Day 9 of 30! Been messing around with different video styles, and trying to diversify my youtube content. Any other questions you guys want me to answer for the next video of this type?
Personally I struggle with deciding what exactly to do when I hit castle. Deciding between pure boom, boom with units or 1 TC is pretty hard. Maybe a video on castle age strategies would be a good one for you to cover? Love your vids btw
Totally not answering your question and this would probably be a pretty big project but I'd love to see a series of 'How to play X' videos. Spirit of the Law does great civ overviews but they don't really tell us how to actually win with those civs. It'd be great if you could do guides on the best strategies with certains civs in the current meta, e.g. what are the civ's win conditions, what strategies are you vulnerable to, etc.
I would really like to see how to micro archers vs archers. Usually when I micro it just makes it worse and I dont dodge any arrows. Love your content!
@Maxiluc Hey I am a noob in AoE2 but I watched a lot of videos and want to guess whats the main indicator. I think it depends a lot on the map and the enemy: -If you have an open map with forward resources you want to secure them with a lot of army and go for units first and maybe add tcs if you have secured res. -If your opoent isnt easy to punish(how our princess would say) you often want to wall and boom (like bf or arena) -If you got a good snowball going on from feudal you want to hold the position and make sure your oponent don't comeback and boom behind when you feel like you can push at the same time -> so all in all: make sure to secure res and try to build as much eco as possible while have at least an army to hold better to push ur enemy (a lot of scouting and understanding of units required), The rest is based on playstyle (Princess will be very unlikely to all in 1 tc push compared to vivi or hoang). now im curious how the "right" answer would be but maybe Hera even makes a video. have a good one
@@thisguyhere1 yeah in poor countries like namibia they don't have time for that :'D What' s your point, you think canadians are the only analyzing people on earth?
Shut up! He said that it can't be easily explained within 30 seconds! Because of how the video started and its length, I thought something odd happens, but the first 10 minutes is just him explaining and illustrating the obvious. Thankfully, I'm watching it on RUclips, where you can skip around and watch at 2x speed, rather than watching it live.
@@stonem0013 That's one case that wasn't in the video, but basically ballistics without thumb ring would miss a few shots due to arrow spread, similar to shooting a stationary unit with neither tech researched, plus you'd also miss some shots when the unit changes direction.
Hello guys, Hera of the Law here. In today's video we are going to find out what is the difference between Thumb ring and ballistics. Let's check them out. *Cue intro music*
Thumb ring makes the archers land their arrows exactly where they're aiming (the thing is, with moving targets they aim at their current location, so by the time the arrow arrives the target isn't there anymore so they always miss), hence 100% accuracy is correct. Ballistics makes the archers calculate trajectory, so they aim at where the moving target is _going to be_ by the time the arrow arrives. So they will be more likely to hit moving targets (more likely doesn't mean 100%). Ballistics without thumb ring would be the archers compensating for movement, but without 100% accuracy, so the bottom line accuracy would be somewhere near what it would be with non moving targets. Ballistics has no effect on still targets because no trajectory calculation needs to be made.
An - imho - important thing to point out is, that all sorts of mounted archers have a very low accuracy without thumbring, whereas crossbows already have a very good accuracy. So I think, if you play i.e. huns cav archers, its much more important to get thumbring earlier. Maybe not first, but I think earlier than with x-bows.
Also case worth experimenting - Thumb ring - no - Ballistics -yes Test on moving target, how the thumb ring affects this (besides shooting speed). But what to but was nicely explained in part 3, good job :)
I will try my best to explain the difference - Imagine yourself trying to throw a dart to a moving board. You are allowed to hit anywhere on the board but the bull's eye is in the centre, so you adjust the direction of the throw based on where the centre will be when the dart lands but more often you will hit the moving board instead of throwing at the front where the board initially was without adjustment. Ballistics make you hit the board all the time. Thumb Ring makes you hit the target(bull's eye) if it is stationary. Ballistics and Thumb Ring together make you hit the target even if the board is moving. Note that only primary arrows(arrows dealing full damage)a re affected;secondary arrows of Chu Ko Nu, Castle, etc. are not. Also, Elephant Archer and War Wagon have 100% accuracy without Thumb Ring and Thumb Ring doesn't affect Janissary and Conquistador. Other natively 100% accurate units include Throwing Axeman, Gbeto, Mameluke and Turtle Ship.
Hello Hera, great vid !!I do some coaching on the game and there is this one thing i'm having a hard time to help people with: - Where should be your army on the map ? Fixing those issues : - not knowing when to attack - avoid massing units at home because it feels safer - not knowing when to trade army for vills or enemy army (raid or fight ?) - not knowing what to do with your army when : - you are waiting for next age - you are waiting for a tech - enemy army has good counter units to your army I'm fully aware those questions do NOT have an easy answer to them and "it depends" might feel like the better answer most of the time, but i'm sure it is possible to draw some lines here and there to help out beginner players. I'd really love if you could share your take on those questions. Keep it up ! Thanks for the content, i liked and subscribed ;)
Ooh man those questions are so difficult to answer 111 However i do notice that alot of these questions have something in common. It relies on knowledge of your opponent. So to decide when to attack for example, it is about knowing where your opponents army is and what he has exactly. So in general i will just recommend you to send 1 unit around to scout your opponent constantly in the midgame, and make decisions based on what you see!
While “outpost rush” might be a meme strategy people only joke about in stream chats, sparing 1 villager to just go build outposts and houses while they’re at it definitely helps with visibility. Also, ya gotta anticipate and preempt your opponent’s counters. For instance, if your civ is renowned for a certain kind of unit (Britons=archers, Franks=heavy cavalry) you can anticipate that your opponent will be coming with skirms or pike/monks, respectively. Britons can mix a few knights in to slay skirms and Franks can even mix in a few (yes, objectively bad) light cav or scouts to pick off monks before they can mass throwing axemen.
Really appreciate the situational reccs at the end. I was wondering about that last night trying to push back a big mass of crossbows and realized I wasn't sure which of the two to get first and how unit comp should bias my choice.
A better way to describe what Thumb Ring does is that it increases precision to 100%. Accuracy is about hitting the intended target while precision is about narrowing down the spread of what you hit to a narrow point (irregardless of whether or not you're actually hitting the target). I'd like to have seen the Ballistic without Thumb Ring experiment, but from the sound of it, it operates off a programing that functions on anticipating where the target will be only while it moves. This is why the few shots that missed were at the turned points, The program calculated where the target would be at the moment of impact while continuing to the right, but since it started moving left after the arrow was already fired, the target was no longer moving towards the anticipated spot and thus it missed. If I were to guess what Ballistics without Thumb Ring would look like, it would be a wide hit spread around the move target as oppose to behind the target.
Another minor difference is that ballistics affects non-archers such as castles, towers and galleys. If you're on a mixed land/water map, or a messy map like nomad involving lots of tower fights, ballistics is more useful than thumb ring.
This is worth $10 video. 11 I am 1580s on voobly and I thought I knew all about these researches. but wow that was really an EYE OPENER. When you see such video somethings get imbibed in you and you dont have to press hard next time. THANKS a TON. However, it ud have been interesting to see SCENARIO #4 : (+) Ballistics (-)Thumb Ring
Thumbing: You always hit where you aim, but you aim where te unit is, not where is going to be. Ballistics: You shoot where the unit is going to be based on his current movement. Thats why without ballistics you get your shoots when they turn back, because you dont consider they move and tend to shoot behind them. While with ballistics you miss then they turn back, because you tend to shoot ahead them.
Nice vid. Was curious how the difference looks like actually... Playing Tatars learned me to take thumbring everytime i have it when playing archers - it work so well that i usually forgot to research ballistics until early imp age :D
Cav archers is the unit that benefit the most from Thumb ring as they have an innate accuracy in the 69% (giggidy) range as opposed to xbows which are at 90%. Thus Thumb ring gives you 30% for CA, which is quite noticeable. All of these are from max range, as when you get within a certain distance (unit dependant), you end up with 100% accuracy anyways. So very rarely would you prioritize thumb ring over ballistics.
I think the true value added from thumb ring is the fact archers shot faster. In reality you dont experience much static targets and also for most of units the accuracy rate is already high even without the technology. Balistics is critical technology instead, arguagly the most important offensive technology in Castle Age for ranged units
Also, it's relevant to say that there's a difference between the words "accuracy" and "precision". Just type "accuracy and precision" on google and search for an image and you'll get it.
Hi Hera - good vid man - thanks. Q for you - In the Ballistics description, it says "Archers" - does that also include skirms or no? P.S. U got me - I subscribed. :-)
The whole problem reminds me of accuracy vs. precision debate. It seems that Thumb ring improves precision, regardless of whether the target is moving or not (since the arrows are fired at the exact position of the target at the moment). The description, therefore, seems to be a bit misleading. Ballistics, however, seems to do exactly what the description says - improve accuracy against moving targets. Maybe there would be a little less confusion about those two if the Thumb ring description stated that it eliminates the spread or something along those lines. Also in the other example (ballistics, no thumb ring), you would see majority of the shots on moving target hit, with occasional missed shot, there would be no effect on a stationary target I believe.
I always forget thumb ring when I play mayans and produce plums from the castle but I still get by most of the time... while playing, ballistics just seems to make more of a difference..
you have to move your units at the same moment when enemy archers fire, because at that moment they fire according to your trajectory and if you change your direction then they miss. But you have a very small window to do that. Also, if enemy archers don't all fire at the same time, then you'll only outmicro the few that fired at that very instant.
Interesting video. I always assumed Thumb Ring always hit the target. To me, thumb ring should say that 'archers fire with 100% PRECISION' - i.e. the arrows go exactly where the archers want them to go, and not 'archers fire with 100% accuracy', which would mean they hit their target 100% of the time.
11 i just remembered how spirit of the law explained this. he said Thumb Ring increases your accuracy to 100%. so when u shoot at a moving target, they will miss the shots faster and with perfect accuracy! "Microsoft Message: Task Failed Successfully !"
Having a little bit of spread against moving targets can actually be beneficial as shown in these tests. What's the point of having 100% accuracy on a target that isn't there anymore?
Didn’t know you grind content took 9 days for me to get your stuff recommended via RUclips algorithm I watch a lot of t90 daut and viper. Keep it up! You put too much time in the game to not capitalize on RUclips checks haha
THX ! :) But by watching the tournaments and e.g. your games it was pretty clear that BALISTICS is a KEY upgrade for shooting units :) but nevertheless thanks for the explanation !
Nice vid. Does the direction the target is moving make a difference (ie if the target is charging at you in a straight line do you still need ballistics to hit more? Will thumb ring only hit more shots at a target charging at you directly?)? Ta
Awesome videos Hera, keep them coming! A question I have is whether thumb ring is more useful than ballistics for cavalry archers, given that cavalry archers only have 50% innate accuracy, versus the crossbowman's 85% accuracy?
Surely enjoying the 30 days of thumbs up. I was here for the part 3 section and I was indeed enlightened. P.S. Could you simply restart the scenario and do ballistics first?
Hera ma boy, can you explain this situation? If you actually don't have ballistic, so you miss against moving targets, but u're shooting a big mass of units. Let's say u right click one of them (just to make this example clearier). Can the missed arrow on the target that u right clicked hit the adjacent unit like for example mongonel can?? Like the real question is: if the missed arrow you see in the ground is just an animation effect or if it actually lands in that tile (that is not the tile u wanna hit in theory). Thanks in advance
Nice one my friend. And I'd love to have you and Viper collab for a vid talking about the most common tatics and strategies in AOE2. And remember to roast Viper about everytime he killed his heroes in Campaign Map 🤣🤣🤣
If there are for example 2 archers a, b vs 2 archers c, d. If a,b have thumb ring and shooting at c, but c,d are walking away, would a,b hit d, if d is at that place, where c was, when a,b were shooting? Thanks for the video.
Don't the arrows that miss hit other nearby units? Or if someone with crazy skills fools ballistics by rapidly changing direction, can missed shots hit them anyway? Maybe thumb ring is a trap.
Hey Hera, great videos, i had one question, concerning thumbring that you did not mention in your video, does Thumbring affects mangudai, and cav archers in general? and if yes, is it really worth making it as one of the first upgrades? thanks for the videos
So are you saying that if you get Ballistics, your xbows will still miss a knight just as regularly if it is standing still? for example in the first scenario you had aout 4 missed arrows in approximately 20 shots, but if you would have had ballistics would. your xbows still have missed those 4 times against that knight if it's just standing still?
Thumb ring rate of fire increases: +11% for CA, war wagon, Kipchek +18% for archer line, longbow, mangudai, plumes, elephant arch, genoese, camel arch, rattatan +25% cho ko nu
@El Bottoo Not at all as the first two do melee damage and the conqs works like the hand cannon, but if you want to know for yourself tings like this go to the tech tree and mouse over the unit - it tells you what upgrades they are affected by. If a unit is affected by thumb ring it says accuracy (Archery range) in the upgrades. If it's affected by bloodline it says Hit Points (Stable) etc. you sometimes have to do a bit of thinking to work out which upgrade is which.
You should have reloaded the scenario and tested getting ballistics first. Also give data on how much the fire rate increases from thumb ring. That way, this would have been a complete video. Also maybe should have given some numbers such as dps tests.
Hey hera, I love to see your stuff. helped me already. Are you up to make a video of team games with my friend and tell what you would have make differently?
Hera what do you know about chris? If you know anything at all about him, would be could to see him play 1 game again at least. I still own his book on aoc
also does the speed of the unit's movement affect the accuracy as well? like a vill strafing causes less accuracy compared to a scout because the scout moves faster? or the speed of the unit doesn't matter?
You're missing one important part of those techs. Cavalry archers. Their accuracy is way lower than Crossbows. Maybe make another video on them and explain how if you're building them affects your choice regarding Thumb Ring and Ballistics?
Thumb ring: Anything that have Archer class expect the Spanish UU ( sorry dont know how to wirte they name.. They just got CA class as a neft since DE.) Ballistic: All range unit i think.
@@anghainguyen9951 except for the canon ( on the picture of the tech ) only the spanish canon galleon is affected by balistic... Talk about a huge thumbnail : /
From what I remeber of spirit of the law's thumb ring/cav archer video it looked like cav archers werent even worth using without thumb ring researched since their accuracy is so awful and their fire rate is not good, and civs that have cav archers but no thumb ring shouldn't use them. Thoughts?
"thumb ring doesn't do anything against moving targets" Are you sure? If you have ballistics but not thumb ring, your accuracy against moving targets will be the same as stationary targets without thumb ring. Once you also have thumb ring, it goes to %100 (not including change of direction). Right?
Day 9 of 30! Been messing around with different video styles, and trying to diversify my youtube content. Any other questions you guys want me to answer for the next video of this type?
Personally I struggle with deciding what exactly to do when I hit castle. Deciding between pure boom, boom with units or 1 TC is pretty hard.
Maybe a video on castle age strategies would be a good one for you to cover?
Love your vids btw
Totally not answering your question and this would probably be a pretty big project but I'd love to see a series of 'How to play X' videos. Spirit of the Law does great civ overviews but they don't really tell us how to actually win with those civs. It'd be great if you could do guides on the best strategies with certains civs in the current meta, e.g. what are the civ's win conditions, what strategies are you vulnerable to, etc.
I would really like to see how to micro archers vs archers. Usually when I micro it just makes it worse and I dont dodge any arrows. Love your content!
@Maxiluc Hey I am a noob in AoE2 but I watched a lot of videos and want to guess whats the main indicator.
I think it depends a lot on the map and the enemy:
-If you have an open map with forward resources you want to secure them with a lot of army and go for units first and maybe add tcs if you have secured res.
-If your opoent isnt easy to punish(how our princess would say) you often want to wall and boom (like bf or arena)
-If you got a good snowball going on from feudal you want to hold the position and make sure your oponent don't comeback and boom behind when you feel like you can push at the same time
-> so all in all: make sure to secure res and try to build as much eco as possible while have at least an army to hold better to push ur enemy (a lot of scouting and understanding of units required), The rest is based on playstyle (Princess will be very unlikely to all in 1 tc push compared to vivi or hoang).
now im curious how the "right" answer would be but maybe Hera even makes a video. have a good one
Do a video if castle age Teutonic BBT and Goths with two vils per farm take them out of the F grade and to where.
Hera of the Law
Aoe II canadian community is really strong in analysis apparently...
@@Dollar-gc9in you said anal
@@HeraklitNorborakk now you said anal too hah
@@thisguyhere1 surprise, it's common everywhere on earth
@@thisguyhere1 yeah in poor countries like namibia they don't have time for that :'D What' s your point, you think canadians are the only analyzing people on earth?
Summary: thumb ring reduces arrow spread to 0, while ballistics allows units to predict their shots (using target's current motion)
Thanks! That wasn't difficult to understand at all! Saved me 13 minutes xD
Take my 1 like.
Hera sometimes make easy thing become confusing
Shut up! He said that it can't be easily explained within 30 seconds!
Because of how the video started and its length, I thought something odd happens, but the first 10 minutes is just him explaining and illustrating the obvious. Thankfully, I'm watching it on RUclips, where you can skip around and watch at 2x speed, rather than watching it live.
So how accurate is ballistics without thumb ring?
@@stonem0013 That's one case that wasn't in the video, but basically ballistics without thumb ring would miss a few shots due to arrow spread, similar to shooting a stationary unit with neither tech researched, plus you'd also miss some shots when the unit changes direction.
"Maybe that'll be for another video"
Tomorrow:
How to Micro Against Ballistics
Daut "Devs need to add second ballistics tech."
@@genericyoutubeaccount579 Heat seeking arrows?
Hello guys, Hera of the Law here. In today's video we are going to find out what is the difference between Thumb ring and ballistics. Let's check them out.
*Cue intro music*
Thumb ring makes the archers land their arrows exactly where they're aiming (the thing is, with moving targets they aim at their current location, so by the time the arrow arrives the target isn't there anymore so they always miss), hence 100% accuracy is correct. Ballistics makes the archers calculate trajectory, so they aim at where the moving target is _going to be_ by the time the arrow arrives. So they will be more likely to hit moving targets (more likely doesn't mean 100%). Ballistics without thumb ring would be the archers compensating for movement, but without 100% accuracy, so the bottom line accuracy would be somewhere near what it would be with non moving targets. Ballistics has no effect on still targets because no trajectory calculation needs to be made.
Thumb ring, always hits where the unit is exactly.
Ballistics, not guaranteed to hit but is aimed where the unit is going.
An - imho - important thing to point out is, that all sorts of mounted archers have a very low accuracy without thumbring, whereas crossbows already have a very good accuracy. So I think, if you play i.e. huns cav archers, its much more important to get thumbring earlier. Maybe not first, but I think earlier than with x-bows.
PianoDome
Good point, also, cav archers can use their mobility to keep up with moving targets.
True. They also got 1 less range so i believe its better to have thumbring and stable upgrades first and then build a university.
Also case worth experimenting
- Thumb ring - no
- Ballistics -yes
Test on moving target, how the thumb ring affects this (besides shooting speed). But what to but was nicely explained in part 3, good job :)
I will try my best to explain the difference -
Imagine yourself trying to throw a dart to a moving board. You are allowed to hit anywhere on the board but the bull's eye is in the centre, so you adjust the direction of the throw based on where the centre will be when the dart lands but more often you will hit the moving board instead of throwing at the front where the board initially was without adjustment. Ballistics make you hit the board all the time. Thumb Ring makes you hit the target(bull's eye) if it is stationary. Ballistics and Thumb Ring together make you hit the target even if the board is moving. Note that only primary arrows(arrows dealing full damage)a re affected;secondary arrows of Chu Ko Nu, Castle, etc. are not.
Also, Elephant Archer and War Wagon have 100% accuracy without Thumb Ring and Thumb Ring doesn't affect Janissary and Conquistador. Other natively 100% accurate units include Throwing Axeman, Gbeto, Mameluke and Turtle Ship.
You don't hit 100% of the time even with ballistics if the target changes direction just after you threw/shot.
Important! TC and castle are affected by ballistics so the hit much more accurately too. Extra benefit against raiding cavalry.
Hello Hera, great vid !!I do some coaching on the game and there is this one thing i'm having a hard time to help people with:
- Where should be your army on the map ?
Fixing those issues :
- not knowing when to attack
- avoid massing units at home because it feels safer
- not knowing when to trade army for vills or enemy army (raid or fight ?)
- not knowing what to do with your army when :
- you are waiting for next age
- you are waiting for a tech
- enemy army has good counter units to your army
I'm fully aware those questions do NOT have an easy answer to them and "it depends" might feel like the better answer most of the time, but i'm sure it is possible to draw some lines here and there to help out beginner players. I'd really love if you could share your take on those questions. Keep it up !
Thanks for the content, i liked and subscribed ;)
Ooh man those questions are so difficult to answer 111
However i do notice that alot of these questions have something in common. It relies on knowledge of your opponent. So to decide when to attack for example, it is about knowing where your opponents army is and what he has exactly. So in general i will just recommend you to send 1 unit around to scout your opponent constantly in the midgame, and make decisions based on what you see!
While “outpost rush” might be a meme strategy people only joke about in stream chats, sparing 1 villager to just go build outposts and houses while they’re at it definitely helps with visibility.
Also, ya gotta anticipate and preempt your opponent’s counters. For instance, if your civ is renowned for a certain kind of unit (Britons=archers, Franks=heavy cavalry) you can anticipate that your opponent will be coming with skirms or pike/monks, respectively. Britons can mix a few knights in to slay skirms and Franks can even mix in a few (yes, objectively bad) light cav or scouts to pick off monks before they can mass throwing axemen.
Really appreciate the situational reccs at the end. I was wondering about that last night trying to push back a big mass of crossbows and realized I wasn't sure which of the two to get first and how unit comp should bias my choice.
Amazing video! The only thing you could have added would be the accuracy in dependence of the angle the crossbows are shooting at their target.
True didnt even consider that :/
I knew both of those upgrade but it really help to clarify when to use them or what it really looks like in exemples, you're killing it Hera!!
Something I've understood intuitively but never really rationalized or put to an actual test. Great vid Hera.
A better way to describe what Thumb Ring does is that it increases precision to 100%. Accuracy is about hitting the intended target while precision is about narrowing down the spread of what you hit to a narrow point (irregardless of whether or not you're actually hitting the target).
I'd like to have seen the Ballistic without Thumb Ring experiment, but from the sound of it, it operates off a programing that functions on anticipating where the target will be only while it moves. This is why the few shots that missed were at the turned points, The program calculated where the target would be at the moment of impact while continuing to the right, but since it started moving left after the arrow was already fired, the target was no longer moving towards the anticipated spot and thus it missed. If I were to guess what Ballistics without Thumb Ring would look like, it would be a wide hit spread around the move target as oppose to behind the target.
Wow, this video was really very clarifying, man! Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge, I'll start to watch all your videos from now on!
Another minor difference is that ballistics affects non-archers such as castles, towers and galleys. If you're on a mixed land/water map, or a messy map like nomad involving lots of tower fights, ballistics is more useful than thumb ring.
Even thought i know diffrence very well i watched it untill the end. Good explanation man.
Thanks man!
Great stuff, Hera. Keep up the great content. I love the mix of videos you're putting out.
"Technology tree, bringing back NAC3 memories already" 1111111
So the question is thumb ring or ballistics first. Hera recommends Persians.
Hera recommends villagers. always attack boar (stationary/moving) with 100% accuracy.
This is worth $10 video. 11
I am 1580s on voobly and I thought I knew all about these researches. but wow that was really an EYE OPENER. When you see such video somethings get imbibed in you and you dont have to press hard next time. THANKS a TON.
However, it ud have been interesting to see SCENARIO #4 : (+) Ballistics (-)Thumb Ring
Thumbing: You always hit where you aim, but you aim where te unit is, not where is going to be.
Ballistics: You shoot where the unit is going to be based on his current movement.
Thats why without ballistics you get your shoots when they turn back, because you dont consider they move and tend to shoot behind them. While with ballistics you miss then they turn back, because you tend to shoot ahead them.
Dude your quality is getting so good! I just became a regular watcher of your channel next to Viper's and SotL's.
@Hera you are the best! Sharing all your knowledge with no signs of stinginess. Always keep that quality with yourself. :)
Nice vid. Was curious how the difference looks like actually... Playing Tatars learned me to take thumbring everytime i have it when playing archers - it work so well that i usually forgot to research ballistics until early imp age :D
Nice insights! A potential suggestion for future vids: would it be possible to produce kind of a how to micro certain units video?
He kind of did that 6 months ago
@@joaobras3836 ah thank you, didnt know :)
lol - restart scenario and do the ballistics no thumb ring :)
If you are DauT, get ballistics. Otherwise get thumbring.
Cav archers is the unit that benefit the most from Thumb ring as they have an innate accuracy in the 69% (giggidy) range as opposed to xbows which are at 90%. Thus Thumb ring gives you 30% for CA, which is quite noticeable. All of these are from max range, as when you get within a certain distance (unit dependant), you end up with 100% accuracy anyways. So very rarely would you prioritize thumb ring over ballistics.
I think the true value added from thumb ring is the fact archers shot faster. In reality you dont experience much static targets and also for most of units the accuracy rate is already high even without the technology.
Balistics is critical technology instead, arguagly the most important offensive technology in Castle Age for ranged units
This is the best explanation about those technologies, thank you Hera 👍
Could add that Thumb ring only affects archer units, and Ballistics affects archers and buildings, which gives it more value over Thumb ring
Also, it's relevant to say that there's a difference between the words "accuracy" and "precision". Just type "accuracy and precision" on google and search for an image and you'll get it.
Hi Hera - good vid man - thanks.
Q for you - In the Ballistics description, it says "Archers" - does that also include skirms or no?
P.S. U got me - I subscribed. :-)
Nice video Hera! Good job and many thanks for your contribution to the AoE community!!!!
The whole problem reminds me of accuracy vs. precision debate. It seems that Thumb ring improves precision, regardless of whether the target is moving or not (since the arrows are fired at the exact position of the target at the moment). The description, therefore, seems to be a bit misleading. Ballistics, however, seems to do exactly what the description says - improve accuracy against moving targets. Maybe there would be a little less confusion about those two if the Thumb ring description stated that it eliminates the spread or something along those lines. Also in the other example (ballistics, no thumb ring), you would see majority of the shots on moving target hit, with occasional missed shot, there would be no effect on a stationary target I believe.
One thing you didn’t mention is that missed arrows can hit other units for slightly less damage
I always forget thumb ring when I play mayans and produce plums from the castle but I still get by most of the time... while playing, ballistics just seems to make more of a difference..
Great job, good to hear it from your perspective!
Thank you for taking the time to explain this to us. Have an amazing day!
I want to OUTMICRO Ballistics. Give us that in the next video pls Hera!
Theory: move after the shot is fired
Practical implementation: wait for Hera's video
you have to move your units at the same moment when enemy archers fire, because at that moment they fire according to your trajectory and if you change your direction then they miss. But you have a very small window to do that. Also, if enemy archers don't all fire at the same time, then you'll only outmicro the few that fired at that very instant.
@@AhaanM Or if you're far enough: stop moving after the shot if fired. This even gives your own unit(s) the opportunity to fire.
the impact of thumb ring can be found easily at AoE Wiki and its specific use depends a lot on the unit!
This is extremely helpful! Thank you for doing this, Hera. Greetings from British Columbia! :)
ballistics are more useful also because they affect buildings which is much more valuable than affecting just units
thanks for the video Hera, u r the best
Interesting video. I always assumed Thumb Ring always hit the target.
To me, thumb ring should say that 'archers fire with 100% PRECISION' - i.e. the arrows go exactly where the archers want them to go, and not 'archers fire with 100% accuracy', which would mean they hit their target 100% of the time.
Thanks Spirit of the Law Jr!
That answers my question. Thank you!
The question of which to get first depends on one factor only: which I remember that I haven't researched first.
11 i just remembered how spirit of the law explained this.
he said Thumb Ring increases your accuracy to 100%. so when u shoot at a moving target, they will miss the shots faster and with perfect accuracy!
"Microsoft Message: Task Failed Successfully !"
Having a little bit of spread against moving targets can actually be beneficial as shown in these tests. What's the point of having 100% accuracy on a target that isn't there anymore?
Didn’t know you grind content took 9 days for me to get your stuff recommended via RUclips algorithm I watch a lot of t90 daut and viper. Keep it up! You put too much time in the game to not capitalize on RUclips checks haha
Thanks for the video, helps a lot!
THX ! :) But by watching the tournaments and e.g. your games it was pretty clear that BALISTICS is a KEY upgrade for shooting units :) but nevertheless thanks for the explanation !
The thumbnail is the first time i've seen the thumb ring tech graphic up close and im shocked to learn it isnt a pine cone.
Can you patrol basically in one point (just one unit turning around all the time) and make all or most arrows with balistics miss?
Nice vid. Does the direction the target is moving make a difference (ie if the target is charging at you in a straight line do you still need ballistics to hit more? Will thumb ring only hit more shots at a target charging at you directly?)? Ta
Awesome videos Hera, keep them coming!
A question I have is whether thumb ring is more useful than ballistics for cavalry archers, given that cavalry archers only have 50% innate accuracy, versus the crossbowman's 85% accuracy?
Great video and awesome job!
Surely enjoying the 30 days of thumbs up. I was here for the part 3 section and I was indeed enlightened. P.S. Could you simply restart the scenario and do ballistics first?
Hera ma boy, can you explain this situation?
If you actually don't have ballistic, so you miss against moving targets, but u're shooting a big mass of units. Let's say u right click one of them (just to make this example clearier).
Can the missed arrow on the target that u right clicked hit the adjacent unit like for example mongonel can?? Like the real question is: if the missed arrow you see in the ground is just an animation effect or if it actually lands in that tile (that is not the tile u wanna hit in theory). Thanks in advance
good info thanks Hera
you made this video way longer than it should be
This is really nice video series
amazing job hera keep it up proud of ya
Hera, is Krepost rushing your opponent a realistic option for Bulgarians? btw, your tier list for the 35 civilizations was insightful and well done.
Nice one my friend. And I'd love to have you and Viper collab for a vid talking about the most common tatics and strategies in AOE2. And remember to roast Viper about everytime he killed his heroes in Campaign Map 🤣🤣🤣
If there are for example 2 archers a, b vs 2 archers c, d. If a,b have thumb ring and shooting at c, but c,d are walking away, would a,b hit d, if d is at that place, where c was, when a,b were shooting?
Thanks for the video.
Don't the arrows that miss hit other nearby units? Or if someone with crazy skills fools ballistics by rapidly changing direction, can missed shots hit them anyway? Maybe thumb ring is a trap.
Stray shots do less damage. I think it is half.
It's a feature for Arambai, haha.
With a big mass of units when the other guy is dodging, half damage ain't bad
There is a hypothetical situation where researching Thumb Ring can actually make you miss more against moving targets, because there is less spread.
Hera of the Viper
Hey Hera, great videos, i had one question, concerning thumbring that you did not mention in your video, does Thumbring affects mangudai, and cav archers in general? and if yes, is it really worth making it as one of the first upgrades?
thanks for the videos
Thanks for the video! I was wondering about this...
So are you saying that if you get Ballistics, your xbows will still miss a knight just as regularly if it is standing still? for example in the first scenario you had aout 4 missed arrows in approximately 20 shots, but if you would have had ballistics would. your xbows still have missed those 4 times against that knight if it's just standing still?
Thumb ring rate of fire increases:
+11% for CA, war wagon, Kipchek
+18% for archer line, longbow, mangudai, plumes, elephant arch, genoese, camel arch, rattatan
+25% cho ko nu
but Britons with their longbows don't get thumbring at all?
@@lathamtk I guess the rate comes from if you give Britons thumb ring in a scenario or full tech tree games.
@El Bottoo Data was from the AoE 2 wiki.
@El Bottoo Not at all as the first two do melee damage and the conqs works like the hand cannon, but if you want to know for yourself tings like this go to the tech tree and mouse over the unit - it tells you what upgrades they are affected by. If a unit is affected by thumb ring it says accuracy (Archery range) in the upgrades. If it's affected by bloodline it says Hit Points (Stable) etc. you sometimes have to do a bit of thinking to work out which upgrade is which.
@El Bottoo No problem, have a nice day and keep safe.
You should have reloaded the scenario and tested getting ballistics first. Also give data on how much the fire rate increases from thumb ring. That way, this would have been a complete video. Also maybe should have given some numbers such as dps tests.
Hey hera, I love to see your stuff. helped me already. Are you up to make a video of team games with my friend and tell what you would have make differently?
very good explaination
thank you
Great content! Thanks Hera!
Hera, you are so great ❤
That was great ! More of these senpai ;)
spirit of hera
Spirit of the La Hera
great explanation
so to micro against ballistics you need to change directions / move / stop moving after the arrows are released, right?
Hera what do you know about chris? If you know anything at all about him, would be could to see him play 1 game again at least. I still own his book on aoc
But what is with ballistics but no thumb ring (britons)? Not shown in the video.
also does the speed of the unit's movement affect the accuracy as well? like a vill strafing causes less accuracy compared to a scout because the scout moves faster? or the speed of the unit doesn't matter?
dosnt matter
Merci Héra !
You're missing one important part of those techs.
Cavalry archers. Their accuracy is way lower than Crossbows.
Maybe make another video on them and explain how if you're building them affects your choice regarding Thumb Ring and Ballistics?
How do you do all of this without a script. You are super knowledgeable and I am learning alot as a noob.
What is this, a Spirit of the Law video?
Q: Thumb ring or ballistics first?
A: Be the Tatars.
Thanks Hera! What unique units do profit from ballistics or thumb ring? Mangudai and camel archers yes? Arambai, war wagons?
Thumb ring: Anything that have Archer class expect the Spanish UU ( sorry dont know how to wirte they name.. They just got CA class as a neft since DE.)
Ballistic: All range unit i think.
@@anghainguyen9951 except for the canon ( on the picture of the tech ) only the spanish canon galleon is affected by balistic...
Talk about a huge thumbnail : /
@@anghainguyen9951 Janissary don't get affected by thumb Ring.
@@satyakisil9711 i think they and hand cannoner a gunpowder units than an Archer. They do have Archer class but have gunpowder class o top of it...
@@Dollar-gc9in not the Portuguese ...
From what I remeber of spirit of the law's thumb ring/cav archer video it looked like cav archers werent even worth using without thumb ring researched since their accuracy is so awful and their fire rate is not good, and civs that have cav archers but no thumb ring shouldn't use them. Thoughts?
"thumb ring doesn't do anything against moving targets" Are you sure? If you have ballistics but not thumb ring, your accuracy against moving targets will be the same as stationary targets without thumb ring. Once you also have thumb ring, it goes to %100 (not including change of direction). Right?
Not too sure about that
5:06 you didnt do xbowman upgrade, how come you have xbows on the field? xD