It should cost at least a token amount of stone. Even 5 or 10 would be OK, just so that you need to spend at least SOME effort and some planning when trying to build both new TCs and a bunch of these right at the start of Castle Age.
@@pokefuranku 150 wood, 50 sone? Or 175 wood, 25 stone? The trick is the fortified church shouldn't be too expensive, as it also serves it's core purpose: making monks and gathering relics. If there is a monk war, armenians, despite having full monk tech tree, are at a slight disadvantage, as they need to invest more into monk infrastructure. For now the building more than compensates for its cost with other useful properties, but if you raise the cost too high, suddenly it's not that easy to afford that many monks.
It's not fair that mule carts are the only building that can be garrisoned inside another building. I should be able to put all of my buildings inside other buildings for safety.
The comment on Georgian healthcare is really interesting and supported by modern history! They're one of the few countries in the world that use bacteriophages to combat bacterial infections instead of heavy use of antibiotics.
Played the open beta and really like the mule cart and fortified church. They really should modify the older nomadic civs to use the mule carts as well as it just flows much better to move a group of villagers with a cart vs having to stop and have one build a new camp that's ultimately going to be abandoned.
The Mongols will be OP as fuck with the mule cart and their hunting bonus, but it would be more historically accurate and what the original designers wanted back in the day...
I feel like the Mule Cart is treated as a building and villager by the game. From that perspective, Mule Carts being able to garrison in Fortified Churches makes sense
@@ethribin4188 was thinking that as well, however can’t figure out exactly how the game ends up with its final number. Don’t know how exact SotL’s measurements in this video is, but the cart healed 144 health over 30 seconds without the upgrade, which is 288 hp/min while other units are healed for 24 hp/min and a villager repairs a building by 750 hp/min. All this means that it is not being “repaired, since its heal-rate is much to low and it is not double dipping on the standard heal-rate since it’s much to high (heals for 12 times more than regular units). Haven’t looked at the stats post upgrade, but but I cannot square what I’ve gathered so far.
Fortified church - aka - most churches in the period of time. That being said, I'm very confident this will need to be price nerfed - even if needs to be garrisoned, a building that can shoot costing no stone sounds like it will cause all kinds of balance issues
In castle age, you can build towers in Feudal Age. You can delete your TC in Dark Age and rebuild it next to your opponents TC. If by the time you hit castle age aren't walled yet, you're doing something wrong. You could've been hit already by a devastating scout rush, since you lack the walls to defend you, your farms are hit by the opponents archers, and you can't leave the TC. etc. I think you're a bit too nostalgic about the Incan Tower rush which was possible in Feudal Age.
After a year or so, this *defense* oriented regional building must be certainly given to the *Byzantines* too. They had castle-monasteries everywhere, and they existed in the same region.
Good call. Carts should get a similar treatment. Hard to argue the Huns, Magyar, Tartars, and Mongols shouldn't get them.(The Mongols literally do in AoE 4 of course.)
Another civilisation that comes to mind for the fm are the Teutons. Focus on being defensive, being able to garrison extra units and also having a strong monastery seem to make this perfect for them. I guess Byzantines are as well.
@@williampounds5191 Cumans? Mongols and Huns'd probably get absolutely OP with 'em carts, though I can't argue that they should have them when will Tatars get a buff
Normally I would not believe the devs would ever change OG civs on such a level (even if I agree with the direction of such changes) but given what they're doing with the Persians it might just set a precedence for that.
Been living in Armenia for a couple years. Always wondered why there were churches on random inaccessible hills with no passage that you’d see every time you drive out to the countryside. Now it makes sense 😅
Really hope we get variants of the warrior priest for other civs in scenario editor. A Shaolin Monk and/or Aztec Priest versions would be amazing even just for fun.
The Anglo-Saxons did have fortified churches, just like essentially everyone else at the time. Lindisfarne just wasn't a big enough community to warrant fortification. It was only the monastery and its monks. Which is why the Vikings targeted it, since it was easy money.
I hope forgotten empires team retroactively add mule cart and fortified churches to many civs that it would be appropriate over time. It's so random to have them and a "unique unit" composite bowman
It'd be kinda cool if nomads got one of those, as a _nomadic_ camp not being given to _nomads_ seems rather rambunctuous and kinda dumb Mongols #1 civ let's go! Also can we get some love for Tatars? Keshiks desperately crave attention...
Malay harbours have a short range too and don't cost stone, in fact they cost the same as a regular dock. I don't think it will be nerfed as it cannot even defend itself against mangonels or even half-decent archers, it will only deter weak raids
I wonder if this will be added to other civs. Japan had some very famous fortress monasteries that blunted Nobunaga's campaigns for years, China had the Shaolin monks, and many Christian knightly orders were also monastic societies (the Teutons are literally a religious order of knights). That's only to name the obvious.
Pretty much any larger medieval church that was standing alone was fortified to some degree, sometimes to a large one. In fact in Czech and Polish standard words for a church come from Latin "castellum", same source as English castle. So limiting it to Georgians and Armenians is obviously just ageofempirism, but I guess they might have been extra fortified.
@@lscibor The Fortified Church model in-game is based on Ananuri Fortress in Georgia, which was basically a set of two churches with walls around them. That was the building I wanted to model my Caucasus Castle on, so the fact that it's in the game is very nice.
The Japanese aren't really known for their Monk play, so this wouldn't be devastating in terms of balance I think. They might be able to justify it in the future when they make an Asian-themed DLC that gives the Japanese their campaign. They do need to make a model for it, after all.
That relic victory effect honestly seems like an oversight. I can't believe that's intended. I know relic victory is a rarity, but for games that do have it turned on it's the most broken power you could have. Far more powerful than the old Hun Atheism tech ever was. The victory script should only check for relics spawned on the map at game start, not ones created after that. Meanwhile the turboboosted healing rate adds to the unfortunately huge pile of hidden effects in the game that aren't shown anywhere (in-game). The fact that it has an even more boosted effect on Mule Carts just makes it worse. Like that just sounds like a bug. Honestly if they want to borrow ideas from Age of Mythology, please also borrow what imo is the BEST feature that AoM has which none of the other Age games have ever implemented - the in-game Help wiki. Not just AoE 2, but every Age game could use this. With all the hidden mechanics all the devs keep adding, it's well past time to finally implement it.
Coop custom scenario where Malay with a Georgian/Armenian ally only have access to harbors and fortified churches for defense, and have to defend against waves of enemies from both land and sea
@@kell2859 easy to fix by just building more fortified churches with the wood you’re saving from all the lumber and mining canps. And even then it would work pretty well as a support for other defensive buildings
Maybe an incremental amount of resources to build them would do the trick: 200w for the first, 225w for the second, 250w for the third, etc... or something similar.
Okay, garrisoning relics allows it to fire arrows sounds pretty cool, but having it match a single villager in both space and arrows fired seems like the perfect balance to that. And that relic starting or stopping relic victories for Armenians sounds pretty fun for a surprise victory denial or forcing the enemy to attack potentially when not prepared.
I'd love to see a rundown on how the Georgian hill-defense bonus + cheaper repairs affects castle drops because I feel the combination would make easy-repair, damage resistant castles that are pretty OP in both surprise drops and castle/treb wars.
@@jacywilson op is unbeatable Too strong just gives it more easy wins - with countertactics its manageable, but harder to fight against than most/all In this case it could be too strong since its not a special/niche strategy being buffed, but very normal gameplay tactics used by everyone everytime
@@jacywilsonToo strong is the step before op - see my explanation above Very specific examples are hard to give when a game gets regulary patched for balance But my example would be what i said before
Love your breakdown videos! The background music provides lots of flashbacks to the 90s popular game ‚Transport Tycoon‘ Why have the devs decided to add 2 orthodox powerhouses, even though monks are claimed OP by (most) pro gamers. Add stone cost sounds reasonable!
I think one important part of dropping one is that if you have villagers garrisoned inside to provide it an attack, then enemy villagers can't rush it down anymore because you can leave to defend, and even with a numbers disadvantage the 24 HP / min healing while garrisoned might be enough to offset that, and it might force a melee battle under the building that the opponent can't afford to run away from because they'll take losses to the arrows while retreating. Also it'll be a micro-nightmare because if they focus your attacking/repairing villagers you can pull them away so they leave the minimum range and take fire. The ability to train Monks to convert attacking enemies (especially Knights) also seems to have potential. The range seems to be the biggest limiting factor on aggressive usage, if you drop one next to a mining camp the opponent will just go for another one and build a tower outside of range.
where the church area boost really pays off as an economic thing is the farms, since the gatherers don't have to move on from the area to get new resources
It doesn't affect food. Just Wood, Gold and Stone. Besides Farms are restricted by the rate at which they grow food. 24 food a minute. Pretty much the rate a imp farmer collects at. One civ has a farm bonus that improves the farm grow rate but its small. But it does allow hunters to drop off. Which is op as they can just drive up to the hunters meaning deer can be hunted on sight.
@@franconnorton7087 it does affect farmers, he even mentions in the video that it increases farmer gathering speed 8%. I think you are mixing the cart and the church effects
@@mguard9428 I missed that. It seems even more OP now. Its a huge are. Just Two would cover the entire empire and grant huge eco bonus for cheap. What does the imp age wood upgrade with +10% cost? How much cheaper is a monastary while also giving other upgrades?
Like with the mule carts, what I really wonder is if these will also be added to any of the existing civs, or will only be for the new expansion civs. It feels weird that these features are not being integrated into other civs where it would make sense.
Castle age... church up quickly is great for early relics and a priest... but with bonus to production I can see it being 1 more town center and a church, church being first.. its all dependent on rss invovled on the choices.
They said the Malay harbor was too strong and nerfed it into the ground. Let's see what they do with this one. It certainly looks a LOT stronger than a pre-nerf Harbor.
Thanks Spirit for so many interesting videos. I know it's not related to this, but I do have a question. Do you know what causes the post battle stats to show battle icons on the timeline, why only one civ seems to get a battle icon even though you need two civs for a battle?
It's probably a little too complicated to figure out by testing, I expect. I have a few guesses about factors involved, probably with relative AND absolute losses factored in, as well as a specifically sized area on the map. At this point, my plan is if I ever retire from RUclips I'll announce my next video is going to be about the post-game battle icons and that I promise I won't upload another video until I figure it out. That way, even 10 years later when people ask "whatever happened to SOTL?" the answer will be "he must still be working on that post-game battle icons video. Must be a tough nut to crack."
@@SpiritOfTheLawThis right here is a reason why I continue to watch your videos: your dedication to both quality and humor never ceases to amaze. Keep up the good work! 😄
@@SpiritOfTheLawIt must be great to know that you can't retire until that Supremacy movie is released in 2046. I guess you better start working on that production😉
Interesting that in this new expansion we are now just buffing civs to keep up with power creep (Slavs). How significant is the creep, is it a problem?
With all the aura effects going on I wish they added at least some kind of highlighting circle beneath affected units to tell players visually that there's something going on there.
Herbal medicine and 2x healing bonus should mean these things heal a stupid amount of HP per minute. Like 288! OP custom villager civ gonna be able to spam them everywhere and heal almost instantly.
People are worried it costs 200 Wood. Don’t forget that it costs ten idle villagers too (unless you want to be crazy enough to put your Relics in a forward church).
Absolutely agree. and still only shoots 4-5 arrows. not a long range too. and yet some people seems to be peeing their pants even without testing first yet.
Totally, 5 arrows for 10 villagers? That has a minimum range? Also consider Armenia's first forward church makes a relic. You could very well be handing your opponent a free relic. This is not a big deal.
It doesn't cost 10 idle villagers, it's a monastery that acts as a tower that doesn't cost stone that costs less total resources than a tower that wins any tower fight because over double the hp (sure, it has less range, you can just spam them as they only cost wood which is the fastest gathered resource in the game) that can also produce monks with civs that have access to redemption, when monks are the strongest unit in the game currently, while also healing any units you garrison at double the healing speed of a castle. We already do forward pushes with regular monasteries in a large percentage of games, this is vastly better in every situation, not even taking into account the defensive capabilities (think Khmer houses which are an amazing civ bonus to have), while also boosting eco by an insane margin (Roman civ bonus x2) for the Georgians. If you don't see an issue with this, that's because you most likely play this game casually. There's nothing wrong with that, but this is clearly not balanced for competitive play.
@@williampounds5191 The same building can accomplish all of the above, that was my point. And in many cases your forward villagers can be put on gold/stone/wood and would get that boost.
I think the fortified church will be bonkers on closed maps. Imagine a fortified church in arena where you have 30 or 40 vills maybe on some gold pile, back woodline and farms
Thanks you for this very good vidéo, maake a lot clearer about this 'ew feature :-) But i still have a question, are the Monk warrior wining or not against eagle ?
I look forward to seeing how the monastery and cart are used in the campaign missions. Might make for some really fun campaign missions that require moving from one location to another.
@@unknownus63 Are you an idiot or mocking the devs ? I cannot tell. & It is not about buying.. I can buy it and the fortified church will stay Armenia/Georgia only. I am asking because Saracens deserve it and maybe this bouns should have been introduced through them a long time ago.
Can you ungarrison the bonus relic inside the frist one? I can see an exploit where you can give it to a lithuanian teammate for the bonus damage on their knights and leitis. Maybe get a team of 3 Armenians and 1 lithuanian. An uncontested +3 on knights is nothing to scoff at
So they have a "never lose to relics" mechanic? Seems both too specific to be generally useful and massively overpowered in its actual use. And will break maps with no relics.
Georgian architecture is spot on and accurate but I wish developers have made city halls, barracks, stables etc also based on unique Georgian architecture
I think people are way overestimating the cheapness of this thing, and I applaud the devs for making an attempt at a building that is capable of firing arrows without having a stone cost. Unlike everyone else, I *really* don't want them to balance it by giving it a stone cost. Do anything else, like decreasing the attack/range or increasing the wood cost, first. You're sacrificing idle time (or putting your relic in a dangerous location) to even have the thing fire arrows in the first place -- it's not the busted, cheesy, tower-rush-y thing people are making it out to be.
it is busted, it is a 2400HP high armor building that can be built in less time than a tower, and takes away a way bigger deal of land. Make it 600HP, it would still be busted lol. You idle it for 10 secs you just pick resources near it from your opponent. It beats a tc in 10v10 garrison fight.
@@3398-i3f You mention the size of the building as if that's a benefit to the building instead of a demerit (one of the great things about towers is that you can cluster them and fit them in small spaces and even box them in with palisades, plus fewer units are able to attack it at the same time). If anyone even tried to drop it anywhere near your TC, you just send vills to whack it while hiding inside its minimum range, and if their vills try to attack yours, your TC can shoot them, while their church can't shoot yours. And all this comes in Castle Age anyway. You first have to get up to that before even attempting it, as opposed to a typical tower rush, which you can attempt in Feudal -- and execute without sending your entire eco to do it, to boot. It's not even remotely busted.
List the range mod for the building again would be helpful. Due to late game and most of the game... you end up having extra wood, having a church... and a mule cart seems optimal... and not broken, and agarrison.. sometimes people can come in and raid your remote woodlines, with gives a nice bonus speed, adn garrison, and evne in a co-op against ai, I spam lumber camps a lot without thinking of the cost except teh begining. Just sometimes I get annoyed at defeinceies so I slect so 30 lumber jacks on one single lumber node, and then, click four villagers out of it, and then repeat.... build lumberyard, remove four villagers, build lumber yard, and boom, instantly.. I have 7 new lumberyards spread out with 4 lumberjacks at each.... new location quite spread out and indefeinsible to some degree, but I often make pathing walls that cause confusion, giving the villagers time to move, or just during late game whe ni have problems or a weaker civ, so hard counter.. I do random x shapes of various size, of pallisade walls... and builds lots of cav archers and skirmishers... attempting to utlize the walls to lessen damage and maximize range damage of units... typically works well and you can always delete a wall in the way.. lol meh.
Would the civ bonus that shows all relics at the start of the map (blanking on who has it) show a random patch by the Armenian Fortified Church when its first relic is built, even if it's mid game? Will a patch where it was built randomly appear if it wasn't scouted?
Forrified church seems really strong on graveyards. Chance to have multiple of them shooting based on the relics, plus protecting an expoaed exo wirh the garrison and monks
It's been a while since I played Aoe2, but I'm pretty sure regular monasteries can't be converted, even with redemption. So I would be very surprised if the devs made fortified churches the exception.
All of this cool properties but the thing that will make them op in competitive is the dance of garrisoning and ejecting monk to prrotect them while threatening conversions during a siege push...
an unmentioned, yet interesting, note 3:13, the cart is being repaired, repair costs include, you can see wood and food going down.
:O
@@SpiritOfTheLaw bug or feature?
Good eye!
Not only that, you can also see the gold rapidly going up which is not fully explained by the relic.
@@Thomas-zk3dj I think that's just cos he sped up the video while it was in. The Mule Cart doesn't cost gold to repair.
Gotta give the architects some credits. That's an amazing stone-looking woods
It's interesting that it has the Stone Building armor class, but doesn't cost stone.
Same with Harbors after the Malay dock tech
It should cost at least a token amount of stone. Even 5 or 10 would be OK, just so that you need to spend at least SOME effort and some planning when trying to build both new TCs and a bunch of these right at the start of Castle Age.
@@praevasc4299 Maybe 25~50 stone and 1 base arrow instead of 0 🤔🤔
@@pokefuranku 150 wood, 50 sone? Or 175 wood, 25 stone? The trick is the fortified church shouldn't be too expensive, as it also serves it's core purpose: making monks and gathering relics. If there is a monk war, armenians, despite having full monk tech tree, are at a slight disadvantage, as they need to invest more into monk infrastructure. For now the building more than compensates for its cost with other useful properties, but if you raise the cost too high, suddenly it's not that easy to afford that many monks.
@@Wanderer1258 175 wood and 25 stone sounds fine to me 🤔
It's not fair that mule carts are the only building that can be garrisoned inside another building. I should be able to put all of my buildings inside other buildings for safety.
“Oop, they’re raiding my town, gotta garrison the blacksmith, otherwise I won’t be able to click to castle!”
The next thing before you know it people will be loading up archery ranges into their transport ship and dropping them on the neutral islands
I think that’s called walling your base. It’s like a really big building with no roof.
@@AlphaSquadZeroT90 would appreciate it
I call it a Russian doll strategy.
The comment on Georgian healthcare is really interesting and supported by modern history! They're one of the few countries in the world that use bacteriophages to combat bacterial infections instead of heavy use of antibiotics.
+ Georgia and Armenia are famous (in ex-ussr region) for resorts and mineral water.
Played the open beta and really like the mule cart and fortified church. They really should modify the older nomadic civs to use the mule carts as well as it just flows much better to move a group of villagers with a cart vs having to stop and have one build a new camp that's ultimately going to be abandoned.
The Mongols will be OP as fuck with the mule cart and their hunting bonus, but it would be more historically accurate and what the original designers wanted back in the day...
Yeah that's a good point, nomadic civs kinda make more sense with a mule cart. Or ox cart.
Saracens deserved fortified mosques.
@@jotfohm4644 or just give saracen monastery a healing aura
@@MajesticOak IT could be balanced elsewhere if necessary, but hunting bonus is not that good then because Mule Carts cost food.
I feel like the Mule Cart is treated as a building and villager by the game. From that perspective, Mule Carts being able to garrison in Fortified Churches makes sense
Interesting point. Wouldn't that imply Viking infantry with Chieftains should get gold for destroying a Mule Cart? Does anyone know if they do?
Propably also why it heals so much.
It gets 2 healings. One for the villager and one for the buding that it is.
That is probably how the game made the cart go to the nearest resource. It behavior is like a villager but can't gather resources.
@@ethribin4188 was thinking that as well, however can’t figure out exactly how the game ends up with its final number. Don’t know how exact SotL’s measurements in this video is, but the cart healed 144 health over 30 seconds without the upgrade, which is 288 hp/min while other units are healed for 24 hp/min and a villager repairs a building by 750 hp/min. All this means that it is not being “repaired, since its heal-rate is much to low and it is not double dipping on the standard heal-rate since it’s much to high (heals for 12 times more than regular units). Haven’t looked at the stats post upgrade, but but I cannot square what I’ve gathered so far.
Fortified church - aka - most churches in the period of time. That being said, I'm very confident this will need to be price nerfed - even if needs to be garrisoned, a building that can shoot costing no stone sounds like it will cause all kinds of balance issues
Harbours
@@James-sk4dbyou still need to be able to build the castle and research the tech, plus you can drop a harbour on the middle of your enemy eco lol
@@James-sk4dbcan’t drop
In castle age, you can build towers in Feudal Age.
You can delete your TC in Dark Age and rebuild it next to your opponents TC.
If by the time you hit castle age aren't walled yet, you're doing something wrong.
You could've been hit already by a devastating scout rush, since you lack the walls to defend you, your farms are hit by the opponents archers, and you can't leave the TC.
etc.
I think you're a bit too nostalgic about the Incan Tower rush which was possible in Feudal Age.
Should be a limit on how many you can build. Or just 1 for every TC you have
After a year or so, this *defense* oriented regional building must be certainly given to the *Byzantines* too. They had castle-monasteries everywhere, and they existed in the same region.
I agree.
Good call. Carts should get a similar treatment. Hard to argue the Huns, Magyar, Tartars, and Mongols shouldn't get them.(The Mongols literally do in AoE 4 of course.)
Another civilisation that comes to mind for the fm are the Teutons. Focus on being defensive, being able to garrison extra units and also having a strong monastery seem to make this perfect for them. I guess Byzantines are as well.
@@williampounds5191 Cumans?
Mongols and Huns'd probably get absolutely OP with 'em carts, though I can't argue that they should have them
when will Tatars get a buff
Normally I would not believe the devs would ever change OG civs on such a level (even if I agree with the direction of such changes) but given what they're doing with the Persians it might just set a precedence for that.
Been living in Armenia for a couple years. Always wondered why there were churches on random inaccessible hills with no passage that you’d see every time you drive out to the countryside. Now it makes sense 😅
That's kinda awesome!
did they cost no stone?
@@Dreska_ they are literally made entirely out of stone, no wood in sight and at that altitude no treeline even. Classic AOE2 logic 😅
The DLC hype is real
Really hope we get variants of the warrior priest for other civs in scenario editor. A Shaolin Monk and/or Aztec Priest versions would be amazing even just for fun.
Well, church is a town center in many ways, so it makes sence. And people used to escape in churches and monasteries in the war time.
Lindisfarne would have gone very different if the Anglo-Saxons had a few of these
This is why the Armenian Church survived the Islamic Empires. A lot of fortified churches in and around modern Armenia.
What I imagined might inspire it.
The Anglo-Saxons did have fortified churches, just like essentially everyone else at the time. Lindisfarne just wasn't a big enough community to warrant fortification. It was only the monastery and its monks. Which is why the Vikings targeted it, since it was easy money.
I hope forgotten empires team retroactively add mule cart and fortified churches to many civs that it would be appropriate over time. It's so random to have them and a "unique unit" composite bowman
It'd be kinda cool if nomads got one of those, as a _nomadic_ camp not being given to _nomads_ seems rather rambunctuous and kinda dumb
Mongols #1 civ let's go!
Also can we get some love for Tatars? Keshiks desperately crave attention...
region specific monasteries would be so cool.
Similar to the official images posted by the devs in the middle of the year.
Malay harbours have a short range too and don't cost stone, in fact they cost the same as a regular dock.
I don't think it will be nerfed as it cannot even defend itself against mangonels or even half-decent archers, it will only deter weak raids
Nope Malay ald nerfed so badly
Halbours were nerfed xD
They deal a lot less damage to ground units than before
Yeah, but harbor can't garrison and heal units twice faster than a castle
I wonder if this will be added to other civs. Japan had some very famous fortress monasteries that blunted Nobunaga's campaigns for years, China had the Shaolin monks, and many Christian knightly orders were also monastic societies (the Teutons are literally a religious order of knights). That's only to name the obvious.
Pretty much any larger medieval church that was standing alone was fortified to some degree, sometimes to a large one. In fact in Czech and Polish standard words for a church come from Latin "castellum", same source as English castle.
So limiting it to Georgians and Armenians is obviously just ageofempirism, but I guess they might have been extra fortified.
@@lscibor The Fortified Church model in-game is based on Ananuri Fortress in Georgia, which was basically a set of two churches with walls around them. That was the building I wanted to model my Caucasus Castle on, so the fact that it's in the game is very nice.
@@lsciborthere a lots of fortified churches, witch walls in Armenia and Georgia.
The Japanese aren't really known for their Monk play, so this wouldn't be devastating in terms of balance I think. They might be able to justify it in the future when they make an Asian-themed DLC that gives the Japanese their campaign. They do need to make a model for it, after all.
That relic victory effect honestly seems like an oversight. I can't believe that's intended. I know relic victory is a rarity, but for games that do have it turned on it's the most broken power you could have. Far more powerful than the old Hun Atheism tech ever was. The victory script should only check for relics spawned on the map at game start, not ones created after that.
Meanwhile the turboboosted healing rate adds to the unfortunately huge pile of hidden effects in the game that aren't shown anywhere (in-game). The fact that it has an even more boosted effect on Mule Carts just makes it worse. Like that just sounds like a bug.
Honestly if they want to borrow ideas from Age of Mythology, please also borrow what imo is the BEST feature that AoM has which none of the other Age games have ever implemented - the in-game Help wiki. Not just AoE 2, but every Age game could use this. With all the hidden mechanics all the devs keep adding, it's well past time to finally implement it.
Giving the Teutons access to the Fortified Church would make a lot of sense thematically and practically.
That would be fun and fit their defensive theme. Maybe have the double garrison bonus apply, as well, but keep the max at 5 arrows.
Combine this with their farming Eco bonus, they should have enough wood floating around to drop multiple fortified churches
aoe logic: the building is from bottom to top all stone: costs 200 wood
I like to interpret it as that you're paying for the building, not the materials.
Hey Spirit of the Law, guys here
Coop custom scenario where Malay with a Georgian/Armenian ally only have access to harbors and fortified churches for defense, and have to defend against waves of enemies from both land and sea
I always enjoy the more church related civs. Spanish, Bohemians, etc. I am excited to try out the fortified churches.
I am very certain that we're gonna see a stone cost added to this, no way it's gonna remain at just 200 wood
Still it's pretty weak and requires villagers to even shoot arrows
@@kell2859 easy to fix by just building more fortified churches with the wood you’re saving from all the lumber and mining canps. And even then it would work pretty well as a support for other defensive buildings
If you add stone cost, suddenly you're stuck having to choose between 3tc boom or relics.
@@alexzwanenburg4009 maybe the first one costs no stone?
Maybe an incremental amount of resources to build them would do the trick: 200w for the first, 225w for the second, 250w for the third, etc... or something similar.
The boost to connection rate is like the Aachen Chapel from AOE4, nice
Build palisades to support church rush
At 200 wood, building two in range of each other mitigates the minimum range entirely.
Reminds me of how crazy the Malay harbor (i.e. fortified dock) was on release
When your faith needs that little oomph in firepow- I mean devotion
Lol...i wasn't aware that TC and towers healing rate is lower than castle's...what a day to be alive!
Okay, garrisoning relics allows it to fire arrows sounds pretty cool, but having it match a single villager in both space and arrows fired seems like the perfect balance to that.
And that relic starting or stopping relic victories for Armenians sounds pretty fun for a surprise victory denial or forcing the enemy to attack potentially when not prepared.
I'd love to see a rundown on how the Georgian hill-defense bonus + cheaper repairs affects castle drops because I feel the combination would make easy-repair, damage resistant castles that are pretty OP in both surprise drops and castle/treb wars.
OP? No.
Very strong? Absolutely.
To strong? ..... maybe? We'll have to see.
@@ethribin4188what's the difference between over powered and too strong??
@@jacywilson op is unbeatable
Too strong just gives it more easy wins - with countertactics its manageable, but harder to fight against than most/all
In this case it could be too strong since its not a special/niche strategy being buffed, but very normal gameplay tactics used by everyone everytime
@@deutscher1a what is an example of something that is over powered, but not too strong. Or too strong, but not over powered.
@@jacywilsonToo strong is the step before op - see my explanation above
Very specific examples are hard to give when a game gets regulary patched for balance
But my example would be what i said before
IMO, Teutons should get the Fortified Church and maybe even get a Tech to be able to train Teutonic Knights there.
Make sense event Teutons should have crusader knights as their unique unit
Yes but then you would maybe not buy their DLC to get the cool new stuff 🤑
@@unknownus63 I'd buy a dlc if it make my favorite civ more flavorful.
I want my crusader knights to be badass!
Love your breakdown videos! The background music provides lots of flashbacks to the 90s popular game ‚Transport Tycoon‘
Why have the devs decided to add 2 orthodox powerhouses, even though monks are claimed OP by (most) pro gamers.
Add stone cost sounds reasonable!
I think one important part of dropping one is that if you have villagers garrisoned inside to provide it an attack, then enemy villagers can't rush it down anymore because you can leave to defend, and even with a numbers disadvantage the 24 HP / min healing while garrisoned might be enough to offset that, and it might force a melee battle under the building that the opponent can't afford to run away from because they'll take losses to the arrows while retreating. Also it'll be a micro-nightmare because if they focus your attacking/repairing villagers you can pull them away so they leave the minimum range and take fire. The ability to train Monks to convert attacking enemies (especially Knights) also seems to have potential.
The range seems to be the biggest limiting factor on aggressive usage, if you drop one next to a mining camp the opponent will just go for another one and build a tower outside of range.
I love the new castle look.
Oooooh they finaly added the vikings mule cart from Age of Mythology to AOE2? Nice.
Love the Caucasus DLC. Looking forward to an African DLC in the Future.
Another video in a row, @spiritofthelaw ! You're awesome man, you rock! Thank you so much!!
This will be OP I’m betting on it now
If only I could garrison my castle within my house... 'oh, hello there'.
where the church area boost really pays off as an economic thing is the farms, since the gatherers don't have to move on from the area to get new resources
It doesn't affect food. Just Wood, Gold and Stone. Besides Farms are restricted by the rate at which they grow food. 24 food a minute. Pretty much the rate a imp farmer collects at. One civ has a farm bonus that improves the farm grow rate but its small.
But it does allow hunters to drop off. Which is op as they can just drive up to the hunters meaning deer can be hunted on sight.
@@franconnorton7087 it does affect farmers, he even mentions in the video that it increases farmer gathering speed 8%. I think you are mixing the cart and the church effects
@@mguard9428 I missed that. It seems even more OP now. Its a huge are. Just Two would cover the entire empire and grant huge eco bonus for cheap. What does the imp age wood upgrade with +10% cost? How much cheaper is a monastary while also giving other upgrades?
Garrisoning monks is the most exploitative thing i can see
what happens if you start researching bow saw with a mule cart and then garrison it in a fortified church?
Like with the mule carts, what I really wonder is if these will also be added to any of the existing civs, or will only be for the new expansion civs.
It feels weird that these features are not being integrated into other civs where it would make sense.
Here's hoping there will be a time we will get a Pontic architecture set for Armenians, Bulgarians, Byzantines and Georgians.
Castle age... church up quickly is great for early relics and a priest... but with bonus to production I can see it being 1 more town center and a church, church being first.. its all dependent on rss invovled on the choices.
They said the Malay harbor was too strong and nerfed it into the ground. Let's see what they do with this one. It certainly looks a LOT stronger than a pre-nerf Harbor.
Thanks Spirit for so many interesting videos. I know it's not related to this, but I do have a question. Do you know what causes the post battle stats to show battle icons on the timeline, why only one civ seems to get a battle icon even though you need two civs for a battle?
It's probably a little too complicated to figure out by testing, I expect. I have a few guesses about factors involved, probably with relative AND absolute losses factored in, as well as a specifically sized area on the map. At this point, my plan is if I ever retire from RUclips I'll announce my next video is going to be about the post-game battle icons and that I promise I won't upload another video until I figure it out. That way, even 10 years later when people ask "whatever happened to SOTL?" the answer will be "he must still be working on that post-game battle icons video. Must be a tough nut to crack."
@@SpiritOfTheLawThis right here is a reason why I continue to watch your videos: your dedication to both quality and humor never ceases to amaze. Keep up the good work! 😄
@@SpiritOfTheLaw Great plan, I love it. Keep up the great work!
@@SpiritOfTheLawIt must be great to know that you can't retire until that Supremacy movie is released in 2046. I guess you better start working on that production😉
Looks very fortified, very church like.
Interesting that in this new expansion we are now just buffing civs to keep up with power creep (Slavs). How significant is the creep, is it a problem?
With all the aura effects going on I wish they added at least some kind of highlighting circle beneath affected units to tell players visually that there's something going on there.
If you garrison a monk holding a relic, do you start generating gold? Or do you need to ungarrison and deposit the relic?
They should add this to the Teutons, since they are the ultimate example of FAITH.
Herbal medicine and 2x healing bonus should mean these things heal a stupid amount of HP per minute. Like 288! OP custom villager civ gonna be able to spam them everywhere and heal almost instantly.
The 6 range means the church will be fine defense for some things until archers range become further reaching in mid castle.
oof the minimal range
We need one special/unique building for each civilizations.
Most people complain here about the balance, but I think it's perfectly fine 😊
People are worried it costs 200 Wood.
Don’t forget that it costs ten idle villagers too (unless you want to be crazy enough to put your Relics in a forward church).
Absolutely agree. and still only shoots 4-5 arrows. not a long range too. and yet some people seems to be peeing their pants even without testing first yet.
Totally, 5 arrows for 10 villagers? That has a minimum range? Also consider Armenia's first forward church makes a relic. You could very well be handing your opponent a free relic. This is not a big deal.
It doesn't cost 10 idle villagers, it's a monastery that acts as a tower that doesn't cost stone that costs less total resources than a tower that wins any tower fight because over double the hp (sure, it has less range, you can just spam them as they only cost wood which is the fastest gathered resource in the game) that can also produce monks with civs that have access to redemption, when monks are the strongest unit in the game currently, while also healing any units you garrison at double the healing speed of a castle. We already do forward pushes with regular monasteries in a large percentage of games, this is vastly better in every situation, not even taking into account the defensive capabilities (think Khmer houses which are an amazing civ bonus to have), while also boosting eco by an insane margin (Roman civ bonus x2) for the Georgians.
If you don't see an issue with this, that's because you most likely play this game casually. There's nothing wrong with that, but this is clearly not balanced for competitive play.
@@DarkwynnTV It is not boosting eco if you're forward pushing with it. Thats pointless to bring up.
@@williampounds5191 The same building can accomplish all of the above, that was my point. And in many cases your forward villagers can be put on gold/stone/wood and would get that boost.
I haven't played AoE in years but I love watching your videos
There will definitely be nerfs to this building. I imagine a stone cost and reduced arrows.
the idea of mule cart has implemented before on age of mitology in the nords civ
Obviously civs like goths, vikings, mongols or chinese had no such thing as mule carts 🙄
Ah its a TC not a castle. This clears things up
I think the fortified church will be bonkers on closed maps. Imagine a fortified church in arena where you have 30 or 40 vills maybe on some gold pile, back woodline and farms
Loving the new DLC so far. Any chance you are gonna make a video about TC Douche combinations with georgians team bonus and how effective it can be?
Thats good! Aoe2 is borrowing some uniqueness from Aoe3
Now I'm wondering how well it does versus Watch and Guard towers in rush situations!
Thanks you for this very good vidéo, maake a lot clearer about this 'ew feature :-)
But i still have a question, are the Monk warrior wining or not against eagle ?
Does garrisoning relics reduce the number of other units that can be garrisoned?
Yes. I takes up one of the 10 slots.
I look forward to seeing how the monastery and cart are used in the campaign missions. Might make for some really fun campaign missions that require moving from one location to another.
Can we please get fortified mosques for Saracens as well ?
No. No mule carts for vikings or mongols either. Buy our DLC 🤑🤑🤑
@@unknownus63 Are you an idiot or mocking the devs ? I cannot tell. & It is not about buying..
I can buy it and the fortified church will stay Armenia/Georgia only. I am asking because Saracens deserve it and maybe this bouns should have been introduced through them a long time ago.
One question, do Georgian fortified churches also boost the efficiency of allied villagers in team games?
Can you ungarrison the bonus relic inside the frist one? I can see an exploit where you can give it to a lithuanian teammate for the bonus damage on their knights and leitis. Maybe get a team of 3 Armenians and 1 lithuanian. An uncontested +3 on knights is nothing to scoff at
What weird rules are you playing that allow the same civ to be picked by multiple people?
what If ound interesting is that the church counts Relcis as garrisons and shoots arrows. easy to see with the first church.
does your opponent get the free relic if they destroy your church or does it just despawn?
It just pops out like any other relic and they can steal it.
If I'm researching two man saw (or a mining upgrade) on a mule cart and whilst it's researching garrison it in the church what happens?
does church work bonus works on allies? lets say a perfectly placed khmer farms around it? :)
Still gotta be careful with repairing the Mule carts in the churches, it costs resources!
Dont know whats "tifying" is, but having four of them surely helps 😂
So they have a "never lose to relics" mechanic? Seems both too specific to be generally useful and massively overpowered in its actual use. And will break maps with no relics.
Georgian architecture is spot on and accurate but I wish developers have made city halls, barracks, stables etc also based on unique Georgian architecture
Spirit you're killing it right now
okay... it is your fault that i have now images of a donkey in a fortified church firing with bow and arrows against armies.....
This building should go to Byzantines as well!
And mule carts to all civs except meso americans.
Church rushing (+monk / siege?) will definitely be a thing.
I think people are way overestimating the cheapness of this thing, and I applaud the devs for making an attempt at a building that is capable of firing arrows without having a stone cost. Unlike everyone else, I *really* don't want them to balance it by giving it a stone cost. Do anything else, like decreasing the attack/range or increasing the wood cost, first. You're sacrificing idle time (or putting your relic in a dangerous location) to even have the thing fire arrows in the first place -- it's not the busted, cheesy, tower-rush-y thing people are making it out to be.
it is busted, it is a 2400HP high armor building that can be built in less time than a tower, and takes away a way bigger deal of land. Make it 600HP, it would still be busted lol. You idle it for 10 secs you just pick resources near it from your opponent. It beats a tc in 10v10 garrison fight.
@@3398-i3f You mention the size of the building as if that's a benefit to the building instead of a demerit (one of the great things about towers is that you can cluster them and fit them in small spaces and even box them in with palisades, plus fewer units are able to attack it at the same time). If anyone even tried to drop it anywhere near your TC, you just send vills to whack it while hiding inside its minimum range, and if their vills try to attack yours, your TC can shoot them, while their church can't shoot yours.
And all this comes in Castle Age anyway. You first have to get up to that before even attempting it, as opposed to a typical tower rush, which you can attempt in Feudal -- and execute without sending your entire eco to do it, to boot.
It's not even remotely busted.
List the range mod for the building again would be helpful. Due to late game and most of the game... you end up having extra wood, having a church... and a mule cart seems optimal... and not broken, and agarrison.. sometimes people can come in and raid your remote woodlines, with gives a nice bonus speed, adn garrison, and evne in a co-op against ai, I spam lumber camps a lot without thinking of the cost except teh begining. Just sometimes I get annoyed at defeinceies so I slect so 30 lumber jacks on one single lumber node, and then, click four villagers out of it, and then repeat.... build lumberyard, remove four villagers, build lumber yard, and boom, instantly.. I have 7 new lumberyards spread out with 4 lumberjacks at each.... new location quite spread out and indefeinsible to some degree, but I often make pathing walls that cause confusion, giving the villagers time to move, or just during late game whe ni have problems or a weaker civ, so hard counter.. I do random x shapes of various size, of pallisade walls... and builds lots of cav archers and skirmishers... attempting to utlize the walls to lessen damage and maximize range damage of units... typically works well and you can always delete a wall in the way.. lol meh.
Relics giving more arrow attacks? What, the bones of the saints come back to life to deliver some smackdown on them pagans?
Allowing mule carts means they allow "civilians". But in that case the trade cart should be allowed too.
Can allied vills/monks garrison in fortified church?
Would the civ bonus that shows all relics at the start of the map (blanking on who has it) show a random patch by the Armenian Fortified Church when its first relic is built, even if it's mid game? Will a patch where it was built randomly appear if it wasn't scouted?
Forrified church seems really strong on graveyards. Chance to have multiple of them shooting based on the relics, plus protecting an expoaed exo wirh the garrison and monks
I like the little touch that military units cant garrison, you could not take weapons inside the house of God after all!
Can the fortified church be converted? And if yes, do the other civs bonuses affect it. Thanks!
It's been a while since I played Aoe2, but I'm pretty sure regular monasteries can't be converted, even with redemption. So I would be very surprised if the devs made fortified churches the exception.
Don’t even play AOE right now, love your videos
Redwall Abbey map building intensifies
All of this cool properties but the thing that will make them op in competitive is the dance of garrisoning and ejecting monk to prrotect them while threatening conversions during a siege push...
Ah, Redwall Abbey.