AoE2 Scorpions

[@WonkieNJ]

You know a game's bangin' when people are looking into mechanics this closely 17 years after release.

[@shapowlow]

I think it's not that the game is bangin'. Spirit of the Law is the shit. Even people who don't play AoE watches his vids just coz they're so good

[@SarpSpeaksSometimes]

I'm ShaPowLow I think it's both

[@jhonnylee6685]

i used to play AoE and AoE II alot in my childhood and stoped when i was 10 i think recently one of my favorit youtubers started playing AoE II and so this channel got recomended to me and now i'm playing AoE II aswell :)

[@christopherhall5361]

i've gotten a few friends of mine to start playing, it's a game that holds up very well 15+ years later, even though it's not a game where having the best graphics ever was the goal

[@yellow13_]

19..

[@UM96lol]

0:42 Deer confirmed strongest unit in AoE 2

[@micahtritscher951]

Ohh man that was amazing to read 😂😂😂

[@OpusMagnoCards]

Can`t believe I never noticed that hahaha. Awesome sir.

[@octapusxft]

I still like the scorpions cause they sound so cute when you click on them

[@ModernMozart1104]

lmaooo

[@VRichardsn]

The other day I was trying to be clever and, after having my precious Teutonic Knights pestered with stones courtesy of Inca Slingers, I remembered this video and said "hey, Scorpions seem to be the correct choice here"(remember what happened to the Hand Canonneers in the video). So I went forward with the idea, because it is nice to find a use for forgotten units (and also because I am cheap: Scorpions cost nowhere near other siege uints) Ok, I make a dash (well, sort of) with the Teutonic Knights to draw the Slingers and then I go in for the kill with the Scorpions. Then out of nowhere a Mangonel fires upon my Scorpions, flattening them with no effort. I promptly ditched the idea and used Siege Onagers instead.

[@mohsinejaz6011]

well that was a ride

[@LastBastion]

What a rollercoaster ride

[@AyuNico]

This sums up why Scorpions suck lmao

[@ichigoblackTWD]

One my enemy made a lot of Teutonic Knights, i made scorpions. They all died and he resinged lol

[@RennieAsh]

That's what he gets for only making those ;p Plus you probably had more scorpions and spread out rather than so close that the TKs can reach tem easily Monks can also convert all the Teuton Knights

[@filiuscanis2413]

You have a very gentle voice, when I can't sleep I sometimes play one of your videos and fall asleep to you narrating age of empires 2 tactics.

[@blobpoop457]

This is the cutest comment

[@mexikorn931]

I don't even play AoE2, I just watch your videos cause they're good.

[@grazzer88]

Me too. It's such good commentary even someone who doesn't play the game can get it. I played AoE religiously so i still enjoy seeing what's up with the franchise, though after my experience of online play being more concerned about efficient build order and kiting archer units rather than any semblance of skill i didn't pick it up competitively.

[@VRichardsn]

Likewise; my days of Age of Empires are long gone (although can be revived at the odd LAN party) since I moved on to other RTS (currently Company of Heroes) but Spirit of the Law´s videos are great, and for some reason, very relaxing for me.

[@bigbowen1559]

I think its in part due to the music. Its like it and airport music come from the same family (classic lounge?/lounge chill?)

[@ct918]

same

[@vario6492]

Same here... I call it the Top Gear phenomenon (Don't give a fk about cars , watches anyway)

[@miranuzeri979]

finally the video i have been waiting for

[@HBon111]

+Miran Uzeri I LOVE SCORPIONS!:D

[@miranuzeri979]

+HBon111 same here c:

[@joner2932]

+Miran Uzeri When i play with celts I use to mass scorpions with few onager, i can take down eeven paladin and hussars armies, obviously creating more scorps

[@tylerparziale868]

+Erigierten gameplays 4 I do the opposite mass onagers w/ scorpions because the onagers are also good against buildings .

[@carlosolea4290]

Cobra car counters everything so who cares

[@houkkiboi]

+Carlos Olea The villager says different. 0:58

[@flageloduran4744]

+threadenoid908 fucking nerd.

[@Sumiscloud]

+threadenoid908 people don't know the power of supremacy

[@VreelDanelli]

+threadenoid908 He was probably Spanish.

[@rekabneb]

+Carlos Olea supremacy>mass elite longbows>scout rush>mass teutonics>>> >>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Cobra

[@dariodimarziasalvatore971]

So basically don't ever build scorpions unless you play some tight-alley map like black forrest in which case build mangonels so again don't ever build scorpions. :D This unit needs to get buffed IMHO...

[@landochabod7]

+Mike Czeck Yes and no. Keep in mind that the scorpions in this video were being constantly flooded with units but their screen was not, so the fight was getting harder for them and easier for the enemy. In a real battle it might be the other way around. Look at 6:57, if there had been just 30 hussars the scorpions would have won with no losses but the halberdiers in front, and the exchange ratio would've been much better. All in all, I think this video shows *which* units are better against them, but not necessarily by *how much*.

[@dariodimarziasalvatore971]

Hmm nice insight

[@karlhans6678]

+landochabod7 This is the best scenario for scorpions. I have raped a group like this one with teutonic knights.

[@rekabneb]

+Mike Czeck worth it as the Slavs or the Celts in certain scenarios

[@lf2208]

+landochabod7 Can't the same line of thinking be applied to the scorpions themselves though?. This was the best sort of tactical situation for them to be used, and they still barely managed. Who ever would assemble an army of scorpions of this large a magnitude? Getting them into position is a pain, as they are a slow unit, with very little flexibility. If you put all your resources in scorpions like this, whilst your opponent invests in faster units, he will be able to outmanouver you and beat you anyway, as I see it. All in all, I would personally conclude that the scorpion does have its niche, but the niche is just too small for the unit to actually be relevant. I think it might deserve a damage buff or something like that..

[@nicolasweber5804]

I always love that intro with the villager and the car. xD the music at the time is so cool :DDD xDDDD

[@Gauss4724]

Man, I miss the old helepolis from aoe 1, that's how scorpion should be, although they would need to be far more expensive to be balanced in aoe 2....

[@xthomas7621]

icbm

[@Gauss4724]

aoe 1 cheats are the best :)

[@mkaali]

+franz304 Yep, you could beat every game by just building a crapload of helepoli.

[@RennieAsh]

Until you come along with AI with 50M Heavy Catapults all individually managed that squish them in one go ;p Then again, you can make the AI ruin their base by running stuff through their catapults ;p

[@CmdrSloanne]

That's why I always put my Scorpions, siege onagers, trebuchets behind walls to try to slow down the enemy units & then try to move my infantry around to sandwich them between my siege weapons & main forces... great video as always Spirit. have a good weekend.

[@KnopsLPs]

+CmdrSloanne i'll expect a follow-up video about it though. it probably was too much for just one.

[@digimaks]

I try to avoid using seige onagers.. They are disfunctional.. They would shoot at the enemy even if your units are around them- and kill your units of course. They are so dumb! I wish there was some sort of preventive command, that tells onagers not to shoot if your own units are in the hit area. Otherwise it's impossible to micro-manage them in big battle - you may end up losing 4 Paladins because of those knuckleheads trying to hit ONE pikeman!

[@Volcano4981]

Usually I set them on No Attack stance to let them fire only as I command - unless I actually need them to fire at will. Recently I've actually grown kinda fond of them.

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

A few questions from this video have been addressed in a followup one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a4mmY6ana7J9ntUm9s Questions include: What about rams? What about trebuchets? What about throwing axemen? Should archers be moved closer against scorpions? Why did the scorpion appear to destroy some trees at 4:10?

[@TheManofthecross]

+Spirit Of The Law how do you get the cars in that game to do that let alone the cars in the frist place. :O

[@blanarurazvan704]

+Vincent Celeste its a cheat code its @how can i turn this on@

[@TheManofthecross]

blanaru razvan never knew that. :O is there a vid for all cheats like that I would like to see this cheat in action and thanks for the answer.

[@blanarurazvan704]

no problem man XD

[@ruthlessgriz3340]

I think you also forgot to include naval units. Do scorpions fare better against naval invasions from land rather than as control-point units?

[@rodskagg3328]

I think the fact that you compare the resources sold to gold in late imp with market saturated makes the Scorpions seem worse than they are. The most likely scenario is that there is still gold to be mined on the map and that the game (at least in my experience) is probably over when all gold is mined. For example a scorpion is costing 75 wood and 75 gold. You had 32 (four lines with eight in each) of them in your tests which is equal to 4800 resources. If we compare it against skirmishes which was 2184 gold and inverse market trade to its original resource we get 15600 total. In this case the Scorpion is killing the Skirmishes at a little more than 3:1 ratio in resources which is pretty good. I would still consider gold a more valuable resource but maybe not as much as the 100:14 ratio. Maybe you can show both "total resources" and "sold to gold" in your videos so that one can compare early and late game value. Love your videos anyways. Keep it up

[@randomness6498]

Rodskagg not when u have relics and spamming champions

[@dancingphoenixart]

Also on this type of map (black forest or michi) it's really easy to set up trade which might make you end up with even more gold than other rescources, so yeah. The already pointed out skirmishers show the pouint perfectly. You took a "might-be-scenario" and put it as a "must-be-scenario". Which can be quite misleading. The hussar probably did only as good as the scorpion, as the 7:1 food>gold radio will of course make them appear much better than they actually are. It'd have been better to simply compary rescources and then add the fact which ones don't cost gold and could be doing good *in this one specific scenario*

[@AyuNico]

So gold units vs trash units, really?

[@anirudhdad2739]

u forgot to take seige rams in the test.. i think they are atleast 2nd best against scorpions :D

[@houkkiboi]

+Anirudh Dad Interesting thought, considering Scorpions also have bonus damage vs. rams.

[@anirudhdad2739]

yeah, and rams literally one shot almost all scorpions, also they hurt them in aoe.

[@caracaes]

+Anirudh Dad Also, he forgot to do a Scorpion vs Scorpion run as a baseline. Since he's making a limited amount of scorpions on one side and an unlimited amount on the other, the cost effectiveness might no be 1/1

[@caracaes]

+Anirudh Dad Also, he forgot to do a Scorpion vs Scorpion run as a baseline. Since he's making a limited amount of scorpions on one side and an unlimited amount on the other, the cost effectiveness might no be 1/1

[@Volcano4981]

+Jineapple Add on the Mongol speed boost, and there you have the ultimate Scorpion killer. :P

[@Shabanezloth]

I love the way you put little funny stuff in your videos! You are awesome!

[@MrValonievs]

Scorpions are totally awesome, they're weak against certain cavs and siege yeah but with celts they're ballistic monsters. Just played two games where I mass scorpions and put a combo of halberdiers, champions and woad raiders in front. if they sent cav they met the halberdiers and died against them and the scorps. When they tried the onagers I sent forth the raiders and just v-form dodged their attacks and took em down. When they tried a mass of halbs and champions they got hold off by the whole combo while they was mowed down by the scorps. The cavs was fully upgraded paladins but was powerless againts a small line of champs and halbs with the backing of scorps. Massing scorps have been my road to victory when I've used that tact and my fall to loss when I've not used them. Scorps are way underrated.

[@RennieAsh]

What if they bring bombard cannons with a meatshield?

[@yaboi2500]

Rennie Ash Here's a better question: What if they bring Onagers with meat shields?

[@Lawd_Kolya]

I did something similar using scorpions, champs, halberdiers and hand cannons.. I lost that particular battle, but the losses were extremely heavy on my opponents side.

[@romegypt5675]

I typically go Khmer (+1 range, two projectiles) with bombard cannons to take out onagers

[@NuckelCell]

With Khmer the Scorpions becomes Monsters

[@billwithers7457]

I saw Viper use mass scorps earlier today on Black Forest. It was truly awe inspiring how quickly they slaughtered huge swathes of paladins and monks.

[@MichaelPohoreski]

bill withers The width of the choke point definitely is a factor in their efficiency!

[@TZerot0]

Honestly this is maybe my favorite SotL video, heck I'm still coming back to it years later (runner up might go to yasma arrow tech vid). It's got math, some fun practical scenarios, a bunch of unique units thrown at mass units and some good advice. Perfect.

[@camjnz]

I'm very thankful for this video and enjoyed, but I'm not sure if I agree with the test. I feel like having a look into how many scorpions would be needed to keep different units at bay might be better. You could definitely have far more scorpions that are still able to hit units in this setup. You mentioned that in a real scenario you would be topping up the halberdiers, and I am surprised that you didn't setup a trigger to do this. I think going over every unit one at a time felt a bit slow to me and maybe just some tables with this information would have been just as informative. I still love your videos and hope you keep making them. :)

[@AvihooI]

In the test you're using the scorpions as a defensive choke point unit, where actually they should be used in a mobile choke point situation (think black forest) behind strong units. Their advantage (like in any siege unit) isn't about gold vs gold, rather their low population cost relative to their effect... it is better to have a screen of scorpions behind an assortment of units, then just more of those other units.

[@AlessandroRodriguez]

Glad to hear of AoE2 again, thanks for the video +Spirit Of The Law

[@themlgmememaker5449]

Waited for this video! Thank you!

[@ericsbuds]

i havent played a RTS since command and conquer for the PS1, but i love watching your vids. i really want to give this game a try one day.

[@Starkiller3481]

Hey men! Very nice video, as always. I want to express my opinion on how good your channel is. Every time i recive notification about new video from you, im super excited and cant wait to see it. They are always extremly well done and cover all things connected to the topic. I love your complex maths (because i like maths :D) and way that you test and explain everything. You are definetly best Age of Empires channel on KZbin. Keep it up men! Cheers :)

[@enkiimuto1041]

I was waiting for an episode like this (i love scorpions), thanks man!

[@YanLikesStuff]

I subscribed to you recently. I'm pretty decent at math yet I never really got to like it. However your videos always make me like it for some reason. you also got me into AoE2 again, which I bought with the expansions on the last steam sale. Keep up the amazing videos!

[@groinBlaster31]

I watch your videos way more than I play age of empires. Love them!

[@luise.mercadorojas9305]

Screw everything. SOTL has published a new video!

[@svenvenohr6117]

spirit!!! The title is already awesome!! Always wanted to know more about them! :) Oh by the way... I really miss a Celt-Civ Overwiew... :)

[@bramtimmerarends33]

You're so great :D thanks for your work to get this video out! I love it

[@a.anderson2072]

Hey, +Spirit of the Law. Curiously, would you consider doing a video on how to counter and/or how the famous 'ball of death' civs perform once they reach that post-imperial 'ball of death' combo that is supposed to be nigh impossible to stop? It'd be interesting to find which civ has the better post-imp 'ball of death' status. Examples: 1. Britons once they mass Elite Longbows, protected Halbs and Champs, with many Trebs behind it all. 2. Koreans once they get rolling with Siege Onagers, Elite War Wagons and Halbs. 3. Celts, once they form that siege death with Siege Onagers and Heavy Scorpions, protected by Halbs and Champs. 4. Turks, once they get Elite Janissaries massed with many Bombard Cannons and Hussar for meat shield. 5. Franks, once they get a mass of Paladins combo'd with Hand Cannons and Bombard Cannons. 6. Spanish, with Paladins, Hand Cannons, Bombard Cannons, Conquistadors and Halbs. 7. Indians, once they mass Imperial Camels, Elite Elephant Archers and Hand Cannons. 8. Goths, once they have boomed and can spam Halbs, Elite Huskarls and Champs from many Barracks. 9. Mongols, once they have massed Elite Mangudai, backed up by Siege Rams and Siege Onagers. Those are the only civs I can think of that become deadly once they mass their Post Imperial units and form a ball of death that can't be stopped (Apologies if I missed any). The idea is, which one has the better combo? And how is each of them countered?

[@RennieAsh]

That would be a very large test to do lol

[@798jeremy]

About Franks, I'd rather say Elite Throwing Axemen instead of Hand Cannoniers, because unlike unexperimented players (either never played franks, basically, or just didn't use them in the right way) think, they actually can handle it pretty much as good against widely most infantry units in the game as their gunpowder buddies do on their own too...and if needed so, in very situational cases, like teutonic knights, as a very well speaking example, then Hand Cannoniers are hands down a better choice, obviously. But otherwise, not necessarily everytime, as experimented good franks players could tell it without hesitating in the slightliest way...

[@MrAbgeBrandt]

That's not how scorpions are usually used. You always need some meat shield in front of them to prevent enemies from stepping into the minimum range. Another very important thing is to patrol scorpions. Try it, it massively improves their combat performance, especially when coupled with defensive or stand ground stance. Against the ranged enemies, it looks like you did use patrol, so why not against the melee ones, too?

[@AyuNico]

So they require heavy support, specific placement and are situational at most. That's why they are bad.

[@VittamarFasuthAkbin]

7:55 its not removed, its lowered to 1 for all siege and extra damage for rams. So they are still more effective than regular archers.

[@bigphil2695]

Do a video on the Cobra Car.

[@geobugseon]

It has been done :D :D

[@Zengrad]

thanks for the informative video about that underused unit. here is a little indication: you forgot the ramms as a possible counter. keep up the good work! :) and i´m curious about the next episode of road to 1800+. Aim higher! ;D

[@gonzaliders1]

you put a lot of work here! = good video + good content = good job!

[@Casassidor]

7:46 the mongols are always the exception

[@MikeHonchoInPlaygril]

what an amazing video thanks for all your hard work.

[@Ezldor]

i have no idea why i started watching your videos, havent touched this game in around 10 years

[@noxious8]

Did you see the scorpions cutting trees at 4:10 behind the outpost in the south? :O But it's not really cut, it is just chopped down to the ground. Never saw that before, maybe bc no one is using the scorpion.

[@toastybatch565]

+m0ns1a And you can't attack ground, so nobody would've thought.

[@BunnyHatJ]

+m0ns1a so many years since the game came out, and almost no one had ever realized that (me included xD).

[@HECKproductions]

if a scorpion fires and THEN dies before the bolt hits it cuts trees nobody knows why its one of the great mysteries of life

[@alistair158]

You just blew my mind

[@daoyang6055]

The scorpions were op as fuck in age of empires online.

[@Lenin5355]

you are awesome of making this sir, it must be a lot of work to make a video like this.

[@lf2208]

Great video! I'd like to remark one things that came to mind when watching - the fact that the scorpions are getting flooded does in my view overshadow one of the great advantages of ranged units like the scorpion. This advantage, as I see it, lies in the fact that ranged units will win the fights in which they are superior without getting damaged. I personally do not have a high opinion of the scorpion at all, so maybe the longbowman is the better example. The longbowman is a favorite unit of many a player, even though, as you have pointed out, it does not actually win 1 on 1 against almost any unit or unit combination.The big advantage is that 20 longbowmen might not win vs 20 champions (or whatever their equal-cost number is), but they will take out 8 champions without losing a single hit point. In the case of 20 champions vs 8 champions, you can't boast of the same advantage. Furthermore, I would argue that longbowmen and scorpions can, for example, take out villagers whilst there is a wall in between them. So all in all, I think that ranged units have an advantage that's hard to actually put in numbers. An advantage that may prove hard to measure in these sort of tests.

[@BerkmeaBoldhobson]

nothing better on new years eve than an old spirit of the law video

[@a.anderson2072]

It's a shame you didn't cover the Expansions. I'd be curious to know how the Ethiopian Heavy Scorpion does, with the extra blast radius tech "Torsion Engines". Though, I do admit that when this tech is mentioned, I think more of Siege Onagers and Siege Rams.

[@HutchyWow]

+A. Anderson Torsion Engines are really bad for Scorpions, adds close to 0 extra damage.

[@88Nieznany88]

omg scorpion is my second favourite unit ( the first one is longbowman of course) great video!

[@ethribin4188]

What suprised me was how good against archers they were. Id even say scorpions are even more of a archer counter then an infantery counter.

[@silverbane5008]

they counter everything (except cannons and onagers, even onagers if khmer) if massed and with a proper meatshield (prefferably hussar, and good scorp civs tend to have hussars). People just don't realise how strong they are, they are better in almost all aspects compared to onagers except against other siege (and buildings, obviously)

[@hanspeter-meier-wurtshansi1670]

You forgot about the Spanish Vils! Thanks for the contribution!

[@barranquillarespondetv2512]

this is just great, the other day, as goths I was gonna lose, cuz in late imperial my opponent made tons of hand cannoner and my Huskies were being crushed. the problem with the Spirit's examples is that the units didn't have formations. with only three scorpions I killed a whole 20 fully upgraded army of pure hand cannoner and eventually beat him

[@zaibnisar1865]

Spirit plz respond to this.....when will u continue road to 1800 ??

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

+Zaib Nisar I'll probably record some more soon :)

[@mcadder]

+Spirit Of The Law It would be fun to hear your comments on games you lose also....

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

+mcadder oh don't worry - there will be plenty of those haha

[@mcadder]

Spirit Of The Law It's not (only) my sadistic side who wants it. But I think one would recognize the feeling when things aren't going the way one planned :o) Thats quite entertaining :o)

[@HECKproductions]

as far as i know there are two thats plenty alright 11

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

Now I want to know how the Khmer Scorpions hold out. Since they're obviously the best civ in the universe.

[@TheRomanAoE]

This comment aged like fine wine

[@silverbane5008]

FU khmer scorps murder everything, even siege onagers have trouble against mass khmer scorps, tho they are still a reasonable counter resource wise (but you have to mass them otherwise it wont work). Using mass siege rams (esp mongol ones), mass siege onagers (or mega siege onagers like ethiopian or korean) and/or bombard cannons are pretty much the only way to stop mass khmer scorps esp in chokepoints. but it will still be very hard when khmer mixes in hussars or elephants.

[@Chenla]

My favourite unit in the entire game, thank you :-).

[@freaksuyash]

Man sprit of the law, this one needs an update. I use them a lot nowadays, scouts into knights + scorpions. Yet I have no idea how good they are in the expansions. Most people on HD are playing expansions, and it's not like the base game people are ever going to leave 2002...

[@DiscoFreaky]

great video, hard work to do all of that, nice

[@brainwasher9876]

0:46 that deer on the top right is like WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING

[@RennieAsh]

It's like: You're ruining the grass, stop ruining my grass! (Goes to eat grass when there is clearly only sand there)

[@thehermeticgamer3736]

Really interesting this video shows Scorpions as such a good counter to Plumes and other archers, even pre-buffs, since in the current pro meta archer units often dominate early castle. Conquistadors, Plumes, Camel Archers, even crossbows are staple castle units (some of which are considered extremely strong) and time and again you see people go to mangonel to counter them. Think about this, I'm sure we've all seen it, someone is up against a Mayan, Spanish, etc, and now there are four plumes or conquistadors in their face. They need to deal with this immediately because they're going to snowball if they don't, and are already strong and mobile enough to cause havoc raiding, but at the same time they want to avoid spending food (especially against plumes or crossbows) because then they're either going to lose the race to imp, or need all their food for a multi-TC boom so the standard reaction seems to be to go for mangonels, and try to land some good shots, but against someone with good micro this almost never happens (especially against tougher, faster ranged units like plumes) and they just get picked off one-by-one while the ranged units snowball. Imho, I'd love to see a test on how well Scorpions would do in this situation given their high pierce armour, that you can't out-micro them and they build twice as fast as onagers for less than half the price. If you micro-down and onager it's wasted money, and it will often be killed before another onager gets out to help it, whereas the scorpion will always do at least some damage, and mass much faster. Something like this would actually be something you could potentially spin off into a series. Basically testing the meta. I mean yes scorpions are hard-countered by mangonels, but there are ways to defend them (your own mangonels, or monks with block printing and redemption, think how easily slavs could do this, and then to potentially have their halbs out front doing splash damage and armour on their defensive monks, how the hell do you counter that? They can even convert bombard canons, I think only Britons or Goths would manage, and sure I know it's one of those fantasy late game balls-of-death, but it's not like slavs are weak in feudal or castle and will never get there, in fact they're damn strong) Would also love to see this test re-done with new unique tech and civ bonuses like double crossbow, torsion engine, ironclad, slavs -15% siege cost.

[@Bozothcow]

7:15 Of course they are... Cue the Mongoltage!

[@Caiotus]

Definitely going to start using the scorpion after this video, didn't realize how big their strengths are

[@justonerandomguy6580]

Mangudai siege damage: “allow us to introduce ourselves”

[@darkdill]

When you made this video, you showed Briton Cavaliers against the Heavy Scorpions, but Britons don't get Bloodlines. That 20 HP could make a difference, so what about a civ that has Bloodlines?

[@papanong8997]

Sometimes a game that is made from the dark and terrifying medieval can get ridiculously drunk and funny

[@Snakie747]

Pretty big breakdown that explains why these things aren't used very often- there just aren't that many things they're really good against and there's tons of counters.

[@acata100realcatnotadog5]

Great video! I like your channel!

[@ikosaeder2068]

First of all: Great video, like always! I'm really glad you put such a focus on Scorpions, hopefully they get more player attention in the future. However, I'm curious about the validity of your ressource calculation starting at 3:12 simply because using lategame market exchange rate is quite "unusual". In post-imp, exchange should be less of the primary gold source compared to relics and trade carts/cogs (which are way more efficient in gathering time and cost outlay) up to the point where someone is forced to use trash units. If 100:14 would not be a bad trade, exchanging + elite units would be the first choice of all players (without exceptions!), won't it be? Because of that other people go with something like 100% wood/food vs. 130% gold = 100 w/f for 77 g [e.g. theycalllmebacon, I'm sure you will like his spreadsheet posted in this comment section so check it out] and not 100 w/f for 14 g = 100% wood/food vs. 714 % gold as you did. => So what's your point to justify 100:14 instead of for example 100:77? ;-) That said, I'm positively suprised about the outcome saying that Halberdiers & Co. are cost efficient in this scenario... But no matter whether someone doubts your calculation or not: The final list of best/worst counter units would stay close to the same (except that gold units might skip a couple of places in the ladder). So really great stuff anyway!

[@ahmadkurd7963]

Great vid man you da best!

[@aminj9526]

What some people have correctly pointed out is that this video aims to find out what are the best and worst units versus massed scorpions, which it succeeds at. It doesn't aim to answer the question how effective heavy scorpions can be in an actual game, so you can't criticize the video based on that. I have played with Celts since the base game came out in 1999, so I know a thing or two about scorpions. They can be very effective against many army types if you use them properly. You have to have something in front of them (typically a "meat shield" of units) to not only soak up damage but to delay units getting to the scorpions themselves. If you do that, they are like a more effective archer in the majority of cases, even against units with high pierce armour. And unlike an onager, they don't damage your own units, or your allies units, so they make a good part of a combined army in a team game. Not just in black forest, any situation where you can set up choke points. In any army that is reliant on scorpions, you should continually be building palisade walls (and generic wood buildings) as you gain ground into the enemy base as that creates artificial choke points. You don't even have to have fully formed closd walls, even just chunks of palisades will create choke points and are basically free as it is just wood. This tactic not only works with scorpions but with any other range based army as well. The main problem using scorpions then is being outranged by enemy onagers, bombard cannons, or British archers (trebs to an extent as well though you should have your own trebs to counter). All of these units can engage your scorpions without having to get through the meat shield or real/artificial choke points. If you have bombard cannons on your side then you can be OK, so it is no surprise that the civs with strong scorpions from the base game and AOKTC (Celts, Mongols, Chinese) all lack bombard cannons, so you are reliant on your allies to provide them. Which makes the Khmers getting bombard cannons while being a scorpion based civ another sign of how the Raja civs are overpowered. If you are facing Brits 1v1 don't even bother with scorpions, if you are in a team game vs Brits they can still be effective to support allies but you should really just stick with skirmishers and onagers.

[@aarondiaz1467]

You are wrong in one thing, the halb example makes it so clear. It is not only the cost of resources of the units itself, if u kill 170 pop and u only lose 30, all the time that the battle is going on, the scorp guy is saving resources for the new army, while the halb guy is spending all his resources in a lost battle, since when u see ur army is performing good, u will keep the flood of that army. Also, 170/30 ratio kill in 1 battle is GG in 1x1 for sure, in tg depends on whats going on on the other side, but u can be sure that after a battle like that, the scorp guy side will push easy that side. The same goes for the hussar, yeah, once u have 60 farmers u can flood hussar like crazy, but, if u loose 70 hussars in one battle, u better have DM resources, or u'll get down to 100 pop and wont ever get back to 200. Paladins > hussars against scorps, u can be sure of that, hussars is the choices once u have no gold xd.

[@besg5725]

Aaron Diaz ok expert. But gold is more important than wood or stone. So scorps actually suck because everything they can do, onangers and others can do better.

[@mandowarrior123]

@@besg5725 no you missed his point, it doesn't matter how expensive they are in a sense as they give huge population swing, create 30, build up to 200, scorps die, you started at 130 pop with scorps, them 200, now they have 110 pop and you have 170. That kind of thing. They are like a buffer unit. It has vale in excess of its gold cost is his point, which is true.

[@Southeast_Asian_Devil]

@@mandowarrior123 Yeah, like having 5 relics post-imp but lose all standing armies, losing the benefits of critical mass

[@SemiMono]

Scorpions act like archers, they cause no friendly fire. Use onagers in those situations and the can be micro'd in some cases or just get a couple of cavalry through and the onagers destroy themselves. On top of that, if you put a meat shield in front of the onagers you need to micro the meat shield and onagers quite carefully to keep your meat shield from dying from one scout being sent in. Scorps never cause that and don't need nearly as much management. They're also better against fast moving units and cost less than onagers. Compare them to archers, they're a bit more expensive and much slower, but most archers wouldn't fair nearly that well, especially against something like paladins. Scorps have an important place, just usually there isn't an opportunity to use them.

[@travisschnurr3527]

Love the videos! Keep it up!

[@trevorWilkinson]

The main thing I note of where they could be useful is use scorps against the turks. If you can deal with the bombards. making scorps in the castle age could do well against janissaries or hand cannons.

[@dragatus]

+trevor Wilkinson Turks also get free Light Cavalry and Hussar upgradesand that was the second best counter, right after onagers.

[@trevorWilkinson]

dragatus I've played many games where a turk player has done a fast imp on black forest and attack with lots of handcannons or janissaries and 1 or 2 bombards. Usually they don't have light cav by this point due to the food cost of the fast imp so a weak economy.

[@landochabod7]

+trevor Wilkinson I'd rather make skirmishers. Turks have a problem with long distance accuracy, as both hand cannoneers and janissaries miss a lot, and scorpions are so large they don't exploit this weakness.

[@Kxoe559]

There's no reason not to use other siege there

[@fibonacci112358s]

I had a friend back in high school who LOVED to use the scorpions. When I pointed out how poorly they compared against onagers, he cited the high upgrade cost (somewhere in the range of 2000 food and 2000 gold in total) to upgrade magonels to onagers and then to siege onagers.

[@TheSpiritedFendron]

as a Slav main, this video is essential

[@DoctorProph3t]

I’ve always maintained that the onager and scorpion are support artillery, not specialised siege weapons. Reinforcing a troupe of halbs with scorpions is THE anti-cavalry combination, specialised, ranged, any civ.

[@Moritz558]

I really enjoyed the video. How effective the scorpion really is was an interesting question. But I have to ask: Why the Hellebardieres in front? You said, you wanted a test, in which different units would get different results. You get that without any units besides the scorpions too. I think the Hellebardieres just put a possible mistake in the test, cause of their good ability to fight against cavalry and their bad performance against other units.

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

+Moritz My reasoning was the attack of 8 halberdiers compared to 32 scorpions is fairly insignificant. The point of the halberdiers is to delay the approaching units long enough to get a decent sample time of scorpion shots and get a sense of the approaching units' susceptability to scorpions. At most, 8 halberdiers could _maybe_ take out 5 enemies from the horde of incoming units on their own, and most of the results were somewhere between 50 and 100 kills. The group most affected would be cavalry, of course, which would have been the only systematic bias of choosing halberdiers in front, and cavalry still make up a big chunk of the top 10

[@RennieAsh]

Scorpions would do a lot better as long as there is a shield out in front. And may be an option if you have trouble with your onagers killing all your stuff

[@shannonmikko9865]

Another great vid

[@whywasmyrealnamehere]

They need to increase the range on Scorpions. Onagers are the short ranged, Rams melee, and trebuchets long range, it seems obvious that Scorpions should have a greater range to fit into a medium range category, rather then being just a worse pick to the onager overall.

[@silverbane5008]

scorpions are insanely OP as it is right now. khmer scorps have +1 range and are close to uncounterable now with a hussar meatshield. atleast khmers lost bombard cannons it was one of the strongest, if not the strongest deathball in the game

[@gordonweintraub6634]

No rams vs scorps! I'd love to see how the bonus damages apply!

[@Khotgor]

I feel like this test would be different if you held ground the scorpions, since that's how you make them effective in the first place. A lot of the scoripons start to stop firing and running away. It does make a difference, since despite their minimum range, they still will deal damage to the units infront of them and also any units coming towards them when the fire at the enemy behind it.

[@mpbroseph6465]

Italian overview coming anytime soon? :) i really like their unique unit.

[@rovsea-3761]

+Josef Rosenkvist I agree. The Genoese Crossbow is actually really good against a wide variety of units, although it is somewhat easily countered.

[@MrAlfaplam1]

thanks for the video ^^ keep it up !

[@orb_knight4794]

new sub, i love that intro very catchy

[@lukasg4807]

With short range archers like cavalry archers you wouldn't let them form a line like that,you'd send them up in a nice tidy square where they can all attack and the scorpions would do poorly. The same goes for all the low range units like the hand cannoneers, just moving your army forward a couple squares would kill the scorpions easily.

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

+Lukas Guensche That might help and shift the numbers slightly, but do you really think it's going to change the conclusion and mean that archers are a legitimate counter to mass scorpion? I suspect that would just speed up the battle and get more archers firing, but more would also be taking hits from scorpions, giving a similar outcome. I might be wrong.

[@HECKproductions]

as for what they are good against: basically everything with less range if you have enough of them

[@achmedliebtachi]

Dear mighty Spirit of the Law, I searched the whole Internet for a good list kinda thing about which units can be used as a counter against other units. Can you make a video giving a nice oversight about all the counter units?

[@genitallee6405]

I would love to see an updated version of this video/test with DE. I love Scorps, but know they are ineffective. Please give me good news about my unhealthy relationship.

[@348joey]

The main advantage to having scorpions instead of onagers is they don't do friendly damage, so you can fire right into the thick of things. This can turn a stalemate into one's own favor.

[@alex_zetsu]

I think some of us wanted to know about total resource effective rather than gold effectiveness (which is useful for certain maps) so it's a bit annoying to figure it out alone when we thought it would be in the video.

[@canadian__ninja]

I know this is long since the video went up, but in certain situations, its possible you are underestimating the mongol seige speed improvement, such as vs the units that outrange them, like the longbow or treb. With 50% faster speed, they would logically be able to fire quicker and get more kills

[@thorkillthered6595]

Scorpions are actually pretty good at shore defence because even though they can't one shot ships, they have a longer range than mangonels, and ships have a harder time dodging there projectiles than mangonels and trebuchets. This is useful when you're stuck on an island with no navy and need to fend off enemy ships. I personally like to have a mix of trebuchets and scorpions because the trebuchets will force he enemy to move their ships around to avoid the trebuchets fire and push them into the scorpions, which will also make quick work of any enemy transports.

[@Dimiterer]

Btw, ram has bonus damage also against siege. With their archery protection and some cheap infantry units inside to increase the speed they could be quite effective (especially for mongols with their unique technology)

[@vc6yi8cu]

You didn't test them on villagers (generic, Incas, Spanish)!

[@karlhans6678]

I was wondering a few minutes ago why scorpions aren't good and unused. Opened KZbin and saw this video in the suggestions. It's time to buff scorpions.

[@ajduong]

Funny, I always used Scorpions and neglected to use Onagers since they don't do friendly fire damage. Then I found your channel and it seems to be the other way around now

[@select899]

In-depth analysis is in-depth and analytical. Did it take long to make this?

[@AtillaTheFun1337]

I used massed Celtic scorpions with onager supportrecently, and I was really impressed by their output! Albeit it was at Black Forest...

[@MrNoahcrow]

I like the video but i take issue with how the resources lost is measured.. The food or wood resources lost is converted using late game market exchange rates at 14 Gold Per 100 Food/Wood. When comparing the resources lost by the end of these fights you are using least efficient method of comparing wood/food to gold. In a real game situation it takes a while to get to the point that 100 wood/food is equal to 14 Gold. In team games trade is available, and in these scenarios gold is more readily available, and so comparing the food/wood resources lost becomes much more relevant. A more minor point that i want to make is that I'm rarely able in game to create such a strong steady stream of several of the units shown in the scenario. This makes a difference because without a steady stream of units its hard to gain ground on the mass scorpions enabling you to get in any melee damage. Overall well done video like always, there's a lot of variables to consider, some in favor for, some in favor against scorpions. And i see why you did the video the way you did without getting into too many of these little variables. Thanks for your time if you've read this =)

[@dogg-paws]

Looking forward to Part 2. Any chance you can try Rams as a test subject against mass scorpions?

[@JackSmith-mh5wu]

You should be setting attack stance to Stand Ground if you're going to use a mass of scorps like that when against melee units, and if you have at least a depth of 3 units of scorpions. This allows the back line to still hit melee units on the front line whilst allowing the front line to target units further away and hit closer units with splash rather than trying to move away to fire at close units.

[@commanderzer0306]

Love the intro

[@micahtritscher951]

Man that car cheat was the best part of the game!!! For sure!