Longbow vs Crossbow [AoE2]
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- Опубліковано 21 лип 2024
- Comparison between Longbowmen and Crossbows/Arbalests in Age of Empires 2. We'll see how they match up in Castle and Imperial age.
1:00 Cost and training time
1:45 Castle Age stats comparison
2:20 Castle Age accuracy
2:50 Castle Age damage over time analysis
3:50 Castle Age vs Pikemen and Elite Skirmishers
4:54 Imperial Age stats and cost comparison
6:15 Imperial Age accuracy
6:30 Imperial Age damage over time analysis
6:50 Imperial Age vs Paladins and Elite Skirmishers
7:20 My thoughts: Longbows or Arbalests?
Patreon: / spiritofthelaw
Full intro song: • Spirit of the Law Chan...
Background music from Epidemic Sound: www.epidemicsound.com
Game: Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition, with Forgotten Empires, African Kingdoms, Rise the Rajas, and Last Khans expansions - Ігри
The longbow was the very first civ-unique unit we made for AoE2. For several months every civ had longbows, even though we knew eventually it would only be English. So I guess on the bright side it got the most playtesting of any unique unit. If we got it wrong, blame me personally.
Thanks for your work man, I've been playing your games all of my life
Love this comment
Out of curiosity, MR. Petersen, when determining what the initial values to assign a new unit, did you look to a statistician like SOTL to give you an estimate of the best probable value to achieve the desired effect in game, or did your people generally use their intuition when picking the numbers? Put another way, if you wanted to make an anti-archer infantry unit, was Person X asked to create some statistical tables to suggest that the pierce armor should start at a value of 6, or did Person Y say since it should resist archer fire, let's start with a very high number, like 8, and see if that is too much or too little after a few dozen games?
When I was a kid, I would make massive longbow armies and rain arrows over everyone. Thanks for helping make my childhood
AoE 2: has a slight problem
Sandy of Cthulhu: *"I will take that personally..."*
If you want to train a longbowman, start with his grandfather.
-King Edward III.
That's a pretty sweet quote! - Abraham Lincoln
@@MrBigCookieCrumble There's no way Abraham Lincoln said that, stop getting your quotes from the internet- Julius Caesar
@@joshuaburnett7643 If i wasn't dead, I would be alive. - Naopelon.
That napoleon quote seems legit tbh.
@@stalinbulldog Thats cuz its true!
Never played the game,but have been watching for a year,good stuff.
This is the game that changed me from console gaming to PC gaming back in the late 90s
Wow, you should play it dude. Most rewarding game to improve with.
And one of the more relaxing games when not pressuring oneself
Wait that's weird
Dude get it! I'm terrible at this game, and have been since the original AOE2... but I still love it... hours and hours of fun
@@prod.bronze I would say it is better to buy the game. For long term it will be more expensive when you pay per month. 20€ for the game and much less in e.g. steam sales are the better way, in my opinion.
Interestingly, your suggestion of crossbows at first transitioning into longbows later is exactly how England handled it historically. King Richard the Lionheart was a crossbow enthusiast, and made sure to heavily incorporate it in his army during the Third Crusade, which should roughly correspond to the Castle Age.
It was only after England conquered Wales in the 13th century that longbows began to see widespread use in English armies, championed by later kings like Edward I and Edward III. Longbowmen would go on to help the English win most late medieval “set piece” battles like Falkirk, Crecy, and Agincourt. To me, that time would be roughly analogous to the Imperial Age.
I think Imp comes in later, with Rennaisance. But thanks for sharing, that is really cool
You can't even compare the in-game ages, with some civs (Aztecs, Incas, Burmese...) meeting Europeans later than some others civs (Celts, Goths, Byzantines...) being obsolete and far superseded, nearly culturally extinct.
@@ChocolateMilkCultLeader To be fair ages in AoE are just as much about representing infrastructural development as it is about representing tech epochs. So for example Constantinople would, by AoE standards, be in Castle Age or even Imperial Age for pretty much Byzantine's entire existence - while at the same time some Eastern Roman outskirt town a few miles from Constantinople would probably be considered Feudal Age even towards the very end of the empire.
@@ChocolateMilkCultLeader bows were still widely used even after gunpowder weapons became widespread ie during the renaissance
Guns can't fire over walls, cost more and early smoothbore guns are ridiculously innacurate (not that it really mattered since both are used for massed fire primarily) + there was a bunch of people already trained to use bows
@@GepardenK Very well put! Each civ would also have its own “age curve”. The Imperial Age for the Goths would be ca. 600 A.D., while for the Spanish it would be ca. 1492.
You know what I really love about Age of Empires 2?
That the Aztecs get Arbalest, but the Spanish can't even upgrade their Archers.
Or that all american civs get eagle warriors and siege and western navies
@@dontspikemydrink9382 or iron for that matter. they shouldnt even have blacksmith techs.
@@nvmtt1403 i wish they had counterparts
@Nonna Urbisness Last time they tried to fix that they made Chinese monks busted.
Well, you could fix that by modding. I did that
i.e. by adding gunpowder units to the Chinese or Fire Ships only to Byzantines. I think, that the most annoying innacurracies were in the Conquerors expansion (regarding some units of New World civilizations like Aztecs).
I feel a Britions Civ Overview Remake is coming!
It kind of misses the mark, retroactively
Yes please!
really there are some off the chart information cuz civ bonus updates recently, we need some new overview for old civs.
I hope so...
#MJinnocent #FreeBritney
yes this civ need a remake
Despite their theoretical maximum range, longbows actually were at their most dangerous up close because you could shoot more accurately and have the best chance of piercing vulnerable spots in armor (joints, visors, etc.), since arrows lose penetration pretty quickly over longer ranges. It's a common misconception that longbows and bodkin arrows shredded armored knights and men-at-arms well before they could reach melee range. Their main value was in killing mounts, the psychological impact of being constantly peppered with arrows without being able to retaliate, and breaking up/channeling the enemy's formation as they had to move over dead soldiers and horses and stick together to protect themselves from the arrows (which, again, got deadlier the closer you were). The English used longbows strategically to demoralize and control their opponents before their men-at-arms could engage a now tired, angry enemy in melee, which is generally where the most casualties were inflicted. Though once that melee was joined longbows could still be quite dangerous, since the English usually positioned them on the flanks protected by stakes, giving them the opportunity to fire into the vulnerable sides of the enemy infantry while the stakes warded off cavalry.
Not to mention that most troops were lightly armored. Against them the longbow was very dangerous even at a long range
@@tamaskosa3283 Depends on the time and place. During the Hundred Years War, particularly towards the end, even the average French soldier was fairly well armored. The quality varied somewhat but unless an arrow found a joint you were probably fine anywhere beyond medium range. But on the occasions the French or their allies fielded lightly-armored skirmishers, longbowmen tore through them. Which is kind of ironic given that skirmishers are the standard counter to archers in AoE II :P
@JoeRingo118 Very true, yes.
To add a little extra context to the statement at the start - the real difficulty with the longbow isn't aiming it, getting your eye in for any bow (if you know how to shoot) takes at best an afternoon when you've had enough practice to reliably hit a target butt at distance. More than a crossbow but certainly not years to learn how to shoot accurately (especially with regular practice). It's possible to get reasonable and reliable accuracy with a historical bow much more quickly than people think. The real difficulty is the draw weight, which we believe thanks to finds from the Mary Rose could reach up to 150lbs or greater - the physical training to handle that being what takes as much time as the years Spirit mentions (if the bows were made weaker, they'd be much easier to draw BUT would lose their efficacy against armoured enemies and their deadly long range).
To visualise that, imagine trying to lift a 150lbs man up off the floor by just his belt using only your middle three fingers, and your left hand against the floor to steady yourself. The real art of professional longbow soldiers was not only their accuracy thanks to regular practice every Sunday but their capability to deal with the immense draw weight of their bow without tiring, while maintaining a high ROF. Some longbowman skeletons we've uncovered have been notably deformed, with the left arm and shoulder being considerably enlarged.
Thank god someone brought this up. I'm tired of that ancient meme of "It takes years to master a bow", peddled by people that have no experience with bows, crossbows, or firearms. It's on par with the myths that knights had to be lifted onto their horses with cranes, and that European swords were blunt instruments more than actual blades.
and yet modern fantasy consistently portrays the longbow as a weapon for noodle limbed elves. Makes me laugh.
@@a6s3 - entirely possible. The longbow we're referring to in this context is, more accurately, the Warbow or English Warbow. The term 'longbow' refers to any long self bow (I.E. a bow made from a single piece of wood, unlike a composite bow).
Long self bows have been in use since the bow was conceived, primarily for hunting - some famous examples exist from Nydam Mose dated to the late antiquity, with lovely decorative patterns on them.
These bows have no need to reach the penetrative power of a Warbow, so are more likely weighted to around 30 to 45lbs rather than the whopping 120+ of the Warbow. Deer take much less power to kill than an armoured man, you rarely have the luxury of being able to stand up straight in ideal shooting position when hunting and you may need to hold your draw for a short period - all of these contribute to make a self bow with a relatively low draw weight.
It's conceivable that spindly woodland elves therefore are using longbows, albeit ones with a much lower draw weight than the historical English Warbow - add in the usual fantasy tropes of magical powers and materials far superior to real world versions and you've got a logical explanation behind how a spindly elf can draw and shoot a longbow and kill an armoured human with one. It's nowhere near as powerful as a real world one, but "because magic" it doesn't need to be (and you can add the magic to the arrows so you still have the realism of a low draw weight bow for captain noodle arms).
Bruh with all these coomers these days, everone has got 1 big arm
@@TheGreySpectrum "mastering a bow" isn't about learning to land your shot where you're aiming, it's about being able to put reasonably accurate shots downrange as rapidly as possible. It's exactly the same training purpose as later musket drills; refining the actions of aiming, firing, reloading, and repeat until the shooter can do them as fluidly as possible. That's the part that takes extensive practice, and it's been documented with most elite foot archer cultures throughout history, not just the English.
I love how the intro is not only still being kept, but still updated to keep up with the changes, such as the inclusion of the flaming camels. Always love the top notch quality, in-depth analysis and with sense of humor SOTL!
I love how you speak so clearly than even I, a non-English speaker, can understand pretty much everything.
There is actually one very important case for using Longbows in castle age - and that is vs Mangonels - another common counter unit.
The extra attack for longbow (6 base + 2 from bodkin - 6 pierce armour on mangonel) is the break point to deal 2 damage per arrow instead of 1 which is of course a huge deal and makes them much safer to snipe.
Sweats in Gaelic
I feel like this is most important on Arena where Mangonels are more common than, let's say, Elite Skirmishers
the thing is, british arbalests also outrange mangonels and onagers
@@alfalfajuan8184 But the comment said damage, not range
@@markanon8914 and it was in the castle age too
longbowmen look cooler - case closed!
@Nonna Urbisness Same hahaha, I used to hate Trebuchets while I was still a massive noob and more or less just roleplaying XD
Oh they look spectacular
Firing arrows above trees is why you should always go for longbows!
@@user-oo3oi9ki2j i still hate trebs.. i just get bombard cannons
never thought i hear sotl say "the exact numbers arent important" :D
*Ev'ry English longbows gangsta until the French knights cut their middle fingers.*
What happened to your profile picture? Did Rattan Archer forced you to change it?
Longbows: *'EVIL LAUGHS'*
ah, the Franks with their paladins running over all those archers.... the memories...
@@SM-bb4hx At least my picture is still accurate.
@@423985728945 Remeber the battle of Agincourt?
What about the synergies between that Sarracen team bonus and Briton's archers for the potential to snipe castles?
Yeah with longbowmen and sarracen allies you only need half of forever to snipe a castle.
Would it really be a snipe? More of a power play
@@kherossilverlight8400 ??? 40 longbowmen wreck a castle in no time, give it a try.
it'd still take way too long. Even mayan arbs take a while in taking down a castle.
Octavio Alatorre albs will be dead when attacking castles
If you go for a fast castle (like on arena), then you don´t have the issue that you will have the archery range automatically. So in that case, we compare an fc with a blacksmith, barracks and archery range against an fc with blacksmith, market and castle. Not only the second option saves 175 wood, but it also saves you doing the crossbow upgrade (125F,75G) and you will be able to use the market. In that scenario, I think the longbows are the better option. Another major advantage of the longbow is that it deals twice as much damage to mangonels if you have bodkin arrow.
Also in late game, the extra range and extra pierce armor are useful against skirmishers. The extra range allows the longbows to stay further from the frontline, thus being safer. Since their main treat in trash games are opposing skirmishers, the extra pierce armor is also nice. I think Britons are excellent against opposing trash units as long as you can (micro)manage 20 (or more) longbows to deal damage from a safe distance and keep them alive while you spam trash units in front.
Hey. So im pretty sure I haven't said this before, but thank you for using the longer version of your opening song; it is hella good.
~♡
You forgot to factor in that Longbows look cooler 😏
Joking aside, range is one of the hardest stats to quantify (looking at you Magyar HCA) but you did great work trying to factor it here
Great Video Spirit! Thanks for getting me back into Age of Empires.
Was always a fan of Age of Mythology and never got too into AoE. However, the numbers, stats, and calm voice are perfect for falling asleep at night. 10/10 channel.
ah, my favorite aoe 2 youtuber: T-West Of The Law
Greatests of all time
My favourite is T90-West of the Law
@@hallamhal DauT90-West of the MbLaw AoC - Age of Empires
What about Lowko and Winter?.. Oh.. Wrong game. x)
This is the video I was looking for a long time...
Can't get enough of the intro even after all these years
Last time I was this early I had yet to find my sheep!
I think red scout took your sheep
I don't even play this game but your videos are so interesting I keep watching them
I have just read the title and i am alreasy excited! :)
hi, im in awe of the quality of this channel, goodjob
You need to build 18 crossbows on each archery range to have any wood advantage over longbowmen though. So for me the advantage in castle age is not so much in less wood cost but rather the handiness from transitioning my archers into crossbowmen.
And of course easier access to multiple ranges over multiple castles and the better accuracy ;)
Nice video nonetheless!
I havent played AOE since i was a kid, but I still find these videos fascinating!
Played this game for ten years, now mostly just watch this. Good stuff.
The Britons are my favorite Civ to play in AOE. I always looked up to my dad who was able to play them so well!
nice comparion and good suggestion. Next time i would like a crossbowman-genoese crosbowman comparison for the italians, but I think the result is the same as you said: in castle age there arent enough castles to train them and you lag behind if you get out of the way for collecting lots of stone
Making a castle to create unique units is expensive,but this castle can either provide defence or a castle rush, giving extra value.
You can't spam castles to train 20 longbowman at once like you could with crossbowmen, I think was the point.
It can even provide comedic value, when it gets denied at 99%.
You also can’t start amassing an army of longbowmen in Feudal age (either to fight off attackers or prepare for an early castle age attack), and have to wait for the castle. Also stone’s a very limited use resource, so if you find yourself under attack it’s harder to pivot to unit production.
Meanwhile your archery ranges can just pump out archers in advance, research a quick tech and boom, crossbow army (or something else if needed, like using gold for knights/monks, and wood for spears/pikes)
You can start transitioning to longbows by late castle if you like given you don’t need any specific techs for them, but in castle age they’re just not enough of an advantage over crossbows to demand an early castle
I remember when I was a kid, I trained longbowmen in mass to tae down castles XD
It works against the AI :D
When I was a kid my PC start lagging from mass longbowmen (100+), especially when they shot. And freeze for a second after mass Cho-ko-nu's barrage.
@@Knuckles2761 hmm, been there. So satisfying.
i would end up in the situation where its trash units v trash units most of the time and just decide to send in a legion of shelby cobras to clear things up lol
I think a solid buff to the Longbowmen (to make them more relevant in the Castle Age) would be to make it so their accuracy doesn't decay as the range increases. That way, though they're less accurate than Crossbows/Arbalests normally (70% vs 85%) at longer ranges they retain their accuracy. That way more thought is put into what you're building, encouraging better macro play as well as micro.
Longbowmen + monks (for healing) = war elephants with range
Byzantine as ally. If you haven't tried this means you haven't played AOE2 long enough
Thanks! I had this question in 2010. Thanks for answering this now.
Good video as always
When considering the elite longbow, you have to factor in that you need to make *110 of them before they pay back the 550 extra gold from the upgrade cost*. So, only if its's a super long post-imp grind are they worth it.
I feel like post imp grinding usually takes awhile
@@jomiles3605 don't stop the grind
sigmarcher mindset
yeah, it's more a case of if the extra range is worth the higher upgrade cost in practice
Hey Spirit, love your videos! It would be so cool if you made a video about optimum gaming specs/performance. Computer nerd stuff like, monitor refresh rate, frames per second and resolution, even the ultra wide 21:9 aspect ratio. Iv noticed there is not much video content on how this stuff translates to gameplay in DE.
Great video man
Damn!!!! I love that intro song!
I just sent the spanish captions. I hope you can approve them, it's a shame that feature won't be availabe anymore. Thanks for the great work as always SOTL.
Thanks man. Keep up the good work!
The thing about the longbow is that it wasn't a complicated weapon. It was in fact a purposefully simple weapon. Where other bows were made from multiple materials (composite) to give it the flexibility of one material with the power of another etc., or recurved for extra power, the longbow is just a normal simple bow but BIG.
That doesn't make it more powerful or accurate or easier to use. But it did make it almost as good as those more complicated bows, but much easier and cheaper to make, maintain, and repair. Longbows broke much less frequently than other bows and lasted longer, could sometimes work in light rain conditions, etc, because it was a simple model made of one whole material. It's the AK-47 of the medieval world: cheap and reliable.
The downside is that if you have a BIG bow you need STRONG men to use it. Which is why they made a law to force people to train with the bow even during peace time. People weren't allowed to perform any sports other than archery in most parts of Britain iirc. They also needed the right wood from Wales to make the longbow strong enough.
This all means the English could use MORE archers than the French or other medieval countries, and if you have more archers then the bow being less accurate doesn't matter as much either.
tl;dr the longbow is not the most powerful or most accurate bow, but it's close enough to be compatible, and cheaper to produce and maintain. It's the assembly line bow of the medieval world. So... realistically, longbowmen should maybe be the cheaper and easier to produce option compared to arbalesters. But that wouldn't make for a good unique unit.
Could you look into the unique tech Bagains for the Bulgarians? I'm not sure how good it makes their two handed swordsmen vs a generic fully upgraded champion, and it would be good to know the maths on it.
I agree. I see enough people thinking Bagains doesn't make up for Bulgarians missing Champion. But maybe a Spirit of the Law video showing Bagains vs. different Champion civs, Condotierri, and trash units might hopefully settle some questions about the strength of the Bulgarian Militia line.
Last time I had this early I tried to make some villagers before I realized I was maya's and have to do loom first.
explanation please?
You should Say mayas
@@nvmtt1403 Mayans start with an extra villager, which means you are housed at the start of the game. So while your villagers build houses you research loom to minimize tc idle time
Huns don’t need to build houses.
mmmmmh, loom
The comparison we need
The thing that has always puzzled me about the English Longbowman in AOE 2 is why are they left handed? Most other units, maybe all, are right handed which makes sense.
Because most people think you hold the bow with your main hand. Even some game devs don't make the real research to know that you pull the string with your main hand.
@@raulzilla
I only shot self made bows and arrows (some string and local wood) as a child and even to me this is sounds like a major "duh". Of course you DRAW (by far most of the power required) with your strong arm. Other arm is aiming and counter weight.
@@raulzilla I'd never heard of that before. Is that really a common-place thought?
Also, really don't think it's about making research or not when the generic Archer units actually do draw with their right hand
@@Copperhell144 give a bow to a person that never even got close to one and ask them to shoot it. And don't intervene you'll see people holding with their main hand and trying to pull the string with the off hand.
I've done this with my niece and friends.
@@raulzilla I made the same mistake in Guitar Hero lol
Excellent video as always and I want to express appreciation for the channel in general....
But, I do want to make a historical point that longbows didn't necessarily have a steeper learning curve than most other bows, in fact they were among the easiest and cheapest to create. However the skill cap of long bows were higher than a lot of other traditional archers because of the raw strength and range with heavy arrows that could be afforded with them.
Tl;dr: they weren't necessarily more difficult than other bows, just more powerful potential with years of training.
I have been planing on trying a "squad" system, so for brits in castle/imperial, a basic archer squad would be 2 archers, 2 longbows and 1 skirmisher, so each squad consists of 5 units, with 2-3 or in this case 4 unit of them being the "main unit" with the others being in support, i mainly thought of this to try and ensure that while my armies may be built for a certain role, they can still fight against a variety of opponents. Which brings me to a certain idea of a video, what units pair nicely with others in ways that cover each others weaknesses.
Yeah, the Longbow irony is never lost in AOE.
They should fire faster and be more accurate than the crossbow counterpart.
It'd be too op. Maybe they could do it but in return bump up significantly the costs of the longbow, which is historically accurate. During the 100 years war the English had these excellent decades trained archers that they could not replace when lost. Would be nice to see something like it
@@thomasb.5643
Yeah, that's something they got wrong in AoE3 too. It should honestly be cavalry-expensive, not slightly more expensive.
longbows with thumb ring would be too OP
theoretically you can shoot bows faster, sure, but I think in a real battle endurance comes into play VERY quickly with these heavy longbows and they probably had to pace themselves a lot.
They should also deal less damage and while they can have a longer range, the drop-off for effective damage should happen faster (but that doesn't even exist in AoE so never mind). And they should be weaker against armor. But cheaper to make than crossbowmen. But longer training time.
@@Lightning_LanceThe crossbow and longbow ain't going through plate armor regardless lol. But they can still cause chaos, and hurt a lot. Or kill lightly armored peeps. The only reason the crossbow is considered better is because you can point and pull a trigger. It's much easier to be accurate. It's not necessarily more powerful. A bow with a lower draw can still do some serious damage in comparison to a crossbow with a higher draw. Also the longbow does shoot further and is more powerful even with a lower draw than a crossbow that has a heavier draw. Bows are better, crossbows are convenient. Forget everything you learned in video games about bows and crossbows, it's all inaccurate lol. Bows and crossbows don't go through heavy armor either. So next time ya get a headshot with a bow in Skyrim on some dude that has heavy armor, just remember. He's not actually dead, but the devs couldn't break the news.
Thanks for your service
Thats exactly the video i needed
I’ll be entirely honest with you, I’ve never even played AoE2. See you next video!
I bet you wanna
Same :D
An issue to be remedied asap
You're the man
I was expecting a historical documentary when I clicked.
Longbows outrange castles! Teutons, no, I’m pretty sure they don’t.
They don't outrange Teuton Castles, Korean Keeps or Turkish Bombard Towers. All three of these buildings have 13 range.
@@devangnivatkar2649 yeah, Turkish Bombard Towers
like you need to outrange them, yaaahh
Hi spirit of the law one question upgrading the archer to arblest cost included or not if castle stone is considered then
At 6:50 shouldnt the adjusted dmg pr min be lower for longbowmen, for 10 pierce armor, be lower due to accuracy and higher total cost?
I really think the final test would have been improved with an Eagle test. It would be a very common match up.
Thanks for another helping video.
You should also do an Archer vs Plumed Archer comparison for the Mayans.
its also worth noting that the aria coverd with longbows are significantly geater at even+1 range
Love you Spirit
So much I didn't know about this game.
If I don't confuse things here, the Longbows have a higher frame delay than crossbows. So that crossbows are easier to micro.
Great video
If you count the castle for the longbowman, you should have counted the wood for the archery range
but most of the time you already have an archery range available from your early castle age rush
Honestly, it seems strange for the longbow to be so inaccurate. I think base accuracy should be increased for them
@St. Haborym Eh not really.... kinda weird trying to disspell this myth, but english longbows were not long range bombardment weapons. I think they mostly shoot around 300 meters despite their high draw weight. I think the record is 340m, I'm but not sure where i read that. Compare that to say turkish bows, which are shorter reflex-bows in the asiatic style, with (typically) lower draw-weight and lighter arrows shoot up to 500 meters. (Numbers might be a little off, but you get the gist, think modern flight archery tests have played with this and tested it out.)
Couple this with the fact that medieval art shows english archers shooting more or less straight at their enemy instead of in an arc we can begin to imagine that perhaps direct fire from 100-50 meters might have been more common than we imagine. Now while the reflex technology in the Turkish makes it technologically "superior" (for the lack of better term), the english longbow was probably cheaper to produce, easier to maintain in diffrent climates (including the rainy british isles), shot higher draweights and heavier arrows.
I recomend some channels that talk bows and crossbows (sometimes):
ua-cam.com/channels/t14YOvYhd5FCGCwcjhrOdA.html (Matt Easton, Mostly swords, but talks about various things including archery)
ua-cam.com/users/todsstuff1 (Tod Cutler, fantastic craftsman did a crossbow, longbow comparison with Joe Gibbs)
ua-cam.com/users/Joe8Gibbs (Joe Gibbs, this ones all longbow I guess. One of the few guys that can actually draw and shoot200lbs bow!)
Many more out there, wish I could provide you more textual sources, but have neither the time nor do I think anyone cares that much lol.
OMG 2 hours before the upload, I googled/youtubed "AOE2 Britons Longbowmen vs Arbalests". What a coincidence ^^
We need someone like you in the Aoe3 community...!!!
Crossbow/Arbalest vs Plumed Archers next please! :D
It’s nice that in history, crossbowmen have no advantage against longbowmen. Also, longbowmen were really strong men, and not quick, agile men like Legolas (even though elves are really strong).
The advantage for the crossbowman is that you'll have a lot more of them.
It takes at least a decade to build up the muscle strength to shoot a war longbow in battlefield conditions (we're talking rapid fire over the duration of a battle, not just pulling it back once). Meanwhile you can pluck any peasant and give him crossbow training for a week and he'll at least have some proficiency.
@@asmallchicken5836 Not to mention that you can actually shoot crossbow in arcs, getting more range because you can't cheat your way around pure power advantage.
Granted, you need higher quality projectiles for them to handle the stress of being shot via xbow and you get smaller rof, but this Longbowman range advantage is pure BS.
Also, whole history of britons supports not some sort of ultra powerful archers, it's all about ultra powerful school spitting out large masses of archers.
@@burningsinner1132 but crossbows didn't have more power. They had higher poundages, but the longbow has a draw length of about 36/38 inches while the crossbow had maybe a third of that. This means that while longbows topped out at around a 180 pound draw weight the arrow had a much longer time for the bow to work on it while the much heavier poundages of the crossbow basically just made up for their ridiculously small draw length.
@@jaredrowendolas8757 Absolute longbow shot record: 412.82m, with custom bow.
Absolute crossbow shot record: 621.8m with Ravin R15, which you can buy without selling your soul (Still costly though)
@@burningsinner1132 You do know that none of that is applicable to HISTORICAL comparisons, right? We have access to very different materials nowadays.
Wish you had given shots vs imperial skirmisher as well, speaking of which, It would be great if you updated your Imperial Skirmisher video for DE 🙏
Thanks for the video! But you havent answered the main question - since when longbowman became left handed?
The nostalgia, I won't ever forget playing AoEII when I was like 12
Could u make another one of those quizzes that predicts ur favorite or best matched Civ?
When are you going to make a top of best archer unique unit? I think it would be the feather archer but im not sure.
Elite Huskarls: there is no difference for us.
6:26 So you are saying that, if mass group of archers without thumb ring fire at group of units, there is "splash" damage from missed arrows ? That hits other units around ?
Yes
So overkill is a little less likely too
Yes, this is what happens. And this actually decreases the overkill effect when fighting against tightly packed units.
Mass some arambai (like 50+) and give it a try, sometimes it feels like an onagre shooting more than some archers.
@@1986Maria1986 Yeah you are right i already saw that somewhere
There is no splash damage. It doesn't work that way.
An arrow missing its intended target will do half damage if it hits another enemy unit instead. But it does no damage to your own units or units of your allies nearby if they take the shot.
I love the progressions of the opening. It rocks
Hei Spirit what about age of Empire 3 definitive edition are you waiting for it? you will bring videos ?
it would be awesome if you did like a history video for all unique units.
Hi Spirit of the Law, are you sur about the fact that missed shots can actually hit an other unit by accident ? I tried to see if it was the case few day ago and it seems to me that you cannot hit an ennemi that you aren't aiming at, with a "lucky missed shot". Can you confirm this ?
Much love
Hey SotL, I have a question for you. What is the most effective way to deal with being housed throughout the ages, especially Dark and Feudal Ages? Do you build a house with a single villager, in order to keep as much of your economy working as possible? Or do you send multiple villagers to get the house built as quickly as possible, in order to keep your town center working, and to produce the next villager sooner?
Do you think that accuracy (and the lack thereof) has a mesurable impact on overkill ?
don't know about that, but lower accuracy can be better against moving targets if you don't have ballistics
I think it's also worth pointing out that in a real game it makes sense to make longbows along side crossbows just to start to get their number rolling but you'd still be relying on crossbows because they are easier to mass. Instead the idea is to instead try to hang onto the longbows for as long as possible (usually crossbows and skirmishers in one group and longbows in the other), that way when you get enough castes to produce them and the upgrade you can start to just replace your numbers slowly with all longbows and maybe some skims (although I prefer cavalry at that point). Even then though you typically want a fair number of archery ranges and the arbalest to serve as a quick massing unit when you need to ram up production
Finally a tech video
I havent played AOE since i was a young teenager, yet im here watching this video to the end.
Hey Spirit, love your videos so much that rewatch them sometimes. I was watching your cliff bonus and I wonder are monks effected by cliff and hill bonus with healing and conversion?
I am still waiting for that tower bonus damage to be included in any of the tower civ comparisons and how they interact with villagers.
Hey spirit its because of u i bought the aoe2 de game on steam
Ooo nice id like to know what's better from tectonic knight or long sword man too
I'm still waiting to see an SOTL vs TOO match!
I never knew the game was advanced enough to track arrow projectiles and do a collision check on missed shots to see if they hit nearby untargeted units. I guess it makes sense though, that if it can do it for mangonels, it can do it for arrows.
that's part of the reason why archer units are better when massed, because the larger the armies the less it matters if you miss the target you were aiming for, you'll just hit someone else. It's not as big of a factor as closing time for the cavalry/infantry units (how much they need to run around to get to the next target vs ranged units just continually shooting) but it does also play a role
what about the shortbow and the parralelbow?
I mean, of couse the longbowman is know for his remarkable short range barrage, what else do you expected from THAT unit?? Is obvious if you think about it
They were a lot more powerful at short range and more likely to penetrate armor. Since the arrow loses energy the longer in flies through the air
I love your Videos T-West
Love your content! AoE for life :)
Would have been interesting to have a hybrid army added into the test results, like someone who was mid transition