What effect do cliffs have on attack and range (+ other hill/cliff questions)
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- I had a subscriber ask about how cliff bonuses work, so I've put together a video that also includes: how do hill bonuses work? Do hill and cliff bonuses stack? Do cliffs or hills increase range? What if you fire uphill behind a cliff? Do hills and cliffs increase line of sight (LOS)? I also looked at watch towers and castles, although castles did some weird stuff I still haven't figured out.
Part of my mathematical questions series for Age of Empires 2 HD.
I may have to do a followup video to address "where exactly can a unit stand relative to the cliff to get the bonus", "what about towers vs towers across cliffs and on hills", and trebuchets firing from hills and cliffs".
Patreon: www.patreon.com/SpiritoftheLaw
For 16 years I thought that hills were just for aesthetics and cliffs only blocked movement!
This is awesome.
Hills only exist to cause players who try to wall to have gaps actually. The damage bonus in this video is being faked by the same conspiracy that faked the moon landings. (j/k)
This was exactly my case for 20 years!
I knew the cliffs had a bonus, but didn't know that there was a bonus applied to hills, too.
Same here! And it's true for Age of Mythology too, I just checked. This is such a game changer for me.
Same.
Good programming on this game, consider when it was released, the amount of effort and attention to detail they've put into it is amazing.
+KingQuraish Altough to be fair, it is possible they added all this bit by bit with expansions. For all we know, this is new feature that came with latest expansion.
+KingQuraish thats why is still relevant
Many developers of old games put more focus on gameplay elements than graphics compared to modern developers in my experience. That's not to say AOE is ugly, by contrast, its visual elements have held up really well over time. The reality is, complex gameplay elements and logic don't take up that much hard-drive space & processing power.
Jetfire agree yes. Today's generation want explosive graphics and detail and will play any game out there that can sell that. Strategy lovers are not that interested in huge graphic boosts as much as the quality of game play and resemblance of reality
+KingQuraish you meant people were developing real games ??!!!
Not cut and paste every year without any kind of innovation ?
Not only make a game to make $$$$$$$$$$$$
I dont believe you
I think the reason for a unit taking only 100% damage on last shot with the cliff/hill combo, was because that last arrow hit after the shooter died. Since the unit was dead, it would no longer technicaly have the hill/cliff damage advantage, since it's no longer in that position; it's dead!
There's a similar effect for trebuchets. If you shoot a boulder with the trebuchet, but somehow manage to pack it back up before hitting the target (Either with aegis or with Japanese bonus if possible), it will do far less damage.
Pål Mathisen that sounds very plausible, and I think you may be right! Good to know about the trebuchets, too.
Edit: it occurs to me now that if the arrow carries info about the unit at the moment of impact, instead of when the unit fired it, that would suggest you could fire an arrow on the same elevation as the enemy unit and then climb up a hill a bit to get the bonus damage (as long as you did it fast enough).
Makes sense, I have noticed that treb thing too. Damage is calculated when the projectile hits, not when it's fired.
Spirit Of The Law This is most noticeable with mangonel wars, when one is on lower ground and gets killed by the one on higher ground but it's projectile is still in the air, the one on higher ground takes normal damage as if the hill didn't exist.
Spirit Of The Law hes perfectly right. turn on the insta packing cheat mode and pack it up before the projectile hits the building, does 13 damage and not 200+ the damage is calculated on contact and not on release,
Spirit Of The Law That is micro management to the pro
Its over Anakin, I have the high ground!
This video is so dense, every single shot has so much going on
You underestimate my powers!
+Fuko Kurasaki its like poetry, so it rhymes
*You underestimate my tower.*
Correction: It's over longbowman, I have the high ground 6:27
Note that on maps, cliffs almost universally face south. This means that most maps favor the northern player!
+zolikoff All hail Canada!
No. There are cliffs facing in every direction
I think cliffs do face south more often than north, from the maps I've seen.
zolikoff you mean Mongolia maps?
that's because the graphics of cliff facing south is a lot bigger than it facing north, you didn't notice many of them at all
If you look at a cliff long enough, it kinda looks like a canyon.
interesting observation. lol i feel so smart after watching this video
Kinda like a ravine, yeah you're absolutely right.
+Dappersaurus rex Why did you have to say that?
If you look at a cliff long enough, the cliff looks back at you.
;P
+Dappersaurus rex I thought you said "crayon." I spent a really long time looking at it waiting for it to turn into a crayon.
6:50 It's because the attacker died before the arrow actually hit so the advantage was lost.
Actually it is not the unit that gets the bonus, it is the arrow itself. Arrows are units and the unit that is firing the arrow is just the regularator in a sense, it gets the bonus and then feeds it to the arrow it fires. It wouldn't make sense for the arrow to lose its bonus in midair even if the source unit died. But this is just my point of view and what I see from this, don't take my word for it as I didn't do much research other than the arrow being the actual unit that deals the damage and therefore taking the bonus from its, well basically, secretary. I don't know another explaination other than what you said, which sounds both logical (seeing as there may be no other explaination) yet illogical (not on your part though, the game's part. The game itself is acting wierd for having actually applied said logic.) I hope I haven't come across as rude or insulting in any way, and if so my apologies.
Have a good day.
Jo The Joker Perhaps the arrow (if it is a unit) has a reference to the unit that fired it, for the bonus calculation.
kstringer24 Perhaps. You are saying it could be drawing a link between the two, correct? 'Cause if that is what you are saying then it sounds most logical.
Jo The Joker Yes, that's how it's usually done in software. Referential links between objects. Btw, not that it matters, but I'm a programmer.
kstringer24 Ah, sweet. :) I'm trying to get onto the road of programming, I'm trying to learn my first language actually, "Python" as it's called. :)
So this is an old video for a game I don't play but I've a possible explanation for the Castle 19/21 damage rolls. It is firing 4 arrows to do a total of 20 damage, that's 5 each. Only one of the those four arrows is being affected by the buffs. 125% of 5 damage is 6.25, 75% of 5 is 3.75. Rounding those numbers gives you 6 and 4. So three arrows are doing the normal 5 damage and one arrow is getting buffed/debuffed the 25% to give you 19/21. Obviously not intentional but I think this is what is going on behind the scenes.
I am really puzzled as to why it would be that way
I have a feeling this is exactly right seeing as there are other things that act in a similar way - see spirit's chinese civ video for chu ko no and the vikings one for longboats. The first arrow in a volley seems to be consistently treated differently from the rest.
I did some further research and even if it seems like it's firing 4 arrows with 5 damage each instead it is 5 arrows with 4 damage each. And yes, only one of them is effected by ground level / cliff. (How did i find out? watched video in slow motion and used all house hitpoint values in a table, sometimes the value after only a part of the arrows is shown and it's 4x X +/- 1 depending on uphill/downhill shooting)
+Vitorruy1 Perhaps the cliff/hill advantage wasn't designed to affect units that fire multiple projectiles properly. If this was the case, then many other units should be showing this same weird behavior.
Does this also apply to extra arrows for garrisoned units?
The bug you mentioned at the 7:00 mark where they had 25 hp left is similar to how if you delete a mangonel on low ground, it'll do normal damage. The archer dies before the arrow hits, so the bonus is negated.
That eagle was a freaking ninja dodging those arrows.
+Timothy Martin What eagle?
+Lukas Guensche an eagle is an animal with wings that flies in the skies. In the game there are several props that you can't interact with, but that shout now and again helping your in game inmersion
don trump There is an easter egg where if an eagle is somehow destroyed it explodes.
DrearyPlane8 what? How can one destroy an eagle?
Did not test boats shooting over cliffs. 0/10
ok i have test it for you , ships also get 25% while on the cliff
Ah, The Aqueduct rush strategy... peerless.
Exactly what about Flying Dutchmen?
He mentioned you in the Tartars video :D
@@mohammedaljaberi2366 how about boats on higher elevation?
Thanks for these great videos! I can tell a lot of effort goes into them.
Surely.
Love how the person on top of the tower is still at a higher altitude than the archer on the ground yet they do less damage anyway just because the base of the tower is at a lower elevation.
wow i cant even express how good this video is... useful infos, great editing, nice voice, locial argumentation and build up... im impressed!
SotL ASMR confirmed
6:45, the reason for this is that after the unit has died the game can't detect if the arrow was fired from an unit that was uphill or downhill as the unit no longer exists, so it just deals the default damage.
Right. Perhaps they should've bound the damage to the projectile after it was fired. I suppose that would've made the game slower in those days...
Lol'd at the 10+9=21 joke you threw in there. The game recognizing that both units are behind a cliff is actually really, really cool. Thanks for the fantastic video as always, Spirit!
MrKleekus thanks bud! Glad someone got it :)
*****
I'm workin' on it! yeesh! haha
what happens is that the attack defence BONUS is Calculated AFTER the proyectile LANDS !! and runs the algorithm to Compare elevations, BUT by the time the last arrow LANDS, the other UNIT is dead, so there is no elevation to COMPARE because there is no A Bowman just B Bowman, so bonus/debonus will be null, damage will be normal.
Big Like !
thought the same
I always find it cool how a simple 2d picture of a cliffside can fit so well into the game
+Spirit Of The Law
The paradox at 6:50:
The unit on the cliff dies before its arrow hits the other longbowman. At this point of time, the game doesn't count the in-flight arrow as one coming from raised terrain. So it does 100 damage instead of 125. Works like the "fast packing trebuchet damage nullification phenomenon" you explained in another video of yours.
Cliff , same elevation, my mind ... hurts
+Der Nesor Don't get near M.Escher drawings.
+Der Nesor you have to watch from above so your brain gets the elevation bonus
Pelmenji of course , now my brain also deals more damage , thanks
escher-themed maps
Yeah it's really weird but if you really look at the cliffs in game you start to see that instead of it raising up the land instead it just puts a rock wall on the map.
WOW, such attention to detail! And this game is almost 20 years old! My word! We're still finding out more interesting tidbits everyday. :)
Reason one of the archers lived in the equal testing was cause the one that died first lost the 25% bonus when died and the shot that was in the air didnt to dmg with cliff bonus.
damn.. That programming in that game, I respect developers so much.Even the new games doesn't have anything like that.
Also how game figures out that youre behind the cliff? 6:59
Well, unit wise, imagine the game engine drawing a line between the 2 fighting units, with arrows being fired across that line.The cliff is probably coded in such a way that only arrows going from the "top" side get a boost in damage, but the damage is calculated only when the arrow connects...My speculation is that the calculation is on arrow hit rather than the initial arrow fire because arrows can miss, and sometimes hit, but hit the wrong target(thus dealing less damage).
New games don't have things like that mostly because most developers consider over-complicating the game is not necessary, and not because it's hard to code.
that's why people still love this game ....its been many years since launch but still feels fresh
AoE is really just a grid game with lots of squares interacting :) The graphics are just placeholders - 2d images that are placed upon the square to make it look like a unit.
New games don't have bugs? lmao...
Warcraft 3 had that too
Cliffs should only exist where there's elevation to prevent confusion.
I agree
I'm guessing that the archers that were left with 25 hp survived because the other archer died first, and as such his arrow that was still in flight dealt damage as if the dead archer was no longer getting cliff advantage bonus... reminds me of the glitch with scorpions destroying trees upon death while their bolt is still mid-flight.
I know I am 3 months late but AOE3 fixed that. But aoe2 is probably my preferred game
I think I may have an explanation for 6:45
it's highly possible that the damage calculation is done not when the animation begins, but when it ends. It probably checks for the hill bonus on HIT. The bowman dies before his arrow arrives at the enemy. It is possible that the game sees an arrow arriving, tries to find the location where it was shot from but since he's DEAD he is actually not on the hill anymore and, therefore, the game reads it as if no bonus had to be applied.
Strange that the blue archer in the downhill+upcliff situation had 25 hp left and didn't lose all of his hp like the red archer. What might have happened is that the red archer received blue's arrow first, died, and then when blue received red's arrow, the arrow had "forgotten" about the uphill bonus since now its archer didn't exist anymore. Kind of like when you fire a mangonel uphill and delete your mangonel before the shot has landed.
that is exactly right
love the detailwork they put in this game. was aleady fascinated by the details they put into the units and buildings... pure dedication for a game.
Damn, didn't know the cliffs only work in one direction. Seems there's still new things to learn about the game after a decade! :o
I'm a very casual aoe2 player, but still i love it, and love to learn these kinda stuff. Thanks. By the way, now i'll never again fight if i'm downhill.
+Felipe Viana are there professional AOE2 players? Oo
IMO: There is. You can find some channels of people playing ranked, and other channels explaining mechanics as spirit do.
Great video, that's about the very details which can decide a battle. I didn't think of that before watching, despite playing Total War series, where elevation advantage is crucial. In such an old game they implemented a high ground bonus. Even if it's negligible for castles, it's still in the game. That's amazing, such attention to detail. Makes me want to play it again.
I was actually told about the high ground advantage early on, but never thought to try out the calculations. Great work! It really helps early on if an opponent gets more advanced units as it gives your units a chance at still being successful. I’m guessing they don’t stack the damage bonuses because that could make a unit too OP if they were at the top of several cliffs/hills.
Also, I think maybe it was an oversight to not have increased LoS on elevated terrain. Increased attack range too, but again, that could lead to a unit being OP if way up high.
I don't always subscribe, but when I do, it's for great content like what you make. Thank you very much.
After discovering you earlier this week, I've learned more from you about this game than I have since getting back into it. I especially like your Civ reviews. Would love to see more of those. Perhaps the Mayans?
You earned a thumbs up, Spirit of the Law. I always wondered about this (Over ten years!) but you helped me to understand this gameplay mechanic. Thank you.
Dion Magnan Thanks! I'm glad you found it helpful :)
I always suspected this, but it's good to have certainty and to have the exact numbers.
Helps me a lot with map design.
I did not even know about the bonuses existed until about a week ago. I only just started watching AOE youtube videos so it's new information to me. I'm sure this will help my game a bit.
The only explanation I found about the castle doing just +1 or -1 damage while in a higher/lower place was that just one arrow get the bonus. If the castle does 20 damage to the house while both at the same level and considering 4 arrows with 11 damage each, the house armor blocks 24 damage, 6 per arrow, doing 5 damage each arrow. Now, 5*1.25 = 6.25 damage, and rounding to nearest, 6, we should get 24 damage. But if only one arrow gets the bonus, we end up with the 21 (+25%) or 19 (-25%) damage inflicted. Seems like an AoE2 bug you found! Hehehe.
Mauricio P. Dal Pont - It's not a bug, it's just the way castle arrows work. The first one actually deals much more damage than the others, you can clearly see that effect if for example a scout is passing a castle and gets hit by the additional arrows. He takes just a small damage. And yes, the additional arrows probably get no bonus at all, there are just more of them if there are enough ranged units inside the castle. Hence the reason why the house takes damage twice - once from the primary arrow and once from the additional weak arrows.
+Tom Scorpion
No that's completely false. All Castle arrows deal 11 base pierce damage (there are different attack bonuses though)
About that 25 HP left at 6:46: I think the game checks at the moment a unit receives damage whether the attacker is up- or downhill, and being up a cliff probably overrides this. In your case, the attacker was already dead by the time the last projectile hit, so the game can't check where the attacker is, resulting in a straight 100 damage as per default. Nice scientific method, btw! You checked everything very thoroughly and in a standardized manner.
1:51 "It would be a good idea to build a watch tower on this hill once you advance to the feudal age" as you will deal 25% more and take 25% less for a 66% advantage overall as 125 is 166% of 75
Unbelievably comprehensive and well explained videos. Keep em coming please!
6:45
I have a hypothesis.
I propose that the reason for the 100 damage projectile is that the archer that fired the shot was dead when it landed, because the damage is calculated as the projectile lands not as it is fired and the game has a condition to check if it should apply cliff/highground bonuses or lowground penalties that is rendered false when the unit dies or just can no longer be fulfilled.
To demonstrate it in a more structured manner:
The projectile damage is calculated as the projectile connects with it's target.
The projectile connected with the target while the archer that fired it was dead.
Therefore the damage of the projectile was calculated while the archer that fired it was dead.
The damage of the projectile was calculated while the archer that fired it was dead.
The calculation of the projectile damage did not account for the elevation or presence of appropriately placed cliffs.
Therefore it is possible that the calculation of the projectile damage requires the archer that fired it to be alive in order to account for the elevation and presence of appropriately placed cliffs.
Therefore,
if the projectile damage is calculated as the projectile connects with it's target,
it is possible that the calculation of the projectile damage requires the archer that fired it to be alive in order to account for the elevation and presence of appropriately placed cliffs.
I urge everyone to attempt to experiment to confirm or falsify my hypothesis.
I used to use Scenario editor to combine several archers and archer towers on higher elevation and I'd always have fun seeing them rain hell to anything below them.
7:28 "what about the cliffs, what if we have two cliffs?"
Love the spirit
Wow, solid video. Thanks for clearing up probably the most confusing mechanic in AoE2
the castle does 20 dmg to a house and it fires 5 arrows meaning each arrow does 4 dmg. my guess is the hill bonuses only affect the first arrow and it makes its attack 5 while the other 4 remain 4 dmg. this adds upto 21 and also works for downhill calculation, 1 dmg is removed from the main arrow only meaning one is doing 3 dmg and others remain 4 dmg... adds upto 19.
EDIT: if a unit dies before its projectile (this applies to onagers, trebs etc) lands on the target they lose all hill and cliff bonuses
Nice analysis! I'm a huge fan of Age of Empires, but I have never thought about such things. You just earned a new subscriber!
In regards to the situation at 6-7 minutes with the archers living at 25 hp:
I believe what was happening is that the bonus calculation occurs when the arrow hits and not when its fired. The archers didn't start shooting at exactly the same time so one fires its last shot then dies while the arrow is in mid air. The arrow lands and checks if the unit is uphill but the unit's position data likely gets deleted when it dies so the arrow can't tell where it was fired from and thus does normal damage (100).
I haven't tested it but this may also mean that if you walk onto a hill after you fire an arrow you may gain the damage bonus. Likewise if you walk off a hill with the arrow mid air you may lose the damage bonus. Further testing required. The only unit I could see this ever actually mattering with is mangonels/onagers as their projectile is much slower than other units.
This is the video that got me back into playing AOE. Hidden bonus damages and curve fitting by taking data is nice, but the fact that this friggin game from my childhood secretly accounted for elevation blew my mind!
I think what was happening with the two archers vs eachother elevation vs cliff was that when one unit died, its elevation was set to null (being dead and all) making its last arrow deal standard damage. It would be interesting to see if that would apply to an uphill shot, so a unit dying after it shoots, but before its arrow lands, and dealing full damage with it's shot from beyond the grave.
I think the paradox at 7:00 is quite simple : it looks for the bonus at the moment the arrow hits. Even though they're supposed to die at the same time, the game checks the hits sequentially, so the first arrow kills the archer it hits because it has the bonus because fired from uphill/upcliff, but the second arrow no longer is fired by any body, so has no modifier.
This would be my guess too. Snapshotting the damage modifiers at the point at which the projectile is launched would probably kill the memory usage if you had a ton of projectiles on the field.
Also, the castle thing makes sense too if you consider that in almost all cases, if a weapon fires multiple projectiles, only the first get bonuses. So 4 arrows at 5 a piece would deal 20. 3 arrows at 5 and 1 arrow at (5 * 1.25) is 21.25, which rounds to 21. Same with the penalty: 18.75 which rounds to 19.
I recon the reason why we at 6:40 see the last arrow doing only 100 damage (losing the elevation bonus) happens because the damage amplification is calculated by the state/elevation of the firing unit at the time which the arrow hits. But since the longbowman is dead, there can be no reference applied to his state as the unit no longer exists in the game, instead the default damage multiplier of 100% is assumed.
The reason the weird situation happens around 6:45 is because the game calculates the damage at impact. So if an arrow kills archer1, then when archer2 is hit, archer1 is not found on the map and thus the damage bonus does not apply at all, since archer1 is technically not located on top of a cliff, it is nowhere. It's the same category of bug that we were observing with trebuchets not doing damages when they had been destroyed.
My guess at explaining the reason for the phenomenon at 6:45 where the last attack only does 100 damage is that it may have been programmed to check for this bonus damage when the arrow lands instead of when it was fired. Given that the dead archer fired his shot, then died before his own last shot reached the surviving archer, the game code probably checked to see if this bonus should apply (presumably based on their position in relation to one another) after he had already died, and thus concluded (falsely) that he was no longer at an advantageous position, maybe by defaulting to a "that unit is dead, therefore return neutral position for the purposes of calculating damage" value. That's a shot in the dark though.
I think what broke the last arrow's 25% extra damage was the fact that the calculation for damage was done during the impact of the arrow. Since the unit that fired it (the one that died first) is dead, it can't check for elevation comparing to the other unit, so it assumes the base 100 damage. It's just a guess on how the game mechanics work, but it makes sense for the game to compare elevation of units when they deal damage rather than when they start an attack.
I'm glad for a strategy game they take in cliff and hills to effect a important part of real battles
I've noticed it stated previously, but the reason why one archer lives and the other dies is due to how projectiles are handled.
It makes the calculation on impact, not on attack. If it was on attack, then a character moving up a hill (reaching the top after the projectile has been shot) would take increased damage because it was at a lower elevation when the attack occurred.
The oversight here is that the programmer did not consider the case where the character that fired has died between attack and impact, so it probably goes to a default state. The exact logic can have a variety of possible outcomes (which would, of course, need to be verified):
1) If the default removes ownership of the projectile, there may be cases where area damage attacks that should not harm some units will do so anyways.
2) If a unit dies while at a disadvantage (low ground), projectiles in flight will cease to have that disadvantage.
3) If the default case has a set elevation, there may be a case where projectiles will always deal less damage if a unit is killed while their attack has not yet impacted.
6:50 I think the issue is the loosing arched died before the final arrow arrived, and as we all know the game calculates damage at the time the projectile hits its target. Since the archer was dead, the game no longer applied the cliff bonus on him and that last arrow transformed into a normal 100 hp arrow.
Well I learnt something today.
Your explanations are clear, even for the french man I am so... it's well explained.
Sometimes those cliffs look more like a canyon, than like cliffs, but, oh well.
Also, I'm impressed your thorough in your videos. I hadn't even thought about the both on a cliff.
(I don't play the game, but still.)
I think the blue archer dying before his arrow hit the red archer @6:45 caused his cliff attack bonus to be nullified. The arrow changed from an arrow shot by a unit behind a cliff, to simply an arrow.
Wow, it's crazy how thorough you are.
6:45 it's likely doing the check to see if the bonus damage should apply when the wounds are applied, not when the arrows are fired. With the archer dead, the arrow doesn't deal bonus damage as he is not currently recognized as existing by the game, so it is defaulting to normal damage.
The 25 health left paradox is because once the unit dies the game "forgets" it's on a hill so its arrow does the regular damage instead. I could go into why I assume this happens but the shortest version ever is "the game was released in 2000 and object oriented programming was a different thing then".
SpiritOfTheLaw: These longbowmen do 100 damage each
Me: Wait, that's illegal
So cool you are doing this in 2015 xD Good analysis for a good old game
What a nice demonstration! It will help us playing for sure! Thanks!
About the paradox at the 6.30
it's something like trebuchets doesn't deal the damage of their already fired shots when destroyed or packed - kinda situation I think. when the shot leaves the longbow men, it takes cliff into account but when the long bowman dies before then shot lands, game cannot calculate it's up hill position, because it's position doesn't exist anymore, and deals regular damage.
When an unit dies it eliminates any bonus to the projectile traveling, it's better tested with catapults
never realised there was an hill bonus :O
i used to take high ground just for the logic of it, now im going to go out of my way to use it my advantage
I beleive the weird ending shoot at 6:47 is because the shooter is already dead and therefore isn't on any ground, but his arrow hits its target anyway, but the game calculates the damage and bonuses when hit and not when the arrow is being shoot.
Fantastic video! You are like the minute physics for AOEII :)
6:55 That happens because even though the arrow is flying, the archer already died, so there is no archer who can have a cliff or elevation bonus, so the arrow becomes a normal arrow. probably some "if .unitarch is .locationuphill=true, then .entityarrow damage *1.25" stuff, where it isn't uphill/upcliff anymore
never knew about this feature until toonight lol I love your videos, very informative and a little fun at the same time.
regarding the not dying issue at ~6:50 in the vid. I'd guess that the elevation bonus from the cliff goes away once the unit dies, so since his arrow was still in flight (due to the elevation difference causing differing flight times), it lost its damage bonus. It only came up in that instance because that was the only case where the units 'should' have died at the same time, but where at different elevations.
+Nelson Brown Just did a little testing that seems to confirm this. Didn't use any unit editing, so it's not 100% concrete.
Test: 4 post imperial briton longbowmen vs dark age franks houses. LB1 is on a hill (elevation 2) LB2 is behind a cliff (no elevation), LB3 is firing at a house on a hill (elevation 2), LB4 is level ground control.
First round. Each LB fires a single arrow at their respective house. LB 1 deals 5 damage, LB2 deals 5 damage, LB3 deals 3 damage, and LB4 does 4 damage.
Second round (game is restarted so houses are at full health; no fractional damage if such a thing exists). Each LB (except the control) is killed with delete after firing but before the arrow lands. In this case, all four archers did 4 damage.
Without further testing, this would indicate that hill and cliff damage bonuses and penalties only apply while the attacking unit is alive; projectiles will do default damage when the firing unit is dead.
...
Which means we have a new tip: when fighting uphill, delete your units so they'll do more damage!
+Nelson Brown While your last statement is sarcasm, it's still interesting findings :)
I know I am late, but allow me to interject with my own ideas. The reason why the cliff and hills don't stack is likely a single variable, one that just says "Are they on a cliff or hill" and if yes then it gives 25% more damage, and then can only be turned off is the target it hits is also on a cliff or hill (so basically when flying over tiles, going over a cliff from the high point, or down a hill triggers yet, while going up a hill or from the lower side of a cliff triggers no). But there's also a possibility that whatever triggered it still counts, so a cliff may be A and a hill may be B, and if being on top of a cliff, or A, gives more damage, going up a hill, or B, cannot actually change the variable, and leaves it on. This is probably for game balance, so you can't stack the damage.
This variable idea also extends later on with the arrows losing their bonuses. The damage of an arrow is tracked from the one who fired it, so it's likely that the archer which fired the arrow then dying before the arrow lands triggered some sort of reset which deleted the damage, which makes me wonder, does an arrow fired from an archer, which dies while the arrow is in midair, but then flies over ANOTHER hill or cliff, still do its 25% damage bonus, or lose it? Currently my best idea is that tiles trigger this bonus, being A or B, which can then only be changed by ANOTHER A or ANOTHER B, but it can't cross, and that the death of the archer is an automatic reset of the arrow back to the stats. If anyone can help me out with this idea, feel free to interject!
As a final note, I have no main explanation for the castle. My best idea is that it follows the same rules as Yasama arrows, that being that the first arrow is the main one which can have variables changed, while the others are the clones which never change and usually are weaker. Meaning that the hills give castles, at least versus buildings, plus one damage and that's all. (Sven van der Plank in this comment section has the same idea as me for this, where only one arrow changes and gains 25%, which means they all so 5 damage, and 25% of 5 is 1, so it totals at 6 for that one arrow, and 5 for the others)
On the archer's remaining 25 hp. One of the archers shot a little before the other one. When his projectile his the other archer and killed him, the other arrow was still in the air. When it hit the archer, damage calculations were done, and the other archer had no 25% boost because he was no longer at a cliff, he was dead already. Nice thing to note, damage calculations for projectiles are done when the projectile hits the target and not when it leaves whatever unit is firing it.
The difference in time was just one frame, and it comes from how computers work. The archer with 25 hp got processed before.
Crazy thing is, this game is still getting updates! I'm gonna post this video on the Steam forums as a reference for a bug report. The multiple arrows not being affected by elevation correctly would seem to be a bug.
Seems ot me like when the unit dies, the game instantly stops giving the arrow in-flight the "on a cliff" bonus damage.
i think why sometimes one archer lives with 25 hp is because the game calculates damage bonus/defense bonus at the moment of impact (+25%/-25%) but the base damage is applied at the moment the archer fires (100 damage). So if one archer fires slightly before the other, the archer who fired first would have killed the slower archer before the slower archer arrow hits the faster one, so the damage bonus of the slower archer is not applied since he is already dead and only the base damage is applied, thus the faster archer lives
I know this video is very old, but its very useful. One thing I would like to understand, is how castle placement on hills affects the hill bonus. Is there one tile in the castle grid that is the critical one? Does any tile on a hill grant the hill bonus? What if there are several elevations under the castle, does the highest count?
The programming is simply: Count the amount of cliffs facing away that you pass over, subtract the amount of cliffs facing the other way. If positive then +25%.
Spirit of the law, you are just like my team member. I get every of my answers of aoe2 from you. I think every aoe2 players should subscribe you.
The reason why the longbowmen at 6:40 only receives 100 damage is because cliff and hill bonuses are only taken into account when the unit firing is alive. This can be really significant in real games with mangonel wars. if 1 mangonel fires downhill on another mangonel he will kill the one that's downhill. If the other mangonel fires uphill he won't kill the uphill mangonel. However, if the mangonell shooting downhill fires slightly earlier and the mangonel shooting uphill dies while it's projectiles are still in the air, it will kill the uphill mangonel, because the hill bonuses aren't taken into account anymore for that shot and it does regular damage instead of reduced
you asked.. hopefully you didnt tell me to much i already knew.. i hardly knew any of this stuff.. i knew there was some bonus with hills but this.. this is bootifurl! *liek*
I am probably 5 years too late. But I did my own testing and found out why the castle only did 21/19 damage instead of 25 and 15 damage. Only the first arrow in the bunch is affected by elevation modifier.
I tested also the towers with garrison which also fire multiple arrows of the same damage using the power mechanic ie. Attack: 11(4) which means it fires one and 4 more arrows with 11 damage. Towers behave the same way as castles in that only the first arrow is affected by elevation damage. In this case, the dark age house have 7 pierce armor while the castle arrow has 11 damage. This means that on even ground, each arrow from the castle does 4 damage. And 4x5=20. When the Castle is on higher ground, only the first arrow of the castle receives the +25% damage bonus which means that the first arrow deals 5 damage while the other 4 still only does 4 damage. 5+4*4=21.
What's even more interesting is that building HP seems to be calculated in decimals while only shown in whole numbers. When my tower had only 8 attack, 1 single arrow at a time, and shooting a house on lower ground. While the damage on even ground would be 1 damage each shot, with elevation bonus, the arrow should do 1.25 damage. Rounding down, it should still only do 1 damage. But no. What actually happened is that the damage to the house was consistently in this pattern: 2,1,1,1,2,1,1,1...... It repeats first 1 arrow of 2 damage and then 3 arrows of 1 damage. This means that: First, the numbers are not always rounded to the closest number because that way no arrow should ever do 2 damage. Second, the damage it is rounded up to is not determined by chance. (ie. 25% random chance to do 2 damage instead of 1). Because then the damage pattern should be random instead of repeating.
Thanks for this video, i learned something new and had fun :)
Its very interesting how this game wortks and it always surprises me again.
High ground advantage also affects villagers's damage against trees- a normal strike deals 15 damage, then 19 from higher ground and 12 from lower ground- tested on AoE II HD.
This is super thorough, very nice :) Be sure to experiment with trebuchets on hills. They deal additional damage to buildings, but I think they are more accurate as well. You should experiment with trebuchet on a hill vs trebuchet on low ground, as well as trebuchet on a hill vs castle on low ground, etc. If i'm not mistaken they don't exactly follow the 25% rule.
6:42 - the mysterious 25 damage decrease was due to the fact that the archer from which the arrow originated was dead when his arrow landed - the arrow didn't have the high ground bonus anymore. Apparently, the bonus is bonded to the unit, not the projectile since it's just an animation, not a real tangible thing in the code of the game.
Great video. Really looking at the 'nuts and bolts' of the program is fun!
I was wondering if you made a video about it cuz i recently restart to play AoE II and i had some doubt about a possible hidden buff, never took real attention but the feature would be logical.
Nice work comrade, I don't think i will find something you didn't looked for in AoE II one day :)
Definitely +1 sub... 100k are approaching...
Wow, I was already impressed by your other videos that look at things mathematically, though extremely interesting, nothing really game-changing. *This* however is really important information!
Excellent video. Concise, easy to understand, and very empirical. There's one question you didn't directly answer, which I'm curious about - what if two ranged units are on different hills? Does the bonus just go to whoever's higher? Or does the fact that both units are on a "hill" cancel out everything, even though one player might still be higher than the other?
Thanks :) Great vid!
Castles actually fire five arrows by default, each dealing 4 damage to the house.
I suspect that only the first arrow is bonused 25% to 5, the rest remain 4 because duplicated projectiles ignore the source.
Similarly, the longbowman survived because the last projectile's source is dead, and thus its elevation bonus is removed.
Really hope they will add some realistic elevation features in AoE 4, like LoS bonus, Range bonus/penalty (remove dmg ones), Calvary acceleration & max speed bonus (yes a speed feature would be nice, higher speed grants higher dmg, and allows attack move, melee units can apply deceleration slowly, and pikelines can have very strong deceleration)
Here is my speculation for the castle arrows damage, maybe like the chou ke nou, only the first arrow is a real projectile, and the remaining 3 are unaffected, so 5/4 = 1.25 which so 20+1.25 = 21.25~ 21 attack?
Awesome channel! Love playing this game and have for years. Your videos have answered so many of my questions. Thanks Spirit!
Hey Spirit, I have only recently encountered your channel and I am so glad I did! You have some of the best content about Age of Empires 2, and I want you to keep continuing that especially these informative types of videos and other game-play. I also would like it if you posted multi-player diplomacy game mode videos. If you never tried that mode, you should try it as it is extremely fun.
Hey, i just found your YT-channel and love your videos!
I like how you do this like in chapters and that you have a short summary at the end of the videos.
The on screen text is nice, too. Good size so it's readable also on mobile phone.
m0ns1a thanks. I appreciate the feedback! I will keep doing all of those things
6:49 I think its because the guy who shot the arrow with the bonus died, the bonus wore off, because the cliff/elevation dosent affect anymore, because he dead.
The hill bonus must only affect the first arrow. Hence: 20 damage normally, 5 each; 5 each + one 6 on a hill (rounded 25%); 5 each + one 4 on a lower elevation (25% less). That's the only solution I can think of for why the castle is only getting a measly 1 damage difference. I imagine it would affect a little more if it were units. I know there are other examples of things only affecting the Castle's first arrow, so this logically makes sense.