Once was playing a black forest LAN game back in the day, 3v3, we lost our weakest player pretty quick, but came back and took out two of theirs. The last guy was holed up in his corner of the map, and we just couldn't break through his defenses. Why? Because slightly behind his walls he had a small pond, and he'd just FILLED the thing with around 60 Elite Cannon Galleons. We eventually got him when I used my Siege Onagers (again, back in the day. Needed SO) to cut a hole through the trees around the far side of his base and rushed in a bunch of cavalry behind his defenses. Great classic AOE2 moment for me.
I've used Cannon Galleons (and fire ships, occasionally) to defend on BF, especially when that pond appears near a chokepoint. It's not part of normal conventions for BF, which I'd argue, makes it stronger. Using this for a bit of fishing shore fish (ship or vil) and then a later transition to a few ships on traps + (as applicable based upon pond map location) some galleons can be absolutely brutal to your opponent
My friend and I used to play classic AoE2 capped at Castle age. So, no trebs, no bombard cannons, no easy way to take out castles. A single game would spread over several weekends :D
That was also one of my favorite BF map tactics, on occasions that I had a conveniently placed lake in a BF map. Elite Cannon Galleons devastate enemy siege equipment or offensive building attempts. As I only ever play single player games, the AI is baffled by the technique, and has no answer for it.
don't forget about the space issues you may run into in blackforest... Having ships means less space occupied by mills and farms and more space for production buildings. It's not a critical thing, but sometimes allies specially need to put unit production near/in you base to help protect an entry point.
Man, seeing this makes me miss the Malay infinite fish traps, but I suppose fish traps that last for over an hour is pretty good too. That + automatic fish trap renewal means the Malay fish traps basically plays the same way it used to: a steady supply of extremely cheap food you basically never have to worry about (until it gets raided)
I haven’t even watched the video yet and I can already tell you from over 2k bf games played... Ponds on bf are insanely good. Especially if you have any eco bonus that allows you to save resources or collect resources faster. Particularly wood. Teutons and Celts with a pond is insanely good. Obviously Malay and Japanese are even better. You can even say mongols have a nice fish boom because if you get an extra patch it boars then you can put more vills on wood to dock and make zero farms. You can even sell whatever excess food you get to for gold buy stone for a 4th tc. Every high level player who gets a pond is very far ahead by castle age if they use a pond. Almost 300-500 points. You’re basically adding extra villagers in dark age while your opponent is not. And then you’re using a resource that you don’t need yet to help you click up. Then in turn your able to put less villagers in food and instead in wood. And those ships hold more value than one farm does long term. As long as there are 4 fish spots it’s always worth it. Even 3 if you have a good civ for it. The only thing you have to do is make sure you are on track for 300 ish wood if you are going fast castle. Usually you can make 4-5 ships and still fast castle no issues
ComfyDents deep sea fish are faster than farms. Unfortunately bf doesn’t have any deep sea fish so that doesn’t apply. I don’t remember for sure if shore fish collected from ships are slightly faster or equal to farms. Shore fish with fisherman is much faster though. It’s one of the fastest collection rates close to hunting collection rate. So even if you disregard the ship rates... the fisherman is a nice bonus there you can’t overlook. The benefit with teutons early is you can still make 3-4 dark age farms and dock 4-5 ships easily with a fast castle because you’re basically getting half cost farms. That puts yoi at a huge surplus food wise That way you can get double bit axe right when you hit feudal as you drop a a market and blacksmith. Teutons usually have 900-1000 food with a dock when they get to feudal. Then on the way to castle you can put a lot of villagers on wood. Maybe take some from berries. Now when you get to castle you have a ton of food to fuel your TCs and get eco upgrades. You don’t need to buy food to keep TC’s going. Then because you have more villagers because of constantly producing from previous food surplus you can make more farms because they are cheaper and more villagers have been collecting wood popping out of TCs. You see how one thing leads to another and teuton eco snowballs. Very easy to eventually add a 4th TC too even with dock. As a side note... if I’m going for a dock on bf I don’t make a mill for berries. That villager that would be in berries is instead sent to make a dock. That slower time of starting to collect food is made up for by the fact that fishermen collect much faster than berries and ships will snowball in usefulness as it expands your population Plus I use that time to push deers anyways... so in reality I’m trading a mill for a dock early game and getting just as much or more food by the use of fishermen coupled with all the hunt. I will take berries later once I have TCs up and running I usually have 5 vills on wood at the rate that most have 4 for a normal fc build. That keeps you on track to constantly produce ships until about 4-5
As I see it, if a civilization doesn't get Crop Rotation and you have easily defensible water available, fish traps are a no-brainer once your economy can handle the initial wood cost.
I'd say they are sometimes worth it even over *Crop Rotation* farmers as a supplement thanks to Gillnets. The added population efficiency definitely adds up.
Could you do "updated Aoe2 civ reviews"? Something like "XYZ civ review - 2022", for all Aoe2 civs? I like your style of explaining things but the Civ reviews I found were old ones. Would be interesting to see how each civ has changed.
Just one thing that is important to mention, the tierlist of civs depends on your playstyle. For example Liereyy can rate ethiopians differently from Daut since one player is more archer based and the other is more cavalry/eco based.
Just spoke with one of my own. Aside from being shocked to learn that two villagers loving each other very much and spending 50 F gave birth to him, he also told me that he does in fact like to grill shore fish every day and wishes that the town governor would give him a fishing job already.
Damn just realised that a fishing ship's wood cost is equivalent to half a dock😂...kinda weird looking at such a small boat be half in size of a dock imo😂
This is a strategy I like a lot. You need food to advance to the next age, but with fishing ships, you’re spending wood, not food. Also you only get one town center before castle age, but you can make more docks, so you can assign your villagers to other jobs besides farming. Also, when you’re playing against the computer, it doesn’t really know what to do when you have a navy on a Black Forest map. A puddle navy on Black Forest makes a great defensive support to a castle, especially with cannon galleons to kill siege.
Spending a resource you don't need sounds like an invalid argument to me. This can also be solved by not collecting that "wrong" resource in the first place and gather the ones you need more... The argument of being able to produce more "villager equivalent units" does hold and is the whole point of this video. The puddle navy argument has some merit ... at the cost of population space that can't be used for attacking. No idea how much that matters
@@imusthegreat Would fishing for food not give you food and some free up villagers to collect other resources if you wish? You need to collect that "wrong" resource to make farms or docks in the first place. It has to come from somewhere, someone has to collect it. The puddle Navy is just for defense and isn't something that is done everytime you're by a pond. Like it wouldn't make as much sense if it's in the back of your base. I've never personally seen it happen but that makes sense to me
@@johnnyslokes2712 I guess that only works if you know you don't need that wood within a few minutes. If you are strapped for wood or food, because you made fishing eco, then it probably wasn't worth it.
Id say they are even more silient to raids. A group of hussars or paladins that might slip up a whole in the forest or a wall will not be able to decimate fishing ships. Archers will but honestly they are much less of a concern as they are way slower and you can intercept them.
Actually many times had on black forest when playing japanese boar and some shore and fish to each other, most of the time i build mill in such place to gather both pretty quickly.
A follow up question: Should you collect the shorefish close to the dock with a vill? The tradeoff if you do: You have a very fast collecting villager but you burn through your shorefish faster, which means your fishing ship will go idle earlier (maybe so ealry that you dont have wood yet to build fishtraps)
Make sure to have a Berber ally for 80% faster university work to help solve that conundrum! lol But actually I think that resources now that help you do something important > some idleness later when you at least now have the options to do what you need to do. So, advancing to feudal & castle age faster is more important than whether 4-5 fishing ships are sitting idle in early castle.
@@jefffinkbonner9551 It means less wood/gold/stone because that villager took the food producing job of the ship, so it would need to be something critical to justify damaging your later game for your immediate situation.
i would say yes. Since you're getting more food in faster if you have a few villagers catching the shore fish you can get away with having fewer farmers. That means you both save the wood needed to build those farms and you can have them collect wood instead of farming. Gathering resources faster will allways be more efficient than going for the slow gathering. There is just two things to be carefull about: 1) don't build farms when your food income is high and wood income is low - have the villers chop wood instead 2) don't blow all your wood on like 30 fishing ships or some riddiculous numer like that on a tiny pond - 2 or 3 per fishing spot (not including the fishing spot you're gathering with villagers) should be more than enough. edit: of course later in the game when the starting ships are already using fishtraps you can build more if it is more convinient than building farms
I personally think that fishing ships also make raids by light cav significantly less impactful. Because the worst they can do is hit one or two boats and punch a dock. While farmers are spread out everywhere around your town. And finally: while they are concentrated and vulnerable to archers, a couple spearmen by a dock will make even knights pause and consider their life choices, and a couple galleys can make archer groups pause and ask 'how many ships has he been building ?!?'
Ships in a pond are like towers that can dodge, can't be attacked in melee, and don't cost stone. They're more squishy, yes, but also way harder to counter.
@@Quantumironturtle I admit to building defensive lines in the old conquerors patch which exploited the old ai heavily. Where lines of ships would bombard catapults and trebuchets trying to push past to attack buildings and towers behind a pond in some of my madness 6v2 deathmatch cheats on games where the whole point was to try to outproduce the AI and fight them all off at once. But while amusing I can't say investing in 4 or more warships is a wise choice, as your fishing should be defended, and the AI has be better trained these days. Although it is amusing watching fire ships burning rams trying to break a dock coating less than the rams do. While the rest of my army fights off assaults. It was quite fun.
Proposal for your next video: Is 24+2 into 3tc boom and then adding a dock instead of a 4th TC worth it? At first glance, there are many advantages: You save 100 wood and 100 stone, maybe even a mining camp. Compared to dark/feudal, where wood and food are about equally hard to get, you invest the wood in castle age where its an abundance while food is scarce. And instead of running out of fish when reaching castle, you will run out of fish much later. Overall, it seems like you get rid of the big downside a dark age dock has (delying TCs nr 2 and 3) while still giving you an additional building to expand your eco.
Commenting before watching the video as to make a prediction. I'll see if I'm right: Since the dock is a second production building that can be made in the dark age, it's a boost in being able to collect food faster. This is equivalent to having more villagers out that work, preferably, non-stop since they are created, which can amount to thousands of resources over a game. I'll guess the payoff isn't until late castle age when you have 5-6 TCs. It would still be beneficial because you wouldn't have to make as many farms (no horse collar too), thereby freeing up villagers to collect wood for additional TCs later. Out of habit, I usually only dock if there are three or more shore fish and make one fishing ship per tile of fish available. Otherwise, the fishing ships will finish and be idle. Also, by making more fishing ships, I feel like I will not have enough wood for TCs in the castle age. I'll usually add more fishing ships and make fish traps after my 5th or 6th TCs are up. Ok time to watch and see what SotL says!
I have played a good number of games on BF team games at voobly back in the day. 1 fish is not worth it. 3 or more is worth it, but building to many ships will imbalance your eco. I would suggest adding 2 or 3 extra vills to wood and add 4 ships. 2 fish was said by some to be not worth docking. Others say it would be. My judgement is that it depends on your civ. If you have Japanese, you save wood on the lumber camp and thus can afford the dock earlier and your fish collects faster. Another honorable mention is Persians, who can build 2 houses at the start, send a vill to build the dock and then collect 25 wood from straggles. That allows you build the dock with your 5th vill and thus get your first fishing ship super early. Also you need to think about the dock as a way to conver wood into food. Since food is more difficult to collect once you have around 30 vills, then trading food for wood at a 1:1 ratio is good. When you have an extra dock, that also makes fast imp strategies more viable, though it does not make them much faster. Finally you forgot to meantion the celts as good fishing ship civ, as it is easier to collect the required wood.
Hi Spirit, great video, thanks! I was wondering how much the benefit of going docks in small ponds is. You said it puts you back a bit in fuedal and maybe early castle, but how much do you gain from then on? It is hard to judge the risk if you don't know how high the reward is. While watching the video, I was hoping for a comparrison between resources gathered by a player who goes 'standard' FC and one who goes FC with fishing in a small pond. I know this is dependend on the game, but just to give an idea, would be great!
I always use the ponds on Black Forest. My logic is this: a fishing ship can gather food and that’s it. A villager can gather food, gold, stone (which is especially good to get a head start on if I’m a defense player on my team), wood, and build buildings. Since a villager can do so much more, I think it makes sense to let the fishing ships pull the weight after the sheep and berries are both gone while the villagers focus on temporarily boosting gold, stone, or wood, or if I need to quickly build some defenses. Even if I don’t need the extra boost, I usually still use them just to try to negate some of the food cost for techs for advancing. In my games I find it harder to het a good supply of food going but always have a large stockpile of wood, so I never really have an issue with the higher wood cost.
Back when Malay had infinite fish traps, paired with food only two handed swordsman, on black forest in team games... they were kind of goth on steroids, and could fling food indefinitely to other players. Sadly few people were using them that way.
Seems like an obvious late game plan to me, so much so that I am surprised it wasn't caught on. Even without the infinite food I would still use the bonus and Forced Levy that way.
As if there was a difference between infinite fishtraps and fishtraps you have to replace ONCE PER HOUR 11 This change was made purely because it was imbalanced on some woodless island games, but does not affect BF at all - there is enough wood there, some would even say too much...
@@Progeusz I was more thinking in the rare circumstances it is played 1v1. And even with trade, you're still limited by route congestion (will be really bad especially if there's still far too many trees standing or buildings get in the way really bad) or pop limits, so goldless 2HS aren't completely useless - you could use them as filler units for siege or other gold-intensive ranged units, or as a buffer while you build up your income/clear the trade route for the really late game. They also demolish Eagles better than anyone.
I find it super satisfying to correctly place a fishing ship between the dock and trap so the fishing ship is always fishing with no downtime to drop off and return,... So when I see 7:16 I understand how those who do the optimal farm placement feel when they see early game messy farm placements.
Before DE there was a bug that you must put fish traps at least 2 squares away from the dock else your fishing ship would eventually just idle for no reason. I didn't do docks in lakes as much in DE to check if the bug is still there.
Not mathy enough: 1)Later payoff is not factored in against how quicker uptime would get you quicker to Double-bit axe, which is not simple at a glance. 2)Extra early fishing ships means you need extra houses quicker, further straining wood economy 3)It takes 25 seconds more to build a fish trap vs a farm, which is not accounted for, neither is the workrate bonus from Gillnets (40s -> 32s) 4)Italians having cheaper Gillnets is not factored in.
You should have tested one more scenario. Vill builds Dock right next to shore fish and then fishes the shore fish. It would have been very interesting to see the results of this test.
If you're expecting to last into the late game, and play Spanish, or randomly a strong naval civ, you can later fill the lake with a few cannon galleons or other ships, respectively, for a bit of localised defence. Not unlike what Smally McSmall mentioned, now that I read it. Also, isn't there a "docks work faster" bonus, too? Does that make a difference, or is that nulled by the town center also getting it?
This used to be my favorite pocket strategy for Black Forest Malay. Unlimited food in fish traps meant that eventually I would be able to have my only product completely automated.
IDK about fishing ships, but cannon galleons are definitely good depending on the location of the lake. I've used cannon galleons to break enemy bases open, or galleys to soak archer shots. A lot of maps don't have well positioned lakes, I have mainly done it very late to break a stalemate, and is reliant on a lake being near the front of enemy base, but a couple of galleys on defense isn't too bad. The main downside is if you want any dock techs, would rather invest in a few cannon galleons rather than tech up the galley line.
I still remember asking in a game of bf of whether docking the pond was worth it since there's no deep fish. All my teammates replied definitively yes.
This is why I'm glad AoE4 put a lake and fish at every starting spot in Black Forest maps. Though I wish there was a fish trap alternative instead of just relying on not overfishing the respawn of deep sea fish, lol.
I have an idea on this: The goal should propably be to build so few fishing ships, that by the time you can build fishtraps you are just finishing with the last fish. If you build more, that is population not working on resource production. And workers excessively working on wood. In a way, Fish are like Berries. And Fishtraps are indeed like Farms. You would not put more villagers on berries, then you could later supprot with farms right?
the more ships you have the faster they pay off the cost of the dock before paying off their individual cost, their main strength is how they are basically food producing villagers that can be produced without using a town center, so you are getting more workers than someone who isnt building them.
could you do a video about scouting efficiency. Like if zig zagging with scout can help to spot resources while minimizing time spent (leaving some unscouted areas) or another approach
I usually really like your videos, but this one kinda ignored the only important question: Will the kickstart you get from your dock be enough to compensate for the significantly later uptime, or will it not? The way i see it, going for fishingboats will delay your uptime by about 3-4 vills, which means you will have a 6-8 vill deficit when getting your 3tc up (compared to a normal 3tc boom). Can the fishing boats make up for this, or can't they?
@@FirstNameLastName-tx6td was actually about to disagree, but you're right, with some crazy build orders its actually possible to pull off 24 or even 23+2. The trick seems to be to only send 5 on food in the beginning and lure deer early, to get the dock up in time to pay for itself. Something i would only ever do if i dont have to wall, but yeah, its possible.
i have been waiting for this video for years :) i am the fish trap narcotic. I hope you will go even deeper into it. like comparing to slower tc´s i bet you can easily do 15 min more math on this 1 :) btw i can tell you that a wierd bug occurs in 256 mod when you research gillnets to much they drop of 1 food. also its always the same fishtrap that bugs out staying at 4 food if you place all just beside dock which is possible but maybe stupid to do. (true for HD version)
Spirit of the Law, how good are the Sicilians against monks? I've seen you do a few videos on Sicilians, but I have yet to see anyone talk about their combination of First Crusades and Faith adding +50% bonus towards resistance each. Does that make them one of the best anti-monk civs, if not the best? Since the Team Bonus of Teutons was only half (+25%) conversion resistance, which add +25%/+50% resistance for teutons, the Sicilians surpass them with a +50%/+50% conversion resistance overall. Does that make the Sicilian Cavalier not only be a good resistance towards archers and halbs, but also make monks unviable as a solution against them?... Bonus if Sicilians have a Teuton Ally that gives an extra +25% to their already existing +50/+50 resistances they can gain through upgrades
the funny thing is that if you can sustain it ... you can create more "villagers" for food income early on without a second center ... thats the big advantage
Nice! BTW the best placement for fish traps is 3 per side, one tile away from the dock. If you build traps at corners the ships will collide and freeze. You can usually get between 9 and 12 traps per dock if you think about fish trap placement when you build the dock. You may want to build the dock equidistant from all the shore fish but it is better to place it on a small peninsula into the lake and leave room for additional docks and trap space.
@@PauxloE Yes, early game it's a no-brainer - But SOTL also discussed late game eco with fish traps as potentially superior to farming. You will build an inflexible eco. Worth considering.
@@Sholto_David True, but on these tiny ponds, the shots he showed of docks tightly lined with ships is probably just about a maximum. Maybe 20-25 fishing ships. Considering many late game ecos demand 50-80 on food, that still leaves dozens of farmers who can of course be reappropriated where necessary.
Fish trap seems a long term investment. I ve compared the resources collected from farm boom vs fish trap boom, at 26mins farm boom definitely result in more food despite lower population (60 wood farm vs 100 wood traps, and farms are faster too).
The fact that fishing ships are resistant to scout raids and can continue production while you're aging up really makes a good argument in their favor.
No mention of trying to defend fishing ships on small lakes by making a war ship or 2? And demolition ship to threaten soldiers that walk too close to the shore while fire ships can damage rams that threaten the dock? On black forest did not use to have small lakes or if they existed no fish, but of course any player can make a fish trap farm and set up a defense. The malay can have their dock act like a weak tower that does not cost stone...
Getting fishing ships booming into castle age is probably amazing when you didn't/don't get access to the middle/contested boars. Having that more efficient sustained food income especially with something like Celts & the 15% wood bonus - or WITH NEW Viet/Champ no wood cost & now 100% faster research speed bonuses.
I obviously love all your videos, but i was hoping more for a concrete realistic scenario, 3-4 fish on the lake, how many fishing ships you should make and by how much will you be better off, than without them, if you wont make fishtraps. Basically saying how beneficial is to go for fish without adding fish traps in 99% of cases on bf would be a question i would want answered in this type of video...
Please do a video on the average game length (ranked) of aoe2 vs aoe4. So many people say, aoe4 games are shorter, but they forget that aoe2 is played at 1.7 speed. I believe aoe4 games are longer than aoe2 games. Please do a video on that.
If you have adequate water bodies in this map while playing as Malays, it must be a cinche. I mean Malays have a cheat fish trap that can support Malay swarms
"It wouldn't be a very good fishing video if there wasn't a catch..."
That's why we come to you, Sotl
Serious Dad Joke game from spirit.
came here to say this
Also the part where he says muddies the water😀 serious dad joke material
Also "The real fish trap wood be delaying additional TCs to build fish traps."
glad this was the top comment
Once was playing a black forest LAN game back in the day, 3v3, we lost our weakest player pretty quick, but came back and took out two of theirs. The last guy was holed up in his corner of the map, and we just couldn't break through his defenses. Why? Because slightly behind his walls he had a small pond, and he'd just FILLED the thing with around 60 Elite Cannon Galleons. We eventually got him when I used my Siege Onagers (again, back in the day. Needed SO) to cut a hole through the trees around the far side of his base and rushed in a bunch of cavalry behind his defenses. Great classic AOE2 moment for me.
Lan games ❤️
I've used Cannon Galleons (and fire ships, occasionally) to defend on BF, especially when that pond appears near a chokepoint. It's not part of normal conventions for BF, which I'd argue, makes it stronger. Using this for a bit of fishing shore fish (ship or vil) and then a later transition to a few ships on traps + (as applicable based upon pond map location) some galleons can be absolutely brutal to your opponent
Haha I've been that person as a Spaniard on Yucatan. I always enjoyed that. Worked for offensives too.
My friend and I used to play classic AoE2 capped at Castle age. So, no trebs, no bombard cannons, no easy way to take out castles. A single game would spread over several weekends :D
That was also one of my favorite BF map tactics, on occasions that I had a conveniently placed lake in a BF map. Elite Cannon Galleons devastate enemy siege equipment or offensive building attempts. As I only ever play single player games, the AI is baffled by the technique, and has no answer for it.
don't forget about the space issues you may run into in blackforest... Having ships means less space occupied by mills and farms and more space for production buildings. It's not a critical thing, but sometimes allies specially need to put unit production near/in you base to help protect an entry point.
as someone who throws random buildings everywhere because I won't expend brainpower on an organization scheme, this is why I always dock on BF
Its a good point and its also more easy to Wall in or make castles to Shield those docks.
And for Malay, docks can become a defensive structure too as harbors
Dont play bf much. But i dock whenever i see water. Just saves space and less vulnerable to raids
He totally forgot burgundians cheap guillnets one age earlier..
God I love these in depth analysis videos, I need to load up some black forest games
Huh, I wasn't expecting to see you here. SotS/Potato collab when?
love to see that
Man, seeing this makes me miss the Malay infinite fish traps, but I suppose fish traps that last for over an hour is pretty good too. That + automatic fish trap renewal means the Malay fish traps basically plays the same way it used to: a steady supply of extremely cheap food you basically never have to worry about (until it gets raided)
I haven’t even watched the video yet and I can already tell you from over 2k bf games played...
Ponds on bf are insanely good. Especially if you have any eco bonus that allows you to save resources or collect resources faster. Particularly wood. Teutons and Celts with a pond is insanely good. Obviously Malay and Japanese are even better. You can even say mongols have a nice fish boom because if you get an extra patch it boars then you can put more vills on wood to dock and make zero farms. You can even sell whatever excess food you get to for gold buy stone for a 4th tc.
Every high level player who gets a pond is very far ahead by castle age if they use a pond. Almost 300-500 points.
You’re basically adding extra villagers in dark age while your opponent is not. And then you’re using a resource that you don’t need yet to help you click up. Then in turn your able to put less villagers in food and instead in wood. And those ships hold more value than one farm does long term.
As long as there are 4 fish spots it’s always worth it. Even 3 if you have a good civ for it.
The only thing you have to do is make sure you are on track for 300 ish wood if you are going fast castle. Usually you can make 4-5 ships and still fast castle no issues
How do Teutons profit from fishing?
They don't have a bonus.
What do I miss?
@@ComfyDents Less wood for farms more wood for boats
@@JõdesV Sure. But aren't farms in that case the better choice to get more use of the bonus?
@@ComfyDents fishing is fastest source for food
ComfyDents deep sea fish are faster than farms. Unfortunately bf doesn’t have any deep sea fish so that doesn’t apply.
I don’t remember for sure if shore fish collected from ships are slightly faster or equal to farms. Shore fish with fisherman is much faster though. It’s one of the fastest collection rates close to hunting collection rate. So even if you disregard the ship rates... the fisherman is a nice bonus there you can’t overlook.
The benefit with teutons early is you can still make 3-4 dark age farms and dock 4-5 ships easily with a fast castle because you’re basically getting half cost farms. That puts yoi at a huge surplus food wise
That way you can get double bit axe right when you hit feudal as you drop a a market and blacksmith. Teutons usually have 900-1000 food with a dock when they get to feudal. Then on the way to castle you can put a lot of villagers on wood. Maybe take some from berries.
Now when you get to castle you have a ton of food to fuel your TCs and get eco upgrades. You don’t need to buy food to keep TC’s going. Then because you have more villagers because of constantly producing from previous food surplus you can make more farms because they are cheaper and more villagers have been collecting wood popping out of TCs.
You see how one thing leads to another and teuton eco snowballs.
Very easy to eventually add a 4th TC too even with dock.
As a side note... if I’m going for a dock on bf I don’t make a mill for berries. That villager that would be in berries is instead sent to make a dock. That slower time of starting to collect food is made up for by the fact that fishermen collect much faster than berries and ships will snowball in usefulness as it expands your population
Plus I use that time to push deers anyways... so in reality I’m trading a mill for a dock early game and getting just as much or more food by the use of fishermen coupled with all the hunt.
I will take berries later once I have TCs up and running
I usually have 5 vills on wood at the rate that most have 4 for a normal fc build. That keeps you on track to constantly produce ships until about 4-5
As I see it, if a civilization doesn't get Crop Rotation and you have easily defensible water available, fish traps are a no-brainer once your economy can handle the initial wood cost.
I'd say they are sometimes worth it even over *Crop Rotation* farmers as a supplement thanks to Gillnets. The added population efficiency definitely adds up.
Could you do "updated Aoe2 civ reviews"? Something like "XYZ civ review - 2022", for all Aoe2 civs? I like your style of explaining things but the Civ reviews I found were old ones. Would be interesting to see how each civ has changed.
Just one thing that is important to mention, the tierlist of civs depends on your playstyle. For example Liereyy can rate ethiopians differently from Daut since one player is more archer based and the other is more cavalry/eco based.
Great idea!
He hasnt even reviewed the DLC civs. Those should go first.
Yeah but what if my villagers are getting tired of mutton and cabbage? Maybe they want a bit of fish in their diet, I think that's worth it.
Exactly! All units should become stronger from a more varied diet.
And it gives all your units a 10% hp and 1 damage bonus from a healthy diet, consider it a good landlord bonus
Just spoke with one of my own. Aside from being shocked to learn that two villagers loving each other very much and spending 50 F gave birth to him, he also told me that he does in fact like to grill shore fish every day and wishes that the town governor would give him a fishing job already.
Damn just realised that a fishing ship's wood cost is equivalent to half a dock😂...kinda weird looking at such a small boat be half in size of a dock imo😂
This is a strategy I like a lot. You need food to advance to the next age, but with fishing ships, you’re spending wood, not food. Also you only get one town center before castle age, but you can make more docks, so you can assign your villagers to other jobs besides farming. Also, when you’re playing against the computer, it doesn’t really know what to do when you have a navy on a Black Forest map. A puddle navy on Black Forest makes a great defensive support to a castle, especially with cannon galleons to kill siege.
"A puddle navy" lmao
Spending a resource you don't need sounds like an invalid argument to me. This can also be solved by not collecting that "wrong" resource in the first place and gather the ones you need more...
The argument of being able to produce more "villager equivalent units" does hold and is the whole point of this video.
The puddle navy argument has some merit ... at the cost of population space that can't be used for attacking. No idea how much that matters
@@imusthegreat Would fishing for food not give you food and some free up villagers to collect other resources if you wish?
You need to collect that "wrong" resource to make farms or docks in the first place. It has to come from somewhere, someone has to collect it.
The puddle Navy is just for defense and isn't something that is done everytime you're by a pond. Like it wouldn't make as much sense if it's in the back of your base. I've never personally seen it happen but that makes sense to me
this strategy works the best with Spanish because of their cannon galleons.
@@johnnyslokes2712 I guess that only works if you know you don't need that wood within a few minutes. If you are strapped for wood or food, because you made fishing eco, then it probably wasn't worth it.
Spirit, you and those subtle puns. "Muddies the water," "there's a catch," I see you - you're in deep now.
The whole second part of the video was made for that "fishing trap" pun
And I love it! 111
Tactical pond. Your enemy will never expect cannon galleons.
Id say they are even more silient to raids. A group of hussars or paladins that might slip up a whole in the forest or a wall will not be able to decimate fishing ships. Archers will but honestly they are much less of a concern as they are way slower and you can intercept them.
Unless your opponent combines the speed of cavalry and the range of archer🙄
Many years of watching this channel and I think that’s the best pun yet!
Actually many times had on black forest when playing japanese boar and some shore and fish to each other, most of the time i build mill in such place to gather both pretty quickly.
that catch punchline really hooked me
A follow up question: Should you collect the shorefish close to the dock with a vill? The tradeoff if you do: You have a very fast collecting villager but you burn through your shorefish faster, which means your fishing ship will go idle earlier (maybe so ealry that you dont have wood yet to build fishtraps)
Make sure to have a Berber ally for 80% faster university work to help solve that conundrum! lol
But actually I think that resources now that help you do something important > some idleness later when you at least now have the options to do what you need to do. So, advancing to feudal & castle age faster is more important than whether 4-5 fishing ships are sitting idle in early castle.
@@jefffinkbonner9551 It means less wood/gold/stone because that villager took the food producing job of the ship, so it would need to be something critical to justify damaging your later game for your immediate situation.
With 4+ fish I would say always yes.
With 3 fish only, it depends, but I would say no.
i would say yes. Since you're getting more food in faster if you have a few villagers catching the shore fish you can get away with having fewer farmers. That means you both save the wood needed to build those farms and you can have them collect wood instead of farming. Gathering resources faster will allways be more efficient than going for the slow gathering. There is just two things to be carefull about: 1) don't build farms when your food income is high and wood income is low - have the villers chop wood instead 2) don't blow all your wood on like 30 fishing ships or some riddiculous numer like that on a tiny pond - 2 or 3 per fishing spot (not including the fishing spot you're gathering with villagers) should be more than enough.
edit: of course later in the game when the starting ships are already using fishtraps you can build more if it is more convinient than building farms
Love these analysis videos. I appreciate your villager production minute metric.
SOTL really casts those puns to keep his audience hooked
I personally think that fishing ships also make raids by light cav significantly less impactful.
Because the worst they can do is hit one or two boats and punch a dock.
While farmers are spread out everywhere around your town.
And finally: while they are concentrated and vulnerable to archers, a couple spearmen by a dock will make even knights pause and consider their life choices, and a couple galleys can make archer groups pause and ask 'how many ships has he been building ?!?'
Ships in a pond are like towers that can dodge, can't be attacked in melee, and don't cost stone. They're more squishy, yes, but also way harder to counter.
I don't know why I'm so amused by the line "punch a dock".
@@Quantumironturtle I admit to building defensive lines in the old conquerors patch which exploited the old ai heavily. Where lines of ships would bombard catapults and trebuchets trying to push past to attack buildings and towers behind a pond in some of my madness 6v2 deathmatch cheats on games where the whole point was to try to outproduce the AI and fight them all off at once.
But while amusing I can't say investing in 4 or more warships is a wise choice, as your fishing should be defended, and the AI has be better trained these days.
Although it is amusing watching fire ships burning rams trying to break a dock coating less than the rams do.
While the rest of my army fights off assaults.
It was quite fun.
Proposal for your next video: Is 24+2 into 3tc boom and then adding a dock instead of a 4th TC worth it? At first glance, there are many advantages: You save 100 wood and 100 stone, maybe even a mining camp. Compared to dark/feudal, where wood and food are about equally hard to get, you invest the wood in castle age where its an abundance while food is scarce. And instead of running out of fish when reaching castle, you will run out of fish much later.
Overall, it seems like you get rid of the big downside a dark age dock has (delying TCs nr 2 and 3) while still giving you an additional building to expand your eco.
“This wouldn’t be a fishing video if there wasn’t a catch”
That one made me smile
Commenting before watching the video as to make a prediction. I'll see if I'm right:
Since the dock is a second production building that can be made in the dark age, it's a boost in being able to collect food faster. This is equivalent to having more villagers out that work, preferably, non-stop since they are created, which can amount to thousands of resources over a game.
I'll guess the payoff isn't until late castle age when you have 5-6 TCs. It would still be beneficial because you wouldn't have to make as many farms (no horse collar too), thereby freeing up villagers to collect wood for additional TCs later.
Out of habit, I usually only dock if there are three or more shore fish and make one fishing ship per tile of fish available. Otherwise, the fishing ships will finish and be idle. Also, by making more fishing ships, I feel like I will not have enough wood for TCs in the castle age.
I'll usually add more fishing ships and make fish traps after my 5th or 6th TCs are up.
Ok time to watch and see what SotL says!
Videos like this make me wonder how many numbers have been crunched that never materialized into a video.
I have played a good number of games on BF team games at voobly back in the day.
1 fish is not worth it.
3 or more is worth it, but building to many ships will imbalance your eco. I would suggest adding 2 or 3 extra vills to wood and add 4 ships.
2 fish was said by some to be not worth docking. Others say it would be. My judgement is that it depends on your civ. If you have Japanese, you save wood on the lumber camp and thus can afford the dock earlier and your fish collects faster. Another honorable mention is Persians, who can build 2 houses at the start, send a vill to build the dock and then collect 25 wood from straggles. That allows you build the dock with your 5th vill and thus get your first fishing ship super early.
Also you need to think about the dock as a way to conver wood into food. Since food is more difficult to collect once you have around 30 vills, then trading food for wood at a 1:1 ratio is good.
When you have an extra dock, that also makes fast imp strategies more viable, though it does not make them much faster.
Finally you forgot to meantion the celts as good fishing ship civ, as it is easier to collect the required wood.
Thanks for all the info, again! It really does help in sharpening the differing positions of play in AOE2. ⚔️ Fight on!
These are the topics we go to Spirit for
I thought SOTL was a math guy but apparently he's also a master of puns. Shakespeare of the Law
I like the timing of the video given the amount of BF games streamed on Twitch lately!
Also, some civs (~1/3) don't have Crop Rotation, so for them, fish-traps provide more food per unit of wood spent than any farms.
The puns are masterclass level.
Hi Spirit, great video, thanks! I was wondering how much the benefit of going docks in small ponds is. You said it puts you back a bit in fuedal and maybe early castle, but how much do you gain from then on? It is hard to judge the risk if you don't know how high the reward is. While watching the video, I was hoping for a comparrison between resources gathered by a player who goes 'standard' FC and one who goes FC with fishing in a small pond. I know this is dependend on the game, but just to give an idea, would be great!
Thank you so much, we really need some Black Forest videos
You should make a video about garrisoning in rams. I’d be really interested.
I always use the ponds on Black Forest. My logic is this: a fishing ship can gather food and that’s it. A villager can gather food, gold, stone (which is especially good to get a head start on if I’m a defense player on my team), wood, and build buildings. Since a villager can do so much more, I think it makes sense to let the fishing ships pull the weight after the sheep and berries are both gone while the villagers focus on temporarily boosting gold, stone, or wood, or if I need to quickly build some defenses. Even if I don’t need the extra boost, I usually still use them just to try to negate some of the food cost for techs for advancing. In my games I find it harder to het a good supply of food going but always have a large stockpile of wood, so I never really have an issue with the higher wood cost.
Back when Malay had infinite fish traps, paired with food only two handed swordsman, on black forest in team games... they were kind of goth on steroids, and could fling food indefinitely to other players. Sadly few people were using them that way.
Seems like an obvious late game plan to me, so much so that I am surprised it wasn't caught on. Even without the infinite food I would still use the bonus and Forced Levy that way.
As if there was a difference between infinite fishtraps and fishtraps you have to replace ONCE PER HOUR 11 This change was made purely because it was imbalanced on some woodless island games, but does not affect BF at all - there is enough wood there, some would even say too much...
@@Volcano4981 Black Forest is usually played as a team game which means the teams have infinite gold. Two handed swordsmen are very bad vs gold units.
@@Progeusz I was more thinking in the rare circumstances it is played 1v1. And even with trade, you're still limited by route congestion (will be really bad especially if there's still far too many trees standing or buildings get in the way really bad) or pop limits, so goldless 2HS aren't completely useless - you could use them as filler units for siege or other gold-intensive ranged units, or as a buffer while you build up your income/clear the trade route for the really late game. They also demolish Eagles better than anyone.
The amount of fishing puns in this video makes me think the study was just an excuse for him to just lay them all out for us. Excellent.
One or two lumbercamps decision.. we need a video of that!
its always worth it. if you can keep villager production and ship production up its free extra score.
thank you for continuing to make AOE2 content!
I find it super satisfying to correctly place a fishing ship between the dock and trap so the fishing ship is always fishing with no downtime to drop off and return,... So when I see 7:16 I understand how those who do the optimal farm placement feel when they see early game messy farm placements.
Love the endless volume of content! Keep it up.
Before DE there was a bug that you must put fish traps at least 2 squares away from the dock else your fishing ship would eventually just idle for no reason.
I didn't do docks in lakes as much in DE to check if the bug is still there.
The bug is still there
Not mathy enough:
1)Later payoff is not factored in against how quicker uptime would get you quicker to Double-bit axe, which is not simple at a glance.
2)Extra early fishing ships means you need extra houses quicker, further straining wood economy
3)It takes 25 seconds more to build a fish trap vs a farm, which is not accounted for, neither is the workrate bonus from Gillnets (40s -> 32s)
4)Italians having cheaper Gillnets is not factored in.
Legit, I was wondering about this the last time I played on Black Forest. You are on fire Uncle SOTL!
I was always wondering about this! THANKS!!!!
I love the 🔥 jam that starts at @6:14
You should have tested one more scenario. Vill builds Dock right next to shore fish and then fishes the shore fish. It would have been very interesting to see the results of this test.
I would like to see a video on defensive building/troop arrangements, including on death match and regicide
If you're expecting to last into the late game, and play Spanish, or randomly a strong naval civ, you can later fill the lake with a few cannon galleons or other ships, respectively, for a bit of localised defence. Not unlike what Smally McSmall mentioned, now that I read it. Also, isn't there a "docks work faster" bonus, too? Does that make a difference, or is that nulled by the town center also getting it?
two elite puns in one video? truly a treat.
only possible now that the cost to upgrade to elite pun was reduced with a recent patch
'It really muddies the water'
You cracked a smile when writing it, didn't you?
This used to be my favorite pocket strategy for Black Forest Malay. Unlimited food in fish traps meant that eventually I would be able to have my only product completely automated.
IDK about fishing ships, but cannon galleons are definitely good depending on the location of the lake. I've used cannon galleons to break enemy bases open, or galleys to soak archer shots. A lot of maps don't have well positioned lakes, I have mainly done it very late to break a stalemate, and is reliant on a lake being near the front of enemy base, but a couple of galleys on defense isn't too bad. The main downside is if you want any dock techs, would rather invest in a few cannon galleons rather than tech up the galley line.
Was that the Bliss XP Background behind the Villagers in the Icon?
0:43 and 4:50: Good one.
9:43: Thought I heard "caviar".
I still remember asking in a game of bf of whether docking the pond was worth it since there's no deep fish. All my teammates replied definitively yes.
This is why I'm glad AoE4 put a lake and fish at every starting spot in Black Forest maps. Though I wish there was a fish trap alternative instead of just relying on not overfishing the respawn of deep sea fish, lol.
I have an idea on this:
The goal should propably be to build so few fishing ships, that by the time you can build fishtraps you are just finishing with the last fish.
If you build more, that is population not working on resource production. And workers excessively working on wood.
In a way, Fish are like Berries. And Fishtraps are indeed like Farms. You would not put more villagers on berries, then you could later supprot with farms right?
the more ships you have the faster they pay off the cost of the dock before paying off their individual cost, their main strength is how they are basically food producing villagers that can be produced without using a town center, so you are getting more workers than someone who isnt building them.
Small brain: farms on BF
Big brain: fishing on BF
Galaxy brain: tradeship economy on BF
could you do a video about scouting efficiency. Like if zig zagging with scout can help to spot resources while minimizing time spent (leaving some unscouted areas) or another approach
I usually really like your videos, but this one kinda ignored the only important question:
Will the kickstart you get from your dock be enough to compensate for the significantly later uptime, or will it not?
The way i see it, going for fishingboats will delay your uptime by about 3-4 vills, which means you will have a 6-8 vill deficit when getting your 3tc up (compared to a normal 3tc boom). Can the fishing boats make up for this, or can't they?
It doesn't delay your uptime at all
@@FirstNameLastName-tx6td was actually about to disagree, but you're right, with some crazy build orders its actually possible to pull off 24 or even 23+2. The trick seems to be to only send 5 on food in the beginning and lure deer early, to get the dock up in time to pay for itself.
Something i would only ever do if i dont have to wall, but yeah, its possible.
i have been waiting for this video for years :) i am the fish trap narcotic. I hope you will go even deeper into it. like comparing to slower tc´s i bet you can easily do 15 min more math on this 1 :) btw i can tell you that a wierd bug occurs in 256 mod when you research gillnets to much they drop of 1 food. also its always the same fishtrap that bugs out staying at 4 food if you place all just beside dock which is possible but maybe stupid to do. (true for HD version)
Time to make full length overviews for poles and bohemians mr law
Spirit of the Law, how good are the Sicilians against monks? I've seen you do a few videos on Sicilians, but I have yet to see anyone talk about their combination of First Crusades and Faith adding +50% bonus towards resistance each. Does that make them one of the best anti-monk civs, if not the best? Since the Team Bonus of Teutons was only half (+25%) conversion resistance, which add +25%/+50% resistance for teutons, the Sicilians surpass them with a +50%/+50% conversion resistance overall. Does that make the Sicilian Cavalier not only be a good resistance towards archers and halbs, but also make monks unviable as a solution against them?...
Bonus if Sicilians have a Teuton Ally that gives an extra +25% to their already existing +50/+50 resistances they can gain through upgrades
the funny thing is that if you can sustain it ... you can create more "villagers" for food income early on without a second center ... thats the big advantage
Thats solid content right there
And they thought I was stupid when I got heated shot on Black Forest,
lol!
This Spirit of The Law is the ultimate AOEII nerd out of all AOEII nerds.
All AOEII fans are nerds. Nerds!!!
8:25 does the Italians cheaper dock techs bonus help at all with the giants payback time(or even count)?
In this analysis, it'd only matter that gillnets is cheaper
Nice! BTW the best placement for fish traps is 3 per side, one tile away from the dock. If you build traps at corners the ships will collide and freeze. You can usually get between 9 and 12 traps per dock if you think about fish trap placement when you build the dock. You may want to build the dock equidistant from all the shore fish but it is better to place it on a small peninsula into the lake and leave room for additional docks and trap space.
Oh no wheres SotL's intro music gone? Bring it back, it has a calming effect. Please.
I miss it dearly. Really wish he'd bring it back!
Something not mentioned is the lack of flexibility when you build eco around fish traps. Farmers can be retasked to different resources.
The idea is to get the fishing boats in addition to normal villagers, not instead.
@@PauxloE Yes, early game it's a no-brainer - But SOTL also discussed late game eco with fish traps as potentially superior to farming. You will build an inflexible eco. Worth considering.
@@Sholto_David True, but on these tiny ponds, the shots he showed of docks tightly lined with ships is probably just about a maximum. Maybe 20-25 fishing ships. Considering many late game ecos demand 50-80 on food, that still leaves dozens of farmers who can of course be reappropriated where necessary.
@@jefffinkbonner9551 Yeah I agree, it's not a major point, but still seems worth bringing into the discussion.
When are you updating the AOE vs History play list?
Fish trap seems a long term investment. I ve compared the resources collected from farm boom vs fish trap boom, at 26mins farm boom definitely result in more food despite lower population (60 wood farm vs 100 wood traps, and farms are faster too).
It's been so long since i made it into late game that i totally forgot about fish traps existence
The fact that fishing ships are resistant to scout raids and can continue production while you're aging up really makes a good argument in their favor.
No mention of trying to defend fishing ships on small lakes by making a war ship or 2? And demolition ship to threaten soldiers that walk too close to the shore while fire ships can damage rams that threaten the dock? On black forest did not use to have small lakes or if they existed no fish, but of course any player can make a fish trap farm and set up a defense. The malay can have their dock act like a weak tower that does not cost stone...
Can you do a study of re-docking and efficiency/value???
Getting fishing ships booming into castle age is probably amazing when you didn't/don't get access to the middle/contested boars. Having that more efficient sustained food income especially with something like Celts & the 15% wood bonus - or WITH NEW Viet/Champ no wood cost & now 100% faster research speed bonuses.
1:04 I never knew the villagers stand before the Windows XP background
Waiting for the New DLC speculation vid!!!
Is the collection rate for fish traps the same regardless of location placements? Not counting the travel time and such.
Thank you SotL!
You forgot Burgundians, which can upgrade gillnets in feudal time. It is the best civ of fish boom in BF.
I obviously love all your videos, but i was hoping more for a concrete realistic scenario, 3-4 fish on the lake, how many fishing ships you should make and by how much will you be better off, than without them, if you wont make fishtraps. Basically saying how beneficial is to go for fish without adding fish traps in 99% of cases on bf would be a question i would want answered in this type of video...
I think you can use deductive reasoning with the information given to make a strong estimation of how effective that would be.
Villagers can also use the dock in Voobly.
Can you do a boom with fish and fish traps vs a regular boom? How stronger is it to.boom witn N number of fishers
Please do a video on the average game length (ranked) of aoe2 vs aoe4. So many people say, aoe4 games are shorter, but they forget that aoe2 is played at 1.7 speed. I believe aoe4 games are longer than aoe2 games. Please do a video on that.
I can imagine a forward lake would be very tempting for a mangonel.
I had to check my calendar when I saw this titel...
villagers can drop fish at docks?! i waited 20 years for this. it seems so simple but i hated all the wood for a dock and a mill. awesome
Honestly it's one of the best updates ever. So intuitive and eFISHient
If you have adequate water bodies in this map while playing as Malays, it must be a cinche. I mean Malays have a cheat fish trap that can support Malay swarms
I wonder how the Japanese progressive % work bonus compares to the Dravidian static +15 carry bonus?
"it wouldn't be a very good fishing video if there wasn't a catch" aaarrrrggghh the pain
Pros saw your vid and now the fish boom is the new meta
I saw this discussion on reddit like 2 days ago. And bang a SotL vid
I wonder if Fatslob and his opponents use docks? From what replays I've seen, neither was used. Are docks bad for vikings and chinese?