I wonder how strong they would be since it's immediately available in imperial age instead of having to do 4 upgrades to get the champion. You just need to research fereters while spamming them. They also move way faster and have shorter training time.
That coupled with a backline of warrior monks constantly healing the speedy Italian sword Bois who will be in the front line by virtue of their speed tanking insane amounts of damage. From 0 to full health in under 30 seconds is nuts
Just wait until you read about their famous cavarly and siege engineers. Then you open the game and they have terrible siege and cav and are an infantry/naval civ like Vikings.
Fun fact: “ferreter” actually refers to a container for carrying a relic. Hence why it boosts healing rate for the warrior priests and boosts infantry HP: it’s implicitly a way to carry relics into battle to boost morale and bolster faith. (Kinda like how that one Sicilian mission lets the player research Faith to reveal the Spear of Destiny is supposedly in the town, temporarily buffing all units). Given Warrior Priests are also fantastic at retrieving relics, it’s a nice touch. Ferrets are cute, tho.
+2 line of sight on infantry team bonus is a great boost to any American civs you are allied with, since it boosts eagle warriors. +2 line of sight on your scout unit is nothing to sniff at.
1:20 - The vision range working on their priests when grabbing relics is actually I think the overall #1 use of this bonus... since it won't affect your monks, but the warriour priests.
@@agustinfranco0 Yeah I think due to infantry armour (they're part of the Infantry Armour Class)... so like if you ever gave them gbetoes or throwing axemen, then technically they're getting the +2 vision range too *I THINK*! Their line of sight is set at 3 so getting plus 2 makes it 5, whereas militia men at arms & long swords are base 4 and two handed alongside champions are 5 base line of sight. They could jsut make their base line of sight bigger, but priests are at essentially 1/4 the vision range of monks without this or a similar bonus.
I recently got into AoE2 and these videos have been incredibly helpful. Plus the older ones that are like build order and unit breakdowns. Thanks SOTL!
I get a lot of value using a Briton Longbow/Treb strategy. Guard trebuches with Composite Bowmen, and guard the bowmen with Warrior Priests. It's a really tough nut to crack, since all the stuff you typically want to kill monks with are melee units with high pierce armor, and your bowmen cut those down fast.
I think what I like about Armenians is that you can early tech, and get ahead of imperial champions of other civs. Two handed is quite good upgrade. Timing wise, can work out really well. I used the monks on five in comb at, 5 in stand ground, they do prefer healing in this state over attacking.. and really help cavalry front lines, as the larger hp units can be healed incredibly fast...
I think what the warrior monks really need is a button that switches between prioritizing attacking and healing. Since if I remember correctly, you mentioned that they always prioritize attacking
Fun Fact:- For an extra bit of trivia, the Armenian Composite Bowman doesn't just seem to be wielding a composite bow (which refers to the materials the bow is made of), but also a reflex bow (which refers to the shape of the bow). Despite the unit being on foot, reflex bows are most well known for being used by steppe nomad horse archers, like the infamous Mongols. In fact the Mangudai should also be a composite bowman! The advantage of both the make and shape is that you can get a lot of power from a fairly compact bow, making it ideal for use on horseback. For foot archery longbows are perfectly viable, and also much easier to make.
Could you perhaps make a video about how many land units you have to hit with demolition ships for it to be cost-effective? You have made such an analysis about petards, concluding that they are most of the time not cost-effective. However, demolition ships have much higher attack and a larger blast radius (especially the armenian ones), making it easier to pay back their cost when attacking bunched up land units in shallows. I know it's a situation restricted to certain maps, but I think if you can pull it off on a hybrid map, it can be highly cost-effective. You don't have to hit a lot of, for example, trebuchets, to be cost-effective with demo ships. Heavy demolition ships take down a generic trebuchet in two hits, but cost less than half of a trebuchet, so that's cost-effective even if only one trebuchet is hit per demo ship. With some other units, for example gold-intensive infantry or archers, I'm certain you can easily get some great value out of demo ships as well. What I can't estimate is if heavy demo ships would be a valid anti-trash unit with bottomed out market prices. ... in addition to possible cost-effectiveness, there's also the aspect of being able to destroy an enemy army without risking most of your own, either because you are rebuilding your forces and need more time, or because you have an army and plan to attack once you've blown up the enemy's forces. This aspect however is difficult to quantify.
A big thing rarely mentioned is that the arrows fly straight and not in an arc, meaning that even without ballistics you hit enemies walking towards you, where normal arches overshoot.
2hs do way better than just trading evenly with knights. Even longswords can do that; 2hs absolutely dominate them. The only problem is that, with so many more units, it's hard to get them all to engage in a timely manner. But you can compensate for that with a little formation micro. For example, just patrolling 20 longswords into 10 knights leads to a knight victory, if you split just before contact and THEN patrol in, you win instead.
The unique units feel quite complimentary in certain compositions. I'm curious to see how the Fereters tech can enhance a warrior monk/champion push, or how well composite bowmen can do picking off high pierce armour targets to protect a gang of arbalesters.
i believe i saw one the other day from SotL Sotl has some points about the new persians(for example: pala vs pers pala) But i may saw an overview in general on a diff channel...
The issue of how to balance infantry in AoE2 has been tickling my brain for a while. I've been wanting to lean into the history aspect, looking at why armies were constructed the way that they were. In short, infantry where the simplest troops to field. Easier to train and equip than others. Archers and cavalry, while common, would have been had issues massing in any number, along with natural issues of rough terrain for cavalry and bad weather and cover being rough for archers. What this comes down to mechanically is that I feel like infantry should be more tanky and or more disposable with faster creation times. With how cavalry and archers can out maneuver infantry, infantry just need to be able to take the hits, either with stats or numbers, to be able to get to the target and take it out. More of an assault unit that can take out a base. I feel like a full army of heavy infantry should be very hard to stop, should be easier to get than archers or cavalry, and should be able to level bases (which I know they already can with their bonus against buildings, so I think they are already going in that direction)
Really, i think that a lot of the upgrades theyve added to buff infantry should be direct buffs to the units affected, instead of as upgrades, that plus a couple nerfs to cavalry and archers might be enough(archers should be harder to micro with, and knights should be harder to mass)
The issue here is that if devs went more historical, you have issues of many different cultures, fighting styles, strategies and technologies clashing. Heavy infantry wasn't always the logical choice, and when came to archers, the English used them because they were cheaper than man-at-arms, Chinese fielded armies of archers and Japanese had a hybrid approach, that AoE3 tried to tackle. Not even thinking about many cultures of the Indian subcontinent. So this issue isn't that simple, different parts of the world fought in a very different style, and AoE2 is set right before the "Infantry revolution" of Thirty Years War/English Civil War. Heavy horse/cavalry archers were still winning wars and gunpowder weapons still didn't have the decisive power like they gained in the 17th century onwards. If we look at how war was conducted in Europe, combined armies were common, and pike/crossbow was a very popular combination (and later becoming the legendary "pike and shot"). Before that, shield wall was very popular, with javelins instead of bows as a support. But even in Europe, different nations had different armies (which is to some degree already in the game). But from the historical perspective, I think AoE3 is much closer when portraying this complex subject. But that game doesn't suffer from devs trying to add new and new cultures and technologies into 25 years old game, that wasn't very accurate to begin with.
I have had some success with Armenians on flank and going archers in team games, so far. Their eco gets going pretty quickly because of the extra bonus from the mule carts, and if you are attacked early on you can move your lumberjacks/miners to another spot without losing resources on building a new camp. I feel like Georgians are a bit better for pocket, as the eco boost from the Georgian Fortified Church helps you boom more easily.
One of the bonuses of having an archer unique at castle means you can fill it with archers to defend your civ. Their fast spawn rate is also a boon for this play. So if they manage to break a castle, you have a fun little surprise waiting for them :)
It’s kinda weird that Armenians have a sort of incomplete cavalry tech tree when they actually had some of the best cavalries in history, despite not as good as their neighbors the Georgians
I love how unique and fun they made the Armenians, but it still bothers me that they are completely historically inaccurate. If they had made the georgians an infantry civ, it would have made alot more sense.
More new content! Love it! Now all we need is a Dutch Republic faction with a strong navy and unique unit: watergeus and unique ship unit (which can act as a trade ship and combat vassal in one). Probably also a unique building 'bank' which replaces the market and gives a gold boost.
I've been following the stats on aoestats.io, and even over the last week they've risen from ~41% to ~44%. I think it'll just take a bit more time for players to get comfortable with them.
I found it interesting that Armenians is actually similar to Japanese in many ways. They are really good at infantry, decent at foot archer, a strong hard hitting archer option(composite bowman vs hand cannoneer) not so well as calvary, good for water maps(military wise vs economic wise), and poor at seige work shop. Also they both have bonus toward resorce gatering structure to some degree. I woud say Armenians are alot stronger than Japanese thanks to power creep, but they are surprising similar.
Something that occurs to me is that Armenians would probably pair particularly well with the American civs with that team bonus. That way, at least one team member will have better scouting, and I'd think that this team bonus is meant to be an infantry equivalent to the Mongols' bonus to Scout Cavalry LoS. I'm curious on your thoughts about that, personally.
i dont get why they went the navy way with armenia. they were never really a naval power. even the cilician fleet tech namesake never fought any major engagements other than anti piracy operations. the only time they were remotely close to a naval power was before caesar, and cilician pirates can hardly be an excuse.
SoL is going to be a multi millionaire in no time with all these side hustles and businesses he is running. The man is killer entrepreneur, it seems he is expanding every week into new industries lmao
longswords in feudal is so nice I feel like I would get them in the situations other civs would go M@A into archers, but instead of wasting resources in a whole archery range and archer upgrades I could just go straight into more M@A and the longsword upgrade. You don't even need many of them, starting with 5 and adding a few more already feels fairly strong early feudal. Additionaly, since their archers are fairly useable, you can never really know for a fact if an armenian opponent is going archers or only infantry in early feudal
I would love to see a new round of OP custom civs since it's been 2years since you did it. With all the new civs and bonuses since the last time it would be interesting to see if you would change any of the civs you made.
I feel like the Georgians with the Monaspa are busted, but the Armenians feel relatively fair - they have some great options and also some weaknesses you can use against them - at least on land.
Militias easily win in equal numbers. They even beat pikes 1 v 1. Dark age spearman is strong against the starting scout, doing 18 damage per hit while receiving only 3.
Armenians and Lithuanians would make a killer duo if the Armenian player hands relics over to their team mate. Top tier knights with one more relic than the usual max backed by early advanced infanty would be scary to fight against.
I'd argue the Armenians best composition against archer civs on land maps is knights, warrior priests/monks, and maybe mangonels, even if the knight line isn't the greatest in the long run you just have to rely on having better eco to compensate and maybe the warrior priest's better healing. As for the militia line, just follow the general wisdom that if another civ wouldn't switch to generic 2h swordsman you shouldn't switch to 2h swordsman either.
Switch the knights with light cav since that comp you proposed is too gold extensive. You may have to use champions in late castle age just before imperial.
For a castle age economy, advancing to imperial age is still more expensive than the champion upgrade. I think I can afford to spend more time in castle age for this civ...
Unfortunately, it's a bad civ. It's not top 5 on ANY map, arguably not even top 10 on ANY map. The main problem being a Swordsman-centric civ. The so-called Longsword push is easy to stop with walls/buildings/archers/monks/scorpions and Knights are okayish vs them. Militia needs a bigger bonus vs buildings and vs Eagles, otherwise it's very difficult to force engagement and any civ playing Longsword + Crossbow vs Eagle+Slinger is a big underdog, trading very unfavorably. Its performance in Warlords 2 has cemented this for me. There is nothing you can do vs Gunpowder: No Thumb ring is bad, no Cav armor is bad, no Siege engineers is bad. You cannot take good trades and you cannot raid well because your cav is bad.
It is strange, nothing described here is really in my style, except them being a defensive civilization. And I am tempted to play them, dark age spears, feudal age longswords, castle age two-handers, a free relic, the composite bowmen. So many little things. Are they like the Burgundians that seem amazing but feel a bit frustrating to play or... I guess I just have to try.
Notably, the Armenians are extremely historically inaccurate as depicted in-game. They don't have good cavalry and siege, and instead have good infantry, which is the exact opposite of how they should be. Their naval specialty is also bizarre, as Armenia proper was landlocked, and Cilician Armenia didn't really have any naval presence to speak of. Their Warrior Priest is also Georgian in origin, as it wears the traditional garb of the Khevsur people. The whole civ is a mess, to say the least.
@spiritofthelaw One video I would love to see is one on when is fishing worth it. There is a lot of depth that goes into it: how many fish makes it worthwhile to take? When is the optimal redocking? If you have a pond with no lakes, when (if ever) should you do fish traps (especially if Malians)? If you have a pond with shore fish, does it make sense to make a dock to then use villagers to collect the shore fish in order to fish trap later? Finally, can you do the math for the Coastal Mountain (the TTL map) for how much should one prioritize the fish there (i.e. after how many warships would it have been better to have ignored water)? Thanks :)
I don't hate the Armenians in concept, I just wonder how you're supposed to play them. I guess if you're up against an archer civ, you open MaA with Skirms, turning them into Longswords which can kill buildings as their 'eco damage', and then transition into Champs, Mangos, and Scorpions in Castle. Against a Cav civ, you still do MaA with Skirms, but you watch to see if you need early Pike/Halb over Longsword/Champ, but maybe the move is Composite Bowmen -- Militia-line protecting a wall of armor-ignoring ranged units probably does better than either pure infantry or pure archer, letting you take direct fights versus both heavy knights and lots of light cav. Still feels scary facing a pure archer civ. Elite skirms and a couple scorpions can't save your infantry from a growing mass of Cavalry Archers, Plumes, or the vicious Mangudai. Is this where Warrior Monks come in..? Trying to counter hit and run damage with healing?
I wonder if these are going to be the final civs. I honestly don’t know who else they would add. (Plus. The civ chart is completed, unless if it’s always been like that when they’d add news civs.(Granted, I’m sure there could be other civs from like, Africa or the americas, for instance).
At this point I'm hoping they keep releasing more AoE2 content just so that we keep getting new SotL content.
Me too. I haven't played in years but still watch sotl
dw he'll always have new civ overviews to churn out since they keep balancing the civs
I'm halfway convinced that somebody at Microsoft watches his videos and pushes for rebalances and new content just so his job is never done.
Africa and East Asia DLC Next pls
*Blows off the dust of my windows 98 computer with a AoE2 disc*
"It was a time when we used to play games on discs. Truly, it was a bygone age."
I used Spirit of the Lure, and it increased my fishing ships' efficiency by 15%. Would definitely recommend for the great value on a mid game eco.
Fereters also make Condottiero 110hp which is quite awesome too if you have Italian ally and need to fight mass gunpowder units
A portugesee players worst nightmare
I wonder how strong they would be since it's immediately available in imperial age instead of having to do 4 upgrades to get the champion. You just need to research fereters while spamming them.
They also move way faster and have shorter training time.
Do you get them one age earlier as well??
@@roy6419 no, they are still only available at imperial age
That coupled with a backline of warrior monks constantly healing the speedy Italian sword Bois who will be in the front line by virtue of their speed tanking insane amounts of damage. From 0 to full health in under 30 seconds is nuts
Kind of weird to think of Armenia as a naval civilization when it is currently landlocked (yeah, I know medieval borders were different).
Even when they were exiled to Cilicia, they were still mountainous so it’s still weird to have them as a naval civ
Just wait until you read about their famous cavarly and siege engineers. Then you open the game and they have terrible siege and cav and are an infantry/naval civ like Vikings.
They were always a land civ in history too...
@@MrAbgeBrandtwhat famous siege engineers lol link plz xD
I thought it would be a cav civ.
I understand why their unique tech makes their soldiers better at fighting. If someone gave me a Ferret I would fight very hard to protect it.
Fun fact: “ferreter” actually refers to a container for carrying a relic. Hence why it boosts healing rate for the warrior priests and boosts infantry HP: it’s implicitly a way to carry relics into battle to boost morale and bolster faith. (Kinda like how that one Sicilian mission lets the player research Faith to reveal the Spear of Destiny is supposedly in the town, temporarily buffing all units). Given Warrior Priests are also fantastic at retrieving relics, it’s a nice touch.
Ferrets are cute, tho.
Armenians are my new fav civ, ive been playing them more so than my main civs(Sicilians, Turks, and Malay)
Yes! The intro is back! 😍
+2 line of sight on infantry team bonus is a great boost to any American civs you are allied with, since it boosts eagle warriors. +2 line of sight on your scout unit is nothing to sniff at.
Oh, the intro. Missed that so much
Legit always wait intensely and enjoy watching these. Still going strong SOTL 💪
I'd argue that Warrior Priests *do* have the ability to convert...
... but they also automatically count the target as if they had Heresy.
Range on that conversion is so low though, it's practically melee range.
@@matthewmartin3787 They also count them as siege units
1:20 - The vision range working on their priests when grabbing relics is actually I think the overall #1 use of this bonus... since it won't affect your monks, but the warriour priests.
but do they count as infantry?
@@agustinfranco0 Yeah I think due to infantry armour (they're part of the Infantry Armour Class)... so like if you ever gave them gbetoes or throwing axemen, then technically they're getting the +2 vision range too *I THINK*! Their line of sight is set at 3 so getting plus 2 makes it 5, whereas militia men at arms & long swords are base 4 and two handed alongside champions are 5 base line of sight. They could jsut make their base line of sight bigger, but priests are at essentially 1/4 the vision range of monks without this or a similar bonus.
It was removed
That transition to the fishing equipment ad was smooth as butter :D
I recently got into AoE2 and these videos have been incredibly helpful. Plus the older ones that are like build order and unit breakdowns. Thanks SOTL!
Team bonus is great for spearmen, to keep an eye out for scouts
A straight shooting Archer that hits like a truck and wears a cape. What more could you want in a unique unit?!
Coolest unique unit since the Teutonic Knight and the Cataphract? Quite possibly. Although the Condottiero makes it a tough competition.
That cape is going to be a problem near jet engines.
I get a lot of value using a Briton Longbow/Treb strategy. Guard trebuches with Composite Bowmen, and guard the bowmen with Warrior Priests. It's a really tough nut to crack, since all the stuff you typically want to kill monks with are melee units with high pierce armor, and your bowmen cut those down fast.
I think what I like about Armenians is that you can early tech, and get ahead of imperial champions of other civs. Two handed is quite good upgrade. Timing wise, can work out really well. I used the monks on five in comb at, 5 in stand ground, they do prefer healing in this state over attacking.. and really help cavalry front lines, as the larger hp units can be healed incredibly fast...
I don't even play this game or own it but damn your videos are good. Always an instant watch if I catch them
I think what the warrior monks really need is a button that switches between prioritizing attacking and healing. Since if I remember correctly, you mentioned that they always prioritize attacking
stand ground
Fun Fact:- For an extra bit of trivia, the Armenian Composite Bowman doesn't just seem to be wielding a composite bow (which refers to the materials the bow is made of), but also a reflex bow (which refers to the shape of the bow). Despite the unit being on foot, reflex bows are most well known for being used by steppe nomad horse archers, like the infamous Mongols. In fact the Mangudai should also be a composite bowman! The advantage of both the make and shape is that you can get a lot of power from a fairly compact bow, making it ideal for use on horseback. For foot archery longbows are perfectly viable, and also much easier to make.
Repost
@@eruidfhjcvbn I noticed that too.
I swear I saw this exact paragraph in some other armenian video a few days ago. Are you copy pasting it lol
@@LeicaFleury he is
I saw it too
@@michaelwarenycia7588 I am, but it's copied from my own comment. This isn't stolen from anyone else lol!
Okay, one more video. Bedtime can wait.
Hey old worlders
The team bonus could be awesome for the Mesoamerican civs for scouting! Maybe it's time for an update on the best scouts video. ;)
Aztecs and Armenians sound like a great team to me, extra scouting with the eagle, and extra gold from the free relic
Spirit of the Law strikes again. Love it.
I don't believe in ASMR.
"Hey guys, Spirit of the Law here..."
I feel so serene.
Could you perhaps make a video about how many land units you have to hit with demolition ships for it to be cost-effective?
You have made such an analysis about petards, concluding that they are most of the time not cost-effective. However, demolition ships have much higher attack and a larger blast radius (especially the armenian ones), making it easier to pay back their cost when attacking bunched up land units in shallows.
I know it's a situation restricted to certain maps, but I think if you can pull it off on a hybrid map, it can be highly cost-effective. You don't have to hit a lot of, for example, trebuchets, to be cost-effective with demo ships. Heavy demolition ships take down a generic trebuchet in two hits, but cost less than half of a trebuchet, so that's cost-effective even if only one trebuchet is hit per demo ship. With some other units, for example gold-intensive infantry or archers, I'm certain you can easily get some great value out of demo ships as well.
What I can't estimate is if heavy demo ships would be a valid anti-trash unit with bottomed out market prices.
... in addition to possible cost-effectiveness, there's also the aspect of being able to destroy an enemy army without risking most of your own, either because you are rebuilding your forces and need more time, or because you have an army and plan to attack once you've blown up the enemy's forces. This aspect however is difficult to quantify.
Keep up the great content! We love you 💞
A big thing rarely mentioned is that the arrows fly straight and not in an arc, meaning that even without ballistics you hit enemies walking towards you, where normal arches overshoot.
Excellent video as always!
2hs do way better than just trading evenly with knights. Even longswords can do that; 2hs absolutely dominate them.
The only problem is that, with so many more units, it's hard to get them all to engage in a timely manner. But you can compensate for that with a little formation micro. For example, just patrolling 20 longswords into 10 knights leads to a knight victory, if you split just before contact and THEN patrol in, you win instead.
The unique units feel quite complimentary in certain compositions. I'm curious to see how the Fereters tech can enhance a warrior monk/champion push, or how well composite bowmen can do picking off high pierce armour targets to protect a gang of arbalesters.
+2 LOS for the eagle scouts in TG sounds nice.
Do the Warrior Monks benefit from the Byzantines' team bonus?
they do benefit from the Byz bonus
it would be nice a persians overview for the new rework
i believe i saw one the other day from SotL
Sotl has some points about the new persians(for example: pala vs pers pala)
But i may saw an overview in general on a diff channel...
The issue of how to balance infantry in AoE2 has been tickling my brain for a while. I've been wanting to lean into the history aspect, looking at why armies were constructed the way that they were.
In short, infantry where the simplest troops to field. Easier to train and equip than others. Archers and cavalry, while common, would have been had issues massing in any number, along with natural issues of rough terrain for cavalry and bad weather and cover being rough for archers.
What this comes down to mechanically is that I feel like infantry should be more tanky and or more disposable with faster creation times. With how cavalry and archers can out maneuver infantry, infantry just need to be able to take the hits, either with stats or numbers, to be able to get to the target and take it out. More of an assault unit that can take out a base. I feel like a full army of heavy infantry should be very hard to stop, should be easier to get than archers or cavalry, and should be able to level bases (which I know they already can with their bonus against buildings, so I think they are already going in that direction)
Really, i think that a lot of the upgrades theyve added to buff infantry should be direct buffs to the units affected, instead of as upgrades, that plus a couple nerfs to cavalry and archers might be enough(archers should be harder to micro with, and knights should be harder to mass)
The issue here is that if devs went more historical, you have issues of many different cultures, fighting styles, strategies and technologies clashing. Heavy infantry wasn't always the logical choice, and when came to archers, the English used them because they were cheaper than man-at-arms, Chinese fielded armies of archers and Japanese had a hybrid approach, that AoE3 tried to tackle. Not even thinking about many cultures of the Indian subcontinent. So this issue isn't that simple, different parts of the world fought in a very different style, and AoE2 is set right before the "Infantry revolution" of Thirty Years War/English Civil War.
Heavy horse/cavalry archers were still winning wars and gunpowder weapons still didn't have the decisive power like they gained in the 17th century onwards. If we look at how war was conducted in Europe, combined armies were common, and pike/crossbow was a very popular combination (and later becoming the legendary "pike and shot"). Before that, shield wall was very popular, with javelins instead of bows as a support. But even in Europe, different nations had different armies (which is to some degree already in the game).
But from the historical perspective, I think AoE3 is much closer when portraying this complex subject. But that game doesn't suffer from devs trying to add new and new cultures and technologies into 25 years old game, that wasn't very accurate to begin with.
I hope they add heavy cav archer and maybe even paladins for them. They used quite a bit of heavy cavalry I think
I always thought the team bonus would be for the incas, but I like the Armenians have it
Yeah you brought back your intro!
I have had some success with Armenians on flank and going archers in team games, so far. Their eco gets going pretty quickly because of the extra bonus from the mule carts, and if you are attacked early on you can move your lumberjacks/miners to another spot without losing resources on building a new camp.
I feel like Georgians are a bit better for pocket, as the eco boost from the Georgian Fortified Church helps you boom more easily.
One of the bonuses of having an archer unique at castle means you can fill it with archers to defend your civ. Their fast spawn rate is also a boon for this play. So if they manage to break a castle, you have a fun little surprise waiting for them :)
That might be the best ad lead in that I've ever seen.
You are awesome. Best channel by far
I love that intro
I want a new AoE2 civilisation every week, just so I got a good excuse to listen to the intro tune.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan will absolutely love this video.
I havent played aoe 2 in over 10 years and still watch every Spirit of the law Video 😅
I like the idea of using the mule carts to steal secondary gold early on. kinda cheeky but the mule cart makes it more possible
It’s kinda weird that Armenians have a sort of incomplete cavalry tech tree when they actually had some of the best cavalries in history, despite not as good as their neighbors the Georgians
I love how unique and fun they made the Armenians, but it still bothers me that they are completely historically inaccurate. If they had made the georgians an infantry civ, it would have made alot more sense.
3:05 Great job pun master !
More new content! Love it! Now all we need is a Dutch Republic faction with a strong navy and unique unit: watergeus and unique ship unit (which can act as a trade ship and combat vassal in one). Probably also a unique building 'bank' which replaces the market and gives a gold boost.
wouldn't that make more sense in aoe3 though?
@@fennisdembo34 fair enough, I totally forgot about AoE3😂
@@fennisdembo34 aoe 3 sucks, in comparison to aoe 2.
You and T90 carry the community of AoE. Because of you my ELO is higher.
Maybe I’ll learn why according to Reddit the Armenians and Georgians are 45# and 46# on the ladder for competitive play.
I've been following the stats on aoestats.io, and even over the last week they've risen from ~41% to ~44%. I think it'll just take a bit more time for players to get comfortable with them.
I found it interesting that Armenians is actually similar to Japanese in many ways. They are really good at infantry, decent at foot archer, a strong hard hitting archer option(composite bowman vs hand cannoneer) not so well as calvary, good for water maps(military wise vs economic wise), and poor at seige work shop. Also they both have bonus toward resorce gatering structure to some degree. I woud say Armenians are alot stronger than Japanese thanks to power creep, but they are surprising similar.
Japanese have better siege imo (access to siege engineers and one of the best trebuchets in the game).
I love those square space adds.
the mule cart wall in standby position with the good bows and mangonels ;)
Mule cart bonus is now 40%, this now makes them a fairly powerful eco civ.
Something that occurs to me is that Armenians would probably pair particularly well with the American civs with that team bonus. That way, at least one team member will have better scouting, and I'd think that this team bonus is meant to be an infantry equivalent to the Mongols' bonus to Scout Cavalry LoS.
I'm curious on your thoughts about that, personally.
Tatoh probably loves this civ.
Misread that as "ferreters" and briefly thought the historical Armenians invented an adorable alternative to falconry.
wish there were custom campaigns for the Armenians -- loved those composite archers!
i dont get why they went the navy way with armenia. they were never really a naval power. even the cilician fleet tech namesake never fought any major engagements other than anti piracy operations. the only time they were remotely close to a naval power was before caesar, and cilician pirates can hardly be an excuse.
SoL is going to be a multi millionaire in no time with all these side hustles and businesses he is running. The man is killer entrepreneur, it seems he is expanding every week into new industries lmao
i came here only for Spirit of the Lure, learned about some game too! 😛
longswords in feudal is so nice
I feel like I would get them in the situations other civs would go M@A into archers, but instead of wasting resources in a whole archery range and archer upgrades I could just go straight into more M@A and the longsword upgrade. You don't even need many of them, starting with 5 and adding a few more already feels fairly strong early feudal. Additionaly, since their archers are fairly useable, you can never really know for a fact if an armenian opponent is going archers or only infantry in early feudal
Possibly the best Ring nothing civ
Spirit of the Law!
Armenian and Cuman combo in a Feudal Only game (which is a thing apparently) would be so game breaking.
Thanks for the video. Is the Roman one still coming?
The squarespace side jobs are great
I love this Civ
Tatoh's new favorite civ
I would love to see a new round of OP custom civs since it's been 2years since you did it. With all the new civs and bonuses since the last time it would be interesting to see if you would change any of the civs you made.
that ally bonus could make the eagle scout kinda broken in team games i'm guessing
I feel like the Georgians with the Monaspa are busted, but the Armenians feel relatively fair - they have some great options and also some weaknesses you can use against them - at least on land.
This makes me wonder, how does militia fare against dark age spearmen?
Militias easily win in equal numbers. They even beat pikes 1 v 1.
Dark age spearman is strong against the starting scout, doing 18 damage per hit while receiving only 3.
*Next make a music album with some collaborators and call it "Spirit Of The Ska"*
I can't wait to see the Armenians being used in x10 shared cev bonus matches 😂
I like how Anti-Aztec SOTL is that he places +3 Burmese over +4 Aztec champions
Armenians and Lithuanians would make a killer duo if the Armenian player hands relics over to their team mate.
Top tier knights with one more relic than the usual max backed by early advanced infanty would be scary to fight against.
I'd argue the Armenians best composition against archer civs on land maps is knights, warrior priests/monks, and maybe mangonels, even if the knight line isn't the greatest in the long run you just have to rely on having better eco to compensate and maybe the warrior priest's better healing. As for the militia line, just follow the general wisdom that if another civ wouldn't switch to generic 2h swordsman you shouldn't switch to 2h swordsman either.
Switch the knights with light cav since that comp you proposed is too gold extensive. You may have to use champions in late castle age just before imperial.
@@ville4090it is no more intensive than for other civs that go knights with some monks, I am not suggesting 2-3 fortified church full production.
this naval civ wrecked me like never b4
For a castle age economy, advancing to imperial age is still more expensive than the champion upgrade. I think I can afford to spend more time in castle age for this civ...
I'm curious how do you get your footage? Is it from MP game replays featuring the civ you're talking about or do you set it all up with an editor?
This man and his side hustle puns 😂
Just 15 mins of watching spirit of the law could save you 15% or more on your gathering efficiency/unit cost~
nice video!
Unfortunately, it's a bad civ. It's not top 5 on ANY map, arguably not even top 10 on ANY map. The main problem being a Swordsman-centric civ.
The so-called Longsword push is easy to stop with walls/buildings/archers/monks/scorpions and Knights are okayish vs them.
Militia needs a bigger bonus vs buildings and vs Eagles, otherwise it's very difficult to force engagement and any civ playing Longsword + Crossbow vs Eagle+Slinger is a big underdog, trading very unfavorably.
Its performance in Warlords 2 has cemented this for me. There is nothing you can do vs Gunpowder: No Thumb ring is bad, no Cav armor is bad, no Siege engineers is bad. You cannot take good trades and you cannot raid well because your cav is bad.
great stuff :-)
Talk about a Castle/Feudal age rush civ... Composite bow + warrior monk without paying for any unit upping research.
It is strange, nothing described here is really in my style, except them being a defensive civilization. And I am tempted to play them, dark age spears, feudal age longswords, castle age two-handers, a free relic, the composite bowmen.
So many little things. Are they like the Burgundians that seem amazing but feel a bit frustrating to play or...
I guess I just have to try.
Notably, the Armenians are extremely historically inaccurate as depicted in-game. They don't have good cavalry and siege, and instead have good infantry, which is the exact opposite of how they should be. Their naval specialty is also bizarre, as Armenia proper was landlocked, and Cilician Armenia didn't really have any naval presence to speak of. Their Warrior Priest is also Georgian in origin, as it wears the traditional garb of the Khevsur people. The whole civ is a mess, to say the least.
SOTL is really proud of the "anti anti-archer archer"
You should see his video on cataphracts
@spiritofthelaw One video I would love to see is one on when is fishing worth it. There is a lot of depth that goes into it: how many fish makes it worthwhile to take? When is the optimal redocking? If you have a pond with no lakes, when (if ever) should you do fish traps (especially if Malians)? If you have a pond with shore fish, does it make sense to make a dock to then use villagers to collect the shore fish in order to fish trap later? Finally, can you do the math for the Coastal Mountain (the TTL map) for how much should one prioritize the fish there (i.e. after how many warships would it have been better to have ignored water)? Thanks :)
Armenians should have been a Cavalry civ, they made good use of heavy cavalry and horse archers in antiquity
I didn't like that they increased the DLC price so I'm going to miss out on these two.
Thinking about history I would expect them to be a economy and siege focused civ
I don't hate the Armenians in concept, I just wonder how you're supposed to play them. I guess if you're up against an archer civ, you open MaA with Skirms, turning them into Longswords which can kill buildings as their 'eco damage', and then transition into Champs, Mangos, and Scorpions in Castle. Against a Cav civ, you still do MaA with Skirms, but you watch to see if you need early Pike/Halb over Longsword/Champ, but maybe the move is Composite Bowmen -- Militia-line protecting a wall of armor-ignoring ranged units probably does better than either pure infantry or pure archer, letting you take direct fights versus both heavy knights and lots of light cav.
Still feels scary facing a pure archer civ. Elite skirms and a couple scorpions can't save your infantry from a growing mass of Cavalry Archers, Plumes, or the vicious Mangudai. Is this where Warrior Monks come in..? Trying to counter hit and run damage with healing?
Armenians: Makes a single ship in their entire history
AOE2 developers: "My time has come" *Full naval civilization*
They didn't even make that ship, it just landed on top of Mount Ararat.
I wonder if these are going to be the final civs. I honestly don’t know who else they would add. (Plus. The civ chart is completed, unless if it’s always been like that when they’d add news civs.(Granted, I’m sure there could be other civs from like, Africa or the americas, for instance).
does the team bonus also impact allied eagle scouts ?
Yes it does.