[Outdated] AoE4 - Knights v. Men-at-arms
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- Update: many patches have changed the stats of these units since this video was made, and the analysis is no longer accurate.
An analysis of the knight v. man-at-arms matchup in Age of Empires IV. A look at the math along with some hands-on examples of equal resource matchups at different upgrade levels.
Age of Empires IV © Microsoft Corporation. This video was created under Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules" using assets from Age of Empires IV, and it is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft. www.xbox.com/e...
![[Outdated] AoE4 - HRE Man-at-arms Unique Tech Comparison/Analysis](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QbfvcGPjE_Y/mqdefault.jpg)
UPDATE: The Winter 2021 Patch doubled the effect of the University tech for melee units, bumping it from 10% dmg+hp to 20% dmg+hp, which is significant in this matchup. Thus, These results likely no longer hold true for post-imperial matchups.
You should have face them both in line formation. The Men at Arms have a disadvantage due to the units in the back centre can’t attack in the first 7! seconds. And take a look at a HRE Man at Arms Matchup with +4 against Heavy. I think this could even it out.
I actually already recorded some footage to compare the HRE MaA techs. And I did make sure every test had both in line formation. Keep an eye out for when I get it published!
knights are still on horses and move faster around the flanks, they'd end up encircled anyway, at least judging from this video I think it would make little difference
@@bertreynolds8146 point maked, but try it. cycling doesnt do a thing when there is no unit to pick up
@@Waddling_Duck thanks for the hre maa video. i find it very good
Man at arms in the bottom half are also getting a buff, probably the English network alarm attack speed buff from the nearby TC. Knights would do even better w/o it. Good video though. Thanks for running these tests.
Yeah, I unfortunately realized that after I had already uploaded. I'm definitely going to be more careful in future vids!
Ahh would liked to see the HRE Mace MaA vs Knights
Please made a video of the HRE full upgrade mace VS French full knights
I'll add it to my list! I think I'll do it with each variation of HRE maa (base, 2 hand only, mace only, 2h mace) against a base knight, and then do full upgrade HRE maa against full upgrade knights for each civ with unique upgrades on knights.
@@Waddling_Duck delhi MAA and nights get +3 damage from age 3 landmark upgrade, probably not as good as the other factions but I'm not sure
I would guess the mace MaA would beat normal knights barely but lose to French knights.
@@advancedmonkey7702 I actually made a video covering this the other day! Turns out the the HRE MaA will easily beat normal knights, and also beat Royal Knights by a significant margin.
Useful video! However, 2 tips for videos like this - firstly, you can edit the video to skip most of the silent part with the units still fighting since all we're interested in is the result, and secondly it might be interesting to know what percentage of total HP is left over at the end of each engagement (rather than just saying 5 or 6 knights survived, check what percentage of their total starting HP of all the original 10 knights is left over). Good work remembering to mute the game sounds. A lot of people forget to do that for vids like this.
Thanks! I had actually been wondering whether I should have sped up the combat in this one, but couldn't decide so I just left it at the default 1x. Good to know what someone else thinks, I'll make sure to shorten it in future vids. And good idea for the total HP - I hadn't even thought about that and it wouldn't be too hard to do, I'll keep that in mind for future ones as well.
@@Waddling_Duck i personally like being able to see it paly out in real time. Besides you can skip and increase the speed yourself on youtube so this way everyone gets what they want!
@@saschakuhness6731 I second that
> I hadn't even thought about that and it wouldn't be too hard to do, I'll keep that in mind for future ones as well.
Might be worth skimming through some Spirit of the Law videos. He's sorta legendary at covering AOE2 mathematics.
He tends to use HP leftover, relative weights for resources, and brings up Lanchester's law for full understanding of a scenario.
4:08 Those shining Men-At-Arms get bonuses for being close to some building i Believe.
Yep, its another way that I goofed on that 100v200 test - a bunch of the maa got the 25% english attack speed boost from being too close to a TC - I didn't account for how much space a 100v200 would take. Knights still won easily though!
Useful video. Can you make one about the knight charging mechanic? like cooldown, ways you can waste it and the most optimal way to use it.
Great idea, added it to my list!
Why is the 200 vs 100 one so satisfying to watch
The way they form the line
The knights have a better formation in a line whereas the MAAs are in a square formation with backline units not getting into the fight immediately and the frontline units taking all of the charge damage.
What if the man at arms are in a line formation so that they don’t have to waste time to run around to reach someone to fight?
This gave me the idea to also test out how all the different formations actually play out (more than just line v. default). I've just been using line for cav charges and keeping the rest on default/scatter - don't think I've ever used the wedge formation aside from seeing what it did.
Realistically most of the formations are kinda useless due to the lack of proper physics. The only thing that really matters is getting units into combat as quickly as possible with as few obstructions as possible.
Something like a wedge is only useful if you're able to penetrate into the enemy formation, which would require physics.
@@Waddling_Duck I think it would be useful to attempt to spread out both lines, or spread out neither lines. You can see in all tests that the knights are able to all output damage much sooner than the MaA. I don't think it would change much, but the one advantage MaA have is that 2 of them can attack 1 night if they have the surface area. The box formation should be by far the worst possible formation for them.
This was immediately my first thought.
Yep, is a soft counter.
My question is: Are horsermen more effective than knights vs archers doing hit and run?
this
Not really, archers in aoe4 just kind of beat cavalry in general. Aoe4 archers cannot miss, so the advantage of hit and run tactics goes to the archers. In 2 and 3 the archers could miss, so the hit and run tactics had merit. Now, it doesnt matter, a deathball of archers will shred everything that isnt a building or siege.
@@sa-mp5iw none of that matters. cav, heavy or light, cost more and are created slower than archers. In any situation where cav will be fighting archers, you can expect 2x the number of archers to any form of cav. In low numbers, yeah sure the cav will trample the low archer number. But go ahead and throw 40 cav at 80 archers, and the archers will not only win, but will decimate the cav trying to "hit and run".
@@sleipnir2034 actually no. In Aoe2 you would be correct because the way damage works there mass archers can still threaten knights. But in Aoe4 the amount of damage standard archers do to knights is so insignificant that knights will often times decimate an archer deathball. Now crossbows are a different story. Horsemen, being a different unit to knights, can get overwhelmed by a large number of Bows.
@@sa-mp5iw
You don't need to do that. 40 Knights will kill even longbow men with ease. Charge in straight ahead! Not even their special ability will safe the longbow men from the knights...
I don't know about regular horsemen, but wouldn't bet on the archers either. I play english most often and NEVER use the longbow men without support. As soon as they are in close combat, they get shreded. Which is good! Would be quit unfair otherwise. But even if not: Mix in three or four siege units and they will hurt your 80 archers pretty baddly. After that beating, 40 horsemen take them out with ease ;)
To a medieval mind this titles makes no sense. Man-at-arms was mainly an Anglo-French term for the military role that knights fulfilled. In this region there were lots of men-at-arms who were not knights, but that is a misleading statement, since most of these were squires, i.e. they came from the same noble class and just had not the opportunity to be knighted yet (especially later on in history as knighthoods became rarer in this region). There were some actual non-noble man-at-arms, known as sergeants, but these would quite often be ennobled if they managed to achieve the role of man-at-arms, and during later periods this was so common that there were more or less no non-noble man-at-arms.
I know that this has almost nothing to do with the game, but hey, it might be interesting!
Thanks, that was interesting! :)
Thanks, that was interesting! :)
would be interesting to see how formation matchups would affect this in a Head to head. or how if you could time the charge bonus and cycle charge a portion of the cavalry with micro to give an additional edge to victory there.
Or tbh do an in depth on formations and how they change aggro and interactions between armies. That would be super good tbh.
Is this the Spirit Of the Law AOE4 version?
Also the lack of blood in AOE4 is concerning lmao
Is the red team the English? Because it looks like in the max pop fight ~4min into the clip, the MaA are getting the fort/TC/tower attack speed boost to units (unique to the English) as they are glowing in yellow. Doesn't change the conclusion (knights win) but may impact the margin they win by even more
Yeah, I goofed on that one and didn't realize it until after the fact. Really underestimated how much they would spread out on that fight lol - definitely leaving more room on all future tests!
Dont forget knights are more mobile which makes them so much better when even if it was an equal trade.
Yep, very true. The ability for the knight to choose to engage/disengage whenever it wants (and then passively heal to full if you're french) makes it tough.
That's why playing the english, I always mix my man at arms with some spearmen.
So, I'd never be surprised. The answer would be crossbow, but my high range bowmen turn them to ashes. I add some siege weapon to that tho.
mangonels. that is all XD
the early knight catches the worm
Because so many people use knights I just don't use man at arms at all. I main India so spamming spears instead allows me the gold reserves needed for eles and crossbows/handgunners. I know Delhi man at arms are meant to be pretty good with the +3 attack but I just haven't come around to using them yet. Maybe I should. I'll mix some into my armies but yeah like I said it's nice to have an anti-cav trash front line mixed with eles and plenty of ranged
As they should be; knights get the bonus of maneuverability and tankiness, maa get the advantage of not being weak vs spears.
My burning question is how is it possible to kill / defend knight push during feudal age? How many spears / bows might one need, would normal cavalry help? Let's go Frenchys!
Wonder how attach formation could effect this? Wedge vs spread formation etc?
I've been wondering that myself, and have it on my list! That one is pretty low priority for me right now though, as I doubt it will have a big impact. Although I've been wrong in my assumptions before (like assuming lodya ships are worthless in castle/imp - video to come on that one), so we'll see.
would be curious to see how french xbowmen do vs knights with equal resources. 80 food 40 gold and 7 melee armor in castle age is quite a match up. if you do test this, i would put them in the staggered formation and attack move into the knights so the back lines start firing at different times therefore reducing overkill damage.
edit: could also do a test with equal resources, but the xbowmen costs 60/30 taking into account the french's keep bonus
Would love to see this done against. HRE MaA and with both units metting in a line formation with and without the charge of the knights
incredibly you had the patience to do this considering that there is no scenario editor in the game yet.
Thanks lol. Yeah, it would save a whole lot of time if a scenario editor existed.
I love these types of analysis videos. Keep up the excellent work!
Thanks, will do!
What about the HRE Man-at-Arms with castle age upgrades? How do they match up against castle age knights?
Will do!
AOE has a pretty strict rock paper scissors matchup. Cavalry beats infantry beats spears beats cavalry with archers killing everyone at long range and getting slaughtered in close.
Maybe try this again with civ specific techs like the Mace Upgrade of the HRE
Will do, thanks!
Is there an ingame console for such tests, or did you make it with a friend of yours?
There is no scenario editor yet, so I had to do this using 2 accounts in multiplayer.
But how do MaA fair against knights when from the Holy Roman Empire? As they use a Mace which deals extra damage to heavy units.
Check this one out for that answer ;)
ua-cam.com/video/QbfvcGPjE_Y/v-deo.html
usually if your going man-at-arms your pairing them with better DPS units. Man-at-arms are very good at holding their ground from what I can see. so if you have some archers or artillery with them they can get a lot of shots off and deal the damage the man-at-arms are lacking. great video though, I would like to see other similar videos as well, maybe a video to see the DPS differences of archers, crossbows, and the gun people (cant remember their name)
I think the relevant difference is that you can add some spears to deter or push back the knights, unlike the maas. Otherwise, knights can shield ranged similiarly well, so with equal resources, knights + ranged still beats maa + ranged.
@@Muenni I supposed so but knights are very gold heavy, meaning longer the game goes the less you will be able to produce.
a suggestion for future videos, try and get the ingame sound to play while you dont talk or somehow fill time with sound.
Thanks for the feedback! I did learn my lesson with this video, in later videos I'll be speeding up the combat to make it play out a bit quicker without the long silent parts :)
the default formation isn't fair for man at arm because they were busy pathing their way in the backlines
The max population of knights is 200 because they are 1 population each is which is ridiculous, I know.
Just pointing out because you mentioned max population as 100.
Yeah, I could've phrased that one better. What I really meant was "as high of population as equal-resource matchups will allow". That's definitely a consideration in post-imperial play, and why spearmen fail to counter knights at that point - once you have the resources to pop cap with knights, cheap units just can't keep up with the population efficiency.
4:07 aren't your lower half of MAA getting the 25% attack speed buff from the Building here?
That they are. Didn't really think through the 100v200 scenario I guess, takes up multiple screens of room lol. Still didn't let the maa make it very far!
That was useful, thanks.
How can you test counters?
Until a scenario editor is added, the only way I am aware of is to use 2 different accounts.
i would like to see the rus cannoner vs knight and france knight with maybe the rus monk to support them for buffing their stats
Sounds like a good idea. I'll be doing some more matchups that do include unique units, but I think I'll do imperial age matchups only so the videos don't get too long/bloated.
will the charge of a knight still trigger if the pathing makes them move awkwardly around a mass of targets and possibly slow them down momentarily?
Usually they don't. For the charge to trigger there is a windup time when the models enter charge animation, it usually goes away when they move like that and the models tend to switch to their sword attack animation.
How about spearmen? I heard spearmen aren't really a cost effective counter, which surprises me a lot.
I also found it difficult to counter Knight, maybe make an idea for a video of all knight counters and how cost effective they are?
Great idea, added it to my list!
@@Waddling_Duck Thanks, that's one more sub for you! I'm looking forward more!
@@Waddling_Duck Knights seem OP right now. It's mindblowing that the French gain access to knights the moment they make it to age 2, when other civs don't have crossbows. And spears don't seem dangerous enough to knights, so a French player just gets to bully their opponent. And they have top tier water. It's just a bit much. I don't know. Vive la France I guess.
Great videos by the way. It's good to see a new bunch of Age of Empires content creators making waves because a new game came out in the series.
Thanks! And yeah, almost all of my losses so far have been to France. Still working on figuring it out - even funneling them with walls into spears under the Kremlin doesn't work.
@@Waddling_Duck don't forget to test the Abbasid double range upgrade
Привет! Спасибо за видео! Жду новых тестов! Например: стандартные войска против улучшенных на +1 на атаку или защиту)
What about arbetriers vs knights?
Great video! Just subbed! Please make more of these!
Thanks Lily!
Interesting vid! Would also be great if you could turn on health bars from all units by default. :)
Cool vid, do you play Lotr rise to war? Such precise information would be nice to have there :D
I haven't tried that one. I've always way overanalyzed any game I play, but in the past have only really tried helping people through in-game chat (yes, I'm that guy in an MMO that gives serious/correct answers when someone asks a stupid question in general chat). This is my first time using social media to help get my info out!
Would love to see breakdowns of food sources/ efficiency graphs.
Ignoring faction bonuses I believe it goes Deep Sea Fish > Shore Fish and Boar > Deer > Sheep, Farms and Berries.
How much of a difference does it make, if the knights don't start in an optimal position for a starting charge, but too close to the maas at start?
Huge difference for Royal knights but not for others.
Of course are knights are counter to men at arms, heavy cavalry is always a counter to heavy melee (sword) infantry - in most rts games actually
How did you control the other army? Or do you own two copies of the game?
2 copies of the game
The MAA are getting horrendous engagements where only about half of them are fighting for the first 10 seconds of the fight. Could you try testing with a more practical engagement?
Would you be able to try it with upgraded HRE Men at arms? I'm curious if their maces would make a difference since they add more damage to armored units.
Sure thing, been getting a lot of requests for this!
@@Waddling_Duck thank you!!
Useful vid, thank you !
serious question here waddle. do horsemen counter maa if the horsemen pull away after their charge and re attack over and over again after their charge regenerates
id recommend having game audio or at least some music, its very awkward
Yeah, this one was a bit awkward, but I learned from it! I don't think any subsequent vids have had the silent pauses that this one did.
knights should count as 2 pop
I agree, but I'm not counting on them changing it. It's fine until post-imperial, but at that point the knights can simply outnumber their counters with double/triple the resources per population.
Are there any situations in which men at arms are a viable choice? I mean, if the enemy stacks spearmen I guess you run into a problem with knights as you will not trade cost effectively anymore, but seeing knights who already have the vast mobility advantage shit on men at arms so decisively seems a bit odd.
If you're a civ without unique techs for MaA, I don't think there are many times that you would want them. You'd generally be better off using knights instead. The HRE MaA decisively beat knights though (not sure if you watched that vid), and Delhi MaA should too (if you take the landmark for unique tech).
@@Waddling_Duck ;_; why does age devs hate MaA, its my favo unit :(
then again the worst unit is always my favo unit, go underdogs!
So how do we beat these op knights
I’m kinda upset about this. Was hoping that infantry would be a lot stronger in AOE4 then it is in 2. Even though knights have some strong counters, there mobility just makes them a better unit overall. I hope we at least get some strong inf civs into the game (Vikings or Japanese). Still though you at least see inf more often now then before.
Men at Arms are better against other infantry, Spearmen would make mincemeat out of knights.
@@Amadeus8484 yeah but there are better options the inf at that point that don’t cost gold.
@@franpschorr3646 In real life heavy cavalry would smash through a thin line of infantry even if they had pikes and big shields. It would be deep lines of infantry that heavy cavalry couldn't handle unless they were either holding up their shields to block arrows or if they were too tightly packed to maneuver.
@@Amadeus8484 Cool. I wish we had more infinitary fights at higher levels of play.
@@franpschorr3646 I mean, what would you have infantry do? Spearmen do counter knights pretty effectively. But as you say, the cavalry can just run away. But that's an issue with the very concepts they stand for. You could make infantry as fast as cavalry, but that'd just seem stupid. Or you could give them a ranged attack, but then they're not infantry but archers. Infantry are kinda locked into the fundamental weaknesses of being a slower melee unit just as per the very concept they represent. They do counter cavalry insofar as the bounds of such a concept allows, so it doesn't really seem fair to hold it against them that cavalry can do something (run fast) that infantry are fundamentally conceptually prohibited from ever being able to do.
HRE man at arms with mace upgrade and not 2 handed wpn upgrade, will clap the knights
Cool vid
No because cavalry suck in melee battles because the spearman exists.
The spearman dominates cavalry so badly that the knight-maa interaction is irrelevant. They are cheap and also made from the same building, there is no reason why they won't be present.
You have the knights in line formation, the man at arms not. That makes a huge difference, since some man-at-arms walk around for some time, dealing no damage. You shoudl redo that I think
can you please do one about whether xbows actually counter Man@ arm?
Aren't knights 1 pop each?
Knights and MaA are both 1 pop each. But imo the more realistic comparison is equal resources, since the constraint in games will almost always be available resources rather than pop cap.
Well I think you are right in these situations but TBF in most parts of the game it wouldn't be a 1v1 If both players are competent. Shouldn't it be like 2 or 2.5 to one resource/pop wise?
HRE men at arms that another story :)
Literally working on that video right now! Should have it up by this evening.
conclusion: knights op
HRA fully upgred Men-at-Arms wins vs fully upgraded French Knights
AoE4 is rock, paper, scisors, lizard, spock but better
I think gold is way harder to get than food so maa is still more cost effective imo.
Yes stating that food is the same "value" as gold is completely nullifies this test based on "same amount of resources spent." Food should be 1/2 or whatever the easiness of gather rates etc. I don't have game files in front of me, but for age 2 you could count wood and food to be 1/2 the amount of gold.
Isn't gold a way more valuable ressource than food, since its limited availability on the map ? So taking the overall resource costs, does not really say much, does it ?
Why you let them fight on a hill?
thank u 4 checking that but pleasq - clear the terrain and remove TC it cause some unclear results
and i recomernd u to check and show % HP it'll give us so much sence
Like Spirit of The Law does
*Laughs in HRE*
not the same price
You put the knights into an optimal formation while putting the MAA into a square formation where half of them weren't even fighting for half the fight because they were busy dealing with pathing. If you had the forethought to put knights into a line formation, it must have clearly crossed your mind to put the MAA into a line formation as well... but you didn't?
Hi, first of all its a shame that there is no unit tester in the game so that you had to do this type of trials in long custom games.
So i noticed a couple problems in your trial methodology.
First and most important one is your MEA are in a box formation rather than a line which causes massive delay on dps up until they get position vs faster
units which you put in a linear formation. So knights does not move around they ALL start hitting and they hit first vs both few number of hitting units(thus taking less damage) and focusing on less units to faster kill individual units. And also up until MEA takes position they dont do damage or contribute to the fight at all(not even tanking any damage). Lastly another result of slow movement speed and not being able to get to a proper position is; fighting after some units took critical damage or killed so they are fighting in parts, not all together but one after the another walking into a concave that is focusing them.
If the both parties is a linear formation, the results would be much more fair. But knights will took the fight(even thou they should not but its aoe after all) but the numbers will be closer and low hp surviving knights would probably be killed
maces and 2h MaA ??
Check this vid for how the HRE techs play out: ua-cam.com/video/QbfvcGPjE_Y/v-deo.html
knights are busted atm they need a nerf badly
I fell asleep and woke up to a different video.
You should consider leaving in the battle sound effects. This is just too boring to watch.
good explanation though
looks like you wanted the knights to win because of the formations being different.
Hmm, I'd say this is proof that knights beat MAA, but I wouldn't say they counter them. Neither is really the optimal choice against the other, though the knights come out on top.
Helpfull vid, but your presentation needs some work. Take a look at SotL how he does it. ;)
I know I still have plenty of room for improvement, but is there anything in particular about my presentation that you don't like? Is it the layout of the tests themselves, or how I present the results and edit the video?
If it's the layout of the in-game tests, it is quite limiting to do it without a scenario editor. I'm genuinely curious as to your feedback though, as I am new to this and trying to get better at it!
@@Waddling_Duck Mainly it was the dull presentation of the battles. SOTL does this while explaining something, let music continues, etc. ... the pacing is just right, there isn't this break from a quite good explanation to such a sudden complete silence for quite a long time until the fight is over (speed it up). I hope this helps. ;)
Pointless, compare resource cost not unites
If you're saying that I should've done equal resource matchups rather than equal population space, then that is exactly what I did in this video.