SOTL, i think its time... you need to do a video fully explaining what "battle events" are in the timeline. we need an answer, its been almost 25 years
PLEASE!! Would be a great vid. You could explore and experiment with what counts as a battle event, what doesnt, and why it's in the timeline in the first place.
Top 10 Worst is pretty interesting since it forces you to think about not just the units involved but also what upgrades those units need and how not having them impacts their ability to perform compared to generic civ units. It gives a good visual of how important each unit/upgrade can really be unlike a Top 10 Best which usually includes a lot of "this civ has all of the upgrades they need plus additional things". It's also a good way to go in depth and see how some civs that are considered generally strong are lacking in certain areas of the tech tree.
I agree. It's interesting to see a high tier civ like Bulgarians having such an abysmal archery tree. It's one of those things you don't really think about because you rarely see them go archers, and they clearly don't need them to have a high win rate.
I was watching the Olympics earlier and the commentator decides to point out two of the athletes are Swifties. The single craziest moment in sports, ever.
@@harryeast95 I don’t really understand. Sports and their commentators have always been very normie stuff. Besides nerding out about stats and co. it’s very mainstream.
@@Khazar321 Blathering about celebrities simply does. not. happen. Pointing out a celebrity watching a match? Old hat, randomly mentioning the music athletes are interested in? Not at all.
I do though.... I always create 10 skirms and 5 spears when I'm against Spanish. That way, they can't surprise me with archers. If they go FC, I use the skirms to harass in feudal and when they build knights in castle, I upgrade my 5 spears to pike or if they make conquistadors, I upgrade the skirms
Dravidian stables are still better than Tatar barracks Those elephants with wootz steel can surprise end the game for enemies since no one upgrades their spearman line for dravidians
Fun fact, Burgundian HCs can two-shot halberdiers, because their bonus damage is also increased by their +25% damage bonus. So even if they're not really a good "archer" civ, their HC makes up for the missing arbalester upgrade, in my opinion.
I actually find this list a lot more interesting than the top 10's. Its easy to go 'ah, full tech tree, relevant bonus, strong unique techs' and piece together a strong civ for the unit line, but the analysis on the holes in a building mixed in with the tech and the civ's natural game plan affecting just how bad a unit line is feels like it has a lot more depth. If you asked me before this video, I would've said 'Spanish are the worst' but the points you make, make a lot of sense.
Bulgarian and Spanish Cav archers are surprisingly effective tbh. Definitely not the civs' optimal units, but they have some of the most seemless transitions to CA due to cheaper/faster relevant upgrades. Opening with cavalry in feudal and early castle, picking up bloodlines and husbandry, then going for Cav archers to counter monks/pikes while still staying mobile is pretty solid. Devious.
Eh. I wonder why Spanish would use cav archers, though. After all, all upgrades that work for those also work for Conquistadores, and those are much more powerful in Castle Age.
When I was maining Britons, I played a random civ and got Spanish. Completely out of my depths, I gave hand cannoneers a go and found that having a ranged unit that costs food and gold was actually a slight advantage rather than a disadvantage.
Both civs that can represent the Normans (Franks and Sicilians) have bad archers, even though Norman archers were historically top-tier. Also, if there is ever a Balkan DLC with subsequent Slav rework, I can see the newly-renamed Ruthenians gaining the Hand Cannoneer, turning the Boyar into a regional unit, and gaining the Strelet as a new Castle UU. I'm not sure what the Strelet would do, but it would either be armed with a hand cannon or bardiche.
One thing you didn't mention about Burmese is that their Skirmishers are AWFUL, as they take 2x the damage from Crossbows as Skirmishers with Leather Archer Armor would.
"Which civ is worst at a given strat is rarely discussed" Counterpoint: every single 12-y/o you ever queue up with in random matchmaking will remind you exactly why your civ/strat combo is trash. As well as a few pointers about your mother but we won't go there.
Look at the Chinese who invented a lot of techs they don't have :) As for Spanish, I think the devs simply wanted to push players into using gunpowder units like Conquistadors and Hand Cannoneers.
We already have civs without cavalry, I wonder if the devs could make civs without archers or even the entire archery range. But they would need some way to not just straight up lose against things like the Teutonic knight.
I guess that could work, having something like the shrivamsha rider and better/cheaper siege. The big question is, what civilisation on earth has used no archers, like at all for warfare. Aoe 2 is by no means historically accurate but atleast some basis should be there.
While that could be an interesting civ decision, the simplest weapon along with the club/dagger is the arrow (and the bow to fire it) so I can't find it in me to think about a civ without bows
Slavs are my main civ and I would argue that archers in feudal age can be a good play. Nobody excepts it first of all, but also the Slavs team bonus allows them to skip building a few houses and given that archer builds tend to be very tight, it helps a lot. They are perfectly average until castle age. I then translation into knights in castle age which often throws players off guard for some reason.
I’d honestly consider bumping Spanish up a few slots, putting them at 7 or 8, since to some degree, the point of this is the “don’t bother even placing an archery range” vibe. Spanish will routinely drop an archery range to contest with early skirmishers, have access to acceptable cavalry archers, and late game have excellent skirmishers and top tier hand cannons. They have plenty of reasons to build an archery range, while Celts and Burmese may simply not bother.
lol Roman’s hired some of the best archers in their known world called the Syrian auxiliaries. Anyways the who idea that a crossbow upgrades from a bow is ridiculous
SOTL, time is nearing to revisit the aoe2 Olympics, with many new contestants and many new categories, I am looking forward to an exciting turn of events.
I agree, just one more point with the Teutons since they can garrison lots of hand cannoneer in tower, town center, castles so they have some extra use for defense or in offensive tower/castles.
burgundians and romans are in my opinion of the lowkey best 'not obvious' archer civs, especially in team games it is usually easier to click up making just archers, but with these civ's eco bonuses it becomes even more easy poles as well actually, they have relatively good imp archery range options, and a great team bonus for team scouts
@@h3m75 that’s like how you spam knights as vikings, strong early eco yet you are gonna get limited in techs later on. basically any civ with lumbercamp/lumberjack bonus would be very strong as flank.
I absolutely love this actually. There's quite a few surprises in the "top 10 worst" list that might not always come up because not everyone's weaknesses are always glaring, but can in fact be absolutely crippling. I'd love to see more of this
An alternative to the two variants of worst archer civ you mentioned at the start you could go with the civs that gain the least from archer units/techs as they have generally better options
Something I've found that may bear consideration, is how the archery upgrades affect towers. Some poor archer civs can by nature of good towers benefit from having crossbows before shifting lategame, as you said. Further, the combo between towers and cav archers can prove valuable. Mobile archers to provide a little support where and as you need it shouldn't be discounted. We also have the Spanish as you mentioned with their alright-ish archers, well tge crossbow can evolve during the game into using heavy cav archers later on. Just really neat to consider how things interplay like that.
I would really love at least a worst stable and barracks list. I would enjoy a Siege Workshop, Monastery and Dock one as well but definitely hope to see the first two.
Bulgarian CA are very underrated. CA are always strong, if you can afford them and for sure a lategame option. And cheaper+faster blacksmith techs help them a bit in switching into them. Only thing holding them back is, that their gameplan revolves more around infantry and cavalry. If you wanna go CA from the get go - why not pick a civ with a bonus for them. But if your matchup warrants them, like against teutons - go for it!
Interesting concept starting with one of the more cut and dry buildings. I imagine worst stable will require quite a few caveats given how 3 civs can't even build it.
I agree. Spanish were jugded too harshly. They have one of the better archer rushes, easily saving over 100 gold. You just must not overcommit. You can switch to elite skirmishers + knights and continue to save gold on blacksmith upgrades
Not sure if it's just because of the association these videos have created, but the music that comes in at 7:32 sounds so hopeful or triumphant, yet it's being used to highlight the WORST civ in the list 😂
Some of the civ but especially Bulgarian tech tree almost seems to demand that you ignore foot unit and embrace horse archer. Also Burma Horse archer missing many archer tech but have Parthian tactic are wild haha
In Eastern Europe we prefer to get up close, so we scare our enemy with the powerful adidas armor and overwhelming cologne smell. Archers are for girly western men.
spanish have better techs compared to bulgarians, but luckily the latter have good siege options for ranged support. same case for both slavs and teutons.
Crossbows are more important than cav archers. Even civs with a bad arb line often use crossbows in early castle, while even dedicated cav archer civs won't always use them.
Nice video , I have to agree slavs archery range is the worst even tough they are nice for boyars and infantry. If you can please to a video about best CA civs 😊, it would be much appreciated.
I should point out that a strong hand cannoneer does not make up for weak crossbows (arbalests are nice, but you can still have good crossbows). Spirit showed that they underperform arbalests when fighting Halbardiers in an earlier video! Against a 1000 HP Halbadier they did slightly better than arbalests at close range and about the same DPS at HC's maximum range (at arbalest's maximum range they'd do nothing) but when cost adjusted, they were about the same as arbalests at close range and worse far away. If these were two ranged units, it would be excusable for the one worse against halberdiers if it had a longer range, had a smaller firing delay to allow for hit and run, or if it beat the other unit 1 vs 1. Skirmishers aren't as good against halbs as arbalests, but skirmishers are useful. But the Hand Canoneer is the anti-infantry archery range unit. it is harder to micro, has a ling firing delay, and loses to the arbalest in with 8 arbs vs 7 Hand Cannoneers (when you sell food for gold, this is roughly equivalent resources). For all those disadvantages, it should at least be better against Halbadiers. Spirit even said if the goal was to make them the better anti-infantry unit, they needed a buff. If you're Burgundians, Portuguese, or Turks, they are still good. If you're a different civilization that doesn't get that bonus to them, don't expect them to paper over a hole of weak crossbowmen.
Nice reaction from the NPC at the far right at 0:19! 10 Arrows to the face and the NPC is like "Nah, i don't need this right now! I'am leaving, so long suckers!" 🤣 AND: Nice Video, as always! Thank You!
Yay Slavs win again ❤. I also very much love a Celt MAA into archers the speedy MAA are great and the wood bonus really helps tie it together. Plus i dont need to worry about upgrading them when they all inevitably die under the TC!
This was some cute fun, you should do the other classes. As a teuton main I am a little sad you didn't give their archer > Xbow opening credit for their very strong feudal wood bonus. The Viper opens archers on them regularly.
You should definitely try doing a "Top 10 Worst Trash" list, though you should make it so that it doesn't just look at the trash units themselves. You also need to consider how the civ's late-game economy can support trash spam. For example, the Mongols are pretty terrible at trash wars. Not only do none of their trash units have full upgrades, but they lack all three Imperial Age eco techs, making it far tougher to keep spamming them and far more costly to use the Market to afford the odd siege unit.
one saving grace for the bulgarians is also the faster working blacksmith, which can make the archer play in early feudal kinda good, right after a MAA rush to snowball the game hard. But outside of that, they definitly suck and would be my #1 in this list.
Looking forward for the next "worst xx civs" series episodes 💚 Furthermore, I have another good suggestion: please make videos about the best "quality over quantity" and "quantity over quality" civs 😀
Given that gunpowder and archer are two distinct categories of civs, I’d argue that the lack or presence of hand cannoneers shouldn’t really factor into how good an archer civ is.
If you do make a worst cavalry list, I would ask that a prerequisite is that they have stables to begin with. Otherwise, the top three will be extremely predictable (American civs).
Maybe include a honorable mention to the Turks for lacking Elite Skirms, although they do have fully upgraded cav archers and gunpowder (with further UTs and bonuses).
I was just thinking about the worst naval cub. I looked back at your all grades video. Slav and Aztecs were C- I think. But Malians also have no galleon and no bracer so I was surprised to see them higher. I like the idea of civs that the player needs to get creative to work around a limitation .
At best the slavs farm bonus is just not doing much because you dont need food, at worst it actually hinders your archer opening because you need to reseed 15% sooner, leaving you with a higher wood demand
inb4 SotL's worst cavalry civ list teases us with civs that have crap-to-nonexisistent knight-line but great alternative mounted units (read: Gurjaras, Hindustanis, and Saracens, and probably maybe possibly Malay)
Imagine my shock when Gurjaras are the worst Infantry civ on the worst infantry civ list. Tatars might be second worst but the gap is surprisingly large between 1st and 2nd on this list...
Never thought about it, but... yeah, Spanish isn't as bad as I thought. Infamously lacking Crossbow, but with a bonus to Hand Cannons, still has FU for Skirms, and only missing Parthian Tactics in terms of Cav Archer upgrades. Compared to Franks who only have generic Hand Cannons with no bonus... yeah, Spanish not looking so bad anymore.
It's interesting that Spanish have no XBows in this game but then have several Colonial Age techs based around an XBow/Pike rush in AOE3 and are one of few civa there with Imperial versions available. Maybe there's a video out there of things that translate oddly between AOE2 and 3?
Hey Spirit, great video. Have you ever calculated the rot from a three, six or nine boar lure? You probably have a video somewhere that I could draw a conclusion from...
I think we missed an opportunity to explore why Persian Archer only tech is poor but not bottom 10. how does turning them into trash allow them to be useful against civs with full armour technologies, or perhaps the Romans and Similar with extra peirce armour....
SOTL, your videos improved my games substantially. But apart from the great quality and effort you put into all of your videos, I really want to know something that it's not related to AOE at all. It's the video's ending song. I've had an EpidemicSounds subscription for over 2 years in the past, but never stumbled upon this song. What is it named?
I have a few dumb questions about archers. I have been playing AoE II since the expansion came out. But I've only played against my brother or mainly against the AI. When "archers" are garrisoned in a castle is there just a standard amount of damage per number of archers or does it change with the type of unit. say 5 plain crossbowmen as opposed to 5 English Longbowmen. Another thing I have noticed is differences in towers. Does having 5 archers in a bombard tower increase its damage (I don't see much, if any increase). Another is 5 archers with heated shot seem to be more effective against ships than a bombard tower (without or with archers but also with heated shot). I seems the bombard is firing much slower then the plain tower archers.
@kristaskrastina2863 on black forest maps, I usually triple wall with two tiles between each wall, so when I end up with an army at my front door; they have plenty of work to do. Attacks the castles first with trebs, they will catch bombard cannon retaliation. Interestingly, 20 infantry in Castle with crenalations has less damage output than 20 crossbows.
Watch game 7 in the Red Bull Wololo 5 finals. Viper used Teuton crossbows as a key part of his strategy to beat Berbers on Land Madness despite his civ struggling against camel archers. Just having that ranged component to his army came in clutch to keep the camel archer numbers from snowballing out of control.
How interesting do I find this topic? Well, since I don't actually play AOE2, probably not very interesting. But then again, I have immediately watched just about every video you've put out since I found your channel a few years ago, so I guess "pretty interesting" is a more accurate answer 😂
So I have a funny story playing as the Burgundians online once. I did a knight rush, and enemy spears pushed me back and it was mid-game so I countered with x-bows and somehow won making only them and ended the game in castle age 11
It is highly questionable whether it makes sense to put so many civs with hand cannons into the list. Also we must consider when in the game we are talking. In late-game the archery range is actually more of a strength for the Spanish and the Burgundians. I would sure prefer them to the Bengalis, now that the Elephant archer got nerfed. I think this list would have to be remade for every age. Although Franks will probably be in there for pretty much any age.
I wonder what's the point for Franks to have the heavy cav archer, missing bracer, thumb ring, third armour, parthian tactics and bloodlines not fully compensated by their bonus. Why would you even research HCA for them ?
The minds of the AoE2 devs are an enigma, to be sure. I think it's that cavalry archers represented mounted skirmishers (like how camels represent anti-cavalry-cavalry). By the time Berbers Genitours were added, it was too late to change that (also it gives Berbers a TG "bonus"). They're certainly trash, just like skirmishers :P
"Top 10 worst" always bothers me, "top" implies good, "worst" is, well, worst. It's disharmonious. "The 10 worst" is sufficient. Just as "Top 10" is sufficient and "Top 10 best" is redundant (but at least harmonious).
That he mentions the missing techs for the last civ in a different order than he circles them kind of annoys me. Enough to write it down before I consider watching, which I'm a bit puzzled by. Still, a curiously insightful video.
SOTL, i think its time... you need to do a video fully explaining what "battle events" are in the timeline. we need an answer, its been almost 25 years
PLEASE!! Would be a great vid. You could explore and experiment with what counts as a battle event, what doesnt, and why it's in the timeline in the first place.
Thank you Battle Events are AOEs most random feature
I don’t even think the devs know
Omg yes plz
What do you mean by battle event?
Romans: I have scorpions with ballistics
Goths: That just sounds like archer-line with extra steps
Pierce damage shall you do
Our huskarls will pierce through
Romans: Bows are for cowards, we do our killing up close, if we want ranged weapons we'll throw spears.
No wonder the Goths beat them
Romans: Small arrow is for meeks. We Romans shoot large bolt (bring scorpion out).
Romans: That's not a crossbow. _That_ is a crossbow!
Spanish are actually the best for suprise factors.
Then you go all in with villagers
NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH ARCHER INQUISITION
@@Fernybun you beat me to it :c
Funnily enough, it actually is a decent strategy in feudal age with scouts. But it is still very bad afterwards if you didn't manage to kill vills
“i would call the spanish archers are so bad…..that is actually decent, because nobody would ever expect it”
-Spirit of the Law, 2015
Top 10 Worst is pretty interesting since it forces you to think about not just the units involved but also what upgrades those units need and how not having them impacts their ability to perform compared to generic civ units. It gives a good visual of how important each unit/upgrade can really be unlike a Top 10 Best which usually includes a lot of "this civ has all of the upgrades they need plus additional things". It's also a good way to go in depth and see how some civs that are considered generally strong are lacking in certain areas of the tech tree.
Why didnt he talk abt ballistics? archers need them, or do all Civs have ballistics?
I agree. It's interesting to see a high tier civ like Bulgarians having such an abysmal archery tree. It's one of those things you don't really think about because you rarely see them go archers, and they clearly don't need them to have a high win rate.
Since when is Bulgarians a high tier civ?
@@chirantans2162 every civ has both chemistry and ballistics
I was not excepting a celebrity reference from SoTL of all people.
Spirit of the met gala
I was watching the Olympics earlier and the commentator decides to point out two of the athletes are Swifties. The single craziest moment in sports, ever.
@@harryeast95 I don’t really understand.
Sports and their commentators have always been very normie stuff.
Besides nerding out about stats and co. it’s very mainstream.
@@Khazar321 Blathering about celebrities simply does. not. happen. Pointing out a celebrity watching a match? Old hat, randomly mentioning the music athletes are interested in? Not at all.
nobody expects the spanish archer rush
Nice
I do though.... I always create 10 skirms and 5 spears when I'm against Spanish.
That way, they can't surprise me with archers. If they go FC, I use the skirms to harass in feudal and when they build knights in castle, I upgrade my 5 spears to pike or if they make conquistadors, I upgrade the skirms
But I expects the conquistadors push so I always prepare skirm and build watch towers around my base
Oh yeah, I totally want to see the Dravidian stable top a list!
Together with the Tatar barracks, of course
Dravidian stables are still better than Tatar barracks
Those elephants with wootz steel can surprise end the game for enemies since no one upgrades their spearman line for dravidians
Fun fact, Burgundian HCs can two-shot halberdiers, because their bonus damage is also increased by their +25% damage bonus. So even if they're not really a good "archer" civ, their HC makes up for the missing arbalester upgrade, in my opinion.
I actually find this list a lot more interesting than the top 10's. Its easy to go 'ah, full tech tree, relevant bonus, strong unique techs' and piece together a strong civ for the unit line, but the analysis on the holes in a building mixed in with the tech and the civ's natural game plan affecting just how bad a unit line is feels like it has a lot more depth.
If you asked me before this video, I would've said 'Spanish are the worst' but the points you make, make a lot of sense.
Bulgarian and Spanish Cav archers are surprisingly effective tbh. Definitely not the civs' optimal units, but they have some of the most seemless transitions to CA due to cheaper/faster relevant upgrades. Opening with cavalry in feudal and early castle, picking up bloodlines and husbandry, then going for Cav archers to counter monks/pikes while still staying mobile is pretty solid. Devious.
Eh. I wonder why Spanish would use cav archers, though. After all, all upgrades that work for those also work for Conquistadores, and those are much more powerful in Castle Age.
And then your opponent makes 50 Knights and you realise you've wasted your time on a meme.
When I was maining Britons, I played a random civ and got Spanish. Completely out of my depths, I gave hand cannoneers a go and found that having a ranged unit that costs food and gold was actually a slight advantage rather than a disadvantage.
Both civs that can represent the Normans (Franks and Sicilians) have bad archers, even though Norman archers were historically top-tier.
Also, if there is ever a Balkan DLC with subsequent Slav rework, I can see the newly-renamed Ruthenians gaining the Hand Cannoneer, turning the Boyar into a regional unit, and gaining the Strelet as a new Castle UU. I'm not sure what the Strelet would do, but it would either be armed with a hand cannon or bardiche.
Funily enough, the Rus in AoE4 have strelet and are pretty good with gunpowder in general.
@@alejandrobraganza8728 Yes, that's part of the reason why I propose that change.
One thing you didn't mention about Burmese is that their Skirmishers are AWFUL, as they take 2x the damage from Crossbows as Skirmishers with Leather Archer Armor would.
Nice Seliph profile pic ✌
"Which civ is worst at a given strat is rarely discussed"
Counterpoint: every single 12-y/o you ever queue up with in random matchmaking will remind you exactly why your civ/strat combo is trash.
As well as a few pointers about your mother but we won't go there.
And after the game they'll tell you that even their mother could have won with your civ.
@@justachannel8600"My granny could scrap better than that."
Its really dumb that the Spanish dont get at least crossbows because they used crossbows very often in reality.
I think it is a balance thing, it was like when the chinese didnt have Block Printing Even though they created it.
its balance, if it was more historical accurate the chinese would be OP, they would have almost(if not all) generic techs and more units
Look at the Chinese who invented a lot of techs they don't have :) As for Spanish, I think the devs simply wanted to push players into using gunpowder units like Conquistadors and Hand Cannoneers.
Spanish in aoe3 had crossbow
@@AmmarFarisA And weirdly enough in AOE3 they don't have the conquistador. Just generic Dragoons.
We already have civs without cavalry, I wonder if the devs could make civs without archers or even the entire archery range.
But they would need some way to not just straight up lose against things like the Teutonic knight.
I guess that could work, having something like the shrivamsha rider and better/cheaper siege. The big question is, what civilisation on earth has used no archers, like at all for warfare. Aoe 2 is by no means historically accurate but atleast some basis should be there.
Would also have a pretty hard time vs pike + archers... maybe an archery range with completely different units...
While that could be an interesting civ decision, the simplest weapon along with the club/dagger is the arrow (and the bow to fire it) so I can't find it in me to think about a civ without bows
They would need some way to not just straight up lose against melee pathing first
@@SaltyMcTilt incas
Slavs are my main civ and I would argue that archers in feudal age can be a good play. Nobody excepts it first of all, but also the Slavs team bonus allows them to skip building a few houses and given that archer builds tend to be very tight, it helps a lot. They are perfectly average until castle age. I then translation into knights in castle age which often throws players off guard for some reason.
I’d honestly consider bumping Spanish up a few slots, putting them at 7 or 8, since to some degree, the point of this is the “don’t bother even placing an archery range” vibe. Spanish will routinely drop an archery range to contest with early skirmishers, have access to acceptable cavalry archers, and late game have excellent skirmishers and top tier hand cannons. They have plenty of reasons to build an archery range, while Celts and Burmese may simply not bother.
lol Roman’s hired some of the best archers in their known world called the Syrian auxiliaries. Anyways the who idea that a crossbow upgrades from a bow is ridiculous
And the Cretans and they had intil one point a decree that made all of their legionaries have and use a sling.
SOTL, time is nearing to revisit the aoe2 Olympics, with many new contestants and many new categories, I am looking forward to an exciting turn of events.
Oh man, LOVED this video. I would love to see a top 10 and low 10 for all buildings. and then maybe a ranking?
I agree, just one more point with the Teutons since they can garrison lots of hand cannoneer in tower, town center, castles so they have some extra use for defense or in offensive tower/castles.
burgundians and romans are in my opinion of the lowkey best 'not obvious' archer civs, especially in team games
it is usually easier to click up making just archers, but with these civ's eco bonuses it becomes even more easy
poles as well actually, they have relatively good imp archery range options, and a great team bonus for team scouts
@@h3m75 that’s like how you spam knights as vikings, strong early eco yet you are gonna get limited in techs later on.
basically any civ with lumbercamp/lumberjack bonus would be very strong as flank.
I absolutely love this actually. There's quite a few surprises in the "top 10 worst" list that might not always come up because not everyone's weaknesses are always glaring, but can in fact be absolutely crippling. I'd love to see more of this
An alternative to the two variants of worst archer civ you mentioned at the start you could go with the civs that gain the least from archer units/techs as they have generally better options
The Leo and Taylor joke is genius, seriously. I can't. Just can't. That was too good!
Something I've found that may bear consideration, is how the archery upgrades affect towers. Some poor archer civs can by nature of good towers benefit from having crossbows before shifting lategame, as you said. Further, the combo between towers and cav archers can prove valuable. Mobile archers to provide a little support where and as you need it shouldn't be discounted. We also have the Spanish as you mentioned with their alright-ish archers, well tge crossbow can evolve during the game into using heavy cav archers later on.
Just really neat to consider how things interplay like that.
That Leo/Swift joke killed me. Spirit coming in with sass!
Can't wait for Spirit to put the Koreans as #1 when rating the worst stables, and Huns as #1 when rating the Siege Workshop.
Koreans' stable is better than Dravidians'. Dravidians have blast furnace and Battle Elephant, but Koreans get husbandry, hussar, knight and cavalier.
I would really love at least a worst stable and barracks list. I would enjoy a Siege Workshop, Monastery and Dock one as well but definitely hope to see the first two.
The Spanish archer rush match shown in the video is one of the greatest if not the best games Ive ever watched, so unexpected!
Solid video! Id like more of these with other unit types
SOTL with the shade on Leo and Taylor. :D
Bulgarian CA are very underrated. CA are always strong, if you can afford them and for sure a lategame option. And cheaper+faster blacksmith techs help them a bit in switching into them.
Only thing holding them back is, that their gameplan revolves more around infantry and cavalry. If you wanna go CA from the get go - why not pick a civ with a bonus for them.
But if your matchup warrants them, like against teutons - go for it!
Trueee
Interesting concept starting with one of the more cut and dry buildings. I imagine worst stable will require quite a few caveats given how 3 civs can't even build it.
Looking foward for the 'worst monk civs'
This was actually quite opening. Good video.
We definitely are interested in seeing more videos about the worst type of each unit civ like this!
I agree. Spanish were jugded too harshly. They have one of the better archer rushes, easily saving over 100 gold. You just must not overcommit. You can switch to elite skirmishers + knights and continue to save gold on blacksmith upgrades
As someone who is really just learning all of the civs, more of these videos would be great. They let me know what to avoid haha
Not sure if it's just because of the association these videos have created, but the music that comes in at 7:32 sounds so hopeful or triumphant, yet it's being used to highlight the WORST civ in the list 😂
Some of the civ but especially Bulgarian tech tree almost seems to demand that you ignore foot unit and embrace horse archer.
Also Burma Horse archer missing many archer tech but have Parthian tactic are wild haha
Interesting, I thought Franks and Teutons would be less alone in their weakness. Somehow AoK civs still manage to look polarized to this day
In Eastern Europe we prefer to get up close, so we scare our enemy with the powerful adidas armor and overwhelming cologne smell. Archers are for girly western men.
This sent me 😂
I'd say franks and celts are bottom followed by teutons, no idea why bulgarians are so low considering their acceptable cav archers
spanish have better techs compared to bulgarians, but luckily the latter have good siege options for ranged support. same case for both slavs and teutons.
Crossbows are more important than cav archers. Even civs with a bad arb line often use crossbows in early castle, while even dedicated cav archer civs won't always use them.
Worst Archer Civs... Is that another hint for the renewed Teuton Overview :D
Nice video , I have to agree slavs archery range is the worst even tough they are nice for boyars and infantry. If you can please to a video about best CA civs 😊, it would be much appreciated.
Well, Germany and France did both rank low in today's Olympic archery event, with France ranking below Germany, so I suppose it fits.
I should point out that a strong hand cannoneer does not make up for weak crossbows (arbalests are nice, but you can still have good crossbows). Spirit showed that they underperform arbalests when fighting Halbardiers in an earlier video! Against a 1000 HP Halbadier they did slightly better than arbalests at close range and about the same DPS at HC's maximum range (at arbalest's maximum range they'd do nothing) but when cost adjusted, they were about the same as arbalests at close range and worse far away.
If these were two ranged units, it would be excusable for the one worse against halberdiers if it had a longer range, had a smaller firing delay to allow for hit and run, or if it beat the other unit 1 vs 1. Skirmishers aren't as good against halbs as arbalests, but skirmishers are useful.
But the Hand Canoneer is the anti-infantry archery range unit. it is harder to micro, has a ling firing delay, and loses to the arbalest in with 8 arbs vs 7 Hand Cannoneers (when you sell food for gold, this is roughly equivalent resources). For all those disadvantages, it should at least be better against Halbadiers. Spirit even said if the goal was to make them the better anti-infantry unit, they needed a buff. If you're Burgundians, Portuguese, or Turks, they are still good. If you're a different civilization that doesn't get that bonus to them, don't expect them to paper over a hole of weak crossbowmen.
Nice reaction from the NPC at the far right at 0:19!
10 Arrows to the face and the NPC is like "Nah, i don't need this right now! I'am leaving, so long suckers!" 🤣
AND: Nice Video, as always! Thank You!
Yay Slavs win again ❤. I also very much love a Celt MAA into archers the speedy MAA are great and the wood bonus really helps tie it together. Plus i dont need to worry about upgrading them when they all inevitably die under the TC!
This was some cute fun, you should do the other classes. As a teuton main I am a little sad you didn't give their archer > Xbow opening credit for their very strong feudal wood bonus. The Viper opens archers on them regularly.
Nobody expect Spanish archers, so they are low-key underrated imo.
I haven't played AOE 2 for two years now and I still watch these videos. I'll get back in eventually, I love the game too much to stay away forever.
You should definitely try doing a "Top 10 Worst Trash" list, though you should make it so that it doesn't just look at the trash units themselves. You also need to consider how the civ's late-game economy can support trash spam.
For example, the Mongols are pretty terrible at trash wars. Not only do none of their trash units have full upgrades, but they lack all three Imperial Age eco techs, making it far tougher to keep spamming them and far more costly to use the Market to afford the odd siege unit.
one saving grace for the bulgarians is also the faster working blacksmith, which can make the archer play in early feudal kinda good, right after a MAA rush to snowball the game hard. But outside of that, they definitly suck and would be my #1 in this list.
Looking forward for the next "worst xx civs" series episodes 💚
Furthermore, I have another good suggestion: please make videos about the best "quality over quantity" and "quantity over quality" civs 😀
Given that gunpowder and archer are two distinct categories of civs, I’d argue that the lack or presence of hand cannoneers shouldn’t really factor into how good an archer civ is.
1:01 the best SOTL commentary ever
If you do make a worst cavalry list, I would ask that a prerequisite is that they have stables to begin with. Otherwise, the top three will be extremely predictable (American civs).
Maybe include a honorable mention to the Turks for lacking Elite Skirms, although they do have fully upgraded cav archers and gunpowder (with further UTs and bonuses).
Need more of this for other categories
For the algorithm ❤
Worst infantry worse cavalry worst seige. Please
Lol I don't play the game, but spirit of law has pulled me in over last few years. I always click next video.
I was just thinking about the worst naval cub. I looked back at your all grades video. Slav and Aztecs were C- I think. But Malians also have no galleon and no bracer so I was surprised to see them higher.
I like the idea of civs that the player needs to get creative to work around a limitation .
At best the slavs farm bonus is just not doing much because you dont need food, at worst it actually hinders your archer opening because you need to reseed 15% sooner, leaving you with a higher wood demand
inb4 SotL's worst cavalry civ list teases us with civs that have crap-to-nonexisistent knight-line but great alternative mounted units (read: Gurjaras, Hindustanis, and Saracens, and probably maybe possibly Malay)
Imagine my shock when Gurjaras are the worst Infantry civ on the worst infantry civ list. Tatars might be second worst but the gap is surprisingly large between 1st and 2nd on this list...
Haw about the Best converted Ratha? Since they get the civ bonuses when they change from melee to range and vice versa
Never thought about it, but... yeah, Spanish isn't as bad as I thought. Infamously lacking Crossbow, but with a bonus to Hand Cannons, still has FU for Skirms, and only missing Parthian Tactics in terms of Cav Archer upgrades. Compared to Franks who only have generic Hand Cannons with no bonus... yeah, Spanish not looking so bad anymore.
Am I crazy or did you not mention the Burmese and Celts wood collecting bonuses
It's interesting that Spanish have no XBows in this game but then have several Colonial Age techs based around an XBow/Pike rush in AOE3 and are one of few civa there with Imperial versions available. Maybe there's a video out there of things that translate oddly between AOE2 and 3?
Hey Spirit, great video. Have you ever calculated the rot from a three, six or nine boar lure? You probably have a video somewhere that I could draw a conclusion from...
Just leaving the Olympic Games round of 16 archery, the topic of the video is pretty accurate
Thanks, I will now be all in archer rushing as these
I for one would love to see SOTL shame civs for being bottom of cavalry, infantry, siege, etc.
interesting, I never thought of playing bulgarian cav archers. that could be a fun surprise build to try
I'll enjoy anything you put out, even if it's a "coolest sprites comparison ".
I think we missed an opportunity to explore why Persian Archer only tech is poor but not bottom 10. how does turning them into trash allow them to be useful against civs with full armour technologies, or perhaps the Romans and Similar with extra peirce armour....
Well, I actually expected the Celts to be the worst of all.😮
An idea, the most versatile civs good for transitions and have multiples WinCon
Top 10 worst trash civs next, please.
Hey Spirit, will you be making any videos about Age of Mythology: Retold?
SOTL, your videos improved my games substantially. But apart from the great quality and effort you put into all of your videos, I really want to know something that it's not related to AOE at all.
It's the video's ending song. I've had an EpidemicSounds subscription for over 2 years in the past, but never stumbled upon this song. What is it named?
I have a few dumb questions about archers. I have been playing AoE II since the expansion came out. But I've only played against my brother or mainly against the AI. When "archers" are garrisoned in a castle is there just a standard amount of damage per number of archers or does it change with the type of unit. say 5 plain crossbowmen as opposed to 5 English Longbowmen. Another thing I have noticed is differences in towers. Does having 5 archers in a bombard tower increase its damage (I don't see much, if any increase). Another is 5 archers with heated shot seem to be more effective against ships than a bombard tower (without or with archers but also with heated shot). I seems the bombard is firing much slower then the plain tower archers.
Okayyyy but just for this list I'm going to go do archer builds with #1
The only reason for a Teuton player to build and archery range pre chemistry is to stock their castles with crossbows.
Hell yeah! And in the Imperial you add Crenellations to that. Just imagine the power of those castle drops.
@kristaskrastina2863 on black forest maps, I usually triple wall with two tiles between each wall, so when I end up with an army at my front door; they have plenty of work to do. Attacks the castles first with trebs, they will catch bombard cannon retaliation.
Interestingly, 20 infantry in Castle with crenalations has less damage output than 20 crossbows.
Watch game 7 in the Red Bull Wololo 5 finals. Viper used Teuton crossbows as a key part of his strategy to beat Berbers on Land Madness despite his civ struggling against camel archers. Just having that ranged component to his army came in clutch to keep the camel archer numbers from snowballing out of control.
WOW! I can't believe it, a video without mentioning the Japanese?!
Burgundian + Vietnamese combo is AMAZING though, partly because of imp skirms.
How interesting do I find this topic? Well, since I don't actually play AOE2, probably not very interesting. But then again, I have immediately watched just about every video you've put out since I found your channel a few years ago, so I guess "pretty interesting" is a more accurate answer 😂
So I have a funny story playing as the Burgundians online once. I did a knight rush, and enemy spears pushed me back and it was mid-game so I countered with x-bows and somehow won making only them and ended the game in castle age 11
awesome video as usual!!
It is highly questionable whether it makes sense to put so many civs with hand cannons into the list.
Also we must consider when in the game we are talking.
In late-game the archery range is actually more of a strength for the Spanish and the Burgundians.
I would sure prefer them to the Bengalis, now that the Elephant archer got nerfed.
I think this list would have to be remade for every age.
Although Franks will probably be in there for pretty much any age.
can you make a video where you compare castles from different civs for historical accuratie, realisme and style
Supremacy villagers + archers is a winning combo 10/10.
Spirit of the la hire!!
I wonder what's the point for Franks to have the heavy cav archer, missing bracer, thumb ring, third armour, parthian tactics and bloodlines not fully compensated by their bonus. Why would you even research HCA for them ?
The minds of the AoE2 devs are an enigma, to be sure.
I think it's that cavalry archers represented mounted skirmishers (like how camels represent anti-cavalry-cavalry). By the time Berbers Genitours were added, it was too late to change that (also it gives Berbers a TG "bonus").
They're certainly trash, just like skirmishers :P
To support cavalry units like the Cumans. But cumans favor speed over survivability
"Top 10 worst" always bothers me, "top" implies good, "worst" is, well, worst. It's disharmonious. "The 10 worst" is sufficient. Just as "Top 10" is sufficient and "Top 10 best" is redundant (but at least harmonious).
Hey, Spirit of the Law, guys here.
> Top 10
> Worst
*ME BRAIN CONFUSED*
That he mentions the missing techs for the last civ in a different order than he circles them kind of annoys me. Enough to write it down before I consider watching, which I'm a bit puzzled by.
Still, a curiously insightful video.