The biggest takeaway is that Obuch aren't just increasing the damage of themselves, it also improves the damage of every other unit attacking. Never take losing battles versus obuch as their advantage snowballs hard.
The issue here is that even after a winning fight, you can't use those paladins to raid/fight anymore, they gotta go directly into a castle or a pack of monks cuz otherwise they'll die to skirmishers/arrowfire like flies.
Imagine how strong they can be in a team game where your ally goes for ranged units: you can annihilate basically every army, even the classic paladin horde is hopeless. Maybe only a mass of scorpions can be effective
Probably one of the most controversial thing about AoE2 is that javelins do less damage than arrows/bolts, can reach just as far as an arrow AND is very effective against archers. My guess is the devs wanted to implement the rock/paper/scissor mechanic, but came empty handed when implementing an "anti-archer" unit, and so the most out of place unit of aoe was born (aside from the bactrian camel riding, sword throwing mameluke).
@@masafromhell Skirmishers mean are more like flank of vanguard type of unit and can be any type like are light infantry ( Archer also fine) or light cavalry it funny aoe2 give them a spear as a weapon The purpose of Skirm are harass, ambuse flank and often go for short fight. That why Vietnamese got imperial Skirm even they didnt even use spear that must in history
@@adriaan4808 this is true. spears and javelins are quite easy to use, especially en masse when accuracy is not really a big deal. Archery however, especially on the poundage of a warbow is an art for people who bodybuild. Crossbows then again are quite easy to use again.
@@MrMeszaros that's true but in real life its not a huge factor, armies arent always moving around and fighting like in aoe in real life they would have camps with supply chains going all the time. Ranged units would more often be used defensively rather than offensively. If your running up to a fort or city then sure, you could only carry a couple javelins while you could instead carry like 30+ arrows probably. When defending a base though, you pretty much have as many javelins as you want because you're staying put and have your stockpile with you.
The Poles remind me a little of the Franks. Both have castles incentives, both have good cavalry backed up by decent eco, and both have a unique unit that handles cavalry-counters quite well. The synergies is what makes civs like Franks so hard to deal with and I feel that the Poles have similar (not identical) synergies.
I guess a good counter would be Onagers who can kill them quickly. perhaps the Shotel Warrior could also be pretty good with it's high attack low hp/armor combo, same for the Gebeto
@@TheLive100 I confirm that the Gebeto can just kite and kill them forever. But thats just Girlboss Gebeto things as always. Also Slingers at lategame counter the whole thing.
I wouldn’t go onagers vs poles lol. A obuch hussar combination would trade very well with a classic halb siege onager. Plus they have bbc to snipe onagers.
I have felt like Obuch is a true power unit of poles, discounted knights are strong yet obvious and not as hard to counter, but going obuch and arbs seems et least as powerful to me and way less obvious. Especially given that it still frees up your food and stables to spam complementary winged bois. At the very least it gives poles flexibility that might prove gamechanging at higher ELO and tournaments. Also consider team games, imagine combing Obuch with Chu-Ko-Nus. Or Mayan skirms at the very least.
That is a good to remember, but you have also take in care that a lot of multi projectile units fire 1 damage arrows, which are completly unaffected by armor (or the lack thereof). the chukonu's additional arrow do deal 3 pierce damage, so they in particular could greatly benefit from the armor tearing. Also do take in care even if they don't win the debuff doesn't fade until you take the time to heal your units, making the influence of the obuch in the game expand even beyond death, and when figthing poles, you need to keep in mind that your units can be extremely weakened beyond what you expect after a figth if obuch are involved
@@Gyrant and infantry. obuch are surprisingly good vs inf when backed up by ranged. only counter to that doomball is full missile spam and pray the opponent has not had the time to mass winged hussars.
Its funny to me how alot of YT commenters colour their perception of a unit based on MikeEmpires' videos where everything is in postImp with units charging one another, rather than actual games. Props to Spirit for showing some actual unit comps
@@Stat1onary A YT channel who makes unit vs unit videos, you can get some misconceptions if you watch without context, but it can be pretty helpful to understand some matchups, including civ specific ones.
Man, I just love how much effort you put in those videos. The quantity of data and all the possibilities that you have to come up with is incredible. Every time i watch you video, it seems like a little semstral work at uni. You are awesome, keep it going.
They have the highest bonus damage of any infantry unit it’s just their low attack holding them back a little but that seems fair as they are a great combo unit
@@krzkam7792 I don't think hammers designed for war are particularly useful for construction, any more than the lightweight axes made for war are suited for cutting down trees.
I like that the Obuch seems like a unit that their civilization actually relies on rather than a (at best) situational gimmick, like the uu of some other civs
11:18 I think SotL frequently underestimates the size of his audience, I think we're at the point were devs are tuning in to SotL to unwind. It's blinking hard on the radar now sir, so it's gonna get nerfed.
People say Obuchs have no counters, yet there's Archers, Hand Cannoneers, Scorpions, Onagers and for some civs Heavy Cavalry to deal with them. Quite a balanced unit and mostly useless on its own. And simultaneously teching into different units isn't cheap. It's nearly the same as a Serjeant, which can cone in clutch though constructing mini Castles.
@@NeonLine Only Cataphract beat Obuch as heavy cavalry. Obuch breaking armor ability make them unfightable in melee combat because without Pierce armor, your units die to even skirmisher and Obuch also stronger than other infantries with cheap cost and upgrades. Other units you mentioned are only soft counters. Also having counters doesn't prevent a unit being OP. For instance, if Paladin has 300 HP, Halberdier still counter them cost efficiently. Is 300 HP Paladin balanced? Of course it is not.
4:40 Also with high armor units that means they can afford to lose a few points. Lower armor units though are extremely hurt by just 1 or 2 points less.
hey spirit, i really respect how you put effort into pronouncing foreign words the right way. it's a small thing but most others don't even bother with it, which is why i like that in every video of yours so far, you've always made the effort to pronounce names as best as you can. no one's expecting a perfect native level pronunciation but the effort is greatly appreciated!
Teutonic Knight: Kills Obuch anyways Obuch: :( Teutonic Knight: Now to kill all your frie- Teutonic Knight: ~Notices his armor is fucking *gone*~ Obuch: *>:)* Teutonic Knight: oh no Obuch: *Oh Yes*
I think their most interesting feature is the one you said for last. Making tough units more vulnerable to cheaper counters seems quite a good idea, and perhaps a way to make the huskarl less threatening if it enters the firing range of castles...
When I designed my first game, almost every unit starts with a clone of some other units I made, it really saves time when there are so many assets in game.
I mean its not exactly a crime. That's literally how modders make things. If I want to make a cavalry UU, its very easy to use the knight as a base, since by doing so you already have things like its various armour types established for the purposes of bonus damage from enemy units, as well as just having an established HP, attack and more established as a base. With ranged units it can be especially tedious reprogramming all of the stuff related to projectile speed, firing rate, range, projectile type, accuracy, frame delay etc. Not to mention it increases the chance of human error as it can be very easy to overlook some things or enter something wrong. On the other hand you do need to be careful to remember to change all of the unit's attributes. When I modded a new UU for the Persians I forgot to change the sound files associated with it, so I had a horse unit making elephant noises. Its not a huge deal though and can be fixed in like 5 minutes. The Obuchs making Donjons will be fixed in the next patch for sure.
@@Igor369 Most likely because it's the newest unit, with the cleanest code. If you start out by copying, at least copy the nice stuff, instead of the old ugly one. It was most likely used as template and then customized anyway.
always interesting to see your indepths analysis on the unique units and as a newbie I appreciate your combination take at the end. would love to see this for every civ, gives me as someone who is rather low skilled a good idea of how to play this civ.
I laughed at this point "hopefully as long as this unit stays niche and under the radar"... Makes a video about it reaching a large audience ;) Love your videos as always, very entertaining, and easy to listen to!
I could see them losing some pierce armour, as the game itself lists archers as a weakness of them but they're better at soaking up arrow fire than Champions.
Yeah, they should lose some pierce armour especially in castle age & possibly cost more gold. But their Stone gold needs the biggest nerf. I’m winning 70% of my matches with them in 1v1 arena doin 26+2 castle drops. Followed up by obuch & rams. Possibly their UT should be -40% gold for knights which would be solid and then maybe give them cheaper light cavalry upgrades also so their Winged Hussars are easier to tech into. Another cool idea would be that winged Hussars replaces light Cav upgrade not hussar upgrade making winged Hussars available in castle and skipping light Cav upgrade all together for a scouts in winged hussar play could be fun.
The real takeaway of this video is honestly that Skirms are a valid replacement for Arbs in this scenario. Getting an Obuch + Arbalest scenario is so expensive it's almost not a valid strat on pro level. But the skirm thing is a huge game changer
It is really an interesting unit and shows that devs experimenting with new ideas in the game can have fun results. Too bad they couldn't even name them correctly.
Using them to combo with others is what makes them most interesting to me, seems especially fun to try to strip the armor off major tanky units in their reach. I'd love a video going in-depth on how to best capitalize on this in practical scenarios, if it's enough to warrant a video after having had more experience using the unit and being up against it.
Wow. I was like... ok, ok, not bad... then that combo with ranged units? SOLD! :D I did not think about it, but its actually a very simple combo - of tanky hard hitting infantry, that "buffs" all archers behind permanently for the fight (or even multiple fights)! That sounds fun!
The Obuch are a very interesting new unit, so thanks for this insightful video, Mr SoTL. 😃👍 I've only seen one game where they were used - the Player massed huge numbers of them and wiped the floor with his opponent. Powerful. 💪 M 🦘🏏😎
I think they are this strong on purpose to balance out not having Halbs and a weak imp heavy Cav. Essentially, you are supposed to counter cav with obuch as supporting unit + damage dealer of choice.
Interesting video. I was most impressed with the statistics of a skirmishers in combination with obuch vs Paladins. Very interesting Also the performance of obuch just as good as pikes vs Paladins. From playing this civ I’ve discovered a few things. It’s almost always a good idea to include the obuch into your army no matter what other units you have. Also because of how this civ tends to float gold it’s almost always a good idea run a double gold unit composition whether it’s obuch and arbs or obuch and cavalier. Nice to know skirms are this effective with obuch and use gold elsewhere.
Kudos for trying to pronounce obuch authentically. By the way, the correct plural to obuch is obuchy, with the final y being pronounced like the i in 'in'. Also, in the plural the stress of obuchy shifts to the u, since in Polish almost always the second to last syllable is stressed
@@filipbitala2624 It's cheaper than just about every melee unique unit, and barely more expensive than champions, yet performs significantly better than almost all of them. Even its upgrade cost is rather cheap! And as shown, it can even enable trash units, who are normally particularly hard hit by enemy armour, to do about as well as gold units for most civilisations Its only significant counters are hard counters to infantry, which are pretty much going to either demolish any other infantry unit, and aside from onagers/scorpions, aren't available to every civilisation. That and expensive, high power units, which again, they tend to do a lot better than most units against, and are typically significantly easier to counter with trash than the Obuch. It's cheap, strong by itself, allows you to use cheap units more effectively, and are easy to mass for a unique unit thanks to its quick creation speed and Polish buff to stone mining. It'd be a pretty okay melee unit even without the armour destruction, but right now it's too good with too few weaknesses.
@@rubywest5166 i didnt say it wasnt op, i said its expensive, which it is you compare it to a champion, champion is expensive too, you dont have to write a whole essay just to look like you anything about the game, you can just write “nah he is not expensive bcs i said so” and dont bother filling an aplication for ‘knows X about Y game’ next time
@@filipbitala2624 It's not... Given the update cost is 800/600, that's really low. Plus, where the cost of building a castle is usually in on top of other unique units, Obuch are right now hard to counter, because you can produce them in high numbers, when the enemy comes marching. They don't have bonus damage against cavalry, but stripping armor means that a lingering raiding party without monks, is practically useless. As the Obuch is right now, there is now logically counter. A possible nerf, without making the unit too weak, could be removing 1 pierce armour, or raising the upgrade cost to, say, 1000/750
@@filipbitala2624 It costs 10 food more than a champion. Food being a plentiful resource as it is, let alone for the poles. And 20 gold is also pretty cheap, especially given poles get extra through their stone mining. If that's expensive to you, quite frankly that's enough to make me doubt you even want to play AoE2. And even if it wasn't, it doesn't matter because it's so good you're still getting incredibly value for money, which is why I actually tried explaining it to you.
Not sure if its me but I feel the last few civs to come out are getting some insanely strong stuff, often able to circumvent mechanics or tactics that everyone else has to rely on. That's kind of a theme for both aoe2 and aoe3 where new unique units or civ bonuses outshine other options or alter what you'd usually see in terms of compositon or build order.
Not sure if that is intentional or if they just want to make them a new relevant unit that feels good to play and usually overshoot their goal by a bit.
I know that SoTL does not likes the "psychological factor" comments and that he wants to keep the discussion as objetive as posssible, but I think there is another good argument to make for the Obouch against cavalry in real game scenario: Cavalry has the movility, they pick which fights to take, and any cavalry player would insta-run from spear line units unless he absolutely has to fight them with its knights. But when it comes to obouch, a cavalry player unaware of how good they fare against its units, could send his outnumbered knights against a group of Obouch thinking "its heavy infantry, no bonus, I will get a decent enough trade" only to see his units being almost wiped out and losing lots of gold in a non efficient fight. Point is, the psychological factor of cavalry daring to fight infantry that is not pikes :D
My current Polish strat is scout rush, 6 vils on stone (none on gold) gives you more than enough to castle drop immediately after aging up. Then you can get szlachta and switch to knights OR, if you feel cheeky, 15 Obuch can snipe a TC alarmingly well.
Best way to use obuch is mass them along with Huss spam because the Hussar will counter the ranged units which counter obuchs and the obuchs will counter literally everything else. Poles is such a coherent and amazing civ, everything plays together so nicely.
Interesting unit especially with the mechanic to hit armor directly and do -1/-1 per hit. Making units do more damage than usual. Best way to counter the polish is to rely on making lots of siege and bonus damage units such as skirmishers and halbs to kill cav units and to use siege such as scorpions against archer units.
They have a lot of strengths like their armor, their synergy with low attack ranged units (mostly the skirm cuz no gold cost for me) and their already low cost. Other UU infantry like woad raiders cost 65 and 25 and after supplies was introduced, they never applied supplies to the existing infantry UU. But the Obuch costs 55 and 25 so it's like it got a 10 food cost reduction. In terms of comparing production speed I like to look at it in terms of how many villagers I need to maintain constant production from one castle. From that perspective I think IIRC Obuch were like 16 farmers and like 6 gold miners. That's a lot. With 6 farmers just for producing vills from 1 tc, that puts the total to 28 villagers. That's around how much you go up with for some arena fast castle into castle age UU build. And those 22 farmers all need farms which is 60*22 wood or like 1320 wood. Finally while the Obuch + Skirm combo beat the knights, the Obuch and Skirm combo cost way more resources. I think pure Obuch also works better. Strong unit. I beat a bunch of Malian Champskarls using mass Obuch recently and I don't think I could do the same with equal costs of Serjeants, Woad Raiders, or Zerks.
...I don't like the high Armor values all the new civs get on their Unique units. Both Serjant and Obuch get high melee and ranged armor, which makes them great all-round fighters.
Serjeants definitely don't. They are pretty weak due to their high gold cost. Their damage output also isn't great. Moreover they don't have special combat ability like Obuch. Even Berserkers wreck Serjeants with efficient cost, and Obuch completely wreck Berserkers.
Serjeants are really nothing special, they do preform conciderably better against archer, but have a much higher gold cost and lack mobility (as most infantry do). The Obuch is OP compared to regular longswordsmen/Champions, but share the same weaknesses that all infantry have and thus has very specific use cases. Overall, i'd say that the problem is that cavalry is generally way superior to infantry (except against high mobility infantry and trash).
It's their attempt to make the infantry options a reasonable choice VS going for Cav like everyone else, and even still both sicillians and poles both go cav most of the time anyway.
I think the Obuch showcases just how squishy the Champion line is. I never liked how weak these units are in AoE2, infantry should be a little tankier. The Obuch looks like a proper infantry unit, with enough HP to take a few arrows, and good performance up close.
I also see a good point against elephants : usually, civs that don't have access to hallberdier tend to be trampled (no pun intended) by mass elephants. While the Obuch isn't a counter to the elephant by any means, it's ability to strip off the opponent's armor makes other units of the poles much more effective in finishing them. Archers in particular benefit a lot from it : elephants are big arrow sponges because of their combinaison of high HP + High pierce armor. Remove the pierce armor and they end up surprisingly squishy against ranged attacks
My poles gameplan is basically straight arch, castle drop, knights spam and the clean up w obuch. Rarely will you get a civ that can transition through those units to infantry so smoothly. obuch cleans up pikes/halbs if i decide to keep going knights and complements archers if my opponent is going heavy into scouts
The obuch is like the badass hooded unit you always wanted in the game to create an Assassin’s Creed like custom scenario or one with an executioner who kills prisoners and villagers for a local tyrant
@@heinz8233 Certainly solid and reliable alone- but because they make other, cheaper units more effective, and strengthen soft counters, it seems like you should get the most bang for your buck if you think of them as a combo unit rather than a backbone.
That they can aid Ranged units like that is propably the biggest balancing issue here. The Skirmishers damage is basically kept in check by armor and them dealing mostly bonus damage. But the Obuch can strip the pierce armor, making them way more effective. Any pierce resistant unit the Obuch can catch, becomes instantly vulnerable to piercing. Could you maybe try them at equal cost against various unique units, with and without Skirmishers as support?
you often compare what amount of HP is left on the units to see how effective they are, but, something neat too is that even if they lose the trade, you have to account for the armor loss as well in that trade, so they seem like a really powerful unit in general if even losing trades aren't that bad
About the analysis of champions vs. halbedier it needs to be said that if the opponent does not get the final armor upgrade, that is a huge boost for the champions performance as it kills the halbedier in 4 hits instead of 5. I am not sure if the obuch would still outperform the champion if both were fighting against halbediers with only +2 armor, as obuchs would still need 5 hits.
The Obuch vs Teutonic knight match-up lack a group version. 1 on 1 the knights overabundance of armor negates the armor stripping but what of group fights where they can be brought down to near 0 in one or two waves of swings? They should at least fare a bit better right?
But at the same time, they're getting cut down by the other knights. You'd need the obuch to outnumber the knights by a significant margin to win that fight, which isn't cost effective.
@@BleachFan2588 Yes very likely. I just think they'll perform better, though still not good, in mass combat so the loss wont be as bad as the 1v1 makes it seem
I would think the point is to mix obuch with yes, ranged units, but in a team game units with trample damage. I also would love to see how that could play out on 256x mod with their gold+stone dealio
i like the idea that this unit removes armor. the person with the weapon is using a blunt weapon; which back then heavy clad lads would really *FEEL* it when getting decked by a giant metal hammer like that.
I would think raising the gold cost to be in line with the sergeant at 35 should suffice. This would keep them from being mass spammed which I believe is the biggest issue among a few.
I agree. Their HP and armor are already okay to maximize the use of its ability. The issue is their cost as they are too cheap to dominate other units especially unique units.
Aren’t most infantry unique created at the Castle which costs a hefty 650 stone with the exception of Huskarls? A unit that costs 55 F, 20 G and strictly built from a Castle sounds reasonable. I just think the Obuch needs a nerf for its specialty only decreasing melee armor for their enemies and not their pierce armor.
@@mikelivingood7797 Fair enough. Increasing their gold cost to 30-35 sounds reasonable though there are Berserkers, Throwing Axeman, and Woad Raiders with their 25 Gold cost. I just think the Obuch needs to have their specialty of reducing enemy armor nerfed only affecting melee armor and not their pierce armor along with increasing their Training Time from 9 seconds to somewhere around 12-14 similar to Berserkers and Teutonic Knights. That way massing them up would be a hefty time-consuming investment due to the Castle.
@@zethaponderer8470 we never saw massed woad raiders, huskarls, berserkers, samurai, every single of infantry unique units in the early-late castle age but Obuch. In real-game situation, Huskarl can be massed in the late castle age or imperial age. Obuch with those stats and ability in castle age costing 20g is too much. They don't only wreck infantry units especially infantry unique units which are more expensive tham them but also are very good against overall units compared with other infantry unique units. Obuch are very good at absorbing arrows and destroying TC. It's fairly fine if our units with reasonable cost (the same or more) dominate other units, but I don't think so if our units are cheaper tham them.
The biggest takeaway is that Obuch aren't just increasing the damage of themselves, it also improves the damage of every other unit attacking. Never take losing battles versus obuch as their advantage snowballs hard.
The issue here is that even after a winning fight, you can't use those paladins to raid/fight anymore, they gotta go directly into a castle or a pack of monks cuz otherwise they'll die to skirmishers/arrowfire like flies.
Imagine how strong they can be in a team game where your ally goes for ranged units: you can annihilate basically every army, even the classic paladin horde is hopeless. Maybe only a mass of scorpions can be effective
It's like a support unit
They suck lol unless you’re in high Elo competitive ranked where every unit counts. Which is none of you btw lol.
@@christophersatkowski8548 I found that guy, everyone!
Sicilian monk: come to the blue side
Obuch: leave me alone
Sicilian monk: I tell you how to build fancy towers
Obuch: Dang... I'm in
respects to ilicktoesatnight for consistently supporting spirit of the law
was searching for this one :DDD. Supporting and trolling well done!
Yeah they definitely are footing the bill for a lot of us with their consistent support.
I used to think it was I lactose at night for some reason
Skirms finally get the chance to deal as
much damage as a javaline thrower should do. 🥳🥳🥳
Probably one of the most controversial thing about AoE2 is that javelins do less damage than arrows/bolts, can reach just as far as an arrow AND is very effective against archers.
My guess is the devs wanted to implement the rock/paper/scissor mechanic, but came empty handed when implementing an "anti-archer" unit, and so the most out of place unit of aoe was born (aside from the bactrian camel riding, sword throwing mameluke).
@@masafromhell Skirmishers mean are more like flank of vanguard type of unit and can be any type like are light infantry ( Archer also fine) or light cavalry it funny aoe2 give them a spear as a weapon
The purpose of Skirm are harass, ambuse flank and often go for short fight. That why Vietnamese got imperial Skirm even they didnt even use spear that must in history
@@adriaan4808 this is true. spears and javelins are quite easy to use, especially en masse when accuracy is not really a big deal. Archery however, especially on the poundage of a warbow is an art for people who bodybuild. Crossbows then again are quite easy to use again.
Yeah, but where do they get that many javelins?
Arrows are much smaller, and easier to carry
@@MrMeszaros that's true but in real life its not a huge factor, armies arent always moving around and fighting like in aoe in real life they would have camps with supply chains going all the time. Ranged units would more often be used defensively rather than offensively. If your running up to a fort or city then sure, you could only carry a couple javelins while you could instead carry like 30+ arrows probably. When defending a base though, you pretty much have as many javelins as you want because you're staying put and have your stockpile with you.
I learned from this video that the teutonic knights would be unstoppable in combat if they wouldnt always put their swords away after a strike...
They want to flex on the samurai by practicing iaijutsu.
Putting away their sword is just giving the opponent an honorable chance to surrender.
they are so cocky about 1 hitting the enemy that they put away their sword, only to be surprised that the enemy is still alive.
@@mqayyum9226 I mean they do hit like a truck, they're 2nd strongest melee damage dealers, excluding onagers and cannons. I can understand them.
Hit Me Baby One More Time
“Hey guys spirit of the law here” is what I needed today
Completely agree
"Hey Spirit! Law of the Guys here!"
Hey spirit law of the guy here
Hey Law! Spirit of the guy here
Here guys, law of the spirit hey
*Nobody:*
*Spirit of the Law:* "So here's how this unit compares against *J* *A* *P* *A* *N E S E* "
Fun fact, when you task Japanese villagers to fish they call out their Polish nemesis!
"Years ago, it was Chinese."
The Poles remind me a little of the Franks. Both have castles incentives, both have good cavalry backed up by decent eco, and both have a unique unit that handles cavalry-counters quite well.
The synergies is what makes civs like Franks so hard to deal with and I feel that the Poles have similar (not identical) synergies.
I guess a good counter would be Onagers who can kill them quickly.
perhaps the Shotel Warrior could also be pretty good with it's high attack low hp/armor combo, same for the Gebeto
true. low hp causes them to die before the armor damage hits
@@TheLive100 I confirm that the Gebeto can just kite and kill them forever. But thats just Girlboss Gebeto things as always.
Also Slingers at lategame counter the whole thing.
Shotels get annihilated unfortunately.
I wouldn’t go onagers vs poles lol.
A obuch hussar combination would trade very well with a classic halb siege onager. Plus they have bbc to snipe onagers.
Is there anything is the game that a mass of onagers with halberdier in front of them cannot kill?
2:54 Eagle flying overhead while Spirit is talking about “Eagles”. Coincidence? Knowing Spirit, probably not ;)
I have felt like Obuch is a true power unit of poles, discounted knights are strong yet obvious and not as hard to counter, but going obuch and arbs seems et least as powerful to me and way less obvious. Especially given that it still frees up your food and stables to spam complementary winged bois. At the very least it gives poles flexibility that might prove gamechanging at higher ELO and tournaments. Also consider team games, imagine combing Obuch with Chu-Ko-Nus. Or Mayan skirms at the very least.
That is a good to remember, but you have also take in care that a lot of multi projectile units fire 1 damage arrows, which are completly unaffected by armor (or the lack thereof). the chukonu's additional arrow do deal 3 pierce damage, so they in particular could greatly benefit from the armor tearing.
Also do take in care even if they don't win the debuff doesn't fade until you take the time to heal your units, making the influence of the obuch in the game expand even beyond death, and when figthing poles, you need to keep in mind that your units can be extremely weakened beyond what you expect after a figth if obuch are involved
Obuch + Geonese Crossbows = Fuck off with your cavalry.
@@Gyrant cav = dead
@@Gyrant the legendary italian/polish army combo
@@Gyrant and infantry. obuch are surprisingly good vs inf when backed up by ranged. only counter to that doomball is full missile spam and pray the opponent has not had the time to mass winged hussars.
It's insane how much these guys shine in the campaign, particularly in the 3rd stage
Its funny to me how alot of YT commenters colour their perception of a unit based on MikeEmpires' videos where everything is in postImp with units charging one another, rather than actual games.
Props to Spirit for showing some actual unit comps
whos mikeempires
Persian Elephant best unit in the game. ;-)
@@Stat1onary A YT channel who makes unit vs unit videos, you can get some misconceptions if you watch without context, but it can be pretty helpful to understand some matchups, including civ specific ones.
Man, I just love how much effort you put in those videos. The quantity of data and all the possibilities that you have to come up with is incredible. Every time i watch you video, it seems like a little semstral work at uni.
You are awesome, keep it going.
Champions : *"Who are you?"*
Obuch : *"I'm you but **_toe-tally_** better"*
*"Obuchview"* the puns as always xD
The Obuch should have a bigger bonus against buildings - it's swinging a giant hammer!
At very least they should repair castles if garissoned.
The obuch doesnt need more bonuses.
They have the highest bonus damage of any infantry unit it’s just their low attack holding them back a little but that seems fair as they are a great combo unit
Yo it's ebf guy
@@krzkam7792 I don't think hammers designed for war are particularly useful for construction, any more than the lightweight axes made for war are suited for cutting down trees.
Im pretty convinced Spirit knows more about this game than 80% of the Developers
I like that the Obuch seems like a unit that their civilization actually relies on rather than a (at best) situational gimmick, like the uu of some other civs
yeah it's really sad when a civ has a unique unit that is just fun for a game or two but then just becomes completely useless
11:18 I think SotL frequently underestimates the size of his audience, I think we're at the point were devs are tuning in to SotL to unwind. It's blinking hard on the radar now sir, so it's gonna get nerfed.
the obvious nerf is their HP. they are way too tanky for all their other utility.
Definitely needs a nerf, having viable infantry that get used in real competitive games is against the philosophy of aoe2.
People say Obuchs have no counters, yet there's Archers, Hand Cannoneers, Scorpions, Onagers and for some civs Heavy Cavalry to deal with them.
Quite a balanced unit and mostly useless on its own.
And simultaneously teching into different units isn't cheap.
It's nearly the same as a Serjeant, which can cone in clutch though constructing mini Castles.
@@jomonger-g1f except poles are just balanced well, worse than chinese / viking / aztec, as good as the ones just worse than those.
@@NeonLine Only Cataphract beat Obuch as heavy cavalry. Obuch breaking armor ability make them unfightable in melee combat because without Pierce armor, your units die to even skirmisher and Obuch also stronger than other infantries with cheap cost and upgrades. Other units you mentioned are only soft counters. Also having counters doesn't prevent a unit being OP. For instance, if Paladin has 300 HP, Halberdier still counter them cost efficiently. Is 300 HP Paladin balanced? Of course it is not.
4:40
Also with high armor units that means they can afford to lose a few points. Lower armor units though are extremely hurt by just 1 or 2 points less.
hey spirit, i really respect how you put effort into pronouncing foreign words the right way. it's a small thing but most others don't even bother with it, which is why i like that in every video of yours so far, you've always made the effort to pronounce names as best as you can. no one's expecting a perfect native level pronunciation but the effort is greatly appreciated!
Teutonic knight: When we attack in a mass, nobody can stop us!
Obuch: Hold my piwo
Sounds kinky
*Proceeds to get dunked on by teutonic Knights*
at least they looked cool
Teutonic Knight: You gave it your best shot and that's all Jesus asks of you.
hell no... TKs still slaughter obuches...
Teutonic Knight: Kills Obuch anyways
Obuch: :(
Teutonic Knight: Now to kill all your frie-
Teutonic Knight: ~Notices his armor is fucking *gone*~
Obuch: *>:)*
Teutonic Knight: oh no
Obuch: *Oh Yes*
Teotonic Knight: Nooooooo, You can't just use ur stupid warhammer to decrease my defence
Obuch: Haha, WARHAMMER go Bonki Bonki
Leimtis: Me not know armor *bomk*
Its not the blunt side (hammer) of the weapon the one that rips the armor
War pick, no?
I think their most interesting feature is the one you said for last. Making tough units more vulnerable to cheaper counters seems quite a good idea, and perhaps a way to make the huskarl less threatening if it enters the firing range of castles...
"The obouch was oiriginally made by just copying the seargent's game files." - You don't want to know how often this is done.
When I designed my first game, almost every unit starts with a clone of some other units I made, it really saves time when there are so many assets in game.
I mean its not exactly a crime. That's literally how modders make things. If I want to make a cavalry UU, its very easy to use the knight as a base, since by doing so you already have things like its various armour types established for the purposes of bonus damage from enemy units, as well as just having an established HP, attack and more established as a base. With ranged units it can be especially tedious reprogramming all of the stuff related to projectile speed, firing rate, range, projectile type, accuracy, frame delay etc. Not to mention it increases the chance of human error as it can be very easy to overlook some things or enter something wrong.
On the other hand you do need to be careful to remember to change all of the unit's attributes. When I modded a new UU for the Persians I forgot to change the sound files associated with it, so I had a horse unit making elephant noises. Its not a huge deal though and can be fixed in like 5 minutes. The Obuchs making Donjons will be fixed in the next patch for sure.
But why sarge and not samurai, or jaguar warrior?
Absolutely nothing wrong with this 🙄
@@Igor369 Most likely because it's the newest unit, with the cleanest code. If you start out by copying, at least copy the nice stuff, instead of the old ugly one. It was most likely used as template and then customized anyway.
always interesting to see your indepths analysis on the unique units and as a newbie I appreciate your combination take at the end. would love to see this for every civ, gives me as someone who is rather low skilled a good idea of how to play this civ.
I laughed at this point "hopefully as long as this unit stays niche and under the radar"... Makes a video about it reaching a large audience ;)
Love your videos as always, very entertaining, and easy to listen to!
I could see them losing some pierce armour, as the game itself lists archers as a weakness of them but they're better at soaking up arrow fire than Champions.
Yeah, they should lose some pierce armour especially in castle age & possibly cost more gold. But their Stone gold needs the biggest nerf. I’m winning 70% of my matches with them in 1v1 arena doin 26+2 castle drops. Followed up by obuch & rams. Possibly their UT should be -40% gold for knights which would be solid and then maybe give them cheaper light cavalry upgrades also so their Winged Hussars are easier to tech into. Another cool idea would be that winged Hussars replaces light Cav upgrade not hussar upgrade making winged Hussars available in castle and skipping light Cav upgrade all together for a scouts in winged hussar play could be fun.
Oh, it's you, Obuch.
Really interesting video on a unit I hadn't paid much attention to before
I think the most important aspect of the Obuch is that it has a beard
And a nice hood
And also their confusing name
Obuch: I fear no man.... But Arambai....they have no armor.
The first time the "Dawn of the Dukes" expansion came out, I intuitively felt that that the Obuch+Arbalester combo is perfect as an army composition.
The real takeaway of this video is honestly that Skirms are a valid replacement for Arbs in this scenario.
Getting an Obuch + Arbalest scenario is so expensive it's almost not a valid strat on pro level. But the skirm thing is a huge game changer
honestly, i just open video, upvote, then watch it... this is how great your videos are man
It is really an interesting unit and shows that devs experimenting with new ideas in the game can have fun results. Too bad they couldn't even name them correctly.
Instant like for a very good pronunciation of "obuch" at the beginning.
Using them to combo with others is what makes them most interesting to me, seems especially fun to try to strip the armor off major tanky units in their reach.
I'd love a video going in-depth on how to best capitalize on this in practical scenarios, if it's enough to warrant a video after having had more experience using the unit and being up against it.
If you attack a 3300 hp Ram with an Obuch you can make it have 0 pierce armor and then finish it with 7 arbalest shots.
Great video! Love seeing more unique unit breakdowns.
10:40 That one skirm... "ANYONE ELSE?!"
Wow. I was like... ok, ok, not bad... then that combo with ranged units? SOLD! :D I did not think about it, but its actually a very simple combo - of tanky hard hitting infantry, that "buffs" all archers behind permanently for the fight (or even multiple fights)! That sounds fun!
The Obuch are a very interesting new unit, so thanks for this insightful video, Mr SoTL. 😃👍
I've only seen one game where they were used - the Player massed huge numbers of them and wiped the floor with his opponent. Powerful. 💪
M 🦘🏏😎
To be honest, I prefer the Leitis. One, they look badass and plus they got 4 relic bonus of attack which is also for the knight which is insane.
but lithuanians lack blast furnace, so the relic bonuses are compensations...
Great obuch pronunciation! The 'ch' is usually hard for non-slavs.
Obuch and winged hussar is my favorite unit comp with poles. Not much can deal with it
Great Obuchview!
I think they are this strong on purpose to balance out not having Halbs and a weak imp heavy Cav. Essentially, you are supposed to counter cav with obuch as supporting unit + damage dealer of choice.
Great video as always. Hope we get breakdown of Bohemians wagon too.
Interesting video. I was most impressed with the statistics of a skirmishers in combination with obuch vs Paladins. Very interesting
Also the performance of obuch just as good as pikes vs Paladins.
From playing this civ I’ve discovered a few things.
It’s almost always a good idea to include the obuch into your army no matter what other units you have.
Also because of how this civ tends to float gold it’s almost always a good idea run a double gold unit composition whether it’s obuch and arbs or obuch and cavalier.
Nice to know skirms are this effective with obuch and use gold elsewhere.
Kudos for trying to pronounce obuch authentically. By the way, the correct plural to obuch is obuchy, with the final y being pronounced like the i in 'in'. Also, in the plural the stress of obuchy shifts to the u, since in Polish almost always the second to last syllable is stressed
Thanks Obuchma.
Poles: It's hammer time.
There it is!
Nobody:
That one skirmisher at 1:43 : I should get a raise
*Watches all the "X vs Other units" videos.*
This shit's OP as fuck
This sht expensive as fuck
@@filipbitala2624 It's cheaper than just about every melee unique unit, and barely more expensive than champions, yet performs significantly better than almost all of them. Even its upgrade cost is rather cheap! And as shown, it can even enable trash units, who are normally particularly hard hit by enemy armour, to do about as well as gold units for most civilisations
Its only significant counters are hard counters to infantry, which are pretty much going to either demolish any other infantry unit, and aside from onagers/scorpions, aren't available to every civilisation. That and expensive, high power units, which again, they tend to do a lot better than most units against, and are typically significantly easier to counter with trash than the Obuch.
It's cheap, strong by itself, allows you to use cheap units more effectively, and are easy to mass for a unique unit thanks to its quick creation speed and Polish buff to stone mining. It'd be a pretty okay melee unit even without the armour destruction, but right now it's too good with too few weaknesses.
@@rubywest5166 i didnt say it wasnt op, i said its expensive, which it is you compare it to a champion, champion is expensive too, you dont have to write a whole essay just to look like you anything about the game, you can just write “nah he is not expensive bcs i said so” and dont bother filling an aplication for ‘knows X about Y game’ next time
@@filipbitala2624 It's not... Given the update cost is 800/600, that's really low. Plus, where the cost of building a castle is usually in on top of other unique units, Obuch are right now hard to counter, because you can produce them in high numbers, when the enemy comes marching. They don't have bonus damage against cavalry, but stripping armor means that a lingering raiding party without monks, is practically useless.
As the Obuch is right now, there is now logically counter. A possible nerf, without making the unit too weak, could be removing 1 pierce armour, or raising the upgrade cost to, say, 1000/750
@@filipbitala2624 It costs 10 food more than a champion. Food being a plentiful resource as it is, let alone for the poles. And 20 gold is also pretty cheap, especially given poles get extra through their stone mining.
If that's expensive to you, quite frankly that's enough to make me doubt you even want to play AoE2. And even if it wasn't, it doesn't matter because it's so good you're still getting incredibly value for money, which is why I actually tried explaining it to you.
2:32 That bird that flew into the scene freaked me out. I was watching some horror video before this.
*Obuch gaming*
I love the conviction in how the Polish units say "Do broni!"
"Da brownie!"
They are fighting for their favorite snack
They're calling everyone a brony.
Do broni! = To arms!
@@Cyber669 Aren't it literally mean "to armor"?
@@sirtaelellevalerie1056 Yep, but you'd rather not use the latter as a battle call, don't you?
Not sure if its me but I feel the last few civs to come out are getting some insanely strong stuff, often able to circumvent mechanics or tactics that everyone else has to rely on.
That's kind of a theme for both aoe2 and aoe3 where new unique units or civ bonuses outshine other options or alter what you'd usually see in terms of compositon or build order.
Not sure if that is intentional or if they just want to make them a new relevant unit that feels good to play and usually overshoot their goal by a bit.
@@Jaybiooh Better check out some conservative civ concepts 😇
Poles in no way outshine civs like Franks or Mayans
Its probably the new civs being able to take advantage of new game mechanics of the DE build of the game.
That’s been happening since AoC. I remember when Huns first came out.
At first, I read the title as “The Ouch”
The Obuch is basically "Fucks around and find out"
That is a sick unit and super fun to play. My favorite atm.
I don't even play Age of Empires properly. This stuff is just addictive to watch. Good stuff!
2:21 is it Windows alert popup sound in there? or am I finally going insane...
Well... this seems rather OP
I know that SoTL does not likes the "psychological factor" comments and that he wants to keep the discussion as objetive as posssible, but I think there is another good argument to make for the Obouch against cavalry in real game scenario: Cavalry has the movility, they pick which fights to take, and any cavalry player would insta-run from spear line units unless he absolutely has to fight them with its knights. But when it comes to obouch, a cavalry player unaware of how good they fare against its units, could send his outnumbered knights against a group of Obouch thinking "its heavy infantry, no bonus, I will get a decent enough trade" only to see his units being almost wiped out and losing lots of gold in a non efficient fight.
Point is, the psychological factor of cavalry daring to fight infantry that is not pikes :D
My current Polish strat is scout rush, 6 vils on stone (none on gold) gives you more than enough to castle drop immediately after aging up. Then you can get szlachta and switch to knights OR, if you feel cheeky, 15 Obuch can snipe a TC alarmingly well.
Best way to use obuch is mass them along with Huss spam because the Hussar will counter the ranged units which counter obuchs and the obuchs will counter literally everything else. Poles is such a coherent and amazing civ, everything plays together so nicely.
10:40 Shout out to the random skirm walking all the way across the screen for no reason after taking out the paladins.
seems like they'd also work well in situations with lots of healing
Stop! Hammertime! 🔨
They def look more terrifying in comparison because of their huge ass hammer and executioner cap. And I think they got more imposing stature.
Interesting unit especially with the mechanic to hit armor directly and do -1/-1 per hit. Making units do more damage than usual. Best way to counter the polish is to rely on making lots of siege and bonus damage units such as skirmishers and halbs to kill cav units and to use siege such as scorpions against archer units.
They have a lot of strengths like their armor, their synergy with low attack ranged units (mostly the skirm cuz no gold cost for me) and their already low cost. Other UU infantry like woad raiders cost 65 and 25 and after supplies was introduced, they never applied supplies to the existing infantry UU. But the Obuch costs 55 and 25 so it's like it got a 10 food cost reduction.
In terms of comparing production speed I like to look at it in terms of how many villagers I need to maintain constant production from one castle. From that perspective I think IIRC Obuch were like 16 farmers and like 6 gold miners. That's a lot. With 6 farmers just for producing vills from 1 tc, that puts the total to 28 villagers. That's around how much you go up with for some arena fast castle into castle age UU build. And those 22 farmers all need farms which is 60*22 wood or like 1320 wood.
Finally while the Obuch + Skirm combo beat the knights, the Obuch and Skirm combo cost way more resources. I think pure Obuch also works better.
Strong unit. I beat a bunch of Malian Champskarls using mass Obuch recently and I don't think I could do the same with equal costs of Serjeants, Woad Raiders, or Zerks.
Very nice pronunciation of the "Obuch" ❤
It's hard to beat that stylish Purina label shield the Sargents are rocking
Not a minute in and proper pronounciation of a polish word? I don't even have to finish watching your video, I already leave a like.
So in summary, Obuchs are invincible and you are all doomed.
...I don't like the high Armor values all the new civs get on their Unique units. Both Serjant and Obuch get high melee and ranged armor, which makes them great all-round fighters.
Serjeants definitely don't. They are pretty weak due to their high gold cost. Their damage output also isn't great. Moreover they don't have special combat ability like Obuch. Even Berserkers wreck Serjeants with efficient cost, and Obuch completely wreck Berserkers.
Imagine reintroducing TK and Huskarls 11
Serjeants are really nothing special, they do preform conciderably better against archer, but have a much higher gold cost and lack mobility (as most infantry do).
The Obuch is OP compared to regular longswordsmen/Champions, but share the same weaknesses that all infantry have and thus has very specific use cases.
Overall, i'd say that the problem is that cavalry is generally way superior to infantry (except against high mobility infantry and trash).
It's their attempt to make the infantry options a reasonable choice VS going for Cav like everyone else, and even still both sicillians and poles both go cav most of the time anyway.
I think the Obuch showcases just how squishy the Champion line is. I never liked how weak these units are in AoE2, infantry should be a little tankier. The Obuch looks like a proper infantry unit, with enough HP to take a few arrows, and good performance up close.
I also see a good point against elephants : usually, civs that don't have access to hallberdier tend to be trampled (no pun intended) by mass elephants.
While the Obuch isn't a counter to the elephant by any means, it's ability to strip off the opponent's armor makes other units of the poles much more effective in finishing them.
Archers in particular benefit a lot from it : elephants are big arrow sponges because of their combinaison of high HP + High pierce armor. Remove the pierce armor and they end up surprisingly squishy against ranged attacks
My poles gameplan is basically straight arch, castle drop, knights spam and the clean up w obuch. Rarely will you get a civ that can transition through those units to infantry so smoothly. obuch cleans up pikes/halbs if i decide to keep going knights and complements archers if my opponent is going heavy into scouts
Once again I'm asking for the Burgandian unique tech Burgandian Vineyards analysis.
The obuch is like the badass hooded unit you always wanted in the game to create an Assassin’s Creed like custom scenario or one with an executioner who kills prisoners and villagers for a local tyrant
Seems to me like the obuch shine as a combo unit, making soft counters and trash units more dangerous.
They shine on their own too. This unit is seriously broken
@@heinz8233 Certainly solid and reliable alone- but because they make other, cheaper units more effective, and strengthen soft counters, it seems like you should get the most bang for your buck if you think of them as a combo unit rather than a backbone.
That they can aid Ranged units like that is propably the biggest balancing issue here.
The Skirmishers damage is basically kept in check by armor and them dealing mostly bonus damage. But the Obuch can strip the pierce armor, making them way more effective.
Any pierce resistant unit the Obuch can catch, becomes instantly vulnerable to piercing.
Could you maybe try them at equal cost against various unique units, with and without Skirmishers as support?
you often compare what amount of HP is left on the units to see how effective they are, but, something neat too is that even if they lose the trade, you have to account for the armor loss as well in that trade, so they seem like a really powerful unit in general if even losing trades aren't that bad
You can use healers
do obuchs move slower than other infantry? somehow I felt they moved slowed than militia line
About the analysis of champions vs. halbedier it needs to be said that if the opponent does not get the final armor upgrade, that is a huge boost for the champions performance as it kills the halbedier in 4 hits instead of 5. I am not sure if the obuch would still outperform the champion if both were fighting against halbediers with only +2 armor, as obuchs would still need 5 hits.
That Obuch + Skirm combo is sick (although they are much larger in number)
They sound like they could pair well with groups of Pikemen and Skirmishers to counter knight rushes in Castle Age.
6:00 either way? there's 5 left. 3 with medrately high hp, you love Japanese a lot but u shouldnt try to pass it of as a shortcoming
Winged hussars+Obuch? i can used all time this combo
I feel like Spirit of the Law doesn't actually have a Patreon named I_lick_toes_at_night and he's just confessing.
The Obuch vs Teutonic knight match-up lack a group version. 1 on 1 the knights overabundance of armor negates the armor stripping but what of group fights where they can be brought down to near 0 in one or two waves of swings? They should at least fare a bit better right?
But at the same time, they're getting cut down by the other knights. You'd need the obuch to outnumber the knights by a significant margin to win that fight, which isn't cost effective.
@@BleachFan2588 Yes very likely. I just think they'll perform better, though still not good, in mass combat so the loss wont be as bad as the 1v1 makes it seem
I would think the point is to mix obuch with yes, ranged units, but in a team game units with trample damage. I also would love to see how that could play out on 256x mod with their gold+stone dealio
Does anybody know what his outro song is called?
great vid spirit
i like the idea that this unit removes armor. the person with the weapon is using a blunt weapon; which back then heavy clad lads would really *FEEL* it when getting decked by a giant metal hammer like that.
I would think raising the gold cost to be in line with the sergeant at 35 should suffice. This would keep them from being mass spammed which I believe is the biggest issue among a few.
I agree. Their HP and armor are already okay to maximize the use of its ability. The issue is their cost as they are too cheap to dominate other units especially unique units.
Aren’t most infantry unique created at the Castle which costs a hefty 650 stone with the exception of Huskarls? A unit that costs 55 F, 20 G and strictly built from a Castle sounds reasonable.
I just think the Obuch needs a nerf for its specialty only decreasing melee armor for their enemies and not their pierce armor.
@@zethaponderer8470 If you look at the list of unique infantry units most are in the 30-35 gold and 60 food range.
@@mikelivingood7797 Fair enough. Increasing their gold cost to 30-35 sounds reasonable though there are Berserkers, Throwing Axeman, and Woad Raiders with their 25 Gold cost.
I just think the Obuch needs to have their specialty of reducing enemy armor nerfed only affecting melee armor and not their pierce armor along with increasing their Training Time from 9 seconds to somewhere around 12-14 similar to Berserkers and Teutonic Knights. That way massing them up would be a hefty time-consuming investment due to the Castle.
@@zethaponderer8470 we never saw massed woad raiders, huskarls, berserkers, samurai, every single of infantry unique units in the early-late castle age but Obuch. In real-game situation, Huskarl can be massed in the late castle age or imperial age.
Obuch with those stats and ability in castle age costing 20g is too much. They don't only wreck infantry units especially infantry unique units which are more expensive tham them but also are very good against overall units compared with other infantry unique units. Obuch are very good at absorbing arrows and destroying TC.
It's fairly fine if our units with reasonable cost (the same or more) dominate other units, but I don't think so if our units are cheaper tham them.
Would be nice if we could repair armor progressively with villagers
The lesson here is to NEVER underestimate a guy with a two handed warhammer.
Just ask Sigmar or Robert Baratheon (just to name a few of the many).