Remember that at one point or another Mamelukes were considered Infantry, Cavalry, Ships, and Archers, before finally settling on the armour classes of Camel, Mameluke, and UU I think only the Mangudai has probably had more changes as a UU!
@@daarom3472 Correct! Cumans were also a really big percentage of the Mamelukes of the Fatimid Caliphate. Probably that's why they ride Bactrian camels instead of Dromedaries
One of my only memory as a child of playing Age of Empires II was when I kited some persian elephants for ten minutes with my Mamluks, killing them all without losing a single unit. Thankfully it was against AI otherwise any player would have raided my base to death during that time XD
I don't think you can parallel a Mameluke and the Knight-line, scout-line, elephants or steppe lancers. The opposites aren't (mostly) ranged. Shooting gets damage from skirmishers. Logically. And throwing is kinda shooting... yes...?
@@acresir I dont think its about logic, its about the fact that a gold heavy premium unit like the mamluk gets wrecked by skirms and halbs (unless you micro halbs). Comparing the mam to another premium unit like the knight makes sense in that case.
I feel Saracens and Mamelukes are one of the most balanced sets in the entire game. You get a little in a lot of areas, but each area requires more input from the player to overstep inherent weaknesses, and if you're good enough YOU CAN overcome your inherent weaknesses. One of the most fun civs/units in the game.
Imagine you're a knight and you see the guy in front of you get hit by thrown scimitars from 8 different guys all sticking into him from different directions and with a few more in his horse. He topples over. Then it happens to another 5 one by one, with unerring accuracy. Medieval warfare.
really underated unit, the saracens probably much better with cavalries archer for their unique unit because arab people are well known for their horsemanship. people often jokingly said the high cost is for buying new sword because the mameluke keep throwing them
I always saw the "mameluk" as a camel with a ranged attack forever, so it made me angry that they are easily countered with skirmishers or another bonus against archers, when that's really not the case.
I have been using the Saracens since the inception of AOE2 in 1999. They have most def improved over the years. Not only are they great against MOST cavalry, they also pair well with EVERYTHING! A meat shield is crucial in some fights including skirms if it is Genoese crossbows. If you are fighting other camels, your camels and general camel counters will pair well with them.
Why don't you do a UU elite upgrade tier list? Seems that for the Mameluke the elite upgrade is fundamental, but for other UUs maybe is not so much. Thank you, love your content!
The Mamluks were among the very few enemies to defeat the Mongols in combat, and they were never conquered. The Mamluk institution had appeared in Islamic civilization in the eighth century as the Caliphs sought to create a military force that was loyal only to the Caliph and not to regional, tribal, or another personal ties. Most Mamluks were of Turkic origin, primarily because the Turks were viewed as better, or at least more natural, warriors than Persians and Arabs. Turks of nomadic origins possessed riding and archery skills from an early age, so that after purchasing them as slaves one only had to refine those skills. The Mamluks therefore became perhaps the most highly trained warriors in the medieval world. They seized power in Egypt in 1250 during the ill-fated Crusade of Louis IX (Saint Louis) and created a Sultanate that dominated Egypt and then Syria until the sixteenth century. The Mongol Art War, p.109
Could you maybe make a video about how many land units you have to hit with the demo ship line ships to be cost-effective? I think there are some interesting results there. The petards couldn't make a good case for themselves due to low damage and small splash radius, but demo ships have higher damage and a larger blast area. It's pretty easy to get your money back when hitting a formation of arbalesters or trebuchets in the shallows, but I'm also interested in the more tricky cases such as mamelukes, which have a large hit box so they don't stack as densely, and they can take a point-blank non-heavy demo ship hit. On the other hand, mamelukes are very expensive, and despite the ranged melee damage are unlikely to be able to snipe incoming demo ships due to the demo ships' speed and their own low range, so I think a reasonably skilled player could pull off such an explosion, ending cost-effectively. I'm not at all certain, but maybe a heavy demo ship could even hit enough elite skirmishers at bottomed out market prices in a trash war to be cost-effective despite the demo ship's gold cost.
The one critical thing I think you missed is that numbers have a MASSIVE affect on how good they are. Yes, that is similar to other ranged units, but it's actually far more impactful than even archer units because they deal melee instead of pierce armor. I would say that all of the tests you ran would be a lot different if you used bigger armies. In fact, with a big enough mass of mamelukes you can even take on Cataphracts and Camels without micro (albeit the size is probably unrealistic for a 1v1 game), because you have so many mamelukes firing from the back rows while cataphracts and camels can only attack with the frontline units.
This. On top of that, equal resources tests are a bit meaningless. Once both players are pop capped, it doesn't matter if your units are cheaper, you won't have more of them. So, it'll be a 60 Mameluks vs 60 Gbetos, and the Mameluks will slaughter.
@@AoE2Pathing equal resources isnt meaningless. Its the only way to do fair tests. If you are pop capped with a higher value army than your opponent with stockpiles of resources then you are already winning and dont need these test scenarios to tell you that.
Raiding potential of mamelukes is also huge, they can bust into walls easily and decimate a woodline. They're a severely underrated unit, even just mixing a few into a regular knight/camel army is a big force multiplier.
Just before watching this video I played a 2vs2 on Arena as Saracens vs Koreans on my side and my enemy tried to counter them with skirmishers. I knew that was not a solid counter but he apparently did not.
I think that they're an amazing unit against any civ which doesn't specialize in camels. Also, I find it (at least in theory) that Skirimishers + Mameluks are very solid. Add to that a bit of siege and you've got yourself a death ball.
@@soonyo3430 I disagree. This is incorrect even for generic camels, and even if you had all the APM in the world. But remember that in the late game, you have less APM to micro, because you need more time to spam units and buildings, push the opponent and defend against raids. Also, the civs most likely to build mass camels against Saracens are Gurjaras and Hindustanis, and you really don't want to make mamelukes against those civs. Against camel civs, you probably want to combine your own camels with arbalests, pikemen and hand cannoneers.
@@soonyo3430 Maybe you are most correct in a black forest team game when you're fighting in a chokepoint and your ally is making archers. But certainly not in 1v1 arabia
3:44 Worth noting that the Mamluks were originally steppe and Caucasian peoples enslaved and then used by the Egyptians as slave soldiers, rather than originally Arabic; indeed, they were not related to the Arabian peninsula at all!
I would count this as a win for the teutonic knights, you can cheaply throw a couple at a group of mamelukes and force the other player to either trade badly or waste loads of time avoiding/microing them, it's almost like putting rams in front to soak archer fire.
So on the whole, they're a solid step up from saracen heavy camels in most cases. Vs infantry they have better dps and can kite to offset their lower hp. VS archers they outperform H camels with the dps and range offsetting the pathing disadvantage. Cav archer hit and run can be counter microed (barring cumans) since they have the same speed as mams, so I'd use them over camels even here. Vs buildings, the heavy camels have more hp for arrow fire but that doesn't amount to too much for the lack of armor and the dps + focus fire of mams shines again. Bonus; mams can snipe vills better. Though mams are, in the end, units with middling hp and no armor - certain civs and unique units are pretty hard on them. Any civ with good camels is trouble for mams. Fortunately, saracen camels beat most other camels head to head so its usually fine to pick camels yourself and support them with skirms if the civ has particularly strong archers. Notable exceptions are Imperial camels and gurjaras camels, which can match and beat saracen camels respectively. Saracen camels at least tie with imperial camels and counterweight siege can break that tie, but vs gurjaras its best to opt away from cav altogether - between shrivamshas, the civ perks + unique techs for their own camels neither saracen camels, mams, nor cav archers will see anything done. Well barring that, mams should out perform camels in all fields given the right support.
Unless there’s a hard counter present Mamelukes have always been great as a „strike team“. Spam lots of Hussars and use one moderately large group of Mamelukes more actively to overwhelm positions or clean up holes in my defense. In my experience their range along with melee damage and speed makes them a more versatile CA in these late game situations. With a meatshield they can deal with almost anything so in my high skill matches against the AI they‘ve done amazingly even before the buffs. Even if they’re too expensive for most 1v1 matches I have seen them used in the way I describe in team games which is where they probably shine the most for better players.
I have an idea for future video. Please read and if you like give thumb up for SotL to consider doing it. Thank you Spirit. You finally did a awesome micro consideration. In the cavalry archer part in special. You even talked about critical mass effect in the micro wars. Maybe you could make a video analysis on critical mass in ranged armies' fights. Would be very cool. Talk about the concept, apliccation in general and the diference of onager critical mass, scorpion critical mass, high range critical mass (where many units can shot from afar) and low range critical mass (like mamelukes and others). Some critical masses mean you 3 shot, or 2 shot, or 1 shot a unit. Each number of these can turn a fight completly. And the knowledge of this also mean you can take care with over kill.
Zealotry originally costed 750f 800g. They decreased the gold cost to 700 with the release of DE. Then obviously it got reduced even further when it was switched to the castle age tech and then it was just removed in favor of the camel HP civ bonus
good video, some of the saracen losses in the current NAC5 is literally because the pro players are not very aware of how good of a combo is skirmishers + mamelukes and they never do it. so cheers for the good highlight there.
Speed and HP that I think the early devs put on so much different armor and even ship on Mameluke because they can runaway from their counter pretty easily, even when they got hit thanks to high HP they can still survive one or two attack before reaching safety.
Teutonic Knights: I don’t have to catch you. I just have to keep your entire damn army busy. (*Each word punctuated by the ineffectual clang of a scimitar bouncing off.*)
I will add one very awkward thing about their attacks: a bit similar to other melee units that attack from range (Gbeto and Axe Thrower), they do A LOT of overkill damage. Usually melee units get the distribute their attack mroe evenly, but on the flip side they get body blocked. Units with 1 range like the Kamayak or the Steppe Lancer bipass that and get to ditch out more damage. But I guess the range around 3 to 4 hits that awkward zone in which they dont have enough distance between their target to dps from safety all he time like archers, to the point were it pays off even if there is overkill. Also since their attack packs a huge punch you can really feel that extra damage go to waste. So they can be very counter intuitive, since you want to mass them like cav archers, but to me they make more sense in groups of 7-10, or whatever the perfect math is to 2-shot a knight with some wiggle room.
I like such units that sit in between and don't follow traditional laws of countering. And these even have range. They can attack through walls and deal melee damage, paired with high HP and good mobility.
They could be made less fragile to archers by adding +1 pierce armor when receiving the elite upgrade and bring the 1 melee armor to the standard mamaulke that way they can have a better time navigating archer fights
I remember first time seeing them in a lan party around 2000 with friends. Gameplan was simple, the most paladins won. And then they came by one player and no one knew what to do with them. Still a bit scared
Ah, Memelukes, such a great unit. Hits Pikes before they reach melee, demolishes cavalry as well as camels, and speedy enough to run down archers. A great one-unit composition... as long as you're not fighting enemy camels, because for some reason anti-Mameluke damage is a thing.
3:46 Historically Mameluks (Mamluks) were Turkic slaves who rode horses and used lances. They were employed by some powers who were ethnically (or liguitically) Arabic, but probably didn't see as much action actually in Arabia.
One problem I see with the unit is it's size combined with it's low range. At some point, massing up Mamelukes does not make any sense, since some units in the bulk cannot reach enemy units anymore. Their kiting ability maxes out late game way sooner than similar units. So I think a good way to balance them is to make them more available in castle age, where the unit numbers are smaller and kiting more easy.
You can make 60 and attack with different groups or raid , i think they are fine right now , and elite upgrade so cheap i wonder why i dont see them much , mamelukes on 4v4 hillfort post imp were the best memories
"...Arabia, ironically considering it's the region they historically come from" Technically, the Mamelukes originally were enslaved Cuman-Kipchak and Circassian peoples that were traded by the Mongols into Islamic slave markets to the south so they weren't from Arabia, and primarily operated out of the Levantine region and Egypt, not the Arabian Peninsula, but I get what you're saying.
I think the memelukes have two issues: The gold cost and the low producing speed (same as camels but built castles). That means that it takes a lot of economy and time (or castles) to build a critical mass of them. The trade-off against the arbalests is a great example: in a situation where gold is not a limiting factor for either player, the archer player almost always want to trade, as they will be able to build up the numbers again in few seconds
Arbs have a higher gold cost percentage than mamelukes. Even trades (total-cost-wise) would, in a total vacuum, benefit the saracen player in that regard, although only slightly.
In my experience playing Sara, Mameluke single handedly destroy Civ that wants to play Knight+Pike or Pala+Halbs combo like Teutons or Franks (which is fitting to be honest). For most civ, when facing Mameluke they need to either make camel or range unit like halbs but Sara can make Pikes for camel and Skirms and onager for arbs.
you missed Cataphracts. they are like soft counter, last i played mameluke deathball vs cataphracts they did not take same damage as other cav, less than regular cav.
I would say there two reasons generic arbelester counter mamelukes: 1. An even trade is still pretty solid without micro 2. With micro they would do much better 3. A halberd meat shield would totally change the dynamic 4. Mamelukes can only be trained from castles where as arbs are trained from the archery range, meaning you can outproduce and will likely always have more resources worth of units and won't be taking balanced fights.
They're OP on closed maps were someone can mass them. they beat camels and cav easily with the ability to attack from range along with bonus damage. they can run circles around infantry, and archers can't counter because they have too much HP and can run in for the kill. even elephants don't have enough to deal with them. I'd say only genoise crossbows full counter them and that's still based on bonus damage and mass. They still have way to much HP and need to be nerfed. I watched a friend go archer elephants and lose even with me helping him with Malay trash two handed sword spam for a meat shield. (yeah I get that that's not the best unit to go for.) Saracens can literally win with just this one unit on mass. At least on closed maps. or if you let them build up.
Like a fine wine, mamelukes become better over time. As a very expensive but good unit, you could say they are in the same spot (but in smaller scale) of the Cobra units. One cost o ton of gold, the other your dignity.
Something to note is that 1. Only the drabidian archer elephant are somewhat cost effective, other elephant archers are not 2. Camels don't do that well when the mamelukes are being micro'd
strong, but expensive. Mamelukes and arbs are two of the most gold-intensive unit lines you get in the game. But they also give you an insane amount of power. Mamelukes deal with heavy cav, skirms and threaten siege, arbs take care of .... pretty much everything else.
they surely are in the campaign. It's always a blast to play the second mission and get reminded that castle age(!) mamelukes with micro straight-up counter FU franks paladins 1111
Have you done a recent overview of the italians or genoese crossbowman? Searching shows a video on italians from 7 years ago, and nothing comes up for the later.
3 range might actually be the worst you can have against onagers. If you attack move melee units into siege, at least they will dive into minimum range.
Very true when sending 1 or 2. Also, melee units attacking any enemy (not just the onager) create friendly fire situations. But if you have a large group you destroy it with a single group attack. Melee units are slower to destroy it because they block each other. Maybe the onager doesn't even try to attack the melee or mameluk, its target could be archers/monks/other onagers.
Hmmmm, I feel like the camel design of the mameluke is actually more like the Bactrian camel, so it's not crazy they're less used on 1v1 Arabia as they're not native to that region. ;-)
The camel versus scout cav types of examples against Tartar or Magyars for example, should be thought of as a combination perhaps... Where when you have Saracen Hussar + Mamelukes you have to focus their scout cav first given the latter has range and puts your cav archer micro into overdrive just to balance the fight. I'd rather see the combined unit fights, because yes we see full mamelukes, but even just a few frontline units can stall the pierce damage or archer-type units completely. The big problem with this unit is team-games... It takes 1 person (usually a friend) not setting themselves up right to countre Mamelukes, for the Saracens player to snowball - it really is just similar for their archers. The unit shouldn't really be able to countre Cav-Archers unless in a good position against them - 25 gold over them is not a lot considering. Their speed has just always been too high for my liking.
@@fiable262626 They both move at 1.4 speed, so with husbandry on both sides you can't kite at all. Perhaps if you take damage C.A. and get them in the back that makes sense, but that's a lot of micro versus an A-Move unit.
@@justincronkright5025 They can do more than just one hit. CA often have a numbers advantage too. I have played plenty of games with mameluke vs CA and its never easy to catch the CA.
You don't have to be faster for stutterstep micro to improve you combat outcome a lot; being slower or the same speed means you can't kite and take zero damage, and against ranged units, their pathing won't hinder them as much, but micro can still have a huge effect. For the most common example I imagine, crossbows vs knights; stutterstepping increases the value of the crossbows enormously.
"I will not play AoE this week it is taking up too much of my time"
> SOTL upload
"you're right it is time to learn a new civ and drop 100 elo"
Remember that at one point or another Mamelukes were considered Infantry, Cavalry, Ships, and Archers, before finally settling on the armour classes of Camel, Mameluke, and UU
I think only the Mangudai has probably had more changes as a UU!
Mamlukes werent arabs though. They were mostly from the caucasus, being warrior slaves in the service of the Fatimids who then took over.
@@daarom3472 Correct! Cumans were also a really big percentage of the Mamelukes of the Fatimid Caliphate. Probably that's why they ride Bactrian camels instead of Dromedaries
Infant ree ? Really
Always loved the memelukes as a kid, my favourite units along with Mangudai since The Conquerors :D
Based taste
One of my only memory as a child of playing Age of Empires II was when I kited some persian elephants for ten minutes with my Mamluks, killing them all without losing a single unit. Thankfully it was against AI otherwise any player would have raided my base to death during that time XD
@@yanchoho Nah, based means he just doesn't like lemons (and other acidic tastes). 😜
Yes my fav Civs and Units as well
@@yanchoho I was probably tired and read 'bad' instead of based😅
Mamelukes not getting bonus dmg from skirms is their biggest buff by far. Imagine if the paladin took bonus dmg from skirms
mamelukes were used to receive bizarre attack bonuses😅, infantry (AoK), archers and ships (AoC, HD) and finally they are more resilient rn
I don't think you can parallel a Mameluke and the Knight-line, scout-line, elephants or steppe lancers.
The opposites aren't (mostly) ranged.
Shooting gets damage from skirmishers. Logically. And throwing is kinda shooting... yes...?
@@acresir If they countered Throwing Axemen, sure, it would make sense, but they don't
@@acresir I dont think its about logic, its about the fact that a gold heavy premium unit like the mamluk gets wrecked by skirms and halbs (unless you micro halbs). Comparing the mam to another premium unit like the knight makes sense in that case.
sad ratha noises
I feel Saracens and Mamelukes are one of the most balanced sets in the entire game. You get a little in a lot of areas, but each area requires more input from the player to overstep inherent weaknesses, and if you're good enough YOU CAN overcome your inherent weaknesses.
One of the most fun civs/units in the game.
Mameluke: "Oh? You're approaching me?"
Teutonic Knight: "I can't kick your ass without getting closer."
Imagine you're a knight and you see the guy in front of you get hit by thrown scimitars from 8 different guys all sticking into him from different directions and with a few more in his horse. He topples over. Then it happens to another 5 one by one, with unerring accuracy. Medieval warfare.
anyone else remember the good old days when ZeroEmpires' profile picture was once a poorly cropped screenshot of a mameluke?
really underated unit, the saracens probably much better with cavalries archer for their unique unit because arab people are well known for their horsemanship. people often jokingly said the high cost is for buying new sword because the mameluke keep throwing them
I agree. Mamelukes were historically horse riders.
I always saw the "mameluk" as a camel with a ranged attack forever, so it made me angry that they are easily countered with skirmishers or another bonus against archers, when that's really not the case.
Jup. I always thought of them as mounted throwing axemen.
they are not countered by skirmishers anymore and they are unstoppable with siege onager combo
@@martijn9568knife/sword throwers
@@raulcalimann7738 Nothing is unstoppable in AoE. Heavy camel would still counter that combo.
@@longbow857not when I have Pikmin sticking you
Mamelukes have always been and will always be my favorite UU. Nothing like slaughtering an army of knights with my throwy-bois 11
I love that Lanchester Laws left a permanent mark on the channel
R.I.P. Spirit of the Law Squarespace joke. You held up longer than I expected and you will be missed.
I watched till the end hoping for the new Spirit of the X joke
I have been using the Saracens since the inception of AOE2 in 1999. They have most def improved over the years. Not only are they great against MOST cavalry, they also pair well with EVERYTHING! A meat shield is crucial in some fights including skirms if it is Genoese crossbows. If you are fighting other camels, your camels and general camel counters will pair well with them.
Why don't you do a UU elite upgrade tier list? Seems that for the Mameluke the elite upgrade is fundamental, but for other UUs maybe is not so much. Thank you, love your content!
Castle age mamelukes are great - 120hp with ranged melee attack and faster than a knight
The Mamluks were among the very few enemies to defeat the Mongols in combat, and they were never conquered. The Mamluk institution had appeared in Islamic civilization in the eighth century as the Caliphs sought to create a military force that was loyal only to the Caliph and not to regional, tribal, or another personal ties. Most Mamluks were of Turkic origin, primarily because the Turks were viewed as better, or at least more natural, warriors than Persians and Arabs. Turks of nomadic origins possessed riding and archery skills from an early age, so that after purchasing them as slaves one only had to refine those skills. The Mamluks therefore became perhaps the most highly trained warriors in the medieval world. They seized power in Egypt in 1250 during the ill-fated Crusade of Louis IX (Saint Louis) and created a Sultanate that dominated Egypt and then Syria until the sixteenth century.
The Mongol Art War, p.109
i've learned to expect a saracens overview from you after this video :)
I REALLLY like what the Devs. have done with the Saracens in the last several patches.
Really underrated unit. Not my favorite UU, but one I use plenty of them whenever I play Saracens.
Love your videos SOTL! I recently got Aoe2 and its my first rts and your videos have been a blessing so far!!!!
Could you maybe make a video about how many land units you have to hit with the demo ship line ships to be cost-effective?
I think there are some interesting results there. The petards couldn't make a good case for themselves due to low damage and small splash radius, but demo ships have higher damage and a larger blast area.
It's pretty easy to get your money back when hitting a formation of arbalesters or trebuchets in the shallows, but I'm also interested in the more tricky cases such as mamelukes, which have a large hit box so they don't stack as densely, and they can take a point-blank non-heavy demo ship hit. On the other hand, mamelukes are very expensive, and despite the ranged melee damage are unlikely to be able to snipe incoming demo ships due to the demo ships' speed and their own low range, so I think a reasonably skilled player could pull off such an explosion, ending cost-effectively.
I'm not at all certain, but maybe a heavy demo ship could even hit enough elite skirmishers at bottomed out market prices in a trash war to be cost-effective despite the demo ship's gold cost.
This sounds like a fantastic candidate for New Year’s 2025, to start off with, well, a -lot- of fireworks.
The one critical thing I think you missed is that numbers have a MASSIVE affect on how good they are. Yes, that is similar to other ranged units, but it's actually far more impactful than even archer units because they deal melee instead of pierce armor. I would say that all of the tests you ran would be a lot different if you used bigger armies. In fact, with a big enough mass of mamelukes you can even take on Cataphracts and Camels without micro (albeit the size is probably unrealistic for a 1v1 game), because you have so many mamelukes firing from the back rows while cataphracts and camels can only attack with the frontline units.
This.
On top of that, equal resources tests are a bit meaningless. Once both players are pop capped, it doesn't matter if your units are cheaper, you won't have more of them. So, it'll be a 60 Mameluks vs 60 Gbetos, and the Mameluks will slaughter.
@@AoE2Pathing equal resources isnt meaningless. Its the only way to do fair tests. If you are pop capped with a higher value army than your opponent with stockpiles of resources then you are already winning and dont need these test scenarios to tell you that.
This. Like a chain reaction effect where if 10 v 10 gives Mameluke a 50pc advantage then 20 v 10 would give them upto 200pc given they're ranged.
Raiding potential of mamelukes is also huge, they can bust into walls easily and decimate a woodline. They're a severely underrated unit, even just mixing a few into a regular knight/camel army is a big force multiplier.
Just before watching this video I played a 2vs2 on Arena as Saracens vs Koreans on my side and my enemy tried to counter them with skirmishers.
I knew that was not a solid counter but he apparently did not.
Mameluke video! You know what that means: updated Saracen Civ Overview coming soon! 🥳
I think that they're an amazing unit against any civ which doesn't specialize in camels.
Also, I find it (at least in theory) that Skirimishers + Mameluks are very solid. Add to that a bit of siege and you've got yourself a death ball.
Or also mix in some fully upgraded generic champions if facing Eagles or other infantry.
I think the Romans would stand a pretty good chance at countering them if they've massed Scorpions.
Even against special camel civs, a critical mass of mamelukes can soft counter camel masses due to the range and high melee damage.
@@soonyo3430 I disagree. This is incorrect even for generic camels, and even if you had all the APM in the world. But remember that in the late game, you have less APM to micro, because you need more time to spam units and buildings, push the opponent and defend against raids. Also, the civs most likely to build mass camels against Saracens are Gurjaras and Hindustanis, and you really don't want to make mamelukes against those civs. Against camel civs, you probably want to combine your own camels with arbalests, pikemen and hand cannoneers.
@@soonyo3430 Maybe you are most correct in a black forest team game when you're fighting in a chokepoint and your ally is making archers. But certainly not in 1v1 arabia
3:44 Worth noting that the Mamluks were originally steppe and Caucasian peoples enslaved and then used by the Egyptians as slave soldiers, rather than originally Arabic; indeed, they were not related to the Arabian peninsula at all!
Mameluke vs. Teutonic Knight just might be my favourite interaction in the game
I would count this as a win for the teutonic knights, you can cheaply throw a couple at a group of mamelukes and force the other player to either trade badly or waste loads of time avoiding/microing them, it's almost like putting rams in front to soak archer fire.
thing is. The TKs can't kill the mamelukes, but they can destroy every single saracen castle on the map because the Mameluks can't stop them.
So on the whole, they're a solid step up from saracen heavy camels in most cases.
Vs infantry they have better dps and can kite to offset their lower hp. VS archers they outperform H camels with the dps and range offsetting the pathing disadvantage. Cav archer hit and run can be counter microed (barring cumans) since they have the same speed as mams, so I'd use them over camels even here. Vs buildings, the heavy camels have more hp for arrow fire but that doesn't amount to too much for the lack of armor and the dps + focus fire of mams shines again. Bonus; mams can snipe vills better.
Though mams are, in the end, units with middling hp and no armor - certain civs and unique units are pretty hard on them.
Any civ with good camels is trouble for mams. Fortunately, saracen camels beat most other camels head to head so its usually fine to pick camels yourself and support them with skirms if the civ has particularly strong archers. Notable exceptions are Imperial camels and gurjaras camels, which can match and beat saracen camels respectively. Saracen camels at least tie with imperial camels and counterweight siege can break that tie, but vs gurjaras its best to opt away from cav altogether - between shrivamshas, the civ perks + unique techs for their own camels neither saracen camels, mams, nor cav archers will see anything done.
Well barring that, mams should out perform camels in all fields given the right support.
"How good are Mamelukes?" ask the Mongols at Ain Jalut
As a former franks picker nothing strikes greater fear into my heart than seeing these chucky boys
Unless there’s a hard counter present Mamelukes have always been great as a „strike team“. Spam lots of Hussars and use one moderately large group of Mamelukes more actively to overwhelm positions or clean up holes in my defense. In my experience their range along with melee damage and speed makes them a more versatile CA in these late game situations.
With a meatshield they can deal with almost anything so in my high skill matches against the AI they‘ve done amazingly even before the buffs. Even if they’re too expensive for most 1v1 matches I have seen them used in the way I describe in team games which is where they probably shine the most for better players.
Crusaders coming home with scimitars sticking out of bodies after fighting mameluks.
I have an idea for future video.
Please read and if you like give thumb up for SotL to consider doing it.
Thank you Spirit. You finally did a awesome micro consideration. In the cavalry archer part in special. You even talked about critical mass effect in the micro wars.
Maybe you could make a video analysis on critical mass in ranged armies' fights. Would be very cool.
Talk about the concept, apliccation in general and the diference of onager critical mass, scorpion critical mass, high range critical mass (where many units can shot from afar) and low range critical mass (like mamelukes and others).
Some critical masses mean you 3 shot, or 2 shot, or 1 shot a unit. Each number of these can turn a fight completly. And the knowledge of this also mean you can take care with over kill.
Zealotry originally costed 750f 800g. They decreased the gold cost to 700 with the release of DE. Then obviously it got reduced even further when it was switched to the castle age tech and then it was just removed in favor of the camel HP civ bonus
Great video. Felt a little sad there was no "spirit of the lock, lord, long or lot" website joke.
If your voice wasn't so tantalizing I would skip the ad in the end. JK - great work once again SOTL!
Spirit of the Mamelaw
good video, some of the saracen losses in the current NAC5 is literally because the pro players are not very aware of how good of a combo is skirmishers + mamelukes and they never do it. so cheers for the good highlight there.
Speed and HP that I think the early devs put on so much different armor and even ship on Mameluke because they can runaway from their counter pretty easily, even when they got hit thanks to high HP they can still survive one or two attack before reaching safety.
Teutonic Knights: I don’t have to catch you. I just have to keep your entire damn army busy. (*Each word punctuated by the ineffectual clang of a scimitar bouncing off.*)
Ahhh yes. My favorite ship. The Mameluk!
I will add one very awkward thing about their attacks: a bit similar to other melee units that attack from range (Gbeto and Axe Thrower), they do A LOT of overkill damage. Usually melee units get the distribute their attack mroe evenly, but on the flip side they get body blocked. Units with 1 range like the Kamayak or the Steppe Lancer bipass that and get to ditch out more damage. But I guess the range around 3 to 4 hits that awkward zone in which they dont have enough distance between their target to dps from safety all he time like archers, to the point were it pays off even if there is overkill. Also since their attack packs a huge punch you can really feel that extra damage go to waste. So they can be very counter intuitive, since you want to mass them like cav archers, but to me they make more sense in groups of 7-10, or whatever the perfect math is to 2-shot a knight with some wiggle room.
Favourite UU alongside the Woad Raider and Cataphract!
My favorite unit ever yeaaaaaaah
Mamelukes and Teutonic Knights will always have a special place in your heart - they are like the girl you had a crush on back in primary school.
I like such units that sit in between and don't follow traditional laws of countering. And these even have range. They can attack through walls and deal melee damage, paired with high HP and good mobility.
Last time I was this early Mameluke was still archers
The trick of playing Saracens is to play without focus on Mamelukes and if things go bad, in many instances, adding them will solve the problem.
This video tells me that mameluks should be used like the conquistador.
Mamelukes prove their sigma chad energy by throwing scimitars instead of using them in melee like common scrubs, making them automatically top tier.
They could be made less fragile to archers by adding +1 pierce armor when receiving the elite upgrade and bring the 1 melee armor to the standard mamaulke that way they can have a better time navigating archer fights
I am disappointed you didn't make a Spirit of the Law pun website name for your Squarespace ad read.
I remember first time seeing them in a lan party around 2000 with friends. Gameplan was simple, the most paladins won. And then they came by one player and no one knew what to do with them. Still a bit scared
Fun fact, that ending monk was generating something like 4500 gold per minute!
The next video is gonna be a civ review for Saracens updated for 2024, calling it because he did the same with Franks
called it ;)
May I request a video about the “best” handcannoneers?
My guess would be - Hindustanis, Italians, Turks, Bohemians
Ah, Memelukes, such a great unit. Hits Pikes before they reach melee, demolishes cavalry as well as camels, and speedy enough to run down archers. A great one-unit composition... as long as you're not fighting enemy camels, because for some reason anti-Mameluke damage is a thing.
3:46 Historically Mameluks (Mamluks) were Turkic slaves who rode horses and used lances. They were employed by some powers who were ethnically (or liguitically) Arabic, but probably didn't see as much action actually in Arabia.
One problem I see with the unit is it's size combined with it's low range. At some point, massing up Mamelukes does not make any sense, since some units in the bulk cannot reach enemy units anymore. Their kiting ability maxes out late game way sooner than similar units.
So I think a good way to balance them is to make them more available in castle age, where the unit numbers are smaller and kiting more easy.
You can make 60 and attack with different groups or raid , i think they are fine right now , and elite upgrade so cheap i wonder why i dont see them much , mamelukes on 4v4 hillfort post imp were the best memories
I think they are honestly too strong now. They don't really have many bad matchup besides arbs and destroy everything else
"...Arabia, ironically considering it's the region they historically come from"
Technically, the Mamelukes originally were enslaved Cuman-Kipchak and Circassian peoples that were traded by the Mongols into Islamic slave markets to the south so they weren't from Arabia, and primarily operated out of the Levantine region and Egypt, not the Arabian Peninsula, but I get what you're saying.
Yeah! Sarracens update video coming soon! 🤩
I smells Saracens overview incoming.
one day we will get a melee unit that does ranged damage
I think the memelukes have two issues:
The gold cost and the low producing speed (same as camels but built castles). That means that it takes a lot of economy and time (or castles) to build a critical mass of them. The trade-off against the arbalests is a great example: in a situation where gold is not a limiting factor for either player, the archer player almost always want to trade, as they will be able to build up the numbers again in few seconds
Arbs have a higher gold cost percentage than mamelukes. Even trades (total-cost-wise) would, in a total vacuum, benefit the saracen player in that regard, although only slightly.
@@IschmarVI but then, if you take the production time into account, memelukes cant compete
In my experience playing Sara, Mameluke single handedly destroy Civ that wants to play Knight+Pike or Pala+Halbs combo like Teutons or Franks (which is fitting to be honest).
For most civ, when facing Mameluke they need to either make camel or range unit like halbs but Sara can make Pikes for camel and Skirms and onager for arbs.
I was able to get the achievement in Saladin 6 by being carried by these units.
I will have to watch this later. Too hungover for numbers right now
you missed Cataphracts. they are like soft counter, last i played mameluke deathball vs cataphracts they did not take same damage as other cav, less than regular cav.
I would say there two reasons generic arbelester counter mamelukes:
1. An even trade is still pretty solid without micro
2. With micro they would do much better
3. A halberd meat shield would totally change the dynamic
4. Mamelukes can only be trained from castles where as arbs are trained from the archery range, meaning you can outproduce and will likely always have more resources worth of units and won't be taking balanced fights.
a good idea for a video is if the suicidal units (Petard, Demolish ship, fire camel) worth.
Do you know the best way to ensure the accuracy of the trebuchet? It's annoying that it misses so much especially when it hits from the side.
But what about the best Halb in the game ?
Teutons extra armor ?
Viking pikeman?
Celts extra speed?
People want to know
Japan or slavs is best
Surely it's going to be Japanese.
I love spamming mamelukes and micro managing, I actually feel bad for the other player
They're OP on closed maps were someone can mass them. they beat camels and cav easily with the ability to attack from range along with bonus damage. they can run circles around infantry, and archers can't counter because they have too much HP and can run in for the kill. even elephants don't have enough to deal with them. I'd say only genoise crossbows full counter them and that's still based on bonus damage and mass. They still have way to much HP and need to be nerfed. I watched a friend go archer elephants and lose even with me helping him with Malay trash two handed sword spam for a meat shield. (yeah I get that that's not the best unit to go for.) Saracens can literally win with just this one unit on mass. At least on closed maps. or if you let them build up.
It would be a good expansion idea to break up Saracens into a few different civs like Fatimid and Abbasid
Since mamelukes are also camels, halberdiers get a whopping 37 bonus damage in total against them.
they also get a bunch of scimitars right in the face
Like a fine wine, mamelukes become better over time.
As a very expensive but good unit, you could say they are in the same spot (but in smaller scale) of the Cobra units.
One cost o ton of gold, the other your dignity.
I would have loved a test against cataphracts and boyars.
8:27 Chakram Throwers: I'm I a joke to you?!
Sad we didn't get to see the stand-and-fight against the Teutonic Knights :(
Me trying to picture a castle full of Mamelukes throwing hundreds of swords at the enemy.
Something to note is that 1. Only the drabidian archer elephant are somewhat cost effective, other elephant archers are not
2. Camels don't do that well when the mamelukes are being micro'd
Could you make a video listing all the AOE II units ? Cheers.
Great video as always
Thoughts on archer - mameluk comp? Other than being gold intensive
strong, but expensive.
Mamelukes and arbs are two of the most gold-intensive unit lines you get in the game. But they also give you an insane amount of power. Mamelukes deal with heavy cav, skirms and threaten siege, arbs take care of .... pretty much everything else.
I just played through Saladin for the first time. Memelukes are OP
they surely are in the campaign. It's always a blast to play the second mission and get reminded that castle age(!) mamelukes with micro straight-up counter FU franks paladins 1111
Just beware of Mamelukes if you are exploring any abandon houses...
Have you done a recent overview of the italians or genoese crossbowman? Searching shows a video on italians from 7 years ago, and nothing comes up for the later.
They are somewhat overpowered now.
I was today years old when I learned that camel archers don't deal bonus damage to regular cavalry.
updated Saracens overview coming up!
3 range might actually be the worst you can have against onagers. If you attack move melee units into siege, at least they will dive into minimum range.
Very true when sending 1 or 2. Also, melee units attacking any enemy (not just the onager) create friendly fire situations.
But if you have a large group you destroy it with a single group attack.
Melee units are slower to destroy it because they block each other.
Maybe the onager doesn't even try to attack the melee or mameluk, its target could be archers/monks/other onagers.
Hmmmm, I feel like the camel design of the mameluke is actually more like the Bactrian camel, so it's not crazy they're less used on 1v1 Arabia as they're not native to that region. ;-)
MAMELUQS
I smell an updated civ overview incoming.. 👀
I see Saracen review on the horizon
I always liked the unit. There's just something about a dude on a camel chucking sabers at people.
My favorite unit
The camel versus scout cav types of examples against Tartar or Magyars for example, should be thought of as a combination perhaps... Where when you have Saracen Hussar + Mamelukes you have to focus their scout cav first given the latter has range and puts your cav archer micro into overdrive just to balance the fight. I'd rather see the combined unit fights, because yes we see full mamelukes, but even just a few frontline units can stall the pierce damage or archer-type units completely.
The big problem with this unit is team-games... It takes 1 person (usually a friend) not setting themselves up right to countre Mamelukes, for the Saracens player to snowball - it really is just similar for their archers. The unit shouldn't really be able to countre Cav-Archers unless in a good position against them - 25 gold over them is not a lot considering. Their speed has just always been too high for my liking.
Cav archers are an even trade if you micro and keep producing
@@fiable262626 They both move at 1.4 speed, so with husbandry on both sides you can't kite at all. Perhaps if you take damage C.A. and get them in the back that makes sense, but that's a lot of micro versus an A-Move unit.
@@justincronkright5025 They can do more than just one hit. CA often have a numbers advantage too. I have played plenty of games with mameluke vs CA and its never easy to catch the CA.
You don't have to be faster for stutterstep micro to improve you combat outcome a lot; being slower or the same speed means you can't kite and take zero damage, and against ranged units, their pathing won't hinder them as much, but micro can still have a huge effect.
For the most common example I imagine, crossbows vs knights; stutterstepping increases the value of the crossbows enormously.
Mameluks had carried me over several matchers.... Franks? Magyars? Specially Mongols.