Worth a mention that giving scorpions balistics was also a massive buff for Slavs with their cheaper siege, and who previously lacked a solid ranged option.
Fresh Princess of Belarus seems like such a wholesome person. I love players who are so excited about the game for very personal reasons. Long live aoe! 14!
@@WereScrib The earlier itierations of some of these civs saw horrible textures and very ugly unit animations since they were fan-made mods. The very first year of Forgotten Empires was just that, a mod, and it would take some 11 months until the official devs incorporated Forgotten, revamped textures and animations and added regular balance patches that included these civs, same with the campaigns it brought. But yea, what many people remember as the "original forgotten" look wasn't even as ugly as the fan-made mod, "OG OG" version of it, haha.
If the "corvinian army" upgrade is named after Matthias Corvinius, then the upgrade is kind of ironic, since Matthias levied so many mercenaries that he bankrupted hungary
nah, It was the nobility who fucked up by disbanding the black army. The black army was a result of efficient taxation and partial industrialization which made hungary capable of fielding arquibusiers at discount, It didn't bankrupted Hungary but secured hungary however it cut in the margins of the nobility
@@lettuceman9439 Yeah, a lot of the problems of Hungary in the late medieval period involved some magnates destabilising the country or selling out to a foreign power to maintain their own positions.
My favourite Slav, or more accurately Boyar state was in an older AoFE patch, back when the expansion was still a mod. They had 16 base attack instead of 14. It was mostly irrelevant against low HP units, but it allowed them to kill Paladins in 12 hits instead of (the current) 14. Factor in the heavy armour (6, as it was back then), and they were a dedicated Paladin soft-counter, flipping the Cataphract-Paladin equation
I think one of the reasons the Slavs went from #2 to #15 by WR is the addition of a lot of great camel and halb civs. Jut think about Bohemians, Gurjaras, Hindustanis, the Sarracen camel buffs, Malay free infantry armor, Armenian one age early pikeman upgrades, etc. It's just so much harder to pull off a knight-focused strategy nowadays it seems.
YES, this is exactly the sort of review we were waiting for. Considering the amount of content you've done, it's fantastic that we still have these unique lookbacks.
Hey Mr. Law, could we please get a video talking about canon galleons? Either a tier list or a "how good are canon galleons." I played a custom diplomacy game with like an 800 pop cap, and this one guy just had a fleet of 100+ Spanish canon galleons and he couldn't be touched. Love your content, keep it up!
that might've been me. I've had several diplo games on migration or Nomad where I ended up surrounding the entire island preventing anyone from redocking :D
Have you seen the price of Cannon Galleon? I think that right there, together with their civ bonus, explains why Spanish cannon galleon may be a tad bit better in diploma games compared to regular matches.😅
Ya, I think it's less Power Creep and more the closing of the floor and ceiling for Civs as a lot of bad ones have been buffed quite a bit, so now the Slavs old bonus isn't out of sorts anymore
10:55 "the balance of the game is so good this days that we never see the extremes that we did on HD" Meanwhile Georgians having 60% winrate on launch.
I don't know if this is a hot take, but I kind of prefered the old rate for wolf spawns. I feel like the wilderness SHOULD be dangerous early game until you're built up enough. 🤷♂️
Power creep always comes by the buffing of the weakest. The strongest are the ones that need nerfs for balance. But people like buffs more than nerfs so more buffs add up.
In AoE2's case I don't mind this because it has overall coincided with adding more nuance to the game over time. Lest we forget we originally didn't have two unique techs per civ. Part of the balance changes over the years have involved the devs giving themselves more levers to subtly adjust, and the result of that is a fairly balanced game overall, so I'd say it worked. If the whole "mutually exclusive unique tech options" concept from the recent DLC was ported over into the main game, that'd also probably be a buff for some civs, raising the overall power level of the game simply by virtue of giving each civ more options to respond to a given situation. Sometimes I think trying to avoid power creep is a losing battle. You have to make some token efforts to not feed it, but it's kind of inevitable. But it has such a negative connotation -- are we really suffering for it? I think it's fine as long as nothing anybody likes gets left in the dust, which hasn't happened here.
@@thepersonwhocomentz All you say is true for my favorite game of Dota2 aswell. If a level 30 dota hero even without items where to go fight a fully maxed Wacraft3 army the dota2 hero would win cos thats what 20 years of power creep looks like. But the reason nobody minds is because there so much cool stuff now rather than having 4 active abilities with no passives heroes can now have 6 actives on top of 2 passives, there are over a 100 heroes rather than 30ish, and their abilities are more unique and impactful than the ones of Wacraft3.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 No, it doesn't. Powercreep usually comes by releasing new overpowered things. Buffing of the weakest is very rarely the cause of powercreep in games. AoE 2 is special.
First here, Spirit!(actually marginally second) I found your channel about a month ago, and you convinced me to start playing AoE2 again. Thanks, and now I think this is the best RTS I've ever played!
I think Slavs recovered their farming bonus back because the introduction of Georgians (that change happened at the same time TMR released), Georgians can get 10% faster working farmers but at the same time with faster on everything using their Fortified Churches so no sense to have Slavs the same 10% boost but on one task while Georgians potentally on everything.
kind od surprising you didn't mention the Hunting Dogs tech, which was removed, being free for Magyars. giving the two civs in this overview the common point of at some point having had a cheap early tech for free that was eventually removed.
It's been a long time SotL, i was 10 when i started in Aoe2 with your Huns guide, I didn't have the game in steam, now I can actually play in multiplayer with all New civs, all this years viewing guides.
Big thing affecting Slavs win rate in DE is addition of all the camel civs coupled with plethora of buffs to camels in general which made them actually worth making, unlike HD days when they sucked in most situations.
I think Slavs aren’t picked because they don’t play towards the meta. Farming bonus slingshots knights, but if you wanna go Cav you pick Franks, and infantry feels hard to play in ranked. Also an interesting point is they feel like the same civ as teutons in a ton of ways, between farming bonus, melee armor UU, good infantry + top tier seige play, etc, and I prefer teutons as an AoK player, so if I’m picking that style I overlook Slavs.
I agree with the cav aspect, like if I don't wanna play Franks, I have Burgundians for Castle Age Cavaliers, why would I want Slavs, outside of not having Lords of the West...
no eco bonus on Magyars isnt totally accurate, there was the short lived "hunting dogs" experiment but that was neither super useful not longlived. on Slavs it wasnt just powercreep, Knights just have a tough time hitting their targets (bc they randomly stop). With userpatch pathing I think Slavs and Kngihts in generals will get a lot of power back.
The magyar hussar was like a rohirrim in the first release of the forgotten empires. Then they were changed to what you show in the video. Do you happen to have some footage of that?
Considering how many Slavic peoples now exist in the game, they should really think about finally renaming the Slavs to the Rus. Would be nice to see the Romanians added in as well to fill that gap.
Hi, Spirit! Just thinking of a simple question. We’ve seen analyses of civilisations and rate whether they’re good or bad. In your opinion, which civilisation can be regarded as the most average and most generic of all? Thanks a lot!
Yeah, it takes only Castle Age, 200 wood for the SW, 200 wood for the University, 300 wood and 175 gold for Ballistics, ans then you can start to see something useable in a deathball. It's fun, but it's not gonna win games against heavy Xbow play or civs with better knights.
@@fabiorosa9435 you could say that about so many other civs and their power comps. No they're not the best civ in early-mid game but they are adaptable and very strong late game. It depends on the map and the opponents civ.
@@dglukesluthier it does depend on map and opponent's civ. But the point about powercreep is exactly that. Many other civs deal better with the strong archer civs, or are better cav civs. Slavs have no early eco bonus, even though you can farm in Dark Age, you invest into that, and there are better resource incomes otherwise. They have no military bonus to speak of in Feudal Age, although there is the indirect eco/production bonus of needing a few less houses, but that doesn't add up until much later. So, the explanation for the alleged powercreep is that they are civ completely misaligned with the current meta where melee is terrible early game. I don't argue that there has not been a powercreep, but the much more severe blow is from the game's state for the last two years. Also, even though the farming bonus is great, with the tweaks to farming overall, any civ can still somewhat compete in Feudal against Slav scouts, either because of earlier eco bonuses, or timing attacks, while still investing on farms and not getting that much behind. Yes, they are very adaptable late game, but they lack strong viable options in the current meta in my opinion. Boyars are great, but it takes a lot of work to survive until Boyars can win you games.
@@fabiorosa9435 Yeah I see where you're coming from. Also being a inf civ where inf are not in a great place overall. I'd say Boyars are probably their least useful option overall, I don't know any Slav players who rely on them.
I'm unsure "power creep" is the correct terminology here, although what seemingly happened is adjacent to that concept. My take is the devs increased the power level across the board so that each civ's uniquenes stands out better. Back when the game was released, 13 somewhat unique civs was impressive, but it didnt feel unique enough by today's standard. I highly doubt there will be further power increase, which would mean we're not trapped in a power creep loop.
Damn, just had to call out how old guard I am that I vaguely remember the Fresh Princess. Those were back in the days of western europe diplo. Aaaaah good times.
boyar needs either mobile ranged support or more pierce armor. i payed it for a long time and it is too heavy investment that cant outrun archers which wipe it out, monks are great against it too. so you are left with lighter (but not overall cheaper) version of the war elephant, that dies to archers and castles
Agreed, they're pretty useless other than an emergency defence unit (one by itself is pretty strong) or as a show-off unit when you know you're going to win. Luckily Slavs have loads of other options. Cheap FU scorpions, some of the best halbs in the game, and practically free FU hussars with the farm bonus.
It's weird that Slavs were made with such old info, that they don't have mounted archers Diving into history, after Mongols, Rus' Principalities (Eastern Slavs) were forced to adapt to the foreign invaders, both to pay the man tax as well as to adjust to fighting with them later on So, most riders did not have heavy armor or a heavy melee weapon - instead, they brandished nomad-style tegilyays and bore small composite bows akin to Mongolian ones However, even before Mongols, Rus' had countless encounters with nomads, which forged a notable presence of a bow in cavalry infantry mostly stayed the same throughout the years, however Oh, and heavily armoured Boyare were a thing - both before Mongols came and after Mongols left
as a fan of trash unit wars, i had a few mains back when i played but i settled on magyars. it was the only civ that had a trash unit that felt like it should cost gold so good it was
Slavs should be renamed Ruthenians (a medieval term for the inhabitants of the Kievan Rus, that already gave them their shield icon), as since their introduction other slavic civs were introduced (Bulgarians Poles & Bohemians).
@@Kubinda12345 probably, but there are historical reasons too. By the time of AOE3, Russia was the dominant power in the region (that grew from Muscovy). In AOE2 it's the Kievan Rus, at least until the Mongols smashed it. Still, it wouldn't be the first time a civ uses an historical name instead of its modern name (Teutons instead of Germans for example). For AOE4 civ names are a mess, some are named after the people (French English...) and others after the realm (HRE). Also AOE4 focuses more on the later part of the Middle Ages and the russian campaign is about the rise Moscow.
Names after people and not kingdoms creates some barriers like you cannot introduce the crusader states or split China into different dynasties period. Important is that its consistent for aoe2 and it doesnt create a mess like AoE4.
I'm hoping one day the Slavs and Italians get the Dynasties of India treatment and get split out into more narrowly-defined, historically relevant sub-groups.
The new civs in HD The Forgotten looked awful. The textures were the main problem, but they also missed a ton of details. I couldn’t play them without a mod; it was just too painful compared to the original civs and their beautiful buildings. Now, they all look great.
Slavs and magyars aren't my favourite civs but I don't mind as they seem still easy to play if you're not familiar with them and their bonuses work well for them. Also since every civ is getting buffed, I think it's time for the Teutons to get a bit of love...ok I'll just show myself out.
I think people don't pick Slavs because: 1. They are over representing, especially when they heavily represents the lesser liked Slavic folks; 2. Perceived as unskilled, as it was one of the best Civ without little barrier; 3. On another end of the spectrum, Slav doesn't work well with simple unit spam, even compare to Civs that definitely require combine arms.
I can’t help wondering if anti Russian furor is responsible in part for low Slav rate- Russians are very unpopular in 4 too right? Never discount propaganda even for little things.
If they do buff Byzantines, it'll either be an unnoticeacble one, an imbalanced one that would break the game or an endless series of buffs accompanied by a rollercoaster of winrate just like the Byzantine Empire irl
I kind of don't like "disaggregation" of civilizations like splitting up Slavs and Indians. it makes achievements for the campaign so much harder. And if Poles are going to get their own civilizations, at least they should get the Central European architecture. Seeing their monasteries just makes me cringe. If all Slaves were aggregated, you could at least say "well at least one (and in fact more than 1) Slavic civilization has their monasteries look like that"
Magyars, Slavs, Bulgarians and Lithuanians are civs you can get mixed up as a causal player. Magyars and Lithuanians have the Paladin but not so great infantry, while Magyars great cav archers. Slavs and Bulgarians are in contrast the actually the melee power houses despite missing the Paladin because of their unique units, techs and infantry bonuses. The Poles however... are the Poles.
Poles like slav, but reverse. They cavary are good with discount knight and trample hussar, they infantry UU are strong without any buff. Slav have good infantry with aoe dmg, they cav UU beat almost every heavy cav in melee. Both have terrible archer, good farm bonus, strong trash war unit. And don’t forget both Civ miss heresy.
Worth a mention that giving scorpions balistics was also a massive buff for Slavs with their cheaper siege, and who previously lacked a solid ranged option.
slavic scorpions FTW!
All Heavy Scorpions are very powerfull now, if they have balistics;
@@TeunisD but slavs are cheaper 😁
"Be sure to check out our sponsor, Spirit of the Wheat" -- Slavs, probably
One of the best Spirit of the ______ I've seen in a while 👏
Fresh Princess of Belarus seems like such a wholesome person. I love players who are so excited about the game for very personal reasons. Long live aoe! 14!
I love that name
Most importantly, their buildings don't look so boxy anymore
yeah wow the eastern european architecture was ugly in HD. I'd never seen it.
@@WereScrib The earlier itierations of some of these civs saw horrible textures and very ugly unit animations since they were fan-made mods. The very first year of Forgotten Empires was just that, a mod, and it would take some 11 months until the official devs incorporated Forgotten, revamped textures and animations and added regular balance patches that included these civs, same with the campaigns it brought.
But yea, what many people remember as the "original forgotten" look wasn't even as ugly as the fan-made mod, "OG OG" version of it, haha.
@@LeicaFleury Makes sense honestly, but WOW is it a shock to see lol. I got HD but never played it--and never played the mod.
Frsh Princess of Belarus is such a 3k elo nickname
If the "corvinian army" upgrade is named after Matthias Corvinius, then the upgrade is kind of ironic, since Matthias levied so many mercenaries that he bankrupted hungary
Bro forgot to take the right idea groups and policies to make merc spam OP.
nah, It was the nobility who fucked up by disbanding the black army. The black army was a result of efficient taxation and partial industrialization which made hungary capable of fielding arquibusiers at discount, It didn't bankrupted Hungary but secured hungary however it cut in the margins of the nobility
I think it's more about how he's celebrated.
In Hungary the man's name still has a lot of weight.
@@lettuceman9439 Ironic that they didn't have gunpowder then lol
@@lettuceman9439 Yeah, a lot of the problems of Hungary in the late medieval period involved some magnates destabilising the country or selling out to a foreign power to maintain their own positions.
My favourite Slav, or more accurately Boyar state was in an older AoFE patch, back when the expansion was still a mod. They had 16 base attack instead of 14. It was mostly irrelevant against low HP units, but it allowed them to kill Paladins in 12 hits instead of (the current) 14. Factor in the heavy armour (6, as it was back then), and they were a dedicated Paladin soft-counter, flipping the Cataphract-Paladin equation
I think one of the reasons the Slavs went from #2 to #15 by WR is the addition of a lot of great camel and halb civs.
Jut think about Bohemians, Gurjaras, Hindustanis, the Sarracen camel buffs, Malay free infantry armor, Armenian one age early pikeman upgrades, etc. It's just so much harder to pull off a knight-focused strategy nowadays it seems.
Cant believe you forgot HUNTING DOGS for free
Truly a FORGOTTEN tech..
YES, this is exactly the sort of review we were waiting for.
Considering the amount of content you've done, it's fantastic that we still have these unique lookbacks.
Hey Spirit, guys of the Law here!
🎶🎶
Hey Law, guys of the spirit here
Hey Spirit, Law of the guys here
Here Law, the Spirit guys of Hey!
Here the, spirit law of hey guys!
I dont think I've ever caught a video drop this early.
I love the Magyars because I love mobile cavalry and Magyar Hussars + Cavaliers are my meta.
Hey Mr. Law, could we please get a video talking about canon galleons?
Either a tier list or a "how good are canon galleons."
I played a custom diplomacy game with like an 800 pop cap, and this one guy just had a fleet of 100+ Spanish canon galleons and he couldn't be touched.
Love your content, keep it up!
that might've been me. I've had several diplo games on migration or Nomad where I ended up surrounding the entire island preventing anyone from redocking :D
Have you seen the price of Cannon Galleon? I think that right there, together with their civ bonus, explains why Spanish cannon galleon may be a tad bit better in diploma games compared to regular matches.😅
@martijn9568 that's fair lol
Ya, I think it's less Power Creep and more the closing of the floor and ceiling for Civs as a lot of bad ones have been buffed quite a bit, so now the Slavs old bonus isn't out of sorts anymore
10:55 "the balance of the game is so good this days that we never see the extremes that we did on HD"
Meanwhile Georgians having 60% winrate on launch.
Hungary: First nation to adopt arquebusiers at mass in the Black Army.
Magyars: Don't have gunpowder.
"the Magyars managed to dodge changes like the devs were missing ballistics" lmao
I don't know if this is a hot take, but I kind of prefered the old rate for wolf spawns. I feel like the wilderness SHOULD be dangerous early game until you're built up enough. 🤷♂️
I remember i saw your original video when it came out and in my head it was still one of the newer civs. How the time can fly
Power creep always comes by the buffing of the weakest. The strongest are the ones that need nerfs for balance. But people like buffs more than nerfs so more buffs add up.
I think AOE2 is still fairly nuanced when it comes to civ bonuses. Many other games would have stuff like +50% food gathering or +40% attack speed.
It’s more that at there heart the slavs mid game is totally generic there just another knight civ but they have more of them
In AoE2's case I don't mind this because it has overall coincided with adding more nuance to the game over time. Lest we forget we originally didn't have two unique techs per civ. Part of the balance changes over the years have involved the devs giving themselves more levers to subtly adjust, and the result of that is a fairly balanced game overall, so I'd say it worked. If the whole "mutually exclusive unique tech options" concept from the recent DLC was ported over into the main game, that'd also probably be a buff for some civs, raising the overall power level of the game simply by virtue of giving each civ more options to respond to a given situation.
Sometimes I think trying to avoid power creep is a losing battle. You have to make some token efforts to not feed it, but it's kind of inevitable. But it has such a negative connotation -- are we really suffering for it? I think it's fine as long as nothing anybody likes gets left in the dust, which hasn't happened here.
@@thepersonwhocomentz All you say is true for my favorite game of Dota2 aswell. If a level 30 dota hero even without items where to go fight a fully maxed Wacraft3 army the dota2 hero would win cos thats what 20 years of power creep looks like. But the reason nobody minds is because there so much cool stuff now rather than having 4 active abilities with no passives heroes can now have 6 actives on top of 2 passives, there are over a 100 heroes rather than 30ish, and their abilities are more unique and impactful than the ones of Wacraft3.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 No, it doesn't. Powercreep usually comes by releasing new overpowered things.
Buffing of the weakest is very rarely the cause of powercreep in games. AoE 2 is special.
First here, Spirit!(actually marginally second) I found your channel about a month ago, and you convinced me to start playing AoE2 again. Thanks, and now I think this is the best RTS I've ever played!
been there (for me it was 2018 having not played since 2002😂).
2:22 the singular unpopular comment video essays would select to prove there point
2:32 the actual perception
I think Slavs recovered their farming bonus back because the introduction of Georgians (that change happened at the same time TMR released), Georgians can get 10% faster working farmers but at the same time with faster on everything using their Fortified Churches so no sense to have Slavs the same 10% boost but on one task while Georgians potentally on everything.
Its insane how much the outro theme getts me boppin evry time
I love how Slavs were deemed too good at no2. But the no1 actually got a buff...Franks man...
kind od surprising you didn't mention the Hunting Dogs tech, which was removed, being free for Magyars. giving the two civs in this overview the common point of at some point having had a cheap early tech for free that was eventually removed.
The Slavs truly got the dev loves and deserve the name of Sloves
It's been a long time SotL, i was 10 when i started in Aoe2 with your Huns guide, I didn't have the game in steam, now I can actually play in multiplayer with all New civs, all this years viewing guides.
Big thing affecting Slavs win rate in DE is addition of all the camel civs coupled with plethora of buffs to camels in general which made them actually worth making, unlike HD days when they sucked in most situations.
Great content, thanks!
I think a Power Creep video would be very interesting to watch :O
Ah yes, My favorite Civ duo
I think Slavs aren’t picked because they don’t play towards the meta. Farming bonus slingshots knights, but if you wanna go Cav you pick Franks, and infantry feels hard to play in ranked. Also an interesting point is they feel like the same civ as teutons in a ton of ways, between farming bonus, melee armor UU, good infantry + top tier seige play, etc, and I prefer teutons as an AoK player, so if I’m picking that style I overlook Slavs.
I agree with the cav aspect, like if I don't wanna play Franks, I have Burgundians for Castle Age Cavaliers, why would I want Slavs, outside of not having Lords of the West...
Overlap with Teutons definitely affects their play rate as Teutons have always been a fan favorite, great point!
Can't believe you made a video of Magyars through the ages and completely skipped Hunting Dogs.
when pathing gets fixed, it will buff all cav civs
Does anyone know the name of the tune played during his outros?
I thought it felt like it was more dangerous to send villagers around in the past. There's literally fewer wolves now 😂
no eco bonus on Magyars isnt totally accurate, there was the short lived "hunting dogs" experiment but that was neither super useful not longlived.
on Slavs it wasnt just powercreep, Knights just have a tough time hitting their targets (bc they randomly stop). With userpatch pathing I think Slavs and Kngihts in generals will get a lot of power back.
The magyar hussar was like a rohirrim in the first release of the forgotten empires. Then they were changed to what you show in the video. Do you happen to have some footage of that?
Considering how many Slavic peoples now exist in the game, they should really think about finally renaming the Slavs to the Rus. Would be nice to see the Romanians added in as well to fill that gap.
I wonder when or if Teutons will return with a renewed update!
Hey guys, Guys of the Guys here.
Two of my favorite civs? Let's go!
Hunting Dogs not mentioned as part of Magyar changes 😢
I missed these "through the ages" videos ❤
Nothing can beat a SotL video
Very good video
Hi, Spirit! Just thinking of a simple question.
We’ve seen analyses of civilisations and rate whether they’re good or bad. In your opinion, which civilisation can be regarded as the most average and most generic of all?
Thanks a lot!
Hey Law, spirit of the guys here!
7:38 Farmer on the far right is moonwalking. That takes some skill on soft ground!
Love the Magyard.
I miss more wolves
I don't think the devs shouldn't look at win rate rankings, they should look at win rate differences when deciding buffs and nerfs.
I would love to see a video of all useless civ bonuses and what was idea behind them like Celts sheeps or Magyar wolf.
Slavs have been only very slightly powercrept. Their biggest issue is being a pure melee civ with the worst pathfinding in RTS history.
Cheap scorps with ballistics though...
Yeah, it takes only Castle Age, 200 wood for the SW, 200 wood for the University, 300 wood and 175 gold for Ballistics, ans then you can start to see something useable in a deathball. It's fun, but it's not gonna win games against heavy Xbow play or civs with better knights.
@@fabiorosa9435 you could say that about so many other civs and their power comps. No they're not the best civ in early-mid game but they are adaptable and very strong late game.
It depends on the map and the opponents civ.
@@dglukesluthier it does depend on map and opponent's civ. But the point about powercreep is exactly that. Many other civs deal better with the strong archer civs, or are better cav civs. Slavs have no early eco bonus, even though you can farm in Dark Age, you invest into that, and there are better resource incomes otherwise. They have no military bonus to speak of in Feudal Age, although there is the indirect eco/production bonus of needing a few less houses, but that doesn't add up until much later.
So, the explanation for the alleged powercreep is that they are civ completely misaligned with the current meta where melee is terrible early game. I don't argue that there has not been a powercreep, but the much more severe blow is from the game's state for the last two years. Also, even though the farming bonus is great, with the tweaks to farming overall, any civ can still somewhat compete in Feudal against Slav scouts, either because of earlier eco bonuses, or timing attacks, while still investing on farms and not getting that much behind.
Yes, they are very adaptable late game, but they lack strong viable options in the current meta in my opinion. Boyars are great, but it takes a lot of work to survive until Boyars can win you games.
@@fabiorosa9435 Yeah I see where you're coming from. Also being a inf civ where inf are not in a great place overall.
I'd say Boyars are probably their least useful option overall, I don't know any Slav players who rely on them.
More history videos!
No mention of how Magyars used to have free Hunting Dogs?
Cant believe he forgot that
@@pedrocarvalho7480it was never part of an official AOE2 game. It only existed when it was a mod before it became incorporated in HD.
@@daarom3472 I see. Still I think that maybe it could have been given an off-hand mention or something.
'Ah the buddy system... foolproof.'
I'm unsure "power creep" is the correct terminology here, although what seemingly happened is adjacent to that concept. My take is the devs increased the power level across the board so that each civ's uniquenes stands out better.
Back when the game was released, 13 somewhat unique civs was impressive, but it didnt feel unique enough by today's standard. I highly doubt there will be further power increase, which would mean we're not trapped in a power creep loop.
Wow, has it been 12 months already since they were added?
Hey guys, Spirit of the Slavyars here
Shoutout to freshprincessofbelarus she was the Magyars strongest warrior back in the day
Damn, just had to call out how old guard I am that I vaguely remember the Fresh Princess. Those were back in the days of western europe diplo. Aaaaah good times.
Sometimes I wish SotL would make Total War Warhammer videos as well
boyar needs either mobile ranged support or more pierce armor. i payed it for a long time and it is too heavy investment that cant outrun archers which wipe it out, monks are great against it too. so you are left with lighter (but not overall cheaper) version of the war elephant, that dies to archers and castles
Agreed, they're pretty useless other than an emergency defence unit (one by itself is pretty strong) or as a show-off unit when you know you're going to win.
Luckily Slavs have loads of other options. Cheap FU scorpions, some of the best halbs in the game, and practically free FU hussars with the farm bonus.
It's weird that Slavs were made with such old info, that they don't have mounted archers
Diving into history, after Mongols, Rus' Principalities (Eastern Slavs) were forced to adapt to the foreign invaders, both to pay the man tax as well as to adjust to fighting with them later on
So, most riders did not have heavy armor or a heavy melee weapon - instead, they brandished nomad-style tegilyays and bore small composite bows akin to Mongolian ones
However, even before Mongols, Rus' had countless encounters with nomads, which forged a notable presence of a bow in cavalry
infantry mostly stayed the same throughout the years, however
Oh, and heavily armoured Boyare were a thing - both before Mongols came and after Mongols left
Ah yes, Slovs, my favorite civ.
Woah! Two for the price of one!
What was "tracking" back then?
as a fan of trash unit wars, i had a few mains back when i played but i settled on magyars. it was the only civ that had a trash unit that felt like it should cost gold so good it was
I remember when boyar faster than knight-line
2013 to 2025 holy hell
Slavs should be renamed Ruthenians (a medieval term for the inhabitants of the Kievan Rus, that already gave them their shield icon), as since their introduction other slavic civs were introduced (Bulgarians Poles & Bohemians).
I probably tend to agree, but I think the name will just stick, even after the change.
I have a suspicion that if it weren't for the war in Ukraine, Slavs would've been renamed to "Rus" especially since this civ is also in AoE IV
@@szymonpasternak8317 are Hindustani still called "Indians" ?
@@Kubinda12345 probably, but there are historical reasons too. By the time of AOE3, Russia was the dominant power in the region (that grew from Muscovy). In AOE2 it's the Kievan Rus, at least until the Mongols smashed it.
Still, it wouldn't be the first time a civ uses an historical name instead of its modern name (Teutons instead of Germans for example).
For AOE4 civ names are a mess, some are named after the people (French English...) and others after the realm (HRE). Also AOE4 focuses more on the later part of the Middle Ages and the russian campaign is about the rise Moscow.
Names after people and not kingdoms creates some barriers like you cannot introduce the crusader states or split China into different dynasties period. Important is that its consistent for aoe2 and it doesnt create a mess like AoE4.
Hey Spirit, any chance of an updated version of which defensive structures are best now?
ruclips.net/video/JZb-diq7hEk/видео.htmlsi=R67V1D_6Q869WV1c
I think you need to do a new civ win rate.
I'm hoping one day the Slavs and Italians get the Dynasties of India treatment and get split out into more narrowly-defined, historically relevant sub-groups.
The new civs in HD The Forgotten looked awful. The textures were the main problem, but they also missed a ton of details. I couldn’t play them without a mod; it was just too painful compared to the original civs and their beautiful buildings.
Now, they all look great.
l miss wolves. They are hated also in Age 2 dev team.
Slavs and magyars aren't my favourite civs but I don't mind as they seem still easy to play if you're not familiar with them and their bonuses work well for them. Also since every civ is getting buffed, I think it's time for the Teutons to get a bit of love...ok I'll just show myself out.
I think people don't pick Slavs because:
1. They are over representing, especially when they heavily represents the lesser liked Slavic folks;
2. Perceived as unskilled, as it was one of the best Civ without little barrier;
3. On another end of the spectrum, Slav doesn't work well with simple unit spam, even compare to Civs that definitely require combine arms.
laughs in hussar spam
Any fans of trains here ? :)
I have to admit, that I am a bit dissapointed, that there is no coverage of their origins in the original mods.
wdym slavs got buffed, their town centres clearly look worse now than in hd edition
the magyar huszar looks so cool
2 civs I could never make work.
I can’t help wondering if anti Russian furor is responsible in part for low Slav rate- Russians are very unpopular in 4 too right? Never discount propaganda even for little things.
Buff the Byzantines, make the eastern empire great again
If they do buff Byzantines, it'll either be an unnoticeacble one, an imbalanced one that would break the game or an endless series of buffs accompanied by a rollercoaster of winrate
just like the Byzantine Empire irl
Confusing Slavs and Magyars can get you beaten up in some places in Eastern Europe.
(Relax, it's a joke maaan.)
Why do Slavs have Ukrainian logo?
Noice. ❤
Think he is waiting for Japanese buff before next overview which the Japanese need a buff
Done us a hudeni with this one! SHOW US JAPANESE STABLES
The Slavs should honestly be renamed to Russians at this point. And their banner fixed to the Ladogan downward facing eagle.
I think Slavs aren’t as powerful because calvary doesn’t path as good on DE.
👍
I kind of don't like "disaggregation" of civilizations like splitting up Slavs and Indians. it makes achievements for the campaign so much harder. And if Poles are going to get their own civilizations, at least they should get the Central European architecture. Seeing their monasteries just makes me cringe. If all Slaves were aggregated, you could at least say "well at least one (and in fact more than 1) Slavic civilization has their monasteries look like that"
I still consider them as "the new civs" xd
I wouldn't say it's power creep as much as every niche being filled by someone who is better than you.
My Spanish aint getting no love😭
Sloths
Magyars, Slavs, Bulgarians and Lithuanians are civs you can get mixed up as a causal player. Magyars and Lithuanians have the Paladin but not so great infantry, while Magyars great cav archers. Slavs and Bulgarians are in contrast the actually the melee power houses despite missing the Paladin because of their unique units, techs and infantry bonuses. The Poles however... are the Poles.
Poles like slav, but reverse. They cavary are good with discount knight and trample hussar, they infantry UU are strong without any buff. Slav have good infantry with aoe dmg, they cav UU beat almost every heavy cav in melee. Both have terrible archer, good farm bonus, strong trash war unit. And don’t forget both Civ miss heresy.