Age of Empires 4 - Unit Counter System EXPLAINED

[@stealthswim223]

I played aoe 2 when I was in middle school, now as a 28 year old I can’t wait to play this game and come back! Nostalgia out the wazoo. I love this channel!

[@jorcktheoutcast8007]

Me too!!! I bought AOE2 from the school book fair 😂 It was educational.

[@BESTGINGEREU]

Also 28, played AOE1 with my uncle when I was a kid, played a bit of AOE2 before transitioning into Red Alert and Command and Conquer. I can't wait for this game man, what a time to be alive

[@tmatthews0007]

Play aoe 2 definitive edition it’s really good

[@stealthswim223]

@@BESTGINGEREU dude I had all the cheats and I would make it 1v4 and see how long I could live haha 😂 great times.

[@marshallrivers8982]

Dude I used to get up early before elementary school just to play this game lol. As a 25 year old, I agree 100%

[@s.n.8128]

I appreciate your content bro. Super stoked for the release.

[@ashfox7498]

I'm actually really impressed by this change. I just kind of accepted it in AoE2 because when I started playing I was too young to critique game logic but changing from spear throwing skirmishers to making bows and crossbows seperate unit lines Was there even a counter to units with heavy armor in 2? What was the militia line meant as a counter to? We've got intuitive answers to things now, and hopefully another reason to avoid knight spam.

[@jahrazzjahrazz8858]

Militia line counters trash units

[@Hawklaxx]

And eagles ^^^

[@ashfox7498]

​@@jahrazzjahrazz8858 Sure but you wouldn't really know that unless you asked other people. It isn't really explained, nor does it make intuitive sense. Crossbows punching through armor is historically accurate. You wouldn't really think that your swordsmen are specific counters to light cav and pikemen just looking at them. Though, maybe I'm only saying that because I learned that in Stronghold Crusader

[@jahrazzjahrazz8858]

@@ashfox7498 well the intuitive counters is spears/pikes countering cavalry and ranged units countering slow melee units, but thats the same in AoE2 :D

[@huberteichson8304]

It would be nice if the archer could shoot from the siege towers. Or at least a couple archers at the top of the tower.

[@TopKhan]

That is a hilarious idea I’d love to see that

[@OfficialVideoHDX]

you have stronghold xd

[@johanbakonline]

I love it. If they can shoot from them, they should be able to fall from them too :D

[@v4enthusiast541]

Yeah, especially since that was dominant purpose of siege towers in the era: harassint enemies on the wall from a vantage point.

[@theswanted]

Poor Dehli!

[@Hawklaxx]

I see you as the front runner of AOE4 content. Hope your channel blows up in the coming months with the release of the game :)

[@ccannon316]

I think it's worth noting that walls, especially stone walls in the midgame, can be an important counter to cavalry harass. Especially when you are utilizing infantry units like crossbows and spears so as to force full engagements rather than them splitting and running you around for 15 minutes.

[@iconicplay2237]

I could see this being one of your most popular videos. Good insight for new players

[@ndon85]

i liked Paint Drongo more than this sophisticated new software version

[@aus1046]

I don't agree

[@ndon85]

@@aus1046 i think i will sleep at night nonetheless, thanks

[@disc0king21]

nice content, information like this is good for keeping the meta healthy. building units counters appropriately should be a major focus in this game because of the way unit stats are.

[@hatimzeineddine8723]

Great video! I think the only things you missed were the outpost and town center.

[@c.j.ravensfan8374]

i need all the videos! great job

[@zekaiser1695]

Great stuff! One question: do cav units always get their “charge bonus” on their first attack, or do you have to do something special to trigger it like run them in with attack-move?

[@AussieDrongo]

It can be a little bit weird, essentially, cav have a minimum charge distance, which you could probably safely say is around the same range as an Archer (4-5 tiles) - if you command an attack, or just attack move, the unit will charge.

[@zekaiser1695]

@@AussieDrongo thanks Drongo! Your channel is awesome!

[@Calebol04]

always but it has a colddown

[@dragonlloux]

@@Calebol04 you can notice the cool down visually, if they are ready to charge they will have their spears out, then once their charge is complete the spear chatters and they pull out swords, also, not always will it go into cool down, only if they do get the hit, so you can fake out charges as many time as you want with no cool downs until your units actually make contact

[@Calebol04]

@@dragonlloux I din't know that thx!

[@lieblingsspieler9170]

I love your vids! Cant wait for more content. I looked every vid that came out since technical stress test. Keep up the work.

[@Goobt64]

Thank you for this! This is so helpful!

[@jacobrishworth476]

I don't know if it works in this software, but try holding alt and dragging as a shortcut for duplication :)

[@AussieDrongo]

OH MY GOD, it actually works! THANK YOU

[@jacobrishworth476]

@@AussieDrongo My absolute pleasure! Thank YOU :^)

[@radu9150]

Thanks for the info, great content ❤️

[@link_x2979]

Great video, cant wait for the unique units

[@Gizmomaster]

Floppy Hats are anti everything. 50 fully upgraded Great Swords of Sigmar can seriously pwn.

[@fenrisvarg5563]

Against Archers Pikes and Rams, Man at Arms are the best counter i guess.

[@nathanielburbery4890]

Archers could kite man at arms, though. Archers counter pikes and other archers

[@fenrisvarg5563]

@@nathanielburbery4890 archers struggle against high armor like man at arms and knights, crossbows would change the the thing, man at arms and own archers or light cav would work. Or inf siege, man at arms Speerman and mangos seems taff to stop

[@alexanderw9522]

LETS GOO! This gonna be an awesome vid!

[@lsamuel5326]

Great! Looking forward to the next one.

[@Coach_Blu]

Hey man! Love the channel! Are you going to do more “civilization overview” videos like you did for the English? Rather than Meta videos, I’d really appreciate overview videos leading up to launch so I know what civs I might want to play as! Thanks :)

[@AussieDrongo]

Hey mate, that is definitely the intention! With the release so close, I was fearful of releasing more overviews and not having the full picture - so decided it was best to leave it for now.

[@Coach_Blu]

@@AussieDrongo Ahh I see. Awesome, thank you! Super excited! I’m a teacher and my students are definitely going to have a substitute on launch day 😂

[@chrisnewtownnsw]

when you quizzed what would counter an archer crossbow combo i immediately thought archer archer but like you said light cav would also work too.

[@harrykostman5225]

Just a small correction for the part at 12:15: Horseman do bonus damage to archers (not just infantry archer), so also to horse archer, camel archer, etc. Love the video's, keep up the good work!

[@BaronBearington]

Yeah and in the Rus v Delhi match today they said it even worked against elephant archer (tower elephants) too which surprised me

[@surgeonsergio6839]

Does anyone know the outro music for Aussie Drongo?

[@alexmed2646]

Love this kind of videos.

[@TopKhan]

Now I can cancel my order for the unit counter chart from Microsoft 😂.

[@AussieDrongo]

Hey come on, I think I've ordered like 3 of everything, you can too :D

[@disc0king21]

@@AussieDrongo we don't all get paid by youtube drongo, lmao.

[@MrCrazySauce]

Great video but quick question: are you sure that horsemen actually have a charge attack? I was under the impression that it was only knights and fire lancers that have it.

[@bharath211]

Bro - Please can you not stop the Age-3 content? I am immediately reminded of your counters video from Age-3 when I saw this one.

[@keeganjacobs5913]

great video thank you . Why use regular horses instead of knights vs regular archers? The knights have more melee damage than regular horses with their bonuses? Around 12:27 mark , thank you for video its great.

[@macgivor]

Great video, thank you!

[@Echolaliaxu]

Great video! There's something that I need clarification with though, are Asian Lancers and European Knights statistically the same unit? That's what I'm assuming since Lancers aren't in the video.

[@turnspender7651]

Yes they are the same, just different name for some civs.

[@thelonenoob2489]

Awesome man

[@Widgie]

What's the name of the software? I'm loving it!

[@disc0king21]

quick question, are scouts affected by blacksmith bonuses or any other military bonuses as well? i think they would be but im not positive.

[@Careoran]

very helpful, thank you

[@jhguygih]

Thumbs up because that photoshop icon work must have took hours.

[@marcoschiz5876]

Are springalds effective against rams and siege towers too?

[@AussieDrongo]

They are, yes.

[@InsaneRG4172]

very nice video this is should be official guide to how build units

[@AkshatPrakash7]

are elephants basically high hp pikemen and tower elephants are just moving watch towers?

[@twinsen1949]

If they massed up crossbows or cannoneers, I will still need to put something in front of my siege. So what should that be?

[@karnazacss]

mass cheap cavalry, no gold units for sure. Just trash meatshield if possible

[@weijianteoh43]

What software is being shown in the video?

[@rheyza4475]

Question About "Unit Counters Chart" Did you get the digital deluxe edition? If so can you make a video on the unit counters chart that you get with it?

[@Gabriel5955959]

how to counter ships? Are the same counters to buildings applicable?

[@johnfordice5763]

wild that you're using webflow for this hahaha

[@greyraven9164]

i heard knights can tank keeps easily and kill vills under.... say a gold mine protected by a keep. players were complaining that dmg should be increased for keeps to deal with knights/men at arms. otherwise its worthless to pay 800 stone for it.

[@AffigesEtwas]

Keeps are a little weak. They are killed quickly by the very strong (and expensive) siege. Would be ok if the keep attack is very high and they are a true roadblock. But it isnt, attack feels weak.

[@greyraven9164]

@@AffigesEtwas yeah... lets hope it gets fixed on release. or soon after.

[@vadimzhdanov3246]

Thanks for the video, Aussie Drongo! What is the name of this program? It looks very useful.

[@ThePoser010]

Agreed

[@bumblewoot]

Wait a minute... At about the five minute mark to have archers and spearmen counter archers and spearmen...

[@chrisnewtownnsw]

so what counters a culverine behind a wall then? assuming cav can't get to it

[@moritzhellmann4061]

Why not counter the ram-spearmeen-archer push with a decent amount of Man at arms (maybe with some horsemen too snipe the archers)

[@BESTGINGEREU]

I guess it's a question of having the time to get the numbers you'd need to make it work - and there's the matter of having the resources to pay for those units, which aren't cheap

[@AffigesEtwas]

Because only english and HRE have age 2 man at arms.

[@aaltra101]

In your next video I'd love to hear you say "ar ba lay tree yeah". That's roughly how you say it in French. Cool vid btw.

[@willem337]

what if the enemy comes with siege (cannons), archers, knights and melee.. if youre army is not up to it is the game lost or iis there a chance to counter?

[@danielmunoz2316]

Nice video! Very interesting counter system in Age 4 Would you return to Age 3 DE? I miss those videos :(

[@TheAussyboy27]

He'll be making both once aoeIV hype dies down a bit

[@bjornfr9]

Doing the unique unit counter vid? :D

[@LuMozMusic]

Nice one!

[@McSniffle]

You said to build Horseman for attacking Archer and Crossbow because they have that bonus against ranged units. So what is the bonus that the knights have? I thought the Knights/Lancers had bonuses against men-at-arms so that was the thing to build along with crossbows against MAA since you want something between the crossbow and the maa to interfere. Crossbows in my experience lose hard to men-at-arms with even resources spent if the men at arms actually have nothing to slow their movement.

[@yarikmedvedev5199]

they dont have specific bonus vs unit types, they just have high attack dmg like cannoneers

[@eXo23exilant]

whats the best counter vs Mangudai?

[@francescop1]

So what's the counter against the mangonels?

[@jeffkellogg3531]

How do I know whether to use culverins or springalds against enemy siege? Based on their armor?

[@lysergicashes1538]

Isn't the counter to men at arms actually knights? I don't think light cav or light archers is a good counter

[@Sebastian-xy2up]

You said mangonels will encounter ranged units well, also mass cannoneers. But what will you do if your enemy have high numbers of cannoneers covered by springalds? Then mangonels will have a hard time...

[@klumpifpv9678]

Then you type GG 😅 but honestly good question

[@mahoufoxxo]

Mangos and and a mass of scouts, they can't single target down all of that, rush springalds while aoeing cannoneers, plus your army is cheaper

[@MadMalMan]

Mass hand cannoneers, with few spears and seige (historically known as Pike and Shot) is a devastatingly effective combo, best play against is to counter attack enemy at another point.

[@Axel-vt8no]

How's the exclusive beta big boi?

[@austinprevette474]

What about the 5 barrel cannon

[@tjember_ren1729]

what counters mangudai??

[@Argiur]

So what counters elephants?

[@syntax2004]

Mass strelsty

[@austinwirtz2434]

Good call on making scouts over horsemen if their only purpose is to send them on a suicide run to snipe siege

[@timepaintertunebird8160]

Think I might have underestimated scouts.

[@Marth667]

I haven't seen any siege towers in any gameplay aside from the sanctioned stuff the trailers showed. Is there ever really a need for them when you can just bulldoze the wall down with mangonels or rams? Hell, people don't even use their walls defensively they use them as expensive barriers and they don't take advantage of the ability to mount archers up there. Maybe they're poorly implemented since no one uses them or maybe people don't know how to play and take advantage of them. I also haven't seen any testing on them, like if you send infantry to take the wall do you also take their towers on the wall to stop them from firing at you? Do you take the gatehouse so you can open the gate allowing your cav and siege to flow through? I feel to make siege towers more viable you need to have something to gain by risking your forces in siege towers. Otherwise it will always be safer to open a hole in the wall instead of using siege towers to take it.

[@johannesmajamaki2626]

Team games, sending raiding parties over the wall.

[@SamuraiHonor]

Clearing out archer mounted walls with M@A's. But people hardly did that. The option is nice to have though.

[@MadMalMan]

Can be a sneaky shennanigan

[@werothegreat]

It's pronounced "arr buh lay tree ay"

[@gaming-anji]

bro i dont see units lifebar.....what can i do??

[@krato_s5456]

what about the damn elephants ? whats the counter for them

[@arturot4162]

Yea, wonder where Drongo got those information from :D *cough early access cough*

[@hiimrezgaming9885]

What can i use to counter the chinese grenadiers? They seem to destroy everything…

[@ommmkepidahanid3373]

miss the aoe3 content😕

[@fir3wall514]

Surely interesting topic but I need some visual help to feel interested. I would love some post game analysis thou.

[@BESTGINGEREU]

Hey Drongo, fucking love the content my guy 👍 I really hope you do weekly or bi-weekly meta analysis videos so we can keep our ear to the ground with what the pro strata are

[@lydiayuna9155]

What about the war elephants, I find them super over powered with no counter XD

[@fallenrangers]

so is the men at arms useless??? u didn't even touch them for what they counter

[@nathanielburbery4890]

No more skirmisher? Camel excluded because it's a special unit?

[@smallone123121]

7 days left

[@orkhepaj]

ill find this out myself

[@DjangoYT]

Does man at arm countered by knights... I lost a horrifying game in ledder.. U can review that game if u want.. It was a mongol vs ottoman.. I have 90+ vills high.. But that ottoman had only 35 vills whole the game it was a 1 hour n 24 min fcking game.. I did everything trust me drongo.. I did one misrake later i realised is i made man at arm against knights.. But i took the whole map control took all golds available one the map trapped down the enemy in a corner.. But ottoman was non stop creating troops n i dont knw how i lost.. Can u please explain that game as a tutorial..

[@hansoskar1911]

tl;dr this game needs a skirmisher type ranged counter to ranged units

[@averytucker790]

You missed Siege towers.

[@blacktemplar7102]

so heavy units are useless?

[@nathanielburbery4890]

Monk??

[@kahlernygard809]

French knights counter everything

[@huggleskuishy]

Stop making these videos I wanna keep wrecking noobs. Jk bro Im loving your content.

[@Virtualism22]

I loved what you said, but not how you said it.

[@evasion.6096]

The artwork on those unit icons are terrible, just lazy to be honest and looks like something from a phone game

[@traianfilip616]

I was 7-8 y/o when my uncle showed my AoE 2

[@Amphok]

i don't like hard counters it make the game boring, i hope those are soft counters

[@joeuknowwho5590]

fuck. the icons and hud for age 4 suck so much. I can't tell what im looking at as a new player. kinda the same thing I hate with the rest of the game. everything looks samey and flat.

[@worldpeace2688]

Ausie, go to the park and stop playing aoe4 for a day.

[@zweiradler8042]

I disagree on crossbow countering Men at Arms. MAA do 9 DPS and Crossbow do 7 DPS (armor and bonuses already calculated). Since Crossbows have 80HP and MAA have 155HP, you would need two crossbows to take down one MAA. Further they do not even trade economically since both cost 120 resources. *based on the numbers of the technical stress test... let us know if you have more up to date numbers ;)

[@SamuraiHonor]

That's just talking semantics. No, if you do smash them together like you would as a child with plastic action figures, they won't win. But you're leaving out so much context for it. Range, rate of fire, a screen of other units, defensive position. This game does not play ''in a void''. Being a counter is very much contextual. But if you use them wrong...yea...not much of a counter, but that's on you, not the unit.

[@zweiradler8042]

@@SamuraiHonor sure that is true. But the movement speed and attack speed of the crossbow is so low that it is difficult to counter MAA with crossbows using micro. I think it is under complex to say: "just build crossbows to counter MAA". You will need some kind of meat shield preventing the crossbows into melee combat.

[@MadMalMan]

Yeah if they tried to beat the MAA to death with their crossbows, but you put the Crossbows in or near a tower, on a wall they will punch through them.