I wonder if how much the rankings of "most one-sided" change if we take into consideration the Civ's overall win rate? A 44% win rate against a civ is barely anything if your normal win rate is 45%, while a 46% win rate against someone may be meaningful if you normally have a 55% win rate.
I guess its all about the sample size. Smaller the database then the situation you describe impacts end result. Spirit showed matchups with more than 300 or even 500 games played. That should be enough to show the trend. Overall you rarely play vs a guy who is much more higher than 100 elo or at least its minority.
As someone with 3000 games as Tatars (~1450 elo; max 1539) this is how I view opponent civs: Mongols: limit damage in fuedal. Your late game hussars tank a lot more arrows and your CA is better. Mangudai are hard to mass so as long as your castle age and later gameplan has constant aggression, you should win. Also have camels to force a switch away from steppe lancers early castle into a camel war, which scales better for Tatars with better camels and access to halbs. Knight civs without good halb-siege (Franks and Lith being good examples): trade in fuedal evenly then all in castle age with CA. Get a mass and ballistics before adding eco and they will never be able to take a good fight. Going late is fine too, just keep making your opponent engage with his army so he can’t afford paladin. Camels are a good option to start, but you’re strongest in castle and camels don’t kill villagers well, so switch early. Use camels as a way to force a pike switch. It actually feels like Tatars hard counter a lot of these ‘meta’ knight civs, especially Franks. Knight civs w/ good halb-siege: WIN EARLY DO NOT LET THEM STONE WALL. Tatars have no redemption of BBC. Halb-SO is an impossible comp to fight with competent micro. Last resort, 19 range trebs can help, but is unreliable and expensive. Use early thumbring to mass tons of archers and don’t let off the pressure. You’re probably not going to win post imp, and even raids don’t do as much as you would think because Halbs are pretty damn cheap. Hindustanis: Mass CA, add pikes. Camels are the biggest problem. Tech into cavalier in imp, not camel, to counter Gulam. Make sure to pick up Halb as well. Even with terrible armor, they shred camels. Will always be a tough matchup because even with you having the tools to win, Hindu units are cheaper, and their economy is just better in every way. Win condition should be Halb-Cavalier late game, CA is a possibility, but heavy CA is expensive and not as effective in this matchup as you would think. Keeping a group of regular CA a/bracer/Chem/ballistics can be nice to raid when opponent is distracted by micro, but Cavalier-halb just feels better. CA can be really nice for the gunpowder switch tho. Gurjaras: halb-CA and keep your CA mass. Need enough to one shot or better Shrivamshas. It’s gonna end up in a late game slug fest full of raids. CA also very nice vs Chakrams with micro. Berbers: win early or lose. They have all the tools to counter Tatars and cheap knights really counters early thumbring well. FU camels, and Camel archers make this really tough. Also has BBC where Tatars don’t. Mass a lot of archers in fuedal and try to win early castle before the knight mass gets out of control. If you go CA and they do a camel archer switch, you have to win with mass. Camel archers don’t have a lot of pierce armor so the hard counter only comes when the mass of units are even. Like with all CA v CA wars, ballistics is key. Huns: feels like a civ win for Tatars. Thumbring feels like it can negate the castle age CA discount. Pretty much a fight to see who can mass more and get ballistics first. Hills are your best friend for either side, it’s a war of DPS. Usually Huns with try a Tarkan switch when it gets to imp and they’re CA loses hard, even by cost adjusted basis, but then you have camels and they don’t have halbs. Just beware of a full commit on CA+Hussar mid castle. Huns can get to that surpringly easily if they go heavy into the scout line in fuedal. Archer civs: Britons feel rough, but Ethiopians, Vietnamese and Mayans feels pretty good for Tatars. Early thumbring always catches those civs off guard, especially Ethiopians. Tho beware of Ethiopian halb-siege, like with others who do that well, if they can get good stone walls and castle placements to limit raids, you will have a really hard time fighting their mass. Early imp with a forward castle will be hard for Tatars, pretty much have to mass elite skirm, but post-imp Tatar CA shreds all Arbs. Goths: Can feel rough or fine. If you can get Knight-xbow rolling in early castle, you will cause the goth player to hesitate with the huscarl switch. The hardest part is early imp with full goth spam before chemistry comes in. Once chemistry does come in, it’s about Hussar spam and good defensive structure placement. It will be a battle for the neutral golds, map control, and limit raiding damage. Their raids cost gold, yours don’t, and Tatar hussar with silk armor does surprisingly well vs huscarls. The biggest thing is to not take too much damage in Imp before you can get your hand cannon mass to a sufficient level to beat the spam. Italians: feels pretty good for Tatars, but Genoese+condos is a killer comp for Italians in this matchup. It’s not too popular, and Tatars should win fuedal and castle handily, but if you get to imp on an even playing field, that combo can be impossible to engage. Portugeuse: feels good so long as they don’t get monks+organs going early castle. Not bad on Arabia, scary af on nomad maps. Meso: Aztecs feels like a civ win for Tatars. Eagles are never a threat to Tatar CA so long as Tatars focus on mass, ballistics, and husbandry. Imp eagles for Aztecs are not good vs a CA mass. Mayans feels even across the board. Tatars feel strong early castle with thumbring (xbow wars), and mayan castle eagles aren’t good vs CA. Mayans feel better late castle because those cheap xbow will just always be easier to replace, and you won’t have a switch on your mind as mayans because you have access to arbs. Tatars will have to switch to CA, and maybe cover that switch with elite skirms temporarily. El Dorodo eagles+halb are a dreaded death ball against Tatars. It will become a war to see if the Tatars can hussar raid to a win before Mayans push that mass through the middle in the treb wars. Hussars will do decent vs eagles, but your CA will have a hard time dealing enough damage. Never make UU as Mayans vs Tatars. They trade horribly vs Tatar CA. Incas are probably the roughest. That extra pierce armor on eagles make CA untenable. Access to halbs stops a Cavalier switch. Pretty much hope you can get to your hand cannons before dying to raids or to losing the treb war. Tatar hussar again trade surpassingly well vs just eagles, but mixing in halbs makes it rough. Just hope you can raid the Incas to death. Koreans: surprising mention, but on maps with a lot of stone, tower spam+siege+halbs can ruin Tatars. Japanese fall into this camp too, switching out siege for CA. Win before post-imp is a must. Georgians: feels like a civ win for Tatars. I don’t see Georgians going into much but their UU, and Tatars have FU camels and their CA shreds the UU. Go camels for the early spam and switch into CA later. Focus on defense and map control. You win late. I’m sure there are other matchups I have forgot, but these were some ones I wanted to highlight. Tatars really feel like an anti-meta civ, surprising the usual archer or knight civs with their timings and their roster diversity (super strong CA and hussar, access to FU camels and hand cannons), but struggle vs other anti-meta strays (full stone wall halb-siege, late game tower spam). They also struggle vs all in early castle siege pushes with their lack of redemption and average eco. Sheep bonus on extra TCs is underrated as you can go 3TC and 3 range CA+ballistics pretty quickly as you don’t need to add farms immediately when a new TC is built, just throw 3-4 vils on sheep and you should be good for 5 minutes if you went up to castle with 14+ farms. The name of the game is to get enough CA to stop any push up the middle/forward castles, and get to hussar spam. Hold map control with CA and castles, and raid opponent with hussar with +1/+1 hussar/light cav.
Nice in depth report! I always liked the Tatars and their well rounded tech tree but it seems I always come up a bit short. Maybe a little more late game economy boost or a stronger UU would have helped. Maybe an AI brain chip implant would be best for me however.
Have you question the Franks not having good halb/siege. They have fully upgraded halbs. They have siege engineers, bombard cannons and onagers (not siege onagers but that tech is very expensive). Interesting read otherwise.
Hussite Wagons need a rework, IMO. They don't feel like "makeshift forts" anymore and feel more like a Panzer. That and they just power-creep Organ Guns. I really wish they were a deployable unit like a Trebuchet, but instead of being long-range artillery they would be essentially a turret that can be redeployed where needed. You'd be able to use them to creep forward by "leapfrogging" (look at how this is done in Starcraft with Siege Tanks), or use them defensively to protect resources without needing to build static defenses.
I like the thought of them as a sort of mobile tower, and if they dont include a passive that makes projectiles stop/target a wagon if it passes it (not applying to gunpowder)
The problem with Hussite Wagons is they were changed at all; a unit that you rarely mass or micro rubs players the wrong way, especially at the high level. They were supposed to be mixed in with archery range units to help those against enemy ranged units, not be a generalist unit.
@@sam_sanister that would be neat: the wagon is empty and deals no damage so you must garrison it, like a ram, in order to fire. Every unit, up to say 5, reduces time to set up, and any on foot range unit can be placed inside; if you mix units the overall damage and bonifcation may very against certain units allowing for interesting combinations against specific civs. If done correctly the wagon might be discounted since no longer is selfsufficient besides a barrier of a sort.
Honestly I feel like Jaguars need a rework. I would make them faster, almost as fast as an Eagle Warrior, lower their base damage and increase their damage to infantry. This would make them more of a unique anti infantry unit and less of a "bad champion".
As for the Persians countering archer civs, I'd like to add that they now have Parthian Tactics in Castle Age, which adds +2 pierce armor to their Cavalry Archers. Ethiopians vs Goths is a believable one. I once lost as Goths vs Ethiopians on the ranked ladder (1400 Elo, random civ). Shotel Warriors absolutely wrecked my units. Perhaps it's mainly the Ethiopian UU that brings the matchup in their favor, though their very early archer rush potential probably plays a role, too.
Ethiopians were my long time favourite - true powerhouse, in this game.. if I pick ethiopians I can blame only my skills never civ match or anything else.
Very informative video. I didn't know Byz vs Bohemians goes that bad! Any Byz player facing up Bohemians can rely to their Monk with redemption. Pretty effective with spear/pikemen to keep Bohemian scouts away. Monk can heal pretty fast too. Skirms if enemy goes hand cannoneers although gold heavy, they can't afford all. The rest of the game is on y'all own pace. Just pray they gave up after realising that castle age push not working in their favour I guess...
@@brandonrhoades7049 Byzantine monks don't lack anything. You could fully go into a monk war with them, only problem happens if they get the food tech and then it's food monks vs gold monks. Byzantine players just maybe not playing the match up correctly in the early to mid game then having worse siege late making Imperial age battles poor for them. On paper this does not seem like it would be that one sided.
Great Video. One thing I noticed in the Cav. Archer civs was the fact they are backed up by light/heavy cavalry who already be countered by the camels. If they have some infantry or even a halberdier, they can reduce this disvantage against them.
does anyone else still think its wild that they gave Roman Legionaries jaguar features AND Japanese features? it still feels like power creep to this day
Yeah, it felt bad enough to have infantry (champion) civs already losing to other civs because other units are just better than inf, and now they can't even compete with another infantry civ... In my opinion, legionaries are probably fine now, because they are decently usable, but they should buff champion a bit more, so top champ civs manage to beat legionaries slightly
@@alyenendrovtsorokean7406 they would still be special, would still be one of the best champions while also having way cheaper tech cost and time, they only need 1 imperial upgrade, while champions have 2 that cost more resources and time and they are worse, and even legionaries get +4/+4 resistances for the cheaper cost of 2 techs, while champs get +3/+4 for the price of 3 wich the last one costs more, and legionaties can have it in castle age, just too unfair for other infantry civs...
I like to play bulgarians into mezocivs on Arabia. the cheap and fast switch into the militia-line shuts down eagle play quite well and castle age lightcav play is also very strong thanks to stirrups, which counters monks. these fast switches between cav and infantry play + good siege in the late game means that you can simply outpace and counter mezo civs at all stages of the game. the least affected mezo civ are the mayans, but they too struggle without eagles against heavy siege play, which bulgarians can go for. Saw Hera playing bulgarians into atztecs in a tournament last year absolutly dominating and tried it myself in tournaments i play with friends. Works really well and aztecs and incas are also among the weakest civs against bulgarians according to the stats. Also bulgarians got the most banger song when you start the game. Love every excuse i get to play them.
May I ask what ELO you play at? Cause on the average Bulgarians don't really counter mesociv, especially Inca and Mayans. Both can easily defend against Bulgarians, and have eco which is far superior. Only Aztecs can theoretically struggle against them, even then it's tough as Aztec eco is usually way ahead.
@@krystofcisar469 Yeah nah that's just not right man 😂. You're assuming your opponent will just sit back and enjoy the show lmao. Mass archers and Bulgarians are nullified, at least if the same elo aka skill.
I'd say that the Aztecs need a way to actually produce them. They have relatively weak castles and they also need to make trebs from them. I think it would be interesting if their castles were able to produce two kinds of units at the same time, so they could make trebs and Jaguar Warriors from the same castle.
I think Malians are a much harder anti-mayan civ than goths generally (certainly at mid elo level) - They have similar eco to the Mayans with the wood discount and their gold bonus whilst their 'Champscarls' are very hard for the Mayans to do anything about.
Champskars don't have bonus damage against archers nor the speed of Huskarls (Nor Blast Furnace) nor the crazy Goth discount to spam them, so they still don't really kill them fast enough compared to Huskarls where them by themselves kill anything Mayans do once production gets going Plumed archers especially can easily micro down champskarls but not Huskarls due to the speed difference
@@Mattroid99 Champskarls have 8 pierce armor while an elite huskarl has 10. This means archers, specifically arbalesters, do double damage to champskarls compared to huskarls. Since you did bring up Mayans, though, plumed archers do 3 damage to Champskarls, and only 2 to Elite Huskarls
@@coxandrewj Exactly. And they are not fast either unlike something like Woad Raiders that have little pierce armor but are so fast that 40 of them still shred archers I would say though that the matchup is still decent for Malians, and Champskarls are still pretty good vs most of what Mayans can field
@@Mattroid99 I think I meant to reply to the other guy but replied to you :D But yes, Mayans have a losing record against Malians. At the highest level they only have a 43.75% win rate
Most one-sided matchups happen on water and hybrid maps, in my opinion. The other day I randomed into Huns vs Persians on islands. I tried my best, but the faster working docks resulted in a snowball effect eventually.
It's interesting to me how often you try to play off a bad matchup as being better than it is, and then turn right around and say the opposite for very similar numbers: A 46.2% winrate (terrible) is called "close to even" but then a 45.5% winrate (also terrible, just marginally worse) is bad enough to get onto one of the dedicated slides.
Next time you make a video like this, can you include the winrate deltas? i.e., "this civ wins 41% in this matchup, while having a 48.7% winrate overall (Delta 7.7%)
SotL: You can probably guess who the top match ups are. Me, who hasn't played AoE2: DE for years, but watch SotL religiously: Probably Persians and Archer civs
Against the Goths, if your unique unit is also an archer as an archer civ - that's when I think it becomes somewhat hard. The Mayan Eco Bonus alongside just being a well-rounded civ is great. But as my Vietnamese the eco bonuses are nice, but they always come at an initial cost. Goths getting both bloodlines & halbs give *0* recourse for quite a few archer focussed civs!
One idea i had some time ago was to change the swordsman line's bonus damage vs. eagles from +0/2/6/8/8 to +0/3/4/5/6, in exchange for some potential buffs
I really like playing as Goths vs Archers (around 1200 player here). It's really like putting enemy on a timer. You either build castle and mass Huscarls, or loose in early game.
Hey SOTL, video request: Can you do an analysis what is the effect of winning the water space in Nomad? How much do you balance water investment vs. needs on land?
When I was a kid I played a skirmish as the Japanese against the Teutons and Byzantines thinking my Samurai would have the advantage with their bonus against Unique Units. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! It was a slaughter.
I have personally always viewed Mayans as a hard counter to Goths in a 1v1 setting. Goths don't have an eco bonus, and Mayans have cheap units just like Goths, while not needing to spend much food on their army. So they'll go up way faster than Goths and can dominate the pace of the game entirely. Your best bet with Goths is just to start laming right away and make the game super scrappy to even the odds a bit.
Hey Spirit, Could you use this same data to 'diagonalise' the civs? There are now so many civs that it makes sense to subdivide them into subsets of 5~10 civs that play similarly. Of course most players could produce subsets if you ask them, but I wonder what the stats imply. Based on this 1v1 data, how would you group the civs? This grouping is relevant for new players, as learning 45 civs at once is impossible and instead learning 5~9 representatives is a lot more achievable. I know AoE2 is not pulling many new players, but it is still something to keep in the back of the mind. Essentially, the grouping would be the equivalent of League of Legends' 7 champion classes (mage, fighter, tank, ...).
Even accounting for p-hacking, we can probabilistically say that, if Gurjaras vs. Incas was a 44.8% matchup, we would be 95%+ to not see a winrate as low as 33.6%.
My favorite match up is Goths vs Britons. Let's assume competent level play here. The Briton player has to act more aggressively than is the civ norm to prevent any kind of economy that will spill over into the dreaded Huskarl. The Gothic player must play into their civ weakness and defend against this constant pressure long enough to pop out their I win button. If even a single Goth castle goes up, the game is over. Cheap barracks units/Huskarl rush the Briton to death.
"Whoops, we made our most recent and most expensive new DLC severely OP! Dont worry, we'll nerf it a little when everyone has bought it." -every live service multiplayer game in the past 15 years.
I guess the surprising result with the Ethiopians vs Goths is due to their strong archer rush, that probably ends a lot of games before the Goth bonuses really kick in, and late game they have Torsion Engines, which trashes infantry. Also shotels are really good versus weak defenses, which the Goths of course have.
I don't think this is one-sided, but my favorite matchup is Italians vs Bohemians. The first one Bohemians have a sizable number of advantages (including free mining techs and early access to hand cannons), but Bohemian's entire army comp (excluding Xbows) is hard-countered by Condotierri (which Italians have in imp). So Bohemians basically have to kill the Italians player before imperial age.
Hmm... Am gonna have to try that one out. I'd counter the Condotierri with a combo of scorpions and hand cannoneer, possibly supported by the champion. That should do the trick, no?
I'd like to see how historical matchups look. How do Britons fare against Franks? Or Franks against Saracens? What about Romans against Huns and Goths?
I was actually expecting the Aztecs to be countered by a few cavalry civs, not the usual infantry. I wonder, were there actual real life plans for the Spaniards to have once thought to colonize Burma, so to counter Britain's spread from India?
As a Byzantines main (granted, ~850 ELO) I always feel great as Byzantines against a Goth player. I love cleaning up huskarals and pikes with Cataphracts. I usually don't make Cataphracts but always do when I'm against a Goth player. It's surprising that Goths have a higher winrate versus Byzantines.
Unless you already have a huge economic advantage, Goths infantry is both cheap and fast to train. Byzantines simply couldn't afford cataphract spam to counter goth mobs in long term.
The Mayan oth matchup is really interesting bc the raw eco advantage isnt that big anymore with the longer lasting hunt that is basically equal to the mayan bonus in dark age and fast Loom. That used to be a lot mroe lobsided. Huns can beat Hindustani in late Imp bc Halb/Paladin >> Camel/HC. most players dont know this.
As a very casual player (play every-day but rarely do ladder), my personal one-sided is Burmese against anything. I really struggle with them, can barely make them work and end up defaulting in a fast castle + siege.
Hey Spirit of the law. I'm wondering if the recent infantry buff has modified the rock-paper-scissors system. If it has, can you do an updated video talking about counters and soft counters?
what i got from this video is that goths need help XD, well, the video is pretty old but seeing how many times goth are pointed here as having a disadvantage...
I like to play Persians vs Franks. Camel + Xbow into full late game Hussar + Trashbow is something the Franks have little answer to unless they flat-out play better than you in terms of micro.
Most of that only comes in (late) imp, Wagons can roll in and start wrecking from castle age. Also while Byzantines may have those units, the Cavalry still subpar due to lacking upgrades (bloodlines, blast furnace). And Bohemians have excellent tools to deal with those would-be counters. (Halbs, better BBC of their own). It's obviously not quite as simple as that, but Bohemians do seem to have an advantage.
Ethiopians vs Goths makes sense to me as an Ethiopian main/favorite. Etheopians getting pikes for free in castle means Goths can't go cav as easily and the late game siege plus shotels killing the majority of the Goth Comp and being just as spamable means goths cant really win late either. I dont think it is a matter of Ethiopian archers coming into play really (though faster attack does make them the best archers against huskarls if you have a frontline)
Give all civs more techs as they seem to miss too much of the tech tree... For example why do mayans have to miss champions? They don't have access to high hp melee soldiers except the champions and their upgraded eagle warriors...
IMO the 1v1 stats just show more than 99% of games don't make it to Imp and early game eco, macro, and tactical aggression wins. Up to castle age the civ barely matters, but the player does!
i wonder how teutons vs melee civs match up Like teuton knight line beats franks Teuton uu is known for destruction Teuton rams are atv Teuton defense cant be breached by melee They dont even lose against "ignore armor" civs, cause of def skills and hard hits Its a top 5 civ since ages, but is it really just slightly above general?
Shotels are beating everything Goths can do that isnt cav archer or hand canoneer :D Shotels are so good. Huscrals suck against other infantry gold units.
Mongols being similiar to Tatars, but better in a direct head-to-head is just historical accuracy...
Franks be sweating as they see Hindustanis and Gurjaras rolling up.
Yeah, Camel civs are no joke.
White knights can't handle curry?
I used to pick Indians to counter the Frank pickers years ago when I was 800 elo
It's the smell
Most one-sided civ matchups: My civ vs opponent civ, my opponent always plays counter and op civ compared to my civ.
Fairest matchup: Anytime when I win
I wonder if how much the rankings of "most one-sided" change if we take into consideration the Civ's overall win rate? A 44% win rate against a civ is barely anything if your normal win rate is 45%, while a 46% win rate against someone may be meaningful if you normally have a 55% win rate.
Also, it assumes that player groups per civilization are equal in skill level for their ELO. I doubt that is the case.
@@teliph3U There are always so many things to consider when analysing data, especially wide range real-world data like this.
I guess its all about the sample size. Smaller the database then the situation you describe impacts end result. Spirit showed matchups with more than 300 or even 500 games played. That should be enough to show the trend. Overall you rarely play vs a guy who is much more higher than 100 elo or at least its minority.
As someone with 3000 games as Tatars (~1450 elo; max 1539) this is how I view opponent civs:
Mongols: limit damage in fuedal. Your late game hussars tank a lot more arrows and your CA is better. Mangudai are hard to mass so as long as your castle age and later gameplan has constant aggression, you should win. Also have camels to force a switch away from steppe lancers early castle into a camel war, which scales better for Tatars with better camels and access to halbs.
Knight civs without good halb-siege (Franks and Lith being good examples): trade in fuedal evenly then all in castle age with CA. Get a mass and ballistics before adding eco and they will never be able to take a good fight. Going late is fine too, just keep making your opponent engage with his army so he can’t afford paladin. Camels are a good option to start, but you’re strongest in castle and camels don’t kill villagers well, so switch early. Use camels as a way to force a pike switch. It actually feels like Tatars hard counter a lot of these ‘meta’ knight civs, especially Franks.
Knight civs w/ good halb-siege: WIN EARLY DO NOT LET THEM STONE WALL. Tatars have no redemption of BBC. Halb-SO is an impossible comp to fight with competent micro. Last resort, 19 range trebs can help, but is unreliable and expensive. Use early thumbring to mass tons of archers and don’t let off the pressure. You’re probably not going to win post imp, and even raids don’t do as much as you would think because Halbs are pretty damn cheap.
Hindustanis: Mass CA, add pikes. Camels are the biggest problem. Tech into cavalier in imp, not camel, to counter Gulam. Make sure to pick up Halb as well. Even with terrible armor, they shred camels. Will always be a tough matchup because even with you having the tools to win, Hindu units are cheaper, and their economy is just better in every way. Win condition should be Halb-Cavalier late game, CA is a possibility, but heavy CA is expensive and not as effective in this matchup as you would think. Keeping a group of regular CA a/bracer/Chem/ballistics can be nice to raid when opponent is distracted by micro, but Cavalier-halb just feels better. CA can be really nice for the gunpowder switch tho.
Gurjaras: halb-CA and keep your CA mass. Need enough to one shot or better Shrivamshas. It’s gonna end up in a late game slug fest full of raids. CA also very nice vs Chakrams with micro.
Berbers: win early or lose. They have all the tools to counter Tatars and cheap knights really counters early thumbring well. FU camels, and Camel archers make this really tough. Also has BBC where Tatars don’t. Mass a lot of archers in fuedal and try to win early castle before the knight mass gets out of control. If you go CA and they do a camel archer switch, you have to win with mass. Camel archers don’t have a lot of pierce armor so the hard counter only comes when the mass of units are even. Like with all CA v CA wars, ballistics is key.
Huns: feels like a civ win for Tatars. Thumbring feels like it can negate the castle age CA discount. Pretty much a fight to see who can mass more and get ballistics first. Hills are your best friend for either side, it’s a war of DPS. Usually Huns with try a Tarkan switch when it gets to imp and they’re CA loses hard, even by cost adjusted basis, but then you have camels and they don’t have halbs. Just beware of a full commit on CA+Hussar mid castle. Huns can get to that surpringly easily if they go heavy into the scout line in fuedal.
Archer civs: Britons feel rough, but Ethiopians, Vietnamese and Mayans feels pretty good for Tatars. Early thumbring always catches those civs off guard, especially Ethiopians. Tho beware of Ethiopian halb-siege, like with others who do that well, if they can get good stone walls and castle placements to limit raids, you will have a really hard time fighting their mass. Early imp with a forward castle will be hard for Tatars, pretty much have to mass elite skirm, but post-imp Tatar CA shreds all Arbs.
Goths: Can feel rough or fine. If you can get Knight-xbow rolling in early castle, you will cause the goth player to hesitate with the huscarl switch. The hardest part is early imp with full goth spam before chemistry comes in. Once chemistry does come in, it’s about Hussar spam and good defensive structure placement. It will be a battle for the neutral golds, map control, and limit raiding damage. Their raids cost gold, yours don’t, and Tatar hussar with silk armor does surprisingly well vs huscarls. The biggest thing is to not take too much damage in Imp before you can get your hand cannon mass to a sufficient level to beat the spam.
Italians: feels pretty good for Tatars, but Genoese+condos is a killer comp for Italians in this matchup. It’s not too popular, and Tatars should win fuedal and castle handily, but if you get to imp on an even playing field, that combo can be impossible to engage.
Portugeuse: feels good so long as they don’t get monks+organs going early castle. Not bad on Arabia, scary af on nomad maps.
Meso: Aztecs feels like a civ win for Tatars. Eagles are never a threat to Tatar CA so long as Tatars focus on mass, ballistics, and husbandry. Imp eagles for Aztecs are not good vs a CA mass. Mayans feels even across the board. Tatars feel strong early castle with thumbring (xbow wars), and mayan castle eagles aren’t good vs CA. Mayans feel better late castle because those cheap xbow will just always be easier to replace, and you won’t have a switch on your mind as mayans because you have access to arbs. Tatars will have to switch to CA, and maybe cover that switch with elite skirms temporarily. El Dorodo eagles+halb are a dreaded death ball against Tatars. It will become a war to see if the Tatars can hussar raid to a win before Mayans push that mass through the middle in the treb wars. Hussars will do decent vs eagles, but your CA will have a hard time dealing enough damage. Never make UU as Mayans vs Tatars. They trade horribly vs Tatar CA. Incas are probably the roughest. That extra pierce armor on eagles make CA untenable. Access to halbs stops a Cavalier switch. Pretty much hope you can get to your hand cannons before dying to raids or to losing the treb war. Tatar hussar again trade surpassingly well vs just eagles, but mixing in halbs makes it rough. Just hope you can raid the Incas to death.
Koreans: surprising mention, but on maps with a lot of stone, tower spam+siege+halbs can ruin Tatars. Japanese fall into this camp too, switching out siege for CA. Win before post-imp is a must.
Georgians: feels like a civ win for Tatars. I don’t see Georgians going into much but their UU, and Tatars have FU camels and their CA shreds the UU. Go camels for the early spam and switch into CA later. Focus on defense and map control. You win late.
I’m sure there are other matchups I have forgot, but these were some ones I wanted to highlight. Tatars really feel like an anti-meta civ, surprising the usual archer or knight civs with their timings and their roster diversity (super strong CA and hussar, access to FU camels and hand cannons), but struggle vs other anti-meta strays (full stone wall halb-siege, late game tower spam). They also struggle vs all in early castle siege pushes with their lack of redemption and average eco. Sheep bonus on extra TCs is underrated as you can go 3TC and 3 range CA+ballistics pretty quickly as you don’t need to add farms immediately when a new TC is built, just throw 3-4 vils on sheep and you should be good for 5 minutes if you went up to castle with 14+ farms. The name of the game is to get enough CA to stop any push up the middle/forward castles, and get to hussar spam. Hold map control with CA and castles, and raid opponent with hussar with +1/+1 hussar/light cav.
Nice in depth report! I always liked the Tatars and their well rounded tech tree but it seems I always come up a bit short. Maybe a little more late game economy boost or a stronger UU would have helped. Maybe an AI brain chip implant would be best for me however.
Tatars are also my mazbe 2nd or 3rd favorite civ.. Sometime i forgot ballistics bcs free thumbring works so well :D
This is an essay ! Thanks for writing this down, that is an insane effort. You should make a video out of it
Only correction is that Huns do in fact have halberdier, just like the Tatars.
Have you question the Franks not having good halb/siege. They have fully upgraded halbs. They have siege engineers, bombard cannons and onagers (not siege onagers but that tech is very expensive). Interesting read otherwise.
Hey law , guys of the spirit here
-Jesus' disciples talking to the Jewish leaders after Pentecost
Hussite Wagons need a rework, IMO. They don't feel like "makeshift forts" anymore and feel more like a Panzer. That and they just power-creep Organ Guns.
I really wish they were a deployable unit like a Trebuchet, but instead of being long-range artillery they would be essentially a turret that can be redeployed where needed. You'd be able to use them to creep forward by "leapfrogging" (look at how this is done in Starcraft with Siege Tanks), or use them defensively to protect resources without needing to build static defenses.
I like the thought of them as a sort of mobile tower, and if they dont include a passive that makes projectiles stop/target a wagon if it passes it (not applying to gunpowder)
@@Nazuiko pretty sure that mechanic is already in the game
Hussite Wagons bringing blitzkrieg to 1419
The problem with Hussite Wagons is they were changed at all; a unit that you rarely mass or micro rubs players the wrong way, especially at the high level. They were supposed to be mixed in with archery range units to help those against enemy ranged units, not be a generalist unit.
@@sam_sanister that would be neat: the wagon is empty and deals no damage so you must garrison it, like a ram, in order to fire. Every unit, up to say 5, reduces time to set up, and any on foot range unit can be placed inside; if you mix units the overall damage and bonifcation may very against certain units allowing for interesting combinations against specific civs. If done correctly the wagon might be discounted since no longer is selfsufficient besides a barrier of a sort.
Honestly I feel like Jaguars need a rework. I would make them faster, almost as fast as an Eagle Warrior, lower their base damage and increase their damage to infantry. This would make them more of a unique anti infantry unit and less of a "bad champion".
for sure. You never see them used. They could also just get a fat health buff to improve them vs their own typical counters.
I like that idea, would give them a true unique identity.
I like that rebalance.
I would love a Jaguar rework
i hear the growl of a jaguar. is this a bad omen?
I asked and Spirit of the Law answered!
As for the Persians countering archer civs, I'd like to add that they now have Parthian Tactics in Castle Age, which adds +2 pierce armor to their Cavalry Archers.
Ethiopians vs Goths is a believable one. I once lost as Goths vs Ethiopians on the ranked ladder (1400 Elo, random civ). Shotel Warriors absolutely wrecked my units. Perhaps it's mainly the Ethiopian UU that brings the matchup in their favor, though their very early archer rush potential probably plays a role, too.
Ethiopians were my long time favourite - true powerhouse, in this game.. if I pick ethiopians I can blame only my skills never civ match or anything else.
Very informative video. I didn't know Byz vs Bohemians goes that bad!
Any Byz player facing up Bohemians can rely to their Monk with redemption. Pretty effective with spear/pikemen to keep Bohemian scouts away. Monk can heal pretty fast too. Skirms if enemy goes hand cannoneers although gold heavy, they can't afford all.
The rest of the game is on y'all own pace. Just pray they gave up after realising that castle age push not working in their favour I guess...
Plus anything monk, bohem does better than byz
@@brandonrhoades7049 Byzantine monks don't lack anything. You could fully go into a monk war with them, only problem happens if they get the food tech and then it's food monks vs gold monks. Byzantine players just maybe not playing the match up correctly in the early to mid game then having worse siege late making Imperial age battles poor for them.
On paper this does not seem like it would be that one sided.
@@QuintemTA Never did I say anything that opposes that. Bohem and Byz monks are only seperated by the food tech, which makes behem slightly better.
Spirit of the la hire!!
Great Video. One thing I noticed in the Cav. Archer civs was the fact they are backed up by light/heavy cavalry who already be countered by the camels. If they have some infantry or even a halberdier, they can reduce this disvantage against them.
Hey spirit of the law, guys here.
Edit: "Hey spirit of the law, GAYS here" 💀
Hey AmirMishel
Hey Spirit of the guys, Law here. 😂
Hey guys of the spirit, Law here
Hey@@nok9463, Amir of the Mishel here.
Hey spirit, guys of the law here. No really. Im serious, THIS IS THE FBI, OPEN UP!
caught it early! Love your content!
I think it would be cool to see the top 5 or 10 most frequently picked civs and their worst matchup.
And perhaps also the reverse. The best matchup for the least picked civs.
does anyone else still think its wild that they gave Roman Legionaries jaguar features AND Japanese features? it still feels like power creep to this day
Pax eterna!
Yeah, it felt bad enough to have infantry (champion) civs already losing to other civs because other units are just better than inf, and now they can't even compete with another infantry civ...
In my opinion, legionaries are probably fine now, because they are decently usable, but they should buff champion a bit more, so top champ civs manage to beat legionaries slightly
@@pabloduarte1722 eh, I don't think so. Legionaries should be special. Lol.
It's 100% powercreep and pay2win.
@@alyenendrovtsorokean7406 they would still be special, would still be one of the best champions while also having way cheaper tech cost and time, they only need 1 imperial upgrade, while champions have 2 that cost more resources and time and they are worse, and even legionaries get +4/+4 resistances for the cheaper cost of 2 techs, while champs get +3/+4 for the price of 3 wich the last one costs more, and legionaties can have it in castle age, just too unfair for other infantry civs...
Hit and run hussite wagons just looks funny. They should be used like how battering rams absorb arrow fire, but they also shoot back.
I like to play bulgarians into mezocivs on Arabia. the cheap and fast switch into the militia-line shuts down eagle play quite well and castle age lightcav play is also very strong thanks to stirrups, which counters monks.
these fast switches between cav and infantry play + good siege in the late game means that you can simply outpace and counter mezo civs at all stages of the game. the least affected mezo civ are the mayans, but they too struggle without eagles against heavy siege play, which bulgarians can go for.
Saw Hera playing bulgarians into atztecs in a tournament last year absolutly dominating and tried it myself in tournaments i play with friends. Works really well and aztecs and incas are also among the weakest civs against bulgarians according to the stats.
Also bulgarians got the most banger song when you start the game. Love every excuse i get to play them.
May I ask what ELO you play at? Cause on the average Bulgarians don't really counter mesociv, especially Inca and Mayans. Both can easily defend against Bulgarians, and have eco which is far superior. Only Aztecs can theoretically struggle against them, even then it's tough as Aztec eco is usually way ahead.
@@Chungabunga I think bulgarians can smash any civ in game if you are aggressive enough, no matter elo :D
@@krystofcisar469 Yeah nah that's just not right man 😂. You're assuming your opponent will just sit back and enjoy the show lmao. Mass archers and Bulgarians are nullified, at least if the same elo aka skill.
I'd say that the Aztecs need a way to actually produce them.
They have relatively weak castles and they also need to make trebs from them.
I think it would be interesting if their castles were able to produce two kinds of units at the same time, so they could make trebs and Jaguar Warriors from the same castle.
Hey guys, spirit of the lawn here. In this video I will be talking about the most one-sided gardening tools
Hey guys, spirit of the lawl here. In this video, I will be talking about the dadliest jokes since time immemorial until now.
A lot of games would be give anything for 60/40 worst matchups. Fighting games sometimes have 8-2 or even 9-1 on occasion.
Tho usually only fighting games older than AoE2 have anything like a 8-2 matchup
I think Malians are a much harder anti-mayan civ than goths generally (certainly at mid elo level) - They have similar eco to the Mayans with the wood discount and their gold bonus whilst their 'Champscarls' are very hard for the Mayans to do anything about.
Champskars don't have bonus damage against archers nor the speed of Huskarls (Nor Blast Furnace) nor the crazy Goth discount to spam them, so they still don't really kill them fast enough compared to Huskarls where them by themselves kill anything Mayans do once production gets going
Plumed archers especially can easily micro down champskarls but not Huskarls due to the speed difference
@@Mattroid99 Champskarls have 8 pierce armor while an elite huskarl has 10. This means archers, specifically arbalesters, do double damage to champskarls compared to huskarls.
Since you did bring up Mayans, though, plumed archers do 3 damage to Champskarls, and only 2 to Elite Huskarls
@@coxandrewj Exactly. And they are not fast either unlike something like Woad Raiders that have little pierce armor but are so fast that 40 of them still shred archers
I would say though that the matchup is still decent for Malians, and Champskarls are still pretty good vs most of what Mayans can field
@@Mattroid99 I think I meant to reply to the other guy but replied to you :D But yes, Mayans have a losing record against Malians. At the highest level they only have a 43.75% win rate
Really hope Byzantines get something someday, I miss enjoying my favorite civ but it's not so fun against the recent power creep.
Most one-sided matchups happen on water and hybrid maps, in my opinion. The other day I randomed into Huns vs Persians on islands. I tried my best, but the faster working docks resulted in a snowball effect eventually.
if you think Incas vs Gurjaras winning 66.4% is a high number, remember that when japanese fight japanese, the japanese win 100%
Lols
@@capablemachinebecause every 60 minutes in japan, an hour passes
Of course. The Japanese unique unit hard counters the Japanese unique unit.
I experienced the Byz-boi (myself) failing against Bohemians just the other day
It's interesting to me how often you try to play off a bad matchup as being better than it is, and then turn right around and say the opposite for very similar numbers: A 46.2% winrate (terrible) is called "close to even" but then a 45.5% winrate (also terrible, just marginally worse) is bad enough to get onto one of the dedicated slides.
Next time you make a video like this, can you include the winrate deltas?
i.e., "this civ wins 41% in this matchup, while having a 48.7% winrate overall (Delta 7.7%)
Okay, but can we give props to that MADLASS of a Villager at 3:59, joining the Men-at-Arms in raiding with only a knife?
SotL: You can probably guess who the top match ups are.
Me, who hasn't played AoE2: DE for years, but watch SotL religiously: Probably Persians and Archer civs
Composite bow vs Huskarl is such a cool trick, so satisfying. BTW I've totally won a Byz vs Bohemians match.... on Islands.
Romens vs Byzantines would be an interesting match.
*"Hey hey, people. Spirit here."*
Based sseth enjoyer
I now know what to pick vs extreme AI now 😂
Where my 1 minute gang
Against the Goths, if your unique unit is also an archer as an archer civ - that's when I think it becomes somewhat hard. The Mayan Eco Bonus alongside just being a well-rounded civ is great. But as my Vietnamese the eco bonuses are nice, but they always come at an initial cost. Goths getting both bloodlines & halbs give *0* recourse for quite a few archer focussed civs!
I don't know why I keep watching your vids when I don't have the Definitive Edition.
One idea i had some time ago was to change the swordsman line's bonus damage vs. eagles from +0/2/6/8/8 to +0/3/4/5/6, in exchange for some potential buffs
I really like playing as Goths vs Archers (around 1200 player here). It's really like putting enemy on a timer. You either build castle and mass Huscarls, or loose in early game.
4:58 Armenian composite bowman : "Call the medical corps, but not for me!"
Spirit of the here, law guys
Hey SOTL, video request:
Can you do an analysis what is the effect of winning the water space in Nomad? How much do you balance water investment vs. needs on land?
i can imagine how hard it must be to buff or nerf until its a fair match up for all...
Great content as always, cheers 👍🇦🇺
When I was a kid I played a skirmish as the Japanese against the Teutons and Byzantines thinking my Samurai would have the advantage with their bonus against Unique Units. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! It was a slaughter.
brootal and total domination, oh boy
I have personally always viewed Mayans as a hard counter to Goths in a 1v1 setting. Goths don't have an eco bonus, and Mayans have cheap units just like Goths, while not needing to spend much food on their army. So they'll go up way faster than Goths and can dominate the pace of the game entirely. Your best bet with Goths is just to start laming right away and make the game super scrappy to even the odds a bit.
basically just dont let goths build a castle and you are golden.
Hey Spirit,
Could you use this same data to 'diagonalise' the civs?
There are now so many civs that it makes sense to subdivide them into subsets of 5~10 civs that play similarly. Of course most players could produce subsets if you ask them, but I wonder what the stats imply. Based on this 1v1 data, how would you group the civs?
This grouping is relevant for new players, as learning 45 civs at once is impossible and instead learning 5~9 representatives is a lot more achievable. I know AoE2 is not pulling many new players, but it is still something to keep in the back of the mind. Essentially, the grouping would be the equivalent of League of Legends' 7 champion classes (mage, fighter, tank, ...).
Even accounting for p-hacking, we can probabilistically say that, if Gurjaras vs. Incas was a 44.8% matchup, we would be 95%+ to not see a winrate as low as 33.6%.
But did you account for p-universes?
good stuff
Gang
Britons really need a buff
Haven't watched but I know Gurjaras are gonna be on here
My favorite match up is Goths vs Britons.
Let's assume competent level play here.
The Briton player has to act more aggressively than is the civ norm to prevent any kind of economy that will spill over into the dreaded Huskarl.
The Gothic player must play into their civ weakness and defend against this constant pressure long enough to pop out their I win button.
If even a single Goth castle goes up, the game is over.
Cheap barracks units/Huskarl rush the Briton to death.
My favourite match up of all time was as a new player, random, I got goths, my opponent got mongols. it was hilarious
"Whoops, we made our most recent and most expensive new DLC severely OP!
Dont worry, we'll nerf it a little when everyone has bought it."
-every live service multiplayer game in the past 15 years.
Spirit laws, hey guys
I cant believe you left out the koreans vs franks. As it was the most one sided your last video
How about Dravidian vs any naval civilization?
I wonder what's the lowest picked civ in general is
I guess the surprising result with the Ethiopians vs Goths is due to their strong archer rush, that probably ends a lot of games before the Goth bonuses really kick in, and late game they have Torsion Engines, which trashes infantry. Also shotels are really good versus weak defenses, which the Goths of course have.
I don't think this is one-sided, but my favorite matchup is Italians vs Bohemians. The first one Bohemians have a sizable number of advantages (including free mining techs and early access to hand cannons), but Bohemian's entire army comp (excluding Xbows) is hard-countered by Condotierri (which Italians have in imp). So Bohemians basically have to kill the Italians player before imperial age.
Hmm... Am gonna have to try that one out. I'd counter the Condotierri with a combo of scorpions and hand cannoneer, possibly supported by the champion. That should do the trick, no?
Tbh in team games - bohemians hard counter everything. But in 1V1 id still pick Italians.
@@Quyanxi bohem doesnt have champion
Very simple: It depends on SKILL! NOT necessarily the advantages of civs!
One I think is really one sided is teutons against goths teutonic knight can destroy everything goths throws at them
I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I imagine Vietnam has an edge on other archer civs between Rattan archers and imperial skirmishers
They are great, but mass longbows are still pain to deal with.
I'd like to see how historical matchups look. How do Britons fare against Franks? Or Franks against Saracens? What about Romans against Huns and Goths?
I was actually expecting the Aztecs to be countered by a few cavalry civs, not the usual infantry.
I wonder, were there actual real life plans for the Spaniards to have once thought to colonize Burma, so to counter Britain's spread from India?
As a Byzantines main (granted, ~850 ELO) I always feel great as Byzantines against a Goth player. I love cleaning up huskarals and pikes with Cataphracts. I usually don't make Cataphracts but always do when I'm against a Goth player. It's surprising that Goths have a higher winrate versus Byzantines.
trueeeeeee
Unless you already have a huge economic advantage, Goths infantry is both cheap and fast to train. Byzantines simply couldn't afford cataphract spam to counter goth mobs in long term.
I find Berbers against any cavalry or cavCheaper stable units, plus awesome camel units....
The Mayan oth matchup is really interesting bc the raw eco advantage isnt that big anymore with the longer lasting hunt that is basically equal to the mayan bonus in dark age and fast Loom. That used to be a lot mroe lobsided.
Huns can beat Hindustani in late Imp bc Halb/Paladin >> Camel/HC. most players dont know this.
I don't even play ranked AOE. I hardly even do multiplayer. But I am still fascinated with your videos nonetheless!
As a very casual player (play every-day but rarely do ladder), my personal one-sided is Burmese against anything. I really struggle with them, can barely make them work and end up defaulting in a fast castle + siege.
Guys hey, law of the spirits here.
Byzantine need to be strengthened in their defensive bonuses or add skme sort of new feature
Hey heys, its hey here.
Conclusion: every one beats goths nowadays.
Tbh all civs that have gunpowder and hussars is killer to mezo civs :D and huns should totally get steppe lancers
You can check Mongols vs camels civilizations.
Ahh... excellent
They really should buff chakrams again. :'(
Can you please do a video on that?
Hey Spirit of the law. I'm wondering if the recent infantry buff has modified the rock-paper-scissors system. If it has, can you do an updated video talking about counters and soft counters?
what i got from this video is that goths need help XD, well, the video is pretty old but seeing how many times goth are pointed here as having a disadvantage...
Hey Spirit, what's your opinion on the recent auto farm placement update?
I like to play Persians vs Franks. Camel + Xbow into full late game Hussar + Trashbow is something the Franks have little answer to unless they flat-out play better than you in terms of micro.
is it possible to get these stats but for arena only
10:10 got it, instantly resign vs bohemians. I didn't pick Byzantines to NOT mass cataphracts lol (yes I'm low elo)
My favourite match up is playing Koreans against dromon civs on northern islands. Just get one more relic and build tower that outranged any dromon.
Unfair matchup nowadays: mongols vs almost any civ
That makes me curious. What is the least played match up in the game?
Despite having BBC, hussars and Paladins, Byzantines still can not deal with wagons? Interesting.
Most of that only comes in (late) imp, Wagons can roll in and start wrecking from castle age. Also while Byzantines may have those units, the Cavalry still subpar due to lacking upgrades (bloodlines, blast furnace). And Bohemians have excellent tools to deal with those would-be counters. (Halbs, better BBC of their own).
It's obviously not quite as simple as that, but Bohemians do seem to have an advantage.
bbc are countered by houfnitze
a bunch of wagons with a few houfnitze with them are very hard to deal with
Yeah, probably most maches ends in Castle Age, where Bohemian Wagon Rush is very strong, and Byzantines are the weakest.
@@NivMizzet89 Byzantines can make monks vs hussite wagons in castle age
Ethiopians vs Goths makes sense to me as an Ethiopian main/favorite. Etheopians getting pikes for free in castle means Goths can't go cav as easily and the late game siege plus shotels killing the majority of the Goth Comp and being just as spamable means goths cant really win late either. I dont think it is a matter of Ethiopian archers coming into play really (though faster attack does make them the best archers against huskarls if you have a frontline)
I think unique units not always are decisive on this matchups
Give all civs more techs as they seem to miss too much of the tech tree... For example why do mayans have to miss champions? They don't have access to high hp melee soldiers except the champions and their upgraded eagle warriors...
I think devs hates Byzantines
They need to sloghtly reduce the bonuses vs eagles
IMO the 1v1 stats just show more than 99% of games don't make it to Imp and early game eco, macro, and tactical aggression wins. Up to castle age the civ barely matters, but the player does!
i wonder how teutons vs melee civs match up
Like teuton knight line beats franks
Teuton uu is known for destruction
Teuton rams are atv
Teuton defense cant be breached by melee
They dont even lose against "ignore armor" civs, cause of def skills and hard hits
Its a top 5 civ since ages, but is it really just slightly above general?
Are Ethiopians really beatiing Goths, or are surprise Shotels beating Huskarls?
Shotels are beating everything Goths can do that isnt cav archer or hand canoneer :D Shotels are so good. Huscrals suck against other infantry gold units.
Can you guys play the game since last patch ? The game always crash mid game for me since, and never it did before :/