Hope you all enjoyed this analysis of the Mangonels in AoE4 - I'm doing my best to continue to improve the production quality for you folks to ensure every video on Age of Noob is worth watching! Some of you folks might disagree with me on some aspects, so please share your thoughts in the comments below!
thank you so much for putting out such high quality and meaningful content. After I just got the floor wiped from me trying to defeat my opponents imperial army with mangonels, this video helped explain so many mistakes and takeaways as to what actually happened. I'm almost in the assumption that I'd rather just build more infantry/ranged infantry instead of the resources required to build 1-2 mangonels in imperial.
I agree that mangonels are not OP They are very strong against massed groups but on the other hand are expensive and fragile so it's pretty balanced. The notion that they are overpowered comes from the times you see them obliterate whole armies in a few seconds under certain circonstances but hey that's what they are meant to do. So they represent a great threat but also a gamble as if you counter them easily they represent a great waste of ressources.
Projectile visibility is something I mentioned way before the game was released in my 24 Visual Problems video. :D They haven't changed it since the betas, and I don't think it'll be changed anytime soon I'm afraid..
Nah don't change that. Surely you've tried to follow quick moving projectile in real life? It's not easy. This doesn't need a fix - You two however, might need glasses ;)
I personally think that the abundance of choke point maps plays a big part in the OP feeling of mangos. They thrive on maps like confluence and black forest where proper flanking is hard and battles can often take place in grindy choke points
This is basically the problem with the game in general IMO. A lot of these mechanics might be fine in a vacuum, but when you couple them with maps like confluence it quickly becomes unfun trying to accomplish anything. Victory will basically come down to who has water control, and who can build a late game army with better population efficiency.
i think aoe4 desperately needs a map rotation and picks/bans like in aoe2 or sc2. There's just not enough balanced maps yet to outweight the bad/cheesy ones so that means you either play the bad maps or dodge >50% of the time
To name a few things you didn't Cover that might play a role: • Villager repair rate • Reload while packing/packed/unpacking • Fast movementspeed (way worse against chinese or yam network) so that mangonels can actually kite units • it takes slower melee units forever to take down a moving mangonel due to their seemingly endless torch animation, after which they have to catch up to the mangonels new position again. Even some lancers take long enough to take a mangonel down, that it's back at savety again before it's down. Partially thats because they bodyblock themselfs in the process.
Mangonels are OP in that they can punish mis-micros super hard. Admittedly, in scenarios where both players are paying full attention to the fights, u can out-micro mangonels, but if u r distracted for like a sec for placing farms/ managing idle villagers, 1-2 mangonel shots can swing the game. No other sidges have that kind of power in terms of punishing enemy mistakes.
Yes sometimed its like ahhhh look at my glorious army...okay gonna place a few farms here and there....(distant noise *wosh* *wosh*) ...oh my Army is Gone. Reduced Area could help I think I mean their AoE Area as shown here seems too big I think.
Mangos and Siege overall just needs to be slower when moving. That'll make it hard to disengage and while you may put a big dent in oppos units you risk losing your costly siege machinery without sufficient units to defend them Edit: especially chinese siege moves like little racing carts which is ridiculous
I'd say that the problem appears when you have 3 or more manganels and large numbers of soldiers on both sides, like if one player has 3 manganels and 50 spears against 80 spears. In this case the combined aoe is sufficient to one hit lots of units and the proportion of attackers and defenders is smaller.
@@RockZerr that timestamp is for undefended mangonels. Not at all what was suggested here with 3 mangonels with spears/infantry defending. You only need to body block long enough for an extra mangonel volley and then the entire rushing army will die
@@BlackVegie ok but he also showed how you can just dive them if they are not protected properly. And when they are protected properly against units you can still use springalds. For me this sounds like their balance just hits the spot. They are certainly strong and deal a lot of dmg to blobed armys. But they are basically useless against siege or other big units and okish against building. They have a lot of weaknesses and with micro they can be killed by the units they are supposed to counter.
The way the Mangonel projectile seems to just be guided onto it's target it's less like a medieval siege unit and more like a modern cruise missile/heatseeker lol
Great video! It's fun to see the conclusion you came to especially when they're so often called OP The times that Mangonels feel most powerful are when they are screened by tanky units, or simply enough units to form a meatshield so enable them to get off a couple shots. In that instance you can find the majority of your forces utterly flattened within a few seconds before they can get past their screen. Mostly, Mangonels are fantastic at ending a fight very quickly when you're perhaps not paying as much attention as you should be, or are caught off guard when you suddenly find 4 Mangonels worth of rocks already in the air before you spotted the unit themselves. I don't think they're overpowered as such, but they certainly feel a little too nimble at the moment so they're easier to get into positions where they do large amounts of damage
Yes, I think the relevant factor is that oftentimes you don't notice the mangonels until you realize your army has just died awfully fast (doesn't help that the rocks are hard to see!). I guess it's a more relevant factor at lower elos, but nobody can monitor their army 24/7. Additionally, I feel like mangos can be good if they're backed up by defenses - I want to take out the enemy army outside of their defenses, but if I engage them just outside their defenses and then later realize they have supporting mangos that are well covered, I can send a large portion of my army to deal with the mango and suffer death by defenses and ignored enemy units, or I can let them get taken out by the mangos. Though this happens when I don't scout and didn't realize I needed to build springalds
@@BariumBlue The best army composition army i've made is with delhi, when you are both at age 3, you make elephants (and tower elephants) + crossbowman or spearman + mangonnels + 1/2 springals and you are invincible ; the ennemy units will focus the elephants, the mangonnels will clean the units, so the ennemy will focus the mangos, and the infantry you had can tank enough so that the elephants kill them and/or the mangos Also you have a massive dps against buildings thanks to the elephants I think that's why some people think mangonnels are broken but i'm not sure
These tests miss the context of realistic in-game scenarios. You are not going to have clean open field battles with equal resources. If you try to match an army supplemented with mangonels with more manpower, you run the risk of having to dive under keeps or other defenses. No one is going to use mangonels like you've shown in these videos, they will typically throw their chaff into yours, shoot a few mangonel shots and then back off. In these fights, the mangonel army will get very efficient army trades. So yes, while small-scale skirmishes favor the lack of siege, large-scale battles allow you to decimate your opponent with only losing chaff units, preserving your mangonels for future battles. In these circumstances, you require springalds or bombards.
Agreed, running away with the mangos after dealing decent damage is pretty much always the play in high level games. Mangos seem like a bit of a come back mechanic in castle age and that just wouldn't be viable if they always traded as inefficiently as it looks in this video.
Yes exactly. One of the biggest imbalances with siege right now is how easy it is to kite melee units, especially with civs that have speed bonuses for their siege. What wasn't tested here was with a mangonel that shoots and then retreats while the rushing army is being body blocked/attacked by the other units. Sure the rushing units might take out one or two siege units (so long as there's no repair), but they'll lose 2-3x as many resources for doing it.
I think you should retest with using the Stand ground mechanic for the army protecting the mangos. It makes a huge different since if you send you army to destroy the mangos but the enemy has a stand ground army in front of the mango they will do massive damage while taking very little since your target is not their army but their siege. And as you know, stand ground prevents the enemy from moving through your units which, when place right, will prevent the mangos from taking torch damage however the enemy army will still attempt to torch instead of attacking the troops in front leading to free damage for the mango team. (This makes for the perfect trap). The example shown in this video is very one sided. It shows intensive micro manage on one side but absolutely none on the mango sides. This also does not include the mongols siege bonuses from using stone. Mangos can disengage pretty quickly and their speed is usually enough to make chasing them not worth it unless you have Calvary or a movement speed buff. Remember when you are chasing a mango you leave yourself open to the enemy troops whilst not dealing any damage so if you take 10+ seconds to chase and kill the mango you may loose the battle. Last thing I want to point out when you swap to equal units (mixed) instead of equal resources a large army with 3-5 mangos usually wins against an army with no mangos. (There is a stage late game where resources are coming in steadily and you’re a max pop) It’s a lot harder to rush mangos when you have a thick army not letting you through and picking your off when you try to go around.
Yea exactly. I feel like mango can be quite fast and bothersome to chase, while having a good size of pv, leaving you really open, and unpack quite fast...
@@andreher i agree, the thing is 3-5 mangos at any state of the game can do massive damage and even one shot to a lot of units. when you also have culverins, cannons and springalds on the field then those become a priority since they usually cost more and they can snipe your siege units. Mangos/nest of bees end up getting 2-3x their worth in resources and change the tide of a fight in late game battles when played right.
Can you do the next topic about gathering rate of all types of resources? There is one on RUclips but it was so outdated and lacked much substantial information. I would love to see you go as deep into the topic as: How much better are the Rus fishing boats compared to others, drop-off bonus vs bonus gathering rate which type of boost is better. These are just examples.
Honestly even tho this video is quite well done and proposes an interesting theory I think the fights you tested aren't realistic, by the time you make a moangonel armies are generally bigger wich makes them more effective, plus keeping your troops closer to mangos is more effective at defending them, the other thing is that in a real game armies often go for mass archers, since the horsemen nerf against civs that don't get early knights mass archers plus a few spearmen are a unit comp that has no non unique counter and even against knights if your spears can brace you just change slightly the proportion of spears compared to archers, once you reach castle the armies are generally countered by mangos, to the point that not making them is just stupid especially since the only way to have hope against them is to overextended wich is really bad if you are the attacker, if horsemen didn't get shit on by any army comp that is not only archers i think that mangos would be quite reasonable but in a real game the army comps that are the most effective until mangonels also get countered by them plus your imperial age example is horrible since you showed only siege fights, a guy with bombards and springs will have the same fate that you showed in your mangos examples exept it also applies to big numbers, they just get easily overwhelmed by units especially hand cannons that destroy them, hand cannons of course get owned by mangos in imp you can have 5 and once you have 5 the fight is over as soon as it starts if they don't get sinped, you did not test the critical masses wich are the key to the effectiveness of mangos EDIT: if anything this is actually a great guide on how to fight against mangos
Hello, what do you think of an idea of loading siege weapons only after they are unpacked (unpack -> loading -> shot)? This can weaken mass siege pushes, potentially
The notion of their imbalance may come from team games more so than from solo games. In 4on4 you quite often will see a player going for knights and a player going pure mangonel. Many maps will force a choke position, think black forest but also mountains or dense tree areas on maps as nagari and french pass will do. Any unit that can effectively deal with knights will simply evaporate to over 20 mangonels. The knights will have no issue rushing to springalds, bombards or culverines after the first volley. The experiment would be to see how effective units are that have to detour trees or funnel through a square of destroyed palisade. I think this can highly improve the efficacy of mangonells. Pathfinding and efficiency in connecting here is key.
Honestly they're intended to be strong and they have plenty of counters. People overcry and the game with weak siege might be worse. We need to play test these changes in a beta client before moving to live.
Theyre not absurdly OP but I still think a good tweak to them would be for them to do friendly fire damage like in aoe2 so that there is a risk to your own troops if you are not microing correctly.
I think Mangonel are strong because brings a burst factor for higher level players. Like demo ships these are capable of ending the game with one good unexpected volley. Its a ridiculous power spike in castle age; although as the vid points out, they are short lived in viability and straight forward to counter if you have the apm for it.
Once you have about 5 or more they can one shot most balls of armies.. in big fights where you have enough units to tank them this can change battles very quickly
I think the problem of Artillery isn't about overpowered Damage, it's more the fact that you can build so many of those Units in 3vs3 and 4vs4 games. Me and my mates had so many games where (especially the chinese) enemys building like 30-40 Kanons, Mangonels, Nest of Bees. All they have to do is protect them with a few Units. You don't even get near those Units since they Bomb anything to death so easily. Combine those tactics with a bunch of Rus Horse Archers and it's totally unbeatable. In 1vs1 and 2vs2 it's not a big deal cause noone ever get to the point having an huge artillery army cause of the map size. But the big map games mostly ending in a "who has more Artillery" especially those where you have only one or two path to the enemy territory wich is heavily walled in early and midgame. So there are two ways to play Age of Empires IV on so called maps. Rush the enemy early or get involved in a heavy Artillery endgame wich can become very frustrating. Even springles are no big help when 30 Canons firering + Some Knights protecting them. I dunno.. I expect a little more than just that I guess. I really hope for a limit for the Artillery Units, like you're only able to have 6 Canons at the same time. It would make the battles also more realistic and historical since there weren't armys in the History ONLY made of canons or mangonels, lol. So yeah, they not really overpowered they just make games frustrating when they come in HUGE numbers and feels so broken and op then.
I feel like this test completely ignores the way they're actually used in a game -- either as a way to force an enemy to attack your army, or as a consistent force multiplier that isn't realistically able to be dealt with without springalds. It's incredibly easy to just get value over time with your siege units (specifically mangonels) as you either force the enemy to either a. ignore your units and try to rush them down (they pack and kite) or b. try to fight and get clumped + dumped on by the mangonel -- in the equal resource fights if you were to save your mangonel afterward then provide reinforcements I'm 100% confident that the siege units would massively come out on top. Ex: equal resource fight, but you pull mangs once their melee units die, then reinforce w/ equal resources edit: I also feel like the mixed army examples you used were incredibly small amounts of units. 3 mangonels + 60 supply of infantry vs pure infantry (or ranged or probably cav) would probably get dunked on
Mate if someone can afford 80 infantry, why doesn't that player make siege of his/her own? The point of those tests were to show different scenarios you might find yourself in. If the numbers get really high, then that means you've had more than enough time in the game to drop a siege workshop and add imp siege units or springalds. :)
5:20 Are you saying that if you target fire a magonel and the unit runs out of range, the shot is cancelled whereas letting it auto attack will make the shots track on to the unit even if it runs out of range?
It's not cancelled, but it will miss because it'll just shoot at the max range where you target fired. ANd yes, if you let it auto attack, the projectiles follow the unit no matter how far they go
I normally main HRE, I try to create three groups on hotkeys: bombards, culverin and mangos, and let all the non-siege units standing in the middle with scattered formation, use the villagers to create the keep, by this time AI goes nuts and start to send units from all directions, I can normally survive with minimal damage. Number of the mangos is the key, I try to always have no less than 7 or 8 at all times. I use this strategy to play the open maps, it’s way easier to defend if there are choke points.
Great video! Only thing I strongly disagree with is friendly fire, it's clearly not in Relic's vision of this game, as there is no instance of it anywhere, but it would also make team games a much worse experience for not that big of a benefit. Hyped about the Nest of Bees video!
It doesn't cost food, which is a big advantage. Like Rus flight player will start making mangonel when they are low on food. For Mongol and Abb, also the training speed advantage too. You and also do slow push with towers, or hold position when your enemy need to run to you. Using map advantage it would be hard to get close to them.
i think the problem is the pacing with mangonels is that by the time players make transitions with mangonels, armies become very diverse, and conflicts become continuous with intense micro, when the entirety of enemy army fights your it usually cost the side without mangonels to make sudden adjustments to strategy that could be costly, or due to the high intensity of micro, enemy mangonels are simply ignored and now your entire army is injuried.
14:08 The problem are your tests... you assume that fights are only fought on open fields. But in most cases there is always a attacker or a defender. If you are the attacker, you already have the unit advantage, so protecting your mangonels isn't a problem. And if you are defender, you can use defensive structures like walls, tower etc. to force the enemy to bad trades.
Amazing video. I use mangonels every game and as a result win most battles with them. I've had more than a few people cuss me out for them. Really what I think it comes down to is at lower levels players don't want to use more than one or two unit types, so they don't bring springalds with them. I will NEVER have a late game battle without three mangonels and six springalds. As another tip, I don't have more than four mangonels in an army as beyond that they get reaalllly stupid in their pathing and attacks and four is enough to do the damage you need to clear out your opponent. Finally I don't know if Abbasid is played alot as I've been playing and not watching streams, but I love that they can build these with spearmen and it really makes the civ shine. I usually go heavy spearment early game and grab just one manongel as early as possible and that lets me snoball into late game. Peace all!
I don't like this test. This test assumes that the enemy will leave their mangonels static, but every player out there will respond accordingly when their siege is threatened: they pack up and run. What does this mean to your melee units running to keep up with the mangonels? They get wittled down by the defenders little by little, and chances are, you will end up overextending your infantry during this engagement. Before you know it, you're running back because enemy reinforcements are approaching while your own reinforcements are getting further and further behind. This means the shots of those mangonels have done their worth in resources, and unless you manage to kill them at all, they'll be back to do more. The power of the mangonel to force a response from you - and lead you to an unfavorable engagement - is not to be taken lightly. Still liked the video btw, great presentation! Hope to see better anaylses in the future.
are you suggesting that say the fight is equal resources allocated and he has maa and you have a mango xbow combo, the mango xbow combo should win because as the mango are retreating, the xbow will be dealing huge damage per second on the maa as the maa try to chase the mango down?
@@chrisnewtownnsw It's not a suggestion, but rather an inevitable conclusion. If your opponent has committed to MAA, and you surprise them with xbows and mangoes, their fate is sealed, and all they can do is run back to their base, and either reinforce with bows, horsemen, or scouts. But that doesn't mean you're not ready to reinforce with a counter of your own. Not to mention bases have chokepoints in the form of buildings and houses where a staggered formation will still have to squeeze through, ripe for a mango shot.
@@extremely_human8598 I like this. Its good to know the mango is doing it's job and countering what it's supposed to whether it be via its devastating direct shot or by simply being an essential target that must endure large sacrifices to eliminate
mangonells come up at the time where you probably don't have springalds and if the enemy just protects their mangonells properly they will just have more bang for their buck early on. later however when springalds crop up mangonells become inefficient, just as it is with the culverin, cannons or bombards. (i know springalds and mangonells can be made at the same age, it's just that either you choose to bring one or the other because it's fairly expensive and time consuming to get both and ideally you'd want neither) it's just sometimes the other person might never make any siege units or haphazardly run into a couple of mangonell shots or there is chokes that's being bombarded with mangos where mangonells will still make incredible short work of a lot of things. they tend to be really good against archers and other ranged infantry as most people don't tend to micro these around to avoid mangonells aswell and just let them afk fire into the blob of units protecting the mangonells. mangonells can do some crazy damage and most likely will, this is why they are overpowered because it doesn't harm your units and does track very well, compared to most other siege units or ranged units they have the furthest hardest hitting aoe attack and in a game of mass it can be very good. but with that said, i think ranged infantry is probably better as it's harder to deal with and sort of acts like a mangonell with a lot of HP if you have enough mass of ranged units. still, both needs to be protected to function at maximum capacity to get a decent return on investment.
Hey man appreciate the effort you put into making the video. However, I think there is a major factor was not covered in this video: Movement of siege. Mangonels move reaaallly fast and even if infantry move in to kill it, all mangonels retreat to a TC or Keep so easily that sometimes your whole army is wiped out and there is still lots of siege remaining for the opponent. And the fire attack animation of the infantry make it so that only one fire attack can be made before they have to catch up a few more tiles and get the second hit. Throughout all this, they take massive amounts of damage from the opponent's supplementary units. While these tests have surprised me as well wrt the damage output of the mangonel, it is still obnoxiously difficult to destory imo. Therefore, in many cases, they continuously dish out loads of damage in fights, over time.
I think it's that initial moment of surprise slap that does it. Hence I believe it'd go a long way if the unit had to set up and then load before it fires. Something that I'm convinced should be a mechanic for all siege.
I'm trying to find that one video where you demonstrated that projectiles will auto-track their target from a few months back, but I forgot which one it was.
if you force the enmy into a choke point where springalds or gunpowder siege cant reach them they are op, but if the choke point is just a hole in a wall you could try to destroy more of the wall before pushing. Sometimes this will not be possible tho
With so many maps having choke points, all siege and range damage is good if you have a frontline to close up that choke point. It's even worse in team games, with so many units trying to fit through a small cap, all you need is a meatwall, some mangos, bombards and springalds in the back and you usually win any army, no matter if they have twice your numbers.
I think this analysis works well for say an early/mid castle siege push, but I don't think that's the problem with mangonels/siege. The problem is late game. The further into the game it goes, the larger the armies get, the better mangonels get. The thing too is that you have to micro vs mangonels, but if you try to use springalds as an obvious counter you need to micro the springald war too, and that's often more important (because springalds are expensive and kill each other extremely fast, so its a massive swing in resources extremely fast if you don't micro). If you don't go springalds though, the opponent doesn't have to push. They can just sit behind walls massing up 4-5 mangonels and a decent size army, and that's when engagements get really hard. The video shows what happens in medium numbers, but not what happens in high numbers from a patient player who keeps their siege near building support they can retreat to if the fight goes south. That last point is what I've always felt is overpowered about siege. As shown in the video, knights lose decisively to spear+siege. So you're generally left with maa or your own spear, but maa and spears are slow, so siege just runs away and you get forced to chase it into terrible positioning. If mangonels were actually static units that had to sit there on the field like in the video, I don't think they'd be op. I think the take away I have, which I've been seeing happen in a lot of fights on streams and such, is that you need to play patient with mangonels, as they're not overpowered if you push in open areas before you get to large armies. The mangonel push is probably only strong because its a thing mongols commonly do and everything mongols do is strong.
I think there are two major aspects that aren't covered in this video that matter quite a lot. 1) The power of 3 mangos. Once you have 3 mangos, one alpha strike can completely shred a ranged line, which instantly justifies their cost. 2) The secret alpha strike. A common thing in the game is for mangos to sneak up on an enemy army while the player is distracted, and get one shot off. There hasn't been any attack alert yet, and so the player is completely unaware as the damage comes raining down, and their army is destroyed. This happens a good amount even in pro games, and really increases the power and value of the unit.
I may be wrong, but you didn't cover view range and fog of war, as I THINK they can fire outside of most units' view range. Of course, that can be countered with a simple scout, but you might still set them up behind trees or inside bushes. So basically, vision can be the difference between fighting on equal resources or resource disadvantage with a single barrage from 3-4 Mangonels. Of course, that can work 1-2 times, but it might be all you need
Suggestions: - make them easier to dodge but do more damage. - make damaged units perform worse than full health units - add friendly fire for area of effect attacks
Ok just watched it and I learned A LOT. I had no idea they were so underwhelming when equal resources were factored in. I guess their place is mainly anti archer as all other units can charge them down easy enough
Respect for changing your mind after testing. And mine aswell. I think they are only op if not taken care of imediatly, but that's the way they should be.
Nice, really good video. Now i finally know how exaclty mangos work. I alwas thought that the huge nerf calls are a little bit unreasonable. When even slow moving maa can just dive them and the fact that you need a counter unit to protect them makes them imo pretty reasonable. One thing to note is that you can ofc kite wiht mangos which gets better when you have the speed upgrade. But that goes for every range unit in the game.
Great video as usual! I do feel that one test that was missing was fights were the mangonels try to escape. IMO the fix to all siege is slower pack-up/unpacking time, as they are simply too fast and nimble right now. For instance, in the spearmen vs. MAA+mangonel encounter, how much more damage from the MAA would the spearmen take if they are forced to chase the mangonels in different directions? Especially with greased axels. Such a test might illustrate why mangonels feel OP. In fact, I almost think your testing vindicates the notion that siege is balanced only if it's more stationary. As for suggestions, if it's not already on your list, can I suggest an analysis of horsemen? Are they as bad as we think, what are they useful for, and do they perhaps do better in late game even though it's a light unit?
I think it's a bit unfair you tested with only micro'ing the attacking army and just leaving the mangonels/defending units idle. Its much harder to charge mangonels with a properly micro'd army, using infantry to body block the charge and then retreating the mangonels. Sure they might take out the mangonels themselves in this test, but will lose the entire charging force to the other mangonel firing out of minimum range + the defending army attacking while the mangonel is kiting backwards. So essentially the attacking army trades 2x the resources compared to the mangonel player. And the 2x value trade is even in a perfect scenario on a completely open map. Add in any choke points, villagers to repair, civ bonuses like Yam network or Yuan dynasty speed and actually rushing the mangonels is next to impossible with proper micro
Cool vid. I hope they add mod support so we can tweak unit data - I'm curious to see what it would've taken to be a "cost effective" fight against the closed beta nest of bees. Now they just feel a bit overnerfed.
Hello, AoN. Hello YT comments section. My take on the mangonel's power is a complex one, but I'll try to make it at least short[ish]. Number crunching and small tests are fine to find some of the characteristics units, in general, but there's a lot more to it, gamewise. Speaking only about mangonels, as people are saying in the comments here, when the armies get big, mangos "just become" too powerful. And they are not wrong, but the reason they are right is a reason I've been trying to preach for more than a month, already: battlefield design. No, I'm not saying that you show try to pick the perfect fight every time, with every unit at the perfect position. That's generally impossible, due to the simple fact that your opponent can react to that and, usually, you might have more things to worry than perfectly fighting every time. But, exactly due to this same reason, mangonels are great at firing at chaotic battles, where we can't even see how to micro our way out of it. not only archers suffer, but the clumped up infantry lines are disgustingly demolished by mangonels. Another implication of chaotic battles is that battle lines are like a temporary wall for enemy units. We all have already seen those beautiful lines of clashing units form as both players attack move toward the opponent, and we all have seen a lot of derping units that couldn't get to hit their enemies, that couldn't get through the opponent's infantry, that was unnecessarily clumped up and got demolished by mangonels without lifting their blades once. In summary, that's the main reason, I believe, people see mangonels as an OP unit: as the common practice is to just attack move into battles, in almost a disorganized charge, mangonels will just mow down the soldiers, which are, in this context, being sent into the meat grinder. My solution to that is a even more complex one, that includes not merely micro, mind you, but lots of skills RTS games can demand from a player. But I'll stop this comment here, for it's already too long. Have great games, everyone, and have fun!
I actually agree with what you mentioned - but if Mangonels weren't strong in chaotic fights, then they'd essentially be useless. That's the thing, you have to stall and not get into chaotic fights where micro is unreliable or the game is too hectic if you don't have Mangonels or Springalds of your own. Since Mangonels move relatively slow, you should be able to run away from them. Hence, I think this decision making aspect for the unit is fine :)
@@AgeofNoob I never said they should be changed in any way ;). I just mentioned that I understand why people think they are strong, which is: people don't micro, don't think their game plan out and end up in poor battles, do not diversify army comp and army tactics, and so on.
to the reaction part: it is NOT about reaction in my opinion when dodging the shots. its about timing. it is much easier to get a .1 second timing than a .1 second reaction. it is easy to predict the timing of the shot compared to a blind reaction what was the basic of the argument at around 6t minutes
I gotta say. I love siege and here is the but, it feels to end all be all at times. The most fun battles I've had ingame is just fighting with standard units.
Sure they aren't that much of a threat to melee based comp but they counter massed archers, crossbows or muskets pretty hard. In addition there just aren't that may sources of splash damage in the game. Only boiling oil, demo ship, Woolooloo and Mangonels come to mind for most civs.
the tiny animation of the boulders is also really unsatisfying to look at. Compared with the slow moving and glorious dragonball launcher of aoe2. The visual destruction that those things deal is accurate to their actual damage footprint and it looks awesome.
Great video! Thanks for putting in the work and running all these tests. Personally, I find Mangonels to become stronger the more you have. I main abbasid and I agree with your finding that early mangonels without sufficient army are often vulnerable and get torched easily (if you don't repair). However, they seem to be more effective at higher numbers. The moment I have 4-5 on the field defended by spears the only answer my opponent has left is springalds. Infantry tends to bundle up and get splashed to death. Maybe it's simply an army control issue and the mangonels can be overcome with better unit splitting. This might be my perception only, though. Did you try your scenarios with double or triple numbers? Or a cheap mass defense e.g. 20 maa vs 2 mangos + 15 spears?
i feel like there is a problem with the basic projectile mechanics. As all projectiles auto hit, no matter what. I loved in AoE2 that you could micro to avoid projectiles
From what I've seen they are pretty good as they catch off guard units easily (even from pro players), combine pretty well with meat shield , good to defend from raids (as contrary cannot micro so easily inside city). So they key point imo is that they are strategically good. Hope cannons could be killed as well in a reasonable way as mangos. Note a fair amount of cavalry archers can one shot mangos currently.
Wait, does this mean I should just not make a siege workshop as HRE in castle age? Just run in with men at arms and take half my army into the enemy siege? huhh....
The reason why I think people think it is op since the margin of error is small and usually forces a response out of the opponent. Let me give a example I am playing as the English and I have mass long bows plus spears and 3 springals but I want to engage but I need to build farms or my gold ran out then I come back to my army and 1/4 it dead even while I moved a way since the mangonels already were aiming. So you think you are safe but you are really not. Plus the blast radius doesn't match the animation so people get frustrated
Make them less mobile. So if they get caught by units they get slowed down, and more time to pack so its important to protect them. right now they just move around freely, and while your men chase them down so inefficiently in a line, the other players ranged units pick you off. Once units are engaged by horsemen or Man at arms, they should be stuck for half a second to atleast defend themselves for one attack, and then be able to flea. Same goes for retreating archers. You can have a group of horsemen chasing archers across the map - just such a silly dynamic.
i think the problem is probably the Siege supremacy effect. If you have Springold Mass covered by Mangonels it gets tricky if there is a support army ,,, but in the other hand you never should let your enemy get a critical mass of anything anyways. Thats the point of the game
Its coz u buy 3-4 and 1 shot army. So if theres equal fight of armies large of 3-4 mangos, u gonna lose it. Also its siege that benefits from beying ahead better then different siege. Since it kills enemy units rather then building which cant be macroed properly anyways to destroy more at once (vision bugs of not hiting building with siege etc). Also put them behind small wall that cost nothin and ull see the benefit.
Using Mangos takes almost no micro at all! Avoiding Mango damage takes a ton of Micro! Players that can Micro tend to vastly undervalue their own micro ability and it's importance in climbing rank and ELO etc. They will say it is all game knowledge and practice and muscle memory that anyone can do. The vast majority of players do not have the ability to run their armies back and forth as the mango shoots while doing all the other things in the game at the same time. So they take the mango to the face. When you lose all your un micro'd ranged units to 3 mango shots to the face while you are building a farm near your lumber line you lose the game. Hence they feel OP.
The problem here is the test cases are not representative of in game scenarios. And the practical scenarios are only obliquely mentioned. You dont build 30 spears and then build mango, ever. Before either, you’ve had 30 archers. You wont have 30 crossbows in until post imperial and even then either its left over, you are forced to keep investing in them, or your enemies are forced to keep investing in what they counter. Archers reign supreme because they counter spear, horseman, and when knights/maa come around can be reinforced with xbows specifically microed to snipe them. Mongos are good in term because they can one shot archers and the often resource efficient spears. It is not useful at all to test range units charging mango. Its also not useful to test crossbows in particular charging mango. Instead, test the predominant scenarios of archers vs archers + Mango, the results will show what people experience in practice.
horsemen hard counter longbow dude. assuming equal resources. I do like your suggestion of trying archer vs archer with mango. i cant help but feel archer with mango will hard counter the mono archer army
@@chrisnewtownnsw "horsemen hard counter longbow dude" like hell it does. Play some real games and you won't say that. heck, I use horseman to scrape by against Feudal rush in order to fast castle in just about every game and even then I wouldn't drop such a senseless assertion.
magonels for me from both age of empire 2 or 4 even this bug graphics in real life magonels is effective in siege wall fight in defense while in attacking I use the us fast siege support in building.
When i played my first game against an AI i knew that siege would just stupidly strong in this game, there should be situations where a person CANT solve the issue with siege because at this point there is no imperial army comp that is better without it
The notion of overpowered mangonels appears because when they show up in the battle you need to stop attacking buildings or other armies and focus on them, otherwise you will be wiped out. Choke points algo help with this feeling.
Yes. I strongly dislike the power of the repair, mostly because I don't want to do it myself lol. But yeah some ridiculous plays have been made with a siege machine and 15 villagers.
@@AgeofNoob Perhaps only if you are fighting them in open fields and the opponent doesn't micro them. But when you factor in retreating mangonels, actually using micro to block with the supporting units, using terrain to create chokepoints and maybe even including villagers to repair - then the mangonels come out way more cost effective. It's a bit disingenuous when you only micro the charging army to dodge attacks, but leave the mangonel forces idle in an open field and then call the balance "good".
Mangonel are seen as op when most players make a huge army of one unit, French-royal knights, hre, man at arms, China-firelancers. When you just blob up like that, are your openent makes6 mango, you get fucking bodied
One thing you didn’t include in your tests Is the mangos van just run away, and becuase units have to stop to attack, it takes a while to kill them. At that point your army is destroying there’s, and they either have to fight you, in which case you can re set up your mangos, or they can get recked by your army. Mango are good in imperial btw, I ussually put 3 mangos mixed in with a bunch of other siege to get advantage, as long as you aren’t going up agianst curverns, you can ussually micro them away. All in all there a good unit with cool counter play. Nests of bees on the other hand need to get straight up removed
@@GorzFCD How, like im only talking about my experiences playing with them? I havent said anything insulting, so i guess your disagreeing with my stratagy. If you think your more off an expert, add your user and I would be happy to educate you. ♥
Siege units are the biggest issue right now. The projectil pathing is ridiculous, the aoe is ridiculous, their range and speed (placement and movement) is ridiculous! Just range and speed is in conflict, they all have short range but quick placement and movement, which mean they are hard to punish unless you use springals and springals are king right now. Reduce the Aoe, reduce projectil pathing, reduce speed (movement and placing), make cavalry deal extra damage or reduce defenses and increase the range (but not sight). All this to every siege unit except springals.
Hope you all enjoyed this analysis of the Mangonels in AoE4 - I'm doing my best to continue to improve the production quality for you folks to ensure every video on Age of Noob is worth watching! Some of you folks might disagree with me on some aspects, so please share your thoughts in the comments below!
I love your videos man! Keep it up
@@adventuresofavalon2477 Thanks AOA! Appreciate you stopping by :)
thank you so much for putting out such high quality and meaningful content. After I just got the floor wiped from me trying to defeat my opponents imperial army with mangonels, this video helped explain so many mistakes and takeaways as to what actually happened. I'm almost in the assumption that I'd rather just build more infantry/ranged infantry instead of the resources required to build 1-2 mangonels in imperial.
Friendly fire is just annoying if you aren't too good at micro, so I really hope they never add it
I agree that mangonels are not OP
They are very strong against massed groups but on the other hand are expensive and fragile so it's pretty balanced.
The notion that they are overpowered comes from the times you see them obliterate whole armies in a few seconds under certain circonstances but hey that's what they are meant to do.
So they represent a great threat but also a gamble as if you counter them easily they represent a great waste of ressources.
The one thing that needs to be changed in mangonels is the projectile visibility. In battle is nearly impossible to see them
Projectile visibility is something I mentioned way before the game was released in my 24 Visual Problems video. :D They haven't changed it since the betas, and I don't think it'll be changed anytime soon I'm afraid..
Nah don't change that. Surely you've tried to follow quick moving projectile in real life? It's not easy. This doesn't need a fix - You two however, might need glasses ;)
@@HeliosRa Yeah I also fit 5 elephants into a 1x1m Tower in real life in my backyard as well :P
@@AgeofNoob Well I'm not gonna defend that lol!
@@HeliosRa How is it to be a slave and work for survival ? I think you have glasses already little nerd ^^
I personally think that the abundance of choke point maps plays a big part in the OP feeling of mangos. They thrive on maps like confluence and black forest where proper flanking is hard and battles can often take place in grindy choke points
This is basically the problem with the game in general IMO. A lot of these mechanics might be fine in a vacuum, but when you couple them with maps like confluence it quickly becomes unfun trying to accomplish anything. Victory will basically come down to who has water control, and who can build a late game army with better population efficiency.
i think aoe4 desperately needs a map rotation and picks/bans like in aoe2 or sc2. There's just not enough balanced maps yet to outweight the bad/cheesy ones so that means you either play the bad maps or dodge >50% of the time
there are no flank when you sit it inside a spear rectangle
To name a few things you didn't Cover that might play a role:
• Villager repair rate
• Reload while packing/packed/unpacking
• Fast movementspeed (way worse against chinese or yam network) so that mangonels can actually kite units
• it takes slower melee units forever to take down a moving mangonel due to their seemingly endless torch animation, after which they have to catch up to the mangonels new position again. Even some lancers take long enough to take a mangonel down, that it's back at savety again before it's down. Partially thats because they bodyblock themselfs in the process.
Mangonels are OP in that they can punish mis-micros super hard. Admittedly, in scenarios where both players are paying full attention to the fights, u can out-micro mangonels, but if u r distracted for like a sec for placing farms/ managing idle villagers, 1-2 mangonel shots can swing the game. No other sidges have that kind of power in terms of punishing enemy mistakes.
Yes sometimed its like
ahhhh look at my glorious army...okay gonna place a few farms here and there....(distant noise *wosh* *wosh*)
...oh my Army is Gone.
Reduced Area could help I think I mean their AoE Area as shown here seems too big I think.
I think if one is not paying attention to his battle, there should be a punishment in the first place.
Mangos and Siege overall just needs to be slower when moving. That'll make it hard to disengage and while you may put a big dent in oppos units you risk losing your costly siege machinery without sufficient units to defend them
Edit: especially chinese siege moves like little racing carts which is ridiculous
I'd say that the problem appears when you have 3 or more manganels and large numbers of soldiers on both sides, like if one player has 3 manganels and 50 spears against 80 spears.
In this case the combined aoe is sufficient to one hit lots of units and the proportion of attackers and defenders is smaller.
9:29
@@RockZerr that timestamp is for undefended mangonels. Not at all what was suggested here with 3 mangonels with spears/infantry defending. You only need to body block long enough for an extra mangonel volley and then the entire rushing army will die
@@BlackVegie ok but he also showed how you can just dive them if they are not protected properly. And when they are protected properly against units you can still use springalds. For me this sounds like their balance just hits the spot. They are certainly strong and deal a lot of dmg to blobed armys. But they are basically useless against siege or other big units and okish against building. They have a lot of weaknesses and with micro they can be killed by the units they are supposed to counter.
The way the Mangonel projectile seems to just be guided onto it's target it's less like a medieval siege unit and more like a modern cruise missile/heatseeker lol
Same thing with archers.
Well that's with all projectiles in this game, not just Mangonels - everything's heatseeking! :D
I thought mangonel was the only thing that can be dodged in this game?
@@AgeofNoob Not the trebuchet*...
Edit: Typo
Why you would expext a complex mechanic to make projectile miss when you just can stick to what is already present in COH3 engine
Great video! It's fun to see the conclusion you came to especially when they're so often called OP
The times that Mangonels feel most powerful are when they are screened by tanky units, or simply enough units to form a meatshield so enable them to get off a couple shots. In that instance you can find the majority of your forces utterly flattened within a few seconds before they can get past their screen.
Mostly, Mangonels are fantastic at ending a fight very quickly when you're perhaps not paying as much attention as you should be, or are caught off guard when you suddenly find 4 Mangonels worth of rocks already in the air before you spotted the unit themselves. I don't think they're overpowered as such, but they certainly feel a little too nimble at the moment so they're easier to get into positions where they do large amounts of damage
Thanks Ewan! And yeah fair point on that last one - I think an extra 0.5 sec on pack/repack could be the answer as a minor tweak. :)
Yes, I think the relevant factor is that oftentimes you don't notice the mangonels until you realize your army has just died awfully fast (doesn't help that the rocks are hard to see!). I guess it's a more relevant factor at lower elos, but nobody can monitor their army 24/7.
Additionally, I feel like mangos can be good if they're backed up by defenses - I want to take out the enemy army outside of their defenses, but if I engage them just outside their defenses and then later realize they have supporting mangos that are well covered, I can send a large portion of my army to deal with the mango and suffer death by defenses and ignored enemy units, or I can let them get taken out by the mangos. Though this happens when I don't scout and didn't realize I needed to build springalds
@@BariumBlue The best army composition army i've made is with delhi, when you are both at age 3, you make elephants (and tower elephants) + crossbowman or spearman + mangonnels + 1/2 springals and you are invincible ; the ennemy units will focus the elephants, the mangonnels will clean the units, so the ennemy will focus the mangos, and the infantry you had can tank enough so that the elephants kill them and/or the mangos
Also you have a massive dps against buildings thanks to the elephants
I think that's why some people think mangonnels are broken but i'm not sure
These tests miss the context of realistic in-game scenarios. You are not going to have clean open field battles with equal resources. If you try to match an army supplemented with mangonels with more manpower, you run the risk of having to dive under keeps or other defenses. No one is going to use mangonels like you've shown in these videos, they will typically throw their chaff into yours, shoot a few mangonel shots and then back off. In these fights, the mangonel army will get very efficient army trades. So yes, while small-scale skirmishes favor the lack of siege, large-scale battles allow you to decimate your opponent with only losing chaff units, preserving your mangonels for future battles. In these circumstances, you require springalds or bombards.
Agreed, running away with the mangos after dealing decent damage is pretty much always the play in high level games. Mangos seem like a bit of a come back mechanic in castle age and that just wouldn't be viable if they always traded as inefficiently as it looks in this video.
Yes exactly. One of the biggest imbalances with siege right now is how easy it is to kite melee units, especially with civs that have speed bonuses for their siege. What wasn't tested here was with a mangonel that shoots and then retreats while the rushing army is being body blocked/attacked by the other units. Sure the rushing units might take out one or two siege units (so long as there's no repair), but they'll lose 2-3x as many resources for doing it.
true dat
@@BlackVegie he mentioned it at 12:40
I think you should retest with using the Stand ground mechanic for the army protecting the mangos. It makes a huge different since if you send you army to destroy the mangos but the enemy has a stand ground army in front of the mango they will do massive damage while taking very little since your target is not their army but their siege. And as you know, stand ground prevents the enemy from moving through your units which, when place right, will prevent the mangos from taking torch damage however the enemy army will still attempt to torch instead of attacking the troops in front leading to free damage for the mango team. (This makes for the perfect trap).
The example shown in this video is very one sided. It shows intensive micro manage on one side but absolutely none on the mango sides. This also does not include the mongols siege bonuses from using stone.
Mangos can disengage pretty quickly and their speed is usually enough to make chasing them not worth it unless you have Calvary or a movement speed buff. Remember when you are chasing a mango you leave yourself open to the enemy troops whilst not dealing any damage so if you take 10+ seconds to chase and kill the mango you may loose the battle.
Last thing I want to point out when you swap to equal units (mixed) instead of equal resources a large army with 3-5 mangos usually wins against an army with no mangos. (There is a stage late game where resources are coming in steadily and you’re a max pop) It’s a lot harder to rush mangos when you have a thick army not letting you through and picking your off when you try to go around.
Yea exactly. I feel like mango can be quite fast and bothersome to chase, while having a good size of pv, leaving you really open, and unpack quite fast...
well, if you are late game full pop and dont have anything to kill mangos, you deserve to be defeated.
@@andreher i agree, the thing is 3-5 mangos at any state of the game can do massive damage and even one shot to a lot of units. when you also have culverins, cannons and springalds on the field then those become a priority since they usually cost more and they can snipe your siege units. Mangos/nest of bees end up getting 2-3x their worth in resources and change the tide of a fight in late game battles when played right.
Can you do the next topic about gathering rate of all types of resources? There is one on RUclips but it was so outdated and lacked much substantial information.
I would love to see you go as deep into the topic as: How much better are the Rus fishing boats compared to others, drop-off bonus vs bonus gathering rate which type of boost is better. These are just examples.
Nice vid, I guess if mangos aren't op that just means im bad :)
As long as you take the right fights, you should do fine against them my friend!
Honestly even tho this video is quite well done and proposes an interesting theory I think the fights you tested aren't realistic, by the time you make a moangonel armies are generally bigger wich makes them more effective, plus keeping your troops closer to mangos is more effective at defending them, the other thing is that in a real game armies often go for mass archers, since the horsemen nerf against civs that don't get early knights mass archers plus a few spearmen are a unit comp that has no non unique counter and even against knights if your spears can brace you just change slightly the proportion of spears compared to archers, once you reach castle the armies are generally countered by mangos, to the point that not making them is just stupid especially since the only way to have hope against them is to overextended wich is really bad if you are the attacker, if horsemen didn't get shit on by any army comp that is not only archers i think that mangos would be quite reasonable but in a real game the army comps that are the most effective until mangonels also get countered by them plus your imperial age example is horrible since you showed only siege fights, a guy with bombards and springs will have the same fate that you showed in your mangos examples exept it also applies to big numbers, they just get easily overwhelmed by units especially hand cannons that destroy them, hand cannons of course get owned by mangos in imp you can have 5 and once you have 5 the fight is over as soon as it starts if they don't get sinped, you did not test the critical masses wich are the key to the effectiveness of mangos
EDIT: if anything this is actually a great guide on how to fight against mangos
k kid
Hello, what do you think of an idea of loading siege weapons only after they are unpacked (unpack -> loading -> shot)? This can weaken mass siege pushes, potentially
But siege is supposed to end the game... It's realistic. I don't get the hate for siege
The notion of their imbalance may come from team games more so than from solo games. In 4on4 you quite often will see a player going for knights and a player going pure mangonel. Many maps will force a choke position, think black forest but also mountains or dense tree areas on maps as nagari and french pass will do. Any unit that can effectively deal with knights will simply evaporate to over 20 mangonels. The knights will have no issue rushing to springalds, bombards or culverines after the first volley. The experiment would be to see how effective units are that have to detour trees or funnel through a square of destroyed palisade. I think this can highly improve the efficacy of mangonells. Pathfinding and efficiency in connecting here is key.
Honestly they're intended to be strong and they have plenty of counters. People overcry and the game with weak siege might be worse. We need to play test these changes in a beta client before moving to live.
Theyre not absurdly OP but I still think a good tweak to them would be for them to do friendly fire damage like in aoe2 so that there is a risk to your own troops if you are not microing correctly.
I think Mangonel are strong because brings a burst factor for higher level players. Like demo ships these are capable of ending the game with one good unexpected volley. Its a ridiculous power spike in castle age; although as the vid points out, they are short lived in viability and straight forward to counter if you have the apm for it.
And that's also one of the reasons nest of bees sucks. All the downsides of mangonels, none of the upsides.
Once you have about 5 or more they can one shot most balls of armies.. in big fights where you have enough units to tank them this can change battles very quickly
I think the problem of Artillery isn't about overpowered Damage, it's more the fact that you can build so many of those Units in 3vs3 and 4vs4 games. Me and my mates had so many games where (especially the chinese) enemys building like 30-40 Kanons, Mangonels, Nest of Bees. All they have to do is protect them with a few Units. You don't even get near those Units since they Bomb anything to death so easily. Combine those tactics with a bunch of Rus Horse Archers and it's totally unbeatable. In 1vs1 and 2vs2 it's not a big deal cause noone ever get to the point having an huge artillery army cause of the map size. But the big map games mostly ending in a "who has more Artillery" especially those where you have only one or two path to the enemy territory wich is heavily walled in early and midgame. So there are two ways to play Age of Empires IV on so called maps. Rush the enemy early or get involved in a heavy Artillery endgame wich can become very frustrating. Even springles are no big help when 30 Canons firering + Some Knights protecting them. I dunno.. I expect a little more than just that I guess. I really hope for a limit for the Artillery Units, like you're only able to have 6 Canons at the same time. It would make the battles also more realistic and historical since there weren't armys in the History ONLY made of canons or mangonels, lol. So yeah, they not really overpowered they just make games frustrating when they come in HUGE numbers and feels so broken and op then.
I feel like this test completely ignores the way they're actually used in a game -- either as a way to force an enemy to attack your army, or as a consistent force multiplier that isn't realistically able to be dealt with without springalds.
It's incredibly easy to just get value over time with your siege units (specifically mangonels) as you either force the enemy to either a. ignore your units and try to rush them down (they pack and kite) or b. try to fight and get clumped + dumped on by the mangonel -- in the equal resource fights if you were to save your mangonel afterward then provide reinforcements I'm 100% confident that the siege units would massively come out on top.
Ex: equal resource fight, but you pull mangs once their melee units die, then reinforce w/ equal resources
edit: I also feel like the mixed army examples you used were incredibly small amounts of units. 3 mangonels + 60 supply of infantry vs pure infantry (or ranged or probably cav) would probably get dunked on
Mate if someone can afford 80 infantry, why doesn't that player make siege of his/her own? The point of those tests were to show different scenarios you might find yourself in. If the numbers get really high, then that means you've had more than enough time in the game to drop a siege workshop and add imp siege units or springalds. :)
5:20 Are you saying that if you target fire a magonel and the unit runs out of range, the shot is cancelled whereas letting it auto attack will make the shots track on to the unit even if it runs out of range?
It's not cancelled, but it will miss because it'll just shoot at the max range where you target fired. ANd yes, if you let it auto attack, the projectiles follow the unit no matter how far they go
I normally main HRE, I try to create three groups on hotkeys: bombards, culverin and mangos, and let all the non-siege units standing in the middle with scattered formation, use the villagers to create the keep, by this time AI goes nuts and start to send units from all directions, I can normally survive with minimal damage. Number of the mangos is the key, I try to always have no less than 7 or 8 at all times. I use this strategy to play the open maps, it’s way easier to defend if there are choke points.
my man doing the lord's work with these videos
Great video! Only thing I strongly disagree with is friendly fire, it's clearly not in Relic's vision of this game, as there is no instance of it anywhere, but it would also make team games a much worse experience for not that big of a benefit. Hyped about the Nest of Bees video!
I agree. Friendly fire would destroy the game :(
It doesn't cost food, which is a big advantage. Like Rus flight player will start making mangonel when they are low on food.
For Mongol and Abb, also the training speed advantage too.
You and also do slow push with towers, or hold position when your enemy need to run to you. Using map advantage it would be hard to get close to them.
i think the problem is the pacing
with mangonels is that by the time players make transitions with mangonels, armies become very diverse, and conflicts become continuous with intense micro, when the entirety of enemy army fights your it usually cost the side without mangonels to make sudden adjustments to strategy that could be costly, or due to the high intensity of micro, enemy mangonels are simply ignored and now your entire army is injuried.
14:08
The problem are your tests... you assume that fights are only fought on open fields. But in most cases there is always a attacker or a defender.
If you are the attacker, you already have the unit advantage, so protecting your mangonels isn't a problem. And if you are defender, you can use defensive structures like walls, tower etc. to force the enemy to bad trades.
Can't stress enough how much I love that someone comes with a preconceived idea and after quality testing, changes their mind.
True scienc-y gamer.
Good to see that springalds are now actually filling the niche they were supposed to operate in. :)
Amazing video. I use mangonels every game and as a result win most battles with them. I've had more than a few people cuss me out for them. Really what I think it comes down to is at lower levels players don't want to use more than one or two unit types, so they don't bring springalds with them. I will NEVER have a late game battle without three mangonels and six springalds. As another tip, I don't have more than four mangonels in an army as beyond that they get reaalllly stupid in their pathing and attacks and four is enough to do the damage you need to clear out your opponent. Finally I don't know if Abbasid is played alot as I've been playing and not watching streams, but I love that they can build these with spearmen and it really makes the civ shine. I usually go heavy spearment early game and grab just one manongel as early as possible and that lets me snoball into late game. Peace all!
I don't like this test. This test assumes that the enemy will leave their mangonels static, but every player out there will respond accordingly when their siege is threatened: they pack up and run. What does this mean to your melee units running to keep up with the mangonels? They get wittled down by the defenders little by little, and chances are, you will end up overextending your infantry during this engagement. Before you know it, you're running back because enemy reinforcements are approaching while your own reinforcements are getting further and further behind.
This means the shots of those mangonels have done their worth in resources, and unless you manage to kill them at all, they'll be back to do more. The power of the mangonel to force a response from you - and lead you to an unfavorable engagement - is not to be taken lightly.
Still liked the video btw, great presentation! Hope to see better anaylses in the future.
Good point!
No kidding. If I have siege on the battlefield, believe me I’m there watching them almost all the time.
are you suggesting that say the fight is equal resources allocated and he has maa and you have a mango xbow combo, the mango xbow combo should win because as the mango are retreating, the xbow will be dealing huge damage per second on the maa as the maa try to chase the mango down?
@@chrisnewtownnsw It's not a suggestion, but rather an inevitable conclusion. If your opponent has committed to MAA, and you surprise them with xbows and mangoes, their fate is sealed, and all they can do is run back to their base, and either reinforce with bows, horsemen, or scouts. But that doesn't mean you're not ready to reinforce with a counter of your own. Not to mention bases have chokepoints in the form of buildings and houses where a staggered formation will still have to squeeze through, ripe for a mango shot.
@@extremely_human8598 I like this. Its good to know the mango is doing it's job and countering what it's supposed to whether it be via its devastating direct shot or by simply being an essential target that must endure large sacrifices to eliminate
mangonells come up at the time where you probably don't have springalds and if the enemy just protects their mangonells properly they will just have more bang for their buck early on.
later however when springalds crop up mangonells become inefficient, just as it is with the culverin, cannons or bombards. (i know springalds and mangonells can be made at the same age, it's just that either you choose to bring one or the other because it's fairly expensive and time consuming to get both and ideally you'd want neither)
it's just sometimes the other person might never make any siege units or haphazardly run into a couple of mangonell shots or there is chokes that's being bombarded with mangos where mangonells will still make incredible short work of a lot of things.
they tend to be really good against archers and other ranged infantry as most people don't tend to micro these around to avoid mangonells aswell and just let them afk fire into the blob of units protecting the mangonells.
mangonells can do some crazy damage and most likely will, this is why they are overpowered because it doesn't harm your units and does track very well, compared to most other siege units or ranged units they have the furthest hardest hitting aoe attack and in a game of mass it can be very good.
but with that said, i think ranged infantry is probably better as it's harder to deal with and sort of acts like a mangonell with a lot of HP if you have enough mass of ranged units.
still, both needs to be protected to function at maximum capacity to get a decent return on investment.
Hey man appreciate the effort you put into making the video. However, I think there is a major factor was not covered in this video: Movement of siege. Mangonels move reaaallly fast and even if infantry move in to kill it, all mangonels retreat to a TC or Keep so easily that sometimes your whole army is wiped out and there is still lots of siege remaining for the opponent. And the fire attack animation of the infantry make it so that only one fire attack can be made before they have to catch up a few more tiles and get the second hit. Throughout all this, they take massive amounts of damage from the opponent's supplementary units. While these tests have surprised me as well wrt the damage output of the mangonel, it is still obnoxiously difficult to destory imo. Therefore, in many cases, they continuously dish out loads of damage in fights, over time.
I think it's that initial moment of surprise slap that does it. Hence I believe it'd go a long way if the unit had to set up and then load before it fires. Something that I'm convinced should be a mechanic for all siege.
I'm trying to find that one video where you demonstrated that projectiles will auto-track their target from a few months back, but I forgot which one it was.
I've only discussed that for archers, never for Mangonels before :)
@@AgeofNoob that should be the one
if you force the enmy into a choke point where springalds or gunpowder siege cant reach them they are op, but if the choke point is just a hole in a wall you could try to destroy more of the wall before pushing. Sometimes this will not be possible tho
With so many maps having choke points, all siege and range damage is good if you have a frontline to close up that choke point. It's even worse in team games, with so many units trying to fit through a small cap, all you need is a meatwall, some mangos, bombards and springalds in the back and you usually win any army, no matter if they have twice your numbers.
I think this analysis works well for say an early/mid castle siege push, but I don't think that's the problem with mangonels/siege.
The problem is late game. The further into the game it goes, the larger the armies get, the better mangonels get. The thing too is that you have to micro vs mangonels, but if you try to use springalds as an obvious counter you need to micro the springald war too, and that's often more important (because springalds are expensive and kill each other extremely fast, so its a massive swing in resources extremely fast if you don't micro).
If you don't go springalds though, the opponent doesn't have to push. They can just sit behind walls massing up 4-5 mangonels and a decent size army, and that's when engagements get really hard. The video shows what happens in medium numbers, but not what happens in high numbers from a patient player who keeps their siege near building support they can retreat to if the fight goes south.
That last point is what I've always felt is overpowered about siege. As shown in the video, knights lose decisively to spear+siege. So you're generally left with maa or your own spear, but maa and spears are slow, so siege just runs away and you get forced to chase it into terrible positioning. If mangonels were actually static units that had to sit there on the field like in the video, I don't think they'd be op.
I think the take away I have, which I've been seeing happen in a lot of fights on streams and such, is that you need to play patient with mangonels, as they're not overpowered if you push in open areas before you get to large armies. The mangonel push is probably only strong because its a thing mongols commonly do and everything mongols do is strong.
I think there are two major aspects that aren't covered in this video that matter quite a lot.
1) The power of 3 mangos. Once you have 3 mangos, one alpha strike can completely shred a ranged line, which instantly justifies their cost.
2) The secret alpha strike. A common thing in the game is for mangos to sneak up on an enemy army while the player is distracted, and get one shot off. There hasn't been any attack alert yet, and so the player is completely unaware as the damage comes raining down, and their army is destroyed. This happens a good amount even in pro games, and really increases the power and value of the unit.
I may be wrong, but you didn't cover view range and fog of war, as I THINK they can fire outside of most units' view range. Of course, that can be countered with a simple scout, but you might still set them up behind trees or inside bushes.
So basically, vision can be the difference between fighting on equal resources or resource disadvantage with a single barrage from 3-4 Mangonels. Of course, that can work 1-2 times, but it might be all you need
Suggestions:
- make them easier to dodge but do more damage.
- make damaged units perform worse than full health units
- add friendly fire for area of effect attacks
Probably the use of structures such as keeps and walls keeping the mangonels alive are extremely important as well as unit repair mechanics
legend legend legend. I haven't even watched the vid yet but this is exactly the kind of deep dive i'm after. Thanks for honouring the feedback
Ok just watched it and I learned A LOT. I had no idea they were so underwhelming when equal resources were factored in. I guess their place is mainly anti archer as all other units can charge them down easy enough
Respect for changing your mind after testing. And mine aswell. I think they are only op if not taken care of imediatly, but that's the way they should be.
F for that fallen MAA. Great Video again with lots of insights and details! Great.
Nice, really good video. Now i finally know how exaclty mangos work. I alwas thought that the huge nerf calls are a little bit unreasonable. When even slow moving maa can just dive them and the fact that you need a counter unit to protect them makes them imo pretty reasonable.
One thing to note is that you can ofc kite wiht mangos which gets better when you have the speed upgrade. But that goes for every range unit in the game.
Great video as usual! I do feel that one test that was missing was fights were the mangonels try to escape. IMO the fix to all siege is slower pack-up/unpacking time, as they are simply too fast and nimble right now. For instance, in the spearmen vs. MAA+mangonel encounter, how much more damage from the MAA would the spearmen take if they are forced to chase the mangonels in different directions? Especially with greased axels. Such a test might illustrate why mangonels feel OP. In fact, I almost think your testing vindicates the notion that siege is balanced only if it's more stationary.
As for suggestions, if it's not already on your list, can I suggest an analysis of horsemen? Are they as bad as we think, what are they useful for, and do they perhaps do better in late game even though it's a light unit?
I think it's a bit unfair you tested with only micro'ing the attacking army and just leaving the mangonels/defending units idle. Its much harder to charge mangonels with a properly micro'd army, using infantry to body block the charge and then retreating the mangonels. Sure they might take out the mangonels themselves in this test, but will lose the entire charging force to the other mangonel firing out of minimum range + the defending army attacking while the mangonel is kiting backwards. So essentially the attacking army trades 2x the resources compared to the mangonel player.
And the 2x value trade is even in a perfect scenario on a completely open map. Add in any choke points, villagers to repair, civ bonuses like Yam network or Yuan dynasty speed and actually rushing the mangonels is next to impossible with proper micro
Great video, it’s really valuable to challenge common perceptions of balance in this way.
I didn't know mangonels shots home onto enemies lol That's huge
Cool vid. I hope they add mod support so we can tweak unit data - I'm curious to see what it would've taken to be a "cost effective" fight against the closed beta nest of bees. Now they just feel a bit overnerfed.
Hello, AoN. Hello YT comments section.
My take on the mangonel's power is a complex one, but I'll try to make it at least short[ish].
Number crunching and small tests are fine to find some of the characteristics units, in general, but there's a lot more to it, gamewise. Speaking only about mangonels, as people are saying in the comments here, when the armies get big, mangos "just become" too powerful. And they are not wrong, but the reason they are right is a reason I've been trying to preach for more than a month, already: battlefield design.
No, I'm not saying that you show try to pick the perfect fight every time, with every unit at the perfect position. That's generally impossible, due to the simple fact that your opponent can react to that and, usually, you might have more things to worry than perfectly fighting every time. But, exactly due to this same reason, mangonels are great at firing at chaotic battles, where we can't even see how to micro our way out of it. not only archers suffer, but the clumped up infantry lines are disgustingly demolished by mangonels.
Another implication of chaotic battles is that battle lines are like a temporary wall for enemy units. We all have already seen those beautiful lines of clashing units form as both players attack move toward the opponent, and we all have seen a lot of derping units that couldn't get to hit their enemies, that couldn't get through the opponent's infantry, that was unnecessarily clumped up and got demolished by mangonels without lifting their blades once.
In summary, that's the main reason, I believe, people see mangonels as an OP unit: as the common practice is to just attack move into battles, in almost a disorganized charge, mangonels will just mow down the soldiers, which are, in this context, being sent into the meat grinder.
My solution to that is a even more complex one, that includes not merely micro, mind you, but lots of skills RTS games can demand from a player. But I'll stop this comment here, for it's already too long.
Have great games, everyone, and have fun!
I actually agree with what you mentioned - but if Mangonels weren't strong in chaotic fights, then they'd essentially be useless. That's the thing, you have to stall and not get into chaotic fights where micro is unreliable or the game is too hectic if you don't have Mangonels or Springalds of your own. Since Mangonels move relatively slow, you should be able to run away from them. Hence, I think this decision making aspect for the unit is fine :)
@@AgeofNoob I never said they should be changed in any way ;). I just mentioned that I understand why people think they are strong, which is: people don't micro, don't think their game plan out and end up in poor battles, do not diversify army comp and army tactics, and so on.
to the reaction part: it is NOT about reaction in my opinion when dodging the shots. its about timing. it is much easier to get a .1 second timing than a .1 second reaction. it is easy to predict the timing of the shot compared to a blind reaction what was the basic of the argument at around 6t minutes
I gotta say. I love siege and here is the but, it feels to end all be all at times. The most fun battles I've had ingame is just fighting with standard units.
Sure they aren't that much of a threat to melee based comp but they counter massed archers, crossbows or muskets pretty hard.
In addition there just aren't that may sources of splash damage in the game. Only boiling oil, demo ship, Woolooloo and Mangonels come to mind for most civs.
I still don't understand why they got rid of friendly fire.
I’m surprised it took people this long to realize how crazy these things are.
the tiny animation of the boulders is also really unsatisfying to look at. Compared with the slow moving and glorious dragonball launcher of aoe2. The visual destruction that those things deal is accurate to their actual damage footprint and it looks awesome.
I miss the split and box formation from AoE2, like you showed, you can avoid slow projectiles
I think mangonels have a little bonus vs building so they are not useless in a siege situation.
thanks for the video! well done!
Great video! Thanks for putting in the work and running all these tests.
Personally, I find Mangonels to become stronger the more you have. I main abbasid and I agree with your finding that early mangonels without sufficient army are often vulnerable and get torched easily (if you don't repair). However, they seem to be more effective at higher numbers. The moment I have 4-5 on the field defended by spears the only answer my opponent has left is springalds. Infantry tends to bundle up and get splashed to death. Maybe it's simply an army control issue and the mangonels can be overcome with better unit splitting.
This might be my perception only, though. Did you try your scenarios with double or triple numbers? Or a cheap mass defense e.g. 20 maa vs 2 mangos + 15 spears?
i feel like there is a problem with the basic projectile mechanics. As all projectiles auto hit, no matter what. I loved in AoE2 that you could micro to avoid projectiles
F for that one man at arms
F
Interesting video dude!
From what I've seen they are pretty good as they catch off guard units easily (even from pro players), combine pretty well with meat shield , good to defend from raids (as contrary cannot micro so easily inside city). So they key point imo is that they are strategically good. Hope cannons could be killed as well in a reasonable way as mangos. Note a fair amount of cavalry archers can one shot mangos currently.
Wait, does this mean I should just not make a siege workshop as HRE in castle age?
Just run in with men at arms and take half my army into the enemy siege? huhh....
What about on-shore Mangonels vs ships?
Edit: Also related to this video: Can Trebuchets (both types) be made to attack armies successfully?
very nice analysis
Think they need to make siege equipment in general a much higher price rather than nerf
The reason why I think people think it is op since the margin of error is small and usually forces a response out of the opponent. Let me give a example I am playing as the English and I have mass long bows plus spears and 3 springals but I want to engage but I need to build farms or my gold ran out then I come back to my army and 1/4 it dead even while I moved a way since the mangonels already were aiming. So you think you are safe but you are really not. Plus the blast radius doesn't match the animation so people get frustrated
I never truly liked siege weapons as a counter to units in games. It didn't work that way in history and in the game it just look weird. Nice video.
mangonels really shine when u have 3 of them, so they can one shot a group of infantry before they get close
I just think they shouldn’t be heat seekers. They should fire to where your unit was when it fired.
I don't want to be able to split and avoid incoming bolders. I want siege to be unable to run away!
Make them less mobile. So if they get caught by units they get slowed down, and more time to pack so its important to protect them. right now they just move around freely, and while your men chase them down so inefficiently in a line, the other players ranged units pick you off. Once units are engaged by horsemen or Man at arms, they should be stuck for half a second to atleast defend themselves for one attack, and then be able to flea. Same goes for retreating archers. You can have a group of horsemen chasing archers across the map - just such a silly dynamic.
i think the problem is probably the Siege supremacy effect. If you have Springold Mass covered by Mangonels it gets tricky if there is a support army ,,, but in the other hand you never should let your enemy get a critical mass of anything anyways. Thats the point of the game
Its coz u buy 3-4 and 1 shot army. So if theres equal fight of armies large of 3-4 mangos, u gonna lose it. Also its siege that benefits from beying ahead better then different siege. Since it kills enemy units rather then building which cant be macroed properly anyways to destroy more at once (vision bugs of not hiting building with siege etc). Also put them behind small wall that cost nothin and ull see the benefit.
Using Mangos takes almost no micro at all! Avoiding Mango damage takes a ton of Micro! Players that can Micro tend to vastly undervalue their own micro ability and it's importance in climbing rank and ELO etc. They will say it is all game knowledge and practice and muscle memory that anyone can do. The vast majority of players do not have the ability to run their armies back and forth as the mango shoots while doing all the other things in the game at the same time. So they take the mango to the face. When you lose all your un micro'd ranged units to 3 mango shots to the face while you are building a farm near your lumber line you lose the game. Hence they feel OP.
The bane of HRE infantry armies
The problem here is the test cases are not representative of in game scenarios. And the practical scenarios are only obliquely mentioned.
You dont build 30 spears and then build mango, ever. Before either, you’ve had 30 archers. You wont have 30 crossbows in until post imperial and even then either its left over, you are forced to keep investing in them, or your enemies are forced to keep investing in what they counter.
Archers reign supreme because they counter spear, horseman, and when knights/maa come around can be reinforced with xbows specifically microed to snipe them. Mongos are good in term because they can one shot archers and the often resource efficient spears.
It is not useful at all to test range units charging mango. Its also not useful to test crossbows in particular charging mango. Instead, test the predominant scenarios of archers vs archers + Mango, the results will show what people experience in practice.
horsemen hard counter longbow dude. assuming equal resources. I do like your suggestion of trying archer vs archer with mango. i cant help but feel archer with mango will hard counter the mono archer army
@@chrisnewtownnsw "horsemen hard counter longbow dude" like hell it does. Play some real games and you won't say that. heck, I use horseman to scrape by against Feudal rush in order to fast castle in just about every game and even then I wouldn't drop such a senseless assertion.
magonels for me from both age of empire 2 or 4 even this bug graphics in real life magonels is effective in siege wall fight in defense while in attacking I use the us fast siege support in building.
I agree they are a balanced unit, i think they are fine addition to a composition, but nothing too op
I swear, someday presidential candidates will use Skyrim music in their rallies.
I wish projectiles like mangonels and arrows still miss like they did in aoe2
When i played my first game against an AI i knew that siege would just stupidly strong in this game, there should be situations where a person CANT solve the issue with siege because at this point there is no imperial army comp that is better without it
Mangonels are a good support for knights if the enemy massed pikes as a counter. I think you didn't test that scenario
They’re far too strong in that scenario because of no friendly damage
The notion of overpowered mangonels appears because when they show up in the battle you need to stop attacking buildings or other armies and focus on them, otherwise you will be wiped out. Choke points algo help with this feeling.
So... Too dodge shots as an Australian you need Jedi senses.
Isnt siege often op because the repair in this game is op?
I will look into repairs for sure at some point as well :)
Yes. I strongly dislike the power of the repair, mostly because I don't want to do it myself lol. But yeah some ridiculous plays have been made with a siege machine and 15 villagers.
Weak in imperial? I love spamming them in imperial with tons of cavalry and spearman
I keep losing to mass of mangonels no way to counter it. Not even with mass of springalds because they have bombards as support
why there are no crew on it?
11:04 a KNIGHTmare
Also mangonel was kinda op or was that something else oh now I remember it was onagers
So, basically its good the way it is?
Maybe a small nerf on pack/unpack and I think they should be good :)
@@AgeofNoob Perhaps only if you are fighting them in open fields and the opponent doesn't micro them. But when you factor in retreating mangonels, actually using micro to block with the supporting units, using terrain to create chokepoints and maybe even including villagers to repair - then the mangonels come out way more cost effective. It's a bit disingenuous when you only micro the charging army to dodge attacks, but leave the mangonel forces idle in an open field and then call the balance "good".
Mangonel are seen as op when most players make a huge army of one unit, French-royal knights, hre, man at arms, China-firelancers. When you just blob up like that, are your openent makes6 mango, you get fucking bodied
One thing you didn’t include in your tests Is the mangos van just run away, and becuase units have to stop to attack, it takes a while to kill them. At that point your army is destroying there’s, and they either have to fight you, in which case you can re set up your mangos, or they can get recked by your army. Mango are good in imperial btw, I ussually put 3 mangos mixed in with a bunch of other siege to get advantage, as long as you aren’t going up agianst curverns, you can ussually micro them away. All in all there a good unit with cool counter play. Nests of bees on the other hand need to get straight up removed
@@steelcommander9918 You are talking only shit, try using your brain next time ^^
@@GorzFCD How, like im only talking about my experiences playing with them? I havent said anything insulting, so i guess your disagreeing with my stratagy. If you think your more off an expert, add your user and I would be happy to educate you. ♥
Mangos are not irrelevant in Imperial Age, just send 10 of them with the army
Siege units are the biggest issue right now. The projectil pathing is ridiculous, the aoe is ridiculous, their range and speed (placement and movement) is ridiculous! Just range and speed is in conflict, they all have short range but quick placement and movement, which mean they are hard to punish unless you use springals and springals are king right now.
Reduce the Aoe, reduce projectil pathing, reduce speed (movement and placing), make cavalry deal extra damage or reduce defenses and increase the range (but not sight). All this to every siege unit except springals.