied with them.
Clever way to do it: "Monks benefit from Infantry Blacksmith armor upgrades"
@@richardkettering6116 I actually really like that idea. Clever and helpful but it’s not overpowering
@@richardkettering6116 That's actually a great idea. They could do something stupid like tie the ability for the black smith techs to count to one of the unique techs. But orthodoxy wasn't worthless. 6 monks sitting in the middle of a battle really really added up. I had great kill ratio with Slavs because of the tanky monks
That last plug earned you a S tier rating! BRAVO!
Yes!!!!! The beloved intro is back
I was literally looking at the old Slavs video last night and wondering if you'd update it since the civilization has changed so much. Great update!
I love so much this serie of videos! It s like chrismas for me when it pops up on my youtube wall
Hi SOTL please could you do overviews for civs but from the perspective of countering and defeating them ?? Love the vids
GREAT idea! People need to like the comment more
That was his original format and it wasn’t as fun. See if the link to to old video is still up on his redo Britons vid
Here is doing that type. He is better placed as a pro player to do that type of content.
Since we already have Bulgarians, bohemians and poles, it is clear that Slavs represent only the Kievan and Novgorod rus, so splitting them, as well as adding the Vlachs/Wallachians (btw they are not slavic) since we already have a campaign for them would be a great addition
technically Vlachs are partly slavic.
@@sirtaelellevalerie1056 Aoe2 is mostly about ethnic group not kingdom like aoe4 so making kievan and novgorod civ would be problematic. Just renaming would be enough in my opinion
@@Just_a-guy
I wonder if the Vlachs could be added at all though. If there is a missing civ for sure, that definitely is the Pechenegs (who should be an infantry civ IMO), but the Vlachs could also come.
@@Just_a-guy this.
I'm not sure you could go "Full Indians" on it, yeah there's a bunch of extra Slavic civilisations one could add. Kievans, Novgorod/Muscovites, Vlachs etc.
I'd also love to see the Khazars in game but they might be better off with the Central Asia architecture.
Despite having a weak archery range, I find archer rushes very effective with the Slavs, since you save a lot of wood with their team bonus. Plus, since it is not a common strategy for them, you can really take your enemies by surprise.
As Hera said, they got great cav, but there’s just other civs that does it better. Franks obviously, Berbers who also have ranged UU, even teuton who get both farm bonus and extra armor.
They get great siege but pike and siege is kinda bad in current meta. Other civs do monk siege better, and Celts are go to for best siege with wood bonus.
So sadly they don’t have any real nice power spikes, and they often die do civs who can put pressure on them, and have a hard time against kiting CA.
I kinda miss Slavs being strong so I hope they get a small buff, it’s not like have too many bonuses already.
That being said, if you can get to Boyars, they can be incredibly strong
The latest new unique tech is already a nice buff. Making Boyar production much easier
@@niksutliff Unless you're against Lithuanians and Leitis. Then you're just screwed. I think it's probably their worst match up.
@@matthewleadbetter5580 Can't the Leitis spam be countered with Halbs? Sounds nice.
@@kristaskrastina2863 If they're only making one unit, sure does! But maybe they'll make some of their really nice skirms when they see you go halb. Also it doesn't cover Castle Age UU play, pikes aren't so effective.
I know you generally dont do videos for Age of Empires 4, but would love to see Civ overviews similar to these for it.
Since there are Poles, Bohemians and Bulgarians (to some extend we can count them as Slavs), they should do the same thing to Slavs they did to Indians. Split Slavas to more civs, where Kievan Rus should be baseline like Hindustanis inherited Indians theme. Serbs and Croats could be other two civs.
MORE AMERICAN CIVS
there are not more American civs that can be fit into the game
Slavs is already split, we have Bohemians, Poles and Bulgarians which are slavic sub-civs, they just never bothered to rename the base civ, which should be called Russians (or Rus) as that's what they obviously are. Also, Serbs and Croats are literally the same except for religion so it's doesn't make sense to have them separated. Just add Serbs as they at least had an empire at one point, if you need to represent Croatians in some campaign use the Serbian civ for them too.
I'd prefer it if they just renamed them to Rus and left it at that. As you said, there's already 4 slavic civs in the game now, any more would be excessive
@@transsylvanian9100 there were no russians in aoe2 timeline
Some historian : Slavics peasants suffered a great deal under their rulers.
Peasant at 3:24 : Aint working without moonwalking
P.D: Nice video as always!
Had to make a double take to be sure I saw that
Hyped for your sponsor my man! Get paid!
Hearing that intro gave me the shivers ❤️
I love the Slavs new unique tech so much
Yes! It finally gave much more opportunities to mass boyars, that's fixed them a lot!
While also being really historically accurate.
That sponsor section was CLEAN
spirit of the law i guess it's about time you gave us a small update on boyar considering their cost have been changed now :p since they are 60 food and 70 gold now it feels like they are now at the same league as top tier paladins vs everything that is not ranged
BOYARS! BOYARS! BOYARS!
After playing the Rus Custom Campaign, it made me realize the full power of the BOYARS!
WHAT a UNIT!
They just absolutely destroy melee units like Cavaliers, Keshiks, Stepp Lancers etc.
Always have Scorps or Skirmishers to help them take out Cav Archers who are strong against Boyars. But any Melee unit has no chance!
BOYAR POWER man!
I can see why you took the old version down, but it would have been fun to compare!
The developers should rename the Slavs to East-Slavs since we already have the Poles, Bohemians (West-Slavs) and Bulgarians (South-Slavs).
The cheap castles mean they can retain map control very well. Provided they can get that control in the first place.
I understand that Slavs' slow start means that they struggle against extremely aggressive civs. One might hypothesize that Slavs would therefore do well on closed maps, where they would be able to reach their full potential. However, the data you showed at the start of the video don't support this hypothesis. What additional factors do you think are responsible for the win rates we observe?
Average siege and bad archery unit is your answer. You need some sort of good ranged unit in Black Forest
Spirit of the draw! Hilarious. Man, truly
When you look at the civs that Slavs struggle against, three of them have access to Hand Cannoneers and Bombard Cannons, which shut down the Slav Imperial Age army of infantry and siege. Mongols can shred Slav siege with Mangudai and Drill, Huns easily rush them down with Scouts into Knights, and Bulgarians have their faster-attacking Knights that stomp Slav Knights (even though Boyars still beat Bulgarian Knights).
That said, there are several civs that have Hand Cannoneers and Bombard Cannons that don't do well against Slavs, such as Portuguese, Bohemians, etc., likely because they cannot keep up economically with Slavs. Meanwhile, Franks, Lithuanians, Huns, etc., all have great early eco bonuses that let them be more aggressive early. As Spirit put it, Slavs are not as fast as those hyper-aggressive civs, which can take them out before the Slavs' farms kick in.
I missed the intro song so much! It's insanely good!
I will raise their win rate boys. Let's pick Slavs till we figure out some secret meta with them
Spirit of the law can basically remaje all the overviews and i'll watch each of them
Historians: By the 16th century, the Russians fielded vast quantities of firearm armed infantry, called Streltsy.
AoE2: Discounted siege towers, take or leave.
To be fair, the timeframe from wich civilisations are taken for AoE2 is almost thousand years and slavs were taken from early medieval... I think.
It's a question of balance really.
are those the strelet things from aoe3?
Trash Hand Cannoneers just for fun (?)
@@hoagy4429 Yes. That's exactly what they are.
It's the main reason I think that the current slav civ will be "split in half" when/if the rework comes. So it's likely that the Rus will be a cavalry/gunpowder civ (like in AOE4) and the Wallachians will remain a infantry/non-gp siege and the current bonuses and unique techs will be split between both
I love slavs. Thanks for the content sotl!!
3:22 Farmer casually moon walking
glad I wasn't the only one to notice it
Actually seing how much changes has each civ over the last moths overall after DE all of them need the updated overview video. Anyway its so funny watch one of 7 years ago and see how much the game changed!
Due to delayed pay-off on their farm bonus they're very nice as pocket option in team games, which is not represented in 1v1 statistics.
Nice!!
Definitely a very solid civ.
YESSS waited long enough to hear that info LMAOOO.
Luv your works thou.
3:24 that villager is straight up moonwalking, what a chad
Spirit of the Draw FTW👌😂 that halb made my day
"Spirit of the Draw! Upgrade yourself from a Woad Raider to a Woad Shader!"
beautiful
The Slav team bonus is more powerful the more resources you start with in the game. This bonus is a must have if you want to win early consistently in deathmatches & infinite resource driven games. This gives Goths, Britons, Celt & Turk team bonuses very good synergy, & this is only just the tip of the iceberg.
Slavs are an interesting civ but I think that they should be renamed.
I mean you've Slavic people like Bohemians, Poles and Bulgarians as separate civs and given the names of units and bonuses of Slavs, they are clearly inspired by the Kievan Rus so renaming the civ Rus would be a good idea. Not only are they named like that in AoE4 but also Indians were renamed to Hindustanis so there is a precedent for renaming an already existing civ.
I would really love to see a DID made about Salvs civ choiches before and after this video, and i am sure SOTL would love it too
3:23 that male villager just hit a sick Moon Walk lmao
Where do those win rate stats at 0:52 come from? would be cool to browse them.
I love the Slav Scorpion Rush (on some maps)!
3:23 nice moonwalk farmer, nice one !
Came for the redo of a civ overview, danced for the classic intro.
Shoutout to my new favorite artist spirit of the draw
I have a suggestion. Please add which team is best to match in team games. in your upcoming civ reviews.
That was a sneaky segue into the sponsor slot.
Holy shit the intros are back
I don't even play this game, why do I keep watching these videos? They be good, that be why.
Druzhina means sticking together and sometimes being mildly rowdy.
since they split bohemians from slavs, i think it would be more fitting to gove bohemians the castles cost wood tech. but i know, balance needs to exist.
Really?? Slavic people were notorious for building wooden type castles/fortifications, especially the more north/eastern Viking related Rus. It part of the reason they were destroyed so quickly by Mongol invasion.
@@buffalosoulja3666 my reasoning for giving it to bohemians is to represent the high density of fortifications in bohemia. i think both civs could have it.
I think the main problem with slavs is that their bonuses revolve around having combined warfare and there are few people who can actually utilize combined warfare very well. Especially when it's a combination of onagers (Who suffer from FF a lot) and infantry/cavalry (Which just so happen to be melee).
If Onagers would deal damage in several instances, boyars could be used around onagers with impunity, but they do one big punch.
I want to see Slav Halbs vs other things with trample damage, like Elite Cataphracts and War Elephants. I imagine it's still a bad deal for the Halbs because they rely on a numbers advantage, but it'd still be interesting to see.
I find it strange that the Slavs only represent Kievan Rus. and Poland, Bulgaria, Bohemia have their own civilization even though they are also Slavs.
Return of the Theme!
I'm of the idea that they should be renamed Rus like the faction in AoE2
The only problem is that they lack the Strelet
I’d rather call them the Ruthenians.
@@Salnax Which is even worse, because its just as unspecific as "the Slavs", and doesnt really have any meaning. Ruthenians are just eastern Slavs that were under the rule of western states, and in modern times it refers to smaller ethnic branches of eastern Slavs.
The automatic subtitles wrote Slavs as Sloths, and I half expected SoTL pulling a TierZoo and a spend a full video talking about sloths
YEAAHHHHH INTRO CAME BACK!!!!!!!!!!
They probably need a small early eco bonus that replaces the barely useful free Supplies.
Also, I can’t wait to see your next website pun.